Well, here we are- unlucky number 13. Song for the chapter; Skyfall by Adele. Here in the next few chapters, things are going to heat up for our heroes, and I'd like to take the time to tell you one of my favorite writing quotes:
"Your characters are like geodes, if you want to see what they're really made of- you must break them."
Chapter 13
Error.
Error.
"JARVIS, did Tony happen to change the code?"
"Mr. Stark last changed the passcode for this lab forty minutes ago. Would you like me to alert him to your presence?" Pepper peered through the glass, and it took her a moment to find the three genii amidst the whirlwind of screens and monitors. Agent Mason was sitting with one hand on a strange metal device, while the other was racing across a piece of paper. Tony was standing with his back to the door, concentrating intently on what Agent Mason was writing- occasionally tapping one of the many monitors surrounding him. Bruce was opposite Tony, constantly watching the two screens placed in front of him.
"That won't be necessary JARVIS, just let me know when they take a break."
...
Stark Tower, Master Bedroom, 3 AM EST; New York, New York
"JARVIS?" Pepper called into the darkness of her room.
"Yes, Miss Potts?"
"Where's Tony?"
"Mr. Stark is currently in lab seven."
"Are Bruce and Katherine with him?" Pepper asked, making her way towards the elevator.
"Dr. Banner retired approximately one hour ago. I started reminders to sleep at twelve, but I'm afraid they muted me after Dr. Banner left."
"Why didn't you tell me when they took a break?"
"They haven't yet ma'am."
"Figures," Pepper muttered, "Any chance you could open the door for me JARVIS?"
"I believe it is well within my abilities to do so."
"You're the best, Jay."
The glass door popped open with a pneumatic hiss. "I know."
Pepper padded softly towards the oblivious pair. Their positions were unchanged from eight hours ago, except for the addition of more technology and papers- if that was possible. The two were so lost in thought that they didn't notice when Pepper crept up behind them to see what they were working on. Spread out over the table were papers filled with writing. Some were meaningless scribbles and others what looked like formulas and diagrams.
Pepper pulled one of the sheets covered in writing towards her, "What's this?" Both Tony and Agent Mason jumped, startled.
"Jesus, Pepper. Don't sneak up on people like that." Tony said, dramatically putting a hand over his heart. Agent Mason unclenched her fists and took a deep breath.
"I've been standing here for a bit, you two were a little out of it. What is this anyway?" She held up the piece of paper.
"That's an Eternity Code." Agent Mason said, turning towards Pepper.
"What does that mean?"
"It's a rare type of encryption, impossible to track and even harder to crack. Most Eternity Codes have a base language, Latin or Russian mostly, but there's a few that are based on the encryptor's own language. They're the only one who knows the encryption, no one else will be able to decipher it- let alone break the code."
"And so, naturally, that is what we have here. No surprise with our luck." Tony threw up his hands in exasperation. "That's what several of the computers are doing now, we're looking for matches in hieroglyphs, Chinese characters, everything. We have absolutely no frame of reference, and to top it all off it moves."
"It's alive?" Pepper took half a step away from the seemingly unthreatening device.
"Not per se, but that isn't far off the mark." Agent Mason glared at the small piece of metal. This particular look usually had hardened agents quaking in their boots, but thus far hadn't wielded any results with the sphere- Tony was a completely different matter.
"Every time we start to run a strand for matches, it shifts- or even moves to a completely different spot. New figures," Tony held up a sheet filled with seemingly random marks, "are constantly popping up." He let his head fall to the desk with a 'thunk'.
"Tony?" Agent Mason looked around.
"Hmm?"
"Where did Dr. Banner go?"
Tony lifted his head up and searched to room, frowning. "He was here a minute ago. Prolly in the bathroom."
"Actually, I think I can help with that. JARVIS said he went to bed an hour ago."
"Bed? Well I mean I know he's old but who goes to sleep that early?" Tony rolled his eyes.
"That would be most people, Tony," Pepper said with a sigh, "it's past three in the morning." Both Tony and Agent Mason looked at her and blinked, then repeated the action to each other.
"Bloody hell! Tony, where's my phone?" Agent Mason started frantically sifting through the papers in front of her. "Shi-"
"Sorry, didn't quite catch that last part?" Tony smiled innocently. The glare he received made him rethink his answer fairly quickly. "Uh, I put it in that drawer over there a while ago. You told me to shut up and I wasn't saying anything, so I assumed it was going off."
Agent Mason rushed over to the drawer, "I was talking to you, you were thinking- it was annoying." She grabbed the rather odd-looking smartphone out from between spare parts.
"Did you have a little separation anxiety? What's so important anyway?" Tony said, getting over his surprise at her comment. While the S.H.I.E.L.D logo spun on the screen Tony made his way over out of curiosity.
9 Missed Calls. 17 Unread Messages.
"I am in so much trouble." Agent Mason groaned. Within moments, a complete list of calls flashed up at her, as damning as an execution notice.
Nick Fury 12:40
Nick Fury 12:42
Blocked Number: Data Tracing Matches: Nick Fury 12:57
Maria Hill 12:59
Nick Fury 1:03
Jasper Sitwell 1:10
Maria Hill 1:24
Jasper Sitwell 1:31
Nick Fury 1:34
Tony whistled. "Looks like you've managed to piss every one of them off. Fury your babysitter?"
"Something like that. Seems like Clint and Natasha finally thought it would be a good idea to answer their phones, otherwise Fury would probably be here by now." She winced as she glanced down at her phone again. "I'd better get going-"
"Nonsense, you're staying here tonight." Pepper put her hands on her hips, "And both of you are going to bed, now."
"But-" Both Tony and Agent Mason started.
"No buts, now go."
...
Stark Tower, Lab 7, 4 AM EST; New York, New York
"Pepper is going to kill you." Agent Mason's face was partially hidden by rumpled curls, but she looked amused.
Tony shrugged, "Nice hair, couldn't sleep?"
"Nope, you either?" Agent Mason made her way over to her recently occupied stool.
Tony shrugged again, "I couldn't stop thinking about this damn code, then I got to thinking- what if it is actually based off of a language?" He looked at her expectantly, and she didn't
disappoint.
"But what's stopping it from being a language computers wouldn't be familiar with?"
"Exactly." A cheshire grin slowly spread across his face, "I guess we'll have to ask our resident aliens."
"You can't be serious." Agent Mason began looking around desperately for someone to come out of nowhere and agree with her.
"They've had enough sleep. Now, here's what we're going to do..."
...
Stark Tower, Outside Guest Rooms 3 and 4, 4:30 AM EST; New York, New York
"I can't believe you talked me into this." Agent Mason whispered furiously, "It's completely juvenile."
"It'll be fun, besides- Point Break has a hammer, we took Reindeer Games' glow stick away. Remind me again why I have to wake up the god of arm muscles?"
"Your plan, on the bright side- at least you don't have to wake up Banner." Both suppressed a shudder, Dr. Banner would be allowed a full night of sleep. Saving the Earth could wait if it meant waking up a sometimes-green rage monster with a bucket of cold water.
"One...two...three!"
...
Stark Tower, Lab 7, 8 AM EST; New York, New York
When Pepper finally made her way down to the commandeered lab, it was in an even greater state of chaos. Loki had taken his rather unorthodox wakeup call with grace, chuckling for a moment before snapping his fingers to dry his clothes. Thor, however, hadn't been so happy. Tony would have quite a large bruise on his arm for a while.
They had been lucky, the encryption was based off of old tongue that, according to Thor, hadn't been spoken since his great-grandfather was alive. It was tedious work, but between Thor and Loki they were able to roughly translate some of the more frequent strands.
Meanwhile, Tony and Agent Mason had managed to get a sensor just far enough inside the sphere's circuitry to send a signal to JARVIS. It only transmitted basic data, but they couldn't risk any more for fear of setting off any hidden Chitauri alarms.
So, it was into this bedlam that poor Pepper Potts entered.
"What's going on in here?" Everyone stopped, including Dummy. He had been brought into the lab to 'watch over' the two gods after they had almost set fire to the workspace...twice.
"We're working?" Tony scratched his head with the wrench he had been holding.
"And what time did you start working?"
"Uh," Tony looked at Agent Mason and mouthed, "What time is it?" When she shrugged, he turned back to Pepper. "What time is it now?"
Pepper sighed, "It's eight. Breakfast is upstairs, I'm going out." Even before she had finished speaking, the work had resumed.
...
Stark Tower, Lab 7, 7 PM EST; New York, New York
"That's it!" Pepper's loud voice carried through the lab, startling the occupants.
"What's up, Pep?" Tony recovered the quickest, having been the object of her exasperation more than once.
"All of you out! Now! You're all going to go downstairs and watch a movie or something!" Pepper was gesturing wildly to the door, glaring at the room in general.
"Whoa, Pepper...calm down."
"I am calm!" She sucked in a few large breaths, "Now we're all going to watch a movie, and you're all going to like it." With that, she walked out of the room, leaving behind quite a few confused people. With a shrug Tony followed, the others taking his lead.
...
Stark Tower, Screening Room, 7 PM EST; New York, New York
"Thanks for answering your phones." Agent Mason said sarcastically when she spotted the two assassins sitting innocently on one of the couches. Clint moved over to make room for her, but instead of sitting in the conventional way, she put her back to the armrest and her legs over Clint's. Within moments, Natasha had copied her position on his other side effectively trapping him.
Clint, however, didn't seem surprised at the seating arrangements, "We went and checked in with Fury today." Agent Mason winced.
"Not as bad as you'd think," Natasha lowered her voice, "We picked up some stuff from your place, too. We figured you'd be too busy to go there for a while."
"Thanks." Agent Mason looked relieved. Next to them Thor and Loki were sitting uncertainly. They were talking quietly and didn't notice Clint glaring daggers at the back of Loki's head. Pepper, though, noticed when Agent Mason nudged his leg he looked apologetic. She also noted that Clint and Natasha's hands were intertwined. Interesting.
"Based on everyone's preferences I have found a likely movie, would you like me to play, sir?"
"Go ahead JARVIS." The lights in the theater dimmed, and a dark silhouette in a dusty hallway appeared on the big screen. A collective sigh came from the couch of agents.
...
Stark Tower, Screening Room, 9:30 PM EST; New York, New York
"Was he a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent?"
"Wait, you're telling me James Bond was a real person?"
"This moving picture was based off of real events?"
Clint and Natasha had tried to make the time pass with derisive comments. Despite their frequent criticism, the general opinion of those in the room was that the legendary 007 was member of some British-based S.H.I.E.L.D branch.
Tony, too, had been harsh on the characters, though his target-of-choice was Q. He had repeatedly assured everyone that compared to him, Q was a caveman.
"No, no, and no." Natasha was getting increasingly incensed at each, in her mind, offensive comment. "Trust me, if he fought like that, he'd be dead before he could say his full name." Agent Mason and Clint had been trying to explain to Thor that Skyfall didn't just mean the end, and that it was also the house- but they abruptly stopped when they heard Natasha.
"Well, I don't know about all of you- but I'm exhausted. JARVIS, let me know if anything happens with the sphere."
"Yes, sir."
Tony stood up, stretched, and left the room on his tiptoes- humming the iconic Bond theme song as he went. Awkwardly, the room started to empty- the three agents and the hostess at the rear.
"You're good until tomorrow afternoon with Fury, I wouldn't push it much later though." The archer smirked at the blonde's relieved expression.
"Thanks, Clint. I owe you one."
"Four."
"Like heck, one."
"Four, that's my lowest."
"Two, that's my highest."
"How about three?"
"I thought four was your lowest?"
"Alright!" Natasha grabbed each of their ears, "It's three, anyone have a problem with that?" Both captive parties shook their heads vigorously, wincing at the tugging it caused. Agent Romanoff smiled sweetly, "Good."
Sorry for those of you who have had trouble with Chapters 9-13, I think everything's working now.