"I told you." Nate pointed out grimly as they studied the toxicity level in his blood.
"I know." Tony almost sighed.
The Palladium was beginning to kill him, but it was the only thing keeping him alive.
"We need to find a new element." Nate told him simply.
"Sounds easy." Tony grimaced.
"I'll look through Stark Industries old records." Nate informed him. "Perhaps Howard started something that could help."
"We're turning to Dad to help?"
"Sure."
"You remember he's dead."
"And he could have the key somewhere that keeps you from joining him."
"Sure, honey."
"You got hit by a firework, didn't you?" Nate asked him when he came back stage.
"Were you the only one that saw that?" He asked as he checked the level of toxic in his blood.
"You're ego better hope so." Nate said drily before taking the Stark Medical Scanner from him. "We still have time."
"The cores keeps burning out." He pointed out as he grabbed a bottle of water.
"As long as they don't start failing completely." Nate said before grabbing her own bottle and taking a long pull of water.
"What did you think about my speech?" He asked.
"I think if I didn't know you better, I would say you're completely arrogant." She told him bluntly.
"I thought I was being quite modest really." Tony said. "I didn't say come out and say that it was because of me."
"No, you just heavily implied it." She paused for a moment and gave him a long look. "And really, you had to go with a phoenix metaphor."
"I thought it was fitting." He smirked.
"Of course you did." Nate sighed. "I think I may have found something."
"Really? What is it?" He asked absently.
"I found some plans and designs on a database, it seems that the Arc Reactor wasn't completely finished." She told him as she slipped the scanner into her jeans pocket.
"What database?" He asked with suspicion.
"S.H.I.E.L.D." She answered simply. "Look at it, please."
He looked at the concerned face of his sister, took in the bags that she had hidden with make-up and how pale she had become.
He knew that Nattie had been hacking into every database looking for things, reading through old projects that Howard never finished and hadn't been sleeping much.
"Okay."
Senator Stern was an asshole. And Justin Hammer was a pathetic bastard.
While Hammer unplugged one of the screens, Nate hacked the other one. Valkyrie was making a play.
Senator Stern wants the suit because Hammer can't make him one.
Ironman has been the nuclear deterrent for the past year—other countries are years away from making a full suit at the same level.
Hammer is a whiny bitch that can't build anything like that.
Nate would admit that she channelled Tony with the last message, she ignored the stern look that Pepper levelled her while grinning at Tony's thumbs-up.
"Let's have a round." Nate smiled at 'Natalie' who agreed with a nod.
Tony's eyebrow raised, he had never seen that sickly sweet smile on his sister's face. He was sure that the coming fight would be interesting.
Happy's ego must be bruising as Nate was holding her own against Natalie more than he did.
Nate knew that Natalie allowed her to pin the older woman, but frankly Nate didn't care.
"You hurt him, and I'll destroy you." Nate whispered harshly before Natalie flipped her on the back, knocking the breath out of her.
"Okay." Natalie gave a smile before leaving the ring, Nate just laid back in the ring.
Romanoff better not hurt Tony.
Valkyrie bashed Rhodes' War Machine's head and Tony's Ironman together.
"This is meant to be a birthday party." She told them sternly. "Not a cage-match."
"Both of you need to grow up." She shook them, before letting them go.
Rhodes flew off swiftly, leaving her with Tony.
"There could have been an easier way Tony." She told him flatly.
She hated that Tony was slowly giving up, she hated that Rhodes had betrayed her brother. She hated everyone that was bad-mouthing him these days, she hated that Ivan person for attacking him.
S.H.I.E.L.D did some good, Nate thought as she helped Tony go through Howard's old stuff. They were also good, keeping this from her.
Though she wished she could have found this earlier, than Tony wouldn't have ended up getting as bashed as he was in the news.
She glanced up at Tony's face as Howard talked to him through the old film. He looked half bitter, a part grieving, and part longing—there was even some fondness in his dark eyes.
Nate had never known Howard as a father, so she didn't feel anything about seeing him talking on film after twenty years of his death. Tony knew him though, and he had a bad relationship with him. Feelings were being stirred, feelings that Tony didn't like.
"Told you he may have had something." She tells him, ignoring the look on his face.
Nate had one thing to do while Tony broke out—he hated being cooped up against his will—and that was keep Coulson busy.
She did that easily, by hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D in front of him.
The flat and unimpressed look that he kept shooting her as he tried to keep her out of the 'secure' database was amusing at least.
Officially Nate was an agent of S.H.I.E.D with a clearance level of eight. Unofficially, and known only to Fury, she was clearance level ten like him. She was the back-up database of S.H.I.E.D after all.
Despite him hiring her to use against Tony—mostly so he would join in Tony's words 'his secret boy band'—Fury had also hired her solely for her mind to act as a back-up database in-case the database was ever compromised or deleted for some reason. She also kept the real secret stuff that Fury didn't put on the database locked-up in her head.
Mostly for her minds ability of remembering everything she has ever seen since the age of three. It gave her terrible headaches sometimes while Tony self-medicated his constantly whirling mind with alcohol so he could get some sleep when his mind was too loud, Nate carried around painkillers—recommended to her by a proper doctor—to pop when the pain became too much.
Both siblings had their own way of dealing with their own genius when it played up. Neither way could be considered healthy in the long run.
Tony was basically an alcoholic—sometimes having to drink till he passed out to get any sleep at all, other times he worked till his body gave out. Nate could pop strong painkillers like candy—which may class her as a drug addict—and sometimes went into a daze and painted or something till she passed out some time when her emotions were especially high—like when Tony had his unplanned trip out east.
They were screwed up certainly, but they functioned well—mostly well, sometimes well. They functioned at least.
Anyway, she had a purpose for hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D that had nothing to do with annoying Coulson. The drawing of the Cube in Howard's notebook interested her, and she wanted to know everything about it. Especially if it had something to do with helping to save Tony.
Tesseract. The first thought that passed through Nate's mind is that she preferred the simple name of cube. Who the hell had called it the Tesseract?
It seemed to be an object with unlimited energy—energy that had been harnessed to create weapons for the Nazi sub-group Hydra in WW2.
Weapons that Howard Stark had to combat, though from the reports it seemed that it was really Captain America—Steve Rodgers—that combatted against them.
It went down off the coast of Greenland with the Captain on 4th July 1945—a horrible birthday for the good captain.
Three days later, Howard Stark found it when he was looking for Steve Rogers—the ship's, Valkyrie, crash site wasn't located though.
It seemed that all Howard did was study it, but Nate wouldn't be surprised if S.H.I.E.L.D began to produce weapons like Hydra did later on.
From Howard's studies came the idea and composite of the new element that would save Tony.
The repeated mentions of Steve Rodgers intrigued her—she remember some old Captain America themed toys and such stuffed away in the back of Tony's closet in the Manor.
The mentions of him made her curious, so really she couldn't be blamed for looking him up and hacking into everything that held any mention of him.