Chapter 5

"We can't just sit here."

We booked a flight back to New York after the Mandarin attacked. The turtles, Splinter, and I were sitting in the living room of the Turtle's Suite. I still had the Iron Man helmet clutched in my arms as I sat in front of the window, which was one way (we could see out and no one can see in), and just stared out. The guys were arguing about what to do, but was there really anything to do? Killing the Mandarin won't bring dad back, and it sure as hell won't help me feel better.

"Bailey is not in the right state of mind to be able to fight!" Raph shouted.

"Would you?" Donnie's voice boomed and his brothers stopped. Glancing up through the glass, I could see Donnie standing with his fists clenched. "With all of these battles going on, one after the other, there isn't any time for healing. We're forced to skip over the stage of finding answers to one conflict before running into the next." He paused. "But this," Donnie pointed at all of them, "is not going to help Bailey, her father, or the situation."

I stood up and walked into the elevator before letting it take me up to the roof. Right now, I just need time to think and sort through all this shit. With a sigh, I folded my legs under me and closed my eyes. Some meditation will do the trick. I steadied my breathing and relaxed my body. Just as Splinter said, "have riddance towards all of the negative thoughts and feelings." It wasn't long before I felt calm and relaxed. All of the stress was seeping out of me with every breath I took.

Tonight was a beautiful night after all, it was warm with a cool breath and the stars illuminated the sky as I looked up. Unfortunately, I had get back inside before the others come up to drag me back in. Stretching my legs out, I stood.

"Ms. Stark."

I spun around towards the mysterious voice with a gasp. A tall man with golden blonde hair and blue eyes smirked at me.

"It is a pleasure to finally meet you."

"Who the hell are you?" Something felt off about this guy.

"My name is Aldrich Killian, founder of AIM."

"What?" I slowly backed up towards the door.

"Ms. Stark, you're coming with us."

Before I could argued, I felt something hit me in the head.

(Tony POV)

"Have you ever had a chick straddling you and you look up and she's glowing from the inside out, kind of a bright orange?" I asked Rhodey as I looked over the files of the kid who exploded nearby in Tennessee.

'Yeah, I've had that. Who's this?'

He forgot me already. I mused. "It's me, pal. Now, last time I went missing, if I remember correctly, you came looking for me. What are you doing?"

'A little knock-and-talk, making friends in Pakistan. What are you doing?'

"Your redesign, you big rebrand, that was AIM, right?"

"Yeah."

I tossed my papers into the passenger seat. Fuck. "I'm gonna find a heavy-duty comm sat right now, I need you login."

'It's the same as it's always been, 'WarMachine68'.'

"And password, please." I scribbled down the name.

'Well, look, I gotta change it every time you hack in, Tony.' Rhodey whined.

"It's not the '80s, nobody says 'hack' anymore. Give me your login."

Rhodey sighed into the phone. ''WAR MACHINE ROX' with an 'X,' all caps.'

I laughed.

'Yeah, okay.'

"That is so much better than 'Iron Patriot'.' I stopped laughing and spun the car around, heading for the town's beauty contest. Why? Because it is televised, meaning there will be tv vans that I can work in.

Once I entered one of the vans, I turned off the screen displaying the contest and looked around.

"Because you erase my shows!"

Someone shouted outside, so I quickly started to check the signal. It read 8.9 Mbps.

"That ain't gonna cut it." I said out loud.

"We talked about this." The door to the van opened. "Excuse me, sir. I don't know who…"

I cut him off by turning around to see a guy in a green vest, sunglasses, and a white trucker hat on the phone.

"Shhh." I smiled at him as his jaw dropped.

"Mom, I need to call you back. Something magical is happening." He got off the phone. I kept shushing him, but I could tell he wasn't going to stop. "Tony Stark is in my van."

"Shh, keep it down."

"Tony Stark is in my van!"

"No, he's not."

"I knew you were still alive!"

God, he doesn't stop. "Come in. Shut the door." I whispered.

Clumsily, he clambered up into the van and shut the door. I put my finger to my lips and shushed him again.

"Oh, wow. Can I just say, sir…"

And here comes the fanboy… "Yep."

"I am your biggest fan."

"Okay. First, is this your van? Is anyone else gonna come in?" I interrupted.

"No, no, no. Just us." He shook his head.

"Great. What's your name?"

"Gary."

I got up and shook his hand. "Gary."

Gary tossed his hand over ours. "Oh, wow."

"Right there is fine. Okay." I smiled.

"Okay?"

"I get a lot of this so it's okay." I reassured the fanboy.

"Oh, good. Can I just say?"

"What do you want? Yeah."

"I don't know if you can tell, but I have, like, patterned my whole look after you. My hair's a little…"

"It's fine." Is he done? Please tell me he's done.

"It's not right, 'cause there's no product in it."

"Right."

"I don't want to make things awkward for you,"

Oh boy…

",but I do have to show you…boom!" Gary pulled his sleeve up to show me a tattoo.

"A Hispanic Scott Baio."

Gary chuckled.

I pointed at it. "I'm sorry. Is that me?"

"Yeah. It's…I mean…I had them do it off a doll that I made, so it's not like it's off a picture."

Okay, business. "Gary. Listen to me, okay?" I grabbed him by the shoulders. "I don't want to clip your wings, here. We're both a little over-excited. I got an issue. I'm chasing bad guys. I'm trying to grab a little something from some hard-crypt data files. I don't have enough juice." I pointed above us. "I need you to jump on the roof… Right? Recalibrate the ISDNs. Pump it up by about 40%."

"Got it."

"All right? It's a mission."

"Yeah." Gary said breathlessly.

"Tony needs Gary."

"And Gary needs Tony."

I stressed about being quiet about this before letting him go. My hand slide down my face. Now I'm glad Bails made me practice talking to fans.