Avengers: Wreckage
"Someone has the Firepower armor?!" Tony yelped.
Tony Stark did NOT like surprises. He especially did not like surprises involving deadly armored suits that had nearly killed him.
Iron Man had first fought Firepower back when he went on a crusade to reclaim his stolen technology. When his quest put him up against US government forces, he was confronted by Firepower. The massive armored suit had beat the crap out of him, and probably would have killed him if he hadn't figured out a way to sacrifice his armor via remote control.
"Wait a minute... I thought it had been scrapped?" Tony asked.
Bethany Cabe met his gaze calmly. "That was what we were told by the government," she answered flatly.
Tony narrowed his eyes. "Someone falsified documents?" he guessed.
"After Cord hijacked Firepower for his personal agenda and you defeated it, the government decided to scrap it, due to not being sure if Cord could take over it again," Beth reported. "It was shipped to a former Cordco facility to be destroyed."
"And instead they sold it off?" Tony guessed.
"They sat on it for awhile, until the heat died off," Beth nodded, "but yes, they sold it. It passed through various hands, and ended up seized by SHIELD."
"And it was stolen in the recent big raid on our facilities. Great," Tony facepalmed.
"We don't know who has it," Beth anticipated the question, "just that it's out there."
Tony swore softly. "Shouldn't Maria Hill and SHIELD be telling me this?" he wondered aloud.
Beth shrugged. "Yes, it's a SHIELD matter, but they didn't know we needed to know," she pointed out reasonably. "Hell, they didn't even know they had Firepower... in the file I saw it was listed as surplus advanced weaponry," she noted.
"Surplus," Tony snorted.
"Ironic, I suppose," Beth agreed.
Tony nodded. "Okay, coordinate with SHIELD on the search. We probably have scan data they can use if someone fires the suit up," he noted.
"Obviously whomever has it plans to use it against you, too," Beth noted.
"Maybe, maybe not," Tony offered. "It's several full generations behind my current technology. You'd have to radically upgrade it to stand a chance."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"Congradulations, gentlemen and ladies, you have radically upgraded the suit," Clytemnestra admitted as she used a simulator to practice flying.
"Thank you," Alex agreed as he and several other techs monitored the system.
Cly was in a form fitting body suit, headset and harness that held her in air, alowing her to 'fly' as she operated a simulation of the Firepower armor. Wisely she had decided some practice would be wise, especially as she might only have one shot at Iron Man.
The twin concussion beams on the suits arms hammered a simulated Iron Man into the ground, then in a final move she fired a depleted uranium spike through his head.
"Well done, ma'am," Heather cheered.
Cly landed the rig and pulled off the helm. "That was certainly cathartic," she agreed.
"How was the simulation, ma'am?" Alex asked as they helped her out of the rig.
"It's good," Cly said willingly, "but we need faster reaction time for the simulated Iron Man. His latest upgrades are faster than this."
"We're already pushing the computer's processing speeds, since we're running the sims through the Firepower suit CPU..." Alex noted.
"Upgrade the ram and put dual processing cores in?" Jacobs suggested.
"Or stack the cores," Heather offered.
"Yeah we could..." Alex continued.
As her team fell into tech babble Cly slipped away. Best to just let them work. She ducked into the changing room to shower, then switched to a usual AIM jumpsuit, before returning to her office.
Sitting down, Cly groaned softly as her scars and implants ached. She was lucky to be there, she supposed. The explosion when she first allied with AIM and tried to kill Tony should have crippled or killed her. But the Scientist Supreme at the time felt she was a asset, and experimental surgery saved her life.
"Wheee," Cly deadpanned as she unlocked her computer and went to work.
"Incoming video call," her computer intoned.
"Source?" Cly asked.
"Scientist Supreme," the computer answered.
"Put her through," Cly responded. As Monica Rappaccini appeared she smiled, "As the head of AIM, shouldn't your calls go through automatically?"
"Some of our scientists like to think in the nude," Monica answered dryly, "there are some things I do NOT want to see."
Cly chortled softly at that. She smiled at her boss as she continued, "What can I do for you, today?"
Monica smiled wryly, "We may have made a serious error."
Cly thought for a second, "Lady Octopus?"
Monica nodded in approval at how fast she realized. "It's beginning to look like Trainer's ambitions are greater than we realized... or can allow." she said.
"It's that bad?" Cly actually sounded a bit startled. "I know she has a powerful force, by local standards, but nothing compaired to AIM or Hydra, as an example."
"Yes and no," Monica shrugged. "It's partially your reports on her recruiting former villains and such that has us concerned."
Cly considered a moment then asked, "You think she's going to used battle armor clad troops to take over a country?"
"It's something AIM has considered in the past," Monica agreed.
In fact Cly was fairly sure AIM had done that in the past. She wasn't going to bring it up with Monica, as she was reasonably sure the attempt hadn't ended well, with the Avengers stopping them.
"She won't try for California itself, though," Cly mused aloud.
"Oh?" Monica sounded curious but not resistant.
"Every Avengers member, ever, would be mobilized if they tried it here," Cly said firmly. "Plus SHIELD and the US Army," she added. "IT would be too much, even for an army of Iron Men."
(Carolyn Trainor would have been very amused if she knew how much they were overstating her ambitions. In fact, all she really wanted to be was the west coast's most powerful crime lord. And rich, of course.)
"Conceded," Monica agreed. "But I am concerned with providing her with the updated Cape Killer technology, as well as the other SHIELD and Stark-tech goodies."
"AIM has made a reputation on keeping our agreements," Cly noted thoughtfully, "we don't want to lose that."
There was something in Cly's tone of voice that made Monica look at her thoughtfully. "You have a idea?" she asked.
"I think we can handle it without damaging our reputation," Cly nodded. "Let me deal with it." She deliberately didn't say what her plan was... plausible deniability and all that.
Monica clearly understood, smiling faintly. "I'll leave it in your capable hands," she agreed.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Meanwhile, the similarly named Monica Stewart of the LA Herald was laying in bed with May Scott, kind of curled up against the black haired woman. "Wow," she finally sighed.
May smiled impishly, "I never knew reporters could be so eloquent."
"Smart ass," Monica laughed.
May Scott reluctantly sat up, smiling down at the other woman.
"Gotta go?" Monica asked reluctantly as she sat up too.
"Work," May admitted as she got up. She checked the bedside clock, "I've got a shift in three hours, I need to get home, shower and change."
"If you want, you could leave a few items here for emergencies," Monica offered casually.
May smiled back, I'll do that, next time," she promised, and not incidentally moving their relationship forward a bit.
"Good," Monica winked, "that way we can stay in bed longer..."
May kissed her again, then grabbed her clothes.
Not long after Monica hurried into the bustling newsroom of the La Herald, heading over to her desk. "You're LATE," Ron yelled from his office.
"And I have a STORY," Monica yelled back as she sat at her desk, uploading her work from a zip drive onto her PC, then sending it to Ron's station.
"Huh," came from the office as Ron read. "Get in here," Ron called somewhat more mildly. He gestured to the screen as she entered, "Is this legit?"
"Tony Stark has the ability to use nano-tech to give people superpowers. He's apparently testing a group on it now," Monica said smugly.
"You can prove it?" Ron asked cautiously.
"Someone smuggled pics out of the testing grounds," Monica pointed them out. She smirked, "And Stark patented the tech. The applications are on the last pages there."
"Shit..." Ron muttered. "We'll have to run it by the lawyers, but good work."
"Thank you," Monica grinned.
"HOLD the presses!" one of the interns yelled from out in the newsroom. He grinned, "I've ALWAYS wanted to say that."
"What's going on?" Ron stomped out of his office, Monica following.
"Massive explosions down at the docks... Danvers is down there," the intern said.
To be continued...
Notes: Never actually covered Tony's reaction to the Firepower armor being out there. So, here. He's a little scared of the suit, interestingly enough, because it DID nearly kill him.
Story timeline wise we're nearing the events of Civil War, the big marvel comics event, so I'm seeding some stuff into the fic. I dunno if I will actually DO Civil War itself, because I'm pretty sure I'd do it different than the canon comic.