Interlude. Tony Stark
Location: Afghanistan
Date: May 1 2008
When he heard Jarvis's voice on speakerphone, a chill ran down his spine. He couldn't believe it. At first, he thought it was an elaborate ruse designed to draw him out of hiding. But then the idea that they might have gotten their hands on Jarvis ignited a cold, burning fury within him. He didn't even listen to the words being spoken, his mind fixated on the cold, calculated vengeance he would exact if they had harmed Jarvis.
He stealthily moved behind the car to approach the redhead from behind. Was it Jarvis's voice he had heard, and what was that code he mentioned? At the last moment, she turned around, and he pounced, sending them both crashing to the ground. He raised his fist, ready to drive her teeth deep into her throat.
"I found him, Jarvis."
Things got more complicated after that. He listened to her; he had to. She was saying things he hadn't yet voiced to anyone.
He had spent three long months reflecting on everything while tirelessly pretending to build a Jericho missile for them.
After discovering an alarming number of Stark weapons in their possession, he realised that someone had used his company, his name, to do all of that, to sell to terrorists.
He was planning to shut it down, to fuck everyone over, and to find every last piece of Stark weaponry and burn it, burn it all.
And she already knew that.
Then she started to tell him about the future, his future. That quickly became too much, too fast and he found himself overwhelmed. He wasn't ready yet to process three months in captivity, damn it, and here she was, dumping at least a decade of clusterfuck situations on him.
Maybe when he was younger, when his parents were still alive, he would have jumped at this opportunity. But right now, it felt like another piece of shrapnel was carving a path through his chest: too much, too fast, too painful.
What threw him for a loop the most was her claim that he and Pepper would have a kid together. Gosh, he has (or is it "had"?) a kid (Morgana, right?) in the future. He simply couldn't wrap his head around it.
He spent hours dwelling on that thought alone.
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Location: Malibu
Date: May 7 2008
He tested her as soon as she returned to LA, even on the same day she landed. He needed access to Stane's computer anyway, so it was a case of killing two birds with one stone. And if he could gather some evidence of her breaking into HQ in the process, that only made him feel more secure; he would have something to pin her down with.
That he caught Stane in the process of calling Raza was pure luck. Unfortunately, any last doubts about Stane went down the drain with that discovery.
After that, he brushed Natalia aside, claiming he needed to sort out the company. He even initiated all the necessary processes to ensure that Obi Stane had no way to stop him. (Every time he thought about Obi Stane, he still felt the pain of betrayal.)
For a week, he waited with trepidation for the other shoe to drop after that. He didn't trust her, like at all. Maybe she did come from the future, but there was no guarantee that she was being sincere with him.
Logically, it was all sound and well—Natalia gave him enough data to believe it (he had scrutinised it intensively). But he really did not want to believe it. (How is he going to fight aliens? He is sure that carrying WMD through the portal once is enough, even in the future. There are too many factors to even plan to repeat it!)
It was too much, so he ignored it to avoid getting overwhelmed.
When she informed him that she needed his help to take down the Red Room, he was suspicious. He decided to play along, but he took precautions in case it was a trap, a ploy to obtain his ARC tech, or even a scheme to get to Iron Man.
And so, he gave her one of the failed old prototypes for the Air Force (progenitor to the EXO wings series) - you need on board AI to actually operate those things (no human can do that). With Jarvis's help, she should be able to use it. The same goes for the missile railgun.
He supplied both with self-destruction mechanisms and trackers; there was no way he would let his tech get lost somewhere. And if it was a trap or ploy, one word and there would only be debris left behind.
She did not do that. Even more surprising was her ability to operate the suit and railgun with minimal support from Jarvis.
In the end, he found himself repeatedly watching her use his tech to blow up Dreykov, and kept asking himself - was he really done with creating weapons( or maybe not)?
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Location: Los Angeles
Date: June 1 2008
"He is going after you" echoed in his head on repeat, all the while he lay immobilised and dying. At that moment, he understood that he had let his fears and doubts corner him into indecision. He had spent too much time afraid of doing anything (Well, maybe not anything. He was ready to clean up Stark Industries, and his plan to do the same across the US and beyond was already coming together.), which ultimately compromised everything.
At least he made upgrades to that prototype by adding ARC and repulsors. It deserved to have a separate name from the EXO series now. Railwing MK-I. Sounds about right. Maybe he should call Natalia Darkwing Duck now.
That thought made him smile. Darkwing duck With a railgun.
Smiled. Oh fuck, fucking fuck, move Tony!
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Location: Los Angeles
Date: June 2 2008
"The truth is: I am Iron Man"
He stood there and looked at the chaos he had unleashed, keeping his mask firmly on. He noticed Agent Coulson standing at the back with Pepper and had to suppress the rising anger.
He had almost gotten Pepper killed.
For the last month, since he came back from that hellhole and saw Pepper, he had not been able to get that thought about his future kid out of his mind. Until recently, he had discarded any idea about settling down or having kids. He didn't want to be like his father, the man who had successfully screwed him up. He knew he would be an awful parent.
But now, every time he saw Pepper, he couldn't get that thought out of his mind.
Or take his eyes off her. He tried to see what his future self had found in her, and day after day, he discovered he was falling for her—and fast. It was like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
(Yeah, right, Tony. It's got absolutely nothing to do with those long legs and that gorgeous face.)
Was it because he now knew that she was the mother of his future daughter?
(Would he have a daughter, the same one, or would she be completely different?)
Sometimes he felt like he was going crazy with all these time travel paradoxes.
What he knew for sure was that he would burn anyone who tried to harm her, no matter what.
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Location: Malibu
Date: June 7 2008 9 pm
He couldn't believe this shit was happening again. Someone had gotten into his home (again!) and used the same method to shut Jarvis down, again! Fucking bullshit, that was it.
He tried to patch it up, but all he found were strange, exotic effects that short-circuited Jarvis's subroutines for no apparent reason. He had to be satisfied with an urgent alert on his phone in case it happened again: no more surprises from murderous visitors.
One time was more than enough.
He underestimated Stane, or whoever helped him. But that was beside the point; he was more angry with himself. Natalia had warned him, but no, he thought he was smarter, that he had everything under control.
He had to get his head in the game - no more procrastinating, no more avoiding Natalia. He had to sit down and read through the fucking files she had spent most of the month writing.
He had to accept that he feared what he might find there. Isn't the whole reason for time travel to fucking avoid future mistakes?
No more. He would read it and deal with it.
For Pepper and Morgana.
He stopped his car just before turning onto the private drive and pulled the suitcase from the backseat—he had a reason to believe he was ready for anything. While making Iron Man Mark III, he had tinkered with the idea of a mobile hand gauntlet with an integrated repulsor.
It took him some time, many cut corners, and compromises on durability, but he did it.
And now he was going to beat the shit out of whoever got into his house.
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"Not everyone is who they seem to be."
He stared at the door that closed behind Fury and lowered his hand, powering the gauntlet down. Natalia hadn't told him about the visit from SHIELD. Maybe she didn't know, or perhaps it was a new development.
It didn't matter, really. He needed to sit (maybe even lie down next to the pool with a bottle of whiskey - yeah, that sounds about right) and read those files now. No more avoiding it; he had already made a mess with Stane and might make things worse if he kept hiding his head in the sand.
"Watch who you trust" Fury's words echoed in his mind, and he smirked, finding it ironic given his own history of betrayal and deceit.
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Location: Malibu
Date: June 22 2008
It took him long enough to (drink his stock of heavy alcohol, there was no way he could be sober while reading it) read and process what she had written so far.
It was still too much and too heavy to gulp down a metaphorical throat.
He thought about it all the time: while tinkering with MK-III, while blowing up terrorists and caches of his weapons scattered across Afghanistan, while developing new products for SI, and even while sleeping.
In the end, he was finally ready to plan his next move forward.
But first, a surprise is in order. Hopefully Strawberry (hilarious, if they knew who they were calling Strawberry) likes surprises.
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