Fic: There is no 'I'... 4/11
Chapter 4
“Instead of a big black blur, I can see a big white blur,” Tony murmured as he listened to the chaos of the lab around him. After not listening to Fury shout at him over the phone for ten minutes, he’d threatened his way back to the mansion and the huge ball room set aside for Bruce to outfit as he chose. A SHIELD doctor had met them as Tony staggered in under Cap’s arm. The guy had said ‘I have no idea’ a lot, taped up Tony’s sprained wrist and left.
He was pretty sure Pepper wasn’t going to injure him with the new tablet he’d designed for her, but she’d had that funny wobble in her voice that made him feel guilty even though nothing had been his fault -- this time. The casters on the chair Cap was sitting in at Tony’s knees made tiny mouse-like squeaks every time the man shifted and the edge of the shield pressed against his thigh from its position on the gurney at Tony’s side. From the low thumps he could discern, Tony suspected Steve had folded his arms on the white star and was occasionally drumming his fingers in uncharacteristic impatience. Tony couldn’t see any of that of course, but he had become a lover of his hearing in the last three hours.
Tony certainly appreciated the company.
Of course, Justin Hammer hadn’t been working all on his lonesome. Even with his personal fortune, the man wouldn’t have been able to access the funds needed for the ICC tech without some serious backing. Fury thought it was North Korea, Agent Coulson suspected Russia, maybe one of Vanko’s connections. Hammer had just smiled his slithering executive smile and demanded a lawyer.
Coulson’s response had been, “Yeah, good luck with that.”
“It’s not active,” Bruce was now telling the SHEILD team leader. “The tech has infiltrated his entire system, centering around the arc reactor where it’s taking power. Now it’s established, it’s gone dormant.”
“And?” Coulson sounded like he was prepared to put a bullet in Tony’s skull at the slightest incentive.
“And nothing…” Tony could practically see the physicist shrug. “This hasn’t ever been done before. There are no protocols or tactics. It’s not my field; I don’t even know how to turn it on.”
As he listened to the ongoing discussion, Tony rubbed his fingers over his forehead and tried to remember every damn inch of those schematics. At maximum the ICC had been a theory, a possibility wrapped in a idea and mentioned flippantly to a two star General with the hope that Tony could be dared into making something truly insane for his government to play with.
The General’s eyes had shone with something akin to lust at the schematics on the lap-top in front of him. That is until, Tony told him it was ridiculous and would cost the annual gross revenue of Canada just to make one. Typical that only people as batshit crazy as Vanko and Hammer would find the fucking thing, let alone finance its creation.
Gentle fingers on his knee startled Tony from his thoughts.
“I’ll be just outside.” Cap murmured into Tony’s ear. Oh, like he’d be able to think rationally for the next hour after Steve just sent about a million shivers down his spine with those four words.
The gurney shifted as a person sat beside Tony and strong fingers cupped the back of his skull to bring the tech closer to a light.
“Oh hell, Tony.”
“Rhodey,” It wasn’t a fucking sob…it wasn’t. Just that holding his shit together in front of Steve and Coulson was one thing. This was Rhodey and he’d never been impressed by Tony’s cool. Dragging in a deep breath, he took control of the ache in his throat. “You know, I’m sick of having things stuck in me without even dinner first.”
Rhodey didn’t even chuckle, too busy with looking over the abomination attached to his friend’s face. Tony could just see the solid man shaped blur against the lighter walls of the ballroom. At least his sight was coming back, if slowly.
“It’s clean.” A sigh of relief left Tony at the confidence in Jim Rhodes’ voice. “The casing is StarkTech, and from what I can see of the wires and welds it’s exactly like those blueprints Pepper found. It’s clean.”
When Rhodey released Tony’s head, he tentatively reached up and fingered the device. “There’s a feeling in the back of my neck, like a bird battering at a window. I think it’s the executable file, pinging me that it’s ready.”
“What’ll it do?” Warm, steady voice to match the hands.
“Probably nothing.” Tony hoped like hell he was right. “This tech was designed to incorporate weapons into a human body. Like fusing a gun to your femur, or a scope onto your forehead. This is the system that melds the two with nanoware and a bioloc virus. Hammer didn’t get time to finish the installation so it should be harmless.
“Harmless?” Rhodey sounded hugely skeptical. “I hope so. Hammer didn’t count on the other Avengers getting you back so quickly, he was probably planning to implant the weapons as soon as you were stable, but SHEILD found the building first.”
“Took them long enough.” Tony bitched as he squinted; the room was starting to resolve itself into shapes of differing size and depth.
A small disapproving sound from Rhodey. “No-one had any idea where they’d taken you Tony. It wasn’t until Romonoff realized that Hammer had been sighted back in New York that they started checking his properties here.”
“I know. I’m just pissed I was the one being rescued rather than getting to be the big damn hero.” Tony waved a hand in dismissal, then waved it again as it looked like a smoky cloud in the left of his vision. “I’m thinking I should see what the hell this does before it gets too far in. Right now surgery is almost impossible, but there’s a chance.”
“We need about a year’s worth of scans to make sure it’s not killing you…” Rhodey began.
“No, we have to test this thing in my brain to see what he did….”
They were talking over each other as usual, but then both men fell silent as one of the monitors started a high pitched whine.
“That better just need new batteries,” Tony felt two distinct pulses in his forehead and that weird bird-at-the-window feeling went silent. “It’s active! Rhodey…get out…”
Tony’s blurred vision became black again as a solid cocoon enclosed first his face, then his arms. A small spark, like a static shock pinged at the back of his mind, but Tony was too concerned with the way his arm was moving without benefit of a direct order from his brain, to pay it much heed.
An explosion nearby. Yelling and the sound of things, many lab-like things, becoming slag.
Repulsor gauntlet.
He was in the armor and shooting up Bruce’s lab. If there had been anything that could make this day worse, after the kidnapping, blinding and assault thing…then going crazy and wiping out the mansion would do it. Small burning points of fire at his shoulders, sides and along his spine. Like spiders dancing on his nerve endings, Tony could feel his body changing to meet the technology encasing his skin.
It hurt, a lot.
The tiny shock hit him again. Tony ignored it again in favor of wrenching his arm down to his side and listening to the yelling going on at what was once the door.
“Now would be the time for guns over here!” Because yeah, Iron Man killing an innocent person? Tony was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to live with that guilt on top of all the rest. “Shooting me! Shooting me is the plan people!”
A large electrical jolt hit him moments after a third tiny shock. The Widow’s Bite. “Too late!” He yelled, “Try something bigger. Get Thor.” The rest of his armor had formed around his legs and torso, merging one by one with each contact point of fire. He was completely incased in a devastating weapon, one that was completely out of his control.
A great heave had the left repulsor aimed off-target before it fired towards the shouting.
“Okay, that’s enough.” Well Tony, not like you didn’t get eighteen months of life you didn’t deserve anyway. With what little control he had of the left gauntlet, he raised it until the weapon within was aimed directly into the arc reactor. “Tell Pepper…”
“No!” Captain America’s shield did hurt like a motherfucker, even through the armor on his elbow. “Don’t you dare.”
Another tiny shock, combined with damage done by Cap and for a split second Tony had control. He reached for that small burst of energy and hoped like hell he wasn’t imagining things.
A backdoor opened.
“Sir!”
“JARVIS, system maintenance override now!” Tony felt the system shudder as the AI battled whatever the fuck virus Vanko had installed.
Iron Man stopped moving.
“Maintenance subroutine running, Sir. Shutting down all armour systems and initiating sleep mode.”
“JARVIS, you win the internet.” As the armor fell over with Tony still inside, he grimaced at the sound of cautiously approaching footsteps.
“My code is far superior in design, Sir. Once I had access, it was a simple matter to contain the intruder.”
“Don’t delete it yet.” Tony inhaled sharply at a sudden brightness as the face plate was lifted away. Steve looked like he was leaning over a swimming pool with Tony underneath the water.
“…the hell?” Those blue eyes really shouldn’t have to go through all the things Tony was currently making them express.
“Tell me I didn’t kill Rhodey.” Because convincing Jarvis to free up one of the repulsors for Tony to use on himself would be a bitch.
“You didn’t kill Rhodey.” Tony’s own eyes stung with the strain of looking for details.
“Okay, right here and now you listen.” He wished he could grab Steve’s uniform to make his point clear. “Remember this… override two, zero, zero, eight, why, eye, ehn, ess, eye, ehn…okay? Should I repeat it?”
“No, I got it.” From the funnel vision the helmet gave him, Steve looked confident and worried at the same time. “That will shut you down?”
“Yeah.” Tony didn’t mention that the shock of the armor dropping so suddenly could damage the arc reactor. But then again, if Cap thought he needed to be put down, Tony would take the risk.
Rhodey’s face suddenly shared space with Steve’s in Tony’s line of sight. “Nothing to incorporate into you huh?”
“How the fuck did it get in here?” He asked.
“Blasted through the window from the garage. Banner says it used a magnetic field and…” Rhodey trailed off as someone else walked over.
“Why does it always have to be about you Stark?” Nick Fury exuded exasperation from every pore.
*****
Tony wiped away the condensation on his bathroom mirror and finally worked up the courage to look.
It crouched like a shiny black beetle on his temple, one single delicate antenna nestled in strands of Tony’s wet hair.
He’d been unwilling to touch it while Rhodey and Jarvis had been running tests. So many tests. Finally Fury had decided Tony could be released from the armor and allowed to clean up.
He could pick out each different section, like the carapace of a futuristic robot beetle.
The arc reactor glowed with its clean white energy. Tony had wanted to save himself with the new element, but Hammer had made the final decision. It didn’t matter that he'd made himself a new, pretty heart, the wicked monster on his face made its purpose clear.
An angry beetle that wanted him to kill his friends.
He turned to look over his shoulder at his back. By contrast the contact nodes on his skin were almost attractive. Like funky tattoos that only the most eccentric of billionaires would buy, the blue detail lines with their faintly glowing gold spheres were at least symmetrical. A small, broken sigh escaped Tony as he met his own gaze.
“No more suntans in Majorca for you.” He whispered with a wry smile.
*****
Tony watched from the roof as the Avengers left for Paris. The sight of War Machine lifting Cap up into the air shot a sharp pang of jealousy through Tony, his chances of getting his hands on that body were few and far between.
“So completely unfair.” He complained to Pepper as he headed back inside to Bruce’s wreck of a lab.
His super-efficient CEO’s heels clicked neatly on the marble floor. “Oh, I don’t know. You should be on the meet and greet in Paris, nothing says we’re here to help like a repulsor blast through the French President.”
“Granted, that would look bad.” Tony pushed open the doors and wandered over to one of the monitors. “But we’ve run every scan possible on me and the armor. The remote operating system is fried, Jarvis laid on a massive bitch-slap so it’s not going to take over again.” He watched the code as it scrolled relentlessly across the screens around them.
“You don’t know that,” Pepper countered as she zipped through information on her tablet.
“Yes, I do. I invented this thing, Hammer just fucked around with it a little.” Everything was clear, no sign of the malignant code in any of the armor systems. A tentative wireless hook-up with Jarvis to the tech in Tony had also revealed a clean slate waiting for new instructions. “I’m gonna turn it on again.”
“I’m leaving.” Pepper turned on her heel.
“Tony.” Bruce’s suppressing tone was almost enough to divert him from his goal. Almost.
“C’mon. I’m wearing my sexy new bondage device, let’s do this.” Tony fingered the black stainless steel necklace he was currently sporting. Coulson had nearly strangled him with it after one too many SHEILD and their sex toys jokes when he’d been shown the thing. It wasn’t Tony’s fault that SHEILD liked imprisoning people with electro-shock collars and nipple clamps.
Okay, maybe not nipple clamps. But Fury had almost cracked a smile while the younger SHEILD agent’s long-suffering expression upgraded to highly exasperated. The collar pinched like a bitch too.
Bruce’s unflappable gaze was frankly unconvinced, yet…” The helmet only, no gauntlets until Thor’s back to taser you if you go dark side.”
“Deal.” Tony grinned, catching up his helmet and bringing Jarvis online.