Tony and Remy Part 14
Tony and Remy Part 14
Oct. 1st 2011
Beth is grunting and gasping, her breath is rasping as she fights for her life.
Remy hears this. He doesn’t’ see it. He is too busy fighting for his own life. He is back at the base. The soldier’s closing in . Remy explodes in focused rage, down went one, soldier, then another, until only one’s left between him and freedom. That guy goes down with an uppercut. And then Remy is racing for the door.
The hallway is endless, hollow, the sound of his footsteps echoing as he stretches his legs in a full run, pulling with his arms. Somewhere ahead he hears Beth shouting , calling for him to hurry. She screams.
He turns a corner, and comes to a sliding stop.
General Beck has Beth in a choke hold, his pistol held tight to her temple. He is grinning.
Remy lurches forward.
“Ah ah” Beck warns, cocking the pistol and tightening his hold on Beth’s neck viciously.
Remy raises his hands. “Ok. Ok. You got me. Don’t shoot.”
There is a rattle of hard soled shoes on tile and Remy is seized from behind by several soldiers.
“It’s me you want. She is of no use to you, just let her go.” Remy wheedles.
Beck laughs. “You’re right. I have no use for her at all.”
And he pulls the trigger.
The hair on the left side of Beth’s head blows out to the side, followed by a heavy spray of blood and brain and shards of skull. Remy watches the confusion in her eyes shift quickly to acceptance and looking at him as she goes… one little bit of smile twitches on her lips.
“Noooo!” Remy comes off the ground in a convulsion of rage and wretched sorrow, yanking arms and legs simultaneously. He cant get free, he can’t save her, he can’t save himself.
Emotion spasm through him, he is heaving, his diaphragm can’t function. He howls like an animal. Beck is laughing. Remy is falling into darkness.
When he wakes up he is on his side, curled up knees to chest, his face slick with tears. His throat is raw from shouting. A hand is rubbing his back, slowly. A voice saying,
“It’s okay. Just a bad dream.” he crawls back to himself. The hand moves to pull hair back from his face, smooth it behind his ears. He can focus on the touch, his breath comes back. Finally he places the voice.
“Tony?”
“Right here. You’re okay, Rem, Everything is okay.”
Remy rolls onto his back, looks up into Tony’s warm eyes, and tears roll down his cheeks. He chokes for a moment, unable to swallow the enormous lump in his throat. He is mortified , it was just a dream. ‘Get hold of yourself, mate’ he tells himself.
“
It was Beth.” He explained. “I couldn’t save her.”
“I know.” Tony says, his voice, warm and sad at the same time sends a shiver through Remy.
“ I don’t know why it means so much…but it seems to be the most …crucial thing…that I save her.”
Tony clears his throat. He gently helps Remy sit up, and then Tony stands and moves to the cave entrance. He peers out into the darkening desert and then starts speaking, choosing his words carefully.
“When we pulled your memories, the psychologists didn‘t know what to do with Beth.. He turned and flashed a tight smile at Remy.
“On the one hand, Beth was center stage of many of your most traumatic memories, but on the other, your feelings for Beth were life changing. She was the reason you quit the Union. You gave up killing and became engaged in the welfare of others. The psychologists said…”
Tony made air quotes
“ ‘Beth represents a chance to undo the damage he has done to others, and himself.’ Right? Whatever.”
Tony looks outside again, his voice dry but steady.
“We decided it would be better to pull Beth out of your head and archive her for a later. Then…if you still needed her memories, they would be there to access. If you didn’t…then …well … it was just simpler…and what we were trying to do was already difficult enough.” He looked at Remy to see his reaction.
Remy chewed on this a moment, then spoke up.
“You gave Beck…her…Beth…my memory of her… to put in my head.”
“It was a calculated risk.” Tony said softly. “And it worked.”
Remy looked at him. “I loved her Tony.”
“Yes. You did.” Tony said.
There was a squawk from Tony‘s Iron Man helmet. Tony scooped it up and answered.
“Yeah?”
Remy couldn’t make out the words from the tinny sound coming from inside the helmet but Tony could.
“Right.” He looked at Remy. “On our way.”
Tony bent to open his pack, pulling out things that Remy couldn’t make out in the dark.
“ We got to go. Steve has directed the search east of here. We need to move fast. Here…”
Tony tosses something at Remy, who catches it deftly and squints at it to make it out.
“A Halloween mask?” Remy asks.
“That is Steve’s old mask, he had it in the storage box of his Humvee.”
“You want me to wear this?” he took an experimental sniff of it. Old leather, dyed blue, and well oiled with hair pomade. Remy wrinkled his nose and tried to hand it back.
“I’m afraid,…” Tony explained as he rummaged through the pack…” I left the house in such a hurry, I didn’t plan too well, but Steve had that …and these goggles from one of his old uniforms. You need to wear it. We’re going to be flying at 200 miles an hour, and you don’t want bugs and dirt hitting your face at that speed.”
Remy decided not to argue, and grimacing, pulled the mask over his head.
“200 miles an hour. I thought you could do 800.” Remy placed the goggles over his eyes and wondered what a fool he must look. Thank god there were no reflective surfaces around.
“200 is the fastest I can go carrying someone on my back, otherwise we would lose stability.” As he spoke Tony was stepping into his mobile Iron Man suit. In moments he was ready. He bent over and pulled some webbing out of the pack.
“This is a climbing harness. You put it on and then I will strap you on my back.”
“This has been your plan all along.” Remy joked, trying to break the tension as he struggled to get the harness over his army uniform. “Get me in a cave and strap me on your back.”
“One of my fantasies, I’m afraid.” Tony smiled.
Remy pulled the straps on the climbing harness, causing his clothes to bunch and pucker. Finally he stood in the center of the cave looking absolutely ludicrous.
Tony looked at him and his mouth twitched. “Good thing it’s dark out there.”
“Ha. Ha.” Remy said. And duck walked over to Tony, the straps already beginning to chafe. “How will this work.”
“Here.” Tony shoved his arms through the front straps of the harness, pulling Remy onto his back like a human duffle bag, and driving all the wind out of Remy’s chest at the same time.
“Too…tight..” Remy squeaked.
“You’ve never complained of that before.” Tony said with a smirk, disentangling himself long enough to put some slack in the harness, then he shoved his arms through again. This time it wasn’t impossible for Remy to breath.
“Are you sure this will work?”
“To be safe, you should probably put your arms around me and hang on tight. If you feel yourself slipping, knock on my helmet with your fist. We should be home in 45 minutes, maybe less.”
Remy ducked his head against Tony’s shoulder blades…or rather where they would have been if he wasn’t suited up…and quick as a thought they were blasting off.
Remy’s head spun from the combination of g forces and his own brain shrieking at him that he was going to die. Spots flashed in front of his eyes, he began to get dizzy.
Tony flipped the visor of his helmet and yelled over the wind and roar…
“Don’t Forget To Breath!”
Right. Remy had to laugh at himself, as he drew in oxygen. The spots went away, so did the panic. Remy could feel the webbing holding him securely on Tony’s back, all he had to do was wrap his legs around Tony’s waist to keep his legs from flopping around with every turn.
Remy felt like he was hugging a rocket . And in a way he was. The desert flew past in a blur, the dunes reflecting the moonlight like the surface of a lake. The wind was roaring like a waterfall past his head, and Remy found he was grateful for the greasy old helmet Steve had loaned him, as his chin and cheeks, still exposed from under the mask, were soon wind burned.
Remy felt like he was seven, exactly the age he last rode piggy back on some one, an innocent tow headed kid…
Except for the hard on. His cock seemed to love danger. And right now it was trying to push him off of Tony‘s back. Remy had to shift a bit to accommodate it. No wonder Tony was always ready for a hard shag when he came back from a flight.
“When we get home, there is going to be some damage done.” Remy thought with a smile.
They were just flying over Ventura Highway, and Remy could make out the high sandstone hills and narrow canyons of the dry side of Malibu when Tony slowed suddenly. He put a hand up to the side of his helmet and Remy could tell he was talking to someone. Something had happened. If they went any slower they might stall and land on an RV or maybe that convertible just passing beneath them.
Tony turned east suddenly, jets shot out of his gloves and they are moving again, but away from home. There was no use asking questions until they landed, so for the next 15 minutes they hugged the ridgeline of the towering sandstone hills. Remy could guess…flying this low… risking power lines … that someone was looking for them.
Then civilization mushroomed underneath them, and they were flying over houses, malls, streets, and then, in a drive way of a darkened house, they came down. Tony focused on a steady landing. Remy untangled himself from Tony and stood still as Tony unbuckled the climbing harness. And then as Tony removed his mobile suit, Remy shucked the harness and helmet.
“What’s going on Tony?“ Remy recognizes a dark dread forming within him. He doesn’t really want to know. Headlights wash over them. Pepper, pulls up in her Porsche.
She slams her door as she gets out, the only sign that things are fucked, for the rest of it she is as businesslike as a stockbroker.
“Tony?” he asked again. He looked at Tony, his eyes shining like glass, “Tony. What’s going on.?” Tony shook his head.
“Let’s get inside Remy.” He puts an arm around Remy’s shoulder, and Remy can’t help
but feel like a dog in the pound going for one last walk.
Pepper unlocked the front door and they went in. Pepper found the light switch and Remy was struck by the white brightness of the room. Large, loft ceiling, French doors overlooking the valley. All the furniture white. Tony poured drinks all around. Remy, uncertain what to do with Captain America’s first helmet, shoved it in his pants pocket, and with no one willing to talk, flung himself down in the center of a 10 foot long white sofa that faced the French doors and the western edges of Las Angeles.
And he waits.
Tony hands Remy his drink, and sits down in a straight back chair across from the sofa.
“What’s going on Tony.” Remy asks softly.
For the first time in his life Tony struggles with words. He takes another sip of his drink to loosen his tongue.
“They have S.I. surrounded.” Tony started. “Beck didn’t bite for a minute. He let the whole base march after Steve and then collected some guys from the Navy base, again, and went straight to my house. 200 of them. With warrants apparently, so fucking Beck is already inside.” As he spoke Tony got whiter and whiter, his hands so tight on his drink that Remy was ready for it to shatter. He drained the glass and Pepper plucked it out of his hand and replaced it with another, full. Tony drank half of that and smiled his tight smile and continued:
“I could take them all on. It wouldn’t even be a contest. But it would mean so many dead, and then…”
“The whole government would come down on you,” Remy jumped in.
“Exactly. There is no way to win. Oh, morally we would go down in a hail of bullets and glory, but ultimately Beck would win.” He drained his glass and Pepper just handed him the bottle. He topped himself off, then offered the bottle to Remy, who waved it away. He already felt drunk on his emotions and needed to try and right himself.
“They will have the entire U.S. Military looking for you, the FBI and Marshalls and Sheriffs and Policemen. You will be public enemy number one. A top secret experiment running the streets, and all any one knows for sure about you is that you are dangerous. So they…they …will be authorized to …use what ever means necessary.”
“Kill me, you mean?” Remy asked.
Tony nodded grimly.
“So.” Tony said, “We need to hide you. And that‘s why we are here. This is one of my safe houses. You could stay here indefinitely, but you would have to stay inside all the time.”
“ For how long?” Remy wondered.
“Until Beck gets’ tired of looking for you, a month, a year.” Tony answered.
Remy stood up and started pacing. “Tony, I‘m ready to get out of here already. There‘s no way I could stay here for a year.”
Tony blew out his cheeks,
“Yeah, I know Remy. I know. So, if we can’t fight, and you don’t want to be under house arrest for the indefinite future. there is a third way. It’s a little more dangerous…you would be exposed, but the risks are limited.”
“What is it?” Remy asked.
“You go underground. You have a new identity, new ID‘s . You pass as someone else and you stay underground until it’s safe.”
“What would I do? ”
“Anything you like. Pepper is on the phone right now, setting up a very large trust fund for you under your new identity. You can live anywhere you want. Do anything you want. And when things die down, you can come back.”
“So… I could just stay…here.. around Malibu, living in another apartment..”
“Too risky Remy. You need to get out of town.” Remy was beginning to feel a tickle of panic. On his own. No Tony. Then he brightened slightly.
“Wait…I know. I’ll go back and live near Peter. See my boy everyday….I…I’ll miss you…but it would be okay. Me and Peter could…..”
“No. No Remy. They will look for you there too. Any place you have family…they will have people posted…watching. For a very long time I’m afraid. They have put a lot of money into you, and Beck’s ass is on the line. But I have my lawyers working already. They have been on this case since Beck took you… and we will find a way out of this…it will just take time.”
Tony watched the desperation creep into Remy‘s eyes. Remy leapt off the sofa and began to pace…Tony could almost hear the pounding of Remy’s pulse, he was so familiar with his moods. Remy was working up to a crisis. Tony reached for the only thing he had to offer…
“Listen, listen…. I have an assignment that I want you to do for me. Probably by the time you’re done… things will be back to normal. Ok? It will require a lot of travel… You’ll be doing me a big favor.”
“What is it?” Remy turned, his grey eyes- always so full of laughter or anger or wanton lust now were just lost, his eyebrows pulled down at the corner in an expression Tony had never seen before.
“I need you to find Beth.”
“Beth? She’s dead. Jake killed her.”
“It’s not true. At least according to Union. She is still missing. All her parts - and there were many,- were still on the books. So I found Jake. Still working for the company…and after a case of beer, Jake admitted that he had let her go. After he bashed your head in, he didn’t have the heart to hack up your girl friend. He told her to get lost.”
Tony noticed that Remy had stopped pacing.
“Jake said it was harder getting rid of her than he imagined. She kept hanging on to you for a while, until the stretcher got there, and Jake said she’d be going onto the stretcher on top of you if she didn’t leave.”
Remy looked hard at him.
“Jake said that?”
Tony nodded.
Remy started pacing again, this time to try and get his thoughts in order. He stopped.
“She could be anywhere. She could be dead. It’s been two years. On the run. It’s a hard life. She was almost dead when we met.”
“That’s why you need to find her. You need to tell her, that I paid off all her outstanding debt to Union. She is free and clear. She can live like a normal person. Buy groceries, rent a house. She can come inside.”
Remy rubbed the back of his neck. “Where would I even start.?”
“You might try Mexico.”
“Mexico?”
“When we picked you up from the ‘hospital’ , you were in a constant dream state, and you were in Mexico. That’s a good place to run to if you are on the lamb. Maybe you had made plans to go there.? Who knows. It’s just a place to start. And it will get you far away from Beck.”
Remy sat on the couch and then jumped up again. “When would I go ?”
“Right now. The longer you’re with me, the more danger you’re in. And the more road blocks Beck is setting up. There is a rental car parked in the garage. Drive East to Palm Springs, then down through Joshua Tree and cross the border at Yuma. There is a map in the car. You’ve got to go now.”
Because he trusted Tony completely, Remy gave him a quick hug and then, just like at home, Pepper took care of the details, handing Remy his IDs, giving him a new cell phone, car keys, last minute instruction, and he was gone. Into the car and pulling out, smiling at Pepper as he drove away.
Tony was still leaning on the balcony railing when he heard the garage door open. It was a physical shock to his chest to hear the car start. To imagine the gentle whine as the car backed up, and the quick acceleration as Remy stood on the gas pedal. And then gone.
He was seized with a coldness. He poured several shots of burning whiskey down his throat to combat it, but it didn’t warm him even one degree. By the time Pepper found him he was shivering violently and pouring the whiskey straight down his throat. She grabbed a throw off the couch and wrapped it around his shoulders.
“Come on Tony.” She led him into the house, and into an immaculate, bedroom, There would be no trip home for him, tonight. He wouldn’t be able to speak to Beck right now anyway, not without killing him.
Pepper tucked him in. “He’ll be back before you know it , Tony.”
As he closed his eyes and drifted off he asked Pepper in a slurred voice..
“You would never leave me, would you, Miss Potts.”
“Never , Tony.”
The End.