No Hassle
After one last explosion (a fairly big one that seemed to finish the job of breaking every last glass object in the house), and after Rhodey left with the Mark II suit, Alice figured it was safe enough to go back to the mansion. She found Tony in a sitting position by the wrecked fireplace (although given that the whole fucking house was now a disaster zone, it seemed superfluous to emphasize that the fireplace had been wrecked). “Hey, Mr. Stark? Hello?” She waved at him and knocked on his faceplate.
“Given his current vital signs, Mr. Stark is in a state of deep unconsciousness,” JARVIS informed her. “Likely compounded by his inebriation and the shock of the adrenaline leaving his system after his… quarrel with Colonel Rhodes.”
“I figured it was something like that, Jibbles,” Alice said. “Hey, quick Q, did you know you sound like Paul Bettany?”
“I should hope so, Mr. Stark paid Mr. Bettany a handsome sum for the use of his voice,” JARVIS explained. “Sir had just seen Mr. Bettany in A Knight’s Tale when he was working on my vocalization module, and thought his voice most suitable for a digital butler.”
“Oh, neat,” Alice said, surprised that one of her celebrity call-outs was finally acknowledged. “Didn’t care for that one.” She squatted down and tested Tony’s weight in the suit. “Hey, you’ve got remote access over his suit, right?”
“Indeed, but due to security regulations I cannot permit you to remove him from it unless he is in medical distress,” JARVIS said.
“Yeah, not important,” Alice said. “Can you lock up all his joints so I can carry him without having to deal with his floppy limbs?”
“If you intend to toss him into the sea, the suit is airtight,” JARVIS said.
“That’s almost tempting… but I’m not planning on murdering my boss, Juvie,” Alice said, squatting down and hefting Tony up. “But his dumb ass is gonna need coffee and sweets when he wakes up.” She began walking towards the stairs before she remembered there was a big gaping hole in the floor nearby she could just leap down. “Gonna take him to Dunkin Donuts.”
“Sir always had a soft spot for Randy’s Donuts,” JARVIS informed her. “I’ll send the address to your phone.”
Alice’s phone pinged in her pocket. “Cool, I’ll take him there then.” She leapt down the hole and groaned at the incredible pressure on her knees that Tony’s weight inflicted. She dumped his ass in the back of an SUV at the far end of the garage, got behind the wheel, and drove off.
***
Tony awoke with a groan. He was sore as hell and his head was pounding like a drum, and he was pretty sure it had nothing to do with the palladium poisoning.
“Oh, good, you’re awake,” he heard Alice’s voice. “You might want to have Jungus unlock your joints and shit.”
“JARVIS?” Tony said aloud, feeling his joints unlock as he spoke.
“Already done, sir,” the voice spoke into his ear.
Tony sat up and saw he was in one of his cars, the SUV. “Did you haul me all the way into this car?” he asked, a little impressed.
“Yep,” Alice said. “Here.” She handed him a box of donuts from the front seat. He peeked over and saw three or four empty boxes just sitting there, crumbs all over the interior of his car!
“You’re paying for the detailing work, I hope you know,” Tony said.
“Fair ‘nuff,” Alice said. “Not like I’m picking up the bill for your house. Oh, and we heard from that girl who got a shard of glass lodged in her eye,” she said.
“Uh, what?” Tony said, waking the rest of the way the hell up.
“Yeah, if the surgery is successful and she only partially loses sight in it, she’s willing to settle for a $50 million dollar payout.” Alice shrugged. “Pretty good deal, if you ask me.”
“Jesus, please tell me you’re joking,” Tony begged.
“I’m not joking, but I am making shit up,” Alice relented. “You showered a crowd of people with high-speed broken glass, boss. That’s fucked up.”
Tony, who’d opened his faceplate to start eating a donut, grimaced. “Can we not talk about last night? Like, at all?”
“Sure,” Alice said with a shrug, and they ate together in silence for a few moments, Alice simply gazing at him via the rearview mirror.
It became too aggravating after a mere minute and a half. “…Nope, can’t do this,” Tony said, bailing out. He carefully tucked the donuts under one arm, then using both leg thrusters and one arm one, managed to fly up to the hole in the big donut atop the restaurant.
Alice ordered another two boxes of donuts and was polishing off the second one when the black SUV pulled up and Samuel motherfucking Jackson got out. But he had… an eyepatch. Great, another not-celebrity. Not Sam Jackson looked up at Tony in the donut and shouted out, “Sir! I’m gonna have to ask you to exit the donut!” He made sure Alice’s eyes were on him, gestured to the interior of the donut shop, and marched into the restaurant, Tony jetting down to join him.
Quickly licking the last traces of sugar off her fingers, Alice grabbed the empty boxes of donuts, stuffed them into the nearest trash can, and joined the two inside just to overhear Tony mutter, “I told you, I don’t wanna join your super secret boy band.”
Not Sam Jackson chuckled. “See, I remember you’re supposed to do everything yourself. Now you’ve, what, got a sidekick?” He jerked a thumb behind him, pointing directly at Alice.
“She’s an… employee who, uh, happens to independently fight crime. Or something.” Tony looked rough, even with his sunglasses on. “Anyway, Nick, I thought she was one of yours.”
Nick — Nick Fury? What the hell? Wasn’t he supposed to be David Hasselhoff? — snorted. “Oh yeah, one of mine. I got people riding my ass, Stark, the same way I ride yours. Her insertion into your life was mandated by Secretary Pierce, almost completely destroying a lot of time and effort we put in for the original plant.” He turned to Alice. “And my misgivings have been 100% justified. You’re as bad as Stark! ‘I am Surge Protector’? What the hell were you thinking outing yourself to Stark and revealing yourself to the world?!”
“Hey, in all fairness, I have giant gaps in my memory prior to meeting with Agent Coulson at the airport,” Alice pointed out. “Nobody gave me an instruction manual for all this spy shit!”
Fury snorted. “Not sure if I buy that, given your rumored origin.”
Now that was intriguing. “What’s my rumored origin?” she asked.
Natalie Rushman walked up, and for the first time Alice noted that she looked like Scarlett Johansson, which would have been a big waving red flag if she’d noticed when she’d first met her the other day. Right now, the black leather jumpsuit was kind of giving away that Natalie Rushman was in no way her real name. “…Black Widow?” Alice hazarded a guess.
Natalie (Natasha) narrowed her eyes. “Allegedly, Abernathy, you came from the Winter Soldier program… after having been captured and rehabbed.”
Winter Soldier program? Now that was a new one for Alice. “What’s that?” she asked.
“You know how parents scare kids by telling them the boogeyman is out to get them?” Natasha said. Alice nodded. “The Winter Soldier is the boogeyman for spies.”
Alice waved her arms in the air, shouting “BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!” at Natasha, who was unimpressed. “Guess I’m not a Winter Soldier!” she shrugged.
“Hold… hold on,” Tony said, giving Natasha the ol’ once over, two or three times. “Nick, I know you’ve got a real hard-on for the Avengers Initiative, but did you really have to get Emma Peel? Isn’t that copyright infringement or something?”
“Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff,” Fury introduced. “The original plant. Fortunately, we were able to salvage her cover enough to have her inserted as Pepper Potts’ assistant.” He leaned forward. “You’ve been very busy: You made your girl your CEO, you’re giving away all your stuff… you let your friend fly away with your suit! Now, if I didn’t know better —”
“You don’t know better,” Tony interjected. “I didn’t give it to him, he took it.”
“Whoa whoa whoa, what, no, he took it? You’re Iron Man, and he just took it?” Fury was incredulous. “The little brother walked in there, kicked your ass, and took your suit.” He turned to Natasha. “Is that possible?”
“Well, according to Mr. Stark’s database security guidelines, there are redundancies to prevent unauthorized usage.”
“Oh! Oh!” Alice called out. The trio once again turned to look at her. “Tony totally showed Rhodey how to swap out the palladium in an arc reactor,” she shared. “Just, like, a day or two before the party. 100% he gave Rhodey the suit on purpose!” Fury again faced Tony, hand turned in a ‘there you go’ gesture.
Tony snorted. “What do you want from me?”
Natasha got up and left the diner. “What do we want from you? Uh-uh-uh, what do you want from me?” Fury corrected. “You have become a problem, a problem I have to deal with!”
“Eye,” Alice murmured, eliciting a giggle from Tony.
Fury shot her a glare. “Contrary to your belief, you two assholes are NOT the center of my universe! I have bigger problems than you in the southwest region to deal with!”
“Ooh, like what?” Alice said. “Anything we can help with?”
“Hit him,” Fury said, ignoring Alice. Natasha (who’d abruptly reappeared at Tony’s side) jabbed him in the neck with a small needle.
“Oh, God, are you gonna steal my kidney and sell it?” Tony asked. “Could you please not do anything awful for five seconds?” He turned back to Fury. “What did she just do to me?”
Alice saw the black streaks on Tony’s neck recede. “Oh hey, that black shit’s going away!”
“What did we just do for you,” Fury corrected. “That’s lithium dioxide. It’s gonna take the edge off. We’re trying to get you back to work.”
“Give me a couple boxes of that, I’ll be right as rain,” Tony murmured.
“It’s not a cure, it just abates the symptoms,” Natasha pointed out.
“Doesn’t look like it’s gonna be an easy fix,” Fury noted.
“Tony can do it!” Alice said, cheering him on.
Tony gave Alice the ghost of a smile before turning back to Fury. “Trust me, I know, I’m good at this stuff. I’ve been looking for a suitable replacement for palladium. I’ve tried every combination, every permutation, of every known element.”
“Did you try uranium?” Alice asked. “That one’s supposed to be pretty good.”
Tony glared at her. “Yeah, that one will work really well for about five seconds, and then everything within two miles of my arc reactor will get converted into radioactive ash, including me. Pass.”
Fury gave Alice a long, hard look before turning back to Tony. “Well, I’m here to tell you that you haven’t tried them all.” He stood up. “We are going back to your mansion. This is not up for discussion.”
Alice grabbed one last order of donuts to go, and saw Natasha standing there waiting for her. “Oh, did you want anything? Coffee?”
Natasha shook her head. “I’m good.”
“So… do you really think I’m this Winter Soldier thingie?” Alice asked her.
Natasha shook her head. “I think it’s highly unlikely. I’ve had a run-in with a Winter Soldier before. You… you just don’t have the same aura of menace. I look into your eyes, I don’t see a killer. I see… a really big kid.”
“Aw, you’re too kind,” Alice said. “But… I’ve done bad stuff before.” She frowned, shivering at the sudden unprompted mental image of a blonde woman leaking blood from every hole on her head, lit cigarette falling from her mouth before she collapsed to the ground, dead. All at once, she felt like she was going to be sick. “Uh, cancel those donuts, please,” she said to the cashier, running off without bothering to get a refund. Natasha followed after her, lips pursed with curiosity.