Chapter 5
Tony Stark was screwed. Utterly and completely. He’s been sitting here for the last couple hours listening as Inko absolutely tore into him about how she told him he needed to leave the company and how he shouldn’t have trusted Stane. How this wouldn’t have happened if he’d had a quirk or if he’d listened to her. Honestly she can be scary when she’s mad. Or scared. He knows that where she’s from quirks are everything to a person so it makes sense that she feels like this, but it still hurts that that’s the way she thinks of him even though he’s proven that this isn’t because of quirks it’s because of human greed. Still he sits in silence and she lets out her pent up emotions about how he should’ve handled the situation being so “defenseless and weak” as he was without a quirk. Honestly he wished he could’ve kept her from going back to Japan because this environment hasn’t been good for her world views. Soon enough the wind rushes out of her sails and she collapses against the couch and him sobbing. He sighs as he wraps his arms around her showing her that it was alright because he survived and he was ok now. By the time Shouta is strolling through the door from school Inko had passed out and been carried back to her bedroom and Izuku had woken up from his nap so he could play with Tony. The moment the teen walks through the door he stops dead at seeing his dad before sprinting to him and throwing himself into his arms. Tony crushes Shouta against his chest cradling his head as he sobs and whispering that he understands and feels the same way.
The father-son duo spend about an hour just pressed against each other in a hug until Shouta is lightly dozing against Tony and it’s decided that they should take a nap while the vibes are still in their favor. Time continues on like this, Tony trying and failing to convince Inko that his lack of quirk isn’t hindering him in the slightest and his intelligence more than makes up for it, and Shouta just happily existing around his dad. Before any of them even notice it’s been 5 months since the whole iron man debacle and Tony revealing himself to be the person inside the suit. Just as they’re all getting back into a routine their bubble is shattered, not just popped but fully blown up like someone attached it to C4 and then drove a bus straight into it. It started with a phone call as most cliche bad things do, this time however it’s not a direct call from the bad news to Tony but a friendly warning from a stout with questionable access to other countries government secrets. What follows said phone call is a rush of action which leads them to today sitting in front of Inkos television watching Tony antagonize the US government over their request for access to the iron man technology. The sound of the resigned sighs Inko Shouta and Happy let out is metaphorically loud enough to wake the dead because of course this is how the trial is going Tony can never help himself and Rhodes is just as bad for encouraging him.
Given that none of them know the fact that Tony is currently dying of palladium poisoning isn’t helping Tony’s state of mind either if he’s being truly honest. He can predict exactly what’s going through the heads of every member of his family but him and Jarvis are the only ones aware of just how deeply affected he is by the heavy metal toxicity currently swimming through his bloodstream. And yes he knows he probably should at least tell his son that he might be losing another parent inevitably but he’s having a bad year sue him. When his metal toxicity started getting even more concerning than the fact alone that it existed, he considered his legacy. He knew Shouta wouldn’t want to take over for him running the company and the only other person who he would want it to go to is currently a toddler he doesn’t have many options. The only person he can think of who’s ready to take over the company is the person he thinks probably deserves it most for all of the shit he’s put her through all these years, and that’s Pepper. He knows she can handle it and she can pass it on to Izuku if he wants it when he grows up and if he doesn’t she can do whatever she sees fit.
The other thing about his loved ones not knowing the exact cause of his sudden nosedive in behavioral issues is now Happy is making him box with him in just about every spare second he can squeeze in and it’s really killing his vibes leaving him dead tired at the end of it but unable to express just how exhausted he was without his family asking questions. Again he’s an idiot but he never claimed that his genius extended into his personal life, in fact he’s been adamant this whole time that he’s quite immature and emotionally stunted so really can anyone have expected a different outcome than this?
During one of these forced boxing sessions Pepper walks in with a red-head who might’ve turned his head around in the past if he wasn’t so focused on you know not dying. That and the fact that his libido seems to have calmed some with the extra energy he uses to try and parent his teenage son but he refuses to admit that lest he sound like he’s, and he gags just thinking it, getting old. Right away he gets a couple twinges on his bullshit radar when Pep is introducing her but he writes them off as palladium caused. He knows his judgment is compromised he’ll ask Jarvis to run a thorough background later because no matter how compromised he is he knows J is fine. He finishes up signing whatever paperwork they brought in that his metal infused head can’t remember, although he thinks it might have to do with signing the company to Pepper but he’s not 100% sure so he just signs while he can still hold the pen up. Jarvis says that he can’t find anything suspicious about Natalie Rushman so as his way to apologize for his initial judgment (even though he knows she likely isn’t a mind reader and therefore doesn’t know that the first sight of her had warning alarms blaring through his skull) he hires her as his PA with more money than matches the position (he’s an asshole but he’s not a monster he knows he’s more than two handfuls and any person dealing with him deserves as much money as they can physically carry).
Even dying of palladium he isn’t a complete idiot. He keeps his calls to Inko secret, any meeting he has in Japan well planned out and with multiple security measures so no one can find out about Shouta especially the government freaks that seem to be tailing his every move since he told the world he was Iron Man. He loves his son too much to get him involved in whatever undoubtedly corrupt and convoluted plan awaits him at the end of this secret agency rainbow. He’s not looking forward to that pot of gold himself but knowing his luck there’s no way he’s dying of blood toxicity before they find a way to totally screw him over and wreck everything they can touch. Everything with his kid is going marvelously which surprises not just him but everyone else too. Considering how detrimental he is to his own mental and physical (and emotional) health Tony is surprisingly intuitive to what his son needs and everyone can see the changes in the kid from before he was staying with them. Namely that he doesn’t actively have a depressing self-loathing aura attached to him 24/7 and actively participates in his friendships with Hizashi, Nemuri, and Tensei. It’s to the surprise of absolutely no one when Shouta and Hizashi get home one day holding hands, Shoutas equivalent to screaming at them that they’re finally dating.
Of course this is all a long winded way of explaining how he ended up here the last year flying through his mind at warp speed making him think there may be something to that whole “life flashing before your eyes” kind of thing everyone says happens in the movies and cliche romance novels. Because of course his life can’t be semi-normal while dying slowly of palladium poisoning, now there’s a fucking Russian guy with his Iron Man tech using electric whips like some kind of Sci-Fi Indiana Jones trying to murder him while he’s innocently sitting here driving completely recklessly at the Monaco Grand Prix like the rich asshole everyone thinks he is. Of all the fucking things he expected he knows for sure it wasn’t this. Well that’s a lie this was far enough down the line of possibilities he didn’t even factor it into the equation but that’s not saying the possibility didn’t exist and goddamn what is he thinking. Tony can’t tell if it’s the adrenaline and fear combo causing his thoughts to go spiraling or if it’s just another symptom of his current deadly condition but either way it’s rather inconvenient considering he kind of needs his genius brain to function in order to escape deathly disasters like this. Luckily for Tony not everyone is as mentally compromised as he is currently and the situation was fixed quicker than expected. That’s not to say that it happened fast, Tony definitely has a few more nightmares than he started out the day with and that’s saying something, but it was ended faster than he could’ve done by himself. Now with this new crazy stalker creep comes another fascinating conversation about his tech that he doesn’t have the answers, nor quite frankly the energy for, and he’s about ready to try smashing his head through the door to see if that’ll make the headache go away or at least knock him out so he won’t feel it anymore when his phone rings again from his pocket. There’s no name or number showing but there is a small picture of a rodent laughing maniacally and he feels his headache grow worse before he even picks up the phone.
“Yes Rat Demon?”
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Turns out there are bright sides to almost dying. One of those is having the king of chaos and anarchy come calling to your rescue about things he should have no idea of. The bright side to this phone call was a heads up about his secretary and the blind spot in Jarvis’ code he didn’t even realize existed that allowed her to slip through the cracks of his government database and pass as Natalie Rushman instead of the bag of hypocrisy she really is. The second good thing to come out of this phone call was a visit to one Chiyo Shuzenji, most popularly known as Recovery Girl. There’s no guarantee that her quirk will work to heal the damage or cure the palladium running through his blood but so far it’s the best shot he has at surviving to find a more permanent solution. He makes his excuses with Pepper and Natashalie, along with a very coded message to Pepper about the identity of said secretary but he can’t very well fire her without raising some red flags with her superiors that he’d rather avoid at this point in time, and gathers enough stuff to head back to Japan for a few weeks under the cover of seeing the warehouse built to house new projects in their branch of SI. He’ll be showing up in the middle of his kids work studies so they won’t get to see each other until the end of his trip but that’s fine he’ll be back in a few months to stay while trying to figure out a definitive cure for his palladium problem.
It’s late by the time he lands in Japan but that’s all for the better much easier to blend in with the crowd at night than in the middle of the day, and rat god specifically said Recovery Girl would be waiting for him before leaving the school with the promise of a heavy donation to her bank account Tony is more than willing to pay. The drive to UA is the easiest part getting through the hellscape that is Nezu’s security is an entire other thing because of course the fucking stoat wants to test his security every time Tony’s in the country and makes him disable it all before he can gain access to the school. When the numbers start swirling in front of his face though, Tony decides that how’s the time to put his ego and pride aside and yell for Nezu to just let him in. He can tell exactly how fast his minds going by how many numbers he forgets in Pi and by now he’s down to the 86th digit which is 200 less than he can usually muster up off the top of his head. A vaguely concerned looking stoat opens the security gate for him along with one of the teachers he knows teaches Shouta, but can not for the life of him remember, ushering him through the gate and into the school doors heading to the private office attached to the nurses wing. Recovery girl is sitting behind a small wooden desk that rests in the corner of the room which seems to be covered in some form of paperwork. There’s a surprisingly large bed on the opposite side of the room covered in a multitude of thin white pillows and sterile hospital sheets. Once she notices Tony loitering in the door she ushers him in hitting him with her cane? Needle? Walking stick? Tony’s not really sure what it is but it really completes her appearance of scary nurse. Tony settles himself on the overly large hospital bed and lets the nursing hero check him over answering the questions she asks about the progression of the poisoning and it’s effects on his mind and body.
“Unfortunately I can’t cure the poison from your blood but I can reverse most of the damage it’s caused so far. Your mental capacity just started deteriorating so that’ll be the easiest to bounce back, the physical ailments should all right themselves once the poison is fully out of your blood and you’ve let it rest. I can give you time and I think that’s one of the best case scenarios that you were facing when you got here Mr. Stark.” Tony is practically jumping in excitement this is the best he let himself hope for, better even than he believed, he’ll take what he can get so he lays back on the bed and lets the hero work her magic and within minutes he’s out like a light.
By the time Tony wakes up the sun is high in the sky and the rooster long past crowing. He thanks the recovery hero for her help, let’s her check him out again and breezes through one of Nezu’s simpler security measures just to see where his brain stands on the healing front. Given how much of the poisonings effects Chiyo healed it’ll be awhile yet before his mental capacity starts running low again. Once everything is double and triple checked he makes his way out of the school waiting for his driver to arrive and take him back to his publicly known apartment where the government fucks will be expecting him to be. Driving there he notices the almost laughably easy to see tail following him. It’s not Natashalie but it looks exactly like you’d expect a secret government idiot to look. He wonders how he let himself get this bad if he can see the tail so easily now they must’ve been doing this for awhile and laughing at him for not noticing. He gives himself the benefit of the doubt and promises that he’ll do something more than mildly annoying to make their lives harder. If there’s one thing Tony is an expert at its being a petty asshole he’s got it down to an art. Brushing aside those thoughts he climbs into his apartment shooting texts to Pepper Rhodey and Shouta letting them know where he is and emphasizing not to come because shady government ops are tailing him. He doesn’t tell them about the palladium. Not until he knows he can cure it and find a way to remove what’s already causing havoc inside of him. His lab in the apartment is nowhere near as good as the one in any of his houses stateside, but it’s not shabby either. He heads down to work on finding the solution to his whole arc reactor problem having Jarvis forward all of his phone calls to voicemail throwing on the loudest music he can find and getting to work.
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Hours later he’s come up with exactly zero ideas to stop the palladium poisoning and nothing to get what’s already in his body out while fixing the rest of the damage it’s caused. Tony rubs his eyes and gets up from the same hunched over position he’s been in for the last probably 4 hours and decides it’s about time to re-emerge from his isolation and check his phone. The first thing he sees is the notification from Rhodey telling him that the Electric cowboy, who’s name is Ivan Vanko apparently and why did that ring the smallest bell in his head, was dead which rang even more alarm bells in his head because there’s no way that piece of shit would leave his life this easily. The next notification he pays active attention to is a message from the demon god himself giving him said proof of Vanko being not dead along with pages and pages of research Nezu had done into Vanko and his father. The very last notification that catches his eye before he starts reading through the research Nezu had sent him is a happy birthday message from his son and his sister. He clicks the notification and his sister had videoed her and Izuku singing happy birthday to him in all 3 languages they were fluent in (those being Japanese, English, and Italian because Tony and Inko were brought up together so of course she knows just as much as him). His eyes teared up slightly before he shook himself out of it and put his feelings on the back burner until after he finishes his current project.
By the time he gets through the last of the information Nezu sent him it’s almost 8 o’clock and he’s both exhausted and starving so he shuts off the tablet he’s been using to read through everything and grabs his phone fully intent on just ordering something to get delivered when the doorbell to his apartment goes off. Tony quirks an eyebrow as he goes to answer the door because he knows he’s not expecting any visitors he explicitly told everyone to stay away because of the super secret spies setting up camp around his apartment. By the time he makes it to the door whoever is there has moved past hitting the buzzer to straight up beating down his door, he flings it open not really knowing who to expect outside only to be shoved to the ground by a blur of short green woman. Ah shit it’s Inko.
Tony had no idea why Inko was here especially when he had asked her to stay away, but it’s not like he was going to throw her out of the house he needed to hug his sister right now. Needed to talk to her and ask her about his son in person, especially since he has to call his trip to Japan short and leave tomorrow.
“Inko what are you doing here?”
“You’re kidding right Tony? It’s your birthday you dumbass no shady government people are going to keep me from seeing you on your birthday. I didn’t bring the kids though so you can stop your needless worrying.”
“You call it needless worrying I call it well deserved paranoia but tomato tomahto. Here come inside I was just about to order food I need the company. And hey maybe you can give me a fresh set of eyes on this so I can solve one of the many issues I have going on right now.” Tony leads his sister inside, explaining part of what he’s been doing the last two days. He debates with himself for a minute, considering whether he should tell his sister about the palladium poisoning before deciding to fuck it and tell her. If something happens to him she’ll have full custody of Shouta and that kid deserves to know what happened and that it wasn’t his fault no matter what he’ll try to tell himself. “Hey while we’re talking about my completely inappropriate behavior that’s been happening lately and how I’m setting a completely horrible example to both of our children, should I mention now that the arc reactor that’s saving my life is also slowly killing me?”
“What?”
Tony laughs a little, very awkwardly trying to cover up the nervous twitch in his face, “Yeah this thing is filled with palladium that’s currently poisoning my bloodstream and if I don’t find a better alternative to it I’ll not so slowly die of heavy metal toxicity in the next few months if that.”
“Tony I’m going to fucking kill you.” Inko says before pulling him to her and sobbing into his chest. Her hands desperately clenching into his shirt. “You should’ve told all of us! How long have you known that you’re basically dying and just decided not to tell us?”
“Since I announced the Stark Expo. A little before that.”
“It’s been weeks Tony! Weeks! Despite your best efforts and your thoughts on the matter you can not in fact do everything yourself! Nor should you have to! You’re best friend may not be as smart as you but you guys went to MIT together you know how smart Rhodey is and Shoutas principal/your online chess buddy is one of the smartest creatures on this world, who some may argue, is smarter than YOU!!!! You’re such a pain in our ass Tony we love you, we care you can NOT keep doing this to us!” Inko pushes herself back slightly punching her hand out at Tony’s chest before taking a breathe to center herself. “Here’s what you’re going to do now. You’re going to get on your phone and you’re going to thank Nezu for the research and then you’re going to ask him if he knows a better solution to your palladium issue. And then you’re going to call Rhodey and you’re going to put a stop to whatever reckless plan you had and just give him whatever suit you’ve made him yourself there’s nothing you could do that would make him hate you there’s no need to try just so he won’t be sad IF you die. Then you’re going to ask him to help you decide how to handle Vanko so it doesn’t come down to a battle to the death that’s the last thing your son needs to see on TV. Again. And the very last thing you’re going to do is pick out the best apology gifts you can find for all of us and then we’re going to eat your birthday dinner and I’m going to clean whatever mess you left in the lab while you sleep . Am I clear?”
“You know I forget how scary you can be when you’re angry Ink.”
“Tony I’m not in the mood for your quips right now. Yes or no do you understand?”
“Yes darling sister.”
“Good. Make those calls I’ll make sure there’s clean dishes for dinner. I love you Tony.”
“I love you too. Thank you for beating some sense into me.”
“Always. Happy birthday.” Inko walks away into the kitchen as Tony pulls out his phone making the first of many phone calls that night.
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By the time Tony was finished making his phone calls, including an extra one he wasn’t planning on making when Rhodey forced him to call Mama Rhodes so she could chew him out for being an idiot and dying without telling everyone along with a promise to call her to keep her updated, the dinner had already gotten there and was lukewarm. He finished dinner in peaceful silence with Inko and then she shooed him upstairs to go to sleep for the first time in almost two days. The good thing about his lack of sleep is that he passed out almost immediately followed by a complete lack of dreams good or bad meaning he got the most restful sleep he’s had almost all year, if you don’t count the forced sleep from recovery girl which he doesn’t because quirks are cheating. By the time he wakes up it’s 9am and Inko had left hours ago to go to work. Tony decides it’s as good a time as any to test fly the newest version of the suit by taking it over to the warehouse where he also has a better lab set up that he can use to test out alternatives to the palladium core. On the way there he stops at a cafe intending on getting a coffee and some pastries to munch on in the lab when he’s fully grounded by the same government operatives that have been tailing him for weeks. One Nick Fury, the man who wanted him for the super secret boy band he was creating which Tony had already said no to. Natashalie shows up talking about securing a perimeter and very rudely not allowing Tony to fire her- And who is she to tell him that he can’t fire her? He’s Tony Fucking Stark he can fire anyone he wants but especially secret agents who lie on their applications to work in his company directly under him and his Pepper- moving to slide across the booth from him before Eyepatch waves his hand and sends her to the other side of the cafe. Tony thinks she was leaving so he could whisper more super secret boy band propaganda into his ear, he thinks that up until the point where he feels a sharp punch in his neck and the vaguely terrifying feeling of something being pushed into his body from the needle. He freezes up, tense waiting for whatever drug they gave him to take effect. And something does. A thin line of what he knows is blood slides down his nose at the same time he starts getting extremely light headed. His thoughts blurring together slightly like he’s wading through an ocean of syrup while trying to think. He can almost hear someone across from him yelling, he can’t quite make out whatever words he’s saying but he knows that it’s not good. The last thought Tony can make out before his head turns to mush is ‘God fucking damnit I knew the Men In Black were going to be the death of me’ .
Tony’s tense form slightly slumps over, his eyes unfocused and nose still bleeding steadily into his mouth. He doesn’t pass out but he can no longer think or speak or see anything in front of him. He becomes catatonic and the agents in front of him begin yelling into their radios trying to figure out what happened. By their calculations his mental capacity had already started to fade meaning the palladium was at a high enough percentage in his blood that the Lithium Dioxide would balance it out and stop it from progressing. There’s no way with how much palladium poisoning he has that this was the reaction he was going to have you can’t reverse the effects without unpoisoning the blood. Natasha takes his blood pressure and his breathing and since both are stable she slides another needle filled with a sleeping agent into his neck slamming down the plunger and watching his eyes flutter shut be his body lose its tension. She waves to the other two agents that are waiting outside to pick him up and bring him to the car. Hopefully the Lithium Dioxide will run its course by the time he wakes up, and by then they’ll have him locked up safe and tight until he isn’t such a liability to everyone.
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Nezu is worried. That’s not necessarily a new emotion for him but it’s just as concerning every time he feels it for he doesn’t feel it very often. He has very few people he cares about enough to feel worry for them when they no longer respond to his phone calls. Or show up in his less legal means of spying at everyone through security cameras. Or his even less legal means of searching for AI family members who appear to be disconnected, and how did that happen he knows Tony’s brain isn’t fully recovered from the palladium but he knows that even at the point he’s at he’s better than most experts at his security especially for his beloved anarchic Jarvis. By the time Nezu realizes that Tony isn’t showing up anywhere on his searches for facial recognition near his warehouse, where he was supposed to be, he’s already typing out long lines of code to circumvent whatever security measures were implemented to keep Tony’s face out of any recognition software that are used by more legal means. It takes him longer than he’s willing to admit because his paws aren’t as steady when he’s feeling worried and he’s had too many typos for a stout of his caliber intelligence. He finds footage of Tony going into one of his favorite cafes around 9:30 and then corrupted footage which he quickly uncorrupts, only to immediately spill the tea he had on his desk in his rush to begin replaying what he just occurred on the tape. When he noticed he was not in fact wrong about several black vehicles surrounding then agents sneaking into said cafe only to return minutes later with a prime figure that could only be Tony who’s face is covered in thick streams of blood, he begins to prepare. Names of the agents involved are found and put aside in folders to research later, the weirdly long name for said shadow agency is discovered and their bases hacked into almost laughably easily. Their comma are under protected as well so he taps into those and begins recording the messages being sent between agents. He finds the footage from inside the cafe which he adds to the pile of evidence, paying special attention to zoom in on the female agent who was covering as Tony’s personal assistant drugging him not once but twice. He feels a twitch in his eye when he notices the way Tony’s body tenses and his nose begins to leak blood after the first shot, working faster to gain access to the audio so he could hear what exactly they stabbed him with. When he hears the words ‘lithium dioxide” leave one Nick Fury’s mouth his eyes widen and he yells out expletives before rushing an e-mail to recovery girl to tell her what exactly had just happened to one of the staff favorites father. He follows their conversation up to the point where they say they’re bringing him back to his apartment to keep under lock and key. And well who could blame Nezu if he felt his rage grow at the idea that they could keep a fellow genius ‘ one of his ’ a little voice whispers (because that’s exactly what Tony is now, he’s one of Nezus people and Nezu is nothing if not loyal to those he considers his there’s not many of them who are worthy of such a title) under lock and key as if they’re some pet to take out at will. He won’t stand for it. Nezu keeps his computer going letting it continue to gather evidence in color coded folders and recording damning evidence which he’ll use for blackmail at his own will, before he stands from his desk calling a few people cashing in some favors he is owed with the plan to unlock his genius from his confines before he dies from the lithium dioxide injection carelessly given to him by people who thought they knew everything and knew best. Keeping recovery girl on standby for when they need her to look over and keep the hero alive.
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The first thought Tony has after gaining consciousness is that everything hurt. His brain hurt and that was such a weird way to feel pain it didn’t make sense the way he was feeling pain. The second thought he has is that he shouldn’t be at the apartment. His brain may be half mush but he knows he left this morning and passed out before he made it back. The last thought he has immediately upon waking is that his place is destroyed. Inko is going to be pissed . There’s a bunch of shady agents stalking around his apartment going though everything he’s left lying around, which isn’t much he put everything behind lock and key before leaving this morning.
Using what little brain power and physical energy he has left he pushes himself into a mostly sitting position having to close his eyes to keep from vomiting halfway through the action. He opens his eyes again once the nausea passes to see a disembodied hand holding two white pills and a bottle of water, knowing it to be ibuprofen and not something more sinister (and his mind still not fully caught up on how he got here or he would still be very suspicious of being given more drugs on top of whatever shit they filled his body with to start this whole ordeal) he grabs them and downs them dry gulping the water down behind them. He empties two more glasses before he finally looks up at the person attached to the hand and sees Natashalie with a granola bar and the signature fake smile plastered onto her face. He knows he can’t trust anything about her and something about seeing her makes his body tense up even though he can’t understand why. He tries to shake out the tangles and knots that make up all the thoughts floating through his head. As the seconds tick on Natasha slowly loses the fake smile before she finally just shoved the granola bar at him and stalks off toward one of the other agents in his house.
There’s a thought sitting at the edge of his mind that causes panic to shoot through him but he can’t reach out enough to grab onto it, so he just sits through the panic waiting for the waves of it to pass over him. Unfortunately for him the agents obviously didn’t think he could be left alone for any meaningful length of time no matter the state of his mind because here comes the sidekick who tried to talk him into saying that fucked up press release several months ago after the whole blowing up a warehouse with Stane inside of it thing. He’s informed that this American (emphasis on American because they are currently on Japanese soil and he is a Japanese citizen who is not currently inside their country of jurisdiction and he can’t wait until Nezu gets a hold of these fucking assholes and shows them just how stupid they are) government secret agency doesn’t trust him to be left to his own devices and is putting him on house arrest until he can come up with a solution to the problem that he was supposed to be working on with Nezu already if they hadn’t interfered in business that obviously isn’t theirs. God he needs a drink. Or for his brain to catch up with the situation and stop the room from spinning so much. It’s at this point his brain starts to play catch up and he realizes the stab of panic he’s been feeling has been the realization that all these agents in his apartment mean that his main form of defense against them, arguably his first child the one everyone knows about but very few acknowledge, isn’t running and the panic returns tenfold. Where was Jarvis? If they had done anything that caused permanent damage to his servers he would lose some of his moral code faster than they could say hell-fucking-o. He can’t do anything about anything until his brain boots up again and that seems to be happening slower than a blue screened computer does. The room jolts and it’s not just his brain making him see things. There’s a crash outside and a steady knock at the front door, the agents all crowding around his couch exchange looks before dividing up in a flurry of motion moving to surround the door and Tony himself. Natashalie nods at Agent sidekick and then slowly moves her hand toward the handle and flinging the door open. Immediately everyone starts pointing their guns straight through the opening in the doorway but they don’t notice the Stout standing serenely on the welcome mat, too focused on the scene outside where multiple heroes are currently finishing tying up the agents stationed around the outside of the complex.
Nezu clears his throat, “now if you don’t mind I will be taking Tony Stark out of your… loving care you see he had an appointment with me that he really shouldn’t miss and we’re already late thanks to your grievous misjudgment.” He finishes off this statement with a short laugh and a grin with just too many teeth to be considered kind, the feral look in his eyes promising repercussions to anyone who doesn’t follow his orders to a ‘T’ and as fast as humanely possible.
“I’m sorry but who are you? Mr. Stark is currently under the protection of US governing agents we have orders that he is to remain here in custody until told otherwise.” The dumb idiot standing next to Natashalie says as if he doesn’t value his life.
If anything Nezu’s smile grows even bigger here, “Why I’m just the principal at UA high school, the intelligence hero Nezu! Am I a rat? A bear? A cat? Who knows. What I do know is US governing agents are not allowed to operate on Japanese soil under the protection of the Heroes Licensing Act of ‘87 when we pulled out of the WSC and turned to self-governing our heroes. Due to the high volume of heroes here in Japan we are used to much larger threats than any of you American government paper pushers can handle and that’s just the petty thievery! Now I outrank every single person here in the Japanese political circles never mind the heroic ones of which any foreign governing body is considered and I suggest you make haste and hand over the man you stole before this turns ugly and my good friend Jarvis releases the data I’ve collected from your servers and I have to make a call to a certain president.” Nezu had started off this rant wearing every cheerful facade he owned until he slowly lost them all bit by bit and all that was left was a prowling beast stalking in its cage waiting to be unleashed. The fury in his eyes and stance only enhanced by the particularly vicious showing of teeth he had which created a horrific facsimile of a smile. As one every agent around him shuddered a breath as if it took too much effort to inhale the air around them. Agent Sidekick looked around at the state of affairs and must’ve been given the singular brain cell all these people must share and stepped aside, signaling everyone else to stand down and move also.
“Everyone stand down let him pass to check on Stark. He’s a US citizen, however, Nezu sir we’ll be making the call to get him deported back soon.”
“Oh on the contrary my friend! Tony’s been a Japanese citizen as well for quite a few years now! Deportation of one of the most influential men in Japan would never go over and your government would never fight ours just to bring back a man on vacation who lives and works primarily in Malibu. You forget my good agent I’m just as smart if not smarter than Tony and I don’t play into the keeping your enemies close business. Why keep them close when I simply have all the means to disintegrate them?” The Rat God had his cheerful face and pleasant tone back on as he wandered over to the couch. He jumped up onto Tony’s lap and studied his face for a brief moment before gesturing to one of the heroes on standby outside. Next thing he knows Tony feels himself getting picked up and set down in a leather car seat. He can’t hold onto any of the imagery passing before him the next hour but he does register somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind being set down on a hospital bed and then a kiss to his cheek a prick to his arm that makes him tense up before relaxing directly afterwards into a sea of blackness thanks to the effects of Chiyos quirk.
Tony wakes up and his brain works again and he knows this because that’s the first thought he has when he feels consciousness returning. The second and third thoughts follow in quick succession, those being ‘goddamnit I passed out again that’s like five times in three days that can not be healthy’ and ‘oh shit Nezu really tore Agent dickwad a new asshole and I barely remember any of it’ . The next thought he forces himself to have is figuring out where he is and as soon as he puts his effort into figuring it out he realizes he’s back in the uncomfortably large for a nurses office bed in UA. Sitting in the desk in the corner is not the nurse but is the demon himself going through a box of things that Tony doesn’t recognize.
“Ah Tony! I didn’t realIze you had woken my apologies. I’m just going through this box of things one Nick Fury had tried to manipulate you with that he claims belonged to you father. There does seem to be a good number of things in here that the former Mr. Stark would’ve had a hand in creating most notably this diorama of the very first Stark Expo it’s actually quite fascinating I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all demon rat, where’d you get it though? I’m sure Eyepatch wouldn’t have just handed it over to you he’s not as easily cowed as the agents back there.”
“Why I stole it of course!”
“Forget I asked I don’t want to know any more information lest I be accused of being an accessory to whatever war crimes you undoubtedly committed.”
“No war crimes dear friend rather a bit of espionage which I’m sure he’d appreciate the skill of.”
“Please tell me you didn’t. I’m begging.”
“You’d rather I lie to you?”
“I’d rather you have not involved my son in this illegal operation of yours but lying will sit fine in my conscious too.”
“Unfortunately Tony I’m not in the habit of lying to my people. Besides young Shouta was very eager to try out some of his new skills from our lessons together and he asks very little questions about tasks I ask him to do for me!”
“You sound way too proud of the fact that you’re turning my son into some eldritch beast like you.”
“It’s a wonder how amazing the young man is I assure you I couldn’t be prouder at how quickly he’s picking up what I’m teaching him.”
“Jesus Christ god help us all. Alright then what else have I missed in my drugged up half brain dead state?”
So Nezu tells him. He tells him everything that’s happened over the last three days even the parts Tony himself was there for just in case he can’t remember what occurred or if he remembers something incorrectly. It takes them a decent amount of time to finish going over everything that had happened and by the time they’re done Recovery Girl had come in with breakfast for him and had checked him over deeming him healthy enough to leave the bed and continue working on the numerous projects he had to finish. Him and Nezu took the box of junk his dad had left behind in the headquarters of the strategic homeland intervention enforcement and logistics division (and god do they need to shorten that or scrap it and start anew it’s too long) and brought it to the basement so they could see if his father left anything useful behind for once. They spend several more hours just going through the box sorting everything between things they can use and things that they can’t. For some reason he keeps going back to the model of the first stark expo. He can’t figure out why but something about it is drawing his attention. He shoves it onto the table they’ve been working on pushing aside all the papers that were previously there waving a hand towards Nezu to call him over. They study it together before Nezu suddenly pops up and sets up a 3-D hologram image of the model before them. They slowly turn it around, flipping it upside down and sideways. And then it hits Tony. He zooms it out, and he understands what he’d been looking at this whole time: a new element. He does quick calculations in his head, sharing looks with Nezu the whole time before both of them come to the same conclusion. This is what he’s missing for the arc reactor, this element will be able to safely replace the palladium in his chest if their calculations are correct and they usually are. All that’s left are tests. So that’s what they do. They run test after test verifying that this will work and when they run out of tests to run and it’s passed every one of them they work on switching the cores. One problem done now for the one that’s sure to cause the most issues, and casualties if he’s not careful.
———————————————————-
Their careful preparation led them to this moment. The beginning of the Stark expo millions of people gathered in an area where Tony knows some shits about to go down. The night of course is starting out with Justin Hammer, the biggest idiot running around the weapons circuit if you asked Tony and he thinks you should. Nezu showed him Hammer working with Vanko, as if the US government would hire him after his escapade breaking Vanko out of jail and covering it up with a fake death but Hammer doesn’t know that Nezu knows. Or that he exists and is on Tony’s side exclusively. They also know there’s no way Vanko will let Hammer do a presentation at Stark expo without fucking some shit up trying to ruin Tony but that’s why they have so many contingency plans running right now. Tony’s glad that for once in his life he listened to those around him and all the iron man suits are under lock and key. The last thing he needs is for Vanko or Hammer to have access to one just because he let Rhodey take it to the government as payment for his awful behavior. Everything so far is going according to plan. Hammer announces the drones at the start of his presentation and as soon as Tony shows up as predicted they start deploying their weapons. The order is given to start evacuation of everyone in the expo and there’s chaos as everyone begins rushing toward the exits trying to escape the hail of bullets raining down around them. Oh his way out of the building he sees one of the drones drop down in front of a child wearing an iron man helmet and knows the worst thing is about to happen so Tony detours and drops behind the kid right as he’s raising his hand and blasts the drone flying back up after calling in the lone child through the comms. He flies back up and around leading the drones away from the expo which works for awhile until a small group of them flies away from the others heading back the way they came. He gives the ok for Rhodey to fly out towards the drones currently following him as he loops back to follow the rest toward the expo. He gets an idea soon after that on the easiest way to get rid of a good amount of the drones, which he quickly implements before getting dive bombed by one of the few who didn’t get demolished and hurtling toward the ground. While fending off attacks from said Hammerdroid he notices the way it begins faltering between shots before slumping over completely like a puppet who’s strings were crushed. Then he hears a voice he knows in his comms, and apparently Natashalie is capable of doing something besides corporate espionage because she did just save his life so maybe he considers the slate clean. She compliments him on his vitals, but fails to mention that the other person he needs to tell about his quick game of cat and mouse with death is on the other line. A rather uncomfortable conversation about telling Pepper things later passes by and he is once again sacked by multitudes of Hammerdroids this time with Rhodey following behind blasting them out of the air. They don’t seem to be slowing down any so he pulls out the one-use trick he has in his back pocket to hurry things along. From this point everything happens rather quickly and as expected. Vanko shows up in his own suit there’s a long winded fight where he displays his electric whips again like some kind of lion tamer at the circus Rhodey picks up one of the launchers off the hammerdroids and fires it which does absolutely nothing because once again Hammer is a fucking idiot and all of his weapons are duds. Rhodey and Tony end up blasting their repulses at each other causing a massive explosion that blows Vanko back and then all the droids explode because it wouldn’t be some fucked uo action movie cliche if they hadn’t and at this point fate or some shit is laughing at Tony. And after all the action is over all that’s left are uncomfortable conversations with his loved ones about keeping things from them and a couple slaps to the face from Pepper and Inko. A short briefing from Fury about the super secret boyband again and a report written by Natashalie in an obvious ploy to pander to his self-destructive tendencies and make it easier for future manipulation but they don’t need to know that. Tony supposed he can’t hold a grudge against Natashalie herself because he did promise himself that the slate was wiped clean and she is just an agent following orders, but Fury is fair game and so his ledger runs rivers of red for all the shit Tony’s been put through the last year since Afghanistan. He doesn’t need to be part of the Avengers he has a much better team in his family and the league of heroes following his sons principal. He’s got more manpower than he knows what to do with at this point, but that’s fine it just makes it easier to do his job. He does accept the consultant position though because it is always nice to have someone in the back pocket in case he needs any favors. The tip of the iceberg is getting the upper hand on the one senator that was up his ass the entire trial. What can he say he’s still a petty asshole.