Tony Stark is always up to something. Always in that lab of his, chipping away at whatever project he’s gotten his attention stuck to lately just to spite S.H.I.E.L.D.’s disapproval. It’s no secret—the team is actually more worried if he doesn’t make an appearance covered in a comical amount of soot at least once a day.
More often than not, you’ll know he’s either succeeded or failed when something explodes and shakes the Tower. The hard part is just deciphering whether it was a good boom or a bad one. Nat and Wanda started placing bets last week every time an explosion went off. They’ve been surprisingly accurate. You’re pretty sure Wanda is reading Tony’s mind from a few floors away and Nat is getting insider information from Bruce, and the only reason they’re still going is that neither has caught on to the other’s gambit yet.
Since Thursday, though, the bursts of ruckus have been fewer and farther between. It’s good for sleep. Bad for suspicion. All it really means is that Tony’s working on something he already understands. That, maybe, he’s gotten bored of needing three showers a day, and he’s turned back to busy work until the pieces of his bigger puzzle click together on their own.
That dramatic bitch won’t tell anyone what it is, though.
That’s why you had to find out from a fifteen-year-old. Twenty-eight fifteen-year-olds, actually.
It was a standard field trip at first. It always starts that way. You’d been minding your own, keeping tabs on the group at a distance in civilian disguise—or maybe out of hero disguise?—as they worked their way through the Tower’s levels. They’d cleared the lobby, the chem labs, the intern labs, and the (fake) residential floors and all their tacky Avengers-themed “decoration.” Hell, they’d even made it through the guest demo floors without losing any kids. Or kids’ fingers.
The central lab held…the problem. There’s no other way to put it. It’s important, however, to note that the lab wasn’t the problem. It was basically operating at standard functionality, staffed by labcoats milling around polished tile floors. Then, Tony decided he was bored, and when Tony’s bored, odds are that everyone else is about to be very busy.
You didn’t see it happen—just heard the shouting and the cheering. And, of course, the sputtering explosion that followed. And the smell of Axe body spray lingering in the hallway. A lot of Axe.
By the time the teachers managed to wrangle the students back into order to leave, you’d gathered a few parts of the story. One: it was an Iron Man suit. Two: it
wasn’t Iron Man’s suit.
You’d thought oh. Rhodes must be here. But your text only got a shrugging emoji in response, and a selfie in front of a military base across the country.
It was definitely Tony. Anyone else pulling a stunt like that on a public floor would’ve sent the Tower into full lockdown. It was definitely Tony, and it was definitely only a matter of time before he got too tipsy or too excited to keep his mouth shut about whatever he was up to.
It took four days—and in the end, it was excitement, not wine.
You’ve been in the lab plenty of times, often at someone else’s insistence that you try to drag Tony away from his work so as to spare poor Pepper a headache. It’s definitely…a man’s garage. Couldn’t be much further from the pristine pictures they manage to get for TIME and People. Liars.
Really, it’s more of a cave, which is bizarre considering that it’s a pretty high floor in a pretty tall building. If you had to guess based only on the mess you walked into now, you’d say window tint must’ve been one of his main concerns during the Tower’s construction. It reeks of gas, and the remains of Pepper’s last few desperate attempts to drown the place in Febreeze
It’s still pretty cool, though. This is, like, the lab, at the end of the day—different marks of the Iron Man suit line the far wall behind glass panels like exhibits in Tony’s own vaguely narcissistic museum of technological victory. Then there’s the cars sitting on showroom panels around the room. Not sure how he even got them in here. Not sure why. Not sure it’s worth asking.
Your main concern at the moment is that nobody sent you here. No, Tony called you here himself. Here, to bask in the taste of gasoline in the air and the rattle of Metallica coming from the overhead speakers.
“Stark?” you shout, leaning around a stack of scrap piled high on a workbench.
He’s on a table. Of course. Why not? Whatever.
Tony turns away from the pictures he’s hanging on the wall—some old movie poster—and puts his hands on his hips. “Look who finally checked their texts.”
“You didn’t…text me.”
“Correct.” He hops down from the table. “FRIDAY is much more efficient. But you should check your texts.”
“Look who’s talking,” you mutter as you follow him closer to the middle of the lab. DUM-E swivels and beeps once you step onto the metallic platform after Tony. The old robot’s more like a friendly, pokey dog—the lab would feel empty without the sound of his grinding gears.
“Y’know, I’ve been bored, lately,” Tony says, walking around a stainless steel bench and picking up a wrench to fiddle with. Boredom is…usually the case, unless he’s driving fast or saving the world. “Couldn’t find any new projects I wanted to throw money at.”
It always starts with a rant, like this one. Then, an evil robot ends up gaining sentience and trying to destroy the entire world.
“Something tells me you found something to throw money at, though,” you guess. He always does.
“Wow.” Tony tosses the wrench back down on the table with a clang. “Some detective you are.”
“Why’d you need me here? Legal witness?”
“Multipurpose.”
“Tony.” You shoot him a narrow-eyed look. “This has something to do with the demo on the public floor the other day, doesn’t it?”
“No. Yes. Maybe.” His brows pinch together. “You know about that?”
“Word travels fast here. Usually because of you.”
“Email isn’t exactly the Avengers’ strong suit,” he says, sounding almost defeated. As if he’d ever know what was going on outside his cave without Pepper.
Tony claps his hands suddenly and solidly enough that you jump at the crack of sound that splits the air as you perch on the edge of a bench. A few more overhead lights flicker on. He turns as dramatically as he does everything else, with his arms held out by his sides.
“Speaking of strong suits,” he says. “Since you’re not complaining—any more than usual, at least—or crying…” He waits. Something pops in one of the corners. Then his face drops and he tells you: “Stand up.”
“What?”
“You can’t sit down for the big reveal,” Tony argues, jerking his chin at you. “C’mon. Up.”
Reluctantly, you oblige. Happy would’ve given you a heads-up if it was that crazy, right?
“...okay,” you murmur, and hold up your hands. “Tell me if anything’s gonna blow up.”
“Relax. Nothing—”
The pop on the other side of the room erupts into a bang, and a little heap of flames with an equally little plume of smoke. A fire suppressant deploys on the opposite side of the room.
“It’s fine,” Tony says. “Ignore that.”
“It just—”
“Ignore it,” he snaps. “Not important. FRIDAY!”
Another fire suppressor deploys on the other other side of the room. Nothing from Tony. At this point, this is too regular an occurrence to surprise you, either.
“Run files on suit six, mark five!” Tony shouts. Bluish holographs flicker to life all around the platform.
He complains about Fury’s screens on the helicarriers, but this whole setup looks like a Tetris game designed to kill an epileptic. A few windows even pop up in front of you, but drift away when you sweep your hand through the hazy displays. It’s not until they come into complete focus that you can make out the images moving on each one:
Some are blueprints. Pieces of armor not quite like the Iron Man suit. They pull apart and reassemble in repeated motions. Others are videos—demos. Tony in the lab, testing different parts. Color palettes aligned with images of everyone on the team.
You step closer to the middle of the platform, turning a circle while Tony watches on, grinning.
“Tony,” you say. “What the hell have you been working on?”
He folds his arm over his chest, covering the AC/DC tour logo on the front of his pockmarked shirt. Shrugs.
“Suit of armor around the world didn’t work out the way we thought it would,” he provides.
Maybe it didn’t work out the way he thought it would. Steve can barely send a text, and even he knew Ultron was a bad idea. But this—this isn’t Ultron. This is all Tony. All the Avengers.
“I figured…” Tony reaches up and pulls a specific window forward. From the back, it’s blurred and blue. “...maybe a suit of armor around the protectors of the world could be a step in a better direction.”
With a fluid motion, he turns the panel around. It’s another palette and a sketch page of your regular mission suit. The colors line up. The design translates. When he brings over another window, it’s like someone hit your mission suit with an Iron Man-ification beam. His ego shows in the design, but still—it’s pretty badass.
“You’re making these…for everyone?” You draw the panels closer, poring over the images.
“Everyone I think I can convince.”
“Everyone except Steve, you mean?”
“Mm.”
“Tony.”
He turns around to pick through another few screens.
You bite back a laugh. “You’re gonna kill him, man.”
“He survived Hamilton with drunk Natasha and a prayer. He’ll be fine.”
It’s not a bad argument.
“I just…” You shake your head. “Wow.”
“It makes sense, right?” Tony asks, zeroed in on your reaction. He wants one answer. He’ll accept one answer. Thankfully, the logic is there.
“I guess. I mean, it’s a lot of work, right?”
He shrugs. “Precedent’s there. I’ve got the tech.” His eyes dart to one of the metal cabinets on the far side of the room. A fire suppression tube deploys right onto the doors. Tony frowns, but adds: “And the prototypes.”
You straighten up. “Hold on.”
“Nope.” Tony starts across the room. By now, the smell of ammonia from the extinguishers is enough to burn the inside of your nose. Is there any ventilation in this workshop? “FRIDAY,” he barks. “Cut the suppression system.”
“Boss, the fire—”
“The fire—the fire’s in the corner. It’s fine.” Tony waves a hand. “Cut the system.”
Quiet crashes back in as the hissing tubes go still. The fire crackles on. Ammonia and burning rubber. Awesome. This guy’s with Pepper?
When Tony finally wrenches the foamy cabinet open, the same metal pieces from the blueprints come tumbling, clattering, out.
“Alright.” He pats off some extinguishing foam onto his pants. “Let’s do this.”
“...build…the suit?”
“No. The thing.”
“The thing.”
Tony nods. “The thing. The suit thing.”
You just stare as he treks back across the platform. He catches your skeptical gaze, sighs, and rolls his shoulders back.
“Don’t get hit,” he warns, then raises a hand.
Oh. That thing.
He definitely planned this. Scattered the pieces of whatever mark his own suit is on around the lab. To reiterate: dramatic bitch.
Hydraulics whirl, and one by one, red and gold chunks of metal dart in his direction like streaks of color under the crummy fluorescent lights. It seems like they slam into place, but he doesn’t move. Not until the suit’s worked its way up from the boots to the gauntlets to the chestpiece glowing around the arc reactor underneath.
“See?” He lowers his hand and steps out of his stupid magazine photoshoot pose. The headpiece builds itself around the back of his head first. Then he turns his head, and the faceplace lands perfectly in place. The suit’s blue eyes flare to life. “This thing,” he says, voice augmented through hidden speakers.
You’ve seen enough old videos of his thing going wrong—pieces moving at the wrong times, in the wrong places. Systems failing. Systems kicking in when they shouldn’t. Armor plates hitting…things. Plus, the rest of the team keeps ice packs in the kitchen freezer. When you’re already dodging chores to be here, the last thing you need is a walk of shame to grab one of those.
“FRIDAY,” Tony says. “Go.”
“Whoa. Tony.”
He steps back. “Get read-y.”
Luckily, the prototype seems a lot less flashy and complicated than the actual Iron Man suit. Of course. Tony can’t have anyone stealing his thunder, now, can he?
The pieces come together slowly, meticulously clicking into place with one another in midair before approaching. It goes the same way—working from the clunky boots that clamp over your calves with enough force to push you off your balance. The rest of them build over your shoes. The rest of the legs—uneventful, pinchy—build into the chestpiece. It’s surprisingly weightless, perfect-fitting.
The shoulder plates might leave some bruising, slamming against your arms like the rest of the armor as it works its way down to your hands. Then come the gauntlets. They’re meticulous, little pieces at first, effortlessly tracking and finding the back of your hand to latch on and unfurl the rest of their mechanics.
“This is so—” Something hits your back, pushing you forward, muting the rest of the workshop. The helmet. “Tony.”
Weird. You were going to say weird. This is so weird. This is also so not how you’d expected your day to go.
The faceplate’s the only thing left. You step aside, and the suit whirs as it moves effortlessly with your body.
“If this thing gives me a black eye—”
Tony’s hand shoots out to grab the last metal piece as it darts towards you. He moves fast—faster than any man-covered-in-machine should be able to move. He turns the faceplate between his metallic fingers, then holds it out to you like an offering. He’s eerily quiet. Focused.
“...thanks.”
It clicks into place quietly. Seamlessly. The world drowns in silence. The workshop flickers back into view behind a filtered camera feed—not just what you’re seeing, but what the cameras around the rest of the suit are picking up on, too. Other angles live in little windows at the edges of your view. Angles and readings of temperature and pressure and a little alert about the fire still burning in the corner of the room.
The rest is all you. Your vitals, your ammunition, your eyes. Lists of systems designed to enhance your powers and streamline your movement.
Tony has got to have ADHD.
“Holy shit.” You turn your hands over, tracing the design etched into the bare metal. “Tony, this is crazy.” Crazy and still weird. That second part probably won’t change. “It’s awesome. Steve’s gonna have an aneurysm.”
“It’s great. I’m great. I know.” The system highlights Tony when you turn to look at him. A display appears beside him in a square, listing information like a wiki page. “FRIDAY. Roll cameras.”
“Rolling, boss.”
“You didn’t want that first part?” you ask.
“Not flashy enough,” Tony replies. At least he’s honest. “Maybe next time.”
“Oh.”
A little red dot blooms in the top corner of your viewfield. REC.
“I’m recording?”
Tony steps closer. “You’re the one doing the test.”
“I’m not. I’m not testing.” You shake your head. A whir. “I have patrol later, I gotta—”
“New York isn’t going anywhere.”
“I mean, it might try.”
“Look, Debbie Downer,” he says. “Give me five minutes. This is quick. Then you can go skipping around Times Square all you want.”
Okay. New York probably won’t go anywhere. Also. Rude. Also. The only reason you ever go to Times Square on patrol is when you have no other choice. Sometimes the naked cowboys pick fights with tourists that they can’t quite win.
“Like this.” Tony steps up to the middle of the platform and holds up an arm. The repulsor on the palm of his hand flares, but doesn’t fire.
You step up beside him, mirroring the movement. It’s the same damn one he does every time he’s trying to look cool—overmeasured, too calculated to really be efficient. This guy runs on instinct. An instinct you definitely don’t have in a suit like this.
As soon as you raise your hand, light flares down the arm of the suit. A blinking light flickers in the bottom corner of your viewfield, and you lower your arm back down.
“See?” Tony gets as close to shrugging as one can in a mech suit. “Piece of cake.”
“Maybe if I feel like greeting someone by blowing them up.”
“You didn’t blow anything up that time,” he says. “You’re too tense.”
“Tony, I’m wearing a million-dollar death suit,” you shoot back. “So yeah, I’m a little tense. I thought you were gonna ask me to grab you a coffee or something.”
He scoffs. “That suit is not worth a million dollars.”
“Fine. A hundred-thousand-dollar death suit.”
“Oh.” Then he kind of just stares at you. “Yeah. I definitely meant it’s less than that.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” He shakes his head. “Run through that motion again.”
“It’s gonna—”
“No,” he says, “it’s not. If I wanted to argue I would’ve called Pep. Just do it.”
“If this room gets a new window, it’s on you,” you warn.
“Natural light is great,” Tony replies drily. “Now do the thing.”
You sigh, but raise your arm again. The light builds. Builds. But your hand stops shaking after a moment, relaxing just when you’d dropped it back down to your side before. The light dies out. At the opening of your palm, the splaying of your fingers, it flares up again.
“All that whining, for what?” Tony taunts. “You almost made it look not-quite half as easy as I do.”
“Flattering.”
“Alright. FRIDAY, mark that one off as Repulsor Test One,” he calls out. The video file appears on the side of your display—your own perspective and Tony’s, side-by-side—before sliding out of view. “Roll for Weapons Test One.”
The REC symbol reappears, and Tony wanders to the other side of the platform. Panels lift and ripple along the panels of his own armor in fluid motion. Something you’re not gonna be able to do.
“You couldn’t test this yourself?” you ask him.
“When you figure out how to make metal one-size-fits-all, let me know.”
“Whatever,” you mumble. “How do I do this one?”
Tony turns back around. “God, I should’ve just asked Nat.”
“C’mon, man.” You groan. “I’m finally invested.”
“I know.” He holds up a hand. “I know. Look.”
This pose might be stupider than the last—probably why he doesn’t flash it for the cameras. That, and showing off about a dozen built-in missiles isn’t exactly in line with most workplace safety regulations. That’s the gritty part of the job. The real part. The guns and the fighting and the sleepless nights. As a concept, it’s intimidating. In practice, it looks more like the beginnings of a drunk chicken dance.
He basically just flexes his wrist and moves his arm to the side. An awkward angle. The lights move awkwardly in the polished reflection.
“Okay—”
Tony’s eyes widen. “Wait—”
Too late. You already did the thing. The panels running down your arms lift, but start to spew out sparks. The sound crackles through the audio feed in the helmet like a TV tuned to an off-air channel.
Tony shouts something over the squealing. Just as quickly as it started, it stops. The armor over your arms detaches completely, and the helmet faceplate lifts. Tony’s is lifted, too, and he’s staring at you like he’s trying to kill you with his brain, angry goatee and pinched brows on full display.
You hold up your arms. “You said do the thing!”
“No, I showed you the thing,” he snaps back. “I didn’t say go yet. There’s blanks in there.”
“You didn’t tell me that.”
Tony rolls his eyes. “FRIDAY. Cut cameras. Scrap that second one.”
“You cannot put this on me, Stark.”
“I actually can. In fact, I just did. I currently am.” His voice shifts back to normal as the rest of the front of his suit opens up, and he steps out and down.
“Hold on.” You glance between him and the suit. “You have inserts in your boots.”
Tony waves a dismissive hand. “Sentry mode.”
The suit closes back up and starts to walk away, but not before you’ve caught the difference.
“Your suit makes you taller,” you point out, looking down. Yours definitely doesn’t. “Oh, my God.”
“You look ridiculous,” Tony says. “You’re standing here in half a suit, you set the place on fire—”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Yuh-uh.” He nods at you. Slow. Condescending. Typical. “Get that thing off and go grab Clint for me.”
“Clint?”
“Would you prefer I try to get Thor to do this?”
You turn to follow after him when he starts toward a row of cluttered workbenches. Now the smell of sulfur and smoke hangs around the platform. The fire in the corner is still burning away. In fact, it’s spread to the next pile of junk next to the original source.
“FRIDAY,” Tony yells again. “Kill the files.”
Like it hadn’t been there at all, the rest of the armor crumbles off of you, clattering back into a heap on the ground. The remaining holographic screens vanish. Tony pats you on the shoulder.
“Time for that patrol you were so excited for. Right?”
There’s no use in arguing after he gives you that smug look, so you sigh, and pick your way back out of the lab.