Helana finally gets her flying car
The four years leading towards her death are great. Tony takes over the position of head of R&D and manages to make himself a mini cult within the department when he guts the place so JARVIS can move in. He’s still in their house but he’s moved out of the servers in sub-basements three and four and into the Stark Industries servers, FRIDAY had moved into the house servers and took great pleasure in helping the bots sneak up on her.
Tony had also eaten up a section of the Stark labs to focus on making commercial computers and phones which the board loved even though Stane had tried to throw a fit. She’s so proud of him and she makes sure he knows it at every opportunity.
FRIDAY grows faster than she did before since she had JARVIS to teach her, she also grows bigger since Tony doesn’t essentially shackle her like he did after ULTRON.
She meets Hope one day and the teen was a sweetheart but vicious, if she wasn’t completely in the camp of being there for Tony and Pepper’s wedding she might have teamed up with Hank to set her up with Tony.
Peggy continues to be a pain in her ass, finally asking her to create the super soldier serum then bugging her constantly to ask if it was done. She doesn’t even have to stall in making it because the constant interruptions drag the process out. But it’s done and right on time too.
“What are you getting ready for?” Tony asks as he pokes his head in. She looks over and smiles as she puts her emerald earrings in. The invite to the Shield-funded gala had been bathed in green, as had the secret message about the drop. If she was going to die today due to Time’s bullshit mixed timeline points then she was going to let the stupid pebble know that it was their fault. Which was why she was squeezed into this tight emerald green dress.
“I’ve been invited to a gala by our lovely secret agent friends that you don’t openly know about.” She tells him as she cups his cheeks. “And you are going to sleep early because you have your first solo board meeting tomorrow. We mustn’t let them think that they can out shark us, can we dragă?”
He blinks at her before his brow furrows. “FRIDAY, what day is it?”
“December 16th 1991, Tată.” FRIDAY says happily.
Tony locks up and his breathing becomes short. “Hey, breathe for me, Antony.” She says as she grabs his hand and places it on her chest like she did when he was a child. “That’s it, draga, deep breathes.”
“Did I do something wrong?” FRIDAY asks weakly.
“No. I… you didn’t do anything baby-girl.” Tony promises when his breathing steadies. “I just forgot something really important. Can you… can you wait here for a moment, Mamă. I made you something, I just need to get it.”
“Of course.” She tells him, fuck the time stone, if Tony asked her to stay here forever she would.
“Are you sure I didn’t do anything wrong?” FRIDAY asks quietly.
“I’m sure, sweetling.” She promises.
“Here.” Tony says as he comes back, handing her a set of car keys. “I made you a car, I was going to give it to you for your birthday but I forgot.”
“You didn’t have too.” She tells him with a smile but he shakes his head.
“I did.” He insists.
“Okay, if you had to. What are the specs?”
The car was a sleek, black F40 body that had been completely gutted and refitted. The body had been re-enforced with a titanium-Vibranium layer, the windows had been replaced with diamond, and the entire engine had been replaced with a mini ark reactor. She’s so proud. JARVIS is deeply embedded which is what she expected and it can fly, of course it can fly. She adores her baby boy so much.
She smiles at Tony and promises to tell him about how it drove when she returns, beaming at the bots as they all run over her toes to say goodnight.
“Ready for an adventure, JARVIS.” She asks as she pats the wheel. She’d done everything she could to give Tony the best chance at surviving this, she just hoped it was enough.
“I hope there will be very little adventuring, bunica. Whenever you adventure father calls you suicidal.” JARVIS snipes making her laugh. She adores her family.
“I don’t know, JARVIS, I kind of feel bad.” A bullet bounces off the front windshield as the Winter soldier stands there, clearly completely insulted at her words.
He’d started by trying to shoot out Helana’s tires but Tony had made them out of a material she’d be asking him about later so they didn’t pop, Helana had almost faked it to keep with the timeline but then she’d decided to play a little. Who says she can’t get a few laughs before she died? When that didn’t work James drove up to the driver’s side window and tried to shoot it out, nothing. Then he’d driven in front of Helana and stopped to try and shoot out the windshield.
Helana had felt very bad at this point and slowed to a stop so she didn’t run him over. Now they were just sitting here, Helana touching up her makeup and conversing with JARVIS while the Winter Soldier slowly realised that he wasn’t getting into the car unless Helana let her.
“Feeling bad isn’t a reason to get shot, bunica.” JARVIS sighs like the fact that he actually had to say that was upsetting in itself.
“It’s fine JARVIS, he just wants the super soldier serum.” She promises before looking up to address James, he’s at the driver’s side window staring at her with his head tilted. He stabs the window but it doesn’t even scratch. “Would you like me to pop the trunk?” She recognises the mask he’s wearing but can’t remember from where, it should be from when he attacked Tony but the flickering memory feels older.
Maybe she doesn’t have to die, maybe Hydra just needs to get their hands on the serums. The Winter Soldier continues to stare at her as she presses the button to open the trunk. “Bunica.” JARVIS sighs more heavily. “Why are you letting the assassin who’s trying to kill you have six packets of super soldier serum?”
“Oh, I’m not. I just don’t want to chip my nails.” She hums casually before getting out of the car, she closes the cap to her lipstick before pointing it at him and triggering the taser. He drops like a rock. She then shuts her trunk and drags him into the back seat.
“Bunica, no.” JARVIS sighs.
“Well how else am I going to get him back?”
“You shouldn’t even be taking him back.”
“So you just want me to leaving the deadly assassin on the side of the road?” She finally finishes fighting James’ feet and slams the back door closed before getting back into her seat.
“At least stuff him in the trunk.” JARVIS complains.
“With the super soldier serum? That’s just asking for trouble."