Calm Before The Storm
The next morning Maria was up bright and early and using the gym that Tony had set up in the house when he originally built the house. She was still on east coast time so she had a couple hours to kill before the terror she called her nephew was awake. Once she was done in the gym, showered, and dressed she made herself coffee.
One thing she loved about coming to her brother's house was that he always had the best coffee. With coffee in hand, she made her way onto the deck that overlooked the ocean and sat down on one of the lounge chairs so that she could just enjoy the peaceful view. As much as she loved her job and every thing that she had done, she really missed peaceful moments like this.
She doesn’t know how long she was out there before she heard the door to the house slide open and closed and the pitter patter of feet approach her. She looked to her left and saw Peter approaching. She scooched up the chair and dangled her left leg off the side of the chair. Peter climbed up and settled between his aunt's legs and laid back so his head was resting on her chest. She wrapped one of her arms protectively around him.
“Morning kiddo.”
“Morning aunt Ria.” He said quietly. His voice didn’t sound nearly as bad as it had the day before but she could still hear a slight rasp in it.
“How are you feeling?” She asked as she set her now empty mug down on the table next to them.
“Better.”
She smiled. “Good. So I don’t really feel like cooking this morning, do you want to go out?”
Peter immediately started nodding his head emphatically yes.
With a laugh she said, “Alright, you go get dressed and meet me in your fathers lab.”
He immediately scrambled up and took off back towards the house. Maria just shook her head as she slowly followed. Once she was inside, she put her mug in the sink and made her way to the staircase leading upstairs. “Remember to brush your teeth.” And with that she made her way down to the lab.
Once she was down the stairs she took inventory of the cars. She saw the Saleen, the 32’ Ford, the Cobra, the S8 he had to drive Peter around, the motorcycles, but not her favorite.
“Jarvis, where’s the R8?” She asked as she made her way over to the key box on the wall.
“Sir took the R8 to the airport yesterday.”
Maria stopped stunned. “What? Why? I know Happy had his bags in the Rolls.”
“Sir did not want to leave you with access to it after what happened last time you drove it.”
Maria rolled her eyes. The last time she visited she had ended up taking the R8 on a trip up the coast that may have resulted in a small police chase. She wasn’t caught but Tony was less than thrilled when Jarvis informed him that the police were looking for a car with a description matching his. When she had pulled back into the garage her brother was standing there waiting to yell at her.
Peter came into the garage and noticed the same thing she had. “Where’s the R8?”
Maria opened the lockbox and looked at all the keys. “Your dad took it to the airport so I couldn’t drive it.”
Peter laughed at that. “Is that because you were chased by the cops?”
She turned her head and glared at him. “It wasn’t a police chase.”
“Dad couldn’t drive it for like a whole month.”
She narrowed her eyes at him and he simply smiled back at her. “Fine. go get in the S8.”
Peter ran to the backdoor of the car and climbed in while Maria grabbed the key for it out of the key box.
With that taken care of she hopped in and took off. They went to a small diner up the coast that Maria had found when she had come home for a 2 week leave from her first deployment. Once breakfast was done Maria drove them to a bakery so that they could get a cake for Pepper. With that taken care of, they drove back to the house.
They still had plenty of time to kill before Pepper got there so Maria decided that the two of them should go swimming. Both of them changed into their bathing suits and headed out to the pool. Once they reached the deck, Peter took off running as soon as he saw the pool and jumped in. While she didn’t run, she did jump in. The two swam around for a while and splashed each other plenty. The playing was interrupted when Maria could hear her phone ringing.
Maria quickly got out of the pool and ran over to her phone to answer it but by the time she got to it, she missed the call. She opened her phone and saw it was her brother that had called. She called him back but it just went straight to voicemail. Not thinking anything of it, she left a quick message and jumped back in the pool.
After another hour of playing in the pool, aunt and nephew got out and headed inside to get ready for Pepper.
“Dad never plays in the pool with me for that long.” Peter said from behind his aunt with a towel wrapped around him.
Maria turned her head and smiled at him. “That's because your father is allergic to anything fun that he can’t do in his lab.”
Peter laughed at that as they made their way into the house. “You can’t be allergic to fun aunt Ria.”
“Tell that to your dad.” She said as soon as she shut the door she realized that she forgot her phone outside. “Shi..oot. Pete, can you run and get my phone?”
“What's in it for me?” Peter asked with a sly smile.
Maria turned and gave her nephew an incredulous look. “Really? A six year old is trying to extort me.”
Peter just shrugged. “Never do a job for free.”
“You spend way too much time with your father.” Shaking her head at her nephew's antics. “We still have about a week together. We can either go out and have a lot of fun or we stay here and I start having you do chores.” She threatened.
Peter was wide eyed. “Be right back.” He said as he ran out of the house.
As soon as he was out the door the front door opened and Pepper came into the house.
“You weren’t supposed to be here for at….,” She began before she noticed the dismayed and tearful look on Pepper's face, “What's wrong?”
“Tony’s convoy was attacked about an hour ago.” She said as tears began to fall. “They…they don’t know where he is.”
Maria felt her heart rate rise and her breathing get difficult. “What do you mean they don’t know where he is? How did they lose my brother?” She felt tears threatening to start coming.
“Aunt Ria?” A quiet voice from behind her sounded.
She spun around and saw her nephew staring wide eyed. “Where’s dad?”