Dawn of New Change

PREVIOUSLY ON: Dawn of New Change

Slowly the pieces of the Mandarin attacks are starting to make sense. Taeyong tries his best to talk to Haechan, even if the kid only ever wants to talk about New York. Pepper finds out that Maya’s working for Aldrich, who she suspected works indirectly for the Mandarin. Tony almost gets blown up fighting to obtain a file Chad Davis’s mother hands him.

This Mandarin stuff is really starting to annoy everyone. 

Taeyong and Tony were still riding in the car, heading their way to Miami whilst also looking through different news outlets. Okay, so it was Taeyong that was looking through different news outlets whilst his father was still reading up on the files he had taken from Mr Davies’ mother at the bar. “Got anything?” Taeyong asked, his feet pressed on the passenger seat as he tucked his body into a small little bean shape.

He had found the man’s phone in the little cup holder and was watching a live broadcasting of the news surrounding New York. That was until another threatening Mandarin message took over the screen. Taeyong was really getting tired of the threatening messages that seemed too vague.

This time though, there was some real damage to be done. Tony and Taeyong were quiet as they watched the Mandarin shoot Thomas Richards, an accountant for the Roxxon Oil Corporation. Taeyong turned the video off after that and went to type Mrs Seo’s number on screen. He waited and watched his dad rifle through the different files provided by Mrs Davies.

“Hello?”

“Mrs Seo?” Taeyong answered cheerfully-”

“Oh my god! Taeyong?! Are you alright? Where are you? The news-”

“Yeah, yeah, can you give the phone to Johnny?” he asked.

“To…?”

“Johnny please,” Taeyong smiled, even if she couldn’t see it. There was some muffling over the phone and Taeyong looked back at his dad’s files whilst he waited patiently. “AIM, like that Killian guys right?” he asked, pointing to the letters written in marker at the top of one of the papers.

“No it’s-” Tony turned the paper around. “Sonofa-”

“Yo! Taeyong- how’s it?”

“Chill,” Taeyong answered easily. “On my way to Miami, we’re gonna find out where the Mandarin is first.”

“We? You with your dad right now?”

“Pretty much, stole some guys car- almost got kidnapped- met this kid called Harley or Haechan, whichever name suits your taste.”

“That- that is a lot to tell when you get back.”

Taeyong grinned, “of course, of course. Hey, have you seen anymore updates about the thing?”

“You mean the bombings and new mayor? Wilson Fisk?”

“Bombings? Is that the Mandarin-”

“Not a Mandarin attack, at least I think if it were they’d want everyone to know about it yeah? But like, these were in factories, there’s been so much stuff that’s not appearing in the news. Anyway, that Fisk guy? He’s doing some charity event thing.”

Taeyong hummed, shuffling in his seat so he was facing his dad. “I guess that’s good news. Try find our more stuff about Ben Urich, I’m sure he’d write an article on something. Gotta go though, talk later?”

“Course. Don’t keep me in the dark.”

Taeyong felt a smile pull at his lips, “wouldn’t dream of it.” Once the call ended, he let the phone fall back into the cup holder and his dad turned to face him too. The car was one of those automatic vehicles, very nice.

“Johnny?”

“Yep,” Taeyong grinned.

“Who’s Ben Urich?”

“He’s a reporter for the New York Bulletin, his old work is pretty cool. He took down some of New York’s oldest crime rings and now he’s reporting on this new vigilante in the city. Mostly Hell’s Kitchen though,” Taeyong explained.

Tony squinted his eyes, “okay then. We focus on this first and then I’ll have a conversation about this weird newspaper obsession you have.”

“It’s not weird,” Taeyong snorted.

“Sure.”

“Well… is it going to be a good conversation or a bad one?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On your answers.”

Taeyong frowned, “I don’t understand you sometimes!”

Tony simply extended his hand, ruffling the younger boy's hair whilst he connected a call in for Rhodey. “Right now, we need a way to access the footage in these files.” Taeyong looked at the number and smirked, waiting for the inevitable voice of his godfather.

“Uh… Hello?”

“You ever had a chuck straddling you and you look up and suddenly she’s glowing from the inside out? Kind of a bright orange?”

Taeyong’s face screwed into a pinched expression whilst Rhodey answered, his voice betraying just how incredibly confused he was. “Yeah I’ve had that. Who is this?”

“Uncle Rhodey!” Taeyong greeted, voice beaming with happiness.

“Taeyong, how are you?”

“Not dead,” he nodded quickly.

“That’s good to hear. And Tony?”

“It’s me pal,” Tony answered. “Now, last time I went missing, if I remember correctly, you came looking for me. What are you doing?”

“A little knock-and-talk, making friends in Pakistan. What are you doing?”

“We’re going to take down the Mandarin,” Taeyong happily answered. “And possibly AIM too.”

“AIM?”

“Yeah,” Tony sighed, “I’m gonna find a heavy-duty comm sat right now, but I need your login.”

“It’s the same as it’s always been, ‘WarMachine68’-”

“Password please,” Tony hummed.

“Well, look, I gotta change it every time you hack in Tony-”

“It’s not the eighties, nobody calls it ‘hack’ anymore. Give me your login.”

“WARMACHINEROX with an ‘x’... all caps.”

Tony and Taeyong both looked at each other before bursting into laughter.

“Yeah okay,” they both hear from the man.

“That’s so much better than ‘Iron Patriot’,” Tony sighed, taking control of the car again.

“Bye Uncle Rhodes, thanks for the help!” Taeyong shouted before ending the call.

Taeyong fell back into his seat and sighed whilst watching the scenery blur past him as his dad continued to drive. He sat up straighter when they eventually made it to some sort of news scape. There were News vans parked everywhere with people running around getting different takes and talking over each other.

Once they parked a few spots away, both Starks left to find a van that seemed unoccupied. Taeyong slipped easily under people and ducked whenever there seemed to be cables stringing from different antennas. “Here?” he asked, pointing to a van and opening the back door when he saw that no one else was walking by.

Tony patted his back, hoisting the boy into the van and climbing in after. They immediately set to the computer with Tony starting to type in the keyboard before they both waited at the loading sign.

Taeyong sighed, “bad connection…”

“Yeah, I think I saw an ISDN on the roof?” he looked back at Taeyong who smirked.

“I can recalibrate it upto 50%?”

“40 will be enough.” Tony patted Taeyong’s shoulder, who stood up in the small van space and was about to head back to the door when he froze. Face to face with someone that looked like a cable guy. “Um… dad?” he called.

“You- you’re Tae Young Lee-Stark.”

“You don’t pronounce the ‘L’,” Taeyong whispered, not really knowing what to do.

“Hey,” Tony said, quickly spinning out of the chair and becoming the guy inside. “Is this your van?”

“Ye-yeah.”

“Great. I need to know if anyone else is coming…?”

“Gary!”

Taeyong squinted, looking at Gary and then back at his dad. “He- he has the same cut as you?”

“I do,” Gary gushed, taking off his hat and running his fingers through his hair. Taeyong took a step back, hiding his body behind his dads as he continued to watch Gary talk about how he had shaved his goatee. That he had a doll of his dad he moulded himself and that- “bam!” Taeyong inched closer, looking down at Gary’s forearm.

“That’s my dad?”

“Right-o Tae Young,” he grinned.

“It’s Yong,” he smiled politely, going to stand behind his dad again.

“Look Gary,” Tony said, stepping forward and grabbing the man’s shoulder. “I’m on a mission right now. I need your help. I need you to recalibrate the ISDN on your rooftop. Pump it to 40% okay? Tony needs Gary.”

Gary practically had stars in his eyes, “and Gary needs-”

“To go to the roof,” Taeyong supplied, pointing at the van's ceiling. Gary nodded quickly before leaving his van. Taeyong looked back at his dad who sighed and shrugged, before going back to the computer. “That happen a lot?” he asked.

“Yeah, well Iron Man’s got to have fans.”

Taeyong nodded, feeling a pit in stomach. “I didn’t know people knew me.”

“No?” Tony said, turning to face his son.

“Well, I mean they did but not like Gary.”

“Yeah, he’s a bit over the top, but they’re not all like that-” They both flinched when a couple taps were heard from above. Tony knocked against the side of the van before he accessed the computer again and used Rhodey’s login to finally see what AIM had been up to.

Taeyong brushed off Gary and turned back to the screen, looking at the all files uploaded. There were different videos of a small grey room that reminded Taeyong of interrogation rooms. He gasped when he recognised the faces of a few of the people being interviewed, ex-soldiers of war who were disabled in some way. All who fought for America and came back to a country they didn’t recognise.

“That’s the lady who hurt you right?” Taeyong said, looking at the lady on screen who had an amputated arm.

There were more videos with Aldrich Killian speaking and these soldiers being strapped onto some metal plate before being injected with some sort of experimental drug. There were words thrown around, Taeyong remembered ‘Project Extremis’ but didn’t get much else.

They continued to watch as the subjects burnt themselves and the lab that they were being experimented on. “A bombs not a bomb when it’s a missfire,” Tony said. “Sold it to the Mandarin.”

“Killian did?” Taeyong asked.

“Yes.”

***

Taeyong was back in the car with his dad connecting a call back to Haechan. They waited for it to connect, whilst still driving to Miami, getting closer to home is what Taeyong thought. Haechan was in the middle of eating something, “fourth bowl of candy,” he munched, voice muffled through the phone.

Taeyong winced, “can you even see straight?”

“...sort of.”

“Works for me,” Tony said. “Hand the phone to Jarvis. How are we?”

“It’s totally fine, Sir. I seem to do quite well for a stretch and then at the end of a sentence I say the wrong cranberry.”

Taeyong furrowed his brow “word?”

“Yes, sushi. And Sir you were right. Once I factored in available AM downlink facilities, I was able to pinpoint the Mandarin’s broadcast curtains.”

Tony nodded, “what are we talking? Far East, Europe, North Africa, Iran, Pakistan, Syria? Where is it?”

Taeyong snorted, “probably in America with your stereotypes.”

“Actually Sir, it’s in Miami.”

“Aha!” Taeyong cheered.

Tony rolled his eyes, “Okay. Haechan? I’m gonna have to walk you through rebooting Jarvis’ speech drive. But not right now, Haechan, where is he really? Just look at the screen and tell me where it is?”

“Um… it does say Miami, Florida.”

“Aha again!” Taeyong cheered.

“Okay first things first, I need the armour. Where are we with that?”

“Uh… he’s not charging.”

“What-” Taeyong lurched forwards in his seat as Tony swerved the car and braked harshly. Taeyong, lucky that he was wearing his seatbelt, scowled in his father’s direction.

“Actually Sir,” came Jarvis’ voice. “It is charging, but the power source is questionable. It may not succeed in revitalising the Mark 24.”

“Oh okay,” Taeyong said, looking back at his dad and frowning. “Dad?” He quickly undid his seatbelt when Tony scrambled out the car, falling onto the ground and panting harshly. Taeyong crawled over his seat and then his father’s before falling into a heap beside his dad, watching concerningly as his breathing remained irregular and loud. “Dad?” he whispered, wrapping his arms around Tony and resting his head against the man’s shoulder. “You alright?” he asked.

Tony took a few minutes to fully calm down before his head fell back against Taeyong’s and they both sat there on the ground. “I’m good,” he answered after a minute of silence.

Taeyong nodded, “we need a list.”

“A list?”

“Um hmm, like a to do list. Find Mandarin. Find a way inside, then kill the Mandarin,” Taeyong shrugged.

“Yeah okay,” Tony nodded, before getting up. “Let’s go make some things.”

“Uh… are you guys alright?”

“We’re good,” Taeyong said, crawling back into his seat. He gave his dad a confident smile and they set off. Haechan gave them an exact location and with a quick stop to an appliance store, gathered some materials to make some temporary weapons. Taeyong was stuck in the motel whilst his dad went to bring down the Mandarin.

He was under strict instructions to make sure that Mark 24 and Jarvis were okay and at some point to call Pepper and saw how she was holding up. Taeyong waited 20 minutes for his dad to leave and then called an Uber to get to the Mandarin’s house.

He gave the driver a hefty tip and left for the insanely big house. Taeyong couldn’t exactly walk through the front gate, so he went round the sides and used the overgrown hedges to climb up the side of the wall guarded around the building and fell inside. He groaned, feeling his knees ache but eventually got up and ran towards the front of the building. There were guards littered around the place and different sort of ways they had been knocked out.

Taeyong recognised the body in the fountain had been blown with the small explosive bottles they made. He walked through the house and scrunched his nose at the smell of the building. He walked past practically naked women and was extra careful about side rooms with men inside, who seemed busy playing a card game.

There was something about the smell though.

It was definitely horrendous, like the air was off and sour. Taeyong still found himself breathing in large lungfuls of air, opening his mouth and letting the stale air rush through his windpipe. He felt a jolt run through his spine, an almost pleasant feeling. There was just something familiar about the smell, something that felt just right. He didn’t know what, he didn’t even know what the smell was for starters.

When he walked past the camera set up, the stages and props, finally into some sort of bedroom the smell was even pungent. “Hey dad,” Taeyong smiled, walking over to Tony who seemed shocked and angry at his presence.

“Taeyong- what are you doing here?!”

“We should have that conversation later. Do you smell that?”

“What?”

“That smell,” Taeyong sighed, rubbing his hair and then shrugged. “I don’t know,” he mumbled. “Anyway, the Mandarin-”

“Hello,” a man- no wait-”

“You’re- you-” Taeyong pointed to the man. The Mandarin, clad in a silk bathrobe and holding a beer can.

Tony sighed, he was holding a gun to the man, but this Mandarin imposter didn’t seem to care much. “I’ve had enough- you’re not him. You’re not the Mandarin. Where is he? WHERE’S THE MANDARIN?!” Taeyong flinched, but looked back at the man again.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! He’s here,” the man said. Taeyong furrowed his brow, “he’s here but he’s not. He’s here but he’s not.”

“What do you mean?” Tony clicked the safety off his gun. Taeyong stepped forward, standing beside his dad.

“It’s compli- hey! It’s complicated.”

“It is,” Tony agreed.

“It’s complicated.”

Taeyong shrugged, “better uncomplicate it then.”

“My name’s Trevor, Trevor Slattery.”

“What are you?” Tony demanded. “What are you? Some kind of decoy? You’re a double right?”

“What?” At this, Trevor had the audacity to look offended. Taeyong was getting more confused. “What do you mean like an understudy? What no- Absolutely not-” Tony aimed his gun for Trevor’s face. “Not the face! Don't hurt the face! I’m an actor,” he cried.

“You got a minute to live, fill it with words.”

Taeyong crossed his arms, “I’d start now.”

"Just a role, the Mandarin- see it's not real!" Trevor said.

Taeyong glanced at his dad before stepping closer, "I don't think he's lying dad..."

"You're the Mandarin?!"

“How’d you get here Trevor?” Taeyong asked, watching him make his way onto a long lounge chair and lay down all snugly, whilst Tony still held a gun pointed to his face.

“Well I um… had a little problem with substances,” he whispered, actually looking a little ashamed. Taeyong had no idea what ‘substance’ meant but stayed silent. “And I ended up doing things, no two ways about it,” he shrugged. “In the street that a man shouldn’t do. And then they approached me about the role. And they knew about the drugs.”

Taeyong made an ‘o’ shape with his mouth, drugs. Yeah… that made more sense. Tony sighed, “So what? They promise to get you off them?”

“They said they’d give me more! They gave me things! They gave me this palace! They gave me plastic surgery! They- they gave me things,” he sighed, laying his head on the rest and closing his eyes.

Tony turned to Taeyong, “did he just fall asleep?”

Taeyong shrugged, walking over and kicking Trevor’s foot.

“Oh!” he shouted. Taeyong yelped, falling back into his dad’s arms. “And a lovely speedboat. And the thing was, he needed someone to take credit for some of the accidental explosions.”

“He?” Tony asked. “Killian?”

“Killian,” Trevor nodded.

“He created you?” Taeyong asked.

“He created me,” Trevor grinned, taking large gulps out of her beer can.

“Custom made terror threat,” Tony whispered.

Trevor didn’t seem at all worried. “Yes, yes. His think-tank thinked it up. ‘The pathology of a serial killer’, ‘The manipulation of Western iconography.’ Ready for another lesson- blah, blah, blah.” Trevor threw the beer can away. “Course it was my performance that brought the Mandarin to life.”

“Your performance, where people died?” Tony seethed.

“No,” Trevor sighed. “They didn’t. Look around you, the costumes, the greenscreens. Honestly, I wasn’t on location for half this stuff. And when I was, it was movie magic love.”

Tony held Taeyong’s shoulder. “I’m sorry but I’ve got a best friend who’s in a coma and he might not wake up. So you’re gonna have to answer for that. You’re still going down, pal. You underst-”

Taeyong gasped, feeling his dad’s body crumbled over him. “Dad?!” Taeyong looked up, making eye contact with the goon that had attacked both him and Haechan. “Yo-you?” The man punched him square in the face and Taeyong was knocked out. 

NEXT TIME ON: Dawn of New Change

"WAARGH!" 

Taeyong and Rhodey both flinched, watching Trevor's face light up as someone on his TV scored a goal. 

"OLLY! OLLY OLLY OLLY!" he sang. 

Taeyong sighed, "this is really getting old."