'Lucky' Emo

The next day he looked a bit closer at the lives of the Avengers. In all ways possible, really. There was the small details that made them human; Steve was sketching the New York skyline to compare it to an old drawing from way back when in the ‘40s. Barton gushed about how well his daughter did on an exam while spectacularly burning an omelette and Romanov made a perfect plate of scrambled eggs. Stark was grinning into a hologram Grim could only assume to represent the sins of the foster system.

But then he focused on what only he could see. The mournful crowd dogging Romanov’s every step, murmuring about tragedies long past. None looked vengeful or angry, even when one outlined the fact that most of them had been her targets. Sad, sure. Robbed, maybe. But they didn’t blame her. One whispered about a dark story years ago. Little girls in some ballerina-themed horror movie spy mix nightmare. He blanched and backed off after promising to not hurt her. (hah, right. She was Black Widow, but fair enough) 

Stark had a similar entourage. More of them were angry, yeah. Ranting about capitalism, (fair) billionaires, (also fair) and the wrongs that had been done to them. He listened as respectfully as he could while making a smoothie and bagel with his coffee. But more were nudging water glassesand plates with food towards Stark, and delicately dragging shot glasses just a little bit farther away from his elbow. One smiled conspiratorially in his direction over some paperwork, and from then on he refused to approach them, and Stark as a result. Poor guy didn’t get it, but he didn’t need to. 

Steve had a bunch of people following him around yelling about winter and metal arms, trains and mind control. He made a mental note to look into ‘octopus organizations with mind control in Europe’ and left it at that. Lots of these guys had injuries, and he needed to figure out how to handle that with a superintelligent AI watching his every move, maybe. Jarvis seemed polite enough, but Grim knew next to nothing about him, and he had trust issues with people he could see, let alone ones somewhere in the ceiling. 

The answer for now came in the form of ‘sorting’ his bag in his room, (like he didn’t have that thing down to a science by now, psh) leaving the medical supplies in clear view and easily accessible, and not commenting when bandages and stitching supplies mysteriously disappeared. Underneath other stuff, so Jarvis wouldn’t have a good angle to get proof. He felt real smart for that one.

And tired. God, coffee addictions while stressed out suck. 

Oh yeah, and someone hacked his phone. Invited him to a group called Science Bros, which he stared at dumbly before clicking away quickly and leaving that be. 

For an hour.

KittyMajesty: I was told there w be a newbie where he at

PotGunzMan: idk, ask Dad

Webster: We are not calling Mr. Stark that

Webster: ok who changed my name

IronWoman: No we totally are

PotGunzMan: It’s a mysteryyyyy

Webster changed Webster’s name to Spidey

Spidey changed PotGunzMan’s name to PotatoJerk

PotatoJerk:  oh h yeah

Well then. Not like this could be worse than vying for kitchen space with two known super assassins and worrying about medical treatment of the dead inside a highly fortified and security-intensive building. 

New User has changed their name to SpookyGoth

SpookyGoth: what fresh Hell have I been introduced to

Spidey: Hi!!1!!!

KittyMajesty: oh good. What type of nerd are you

SpookyGoth: excuse me what

PotatoJerk:  yeah like I do potato engineering

He didn’t even know where to begin with that. 

IronWoman: run. Run while u can

Encouraging. 

Spidey: i do really any interesting project but i like doing stuff for mutants!!!

SpookyGoth: medicine, then, would be closest

Spidey: oh then we can help each other!!

PotatoJerk: nooooo

IronWoman: *well get em next time bois*

KittyMajesty: oh yeah there’s definitely going to be a next time lol

He wonders what this lot would think about his little ghostly hobby, and huffs a laugh. 

SpookyGoth: What about the rest of u

KittyMajesty: I run the military of my country :)

IronWoman: nanotech

SpookyGoth: ...right

He had a vague idea on what nanoengineering was. Something about tiny robots. Maybe mind reading? Like, controlling the bot with your thoughts. Real science fiction stuff.

He’d look it up later, when his pride was down. 

Still. Intimidating stuff. Less so in a memey chatroom, but still. Especially when his burner phone was terrible so it was all sorts of blurry on top of being cracked six ways to Sunday. 

He sighs, and leans up against the wall in thought. He had hoped to be able to ditch sometime soon, but he can’t just scram when a good portion of the ghosts in NY that still in New York are within shouting distance bleeding onto the expensive flooring. So what to do, then?

Tell Stark? ‘Oh yeah, Mr. Bad Decisions, I can see the dead and you’ve got a lot hanging out around you. Wanna swap tragic backstories? Huh? How? How should I know, tough guy? No you can’t expirement on me.’ 

Yeah, that’d go great. 

He rubbed at his temple, feeling the beginning of a headache sprout behind his eyes. But what other choice did he have? Take his chances with the AI? Sneaking in later preferably shortly before fleeing the country?

What a mess. 

Maybe… he could test Stark. See how he reacts under stress. Make sure he doesn’t blow up to kingdom come and all before giving it a go, because damn his hero complex or whatever but he wasn’t about to just walk out now. 

Risky, but better. And it was probably all he had. He did better in the heat of things, not before anyway. But he covered his bases anyhow, there’s no excuse for being dumb.

He starts out with simple things; making small messes around him. He ‘trips’ with the coffee pot. Stark looks only mildly upset, and mostly over having to wait an extra five minutes for his bean water. He doesn’t lash out at all; he just grumbles lightly, cracks a terrible joke about insomnia and butter fingers, and goes back to his fancy blueprints. 

Shattered mug? ‘You’re fine, kid. Hey Jarv, get a cleaning bot in here before one of us cuts our foot open, buddy.’ 

Knocks over a stack of important papers? ‘Thanks for the distcraction, kiddo. Say, wanna know how to make a flamethrower?’ (he did, indeed, want to know how to make a flamethrower)

So he starts bothering him, comforted by the chances of him lashing out being pretty low even when he tries to rile him up. He keeps asking questions about Jarvis and the tower and the Avengers. Nothing that gets Black Widow to look at him suspiciously about, just basic stuff he wants to know for his own sanity. Stark only jokingly swears him to secrecy about Jarvis’ code and outlines the way the AI was ‘born.’ (one very crazy, coffee/redbull fueled college night. He made a mental note to talk to ‘Rhodes’ about Stark when he was younger, if nothing else for a funny story) 

Virginia Potts rolls in at nine o’clock in the morning sharp to herd Stark to a meeting he had ignored. She gave Grim a soft smile, and he nods seriously, scanning her for lasting injuries from The Boat. Nothing visible, no sings of lasting pain. Good.

Halfway through the week he’s 99% sure Stark might be the most slow-to-anger adult he’s ever willingly interacted with. But should 4 ½ days of anger testing really be good enough when he’s a mutant with the government on his tail?

Okay, okay. So he could just… test him in a situation like that, but without the higher stakes. Yeah. 

Alright. Time to ramp things up.

The problem, though, was finding a problem to point him in the direction of in the first place. He brainstormed for half a day before feeling like an idea. Obviously he couldn’t rat out his street rat friends, but th disaster couple with the freaky alien tech? Absoultutly! Stark might even enjoy the weird science aspect to boot.

But getting the government involved would be a must, and he could scope out the reactions in all parties during the fireworks.

To kick things of, he got dressed in his usual blend-in outfit: (which now made him smirk whenever he wore it, thinking back to his ludicrous meeting with Rodgers and his classic sulking teen getup) black jeans, a baggy hoodie in gray, scuffed-up high-tops he got out of a church donation box half a year ago, (he hated hardcore religious families with his entire soul) and a dark blue beanie to hide his hair. All any witnesses would be able to say is that he was white-aisan, younger, and didn’t possess a lick of self-restraint of self-preservation. 

Not that he was planning to get too involved, but he came prepared where he could. 

Step one; go to the safehouse they had mentioned once in whispers when the police nearly ganked ‘em towards the end of his time with them. Easy; it was an abodnoned warehouse with literally no one around. He trekked through the shadier districts without trouble (well-versed in how to blend in, even when obviously not a local. The trick is to look like you’d definitely hit back if someone jumped ya. Self-doubt just isn’t an option) and slipped in through a window someone had opened, presumably so whatever blue-tinged fumes the glowy power sources they were using didn’t kill them all. He had to shimmy through some home-made air filtartion device they had set up so no one would notice the odd smell in the area, but no sweat. He took some pictures on each of his burner phones of the very much illegal weapons manufacturing and trading, found an abondoned peice of paper that had apparently been used for recruiting recently; and snapped a picture of that to. God, these people were dumb. 

The door creaked open. He stopped where he was smoothly; sudden movements would give him away. He was facign away from the door, which was good: the face is the easiest part to make out at a glance. 

He inched towards the dark section where three crates, two next to each other and one ontop, met and ducked inside when nobody immediately went through the door. Their hand was still fiddling with the lock, and he could hear low swearing about broken keys. 

Dumb, but not violent. 

He shuffled through his bag- he had purposufully kept it open in prepaeration for something like this- and grabbed the taser a friend had given him years ago. The switchblade he had in the same pocket would be a last resort, along with the varying chemical and smoke bombs. 

If he could get out of this with a quick jab-and-run, he was doing it. 

He leaned over to get a a bad angle on the entering figure that wouldn’t reveal his face in the dim light. His thumb tapped a couple of time on the phone screen, and he was recording. Just to makeu sure no one could throw this back in his face with some ‘what if you were part of the gang, punk’ logic. 

“So you got a kid.” A voice he didn’t regonize that reminded him of a country song of a guy obviously drunk crooning about his tractor hit his ears. Middle-aged, while. Mid-western, maybe. From the great Corn Land section of America. 

“Mhm.” That he regonized. It was the dude in his old disaster foster couple. He had been less in love with the booze and beneifets of their lifestyle as his partner was, and more so the thrill and the powerful feeling it might bring. Adrenaline junkie to the max.

He was obviously annoyed too, which didn’t spell great things for him if they spotted him. 

“You got a kid.” 

“We needed the money, dude. Lay off.”

“Yeah, yeah. So the coppers come, and you know he knows junk, and you let him go?” 

“Little brat was slippery. Vaulted right over the counter to get to the boys in blue and right out the door before I could thwack him.”

Oh yeah, that had been fun. Try dodging armed goons and officers in a state of half-starvation and see how you like it, why don’t you.

The vaulting had been kinda cool though. He needed to do that more often; for some reason people didn’t see it coming.

“And you didn’t like, follow up with ‘im at the station, or the next home.” The two ducked inside, and the wide beam fo golden sunlight thinned down to a sliver as they pulled the massive door shut with a rattle. 

“How was I supposed to know where he ended up? I was busy getting me and my girl out. Trigger-happy b*stards.” Disaster Guy wandered away from his buddy, hands in moto-jacket pockets with a scowel on his face. He was staring aimlessly at the wall and Grim smirked. He never had stellar situational awareness, the poor bloke.

A snort, carrying a sentiment Grim could agree with. “Damn straight.” 

The window was still open, but it was over a series of crates that would give him away, plus getting through the DIY filtration would cost him valuable time. Being followed wouldn’t be an option.

Neither would staying to long. The blue haze in the room got worse as the man he didn’t know literally punched open a crate. He started taking shallower breaths, and looked through his bag for something to help. Tissue wouldn’t do much, nope, that’s bandages, he’s got a limited number fo those- ahah, a bandana. He used it sometimes to tie his hair back or keep his poor scalp from baking in summer, or just to fit in occasionally. Bingo.

The wrapped it securely around his face with sure, slow movements and knew the difference when he tasted old cloth and dust as opposed to what he imagined radiation to taste/smell like in bad sci-fi movies. 

“What’s this, then?”

“We’re figuring out how to modify it. Obviously getting the core to stablize is going to take ages, so we’re working on modifying the weapons to fit the f*cking thing in the first place instead.” 

The stranger, who indeed had a salt-and-pepper mustache/beard combo and a beat-up leather motorcyclist getup complete with worn flannel, glared down at the crate. “This one gunna blow up, too? I don’t need that in ma lungs.”

Crime Man- (not the good, meme one though) who he believed to be a Jason snorted. “Stop smoking then, b*tchy jack*ss.” 

Iowa Personaifed snarled lowly before grumbling at the non-awnser, putting the crate lid down in defeat. 

The haze was getting thicker. The blue was gathering in the upper levels of the warehouse. The longer he stayed, the more dangerous the way he got in would be to exit. To door was still unlocked, because their key was brocken or something and they didn’t wanna accidentially lock themselves into this mess. Technically he could probably just book it out the door. Neither of them were very athletic; can confirm for Jason, and Iowa didn’t look to be having the best health overall judging how he stopped to hack his lungs up midway through the explanation of how they were modifying the ammo chamber. 

While they were focusing on the crate, he slipped from dark spot to dark spot -not dark in the weirdly spooky atmosphere, was he in a movie now or something?- and made sure to get a decent angle of not only the open crate with the glowing gun, huh??? but also the blueprint Jason pulled out of his coat to refrence. 

Good enough for him.

He carefully lined himself up with the door so nothing would scrape or make a noise, and shuffled sideways as fast as possible through the opening. The sudden light was blinding, but he had memorized all possible escape routes before going in. So he did the smart thing after witnessing an illegal alien tech trade; he ran like h*ll.

He got back to Stark’s tower probably looking like he had gone for a run or something. Jarvis rambled at him in the elevator about proper athletic wear for sports activities, which he did his best to look respectful during. Jarvis didn’t seem to not be his own person, which was plenty enough for Grim to respect him as his own being. He’d rather be excessively polite than the opposite, if the person seemed to deserve it in any way. 

Then he took a deep breath and pulled out his phone as he walked into the lounge. “Hey Jarvis, uh… where’s Stark?”

“Boss is his workshop. Should I notify him you wish to talk? It is near lunchtime, encouraging him to eat would be appreciated.”

Grim smirked at the AI’s mixture of sarcasm and mother-henning before sobering. 

“You know what? Sure thing, Jarv. Do I need to go down and chase him up?” The lounge had a ridiculously large spiral staircase down directly to the Science! Area, so it wouldn’t be much work. 

“That would be lovely, Mr. Grim.”

Having been banned from his last name, Jarvic stubbornly refused to drop the ‘Mr.’ bit. By now, he had given up.

He took the stairs down (he had always found spiral ones cool) and observed Stark apparently doing a ‘check up’ on his two pet robots. Best as he could tell, they were named Butterfingers and Dummy, which seemed odd for a normal person and totally on brand for Stark once you get to know him. 

“Yo, Stark, eatin’ time.” Stark muttered something into Butterfingers’ torso and made a face when Jarvis cut off the music, some old rock that had been blasting. 

“I’m the adult here!” He yelled without looking up from messing with some wires.

Grim snorted. “Yeah, the man child. Finish up or whatever, we’ve got to talk.”

His phone was burning a hole in his pocket the longer he went without making copies of the file, preferably on different phones entirely. But he didn’t want Jarvis getting a look at the screen early.

Stark nearly banged his head on an invention -some sort of flamethrower, probably the dry ice one Grim had asked if it was possible yesterday- he had hanging from the rafters at that.

“I- what? Yeah, sure. I’ll be right up, kid.”

Grim smirked. Of course the Bonding Time card would work on him. 

He sighed as he went back up the stairs, and asked Jarvic what Stark’s favorite pizza place was. He definitely wasn’t about to cook.

Three pizzas (supreme and meat lover’s, and a cheese with one slice banana peppers for him) later they were slumped around on the plush white couch in the lounge as Grim tried to find a good way to say this.

Failing that, he just sighed and passed his on phone to the man, with the video open. “So, uh. My latest foster parents past the Samsons were a real piece of work. Didn’t even have to do much eavesdropping, they’re real dumb. Anyway, they’re doing weapons smuggling. But uh… with fuel from, outerspace? It glows blue and there was something about a UFO crash and uh-” Stark snatched his earbuds from his hand and started to play the video.

A few minutes passed in silence, Grim fiddling with the edge of his hoodie, more anxious than he had been in years. 

Stark took the earbuds out with a shockingly blank expression. “You snuck in.”

Grim nodded, mentally preparing for anything. There was lots of open space in the room, and the entryway didn’t even have a door installed so running wouldn’t be hard. He’d just have to push off hard enough to clear the couch and scram. Perfectly fine. Totally coo-

Stark’s hands hit his shoulders and forced them to face one another suddenly, and Grim managed to not flinch too badly as they stared awkwardly (at least for him) into each others’ eyes. “Don’t do that! You could have died! And that smoke! That blue stuff- we don’t know what that even is! What if you had passed out? Oh god, we need to call an ambulance. Jarv-”

“Already on it, boss.”

Stark nodded with a slightly glassy look in his eye. Grim regarded him warily, less now with fear of retaliation and more so preparing in case he passed out suddenly. Shock did that to people sometimes. 

“But oh my god; we don’t know what that stuff is. Jarvis, we’re gearing up. I need to get my hands on that stuff. Call our favorite Pirate for me, will you?”

Grim had roughly enough time to question Stark’s sanity and wonder if he had fallen into the Twilight Zone somewhere along the way before Jarvis replied. 

“Of course, sir. Mr. Grim, do I have permission to do a full body scan?”

Yeah, this hadn’t been what he had been expecting.

Thirty minutes later, at the lovely hour of 11AM, (basically 3AM for Stark, who would be half asleep if it weren’t for the sheer amount of caffeine in his system) there is indeed a pirate on their couch. He’s got an eyepatch and everything, along with the Dramatic Coat and combat boots. (all black, even the same shade of black wow, dedication) He’s bald with a faint mustache on his upper lip, almost blending in with his darker shade of skin. 

Grim goes to the kitchen to prepare himself with coffee.

A plain-looking man who is more dangerous than he looks got to him before Pirate could though. He steered them off into a spare room identical to Grim’s own and sat them both down on the bed. His clunky suitcase balanced stayed with him, balanced across his knees.

“Hello. I’m Agent Phil Coulson. I understand you’ve witnessed several instances of meddling with alien technology?”

Grim nodded, slightly defensive thanks to the alarm bells going off in his head (he didn’t seem like a bad guy, but he wasn’t comfortable with people he couldn’t read well without some info to go off of) “A recent set of foster parents talked about sometimes, when they thought I wasn’t there or couldn’t hear. They needed the money to help with modifying guns and bombs and stuff to work with the whatever-it-is. Eventually someone took what I was telling them seriously and the police got around to it like, a month later, maybe? Did a raid on the house and everything. They got away, and I got a new foster set, and yeah.”

“Yes, the Samsons. And according to them, your currently at their apartment, and have been for a week.”

Grim made a face. “They’re *ssholes. I made a deal that I’ll show up for public events if I have to so they can get that shiny charity case headline, and I get to not have to deal with them in general.”

“Anything… concerning?” A protective glint entered his eyes, just for a moment, before he schooled his expression again.

“Just the usual. Locking me in the room until I agreed with them, taking away food, some threats. Like, do I look like I care if a middle aged Karen were to half-heartedly slap me? Honestly, idiots.” Coulson kept scribbling on his tiny-little notepad. Grim wondered if it was custom. 

“Right. And that video.”

Grim sighed. “Look, no one listens if I don’t have evidence, and they’re planning on hurting people. Based on their schedule I didn’t think anyone would be around, but I guess they have more freetime now or something. I tried to get good angles and whatever. Do I get to get my phone back eventually?” It was the truth. He had memorized what little he knew of when the members of the rag-tag gang came and went to different locations. 

It wouldn't be a massive deal to lose the phone; it would just be annoying not being able to use the thing he had paid for for the month already. He had limited funds and a goddamn plan, thank you very much.

“Eventually. We only need to get the file and check it over for corruption or files.” Grim idly wondered if he meant corruption as in corrupted files or corruption as in he was a jerk. 

Unimportant, finish this up to observe Stark. 

“Alright. Anything else ya wanna know?”

Coulson hummed. “Any injuries, trouble breathing, or other drugging syntoms since then? Would you allow yourself to be check over by medical?” As a mutant, in modern America? Absoultutly not. 

“No, I haven’t noticed anything. If I collapse, I promise to let you say I told you so or whatever.” He hopped up of the door and made for the door. After a second of hesitation, Coulson followed. 

Grim held the door open for him (keep eyes on the man at all times, no matter how nice he acted) and slipped in after, firmly locking the door behind him. He know knew a low-risk place to put his back against if it came down to it, at least. Escape routes were fine; the bay windows combined with Kala and damn near every other ghost in the city being willing and able to catch him made sure of that. 

He took a juice box (orange, because h*ll yeah, he never got this stuff) and sucked absently as he watched a half dozen agents in equally immaculate suits as Coulson’s consider him blanataly for a few seconds before dismissing him. Which, rude.

But he did like it better that way.

Stark was sagged onto the couch gesturing away as he argued with Head Drama Agent. “-ook, Fury, you can run the stuff through your labs or whatever, safety checks and all that, but you know just as much as I do that I would get results faster than any of your guys.”

‘Fury’ (rad) sighed, and a put a hand to his forehead, presumably to stave off Stark’s annoying energy. “Stark, we can’t just hand over a new substance to the smartest man in the room-”

“Sure you can.” Ah, there was that Stark patented grin. He even posed with drink in hand. 

Fury waved him off irritably, muttering about government protocol being a joke to the Avengers before continuing. “-because he wants to play with the shiny thing. Stand down.” Stark snorted, and saluted him mockingly with said drink.

“I ain’t your 40’s soldier to order around, Tall, Dark and Mysterious. I don’t listen to myself let alone you.” Stark brightened when he noticed Grim hovering nearby, and got up hurriedly. 

“Ay, kiddo, the agents didn’t freak you out too bad?”

Grim shrugged. “I’m fine.”

Jarvis made a whirring noise above him, something he had come to associate when he wanted to tell Stark he disapproved with actually saying it.  Usually he’d find it funny, but right now he wanted to swat the ceiling if it wouldn’t make him look completely insane. 

Modern Day Pirate, presumably the ringleader to all this, considers him the same way the agents did. 

He sucks the last of the juice out of the box and chucks it across the room to land somewhere on the kitchen floor. He missed, but who cares?

“I guess you don’t like government peeps much, huh Stark?”

Stark grins conspiratorily in his direction, and Grim smirks in reply. He can work with this. 

He resolves to finish this conversation later, and settles down with a good distance away from literally everything in the room. His hand creeps into his pocket, and he starts rolling around a marble across his fingers, then his knuckles, careful to not drop it to give him something to focus on. 

Fury (who is clearly a Grumpy) goes on a tangent that Grim partially agrees with, partially doesn’t, as he carefully monitors the body language and expressions of everyone in room. Cold professionalism, mild curiosity, some exasperation towards Stark. There’s nothing to point towards an itchy trigger finger or a sudden brawl, but he can’t get those moments out of his head where he didn’t know if the people he called to help him would be the ones to hurt the worst.

(Staring down the barrel of the gun for a long moment, jumping over the counter in a flurry of desperate movements faster than he can think, ducking underneath metal-edged arms and angry fists. Not this way, not today.

The Horsemen would kill him a second time, after all.)

He blinks to return to the present, and wishes he had his bag with him. It’s still unpacked on his bed for the ghosts, but having in on him would mean snacks would be in order.

Snacks might still be in order, if that one agent snooping in the kitchen would just wander about three feet to the left and quit going through Stark’s alcohol collection for no discernable reason. 

Or maybe his confidence would override his anxiety, who knows. Because he though purposefully involving the government that suspects him of something ridiculous was a good idea. 

Yeah, who cares anymore. Chips it is.

He takes the time to look the agent squarely in the eyes as he pulls the bag out of the cupboard, then staunchly ignores them as he anxiously shovels fistfuls of the crunchy goodness into his gaping maw. Dignity is overrated. 

Then he looks closer at the man. At where his hand is placed, the anxious, scanning look on his face, the edge of panic in his body.

The metal device snugly hidden in the back of the wooden shelf, tucked away behind three separate bottles carefully nudged into position.

He squints, and sees the outline of an octopus where the cloth of his suit meets, apparently, an arm band underneath.

“Excuse me.” All eyes on him, forced confidence to the max. Eyes ablaze and posture straight. 

He puts down the chip bag, and walks over to the sweating man with measured steps. He pushes aside the bottles, revealing the metal thingamabob, and looks the man in the eye. 

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Death would be so proud.

“I- I’ve been order to leave a recording device on the premises-”

“By who? Who’s you superior, again, Agent Kingston?” Fury cuts in with the force of a morally grey avenging angel. 

Kingston appears to be mentally writing his will. 

“I- you, sir.”

“Fantastic.” Grim forges ahead, refusing to loose steam before his confidence inevitably fails him and leaves him to scurrying back to safety. “Now that that’s established, let’s look at that funny little armband under your jacket. I haven’t seen Coulson’s in any case.”

Kingston makes a distinct but small squeaking noise. 

Grim raises an eyebrow into the silence, incredibly conscious of holding his head high. 

“Well?” Fury prompts.

Kingston slides down the shoulders of the jacket, revealing only white button up sleeve. It gathers suspiciously at the bottom, and Grim can see a single stitch of messy black thread. The agent flashes a charismatic smile. “Nothing there, kiddo. Don’t worry your little head about it.”

“Right. Take off the jacket.”

The man blinks. “You hardly have the authority to-”

“But I do.” Fury cuts in sharply, and Grim has never been more thankful for an overly aggressive adult figure in his life.

Kingston frowns, and reveals a flash of a blood red octopus-emblazoned band as he pulls out his gun.

Grim feels cold steel on his temple. “No one move, or the kid gets it!”

Kala narrows her eyes at the man, raising her hands to throttle him. His hand ‘twitches’ (obviously from the sudden stress, of course) to tell her to back off. Shockingly enough, she does. 

Still ready to kill a man, though.

He takes stock of the situation. Stark is pressing that button on his watch that summons his suit on a timer, so he has time to talk things down. All other agents have their guns pulled too, aimed at the corrupt agent. Too close to Grim for comfort. 

Full bravado it is, then.

“Look, buddy-” Stark tries, but Grim’s way ahead of him.

“You wanna bet, Kingston?” He goads, before falling into Fight Mode where, unlike what apparently everyone else thinks, talking is a very bad idea.

He gets low, causing the shot aimed at him to miss (the bang makes his ears ring) and he nods subtly at Kala as he goes for a full tackle.

Kingston goes flying (he holds nothing back in life-or-death scenarios) underneath him, and in the corner of his eye he can see the silver-green form of Kala guiding the gun to not fire when it hits the ground. 

Think fast, b*tch. 

Kingston’s no ameautor, though, and Grim doesn’t like how many guns are now pointed at him because he’s now on top, so he nails him in the gut when he tries for a head lock before he thinks Grim can get his bearings, (Kingston may not be an ameator, but neither is he) and puts all his strength into jumping away from the man. He crashes into the counter, and claws at it to regain his balance.

Not his finest moment.

He wastes no time and makes a break for the soon-to-be safety of him and his crazy suit, and dives behind the couch for extra cover. Right on time, the pieces of the suit fly onto Stark’s form, covering him in so much shiny, dangerous metallic armour.

Repulsors aim at Kingston, from where Grim is on the couch cushions in a heap. 

“Alright, game over, hotshot. Put the gun down.”

There’s a snarl from the other side of the room, and another gunshot. The couch suddenly has a bullet-zied dent, and Grim wonders hysterically if Stark made the Couch bullet proof.

More clicks. Some code talk into walkie talkies.

A crash, a familiar one. The sound of so much glass shattering under a body’s weight.

Looks like Kingston opted out. 

He peeks around the corner of the (bulletproof???) couch carefully, and indeed sees a sudden jagged hole in the massive bay windows Stark has everywhere. A bunch of goons with guns have their weapons trained dutifully on it, but no Kingston apears for round two having done something ridiculous like cling to the side of the building or suddenly develop the power of flight in that exact moment.

There’s an ominous crunching noise, and a lot of screaming from the sidewalk. Guns are lowered as Grim shrinks back between the couch and Stark’s protective side. No thank you. 

“Uh- is someone gonna get that camera thing by the alcohol?”

Stark swore, and promptly blew the entire shelf to pieces. Grim ran through his mind if the repulsors counted as fire ‘cause then they were about to have a whole ‘nother problem like now, before deciding it was probably fine from the distinct lack of yelling.

In fact, it was deadly silent. 

“So I’m taking a wild guess here that Kingston was like, a spy for a terrorist cell or something? Did we just hop plots from an adventure movie to a spy one?”

Tony huffed, and Grim stuck out his tongue at him as Jarvis informed him he was doing another scan on the both of them. The last one had come up clean, though Jarv still suggested a checkup sometime in the near future, and this one should be no different based on the lack of searing pain or burns on his body. 

“Director Fury.” The ceiling continued in Jarvis’ signature dry tone. “I would kindly vacate the premises of all agents inside my boundaries I cannot verify as trustworthy, according to my safety protocols. You as well as Agent Coulson and Hill are welcome to aid Black Widow and Hackeye with the crime scene.It you resist, I will be happy to alert legal as well as security of the situation.”

Tony nodded, all protective fury and hard edges. Grim pressed himself into the cushion instinctively (strong, violent male. Do not engage. Do not aggravate. Escape as soon as possible) and pulled a pillow (possibly also bullet proof??) in front of his core, the part of his body with all the squishy important bits.

He knew he trusted Stark to a startling extent, and the man would never shoot him with his crazy lasers. But better safe than sorry. 

He zoned out from the general hustle and bustle as Jarvis herded most of the government people out of the building unceremoniously until Tony’s hand, armorless, tapped him on the shoulder.

“You alright, kiddo?”

Grim looked him over. The armour was gone, leaving him in a slightly ruffled T-shirt and jeans. Remarkably calm, really. 

He swallowed. “Uh, yeah. Sorry.”

Stark backed up to give him space. “No problem, you actually did us all a favor. I think. I’ll hack SHIELD later to find out for sure.” They both watched one of the cleaning robots bumble over to where the glass shards, pieces of wood, and different kinds of alcohol were becoming one with the carpet. It sucked up some glass, then beeped when it detected the liquid and backed up. Slightly to the right. Forward, more glass. More liquid, repeat. Making a slow half-circle around the whole mess.

He started to laugh when it hit the remains of the cabinet and made the sound that meant it was ‘thinking.’ Even Stark started to chuckle when he did. 

The rest of the motley gang emerged from the other floors, ready for anything including a pitched battle, to them both laughing themselves silly at a freshly named TODDLERBOT. 

Naturally, they gave him h*ll for the whole thing at dinner.