Whatever It Takes
Carl was a good hard-working man. He’s lived a fairly decent life without ever harming anyone or been actively hated against. One might say he’s living his best life, as he had scored a spot in one of the most amazing, innovative and exciting companies that ever existed. It didn’t hurt that his boss was literally a superhero. Carl doesn’t brag, but he thinks that’s pretty cool.
Be like Carl. But also.
Since Carl follows a life of order and punctuality, he goes out for lunch like clockwork with his friends. 12:25 pm on the dot. Just enough time to get to any food establishment empty of queues and crowds, just before the lunch rush starts. And today, like any other day, is no different.
Carl swiped himself out of the security check and turntiles, exiting the building with his company access identity card safely in his pocket. His friends were waiting for him outside, like usual.
He was walking to meet them when someone bumped into him. The man who bumped into him was of a lithe statute, with deceptively hard muscles under the plain pressed suit that accentuates his figure. Carl was a bit taken aback. The man was unfairly attractive with his upturned nose and moles.
“I’m so sorry.” The man apologizes, both his hands on Carl’s shoulders to steady him after the particularly rough collision. “Are you okay? I wasn’t looking and I’m really late, I’m sorry.”
Carl thought the man had very genuine and sincere eyes. He nodded. “No worries.”
The man returned his nod and before Carl could say anything, the man left. Carl didn’t have time to dwell on it either because his friends were shouting his name and calling his tardiness.
Carl shrugged the interaction off and ran to catch up with his friends, excited about what lunch he would indulge himself with after finally wrapping up the project he was a part of. It was a good day, Carl decided.
Ah, sweet hard-working simple man, good days are easy to come. But not today, it’s not.
Poor Carl. He was going to get in so much trouble for losing his card.
***
Stiles straightened his suit and walked into Stark Industries with his head held at a respectable angle, shoulders relaxed and footsteps light. Pulling off a cover is not about improv lines and amazing acting, it’s all about posture. Action. The way you carry yourself, your little habits, your confidence in your body, the way you move. Body language is louder than you think, and it catches your eyes more than verbal languages do.
Lying through your tongue is easy, lying through your body is not. A CEO would be eye-catching, someone important—your steps need to be strong and sure, your voice stable and bold, your eyes bright and innovative, your posture held high and proud. A janitor would be the opposite—your presence needs to be quiet, your steps and voice silent, your posture a bit closed off and distant. A normal employee, or in his case a data analyst, would be camouflaged with the rest of the crowd. Average everything, not too loud and not too quiet, quite comfortable with yourself and your surroundings but not too much as to exert exuberating confidence or ability.
Stiles breezed through the security checkpoints with the card he nicked off a man in front of the building, one Carl Sandburg. No one batted a single eyelid at him, feeling right at ease with his presence as if he wasn’t an outsider. On top of acting your role, making sure you exhibit the role with your body, you need to control the environment and make sure no one suspects anything. Using your presence to convince someone you belong there, is hard. People are more perceptive than one might think.
He smiled at people and made small talk in the elevator as need be, telling little white lies: “Did you hear what Dave did? Ugh, that man’s hopeless, it’s his 5th time for god’s sake! I’m not helping him this time, I’ve told him that”.
Because every office, and yes, that is every office, has a Dave. Or a David, but that can be shortened to Dave. It’s a name you can throw out and expect 80% of the time, someone will pick up the thread. John, Dave or Mike. A safe bet. Works like a charm.
Stiles stopped at the floor he had memorized the layout of in the lobby directory, the database.
He swiped his card and sneaked in. The dark room opened up to reveal rows and columns full of tall machinery that blinked red, green and blue. In the midst of all these server bank hubs, where all the data and information accessed in the company runs through and is stored, Stiles felt a chill run down his spine. He didn’t waste any time in getting access to the one of the station monitors, pulling the access panel out. Opening up his briefcase and taking out a StarkPad he nicked off of a tech room, he plugged the cable in and attached it to his tablet.
It took him less than five minutes to gain all access, and a minute to filter through it. Here comes his problem, the ‘private archives’. Stiles was hoping to hack into the private archives using the company’s main database frame that was stored into the server banks. But as he filtered through the database trying to find the file he was looking for, he realized it wasn’t going to be that simple.
Well, if something as secure as a ‘private archive’ in Stark Industry was that easy to access, it wouldn’t be much of a ‘Stark’ thing at all would it. He abandoned looking for the file and instead scoured for black-labelled information and where it’s stored. Because, most probably, that’s where it’ll be. The only thing he ended up finding are shady reports filed under a collective of missions to which he suspects are bootleg operations or dealings, and a whole restricted section on unsanctioned projects.
Stiles squinted at the latter. A restricted section in a database. Typing a few directives, he found that he wasn’t able to access it even a tiny bit mainly because of the fact that it wasn’t there. This ‘restricted section’ was more of a ghost section. It was pulled off of the main servers and directed to an independent one with no remote access.
He did, however, find out where the independent server was.
Level A18.
Fuck’s sake, Stiles inwardly cursed.
The building was divided by sectors A, B, C, D and E, from descending order at the very top of the building. The higher it goes, the more restricted access people had to it. Level A was as high as it went.
Closing the panel back, Stiles packed his things and ran to the directory screen mounted near the door, searching for access to what the hell Level A18 was. Stiles prayed to his lucky stars that it would be a manageable floor to break into—anything was fine except for—
Level A18, Tony Stark’s Lab.
Well, fuck.
***
The door cracked open under the duress. Splintering the door as it banged on the opposite wall it was hinged to, opening up to an apartment. A homey two-bedroom apartment that was absolutely trashed from every nook and cranny.
“Move out.” Steve barked out his orders to the small group of five agents he brought with him. “Secure the area.”
“We don’t need to secure the area to know that he’s gone.” Clint threw over his shoulder as he filtered through the mess. “What happened here?”
Steve secured his shield behind his back, he was decked out in the standard SHIELD uniform instead of his usual star-spangled attire in order to remain discreet. Because despite all the honor and patriotism that suit inspires, it was undeniably one hell of an eye-catching sore thumb sticking out in plain sight. Fury was adamant that this whole thing should be kept under wraps, and if possible, off the books. “Best guess is that he wrecked this place to destroy evidence before we could get to it.”
Natasha scoured the broken wall, hands reaching out to inspect the hole in the wall. “This was his secret stash, probably.”
“What?” Clint dashed forward to her.
“This wall, it was dug out beforehand, then plastered back up.” The assassin let her fingers trail through the edges of the hole, the debris crumbling in her hand. “Then it was recently broken down again. I’d say Stilinski hid something here probably years ago, judging by the firmness and the colour of the plaster, and he took out whatever it is he had hidden just a few hours ago.”
Clint frowned. He couldn’t deny that this was suspicious, and it didn’t help Stiles’ case. “What did he hide?”
Natasha clapped her hands together to get rid of the dust. “No clue, nothing’s left behind. We should get forensics here, stat.”
One of the agents scurried out to heed her order.
Steve heaved a fallen bookshelf over, righted it up and inspected the damage under it. Photo frames and trinkets of memories lay broken under the havoc. The Captain picked a photograph up, his target and a fellow agent stood in it, arms wrapped around each other laughing as remnants of cake dripped down their heads. Smiles as bright and unweighted down as the sun. Steve recognized the fellow agent as one of the victims, Agent Derek Hale.
Something ugly unfurled inside his guts, as he clenched the picture in his hands. He looked to his side as Natasha placed a hand on his shoulder, turning to show her the picture.
“How could he do this?” Steve mumbled. “How could he kill someone he shared a house with, a life with, an intimacy with, all in cold blood?”
Natasha didn’t say anything, to Steve’s disappointment.
A voice shouted from further inside, “I found something!” The voice got closer as the agent ran towards them from the room. “Here, sir.”
Steve received the clothing the agent handed to him, quickly identifying it as a SHIELD uniform, one similar to his own. Then he realized it was wet. Pulling his hand away from the cloth, the liquid stained his hand. Blood. “He’s injured.”
Another agent from the kitchen counter held up a pair of bloodied tweezers and a used bullet. “Sir!”
Natasha went to the agent and inspected the bullet. “Standard issued, 8 milimeter round, it’s one of SHIELD’s.”
Clint took the information in. “He was shot by a SHIELD agent. Agent Ward didn’t say anything about landing a hit on Stilinski.”
Steve could see the cogs in Clint’s head working, trying to figure out a truth beneficial to Stilinski. He wasn’t ignorant to Clint’s motive in this mission, he knew that the archer believed their target to be innocent. It was fair, Clint can believe whatever he wants to believe, just as long as the agent doesn’t do anything to sabotage their search.
“It doesn’t matter.” Steve pushed forwards, dropping the bloodied uniform into an evidence bag. “All that matters is that now we know he’s injured, which means he couldn’t have gone far.”
Clint’s laughter rang through the broken apartment, shocking the agents. “You clearly don’t know him.”
Steve frowned in confusion.
“Agent Stiles Stilinski was the successor that me and Nat personally chose, vetted by the both of us through and through.” There was an edge in Clint’s voice, something of a proud lilt. It unnerved Steve to no end. “Don’t underestimate him. He could have his gut spilling through an open stomach and he could still outrun most of our agents.”
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you want him to outrun us.” Steve tested the agent, somehow detecting a hint of hostility in Clint’s words.
“Never, Cap.” Clint smiled through the test.
Steve went to hand the new evidence bag to one of their agents as Clint took the opportunity to sideline Natasha.
“Look, you and I have been trained in covert intelligence far longer than Steve has. He’s a soldier, brawns and all. We’re intelligence officers.” Clint spoke in a low voice. “I’m sure you’ve realized that this makes no sense.”
Natasha frowned, although she understood him completely. “This mess, this chaos.” She looked around the thrashed apartment. “It’s unorganized. By the way everything’s destroyed, it’s as if someone was looking for something.”
“Exactly.” Clint’s eyes flashed with resolution. “Now why would someone be blindly looking for something in his own apartment?” He saw Natasha try to look away from him but he pushed on. “Even if all this was to hide evidence, Stiles wouldn’t have done it like this. If he wanted to destroy evidence, he’d have done it without us noticing. This basically screams ‘destroying evidence’, that even foot soldiers would pick up on it.”
Natasha brewed in her own thoughts for a while, knowing that Clint had reached the exact same train of thought as she did. Everything was out of place, or more eerily, exactly in place. Too aligned. Too obvious. But she couldn’t pull any conclusions just yet. She shook her head and started walking.
“Come on, Nat.” Clint grabbed her arm before she could turn away from him. “You know Stiles. Can you honestly look me in the eyes and tell me you believe all this bullshit?”
Natasha took one hard and long look at the hand grasping her upper-arm. She took another roaming look at the apartment they were in and took it all in, slowly, before she directed her gaze into Clint’s desperate eyes.
With a careful gentleness, she took Clint’s hand in hers and pulled him close, close enough to whisper in his ears. “I don’t know. All I know is that all of this, it makes me nervous.” Natasha dropped his hand, and made a move to leave. “And I don’t get nervous.”
Clint set his mouth in a grim line. He looked upwards to meet Steve’s staring gaze from across the room. The Captain gave him an indiscernible frown, and all Clint could do was sigh at him.
***
There are few things that Stiles considers to be impossible tasks to do. Getting in Director Fury’s bed was one, because, Jesus, that will be horrifying and disgusting to think of—why is it in his list, one might wonder, well that was a story for another day. Drinking Natasha under the table was another, because that woman could drink vodka all day and still wipe the floor with his ass. Breaking into Tony Stark’s lab undetected was definitely also part of that list.
Stiles quietly sneaked through the vents, which he suspected was the most likely way he wouldn’t be detected by the tantamounts of sensors Tony Stark would’ve definitely placed in his office entrance. He kicked down the vent gate and caught it before it could clatter noisily on the ground. He dropped down into the high-tech luxurious office with not as much as a single sound.
He might’ve not been as stealthy as Natasha, but he was pretty damn good at it.
Slinking further into the office, he spotted a workstation with a running desktop. He crouched in on himself to make himself invisible under the table with just his head and hands working in tandem over the tabletop.
He wasn’t the best at hacking, after all he wasn’t a genius like Lyd—Stiles bit his lips at the name, trying to lock all of the emotions that threatened to escape back into his tightly compartmentalized box. Point is, he outranked most of Level 8 intelligence officers in his hacking prowess despite being a Level 7 officer himself.
Stiles knew this wasn’t going to be easy, that it was just a matter of minutes before he gets caught. He knew that. And he knows that he needed to hurry the fuck up and get the information before he gets caught, but something was seriously up with the database.
This is weird. In that he couldn’t find anything.
He only heard the tell-tale sound of something powering up seconds before he felt the metallic hand and glowing blue light behind his head.
“Hands up, incognito.”
Well, it wasn’t as if he didn’t predict this would happen. Grumbling quitely, Stiles raised his hands and slowly got up from his crouch.
“What do we have here?” Tony Stark spoke through the speakers in his suit, eyes mechanically scanning his movements and the data he accessed. “I can’t say I’m not surprised.”
He knew he was goign to get caught, and knew that it would be Tony Stark that caught him. In fact, he betted on being caught.
Under quick precision, Stiles turned on his foot and jumped over the table to knock Tony’s repulser shot off-course. Before the man had a chance to aim back at him, he grabbed a stray screwdriver and leaped over the genius and wrapped his legs around his shoulder. With the tool in his hands, Stiles jammed the pointed edge under the slips off Tony’s ironman suit and hammered in with his palm.
“What are you—” Tony reached behind him to grab Stiles but Jarvis popped up all kinds of malfunctioning warnings, and the next thing he knew, he couldn’t move. “What did you do?”
“Do you really think I would go in here without a plan? Without researching all about Tony Stark and his beloved alter ego Iron Man.” Stiles hopped off of the man, landing on the ground in front of him with grace. He stroked the chin of the metal head that the billionaire was wearing. “I’m pretty sure this goes without explaining, but since I’ve just severed the connection in the spine of your suit resulting in your paralyzation, if you don’t do as I say I’m going to do a lot worse to you.”
Stiles picked up a flat-head screwdriver and twirled it in his hands.
“Well, you’ve got me there." Tony winced at his predicament. “What do you want?”
With the screwdriver, Stiles pried the metallic mask off of Tony’s head, revealing the famous face. “Access to your private archives.”
“Why?” The billionaire took a good look at the face of his captor.
“Because I need information.” Stiles grabbed a rolling desk chair and made a move to heave the paralyzed man in all his suited-up glory into it.
As soon as Stiles’ hands slipped under Tony’s arms and around his back to move him, the latter whistled. “I’m flattered but I would appreciate a dinner first before getting all handsy on me.”
Stiles speared him with an icy glare before dropping him into the chair and walking behind it to push it forwards. “I’ve tried to access the private archives on my own but I can’t find it let alone tap into it.”
“That would be because you need my authorization codes and login.” Tony lulled his head side to side, completely ignorant to the threatening situation he was in. “It’s called private for a reason.”
With a patience that could rival Confucious’, Stiles took a deep breath to deal with this massive headache of a man. “Give me your authorization codes and login.”
Tony stared at him as Stiles rounded and stood in front of his captive. Stiles could feel Tony analyze him, his build, his strength, his motives. The man was a genius for a reason after all, and Stiles couldn’t take a chance on that.
He pulled out his gun and cocked it straight against the billionaire’s forehead. “The codes and login. Now.”
Tony silently stared at him for a few more seconds before sighing, without an inch of fear in his eyes. “It’s not here. The private archives, it’s on a separate database all on its own.”
Stiles frowned. “Where is it?”
Tony’s eyes flickered to a bookshelf, and Stiles wanted to roll his eyes at the obvious cliche staring him at the face.
Stiles rolled the man on wheels with him to the bookshelf and followed his eyes that was directed at a spare arc reactor enclosed in a clear box. He reached out to the box and moved it whichever way until he finally tipped it back and the shelf clicked before it opened backwards like a door. “Seriously. A secret door.”
Tony Stark had the gall to smirk at him despite having a gun shoved against his forehead. “Not exactly.”
Stiles went inside the space to find millions of little lights flickering at him in the dark at the circle shaped room. He ventured further in to find a semi-circular desk in the middle of the circle room, with three working desktops lining it and an intricate keyboard system. “What is this place?”
“This is the private archives.” Tony spoke out from behind him, Stiles only now remembering to pull the man inside with him.
His eyes raked over his circumference, at the walls with the flickering lights only to realize that the flickering lights belonged to databases built into the walls. Stiles frowned at the whole place, not finding a single power output anywhere within the room. “How is this possible? I don’t see an outlet or a power input anywhere. This configuration, this system, how is it online and completely independent?”
Stiles whirled around to find Tony smirking. “It’s not possible, ofcourse, that’s why no other tech company has figured it out.” As if stroking his own ego, which was probably what he was doing, Tony smiled even brighter. “Because they don’t have me.”
“You?” Stiles raised an eyebrow at him.
“That’s right, me.” Tony flashed his pearly whites at him. “The private archives are only accessible through me, so the moment I die, all this—“ He gestured at the room with a turn of his head, “—goes dead. Information and gigabytes of next generation innovation tech blinked out of existence.”
“How is that possib—“ Stiles stopped mid-sentence, his eyes caught at the only other light source in the otherwise pitch dark room. “Your arc reactor.”
“Look at the brains on you.” Tony whistled, nodding appreciatively. “That’s right. The private archives are directly linked to my arc reactor, powered and sustained. Effectively taking it offline and off the grid completely. Without me in close proximity, it won’t even turn on to let you access it even if you charge it with lightning.”
The man was basically securing his life, making it impossible for Stiles to kill him—not that he was going to anyways. Stiles knew the amount of heat on him right now was already overbearing, adding the heat of killing America’s eccentric hero-billionaire would put him on a burning spotlight.
Stiles ran a hand down his face. “Just because I can’t kill you, doesn’t mean I won’t hurt you close enough to death’s door.” He shifted the gun into his pockets, opting for a combat knife instead. “Now give me the codes.”
Tony rolled his eyes at the threat. “Weren’t you listening, the private archives are only accessible through me. Not just because I’m the power source. The keyboard is designed to record fingerprints and heat signature, specifically mine.”
“You’re one hell of a paranoid bastard.” Stiles cursed at the billionaire.
“Why, thank you.” Tony bowed his head. “If you want to access those archives, you’ll have to let me move on my own.”
Stiles weighed his options. Letting the man have a full reign of movements was risky. But. He looked at his watch, the numbers reminding him that he’s been stationed in one spot for more than an hour now. He’d give himself probably another half an hour, maybe an hour tops, before they could locate his position. But that’s still too tight of a timeline.
He was running out of time, fast.
Fuck. He didn’t have time for thinking about consequences and what-if’s. If worse comes to worst, he’ll take his chances on fighting one-on-one with the billionaire. “But only your upper body. You’ll still be paralyzed from the waist down with your suit.”
Stiles took the screwdriver he brought with him and started prying off the remnants of the offline suit off of Tony’s body until everything above his torso was out of the suit.
“Jeez, stingy.” Tony mumbled under his breath before he was pushed into the workstation. He stretched his hands and got to work. With just a few minutes, the desktop came to life with a bright light from the three monitors. “So, what do you want me to find?”
Taking a brief second to watch the time on his wrist, Stiles took a deep breath.
“Get me everything Howard Stark stored in this archive.”
***
Without any further clues as to pinpoint Stiles Stilinski’s position, the team had to retreat back to HQ. The minute they got back, Clint scurried off into his own investigation that left Natasha and Steve alone in their Avenger’s allocated mission control centre in the SHIELD compound.
“Nat.” Steve called out to the redheaded assassin currently disassembling and cleaning her gun. “What’s your take on this?”
“Take on what?” The woman barely looked up from her activity.
“Don’t play dumb on me now.” Steve threw a smirk to her direction, which she caught and threw one right back at him.
Continuing on with her nonchalance, Natasha dropped her head back down to reassemble her gun. “I’ve no idea what you want me to say.”
Steve sighed, running a hand through his golden locks. “I don’t know Stilinski, but you obviously do. Both you and Clint taught him the ropes. You know his M.O. better than I do.”
Natasha finally stopped her hands to focus on the Captain, eyes narrowing at him. “What are you getting at?”
“If you wanted to, you could track him, but you’re not.” Steve crossed his arms from his spot across the table from her.
The assassin raised her brows, her eyes never showing a single bit of her thoughts. “What makes you think that?”
There was a tense silence that went on between them for a minute that lasted longer than either of them were comfortable with.
Steve broke it first with a deep inhale. “Can we stop with the mindgames, you know I’d never win.” He only got a smirk in return. “Nat, I know that you know more than you’re letting on.”
The woman didn’t say or do anything to confirm nor deny that, which is all the more frustrating.
“I just want you to tell me.” The supersoldier was ready to go on a whole speech about trust and loyalty but was cut off by a buzzing.
Steve looked down at his pants, before fishing his phone out. Unlocking it to find a rare pop-up, he stood from his seat and showed his phone to his comrade.
“Is that—?” The redhead looked at the notification on the Captain’s screen.
“Yeah.” Steve nodded at her. “Do you think it’s him?”
Natasha took a second to process the possibility. “A good chance says it’s him. The timing’s too perfect for it to be a coincidence. We don’t know his motives or what he has with him, so assuming he’s there is not a longshot.”
Getting his shield from where it’s propper up against the wall, Steve agreed to her speculations. “Okay, we’re moving out now.” He sent out a digital pager to the five agents they had set out with before to depart.
“What about Clint?” Natasha slid the gun she was working on in her right leg holster.
The supersoldier paused in his steps for a moment before walking straight through. “Leave him be. I don’t want to risk anything going sideways.”
***
Tony, with his brain and his looks and his fame, has been in countless situations pertaining and causing death, injuries and painful mind games. It comes with the whole package of being a Stark, a genius and a superhero. He gets it.
Hell, most of the time, he enjoys it.
Having been in so many of those, Tony’s developed some kind of gut feeling for it. A sort of indication, or radar, for his own well-being and for seeking out the bigger picture.
This one, however. This one just throws him off. Completely.
Tony sneaked a look at his captor. He knows him, ofcourse, in passing. Agent Stiles Stilinski. He’s worked with him before, technically. He didn’t personally interact with the man, but the DELTA Strike team were an exceptional team with many talents--including secret reconnaissance that has helped with a few of Avengers issued missions. Recon has never been the Avengers’ strong suit what with their popularity and unearthly abilities.
Being the man that he is, Tony kept a lot of bugs everywhere. He likes to be looped in to everything, bit of a busy-body but it runs in the family. So, he’s aware that Agent Stiles Stilinski was currently the target of a nationwide man-hunt, courtesy of SHIELD.
And that he’s killed off his entire team, including CIA operatives and made way with an object that was a threat to national security.
Supposedly.
Tony doesn’t trust SHIELD, he doesn’t trust most things actually, but he always took SHIELD with a bucket of salt. A pinch is too generous. It was pretty straightforward, to be honest. SHIELD may be paraded as a patriotic, honorable, special law enforcement, logistic yada yada bullshit (it’s the name, Tony winced, someone tried really hard to string up words to condense to S.H.I.E.L.D. for no visible reason whatsoever), but it is, at its core, a clandestine espionage agency.
One that has dabbled more into the underworld and unhonorable means too many a few times. Tony doesn’t trust SHIELD for good reason. Hell, his dad was wary of SHIELD and that man was basically Captain America’s number one fan. Aside from Coulson, that is.
And Fury. Oh, Nick Fury, don’t get him started on Nick Fury.
So, currently, Tony didn’t know what to think or what to make of his gut feeling as he’s being held captive by this rogue agent. Thus why he kept to himself whilst his pointer finger was being used by Stiles as a stick to scroll down the list of files put in the archives by one Howard Stark.
Then again, Tony Stark doesn’t do well with keeping his mouth to himself. “Tell me, how does an outstanding decorated operative, admired by many and loved by a lot more, become a murderous traitor overnight?”
Stiles didn’t even give him the courtesy of a look, his eyes still glazed at the screen.
“Oh come on, I’m your prisoner, entertain me.” Tony tried jerking his finger away, only to have Stiles press a knife to his neck with his unoccupied hand.
The agent glared at him before grabbing the finger and monopolizing it once more. “A bad joke, that’s how.”
“Huh.” Tony made a noncommittal sound, completely unpersuaded by Stiles. “Well, I think--”
“I don’t care what you think.” Stiles interrupted.
Tony frowned at being interrupted. “I think that that’s not half the story.”
“Has anyone ever told you, you think too much.”
“Actually no, ‘speak too much’ yes, every day.” The billionaire frowned in amused confusion. “Never ‘think’ though, but well, I guess that’s what a genius does, doesn’t it? ‘Think’? It comes with the parameter.”
Stiles paid no mind to his whims, Tony completely unaware of just how massive of a headache he was to the agent. Closing his eyes for a long minute, Stiles regretted not bringing along a duct tape to shut his mouth. Or, better, a stapler.
“What are you even looking for?” Tony frowned at the treatment he was getting, or more accurately, not getting. “You have me as a hostage, you should make use of that and ask me to find whatever it is you’re looking for. After all, it is my company’s archives you’re digging into, no one knows it better than I do.”
Stiles paused in his search, looking at Tony with a renewed interest. It was true. He wasn’t getting anywhere with the tons of files that Howard Stark put into the private archives. He wasn’t overly keen with showing his cards, it goes against every instinct he has as a spy. But then again, he was running out of time. Fast.
A split second decision was all it took for Stiles, overthinking it wasn’t going to do him any good.
“A case. More specifically a suit-case.” Stiles described the case that he had only seen once with as much detail as he could remember. “One with bio-scan security, code input, and equipped to resist shock-waves and both radio and bio-contamination. It’s next-gen tech, the material as well. I think, and this is a very loosely based observation, it’s self-sustaining.”
Tony spared a questioning glance hiding a million questions, but to Stiles’ luck, he didn’t act on any of those questions. “Right.”
Biting his lips as Tony searched the data, Stiles knew it was just a matter of minutes before SHIELD would lock onto his position. He’d been stealthy, that much he knew, but this was not a matter to be easily dismissed. By now, Ward must’ve reported back to his superior and would have realized that the object is missing. They must be desperate to get it back, which means their search will be relentless.
“Here, got it. It’s locked, that’s why you couldn’t find it. My dad didn’t want anyone finding this.” Tony snapped his fingers as soon as he located the file, his own curiosity running wild. “Locked in December 1990, apparently 6 months after the creation of the file. Huh, that’s weird.”
That wasn’t a good sign. “What’s weird?”
Tony turned his head to look at his captor, who was getting more anxious by the second. “The file is corrupted. It can’t be accessed.” His fingers flew across the keyboard to run a diagnostics. “Wait, it was corrupted prior to being locked.”
“That can’t be right. Something’s wrong.” If it was locked in 1990, and couldn’t be accessed afterwards, then that can mean only two things: either the case was built before then and was only used recently, or someone stole the blueprints from Howard Stark himself. And Stiles was no expert mechanic, but even he could tell that the case was recently made. He ran a hand through his hair. “Can you still pull the data?”
“Aren’t you listening—” Tony swerved to face him with an annoyed tone, “—the data’s scrambled. It could be recovered, but it might take a while.”
That was time Stiles couldn’t afford to waste. This whole thing was a bust. And now he was on Tony Stark’s radar for nothing. Fuck.
“Get the data in a drive and give it to me.” Stiles ordered the man. “I’ll recover it myself.”
Tony gave him the most judgemental stare he could foster. “Do you even know what you’re looking for to recover? Howard Stark’s data are often convoluted and a bunch of chicken scrawl digitized, you wouldn’t know what the hell you’re doing with it.”
“Do it.” Stiles glared him into submission until he finally started to work.
Without wasting any more distractions, Tony compiled the data and copied it into a spare drive, before unplugging it and handing it over to his captor. “Now what?”
“Now—“ Stiles reached for his gun when a blaringly loud alarm set off, “—shit.”
He grabbed the back of Tony’s chair and wheeled him out of the private archives room. “What is that?”
“That would be Jarvis.” Tony hummed, head propped up to look at the agent scrambling to get things in order. “If you wanted to break into a compound of a billion dollar tech-industry, with the highest security system equipped with the world’s leading AI, you should’ve thought to disable said AI to go about undetected.”
Stiles pinched the bridge of his nose in a frustrated gesture. “What’s the alarm mean?!”
“It means, reinforcements arrived and the whole building is being evacuated. I’d say you have just about under three minutes to get out safely otherwise it won’t be pretty.” Tony smiled at him disarmingly.
The last thing the smug billionaire saw was the butt of a gun before he blacked out. Stiles withdrew his hand and kicked the rolling chair carrying the unconscious man back inside the hidden archives room and shut the bookshelf to lock him in.
He quickly slid the drive into his suit’s inner pockets and grabbed his briefcase before slipping back into the vents.
This was going to be a lot harder than he would’ve thought.
***
Stiles has memorized the layout of the building in his head, and was painfully aware that there were only two viable escape routes that would have the highest chance of getting him out safely and undetected.
One was the rooftop, which he’d brought a grappling hook and a bunch of rope he could easily access a neighbouring building with, no matter how insane the height was. He’s done with worse chances before and gotten off scotch-free.
The other was way more violent than propelling down a building. It was the service entrance on the side of the building that was mostly used to take garbage out.
If all else fails, there would still be the main entrance, which may well involve electrifying a bystander into cardiac arrest and fleeing with the ambulance.
He couldn’t afford to be caught. Not here, not now, not ever. Not until he gets his revenge. Until then, he wouldn’t be caught dead in a prison even if it means he’s going to have to kill in cold blood. Stiles has made his peace with it. He’s made a resolution to do whatever it takes.
Morals be damned.
So he readied his weapons and he ran across the corridors to get to the west stairwell. Before he could get far however, sounds of heavy-duty boots hitting the pristine floors echoed throughout the corner of the hallway he was in. He knows that sound.
He’s heard it a million times before, his senses are attuned to it. Those were SHIELD issued uniform boots.
Fuck. It was a mistake coming here. Stiles plastered himself onto the wall, his hand holding a gun close to his chest and his eyes focused on his peripheral vision to see the enemy coming. His heartbeat was pounding loudly in his ears, in tandem with the footsteps that got closer. And closer.
And closer.
Seriously, fuck this.
***
There was a rustling of movement in the next corner, Steve detected as he held his hands up to signal the agents behind him to be wary. He took the shield strapped to his back and readied it to attack.
Their target was known for his superb combat skills, so much so that Steve had to lug his shield around despite the overkill it was using his shield on a mere human.
With a held breath, Steve rounded to corner, his hands coming down in an arc with his shield expecting a gunshot or hostile defence—but all he got was a bright light in his face and a familiar figure glaring in shock at him.
“Tony?!”
Tony Stark stared him in the face for another second before shaking his head.
“Geez, Cap, what the hell?” Tony barked out as he powered down his repulsor. “Couldn’t have rung the doorbell like a normal person?”
Steve backed down almost instantly. “Sorry, I thought you were—nevermind. Jarvis sent me the code for security breach in this location. Is everything okay?”
Tony waved his hand dismissively and walked towards where Steve came from, knowing that the Captain and his team would follow him, effectively and discreetly leading them away from the hallway the group of agents were trying to go into. “Yeah, no, sorry about that. Apparently updating Jarvis’ security responses through a Nokia was not a good idea. Thought I might try it, after having found it lying around in my scraps.”
Behind Steve, Natasha gave him a weird look. She’s most likely caught onto his bullshit, since she could sniff out a lie like a doberman. But she probably won’t rat him out, Tony’s found her to be a connoisseur of lies—somewhat enjoying seeing how other people would spin their web of lies and keep it entirely to herself until she can figure out the whole story.
“Anyways, it was a glitch, wrong alert, no security breach here so don’t go waving your patriotic frisbee around, you’re scaring my employees.” Tony gestured at the few security guards and employees trying to evacuate the building.
Steve looked to Natasha, noticing the glances Tony had been sending her, before fixing a serious gaze at the billionaire. “Right. So nothing’s wrong?” He looked around, expecting to see something. “Nothing suspicious? No one?”
“Is this disappointment, I sense—are you disappointed that for once nothing is wrong, and there’s no susceptible danger trying to come for my life?” Tony dramaticized his reactions, his face a good actor of a hurt and wounded puppy. “I thought I was your friend.”
With a goodhearted scoff, Steve patted his friend’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re safe, Tony.” He scoured the area once more with his eyes before looking back to his team, silently confirming something.
“Oh, I’m so touched.” Tony clutched his heart.
Natasha shot him a smirk before leading the team to leave, which Tony returned with an amused tilt of his brow. The genius turned to Steve, who was still stuck in his position. Tony gave him a questioning expression, and for a few minutes he had held his breath.
Maybe Steve didn’t buy his lie. What’s he going to do?
Before Tony and his brain could start plotting, Steve huffed and straightened his shoulders. “Well, if there’s anything wrong, anything at all, you know who to call.”
He nodded like a toddler listening to his teacher to get a reward. “Yes, yes, I have the number of the ghostbusters saved in my speed-dial.”
With that, Steve gave him a laugh and patted him on the shoulder once more then turned to leave. Waiting until he had finally left the premises, Tony did a quick perimeter sweep to make sure no one was around.
He sped his way back to the corridor he originally greeted Steve in. All of the buildings under his name, he had built and configured to his own taste. Which meant that Tony was the only one who knew of secret hiding spots.
Including the retractable wall that enclosed a closet-sized empty space in this hallway. Tony stood in front of it and readied his repulser just in case of any attack.
His hands reached out to push the hidden button disguised as a mark of pattern on the wall, and watched as the wall retracted to reveal—
Nothing.
Tony blinked in shock.
“Oh, son of a bitch.”
***
Stiles was buzzing with a fuckton of questions. Nothing went at all the way he expected it to, and he basically went through all of that for absolutely nothing. At the very least, his escape was a lot easier than he thought it would—what with everyone evacuating, he slipped into the crowd without much fuss.
What he didn’t understand was why did Tony Stark—the man he had captured, threatened and forced to cooperate with him—help him avoid capture. Stiles thought he was going to get caught for sure until the unmistakable light of Iron Man’s arc reactor entered his vision and he was getting pushed against a suddenly empty space inside a wall and having that wall shut right back, entrapping him.
At first he thought Stark was just imprisoning him to get his own little revenge, but then the sound of his voice and another man’s went further and further away along with the collective footsteps of the SHIELD agents.
Stiles didn’t need to think much about it before he escaped the hiding spot—after much tribulation and a lot of prodding random spots on the retractable slab of the wall to get it to open from the inside—and ran.
Now, he was back in the motel he rented earlier, before going to Stark Industries, to drop his stuff off. Stiles ransacked through his duffel bag and found that the black cube was exactly where he’d stuffed it in.
Some would think it to be reckless, leaving such an important and central key to the mystery he’s trying to unravel in an unguarded motel and not on his person. But Stiles knew better. He’s a target. And he knows he’s good, but if luck fucks him over and he does end up caught, he doesn’t want that cube falling into enemy hands.
So the safest spot to keep it was actually away from him, at all times if possible.
But that wasn’t an option either.
Sighing, Stiles ruffled his hair before slumping on the bed and shrugged out of suit. He emptied the contents inside the suit and found the fruit of today’s efforts.
Looking at the drive in his hand, Stiles wasn’t confident he could recover the data himself. He wasn’t a tech-wiz after all, recovering something that was corrupted ages ago was above his skills.
This would’ve been a piece of cake for Lydia, though, she was an unparalleled tech-genius.
Something stabbed his heart and twisted his gut, but Stiles bit his lips to ignore it. He took a few deep calming breaths. He let himself lie down on the mattress. Closed his eyes and strengthened his resolve, strengthened the box of locked emotions and strengthened his compartmentalization.
What now?
Before he could plan his next steps, the door to his motel room opened.
Stiles reacted as fast as he could, reaching the gun on the bed and tried to shoot at the direction of the door—but he was caught off-guard and his intruder had blocked off his gun’s nozzle and lifted him up and against a wall before attaching some sort of metal bracelet on both his hands.
“You—” Stiles spluttered when he got a good look at his attacker.
Tony Stark smirked right back at him, surprisingly not in his Iron Man suit or at least not all of it, only his hands were decorated with the classic red and yellow armour. “Me.”
The metal bracelet on his wrists blinked a blue light. Stiles looked at it. Then his hands were pulled back straight to the wall, keeping him there. Damn tech-geniuses and their fucking gadgets.
Stiles glared at the man. “What is this? Payback?”
“I would be lying if I said it wasn’t.” Tony shrugged.
His panic was crashing through the roof, Stiles tried to wreck his brain about for any idea to escape, but he was coming up very short. “How did you find me?”
Tony simply took a small tablet out to reveal a grid map and a blinking dot on the screen. “I tracked you.”
“You put a tracker on me?” Stiles barely contained his shouting, he couldn’t help but look around his body to see any signs of a tracker. “When?!”
“That’s not important.” Tony spoke in a hushed voice, trying to get the young man to calm down. “Hey. Look at me, Stilinski, focus.”
Stiles snapped his head up at the weird tone that the billionaire was using with him.
“I did some digging while you were Ray Breslin-ing it out there and turns out the file you’re trying to access was locked and never publicized for a reason. I backtracked the digital footprints and a lot of red flags popped up. My dad scrapped that file, and corrupted it with the intention of deleting it permanently before locking it. But that process was blocked and someone made a boot-leg copy of it.”
The agent tried struggling against the detachable cuffs pinning him onto the wall. “What are you on about?”
“I found trace cover-ups in the system of someone accessing that boot-leg copy before deleting it from the archives completely.” Tony treaded on with no regards to Stiles’ confusion.
Frowning as his attempts to struggle failed, Stiles gave up, huffing in annoyance. “Yeah, I already knew that, dumbshit, considering I just saw the case less than 24 hours ago.”
“No, you don’t get it.” Tony’s eyebrow twitched. “It was accessed by my dad’s login.”
Stiles took a moment to consider what that meant. But none of it made sense. “Wait, so your dad made a boot-leg copy of a file he corrupted and tried to permanently delete and accessed it later only to delete it, again? Why?”
“It was accessed in 2006.” Tony cut off Stiles’ train of thoughts.
Something about that statement was glaringly obviously wrong. “But—”
“Yeah. 15 years after he died.”
That’s not possible. Stiles’ brain caught up to what Tony was trying to hint at. “He was betrayed.”
“By someone close, someone he trusted, otherwise they wouldn’t have access to his login.” Tony let a frustrated breath out, a hand crading through his locks.
“Wait, you said the private archives aren’t accessible without you—” Stiles stopped in mid-sentence as he slowly realized the timeline of this whole incident would have made what he was saying ridiculous, “—oh.”
Tony simply smiled at him degradingly, like he was mocking his intelligence. “Yes, oh. The only reason why I was able to take the private archives offline and set up all those security linked to me because I had the arc reactor.” He tapped the glowing light in his chest. “Which I only obtained after a particularly traumatizing experience in 2008.”
The mood seemed to have simmered down, or at least it wasn’t violent or threatening anymore. Stiles was sure by now that Tony Stark wasn’t here to arrest or capture him. Which meant—
“Why are you telling me all of this?” Stiles was careful in his approach, but kept a fearless attitude. “Why are you here?”
Tony Stark sized him up for a minute or two, as if evaluating the man’s worth in his eyes. Apparently whatever he saw, he was satisfied with judging by his nod.
“There are only a few people close enough to Howard Stark to know those login codes. His work partners, his wife and his butler, Jarvis.” Tony listed off with three fingers held up. “My mom would never go against him, she has no interest in the company, and if that’s not enough proof, she died the same year with him.”
One finger down. “Jarvis would never betray him, and he was long dead before 2006 when the file was accessed again.”
Another finger down, only one left. “That leaves his work partners.”
“Work partners?” Stiles tried to think. “The next CEO of Stark Industries after your dad, that guy? Obadiah Stane?”
Tony winced when his name appeared but shook it off. “No. It couldn’t be him, he doesn’t even know the private archives exist, he’s not smart enough to pull that off.” There was a look of forlorn that scattered across his expression but was quickly hidden. “He’s dead now, anyways, he’s not involved in this.”
Stiles raised his eyebrow. “So who?”
“My dad only ever worked closely with one work partner, of which secrets would be loosely traded and trusted.” Tony stared right into Stiles. “You should know.”
He should know? Frowning at the genius billionaire, Stiles tried to search his brain for someone he knew with connections to Howard Stark, but he couldn’t really pinpoint anyon—anyone?
The realization hit him like a train.
Tony never said anything about the work partner being a person.
“SHIELD.” He whispered.
Tony nodded at his conclusion. “I’m 93% sure it was SHIELD. Or at least someone from SHIELD betrayed him.”
Well. Stiles should’ve guessed that, after all, the ones after him are from SHIELD. But this was somehow unsettling. This would mean there weren't just one or two bad apples in SHIELD, this meant someone important was in on it too—or at the very least, someone who was close to Howard Stark back when he was still alive in the 1990s. And if they were still active in 2006 when they accessed the file, then that kind of seniority in the agency’s ranks would account for something.
They’ve been planning this for a long time.
Stiles tried to not let that unnerve him. Despite how damning and serious that revelation was, that still didn’t explain why Tony Stark was here telling all of this to him.
“Why are you coming to me about this?”
Tony settled for blankly staring at him before crossing his arms. “Because you were betrayed by them too.”
What? Stiles blinked.
“Or at least you’re on the opposite side of whoever betrayed my dad.” Tony walked around the motel room, making a sound of disapproval at the place. “You went through all the trouble to look for the file about the case, which means you didn’t even know about it until recently. Wouldn’t make sense for you to do all this if you were with them, because they already have access to the file.”
Stiles tried to gage the man. “Maybe this is part of the plan.” He narrowed his eyes and turned his lips into a dangerous smirk. “To get you here.”
Tony gave him an appraising raise of both his eyebrows, as if to ridicule him of this half-ass play “Maybe.” He scoffed. “But I’m willing to bet this case was the thing you supposedly stole and ran off with—which was the objective of the SHIELD issued manhunt for you. But by the looks of it, you don’t have it.”
As he watched the man filter around the room, picking up random things only to shake his head in criticism, Stiles continued his play. “How do you know I’ve not hidden the case somewhere else?”
“Because you don’t know what it is. When someone as intelligent as you are in possession of an object that you don’t know the use of, you would keep it close instead of far away—but in your case, you’re a fugitive, so you can’t keep it too close on you but not too far either. Which means if you have it, it has to be in this motel.”
Stiles couldn’t argue with that logic, because that’s exactly what he had thought to do with the cube.
“You don’t know what it does, and that’s why you came looking for the file.” Tony snapped his fingers at the stressed syllable. “You desperately needed to know what that case is, and what it does, which is—in and of itself—a very odd thing. Most people don’t care about the case, a suitcase is meant as a security measure. To protect something.”
Tony knew he was hitting the target dead on when Stiles kept silent. Thus, he continued on.
“So why would you?” The genius made his way to Stiles once more. “It doesn’t make any sense why you would need to know what the case does, what’s important is that its job is protecting something. Right? Well, ofcourse. Unless—”
Tony bent his head down to lock his eyes with Stiles’ dead in the center.
“—you don’t know what it’s protecting.”
Stiles was as good of a liar as they come, his poker face as thick as thieves. So he did nothing but blink.
But apparently a blink was enough for a genius like Tony to confirm his findings. “You don’t have the case, and you don’t know what it’s protecting—But! You have it. If you didn’t have it, then you wouldn’t have known that it was something you didn’t know anything about, and you wouldn’t come looking for the file on the case.” He stood straight back up.
“SHIELD is headlining your manhunt with accusations of murder and treason, more specifically running off with a ‘case’ guarding a ‘sensitive document’ that was a threat to national security if released—or at least that’s what the mission file said.” Tony waved his hands off as if he was disregarding the info.
Stiles didn’t even need to ask to know how Tony had access to classified SHIELD intel and mission files, probably illegally that’s how.
“But you don’t have the case.” The genius listed off, and took a seat on the bed facing Stiles. “And you’re certainly not dumb enough to not know what ‘sensitive documents’ are to the point where you’d need specs on the case to figure it out. Also, a case that the Howard Stark designed and decided that it should be permanently scrapped, could not possibly be used to handle a mere ‘sensitive document’.”
The fugitive could only stare straight back at his captor.
“So this whole manhunt—” Tony gestured to the room, “—it’s a lie. A ruse.”
Stiles always thought he was smart. Smarter than most of his peers, a damn good espionage spy, and a genius at thinking on his feet. That’s why he was chosen as a leader. His qualifications and his brains outranked almost everyone in SHIELD, even those older than him.
But Tony Stark was a man in his own league. He just tore apart and analyzed his actions and found the truth like it was legos.
“Fine.” Stiles gave up trying to out-play the man. “What do you want?”
Tony smiled at getting the man to admit defeat. “I want you to help me.”
“Why?” The response was lightning fast.
Tony met him with the same speed. “I don’t like it when people think they can get the upper hand over me.” He leaned back, propping his hands on the bed he was sitting on. “Plus, I have to avenge my dad being betrayed, yada yada, filial duty, and all that tear-jerking backstory.”
Stiles could feel a migraine pounding in his head at the idea of handling Tony on a probable daily-basis. He already had a massive headache right now and he hasn’t even known the guy for all of a day.
“If we end up proving your innocence along the way, then well, that’s just a bonus side-treat for you.” The man was dangerously good at that, negotiating and making you fall under his thumb to give him exactly what he wants. “So, actually, I’m helping you.”
But at this point, Stiles was out of options. Plus, a genius like Tony could be better equipped at figuring out what the hell that black cube does. Since his father was already involved, it was better that he could get the son to be on his side of this risky chess game.
“Okay.” Stiles breathed out with a sense of defeat. “Okay, fine, I’ll help you help me whatever.”
Tony Stark flashed him a blinding smile at their new partnership. "Great! I was getting bored anyways."
Stiles could only respond with an exhausted eye roll, all he wanted to do was take a nap. “Now could you please let me down, my legs are falling.”
“Oh!” Tony jolted out of the bed in action, a tiny sheepish expression splashed on his smile. “Right, sorry, forgot about that.”
God, help him.