Chapter 7
Dinner had been going well. Although Steve could have done without all the fans of Iron Man who had approached them as they were waiting to be seated in a booth next to the window. The people stopping to gawk and take pictures of Stark were a little bit over the top. And Stark hadn’t said anything, he could have easily asked people to leave them alone and they would have backed off and given them their privacy. Steve just didn’t understand why Stark went out of his way to gather crowds around him.
Then Steve had made the mistake of asking why Stark was always vacationing in Honolulu.
“I’m not vacationing, Cap!” Steve noticed that Stark was looking at him with an expression he couldn’t interpret. “I’m building a new tower in Honolulu! I thought you knew that. It’s been all over the news. Actually, after all the research I’ve been doing and after talking to the people in Hawaii, I’ve decided to build an entire complex. There’ll be at least two towers, with one entirely devoted to housing and the other split between business and residential. Stark Industries does a fair amount of business in the Pacific Rim. And Hawaii is a good place to base ourselves for access. I mean, Japan is probably technically a little more convenient for South Korea and all the little Island nations. But I wanted to build a tower in Hawaii anyways, and this will be a good use for it.
Steve sat back as Stark just continued babbling, “one of the main reasons for SI to expand our presence in Hawaii, is to set up a reactor on each of the big islands. Hawai’i, Maui, and O’ahu all have populations of over 100,000 and they all have to ship in fuel for their power plants. It would actually be a lot cheaper and easier to just set up reactors for them. We’ll probably need more than one for O’ahu, but that’s where the first one is going. We broke ground for the reactor a month ago and are in the process of finalizing the design of the two towers closer to the city, that’s why I blocked out a lot of time on my schedule and I’ve been going back and forth so often. We still have a good chunk of land from the old warehouse district I bought. A lot of it is being torn down and we’ll have to see if we just leave it empty or if another building or two are needed.” Here Stark looked seriously at Steve, “did you know there is a significant homeless population in O’ahu, Cap. I was thinking of putting up a couple of mini towers on the other side of the main towers. I figure the units themselves will be small, but…”
“Stark, are you telling me that instead of fixing Sam’s wings, you’ve been running around Hawaii trying to save the homeless?”
“What? I’ve told you, Cap, I’m not allowed to work on the EXO flight system without authorization from the Air Force. I know that Rhodey gave you some contact information so that you could get that process started. And no, I have not just been running around Hawaii trying to save the homeless, I’ve been working. One of the reasons the cost of living in Hawaii is so high, is that everything needs to be shipped to the island. Reducing the cost of power, reducing the amount of materials that need to be shipped there would be a great help to the state. They can then use that money on other things. That’s the same reason that Alaska is also going to be getting a reactor soon. Although that one is going to be small and experimental to make sure that the extended cold doesn’t damage the equipment any. We’re also starting construction on 3 separate Arcs down the California coast. Those aren’t going to need me to do more than oversee them as we aren’t playing around with the size and output like we are in Hawaii and Alaska.”
“Just stop, Stark, stop.” Steve put up his hand as Stark again started babbling about how great he was. Saving the little people, making their lives easier. “Is this why you’ve been gone so much recently? Just how much time are all these little projects of yours going to take?” Stark had been mostly in New York for the first few months that Steve and the others had been living in the tower after Hydra was exposed. But the last month of so he had been gone more than there to help with the search for Hydra. “We’ve already identified several Hydra bases. Nat, Clint and I would be able to take most of them so far, but some of the bigger ones are going to need more fire-power. You need to be available for that, not running around the world.”
Stark sat back and looked at him, the grin from talking about himself falling off his face and an expression Steve couldn’t identify taking its place. “Where are these bases?”
“What?”
“The bigger Hydra bases you’ve already identified that you need help with. Where are they?”
“There’s one outside of Paris and another in Germany.”
“And the smaller ones. How many people are we talking here?”
“There are three small bases in Paris itself. Maybe a dozen people in each.” Steve went on to detail what they knew so far as Stark sat there watching him and thinking. All told there are 9 different bases that Miss Hill has identified within the past week. Something about having a breakthrough now that Stark was able to help with the decrypting of Hydra’s files. This was another reason for Stark to stop playing around with his ‘helping the homeless’ charade and start pulling his own weight in the Avengers. If Steve wasn’t afraid that Stark would have a tantrum, he would remind him that, if he ever wanted to move past being a consultant then he needed to prove it.
Stark interrupted Steve again and suggested they should move back to the tower as anyone might be listening in. Steve couldn’t help but be insulted, he would definitely notice someone trying to spy on them; but followed Stark out of the restaurant and back to the tower. Walking next to the aggravating little man as he tapped away on his phone. That was another thing, Steve couldn’t believe how rude people in the future were. In his time people had good manners and courtesy, now people saw nothing wrong with ignoring the person they were with to play on a toy.
It was a short 10-minute walk to the tower and by the time Steve had followed Stark into the Avengers communal living area there were half a dozen people waiting around the glass dining table, that had turned into a computer screen, waiting for them. Finding out that these people had been called by Stark on the walk back and were here to plan the assaults on the Hydra bases and coordinate with the French and German governments was very irritating to Steve. All these extra people are entirely unnecessary, and if Stark would just do as he was told and work with Steve and the others like he was supposed to, they wouldn’t need any extra help. True, they wouldn’t be able to hit all the known bases at once as there just weren’t enough Avengers, but that was excessively elaborate anyways. Finding out, in the course of their coordination with Germany, that they already knew of the German bases and were in the process of planning an assault was equally irritating to Steve. If only Stark had been doing his job months ago, they wouldn’t need to bring in all these outsiders.
Hiding his discontent and irritation at losing control of the operation Steve shot a fulminating glare at the back of Stark’s head where he was standing at the table talking to several people at once. Stepping up to the table Steve started talking to the French anti-terrorism head as he instructed her on where Steve, Nat and Clint would be most useful. The German anti-terrorism head had already turned down Steve’s suggestions as their teams were well practiced in working with each other and, he assured Steve, they didn’t need the help. The German bases were actually the ones that most interested Steve and this blocking of his authority just highlighted that Stark caused trouble in everything he did. The German head then requesting Tony Stark’s help in making sure no data was lost, was further irritating. Stark wasn’t even going to be in his armor, and the Germans wanted his help, but not Steve. Steve, Nat and Clint were all going to target the base outside of Paris.