Prolific
Rose Hill, Tennesee
2020
Rhodey has been underground - literally, that is - for five months. JOCASTA took the liberty of remotely overriding his suit the first day he was there. He's not sure if that means FRIDAY has been evicted from the suit, or if she's just temporarily cut off. It seems like a weird question to ask, so he hasn't. Other things, more pressing things, have occupied his time so far regardless.
Like waking up each day to find Pepper, to reassure himself that finding her holed up in the backwoods wasn't a taunting dream. Talking to her, listening to the light rise and fall of her tone as they play a sad game of catch up. They talk about her time here in Rose Hill, and of the things she's found in this facility. Rhodey tells her about everything she's missed in the two years and two months that elapsed before he found her. He asks about the boy in the bunker who looks at Pepper like she's likely to disappear when he blinks, who looks at Rhodey like he's the reason she's going to be gone.
Some days, most days, they talk about Tony. About the things he left behind for him, vastly different collections of items and works that are largely unfinished. They talk about his handwriting and how you can tell when he was starting to overwork himself and get tired because the writing begins to lean to the side so heavily. They talk about the ridiculousness of this compound existing, unknown, in this small town.
It's cathartic and exhausting in the same breath. No one talks about Tony, nowadays. No one talks about anyone lost in the Snap - the Dust, the Blip, whatever they want to name it now - really. Rhodey thinks it's because of how quick and brutal and unexpected it was. It's one thing to mourn for someone lost when you knew it was coming, and another to mourn someone lost out of the blue, and yet another thing entirely to lose so many so fast so out of nowhere and to nothing.
A lot of their time is spent trying to even out what they both know. Passing news, data, information, and everything else back and forth in the hopes of putting together a puzzle without the picture on the box to reference. Some things are harder to explain like Rocket, Vision's state of being, or Carol. Others are easier, the things that still fall on the 'not out of this universe' level of weird they've encountered over the years.
"There's not enough vibranium on the planet to stabilize this." Pepper comments casually.
In front of them, displayed on the workbench, are holographic copies of the paper documents and small-scale metal models of the Planetary Defense Shield. A flick of her thin fingers has it rotating so that she can examine the next column of notes. On the other side of the bench, shins propped against the table, Harley uses a finger to turn the circular hologram floating a few inches above the tabletop.
"Unless..." Pepper cuts her eyes to him, brows rising.
Rhodey shakes his head. "No. Shuri said it would more than exhaust their resources to try to build and maintain something this size. Carol might have done some digging, but -" he waves his hand around them.
Pepper nods, obviously understanding what he means. He's been down here, and so have they, so if there are any new developments they're out of the loop. It's hard not to wonder what they've missed, even if he doesn't regret spending this time reconnecting with her. There's so much out there, so much happening, and they're down here. Rhodey is willing to admit it's peaceful, it's an escape, but... He knows they need to leave, they have to.
Not that Pepper or Harley seem to have thought of that in two years. The two of them are in a bubble down here, untouchable. A short drop away from the crisp sting of reality. For someone who used to be so connected, the woman in question seems content to wait. As for the boy, well. Rhodey doesn't know him well enough to say what keeps him here. Maybe it's just the familiarity, or the fact that he was doomed to this town from birth. Sucked into a place that widely misses the mark of being notable. Or maybe it's simply because they've both spent two years and seven months here, leaving only in short bursts.
"She hasn't come back." Harley interrupts from the sidelines, not even glancing up at them.
The boy is talking, of course, about Carol. JOCASTA had told them, some number of months ago now, that something was exiting Earth's atmosphere. Too small to be the ship the woman came in on, and moving too randomly to be an object shot into space. She - because it could only really be Carol - hasn't come back yet, and nothing else has left. Rhodey has a few theories as to why this could be, and none of them are good.
"The universe is bigger than just us." Rhodey shrugs. "She could be anywhere."
”And we’re here.” Harley snips back bitterly.
Rhodey really isn’t sure what to make of the dirty look he’s receiving right now. He counters it with a wrinkle of his nose. The boy rolls his eyes, unimpressed, and returns to his task of seeing how fast he can make the holographic orb spin in place. Curiously, Pepper doesn’t acknowledge the exchange. Her sharp nose remains rooted in familiar handwriting and diagrams. Typically she at least tosses them a stern look like she’s their babysitter. More often than not, she lets out a sharp remark to set them straight.
Not that Rhodey wants to argue with a kid, or enjoys it, but... Look, everyone has their bad days and bad moods, he's won't pretend he doesn't act a little childish. Sometimes. But it's not entirely his fault. For a kid, Harley has an incredible sense for what buttons to push to set someone's timer. It's like he's got a sixth sense for pissing people off, and the snide look on his face most certainly means he gets some sort of amusement out of it. Or maybe joy. The grumpy young boy's impressive vocabulary seems best put to use in nagging at him, or questioning his intelligence.
That's all it is.
"You don't have to be here." Rhodey tries conversationally, looking back and forth between his companions to watch their reactions.
Harley simply sneers at the hologram of a hypothetically finished PDS. Across from him, Pepper's shoulders twitch. She looks up to meet Rhodey's eyes briefly, but makes no comment when she goes back to her papers. Slim hands shuffle the documents around, as if the noise will distract everyone, and green-blue eyes scan over the words under furrowed brows. The look on her face is something near irritation, but he can't tell what put it there. The act being put on by Pepper is noticed by the youngest in the room, too, if his exaggerated snort is any indication.
The brunette boy addresses Rhodey with his words and Pepper with his sharp glare. "You don't get it."
An unspeakably strong urge to throttle the kid rolls over him. Harley is speaking to him as if trying to explain crossed molecular beam experiments to a toddler. Slow, steady, and so unconcerned with Rhodey that he might as well just be talking to himself. Which, okay, sure, he's obviously a smart kid. But Rhodey isn't an idiot, he did well in school, had high test scores, made it far in his career - he's done well for himself. He doesn't need someone decades younger than him talking to him like his brain is visibly out of his body and he's only speaking and moving through sheer willpower.
"Harley." Pepper's tone is sharp with the verbal yellow flag.
"What? Thirty-one months down here not enough for you?" The boy quips easily. "This is our chance."
"No." She shuts him down shortly, finally looking up.
"Your chance to what?" Rhodey interrupts, earning a grimace from Pepper.
The look in Harley's eyes is mischievous, familiar in the light that dances there. "He's our in."
"What?" Bewildered, the man looks between them.
Pepper sounds thoroughly annoyed, as if she's had to say this repeatedly. "We're not doing anything."
"We could, but you're scared." Comes Harley's quick retort, and the words sound like someone else years ago. "Get the fuck over yourself."
"Hey." Rhodey points a finger at the boy.
It's the first time he's seen the kind act this way toward Pepper, and it rubs him the wrong way. Snarky comments and joking jabs are the norm from what he's observed. But they always lack the barbed wire and wicked tilt of his lips, no mocking laughs. The guarded look he serves Rhodey fades when he looks at her, replaced with a certain respect.
Harley isn't a mean kid by any means, though. While the three of them have been together he's made lighter jokes, laughed, smiled. There's no absolute animosity or cruelness to him, he's a relatively normal kid. It's more of a distrust in his mannerisms, a tone built to brush others off like dust, a sort of forced maturity, something serious in his keen looks and quick mind. Rhodey wonders if he was like this before the Snap, before Thanos, before living underground in a facility built by a strange older man who might have been the greatest genius of his time. There's a fair chance he's always been like this, though. He's gotten the impression life hadn't dealt him the best of hands before all of this.
Or perhaps, you know, he just doesn't like Rhodey. That's kind of the vibe he's getting from the ugly look being thrown his way.
"It's true and she knows it." Harley tells him tartly.
"Hold on just a minute -"
Pepper cuts off his attempt at defending her with a hard sigh. "It wouldn't work."
"You don't know that!" Sounding exactly his age, Harley whines petulantly. "You won't even give it a chance."
"Time out." Rhodey raises both hands to stop them before they barrel any further into this unfamiliar conversation. "Does anyone want to fill me in?"
"No." Admits Pepper.
At the same time, Harley huffs. "Yes."
"Ouch." The umber skinned man brings one hand over his heart, brows rising comically. "Okay, Pepper."
"It's because it's a bad idea." She tells him apologetically.
Feeling a little insulted, he frowns. "And you don't think I would be able to tell that for myself?"
"James," his name comes out in a sigh.
Harley's voice is hard, determined. "She doesn't want to tell you because it's a good idea."
"No." Pepper stresses. "Even if it were a good idea, which it's not," here she gives the young boy a sharp look. "It wouldn't work."
"That's what you keep saying." Harley retorts.
The two of them are talking in a circle. The same argument against the same excuse over and over and over. No progress, no explanation, no answers. Rhodey doesn't have any idea what they may or may not have been potentially planning to do. He also doesn't know if it would or would not hypothetically work, or what makes it so unquestionable to Pepper that it would fail. In fact, the more he sits here the less he thinks he knows.
Belatedly Rhodey realizes that in the five months he's been down here not once, ever, did he ask what they were working on down here before his arrival. They've talked about the Mark XLIX, the facility itself, what Tony left for them. He realizes now, he doesn't even know why Pepper took the suit above ground multiple times and never tried to contact anyone, never went any further.
Doubt trickles in, cold and uncomfortable as it soaks through his chest. Is there any reason that, after all these years, Pepper wouldn't want to tell him something? They're family, regardless of blood, and there's an unspoken level of trust and loyalty there rarely found these days. Rhodey digs through his brain to figure it out, deaf to the bickering continuing in front of him.
"Let him make his own decision, then." The challenge is posed by Harley, nose lifted haughtily.
Pepper's conflicted eyes lock on him, expression pulled into a tight cringe. It's a look he knows very well, a look that they both have mastered and learned to put on in sync. What's abnormal about it is that it's never aimed at him. A silent plea to not make a crazy or impulsive decision, a petition to not go through with a questionable scheme that's being mentally cooked up. The sentiment is understood easily, not the line of reasoning behind it.
"Why don't you want to tell me?" Rhodey demands, leveling his lips into a thin line.
An augmented moment of hesitate and then: "You'll want to do it."
Caught firmly between his ribs, his heart stops. "What makes you say that?"
"Because it's for Tony." Pepper says simply, and he knows she's right without the missing context.
There's nothing he wouldn't do for Tony - nothing he wouldn't have done. Rhodey tries to change the tense without thinking about it, but it's easy to forget. Finding an unfamiliar Iron Man suit and finding Pepper instead of Tony inside of it had forced him to try to stop creating ways for the other man to be out there somewhere. The reality of the situation is that no one has seen him in two years and seven months, and anyone who hasn't been seen since then likely isn't going to be seen again.
Rhodey has never been good at giving up. Obviously. He's spent nearly three years searching for some sign of Tony, he flew over sand dunes and rolling hills for months with nothing but vague leads, he read what might have been an entire thesis on cloaking devices -
Sometimes you just have to accept the facts that have been laid out before you. Unfortunately, these recent months it's been his turn to do so. No one wants to talk about it, of course, but Rhodey knows that everyone already thought Tony was gone. He knows that the odds have been against them the whole time. It's a surprise that so many familiar faces made it through what happened. The losses were so heavy on the full scale that, realistically, fewer of them should have made it out.
Even if Tony had survived the Blip, out there beyond their reach the chances of long term survival in the wake of universal devastation are slim to none. Rocket's commentary, brief but blunt, had trimmed the fat further. Finding a warm welcome anywhere under these circumstances is laughable, but the conditions are the more dangerous factor. With half of the population gone, it's almost certain that a number of places and people shut down to assess the damage and regroup. Put all of that in with the fact that none of them have an idea of what has actually happened, they have nothing to rationalize this with, and it's hard to see anyone lending a hand to a stranger.
"What's the problem?" Rhodey asks eventually, because it's the only question that matters.
"There isn't one." Asserts the younger boy flatly.
Pepper rubs at her temple with one hand as she clarifies. "It's more like twenty."
Relentless, Harley slumps in his seat dramatically and waves his arms. The resemblance to someone else is uncanny. It strikes Rhodey so suddenly that for a moment, even minus the gaudy sunglasses and pressed jacket, he forgets where he is. The boy is speaking quickly, expression jumping back and forth between animated and annoyed as if his face is the playing field and picking an emotion is lava. One of his legs is bouncing at such a pace it looks like he might bruise with the sharp shifting of weight to and from the ball of his foot.
"- don't know what came down? Now we do. The suit isn't finished? Now we don't need it." Tuning back into Harley's ranting, the man grimaces. "We don't have an in? Now we do." Sneering and shaking his messy brunette head of hair around, the boy continues. "They're all just excuses. It's like you don't want it to work."
"You can't fly an alien spaceship." Is all Pepper gives him in response, looking very much like she would like the conversation to be over.
Taken aback, Rhodey leans forward. "What?"
Indignant, Harley soldiers on. "JOCASTA can."
"Really?" Pepper chimes sarcastically, dipping her chin up to look at the ceiling. "JOCASTA?"
"Creating an uplink with a foreign aircraft would require the technology to be compatible, but it is within the realm of possibility. However, it is unlikely I would be able to manually override all processes on board and maintain them. Unfortunately, there are very few lectures to reference on alien technology available to me."
More than a little surprised to be overloaded with all of these connected dots at once, Rhodey leans forward. If he's getting this right, and he's fairly certain he is, Harley wants them to steal an alien spaceship. Specifically, Carol's ship. One that is currently in New York, probably with at least a couple Avengers. All in all? A terrible plan. Someone is going to notice them coming in hot.
"He's a pilot, isn't he?" Harley looks over at the older man, but doesn't bother waiting for confirmation. "He can do it."
"No he can't." Pausing, Pepper gives him a sly lift of her lips. "No offense."
Full of spite, the kid bites out his next words. "It's like you don't believe he's out there."
Hurt comes to life all along the features of Pepper's face, shown most clearly in the way her brows angle and the corners of her lips pinch. A similar feeling shows on Harley's face, but it makes itself known in the hitch of his shoulders as he looks away. And Rhodey - who knows this is a terrible plan, who knows it could go wrong in too many ways, who knows the dilemma they're both facing - finds his mouth moving before his brain can fully reason with him to shut up and let them have it out because Pepper is right, she's usually right about these things.
"I can do it." The words come out in a rush of air, drawing the attention of the room back to him. Rhodey repeats himself, a little more sure this time, even if he doesn't need to. "I can do it."
Wakanda
2020
A lot of very unusual things have happened in the past few years in Wakanda. From taking a new king to dealing with the outside world to recovering from a surprise assault. Everyone is learning that there's nothing outside of the realm of possibility anymore, that they should be going through the stages of mentally preparing themselves for every possibility.
Unfortunately, there isn't much that could prepare them for this.
"Are communication systems down?"
"Just can't connect." A pause, a frown. "Do you think the distance is the problem?"
A firm shake of his head answers the question. "Either the signal is scrambled or they won't let us in."
"So we just go for it." Flat and unconvinced.
Staring down at a screen that details radio signals and power readings, Loki considers their options. Wait it out, see if they receive a response or make a connection. Touch down on the planet somewhere else and maybe not have the fuel to make it to their second option. Or risk having made a big mistake and just drop in here, hoping that there's nothing with enough firepower to stop them. In the ideal version of this plan, someone would have been able to establish a connection between the ship and whatever is putting off the new signal to make contact.
"The ship won't hold like this much longer." Brunnhilde reminds him tartly. "We're carrying too much weight, the amount of fuel we're putting off fighting gravity isn't sustainable."
"I know." Loki replies shortly.
"If we go down, we're going down hard."
Pinning her with a bright green glare, the man scowls. "I'm aware."
Entering Earth's atmosphere had been easy. Stopping the top heavy ship from spiraling into a horrific crash had been... troublesome. The difference in gravity between here and the vehicle's original planet wasn't something they took into consideration before, and the materials are under a lot of stress with the increased pressure. Brunnhilde has, rather unhelpfully, been harping on this for the past ten minutes while they weighed their options.
The cloaking device stretched over the land had only caused further complications. The ship's radar had picked the device up easily enough, but they have no way of seeing what's hidden beneath the generated trees. For all they know, they could go for a smooth slope downward and take out half of a city. Take down an electric tower and fry everyone instantly. The possibilities are endless and frustrating. Loki has never been here, never needed to be here, and his knowledge of the planet isn't proving to be helpful in this moment.
"Land."
Brunnhilde looks up at him, brows cocked. "You're sure?"
Offering a lazy shrug, Loki lifts his eyes from the monitor. "No, but we aren't quite swimming in choices, are we?"
Not bothering to respond, the woman begins their descent. The ship has to fall at an angle to minimize the risk of coming in too quickly and causing damage with a rough landing, but if they go too far they're likely to waste more fuel than they have to spare or put themselves too far from their target. Brunnhilde doesn't even look concerned, expression relaxed as they fall. As the edge of the ship touches the trees they fizzle and their view port shows what it gives way to.
A stretch of grass bordered by trees and a small river to the right. Just ahead, far closer than is comfortable, a city. Wakanda. Loki knows this only by consulting his memory of a map he'd seen in one of the Avenger's strongholds some years ago. A spiral of a structure rises from in front of the city, and he assumes this is what has been putting out the signal they picked up.
"We're too close." Brunnhilde warns him when details come into view.
"Then fall faster."
Throwing out one arm to blindly smack him, the woman scoffs. "I'm sorry, did you want to steer?" Clearly irritated, she removed both hands from the controls. "By all means -"
Abruptly, the bottom of the ship connects with the ground. Dirt and grass fly up and behind them come a number of startled shouts. Loki stumbles forward until his hand scrambles for purchase on the wall beside him and his wide, accusatory eyes fly to the former Valkyrie. She's already grappling for the controls, fumbling over curses and pulling back hard on a thick lever to her left.
"You've certainly helped your point." Loki spits at her as the ship tilts and drags against the ground.
It pulls as Brunnhilde tries to bring it off of the ground to smooth out their landing. "Me?" She shouts in offense. "This is your fault!"
Behind them, loud and a little confused, comes Korg. "Brace for impact!"
"We already -" Loki's sharp comment is cut off.
The ship veers slightly and slides sideways when Brunnhilde jerks and slams a few buttons. It slows them down significantly, but they're still coming in too quickly. The bottom of the angled ship just barely misses the metal spiral jutting out from the ground. They don't have the same luck with the wide stone stairs further ahead. Metal grinds against rock in a head-splitting series of noises until, slowly, the ship comes to a stop.
Loki raises himself fully and finds that they've taken out half of the carved entry to Wakanda. The viewport is half buried in dirt and rock. Really, though, less damage than he was expecting. The ship has taken superficial damage more than anything else, too.
"Is everyone okay?" Korg's voice cuts through the groans again as he ambles around.
An unfamiliar voice answers: "Of course not."
"Alright, yeah." The Kronan responds thoughtfully. "Do you want some water?"
Ignoring the other being's attempts at being helpful, Loki gives a pointed look to the woman on his left. Brunnhilde makes a very rude gesture in response, unloading herself from her seat. Her weight leans to one side to maintain her balance as she stands to make up for the fact that they've parked a bit... lopsided. Assessing the damage for herself, she looks around and busies herself with taking in the mess they've made.
The remains of the Asgardians - which is what all of them are, now, including the Sakaarans because it's just easier that way and they've sort of made themselves a part of it all regardless - are gradually righting themselves. Murmurs move through the people, questions and concerns and comments that Loki doesn't much care to hear. If anyone has anything important to say, he's sure they know how to raise their voice to be heard. They'll all done it plenty of times up until now to raise complaints. Brunnhilde moves past him with ease, navigating the tilted terrain like this is just how the ship has always been oriented.
"Where are you going?" Loki asks when she reaches the others and they move to let her through.
Looking over her shoulder with a dark glare, she rolls her eyes. "I'm getting out of this damn ship and away from you, specifically."
Marching on with an air of determination, she shoulders through anyone who doesn't step aside and heads for the exit. Loki follows her at a much more leisurely pace, allowing the others to crowd toward her with a similar desire for release from their metal home. The crowd seems to swallow him, unconcerned, and he allows it to happen as his steps become slower.
And then, in a flash of green and gold, it's like Loki was never there at all.
Wakanda
2020
Something has been hovering overhead, waiting, for a few hours. There's no telling what - or who - it is, or what it's there for. All scans indicate that it's an alien ship, an unidentified visitor from somewhere they've likely never even heard of. Visitor is a term being used very loosely here, of course. So far the ship has done nothing but sit there, but nothing can become something in the blink of an eye.
FRIDAY hasn't been able to pick up anything useful, and Vision has been silent for most of the day. Busy doing whatever it is that he does while he's waiting for some kind of physical form to inhabit. It's likely he wouldn't be able to provide them with any new information either. No one knows what to expect when it comes to their day to day lives anymore, much less what to expect when an unidentified flying metal mass decides to hang out over your city like a teenager in a local park meant for children.
"Invasion." Rocket comments casually. "There's my bet, if you wanted to know."
"I didn't." Bruce informs him.
Thor, standing and looking at the video feed with them, shakes his head. "I disagree."
"Why?" The raccoon scoffs.
"If they were interested in mounting an attack, they have had nothing to stop them."
"So why aren't they doing anything?" Bruce asks.
"That, I do not know." Thor leans in to squint at the image. "Perhaps they mean to make an alliance."
"I'm telling you," Rocket casually puts in, fidgeting with his vest. "It's an invasion."
Bruce groans and rakes a hand through his hair. His companions continue to debate whether or not they should be preparing for a fight, but he mostly tunes it out. There's been nothing so far to indicate the ship is hostile. On the other hand, there's nothing to say they aren't about to be struck down. The ship provides no answers on the screen, motionless.
The number of questions they have in front of them is, really, uncomfortable. Who is on the ship? Or what? Can they tell there's a cloaking mechanism keeping them out of sight? If they can, do they have the necessary technology to see through it? What brought them here, over Wakanda, specifically? Are they able to pull in the signal from the tower outside? Did Carol send them?
On the screen, the ship drifts downward. Bruce has to blink twice to make sure his eyes aren't betraying him. Horrified, he watches as it falls lower and lower. It's going to hit the dome soon. There's a good chance it will make it through, too. Cause damage to the energy dome that will take months to repair. They don't need to be spreading their resources any thinner, either. Without hesitation, Bruce fumbles for the handheld device on the table in front of him.
He raises it, flipping through options until his finger hovers over the cubes that represent the different sections of the dome over Wakanda. Dragging his finger over all of the ones near the ship, he races to disable them temporarily. The frantic tapping of his finger seems to bring attention back to him and, in turn, the screen. To their right, out the window, the energy dome can be seen fizzling away. It's sure to raise a mountain of questions and, at the same time, panic.
"The fuck are you doing?" Rocket snaps, accusatory, in the brunette man's direction.
"We can't afford to damage the dome." Bruce grimaces with the admission. "Especially with Shuri out of play."
Neither of his companions look pleased with it, but there's no way getting around it. Rocket is cursing, claws scratching at the chair he stands in as he jumps down. His claws announce his actions for him as he moves across the room to retrieve his gun. It was custom made for him some months ago, a joint effort between Vision and Okoye. He swings it around without care, pulling the strap over his shoulder.
Thor, significantly more calm, rests a hand on the axe belted to his waist. The large weapon seems weightless against his hip, but Bruce is sure it's impossible to lift without the sway of Odin. Both the Asgardian and the raccoon made a steady pace for the door and Bruce jogs to catch back up. He doesn't grab a weapon or alert the Dora Milaje. The first is simply because he knows his intervention with a normal weapon, if there is a fight, will likely do more harm than good. Without the Hulk - who, quite honestly, Bruce has not tried very hard to poke at - he's a liability up close and personal. The second is because they'll be needed more to defend Wakanda and its people if this does turn into a brawl.
Moving swiftly through the halls, Rocket leads the way to the main door. His claws catch one a tile here and there making a sharp 'tck!' each time, and his sharp turns around the corners would give a lesser mammal whiplash. Thor doesn't have to rush to keep pace, nothing but smooth steps and long legs to keep him just behind the raccoon. Being shorter, and still looking back and forth between their path and the handheld in his grasp, Bruce fumbles a few times in his quick steps after them.
"Guys..." Bruce trails off as he switches the screen in his hands to view an outside camera.
The ship is coming down fast. Too fast. Bruce doesn't need to be outside to judge the distance and know it's going to hit the ground much closer to them than is comfortable. Without warning the ship tilts and falls, the metal connecting with dirt and grass. It does a short hop and falls slightly onto its side, skidding closer. His warning, or attempt at one, is a little too late to matter. The ground seems to rumble in protest of these shenanigans, making the floor shift beneath their feet.
Rocket stumbles, claws sliding across the floor. His dark eyes look wild when he turns them on Bruce, who has one hand braced on the wall to steady himself, in question. Thor, who doesn't seem to have had any trouble not losing his footing, pauses to give the scientist a similar look. Before he can provide them with one a concerning 'crunch!' of rock paired with the harsh 'shrr-ck!' of metal being scraped tears through the air.
Again, the world shakes around them. It brings Bruce to one knee this time, and the tall blonde ahead of him decides to shelf his questions in favor of marching forward. With a little more difficulty, Rocket scrambles after them. The two move ahead while the human taps at the screen, engages defenses and restores the dome. Whatever is out there will have more trouble getting out than they did getting in.
By the time he's able to catch up, the doors are opened. Light spills into the corridor, framing Rocket and Thor. The contrast between the two would make for a good photo, Bruce decides.
On the left is Rocket's short form, fur tinted a white-yellow shade from the sun. His shoulders are dropped and his grip on his gun is loose, holding the weapon low. His tail is skirting the ground, feet angled away from each other, and the light glints off of his claws like gold. Beside him stands Thor, his half pulled back hair falling over his wide shoulders. Standing beside the raccoon he looks enormous, as thick as a tree, and the axe he has his fingers curled around looks more like a movie prop than an actual weapon.,
When he reaches them and steps into the doorway, Bruce realizes why neither of them are moving. The ship has managed to miss the tower ahead of them and looks fairly undamaged, but it's taken out over half of the stone stairs. Rock, grass, and dirt are scattered haphazardly around them. The hatch on the bottom is opened most of the way, but the metal has lodged itself firmly into the dirt.
More important than those things, though, is the person standing a few steps from the ship. She looks rightly annoyed by the crash landing, hair a mess of unbrushed curls, fists propped up on her hips. Brunnhilde looks nearly the same as when they last saw her, and her eyes scan the area twice before actually catching on the trio. Her expression shifts minutely. Surprise and then, Bruce thinks, relief.
"If you tell me there's no alcohol here," the woman starts as they approach. "I'm going to have to change my mind about coming back."
Rocket wrinkles his nose at her in distaste and directs his statement to his companions. "She stinks."
"She's been trapped on this piece of shit for months." Brunnhilde snarks in return, sharp gaze on the raccoon.
"You're alive." Bruce cuts in before they can get started with any arguing, looking her up and down like she might disappear.
"Last I checked."
Thor swallows hard, though something thick sticks in his throat when he talks. "The other Asgardians -"
"On board." Hooking a thumb over her shoulder, the Asgardian almost looks guilty, words heavy with their finality. "What's left of us."
"I am glad to have you with us." Thor places a hand on her shoulder, voice warm despite his tight expression. "All of you."
The former Valkyrie hesitates, looking behind her for a moment. Her dark eyes roam through the people that slowly move out of the ship, most of whom stop to stare. Likely at Thor, considering he's their ruler, but maybe this is just a lot for them to take in too. When she turns back to face them, her jaw is working as she grinds her teeth. She seems to be debating something, looking between the trio with her brows furrowed.
Eventually Brunnhilde nods and pulls away to gesture to the ship, something lost in her expression. "We didn't come empty handed."
Upstate New York
2020
As far as crazy ideas go, this probably makes it into the All Time Top Five Craziest Things he's ever done. Sweat drips from his forehead and his hair sticks to the back of his neck, blonde curls weighed down by the moisture. His clothes feel too tight in the moment, making his arms itch where his hair rubs against the fabric of his shirt. Just behind his ribs his heart runs a beat too fast, a stark contrast to his measured breaths.
It's not the act of sneaking into a facility he isn't supposed to be in that gets to him. It isn't the theft, or the fact that he had to leave Quan in a questionable hiding place to come here. It's not even the possibility of being captured here that has his pulse jumping and his blood burning. Honestly, most of his anxiety comes from his companion and the sudden thought that maybe she's lost her marbles and trusting her to make this plan and jump into it was simply a bad idea.
Not that the girl is incompetent or lacking in brains - it's entirely the opposite. There's a very real possibility that she's the smartest person he's ever met, the smartest person he ever will meet. But it doesn't matter if she's the smartest person left on this planet after the Blip, that doesn't mean she might not have dipped into the jungle juice.
Ahead of him, looking at the tall wall bordering the Avengers Facility, the girl is question is bouncing back and forth on her feet. Shuri shakes her arms and hands out, braids falling down her back and twisting as she hops around. She doesn't even seem all that worried about what they're getting into. In fact, she almost seems excited. Stretching and prancing around like the quarterback before the last game of the season.
"Mask?" Danny asks her as he steps up beside her.
Shuri gives a short shake of her head. "They're going to know it's us either way." She points this out with a grin, leaning her weight forward. "Once we're in range FRIDAY is going to override the comm's."
"Who?"
"FRIDAY." The younger girl rolls her eyes at him. "Artificial intelligence, remember?"
"Right."
Danny does remember, but he has to think about it for more than a few moments. In their time together, Shuri has been overloading him with information. Some of it necessary considering their circumstances, of course. A lot of it is random, or totally off base from what he thinks he needs to know. Things like Bruce plays a lot of Tetris, or if you see an open door it isn't the right one.
"You ready?" Shuri asks him, that grin still plastered to her lips.
"For anything." Comes his smooth confirmation.
That's all she needs to take off. Shuri sets a hard pace toward the wall, followed quickly by the man. She turns when she's about ten feet from the wall and lowers herself, hands clasped above her knees. With as much care as possible Danny steps into her grip. She launches him - seriously, he goes at least twenty feet over the other wise - into the air and he lands in a roll, comes up on his feet with one firm push at his knee.
Danny can hear the girl getting a running start again and when he looks back she's jumping over the wall. Her knees are pulled up to her chest, feet missing the wall by a few feet, arms held out to brace her fall. Shuri takes the landing with grace and pushes to her feet to meet him at a run.
Moving so hurriedly, it's hard to take in everything. The overgrown grass, the empty stone driveway, the beige building with so many panels of glass he can't count them all. The sky is reflected in the tinted windows, a blend of blues with fluffy balls of cotton blotting at it. Like a work in progress painting. A set of glass doors awaits them beside a stone bench, their muddled reflections staring back at them.
"Shuri," an unfamiliar voice pushes into his ears through the comm's, lightly accented and smooth. "You should have told me you were bringing a guest to dinner."
"Is it to late to set another plate?" The girl's laugh is loud in the communication system.
Danny can't help but comment, despite how bizarre it is. "Gotta say, I'm famished."
"Should I assume that's what puts you in such a rush?" The sassy tones is a delightful surprise for Danny, who cackles. "Or is there something I'm unaware of?"
"I'd hate to dine and dash..." Danny trails off, looking over to his companion.
Thankfully, Shuri takes over. "Nothing personal FRIDAY, I just don't think Steve would pick up what I'm putting down."
Hearing someone refer to an Avenger, much less the oldest one, so casually by their first name is still weird. Danny gets that they're all pals or something right now, sure, that doesn't change the amount of weird it is. Shuri beats him to the front of the building by seconds, pausing to knock the bands around her wrists together with a 'clack!' to make the gauntlets form around her hands. Then she curls her fingers around the door and yanks.
Which does nothing. Shuri's look of confusion is comical as she pulls on it again, brows pointing downward. Giving the door an offended look, she lets go. Probably taking all of this in with extreme amusement - if FRIDAY can feel that, and Danny isn't really sure how any of that works so - their faceless friend stays silent. Still maintaining her frown, the lithe young woman takes three steps back. Both of her arms come up and the hum of her gauntlets working hits the air.
Preparing himself for the wave of sonic energy, Danny turns his body away just in case any glass comes his way. The high pitched sound of a shot going off comes, followed by a dull 'ping!' and an electric buzzing that makes him look up. His head raises just in time to see the blue stream of energy bounce back toward them. Horror washes over the blonde when he sees it head straight into Shuri's chest like a pin in a cork board.
A steady ring of fuschia fades around her chest where it hits, moving around the Black Panther suit until it fades from existence. Danny's brain struggles to move past the daunting thought that she should be in serious pain from that hit, but she hasn't budged an inch. Her arms twitch as they lower and she glances over to raise her brows at his look of terror.
"Energy redistribution." Shuri provides, as if that's something most people are knowledgeable on and he should just know that she can do that.
"Okay." Danny just sort of has to accept her two word explanation. That's just kind of how it is.
"Your efforts, while noteworthy, are wasted." FRIDAY informs them lightly. "The Boss optimized all defensive systems following the disbanding of the Avengers."
"Which means?" The man looks up at the building as if it is, in fact, using a physical mouthpiece to talk to them.
"Simulations were ran to recreate hostile encounters with all recorded potentially dangerous entities to ensure this facility was prepared to withstand offensive measures from all threats above Street Level."
Danny really wants to pretend he knows what all of that means, but the steady stream of words throws him through a loop. He can't even remember the whole run-on sentence and it was only provided to them moments ago. Pursing his lips and squinting at the structure, he cocks his head to the side. Shuri, who does understand all of this, looks thoughtful.
"Wanda?" Shuri questions.
"Affirmative."
"My brother?"
"Yes, based on data collected from video footage and suits with a remote uplink."
"You didn't know about this?" Danny turns to his companion once he's caught up, brows rising.
Giving a grimace in response, the girl looks around for an alternate route inside and offers an admission. "I've never been here before."
"What?" Appalled, he gestures around them. "You waited this long to tell me that?"
"It didn't seem relevant!" Shuri insists, frowning. "No one ever mentioned this."
"It didn't seem relevant." FRIDAY parrots with a teasing tone.
Gears turning, Danny looks at the glass in front of them. Stark had, apparently, planned for everything he could think of. Put every known factor into the equation one at a time. Every known factor. Maybe a little in his own head, he considers himself a wild card. Sure, there are people out there who know about him. But even Danny doesn't know everything about what he can do, what all of it is.
He's willing to bet that no matter what SHIELD - or anyone else for that matter - had on him, Stark was clueless too. Danny takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and waits. Deep within his chest something warm bubbles over, floods into his veins and washes over his organs. It feels like a feather brushing the pads of his fingers, the summer sun against bare skin still damp from the sea.
Figuring out just how much to put into this is hard. Danny has to gauge how much chi he put into the shot he fired at Shuri months ago that just barely was outmatched, and then make sure he overshoots. If he puts in too much and it isn't enough, he gets a serious kickback. If he goes overboard he could drain himself entirely. Being able to focus on just the right amount of heat in his palm and pull back just the right amount is a struggle. All this time and he still has trouble putting down the right marks when he needs to.
"What are you doing?" Shuri's question interrupts his thoughts and he opens his eyes, reflecting bright orange in the sun.
"Last I checked, people thought I was dead again." He shrugs lightly. "I doubt dead people are considered threats."
Regarding him seriously, she nods. "Fair. You're sure about this?"
"Not at all." Danny returns cheerfully. "But we're running low on options."
Shuri nods her agreement and he advances four paces, arm reeled back. His palms feel like they're cracking from the heat when his fist finally connects with the glass. Electricity dances around his knuckles, the hair on his arms stands up straight, and it feels like a lifetime where nothing happens. A sizzling sound comes to play with the crackling, a white noise that drowns out everything.
A deafening crash tears through the rest of the noise as the glass shatters and is pushed into the building with the force of his chi. The windows on either side of his target crack, splintering with a terrible noise like nails on a chalkboard. Glass raining onto tile and stone imitates a wind chime, filling the air around them with makeshift music. When it all finally stops Danny's chest is heaving and his fingers feel like jelly. Clenching and releasing his fingers a few times to get some of the feeling back, he looks over to meet the wide grin of the younger girl.
"Oh yeah!" Shuri raises one hand for a high-five. "Dragon magic beats technology."
Danny meets her hand with a wince when the metal slaps his palm, and he rubs his hand tenderly. "It's not dragon magic."
"It kind of is."
"Well," FRIDAY puts in thoughtfully as they step into the building. "I'll add Dragon Magic to the database for further upgrades."
"It's not dragon magic." Danny grouses.
This time when FRIDAY speaks to them, it comes from all around them. Resonating through speakers in the building. "Initiating Slumber Party Protocol."
As soon as they step over the line where the glass once was, thick metal - Danny thinks it's metal, but looks are deceiving nowadays - doors slide up from the floors and block all of the doors and windows to the outside. This effectively shuts them in, for now, but it's not like they've found what they were looking for yet regardless. It also blocks out all of the lights, leaving the building nothing more than a void inside.
The darkness is so thick it seems to clog the air. Danny is fairly sure they're not in serious danger here, it's not like the remaining Avengers are going to go around offing each other carelessly. Well, he's pretty sure they wouldn't do something like that. Their morals are generally a little more on the decent side of things. Being suffocated by nothing but shadows is still pretty disconcerting, though. Unsettling, if nothing else.
"Initiating Home Alone Protocol."
In a harsh whisper, Shuri's voice comes from ahead. "Danny..."
Danny steps forward with one arm extended, palm out to find Shuri's shoulder. His knee comes into contact with something sturdy, and his hands fall to pat at the object curiously. It feels like a desk or a short wall. A divider? He slides his hands to the side and steps to follow the path his other limbs are making, feeling over the surface to find the end. Something thick and wet comes into contact with his hands, with a consistency similar to mud. The 'squelch' his shoes make on the floor implies he's stepping in it too.
"The Medusa has been activated."
"Don't move." The younger girl's voice is somewhere to his right now, and he can hear her fumbling with something.
Listening with no hesitation, the man goes entirely still. There's a light tapping sound, and then a triangle of pink-purple light reveals itself. In the glow he can make out some of Shuri's features, her stiff form and cautious eyes. The light comes from one of the teeth wrapping over her collarbones. The one right in the center, cradled above the notch of her clavicle. As she turns the light follows her movements, and Danny's eyes follow the light. He can see the bottom of two thin sets of stairs, a few hallways, something mounted on the wall.
When Shuri rotates to face him, her expression is one of disbelief. At first he isn't really sure why, too busy trying to make out the rest of the room. And then he looks at the divider his hands are on, blocking in a door with a scanner beside it. The bottoms of his shoes are coated in something thick and dark grey, and his hands are resting in it too. The substance is leaking from the surface of the divider onto the floor, and he automatically looks around for the source.
"I told you not to move!" Shuri looks down at her feet as she approaches him, as if the tiles will give something away.
Affronted, Danny frowns. "I didn't!"
"You've got goo on you." Comes her argument which, okay, that's fair. But he was already feeling up the goo before she told him to stop.
"What is it?" He tests the give of the substance and finds it moves a little as he pulls at his hands, but offers little in the way of letting go. The more he wiggles his fingers the tighter it grips.
Shuri shrugs. "How am I supposed to know?"
"I thought you were the brains of this operation." Danny shoots back as he tries to shuffle his feet.
"That doesn't mean -" Shuri looks up to huff her response and beneath her foot, the tile slides.
"The Dumbwaiter has been activated."
Giving a shout, Shuri thanks her knowledge of American movies and scrambles. The floor beneath her slides away, eight square panels in total that move and pull away as she tries to avoid a likely painful fall. Her gauntlets catch the edge of the newly discovered opening as she rolls out of the way and braces herself to come to a stop. Danny can hear her panting where she lays on the floor, light extended to the ceiling.
Both of them stay where they are for a few long seconds and then, with as much care as possible, Shuri moves onto her knees. The panels in the floor noisily continue to pull out of place as she does, waiting. Danny channels a little bit of chi into his hands and feet and abruptly twists them, effectively cracking the substance keeping him in place. Making sure to step where he already has before, he moves away from it. Across the room the girl in the Panther Habit brushes herself off.
"I just want to say, for the record," Danny addresses the ceiling. "I don't think I like you."
"Thankfully," comes FRIDAY's dry response. "Your opinion does not affect my disposition."
"I'm not taking it back."
Shuri snorts. "I don't think she cares."
"Caring about his opinion is not, in fact, in my programming."
Danny ignores that in favor of trying to figure out where to go now. Looking around the room doesn't offer any clues, either. None of the doors are marked and more than a few have scanners of various kinds. It doesn't help that the girl with the light isn't moving and giving him more to look at, either. She's just staring at the tiles on the floor, marking a mental path until she looks up at him. The confusion must be clear on his face, because Shuri aims her pointer finger downward.
"We need to go down."
The man pulls a displeased face and gestures vaguely with one hand. Shuri's face twists as she tries to understand what he wants to convey. Danny uses one hand like a puppet, miming talking, then makes an x with his hands. After that he points downard and lifts both hands to cup them around his ears, then points upward. This doesn't seem to help, so he waves both hands at her and raises his brows as high as he can. When it becomes clear this just isn't going to work, he sighs in disappointment.
"She can hear us." Danny says quietly.
Shuri wrinkles her nose. "So you want us to use hand signals?"
"Yes?" Danny isn't sure why she's looking at him like he's lost his mind. "What?"
"Oh man." The girl looks at the ceiling in dismay. "Danny..."
"Even if I could not see you," FRIDAY sounds like she might laugh, if she's even capable of that sort of thing. "The advantage would be lost."
"Excuse me?" Danny is pretty sure he just got insulted by a non-sentient person. It feels like a new low.
"I'm implying that you would be terrible at Charades."
Grumbling, the man tries not to be genuinely offended by a machine. Does FRIDAY count as a machine? "Someone remembered to program cattiness into you, I see."
Unconcerned, the light voice brushes his complaint aside. "It is just an observation."
"She's stalling." Shuri reminds him when he scowls at nothing. "We need to move."
Right. She's right. Danny knows that. By now, FRIDAY has definitely told someone that they're out here mucking things up. Odds are someone is on their way to intercept them already, and with all the space-age technology going around like candy on Halloween? It's only a matter of time until someone shows up. Minutes, hours, it doesn't matter. They need to get in and out fast before their plan falls through.
Their poorly constructed plan. Had he known that they were going in nearly blind, Danny wouldn't have jumped into this so quickly. Shuri had seemed confident in her plan, though. Acted like they were going to have some inside help here, or like she at least had been here once before. Now that he really thinks about it, though, there were only three concrete steps. Step one: get into the facility. Step two: hijack a ship that they may or may not be able to pilot with vague instructions from a third party. Step three: go get a raccoon.
Out of all of those, getting a raccoon was the least expected. Shuri had also said it would be the easiest step, though, fairly confident that the raccoon would be on their side. Danny wonders, belatedly, if it isn't a real raccoon. The girl had made it sound like it was, but maybe it's a codename. An animal-based moniker with a funny or meaningful story behind it. Perhaps it's just someone who likes raccoons.
For a genius, Shuri is shockingly impulsive. Changing their plans on a whim, bringing them here, not waiting for their man on the inside, storming the front gate pretty literally, jumping through a glass ceiling. Danny thinks it's because she's so passionate, so firm in herself, so determined to do something about anything. Just off to the side the sound of the tiles on the floor shifting back into place catch his attention.
"Do you remember Jakarta?" He asks suddenly, locking eyes with her.
"I'm never going to let you forget it." Shuri tells him cheekily, testing her weight on a tile to her left.
Danny rolls his eyes at the jibe. "You really made an entrance."
"You're kidding." Dark eyes cut from him to the floor for a split second.
A boyish spark lights up his eyes, bright blue as if untouched by the black shadows piled into the room. "Could be badass."
"Or just plain bad." Shuri steps toward the wide hole in the floor that is slowly closing. "We don't know where that goes."
"You didn't know what was in here." Danny reasons as he shuffles sideways.
Tipping her head side to side as she thinks it over, the girl moves until her toes are at the edge of the opening. "Fair."
"Incoming."
Coming to a decision, Shuri carefully lowers herself to her knees. She leans forward over the opening and braces her gauntlet clad hands on two different sections of the floor panels. They groan in protest as she pushes against them, the cones lighting up as she works against the floor. Danny lightly comes up to her side, taking a deep breath. She's going to have to jump first, and he's going to have to follow her as fast as possible. Hopefully whatever is on the other side isn't necessarily dangerous.
The space leading down is dark and wide, tinted maroon where the light on Shuri's chest hits it. No less or more promising than where they're standing now, but maybe there are no high jinks down there. Would someone bother putting traps on top of traps? Danny isn't really sure. Someone got paralyzed from this sort of thing in one of those movies, he's pretty sure. Would FRIDAY let them hurt themselves? He thinks she might.
Letting his eyelids fall, the man breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth slowly. He counts the inhales and exhales mentally, reaches for something he can't see. Danny certainly isn't gifted with some otherworldly sight - but that would be pretty cool, for the record, he wouldn't complain about it - but his training under Lei Kung and Colleen taught him how to enhance his reach, his perception.
"On three." Shuri tells him, and he nods. "One."
Nothing calls out to him, his senses don't flinch with any warnings, and the path ahead of them remains blank. Danny almost lets go, stops feeling for anything, when something vibrates in his bones. Something is moving, somewhere. Underneath them? Wherever this drop off leads to? It feels like someone is shaking his shoulders though he knows he hasn't moved.
"Two."
The rumbling feels harder. Louder, if a sensation could be louder. Danny tries to reach further below them, frustration coloring his cheeks when he still can't feel it the way he knows he should. Blowing a hard breath out through his nose, he pulls back. As soon as he does, it hits him in the face like a soap bar inside of a sock. He had focused so hard on what was below them he inadvertently blocked out everything else.
"Three -"
"- down!"
Shuri's head jerks up in surprise when he hollers at her. Driven by instinct, Danny launches himself toward her. The collision causes her to lose grip with one hand and one gauntlet gets caught between the closing tiles. It causes her wrist to bend a little painfully as he, more or less, tackles her to the ground. Not a moment later, one of the metal doors on the opposite side that they came in makes an awful crunching noise. Light pours in through the forced opening, revealing three figures. Two of them are wearing shining suits, the other looks like no more than a child peeking through the opening.
Two metal suits, one light in color and one dark, reflect light from the outside into the eyes of the two on the floor. Danny has rolled off of Shuri, braced on the floor with both hands. The girl is staring at her removed gauntlet as if it's betrayed her. Both of the taller, actual adult, figures step further into the room. They do a quick scan of the damage before landing back on the trespassers. Technically, he figures, that's what they are right now.
On the shoulders of the bulkier figure, decked in shades of grey, two slots flip up and bright white light floods the room. Then they reach up, tapping their neck, and the metal of their mask crawls back to reveal their face. It's a man with dark skin and hard eyes, lips pursed and brows drawn in. Angry? Danny doesn't recognize him, but he's sure he should. Not Iron Man, obvious by the color scheme of both suits, but similar. Metal Machine? It'll come to him later, when it doesn't matter anymore.
When the second figure makes a similar move and the sleek light blue and silver of their false face pulls back, Danny chokes on his own spit. Quite literally. He makes a gross, wet noise in his throat when he fails to swallow it down, propping himself further up to get a better look. Sharp nose, ginger hair, keen green eyes and a posture that just establishes her as a magnate.
"Ms. Potts?" Danny can't help how flabbergasted he sounds and looks, expression slack in his shock.
With an incline of her head Pepper acknowledges him. "Mr. Rand."
"And I thought Lawrence was having fit over your pantsuit." He looks over the gleaming suit again, deciding she was scary enough without it. "If only he could see you now."
Pepper ignores the look her companion is giving her, looking the younger man's dirty hoodie and old jeans over in amusement. "I see your taste in clothes hasn't changed."
"Got into the kind of business where the suit and tie are optional."
Recovering from her own shock, caused by the appearance of a ghost, Shuri whips her head up to the new arrivals. "You've been gone for months, Rhodes."
"I was busy." The umber skinned man tells her simply, aiming her with a rather stern look. "Looks like you were too." He raises a hand to stop her argument before it starts, sighing. "Put a pin in it."
"That isn't fair." Shuri retorts as she stands, offering a hand to pull Danny up as well.
Rhodey shakes his head. "Life isn't fair." Tilting his chin up, he raises his voice. "Light it up, FRIDAY." Nothing. The man waits a few beats, tries again. "FRIDAY?"
"I didn't do anything to FRIDAY." Before any accusations are thrown, Shuri mounts a defense.
Danny stays on his tile of safety, shifting his weight uncomfortably. "Honestly, I think she had it out for us."
"You look like a homeless squatter." The sharp jab comes from the kid - because, upon closer inspection, he can't even be in his teens - sticking his head inside. "I don't blame her."
"We even have our own Macaulay Culkin." Danny raises his brows.
The comment earns a snicker from everyone except the boy in question, who scrunches his face up. "Who is that?"
"A child actor." Pepper supplies with another look around. "Home Alone Protocol?"
"It's the first line of defense now." Rhodey tells her.
"Tony would be proud to see it put to use." The amusement is clear in her words.
To his left, Shuri's face falls. It's obviously an unconscious thing, the way her lips pull tight and her eyes go distant. The uncertainty there takes years off of her features, leaves her looking as much of a child as the boy standing outside. Danny never knew Tony Stark, his father had known his father, and he'd met Pepper once years ago at an event. So he doesn't know what she's feeling, or what any of them are feeling, but he knows what it can be like to lose someone.
No one speaks for a few moments, each entertaining their own thoughts. Shuri's mouth opens and closes, not quite sure in forming words, and then opens again. A sharp intake of breath makes her anxiety clear, her lips shake when she breathes out to stop. Whatever words she's trying to force out don't matter, her chance to release them passes as the lights flicker to life.
"Colonel Rhodes," FRIDAY sounds very much like Danny's mother might have if he were caught sneaking in after being gone all night and ignoring her calls. Annoyed, disappointed, suspicious. "Pepper."
"Where were you?" Pepper's query comes laced with concern.
"Asks the woman who is twenty-two thousand, six hundred and forty hours late to dinner." The sassy tone seems deserved. "Approximately."
"Approximately." The woman repeats wearily.
"I would offer you a more accurate breakdown, but my absence was brought on by more important matters."
Danny interrupts with a laugh. "Does this not rank that high on the importance scale?"
"Not quite as high as foreign alien ships crash landing on this planet."
And, well, Danny can see how that makes sense.