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"How much do you remember?"
The voice, a young woman's, comes out of the darkness as Tony steps into his lab.The only light in the room comes from the stasis and security system for his suits, Batcave-chic glass display bubbles, along the the longest wall.
"Jarvis, lights." He snaps, walking into the centre of the room, frowning when Jarvis replies,
"Sir, a security breach in the lighting system has been identified. Activating the lights will activate a number of previously undecected devices wired into the electrical hardware. Ms. Lewis is on the couch, twelve feet to your right."
Tony Stark, 36, genius, billionare, playboy, philanthropist dislikes suprises. Well, he dislikes the ones that come from voices sitting creepily in the dark of spaces he thinks of as secure.
"Who are you, then, and how did you get in here? And what the hell do you mean by, 'how much do I remember'?"
"Before you fell, the Battle of Manhattan."
"That's a personal question, and you haven't answered me. How did you get in here?"
"I hacked your AI. Well, not so much hacked as emotionally manipulated. I'm Jane's assisstant. I read something in her files today, well on her computer, and freaked out a little. Do you know what the population of New York is?"
"Living next to nine-million people freaks you out? Cause, I gotta tell you, they've always been that many. The Avengers saving them happened a couple of months ago. Reindeer games went back with his brother to the big lock up in the sky. Portal closed, army dead. Liberation for bagels and bad t-shirts secured." As he spoke, Tony approached the young woman curled up on one end of his couch, her features cast into relief by the security lights. "Better Question! Why is my AI telling me that I have surveillance devices in the ceiling?"
"Sir, to correct the apparent misapprehension, the devices were placed by Ms. Romanoff shortly after the departure of Mr. Odinson and his brother, and corrections to my base code were made to prevent me from volunteering the information without a direct query from an authorised occupant."
Darcy watched as the man before her froze and then turned to the nearest console as he apparently forgot all about her and began to question his creation. A few hours later, when a collection of electronics had been removed from various location and ground into powder, and the access for all SHIELD opperatives had been rescinded, Tony Stark was glaring balefully at lines of code when Pepper Potts walked in with a bag full of fast food.
"Hey Tony. You missed dinner." She walked over to press a fond kiss to the man's temple, causing him to jump and look up from his computer screen. She smiled, then asked "Why is there a lab assisstant solving a rubik's cube on your couch?"
"Excellent question, why is there are lab assisstant in my lab? My unsecure and apparent den of espionage activities lab."
"I have a better question," Darcy said, "who authorised the launch of a nuclear warhead at nine-million people? And why are they not infront of congress or a lynch mob somewhere."
"What!" Pepper exclaimed, "when was this?"
"During the whole alien invasion," Tony replied confusedly, "I did the whole missile through the mystic portal thing."
"They said missile. You said missile. Missile does not equate to a nuclear bomb in New York City."
"What does it matter? Aliens dead, evil dude gone, the city is saved."
"Tony, someone launched a nuclear weapon at the USA and nothing has been said about it. I mean, who even authorised that?"
"The World Security Council." Darcy interjected, causing both Tony and Pepper to turn to her.
"Who the hell are they?" Tony asked. "I mean, SHIELD launched the nuke and they're an American organisation. It must have been the President who stuffed that one up."
"How the hell do you imagine an FBI equivalent would fund half the shit SHIELD does. I mean, laser weapons maybe, but the giant flying battleship?"
"Why hasn't this come out?" Pepper asked.
"So far as I can tell, most people hear missile and think 'smart bomb'. As for the rest, well, the only evidence is on SHIELD servers or held by Tony Stark. And the people who've accessed the SHIELD server have been turning up dead in a series of inventive 'accidents'. Couple that with the surveillance here and the whole thing begins to stink of cover-up. Which by the way is how I emotionally manipulated Jarvis. The whole, Final Destination meets The Ring is not how I'm going out and I need your help."