"Really? A New Hope reference?" Stark raised a brow cheekily at me, grinning at me with a smile that was closer to what I would've expected from a hyena from the Lion King than from a person. "With some weak sauce like that, I don't think someone that's two steps away from being part of the Blueman group should be throwing any stones."
I blinked, before looking down, realizing that I was wearing a blue shirt with a pair of blue jeans. Now that he mentions I probably should stop dressing as a Power Ranger, as in color-coded clothes. If nothing else, just for the variety sake.
"Hey, ain't nobody is making fun of the hotrod red ranger suit you run around in," I shrugged, leaning my back onto a wall behind Lousie, causing her to turn slightly on her chair so she could keep both me and Tony insight.
"Ranger suit?" he held back a snort. "Don't think spandex looks good on me, it makes my ass look fat. You on the other hand, look like a regular color-coded Blue Power Ranger."
"Why, thank y-"
"What's happening right now?" Louise intruded, her expression the definition of confused, while the other redhead in the room just rolled her eyes. It seemed that Pepper expected this sort of thing. "Wasn't this going to be a serious meeting, why are you two trading insults?"
"This is just how they compare… egos."
Miss Potts' rather… suggestive comment was something that I let pass if only so I could actually focus on more important things than that. Like what Stark wanted with me, or what Fury wanted the man to do.
"So… let's leave the smack talk alone for now," I said while hoping that he'd take me up on it. I was not good at trading verbal blows, so trying my hand against Stark wouldn't end with me on top. "What's this favor that you're doing for Fury?"
Now, this brought a smile on Stark's face, he even sat back down and started to lean back on his seat with his feet up on the desk. It was at this moment, that I think I understood what the senators felt like in Iron Man 2.
"Well, see the cyclops is an old softy, I know it surprised me too," he winked, chuckling as he did. "And he felt bad about how you're going to lose your job because of him sending you Ross's way, so-"
"Wait, what?" The duel voice of myself and Louise sprung out, it didn't even take me a second to realize why.
"The article, the first one I wrote," I sighed, rubbing my forehead, I noticed that Stark nodded slowly while Louise's expression was still as confused as before. "It was actually about me, but that's not good optics."
"Especially given the way that you put yourself on a pedestal," Stark added with a smug grin. "Nice job there, I'd done the same in your shoes."
Oh, that hit me right in the throat, I hadn't even been thinking about that when I wrote the damn thing.See, writing about yourself, as I had done, without admitting that I was even a little bit involved. That was a violation of journalistic ethics. When this got out, it wouldn't look good on me,
Oh, sure no one so far could prove that I was Lugh, but that wouldn't last for long. There was only so long before someone figured out the man that matched every description of Lugh, shared many of the same powers, and even sounded like him… was Lugh.
It was only common sense.
I doubted Ellison would fire me over this, as it wasn't I hadn't done anything illegal just unethical and the guy's way too soft-hearted to fire me for this, given what he'd assume my background was. But I mightn't ever write a story for the paper again, it wouldn't be good optics and I would've proved to be untrustworthy.
I might be made an office assistant, which wouldn't be an awful job… just not to my personal taste. It wouldn't let me get away with keeping my ear on the ground for those juicy threads I was looking for.
"Since how you've broken the whole sacred creed of Journalists is out now," Stark continued on, with air quotes and all. This finally allowed Louise to grasp what he was talking about. At least I think she did? I didn't really have much time to explain it at the moment. "Fury was feeling bad about the whole thing, and hinted to me that it meant to be a good idea to have my own super-powered investigator on hand to look into things."
"So you invited my friend here, offered her a job, all so you could offer me a job?"
"That's about right, what do you say?"
I mean, it sounded like a good enough job offer, much better than my future prospects with the Bulletin. The biggest issue was working for someone like Tony Stark, a man that was famous, multiversally known at that, for being an ego-driven, alcoholic that's heart was in the right place.
But from what I've read about this version of Stark… he wasn't an alcoholic? So… ya?
"So what do you want?" I asked, shaking me head free of those thoughts.
"What man wouldn't want a super powered man hanging around them?" Stark's eyes twinkled. "Especially given the trouble I've had recently."
I suppose that it would make sense given the attempts that Russian made on his life, and the Hammer Drones… and the attempts on his life before Vanko. But I still don't trust his word on this, there was something… distruthful about it.
"What's in it for me?" I responded, staring at his arc reactor with the large variety of visionary powers I had my command. At first, I hoped that it would give me an understanding of how it was made since he had made one in a cave using some scraps. While I recognized a lot of the materials it was made from, or I could at least narrow down a few possibilities from some research I had been doing. There was one element that is used to power the reactor, no could I make sense of how the thing was constructed overall.
"Money," Stark responded, loudly breaking me from my thoughts about his Arc Reactor. "Good working hours, traveling to exotic locations."
"It sounds lovely," I drawled, licking my lips as I walked over to Louise, finally taking a seat. "But there's gotta be a lot more in it for me. I'm-"
Stark put up his hands, stopping me from speaking without a verbal command. I could tell both, why this man had been in command of a company like this even with Stain around in the same management circles, and why this man could walk into a senate hearing and out without giving them a single thing.
Within a single second Stark waved his right arm in the air, turning around a gaudy holographic display, showcasing… my own PC's desktop.
"You've hacked my desktop," I stated, before deciding to place a single finger on the desk before me. I pushed down, the part that was under my finger crumbled into dust within a moment. Something that Stark didn't take any heed of, though Potts stood up in fright. "So… what? You want a medal?"
I wasn't even going to ask how he managed to do this to a computer that I had never connected to the internet for this very reason. I could only presume that he had gotten someone to plug in the ethernet cable so he could do this.
"So, you think that you can find weird stuff while working in just New York?" He quirked an eyebrow. "Now, I'm not going to ask what you're looking for, I couldn't even tell from what files were on the computer alone, but I will say, you're better off with the web I can cast… then the one the Bulletin could."
That statement gave something away to me, something put a grin on my face.
"You're not sure what I did will be a problem are you?" I snorted. "You're just preempting the chance that I could so you can have an easy sell."
That seemed to catch the two redheads off guard, even if Stark only smiled in response. I could tell that I had surprised him as well, something that brought me some small pleasure. He'd been the one dictating things since I got here.
But now, I could tell that there was more than just an altruistic desire coming from him. Stark wanted something from me, something more than having me in his employ. Working for him would give me plenty of things, but it could also put me under his control.
But I wonder how much he's ego can take?
"How about this," I said, leaning forward with what one may call a smug smile. "If you can find Octavius, I'll be your personal investigator… but if I find her first, you make me a suit."
Stark's stare became laser while Potts and Louise seemed to briefly gasp before regaining their composure rapidly. I waited for a few moments, letting Stark have time to think the offer over.
"My mind versus your powers," The man hummed, stroking his chin. "That could work, that could work," he repeated, tapping away at his gross holographic keyboard. "Well, be prepared to lose Blue Boy. Because fantastic powers may be your Homefield, but brains are mine."
"Oh," I grinned standing up from my chair. "Don't think that it's just my powers you have to worry about," I started to walk back towards the balcony, preparing to launch myself into the air and resume my search for the nefarious scientist… when Louise once more spoke up;
"I'm still getting the job… right?"
I turned around to see Potts giving Stark a glare when the former CEO shrugged, causing her to break out into a sigh. It was only after giving her notepad a once over that the current CEO of Stark Industries spoke;
"Come with me, I'll find you a place to work."
(Jim O'Reilly)
Jim jumped up out of his bed, the alarm blaring into his ears. Today was the last day off since he had taken on that entire crew in the pub and slaughtered them. The award was much more than he had ever dreamed off, but then again. Why wouldn't it be, he had just crippled the Kitchen Irish in a way that they wouldn't be able to recover form for years.
And given his straight-laced reputation with them, they'd never look for him as the hitman, even if someone recalled him entering the pub.
But the money alone didn't seem to give him any relief.
Whenever he closed his eyes for longer than a second he could see the dull dead faces of his old mates, O'Leary's face, gasping for a final breath, his face burning off as the fires of cremation came over his body. But Jim pushed the visions back, because he was here for something more now, something beyond mere bonds of brotherhood that he had once developed with the crooks of his past.
He was working for the future of this city.
"Honey!" his wife yelled out, her voice cutting through his bleak thoughts, saving him from being swallowed whole by the guilt that had been spreading through his soul these past few days. "Mr. Wesley is on the phone for you!"
There wasn't a second wasted, Jim launched himself from his bed, practically leaping down some of his stairs. It wasn't without notice by his wife, who couldn't help but roll her eyes as he hurried to place the phone at his ear.
"Yes, sir?"
"Ah good," Wesley proclaimed. "I hope I'm not catching you at a bad time. I would hate to reward your dedication by annoying you while you enjoyed some well-rewarded family time."
"No, sir," O'Reilly couldn't help but shake his head, even as he understood that the other man wouldn't have been able to tell that he had done so. "I was just having a lazy day to myself."
"Good, good, I'll get right into it. We need you in today, we've discovered a few issues that need addressing."
"What sort of issues?"
"That kid of yours, we've noticed that she's been hanging out with the super-powered reporter."
He didn't speak for a moment, not able to find his breath in the haze of adrenaline that rushed through his body at that very moment.
"... I'll come in right away, sir."
Jim could tell that it was going to be a long day ahead of him.
(Tony Stark-Sometime later)
He didn't take any heed of Pepper as she strutted back into the office, instead, his focus was deadlocked onto the computer screen he had ahead of him. While earlier he had been using a holographic keyboard as the control, Tony had replaced it moments ago with the real thing, needing the sense of tactility such an item granted him to really get going.
"Tony, are you still at this?"
Pepper was slightly confused when she had left him in this room a few hours ago the man had been confident that he would find the rogue Doctor within minutes. But here he was, hours later and still not any closer to finding his former employee.
"Well, I'm not wrong to be wrong about things, but in this case. Octavius really has covered her tracks."
Pepper walked around the desk, coming over so she was standing behind Tony with her head coming in close to his ear. While there was plenty of information on a screen that she couldn't make heads or tails of, such as the schematics of a prototype of the Doctor's famous tentacles, among other things, the maps of the city with lines drawn over them were much more in her wheelhouse.
But the lines appeared to end in the middle of nowhere, on random rooftops with large scribbles drawn over them.
"She's blacked out all available security cameras in a four-block radius, something that will cause more than a few problems for the people living there, but the main thing is I've been forced to use satellites to track the marks that her tentacles leave on the ground. Something that ends in several different locations."
"And that's all you could find? No bank details? No warehouses under an alias?"
Tony nodded, closing his eyes and leaning back into his chair with a heavy sigh.
"Are you really going to make him a suit?" Pepper couldn't help but bring up the topic now that they were alone once more. It brought the former CEO back to the real world and he gave her a grin that contained the usual sort of confidence swagger than the man was known for.
"It doesn't matter, I get what I want either way,"
Pepper didn't even have to ask her boyfriend to clarify there as he stood up and reached over to a nearby cabinet, taking two glasses and pouring out a drink before he gave her a wink.
"See, Fury asked me to do an assessment on the guy, he's already got the whole psych/how well does in the group evaluation that I went under," Tony explained in-between sips, licking his lips and taking in breaths. "He wants me to figure what his limits are, without directly asking… because… "
"Because... ?"
Tony shrugged and gave an airy chuckle.
"He didn't say, but Fury helped me and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt… just this once."
With that said, Stark went back to walk, pulling up another holographic display while Pepper's eyes went over to the clocks on the wall, wondering how long it would take Tony before he was too tired to go on. After ten minutes, she reached into a desk drawer, pulling out a laptop and walking over to a lounge couch over in the corner of the room.
If he was going to spend the whole day and night working, she might as well do the same.
(Pat Doyle)
Louise was talking about the oddness of her father's working hours while we were having lunch. I was still off official working hours, given the sheer scope of my last story it was decided that I deserved it, but Ellison wanted me to come in after lunch.
I chewed on a sandwich, the ham and cheese as familiar as it was tasty. It turned out that flight opened up a whole new avenue for produce that I hadn't access to before. So a quick flight to Ireland and I was able to get myself some real Irish cheese and ham.
The ham didn't taste any different, but the cheddar was my favorite brand.
"I mean, he's off odd hours in the night, there's never a real schedule," she continued to explain what was bothering her today. "And not to mention the super suspicious talks he has with his boss. It's so obviously coded but I can't tell if it's just he doesn't want mom to worry or if he's actually doing illegal shit."
"Security can be dangerous," I half-heartedly agreed. "So I can see why you'd think that could be it."
There wasn't a lot I could say to my friend, I didn't know her father well enough to comment, nor did I think it was my place to throw out some theories about what he could be doing. I had only known them for the last few months. It wouldn't be right of me to just assume things passed what Jim had been doing.
Not after he left the criminal life behind.
Louise simply sighed, lowering her head into her hands while picking at her salad every once in a while. It seemed the situation had gotten down in the dumps, but perhaps she only needed her mind taken off things.
"How did the job go after I left?"
I didn't even bother to look at her at this second and I could tell that Louise was rolling her eyes.
"I'm making coffee and crafting office notes," her moan made me laugh. "It's just sooooo boring. I thought that working for a tech company would involve more… like tech?"
This time my laugh was loud and booming, her expression told me that this would be a mistake but I was invincible, not much she could do without taking it too far.
"Well, it is an office job, if you wanted to work with the tech you were better off applying for that."
"Thanks mom," Louise said sarcastically. "What about you, had any luck finding the roofie loving doctor?"
"If I had you'd be the first to know," I said, mumbling through a few more bites of my sandwich, it turns out that even just flying above the city and x-raying the fuck out of it, hopefully, that wasn't literal, didn't let me find the madwoman all that quickly. "I think she's left the city, I'll need to start researching areas that would suit her needs."
"The needs of a woman that can make a portal between universes out of household goods?"
I stopped chewing, swallowed before I decided to give her that point.
"Good point, I'll just need to fly faster, cover more ground and all that."
"Have you figured out how to get around being hacked?" She asked me suddenly, briefly catching me off guard before a grin stretched over my face.
"Yup, just took out the wireless card from my laptop and I'll work from there."
Louise didn't seem to like that solution, but she didn't make it verbally known. Instead, she relied on giving a stare that few could give to a man that could tank bunker shells. Eventually her stare was broken by a loud buzzer coming from her handbag.
"I'll see ya later, I've got to head back into work now."
With her gone, I made my own way towards the Bulletin.
It was as I walked into the Bulletin office with an odd sense of weight to my footsteps, I could feel the stares of my co-workers as I made my way further in. While there were some proud smiles before, now they were a mix of suspicion… and terror.
It wasn't something that I liked.
Still, I simply ignored it for now, since any action I could've done right now might've only led to worse things. It wasn't long before I stepped into Ellison's office, my hand in my pocket while a laptop sat in a bag by my side.
"You wanted to see me, sir?" I asked. I was actually pretty tired, having spent the last day and a half searching the city for signs of Ock. It was the first time that I'd actually become tired since I got to this world, it was oddly nice, if not inconvenient at the moment.
"Yes, please take a seat," At his prompting, I picked up a chair without thinking about what I was doing. Ellison gave me an unamused stare till I realized what he had been asking of me… and so I put the chair down and sat. "I was wondering if you were cooking up any other news that could get us into trouble?"
I blinked a few times.
"Sorry?" I couldn't help but respond.
"I've just had to fight off a few government agencies asking me where the hell you got your sources, that I needed to give them over to them," Ellison took in a deep breath. "So I was wondering if I should prepare for another angry call."
I scoffed.
"I wouldn't worry about that, I've been spending my spare tracking Doc Ock," I rolled my shoulders and leaned back in the chair. "Also got an offer from Stark for a job, not ready yet to take that up-"
"Wait, Stark's trying to poach you?" Ellison's expression was a mix between a frown and a grin as if he couldn't tell if he wanted to be happy for me, or mad at Stark. "I hope you said… no?"
"Not in so many words," I cringed, kind of feeling bad about the whole thing. It was obvious that Ellison didn't even think to punish me for breaking ethics, which mightn't be a good thing. "I've sorta made a bet with him that I would find Doc Ock before he could."
Ellison gave me a sharp look before slamming his hand down on his desk.
"Then what are you doing? Go get out there and find the woman before she takes out the entire state! Show that millionaire what a real investigative reporter can do!"
With a large grin spreading across my face I stood up, walked over to the fire exit, while the eyes of the office were on me, there was a large window that allowed someone to peer into Ellison's office and flew off into the sky.
(Somewhere near The Canadian Border)
He was sitting down on a park bench, a paper on his lap that had the second page of his dreams. General "Thunderbolt" Ross' true nature had been revealed to the world, that had brought a large smile to his face, and reading about all the details that he had disclosed being aired unfiltered.
That told Bruce that he had made the right decision.
Even if the guy hadn't been entirely truthful about himself.
"Are you reading that again?" Betty's voice brought his head out of the pages and back to the real world. The real world that had General Ross's dreams splattered against the pavement.
"Only one more time, I just want to get that last piece of satisfaction," Bruce explained, much to her semi-amused annoyance. "Then I'll be off again, the life of a fugitive."
Bruce Banner couldn't help the sigh that escaped his lips, his eyes dropping to the ground. While Ross seemed to be getting what he deserved finally, that didn't mean Bruce could afford to stick around in one place, even though the cure appeared to have worked, there were too many people that would be after his mind to recreate the Hulk. So he was going to be running once more.
A soft hand enveloped his own, causing him to look back to Betty, whose soft smile brought warmth to his heart.
"This time, we're doing this together."
"Together."
Author's Note: Hello again, I'm glad to give you another chapter, I'm starting to get excited for the future chapters here because this chapter marks the end of this arc. The next arc... is a time that some have waited years for... and... I spoilt earlier in the thread... so I won't say it here.
The arc after that is one that I've put the most effort in plotting, there's much greater attention to detail there than any other arc that I've written for this site. But I won't go into too much detail, other than it may in fact surprise you what's the plot.
Now, on this chapter. I wasn't entirely sure how much detail I needed to go with certain parts, and according to divad, I went into too much detail in my last draft and then forgot to address other, just as important, parts of the chapter. So if there's anything about the meeting that you feel I forget... I'll check with my notes.
Or I may go back and re-address it.
On a final note, this chapter is more... 10.5 than it is 11. But I didn't want to confuse people by titling it that.