LAUNCH

By Tony Thornley

“Mister Stark, you forgot your jacket!” Tony Stark spun to see his new PA, Haruto Ayumu, rushing after him. Tony smiled, and held his hand out for the jacket.

“Haruto, you’re sure you’re not looking for a raise already?” Tony asked. The young Japanese man smiled, the dimples on his face making him look about ten years younger. Haruto was probably the youngest PA Tony had hired since Pepper and he was on the fast track for impressing him as much as she did.

“Of course not sir,” he said. “Just trying to please and prove myself.” He flashed another smile. “Anything you need before your Chicago trip?” Tony shook his head and patted Haruto’s shoulder.

“No, thank you. Take the week off while I’m out of town. You’ve practically been here twenty-four hours a day since I hired you. You have paid time off- use it.” He nodded, turned and walked away.

“He’s not going to use it,” said a female voice from behind him. Tony grinned and turned to Pepper Potts.

“No, he’s not,” Tony said. “But I told him to. If I remember correctly, there was another PA I had once just like that. A young redhead, fresh out of business school?”

“A hot young redhead who could resist your wiles if I remember correctly,” she joked. “And who you later hired as your executive assistant.”

“And still holds the position,” Tony replied. “How’s our meeting looking in Chicago?”

“Besides the whole Avengers membership striking fear in the heart of your business associates?” she said. “Not bad. Just a standard ‘we want to buy your technology to build our cell phones’ meeting.”

“And they know that Stark Enterprises builds their own which we are more than willing to sell to them?”

“Yup,” Pepper nodded. “They seem to think they have a different offer than any other company that’s contacted us in the last three years.”

“And what are we willing to offer after three hours of begging?”

“Chips that’ll boost signal strength three times the norm.”

“So…” Tony muttered, “the usual?” Pepper grinned and nodded.

“The usual.”

“We’re up to three times now?”

“Yup.”

“Give everyone in telecomm a six percent raise,” Tony said with a grin.

Harold “Happy” Hogan hurried through the halls of SE New York, trying to decide about answering the call on his PDA or the one on his closed circuit walkie. Just the perk of being the director of security for a corporation as big as Stark. He gave up on both calls for a few minutes as he approached his destination, the office of the newly minted Chief Operating Officer of SE.

Jim Rhodes sat in his office, head in his heads. He was exhausted, and was totally amazed that he’d accepted the job offer Tony had extended a couple weeks prior. How he had lasted this long, he didn’t know. He glanced up to see the grinning face of Happy Hogan at his door.

“How long you been standing there?” Rhodey asked.

“Just long enough to hear you ask yourself ‘what the hell have I gotten myself into’ three times,” Hogan said. Rhodey grinned and motioned to a chair.

“I’d rather be doing work in the field than in the office,” he said. “Any day of the week, I’d trade this for anything.”

“Even time back in the armor?” Happy asked.

“You ask that like I hate wearing the armor,” Rhodey replied with a chuckle. “You’ve only been in a suit once Hap. The whole experience is a blast.”

“I know,” Hogan replied and tossed a mini CD on Rhodey’s desk. “I know. So here’s what we’re looking at for security for the launch of the orbital platform next month. I’d drop by for Tony, but…”

“He’s on the ever present Stark world tour,” Rhodey said with a nod. He picked up the disk and opened the CD drive of his computer. After placing the disk in the drive, he opened the files and glanced across them quickly.

“First glance looks good,” he said, “but I’ll give them a more in-depth read through in a little while.” He glanced back at Happy. “The Stark Orbital Platform? Man, we’re getting into space travel. I know that Tony and I have experience with that anyways, but still, that’s cool as hell.”

“You’re telling m-“ One of Happy’s pagers suddenly began blaring. He jumped up and pulled it off his belt. “Son of a bitch.”

“Hap?”

“Condition black in SE Chicago,” Hogan said. “We’ve got a situation.”

Tony sat in his seat and looked across the wing of his private jet. He closed his eyes for a moment, then blinked a couple times. He’d been staring at too many things for too long- meeting briefs, copyright infringement lawsuits, Avengers-related news stories… Everything that crossed his desk in the past week had been given another look in the last hour between New York and Chicago. Tony scratched his collarbone and felt the wiring running beneath his skin.

He thought back to the beginning. It wasn’t often that Tony thought about the circumstances that brought him to the point he was today. It wasn’t that he wasn’t introspective, but more that he was always thinking ahead to the future. The past was a strange concept to him, but the steps he’d taken in his life… First the chestplate, then smaller and smaller devices to save his injured heart. Then came the armor that had become sentient, which actually grafted a part of itself into him to save his life.

“Mister Stark?” a voice said from a speaker next to him. Tony started a bit, then took a deep breath.

“Yes?” he asked.

“A call on the sat phone for you sir,” said the pilot. “It’s Mister Hogan.”

“Send it back,” Tony declared. Several moments later the phone sitting to his left began ringing. He picked it up and a holographic video display appeared in front of him. He grinned. The emitters were perfectly hidden. Happy Hogan’s face masked concern, which was never good in Tony’s mind.

“Hey Hap,” he said, holding the phone to his ear. “What’s up?”

“Tony, we have a problem at SE Chicago.”

“A business problem or…” Tony knew the answer already. His security director wouldn’t call him in flight if it wasn’t important.

“Well, a bit of both, Tone,” he said. “We have a hostage crisis at SE Chicago. Kind of kills your meeting today, eh?”

“Thank goodness,” Tony said. “How bad is it?”

“Terrorists with tech nearly at Iron Man level,” Happy replied. “It’s pretty ugly. Security guards are down, there are about thirty hostages and we have no way to handle it without getting messy.”

“Police there yet?”

“Yeah, with a hostage negotiator,” Happy nodded. “The bad guys aren’t saying a peep.” Tony chewed his bottom lip for several moments before responding.

“We’re very close here Hap,” he said. “I’ll be there ASAP.”

The SE hangar at O’Hare was unlike any other in the city. Tony had personally overseen its construction, adding some enhancements few others had seen. He stood in the middle of the facility, taking in the equipment he’d left there.

“Damn,” he muttered. “Kind of behind the times here.” He picked up the boxy silver helmet sitting on his work bench and shook his head. “Guess it’s a good thing I brought the wheels with me.” Donning the armor was an involved process that was supposed to take some time, according to other engineers he’d consulted. In an emergency, he could get into it, battle ready, in a matter of minutes. It required system boot-ups while en route to whatever emergency he was rushing to, which was potentially dangerous for the armor.

Tony liked that element of danger. He knew the armor. It hadn’t failed once because of an accelerated launch and he’d been working on a program that would virtually eliminate any possibility of it ever happening. He knew his armor, in its many incarnations, like a pilot knew his plane. Every jolt and wobble was a reassurance, not a reason for panic. Not that the Iron Man armor ever jolted or wobbled.

In the seconds he’d taken for introspection, he was fully suited. He held his hands at his sides, taking a moment to charge his repulsors. He grinned. This was the best part. The palm and boot repulsors fired as the roof opened. There was a slight pull, but the inertial dampeners caught that quickly as Iron Man rocketed into the sky. Tony grinned.

This was the fun part.

The white-haired man stood on top of the Stark Enterprises building. He scanned the sky, looking for the sign that he’d been waiting for. A jetstream, moving in a pattern that betrayed unique maneuverability, was now approaching SE quickly. He smiled. It took long enough. They’d been here for hours now, and he was starting to grow bored.

“He’s coming,” he said. “Take him.”

Tony watched the SE building grow closer in his vision as his heads-up display began scanning the building. The threat assessment sensors counted the people in top two floors, then cross referenced it with the staff and guest logs. There were ten different terrorists, spread across the two floors. Most of the rest of the building had been evacuated, with the exception of SE security and police.

He attempted to scan for weapons, but the sensors were completely unable to find anything resembling a weapon. Suddenly, each of the terrorists lit up on the sensors, each with a massive build-up of energy within their bodies.

“What the hell?” Tony muttered. Were they mutants? No, the energy signatures were all the same. This was something he hadn’t encountered before. He opened a channel back to SE New York.

“Pep, you there?” he asked.

“Yeah Tony,” Pepper replied from back in New York. “Ten minutes in Chicago and you’re already in the armor. Boredom set in?”

“Pretty much,” he grinned. “You getting what I’m seeing?”

“Yeah,” Pepper said. “I’m running a cross reference with our databases. It looks like whatever’s happening is tech based.”

“So they’re not post human.”

“Post human, Tony?”

“New catch phrase I’m trying to get going, think it’ll sound good on CNN?”

“Sure… Damn Tony… I don’t know what these guys are but we’re getting hits from all across the board on what this tech is. There’s Brand, pirated Hydra and AIM, Trask tech and… oh hell.”

“That’s not a good oh hell Pep,” Tony said, thinking of the declaration of Trask designed tech. Sentinel technology. “What is it?”

“Stark tech. These guys are full of Stark Tech.”

“How much?” Tony grunted. The thought of Sentinels with Iron Man technology scared Tony.

“I can’t tell, I’m just getting mixed signals from the different tech. What I want to know is how they go- Tony, ahead of you!” Stark turned his attention from listening to Pepper and his own thoughts to his HUD. They were on top of him. He spun out of the way, then moved from flight to hover.

“Gotta call you back Pep,” he said. “Have to take out the trash.”

“Take out the trash? Seriously Tony!” The line with Pepper went dead. Tony grinned. Yeah, it was cheesy. That was another fun part.

He looked at his three opponents. Two men, one woman, all in plain black bodysuits. They weren’t anything he recognized, but he could see the earmarks of the different tech Pepper had pointed out, particularly the Stark Tech. They appeared to be using repulsors which had been embedded in their bodies, but it seemed that they weren’t nearly as refined as his own.

“Look, I don’t know who you people are, but those are my people you’re holding hostage down there. We don’t need to fight over it.”

“Tony Stark, you will surrender or we will be forced to begin killing hostages,” the lead terrorist said. Tony frowned beneath his mask. His voice was cold and hollow, almost computerized.

“We don’t have to come down to that,” he said. “How about I just kick your asses?” Tony directed power to his palm repulsors, and quickly fired twin beams of energy at the two male terrorists. They avoided the blasts as best they could, but he struck them both, sending them spinning away. The female came after him quickly. Iron Man dodged, but she anticipated his move, blasting where he moved. The wild energy blast struck the shoulder of the armor and glanced off it. Tony grinned.

“My turn.” He cocked his fist back and blasted forward. He punched the woman hard, throwing her away. He almost felt bad for it, but he did what he needed. She recovered quickly and came at him hard, striking his chest plate almost dead center. The blow threw Tony back, much to his surprise. The Iron Man armor was incredibly heavy, and it took a lot of strength to do move it at all, even in the air like this.

Tony stabilized himself and raised his hands, firing twin repulsor blasts at the terrorist. She dodged this time and came at him fists first. She slammed into him hard and forced him backwards. Tony pointed his feet and hands backwards, and fired his repulsors, trying to stop himself. Intense pressure suddenly formed on his arms, and his armor started beeping. The Heads-Up Display began flashing about a breach.

“Dammit!” Tony growled. The two men had recovered and were holding on tight. “Maria, quick boot.” He had hoped not to field test the Maria AI system in conditions like this, but it had become a sudden necessary evil. He’d designed Maria with hopes of enabling greater multi-taking while in the armor. It was a simple AI threat assessment system, much more passive than the living armor that had nearly killed him not long ago. It was lightyears from full implementation, and had nearly cast itself out of his mind given the situation.

“This is Maria, Tony, how may I help you?” the computer voice said, sounding much like Gwyneth Paltrow.

“Maria, fire full spread of flares at threat behind me, and be prepared for a high speed decent,” he said. “This isn’t going to be pretty.”

“That won’t be necessary Mister Stark,” said a deep, almost comforting voice. The three terrorists turned Iron Man to see their leader, a white haired man with a closely trimmed beard. He hovered using the same tech his lackeys were using, but the metallic quality of his voice was gone. Tony frowned. He knew this man, but from where?

“Who the hell are you and what do you want?” Tony growled.

“My name is Bastion,” he said. “And I’m hiring you. Not that you have much choice.”

He watched the hustle below him. The Stark Enterprises operations center had exploded into activity shortly before Stark was ambushed. An attack on your company’s superheroic CEO tended to do that. He smiled under his mask. He had nothing to do with that, but the timing was exquisite.

He played with the hilt of the sheathed katana at his side. His employers were growing impatient, but they had forgotten one important detail.

When someone hired the Ronin to destroy a man, he took his time. A half-assed job wouldn’t do now, would it?

NEXT: What does Bastion want with Tony Stark and his company?