Tony finished his explanation. Lucius's stare did not soften.
"Let me see if I understand. You drove for more than thirteen hours to sneak into a villa JARVIS located. You infiltrated the place, discovered that the Mandarin was an actor and ajunkie, drove back here, and began preparing to attack Aldrich Killian, who has superhuman powers with extra-crispy hot sauce. Does that summarise the situation?"
Tony rested one hand on the repaired Mark 42. Harley's brace remained fixed along the armour where Lucius had preserved it, the only part of the restoration that did not look as though it had come directly from Tony's workshop. "That is a good summary, my dear friend. Now, if you can keep your violent tendencies under control, your only good friend is in a tiny pinch. You will help him. That telekinetic armour of yours is a literal lifesaver, and I expect to need it in the next few hours."
Lucius tilted his head and continued looking at him.
Tony shifted his weight. "That look usually comes before an unreasonable invoice."
"Since the day I met you, all I have received from this friendship is trouble. First Afghanistan, then the rally at Monaco, followed by the invasion of New York. Aliens, Tony. Your tower was so shiny that it attracted aliens."
Tony clicked his tongue. "No, our tower. You are one of Stark Industries' largest shareholders. Ergo, Loki and his squid friends attacked our tower, not mine."
Lucius blinked as the financial implication displaced Killian for one dangerous moment. "That sly motherfucker."
"Loki or me?"
"Loki, for now." Lucius stepped closer. "How much did the repairs cost in liquid assets?"
Tony arranged his face into something solemn enough for a board meeting. "Over ten billion dollars. Stark Industries contributed more than seventy per cent of that to city repairs and relief work."
Harley stopped sorting the tools on his bench and moved behind the worktable, placing something solid between himself and the argument.
Lucius lifted Tony with telekinesis. His boots cleared the shed floor, and he drifted forward an inch at a time until they were nearly nose to nose.
"Why would you spend our money on the ungrateful people of New York? Their senator shamelessly tried to make me shoulder the repairs. I rejected the nonsense, and you went behind my back to give them the money."
Tony kept his hands away from the armour. Reaching for it would turn a financial disagreement into a challenge, and challenges gave Lucius ideas. Reminding him of his shareholder position had been useful until the numbers arrived. Tony was reasonably certain the man would undo every repaired street in New York if he thought it would force a cash refund.
"People were trapped under buildings." Tony met the electric blue gathering in Lucius's eyes. "They needed roads cleared, hospitals supplied, and power restored."
"They have a government."
"The government tried to nuke them."
Lucius considered that for half a breath. It did not make him release Tony.
Tiny arcs moved around his irises. The metal in the shed responded to his anger without any visible gesture. Loose screws trembled across the bench, tools shifted against their hooks, and the Mark 42's gauntlet scraped toward him. Tony remained suspended in the middle of it, close enough to see the exact moment Lucius began calculating how much of Stark Industries belonged to him. The company's records put the stake near a fourty per cent after his original purchases and Stane's former shares. Lucius's temper was already pricing it as ownership.
Harley raised one hand as though he were sitting in class.
Lucius and Tony turned together.
"Brat." The word came from both of them.
Harley swallowed but kept his hand raised. "I think there's a six-pack of Coors Light in the fridge. Would you two friends like me to bring it?"
Lucius blinked. The light in his eyes returned to pale turquoise, the tools settled, and Tony's boots struck the floor.
"I will not pay for it, kid." Lucius lowered his hand as if he had not been threatening a billionaire with his own company. "I am protesting a moron and his supporters by stopping my sales altogether. Money is tight these days."
The Mark 42's faceplate turned toward him from the workbench. JARVIS filled the shed through its speakers. "That statement is inaccurate, sir. My estimate places your unreported cash holdings above one point seven billion dollars, stored somewhere beyond the knowledge of government authorities."
Lucius's smile became predatory. "JARVIS, are you tired of living? That amount is for the worst days."
"Your projected Stark Industries dividends for this quarter are approximately twice that amount. The deposit is due within twelve days."
Tony stepped between Lucius and the armour. JARVIS could survive many things, but Tony did not intend to test whether the AI could survive being sacrificed to a tightfisted wizard. "Consider the beer my treat. Harley, go on."
Harley read the silent thank-you on Tony's mouth.
"You threatened my AI over beer money." Tony waited until Harley was beyond the shed door. "I want that included in the official friendship record."
"You donated billions without consulting me."
"I am beginning to understand why no one consulted the dragon before spending the hoard."
Lucius looked toward the Mark 42. Tony raised one finger.
"That was me, not JARVIS."
The armour lifted from the workbench and assembled around Tony before Lucius could reconsider which of them deserved crushing. Plates closed over his torso and limbs, the restored systems recognising him without delay.
"Good." Lucius turned toward the shed doors. "You will need the suit if you insist on participating."
"Sir, Pepper is missing. Your participation is not optional." Came JARVIS' voice.
That statement ended the argument. Tony knew Lucius would mock his planning, his driving, and his habit of collecting disasters, but a rescue left little room for negotiation. Killian had made Pepper the subject to be rescued and himself the one to take revenge.
Harley returned with the beer. Lucius produced three folding lounge chairs from his Inventory and did not explain why he would have them stashed there. They arranged them in a row inside the shed and reclined with sunglasses on their faces. Harleys were ordinary. Tony sat beneath the Mark 42's open faceplate. Lucius's aviators received live video and audio from the surveillance constructs circling a villa in Miami.
Dozens of small bee constructs had entered through vents, open windows, and gaps beneath exterior doors. Crow-like birds occupied roofs and trees around the property, following vehicles and marking every guard who crossed the grounds. Their combined feeds reduced the villa to moving routes and occupied rooms. Lucius used an illusion to project the relevant images in front of the three chairs, letting Tony and Harley watch without touching the glasses that controlled the network.
Harley opened Tony's can and handed it over. "So we're spying on terrorists from lawn chairs."
"We are mapping the property before Tony flies into another building without a plan." Lucius shifted two bird feeds to follow a black vehicle approaching a side entrance. "The chairs improve his patience."
"You really found an actor consuming enough drugs to forget his own name."
"Which proved the Mandarin was fake."
"Then you drove thirteen hours back to tell me."
"I had a child in the car."
Harley lowered the can he was holding. "No, you don't, you left me here."
Tony paused. "I had previously considered the presence of a child in the car."
Lucius reassigned another cluster of bees. Their live map extended through the mansion one room at a time. Most guards carried ordinary weapons. Several displayed the orange light beneath their skin that Tony had described, confirming that Killian had Extremis-enhanced men inside. Lucius marked each of them so Tony would not mistake a human silhouette for a human limitation.
A bee passed through a narrow ventilation grille and entered a windowless room. The projected image sharpened above the lawn chairs.
Pepper was bound to a chair. Killian stood beside her with a syringe.
Tony threw himself out of the lounge chair. The Mark 42 sealed around his face before the chair hit the ground. On the projection, Killian pushed the needle into Pepper's arm.
"We need to move now, Lucius." Tony's repulsors awakened beneath his palms. "We need to move now. I never thought he would inject that thing into Pepper."
Lucius rose. His unopened can collapsed into a flat disk between his fingers. The birds surrounding the villa changed formation as he divided targets among them, and every bee inside began tracking a route to Pepper.
"Harley stays here. You'll apply the telekinetic shield. You can invoice me later."
Lucius placed one hand on the Mark 42's shoulder, and the shed vanished around them.
--
While Tony and Lucius prepared to move, Killian stood before Pepper and treated the syringe like the final line in a contract.
The restraints held her wrists against the chair arms. She had tested each strap until her hands began to numb, then stopped wasting strength. Killian wanted her alive and frightened. That meant the room, the guards, and the drug all existed to influence someone who was not present.
"I noticed that your dear boyfriend is not dead." Killian watched her face for a reaction. "He is very much alive, and he snooped around this mansion yesterday."
Pepper refused to give him the answer he wanted. "Then you know Tony is coming."
"As I am now, he is nothing against me. His armour cannot solve every problem, but his mind might solve one of mine. I still need that little genius brain to correct a few remaining difficulties."
Heat glowed beneath the skin of Killian's hand as he lifted the syringe. The change was controlled enough to be a demonstration rather than a loss of temper.
"He has already recognised the Mandarin ruse. That makes you necessary, Miss Potts. With Extremis in your body, our sarcastic little genius will have no choice but to stabilise it. Do not take this personally."
Pepper looked from the liquid to the orange light moving beneath his skin. "You kidnapped me, tied me to a chair, and plan to use me as leverage. Which part would you prefer I treat as impersonal?"
Killian's smile tightened. "The part where you survive because he cooperates."
"Tony does not cooperate with men who hide behind actors."
"He will cooperate with consequences."
The needle entered her arm. Pepper held herself still until the injection ended, denying Killian the struggle he expected.
-
Maya Hansen no longer knew when the work had crossed the final line. There should have been a moment she could identify, some decision separating an attempt to perfect the human body from kidnapping and murder. Every compromise had looked temporary when Killian presented it. Together, they had become the normal operation of the mansion.
Her idea of a perfect world now required kidnapping and left people dead. Maya was already too deeply involved to pretend she could walk through the front door and leave. Killian knew what she had done, what she had concealed, and which parts of Extremis still needed a better mind than theirs.
Tony Stark had solved the instability once before. After their one-night encounter, he had looked at her work in a half-awake haze and produced the answer she had failed to find. He had not understood the value of it then. Maya did. She needed him to do it again, and if reproducing that hazy state required recreating the circumstances around their first meeting, she was not going to object.
Maya's train of thought broke when an explosion, followed by a scream, carried in from outside the mansion. A second voice joined it, then gunfire cut across the grounds.
The guards in the corridor rushed toward the noise. One reached the stairwell before an unseen force tore the weapon from his hands and pulled him out of Maya's sight.
She knew Tony's armour could not do that.
Another scream rose from the courtyard, closer this time, and Maya's thoughts stopped with it.