Who: Nick Fury, Tony Stark What: Meeting When: mid-December What: Placeholder
Tony sent a message out to Fury and Steve earlier in the day to stop in for a meeting at his lab in the towering Stark Industries building in Lower Manhattan. They were both given clearance before to get in unless Tony was in a mood and told Friday to block everyone. After losing Pepper, it was putting it lightly to say that he was in a lot of moods lately. Even more so after a rep from the board of directors stopped by to once again complain about some of the latest project proposals. To which he told them that he still held a more significant chunk of stock than they did, and if something tanked, there was enough buffer and incoming dividends to offset any losses.
His meaning was clear. They could kiss his still perky (due to giving up dairy) ass and learn to diversify. They should be glad for all the non-lethal things that he and his fellow lab monkeys created, and everyone raked in cash. Which he used to fund further projects, charities, and suit upgrades. Get used to it.
Certain things were off limits. Anything relating to Infinity Stones (governments couldn't be trusted not to use that for warfare against one another), any of Jane Foster's data (which was her intellectual property), and nothing of Hank Pym's (that was private research between Hope and Scott). Whenever someone asked about odd power spikes or what was happening on certain floors, Tony deflected. He deflected so well that he believed he was made out of Teflon.
What might punch through that, was the weapons that were initially being developed in secret with Chitauri tech by a former Federal contract competitor: Hammer Industries.
Tony did what he did best: He was nosy. He couldn't stand not knowing things, so he and Friday sifted through every little thing he could find on the internet. Months ago, they were test subjects for an updated version of the Judas Bullet. He knew he wasn't infallible by any means, but it was capable of knocking his suit out of the sky. It wounded their curious Spider-kid, caused a Hulk rampage downtown, and left a dent in their resident Norse god and a Valkyrie.
In other words? Ouch. A lurking problem was still out there. Lurking.
Sure, having covertly funded Secret S.H.I.E.L.D. to deal with things like this was a great idea to physically track down leads and set up sting ops. But when Hammer Industries 'mopped' up afterward, their business was now suspiciously squeaky clean, almost as though they'd hired a cleaner from the Mob. 'Assets' were being shifted all over the world, in ways that were often dead ends or flimsy leads, at best. There was some hope the weapons might show up in a Hong Kong black market. At the last minute, someone must have gotten spooked, and that deal never went through.
And then Tony dug deeper and found some similarities that had him pacing through his lab as he waited, on edge, knowing that it warranted a meeting such as this.
Fury had learned long ago that patience was indeed a virtue. With something like HAMMER, it was important to get all the information he could though before moving forward. The Hong Kong connections were the most worrying, knowing that the port could allow access to anywhere in the world. When he’d sent Clint and Nat, they hadn’t managed to crack through other than to confirm yes, this was an issue.
Great.
When he received the meeting invite from Stark, he knew the information had found its way there. Had Fury told Tony? He thought he had but he wasn’t 100% sure. With Bobbi gone, he’d gotten lax at the administration duties and if he was doubly honest, the self-imposed vacation after the battle in Wakanda was exactly what he needed. Plus, now that Nat (and Clint) had somehow wormed their way into his apartment, he didn’t need to leave ever.
That being said, he still got dressed every day as if he was going to the office, even if the office was simply his kitchen table while his best agents chatted and helped themselves to scones, muffins, or whatever he’d baked the night before.
Striding into the meeting room, he quirked an eyebrow as he clasped his hands behind his back. “Stark. When will you learn that a decent meeting requires coffee and an assortment of snacks?”
Tony swung around in his chair and pointed at Fury.
"Nope! Oh no. Don't aim your blame game at me. Coffee?" He pointed over at a wall of glass tubes filled with coffee beans and a lot of metal pipes and spigots and things that went zing. "I got rid of the Van Der Westen, made a phone call, and snagged a Javabot. I had Friday wire herself into it, so you can give her your order. And before you accuse me of not being festive? I baked some Christmas cookies in my office. So don't go there. Be merry."
No one wants to know how he managed to bake cookies when he:
1.) Can't cook. 2.) There's no oven in his office.
At any rate, there is a pile of gingerbread people haphazardly thrown onto a biodegradable earth-friendly plate, since he'd sat through Human Resource's talk about how to be more gender neutral in naming conventions. The only problem is that these gingerbread people look like burn victims. One gingerperson's mouth is a bloody red smear instead of a smile, and looks as though it is screaming for a death more swift and less painful.
Tony stopped pointing and stared at Fury as though he was looking at a ghost. Or trying to focus his eyes on human figures for longer than a cursory dismissal. Quite the feat considering his work hours consisted of 'whenever my eyes are open.'
"You look like a big brick wall of ho ho no, unjolly old Saint Nick," Tony quipped with the greatest of ease. "Did you run over grandma with a reindeer, or just snipe her with a rifle from a few blocks away?"
“I have no living family,” he responded dryly, side stepping Tony’s quip. “Nor do I wish to have any passing resemblance to the Beltway sniper.” Although he noticed the snacks, the crumb looked dry and the decorations were appalling. He had several perfect gingerbread at home, thankyouverymuch, and he would be indulging after this meeting.
The coffee though, he’d drink. He hardly thought Tony would be poisoning him after all this time, and realistically, he’d participated in enough stakeouts over the years. Plus, it looks kind of neat, this Javabot.
“Are we waiting for anyone else?,” he asked as he pushed buttons and waited the allotted 30 seconds for his coffee. “Because in the interest of full disclosure, Nat and Clint are fully aware of this meeting. I asked them not to attend, as I didn’t feel it was appropriate, but they’ve been working these angles.”
His decorations have flair. Even when after failing what he liked to call high-temperature stress testing.
"Nah, if Steve shows, I'll do a quick fill in. Like you'll fill in Clint and Nat." Tony replied with a shrug, the chair rolling over the floor so he could grab his cup of coffee. As he did that, a bunch of screens popped up in mid-air around them, showing various codes — some of what was running what looked to be GPS coordinates and financial transactions in real time.
"Everything's moved to decentralized payment outside established banking systems with cryptocurrencies. Mostly through false-front startups. That's why it was taking forever to nail down where that leak over at Hammer went after they cleaned house. I noticed a blockchain and followed the real-time payment rails. When they get paid, they dump it into smaller false companies who seem to exist only as trade fronts and those are, I'm guessing, the payees. I dug in further and noticed the similarity to an algorithm I've seen before. You're probably gonna get a migraine on contact, so hold onto your black leather underoos...."
Tony made a pew pew hand-guns motion toward a holo-screen, which depicted a video of SHIELD carriers crashing into the Potomac in D.C.
"The code's a little rinky dinked, but it's like HYDRA's personality profiling algorithm for finding enemy targets to remove. Still similar to what's running now, still pinging some of our names in internet searches for news or social media reports. Probably some underground splinter cell with delusions of recruitment and the weapons to back it up. It looks like a shipment's heading to Ukraine, maybe some heading toward destabilized Middle Eastern countries. You know, everyone's favorite hot zones for whatever weapon's going to win a pissing match quickly."
A fact that Tony knew all about, given his former job description of The Merchant of Death.
Nick moved closer to the screens, knowing well enough to not touch the diagrams. Not that it would ruin anything but more because he would look stupid touching images. “So they’ve given up on ports…” The thought trailed away. The Ukraine was a mess, as was Russia, and with all the instability in the Middle East … yes, this made sense. Why risk ships?
“There must be a larger network of runners than we initially thought.” He sighed and lifted his cup up to his mouth, hesitating a little bit. “Do we have any names yet? Nat said they kept mentioning a devil but…” He took a cautious sip of his coffee, noting that it was the perfect temperature. “That was all she could get out of them. We can track these assholes down one at a time, but that’s not going to get us very far.”
"Nope, just crypto-accounts and business names," Tony confirmed, making finger quotes around the business word. "Which we all know are fake business names. It's too easy to slap an email up or a cell phone number, and call yourself a business, since some exchanges still don't require I.D. verification. It's not fully regulated. I can toy with it? But it's hard to do it without it changing every block before the transaction, and I'd be doing battle with the code kids trying to patch it every step of the way."
He took a healthy swig of his coffee and eyed Fury warily before he looked around as though he'd lost something. Not his mind. That was still churning away at light speed.
"If Nat's kicking the some devil guy in the head," Tony added, "I wouldn't be surprised. Just like I'm not surprised this reeks of a HYDRA resurgence."
HYDRA. Nick could feel his non-existent ulcer tighten at the sound of the organization. Wasn't there one goddamn universe where he didn't have to deal with those motherfuckers??
Instead, Nick barely quirked an eyebrow. "I wouldn't be surprised. Everyone else is here, why wouldn't they be? Makes me wonder if we should let the others know...". And before Tony could even make a sound, Nick gave a pointed look.
"Too many of us have been affected by them. It won't do us any good to keep it quiet. Clint and Nat have started some of this, but Miss Carter, Bucky, Wanda.. they deserve to know and give input."
Wide-eyed, Tony held both hands up.
"Whoa. Don't shoot the messenger. I meant it's got the hallmarks of HYDRA, that's why I said that. C'mon, running traces on our social media fan pages like at-Thor-watch on Twitter, and that algorithm used to target and destroy future threats back then in D.C. So you want their input? Hell, go get it! I'm just the billionaire playing code jockey. Speaking of code jockeys...."
He held up what looked like a tiny sim card from a phone.
"This is just a little virtual reality thing I've been working on, called eScape," Tony explained. "The general public gets to pretend they're a watered down version of Iron Man while wearing a VR headset. Fun times. But for us, it can be used for real-time threat scenarios without the need for a training facility. All in our head, now that I've rigged up BARF to go inward instead of outward with little to no electromagnetic headaches involved. As soon as the beta testing keys are ready, I'll send 'em out. Late Christmas present in January, I think."
Nick accepted the card and looked at it curiously. He'd long ago accepted that he should not question Tony's inventions. Especially one so timely as this.
"So we really are living in the Matrix," Nick mused. It would be interesting to see how it actually worked. Sometimes a physical fight was cathartic and needed -- how could that be replaced by this?
"Speaking of Christmas, do you have plans? You're more than welcome to join Nat, Clint and myself."
"Kinda Matrixy, but hopefully without Agent Elrond pissing on everyone's parade," he told Fury, with the shrug of a shoulder. "Some charity thing. Hanging with Happy and watching trying to sit still for two-point-five seconds to watch Christmas Vacation. I'll pop by. If I feel like being bitchslapped by the whole hi-I-last-saw-you-in-Super-Jail at Barton. I don't want to piss on SHIELD's parade at Christmas. Any other day of the year? Hi! I'm your guy."
Nick shrugged. "Suit yourself. Try not to pickle yourself.". This was the closest that Fury would get to openly voicing any concern for Tony. After all, the world's richest man probably didn't want to hear it from Nick Fury of all people.
Draining his mug, he tilted the cup at Tony in thanks before setting it down. "Merry Christmas then. I'm sure we'll talk in the New Year."
"Yup, Merry Christmas, New Year....pickles and stuff," an already distracted Tony offered with the wave of one hand, and a toasting of his coffee cup in the other. He was going to have dinner with Peggy, or try to weasel his way out of dinner with Peggy so she didn't disapprove of his coping antics. Which would likely include working on tracking down more of the weapons, while barely noticing the 24 hour marathon of A Christmas Story in the background.