It would cause such surprise, it would make all of their minds electric. Characters: Happy and Tony Setting: Various places in NYC Content: Bros Summary: Just like old times, Happy is playing bodyguard.
"There he is!" someone caught sight of Tony and all hell broke loose. There we're shouts from registered press of "Mr. Stark, can you confirm-" and "Tony, is it true-" as Happy shouldered his way out of the courtroom a step ahead of the boss. Boy, this sure took Happy back; it had been a long time since he'd had to play bodyguard. Back then Tony Stark was a different kind celebrity, but these days it was all press releases and good PR and less of the damage control that was necessary for Tony Stark the billionaire playboy alcoholic. The new age of sober Iron Man had pretty much made Happy's bodyguard and driver duties obsolete.
After Tony's weird month (which Happy was gonna chalk up to a relapse no matter what the boss had to say about portals and other dimensions), things had changed. He'd been kind of an asshole but Tony had sure had a productive month, acquiring a ton of companies and pretty much solidfying his place as one of the richest men in the world.
A lot of corporate conquering wouldn't have been front page news if it were any other mogul, but this was Tony Stark and somebody was calling him out. A complaint about a hostile takeover morphed into a lawsuit and now things were turning ugly. Drop some blood in the water and here came the sharks. Now Happy was back in the game, managing the gaggle of reporters that were turning up more and more often whenever Tony was out in public. Happy figured Tony could handle it just fine, sure, but a little help couldn't hurt.
"Outta the way," Happy commanded in an authoritative voice as he led Tony through the crowd. "No comment! Move." He expertly batted away waving microphones and recorders, cut off insistent questions, deftly weaved through the crowd keeping himself between the boss and the media vultures. His expression was menacing, his stink-eye well practiced. Nobody was getting past Happy Hogan. Nice to see he hadn't lost his touch. He was probably kind of enjoying this too much. He ushered Tony into the passenger side of a waiting car, slid into the driver's seat, and pulled out of the crowd of people and into traffic.
"That was rough," he remarked, his chest puffed out proudly. He was just making polite conversation; that had been the opposite of rough. It been smooth. Happy was pretty great at his job, he decided, when he actually got the opportunity to do it.