The Universe's Mixer

The city was bright below as Iron Man soared through the late night sky, once more surveying the way the City had shifted and reorganized itself. He was starting to feel like this was an unsolvable problem, at least until new developments arose, and the thought irritated and frustrated him greatly.

This might have been why, when he snagged a random mugging, he grabbed the criminal a little rougher than usual, and when he dropped the man in front of the police station and an officer on his smoke break it was from a little higher than usual. He didn't stop to tell the officer what had happened, simply using a close range hack to text the man'so phone with his details, and didn't bother to watch the man with a newly sprained ankle be taken in.

The brightly colored suit turned and blazed back into the sky, and finally Tony touched down on a rooftop with a good overlook and rested.

"Anything, J?" He grunted.

"Sorry, sir. The sensors are picking up no new data," Jarvis said in his helmet.

"Great."

Tony stared at the plethora of screens projected around him like a dome, mouth hanging open slightly as he stared at the recordings of life around the City. It made no sense. It still didn't. The movements of the locals and architecture, the inexplicable patterns and how they didn't seem to affect daily life in the least bit. It made no sense, and Tony hated it.

If he couldn't even understand how the City operated, how could he hope to grasp it's intent for its kidnap-pees, and how could Tony work out how to prevent losing anybody again?

The inventor felt nauseous from the problem, and dizzy from his position. He was lying, stretched out across the front seat of the hot rod that he worked on eternally as a meditation, the doors open and his head handing off the edge of the driver's seat. The blood had rushed to his head from the length of time he'd stayed this way, but he was determined not to move until he'd seen something. There had to be a clue somewhere.

The joy of seeing Tony and getting to spend time with him uninterrupted had not at all gotten old. It was just the need for food and other items for continued existence that had them leaving the safety of the apartment. Annie decided to take some time and try to find Megan, Fred, and everyone else. She also wanted to do a little shopping, maybe find Tony something small. Find herself something a little skimpy to wear while she gave him whatever small thing she found.

That thought made her smile a bit, and she tried to hide it though she was sure nobody was really looking. Annie hadn't exactly had naughty thoughts in that vein about anybody before. Her ex-boyfriend hadn't really inspired them in her. Everything about Tony did, though. It was nice to have somebody in her life that not only enjoyed her abilities, but was impressed by them.

"Jarvis? Does Tony enjoy silly little baubles?" She looked in the window of the store she was in front of. "Nevermind. That's a stupid question. I know what to get him."

He liked intriguing inventions and new tech. Annie wasn't about to get him a stupid little glass frog. Girliness had taken her over for a brief moment. She'd go to her shop and see what she might be able to put together. If she did it in her lab, he might walk in.

So first things first, skimpy outfit. She needed to go back to that boutique, they had been able to help her out. Annie wasn't quite up to par with picking out fashion yet.

( TBC )

The meeting with Peter had been curious. Annie had discovered many things about the newcomer. He was kind. And helpful. She hoped that he fared well within the City and didn't get too messed up about what could go on within it. Though he seemed to know more than a little bit about strangeness.

She had managed to get the machines in her shop to explain more about what had gone on. It seemed like she'd been gone for a really long time, but the date when she looked at it on calendars and newspapers said the same as when she'd left. The machines couldn't account for that. She'd tried to do some investigation on her own, and come up with nothing. She needed somebody who knew the City better.

Annie had been trying to reach out to Fred through the tablet that they had built a connection through, but hadn't gotten any kind of answer. From what she could tell, the tablet was still there, but Fred was not, and it didn't seem as if she'd used the device anytime recently. Which was totally weird, because Fred used those things all the time. She'd tried to reach out to Dinah, too, and gotten nothing there, either.

It worried her.

She had a lot of paranoia about who might be gone. There was one very important face that she hoped was still present, but found herself far too nervous to actually call. His number was still in her phone, and his home slash work was still there - she was standing in front of it currently - but what if he wasn't? What if the arms weren't inside? What if the security system didn't remember her? What if even Jarvis wasn't there, or it was a new Jarvis that didn't know who she was?

Annie pulled on the end of her hair, a curl that had slipped loose from the ponytail she'd pulled it into.

Stark Tower was tall. As tall as it had ever been. She looked up and up and up to the floor that would hopefully contain her lab. She couldn't tell from here if her stuff was still up there. Obviously. It was way too high.

"Crap." She muttered to herself. There was only one way to know for sure. She had to go in. "Craaaaap."

What if he wasn't?

Annie shook her head and squared her shoulders. She would go look, goddamn it. The little blonde began the journey across the street, barely glancing left and right to make sure it was safe to cross.

( Iron Spiders )

( takes place shortly after the school field trip. )

( Takes place after Maxine is allowed back in school. )

Tony returned to the tower with a short temper and shorter nerves. His girlfriend, the only person that really meant anything to him here besides his scientific counterpart, was still in the hospital, waiting for him to liberate her. But he couldn't do much. Jarvis had told him the medical equipment was already in use.

Quite peterbed that his own tower's medical gear wasn't available for his own use, he'd returned quickly and assessed the situation, finding an extremely beaten man in the medical quad. No doubt Bruce's doing, though Tony couldn't think of why he'd help somebody who showed up in none of Jarvis' databanks.

He entered the medical area briskly, eyes fixed on the medical bed.

"You," he said, a bit sharper than even his not-so-friendly usual. "Who are ( you? )

It had taken Tony a while to notice that Annie was gone. He was too busy on the revisions of the suit he'd built for Wash, and trying to once again set up a system to chart the City's movements and power source.

It was only when he'd finally surfaced for a real meal, a shower, and a chance in clothes when he realized that he was missing something else. In searching the Tower for Annie he'd found the downtrodden arms in her lab, and when Jarvis confirmed that she'd been gone for a while Tony had set the AI on finding her.

First came the police reports, and then a hospital location. Tony tried her cell phone as he suited up, flying over as fast as he could, not wanting to wait in the traffic or risk anything catching up to him. The armor dropped him at the front of the hospital and then went to the roof on standby, and a moment later Tony was inside, not bothering with reception. Jarvis had hacked the system easily, and Tony was too riled to deal with any receptionist telling him he wasn't kin and couldn't visit.

He didn't knock, either, simply opening the door and walking in, spotting Annie immediately and freezing slightly. He was not used to seeing friends or loved ones in hospital beds. He steeled himself internally, then walked over, for the first time slowing his pace, moving to her side and slowly taking her hand. "What happened?" he asked, voice quiet with rage. Rage at whoever had put here, and an equal amount of rage at himself for not being there, or noticing that it had happened.

Annie was exhausted.

There had been an idea brewing in her head for a while, taking up all of her thoughts. Even when she was at Fixit she was really not all there. Her brain hovered around the idea when she was talking with other people, danced around it when she was trying to sleep. Finally, she had gathered what she needed in order to make it a reality, and had set about the task of seeing the idea to fruition.

She had been up for days working on the schematics and hammering out some last kinks. Building was about to begin, she was just on the edge of it. But she'd already run herself ragged. She'd tried a few different energy drinks, high octane energy bars that tasted like cardboard, and even attempted a few exercise machines to get her blood pumping.

In the end though, she wound up sitting on a stool, bent over onto her arms at one of the work tables, sound asleep. There was a screwdriver in one hand, precariously close to poking her in the face. One wrong move and she'd likely jolt awake because of the scrape of metal. She'd so wanted to start the actual work on the idea, and here she was, slumbering instead.

Jarvis had dimmed the lights of the room and started some low, soothing music. He'd ushered the arms out of the workspace so that they wouldn't inadvertently wake Annie somehow. It was a toss up on if she would have been thankful or mad if she knew. That driven part of her had told Jarvis to keep her up and had asked him to provide the names of those drinks and pseudo-foods she'd had earlier. But the rational part of her had been telling her she needed rest, and the idea would still be there after.

It was 1am. Wash woke up to a sound, some high pitched sort of chiming sound. With much concentration and rubbing of eyes he verbalized his discontent at being waken at such a terrifyingly inappropriate hour with chimes.

"Mrph."

That being said, he turned over with a groan to find out where the chimes had come from. He had a suspicion. He opened a drawer on the leaning night stand (jimmy rigged to not fall over after his rumble with the thing) and brought out the thin phone Tony had given him.

With a resounding sniff to clear his sinuses he blinked his eyes and checked his messages. Tony wanted him in the lab. He was testing something. It was a brief message that left little room for argument.

Wash thumbed in a reply that read:
IOK 'm no my wqay Predictor text, be damned.

Thirty minutes later the phone's gps took him to a ridiculously tall building. He looked up, far up, at the gleaming letters.

"Oh! STAR-K," he exclaimed. He'd always thought it'd said STAR.

A genial voice that introduced itself as the seemingly omnipresent Jarvis met him at the gate. It traveled with him as he stepped into what must have been the presidential suite of elevators. He swallowed as pressure built in his ears from being lifted so high so quickly.

Then, Jarvis' voice led him down to where he saw Tony.

"I think you need dampers on those elevators, Tony" he quipped once he made it into the lab, making a show of putting a finger in his ear, though he'd already popped the pressure with swallowing.

Oswin closed her eyes and waited patiently, calmly for her destruction. It didn't matter that her eyes weren't real, the asymmetrical neckline of her red crew dress wasn't real, the chair she sat in wasn't real nor was the keyboard balanced precariously on the arm of said chair under her manicured left hand. Her hands weren't even real. Oswin didn't have hands anymore.

She dreamed it all for herself because the truth was too terrible. Knowing the truth now didn't matter. She still preferred the dream. She still preferred to think of herself as someone with legs and long brown hair, even if she was tired of wearing the same little red dress and matching sneakers.

It all felt real, right down to the cowlick that liked to form along the hairline.

All she wanted was to be remembered for the girl that she was.

Her moment of selfless sacrifice was interrupted by the loud, angry honk of a car. Oswin jumped in her seat (it didn’t matter anymore at that moment that the chair wasn’t real), startled now by a chorus of honking cars.

When Oswin opened her eyes -- or eye, as it were -- to see she was no longer in the sterile white room of the asylum, but an open city street. Her ship -- because Oswin couldn’t bring herself to think of it as a body -- was parked in the middle of a busy intersection.

Traffic started to build up.

”Oh Chin Boy, this was you, wasn’t it? Where have you put me now, you clever boy...” In her mind’s eye she’d been talking, but they were really just thoughts.

Her real voice wasn't heard until moments later: "SORRY! SORRY!"

A few cars started to go around the dalek, which looked perilously close to her single walleyed eyestalk.

"OI! WATCH THE HARDWARE!" Oswin frowned. First day of freedom and she was spending it stuck in traffic. Brilliant.

The sun that had stayed up too long was bad enough. This? This was just beyond what Dexter was willing to consider alright. This was the sun moving backward in the sky. On the complete opposite path of what it should have been.

There was also news about a girl named Fred dying. He'd met a girl named Fred before. He didn't know if it was the same Fred he'd known, or if it was another version of her. But he was pretty sure that it was still Fred. There couldn't be too many of those floating around. There had been a crime scene for it, of course, but he'd not been called in for it. There was no blood. No blood meant no Dexter. It didn't mean, though, that he couldn't snoop in the file and see what was going on.

He'd thought to find Wash to talk about this new change in the sun's habits. The other man had been bothered about the sun not going down. It had created a moment for bonding. Bonding was good. Bonding meant that there was another person in this place that would rely on him to behave normally. Or, as normally as he could stand to. Dexter needed all the people he could get who needed him to be a human being.

But he was a bit distracted from that by a strange phone call directing him to Stark Tower. It was vague, and the voice on the other end insisted that it needed to be him to take the call, but wouldn't say why, or what was needed from him. Dexter had his work box with him, because that was the only reason he could think of that he'd be needed. Work. He arrived at the building and announced his presence in a professional manner.

Wash's 'night' had been lacking in the night part. Having had an interesting and informative conversation with Dexter hadn't made up for the sleep he'd lost. So he was a little less than focused this morning, which looked suspiciously like the same sun of midday.

So when the little sign turned from a green stick man to a count down to the hand he was just unfamiliar enough with the intricacies of crossing signs and just drowsy enough not to notice as he moseyed along the striped pedestrian track it turning to red and cars being given a definite green light in the meanwhile.

It had been a relatively quiet street except for one car. And Wash was also a little too drowsy to hear the sports car motor coming up to his side quickly. But, feeling the ground rumble, of all things, he looked up just in time to narrowly avoid the shiny black tires running over his shiny shoes and...the rest of his shiny self.

He felt the bumper of the sleek vehicle nip the hip of his cargo pants as he collided with the pavement of the sidewalk. He grasped the pole of the crosswalk sign yelling, "Qing wa cao de liu mang!"

(Frog humping son of a bitch!)

"He will see you now," Tony's receptionist said, looking the redheaded woman over. Enigma did her best not to make a face as she stood and grabbed her laptop case, walking into Tony's office.

She pulled her jacket off, not looking up at the man yet as she opened her hard case, sliding her resume across the table at Tony (which of course did not include her illicit activities, but was truthful over the fact she had been arrested in Gotham), before taking a seat, for once not on him or the desk, but across from him, crossing a leg over the other, pulling down her skirt, finally looking up at him.

"I have samples of all of the projects described, though you've met Timmy," she stated, waiting for him to review the resume.

She hadn't come out right and asked him for a job, but she had set up the meeting as an interview (even if she didn't give her name...or a name he would recognize as hers, unless the wedding invite arrived before her), but it was obvious what she was after.

Annie had been taking time in returning her workspace to the way it had been. She'd come back to it from Fixit one day to find it ... not ruined... but not the way that she had left it. It was like the whole building had suffered an earthquake and things had shifted. Some things had broken, too, which annoyed her. Thankfully, though, the arm and the mini arm were okay and her current project hadn't done more than slide to the right on the table it was on.

The turmoil in Stark Tower had only gotten worse after that, and Annie could only suspect that it was coming from one source. She had not yet met the red headed girl who had taken up residence with Bruce downstairs, but she was sure that all the trouble had started with her. Eventually, Annie had sent a note up with the big arm to Tony, inquiring about the goings on.

In return she got a brief text: Yeah. Bitch fest and plot party 8pm, living room. Don't make other plans tonight.

Annie decided that it would also be a good time to give him his Christmas present, since it seemed to her that he'd just vanished on the actual day. It was nicely wrapped, and thankfully she'd taken it home with her so it hadn't suffered any of the violence. She hadn't wanted Tony to get curious and open it without her being there.

At the appointed hour, Annie headed upstairs. She was dressed a little bit nicer than she had been when she arrived for work, and there were no marks of what she'd been doing all day on her anywhere. She had pointedly ignored Jarvis when he mentioned that she was just going upstairs to see Tony in his home, and cleaned herself up.

The box was on the small side, wrapped in a deep red paper with a black velvet ribbon around it. It might have been a little too fancy, but Annie just wanted a nice presentation. In the bow was tied a titanium spork, not the real gift, but she'd overheard Tony talking to himself about how much of a let down the spork was.

She hit the call button for the elevator.

Dinah was pretty sure that Dean wouldn't be home for Christmas. He was working that job and he'd said that he would be back when "all this" was over, whatever that meant. She knew he was angry and needed time to cool off. At least, she hoped that he just needed time to cool off. The prospect of spending Christmas without him hurt, but she wasn't the type to sit around and mope. And she really wasn't just going to wait around for him to decide that he was coming home.

To add insult to injury, she'd found a few surprises waiting for her in her shop. There was a card featuring Eric's vampiric 'family' in ugly Christmas sweaters, a set of police-issue handcuffs from Enigma, and most disturbing of all, a beautifully wrapped box from the Scarecrow containing a dead canary.

Needless to say, she had a lot of frustration to work out. She wasn't exactly glad when the news reported that there was a Christmas party that was currently being held hostage, but she wasn't sorry about the chance to get out there and knock a few heads together.

She headed off for the sky rise building containing the hostage situation. Once there, she began to climb the fire escape as she looked for a route into the top level of the building where the party was located. She hoped she could find a way to just slip in unnoticed. Hostage situations like this went better when stealth was involved after all.

Tony wasn't pleased. Not pleased at all with finding out that his best friend was engaged from a harlot sitting on his crotch and threatening his beauty with a pot of hot coffee.

It didn't matter that he felt, as he usually did, he at least hadn't lost his verbal sparring match with Enigma, but he certainly didn't feel like he'd won, either. Not with the facts still being what they were.

"Jarvis, I want all of the code scanned and rescanned. This system needs to be airtight this time," he said grumpily. The screens around him lit up with lines of code, commands, and software analysis. At the very least, that girl would never be hacking into his tower again. Nor would anybody. On one level at least she had exposed some flaws in his computer for non-malicious means. "If I didn't write it before 2010 I want it checked and up for deletion unless being reviewed."

"Yes, sir," Jarvis was less interactive, sensing Tony's mood. The playboy scowled at the screen through the bottom of a glass of bourbon. He didn't get worked up over women. Never, like this. But he got worked up over Enigma on Bruce's behalf, and that irritated the hell out of him.

No, today was not shaping up to be a great day.

Note: Takes place before Joker nabs her

Enigma stalked through the halls, rage burning though her. She had asked Jarvis to keep her approach silent, but she wondered if the AI truly would, considering how pissed off she was getting with each step.

She stalked into the kitchen, grabbing a pot of coffee that was happily steaming from the maker, approaching Tony with it, and moving around him, kicking out with a heeled foot before leaning in, her foot dangerously close to squashing something very important to Tony. “Good morning, Mr. Stark, I have your coffee.”

“Now, we can drink it like a civilized humans, or I can pour it on your crotch in revenge for you calling me a slut,” she hissed the word through her teeth, engagement ring flashing as she raised the pot, hand tilting. “Though, you did call me sexy so you get points for that, and get to keep your balls....for now.”

She waited for his answer, the pot tilting more and more to hot coffee being poured over him, an eyebrow raised in question.