Fanfic: Avengers / Leverage Crossover (Part Two)
Thieves, Spies, and Accidental Allies Masterpost
Tony Stark had plans for the evening. Plans that Pepper seemed to be intent on ruining. "It will only take a few minutes. Besides, you used to like meeting with her," she said with a smirk as she lead him through the hallways at Stark Towers.
"Only because I used to want to sleep with her."
"Used to?" Pepper said indifferently. She looked at him with far too much knowledge in her eyes. "She is very beautiful."
"Who needs beautiful women when I've got you?" She raised her eyebrow at him. "Wait -"
She waved him off. "She's expanded her business; she's not just art procurement and sales anymore."
"That's good, because I gave all my art away."
"Yeah, because you thought you were going to die."
"It seemed like the right thing to do at the time."
Pepper moved on. "She's into architecture now too, with an emphasis on recycled materials."
"So you think she'd be good for the rebuilding efforts, okay, I get it."
"So you don't want to sleep with her?"
"Oh, I definitely want to sleep with her. And she's got that accent. I think I've got a thing for accents."
"You's got a sing vor accents?"
"German? That was accent you decided to go with?" She shrugged. "Actually, that strangely did it for me."
"But it's normally British accents."
He nodded matter of factly, and they continued their pace through some of the labs before snaking their way to the elevator. "She contacted you?"
Pepper shook her head. "I heard she was in town and I invited her for drinks. That's when I got the idea about bringing her in as a consultant for the rebuilding projects."
Tony was confused. "You two are friends? Since when do you like any of the females I work with?"
"Since she never succumbed to your charm, and I never had to usher her out in the morning."
"That's fair, but I'm starting to think she did that so she could keep working with you."
"So she's smart. She knew that if you lost interest she'd be out a client."
"No, I'm saying that she wanted to work with you. It's the only possible explanation for her not sleeping with me." He paused, and smirked. "And if you're open to that kind of thing..."
Pepper rolled her eyes as she pressed the Lobby button in the elevator. "Jarvis has a British accent."
"Butlers are British. Everyone knows that."
The elevator opened and Pepper took one last shot at him before they greeted the newcomers. "Be nice.
Tony walked out of the elevator to see Cassandra Croft standing in the lobby, talking rather sternly to the tall young man standing beside her. He looked concerned, but as soon as they noticed his presence they shed their discomfort and greeted him warmly.
"Cassandra," he exclaimed, kissing her on both cheeks. "Pepper tells me that your art dealing is going well."
"I always manage to get what I want," she replied, her voice flirty but her smile genuine. "Let me introduce you to Mason Bradford. I trust Pepper has brought you up to speed?"
"Of course," he said while shaking her associate's hand. Even beneath the young man's dark skin, he could see the colour start to drain from his face. Interesting. "Though Pepper seems to have forgotten that we have other things on the schedule tonight."
Pepper waved him off. "We can always make time for someone whose priorities align with our own."
She started to lead them into the elevator to an upper level conference room and while they were exchanging pleasantries he pulled out his phone.
The amount of information he was able to dig up on Mason was small, but thorough. Masters in Architecture, graduated top of his class at each level, worked for a large firm on a variety of small projects before joining a smaller firm and taking on LEED and smart buildings... he also took some engineering classes on properties and mechanics of materials... He shut his phone. The faster he could finish this meeting, the faster he could whisk Pepper back to the evening he had planned.
They all sat down around the table, and as much as he wanted to pay attention to the meeting, Pepper's skirt started to rise just a little on her leg...
She cleared her throat and he whipped back to attention. "Okay Mason, what do you have for me?"
He had his own computer and plugged it into the port on the table that linked to the projector, and started right into the presentation. "After the destruction of any building, whether it be from natural disaster or attack, the clean up usually consists of taking the rubble and disposing of it. And that makes sense - the steel beams are compromised, the concrete is filled with rebar, and all the structural elements are combined with everything else from buildings, like insulation, electrical..." He trailed off to make sure that everyone was still with him, and then continued on.
"In this case, we have even more rubble, because we have these giant alien-y things also lining the street. I did my masters' thesis on re-using the structural steel from a demolished building that had been damaged in an earthquake in California."
Tony interrupted. "So, you want to take a look at these half alien reptile, half robot things, and see if they can be reused as building material."
Cassandra smiled. "He's quite smart, but we don't have a base of operations here. He needs a lab."
"Perfect," Tony said, slapping his hands together. "We'll start with two weeks as a trial, beginning tomorrow morning. Ms. Potts, arrange to have some scaly things brought into one of the labs so he can get moving right away. Jarvis?"
"Yes, sir."
"Arrange security protocols for Mason and Cassandra, and get them whatever they need." He stood up with a smile at the two guests. Mason looked shell shocked, like he couldn't actually believe that he had agreed to support his research, mixed with almost a little disappointment that he didn't get to finish his presentation. Cassandra just looked smug. Interesting.
Cassandra interrupted his train of thought. "He also has two interns that would get value from this experience."
Tony studied her. Something was not quite right, but Pepper agreed. "We'll get things arranged for them as well, after you get settled."
They all shook hand again, and another worker escorted them out. "Did they seem weird to you?" he asked Pepper, as soon as they were out of earshot. "I think they seemed weird."
"I think it's just because Cassandra didn't pay you as much attention as she normally does."
He shrugged and had already started to move onto other things when Jarvis cut in. "Sir, there's a program running through the server that originated from this room. It just stared a few minutes ago, and it's not authorized."
Tony smirked at Pepper. "Still think nothing was weird?" He ran his hand through his hair. "Jarvis, what's the program doing? And why wasn't it immediately stopped by our protocols?"
It was silent for a moment. "It seems that the program is just indexing the drives. It was not malicious in intent, nor is it sending the information externally. It's well written, and it passed the security protocols because it's not actually going through any of the files. It didn't flag as malicious, it was only noticed because it began during the nightly system scan."
Tony thought it through. "It's not going through the files. It's just looking at the organizational structure of them." He mumbled to himself, running his hands over his face and hair absently before speaking out loud. "It's looking for where the secure files might be. That's smart. Okay, Jarvis, don't stop it. Let it run, but take notes on what it finds. I want to know what Mason finds out about us, and what he continues to look for."
He turned back to Pepper who was now frowning. "I had no idea this was going to happen. I bet Cassandra doesn't even know about it -"
"It doesn't matter what she knows, you gave a hacker access to our -"
"Are you upset that he's looking into your files or that you wouldn't have caught him without Jarvis -"
"Without Jarvis? Jarvis is how I caught him, I built Jarvis, therefore I still caught him -"
"Or are you afraid that he's better than you -"
"Better than me?" They finally stopped speaking over each other and Pepper gave him a cheeky smile. "He's not better than me. I just want to see how far he gets."
"You're going to obsess about this now."
"No, I just want to get into a computer and see what he's up to," Tony answered as he started to walk away from her.
"I thought we had plans," she responded, drawing out the words, and he stopped dead in his tracks. The computers were calling to him, and so was his work shop, but Pepper just sat down in a chair in one of the lobby areas, her skirt starting to creep back up...
"Yes. Plans." He walked over to her and pulled her up. "I've got some lederhosen you can put on."
"Why on Earthy do you have lederhosen?" She asked with a laugh, and while he knew he had no chance of her wearing them, he might get her to try the German accent again.
***
Sophie rolled her eyes again at Hardison as they made their way to Stark Tower in the morning. "I stayed up for a week straight learning about architecture, and then he doesn't ask me a single question. I had Parker studying it with me, and I had to learn about engineering. Engineering!" he exclaimed, but Sophie knew it was more for show than anything. "Me and Parker, studying, while you went out for drinks with Pepper, and who knows what Eliot and Nate were doing. Eliot, by the way, who is supposed to be one of my interns, but didn't have to study at all!"
Sophie just laughed, partly due to Hardison complaining about studying when they both knew that he loved every second of learning something new and he definitely loved doing it with Parker (who was actually particularly apt at the design part of things), and partly because she remembered the look on Eliot's face when Nate told him that Hardison would be playing his boss.
"Oh, come off it, Hardison. You did really well. And it had to be you, because you had to be inside to get into the computer. And Nate's doing his..." she waved her hand. "Whatever it is that he does. And Eliot? Well, he's got our back. He'll fake it when it's necessary. But today it's just you and me. You've got this, yeah?"
He took a deep breath, and then nodded. "Yeah. Today it's just finding out what my crawlers have got, and meet some of the other people in the lab."
"And, you actually do have to run some tests on the alien armour, to maintain our cover."
He nodded, still looking a little nervous, but by this time they had reached the doors, and turned back into Cassandra and Mason.
It didn't take long before they were led up to one of the R&D labs, and Tony and Pepper were there waiting for him with another man who was slightly older and looked at them with a serene smile.
Pepper introduced them, and Sophie immediately liked Dr. Banner. "When he heard your ideas on using the debris as recycled materials, he couldn't wait to join in. He's familiar with the labs, and knows how to acquire any other machines or testing materials you may need."
Pepper then looked at Tony expectantly, as if he needed prompting. And he clearly did. "Ah yes. I'm here to welcome you officially, etc, etc" he waved a hand in the air like he could just push all those pleasantries along. "I'm interested to see what you find. I'll, uh, be checking in. Periodically. Because I'm curious."
Sophie studied him with concern. While it was clear he wasn't nervous, he was stumbling a bit over his words like he was being careful not to say something... and all the while Pepper was glaring at him, silently keeping him in check, ready to intervene at any point.
A quick and efficient knock at the door caught all their attention, and a petite woman with striking red hair entered the room holding a leather folder.
The young woman was gorgeous - anyone could tell that - but what caught the eye of Sophie was how she moved. Sure, she was wearing a pressed white button down shirt and heels that still did very little to her short stature, but she moved with the confidence of someone that was very aware of her surroundings and self, and with the athletic grace of someone that was both nimble and strong. The hairs on the back of Sophie's neck were standing straight up, but Hardison seemed unaware. Well, unaware of her danger. He was definitely aware of her beauty.
One thing was for sure, though. If Eliot was here, he would be telling them to run in the other direction, and fast.
"Mr. Stark," was all the woman said, and she greeted him with a brisk nod.
"Natalie!" Pepper exclaimed, either unaware of the woman's power, or expecting it. "You brought those forms I asked about?"
"Ms. Rushman, is it?" Tony finally responded, and she gave him a passive glare.
"Just standard confidentiality clauses, non-competition agreements, and a release and waiver of liability."
"Of course," Sophie replied lightly, careful to keep the conversation normal. She glanced over the forms quickly and signed Cassandra's name to the bottom. "So, you work for Mr. Stark?"
Natalie's gaze was unblinking. "I work in the Legal Department."
The papers were handed over to Hardison who examined them a bit more closely, but Natalie's green eyes held her own dark ones. Her own advice to Hardison during the moon-walking-bear con came back to her now. Don't look away, but keep your eyes soft. You need to project strength but without challenging him.
Finally, Hardison broke the silence and Natalie smiled, gathering the papers and starting towards the exit. "Mr. Stark, Ms. Potts?" she asked, pausing to look back at them from the door.
Tony still looked a little shocked but a new anger was starting to bubble inside, while Pepper just looked... polite. Sophie always knew that Pepper was one of the most capable people she had ever met, but Sophie's respect for her just continued to grow. And she was still the epitome of professionalism, exchanging more pleasantries even as they left, following Natalie out the door.
Sophie let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, and turned to look at an oblivious Hardison and a quietly amused Dr. Banner.
"So," Dr. Banner started, with a small quirk of a smile, "she's really something, isn't she?"
***
( Part Three. )
Tony Stark had plans for the evening. Plans that Pepper seemed to be intent on ruining. "It will only take a few minutes. Besides, you used to like meeting with her," she said with a smirk as she lead him through the hallways at Stark Towers.
"Only because I used to want to sleep with her."
"Used to?" Pepper said indifferently. She looked at him with far too much knowledge in her eyes. "She is very beautiful."
"Who needs beautiful women when I've got you?" She raised her eyebrow at him. "Wait -"
She waved him off. "She's expanded her business; she's not just art procurement and sales anymore."
"That's good, because I gave all my art away."
"Yeah, because you thought you were going to die."
"It seemed like the right thing to do at the time."
Pepper moved on. "She's into architecture now too, with an emphasis on recycled materials."
"So you think she'd be good for the rebuilding efforts, okay, I get it."
"So you don't want to sleep with her?"
"Oh, I definitely want to sleep with her. And she's got that accent. I think I've got a thing for accents."
"You's got a sing vor accents?"
"German? That was accent you decided to go with?" She shrugged. "Actually, that strangely did it for me."
"But it's normally British accents."
He nodded matter of factly, and they continued their pace through some of the labs before snaking their way to the elevator. "She contacted you?"
Pepper shook her head. "I heard she was in town and I invited her for drinks. That's when I got the idea about bringing her in as a consultant for the rebuilding projects."
Tony was confused. "You two are friends? Since when do you like any of the females I work with?"
"Since she never succumbed to your charm, and I never had to usher her out in the morning."
"That's fair, but I'm starting to think she did that so she could keep working with you."
"So she's smart. She knew that if you lost interest she'd be out a client."
"No, I'm saying that she wanted to work with you. It's the only possible explanation for her not sleeping with me." He paused, and smirked. "And if you're open to that kind of thing..."
Pepper rolled her eyes as she pressed the Lobby button in the elevator. "Jarvis has a British accent."
"Butlers are British. Everyone knows that."
The elevator opened and Pepper took one last shot at him before they greeted the newcomers. "Be nice.
Tony walked out of the elevator to see Cassandra Croft standing in the lobby, talking rather sternly to the tall young man standing beside her. He looked concerned, but as soon as they noticed his presence they shed their discomfort and greeted him warmly.
"Cassandra," he exclaimed, kissing her on both cheeks. "Pepper tells me that your art dealing is going well."
"I always manage to get what I want," she replied, her voice flirty but her smile genuine. "Let me introduce you to Mason Bradford. I trust Pepper has brought you up to speed?"
"Of course," he said while shaking her associate's hand. Even beneath the young man's dark skin, he could see the colour start to drain from his face. Interesting. "Though Pepper seems to have forgotten that we have other things on the schedule tonight."
Pepper waved him off. "We can always make time for someone whose priorities align with our own."
She started to lead them into the elevator to an upper level conference room and while they were exchanging pleasantries he pulled out his phone.
The amount of information he was able to dig up on Mason was small, but thorough. Masters in Architecture, graduated top of his class at each level, worked for a large firm on a variety of small projects before joining a smaller firm and taking on LEED and smart buildings... he also took some engineering classes on properties and mechanics of materials... He shut his phone. The faster he could finish this meeting, the faster he could whisk Pepper back to the evening he had planned.
They all sat down around the table, and as much as he wanted to pay attention to the meeting, Pepper's skirt started to rise just a little on her leg...
She cleared her throat and he whipped back to attention. "Okay Mason, what do you have for me?"
He had his own computer and plugged it into the port on the table that linked to the projector, and started right into the presentation. "After the destruction of any building, whether it be from natural disaster or attack, the clean up usually consists of taking the rubble and disposing of it. And that makes sense - the steel beams are compromised, the concrete is filled with rebar, and all the structural elements are combined with everything else from buildings, like insulation, electrical..." He trailed off to make sure that everyone was still with him, and then continued on.
"In this case, we have even more rubble, because we have these giant alien-y things also lining the street. I did my masters' thesis on re-using the structural steel from a demolished building that had been damaged in an earthquake in California."
Tony interrupted. "So, you want to take a look at these half alien reptile, half robot things, and see if they can be reused as building material."
Cassandra smiled. "He's quite smart, but we don't have a base of operations here. He needs a lab."
"Perfect," Tony said, slapping his hands together. "We'll start with two weeks as a trial, beginning tomorrow morning. Ms. Potts, arrange to have some scaly things brought into one of the labs so he can get moving right away. Jarvis?"
"Yes, sir."
"Arrange security protocols for Mason and Cassandra, and get them whatever they need." He stood up with a smile at the two guests. Mason looked shell shocked, like he couldn't actually believe that he had agreed to support his research, mixed with almost a little disappointment that he didn't get to finish his presentation. Cassandra just looked smug. Interesting.
Cassandra interrupted his train of thought. "He also has two interns that would get value from this experience."
Tony studied her. Something was not quite right, but Pepper agreed. "We'll get things arranged for them as well, after you get settled."
They all shook hand again, and another worker escorted them out. "Did they seem weird to you?" he asked Pepper, as soon as they were out of earshot. "I think they seemed weird."
"I think it's just because Cassandra didn't pay you as much attention as she normally does."
He shrugged and had already started to move onto other things when Jarvis cut in. "Sir, there's a program running through the server that originated from this room. It just stared a few minutes ago, and it's not authorized."
Tony smirked at Pepper. "Still think nothing was weird?" He ran his hand through his hair. "Jarvis, what's the program doing? And why wasn't it immediately stopped by our protocols?"
It was silent for a moment. "It seems that the program is just indexing the drives. It was not malicious in intent, nor is it sending the information externally. It's well written, and it passed the security protocols because it's not actually going through any of the files. It didn't flag as malicious, it was only noticed because it began during the nightly system scan."
Tony thought it through. "It's not going through the files. It's just looking at the organizational structure of them." He mumbled to himself, running his hands over his face and hair absently before speaking out loud. "It's looking for where the secure files might be. That's smart. Okay, Jarvis, don't stop it. Let it run, but take notes on what it finds. I want to know what Mason finds out about us, and what he continues to look for."
He turned back to Pepper who was now frowning. "I had no idea this was going to happen. I bet Cassandra doesn't even know about it -"
"It doesn't matter what she knows, you gave a hacker access to our -"
"Are you upset that he's looking into your files or that you wouldn't have caught him without Jarvis -"
"Without Jarvis? Jarvis is how I caught him, I built Jarvis, therefore I still caught him -"
"Or are you afraid that he's better than you -"
"Better than me?" They finally stopped speaking over each other and Pepper gave him a cheeky smile. "He's not better than me. I just want to see how far he gets."
"You're going to obsess about this now."
"No, I just want to get into a computer and see what he's up to," Tony answered as he started to walk away from her.
"I thought we had plans," she responded, drawing out the words, and he stopped dead in his tracks. The computers were calling to him, and so was his work shop, but Pepper just sat down in a chair in one of the lobby areas, her skirt starting to creep back up...
"Yes. Plans." He walked over to her and pulled her up. "I've got some lederhosen you can put on."
"Why on Earthy do you have lederhosen?" She asked with a laugh, and while he knew he had no chance of her wearing them, he might get her to try the German accent again.
***
Sophie rolled her eyes again at Hardison as they made their way to Stark Tower in the morning. "I stayed up for a week straight learning about architecture, and then he doesn't ask me a single question. I had Parker studying it with me, and I had to learn about engineering. Engineering!" he exclaimed, but Sophie knew it was more for show than anything. "Me and Parker, studying, while you went out for drinks with Pepper, and who knows what Eliot and Nate were doing. Eliot, by the way, who is supposed to be one of my interns, but didn't have to study at all!"
Sophie just laughed, partly due to Hardison complaining about studying when they both knew that he loved every second of learning something new and he definitely loved doing it with Parker (who was actually particularly apt at the design part of things), and partly because she remembered the look on Eliot's face when Nate told him that Hardison would be playing his boss.
"Oh, come off it, Hardison. You did really well. And it had to be you, because you had to be inside to get into the computer. And Nate's doing his..." she waved her hand. "Whatever it is that he does. And Eliot? Well, he's got our back. He'll fake it when it's necessary. But today it's just you and me. You've got this, yeah?"
He took a deep breath, and then nodded. "Yeah. Today it's just finding out what my crawlers have got, and meet some of the other people in the lab."
"And, you actually do have to run some tests on the alien armour, to maintain our cover."
He nodded, still looking a little nervous, but by this time they had reached the doors, and turned back into Cassandra and Mason.
It didn't take long before they were led up to one of the R&D labs, and Tony and Pepper were there waiting for him with another man who was slightly older and looked at them with a serene smile.
Pepper introduced them, and Sophie immediately liked Dr. Banner. "When he heard your ideas on using the debris as recycled materials, he couldn't wait to join in. He's familiar with the labs, and knows how to acquire any other machines or testing materials you may need."
Pepper then looked at Tony expectantly, as if he needed prompting. And he clearly did. "Ah yes. I'm here to welcome you officially, etc, etc" he waved a hand in the air like he could just push all those pleasantries along. "I'm interested to see what you find. I'll, uh, be checking in. Periodically. Because I'm curious."
Sophie studied him with concern. While it was clear he wasn't nervous, he was stumbling a bit over his words like he was being careful not to say something... and all the while Pepper was glaring at him, silently keeping him in check, ready to intervene at any point.
A quick and efficient knock at the door caught all their attention, and a petite woman with striking red hair entered the room holding a leather folder.
The young woman was gorgeous - anyone could tell that - but what caught the eye of Sophie was how she moved. Sure, she was wearing a pressed white button down shirt and heels that still did very little to her short stature, but she moved with the confidence of someone that was very aware of her surroundings and self, and with the athletic grace of someone that was both nimble and strong. The hairs on the back of Sophie's neck were standing straight up, but Hardison seemed unaware. Well, unaware of her danger. He was definitely aware of her beauty.
One thing was for sure, though. If Eliot was here, he would be telling them to run in the other direction, and fast.
"Mr. Stark," was all the woman said, and she greeted him with a brisk nod.
"Natalie!" Pepper exclaimed, either unaware of the woman's power, or expecting it. "You brought those forms I asked about?"
"Ms. Rushman, is it?" Tony finally responded, and she gave him a passive glare.
"Just standard confidentiality clauses, non-competition agreements, and a release and waiver of liability."
"Of course," Sophie replied lightly, careful to keep the conversation normal. She glanced over the forms quickly and signed Cassandra's name to the bottom. "So, you work for Mr. Stark?"
Natalie's gaze was unblinking. "I work in the Legal Department."
The papers were handed over to Hardison who examined them a bit more closely, but Natalie's green eyes held her own dark ones. Her own advice to Hardison during the moon-walking-bear con came back to her now. Don't look away, but keep your eyes soft. You need to project strength but without challenging him.
Finally, Hardison broke the silence and Natalie smiled, gathering the papers and starting towards the exit. "Mr. Stark, Ms. Potts?" she asked, pausing to look back at them from the door.
Tony still looked a little shocked but a new anger was starting to bubble inside, while Pepper just looked... polite. Sophie always knew that Pepper was one of the most capable people she had ever met, but Sophie's respect for her just continued to grow. And she was still the epitome of professionalism, exchanging more pleasantries even as they left, following Natalie out the door.
Sophie let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, and turned to look at an oblivious Hardison and a quietly amused Dr. Banner.
"So," Dr. Banner started, with a small quirk of a smile, "she's really something, isn't she?"
***
( Part Three. )