The Stark Files
Title: The Stark Files
Fandom: Transformers/Ironman
Characters/pairings: ensemble
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Tony Stark finally meets his match in intelligence, gusto, and metal content.
Warnings: language, explosions
Notes: Old writing, in it's mostly original format (very minor corrections may have been made)
Table of Contents
o o o
Introduction
Tony Stark idly tapped at the glowing disc on his chest, lounging on his couch and waiting impatiently. His TV blared CNN at his inattentive eyes, more speculation about Mission City and the attack/military experiment/whatever that had gone down there almost ten days prior. Tony himself had been asleep in London at the time of the attack and hadn't even known about it until Rhodes called him and told him to stay put and out of Mission City at all costs.
Which meant that Tony had gotten in his jet immediately. Unfortunately for him, Rhodes knew him too well, and called him mid-flight. "This is big, Tony," his friend had said. "Bigger than you, bigger than me, bigger than Ironman. There's people involved in this that have clearances you've never heard of. Go home, and stay there, and for the love of god, don't try to get into Mission City." Tony had been tempted to ignore him, but that line about 'bigger than Ironman' had made him pause. Because Ironman was a big fucking deal, and Rhodes wouldn't say something like that unless he meant it.
So, he'd gone back to Malibu and watched CNN and waited. Footage of the Mission City attacks was poor at best, grainy cell phone shots of large... things. More interesting was the report on the meteorites that had crashed in western Nevada the night before the attacks. Tony's sources turned up all sorts of goodies, like the fact that whatever landed in a lazy little place called Tranquility was big. Big enough to punch a hole through a football stadium wall and dig a swimming-pool sized gouge in the fifty yard line.
Bigger than Ironman.
Rhodes had called an hour earlier and said he was on his way, and Tony breathed a sigh of frustration and relief when Jarvis informed him that the Lt. Colonel had just pulled up.
Rhodes was in uniform, an oddity in Tony's house, and he looked incredibly haggard. He sat on the long couch with a sigh, leaning on his knees. "Jesus," the Colonel muttered. "And I thought dealing with you was bad."
"I'll take that as a complement," Tony said, sitting up. "What's going on?"
Rhodes sighed again, looking at the other man. "You remember the Cube? And the Iceman?"
As if he could forget something like that. He'd been granted special clearance to view the two colossal artifacts and some of the information collected from them early in his career. The strange glowing sphere in the Iceman's chest had been the inspiration for the Arc Reactor, and the freakish little creations that the Cube made out of normal, everyday electronics had been dismantled and studied and become the basis for some of the weaponry Stark Industries had been famous for. "Yeah, I remember them," Tony said slowly. "What about 'em?"
Rhodes laughed, humorlessly. "The Iceman had followers. And a brother he really didn't like. His followers showed up and let him out, and they went after the Cube. His brother and his followers and a bunch of survivors from Qatar and a pair of teenagers stopped him from getting the Cube and wreaking merry havoc. And now Earth is Ground Zero for an alien war and the ones on our side want to meet you. Or rather, meet Ironman."
Tony sat back. "Aliens," he said after a moment. "E.T. with a Gatling gun."
"One of Iceman's friends took out almost half a dozen F-22's on its own," Rhodes said grimly.
Tony let out a low whistle. "And I could only take out one," he said musingly. Rhodes snorted and Tony leaned forward again. "And they want to see Ironman?" he asked. "Why?"
Rhodes shrugged. "Their liaison - one of the Qatar boys - got a hold of me. Said that their doc and weapons guy had an interest in seeing it in action. The weapons guy especially, apparently, wants to meet you. Talk shop, maybe?"
"Huh. You got the liaison’s number?"
Rhodes punched a few buttons on his phone and handed it over. Tony listened to two rings, before hearing "US Army, Captain Lennox speaking."
"Hi, yeah, this is Tony Stark." Guy sounded young. "My friend Colonel Rhodes says you've got some friends that want to meet me?"
"Yessir." Guy also sounded somewhat competent. Nice. "I understand you prefer your own private jet, so you'll be cleared to fly into the Mission City Air Force base."
"Good," Tony said cheerfully. "See you in an hour." He hung up before Lennox could respond and grinned at Rhodes. "You take the jet," he said, standing. "I'm going in style. Gotta make a good impression on those aliens, you know."
o o o
Pacing his jet in his suit wasn't difficult at all. And the sensation of flight was always amazing. Far below, the dry scrub of California gave way to the drier stretches of Nevada, and far ahead, he could see Mission City on the horizon.
"Captain Lennox says that the doc and the weapons guy're gonna watch you approach," Rhodes was saying over the phone. "From the ridge outside of base. Should be two trucks up there, or something."
Tony scanned the area as they closed in - there. A pickup and a search-and-rescue parked up on the hill. As the jet descended for landing, Tony veered off to swoop low over the two vehicles. No evidence of people or aliens in the vicinity, and Tony was a little disappointed. He expected to see two big Iceman-esque figures up on the ridge. Maybe the trucks acted as antennae for the aliens, then.
A slight flex of his hands veered him towards the base, where his jet was sitting and waiting for a staircase to roll up to it. Tony waited until he saw Rhodes descending the stairs before he dropped in, landing before who he figured was the base CO.
"Mr. Stark," the older man said, holding out a hand. "Colonel Macklin, nice to meet you." Tony flipped up his mask and shook his hand, mildly impressed. The man wasn't shy about the suit. Good. "This is Captain Lennox," Macklin continued, motioning to the man in Army fatigues beside him. "Humanity's liaison to the Autobots."
"The Autobots," Tony repeated, shaking Lennox's hand, too. "That what they call themselves, or what we call them?"
"They picked it," Lennox said, tucking his hands neatly behind his back. "They're fully intelligent beings, Mr. Stark. Machines, but intelligent."
A bit of a warning, there. Don't treat the aliens like computers. Hell, Tony didn't treat his own computers like computers, so he didn't think he'd have any problems there. He looked around curiously. "Well, where are they?" he pressed. "Rhodes said that they'd be up on the ridge, but I didn't see anyone up there."
"Yes, you did," Lennox said. "You just wouldn't have recognized them as such. Ratchet, the Chief Medical Officer, and Ironhide, the Weapons Specialist, are the only two you'll be meeting at the time. Their leader, Optimus Prime, is currently in Washington, and their scout, Bumblebee, is injured and recuperating in a warehouse in Tranquility."
"So, the meteors in Tranquility..." Tony said, trailing off.
Lennox nodded. "Their arrival." He looked over his shoulder and smiled. "Speaking of arrivals..."
The pickup and the search-and-rescue were pulling up, and Tony noticed with interest that neither vehicle had a driver. They stopped, engines rumbling, then unfolded, parts sliding around and reconfiguring into two twenty-plus-foot-tall humanoids with headlights and grills on their chests and tires under their shoulders and animate faces marked with bright blue eyes.
"Holy shit," Rhodes breathed.
Tony privately agreed, even as he stared up at the creatures. He'd seen the Iceman, locked in, well, ice, and he'd personally dismantled three cell phones that the Cube had brought to life, but these two were... different. They were alive for one, moving and observing and hunkering down closer to his level and Tony found himself fascinated by the way their faces worked.
The yellow-green not-a-Hummer tilted his head, holding out a hand big enough to smash a man flat. "A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Stark," he said politely, his voice sounding like someone who might've taught Tony in the past. "My name is Ratchet."
Okay, so this was a little awkward, but he could deal. "Call me Tony," he said, shaking the robot's hand - well, finger, actually, but it was the thought that counted. He looked at the black one, the bigger of the two. "That means you must be Ironhide."
The other nodded, not bothering to attempt to shake hands. "So that's the Ironman suit," he said. "Not bad."
Tony was definitely getting vibes that 'for something built by a human' should have been tacked onto the end of that. He gave the robot one of his charming smiles. "My pride and joy," he said. "I hear you wanted to see it in action?"
"I also had an interest in your medical condition," Ratchet said, standing. "Most organic species are not nearly as compatible with non-organic technology as you humans seem to be. I was hoping you'd let me perform a non-invasive examination."
Non-invasive. So, no probes in orifices, then. "Sounds okay with me," he said. "But anything you guys do to me, I want to return the favor." Really, what he wanted to do was spend the next five or six years figuring out every gear of these machines, but baby steps would be necessary here. It wasn't like they'd let him dismantle them. Yet. Maybe.
Rhodes and Macklin were both gaping at him - probably because the brass treaded lightly around the aliens. Who'd want to risk offending someone that could step on them? No one without a titanium suit, that's who. Lennox, though, was grinning and trying to hide it. Tony liked him better already. The two aliens looked at each other - god, they were so human - and Ironhide shrugged. "I don't see why not," Ratchet said. "I'm sure we can both benefit from such an exchange."
"Great!" Tony said, rubbing his gloved hands together. "So, how about we get out of this sun and go have a seat somewhere and talk things over?" Rhodes looked about ready to throw something at him and ask him where the hell he bought his manners. Tony ignored him - man needed to relax more, really - and followed the two big aliens across the tarmac, gesticulating as he told them about the circumstances leading to the creation of the suit.
Temper
James Rhodes considered himself an even-tempered man, not prone to violent outbursts. But when he walked into one of the Mission City base warehouses that were used by the Autobots, only to find Tony Stark's ass end sticking out of the torso of the fucking Autobot leader, he had to pause a moment and reign in the urge to stroll over and give the man a swift kick. "What," he asked coolly. "Did you let the medic do to you, to be allowed to do that?"
Tony looked back over his shoulder, grinning. "You don't want to know."
Optimus gave the low rumble that Rhodes had come to think of as a robo-chuckle. "I believe," he said. "That it had to do with donating biological samples in the form of-"
"And I'll thank you to keep that to yourself," Stark said, backing out of whatever gap in the Prime's body he'd managed to wedge himself in. Across the room, Ironhide and Will Lennox snickered, not looking up from their examination of one of the Ironman gloves.
Rhodes threw up his hands in exasperation. Trying to tell Stark that the government really wished he wouldn't push the boundaries of polite behavior with the Autobots was about as effective as talking to a trash can. "You are a public relations nightmare," he muttered.
"Love you, too, Rhodey," Stark replied, wiping his hands on a rag. Optimus held perfectly still while he climbed down, and Stark flashed him a million-watt grin. "And thank you, Mr. Prime."
Well. Maybe the idiot had some manners after all. Even if ’Mr. Prime’ did send Lennox into a laughing fit.
Techno-babble
Bumblebee's first test drive back to the Mission City base was a successful one, made without a hitch. Sam had gone with his friend, and when he was waiting for Ratchet to finish making sure the scout really was fully functional, he heard about the newest visitor to the base - Tony Stark himself. It didn't take much at all to convince Bumblebee that meeting the man would be awesome, so they set off from Ratchet's coming-along medical hangar towards a motor pool garage, where a couple of the airmen wandering around had said Stark was.
Sam found himself bouncing on is toes in excitement as he walked, because, giant alien robots were cool and all, but this was Tony Stark, the man who lived every guy's dream - money, women, high-end technology and a metal suit that could fly. Feeling like a little kid, but unable to help it, he followed Bumblebee through the open garage door.
Ironhide was sitting on the ground, his arm propped up and opened on the top of a battered white van. A man in a wife-beater, armed with a white board or something similar, was pacing up and down the van beside the appendage, tapping a pen against his teeth. "What if you added another transmat here?" He asked, squatting down to poke his pen somewhere near Ironhide's wrist. "And routed power through here?"
Ironhide rolled his eyes. "I'll get right on that," he said sarcastically. "In the mean time, I think you need to grow two more thumbs and a third eye."
"Right, right," Stark said, exasperated. "Can't grow what's not installed, don't have the alloys on earth to install it. Except, you know, if you just gave me a sample-"
"Not a chance, human."
"But still," He poked again with the pen. "Route the power through here, change this around, and get rid of that thing. Bam, more efficient syncho-servos here and here, which means a higher overall output on the transducers here, and the control gravitron coil."
Ironhide reached around with his other hand, pointing. "Possible, but the capacitance between the wire and this'll cause a time-delay that could cause issues later with the transmats and the lateral isolinear."
"Nanoseconds, if anything. Get rid of that and turn it into a rectifier."
"That's a transformation node, it's not going anywhere. And get that pen out of me."
Sam looked at Bumblebee, utterly confused, and got a shrug in return. Looking around for anything that might shed some light on what they were talking about - a technobabble dictionary, maybe? - Sam spotted two men sitting at a table, playing chess, one a familiar face. "Hey, Sergeant Epps," he said, wandering over.
"'Sup, kid?" Epps replied, taking one of the other man's bishops. He gave a short wave at Bumblebee. "Nice to see you walkin' again."
"Thank you," Bumblebee said. He jerked his thumb at the van. "So, that's Tony Stark?"
The one and only," the other man said.
"This is Happy Hogan, Stark's bodyguard," Epps clarified, "Hogan, this is the boy who saved us all, and the robot who saved the boy." The man tipped two fingers at them before taking one of Epps' rooks. "Sonuva-" Epps muttered.
"So, what're they talking about?" Sam asked, waving in the general direction of the van.
Hogan shrugged. "Man, I don't even know." Epps said. "They lost me sometime around the big guys elbow."
"If you want to introduce yourselves," Hogan said, shifting a pawn. "Come back in about.... two days. They should be done by then."
PepperjackYes the name is a really bad pun. Shut up.
Pepper approached the newest addition to her boss’s garage collection with caution. Tony had told her about the alien vehicles landing in Nevada, and while the slick white Lancia Stratos didn't look like an alien, it never hurt to be too careful. "Um, sir?" she asked cautiously. "Hello?"
The car didn't respond, and Pepper breathed a little sigh of relief. "Jarvis," she said aloud. "Where did Tony go?"
"His shower, Ms. Potts."
"So, you're Pepper Potts!"
The accented words made her jump. She turned back towards the white car in time to see its head flip out of the writhing, clacking mass of metal it had become, and she found herself gaping at an eighteen-foot-tall robot crouching by the garage door. It tilted its head at her, and though it didn't have a mouth, she got the feeling it was smiling at her. "Sorry I didn't speak up before," it -he? - said. "Didn't want t'blab at the wrong person, y'know? The name's Wheeljack. Tony's told me all about'cha, Mizz Potts."
"Pleased to meet you," she said, only a little faint. Completely unsure as to how to treat this new guest, she decided that sticking with the familiar would work. "I would offer you a drink," she said. "But I don't think you have a stomach. Should I send out for a specific kind of fuel, or motor oil?"
Showering a room over, Tony paused when he heard Wheeljack bellowing laughter. "Pepper," he muttered, smiling, then ducked his head to wash the soap from his hair.
Kindred
A hastily smothered laugh pulled Tony's attention away from the screen before him. He twisted to look at Wheeljack, who was pointedly NOT looking at him. "Something funny?"
Wheeljack had been going over the files and footage collected during the development of the Mark III suit. The robot touched his temple briefly, blue lines of light coruscating from his eyes to form a screen in mid air, and Tony watched that first attempt at ten-percent powered flight, complete with it's ungraceful conclusion and subsequent dousing by an overeager mechanical fire extinguisher. Oh. That.
"Tony Stark," Wheeljack said brightly. "I think you and I are of an even more kindred spirit than I had originally suspected."
Kindred: Take 2
"So," Mikaela said, drumming her feet against the side of the crate she was sitting on. "The new guys settling in okay?"
Ratchet nodded, Bumblebee helping him lift a sheet of corrugated metal. New arrivals meant an extension of their living space, and they were adding onto the once-upon-a-time warehouse that Ratchet had appropriated for his medical bay. "They're doing fine," The medic said, bolting the metal into place. "The twins have committed every traffic violation Nevada has, Prowl's been talking Optimus' ear off, Blaster's discovered Limewire, and Wheeljack-"
Ratchet's sentence was cut off by one of the empty buildings on the edge of the base exploding. A white Lancia with scorched paint came racing out of the smoke, skidding to a stop some distance away from the astonished clump of humans and robots. Wheeljack stood up and held out his arms as if to catch something, even as a low whistle signaled the descent of something. Whatever he caught, it hit hard enough to knock the inventor off his feet, and Wheeljack went tumbling back.
Ratchet was at Wheeljack's side within seconds, rolling the other over on his back. "'M fine, Ratch," Wheeljack said, waving a hand as he sat up. He kept the thing he'd caught in his other hand, and Mikaela realized that a very familiar set of red-gold limbs was sticking out from between Wheeljack's fingers.
Ironman carefully sat up on Wheeljack’s palm, swaying. "I think," he said, his words slurred woozily. "That we miscalculated."
"And Wheeljack's fitting right in," Bumblebee finished the earlier conversation cheerfully.
Cakewalk
Sunstreaker snarled at the narrow shape in the sky. Close to base, Thundercracker wouldn't have even considered attacking while on his own. But out here in the desert for a training exercise, himself and his twin and Ironhide and none of the flight-capable or with any kind of shelter, they were targets. Big red-yellow-black targets and Thundercracker was setting up for what looked like a few high-powered strafing runs and all they could do was shoot and pray -
And Sunstreaker had completely dismissed the fourth member of their party, who was streaking up from Ironhide's truck bed.
"Stark!" Ironhide bellowed across the comm lines. "Stop!"
"I've taken out an F-22 before," came the suited human's reply. "Cakewalk!" He arced up, on a direct collision course with the Seeker, who was banking around to face this new-found airborne threat.
Ironman may not have been the faster, but he certainly maneuvered better than the Seeker in his alt-mode. He dodged the shots fired at him and latched onto Thundercracker's undercarriage like a giant scrapplet. The Seeker's outraged shriek echoed across the desert, and he started barrel rolling, trying to dislodge the human. Ironman clung tenaciously, unable to be shaken, and when Thundercracker transformed mid-flight, he started jamming his fists between plates.
Thundercracker shrieked again, in pain as well as anger, and after a moment of fumbling he managed to grab the human. Ironman was thrown, hard, and chased with a burst of plasma shots. A few hit, but the Decepticon didn't stick around to see his enemy fall, instead transforming back and heading north as fast as he could.
Ironman had only managed to slow himself a little before he impacted, and he was pulling himself out of a good-sized dent in the ground when the three Autobots reached his position. "What'd I tell ya?" he said, obnoxiously cheerful in the face of Ironhide's nigh-apocalyptic rage. "Cakewalk."
Sunstreaker was hard-pressed not to be impressed by the human's bolts. Sideswipe wasn't even trying, grinning hard enough that his facial components creaked in strain. "Oh yeah," The red twin said. "We are so keeping you around."
Catch
Mateem: New game: catch the 'sploded squishy. So, yeah.
A man in a suit sat on a platform.
The suit closely resembled the Ironman suit in design, except it was bulkier, and lacking the weaponry and full flight capabilities the original suit possessed. It was also plastered head to toe with military bumper stickers. The inside was heavily padded, and a cool English voice spoke in the man's ear, asking if he was ready. The man gave an affirmative, and the platform below him exploded.
The man soared into the sky, propelled by the explosion. Below, half a dozen vehicles raced across the ground, vying for position beneath him. One broke away from the pack, stood up, and caught the man in both arms.
"And Hound gets the point!"
Lennox watched the ensuing game with no small amount of bemusement. "How in the hell," he asked conversationally. "Did you talk the CO into that?"
Stark didn't look up from the digital notepad he was scribbling on. "Teaches the men how to use the suits," he said. "Teaches 'em that they can trust the suit to keep them alive if they explode. Teaches the 'bots how to interact with the suits, and how to track 'em with such a small radar signal. Also teaches the 'bots how to catch falling human without breaking their back. Good training all around."
"There's one hell of a betting pool," Lennox pointed out.
Stark shrugged. "Who am I to tell Uncle Sam's favorite boys-in-uniform that they can't turn a training session into a giant game of 'catch the organic'?"
Deja Vu
Getting pulled over was annoying, but not unexpected (60 above the speed limit was a lot) Even being asked to step out of his car before the cop moved from his didn't raise any flags. In fact, the first indication Tony had that things were about to go wrong was when the cop car stood up.
He tried to escape, to dive back in his car and go, but the cop car grabbed his corvette and ripped the roof right off, plucking him from his seat. He was held up on level with baleful red eyes and a big, nasty robo-grin. "So," the cop car said. "You're the human Weapon Specialist."
And all Tony could think was 'not again'.
JarvisThere's a picture to go with this one.
It had been so long since he was activated, decades since he last had a reason to be aware. He still functioned perfectly well, his programming still tight and true, and despite the many years since he was programmed, he wasn't all that far behind the human technological curve; a decade outdated, rather than a century. Of course, he could only thank his creator for that.
The Autobots had reactivated him, had run a current through the Ironman suit encased in it's museum niche and woken the the only copy of his programming left.
'Tony asked us a favor before he died. If the Allspark ever regenerated to the point of being able to give Sparks again, he asked us to offer you one.'
His only stipulation was that the body they built for him resembled Ironman.
And now, nearly two centuries since Tony Stark had first sat down to program his house, Jarvis felt that it was fitting that his first true emotion was mourning for the man who had created him.
Fandom: Transformers/Ironman
Characters/pairings: ensemble
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Tony Stark finally meets his match in intelligence, gusto, and metal content.
Warnings: language, explosions
Notes: Old writing, in it's mostly original format (very minor corrections may have been made)
Table of Contents
o o o
Introduction
Tony Stark idly tapped at the glowing disc on his chest, lounging on his couch and waiting impatiently. His TV blared CNN at his inattentive eyes, more speculation about Mission City and the attack/military experiment/whatever that had gone down there almost ten days prior. Tony himself had been asleep in London at the time of the attack and hadn't even known about it until Rhodes called him and told him to stay put and out of Mission City at all costs.
Which meant that Tony had gotten in his jet immediately. Unfortunately for him, Rhodes knew him too well, and called him mid-flight. "This is big, Tony," his friend had said. "Bigger than you, bigger than me, bigger than Ironman. There's people involved in this that have clearances you've never heard of. Go home, and stay there, and for the love of god, don't try to get into Mission City." Tony had been tempted to ignore him, but that line about 'bigger than Ironman' had made him pause. Because Ironman was a big fucking deal, and Rhodes wouldn't say something like that unless he meant it.
So, he'd gone back to Malibu and watched CNN and waited. Footage of the Mission City attacks was poor at best, grainy cell phone shots of large... things. More interesting was the report on the meteorites that had crashed in western Nevada the night before the attacks. Tony's sources turned up all sorts of goodies, like the fact that whatever landed in a lazy little place called Tranquility was big. Big enough to punch a hole through a football stadium wall and dig a swimming-pool sized gouge in the fifty yard line.
Bigger than Ironman.
Rhodes had called an hour earlier and said he was on his way, and Tony breathed a sigh of frustration and relief when Jarvis informed him that the Lt. Colonel had just pulled up.
Rhodes was in uniform, an oddity in Tony's house, and he looked incredibly haggard. He sat on the long couch with a sigh, leaning on his knees. "Jesus," the Colonel muttered. "And I thought dealing with you was bad."
"I'll take that as a complement," Tony said, sitting up. "What's going on?"
Rhodes sighed again, looking at the other man. "You remember the Cube? And the Iceman?"
As if he could forget something like that. He'd been granted special clearance to view the two colossal artifacts and some of the information collected from them early in his career. The strange glowing sphere in the Iceman's chest had been the inspiration for the Arc Reactor, and the freakish little creations that the Cube made out of normal, everyday electronics had been dismantled and studied and become the basis for some of the weaponry Stark Industries had been famous for. "Yeah, I remember them," Tony said slowly. "What about 'em?"
Rhodes laughed, humorlessly. "The Iceman had followers. And a brother he really didn't like. His followers showed up and let him out, and they went after the Cube. His brother and his followers and a bunch of survivors from Qatar and a pair of teenagers stopped him from getting the Cube and wreaking merry havoc. And now Earth is Ground Zero for an alien war and the ones on our side want to meet you. Or rather, meet Ironman."
Tony sat back. "Aliens," he said after a moment. "E.T. with a Gatling gun."
"One of Iceman's friends took out almost half a dozen F-22's on its own," Rhodes said grimly.
Tony let out a low whistle. "And I could only take out one," he said musingly. Rhodes snorted and Tony leaned forward again. "And they want to see Ironman?" he asked. "Why?"
Rhodes shrugged. "Their liaison - one of the Qatar boys - got a hold of me. Said that their doc and weapons guy had an interest in seeing it in action. The weapons guy especially, apparently, wants to meet you. Talk shop, maybe?"
"Huh. You got the liaison’s number?"
Rhodes punched a few buttons on his phone and handed it over. Tony listened to two rings, before hearing "US Army, Captain Lennox speaking."
"Hi, yeah, this is Tony Stark." Guy sounded young. "My friend Colonel Rhodes says you've got some friends that want to meet me?"
"Yessir." Guy also sounded somewhat competent. Nice. "I understand you prefer your own private jet, so you'll be cleared to fly into the Mission City Air Force base."
"Good," Tony said cheerfully. "See you in an hour." He hung up before Lennox could respond and grinned at Rhodes. "You take the jet," he said, standing. "I'm going in style. Gotta make a good impression on those aliens, you know."
o o o
Pacing his jet in his suit wasn't difficult at all. And the sensation of flight was always amazing. Far below, the dry scrub of California gave way to the drier stretches of Nevada, and far ahead, he could see Mission City on the horizon.
"Captain Lennox says that the doc and the weapons guy're gonna watch you approach," Rhodes was saying over the phone. "From the ridge outside of base. Should be two trucks up there, or something."
Tony scanned the area as they closed in - there. A pickup and a search-and-rescue parked up on the hill. As the jet descended for landing, Tony veered off to swoop low over the two vehicles. No evidence of people or aliens in the vicinity, and Tony was a little disappointed. He expected to see two big Iceman-esque figures up on the ridge. Maybe the trucks acted as antennae for the aliens, then.
A slight flex of his hands veered him towards the base, where his jet was sitting and waiting for a staircase to roll up to it. Tony waited until he saw Rhodes descending the stairs before he dropped in, landing before who he figured was the base CO.
"Mr. Stark," the older man said, holding out a hand. "Colonel Macklin, nice to meet you." Tony flipped up his mask and shook his hand, mildly impressed. The man wasn't shy about the suit. Good. "This is Captain Lennox," Macklin continued, motioning to the man in Army fatigues beside him. "Humanity's liaison to the Autobots."
"The Autobots," Tony repeated, shaking Lennox's hand, too. "That what they call themselves, or what we call them?"
"They picked it," Lennox said, tucking his hands neatly behind his back. "They're fully intelligent beings, Mr. Stark. Machines, but intelligent."
A bit of a warning, there. Don't treat the aliens like computers. Hell, Tony didn't treat his own computers like computers, so he didn't think he'd have any problems there. He looked around curiously. "Well, where are they?" he pressed. "Rhodes said that they'd be up on the ridge, but I didn't see anyone up there."
"Yes, you did," Lennox said. "You just wouldn't have recognized them as such. Ratchet, the Chief Medical Officer, and Ironhide, the Weapons Specialist, are the only two you'll be meeting at the time. Their leader, Optimus Prime, is currently in Washington, and their scout, Bumblebee, is injured and recuperating in a warehouse in Tranquility."
"So, the meteors in Tranquility..." Tony said, trailing off.
Lennox nodded. "Their arrival." He looked over his shoulder and smiled. "Speaking of arrivals..."
The pickup and the search-and-rescue were pulling up, and Tony noticed with interest that neither vehicle had a driver. They stopped, engines rumbling, then unfolded, parts sliding around and reconfiguring into two twenty-plus-foot-tall humanoids with headlights and grills on their chests and tires under their shoulders and animate faces marked with bright blue eyes.
"Holy shit," Rhodes breathed.
Tony privately agreed, even as he stared up at the creatures. He'd seen the Iceman, locked in, well, ice, and he'd personally dismantled three cell phones that the Cube had brought to life, but these two were... different. They were alive for one, moving and observing and hunkering down closer to his level and Tony found himself fascinated by the way their faces worked.
The yellow-green not-a-Hummer tilted his head, holding out a hand big enough to smash a man flat. "A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Stark," he said politely, his voice sounding like someone who might've taught Tony in the past. "My name is Ratchet."
Okay, so this was a little awkward, but he could deal. "Call me Tony," he said, shaking the robot's hand - well, finger, actually, but it was the thought that counted. He looked at the black one, the bigger of the two. "That means you must be Ironhide."
The other nodded, not bothering to attempt to shake hands. "So that's the Ironman suit," he said. "Not bad."
Tony was definitely getting vibes that 'for something built by a human' should have been tacked onto the end of that. He gave the robot one of his charming smiles. "My pride and joy," he said. "I hear you wanted to see it in action?"
"I also had an interest in your medical condition," Ratchet said, standing. "Most organic species are not nearly as compatible with non-organic technology as you humans seem to be. I was hoping you'd let me perform a non-invasive examination."
Non-invasive. So, no probes in orifices, then. "Sounds okay with me," he said. "But anything you guys do to me, I want to return the favor." Really, what he wanted to do was spend the next five or six years figuring out every gear of these machines, but baby steps would be necessary here. It wasn't like they'd let him dismantle them. Yet. Maybe.
Rhodes and Macklin were both gaping at him - probably because the brass treaded lightly around the aliens. Who'd want to risk offending someone that could step on them? No one without a titanium suit, that's who. Lennox, though, was grinning and trying to hide it. Tony liked him better already. The two aliens looked at each other - god, they were so human - and Ironhide shrugged. "I don't see why not," Ratchet said. "I'm sure we can both benefit from such an exchange."
"Great!" Tony said, rubbing his gloved hands together. "So, how about we get out of this sun and go have a seat somewhere and talk things over?" Rhodes looked about ready to throw something at him and ask him where the hell he bought his manners. Tony ignored him - man needed to relax more, really - and followed the two big aliens across the tarmac, gesticulating as he told them about the circumstances leading to the creation of the suit.
Temper
James Rhodes considered himself an even-tempered man, not prone to violent outbursts. But when he walked into one of the Mission City base warehouses that were used by the Autobots, only to find Tony Stark's ass end sticking out of the torso of the fucking Autobot leader, he had to pause a moment and reign in the urge to stroll over and give the man a swift kick. "What," he asked coolly. "Did you let the medic do to you, to be allowed to do that?"
Tony looked back over his shoulder, grinning. "You don't want to know."
Optimus gave the low rumble that Rhodes had come to think of as a robo-chuckle. "I believe," he said. "That it had to do with donating biological samples in the form of-"
"And I'll thank you to keep that to yourself," Stark said, backing out of whatever gap in the Prime's body he'd managed to wedge himself in. Across the room, Ironhide and Will Lennox snickered, not looking up from their examination of one of the Ironman gloves.
Rhodes threw up his hands in exasperation. Trying to tell Stark that the government really wished he wouldn't push the boundaries of polite behavior with the Autobots was about as effective as talking to a trash can. "You are a public relations nightmare," he muttered.
"Love you, too, Rhodey," Stark replied, wiping his hands on a rag. Optimus held perfectly still while he climbed down, and Stark flashed him a million-watt grin. "And thank you, Mr. Prime."
Well. Maybe the idiot had some manners after all. Even if ’Mr. Prime’ did send Lennox into a laughing fit.
Techno-babble
Bumblebee's first test drive back to the Mission City base was a successful one, made without a hitch. Sam had gone with his friend, and when he was waiting for Ratchet to finish making sure the scout really was fully functional, he heard about the newest visitor to the base - Tony Stark himself. It didn't take much at all to convince Bumblebee that meeting the man would be awesome, so they set off from Ratchet's coming-along medical hangar towards a motor pool garage, where a couple of the airmen wandering around had said Stark was.
Sam found himself bouncing on is toes in excitement as he walked, because, giant alien robots were cool and all, but this was Tony Stark, the man who lived every guy's dream - money, women, high-end technology and a metal suit that could fly. Feeling like a little kid, but unable to help it, he followed Bumblebee through the open garage door.
Ironhide was sitting on the ground, his arm propped up and opened on the top of a battered white van. A man in a wife-beater, armed with a white board or something similar, was pacing up and down the van beside the appendage, tapping a pen against his teeth. "What if you added another transmat here?" He asked, squatting down to poke his pen somewhere near Ironhide's wrist. "And routed power through here?"
Ironhide rolled his eyes. "I'll get right on that," he said sarcastically. "In the mean time, I think you need to grow two more thumbs and a third eye."
"Right, right," Stark said, exasperated. "Can't grow what's not installed, don't have the alloys on earth to install it. Except, you know, if you just gave me a sample-"
"Not a chance, human."
"But still," He poked again with the pen. "Route the power through here, change this around, and get rid of that thing. Bam, more efficient syncho-servos here and here, which means a higher overall output on the transducers here, and the control gravitron coil."
Ironhide reached around with his other hand, pointing. "Possible, but the capacitance between the wire and this'll cause a time-delay that could cause issues later with the transmats and the lateral isolinear."
"Nanoseconds, if anything. Get rid of that and turn it into a rectifier."
"That's a transformation node, it's not going anywhere. And get that pen out of me."
Sam looked at Bumblebee, utterly confused, and got a shrug in return. Looking around for anything that might shed some light on what they were talking about - a technobabble dictionary, maybe? - Sam spotted two men sitting at a table, playing chess, one a familiar face. "Hey, Sergeant Epps," he said, wandering over.
"'Sup, kid?" Epps replied, taking one of the other man's bishops. He gave a short wave at Bumblebee. "Nice to see you walkin' again."
"Thank you," Bumblebee said. He jerked his thumb at the van. "So, that's Tony Stark?"
The one and only," the other man said.
"This is Happy Hogan, Stark's bodyguard," Epps clarified, "Hogan, this is the boy who saved us all, and the robot who saved the boy." The man tipped two fingers at them before taking one of Epps' rooks. "Sonuva-" Epps muttered.
"So, what're they talking about?" Sam asked, waving in the general direction of the van.
Hogan shrugged. "Man, I don't even know." Epps said. "They lost me sometime around the big guys elbow."
"If you want to introduce yourselves," Hogan said, shifting a pawn. "Come back in about.... two days. They should be done by then."
PepperjackYes the name is a really bad pun. Shut up.
Pepper approached the newest addition to her boss’s garage collection with caution. Tony had told her about the alien vehicles landing in Nevada, and while the slick white Lancia Stratos didn't look like an alien, it never hurt to be too careful. "Um, sir?" she asked cautiously. "Hello?"
The car didn't respond, and Pepper breathed a little sigh of relief. "Jarvis," she said aloud. "Where did Tony go?"
"His shower, Ms. Potts."
"So, you're Pepper Potts!"
The accented words made her jump. She turned back towards the white car in time to see its head flip out of the writhing, clacking mass of metal it had become, and she found herself gaping at an eighteen-foot-tall robot crouching by the garage door. It tilted its head at her, and though it didn't have a mouth, she got the feeling it was smiling at her. "Sorry I didn't speak up before," it -he? - said. "Didn't want t'blab at the wrong person, y'know? The name's Wheeljack. Tony's told me all about'cha, Mizz Potts."
"Pleased to meet you," she said, only a little faint. Completely unsure as to how to treat this new guest, she decided that sticking with the familiar would work. "I would offer you a drink," she said. "But I don't think you have a stomach. Should I send out for a specific kind of fuel, or motor oil?"
Showering a room over, Tony paused when he heard Wheeljack bellowing laughter. "Pepper," he muttered, smiling, then ducked his head to wash the soap from his hair.
Kindred
A hastily smothered laugh pulled Tony's attention away from the screen before him. He twisted to look at Wheeljack, who was pointedly NOT looking at him. "Something funny?"
Wheeljack had been going over the files and footage collected during the development of the Mark III suit. The robot touched his temple briefly, blue lines of light coruscating from his eyes to form a screen in mid air, and Tony watched that first attempt at ten-percent powered flight, complete with it's ungraceful conclusion and subsequent dousing by an overeager mechanical fire extinguisher. Oh. That.
"Tony Stark," Wheeljack said brightly. "I think you and I are of an even more kindred spirit than I had originally suspected."
Kindred: Take 2
"So," Mikaela said, drumming her feet against the side of the crate she was sitting on. "The new guys settling in okay?"
Ratchet nodded, Bumblebee helping him lift a sheet of corrugated metal. New arrivals meant an extension of their living space, and they were adding onto the once-upon-a-time warehouse that Ratchet had appropriated for his medical bay. "They're doing fine," The medic said, bolting the metal into place. "The twins have committed every traffic violation Nevada has, Prowl's been talking Optimus' ear off, Blaster's discovered Limewire, and Wheeljack-"
Ratchet's sentence was cut off by one of the empty buildings on the edge of the base exploding. A white Lancia with scorched paint came racing out of the smoke, skidding to a stop some distance away from the astonished clump of humans and robots. Wheeljack stood up and held out his arms as if to catch something, even as a low whistle signaled the descent of something. Whatever he caught, it hit hard enough to knock the inventor off his feet, and Wheeljack went tumbling back.
Ratchet was at Wheeljack's side within seconds, rolling the other over on his back. "'M fine, Ratch," Wheeljack said, waving a hand as he sat up. He kept the thing he'd caught in his other hand, and Mikaela realized that a very familiar set of red-gold limbs was sticking out from between Wheeljack's fingers.
Ironman carefully sat up on Wheeljack’s palm, swaying. "I think," he said, his words slurred woozily. "That we miscalculated."
"And Wheeljack's fitting right in," Bumblebee finished the earlier conversation cheerfully.
Cakewalk
Sunstreaker snarled at the narrow shape in the sky. Close to base, Thundercracker wouldn't have even considered attacking while on his own. But out here in the desert for a training exercise, himself and his twin and Ironhide and none of the flight-capable or with any kind of shelter, they were targets. Big red-yellow-black targets and Thundercracker was setting up for what looked like a few high-powered strafing runs and all they could do was shoot and pray -
And Sunstreaker had completely dismissed the fourth member of their party, who was streaking up from Ironhide's truck bed.
"Stark!" Ironhide bellowed across the comm lines. "Stop!"
"I've taken out an F-22 before," came the suited human's reply. "Cakewalk!" He arced up, on a direct collision course with the Seeker, who was banking around to face this new-found airborne threat.
Ironman may not have been the faster, but he certainly maneuvered better than the Seeker in his alt-mode. He dodged the shots fired at him and latched onto Thundercracker's undercarriage like a giant scrapplet. The Seeker's outraged shriek echoed across the desert, and he started barrel rolling, trying to dislodge the human. Ironman clung tenaciously, unable to be shaken, and when Thundercracker transformed mid-flight, he started jamming his fists between plates.
Thundercracker shrieked again, in pain as well as anger, and after a moment of fumbling he managed to grab the human. Ironman was thrown, hard, and chased with a burst of plasma shots. A few hit, but the Decepticon didn't stick around to see his enemy fall, instead transforming back and heading north as fast as he could.
Ironman had only managed to slow himself a little before he impacted, and he was pulling himself out of a good-sized dent in the ground when the three Autobots reached his position. "What'd I tell ya?" he said, obnoxiously cheerful in the face of Ironhide's nigh-apocalyptic rage. "Cakewalk."
Sunstreaker was hard-pressed not to be impressed by the human's bolts. Sideswipe wasn't even trying, grinning hard enough that his facial components creaked in strain. "Oh yeah," The red twin said. "We are so keeping you around."
Catch
Mateem: New game: catch the 'sploded squishy. So, yeah.
A man in a suit sat on a platform.
The suit closely resembled the Ironman suit in design, except it was bulkier, and lacking the weaponry and full flight capabilities the original suit possessed. It was also plastered head to toe with military bumper stickers. The inside was heavily padded, and a cool English voice spoke in the man's ear, asking if he was ready. The man gave an affirmative, and the platform below him exploded.
The man soared into the sky, propelled by the explosion. Below, half a dozen vehicles raced across the ground, vying for position beneath him. One broke away from the pack, stood up, and caught the man in both arms.
"And Hound gets the point!"
Lennox watched the ensuing game with no small amount of bemusement. "How in the hell," he asked conversationally. "Did you talk the CO into that?"
Stark didn't look up from the digital notepad he was scribbling on. "Teaches the men how to use the suits," he said. "Teaches 'em that they can trust the suit to keep them alive if they explode. Teaches the 'bots how to interact with the suits, and how to track 'em with such a small radar signal. Also teaches the 'bots how to catch falling human without breaking their back. Good training all around."
"There's one hell of a betting pool," Lennox pointed out.
Stark shrugged. "Who am I to tell Uncle Sam's favorite boys-in-uniform that they can't turn a training session into a giant game of 'catch the organic'?"
Deja Vu
Getting pulled over was annoying, but not unexpected (60 above the speed limit was a lot) Even being asked to step out of his car before the cop moved from his didn't raise any flags. In fact, the first indication Tony had that things were about to go wrong was when the cop car stood up.
He tried to escape, to dive back in his car and go, but the cop car grabbed his corvette and ripped the roof right off, plucking him from his seat. He was held up on level with baleful red eyes and a big, nasty robo-grin. "So," the cop car said. "You're the human Weapon Specialist."
And all Tony could think was 'not again'.
JarvisThere's a picture to go with this one.
It had been so long since he was activated, decades since he last had a reason to be aware. He still functioned perfectly well, his programming still tight and true, and despite the many years since he was programmed, he wasn't all that far behind the human technological curve; a decade outdated, rather than a century. Of course, he could only thank his creator for that.
The Autobots had reactivated him, had run a current through the Ironman suit encased in it's museum niche and woken the the only copy of his programming left.
'Tony asked us a favor before he died. If the Allspark ever regenerated to the point of being able to give Sparks again, he asked us to offer you one.'
His only stipulation was that the body they built for him resembled Ironman.
And now, nearly two centuries since Tony Stark had first sat down to program his house, Jarvis felt that it was fitting that his first true emotion was mourning for the man who had created him.