The Mechanic and The Clown (Robert Downey Jr/The Joker)

Chapter 14

There was something The Joker said that bothered me. Sure he was a homicidal, insane jerk but he was way more intelligent than his appearance made him out to be.

"An enigma my software is unable to solve.." I mumbled, repeating Jarvis' last response. Maybe it was the fact that with Pepper gone and now Happy's life at stake, it messed up with my line of thinking. That was my biggest mistake. I had let The Joker get into my head and he knew it too. It was only a matter of time before I broke without my wife and unborn child by my side, but I sure as hell was determined not to make it easy for him.

He's manipulating me

I'm not going to stand for it

He's pulled down Bruce Wayne, he's not going to do the same to me.

I could see what The Joker was up to. Using my weaknesses to break me apart bit by bit. He already made sure my nightmares and anxiety attacks were sustained after making sure the arc reactor was put back into my chest. That whole thing was weird in itself. Like how did The Joker even know who to find to carry out the procedure. The surgeons who removed the arc reactor were classified. "It must have been an inside job.."

What am I missing?

The Joker had given me an hour to call him back and I had wasted a quarter of it trying to get my head around that one word that just wouldn't stop bugging me. But there was something else, this man was simple yet complicated.

Come on Stark... figure him out..

The Joker was sly, cunning, his outlook of life consisted of sadistic humour. He killed for fun and always had a team working for him who he would kill when they were no longer needed.

Wait. I might be onto something there

When I went to Hong Kong to remove the arc reactor, Pep said something about a blonde nurse who was insistant on being in the operating room. I could never understand why and just put it down to the assumption that she must have been someone I hooked up with in the old days. Man, those days were fun but to be honest I don't remember half of it.

Pep had told me all along

I don't know what I would do without her

But the question of the hour still hung in the air, was I going to tell The Joker what he wanted to know? Or risk having Happy and Pep killed? There was no alternative because I care about my wife a hell of a lot more than SHIELD.

As long as Pep is safe, nothing else matters 

Have you ever been stuck on a problem and no matter what you do you can't solve it and the answer just comes to you when you're distracted with something else? Well that's what had happened to me, Thinking about what Pepper said and what she meant to me caused a lightbulb moment in my mind.

The word wasn't simply Enigma but More like E. Nygma. A name I should have deciphered from the start. No wonder Wayne wanted to help, he knew all along, he must have. And he didn't tell me.

I knew I was right not to trust that guy.

By the time I had got back home i had thirty minutes to play wth. Yeah I'm not the kind of guy to wait on someone's beck and call even if he held my wife as hostage. I was going to do the only way I knew how. My way. But the truth of the matter was that I was running out of time and the best thing to do seemed to be to just tell The Joker about SHIELD. I mean what harm would it do to me if I told him? SHIELD doesnt' own me, They OWE me, I almost died saving the world.

"Tony it will take fifteen hours to get there," Banner was kind enough to point out the obvious flaw in my plan. I wanted him to go to Hong Kong to find anything he could about the doctors and nurses present during my surgery. But we did have one lead, I knew the Joker had a connection with Lau, a Gotham mob banker who fled back home after trying to swindle his clients. My theory was that Lau could have had a connection or direct relation to the surgeons I trusted to remove the shrapnel from my chest.