Second Chances

N I N E

I quickly pull her into the car as we speed down the road. After a few minutes of silence I look at her and frown.

"Why were you at the house tonight? What was so important that you had to speak to Tony?"

She looks out the window before turning back to me.

"I think that my boss is working for the Mandarin. So if you still want to talk about it, I suggest that we get ourselves someplace safe."

Your boss works for the Mandarin, you think? But Tony says you're a botanist, so..."

She rolls her eye and lightly smiles.

"That figures. What I actually am is a biological DNA coder running a team of forty out of a privately-funded think tank, but sure you can call me a botanist."

"I'm an agent, or highly leagued assassin. This car is programmed with state of the art soundproof and unhackable networks. This is about as safe as it gets."

I look at her, she smiles and looks around, I wave my hand over the palm scanner. The data base hologram starts to appear.

"This boss of yours, does he have a name?"

"Yeah, Aldrich Killian."

I look at her in shock, Pepper was talking to him at the office. I remember happy telling me about him. I look at my hologram and see everything about him is pulled up. I pull up to her house and she looks at me.

"I'll be back, I need you to get packed. Pepper will come get you if I'm not able. Don't speak go anyone else, it's to dangerous."

She nods and I watch her walk in. I speed down the drive way and through the streets. I go to cut the corner, my watch goes off. I forgot, the watch. I may be able to get ahold of him, if I get a strong enough signal I could track him. I quickly press the small button, it brings up the Ironman helmet.

"Stark, you there. Do you copy, can you hear me."

I look down at the watch, small sparks are coming through. The water must have done something, it must not be dry enough to track him.

"Come on Stark."

I press it again and slow down.

"Stark, I need you to answer me. You need to press the red button. It helps me track you, I need you to press it. God I hope you get this."

I get into the hospital parkway, I get out and rush into his room. I look around for his phone, I see him slowly sit up. I look at him, I smile.

"I found a way on how to track him. The watch let's out a frequent signal to track the body. I could use your phone to track the signal, I can find him."

"I thought you wanted me to call your family."

"I'll do it later, I need to find him. We need to stop the mandarin, I can't do that if I can't find Stark."

He nods, I kiss his cheek and rush out. I get back into the car. My A.I. brings up the news. I watch as he kills another man, I make the car go faster. As my watch goes off a news report comes up. I see Rhodney send in a file, they must have some how spoke. A file on Killian comes into the way, I smile and hit the dash.

"Thank you Stark, you just saved me a bunch of work."

I smile as I quickly make my way back to Maya's house. I rush in and look around, I see her and Pepper sitting in the couch.

"Maya I need you to tell me everything, I need to get him before anyone else dies."

"What happened? Fun fact. Before he built rockets for the Nazis, the idealistic Wernher von Braun dreamed of space travel. He stargazed. Do you know what he said when the first V-2 hit London?"

She frowns as she looks at her hands.

"The rocket performed perfectly. It just landed on the wrong planet." See, we all begin wide-eyed. Pure science. And then the ego steps in, the obsession. And you look up, you're a long way from shore."

Pepper looks at her as I use my watch to pull up a map of the bombings along with the experiments.

"You can't be too hard on yourself, Maya. I mean, you gave your research to a think tank."

"Yeah, but Killian built that think tank on military contracts."

"That's exactly what we used to do. So, don't judge yourself."

"Thank you, Pepper. I really appreciate that."

Someone knocks on the door, I look at them and slowly hold up my finger to my lips. I get up & open the door. A man pushes in a tray of food but Killain appears & snaps his neck.

"Both of you, run!"

He grabs me by the arm, spins her around and slams her against the wall, holding her by the neck. I glare at him as he holds a knife to my throat.

"Hello miss Schade"

He looks over at Maya, he smirks.

"So, you want to tell me why you were at Stark's mansion last night?"

"I'm trying to fix this thing. I didn't know you and the master were gonna blow the place up."

"Oh, I see. So, you were trying to save Stark when he threatened us?"

"I've told you, Killian, we can use him."

My eyes slowly start to glow as the power is fighting for control. If I give in I could kill everyone within a 5 mile radius.

"Look, if we want to launch product next year, I need Stark. He just lacked a decent incentive. Now, he has one."

My watch starts vibrating, they all look down at it. Killian pulls it off my wrist and I frown.

"What is this."

"It's nothing."

"I see, one of your super watches."

"Don't if you press any of those buttons we could die. It's a pro type."

I start trying to look frighten, I look at them then at pepper. She knows the truth, she tries to move forward.

"The blue button, it tracks every available wirespace."

After a few seconds everything is blurry, he must have done something to me while I was trying to watch them.