Stark's Driver ~ A Bucky Barnes Story

Chapter 1- Extremis

BREAKING NEWS

7th February 2012                          Christine Everhart

World-Famous British Champion Racing driver Talia Scott has been seriously injured in the annual Grand Prix World racing event, which she has previously won twice.

While it is still unconfirmed as to the full extent of her injuries, onlookers reported a devastating sight and one first aider was overheard saying,
"I don't know how that girl's breathing, she's dead man, she's dead."                                                         However, hospital reps insist that her condition is stable.

There hasn't been an incident this bad at the Circuit de Monaco since June 2010, when billionaire playboy Tony Stark turned the track from his own personal playground into a battlefield against the terrorist we now know as Soviet physicist Ivan Vanko, also known as Whiplash.

The talented woman is a brave army veteran, having survived and then retired from, two tours in Iraq before taking up her current dangerous occupation. We know that this  twenty-two year old is made of tough stuff, and from all of us here at WHiH News, we send our thoughts and prayers for her to make  a "speedy" recovery.

~

"Speedy recovery my ass.

After I survived Iraq, people thought I'd get a desk job, drive some shit car slowly and make friends at stupid parties, maybe even get married. But they don't understand, that gives you time to think, to remember.

I didn't want to remember.

So I drove, I knew I was good because of the crazy good stunts I'd pulled in the combat vehicles during my service. Turns out, I was really fucking good.

My life became a bit blurry, an engine became my best friend, and it soothed me, focused me.

When I crashed, I wasn't going too fast, or taking the bend like a maniac. I'd hallucinated that the sound of the putting motors were gunshots. I'd panicked. That doesn't normally go down too well in a Formula 1 cockpit.

Anyway, enough of the sob story but the short of it was, it messed me up. Not psychologically (already sorted love) but physically messed me up, severe injuries that left a mark, trust me. The worst part of it though:

I lost my arm.

Well, that's being a tad dramatic. I didn't lose my whole arm, ....just the half of it that has one of my most important tools, my right hand.

I was pissed. So pissed in fact, that I spent months and months trying find a prosthetic that could actually help me, not just some shit glove-puppet thing they kept trying to give me. I had the money, and I squandered it all on trying to bribe top scientists and surgeons like this one prick,
Dr Strange -who didn't want to help me  because even I wasn't flashy enough! It wasn't my finest hour.

Anyway, I'd completely lost hope, honestly I'd turned into a real bitch, but this guy approached me, said he had heard of my injuries and also that I was a veteran.
Aldrich Killian told me all about how his company had cured him using his project Extremis, and he was now testing it on injured war veterans, it was an extremely risky process but I didn't care.

I don't like to dwell on these exact specifics, but it made me into some kind of mad fire-psycho who was just an agent in Killian's Mandarin terrorist conspiracy, thingy.

But then I met Tony Stark.

The guy is a big asshole. Trust me.

To be fair, I had been sent to kill him at the time we met - but I didn't!!                                                                          
No, instead I...well we ended up saving the president and probably the whole world so , you're welcome.

My life changed a lot after that, obviously I still had the dangerous effects of Extremis but Stark helped me with that, given that Pepper Potts needed the same treatment. Unfortunately it meant I lost my hand again, but I soon got a shiny new Stark version, he said it was based off some old prototype he'd found- but I didn't really care.

I didn't want to race again after the whole crash embarrassment, but Stark's driver Happy had woken up from his coma and refused to be his chauffeur or bodyguard anymore (fair enough) so I was hired immediately and he became his head of security.
It wasn't the high speed I was used to but I needed the money, and Stark has reaallyyy nice cars! Plus he knew I could handle myself.

It's been a good few years, apart from New York obviously, but I didn't have much to do with that, I was looking after Pepper at the time.

Now I think that about catches us up, to be honest Agent....Hill? Was it?"

The tall woman dressed in black smiled at the beautiful brunette gazing at her through the open driver's window of a bright orange supercar,

"Thank you, Miss Scott, it is.  SHIELD just likes to keeps tabs on the more.... unusual personnel that Stark keeps.."

"Well if that's all, do you mind if I go," she drawled, "I've got to pick up his majesty in five minutes, and he's on the other side of town, ...not that that's a problem." she grinned revving, making the engine roar.

"No not at all, have a good day ma'am."

And with that, she was gone in a cloud of smoke, tyres squealing.

***

Hi this was basically just a short introduction of Talia, I hope it makes sense! Don't worry, the other chapters will be much longer and better to be honest, seeing as most of this is just sarcastic monologue ;):)