Second Chances

Thirty-six

Tony would be the first to admit that he did sometimes do things half-cocked. He wasn’t known for his cautiousness, or carefulness, or vigilantes, or...well, you get it. Tony wasn’t the best. Pepper may have been right about the whole “You’re going to kill yourself, Tony'' thing. The one thing Tony did have, though, was emotion. And Tony was Livid with a capital “L”.

He was going to kill someone. Preferably three someones. Stane would be first. It would be payback for all those times Stane had been a back-handed-compliment-giving bastard. Stane had kidnapped Tony. Stane had ordered a hit on Tony. Stane had made Tony’s company kill thousands of people behind his back. Stane had taken the arc reactor. Therefore, Tony was going to kill him. Or maybe severely injure him. Maybe if Stane just rotted in jail after being thrown around a few times by Iron Man, Tony could sleep at night. Maybe Tony could just settle on doing the same with Killian and Hammer. All Tony knows is that they shouldn’t have touched what was his.

Not like Steve was an object. Or belonged to Tony. They hadn’t gone on a date in months, coming up to a year now, if Tony thought too hard about it. Which he didn’t─wouldn’t─shouldn’t. 

Whatever.

“Tony?” Pepper’s voice came through the comlink, and it took Tony longer than it probably should, given his whole “genius” title, to realize that he had said a lot of his thoughts out loud. 

“Yeah, Pep, I’m here,” Tony answered, and Pepper’s long sigh was all he got in reply. 

“Who do you want me to call again?”

“Phil Coulson. He works with Steve. He was that guy that was calling you? Right?”

“Agent Coulson?” Pepper asked.

“Who’s Agent?”

“Phil Coulson.” 

“Yeah, that’s who I want you to call.” Tony frowned, looking up at where JARVIS was displaying his speed and how close he was to get to where Aldrich and Hammer were hopefully located.

“No, Tony,” Pepper sighed for a second time, “Phil is Agent Coulson.”

“I thought you said his name was Agent?” Tony scoffed.

“Tony, I’m going to bash your head in with those new Versace's you got me.”

“Oh, the blue ones? Did you like them?”

“It was a very good birthday present. Matches my dress,” Pepper said fondly, and Tony smiled to himself.

“That’s great.”

“Should we get back on track?” A new voice joined the conversation, and Tony frowned, seeing that Natasha had joined the call. 

“Nat?” Tony said.

“Agent Romanov.” A male voice answered back.

“I’m here, Coulson,” Natasha replied.

“Wait,” Tony paused, stupidly slapping his helmet in the head when he tried to lift his hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose. “Agent Romanov? And Agent Coulson?”

“I’m here too!” Bruce chimed in, and Tony heard Pepper curse to herself.

“Well, the whole gang’s here, huh?”

“Mr. Stark, I am an agent of the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division. I work for Director Fury,” Coulson said, his voice too matter-of-fact for the out-of-a-comic-book shit he was saying.

“Who?” Tony cut in.

“You’ll meet him later,” Natasha added.

“Phil, Mr. Stark and I have contacted you because we believe that you, and your connection at SHIELD, can help us with this information we have uncovered about Mr. Stane, Aldrich Killian, and Justin Hammer,” Pepper interrupted.