Gold Strike: Arachne

New Years

Tony Stark / Iron Man and Jackson "Jax" Stark / Gold Strike were in the basement of their mansion, working on new developments.

Jax was putting devices into his wrist.

"Jax, can I ask just a few hours to calibrate--" Tony started.

"No," Jax answered, putting in another device. "48. Micro-repeater implanting sequence complete."

"I also prepared a safety briefing for you to entirely ignore," Tony told him.

"Which I will," Jax told him. "All right, let's do this." Dummy was sweeping up a mess. "Dummy. Hi, Dummy. How did you get that cap on your head? You earned it. Hey. Hey!" Jax walked closer. "What are you doing out of the corner? You know what you did. Blood on my mat. Handle it."

"Jax, may I remind you that you've been awake for nearly 72 hours?" Tony asked. 

Jax ignored him, looking into the camera on Dummy's head, making a few boxing moves. He looked at the suits on the wall. "Focus up, ladies. Good evening, and welcome to the birthing suite. I am pleased to announce the imminent arrival of your bouncing, badass baby brother." He looked at Dummy. "Start tight and then swing wide. Stamp date and time."

Tony sighed. "Mark 42. Autonomous prehensile propulsion suit test. Initialize sequence."

"Jarvis, drop my needle," Jax told him.

Funky Christmas music started to play from a nearby record player.

Jax made a few dancing moves. He held his hand toward pieces of his Gold Strike suit on the table.

Nothing happened.

Jax hit against the devices in his wrist, holding his hand toward the pieces of the suit.

Gold Strike's glove soared up from the table, onto Jax's hand, along with a few other arm and shoulder pieces.

Tony was surprised that it had worked.

Jax smirked, holding his other arm toward the pieces of the suit.

Gold Strike's other glove and shoulder pieces soared toward Jax's arm, latching on. 

Jax laughed. "All right, I think we got this. Send them all."

The leg pieces of Gold Strike's suit soared closer, latching on.

A piece soared past Jax, breaking glass behind him.

"Probably a little less fast," Tony told him. "Slow it down. Slow it down..." A piece soared toward Jax's head. Jax ducked. "Just a little bit."

Other pieces of the suit soared toward Jax, latching on.

Another piece hit him in the back a little too hard, almost making him fall.

Jax flew up a little bit to stay up from the floor. "Cool it, will you, Jarvis" He landed on the floor. All the pieces of the suit aside for the mask piece attached themselves to Jax. The mask piece hit the record player, making it stop. It turned to Jax. Jax beckoned to it. "Come on. I ain't scared of you." The mask turned around, soaring toward Jax. Jax flipped through the air, receiving it in the face without harm, landing on the floor in a crouch. "I'm the best."

Tony hit a button on the holographic computer.

A piece of suit soared at Jax from behind, hitting him hard enough to make him fall to the floor and make all of the pieces fall off of him to the floor.

Tony chuckled. "As always, Jax, a great pleasure watching you work."

Jax sat up. "Yeah, yeah. I know you sent that thing to knock me down. Screw you, too."