SOAR: An Avengers Story

Prologue: Masquerade

March 2nd, 2011
(Tony)

It was a night of unexpected events.

Tony Stark did not expect to end up in his lab at an ungodly hour of the morning, working on a new suit for underwater welding.

He definitely did not expect to find himself falling asleep at his workbench.

But the most unexpected of all events on this day was the alert he received from JARVIS that ultimately woke him from his short-albeit, peaceful-sleep.

"Sir, there seems to be some suspicious activity on the ground floor."

His A.I.'s British drawl jarred Tony awake mid-sentence. "Hm, what's happening?" Tony asked, grogginess making him sound sluggish, which he was.

"There was an authorized entry, sir," JARVIS responded, almost amused. Tony made him to be as expressive as possible, but he didn't like how human he sounded in that moment. Or maybe sleepiness was making him hear things that weren't there. Did he say authorized entry?

"Why is that suspicious? Maybe some intern forgot his briefcase or something," Tony responded, while also checking the time on his watch. 3:32 AM. After seeing that, he was a little more doubtful of his reasoning. Why would an intern come this early?

"Well, sir, it seemed suspicious after I examined a scan from the live security feed," JARVIS said, while also feeding Tony a file through his desk.

His workbench desk, which was entirely touch screen, glowed to life, and a video file popped up over his leftover blueprints from before his nap.

The video, time-stamped only a minute prior, showed a figure cloaked in black entering through the front door of the building, as if it were open.

Then another figure entered. Then another. Then three more. No identifiable features. He couldn't even see their faces.

And they went straight for the elevator.

Tony was suddenly wide awake, not a trace of fatigue. It was replaced with panic; something was definitely going on.

"Where are they headed now?" Tony demanded, getting up and stepping onto the armor platform he installed next to his workbench. As the mechanical arms whirred to life and placed the familiar metal alloy onto his body, JARVIS continued, "The elevator is headed for the 28th floor."

Experimental Technology Development. Dammit.

At this point, Tony was suited up, the armor responding accordingly to his movements. He wasted no time, propelling himself towards the door to the stairwell and shooting straight up through space in between the spiral of railings.

The analytic data in front of him pointed out precisely when he reached the 28th floor, and he busted down the door to Tech Development.

The floor was mostly rows of rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows as walls, with experimental technology in almost every one. The stairs opened up to a corridor that had those rooms on either side of him, showing everything from high-storage hard drives the size of pennies to something that looked like a laser gun. The fear in the pit of Tony's stomach grew; he didn't want anyone taking advantage of his tech.