Unexpected

The Lovely Speed Boat

Thanks to some lessons from my grandfather while he and Grams were vacationing one winter in Florida, I was able to drive Trevor Slattery's lovely speed boat, kicking it into high gear and directing it out of harbor. Driving a boat is different than driving a car. While in a car any movement on the wheel causes an immediate reaction and the direction is exact. On a boat, not so much. I constantly had to fight the waves to keep the bow of the boat pointed in the right direction and it took long seconds after each adjustment of the wheel for the boat to follow through.

I watched the GPS system at the helm, following the path it showed me. Hopefully Slattery's directions were legitimate. I couldn't help but wonder if we weren't following a red herring as Tony strode behind me in the boat's cabin to talk to Rhodes, alerting him about how much time we had left until we reached our destination.

"But we also have to find out about this vice president thing." Rhodes reminded him.

"Right. I wonder who I'm calling right now? Oh, that's the vice president."

I rolled my eyes. How rich was this guy that he had the vice president of the United States of America on speed dial? Pricking my ears I tried to listen in on the conversation as the pair of men behind me tried to alert the vice president of the situation with the Iron Patriot suit and a suspected attack on the president himself. Christmas or no, they needed to scramble the jets, call in the National Guard, call S.H.I.E.L.D., anything!

I double took. Wait, the president? How had he become part of this equation?

"Rhodes and Stark out."

"Thanks for forgetting me." I called over my shoulder, "What's up with the president?"

"He's boarding Airforce 1." Rhodes explained, a sort of fear tingeing his voice, making me edgy, though I couldn't understand what was wrong with that.

"So?" that seemed pretty normal for a president to do. Wasn't Pepper our number one priority?

"So, the Iron Patriot is supposed to be boarding with him as protection."

And Rhodes wasn't in the suit... one of the Mandarin's henchmen was... "Oh."

"We've got to make a decision. We can either save the president or Pepper. We can't do both." Rhodes continued, his declaration making the lump in my stomach seem to sink deeper.

Suddenly Jarvis spoke up from the suit, his voice muffled so that I couldn't quite catch what he said, but from what I could gather it seemed to be talking about doors being cleared or something, which didn't make a lick of sense to me.

"And what about the suit I'm wearing?" Tony responded, before listening, then I heard two metallic clicks, "That's going to have to do."

I turned around, taking my eyes off the water ahead to see that Tony had pulled the wires that were charging his suit. His jaw was set, his eyes distant, it was clear to me that he was somewhere off in his head, "What are you planning, Stark?"

He turned his gaze on me, acknowledging me, but his eyes were not actually seeing me. "J.A.R.V.I.S., send me the flight plan of Airforce 1."

Rhodes rolled his eyes, "Tony, you know that-"

"That the air force jumbles them all up so no one knows which plane has the president in it? Yeah, I know, but I also know that I made Jarvis smarter than America's military." Stark smirked at the end of his sentence. Just then J.A.R.V.I.S. spoke up again, this time clearer since Stark was facing me still.

"I found the flight plan, sir."

"Good."

"You're going after the president?" I asked, astounded that Stark, notably selfish Stark whose girlfriend and the love of his life was in danger, would choose to go save the president instead.