A Twist Of Marvel || Infinity War

3. Cougar

[Avengers Headquarters; Upstate New York]

"Tony we may have a slight security breach concerning the Avengers." Happy Hogan furrowed his brow as he looked at his phone for the hundredth time, re-reading the texts sent from Peter. He stood on the white-tiled floor of Tony Stark's new facility lab, dodging moving machinery and random holographs. The man himself, Tony stood in the center of several holographic screens, working on technology Happy could never hope to understand.

"Which Avengers? Its getting so hard to keep track of all the newbies showing up." Tony drawled, clearly unconcerned about the security problem as he waved away the claw arm of a nearby machine.

"Well I got a text from the kid-" Happy continued, though quickly cut off by the billionaire.

"The kid's spilling secrets?" Tony asked incredulously, "He doesn't even know anything. Literally, the American education system is so-" he rambled on, waving away his current screens and pulling up his information on Spiderman.

"It's not Peter that's the problem, it's a woman he met recently." Happy explained, with massive patience towards Stark's antics. Tony whipped his head around to stare at Happy, his eyebrows raised in a signature sassy-surprised look.

"A woman!?" He asked dubiously, "Seems like I'm rubbing off on the kid more than I realized. Maybe I should lay off the backseat parenting." Tony huffed comically as Happy waited for him to finish. It didn't do to interrupt Tony when he went off on a tangent, he knew. It only derailed the entire conversation more than it already was.

"It's nothing like that. Apparently he met her on the street, and she already knew his full name," Happy flipped through his texts once more, "And the fact that he was Spiderman." Happy glanced back up at Tony, who now sported a frown and a touch of genuine concern in his eyes. He turned his back to Happy and pulled up more screens, one of which appeared to be the tracking device from the kid's Spiderman suit. The Stark worked efficiently, clearly serious about Peter's safety. "She also knew that he had my number," Happy continued, "and about the showdown between you and the Captain."

Tony looked at Happy briefly, the gears turning in his mind as he attempted to make sense of this. "What the hell? That's classified information. It's one thing to know about it, and another to literally tell Peter what she knew." Tony looked back to his screens, mumbling slightly as he switched through the holographs, typing on their keyboards. "Is this woman still with Peter? Whats her name?" He pointed to Happy, not bothering to turn from his work. Happy fumbled through his phone, sending another text to Peter along the way.

"Her name is Naomi Swanson, and as for if she's still with him..." Happy paused for a moment, until his phone dinged, signaling a new text from Peter. "Yes she is, and they are currently... at a sandwich shop? He said he didn't know where to bring her so they got food." Both Tony and Happy let out a small sigh at Peter's youthful idiocy. Though they also couldn't help but be nostalgic at his innocence.

"Alright then. I'm running a search for any Naomi Swanson's living in Queens, can you ask Peter for a picture?" Tony typed her name into one of the screens, immediately picking out a few candidates for the mysterious woman, and pulling up Happy's text conversation on another screen. Clearly Tony Stark didn't have many boundaries when it came to privacy. Soon, Peter sent the picture of Naomi to Happy, also appearing on Tony's screen. It was less a picture of her than a selfie of the two of them, but it still sufficed for Tony's needs.

After searching for several minutes, Tony gave out a frustrated huff. Her photo failed to match any of the woman with the same name in Queens, and Tony had to move on to a state-wide search. Several more minutes, and the search turned nation-wide. Off to the side, Happy stood patiently, checking through his emails and such when a thought occurred to him. "You don't think that she's Hydra or anything, do you?"

This caused Tony to pause his work, checking his screen that still showed Peter's tracker and the rest of his information. If Peter truly had been tracked down by Hydra, at least, what remained of it, it could present a huge problem. The vast majority of the organization was wiped out thanks to the Avengers, but small factions still remained in operation. Their locations were unknown, but they had yet to present any kind of threat or even presence. Tony considered his answer carefully. "There's certainly been no security breach in my systems, and I covered up the kids tracks spotlessly. His identity is on a need-to-know basis, and Hydra definitely doesn't need to know." Tony turned to Happy, "besides, if Hydra got ahold of his identity, why would they do this with it? Literally alerting us to a possible spy?" He waved his hands as he spoke, adding a dramatic flair. "This doesn't smell like Hydra."

"Then what does it smell like?" Happy questioned, relieved that Tony didn't think Hydra was involved this time.

"Smells like a cougar." Tony stated, his previous sassiness returning to him. Happy rolled his eyes and waited for him to properly continue. "I don't know. And it's not often that I say that, so pay attention." Tony enlarged one of the screens, allowing Happy to see what Tony saw. "Ive run a search on Miss Swanson's face here," Tony gestured to the selfie Peter sent on the side of the screen, a highlight on Naomi's face, rendering a separate 3D model of her features. It was almost scary how fast he had gotten it. "And I've come up with exactly this much." On the hologram, grainy security footage from a traffic camera played of a woman walking out of an alleyway, her face outlined in white from Tony's program. It showed her walking onto a crowded sidewalk, switching the view from multiple cameras until she was shown walking into a Starbucks. Inside the Starbucks, the footage quality was slightly improved, and they watched as she ordered a coffee and briefly spoke with the barista.

The footage continued as the two men watched her literally run into Peter, the low quality footage barely picking up on his confused facial expressions. Soon he pulled her into an alleyway, where they could barely see them. Tony and Happy exchanged a confused look- there was no sign of Naomi watching for Peter in the slightest, no hint that she staged the meeting. Quickly enough they walked back out of the alleyway, walking side by side down the sidewalk. Speeding up the footage, they saw the two figures make their way to the sandwich stop after consulting on a street corner, until the footage caught up to the present time.

Leaving the live footage up, Tony ran a hand through his hair, frowning in concentration. Happy raised an eyebrow at his behavior, not seeing a cause for such great stress- at least from Tony. Noticing Happy's confused expression, Tony explained himself. "That footage," he gestured to the holograph, "is literally all I have on her. I cannot find a single other thing on this woman. There isn't even footage of her going into the alley, or going anywhere for that matter."

"You're saying that there hasn't been a trace of Naomi Swanson before now? If that's even her name." Happy speculated.

"It doesn't matter what her name is, she didn't even exist an hour ago. The footage hasn't been tampered with either, she just simply wasn't there. A real Nightcrawler, if you will." Tony explained, throwing in an X-Men reference for the hell of it.

"Do you think she's a threat to the kid?" Happy asked, knowing that Tony had already considered it.

"The kid can take care of himself, usually, but this woman is definitely off. Tell him to stay with her until we can pick them up, and make sure she says in view of the security cameras." Tony instructed, sending Happy scampering off to send a Stark car to their location and text Peter the news. Now alone, Tony looked at the security footage from the sandwich shop again, where the two were seated at the bar, their backs to him. Watching them for a moment, Tony turned away with a huff. "You really know how to pick 'em, don't you kid?"