Profession

I'm in deeper

I looked around and retracted my armor. Immediately I found myself on the floor, with a member of the princess' protective detail kneeling on my back. Ouch. My cheek and jaw were also aching from being smacked down on the tile floor. While I could, I slid my communicator to Jones, who was trying to get them to release me. "Call my Uncle Tony," I said, right before they hauled me to my feet, handcuffed me, and pulled me out of the palace to a car. We drove to an unremarkable building, where I brought inside, photographed in unflattering light and my biometrics taken, and deposited in a very white interrogation room to wait. By myself, but at least they took off the cuffs. I'd gotten a little banged up, a knee in the kidneys when somebody was kneeling on me,  and I'd have some bruises. They weren't exactly being gentle, and I could kind of understand it, that they'd be unnerved by the presence of an unknown weapon in the presence of the crown princess. My dress had holes burned in it here and there from the energy weapons, and there was a slight scorch on my skin from a weapon that had begun to hit just as the armor protected me.

I'd been waiting a bit and needed to use the restroom, but before I spoke up, the door opened and two tough-looking people came in. Agents? Police? Military personnel? I didn't know and they didn't identify themselves. They did smack down a thick paper file on the table, and despite the circumstances, I nearly grinned. There's nothing like an old-fashioned dumb file to impress, even though a computer file can do things like cross reference as a suspect is speaking. "You're being recorded for as long as you're on premises," the bigger man said gruffly. "As permitted by law. You're Lysippe Alexandria Wayne, US citizen, British legal resident. Graduated Cambridge. You live in 1 Holly Village. Photographer and developer."

"My middle name is Alexandra, not Alexandria," I volunteered helpfully and truthfully. The smaller man (still huge) took out a pencil and wrote something on the first page of the file. I highly doubted that all that paper had to do with me. They probably stuck a bunch of blank paper or whatever they could quickly round up to make the file more impressive.

"What's that armor, where did you get it, and where is it now?"

"It's Iron Man technology, it belongs to Tony Stark, and it's proprietary." The big man muttered a curse.

"You were asked each time you entered the palace whether you had weapons," the smaller man said sternly. "Each time you answered in the negative. So you've lied at least once."

"To be honest, I completely forgot about it," I admitted. "I've only had to use it a few times since I've had it. But when he gave it to me, he also had me train to use it when I feel threatened, so my response was instinctual."

"How do you know Stark?"

"He's my uncle. He and my grandma are very good friends, my grandpa is COO of his company, he's been like a dad to me. He gave me the tech... after the kidnapping attempt?" I had to go  back and think. "No. It was after that, the autumn after."

"Kidnapping?" Smaller said alertly, and I explained that and the aftermath.

"Iron Man tech. Are you a 'superhero' yourself? Because if you have not registered with His Majesty's government as such, you are in violation of the law and are subject to deportation and revocation of your status as a legal resident of this country."

"No, the tech is strictly for defensive purposes only. I don't want to be a hero, I'm not a member of any organized group like the Avengers or Justice League, and I don't go out on the streets in a funny costume looking for criminals to take down." They poked at my claims for a good long time, then demanded the tech.

"Uncle Tony lets me use his tech, but I consider it only a loan. It's proprietary, and I can't in good faith turn it over to someone else who will in all probability keep it and try to reverse-engineer it." This incited an animated discussion. Finally, I said that if they wanted to show me a signed statement from Uncle Tony that gave them permission to have the tech, I'd turn it over, but not unless I had that agreement. And I knew Uncle Tony's signature quite well; it would have to be a really good fake to fool me. Then there followed a long string of questions designed to ascertain if I was a bad person out to injure the royal family or whether I had an ulterior motive in cultivating the princess' acquaintance.