Heartlines | Steve Rogers

VII

SEVEN
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"You're welcome." Harley approached them.

"For what? Did I miss something?" Tony retorted as Harley approached him. He held the files tightly in his hand.

"Me, saving your life." Harley gestured to him.

"Yeah. A, I saved yours first. B, thanks, sort of. And C, if you do someone a solid, don't be a yutz, alright? Just play it cool. Otherwise you come off grandiose." He clicked the keys to unlock the car.

"Unlike you?" Harley retorted, and Tony gave him a look as he opened the door. "Admit it, you need me. We're connected."

"What I need is for you to go him, be with your mom, keep your trap shut, guard the suit, and stay connected to the telephone because if I call, you better pick up. Okay? Can you feel that? We're done here. Move out of the way or I'm gonna run you over. Bye, kid." He told him, then got into the car and started it up.

Meredith walked over to him and ruffled his hair. She knelt down in front of him. "Sorry, my brother's a bit of an ass. What he means is, thanks for all the great help. You're a good kid and you're gonna do amazing things. Always remember that, remember what I've told you. See ya, Harley."

After Meredith walked around and climbed into the passenger seat of the car, Tony rolled down the window. "I'm sorry, kid. You did good."

"So, now you're just gonna leave me here, like my dad?" He asked. Tony thought for a moment.

"Yeah." He paused. "Wait, you're guilt-tripping me, aren't you?"

"I'm cold." He said in a small voice.

"I can tell," Tony mocked him. "You know how I can tell? Because we're connected."

Harley watched as he drove off quickly. "It was worth a shot."

Another broadcast from the Mandarin took place. All TV stations were unable to override it. The entire east coast was able to see what was happening. That included the President. The Mandarin told him that if he didn't call him in the next thirty seconds, he would shoot a man in the head. Somehow they hacked his phone and put the number into it. President Ellis called, and he sat there as it rang. But, he shot him anyways. This was the second to last lesson, according to him. And he told him he would see him soon. They informed the President that they were able to track the broadcast to a location in Pakistan. They sent Rhodey there immediately.

Tony and Meredith were attempting to make their way back to Malibu. There was no reason for her to go ahead because they didn't know exactly where to go from here anyways. They couldn't stop thinking about everything. The files, Happy. As she looked at the file harder, she realized that if it was flipped over, it spelt AIM instead of MIA, which was Aldrich Killian's company. They had to get to Pepper as soon as possible. The next best thing they could do was find out more about AIM, considering Killian most definitely had something to do with all of this. Tony called Rhodey while he was in the middle of his mission. "Hello?"

"You ever have a chick straddling you and you look up and suddenly she's glowing from the inside out, kind of a bright orange?"

"Yeah, I've had that. Who is this?"

"It's me, pal. Now, last time I went missing, if I remember correctly, you came looking for me. What are you doing?"

"A little knock-and-talk, making friends in Pakistan. What are you doing?"

"Your redesign, your big rebrand, that was AIM, right?"

"Yeah." Rhodey was unsure as to where he was going with this.