Scared To Be Lonely

Chapter 16: Hammeroid Attack

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Nick internally groaned before heading to where she knew Pepper still was.

"Each set of drones is communicating in it's own unique language." The technician was saying as the girl approached them, Pepper nodding as he typed away. "Well, choose one and focus on that."

"Have you tried Russian?" Justin spoke up, "Why don't you try Russian?"

"And why don't you step back, Justine." Nick said, stepping in front of him and looking at the computer screen. And just like at the lab, this made sense to her. Mechanics and tech things always had, that's one of the reasons why she and her best friend had literally made themselves their own website. And as the girl watched the technicians, she also knew that they weren't doing it right.

But she was also 10, so she knew that speaking up wasn't gonna really work. So, instead, she grabbed the laptop on the desk and moved a bit away from the adults and opened it as she set it on the stairs and kneeled down in front of it. She began to quickly type away at the keyboard, managing to get into Hammer's shitty software in two minutes, before she began to hack into Ivan's software.

After nearly five minutes, Nick thought that she had just managed to get through the last wall she had hit, but instead she was brought to something else which seemed different, but she didn't think much about it and instead began hacking into this one.

When she hit that last wall, the girl was stuck... but it didn't last long when somebody on a different device seemed to help her through it, and suddenly a video screen popped up in the corner of the laptop screen, showing Natasha with Happy in the background.

"Good work, Mendes." Natasha nodded at the girl, making Nick furrow her eyebrows. "But I didn't really do anything."

Natasha then smirked a bit, "I may have... redirected your hacking. You got Rhodey back his suit."

"That was smalls?" Tony's voice came through as his video screen popped up as well, showing him in the suit. "Thank you very much, Agent Romanoff, and Bambi."

Nick rolled her eyes at the nickname, but she still smiled, especially as Natasha then said. "Well done with the new chest piece. I'm reading significantly high output and your vitals all look promising."

"Yes, for the moment, I'm not dying. Thank you."

Suddenly Pepper was next to Nick, having been curious when she saw the girl on the steps. "What do you mean you're not dying? Did you just say you're dying?"

"That you? Uh, no, I'm not. Not anymore." Tony responds, Nick grimacing a bit as Pepper looked between them all. "What's- what's going on?"

"I was going to tell you... I didn't want to alarm you-"

"You were going to tell me you really were dying?!"

"You didn't let me."

"Why didn't you tell me that?" Pepper exclaimed, then looked to Nick. "Did you know?"