Stolen - Tony Stark

10.

Austria, 2010

"You know what to do," Fury told her.

"Yup. What I'm good at doing: sneaking in."

Stark was excited as, this time, he got to do his thing and suit up as Iron Man.  But he was going in after her. And only if needed.  She wasn't sorry to be stealing his spotlight. In fact, she was thoroughly enjoying it. 

They had the warehouse surrounded. Supposedly, it was filled with the stolen designs and weapons. 

It felt kind of cool leading a whole team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents onto the scene. Maybe I could get used to this.

Get in. Get the prize. Get out.

Let's do this.

They broke down the door, and were met with no resistance, but kept their weapons at the ready just in case. You never know.

 The warehouse appeared quiet and empty - empty of people that is.

It was full of crates, large and small, all with different numbers and codes printed on them.

"Got my eyes on the prize, Stark," she informed him. 

He gave a sigh of relief over the radio.  "You'd better open those crates up, just to make sure. But be careful - we can't be exactly sure what modifications have been made to them.  All we know is that they're dangerous."

"Copy that." She nodded to one of the agents to stepped in and pried one of the crates open.

"Uh, we may have an issue," Kass updated after they opened a few more of the crates up.  "These crates are empty."

"Get out of there," Fury suddenly ordered.

"Why?"

"It's a trap-"

He'd barely finished speaking when the whole warehouse shook when a sudden explosion from the far end of the building went off. The empty crates burst and splintered, sending sharp pieces of wood shooting everywhere.

Moments later, a second explosion erupted from the opposite corner. Standing in the centre of the warehouse, Kass and the agents were trapped in the middle of it. 

Kass couldn't hear Fury in her ear anymore over the sound of the destruction, but she was pretty sure that if she could hear him, he would be saying something like, 'get out of there - now!"

She was trying, but there was so much dust and debris and chaos she could hardly see.

She didn't even see the giant piece of broken ceiling until it was falling, about to crush her-

But it didn't.

She braced herself for the impact, but nothing happened. 

She was confused until she saw a blue glow through the cloud of dust.

Blue glowing eyes and arc reactor.

Looked like Stark was getting his hero moment after all. 

"I'll be honest, that's sort of creepy up close..." She wasn't sure if he could hear her. 

Stark zapped the piece of ceiling concrete so that it crumbled into a bunch of tiny pieces to the floor. Then he grabbed hold of her and another agent, carrying them out of the rapidly crumbling building through a hole he had blasted in the ceiling and out into the field surrounding the warehouse - or what was soon to once have been a warehouse.  He flew back to the wreckage, returning with only a few more agents. That wasn't a good sign. 

They all watched as the building collapsed, crumbling in on itself, burying what had been inside. 

"Thanks," she cried, fairly shaken up, eyes not leaving the scene.

He continued to stare as well.  "Yeah."

-------------------------------

Turned out, the explosives had already been set before S.H.I.E.L.D. had arrived, so the enemy didn't even have to be there when they were set off.  Bottom line was, someone  knew S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to be there, and had left a surprise for them upon arrival.

"This has gotten too out of hand. We need to hand it over to the professionals."

Fury was furious, no pun intended. Kass would have made a joke about it, but felt that this wasn't the right time.

"I am very professional!" she said instead. 

"I mean professional agents, Ms. Konstantin. Not self-proclaimed professional thieves. I have personnel dead.  Now you two are going to stay out of this from now on and leave it to us to finish."

"Come on, Nick-" began Stark.

"That's an order. No arguing, Stark.  You will step back and stand down from now on." With that, Fury stormed away. 

Stark cursed under his breath. 

"Fury's furious," Kass finally said. 

Stark chuckled.  "I was just about to say that."

She was about to say 'great minds think alike', but guessed that he would just use it as an opportunity to boast about his own genius, so she decided against it. Now wasn't the time. 

"This isn't fair," she said instead. 

"Nope, but I don't think they much care."

"That's your tech that was stolen - if anyone should retrieve it, it should be you."

"Hear hear."

"I bet those S.H.I.E.L.D. agents don't even know half of what your tech does."

"Probably not. But boss's orders. Trust me, you don't want to cross Nick Fury."

"Well, good thing then that I don't like to play by the rules."

Now they were looking at each other, sharing a glance.  "Me neither."

(Continuing in my love for RDJ and his characters, I've started a Sherlock Holmes story and a John Dolittle story as well :) 

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed as always! :))