The Pirate And His Sea

Chapter 6: How Tony Met Him

(This is not my chapter and the credit of the characters goes to their respective authors)

Tony was having a bad morning. First he had meeting that was so early that the coffee shops weren't even open, and Pepper was off somewhere in Sweden to visit her mom so she couldn't make one for him. Happy (his driver) was home sick with a fever so he had to drive himself to the building where he'd be having the stupid phone conference, half way across the city. And now, still at least twenty minutes away from the building, his car broke down. Fucking whipdee-do.

Swearing like a sailor, Tony stepped out of the silver Lamborghini and eyed the smoke curling from under the hood dubiously. While he might be famous for being an inventor, he didn't have any idea was wrong. Tony Stark dealt with nuclear warhead and plasma cannons, not cars.

But maybe he should, because if they kept on being an inconvenience like this he might as well look up vehicle engineering and save himself a dozen trips to a faraway car workshop. Or maybe he should just get rid of cars? Yeah, hover crafts that ran on arc reactors, that he could do. It wouldn't take much...

Shaking off his wandering thoughts, Tony turned back to the problem at hand and wondered if he should pry open the hood. From all the movies he'd seen and personal experience with smoking methods of transportation, smoke meant fire and/or heat, heat meant possible explosion, and possible explosion was a big no-no in Tony's book. So the final plan was really to just call a cab and meander up to the conference like that? Ha, no way. Tony Stark did not show up in cabs.

But it wasn't like he had any choice.

"Shit," he growled. He hated mornings, and they hated him back to. Pacing back and forth on the quiet street angrily, he scowled and switched his glare from the smoking car, to his watch, to the general direction of the conference and back to the car. The debate whether to show up to the meeting at all or be a good boy and call a cab was warring passionately in his head when a man's voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Oh, you've got some bad luck, don't you?"

Tony felt his eyebrow twitch at the teasing tone of the stranger. Turning sharply, he glared at the black-haired man who was standing a few feet away, a bag slung over his shoulder and faint smirk on his face. "Well excuse me for my car exploding without explanation," he grumbled. Tony was not a people person before he got coffee in his system. "And it's just before a meeting too!" He threw his hands up in the air angrily, muttering to himself.

The man watched him for a moment, smirk turning into a bemused smile. He opened his mouth, paused with a contemplative look on his face, and then smirked back at the billionaire.

Tony felt his eyebrow tick again. Oh boy, that smirk was just infuriating. It had to be a gift, that smirk. If he had that smirk, oh the things he could do to piss off Fury without even saying anything...

"I can give you a ride." The man interrupted his thoughts for the second time that day.

Tony shot him an incredulous look. "And you really expect me to believe? While I like to believe in there being nice people who help others simply because they can, it's too damn early for anyone to be nice for no reason. And you could be a creeper, who just wants to kidnap me for my body and do terrible things to me in the basement of a non-descript cupcake shop!" He jabbed an accusing finger at him to reinforce his point.

The man just threw his head back and laughed, white teeth a stark contrast to his tanned skin. "Sure sure, it's all up to you. So where's your meeting?" He asked, continuing to walk along. Tony glanced back his smoking car, then to the casual man who just strolled past him without a worry in the world. Well, he didn't seem like a kidnapper or pervert. And Pepper would smash his balls in if he missed the meeting...