Chương 1507: 6
Chapter 6Summary:
Welcome back Miss Potts... or should that be Mrs Stark?
Chapter Text
Clint's hand trembled as he reached for the phone on the bedside. As he picked it up, the call connected and he heard the beautiful sound of his wife swearing.
"Laur's? Babe?" He whispered.
"Clinton Francis Barton, what did you do, this time?" His wife demanded.
May 15th 1995
"Sir? There's an incoming call from front gate security." JARVIS said.
"Connect me." Tony said absently, his mind working on adapting some of Howard's firepower to fit into War Machine's shoulders.
"Dr Stark?" The security guard seemed a little frazzled, he only ever called Tony 'Dr' when very important people or the press were around.
"Andrew?" Tony's attention switched to the guard.
"Sir, there's a young woman here, insisting that she's your PA, but she doesn't have any paperwork."
Tony frowned. "Did she give a name?"
"Potts, sir, Vir-"
"Send her down and order in whatever papers she needs to have access to all sites. Alert all security of her clearance." Tony ordered. If he remembered right, Pepper hadn't joined SI until the summer of 1996, so what was she doing here, now?
The seconds dragged by, until the door to his office/lift opened and Andrew's trainee, George walked out, closely followed by a very young Pepper Potts.
"Ms Potts, Dr Stark." George gave him a small smile, today wasn't a good day.
"Thanks, George." Tony replied. "And what are you doing here, today? I thought your daughter was having surgery today?"
"She is, sir."
"Then go. I'll clear it with HR, compassionate leave. Your daughter needs you, so does your wife. Go." Tony ordered.
George's smile was brighter and he nodded. "Yes, sir." He stepped back into the office/lift and closed the door.
"Miss Potts." Tony said. Did she remember?
"Mr Stark." Pepper said clearly, not addressing him as 'Dr', as George had and with an exasperated tone.
Yep, she remembers. "We'll start you as PA but I want you back as CEO as fast as is humanly possible, without causing a scandal." Tony said, turning his back on the woman, who he was sure, knew she was his wife. He heard her inhale sharply before speaking.
"Six months." She said. "As IT is such a private company, six months as your PA before moving to CEO is doable. But, Tony?"
"Yeah, Pep?"
"If you're doing Iron Man, again, I want Extremis and my Rescue suit."
"Extremis? No can do, but we have something that I think will be better, less chance of you being all explody. The suit is almost ready to fit to you."
"No Extremis?"
"Nope, not this time." Tony said. "We're going to use dad's version of the super-soldier serum." He held up a hand when she began to object. "Wait. It's a watered-down version of Steve's serum, dad had to retro-engineer it from samples of Steve's blood. It was stolen by the Russians after dad's assassination."
"But I thought I saw your father at Columbia last month…" Pepper argued.
"You did." Tony said. "After some serious debating, we've come to the conclusion that this is not our original timeline."
"Not our original timeline?" Pepper repeated. "What makes you so sure?"
"I woke in January 1991." Tony said. "JARVIS and the bleeding edge suit were both in the room with me."
"JARVIS?" Pepper blinked.
"Yes, Miss Potts?" JARVIS asked.
"Oh, my God… JARVIS!" Pepper smiled brightly. "And you agree with Tony's theory of this being an alternate timeline, JARVIS?"
"I do, Miss Potts." JARVIS replied. "But it is not just my opinion, either."
"What?" Pepper turned back to Tony. "Who else did you tell?"
"Tell?" Tony grimaced. "Only mum and dad. Who else knows…?" He hesitated.
"Who else knows?" Pepper demanded.
"Clint, Laura and Barnes." Tony said quickly.
"Cli- Excuse me?!" Pepper squawked. "Clint Barton, Laura Barton and… Barnes? The Winter Soldier, Barnes?"
"That's the one." Tony nodded.
"How did they find out?" Pepper narrowed her eyes and glared at Tony.
"They remembered." Tony said. "I went to stop Barnes from killing mom and dad, only to have him call me 'Iron Man' and ask me to remove a tracker and kill-switch from his arm. It took me and JARVIS six months to recreate Princess Shuri's replacement arm and another three before JARVIS was comfortable performing the surgery that was needed to remove the Russian arm and attached the replacement."
"He remembers?" Pepper asked. "How much?"
"Everything."
"Oh, God…"
"We're good, Pep." Tony said. "The triggers don't work and Barnes is in complete control, now. Apparently, it took nearly a year of working with Sam Wilson and a shrink before he gained a semblance of acceptance about what he'd been forced to do. And you know very well how long it took me to work my way through what Zemo exposed."
"Hmm…" Pepper nodded slowly. "And there's been no… incidents…?"
"Nope. We're good." Tony shook his head. "Although in the interests of marital peace, I feel I should reveal that Barnes, Clint, JARVIS and dad all agreed that I was to be dosed with a full dose of the serum. As was Clint, while Barnes got a half dose. We're keeping the other half to give Nat, when we go get her, in next year or two. Both of them got the knock-off one that HYDRA created back in the forties. We'd also like to dose Rhodey, different reasons but personally, I can't go through watching get him hurt like that, not again."
"Hmm…" Pepper nodded and Tony continued talking.
"Clint remembered on his birthday, as did Laura." Tony snorted. "I heard him scream and went to see what the problem was, he freaked out and said something about watching me die. We talked and I told him that Laura had signed on as an intern in our legal department. He laughed about me getting him a wife for a birthday present."
Pepper snorted. "And Laura?"
"She rang in a panic and stammered something about having to quit because she needed to work elsewhere. I replied by telling her that IT's head of security was Clint and once she'd mentioned Loki and I said Thanos, I had J transfer the call to Clint's phone and went to make coffee."
"Of course, you did." Pepper sighed. "Who do you plan to tell and when? And what about the rest of the team?"
"We figure we need to tell the entire team, plus, Fury, Coulson and Hill." Tony replied.
"Why them?"
"The team needs to be able to trust me. There's too much riding on this." Tony said. "As for Fury and the other two?" He shrugged. "Well, I've already warned Coulson about Zola and HYDRA hiding in SHIELD and Agent Agent has been keeping Clint informed of their progress in clearing them out. The WSC has had a major reshuffle just recently, Pierce is out, Fury managed to keep his HYDRA connection under cover, while exposing his other illegal dealings. That still landed him in ADX Supermax in Colorado."
"That will work." Pepper nodded. "And you want to dose me with the serum?"
"Yes." Tony nodded. "I need you safe and the serum is the best option. I don't have the means of synthesizing Extremis, we agreed that Killian's formula wouldn't be recorded anywhere and while I may have had JARVIS keep it while I figured out what went wrong with it, I also had him delete the data-bytes, once we'd finished."
"So, no Extremis." Pepper sighed. "Can't say I'm despondent about that, but the super-soldier serum, Tony? Really?"
"It's a poor comparison to Erskine's final formula." Tony corrected. "It really only increases what's already there. Speed and healing are increased by 27%, hearing by 18%, eye sight by 32% and strength by 36%. As opposed to Erskine's, which is supposed to have more than doubled speed, healing and strength. It also doesn't change your body structure. Bones are denser, body temperature and heartrate are elevated but not significantly. It's better than the version that Barnes and Nat got, which is why we plan to split a dose between them."
"How many doses do you have? In total?"
"Six." Tony said. "I got one, as did Clint. One for you and another for Rhodey. One split between Barnes and Nat. That's five. Initially, we were tossing up giving the other dose to either Coulson or Wilson but Coulson stayed with SHIELD so we crossed him out. Sam? We're still a little divided on him. He was there but he wasn't ever seriously injured, would that dose be better used elsewhere?"
"Who else is there?"
"It's not a case of who else is there," Tony argued, "it's a case of who else isn't already enhanced. The original team? Me and Clint are the only baseline humans, all the others are enhanced. Steve has Erskine's serum, Nat has the HYDRA version, Bruce has Big Green and Thor's Asgardian. Wanda and Pietro were enhanced by HYDRA using the sceptre. Vision was… created… using the Cradle and Mjolnir. Sam's a baseline human. As were Scott and Hope, but both used the Pym suits, which are like an exoskeleton version of the serum. Rhodey's a baseline. The Wakandans were… something else, something to do with a flower(?) giving them serum-like advantages? I didn't pay that much attention to Okoye when she tried to explain it. Strange and Wong had magic, which I don't understand at all. Then there were the Guardians and none of them were human, even if Quill was half human." Tony babbled.
"And Peter was Spider-Man." Pepper nodded.
"… Yeah…" Tony dropped his head and whispered.
"So, it's down to Sam and Happy, then?" Pepper asked, knowing that Tony would not have left Happy Hogan, out of his plans.
"Pretty much." Tony shrugged.
"So, why not split it between them, each will be slightly enhanced without it being overwhelming?"
"Though about that, but I can't see either of them being pleased, both are going to insist that the other have a full dose."
"Umph." Pepper grunted.
"And that's assuming that we can get either of them to agree to it, anyway." Tony sighed.
"Alright…" Pepper hummed. "Here's a thought. If I've got my Rescue nanotech suit, I don't really need a full dose. So why don't we keep that half and the other full dose, for future use? We don't have to decide, right now, we can wait until… say between 2010 and '15? That would still give whomever we decide on, a chance to be physically acclimated to the changes before Thanos arrives."
Tony blinked. "This is why I need you, Pep, none of us thought of that."
"I know." Pepper smiled. "You're the genius and I'm one that makes things actually work."
Tony laughed. "Pretty much."
"Alright, let's table Thanos for the moment. Bring me up to speed on IT and its inventory, holdings, staff and contracts."
"Yes, ma'am." Tony saluted. "J, bring up the inventory briefings, please." He said over his shoulder. "But first…?" He held out his arms and Pepper gave him a slightly wobbly smile as she stepped into them. "I missed you, Pep. So much."
"I know, Tony. I missed you, so much. But Friday had so many files, I still got to see you every day. Morgan's growing up, knowing her father fairly well."
"Morgan…" Tony made a pained sound.
"If we're here, are we no longer there?" Pepper asked.
"I don't know." Tony whispered. "I hope there's still a version of you there, with her."
Before either of them could continue, JARVIS spoke up. "Sir, Miss Potts? Mr Barnes and Mr Barton have an issue in transport and require Sir's assistance. One of the drivers is not who he claims to be."
"Right, you go deal with that and I'll work on getting up to date on IT." Pepper ordered.
"Yep." Tony headed for the office/lift.
~~~
Four hours later, the three men stumbled from the office/lift into the workshop, all three exhausted and filthy dirty, grease and dust covering them all.
"Oh, my lord. What happened to you?" Pepper demanded.
The three men's head all rose sharply.
"Pepper?" Clint asked.
"Yes, Clint?" Pepper replied.
"Uh…?" Barnes made a questioning noise.
"Oh, right, you haven't met, yet." Tony sighed. "Barnes, Pepper Potts, currently my PA and soon to be my CEO, again. And then my wife, I hope." He gestured from one to the other. "Pep, Barnes Buchannan, formerly known as James Barnes, the Winter Soldier." He pointed to Clint. "Him, you know." He slumped down onto a sofa. "Pep remembers, too. She fronted up to the gate and informed them she was my PA and made them call me. We talked and… well, here we are…"
"Right…" Barnes sighed and nodded to himself.
"We need to have a meeting, Tony." Pepper started. "All of us that know. We have many things to discuss."
"Talk to Barnes about that, Pep-my-love, he's the one in charge of the Thanos Project." Tony waved and Barnes pulled himself to his feet and headed over to Pepper to bring her up to date.
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