Shipbasket in the sky

Caroline is not having a good day. To-- Stark's party ended early all right, but not in the way he'd suggested. It ended in chaos and a firefight. If she ever sees Rhodes again, she might be going to prison. Then she got to spend the rest of the night calming down Potts and tallying up the party guests to make sure they all got out unharmed. That was fun. And time consuming. She didn't have a free moment to herself until almost lunchtime. Which is when she realized she hadn't yet heard from Tony in any capacity.

And then Potts roped her into some other meaningless chore that isn't actually her job, and it was mid afternoon before she could get away from that. Still nothing from Stark, not even a "stop calling me I'm sleeping." And not only has Caroline not heard anything from him, no one has. Caroline's beginning to suspect the worst. But she's never been much of an optimist. Then there's something from Rushman, and it takes forever too. This isn't even her damn job, for fuck's sake. The next round of busywork from Potts is enough to get her to yell again. Why didn't she do this twelve fucking hours ago? Christ. The drive to Stark's house is unpleasant. She's wasted so much time on these stupid errands that it's dark already.

She knows it's bad when she hits the alleged construction zone. There's no construction here. This is bullshit. The suggested detour, of course, offers no way to actually get to Tony's house. So she good naturedly thanks the "construction worker" she flagged down and follows his directions... until she's far enough out of sight that she can park her car in a ditch and continue on foot. Caroline can think of at least six people or organizations who'd want to set up a perimeter around Stark's house, and none of them are people she'd want anywhere near him. Hopefully she doesn't get shot today.

It takes a while to get there on foot. Especially since she doesn't want to be seen. When she finally arrives, it's... quiet. Instead of the army or Justin Hammer or some kind of super villain there's... one guy in a suit? Some accountant looking asshole. Very government. But just the one of him that Caroline can see. What gives? The place should be crawling with agents, shouldn't it? Hmm.

He may only be one guy, but Agent H&R Block is a fucking problem. He's pretty damn good at keeping an eye on things. Caroline's not sure how she's going to sneak past... Oh. There's a vent. A vent that's not on this guy's patrol path or in his line of sight. Well that's fortunate. There's just enough cover for her to get to it and be out of sight while she pries the grating off. It's-- she has to smother a laugh. It's Tony-sized. Agent Beige couldn't follow her through this unless he removed some limbs first. Perfect.

As she shuffles through the vent, Caroline gets occasional looks at various rooms in T-- Stark's house. Nobody rifling through his stuff or anything, no government thugs... No nothing. Are they guarding an empty house, or is all the action down in the basement? It's probably the latter. God. She has to pop another grate and climb out to get to the basement. She really doesn't have the time to root around in the vents to find one that'll take her downstairs. Taking the actual stairs down is the big risk. If there are people downstairs, they should be paying attention.

...But there isn't anyone downstairs. Just Stark's music blaring from the lab. She cautiously approaches the door. She peers through the glass, but she really can't see anything. Well. Here goes. Caroline taps her passcode in and pulls open the door. She really doesn't want to do this. But she's been expecting this, honestly, ever since she found out T- he was dying. Doesn't make this any nicer, though.

Caroline stalks down the stairs towards Stark's basement lab. She's mad enough that anyone paying attention can actually hear her stomping down the steps and over to the door. Normally she's quiet enough to sneak up on people. She just-- she can't. She taps in the code to the lab and-- snarls to herself as it beeps smugly at her and doesn't unlock the door. Calm down Lichfield. She takes a deep breath and re-enters her code. There. She cracks her neck and pulls the door open. Hopefully she's not interrupting anything important.

Take a look, it's in a book, a bridgey rainboooooooooooow.