[tony's house]

[lichfield]

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.

Comments

[anthony_e_stark]

House arrest sucks.

Even in a house as comfortable and spacious - and currently, kinda partially trashed - as Stark's abode is, it sucks. It's like being put in time out or getting grounded by mom. Except mom in this case is an overbearing questionably intentioned alphabet soup organization. Tony doubts their sudden zeal in keeping him alive has anything to do with any theoretical goodness in their hearts.

If they have any. Government agencies, and all. He doesn't have any doubt when if he fails and dies, both him and his arc reactor will end up in some shady lab somewhere. For science or the greater good or whatever they deem their motivation.

Also, his chest itches. A lot.

The SHIELD guys drug his dad's stuff into his lab just fine, but they didn't bother with anything useful after that. So many notes, so much archival footage. Tony shuffles around all day in his bathrobe looking through everything. The disassembled bits of the Stark Expo diorama sit in a sad pile off in the corner, retrieved from Tony's old office - Potts's new office, he reminds himself - and saved from a sad death in a dumpster.

Seems a little bit of a shame to leave it there while he whiles away the day digging through Howard's old notes, for all the good that's done him. He turns up his music, shoves a few tables together, and goes about halfheartedly piecing it back together from memory. That's where that vendor goes. This path connects to that one there. Wait, he's missing a shrub, where'd he put that thing? He finds it after a moment of searching, hidden underneith another food vendor, but he finds himself pausing before he snaps it into place. Looking over his shoulder. Maybe it's all the SHIELD agents crawling all over his life lately. Maybe he's paranoid, who knows. He has myriad reason to be.

Tony puts the little model plant in its place then pads away. Ok. He's probably just paranoid, wasting time, but it's his time to waste. He'll jump at shadows if he wants to. It's probably just Coulson again.

He stops just short of the corner and peeks around it very quickly. Too quickly. His second attempt is a lot slower, a lot more careful. Maybe he can try to get some outside contact again. He feels a little like a kid trying to sneak out, or something.

It takes Tony a beat or two to realize there is a tiny redhead ninja standing in the lab doorway. He blinks, stares, leaning further around the corner. "Caroline?"

[lichfield]

Okay, maybe she's a little bit of a coward. Caroline stands in the doorway for a long moment, half-heartedly looking around the portion of lab she can see from here. She should really just get in the lab proper and get this over with. She just... really isn't looking forward to finding Tony dead on the floor. Can anyone blame her?

But she forgets all of that when she hears a voice. Caroline ducks and twists toward the sound, reaching for her knife. Shit, they already know who she i--- wait. Wait. That's-- that's Tony peering around a corner at her. She's thinking about ten things at once, most of them "he's not dead" and "holy shit he's not dead." So of course what actually comes out of her mouth first is, "Shit!" At barely below a yell.

Caroline flinches and looks over her shoulder, before stepping all the way in and closing the door. "Oh my god," she says much more quietly. She crosses about halfway over to Stark, far enough to definitely be out of sight from the stairs. Don't get all worked up Lichfield. "Oh my god." ...Too late. "Jesus Christ, Tony, I thought you were dead." She'll just um. Be over here.

[anthony_e_stark]

Tony raises his brows and widens his eyes at her, shuffling around from behind the corner. "Hello to you, too," He manages once he realizes he doesn't remember what time it is, at this point. Afternoon? Evening? Who even knows. Not him, that's for sure.

"I feel pretty lively," Tony says, patting his chest curiously and trying for a disarming smile but mostly, that fades quickly. And he just ends up frowning vaguely after. She looks so upset. "It's alright, I'm okay." Let's not talk about how okay is an especially temporary state of being right now. Okay is afforded because of a last-ditch effort on SHIELD's part. Okay comes with a very short expiration date, this time. It's better than the one he had yesterday, at least.

"I'm okay," He repeats. And then, motions for her to come over. It's the universal hug sign. While he's standing there in his bathrobe, feeling like he's been run over by several trucks.

[lichfield]

"Don't start that shit with me," Caroline snaps, even as she's crossing the rest of the gap. She'll take that hug. She'll take a lot of that hug. She's probably hugging way too tightly, honestly, but Caroline decides not to do anything about that until Tony complains. In the meantime, she'll just sigh and stay in this hug way too long.

"What the hell is going on here anyway?" she asks finally, muffled by... his bathrobe? His very soft bathrobe. Of course he's wandering around in a bathrobe at night. He's Tony Stark.

[anthony_e_stark]

By the time Caroline's mostly all the way over to him, Tony's making grabby hands at her. It's a good thing she's apparently very enthusiastic about the hugging because he very insistently pulls her into it. His face ends up kind of in her hair. She's squeezing very hard and chest aches from it, but he's alright with that. "What?" Tony sighs after half a beat. "Alright, I'm not okay okay. But I've got a little time."

"SHIELD "helping" me produce another golden egg," He can't help but laugh a little at her being muffled by his robe. The laughter dies pretty swiftly, though. He frowns a little and buries his face against her shoulder and neck a little. "I'm sorry I didn't hold up my end of our deal. I should've left the party with you."

He shouldn't have gone at all. They should have cancelled or just gotten in one of his stupid cars and driven anywhere else. But Tony had to be the first person to find out how liquor mixes with high levels of palladium toxicity. And that's 'badly', for the record. Very badly. No changing that now, unfortunately.

[lichfield]

"What the hell is that?" Caroline grumps into the general vicinity of Tony's collarbone. "And why can they get away with locking up a dying man?" She loosens her grip a little and slides one hand up to the back of Tony's head. She's not quite playing with his hair, but she probably will be in a minute.

She... didn't expect an apology at all. That's. Huh. "I kind of forgot about that in the ensuing sneaking around and breaking into your house, honestly." But yeah, that was a thing that happened. Caroline shrugs. "I just figured you changed your mind once the party got going."

[anthony_e_stark]

"Secret government agency thing. Men in black, that sort of stuff," Tony answers, for lack of a better way of explaining. The hand going up his back is a very welcome distraction, there. "Actually, uh... SHIELD's stepping in is what's kept me alive."

He's less happy about being confined, but who would expect hi to be? Tony Stark doesn't do rules. Or cages.

"I don't actually remember most of the party," He admits without much reluctance, apparently just settling into the hug more. He's not planning on going anywhere anytime soon. "And what I do remember was pretty genuinely miserable. Also, breaking in? You - wait, I guess that would be how you got in." Stupid question.

[lichfield]

Oh. Well uh. Maybe she shouldn't feed Beigent Bland his own spine after all. "Huh. What are they keeping you alive for then?" And how long will they be keeping Tony alive? But Caroline's not going to ask that. She doesn't really want to know just now.

She gives in and starts actually playing with his hair finally. Which is still stupidly floofy, by the way. "Well shit." She feels like a jerk now. "I got stuck herding a bunch of guests around or I would have seen. I'm sorry." She'll just uh. Burrow into this hug a little more. Somehow.

"Yeah, I came in through your hilarious action movie vents," Caroline adds after a long moment. "The cool part was getting through the fake construction zone, though." It might not be the wisest idea ever to brag about this, but what the hell. She'll brag a little.

[anthony_e_stark]

"So I can save myself, maybe," Tony says with a wince she won't see. That's a very big maybe, there. Everything he's seen in the materials provided to him have been so much useless crap. If SHIELD wanted him to spend his final days irritated with pointless nostalgia about his father, then mission accomplished.

"It's alright. I mean, nothing we can do about it now," He shrugs a little, making a small pleased noise at the fingers in his hair.

"Hey, I knew those would come in handy one day," He laughs a little then pauses rather abruptly. "Fake construction zone?"

[lichfield]

Caroline goes very still. SHIELD has him working on a cure? They think there's a cure. You can make as many pleased noises as you like, Tony, but you're not going to distract Caroline from this. She pulls back a little. "You're working on a cure?"

Then she starts trying to wriggle out of the hug. It's a little like when you pick up a cat who doesn't want to be picked up. "Let's get back to work then. What were you working on when I got here?" She's got about fifty other questions, but this is Tony. He likes talking about what he's working on; he'll probably answer most of those questions before she can ask them.

[anthony_e_stark]

"I was. Am. Am working on it," Tony starts, trying to hold her in the hug still - without much luck. She's very determinedly wriggly and Tony... well, Tony's not at his best, at the moment. SHIELD's help only did so much. Sad weak noodle arms. Why. He grumbles quietly.

"Old notes, archival footage. SHIELD guys brought in dad's old diorama," He gestures vaguely in the direction of the half-rebuilt Stark Expo model. "They helpfully took it apart entirely, too. What great guys. You said something about a construction zone...?"

[lichfield]

Caroline heads for the half-together model. "Is this thing actually necessary for what you're doing?" She pokes at a tree. What, is there a secret code in it or something?

She belatedly turns back to Tony. "Oh yeah. There's a fake construction zone set up around your house, complete with fake construction workers. All the detour options take you nowhere near the house." She pokes the tree again. "I had to ditch my car and sneak in." At least it's not a nice car she's probably losing. Caroline hadn't yet gotten around to getting a new car. Too busy.

[anthony_e_stark]

Tony flattens his lips together unhappily. He's not overly accustomed to feeling helpless, and though he's been getting acquainted with the feeling as of late, he still resents and hates every second of it. "I don't know," He admits, without much hesitation. "Everything I've gone through has been entirely useless. There's nothing here that points me in any direction besides the family plot. I'm grasping at straws, here."

He wanders around back over to the diorama and the assortment of not-at-all-helpful bullshit SHIELD provided. "I think they're more concerned with keeping me inside than keeping anyone out," He stops for a moment to snap another concession stand in place. "I'm once again continiously impressed by your ninja skills though."

And by SHIELD's incompetence.

[lichfield]

Caroline turns to face Tony fully. "So. Is it the arc reactor? What's going on, fill me in so I can help you look over these notes again." Not that she expects to find much where Tony Stark can't, but he's dying and hungover and really not at his best. The extra eyes could make the difference. "Or the footage. Hell, I'll put Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood here together if you want."

She buffs her nails on her shirt and then inspects them in the universal 'yeah, I'm good' gesture. "Well, you know. Sneaking past government spooks, yelling at CEOs. I do it all, really." She waits a beat. "Except windows, I don't do windows."

[anthony_e_stark]

Tony furrows his brows together, lips going thin in a strained 'welllllll' expression. She'd figured it out before this, when he was still attempting to keep it mostly to himself. Now, he can't quite do that. "It's the arc reactor. It's the palladium core, but that's necessary to conduct--" He stops himself in his tracks there. "I'll spare you the jargon. Let's just get the Neighborhood of Make-Believe back together and I'll dig through the old celluloid again."

He doesn't even get a chance to respond to anything else. There's the sounds of a very familiar be-suited SHIELD agent wandering down the stairs to check up on him, suddenly. Captain Mayonnaise. Lovely.

Tony spins on his heels to urge Caroline to hide - something he regrets immediately - only to find... where'd she go? He blinks dizzily at where Caroline had been, just a moment before.

[lichfield]

As soon as she hears another person headed their way, Caroline disappears. She ends up out of sight behind one of the many way taller than her things and crouched down out of line of sight. Hopefully this clown doesn't hang around long. They've got work to do. She mostly tunes him out. Tony's needling him and asking for coffee and donuts and god knows what else, when...

"I'm not here for that," the agent chirps, gleeful in a very bland sort of way. "Director Fury authorized me to use any means necessary to keep you on task. If you attempt to leave, or play any games I will taze you and watch Supernanny while you drool into the carpet. Okay?"

Nope. Nope nope nope. And suddenly where there was no one, there's Caroline. Right behind Agent Asshole with a knife digging into his throat and a firm grip on his right wrist. "I don't think so. I even see you reach for a taser and I will cut both your damn hands off and feed you the taser." She twitches her arm a little, just enough to nick the skin and sting. "Okay?" she adds in a sickeningly sweet voice.

[anthony_e_stark]

"Bored already, Coulson?" Tony's brain rushes to catch up. God, he could use some coffee - actually. That's an idea. He wheels back around to greet the SHIELD agent with a tight, incredibly fake-friendly smile. He wants something. He's not going to take no for an answer, either. "Coffee," He starts. "1 venti soy caramel macchiato, 3 extra shots, 2 tall no water no foam 7 pump chia latte--" He's more than happy to keep reeling off of his order, but Coulson cuts him off.


He purses his lips together while Coulson rattles off that threat in a strange combination of giddy and paper-pusher bland. He doesn't get much chance to respond before a very small redhead more or less suddenly materializes behind Agent Wonderbread. There's a metallic glint from near Coulson's throat; it takes Tony a moment for his brain to parse that it's a knife. His brain fires in overdrive. She seems genuine. Concerned about him, his wellbeing. Protective - and stealthy, terrifying, possessing of skills not listed on her CV. Another Rushman? Natalie - Natasha - whatever her name is, that's who scouted her out of the potentials. SHIELD? Someone else? Does it matter? He doesn't like the alphabet soup spy games, not when he's getting shuffled around in the middle of them. He also doesn't like Coulson. And while he can appreciate a tit for tat threat, she's very obviously not kidding. A SHIELD agent is very close to being dead on his rug.

He feels a little light headed and that's only partially the palladium's fault, he's sure.

"I think that's your cue to go get us the Starbucks I was asking for," Tony says remarkably good-naturedly given that his heart and his stomach might have temporarily switched places. "And some donuts, too."

[lichfield]

There's a brief pause while the wheels audibly turn in Agent Deadman's head. Caroline doesn't know just what he has to consider here, but she'll give him a moment. Mostly because she feels bad about killing a man in front of Tony.

"I need to call this in," he says finally, leaning away from the knife slightly and eyeing her over his shoulder.

Caroline squints up at him. "Does that end with a bunch of you coming back to shoot me?"

Agent Asshole looks cheerful again, oh boy. "Probably not. We thought you might turn up, Miss Lichfield." He gives her a bland little smile. "I'm Agent Coulson with--"

"I literally have no fucks to give about your creepy government agency," Caroline snaps. She's creeped out he knows her name, though she really shouldn't be surprised.

"We didn't expect you this soon, however," he continues like she didn't interrupt. "Your loyalty is really touching. Now, if you'll excuse me." And suddenly, somehow, he's broken out of her grasp and is casually strolling away. The fuck.

[anthony_e_stark]

Tony's no real stranger to killing, directly or indirectly. It was - still might be, technically - the family business.

But he doesn't want to watch someone bleed out on his lab floor. All he can do is give Caroline a Look and hope she doesn't end up giving Coulson the early retirement treatment. He's more than a little grateful when the agent breaks free of Caroline and moves to leave.

"I wasn't kidding about the coffee," Tony calls out at the back of Coulson's head. The agent, of course, completely ignores him.

That leaves him alone with Caroline again. Caroline, him, a huge amount of useless nostalgia to sort through. And now... whatever that was. Coulson mentioned Lichfield's loyalty, and that sits oddly with Tony. Loyalty to whom?

He forces the tension out of his jaw and turns his attention back to the diorama. He ambles back over to it, pausing to dig out the old assembly papers - she won't know the old expo layout, probably. "So where'd you learn the knife stuff?" And the ninja stuff, and the generally being terrifying... He shuffles the dumb model buildings around until he's got the correct central plaza layout, glancing back at Caroline only briefly to ask, cheerfully, "Spy school with Natnat?"

[lichfield]

Caroline squints at Coulson as he leaves the lab. Strangely enough, she's pretty sure he's telling the truth. And well, if the goal is to get Tony to work on a cure, now he has a competent helper without SHIELD having to go collect one. She flips her knife closed and slips it back into her pocket. When she finally turns back to Tony, he's at the diorama again.

Well shit. She always knew that question would come up if she worked here long enough. Given all the other bullshit going on lately, Caroline figures she owes Tony an actual answer. Even if she ends up fired after the immediate crisis is over. "Well I--" Record scratch. Wait. What?

"Spy school?"

[anthony_e_stark]

This stupid Stark Expo model probably won't get him anywhere. It's the most useless antique of all the useless antiques he has laying around. He still works at it, though.

"Spy school," Tony repeats. If he's incredulous, he's not showing it. He just keeps piecing together the diorama, stopping to shove the large baseboards of it together properly. Ok, he's made progress, it looks... like a half completed lego set. Shit. "Whatever training ends in being ridiculously stealthy and kinda stabby. Mind helping me with this stupid thing, by the way?"

[lichfield]

Caroline's off balance from Agent Creepy, so she just kind of stares at Tony for a minute. "No," she says slowly. "No spy school. Just the normal kind of shady past. Working for mob guys and such. Like you do." There. That's the very short version.

She belatedly walks over to help put the model together. There are... a lot of pieces. Oh thank god, those papers are directions. Caroline picks up the instructions and leafs through them. She starts popping trees and little buildings into place, one eye on the diagram.

"Hang on," she says after a while. "What was that about Rushman?" 'Spy school with Natnat.' The hell does that mean?

[anthony_e_stark]

"Oh, well, that's everyone's highschool summer job," Tony's fortunately - or unfortunately, depending - able to rebuild Howard's personal vision of Tomorrowland on recall alone, no Ikea instructions necessary. Her question shouldn't surprise him - even if she's faking things, she'd probably ask - and yet...

"You didn't know?" He pauses for a brief moment to glance over at her, eyebrows raised. He sounds a little like he's engaging in regular water-cooler gossip, not outing a spy. "Natalie's not actually Natalie. She's with SHIELD."

He considers the diorama, then settles on wandering back over to shuffle through all the old footage clips he'd been left with. She's got the Land of Make-Believe under control. "What was that about working for the mob?"

[lichfield]

Caroline has to almost throw the papers and little plastic whosit down onto the table so she doesn't break or tear anything. "She's what?"

Rushman works for SHIELD. Rushman works for SHIELD. Caroline clenches her fists and makes a poorly muffled sound of incoherent rage. Don't break anything, Lichfield, this isn't your stuff. "I swear to god, I'm gonna--" she trails off abruptly as her brain catches up and she realizes something. Oh shit.

"Oh god," Caroline says after a long moment. "You're going to have to fire me when this is all over, aren't you?" She slumps into a nearby chair. "Rush-- whatever her name is, she's the one who hired me. Shit." She belatedly picks the little building back up from where she dropped it and sticks it in place. God fucking damn it.

[anthony_e_stark]

"A SHIELD operative," Tony spells it out. "Mole, plant, whatever lingo works best." He's not really sure what verbage is best to use, there.

The searching is suddenly halted when he hears that angry noise Caroline makes. He stands there a little awkwardly, film reel in his hands, mouth twisted down into a very genuine frown.

"I don't know," He says quietly, after a very long moment. "Just help me get through this right now, okay? Later is something I'll deal with when it happens." If it happens. He looks down at the reel's case, the label. Outtakes. Maybe it'll be funny. "And if I fail and die, I won't have to."

That's probably not a good thing to say, but that's pure Stark for you.

[lichfield]

Caroline takes a deep breath and picks the instructions back up. Between her background and now this, she's probably double fired. Somehow. ...Or not. She looks up from the model at To-- Stark's tone of voice. She'd go over there if today weren't 'everything is a lie' day. Shit.

"Right," she says slowly, turning back to the model. There are way too many pieces to this thing. Time to get to work. "You can always fire me later." Caroline starts popping more little buildings back into place at a much faster pace.

Stark. She looks up long enough to give him a half glare over her shoulder. "Knock it off. You're Tony Stark, failing is what your competitors do."

[anthony_e_stark]

Outtakes. Some of these are probably him interrupting Howard, actually. It's kind of hilarious and maybe even ironic (of the likely Morissette variety of irony) that Tony's stuck hoping Howard can somehow pull a miracle out of his ass from beyond the grave. He's not happy about it, either.

"Yeah," He laughs softly. "I can."

His frown fades a little at the glare and what comes after it. He wishes he had a drink. Maybe a nap. Even with SHIELD's temporary panacea, he's tired, achy. Tony visibly shakes it all off and starts prying open the case in his hands.

"Back to work, Lichfield." Is this thing childproof? Really? It comes loose with a satisfying snap eventually, leaving him with very old fashioned celluloid to deal with. "Clock's ticking."