Glass Heart

Wasting no time after she’d left Tony’s side in his bedroom, Scarlett hurried out of his room and down the hallway in the darkness. She found she was in luck with what she’d found on the laptop she’d swiped from his nightstand. Every program was still logged in with his master password and accessible to anyone who got their hands on it.

Guilt ached in the pit of her stomach once again, making her feel sick. She simply hoped that Tony would understand why she had to do what she was about to do in the long term situation. She would never be able to fully accept him into any part of her life if she didn’t know the truth about his motives and sometimes getting to the truth meant she had to get her hands a little dirty.

Sensing that if she didn’t act quickly, the above average home security would kick in soon enough and wake Tony as well as alert authorities, Scarlett tapped away at the keyboard in front of her once she’d situated herself on the bed of her temporary room. Her guess was that she had a very short window to disable to Jarvis computer if it hadn’t already started taking steps to lock her out. Thankfully after playing around in the mainframe downstairs in order to assist the Iron Man weapon when it had malfunctioned on the highway a few days prior, Scarlett had a good idea of what she was up against and what she would find when she started to access Jarvis’ files.

Before the security system could become alert and aware of her motives she’d managed to find her way into mobile controls for the Jarvis computer system via the laptop. Immediately she muted his vocal functions and sighed with relief when the command wasn’t rejected. That wasn’t the only thing she needed to do before she snooped about Tony’s files, it was merely the beginning of a long laundry list of things that needed to be done. Looking around the bedroom that had provided her with nothing but terrible nightmares since her arrival, she knew some housekeeping of Tony’s systems would be required before she made a further mess out of his things.

Fingers continuing away on the keyboard, and taking a bit longer than she would’ve liked to admit given her prowess with a computer, Scarlett managed to disable the wireless networks in the house that would allow access to the outside world as well as all mobile communications that would allow others to be notified of what she was doing within the Stark mansion. Once she was sure that she wouldn’t be caught by anyone outside of the house for at least a few hours, Scarlett left the laptop alone on the bed.

Digging through the closet on the far end of the room that had been stocked with new clothing that had been ordered for her thanks to Pepper and Jarvis, she found a nice pair of jeans and a white t-shirt. Her leg winced at the memory of what had happened the last time she’d put jeans on so she discarded the clothing she’d considered and picked out a comfortable and casual looking summery dress. True, dresses were harder to fight in but at least she wouldn’t be convulsing on the floor somewhere if her leg had a bad reaction to the jeans.

The fear was irrational that it would happen a second time, but there had been enough fear and vulnerability that had been caused by the jeans she’d worn in an attempt to be practical that she was willing to avoid wearing them a second time. Besides, the worst thing that could happen if she was caught in a fight would be that she would flash her panties to the world and in reality, she didn’t care all that much about such a thing.

After deciding on her clothing she did the minimum amount of first aid required on her wounds that would allow her to continue on with her plans without worrying about infection or further aches. She then got changed into the clothing she’d picked out for her excursion and did a double check on her wounds. Packing a small bag, she filled it with makeup and other necessities so she could at least make some of her bruises disappear when she went out into the world. Slipping her tangled hair back into a loose ponytail, Scarlett decided it was time to finally get to work.

Putting on a pair of heels and about to pick up the computer she’d rested on the bed, Scarlett hesitated and decided against it. Walking over to the wall of the bedroom near the doorway, she touched her palm against it. While she knew that it might be ridiculous for her to be doing what she was about to do, she couldn’t help herself. Jarvis had given her his trust on multiple occasions and she was well on her way to violating him. Even if he was just a computer, she had felt there was a bond between them.

“I’m sorry for what I’m about to do to you, Jarvis. Someday you’ll understand why I’m doing it and I hope you’ll be able to forgive me.” The house security hadn’t been completely disabled yet so she hoped he could hear her, even if he couldn’t respond to her. It was absurd, of course, to feel bad about what she was doing to a computer, but at the same time she felt like that Jarvis was far more than that. He’d become a friend of hers over the past few days and she felt bad having to take advantage of him in her pursuit of the truth.

She avoided thinking about Tony entirely up to that point because she knew that would lead to her downfall in her plans for the night. But every time she closed her eyes for more than just a blink, she could see the look of passion and excitement on his face, or feel his stubble gracing her chin. Getting the shivers at the idea of it, she moved away from the wall, picked up the laptop she’d stolen from Tony’s room and headed downstairs to the living room.

Stopping there, she picked up the wires that Tony had discarded earlier in the day when he’d been working on the phone that he had planned to provide her with at a later time. She wondered if he would bother to give that to her after what she was about to do to his house. It was quite possible she was going to spend at least a night in jail for breaking into his system and violating his security.

Heading down the stairs to Tony’s glorified garage after retrieving the wires, Scarlett stopped at the security door and inspected the panel. She’d seen Tony use it a number of times now but hadn’t bothered to pay attention to the code he’d punched in each time. After disabling Jarvis’ communication functions she knew there was no way the computer was going to allow her access. So instead, Scarlett plugged the wires she’d taken from upstairs into the USB ports in the laptop and then set it down gently on one of the steps.

Pulling the casing off of the sophisticated security lock, Scarlett picked the laptop back up and modified the end of the wire so she could attach the laptop to the security panel. Typing away at the keyboard, Scarlett had to force her way past the firewall on the security lock, which she hadn’t found surprising to be in existence. Tony’s Mark suits were in the room beyond this door and she was sure that the highest security would be on those things in particular and the other plans he had involving the suits and his Iron Man missions.

Thankfully, Scarlett had very little interest in any of his super hero business. After twenty minutes of furious typing and artfully working her way through Tony’s beautiful written coding, the security panel clicked, made a positive beeping sound and the door swung open in front of her. Disconnecting the wires from the laptop, Scarlett left them hanging from the security door and then walked into the now accessible garage. In a way she was proud of what she’d done. Not many could boast that they’d gotten as far as she had when hacking through any of Stark’s Technologies.

Closing the laptop since it was no longer necessary, Scarlett walked over to the computer desk in the center of the room and sat down in the comfortable office chair. After setting down the laptop behind her, she looked at the screens that displayed Tony’s various car collections on their screen savers on the front end of the desk.

“No offense Jarvis, but I can’t have you looking at what I’m doing here.” Scarlett woke up Tony’s computer to find a password protected welcome screen, which didn’t surprise her very much. It wouldn’t take her long to bypass the computer security and access the Jarvis controls which she found were based within the garage computer and backed up in a high security area offsite. It wouldn’t matter that there was a backup anywhere since she’d cut off communication to anywhere outside of the house. Scarlett wasn’t aiming to hurt Jarvis’ programming or destroy his systems. She merely wanted to flip the off switch for a few hours so she could get the information she needed without being spied on.

It took her nearly an hour, but Scarlett managed to disable the Jarvis system entirely after only having to restart two or three times. The whole house seemed somehow less inviting with it turned off. The concrete walls and white sterile décor of Tony’s extremely post modern home seemed more corporate like without the warming presence of the often snarky home computer that acted as his butler.

Getting the chills at the thought, Scarlett spun around in the office chair, rather pleased with her technological accomplishments for the night. While she was exhausted, she would have to forego any plans to rest for the time being, despite how her body and her wounds sorely needed it. After years of having been practically a spy, Scarlett could handle a night without sleep easier than she liked to admit. And after many a restless night spent in captivity with MedCo, she’d actually been struggling to sleep for more than an hour or two without having terrible nightmares anyway. Ever since she’d escaped, sleep had no longer been a refuge, but a place where her subconscious tortured her almost as terribly as those who had actually tortured her.

Scarlett doubted that what she was doing was going to help the demons in her head find some peace, but it needed to be done regardless. Cracking her knuckles to give her fingers a little reprieve, Scarlett started searching around Tony’s desk for something that she could use to download the information she required onto. She could, of course, simply search through the information now and find what she was looking for but it wasn’t as simple as that. She wasn’t sure how much time she would actually have to search through files before she was discovered in the garage. So instead, Scarlett would find somewhere to backup Tony’s files and then access them later on a private device so she should take her time finding what she needed.

In a bottom drawer of the desk, she found a handful of mobile memory devices including external hard drives and memory sticks. It looked like Tony had a stash of them lying around just in case they were needed for meetings in other places, or in last minute situations. Picking up one of the higher capacity memory sticks, Scarlett plugged it into the computer and opened the drive to see if there was anything important she’d be erasing.

She didn’t want to screw Tony in the long run by destroying something that was important to him, she simply wanted to know the truth. Stealing and manipulating was the only way she knew how to get it.

On the pen drive she found some files from three years prior that looked like they were simply excel spreadsheets he would bring with him to use during a business presentation. Just in case he still needed them, Scarlett copied them into a folder hidden deep within the computer’s database. If he ever needed them, Jarvis’ search would likely be capable of finding them without any trouble. She changed the date of the computer for file creation and then set it back to normal so that when Jarvis rebooted it would look like nothing had actually been altered at that time. It was clear that this wasn’t Scarlett’s first rodeo.

Scarlett then reformatted the pen drive so she would be able to use it without any of the information that had once been on it and just in case there were any tracking systems on it. The last thing she wanted would be to plug it into another machine and for it to report to Tony’s computers where it’d been used. Searching through Tony’s files for what she deemed would be important, she copied the private files and corporate files onto the drive.

This process took much longer than she had hoped it would. Scarlett nearly fell asleep while waiting for the files to copy over from the hard drive. The process had only needed her attention a heedful of times to get through the various security access points that would grant her the ability to download his more important corporate files. She was guessing that anything she was hunting for would be hidden within corporate files and not personal ones. The only reason she was bothering with personal files was to see if he knew more about MedCo than he was letting on.

If Tony had any communication with MedCo in the last few years, it would be in those files. She even copied his browser history so she could make sure that nothing had been done on a server. While she was doing that, she couldn’t help but think of the various disturbing things that might be within Tony’s browser history, but even weeding through a sea of pornography websites would be worth it if it got her one step closer to finding out the truth.

Once she was sure that she’d copied every bit of important information, Scarlett removed the pen drive and slipped it into her bra, hidden away since she didn’t have pockets on this particular dress she’d chosen to wear. As far as she was concerned, that was the only downfall to dresses; the lack of pockets. She had that bag filled with makeup and other necessities as well, but she wanted to keep the pen drive close to her at all times, just in case.

Leaning back in the chair once again Scarlett knew there was no way to hide turning off Jarvis or having violated Tony’s system as much as she wished she could keep what she’d done hidden. Tony’s systems were too sophisticated and the artificial intelligence within Jarvis would more than likely remember everything she’d done up until the moment she’d completely disabled him.

She allowed the guilt to eat away at her stomach for the hundredth time that night. Tony had just started to trust her. He’d gone out of his way to take care of her from the moment of her arrival and comfort her when she had been in pain and what had she done in return? She’d violated his trust, been reckless with her health, and now she was breaking into his computers and stealing his important documents.

Maybe he’d see it as her playing him at his own game and proving her dominance in their relationship if she was lucky. She was sure he hadn’t taken her seriously as an engineer so if nothing else he’d know what she was capable of now. Tony Stark’s home had been rumored to be one of the most sophisticated security systems in the world and she’d blown through it in a handful of hours. Then of course there was the simple fact that Scarlett had essentially gotten Tony drunk and used him for sex. Even though that wasn’t truly the case, she had to keep reminding herself that it had to be all there was to it. She’d beaten him at his own game and used him before he could use her.

How many times had he done that to women in the past? How many women had woken up ashamed of themselves and alone in his bed because he had gotten what he wanted from them and no longer required their services after one too many drinks? Surely, he deserved a taste of his own medicine every once in awhile.

If that was the case then why was she feeling so guilty? Tapping at the computer again, Scarlett opened the garage door and remotely started one of the cars. She decided that the Aston Martin she’d drooled over earlier in the week would be sufficient for what she planned on doing. Her chest stung and while she was willing to write off the pain to the fact that she hadn’t properly cleaned any wounds and was now sleep deprived, somehow she knew in her gut it was for completely different reasons.

Once she’d gotten the access to her joy ride she hesitated and simply stared at the car that was waiting for her to get into it. It was a beautiful car, one of the most beautiful she’d ever seen in her life. Tony had a car collection that was so similar to her interests it was hard to believe. Even then, Scarlett had a hard time convincing herself it was time to get out of her chair and move onto the next phase of her search for the truth.

She didn’t want to leave even though she knew it’d be temporary. She wanted to go back upstairs and crawl into bed with Tony. More than anything she wanted to wake him up and apologize for everything she’d done, the lies she’d told, and simply confess the truth and clear her conscience for once in her life. She wanted to tell him about Scott and how he’d been her lover in a way, she wanted to tell him about the events that had led up to her being taken by MedCo in the first place. More than anything she wanted to come clean.

But what she wanted would have to wait. What she wanted always had to wait. In the bigger picture, Scarlett knew what she wanted rarely mattered at all. That had been the biggest theme in her life, even in her youth. The greater good, the bigger cause was what mattered and her petty needs and wants had no business getting in the way of it. She’d already caused enough trouble simply developing feelings for Tony, however screwed up they were. Was it awful that for once, she wanted something simply because she wanted it and not for mission or cause? Now was not the time for this crisis of identity.

Not only that but she was more than positive that what she’d done was going to hurt Tony. Then again, what if he had wanted to use her? Hadn’t he been trying to get her naked since the moment she woke up in his garage? His reputation was being the ultimate ladies man. It was possible he had been using her the whole time and was a talented enough actor that he’d duped her. Maybe he’d be more than happy to get rid of her after this and to have to spare her the awkward morning after. She would simply be giving him an excuse to throw her out instead of waiting for one that he’d come up with. At least this way, things would end on her terms and without further humiliation.

Still resisting leaving, Scarlett sat for a good forty minutes, just staring at the car until it turned off automatically from having been idle for too long. Prompted to finally make a move thanks to the car, she turned the engine back on, found the keys for it in a drawer nearby and then turned back to the computer.

There was one last thing she would have to do to put her mark on the house she was about to leave. Leaning over the computer, she started to type again reluctantly. She would have to go in and delete any of the actions that had been completed since she touched the computer. After that she made a point to disable every electronic device in the Stark house, including other cars and every computer. She created a simple security lock on them, devised from Tony’s home security settings so it would delay the owner of the house for just a few more moments when he realized what was afoot. Then she shut down the computer and unplugged every wire that was attached to the back of it.

Once the deed had been done, the house seemed eerily quiet and almost abandoned. It was astounding how much Tony Stark relied on technology to get him by. The sun was rising on the horizon, filling the garage door opening with orange glow of impending daylight. Scarlett knew that Pepper would be arriving at any moment to check on them and she would have to get out of there if she were to complete the final part of her plan.

Scarlett would need a device that she could customize and make her own. She would stop at an electronics store and buy herself a laptop that she could shield against Tony’s computer systems so she could go through the files she’d just taken the time to steal undetected. Of course, she was sure that eventually Tony would figure out what she had done and why, but as long as she could delay that for a period of time she’d be in the clear.

Depending on what she found, Scarlett wouldn’t mind telling Tony what she was looking for. That was, of course, if Tony didn’t freak out after finding out she’d broken past his security and into his personal files and then consequently send her to jail for the night or perhaps longer. If that was the case then she would very likely have to start getting her affairs back in order and make a break for it. It wasn’t what she wanted to do, but she’d come to realize over the days past that what she wanted in life didn’t truly matter unless she was really drunk and had a moment of weakness like she had the night before with Tony. He had already trusted her, sleeping with him had been unnecessary. Shaking the thought from her head, she once more reaffirmed internally that she’d done what she’d had to do.

Torn once again with what was morally correct, Scarlett placed her elbows on the computer desk and held her head in her hands. Her body was sore and aching, she was exhausted, hungry, and she was sure at least a little hung over. Why couldn’t she just turn everything back on, head back upstairs and apologize for what she’d tried to do?

She knew exactly why she couldn’t and her argument had finally become circular enough to get her up from her chair. What happened to the cold woman who had been able to turn her emotions off entirely while she got a job done? Had something broken in her head so severely while she’d been in Afghanistan that she couldn’t even complete a simple data retrieval job like the one she’d committed to in order to get revenge on MedCo?

“Hello?” An unfamiliar female voice echoed through the garage. Scarlett immediately turned to be on her guard. It wasn’t Pepper, so she hadn’t been caught but still a visitor hadn’t quite been on Scarlett’s agenda for the morning. Had she wasted that much time lost in thought that it was a late enough hour for guests to be arriving at the Stark mansion?

Getting up and walking toward the car at the end of the garage, she saw the silhouette of a rather exhausted looking woman in a business suit, holding a clipboard and a stack of files under her arm standing in the entryway of the garage.

“I tried to ring the doorbell upstairs at the front door but no one answered. I rang it quite a few times too…” Her voice was hesitant like she was afraid of interrupting what Scarlett was doing. Scarlett approached the woman whose brown hair was loosely pulled back into a ponytail, her bangs just above her brows. She was obviously from some kind of important agency or corporation, and if she was there for Scarlett she was sure her gun would’ve been drawn already. In fact, the young woman didn’t look armed at all so Scarlett’s nerves lessened.

“Sorry about that, I must not have heard it.” Scarlett was careful with her words. It was dangerous to reveal to strangers too much about her. The less other people knew, the better. “What are you doing here?”

Clearly the guest thought this was a peculiar way to phrase her question but then nodded her head and held out the files in her hand.

“I’m looking for Tony Stark.”

“He’s still asleep, but you can wait upstairs in the living room for him if you like.” Scarlett walked back toward the car then stopped. She shouldn’t let a stranger into Tony’s house, just in case the woman had nefarious motives. The last thing she wanted to do was to be responsible for Tony being caught off guard without his house to protect him from intruders. “Who did you say you were?”

“I didn’t say actually.” The woman walked into the garage and looked around in amazement. She looked as exhausted as Scarlett felt. It seemed she wasn’t the only one who had been having an incredibly long night.

“Well, who are you and what do you need from Tony?” Scarlett glanced out of the garage, hoping the woman wasn’t blocking her exit only to remember the ridiculous size of Tony’s driveway and feel silly for having thought it was a possibility.

“I’m Special Agent Mickey Pierce with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division or S.H.I.E.L.D.” The woman smiled pleasantly and held a hand out for Scarlett to shake. Staring down at the woman’s hand skeptically Scarlett didn’t make a move to return the gesture. Agent Pierce eventually pulled her hand back and wiped it nervously on her skirt. She’d been told that getting to see Tony had never been an easy feat since he sent agents packing before they got close to his front door, but she’d never expected it to be so incredibly uncomfortable and awkward.

“No offense but that sounds made up.” Scarlett cocked a curious eyebrow. She didn’t have time to screw around with some special agent whatever. If Tony woke up before she left, it would throw off her entire plan and force her into a conversation she clearly wasn’t emotionally equipped to have before coffee.

“None taken, we get that a lot.” Agent Pierce smiled, trying to keep her mood pleasant despite how abrasive the woman she’d met was being.

“Can I see your badge? Or some kind of identification proving who you are?” Scarlett felt like she’d heard of S.H.I.E.L.D. before having met this woman and couldn’t place the reason why. But for whatever reason, she had good memories of it so she wasn’t nearly as worried as she should’ve been.

“Yeah, of course.” The agent dug into her coat pocket and pulled out her wallet. She flipped it open and showed the curly haired brunette her S.H.I.E.L.D. identification card. Scarlett plucked it from the woman’s hand and walked away with it. Peering over it, she decided it looked official enough to let the woman get past her. Having the history she had in the underworld, she’d gotten pretty good at identifying fake identification cards.

The agent took this time to observe the woman greeting her. She was pretty, which was not surprising considering Tony Stark’s well known reputation but beyond that she looked tired and a bit worse for wear. There were bruises around her neck and a good number of scratches and miscellaneous bandages scattered about her body. It looked like she’d lost a fight and a pretty severe one at that. Mickey wondered if she’d been at the charity event the night before but never got a chance to ask.

“Alright, Agent Pierce.” Scarlett handed the wallet back to the young woman and then turned on her heels. She opened the driver’s side door of the Aston Martin. “Tony’s upstairs sleeping. You should probably wait in the living room until he’s up. He’s indisposed.”

“I would be more than happy to do that. And if you don’t mind my asking, who are you? Obviously you’re not Pepper Potts, his assistant. I’ve met her on numerous occasions but I don’t recognize you at all.” Agent Pierce walked to the side of the car. Scarlett didn’t have the energy to give a response or to waste any more of her time with the agent that was likely there to discuss some kind of homeland security nonsense with Tony.

So, slamming the door to the Aston Martin, Scarlett ignored the question and drove out of the garage and down the long driveway. Agent Pierce watched the woman take off in the incredibly expensive looking car and furrowed her brow. Was it possible she had just let some intruder steal one of Tony’s cars?

Shrugging it off and deciding that if she had been dangerous, she would’ve done away with her, Agent Pierce started into the garage and looked around. The only thing that seemed to be missing was the car the woman had taken off in. Surely if she was a thief she would’ve taken far more from the Stark household than just a simple car, even if it was a car that was worth more money than she made in a year.

Looking around the room, Agent Pierce cautiously moved forward through the silent garage. Things didn’t look amiss in the Stark Mansion but they sure felt off. There was heaviness in the air. It was like walking into an old abandoned corporate building. Now that she thought about it, nothing was turned on. There were no lights, no sounds, even the Mark suits at the other end of the room seemed, for lack of a better word, dead.

Silently she wondered why her coworkers had told her it was so hard to get in touch with Tony Stark. Sure, initially she’d been ignored at the front door but the pleasant, though a little rude when pressed, woman in the garage had let her right in after properly checking her identification.

The reason she’d been given the job to go visit the Stark Mansion in the first place had been because none of her superiors had wanted to do it. Phil Coulson had come into the office and had mentioned the name Stark and nearly all of her coworkers had turned in their seat to avoid his gaze.

She’d been the unlucky person to only be half paying attention to what was being said. And while she’d had an exceptionally busy night, she’d headed out first thing in the morning to get her work done. She had about twelve other important things to do when she was done at the Stark mansion but for now she had to find Tony Stark.

It didn’t seem like it was going to be a very difficult task at all.