‹ Prequel: Glass Heart
Sequel: Across the Universe

Hollow Scars

Debriefing

Tony had purposely taken his time getting ready for his breakfast meeting simply to irritate the already irritated S.H.I.E.L.D. agent waiting for him around the corner. Agent Pierce needed something from him and he was going to make her work to get it but in the same breath, Tony had his own motives for keeping the meeting and not leaving her high and dry.

It made sense to him in a sense that S.H.I.E.L.D. was going after MedCo, considering that was what S.H.I.E.L.D. did on a daily basis. The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division was an independent syndicate working with the United States government as well as various other governments around the globe in as discreet a manner as possible to seek out international terrorist threats and put a stop to them before they became global epidemics. At least that was what Tony had been told they were doing when Nick Fury had first approached him some time ago. After having consulted for them for a few months Tony had gotten a better grasp of how the place functioned. Not surprisingly, they seemed to function like any other shady branch of government such as the CIA or FBI just with less legal red tape to go through.

Tony guessed that on top of seeking out and putting a stop to terrorist functions, being the sort of business that was looking to make a preemptive strike and get away with as little destruction as possible, S.H.I.E.L.D. was very likely creating and storing weapons along with complex back up plans in case any of their attempts to keep global enemies at bay went awry.

While he was most likely a bit of a hypocrite for judging S.H.I.E.L.D. so harshly for their practices, considering he’d been the CEO of the leading company in weapons technology in the world from the time he was old enough to legally step up as chair, Tony didn’t like the shady way S.H.I.E.L.D. handled their business. Secrecy, when it came to the protection of the ordinary citizen who didn’t need to know they were in danger if the threat wasn’t immediate was fine, but the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., the ever intimidating, in a pirate sort of way, Nick Fury, had a tendency to keep information from the people working for him. Speaking from experience, lack of communication usually meant there was something to hide.

Those who ran their organizations on a need to know basis were on Tony’s shit list immediately. It was true that he didn’t tell his employees everything that went on at Stark Industries but if it was in regards to the projects they were working on he made sure they knew all the risks and every tiny little detail.

Working with S.H.I.E.L.D. was very similar to gambling for Tony. He’d become a consultant for them after one of their agents, Natasha Romanoff also known as Black Widow, had been placed under cover in Stark Industries to keep an eye on him and had deemed him unfit to be a part of something called the Avengers Initiative.

Tony had secretly obsessed over the initiative and the notion of a team of superb people who would unite and protect the world from harm and had harassed Director Fury and one of the lesser agents he’d become familiar with over the past few years, Phil Coulson, about it every time he saw them. Unfortunately just a month or so before he’d found Scarlett he’d heard that the project had been deemed “unfeasible” and had been scrapped. Even when hacking through S.H.I.E.L.D. computers, Tony hadn’t been able to find anything on the project.

After taking a quick shower and changing into a comfortable but expensive pair of blue jeans, a worn Led Zeppelin t-shirt and a sport coat despite the desert heat, Tony sat down on the edge of the messy bed he’d displaced to escape from his handcuffs only moments prior.

Glancing back at the messy sheets Tony smiled at the memory of the night before. Chasing Scarlett from country to country had its benefits but at the same time he was growing weary and increasingly worried as he continued. It wasn’t in his nature to share that with Scarlett, but the feelings were there nonetheless. There was a feeling in his gut that was telling him if he didn’t get her to go home soon then he never would.

He couldn’t figure out why that feeling made things seem so dire. So another girl got away and he went home alone, it wasn’t like it was the first failed relationship Tony Stark had seen in his years. Something was different this time. There was a tug with Scarlett where there had never been a tug before with women prior. Tony had always stumbled into relationships in the past, not purposely pursued them.

Despite his weariness, he was sure that even if he gave into temptation and went home, he would set out after her time and time again until he found a way for them to be together. It was the inevitable result of his romance with Scarlett, or at least that’s what he was hoping for.

Shaking away the conflicting thoughts, Tony pulled out the phone he’d rebuilt and brushed his fingers artfully across the screen. Before he left he would give instructions to his home computer so that Jarvis could locate Scarlett, as he’d done many times before, and keep an eye on her while he met with Agent Pierce in hopes of finding out what S.H.I.E.L.D. knew about MedCo.

It was still no surprise to Tony that they were looking into the devious organization considering what he knew about them from his private investigations, firsthand when he’d crashed their party in South Africa, and from what he had learned from his time with Scarlett. But what Tony wanted to know was why S.H.I.E.L.D. was taking such a personal interest in what he was up to with Scarlett. The two of them should’ve been minor blips on their radar considering what MedCo was capable of. It was true they’d left a path of minor destruction in their wake but between the two of them they’d paid for damages and kept others out of harm’s way. In fact, they’d made a pretty damn good team and if anything, S.H.I.E.L.D. should’ve been grateful for that.

Despite it all, Tony thought it was none of Nick Fury’s business what he was up to with Scarlett. That was, of course, unless Nick Fury knew something he didn’t know about what was going on behind MedCo’s closed doors.

Ultimately that was what Tony was really curious about. He wanted to see if he could negotiate for information with Agent Pierce that would help him so he could finally get rid of MedCo and finally start to heal Scarlett’s guilt. After sending a quick update to Pepper in vague terms, Tony maneuvered a few meetings on calendar then hurried out of the room. Downstairs he checked out of the hotel and then casually walked down the block and around the corner to the café that was nearly empty at that time of day. Agent Pierce was seated in the far corner of the patio looking rather disgruntled and looking over the menu for the restaurant with disinterest. It was obvious she had no intentions of ordering anything but was growing tired of waiting.

Satisfaction flooded him when he saw the woman’s irritation in her body language. Deciding to end her misery, Tony walked over to the table and leaned his head forward so that his sunglasses would slide to the end of his nose and he could look at her over the top of them. He gave his best charming smile but still Agent Pierce looked none too pleased to be in his presence.

She was noticeably tired of trying to chase him and Scarlett down. Tony was about to make a sassy remark about breakfast when something brushed against his leg and instead he glanced downward, confused. Pulling his designer sunglasses away from his face and resting them in his coat pocket for safe keeping, Tony spied the friendly looking golden retriever standing next to Mickey, its leash tangled loosely around the woman’s wrist. The dog looked overjoyed to see him and wagged his tail so hard he practically shook his whole body from side to side in hopes of getting some petting time from him.

Tony patted the dog on the head reluctantly then sat in the chair across from Mickey. Leaning back leisurely in it he offering a strained smile, making it clear that he wasn’t pleased to be there with her either and she was wasting his valuable time.

It was a skill Tony had developed at a very young age thanks to his upbringing; the ability to make people feel like they were wasting his precious energy with nothing but a smile. When he cleared his throat and checked his watch with a smack of his lips, Mickey got the hint and placed her briefcase on the table in front of them.

“Mr. Stark…” She began, breaking the silence between them.

“Tony, please.” He held his hand up and winced as though she had caused him some kind of physical pain. Scarlett had ruined him on being called by his last name for awhile after having refused to use his first name for so long.

Tony,” Mickey started again skeptically and purposely haughty, “as earlier stated I came by your house a few weeks ago with some important paperwork that I requested you look over and contact either Agent Coulson or Director Fury in regards to. You never did that. So I’ve been dispatched and forced to track you down personally. Now this matter you chose to ignore has gotten slightly out of hand and has become number one on the S.H.I.E.L.D. priority list since then.”

“And yet they send me an agent who I’ve never had contact with outside of the casual holiday function instead of Coulson or Fury themselves so I’m assuming this isn’t that important…” Tony drifted off with disinterest and turned his eyes toward the golden retriever who had strategically scooted closer to him underneath the table and was now resting his head against Tony’s knee, large puppy dog eyes looking up at him hopefully, while his tongue hung out of the side of his mouth and dripped beads of drool on his jeans. “I assume that this thing is your dog.”

“His name is Pluto.” Mickey made no attempt to call her dog away from Tony. She was actually enjoying how displeased the billionaire looked.

“Wait, Mickey and Pluto? What is this, the Magic Kingdom?” Tony glanced again at the dog but made no attempts to push the creature away. Each time Tony made eye contact with Pluto, however fleeting, the dog wagged its tail in hopes of getting a positive reaction. Mickey was obviously caught off guard by his joke though it hadn’t been the first time she’d heard it. Her cheeks turned pink while she avoided further eye contact.

“You’ve been looking for MedCo and I assumed that you would want to talk to us because we are also looking for MedCo. If you had read that file I sent you, you would’ve seen we were bringing you in to consult on this case.”

“Look, if you’re fishing for information from me, I only know so much and I refuse to give anything to you without something in return.” Tony tapped his index finger on the table in front of him.

“This isn’t some kind of game, Mr. Stark… I mean, Tony.” Mickey cleared her throat quickly and then considered what she could do to try and level the playing field. Her morning hadn’t gone exactly according to plan and she didn’t really have the upper hand to begin with.

“Listen Mickey, your dog is slobbering on my leg, you don’t have a single thing on me or Scarlett, you don’t have enough information to pursue MedCo in the open on your own so I’m not sure why else you’re here other than to trade information with me. If it was any other scenario then S.H.I.E.L.D. would’ve come in here full force and physically pulled me and Scarlett out. You’re fishing for something… if you want information from me, I want information from you. It’s only fair. This is business and in case you didn’t notice, I’m pretty good at business.” Tony tapped his fingers once again on the table.

“He’s not slobbering. He’s hot, we’re in the desert.” Mickey glanced at Pluto who was still desperately seeking Tony’s attention and paying little mind to his owner.

“If you can’t give me anything then I need to be on my way because in case you didn’t notice, my girlfriend sort of ran off again and I need to get her back. You’re in my way.” Tony pointed toward the streets nonchalantly once again letting the agent know that she was wasting his time. Mickey gave Tony the same dark look she had reserved for the menu earlier and then glanced toward her dog for some strange confirmation from him before she started to dig through her briefcase with a slump of her shoulders and a heavy sigh.

“Fine, we’ll do an exchange of information but a limited one. Some of this is above your current security level, Tony. If you want the rest of what we know, you’re going to have to come in to headquarters for debriefing.” Mickey looked superior for a second before she realized that something in her briefcase was very amiss. Peeking underneath the table she looked for the important files she’d once kept organized in folders inside her briefcase and that she had reviewed a second time that morning before realizing they had mysteriously disappeared. Frantically Mickey tugged her briefcase aside in case the files had fallen onto the table without her noticing to no avail. Her files were gone. Tony read the look on her face easily as the color drained from her cheeks.

“Missing something, are we?” Tony leaned back again in his very uncomfortable chair, then snapped his fingers to signal one of the café’s waiters to come over to their table. “Can I get some water… sparkling, if you can, with a lemon on the rim. If you could just set it down there when you get it I have… a peeve about being handed things.” Tony glimpsed back toward Mickey who was now digging frantically through her bag again in search of something she wouldn’t ever find. The panic increased on her face and Tony leaned back in his chair with a chuckle.

“What are you laughing at? It’s not funny! There are, I mean were, important files in there… Oh god, Director Fury is going to kill me.” Mickey pouted as she leaned her head in her hands then spied at Tony from between her fingers and grimaced. “Would you stop smiling like that? Man, what am I going to do? They’re never going to send me on field missions after this!” The woman continued to rant and shake her head, but all the while starting to dig once again through her briefcase hoping she overlooked the folders but was grief stricken all over again when she realized they were still nowhere to be found.

“You’ve been Bond’d.” Tony grinned from ear to ear and then thanked the waiter who brought him his sparkling water and set it down on the table as requested so he wouldn’t have to have it handed to him.

“What?” Mickey dropped her hands with a desperate sound, still looking none too pleased and seemingly not understanding what reference Tony was making.

“Bond’d. It’s kind of like Punk’d but way more frustrating. It doesn’t get any funnier either.” Squeezing the lemon on the side of the glass into the sparkling water, Tony then picked up his glass of water and took a sip of it, watching Mickey over the rim of it.

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.” Mickey continued making a face of annoyance, hr lip curled, but Tony waved her off.

“Scarlett took your files. She’s very James Bond about that stuff. I’ve been considering contacting MI6 actually and seeing if they lost a recruit somewhere along the line…” Tony continued down this train of thought without including Mickey, rubbing his hand over his jaw and staring off into the distance.

“James Bond?” Mickey couldn’t have been more annoyed. Tony simply nodded. “Look, files or not we can still trade for information. I can tell you what I remember from overlooking the files and from my debriefing with Director Fury.” Mickey looked frustrated and worn.

“Don’t worry Mickey, she’ll give them back I’m sure.” Tony tried to alleviate the irritation Mickey was clearly feeling without any success. “I mean, eventually that is. And I can’t really guarantee it but…”

“I’m not holding my breath if it means on counting on either one of you. You’ve been nothing but trouble.” Mickey’s frown melted away when Pluto came over to his master and nuzzled his wet nose against her hand. She scratched behind his ears and felt less stressed thanks to her dog. Tony was still confused by the presence of the dog.

“What is he? Some super bred canine you get to take out on your missions?”

“I’d hardly call this a mission, thank you very much.” Mickey began, the topic clearly being a sensitive one for her. “And no, that’s just my dog.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“Well, they said it was okay for him to stay as long as I sat on the patio with him.” Mickey seemed confused by the question but offered an answer nonetheless.

“Well, that I figured out. I meant… what is your dog doing coming on missions with you?” Tony still looked confused.

“It was going to be a long mission so I asked to bring a companion on the road.”

“You know most people bring other people as companions for this kind of thing.” Tony waved his hand in front of him before drinking from his glass again.

“Well, I’m not most people Mr. Stark.” Mickey was still short with Tony, still caught in thoughts about the trouble she was going to be in when she reported in with the Director that her paperwork had been stolen by the woman she was supposed to be pursuing.

“Touchy, touchy… It’s not my fault that Scarlett stole your folders. I promise to spank her good for you when I find her.” Sipping still at his glass of water, Tony side eyed his phone when it buzzed then straightened his back and leaned his elbow on the table. It was hard to keep from fidgeting in the steel framed chairs set out for customers in the café. “Now, what do you have to tell me about MedCo that you can actually remember from those files you lost? I guess I could wait until I find Scarlett and get it from her but it’s not likely she’ll tell me willingly.”

“We had an agent undercover with MedCo ever since your little incident in South Africa a month or so ago. There was a considerably high number of employees listed at that facility found dead scattered throughout the same region afterward so we decided to finally step in.”

“What agent did you send in? Anyone I know?” Tony fiddled on his phone again, tapping into his computer system that had recently been set up in Manhattan where a digital recording of their conversation would be stored for further investigation.

“That’s none of your business.” Mickey cleared her throat and continued on before he could object. “On top of what we presume you know about MedCo in regards to their terrorist activities, they’ve become one of the most prolific illegal weapons manufacturing companies on the planet. Our man on the inside has reported that they are developing weapons of mass destruction similar to the robots that MedCo obtained and enhanced thanks to Miss Damien’s work for them. Even worse than that, they’re into far dirtier dealings than we could’ve imagined.” Mickey furrowed her brow seriously and placed a hand to her forehead while she tried to recall what she had seen in her folders that morning before leaving her hotel.

“What could be dirtier than weapons of mass destruction?” Tony scoffed, leaning an elbow again on the table and setting his phone face down so it could pick up their voices discreetly. “And for the record, Scarlett created those machines under duress. If you guys are here to press charges on her I’ve got some really annoying lawyers you can deal with.” Mickey’s annoyance disappeared momentarily and she shook her head.

“We’re after Scarlett because MedCo is after Scarlett not because of the work she did for them.” Mickey smiled, obviously knowing something that Tony didn’t know for once. It was easy to want to one up someone who had given her such a hard time.

“Why do they need her back in the first place? She’s been causing them more trouble than they need. If they let her go, it’d probably benefit them.” Tony narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Mickey. “They partially got what they wanted from her while she’d been held captive so why bother with pursuing her? It doesn’t add up. She’s causing them far more trouble than she could ever offer in assistance. Not to mention even if they got their hands on her again she’d never help them build anything. Even if they captured her and held prisoner she knows better. Hell, if they held her prisoner again she’d probably blow the place up again. Even for a company like MedCo, rebuilding a facility from the ground up is no easy feat.”

“She killed one of their founders. Did she tell you that?” Mickey continued to pet Pluto behind his ears. The dog was wagging his tail contently and looking sleepy eyed at Tony from where he rested.

“She did mention that.” Tony nodded his head, grimacing and having a feeling where their conversation was headed. He hadn’t considered that the motives behind MedCo’s pursuit of Scarlett could be completely unrelated to her escape.

“Maybe they want revenge pure and simple. Maybe she’s not telling you the whole story of her involvement with them. Maybe there’s something else altogether. There are too many maybes and unknowns in this story and the higher ups at S.H.I.E.L.D. figure that there must be something explaining this better than conjecture. There has to be something more than that they’re bitter she got away. Scarlett is valuable to MedCo for some reason so she’s valuable to S.H.I.E.L.D. for the same reason.”

“So she’s currency.” Tony stared at Mickey accusingly, gritting his teeth.

Not currency. That’s not what I said.” Mickey seemed appalled that she would be accused of taking part in such a thing.

“You’re using her as a bargaining chip against another corporation. She’s not some tool for you to utilize, she’s a human being. You see this is what I hate about you people…”

“Not me, S.H.I.E.L.D. I’m just doing my job.” Mickey smacked her hand on the table to gather his attention and end his rant. “You’re not understanding the whole story, Tony.”

“Then enlighten me.”

“MedCo is doing much worse things than just making robots, guns and explosives. Our undercover man is working his way up through the ranks but we have reason to believe that there are far more unsavory and wicked things going on in the laboratories at MedCo. If they get their hands on your girlfriend, Tony, then who knows what they’ll do to her. It doesn’t sound to me like they want her to work for them. It sounds like a vendetta.”

“Oh, yeah? You’re worried about what they’ll do? And what exactly will S.H.I.E.L.D. do with her if they get their hands on her?” Tony didn’t trust them. Something felt wrong about the situation as a whole and he would be damned if he stood idly by and let Scarlett get steam rolled in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s anti-terrorist tactics.

It was the theory that one life sacrificed to save many that let terrorists like MedCo sleep at night with the atrocities they committed and the blood dripping on their hands. Mickey considered this, but she didn’t know the answer to Tony’s question. She didn’t disagree with Tony on the matter but she knew that it wasn’t her decision to make, either.

“I don’t know. That’s up to Director Fury. She could be detained, but she could also be protected or assisted. I wasn’t given that information.” Mickey shook her head and then tapped the table again to get Tony to focus. “Now what do you know about MedCo. This was an exchange of ideas, remember?”

“I know probably way less than you do and that’s only what Scarlett told me. MedCo was working under the guise of a medical technologies corporation that was attempting to further the medical sciences in third world countries. Being a skilled engineer she took the job under the assumption she would be building artificial limbs that worked with real life accuracy. They kept changing specifications so she became suspicious and found memos on my letterhead. That’s when she started to suspect me. MedCo had been working with a prior acquaintance which you should be familiar with, Obadiah Stane, to receive shipments of weapons from my company.”

Mickey jotted down notes on a pad she kept in her briefcase while Tony spoke. “She never mentioned anything about experiments and laboratories, just that she was trapped and kept prisoner with her boyfriend’s life, not serious though trust me we’ve been through that, held as leverage against her. Those robots she made were in an attempt to save both their lives. She never thought that by creating endless defense mechanisms they would be more effective than creating attack protocols in their systems. She never intended to create what she did.”

“Bruce Banner never intended to become a big green rage monster, Tony.” Mickey put her scattered paperwork back into her briefcase once she’d finished writing, frustrated that not only had her folders with such sensitive information been stolen by the very person she was supposed to bring in for debriefing and detainment, but she’d traded information with a man who had very little to offer her other than back story. “You didn’t mean to put weapons in the hands of the Nine Rings either and yet you did. Some of the worst enemies and threats are created thanks to things people like you and Scarlett didn’t mean to do.”

“What do you think she’s doing out here chasing ghosts?” Tony glared across the table at Agent Pierce.

“I don’t know, why don’t you enlighten me this time?” Mickey folded her arms over her chest once her mess had been cleaned up.

“She’s trying to make amends for what she did because she knows the repercussions of her actions while she had been held in captivity. Why do you think she won’t just come home with me and sort things out between us worry free? I’m Tony Stark. She could be living life as a damn carnival and instead she’s out here. She’s got more accountability than I’ve seen S.H.I.E.L.D. show since they approached me when I was suffering from the palladium sickness.” Tony slid his glass away from him on the table, picked up his phone and checked to see if Jarvis had a read on Scarlett’s location yet only to find he had about a hundred different messages he needed to look through.

“I just want to help.” Mickey softened. “Even if it’s off the record, I just want to help. It’s my job. If you can help us resolve this situation with MedCo then I can try and get Scarlett off the hook for you.” Tony quietly contemplated this deal and then nodded his head to agree to her terms.

“That’s what I was planning on doing anyway so if you hold up your end of the bargain, then so will I.”

“I’m still going to pursue you both. It’s my job.”

“I know.” Tony nodded his head and got up, straightening his jacket. “MedCo has roots in Russia and Tunisia. You should look into both. The Tunisia one is likely gone by now because those smaller facilities tend to fade out quickly, but I think there’s a personal connection to Russia. I’ve been spending my long nights hacking into various servers they’ve used to try and hide their dirty dealings and no matter where their bases relocate there’s always a connection to somewhere in Russia.”

“Russia’s a pretty big country, Tony.”

“It’s all I’ve got.” Tony shrugged and slipped his sunglasses back on the looked down at his jeans in disapproval at the slobbery stain on his knee from where Pluto had rested his head and panted in hopes of getting some affection from him. “I’m sending S.H.I.E.L.D. the bill for these jeans.” Without another word, Tony turned on his heels and headed away from the café, leaving a very frustrated and confused Mickey behind at the table, petting her dog for comfort.
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