On The Outside Looking In (One Shot)

[atouchofsmithandjones]

Title: On The Outside Looking In

Fandoms: Iron Man (2008)/Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D./Torchwood

Rating: PG-13

Warning: Slash.

Summary: Fury needs some information before he confronts Stark about the Iron Man suit, but Stark’s computer isn’t cooperating. Missing scene fic-- takes place before the final scene in Iron Man.

Author’s Notes: This is a side story to “Downtime”

Disclaimer: Iron Man and Nick Fury are the property of MVL LLC and Marvel Publishing. Torchwood is the property of the BBC. No profit is being made with this story.

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On The Outside Looking In

After more than forty years in the spy business-- including a three month stint in Cardiff, Wales helping an ex-Time Agent from the 51st century reprogram a system that monitored a rip in the space/time continuum-- there were few computers left in the world that Colonel Nicholas J. Fury could not break into.

Tony Stark’s was proving to be one of those annoying few.

Please state your name.

Fury narrowed his good eye as he watched the text bar flash mockingly at him.Well, that’s just fucking great. He leaned back in the chair he had commandeered as he considered his next move-- shooting the computer was a tempting option, but that wouldn’t get him what he wanted. He had been trying to crack open Stark’s personal files for the last hour, but the AI guarding them was proving to be more troublesome than Fury anticipated.

What he really wanted to do was smoke the cigar in his pocket but he couldn’t take a chance that he might leave behind any traces of his presence. He was sure Stark had nothing to do with Obadiah Stane’s double dealings, but until he had proof, Fury wasn’t about to leave anything behind that might get Stark‘s guard up. And for someone like Stark, it wouldn’t take much to get him puzzling over what had been going on in his workroom while he was out.

Gritting his teeth as he drew in a deep breath through his nose, Fury shifted forward and rested his fingers on the flat black keyboard for another go, then froze when a movement in his peripheral vision warned him someone was in the room with him.

Slowly turning his head as he inched a hand towards the semi-automatic strapped to his chest, Fury found it wasn’t a someone but a something-- one of the robotic arms he had spotted earlier by the ruined remains of the Iron Man suit in the back corner of Stark‘s workroom. It had somehow managed to sneak up on him while he had been focused on the computer; Fury wondered how something that big could move around without drawing attention to itself.

“Don’t even think it,” he growled when he got the impression the thing was sizing him up. The contraption stopped and raised its single arm into the air. Fury’s hand curled around the pistol grip; he doubted any weapons had been built into the thing, but he braced himself for a quick escape just in case he was wrong.

The three pronged hand at the end of the arm rotating a few degrees to the left as if to get a better look at him, then made a questioning chirruping sound before deciding retreat was its best option now that it had been spotted. It backed up a few feet, and then stopped with a soft electronic whirp.

Waiting a minute to see if it would do anything else, Fury then turned his attention back to the computer screen and rolled his good eye when he saw the message had changed.

We are unable to process your request at this time. Please call back later.

“Now you’re just messing with my head, aren’t you? Damn computers.” Deciding he’d had enough, he pulled his satphone out of the holster attached to his belt and dialed a number from memory. When the message Phone not in servicecame up, Fury punched in a code to force the call through then waited for a response.

“Uh, Cardiff Tourist Info, Ianto speaking.” There was a pause as the man who had picked up tried to catch his breath before continuing. “How may I help you?”

Fury looked at the ceiling in exasperation. Not the person he wanted to talk to. “You’re not Jack,” he stated irritably.

Ianto sucked in a breath. “Uh, lucky guess,” he said, his voice strained and breathless. “Jack’s not available at the moment, can I take a message?” Fury heard the man in question hiss, “Would you just hang up, Ianto,” somewhere near the phone, then quickly followed that sentence up with a barely muffled groan of pleasure.

Oh for Pete’s sake. Fury closed his eyes and rubbed the edge of the patch covering his left eye. “Right,” he said, leaning forward to brace his elbows on the edges of the curved keyboard. “Since you‘re the one who answered, Jones, I‘m guessing you‘re the one on top, so I need you to get off Jack and get him on the damn phone-- right now-- before you give him an orgasm, cause he’ll be fucking useless to me if that happens.”

There was an unintelligible sound of confusion from Ianto Jones, and a dull crackling noise as the phone switched hands. “Who the hell is this?” Captain Jack Harkness snapped.

“Who the hell do ya think it is?” Fury snapped back. “If you don’t want me interrupting you Jack, you need to take the batteries out of your phone.”

There was a huff of resigned laughter and a sharp crack as the phone on Jack’s end impacted with something hard-- probably, Fury guessed, the surface of whatever piece of office furniture Jack was currently sprawled on top of. He heard scuffling sounds on the other end, then Jack came back on to say, “Hey Nick. Just a sec.” There was a click as the phone was set down and Fury tapped the fingers of his free hand against the keyboard as he tried to ignore the other sounds he was hearing.

“So, what emergency are you dealing with this time, Nick?” Jack asked when he finally picked the phone back up.

Glaring at the screen in front of him, which now had Have a sunshiny day and a dancing yellow smiley face plastered across it, Fury said, “I’ve got a smart ass AI I can’t seem to get around.”

“And obviously it’s vital that you get around it?”

“Obviously. Unless you’re finally willing to tell me whether or not S.H.I.E.L.D. lands a contract with Stark Industries?” Fury already knew what Jack‘s answer to that question was going to be since it hadn‘t changed any in the last fourteen years.

Jack sighed. “Sorry Nick, you know I can‘t do that.” There was metallic bang, something that sounded suspiciously like a swear word and the sound of a drawer being slammed shut on Jack’s end of the call.

Fury frowned. “Don’t know why I’m asking this but, what the hell are you two doing?”

Jack‘s voice was smug as he answered, “I’m teaching Ianto the rules to naked hide and seek.”

Fury shook his head. “You don’t have any rules to naked hide and seek, Jack.”

“He doesn’t know that.” There was a rustle of fabric. “Why are you breaking into Tony‘s computer? I‘m assuming from your previous comment that’s who’s computer we’re talking about here.” There was another crackle as the phone was shifted around on Jack’s end.

“You were the one who told me I needed to wait until the world knocked a hole in the kid's heart before trying to get a contract out of him,” Fury answered, a little annoyed by Jack’s use of Stark’s first name. “Going by the video footage his secretary handed us just before all hell broke loose at SI last night, it looks like that's already happened. Before I make a move though, I need to be sure Stark wasn’t involved in the illegal weapons deals his CFO’s been arranging under the table.”

“You think Tony was a part of that?”

“Nah, doesn’t fit his profile. However, I still want proof, and I‘m guessing everything I need to know is here on this computer, but the damn thing’s giving me the runaround.”

“What’s it doing?”

“Every time I break through the security program, it blocks me, resets the program, and then asks for my name.”

“Have you tried giving it your name yet?”

“No. Should I point out this ain‘t exactly a legal break-in, Jack?”

“I kind of figured, but I’m guessing you’re going to have to do what the thing wants. If it were anyone else’s computer I’d have a better suggestion for you, but in this case, you’re out of luck, Nick.”

“Well you’re a big help.” Fury cradled the phone against his shoulder and typed his name into the prompt box. A Please stand by sign appeared, and then various files began flipping across the screen. Fury frowned, then swore when he realized what he was looking at were his own medical and security clearance files being pulled from SHIELD’s supposedly secure servers.

“Damn it! What in Sam Hill--”

“What happened?”

Before Fury could answer or make a move to stop the download, the files disappeared and a new message appeared. Access granted. Thank you for your cooperation and we apologize for the delay, Colonel Fury. If you have any problems navigating the database, please access the help menu for further assistance. To access the help menu, click on the help icon at the bottom right corner of your screen.

Fury stared at the screen.

“Nick?” Jack asked cautiously.

“Yeah?”

“What happened?”

Fury took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Think I need to have a serious talk with my tech people when I get back to New York,” he grumbled.

Jack chuckled. “Are you in?”

“Yep, and I’m guessing this thing knows more about me now than I do.”

That is correct, Colonel Fury.

“And now it‘s talking back at me. Well, doesn’t that just make me feel special.”

That just made Jack chuckle some more.

Ignoring Jack, Fury turned on the computer’s speakers and scrolled through the main menu. He knew he’d need to hear as well as see the information he was accessing and hoped the AI kept its trap shut while he was doing that. Opening a security file with a time stamp a few minutes after what one of his agents had reported as Obadiah Stane’s arrival time at the Stark’s mansion the night before, Fury flipped through the various internal feeds until he found one of Tony Stark walking across a room to answer a ringing cell phone.

As Stark lifted the cell to his ear, a high pitched whine suddenly burst out of the speakers and Fury gasped in pain as he jerked away from the computer and slapped the volume off.

“God damn it!”

“You all right Nick?” Jack shouted.

“Yeah,” Fury answered, his ears ringing as he bent over and shook off the numbing side effects of the noise. Damn, whatever the hell that was, it’s got one hell of a kick!

“What was that?”

“Got me.” Fury looked up and wasn’t surprised to find Stane had entered the picture. The man was leaning over Stark, who was now sprawled stiffly on the couch; the only sign that Stark was alive was the shallow rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, and even that looked a little iffy.

A sonic weapon that paralyzes its victims. Huh. I know there isn’t anything that effective on the market right now, legal or black; someone would have used it against one of my agents by now if there was. Must be the one Stark came up with a few years back that the Defense Department shelved. Sucks getting hit with your own weapons.

Probably explains why the kid shut down the weapons division at SI when he got back from Afghanistan; it’s the same thing I did when the old SHIELD turned and bit me in the ass.

Noticing Stane reaching up to remove a pair of earplugs from his ears, Fury leaned forward and cautiously turn the volume back on and took note of the thin trickle of blood dripping out of Stark‘s ear and the dark network of veins now visible across the side of Stark‘s face.

“When I ah, ordered that hit on you, I worried that I was killing the Golden Goose,” Stane said as he turned away from Stark and reaching into a briefcase lying next to the couch. Fury‘s hackles started to rise as he watched Stane place the apparatus from the briefcase against the glowing circle in the center of Stark’s chest. He pressed down for a few seconds; there was a whine from the apparatus, and then a sizzling sound.

“But you see, it was just fate that you survived that.” Stane twisted the apparatus clockwise and Stark choked, then swallowed hard. His breathing stuttered painfully as Stane slowly lifted the apparatus up and away from Stark.

Stane smiled as he looked at the prize he had pulled out of Stark‘s chest, and though Stark had gone still again, Fury could see the man’s desperate silent struggle to move reflected in Stark’s wide dark eyes.

“You had one last golden egg to give.”

A cord trailed down from the device Stane now held in his hand and into Stark’s chest. Stane removed the device from the apparatus, tilting it so the blue glow lit the stark angles of his victim’s face. His voice was soft, relentless, as he loomed over his victim and said, “You really think that, just because you have an idea, it belongs to you? Your father, he helped give us the atomic bomb. Now what kind of world would it be today if he were as selfish as you?”

A feeling of morbid astonishment crawled through Fury as Stane yank the cord out of Stark’s chest. Stark’s body twitched as the device disconnected, and Fury heard a desperate gasp slip out of Stark.

“Shit,” Fury muttered under his breath as Stark struggled to breathe.

“Oh it’s beautiful,” Stane gazed at the device, which continued to glow steadily; his voice a mix of awe and satisfaction. “Oh, Tony, this is your Ninth Symphony.” Fury gritted his teeth, his free hand closing into a fist. Stane settle next to Stark on the couch, one arm resting along the top of the couch behind Stark’s head as he admired the object in his hand.

“Ah, what a masterpiece, look at that. This is your legacy. A new generation of weapons with this at its heart. Weapons that would help steer the world back on course, put the balance of power in our hands. The radiance…” Stane turned away from his victim and pulled the briefcase on to his lap, carefully tucking the device inside as he continued.

“I wish you could see my prototype. It’s not as, well, not as conservative as yours.” The briefcase was snapped shut. Stane stood up and walked away. “Too bad you had to involve Pepper in this,” he said without looking back, “I would have preferred that she lived.”

Stane‘s footsteps slowly faded, leaving Stark alone and still on the couch like a forgotten toy, his dark eyes wide with horror and desperation.

Fury slowly unclenched his hand. Good thing Stark took care of you, Stane, Fury thought darkly. Cause I’m not sure what I would have done to you after seeing this.

“Okay,” he growled after taking a deep breath, “wanna tell me what the hell that thing in Stark’s chest is, Jack?”

There was a pause and Fury could tell Jack was carefully thinking through his answer by the slow measured tone of his voice. “It’s called an Arc Reactor. It’s the technology the power source for my wristband is based on; and if I remember my history lessons correctly, it‘s the only thing keeping Tony alive right now.” It was clear there was more to it than that, but Fury could tell Jack was going to be tight-lipped on the subject. So what the hell are you not telling me, Jack?

Fury’s mind flipped over what Jack had given him for a few minutes as he switched between video feeds to watch Stark‘s painful trek down to the workroom after shaking off his paralysis. He suppressed a shudder when one camera gave him a straight on shot of the empty gaping hole in Tony Stark‘s chest. There was no reason for him to watch this, what he had seen had cleared Stark of all charges, but Fury had the feeling there was something more he needed to see.

“So you knew he was going to be kidnapped,” Fury finally said to Jack.

There was a pause then Jack said, reluctantly, “Yes.”

“And you didn’t bother mentioning that little fact back in ’95 because, if he hadn’t been kidnapped, it would’ve screwed the timelines?

“Yes.” Jack sighed. “He had to go through all that, Nick; otherwise he may never have had a reason to create the Arc Reactor. I didn’t say anything because I couldn‘t take the chance I might accidentally change the course of history. The first lesson you learn as a Time Agent is that there are some lives and some events you don’t mess with no matter how much you might want to.”

“Yeah, I’d have a better time believing that if you hadn’t slept with Stark after that one party, Jack.” Fury said as Stark stagger out of the elevator and collapse on to the floor of his workroom. “And should I point out you haven’t been a Time Agent in over a hundred years, Cap‘n?”

There was an exasperated exhale. “Hey, you know the only reason I had the costume on was to keep Steve from getting captured. I just…” Jack took a deep breath, grumbling something under his breath before admitting, “Okay, yeah I messed with the timelines there too. Thanks so much for reminding me of that, Nick”

“My pleasure.”

Fury heard Colonel James Rhodes’s voice calling out Stark’s name and switched to another camera angle just as Rhodes came down the stairs and scanned the workroom. A look of breathless fear flashed across his face when he spotted Stark lying face down on the floor, then he was running across the workroom, slipping slightly on the broken glass scattered on the floor before he reached Stark to roll him over.

Stark, who had filled the hole in his chest with a Reactor one of the robotic arms had handed him, sucked in a breath, then blindly grabbed Rhodes‘s arms.

“Tony, you okay?” Rhodes asked, his knees shifting some of the shattered remains of the box the other Reactor had been in as he moved.

“Careful,” Stark muttered as he struggled to focus on his surroundings. “Where’s Pepper?” he added in almost the same breath.

“She’s fine, she’s with five agents. They’re about to arrest Obadiah.”

Stark stared at nothing for a few seconds as if he were doing some quick calculations in his head, then he met Rhodes’s gaze. “That’s not going to be enough.” He gathered his feet under him and, with Rhodes‘s help, rose to his feet.

“Tony, we need to get you to a hospital,” Rhodes said, making a half hearted attempt to talk Stark down, but even Fury could see it was going to be a useless endeavor.

Stark, a little unsteady on his feet, stripped off his ruined shirt and tossed it aside as he turned to face Rhodes. “Obadiah’s got a suit. You’ve seen what mine can do; you really think a bunch of desk jockey’s are going to have a chance against something like that?”

The two men stared at each other-- Stark, haggard and swaying slightly as he waited for Rhodes’s response but clearly determined to go no matter what Rhodes said; and Rhodes-- his face showing a growing conflict between helping his wounded friend and dealing with the scenario Stark had just thrown at him.

“I can’t let Pepper…” Stark said desperately, his voice trailing off as if he were afraid to finish that sentence.

Rhodes took a deep breath, nodded, and took a step back. “What do you need me to do?” he asked.

Stark closed his eyes, his body sagging a moment in relief; then he opened his eyes and straightened his shoulders as he started stripping off his pants. “Body suit, closet,” Stark answered sharply, his movements becoming steadier as he prepped himself for battle.

Watching Stark put on the neoprene bodysuit with a little help from Rhodes, Fury thought, Kid‘s got guts-- a few of my agents would have shut down after the assault he just went through. And yet here he is, gearing up for a firefight.

Well, this changes things.

“That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” Rhodes commented as he stepped back to let the robotic arms encase Stark in the Iron Man suit.

“Not bad, huh,” Stark answered with grim humor. Once the process was done, he stepped off the assembly platform and announced firmly, “Let’s do it.”

“You need me to do anything else?” Rhodes asked.

The gold and red mask snapped in place, covering Stark‘s face and erasing all traces of the exhausted man Rhodes had found only a few minutes earlier. “Keep the skies clear,” he said. Holding his arm out, Stark shot a beam of repulsor energy at the wreckage of a Shelby Cobra, shoving it out of the way so he could use the hole in the ceiling to exit the workroom.

“Damn.” Rhodes quietly drew in a slow deep breath in the silence following Stark‘s departure, then looked at the silver suit hanging from the ceiling to his right. He nodded once, and a determined look similar to Stark‘s settled on his face as he said, “Next time baby,” and headed for the line of cars.

Absently nodding his head as Rhodes peeled out in the Audi, Fury mentally crossed Rhodes off the suspect list. Not that he had seriously considered him a suspect; the man’s profile indicated he was even less likely than Stark to be involved in any criminal activities. However, Fury found he had no problem slapping a ‘sidekick’ label on him.

Which means I need to put ‘hero’ next to Stark‘s name. How ‘bout that. Never thought I’d be doing that again in my lifetime, especially with someone like Stark.

Fury tapped the keyboard, then shut down the security file. “Well, that’s enough of that,” he said.

“What are you going to do now?” Jack asked.

Leaning back in the chair, Fury considered the question. “Talk to the kid, sound him out, see what’s going through his head right now…”

“See if you can get a contract out of him…”

“That too.” And maybe a few other things while I‘m at it.

Jack yawned. “Need me to help with that?” he asked, muffling another yawn.

“Nope. I‘m set, and uh, thanks for all your help, Harkness. Never would have gotten in without tapping into all that advance 51st century knowledge you got there in that head of yours.”

Jack laughed. “Anytime, Nick.”

Fury chuckled and disconnected the call and was about to shut the satphone down when it beeped to announce an incoming call.“Fury. Go ahead.”

“This is Agent Coulson. Mr. Stark has just left his office.”

Glancing over at the cars neatly lined up at one end of the workshop, their symmetry ruined by the trashed remains of the Cobra pushed up against the wall, Fury nodded and asked, “Has he got the Audi, or is his driver picking him up?”

“The Audi. Do you need us to delay him?”

Opening another program, Fury answered, “No, that won’t be necessary, I’m almost finished here. You and your team can call it a night.”

“Yes sir. Coulson out.”

This time, Fury managed to shut the phone down and put it away before anyone else could interrupt him. Accessing the master manufacturing codes for the Iron Man suit, Fury slipped in a track and hack program to be downloaded into any suit Stark built or upgraded from here on out so S.H.I.E.L.D. had at least one way of keeping tabs on the damn things, and then cleared out all traces of his cyber footprint before shutting the system down.

He leaned back in the chair and looked at his reflection in the flat black screen as he considered what he was going to do with Stark. There was no doubts in Fury’s mind that the pilot during the little joyride over Malibu a few weeks back had been Stark, it had been too crazy a flight pattern for it to be anyone else; but the identity of the pilot from the footage he’d received from the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in Gulmira had stumped Fury until now. Whoever had been in the suit that time had worked quickly and efficiently, no wasted movements, no showy moves, not even losing their calm when faced with the pressure of a bunch of terrorists holding guns to their hostage‘s heads. He wouldn’t have believe that was also Stark, but after seeing the security footage, Fury was willing to accept that was the case, which meant he was going to have to rethink how he was going to approach Stark.

The problem was the whole ‘take back what’s mine’ campaign Stark had started in Gulmira. His first flight out into the field may have been a success, even with his lack of combat training, but it was only a matter of time before things went south on Stark. Fury knew he needed to redirect the anger fueling Stark’s actions into something more constructive before someone got hurt; the difficult part was how to go about doing that?

Well, best just start with a face to face and see where that gets me. Should have a little talk with Rhodes too. I’d rather have the two of them working with S.H.I.E.L.D. instead of around us the next time Stark goes after some of his weapons because 10 to 1 odds it‘s gonna fall under our jurisdiction. I don‘t need a pair of untrained yahoo‘s playing superhero in my combat zones, especially when civilians are involved.

Deciding there was nothing more to be learned in the workroom, Fury pushed away from the computer and returned the chair to where he had found it. The robotic arm twitched, but stopped moving when Fury glared in its direction. Sweeping his gaze over the workroom to make sure everything was exactly as he had found it, Fury started up the stairs leading to the main living quarters, then stopped when his gaze was caught by something large and shiny partially hidden behind a bank of computer screens.

Fury stepped back down into the workroom and around the computer screens. He breathed out a laugh, a reluctant smile pulling at his lips as he stared at a red white and blue circular shield leaning against a work table, and at new partially built one on top the table. Well, when’d ya start working on this little project, Stark? Fury reached out and ran his fingers along the edge of the shield propped against the table leg, and found the bump where he had dented the rim against the side of an alien force field generator outside Gruenstadt, Germany over sixty years ago.

He’d known Stark had the old iconic shield-- Jack had mentioned seeing it back in ‘95; and since it was Stark’s father who had designed the original shield for Captain America back during the war, it made sense Howard Stark’s son was now the shield’s caretaker. But why was Stark making a new one?

Those are some mighty big boots to fill, kid, Fury thought. Guess we’ll find out when you get here whether or not you’re ready to try ‘em on for size.

As he stepped away from the shields, Fury pulled a device out of his pocket and clicked a button, setting off one of the house alarms to let Stark know someone was in the building. He then used it to power down the house’s electrical system before heading up to the main living quarters to wait for the head of Stark Industries to come home.