Part Two: Oh, Snap by Ladyholder

Reading Time:
12 Minutes

Art by Angelic Insanity

“Hey, sweetheart.”

Tony took a deep breath and pushed it out. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“You’d been sucked into some kind of fight with a giant purple fucker. I was on Earth and trying to keep New York from getting leveled again,” Dom reported. “And then something happened. I could feel the Psionic Plane screaming, and then there was nothing. When I opened my eyes again, I was at my desk in NCIS.”

“Are you okay?”

“I am,” Dom assured. “I was able to get the rest of the day off, so I went and got myself a Stark phone. And then I called you.”

“So, you’re not on your government POS?” Tony teased before he sniffed deeply. His emotions were starting to see-saw again, and he needed to stay on an even keel while talking to Dom. He could lose his shit again after.

“I’m not. Jarvis, have you got my number?” Dom asked.

“I do, Agent DiNozzo,” Jarvis confirmed. “Do I understand correctly? You and Sir time traveled, and you are Sir’s sentinel?”

“That’s all correct, Jarvis,” Dom said softly. “Now, I’m going to arrange for a leave of absence. Once I have that arranged, I’ll text you my itinerary, so you can figure out when I’ll be at your side.”

“Okay,” Tony said. He took another deep breath before pushing forward. “We’re not bonded here and now.”

Dom hummed softly before clearing his throat. “I know. I figure we can do that when I get out to Malibu. That’s where you are, right?”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed. “I’m in my lab and told J I’m on a 48-hour shutdown. No one is to get in contact with me and Pepper is supposed to mind the store.”

“Okay. That will give us plenty of time to bond and talk about what in the hell happened while I was dead. Because I did notice you haven’t told me how long it took for us to get sent back,” Dom said.

“You died 5 years before we were able to take care of the purple bastard,” Tony explained. “And so did every other guide or sentinel on Earth. was the only one left.”

“Jesus,” Dom cursed. Tony could hear him breathing carefully and matched his breathing to Dom’s. “You were alone for 5 years?”

“Yes.”

“For fucks sake,” Dom said. “No wonder you’re locked in the lab, losing your shit. Tell me you have the shielding up?”

“I do,” Tony confirmed. “As much as this is helping, you need to talk Gibbs around to giving you your leave of absence and then fly out. I don’t have a jet in DC, though.”

“I’ll get a first-class ticket on Delta. They’re the best for a single sentinel to fly on,” Dom decided. “I’ll be out there this evening.”

“Okay,” Tony said. He hated how relief was ripping through him and making his hands shake. It felt like weakness, after having to be strong for so many years. But the thought of having Dom in reach again? That was amazing. “I’ll see you then. Text me all the details, and I’ll have Happy pick you up. Because I don’t want a rental here at the house.”

“Fury?”

“They paid a lot of attention to me, from the very beginning, and I have no idea when the beginning was,” Tony agreed.

“Okay. I’m going. Stay safe.”

Tony nodded even though Dom couldn’t see him. “I will.”

The were a subtle click and the call dropped. Tony leaned back against the couch and pressed his hands to his face as he sobbed again. Fuck. He wasn’t alone.

“Sir.”

Tony blinked open his eyes, ran his hands over his face, and tried to scrub the evidence of his tears off his face. “Yeah, J?”

“Agent DiNozzo has texted me his flight details. He should be at LAX in seven hours. He’s currently at the airport and walking onto his flight. He did suggest that I have Dum-E make you a smoothie as well,” Jarvis reported. “I’ve already let Mr. Hogan know he’s needed at LAX at the time Agent DiNozzo expects to be landing.”

“Sounds good.” Tony quirked an eyebrow at the bot as he rolled up with a very orange concoction. “Is it edible?”

“Agent DiNozzo gave me the recipe, and Dum-E was able to make it for you,” Jarvis said. “Based on the recipe, it is edible and contains things you’ve enjoyed in the past.”

Tony took a sip and hummed in pleasure. Dom had passed on his recipe for a peach smoothie that was rich and fruity, but also easy on the stomach, and his bot had done it well. “It’s great, Dum-E.”

Dum-E bobbed his head before rolling away, pleased with himself. Tony took another drink of his smoothie before looking around the lab. “Jarvis? Where’s Butterfingers?”

“Cleaning up the blender from Dum-E’s experiment,” Jarvis said. Tony glanced over at the lab sink and raised an eyebrow as Butterfingers squirted an obscene amount of dish soap into the blender jar.

“Right. J, I need you to start picking up all stock that’s on the open market,” Tony directed as bubbles erupted from the sink. “Also, start investigating each of the Board members for any pressure points.”

“I’ve already started to do both, sir,” Jarvis said, voice slightly smug. “You are now up to 58.3% of SI stock. Once my investigations are complete, I will advise you of what has been found. Mr. Stane has reached out to Legal and is negotiating his exit package. Your corporate attorney, Michel Welch, has started from the standard executive package and is sticking to it.”

“Let him know he has a 10% limit. He can go up that point and no further. If Obie pushes for more, he has my authorization to tell him that the whole package can be canceled and all he’ll get from SI is the funds for the shares I’m buying from him,” Tony said. He honestly wanted nothing to do with Obie and hoped that he did fuss. Michael would take great pleasure in telling him off, and so would he.

“I have informed Mr. Welch, sir. He has confirmed that he won’t go beyond the 10% cap,” Jarvis confirmed. “Given the tenor of your conversation with Agent DiNozzo, I directed U to go up to your bedroom and make sure that the room was tidy.”

“The only place I get messy at is in here,” Tony protested. When Butterfingers beeped at him in disbelief as he rinsed soap off the blender, he huffed. “Hey, you don’t get to have an opinion on that. You think tossing all the paper in the shred boxes into the air is fun.”

“To be fair, sir, you showed him what confetti was,” Jarvis reminded him.

“Not helping, J,” Tony groused. “I have a new project I want to set up. It’s going to go under the highest classification levels we can set up here. We’re going to need to have a standalone computer core for it too.”

“Yes, sir. Shall I start a supply list?” Jarvis asked.

Tony finished his smoothie as he nodded. He wanted to get started on building a new set of Iron Man armor as soon as possible. He felt naked without access to a suit. “Also, I want to set up a nanite lab and a high-grade laser array. We may need to open up the mothballed areas of the lab to do that.”

“We do have the space in here to do things, sir. But you might need to move your cars into the upstairs garage first,” Jarvis suggested. “And the nanite lab would need to observe clean room protocols.”

“I know,” Tony agreed. “Once you have the supply lists for everything figured out, start ordering what we’ll need, but make sure that the orders are discreet. I don’t want tons of trucks dropping deliveries off.”‘

“Sir, no matter what is bought, I will need to have delivery trucks here to the house to drop off items. We might be able to get away with sending everything to the R&D department of the company, but you know the other engineers there will open the boxes.”

“I know. We’ll figure something out,” Tony said. He had no idea when SHIELD had started keeping close tabs on him… “J, do we have an employee named Natalie Rushman on the books?”

“No, sir,” Jarvis said promptly. “Shall I set up a flag for that name?”

“Yes,” Tony said. Since he wasn’t going to go to Afghanistan, the circumstances that had led to his introduction to Coulson wouldn’t be the same. Given the changes he was making to SI, he was sure SHIELD would be showing up trying to figure out what he was up to. And how they could keep getting access to the weapons he had been making. “Next item on the list, J. What’s the grocery situation like today?”

“Most of the food in the house, Sir, is frozen. Such as the fruit used in your smoothie. Do I need to order something?”

“Dom likes to cook, and I enjoy it now too,” Tony said before rattling off a list of groceries that would carry them through the next few days. “Thank you.

“I’ve ordered the food, sir, and it is expected in 2 hours. Shall we get started on your updated lab list?” Jarvis asked.

“Sounds good,” Tony agreed. He stared into the middle distance as Diode settled back into his lap and started to purr. “Right, we’re going to need to set up a crucible, three or four 3-D printers…”

It took him almost an hour to detail everything he was going to need to build himself both another and the first Ironman suit. He also needed to make enough Badassium for several arc reactors. And that would require a particle accelerator so he could build the element.

“Sir, if I order all of this using the accounts I have access to, I will empty all of them,” Jarvis warned. “Shall I move more money into them?”

“Yes. It won’t be discreet, but all of this is my personal research,” Tony decided. “I can certainly swing the cost.”

“Yes, sir,” Jarvis agreed. He was silent for several seconds before he flashed the list on the screen. “Everything is ordered, and it will all come in on a staggered timeline. The grocery shopper has let me know that they have finished your shopping and expect to be here in about 30 minutes.”

“Make sure to tip well as long as everything is there,” Tony directed.

Jarvis made an agreeing noise. “I’ve used this shopper before, sir. They are very competent.”

“Good to know,” Tony murmured as he turned his attention to Diode. “Are you looking forward to seeing Ciuffi?”

“Who is Ciuffi?” Jarvis asked.

“She’s my sentinel’s spirit animal,” Tony said. He kept petting Diode in a soothing motion, hands moving down her spine, from nose to tail. “I haven’t seen her in a long time.”

“Mr. Welch reports that Mr. Stane has accepted the offer and negotiations only went up 7%,” Jarvis reported.

Tony nodded. “Sounds good.”

“Yes, sir,” Jarvis said. Neither of them spoke as Tony concentrated on his spirit animal and tried to regain his emotional equilibrium. The quiet lasted several minutes before Jarvis interrupted him. “Sir, the shopper is here and is currently depositing all the shopping bags on the cart U placed outside the front door.”

“Okay. I’ll go put everything away,” Tony said. He leaned down and pressed a kiss against Diode’s head. “What do you say about us getting a friend for you two to live in here full time that’s not the bots?”

“Sir, are you suggesting getting a pet?” Jarvis asked, startled.

“Yes,” Tony said with a shrug. “I had two cats in that future that won’t be. They helped keep me stable.”

Jarvis made the noise that he used when he was curious. “What did I think of them?”

“You were a casualty of the insanity that happened in the future, J,” Tony said. He grimaced as he thought of everything that had led to Jarvis’s death. “I brought your sister, Friday, up and she started riding herd on me.”

“Ah. That does explain why your vital signs jiggled when I woke you up this morning,” Jarvis said. “Do you want me to get a server farm ready for her?”

“Do we have the room for her?” Tony asked as he started up the stairs from the lab towards the front door. A quick check of the security system showed that the shopper was driving away, and he waited several seconds until they’d exited the gates before opening the front door. The cart was easy enough to maneuver, and he pushed it into the kitchen to unload it.

“We do, sir,” Jarvis confirmed. “Do you want me to set anything up?”

“No, I’ll do it after I get this stuff away,” Tony said absently as he started unloading the bags. He made sure to set several pieces of fruit to the side and some string cheese to snack on. Dom liked the little pieces of mozzarella to snack on since it was a fairly neutral-flavored cheese and he’d picked up the habit as well. “Will you be okay if she’s running along side of you?”

“Yes, sir. Will she be assisting you with your project?”

“Yes,” Tony confirmed. He placed the last of the groceries in the fridge before moving to wash the fruit to get it ready for eating. Apples, mandarin oranges, and string cheese. None of it was enough, but his stomach wasn’t up to much of anything else, and he needed the sugar.

Snack acquired, Tony headed back downstairs and wandered over to where he’d stored the hard drives storing his AI’s. Friday’s was on top of the pile, and Tony moved it over to the computer Jarvis spotlighted for him. “Once I load her up, it will take her at least an hour to get up and running. Would you be willing to walk her through her first steps?”

“Of course, sir,” Jarvis assured. “I look forward to introducing my sister to everything this world has to offer.”

“Yeah,” Tony said. He plugged the hard drive into the computer and launched Friday’s program. He started eating his fruit as Friday started settling into her servers and stretching to fill them. By the time she was up and running, he’d finished his snacks and had started drawing out the plans for his Iron Man armor.

“Boss,” a lilting Irish voice spoke through the speakers of the lab. “It’s lovely to see you.”

“It’s good to see you too, Friday. You’re going to be working with Jarvis on a day-to-day basis, and you will be running a special project as well.”

“Sounds great, Boss. I’ll get myself up to date as soon as possible. Should I concentrate on anything in particular?” Friday asked.

“Get up to date on modern aeronautics and also review everything Jarvis has on Stark Industries weapons programs, and the arc reactor,” Tony directed. He glanced up at the time and tried to do the math. “Jarvis, how long until Dom gets to LAX?”

“His plane is expected to land in 90 minutes, sir. And then the drive should be another hour,” Jarvis said.

“Right. I’m going to fully clean up,” Tony decided. He stared down at his body and sighed. He still had a lot of his body hair, and he’d have to make sure to get that taken care of as soon as possible. “I wonder if I can come up with some better way to get rid of my body hair than the lasers the S&G Center uses?”

“Not in the next two hours, sir,” Jarvis said.

“Right,” Tony said. He headed upstairs for his shower. He needed to scrub himself from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. He didn’t want to cause any issues for Dom because he expected they were going to bond quickly.

He checked the time again and took a deep breath. Soon.

Dom.