Nico Di Angelo, Assistant of Ironman

Part 22- The Plan

They walk through the door, into darkness, moving by footsteps echoing, from the hall to an enormous cavern, following the dim light reflected from the end.

And flashlights

They had flashlights too.

The cones of light illuminated the floor directly in front of them, Leo's heavy-duty camping one (from the toolbelt) being the brightest, at the front, Nico and Drew's to the side of his to cover more ground

What they could see wasn't very interesting, just the stone brick floor and a couple of loose rocks, which they skillfully managed to avoid tripping over.

Lights up ahead didn't tell much either, though it moved like it was created by a fire, judging from the shadows on the wall

The sounds, however, gave much more to the story. Clanging, bashing, roaring, grunting, crackling, blowing, the works.

"They're totally making stuff over there, a lot of stuff, mass production level a lot. If they were just making one, the clanging, bashing, and drilling wouldn't be happening at once. Unless they're making something really big, then it'd be-" Leo muttered, voicing his thoughts out loud unintentionally.

"Well yeah, but who is?" Drew whispered back as they crept lower to the ground the closer they got.

"They have to have either enough manpower for the mass production or they're machines of some kind. Leo, think you can vouch for either side? You're the one that has the skill set," Nico chimed in from the back,

"I can't be totally sure without seeing them, but I'd say not machine. See, clangs, clashes, and bangs aren't in sync, which if you had well-functioning machinery, they would be. 'Course, could just be an old or poorly made machine." He shrugged, "So, what exactly are we supposed to do from here? We never really figured out a plan or anything, so like-" his sentence stopped, his hands animating the rest of his question instead, what are we gonna do?

"We're just here to rescue some old machines, right? So would it be easier to sneak in a grab them, or just like, go all in and recover the whole workshop?" Drew crouched down, looking to the two more experienced questers,

"Seeing as we don't really know which machines he was talking about, though it was implied they were the robot that keeps on attacking the avengers, we can't be sure if it's just them, or if there's more," Nico responded, peeking from the shadows, "Plus, with the size of them, it would be hard to sneak them out of here, and even harder to just take them forcefully, considering we have a trio, and they, presumably, have an army."

"Gotcha, so... whole workshop it is?" Leo whispered as he extended the selfie stick he had pulled out while they were talking toward the corner that led to the source of the sounds, his phone at the end taking a picture.

"What are you doing Leo? You brought a selfie stick?!" Drew whisper yelled

"Out of the toolb-"

"Don't even try, that would NOT come out of the toolbelt unless you put it in there."

Leo outed as he brought the end back towards them, "Ok, maybe I did, I never had a phone before and I got a little carried away-"

"To a creepy, dusty, dark workshop on the side of a mountain?"

"Well it's coming in handy, isn't it?!"

"Just shush and let us see what we're dealing with," Nico interjected, grabbing the phone and placing it in the middle before they could continue their squabbling

The panoramic picture showed the round room, seal-dog-like creatures Leo recognized as Telekhines bustling around the deck, the floor was cut in half, with railings overlooking the floor down. You could see the crane-like machine from below picking up the metallic pieces, blurred mid-motion.

The main light source came from bright, industrial-sized big rectangle lights from the ceiling, except... the light inside had to be creating the lights on the wall.

Then it must be... moving? Like fire, but trapped inside of the glass?

Well, ignoring the strange lights, the walls were filled with maps, designs, and notes, the paper layered on top of each other like paper mache. Drew had to slap Leo's hand away as he attempted to zoom in on a transformer blueprint.

Nico, however, zoomed into a figure that stood out among the monsters, a dark-haired figure in a labcoat, mid-walk.

A human figure.

~

Tony was having a bad day. His second, fifth, and sixth cups of coffee spilled. On his shirt, his papers, and his new shirt.

Fuck.

Sighing in frustration, Tony sipped his seventh cup as he walked towards the lounge to take a break, glancing at the clock in the hall, next to the window, to see if it was time for lunch yet, only to see a darkening sky and that it was time for dinner.

Groaning as he trudged towards his unavoidable scolding, either from Pepper, Cap, or Fury.

Which will it be? Tony pretended to have a game show announcer in his head. Our first contestant and all time champion, give it up for Pepperrrr! Oh, and the crowd goes wild-

The first person he saw as he turned the corner into the lounge was Director Fury in all of his one-eyed glory.

And we have a winner, folks.

"Stark, we need to talk."

"What'd I do this time?" Tony rolled his eyes in annoyance. You'd thing the director of a super spy government corporation would have better things to do.

"Its not about what you did, but rather, what you didn't do." Fury lived up to his name, crossing his arms and staring down the scientist with a look that said "say one thing I don't like and you may not make it out of here with all of your limbs." He was very expressive like that.

"Alright, what didn't I do? I for one know I didn't invite you over." He muttered, flopping onto the large, plush sofa after half-heartedly setting the mug down on the coffee table. It wobble for a second before settling down, leaning from the uneven surface of old papers and lost game pieces.

"You didn't send me the report on your efforts to locate the robot, you didn't report to me about the investigation on Pepper's incident, and you didn't fix whatever break let someone hack us. So, Stark, you didn't do your dam job!" He growled.

"What? What are you talking about, I fixed that break and improved the firewalls! Ask F.R.I.D.A.Y for godsake, it took me hours!" He threw his hands up in exasperation, why does eyepatch always assume he never does anything?!

"Sure. Then how did we get hacked, again? How do you plan to explain that and the missing reports?"

Are you kidding me?!

"AGAIN?!"

~

We're getting there y'all!!