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Eddie had never been big on living in one place for too long. It came with his lifestyle as a roadie, and so he had no permanent residence. That didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate an offered room, let alone one with a view.
“How do you wake up to this every day, man?” Eddie asked, cup of coffee in-hand.
“Billionaire privilege.” Tony replied, sipping on his own cup. Eddie gave him a look.
“I was being rhetorical.”
“I know.”
“Smartass.”
“Barbarian.”
There was nothing painful behind the jabs. The two men continued to drink their coffee as they stared out at the sunrise. It had been close to three months since they had met and, while this was Eddie’s first time at Tony’s residence, his phonecalls had made a world of difference in the genius’ life. He may not have been a licensed therapist, but his loud personality and listening ear helped Tony manage his stress just a bit. Kinda like how Pepper did, actually, but different.
God, Pepper… That put a damper on his mood real quick.
“Hey, big guy, got a question.”
“Shoot.” Said Eddie, “Or, well, don’t. You might be wearing one of those destructo-gloves for all I know.”
“Promise you won’t tell Pepper about what I’ve got to say, yeah?” Tony stared down at his drink. Eddie gave him a raised eyebrow.
“I ain’t a therapist. If she asks, we don’t have client-therapist confidentiality.”
“But you’re a friend.” Tony pointed out. It was a way to get Eddie to agree, but if the metalhead figured things out, it would definitely make things sting.
“I guess I am.” Eddie shrugged.
“Then lemme ask you something hypothetical: If you were wearing something to keep you alive, would you remove it if it was killing you too?”
Eddie was silent. His eyes glanced down at the light glowing from Tony’s chest, then back at Tony’s face.
“Depends.” Eddie spoke slowly, “In this hypothetical scenario, is there nothing that can be done to fix the thing? Make it not kill while it saves?”
“No.” Tony replied.
“I see.” Eddie said. He crossed his legs and leaned back, “I suppose this person wants to go out with a bang?”
“Not particularly, but that sounds like a blast. No humor intended.”
“Hmm.”
Eddie sipped on his coffee. While the smell was strong, he could also smell the tinge of alcohol in Tony’s coffee. He knew it wasn’t his place, but he didn’t like the idea that Tony was drinking this early in the day, mixed with coffee or not.
“Is that why you invited me?” The metalhead asked, “To give your last goodbyes?”
“No.” Tony said, clearly lying.
“It’s a shitty way of doing it.” Eddie downed the last of his coffee and stood, “I’m gonna be blunt about what I’m gonna say, and you’re probably not gonna like it.”
“I never liked it, but sure.”
“You need to cut back on the alcohol, for one thing. It may be nice at first but if you wanna stick around a bit for your last moments, cut it down. It’s better to live in clarity than to drown your sorrows and wait for the undertow to drag you down.”
“Hey now-”
“And for another thing,” Eddie spoke over Tony’s burgeoning complaints, striding closer to the screen reflecting the world outside, “You’re gonna be hurting a lot of people if you keep this charade up. Doesn’t matter if you’re drunk or sober, pushing people away to deal with your poison isn’t helping anyone. If I were you, I’d tell Pepper, at least. She deserves to know that the guy she likes is gonna die in less than a year.”
With that, Eddie left before Tony could retort.
Eddie frowned as he watched the news broadcast. Tony wrecking his penthouse and fighting his friend was not on Eddie’s bingo card today. He left the diner seat he’d been sitting in for breakfast and walked outside. He dialed the flip phone he’d gotten specifically for Tony. He frowned deeper when he didn’t get an answer.
It looked like he was gonna go looking for Tony, then.
Eddie didn’t like making friends any more than Tony did, but they were friends, and Eddie protected his friends. The last time he didn’t… He didn’t want to remember it. So, he had to go find Tony, before Tony destroyed himself any further.
Eddie gently kicked the fence gate. This wasn’t the first time he’d have to find a way in, but it’ll be the first time he had to do it on a rich man’s castle.
“State your name and business.” Came a voice from the speaker. It wasn’t Tony’s, sounded like some other security guard-type person.
“Eddie Riggs. ‘M here to see Tony.”
“Tony’s not here right now. Please leave the premises.”
“And why should I do that? You don’t sound much like you work for Tony.”
“Leave the premises, or we will be forced to make you leave.”
Not happening. Eddie thought. He walked down the path, pretending to leave, but peered off as soon as he was sure he was out of range of the cameras. He moved toward the cliffside before he began climbing down. If he couldn’t get in through the door, then he’d find another way in. Luckily for him, the windows were still blown out from the other night, and so he made his way in with a little hiss of pain at the glass stuck in his palms. He picked out the shards as best he could as he made his way down to Tony’s lab. Luckily for him, Tony had given him his own access code and so he was able to stride in quite easily.
“What the hell are you doing?” Eddie asked.
“Remodeling, what else?” Tony replied, swinging a sledgehammer. He did a double-take, “Eddie? How the hell did you get in here?”
“You’re on a rocky cliff. I climbed.” Eddie stepped closer, “Need any help?”
“Actually…”
“That’s a fancy little triangle.” Eddie whistled.
“Sure is.” Tony agreed. He was in no mind for a snappy comeback right now.
“If this is a new element, what are you gonna call it? Starkonium?” Eddie asked as Tony set the new element into the new reactor.
“Sure, sure. JARVIS, run some tests on it. We need to see what it’s capable of and if it can get rid of this palladium poisoning.”
“Right away, sir.”
Things went quiet for a moment as JARVIS began doing diagnostic tests. Tony took off his welding goggles, as did Eddie. Tony glanced over at the framed VIP pass on the wall.
“Eddie?”
“Hmm?” Eddie was already digging around his jacket for a lighter for the cigarette in his mouth.
“I owe you an apology.”
“For what?”
“You were right. When you said that I needed to get my shit together. Alcohol, keeping secrets, all that kinda stuff. Got a nasty wake up call yesterday and I realize, yeah, maybe Eddie does have a point. I’ve gotta be better. So, I’m gonna try to be a better person. Again.”
“You weren’t a better person before?” Eddie sneered, not unkindly. He clicked the lighter and lit the cigarette.
“Smartass.” Tony replied, “My point is, thanks for telling me what I needed to know, even if I didn’t get it through my skull for a while.”
“Yeah, well, that was kinda why I was on my way here: To knock some sense into you if you didn’t have it already.”
“And how were you gonna do that?” Tony asked.
“With this.” Eddie pulled something from his back Tony hadn’t noticed before. But now that he had a good look at it, his eyes widened.
“What the hell, man?!”
“I came prepared, in case something bad happened.” Eddie replied.
“And you think carrying a battle axe was gonna solve whatever problem you thought was gonna be here?”
“If it was dealing with you in your armor? Then yes.”
“Hey now, I would never-”
“You fought your friend Rhodey a few nights ago.” Eddie pointed out.
“Yeah, well, that was different!”
“And if it was me?”
Tony paused. He…couldn’t come up with a good answer. Eddie snorted.
“That’s what I thought.”
Beep beep. Beep beep.
“Incoming call with a blocked number, sir.” JARVIS announced.
“I bet that’s Coulson, gonna finally chew me out for breaking the perimeter.” Tony groused. Eddie raised an eyebrow.
“You mean the guy on the gate speaker that wouldn’t let me in?”
“No, that was probably one of his goons. Coulson’s the semi-head honcho here, besides Fury. Don’t think he’d be doing that kind of grunt work.”
“Fury?”
“Long story. Hope you never meet him.” Tony waved Eddie off and pressed the button to answer the call, putting it on speaker, “Hey, Coulson, wondered why you weren’t calling sooner to shew me out.”
“Hey, Tony, How you doin’?” That was not Coulson’s voice. Tony immediately stiffened and Eddie realized that the speaker was bad news. The speaker continued with a laugh, “A double cycle.”
“What?”
“You told me double cycle is more powerful. Good advice.”
“You sound pretty spritely for a dead guy.”
“You too.” And wasn’t that just ominous.
Tony hit the mute button and ordered, “Trace him.”
“Sir.” JARVIS replied.
“The true history of Stark name will be written.” The speaker went on.
“Where is he?”
“Accessing Oracle grid…” JARVIS pulled up a map of Earth and the map began to expand as the trace was narrowed down. It settled on the eastern seaboard, right near not only New York but the site of the military expo, then narrowed further to the entirety of New York.
“What your father did to my family over forty years, I will do to you in forty minutes.” The speaker assured.
“Good, let’s get together and hash it out.” Tony briefly pressed the unmute button before muting again.
“I hope you’re ready.” The call ended and the phone droned on.
“Call trace incomplete.” JARVIS spoke. Tony looked around, frustrated, only for him to straightened as he stared at another screen. Eddie followed his gaze. It was a hologram screen showing the headlines on the Stark Expo website, with Justin Hammer’s face plastered on the main stage event.
“What’s going on?” Eddie asked.
“You saw what happened in Monaco on the news, right?” Tony asked, striding over to the new reactor.
“You mean you and that Whiplash guy? Yeah, I did.”
“Is that what they’re calling him? Catchy name.” Tony picked up the reactor, “He was supposed to be dead, killed in a prison riot. As it turns out, he just called me to let me know that a lot of people at the Stark Expo are about to be killed, and I’ve gotta go stop him.”
“Then let’s go.”
“‘Let’s?’ What do you mean ‘let’s?’”
“I’m going with you.” Eddie said as if it was what they were doing. Tony shook his head.
“Hell no. You’re not coming with me.”
“Excuse me? Of course I am.”
“Uh, no you are not! Why do you think going into the danger zone is gonna help?!”
“Listen, Tony, I have a past that I don’t wanna talk about, but it involves taking this axe and chopping off heads. You want me helping do damage control against whatever Whiplash has planned, or do you wanna deal with it all yourself?”
Tony stared. Eddie looked serious. He considered his options. Eventually he rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Fine. Fine, I’ll drop you off near the expo. Just don’t get in too much danger, okay?”
“I think the enemies will be in more danger than I will.” Eddie said with a toothy grin.
If Tony didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought that Eddie’s teeth were sharpened to points.
A majority of the drones and Rhodey went after Tony, leaving Eddie to deal with the remaining ones still in the pavilion. He could deal with that.
“I’ve dealt with worse than you robotic sticks!” Eddie snapped, dropkicking one of the drones before it could leave the stage. In his other hand he carried the Separator, ready to cleave anything in two if he deemed it necessary. It had been a while since he’d needed to fight, but he hadn’t lost his touch. Especially not when there were so many civilians counting on him.
Though, Eddie will admit, drones are a bit harder to put down than demons.
His head whipped around. There were too many for him to fully keep track of like this. If he wanted to keep them under control, he’d have to go all big, bad, and nasty. He focused on that little spark inside him and allowed it to grow, transforming his body as his demon heritage came to the surface. His skin turned red, his nails became claws, his eyes became slitted and gained yellow irises, and his back sprouted wings. However, this time around, new changes also came. His head itched as two curling ram horns sprouted and he hissed in pain as his feet reconfigured themselves into something less human. His shoes fell off as his feet became something much more catlike and he nearly shouted in pain as a new tail made its way through the seat of his pants, arrow tip and all. These changes were definitely new but not unwelcome, as Eddie was sure he’d have to put them to use right now if he wanted to take out all these drones.
Eddie flapped his wings and charged the next drone. He beheaded it with a single swipe of his axe before landing on another and burying his foot claws deep into the metal. The drones were all trying to shoot at him but were either missing or hitting each other, oftentimes both. Eddie was able to use this to his advantage, dodging this way and that so the drones shot at each other before he finished the job. Whether it was with the Separator, his own claws, or even a strong headbutt or two, Eddie was turning them all into smoldering wrecks.
His eyes caught on a drone that had managed to leave the pavilion. Apparently it thought a kid in an Iron Man mask was the same threat level as Tony was and was now aiming a gun at the child. With a snarl, Eddie flapped his wings and charged, slicing it in half with a swipe before it could hope to fire. Once he was sure it was exterminated, Eddie turned to the kid and crouched.
“You okay, kid?” Eddie asked. He could hear the fearful breathing coming from behind the plastic mask. Once the child gave him a nod, Eddie nodded back and stood. He had more drones to fight, after all.
“So, when’s the wedding?” Eddie asked. He was tuning and quietly plucking his guitar, Clementine, as he sat with Tony in the lab. Tony rolled his eyes.
“We’re not having a wedding.”
“You’ve been beating around the bush with Pepper for a while. I thought you would’ve had a plan to go with a sudden girlfriend, Tony.”
“Do ‘commitment issues’ mean anything to you, Orczy?”
“You’ll get over it.” Eddie raised his head to look at Tony, “She’s good for you. I mean that.”
“Thanks.” Tony blushed.
“But if you’re not planning a wedding, what are you doing?”
“You know that guy I mentioned before? Fury? Well, he’s got this weird ‘Avengers Initiative’ thing he wants to do. Originally, he wanted me on it but now the guys he works for, SHIELD, think I’m not ready to be on the team yet. So, in all official capacities, I’m just a consultant.”
“And what does that have to do with what you’re doing at the computer?”
“I’m trying to see who these SHIELD guys are and what this ‘Avengers Initiative’ is all about. Fury had a file but he wouldn’t let me look at it, just the ‘performance review’ the Black Widow gave me. How can she think I’m not ready when clearly I had a bad week?”
“Ouch.” Eddie winced in sympathy, “Still, she has a point. It’ll take time to adjust to detoxing yourself from a lot of the shit you were doing. At least you’re involved in the first place.”
“Thank you, Mr. Therapist.”
“That’s what I’m here for.”
“By the way,” Tony turned around in his chair so he could face Eddie, “I did give Fury one condition.”
“And what condition was that?”
“That you stay on as my ‘official therapist.’”
“What?” Eddie stopped strumming.
“I need someone to help keep me grounded.” Tony admitted, “You see right through me and tell me the truth, even if it’s hurtful and blunt. Hell, I need that sometimes. And I need someone to help watch my back. I don’t want Pepper to be put in danger because of all this and Rhodey’s still working with the government, so it’s not like I can ask him to drop everything when I need his help. No offense, but you’re a roadie, and you personally don’t like staying in one place for too long. You don’t have a home to go back to and you’re good in a fight. I saw the wounds you made on those drones with that axe. If push comes to shove, you think you can stick by me?”
“Huh.” Eddie tapped his foot. He glanced away, mind heavy in thought. Tony had a lot of good points. But was he really willing to give up his nomadic lifestyle for this guy?
Well, Tony was his friend, and Eddie didn’t let his friends get hurt. He’d be turning his back on Tony if he decided to leave and if Tony kept up the superhero schtick and got hurt—or worse—then it would be on Eddie’s head. He nodded.
“Yeah. Alright. I’ll watch your back, Tony. I’ve only got one question.”
“Shoot.” Said the genius.
“Why did Fury agree to your condition? It seems to me he was the one with all the cards in his hands. He could’ve said no to you having me as part of the deal.”
“Well, that’s why I’m looking into all this. I don’t wanna be caught off-guard again. And if there’s anything that stands out, then maybe it’ll tell us why he agreed to let you come on with me.”
“Hmm.” Eddie said, not very convinced. He didn’t think the search would turn up much, but he was here for good now, so he might as well get comfortable listening to Tony every day.
He wondered if Lars would be proud…