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The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 55 [September 2010, Day 1 of the Stark Expo]
–Axle Riddle–
“Here they come,” He muttered to himself as he got comfortable in his cheap mattress, seeing the entire crowd enter the Expo like rabid fans. The audience was varied as well, from old tech nerds to high school students on a school trip, to children accompanied by their parents for a night out.
The Expo’s audience had it all and he for one, could not find Ben Parker. He knew the man’s face and was actually concerned if this was the day that Ben Parker was killed or injured in action but so far, no sign of Ben Parker or someone who was wearing an Iron Man helmet. Though, it would make sense for the kid wearing the Iron Man helmet to be Peter Parker, given his whole nerdiness.
Romanoff had split off from Pepper Potts to go check in on the whole security around the Expo with Happy Hogan, and unfortunately, she had almost stumbled upon the Hulks who were doing a very poor job of mixing in. He would have warned them about her but it was not their fault they could not escape the eyes of someone who was trained since she was but a child to spot and identify suspicious people, and Randall and Co. were certainly not blending in as much as they could.
They were neither in a group nor looking at any of the tech with interest. They were not journalists or reporters, they were not security….though-yes, he can spin it like that.
Oh, perfect timing, he thought to himself as Romanoff, after informing Happy about something, started sauntering her way straight to the Hulks in the auditorium section of the Expo. He winced as he realised they were the weakest link of the Hulks, what with the runt of the litter along with Randall, who was the most boisterous of the six, being there.
He intervened before things could escalate. He had to, otherwise these fools would end up exposing themselves even before any attack could occur. The attack might even be blamed on their heads, one could never be certain as to what lengths of stupidity people in power could go to cover their own asses.
Romanoff’s confident expression faltered as she felt something holding her back. Not something like a hand but as if some unseen force had engulfed her entire body and was gently applying pressure on her body to stop her from moving, or at least discourage her from going in the same direction she was going before.
She raised an eyebrow as he gently redirected her away from the Hulks and into the backstage area of one of the empty booths. He looked at the booths and deadpanned as he realised that the booth was about the clean water efforts by Stark Industries in Africa and similarly low income countries.
Seriously, people have no value in all the things Tony does for the unprivileged people. And if this is the kind of footfall his efforts get, he could understand why it was sidelined and only the military and the cool stuff was shown on the big Stage.
“Invisible Man, I presume?” Romanoff coolly said as he let his hold over her go and tried to flood the area with his presence, as he normally did whenever he wanted to have an actual conversation with someone. It felt better that way. But, he failed this time. The distance was too much and he also needed to keep an eye on the entire range of the expo to make sure that nothing untoward happened to any of them.
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So far, he had already broken the fingers of 3 molesters and broke hands of 4 people who tried to take off with kids who were not their own. Damn, people really do the vilest of things if they think they don’t have company.
“Yes, Agent Romanoff. I would appreciate it if you wouldn't investigate the particular two individuals you had tagged earlier. At Least not until after the Expo is over,” He said, hoping she would listen but knowing that it would be a fool’s errand to think so. Romanoff was a spy. Information was her bread and butter. There was literally no way she would let this go without extracting as much information as possible from him.
“Oh, are they your men? Teammates, perhaps? Our reports suggested that you only work solo but it's nice to see that you even pay attention to a huge security risk like this,” Romanoff said as she continued to look around the area.
“No one is here, I already checked. And yes, they are…hired help, you could say. As I am sure your reports corroborate, I can only act in a certain range with impunity, which is to say Manhattan and its surrounding areas. Once I get out of that range, it becomes harder and harder for me to exert the same amount of force. Hence, the hired help. They will make sure that, in case of any incident, all the attendees are safe and sound, all for the cost of you not spooking them,”
“So, they are the people that escaped from Ross, then?”
He sighed and shoved another mouthful of Chinese takeout into his mouth. What? It was stressful, trying to coordinate things for an attack you knew was coming but could do nothing about.
“Yes, the seven brothers, through no fault of their own, aside from being just a tad bit too trusting of unknown people, found themselves voluntarily entering the illegal experiments that Ross was running. Luckily, they found themselves enhanced but not so much as the Big Guy. They also look the same on the outside, so I thought, why not employ them,”
“So you are running a crew then? What for?”
“Romanoff, I would love to give you the full rundown of what I do for my entire day but I have work to do, and so do you. If I am not wrong, your current boss, aside from Fury, is looking for you. Just ignore 4 more suspicious guys you might find and we’ll be good. I’ll be sure to hand over a report to whoever is the SHIELD liaison this time,”
Romanoff nodded at thin air, schooled her expression, and left to find Pepper Potts.
He was sure this was not the last he was going to be seeing of her but the woman was razor focused on extracting all the information she could from the conversation and it was certainly exhausting trying to talk to people like that.
“Boss, the show’s about to start,”
“Yeah yeah, I know,” He said to Randall as he sensed the massive amount of crowd gathering in the middle of the auditorium. He made sure that the armoured pieces were ready and accessible by bringing them in, just under the stage where Hammer was keeping his armed drones.
He could sense Rhodey in the War Machine suit as well and he had to say, even from a distance, it was awesome!
Hammer was yapping in the background and he could see the sheer exhaustion on Rhodey’s face as he realised that he would have to, presumably, deal with this idiot for far longer than necessary.
Slowly, the crowd filtered into the auditorium after the myriad announcements made by Hammer, just for the event.
Rhodey couldn't look happier as he was literally told to go stand in with a bunch of zombie drones underneath a stage with pitch black darkness inside.
Damn, Hammer really was the most annoying CEO in the weapons space, even if one counted pre-Afghanistan Tony Stark.
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