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“Doom seems to be gearing up for-” Steve was cut off by the door being thrown open. “Hello Ms. Potts. We were just having a debriefing,” Steve said, confusion wrinkling his brow.
The strawberry blond completely ignored him, going straight over to Tony. She threw down a stack of paper as her personal assistant scurried in the room after her.
“You,” she pointed at Clint, “give me your seat now.” Pepper’s voice was deadly calm yet the glint in her eyes was almost crazed. Clint quickly stood up, his hands raised in surrender.
“Whatever you say, boss-lady,” Clint mumbled while walking backwards. Fury bristled up in the front of the room.
“Potts! This is confiden-”
“Either stop talking or see all SHIELD funding come to an end.” She pointed a gleaming black pen at the director, making it somehow look lethal. “I will end you.” Pepper turned back towards Tony as her PA set down a coffee in front of the engineer.
“What’s up, Pep?” Tony was the only one in the room that seemed calm. All the Avengers were tense, Pepper was close to snapping, and the PA looked like he was on a caffeine high from hell.
“The Yashida Group is trying to fuck us over. I’ve had the legal team working nonstop for the past three days, and I haven’t slept since Tuesday, our biotech Okinawa branch is being pushed out-”
“Stop,” Tony said, startling everyone in the room. “Sit down and take off your heels.” Pepper was frozen for a long moment before she gracelessly plopped down into the chair next to Tony’s. She toed her stilettos off and practically melted into the seat. “I need a highlighter and pen.” Pepper gestured with a shaky hand towards her PA. The smartly dressed young man dug though his satchel, spilling a few drops of the coffee he was holding.
“One moment Mr. Stark. I know I have a highlighter somewhere. I’d love to be of assistance-”
“Calm down, Navi.” Tony leaned over and plucked a highlighter and pen from the side pocket of the PA’s bag. “Pep’s about to fall asleep so I need you on your a-game.” Tony took a sip of his coffee as the PA nodded frantically. Tony glance towards the front of the room just as Pepper started snoring softly. “Feel free to continue, Capsicle.”
“Uh, as I was saying,” Steve lost track of his thoughts as he watched Tony hand the PA the stack of papers after taking the first three sheets and laying them side by side. “Doom seems to be…” Tony was creating lightning fast dashes of bright yellow ink on the papers. He flipped the first sheet over and the PA quickly replaced it with the next piece of paper from the stack. “He seems to be gearing up for a…”
“For an attack in Chicago,” Tony filled in, not looking up as he wrote a quick note on the bottom of the eighth page. How had he already gotten through seven pages?
“Right. In Chicago.” Steve glanced at his teammates who were all staring at the resident genius. Even Fury was watching him with an unreadable expression. Steve shook his head and refocused on the map that was projected onto the wall. “Today’s attack was only a warm up.” He could still hear the sound of papers being quickly turned over and replaced. “I’m not certain if he was testing our teamwork-”
“His Doombots were a new model- different alloy, .7% increase in speed, Bird Brain there’s a weakness on the back of their legs to make room for the new thrusters,” Tony cut in, not looking away from his papers. He had a pen in one hand and a highlighter in the other. The PA had completely taken over the process of flipping the pages.
Steve did a double take. The stack was at least a half of the way through and Pepper’s head had lolled backwards, her mouth gaping awkwardly as she slept.
“Why do we think his next attack will be in Chicago?” Bruce asked. He was grinning fondly while the rest of the Avengers had looks of confusion and disbelief.
“Patterns of materials and goods needed for manufacturing Doombots have been tracked to Illin- Navi, I need page 39 stat- to Illinois,” Tony said and the PA almost tripped over himself, digging through the stack of freshly annotated papers. “If memory serves various UN delegates are meeting unofficially in Chicago. Doom will probably target either the Talbott Hotel or the Hotel Palomar Chicago, depending on whether or not the delegates are footing their own hotel bills.”
“How the hell did you know about that meeting?” Fury asked, the vein on his forehead bulging. “That information only came across my desk this morning.” In the span of Fury’s two sentences Tony had gone through another six pages.
“Those five delegates were the driving force that kept Latveria from being in the UN Security Council last year. I figured they’d be on Doom’s radar so I had Jarvis keep track of their movements.” Tony paused to take a sip of coffee, giving the PA a very brief break. “Navi, notepad, now.” The PA let out a girly squeak as he dug through his satchel again, pulling out a yellow notepad. He flipped through the scribbled on sheets before finally finding a blank one.
“Sorry Mr. Stark. Will this work?” The engineer let out a hum as he snatched the notepad out of the PA’s hand. Though his eyes were focused on the papers he was flipping through, his left hand was jotting down sentences. Periodically he’d grab the highlighter and used it on the papers he was reading.
“This is usually the part where you start scolding me for my reckless behavior,” Tony said after there was a long pause in the debriefing.
“You- ah, really shouldn’t just dive into the middle of a group of Doombots.” Steve’s tone was completely off. He sounded in awe rather than reprimanding. Tony grinned while flipping the last page over. He switched to writing with his right hand before taking a large gulp of his coffee.
“Jitterbug,” Tony got the attention of the PA, “this should sort everything out.” Tony handed the notepad to the PA who immediately started reading it. “Clean this mess up.” The PA shoved the notepad into his satchel before pulling together the scattered papers. “Wheel Pep out and send her home for the day. Get those notes to the legal team.” The PA quickly followed Tony’s orders. As Pepper was pushed out on the wheeled office-chair she woke up briefly. She quickly wiped away a line of saliva that had been leaking out of her gaping mouth.
“The Yashida Group-”
“Resolved,” Tony stated simply causing her to let out a long sigh of relief. The PA began pushing her chair out of the room again. “Hey, Jitters, don’t forget her shoes. Those things cost a fortune.” The PA scampered back into the room, nearly tripping over his own feet.
“Sorry Mr. Stark.” The PA practically bowed to Tony.
“Just go.” Tony waved him off, turning back towards the front of the room. “What?” Tony asked when he noticed everyone’s eyes were on him.
“That’s impossible. You couldn’t have just read through that tower of papers.” Natasha’s face was emotionless, but there was a tinge of astonishment in her voice. Tony snorted while spinning a pen between his fingers.
“Just because I hated being the head honcho of SI doesn’t mean I wasn’t good at it.” Tony flipped the pen up in the air, catching it easily. “So are we doing this debriefing or can I go back to playing in my lab?”