Chapter 2: Chapter 2 First Steps
It's amazing the places you can get into with just a safety vest and an expression that says that you know what you're doing. I quickly realized that my salvage idea that I used in Step 1 might not work here due to it being far more in the open and with thousands of people present. Infiltrating Hammer Industries was also out of the question since I simply wasn't good enough for it and I seem to remember that Black Widow already was doing that.
Hijacking control over the drones was a no-go since not only was Ivan a way better programmer than me, he did everything in Russian which I could speak well enough to either order a vodka or get my teeth kicked in.
Certainly not well enough to try and out hack a genius.
So, instead of scavenging stuff after the fact, I decided to come in way in advance. I helped setting up the stages, laying down the wiring, everything you could think of, I tried to do. While I was hired for construction, which meant that thankfully I got payed for all my time there (even Galactic Overlords need to eat) I used my vest, id-badge and sheer confidence to get to areas where I technically wasn't allowed to go.
Such as the unloading area where Hammer's drones would arrive before they'd be placed on the platform where they would be revealed on stage. Underneath my bulky work clothes I was wearing a bare bones version of the Iron Man armor, made from the material I had managed to pilfer during my time setting up the Expo.
You wouldn't believe the amount of raw material that went in to making all of the stands, visitor areas, walkways, hell, even parkings required tonnes of stuff to make.
And with my almighty safety vest, I had access to all of it. Of course I had to be careful about what and how much I took, so I was limited to small amounts of steel and power tools (not to mention the size of the boot of my Honda) which was why I applied months in advance.
During my time working here I had stolen enough material and tools to make at least the skeleton of the power armor. It was basically just a frame on my torso and limbs hidden from view by my uniform. It offered me no protection but it did give me superstrengh.
As I walked into the loading area with my toolbox in hand I was stopped by an armed guard stepping in my way. As I tried to keep my breath even I was immensely relieved to see that while the guy was alert he wasn't suspicious of me or wary, his hands resting loosely on top of his gun.
"This is a restricted area sir, I'm going to need to see some id."
"Oh, yeah sure. Here you go." I replied, trying to keep any tremors out of my voice as I reached into the back pocket of my overalls with my bulky gloves, fishing out the card and presenting it to the security guard.
The card said two things: the first was that I did indeed work for the Stark Expo.
The second thing it said was that I wasn't actually allowed in this part of the Expo.
Thankfully, given where I had just pulled the card from made the guard somewhat disinclined to look all that closely at my badge. Not taking any chances I tried to reassure the man with the submachine gun in his hands.
"I'm just here to fix the wiring. Lights are acting up."
Right on cue the lamps in the ceiling sputtered in pitiful protest before dimming slightly. As they should, given the fact that I had sabotaged the wiring not 5 minutes ago.
Giving a glance towards the ceiling before glancing at my card again, the guard looked at me again before giving a shallow nod.
"On your way then."
Dipping my head in thanks I made sure to walk away in an unhurried tempo without making it obvious I was trying to do so. I needn't have bothered as the guard deemed me completely uninteresting, turning away from me and watching the open end of the loading bay where the trucks with the Hammer drones would enter.
Making my way towards an adjacent room on the other side of the hangar (this one without a guard thankfully) I sat down at one of the many terminals that were scattered all over the backstage area, due to the amount of robotics, pyrotechnics and whatever other -technics you could imagine being used in the Expo which required massive amounts of data.
I had no clue what the terminal I was sitting at was supposed to do, my briefcase with tools and important looking manuals (one was for the blender I had at home as it had stopped working for some reason) opened beside me but I knew one thing for sure: it wasn't for fixing the lights.
After about ten minutes of me looking busy (while actually trying to figure out why my stupid blender apparently couldn't conquer the might of the ordinary banana) I saw the guard who looked extremely bored after his eight hour shift of just standing around, perk up slightly.
As the sound of heavy engines met me I understood why: the drones have arrived.
I kept "working" at my terminal (honestly it was a banana, a toothless grandma could chew it, so what the hell blender?) as the heavy crates containing the drones were offloaded and unpacked. I waited until the hustle and bustle of the entire process was winding down before I heard a hesitant knock on the door frame.
The guard from before gave an uncomfortable look at my toolbox with its foreboding manuals promising ultimate boredom and at me, kneeling in front of the terminal with my arms up to my elbows in its guts (I had given up on the mystery of the only blender known to man who was apparently allergic to bananas and out of pettiness had decided I might as well try and figure out what this terminal was actually supposed to do).
"You alright there?"
Giving a non committal shrug I turned back to the inner workings of the machine in front of me (mostly to try and hide the heart attack he had given me) as I replied, making sure to line my voice with annoyance.
"Sure, sure. Some idiot tried cutting corners in laying down the wiring so instead of a sequential relay I'm now dealing with a parallel circuit so's now I gotta go and run diagnostic's on every goddamn breaker, which is gonna take more time than actually laying the wiring right in the first place!"
The guard gave a confused blink at my torrent of inane techno-babble (as intended) before evidently deciding it was not his problem.
"Right, guess that sucks huh? Look, the shipment has been unloaded but the crew that are supposed to take the lot to the stage area haven't arrived yet but my shift technically ended about 35 minutes ago and I ain't getting paid overtime. You mind keeping an eye on things till they or the next guard shift turns up?"
While the overworked guard was clearly surprised (and angered) by the tardiness of the next shift, I on the other hand felt only satisfaction. Then again, I had the advantage over the guard in knowing why the next shift was so late: because I arranged it to be so.
I might not be willing to try and hack a criminal unstable genius like Ivan Vanko, but Jennifer from Administration?
Bring. It. On.
One sleepless night spent hacking the work schedule for this week using keycodes and passwords swiped from meeting rooms where I had technically no access to (thank you invincible safety vest!) and I had given myself a half hour window between this guard's shift and the arrival of the drones and the start of the next shift. More than enough with the superstrengh granted by my armor and with my tools in my toolbox.
"Yeah, sure not a problem. Something happens, I'll just give a yell or something." I said, trying to sound as uninterested as possible, giving a nonchalant wave with one of my grease stained gloves as I turned back towards the mass of wires and circuity in front of me.
The guard was clearly uncomfortable with leaving some electrician watching over a shipment of advanced military grade weaponry, but he turned out to be even more uncomfortable with working for more than nine hours straight by now (courtesy of yours truly again).
"Right. Good luck with the… thing." He muttered, before being waved off as I just turned my back on him.
I waited until the door on the far side of the hangar clicked closed, before I bolted towards where the drones were packed in neat rows. I had at maximum a half hour before the next shift was supposed to show up, but I still remembered the near miss at the showdown between Stane and Stark. At any moment someone could show up and massively screw up my plans.
Sure, my power armor would allow me to at least get out of here alive, but I'd be on so many radars it wasn't even funny anymore.
But I hadn't put on the armor for a fight, as counter-intuitive as it felt to every teenager in the universe, but for something more… utalitarian.
The drones were massive solid metal forms, protected from tampering by strong plates and internal software. An obstacle easily overcome by me ripping away the plating at the neck of one of the Navy-model drones. I knew Ivan had trackers in the drones, but I also seemed to remember that taking out their heads cut off his remote control. Now obviously I couldn't simply rip off the head entirely, that was rather likely to be noticed. But tear out the online connector?
Now that I can do.
Slipping a signal jammer inside the body of the drone for good measure, I slap the plating back roughly into place using some of the more sophisticated tools in my arsenal (fine, I'll confess, I used duct tape) before making my way around the other models, each time only disabling a single drone in each batch as too many would draw too much attention.
Surprisingly, despite me expecting to be found out at any moment I actually managed to finish with ten minutes to spare. I quickly gathered all of my stuff, triple checking to see if I left any clues behind that could lead back to me, but thankfully not finding any.
I wasn't worried about the cameras that covered the hangar since I knew they didn't actually have any power.
I should know, I installed them myself.
Seeing nothing more I could do to cover my tracks I swiftly made my way towards the main stage area, my pass and mighty safety vest easily granting me access to the backstage area where in a couple of hours Justin Hammer would make a fool of himself, courtesy of Whiplash.
And now, all I had to do was wait.
I calmly sipped my soda (no beer for now as I wanted to be completely sober for what came next) as Hammer's world went up in flames.
Quite literally, as one Air Force drone bombed the stage next to the one he had been standing on.
Despite the general mayham and pandemonium I was perfectly calm. Unlike everybody else here, I knew that Tony Stark had managed to get his head out of his ass, massively improve his Arc Reactor and was now on his way to punch Ivan into next week.
And sure enough a gold and red blur arrived and started shooting the drones out of the sky with well-placed repulsor blasts. Taking that as my cue, I walked towards the back of the stage which was deserted as all the employees had deemed the explosions too close for comfort and decided to take off towards safer pastures.
I took control of the lifts that had raised the drones on platforms onto the stage behind Hammer during his speech and ordered them down again. When Ivan started his attack, almost all of the drones took off and started raining down death and destruction upon the audience of the Expo. A few of the drones however had remained unresponsive on the platform.
They were my drones now.
Using my superstrengh I knocked down a portion of the temporary wall behind the main stage, which opened up to a large parking lot filled with company cars and trucks.
My car, with a trailer attached to it as was nearly every vehicle there, was right in front of the hole I had just punched through the wall (there is something inherently satisfying about having a punching match with an architectural element and coming out on top. This might just be my new favorite hobby).
Wasting no time since the dogfight over the Expo seemed to increase in intensity, I hurried back to the platforms with my unresponsive drones on them, throwing one over my shoulders. Each one weighed around half a tonne, but with my armor on I could take it (though it gave a distressed whine when I lifted the Army model with its oversized turret).
Throwing it onto the trailer I quickly covered the heap of robots with with some tarp, got in my car and drove away from the Expo, where in all likelihood Stark and Rodey were fighting off Whiplash.
I was greatly tempted to stick around to try and get my hands on Ivan's Arc Reactor but once again S.H.I.E.L.D. was on the scene and I didn't want to push my luck just yet.
It was the same reason why I didn't go to Hammer's base to go for Ivan's blueprints since the Black Widow was currently there. At the moment I vastly outclassed her in the strength department, but I was sorely lacking in defensive options, while she was both faster and more skilled than me, which meant there was a chance she could disable me.
No, I'll have to be content and take my drones to my storage unit, rip them apart and put them together for my own armor.
No matter, there were other steps down the line which would allow me to have another chance at obtaining the Arc Reactor for myself, I just had to be patient a little longer.
Step 3 was close to commencing and with the treasure trove of robotics in my trailer I'll be ready.
I'm coming for you Bruce.
Or rather, I'm coming for your blood.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone