Waking up in an Alley...

Leaning against the brick wall of the alley he woke up in, Tony looked around and hugged himself to keep warm in the autumn cold of morning. The arc reactor in his chest was aglow and on, yet the remains of his suit felt like a dead weight on him, nothing seemed to be getting power, not even the internal environmental systems. At least the inertia dampeners worked, otherwise he'd be sitting in a hospital bed in a body cast with almost all his bones broken. Though the mental image of Pepper in a sexy nurse outfit spoon feeding him apple sauce made him grin... Until he exhaled a plume of fog and remembered it was cold outside.

"Well... Not going to stay warm in a perforated tin can, Friday, can you open me up?"

Not getting a response, Tony rapped him knuckles against the chest plate as if he were knocking on a door.

"Hello? Friday? Are you... updating a patch or something?"

Making a face and reaching over the remains of his suit over his body, he found the manual release at his hip and pulled it free. The moment it did, he expected the folds and plates to open and he would slip out. Instead, the suit fell apart all around him, clanking to the ground like heavy steel weights and tumbling to spread across the alley. Looking down, not only was his iron-man suit in tatters, but so were his clothes underneath. Covering himself with his hands and pulling up what looked like the remains of his pants on the ground and bringing them up to cover himself, the morning cold became VERY much the forefront of his attention.

"OKAY! That was a bad idea... Brrr... That's brisk!"

Shivering with a scrap of cloth at his crotch to keep his decency, while he looked down at the scrap metal all around him, something caught his eye that made his blood go cold, and not because of the weather. Falling to crouch and pluck at the small, apple sized item, he brought the arc reactor up in his hand to turn and inspect. Instantly he turned his attention to his chest, forgetting to hold the scrap of cloth in his other hand to inspect his chest to find nothing there. No scars, no hints of surgery of any kind. It was if the accident that destroyed his old life and propelled him into a life of heroism of Iron Man never happened, and clutched in his hand was the artificial heart that kept him alive all these years. Slumping down onto the ground, beside himself with confusion, Tony continued to stare at the arc reactor in his hand, until he heard a car stop and park at the end of the alley and a car door open.

"Tony?"

Turning his head to look out the alley entrance, he found Pepper standing there in the morning light with a shocked look on her face.

"Hey Pepper... Did you bring any spare pants?"

"What the HELL are you doing out here in the cold? And... Why are you naked?!"

Shrugging, the man stood up, prompting Pepper to look away with a blush and immediately turn around to pull a spare coat from the car out and toss it towards Tony, who blinked stunned when it draped over his head. Pulling the coat over himself and pocketing the arc reactor inside, he tied it closed and followed towards Pepper who frantically waved for him to get inside the car.

"What? This isn't the worst you found me in Pepper, remember the Christmas AFTER party 3 years ago?"

"YES!" She hissed, keeping her eyes open as she practically shoved the man into the car and closed the door behind her. "They found you passed out drunk and naked face down in Central Park! At least 12 tabloids called you the drunk-rich streaker until Thanksgiving. These paparazzi don't SLEEP Tony!!!"

"Eh, just means they got something else to print about instead of more bigfoot sightings and pics of Gwen Paltrow in a swim suit."

"Tony..."

"Mayday? Are you linked to the limo?"

"Yes sir Mr. Stark." Answered the feminine Irish accented voice over the limousine's speakers.

"Any idea what happened last night?"

"Besides you falling like a rock and breaking the black box to your suit? Hulk ate all the candy back at your place and it took Carol and Steve to drag him out after his sugar crash."

"... Did you take pictures?"

"Tony!"

"What? It'll be funny, we'll all have a BIG laugh about it one day. But seriously, anything? How long was I offline for?"

"According to my chronometer, 7 hours and 22 minutes."

"So just at midnight... Huh..." Scratching his chin, Tony continued to clutch at the arc reactor in his pocket. "Well, first thing's first if I want to solve a mystery: First is a hot shower, second is an egg white omelet."

"I'll have our crews retrieve the remains of your suit." Picking up her phone, Pepper was about to make a call when she felt an arm snake behind her and pull her close to Tony's side, the man grinning as he raised his eyes brows suggestively.

"You know... The shower is big enough for the TWO of us."

Narrowing her eyes, Pepper looked up at the car's ceiling and spoke. "Friday, try to make sure he gets a COLD shower, I don't want him getting heat stroke in there."

"Yes Miss Potts."

Sighing and crossing his arms, Tony looked out the window of his limo. "honestly, you're BOTH against me."

*

Hours later, Tony had gotten cleaned, dressed and fed breakfast, then spent every waking minute in his workshop going over the scraps of his armor returned to him and splayed out on the work bench in front of him. The tell-tale damage from dealing with AIM forces, and the attack he got from that creature were evident. But there were other things that could not be accounted for. One in particular were the strain on the fitting servos of the suit, almost as if the entire thing had been stretched out to maximum capacity to fit around the wearer. If he read the strain in the inner workings and the disconnected wires from their moorings, it was as if a 12 foot giant had stepped into the suit like it was a nylon body cover and tore it open. The other mystery was in his chest. Letting his machines scan him, he discovered the arc reactor had been removed from his chest, but there were no signs of surgery that removed the power source from his chest. Even more confusing were the metal shards that pressed against his chest were also gone, the sole reason for the reactor in the first place.

Answering one question but posing several others.

Leaning back in his chair and inspecting the arc reactor in his hand, the man thought long and hard on the matter. "Well... At least I can go through life without a plastic back on my chest to avoid a shock in the shower."

A chirp above him alerted Tony to Friday checking in on him.

"Boss, you have a visitor at the door."

"Tell'em we don't accept girl scout cookies, I eat organic."

"I don't think he'll like that answer Tony."

Looking over his shoulder to the door to his workspace opening and flooding with SHIELD agents armed and aiming weapons at him, Nick Fury casually walked in with his hands behind him. "Stark, been keeping busy."

Raising his hands in mock surrender, Tony gave the man an uneasy smile.

"Hey there Director Fury, did you have fun on Halloween? Let me guess... You were dressed like a pirate, was Maria your booty?"

One of the guards failed to hide a chort of laughter before straightening himself and keeping aim at Stark in his chair.

"Someone had fun last night Tony, but it wasn't me."

Slapping an envelop against the work bench with the rest of the scrap, Friday instantly scanned its contents and displayed them as a hologram for Tony and everyone else to see. What he saw made the man grimace.

Autopsy reports, damage reports, obituaries, all tied to a single event that happened last night at Hammer industries. Sitting up and looking more closely at the images and reports, Tony did not blink for a second as he soaked it all in. Especially the autopsy report of Justin Hammer; his arms and legs torn from his body, his chest torn open and his head crushed like a melon. It took DNA testing and finger prints to identify the body after its parts were recovered in different locations where the torso was found.

"What... The... Hell...?

"Happy Halloween Stark, at some point 5 hours ago Justin Hammer was having a meeting with his CEOs at his own company, a Halloween party that went bad. We've counted 47 people dead so far and we're still finding bodies." Stepping forward and scrolling over other files, he showed pictures of some survivors. Staff or servants who somehow came out of it unscathed but the look in their eyes made it look like they had seen a nightmare. "Some strange reason the only ones who weren't targeted were the hired help, not a scratch on them... Unlike their employers who forensics claim had to have been mauled and even EATEN by what could only be described as a bear."

"Do you have any idea who did it?"

"We're still on that, but some of the servants who didn't pass out or piss themselves when asked managed to give us an 'artistic' rendition of the attacker."

Flicking the holographic display again, the two men looked up at a crude pencil drawing of what looked like some giant wolf, a wolf wrapped in metal plating and armor.

"I just brought this to your attention because I know you like to keep your toys under lock and key... And I already interviewed Rhodes before coming here and he was up state on an assignment." Watching Tony lean back in his chair confused and mind racing, Fury kept his good eye on him, reading his body language. From what he could tell, the man wasn't keeping secrets... At least none he was aware of. "Anything you'd like to tell us?"

"Nothing that would give me any credibility. I'll check on any missing suits of armor in my collection, if you spot 'Scruffy' here, let me know who his tailor is, so I can sue him for copywrite infringement."

Grabbing the folder from the table and the holographic display disappearing afterwards, Nick Fury pocketed the file into his coat and made a gesture to the agents around him to leave. "We'll keep in touch, just figured you'd want to know since Hammer had been gunning for your tech for almost a decade. Must be pretty sweet to see him swept off the player's table like that."

"I think I'm going to throw up."

"Well... That just means you don't have the stomach for mass **** and cannibalism." Seeing Tony stagger out of his chair and stumble towards a garbage bin to throw up his breakfast, Fury snorted. "See you around Tony, we'll be watching."