Mask or Menace ☂ IC Phone Post

[numberthree]

INBOX Voice | Text | Call | Video | Surprise Me A flat computer automated voice comes on and states in monotone: "This is the voicemail box for Allison Hargreeves. Leave a message at the beep."

Luther

Diego

Klaus

Five

Ben

Vanya

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[irondad]

Did I? Bizarre.

Invite's still yours. Do you like the ocean, Ms Hargreeves?

[numberthree]

[ Allison's brow furrows a little more at her device. She doesn't answer the question. Which isn't all that odd for those that know her. Not when there's some other point to make. ]

You're just inviting some random person out on a jet to a Caribbean Island?
How exactly do you know that I'm not someone who'll kill you in your sleep?

[irondad]

Guess so. Not my first time.
I don't, but I do know a paper trail of this size and this many witnesses won't make it worth any would-be assassin's while.

[numberthree]

[ Allison doesn't point out she could erase him and this entire trail with a few sentences. She doesn't even think about pointing it out. You don't tell people things like that with the same tone as sharing the color of your nail polish. She learned that enough times in her earlier twenties. ]

You do this a lot?

Maybe I should have asked if you were killer, instead.

[irondad]

Valid point. I think my other guests would frown on that.

( Just forwarding the flight itinerary and the digital hotel brochure. )

[numberthree]

[ Allison doesn't want to be interested.


But somehow she ends up looking at the brochure. Because it's there? And it. Well. It does look nice. It looks like nothing she's done in nearly four years. It looks like the life she never knew she was leaving forever when she came home for her father's funeral.

And her day ... has been shit. After hearing about Claire.
(Happy, healthy, safe. Somewhere far away from her.)

And coming home ... hasn't been relaxing. In weeks.

(Even when he's trying, she can't stop it.
Doubt. Anger. Jealousy. Hurt. Confusion. Guilt.)

And she knows. She absolutely knows. Luther would say no. Would tell her every reason why heading off to a whole other non-continental location with an absolute stranger is just asking for trouble. But staying away from home is asking for trouble. And coming home is asking for trouble. And thinking about Dallas is asking for trouble. And thinking about 2019 is asking for trouble. And being stuck here when she thought she was finally getting back to her daughter is asking for trouble. Everything about breathing is asking for trouble.

And she's just so tired of caring so much about all of it laying here in the dark.
Staring at all that blue water, and bright sand, perfectly photographed for seduction and selling. ]








8 am?

[irondad]

8 am.

See you on the flight.

( Presumptive, so presumptive, but he's generally a good judge of when he's cultivated someone's interest. )

[numberthree]

[ She doesn't answer.























But she's still there. On the runaway.
Sunglasses, and a designer duffle, at 8 am. ]

[irondad]

( Tony is alive, which counts, he feels, and upright, most important of all. The week long migraine born out of the endlessly convoluted technological cacophony currently bouncing around inside his head is still there, smothered for the moment under a heavy narcotic haze he just smiles through, cucumber-cool on the tarmac.

Paparazzi lurk at the fences, snapping away with telephoto lenses. Appearances matter. He's dressed comfortably, at least- this isn't fucking Air Force One -in jeans and a plain grey henley, the faint image of the rt a pale, glowing circle in the center of his chest.

A porter jogs ahead of him to take Allison's duffle for her, while Tony pushes his dark sunglasses up his nose and waits a beat to catch up. )

Ms. Hargreeves, Tony Stark. Glad you could make it.

[numberthree]

[ She considers him for a long second, without moving her sunglasses. Looking exactly like the imPort biops she'd pulled from the network instead of getting much sleep. New, but already well connected. Not really her actual thought. That's a checklist. (Looks like someone she doesn't know. Looks like himself. Looks like half a million other people she used to pass in Hollywood.)

The only actual codified thought she really has is he looks like anyone else she could kill with a few words if she had to. It's reckless (the whole of it, of no one knowing yet) but she's already here, and she's uniquely qualified where it comes to that. Her mouth tips, artfully polite, and she does reach up and pulls her sunglasses off. Not once looking at the clamoring roar of the crowds of cameras. Only him. ]

Allison is fine.

[ There's a gesture with those same glasses to the rather impossible to miss glowing circle showing through his shirt.
Far more canny question to the slightest narrow of her eyes, than anything like the flippancy of her next words: ]

Personal-carry rave?

[irondad]

Allison. ( His assessment of her in turn is brief- cool, collected, and confident, reminding him of Nat, actually -an outline to be filled in at his leisure later. First impressions count, but no one puts their whole selves forward for scrutiny in the beginning, not even him.

His mouth quirks with wry approval for her remark, unruffled, not offended but pleased, punctuating his quick reply with a casual shrug: )

Party never stops. Shall we? Oh- ( So light, easy, ) Forgot to ask, any food allergies, preferences, vegan; yay or nay?

[numberthree]

[ He lets it ricochet off of him, without an answer. Or at least not a real one. But she doubts it's anything like a bomb, strapped to his chest, beaming out through the cloth of his shirt, showing itself off to the whole rest of the world. She'd really rather not be at three-thousand feet with a bomber.

Her life is overly complicated enough as it is right now.

Allison turns gamely enough, walking toward the plane at his side. Trying not to focus too hard on the stairs, the thought that she could turn around, unmake this decision before it's made. Before barriers are crossed, and doors closed, and borders crossed. Except it's not any other month, or week, or even year. Nothing about her feels like the girl who could just have stepped out to get them coffee anymore. ]

None of the above.