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"Call Coulson," Elaine said. "Phil will know what to do." She hoped. And even if he didn't, he would tell Clint and Natasha and anyone else who would be able to help. Elaine looked at Kae, decided her friend was too flustered to do it, and pulled out her own phone. She dialed Phil's number.
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"This is Coulson." He looked down at the stack of paperwork in front of him and kind of hoped that Elaine had some news that would get him out of the office.
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"Phil, has Tony contacted you at all in the last fifteen hours or so?" Elaine asked.
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"No, he said he'd check in with you two." Phil paused at that. "He hasn't checked in yet," he guessed, already getting to his feet and leaving his office.
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"No, he hasn't," Elaine confirmed. "Not since the day before yesterday. And apparently Jarvis is completely preoccupied with Tony, he's not even paying attention to the tower at all. So something's really wrong."
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"I'm on it," Coulson said, flagging down Clint, since he was already just hanging around. "Get Widow," he ordered. "Does Claudia know where Stark is, or his last known location?"
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Clint snapped to attention at the order, although he wondered what was going on. He obeyed, though, going to get Natasha.
"I think so," Elaine said. After getting the appropriate information from the AI, she relayed it to Phil. |
Phil nodded. "Good. You two stay where you are, and don't do anything rash or stupid. I'll call as soon as we have more information."
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"We're not going anywhere," Elaine promised. "Keep us updated."
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"I will." Coulson hesitated for a brief moment. "Don't let Kae do anything stupid."
And then he hung up to go brief Barton and Romanoff. |
Elaine put her phone away and went over to Kae.
"Phil's on it," she said to her friend. "Clint and Natasha, too. They'll keep us posted, so we should stay here and hold down the fort." |
Kae nodded but didn't stop pacing, too worried to hold still properly. Elizabeth whirred on the floor alongside her, keeping pace with her person.
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"Kae," Elaine said. "Come back down. You'll give yourself a migraine doing that. If you're going to pace, pace on the floor."
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Kae dropped to the floor with a thud. "Well, it's as close to flying as I'm going to get," she grumbled, going back to her pacing. "Besides, I'm still working on getting my tolerance up."
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"You'll learn how to fly," Elaine said encouragingly. "It's not hard once you get the hang of it. We can go down to the gym and practice, if you want, I know there's a new padded section for us to use." It would help distract them, at any rate.
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Kae hesitated for a few moments before she nodded. "Yeah, let's go practice," she agreed. Part of her still wanted to go after Tony herself, but she knew that was Not a Good Idea.
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Elaine nodded and walked with her down to the gym. Practicing would be good.
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Kae spent the new few hours falling on her face, or her butt. Because yeah, no, her and flying were just not mixing.
Then Phil called Elaine again, she froze, looking at the phone. |
Elaine jumped and rummaged for her phone. She found it just before it rolled to voicemail. "Phil?"
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"They found him," Phil said without preamble. "They're working on extracting him at the moment. We're not sure what happened yet, but I'm sure we'll find out soon."
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"I need to start sending out thank-you prayers or something," Elaine said, sighing in relief. She looked at Kae. "They found him," she said to her friend. Then she turned her attention back to the phone. "Is there anything else?"
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"Not at the moment. I likely won't have an update for you until morning; it will take Hawkeye and Widow some time to get to Stark to get him out. You two may as well rest." Phil paused for a moment. "Should I send Rogers and Banner back for the night?"
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Elaine glanced at Kae for a moment.
"Yeah," she said to Phil. "That would be good." Because she wanted the comfort for the night, and Kae definitely needed it. "At least Bruce. Don't bother Steve if he's busy with something." |
"He just got back. I'll send them both down within the hour." Phil went to go find Steve and Bruce so he could order them back to the Tower.
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It didn't take much ordering on Bruce's part. He pretty much dropped what he was doing so he could head back. He wouldn't be able to focus on science anyways, after being told that something was wrong with Tony's mission, so it was best to head back to the tower.
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