Chapter 49

The Fastest Man Alive

Chapter 49

Monaco

Benjamin Blake Aka Jason Todd

Doting Father, Overkiller

Raven and Ororo had gotten the kids ready in record time while I took a quick shower. Once I finished, I had to get in contact with Sage to go over some information quickly. Gunny had gotten hold of some of the retired Marines, and they were going to pull bodyguard duty today and help free me up so I could take full advantage of Whiplash’s little stunt.

With Tony’s ego, he made the world know he was going to show up at the race in Monaco. This was just fine with me because I didn’t have to track him for any changes in cannon. Since there were no changes from the MCU movies, this also meant I could put my full attention on his adversary for the main event. Vanko was last seen taking the train out of Russia last Tuesday night. The A.I. collective on the island had picked him up from a camera connected to a transition station. Well, they caught the side of his face, which sent the systems into a frenzy. They got so overzealous that I had to stop them. Everything was tracked down from fingerprints to information I didn’t even want to know. Hell, I had to order a drone into the area to drop a package of nano-investigators.

Once Ivan Vanko’s credentials were confirmed, I had the nanobots investigate the power suit he had made. The whiplash suit scanned as a lower-tech version of Tony’s suit, and I was surprised he was able to get the level of output he achieved with such low level, even trashy materials. Then I had to stop and think about it. But putting it all in perspective, I realized Tony made his suit in a cave with parts from his state of the art weapons program while Vanko scrounged and made his suit in Russia without anyone knowing.

There was no stopping my excitement once I knew for sure this was happening. Hell, I had created a whole suite of containment units for the Delta Six accelerator suits. Was I an asshole for using the knowledge I gained from the movies? Maybe, but waste not want not. And this was just business. My company was going to gain a golden halo after this (literally in this case); and so was Emma’s for being a part of it all.

I had already come to terms with the fact that the hero life was not for me. It was a cool fantasy once upon a time, but I was much more Slytherin than Gryffindor to the core. With one last message sent to my guards on the ground, I put my holo-tablet away. Everything was in place for the show later so I could just sit back and relax…

“Are we there yet?”

“No!”

“Are we there yet?”

“No!”

“Are we there yet?”

“No, we’ll get there when we get there!”

Turning around, I looked at the little imp as she tried to drive Raven up the wall. Ororo and Emma were the smart ones and had earphones in and were intentionally ignoring the byplay. Alfred was playing a game with Celeste and Sophie over the holo-net. Phoebe was reading something on her own tablet while snuggled into Jean’s side. Gwen and Sue decided to stay on the island and do something in the labs together, but I already made sure to schedule assistants to ensure there was no repeat of the hentai tentacle monster episode.

Felicia was doing her thing in New York, and I made sure I had people watching her back as well since she was trying to play with The Hand. She didn’t tell me about what she was planning, but my paranoia protocols were on full-scale alert, and I was going to be sure I had backups for my backups when it came to The Hand’s Ninjas.

Before Maya could ask her question again, I flicked her on the forehead. She pouted and did the most mature thing a spoiled and totally loved child who has her daddy tied around her finger could do: she stuck her tongue out at me.

“Leave your mother alone,” I said before pulling my holo-tablet back out. “Here let’s watch something.”

With some quick commands into the particle seat layout console of the sky car, I was shifted to sitting next to Maya. The sky car we were using was one of the premium variants from the island. Well, I wouldn’t consider it an island vehicle since it was built with the family in mind. This sky car had everything one with a large family would need. This baby was rated for vacuum and underwater operations with an expanded interior, kinetic shielded safety seats, and inertia dampeners, of course, with separate enclosures to ensure safety. Hell, it even had state of the art medical facilities that were just a button press away.

None of the seats were traditional seats, either: most of the interior was built from photon deposition layering of hard lights and nano-particles. This process allowed us to both have preset configurations while allowing us to program the inside. I knew Wakanda had their little Vibranium dust, but that was all back of the bus now and quite played out. I felt more than a little smug, knowing we had the upgraded version of their musty dusty. These nano-particles came in colors and, combined with the hard lights, could even turn the interior of the sky car into a kitchen, a living room, or even a flying saucer if one wished.

Anything one might imagine.

We had settled in to watch some of the cartoon, but didn’t even make it ten minutes into the show when Raven called out that we were touching down. Once we drove out of the parking garage, I placed a call to Gunny, who was heading the security detail. The information I received back wasn’t so bad. Justin Hammer had shown up, but no word on Tony as of yet. Putting that aside, I found Ivan out a few blocks from the raceway before I closed down the tablet as Raven drove us into the owner’s side of the parking lot.

When we pulled into our section, there was a nice little crowd of guards and employees waiting on us. The kids rushed out while Raven, Emma, Ororo, and Jean took their time and looked stunning doing it. Some of the workers looked stunned that we were able to fit so many people in what looked like a futuristic sports car, but ignored it for staring at the absolute beauties I surrounded myself with.

Emma turned and started to coordinate with her people, while Raven and Ororo took the kids with one of the tour guides. Jean and I went right to the formula one car to take in its curves. This formula one car was the brainchild of Peter, Ben Grimm, and Johnny working long hours in the labs back in New York. They had gotten it done with room to spare for the qualifiers, and I had thrown millions into getting a team together while also snatching up a driver. He went by some fancy French name that I could not be bothered to remember at the moment as I looked over the formula one racer with Jean.

The team’s manager came up with a smile, and I had to take him to the side to let him know that I would be racing today. The look on the man’s face was priceless, but he still jumped to and got done what needed to be done. Lucky for me, I was footing the bill and had my qualifications, bad news for him, I was the eccentric billionaire that paid for everything. Jean gave me a look that screamed unfair, and I could feel the need for speed bleeding through her empathic powers.

Before I could say anything, Emma and Ororo showed up with a disgruntled look on their faces.

“Why do you get to race, and I have to stay in the V.I.P. booth?” Ororo asked with piercing eyes.

“Yes, I believe we should play for the right to race,” Emma added before turning to the team manager, which had the man break out in a cold sweat.

“Because I came up with the idea, and I brought my racing gear,” I replied, trying not to sound smug about it.

“That’s why you brought the duffle bag.” Jean gasped as she put the parts of my plan together.

“What duffle?” Ororo asked while looking around.

“The one in his utility belt,” Emma answered with a huff.

“Look, I’ll set up a racing track when we get home, okay,” I said, raising my hands to forestall them from turning this into a thing.

Hell, maybe it would be fun to recreate a speed racer or Mario Kart style racing back home.

“I will even program the game tower races myself.”

That seemed to appease the three, but I noticed the way Ororo and Emma looked at the formula one vehicle. Yeah, I would have to do something to make up for this later, but for now. I was going to enjoy fucking up MCU canon.

The team manager didn’t even wait for his queue, he vanished somewhere, so I had one of the guards find the man and relay my orders on getting the racer ready for me. Since the manager was going to take care of getting everything ready, I pulled out the advanced helm stashed in my duffle. I gave it to one of the assistants and told them how to sync it to the F1.

I followed my family out to the V.I.P. section of the racing circuit. One of the things I instantly picked up on was that Gunny was sitting his oversized marine ass in a little golf cart labeled security. I didn’t even say anything, just pulled out my phone and snapped a picture for later. He shot me a look and brought his hand up for a middle finger but stopped halfway once the kids rushed over to his side.

Salt was in the second cart that pulled up so everyone could grab themselves a seat. The old man charmed the kids and allowed Maya to take the seat next to his while Alfred was stuck between his sisters in the back. I was wondering why he didn’t mind when I noticed he took out the collapsed form of the mega-buster we had worked on earlier that morning. In the collapsed form, it looked like a coffee thermos. I did a quick check of my surroundings to make sure that we didn’t have any cameras directed at us, but I noticed three.

Well, shit!

Ororo picked up on what I was doing before giving me a look asking why. Since there was no fast way out of this, I pointed to what Alfred had in his hands. The narrowing of her eyes told me she didn’t understand but knew that it was important. Luckily for us, we didn’t have far to ride on the little carts. The first thing I did once I hopped out was to make a beeline straight for Alfred. He saw me coming and handed it off to Celeste behind his back, but my eyes were far too fast for that.

I can’t believe he is already working with his sisters to pull one over me.

Before Celeste could make off with the mega-buster, Ororo was already there to take it out of her hand.

“We will speak of this later,” Ororo said, looking down at the troublemakers and using a neutral tone of voice.

The kids looked a little sheepish and crestfallen, but I was just happy they didn’t blow someone away. That air cannon packed a punch normal people just wouldn’t be able to stand up against. I guess it was my fault for tempting them when I left it on the dining table and not in my lab’s kiddy corner. I gave them each a look before Emma went on her best behavior speech.

Gunny and Salt made a hand motion to the side, which I took as my queue. I tapped Jean on the shoulder, and she turned and followed along. I had taken Jean with me to keep the rest in the loop telepathically.

Walking over, I noticed Salt pressing one of the buttons on her vambrace that sent a shimmer of light around us, forming a small privacy corner.

“Our security forces are all in place, boss,” Gunny stated as he brought out a regular table to show me. “I had Laslow tracking him since he got off the train last night. Everything is hands-off like you asked, but I gotta ask, are you sure you don’t want to pop him right now?”

Before I answered, I reviewed the information he gave me. The suit that Vanko was going to use was a stripped-down variant of Tony’s second suit. He had legs, arms, and some torso, but no helm or weapons besides his whips. He did have this modularity that would help advance some of the things I was working on for Emma.

“Yeah, I am sure. We pop him during his little showboating later,” I said, then expanded a little. “I built you guys one of the most state of the art suits known to man. I know your fears, but you can protect the people when this all blows up with the guards planted throughout the crowd. We need the publicity, but I also have you stationed, so civilians aren’t sacrificed during this little party.”

He gave me one hard look before acquiescing to my demands.

“You’re almost as bad as the politicians,” Gunny growled.

“True, but we at least have a contingency plan in place to protect the people. No one is going to drop the ball and then start pointing fingers.” I quipped.

“So the shields will hold if they need to?” Salt asked, inserting herself into the conversation.

“Yeah, they are using a new hard light tech called photon deposition layering. It allows us to change the nature of light itself into a hard structure. You can hit it with an Abrahams sabot round and barely crack the outer layer.” I said with smug satisfaction bleeding into my voice. Jean smacked me in the side before sending me a look. I sent her a kiss in return that made her cheeks bloom a red blush.

With his fears laid to rest, Gunny begrudgingly let us get back to our family time. What I found in the V.I.P. room was one of the funniest things ever. Maya was standing in front of Tony with her hands on her hips. The look on Tony’s face was reminiscing as if he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Hammer was trying to interject, and the triplets with Alfred were looking at the man as if he was a bug they wanted to crush.

I stood next to Emma, who was beside Pepper, who was trying hard not to laugh at the byplay as Tony was stared down by a little girl.

“Daddy said you’re a hero,” Maya said, staring down at Tony as he had a strained smile on his face. “What are your powers?”

“I don’t have any, but I’m Iron-Man, did your daddy tell you about that.” Tony tried to reply, but the look Maya gave him said it all. She closed her little book before putting it back in her pocket before turning around and walking over to me.

“My guards wear suits.” Maya snipped at Tony before she held her hands up for me. Chuckling, I picked up my baby girl as I took in the devastated look on his face.

“Jason, you sumbit-“

“Language!”

“You’re here!” Tony exclaimed like we didn’t stop him from dropping the B-word. “Cute kid, are the rest yours?”

“The Jason Todd reclusive billionaire rumored to be involved with Emma Frost of the Frost conglomerate?”

“And who are you?” Emma asked the blonde that spoke up.

“Christine Everhart, Vanity Fair.” The blonde spoke rapidly as she moved from Justin Hammer’s side.

“Is she any good?” I asked, turning to Tony, who just shrugged back.

“My editor would love it if we could set up a time for an interview.” Christine gushed.

“Yes, well, she can’t because she is doing a spread on my company and me.” Justin Hammer, the self-tanner said, inserting himself into the conversation.

“Yeah, about what?” I ask, shooting Tony a look. The grin on his face told me he understood.

“You know, that canceled government contract,” Tony answered, sending it back my way.

“Ohh, they finally gave up on his bargain bin rent-a-weapons!” I said, nodding and playing along.

Tony smiled, and then we both just turned and ignored the man. Emma, Ororo, and Pepper were seated at a table with another blonde that tickled something in the back of my mind. When Tony asked her a question, that was when it clicked.

“Bobby this us?” Tony asked as she directed us towards the best seats in the house. Somehow they had my table and Tony’s combined into one.

Well, I’ll be damned, since Fury didn’t have Natasha to do his little infiltration of Stark’s company he sent over Bobby Morse instead. Not a bad choice actually, besides Natasha and Malinda May. Bobby would be on that very short list of kick-ass super spy babes that can get the job done.

Salt directed the kids to their seats while I picked Alfred’s tablet off him as he walked by. Tony watched over my shoulder as I donated the money Alfred liberated from Justin Hammer to a list of charities I kept.

“Hahaha, you should have seen it, Pep, the kids rolled Hammer for his money,” Tony chuckled with a laugh. “How do you deal with all these kids?”

“Tony!” Pepper said, scandalized.

“What?” Tony returned with his own shocked look.

“It’s fine,” I said, placating Pepper from digging into Tony’s ass. “My little geniuses can be a handful. I’ll tell you that, but it helps that we keep them engaged. That and also that we aren’t slouches when it comes to the intelligence department, also.”

Pepper tilted her head to the side, and I noticed the look she gave Tony. Well damn, she was already thinking ahead. Tony noticed the look and made his escape while tapping me on the shoulder to follow along. I gave Jean a kiss on the cheek before putting Maya in my seat and followed him to the side.

“Let’s race,” Tony said, not even trying to hide the playboy smile on his features.

“What’s the bet?” I asked in return.

“Michael Keaton’s Bat-mobile,” Tony said, bringing out his phone. The video feed that popped up was of his garage with the Bat-mobile parked right there in the center. I looked at it and gave Tony a nod that spread the smug look on his face.

“I see your bat-mobile and raise you one back to the future DeLorean with a working flight module,” I said, bringing up my own smart band with a floating hologram of the garage section of my labs. Sitting between my supercars sat the DeLorean from the movie. Floating next to the image was the text of all its flight capabilities. “Authenticated, of course.”

“Done,” Tony said as he looked at my flying time car with crazy eyes. We both looked around for a moment. Tony got a little head motion from Happy which gave us a clear exit. “So, I have a second-team out there, and you can drive that one.”

“No need,” I answered before sending the commands to my U.M.F. suit. Tony stood stunned as my clothes changed from my black slacks and boat shoes to racing gear.

“You have programmable clothing!” Tony gushed as he tried to touch the fabric. He didn’t get a chance as I pushed his hands away.

“You should worry more about getting yourself ready man,” I said as I fended off another one of his attempts. “You’re a grown man, no pouting.”

There was no looking back to see the look on his face. He was a grown man; he will get over it. Walking into the pit, I found the team’s manager was already waiting there for me with a helmet in hand. The French driver was seated on the side and looked sour as could be. This was his lucky day because if I wasn’t here, he could have ended up one of Whiplash’s victims.

Hell, I knew the only reason he isn’t up in arms about me taking his spot was that he will still get his hazard pay. Plus, I was going to give him a driving bonus for the day.

With a quick double-check of the helmet, I slid it onto my head before waiting to get into my formula one racer. Once the helmet was over my head, I gave it a moment to connect with my suit and smiled at the Heads Up Display became available.

For a moment, I wondered if Tony had created the same set up for his driver. I dismissed it since there was no news on such a thing, and he wasn’t ‘I care for the world’ Tony yet. While I was looking through track conditions on my H.U.D., I waited on the side for them to finish running pre-race checks.

Once that was completed, I got in the formula one car and then went through more pre-race checks. The racer U.M.F. suit had a built-in cooling system that most other racing suits lacked. On the side was a double plug system that connected right into the F1 vehicle. The blue plug on my left brought in the cool liquid that ran through the suit. While the red plug on the right drew the liquid heated with my raise body’s temperature.

It was a pretty easy system to install with the heat sink fins located right behind the driver’s seat. These were the little advances that my driver’s like, and I was starting to understand why. Inside of the F1 racer was fucking hot. Yeah, we had an overhead cooler sending in air, but that could do nothing on the track.

With this system, once I plugged in my suit, and the cooling liquid started to circulate. Damn, I felt so much better. I had to finish that ship for Peter and Johnny because everything got so much better once the coolant started to circulate.

With a double-tap on my helm side, I had the H.U.D. changed to the race track mode, and I noticed the marked lines with green giving the fastest track times.

“Mic check, mic check.”

“Mic check clear, mic check clear,” I replied into the inbuilt radio. With that out of the way, we went over another round of checks before we got the final release.

I took the racing column handed to me, allowing me to snap it into place. Once it registered, I thumbed a switch letting me scroll through my H.U.D. to the racing setup I had for this day. On my lower, left was tire health, depicted by four wheels lit by a steady green. On the right was tack and position, my top left had gear with speed and had fuel levels in the middle. Once everything was in place, I rolled my neck while shifting my shoulders to settle in my seat some more.

As the team lowered the formula one racer down to the floor, I powered it on but was interrupted as the top right of my H.U.D. blipped on activating the video chat feature. Maya was stuffing her face at the side as she sat in Raven’s lap. It surprised me that my triplets were the ones making the call.

“Daddy, you’re going to race?” Phoebe asked with pouting lips.

“Yes sweetheart, I am,” I answered as I followed the lead out onto the track. I was to get into my position at mark seventeen.

“Mommy said you’re going to build us a track at home?” Sophie asked with her brows scrunched together.

“Yeah, I am sweety, but why did you call? The race is about to start.” I asked back.

“We didn’t get to wish you luck, and Miss Salt said we have to be good girls and stay inside,” Celeste answered for her sisters.

“Well, that just means I have to do my best to win this race and take you, girls, to victory row,” I told them with a smile. Even though things will get interrupted, I still planned to make my own little thing with the girls and family later.

“Okay, well good luck, daddy.” The girls all said at once. Maya looked up from her ice cream for a moment to blow a kiss at the tablet the girls used before going back to eating. Before the video call closed, I heard Alfred’s voice telling me good luck.

A five-minute count popped up on my H.U.D., letting me know that we were already in the final moments before the race started. Relaxing into my seat, I allowed my team to run the last of the electronic tests before the race. Closing my eyes, I blocked out the world around me.

Not only was I about to start one deadly race, but Vanko was going to show his face halfway through the race.

Ba-bump!

2:52

Ba-bump!

1:22

Ba-bump!

00:32

Ba-bump!

00:10

00:09

00:08

00:07

Ba-bump!

00:06

00:05

00:04