when dakota got to stark industries, the entire place was swarming in a frenzy. "hey, where's pepper? is happy here?" she asked the person closest to her.

"happy's already left. and miss potts? she's in her office, but she's not going to take visitors right now." they said without looking up.

kodie raised a brow. "even me?"

the person finally looked up, recognizing her, and gasped a little. "thank goodness you're here." they breathed out, holding out a hand to shake.

she accepted the handshake, her brows creased in confusion. "what's going on here? i got the message about the stolen tech. do you know what it was?"

they shook their head in exasperation, looking up at her. "some bio augmented something. i'm just an intern, they haven't told me anything. all i know is it was one of your dad's biggest inventions before.. you know. everyone's really panicked because nothing's ever been stolen before."

dakota ran her tongue along her teeth. "shit, i was afraid of that."

"why?" the person she'd been talking to asked, but kodie was already running out of the building, her stark suit forming, not bothering to talk to pepper since she already knew what she feared was true. beck had stolen the augmented retro framing, which meant she might be the only person who knew how to deprogram the drones.

⎊‎⎊‎⎊

"now that we have the stark girl fooled," beck said to his entourage of followers, "we are a-go. nobody can stop us now, we just have to get all of the timing right." he smiled as he looked at the people around him. "who would've guessed that all it would take to transfer all the information to me was just her voice recognition? you have such a sharp eye." he said, patting the man next to him on the back.

he smiled. "it was no problem, sir."

"and, now, these glasses," beck held them up, "belong to me and only me. and the best part is that dakota stark bought it! the retro framing worked even better than i ever expected; she thought she had even knocked me out when it was only a hologram! how you made it so life-like that it could even be touched is absolutely incredible." he complimented another man.

"oh, it was nothing! you're the one who plays the role so well." he said in response.

beck laughed. "oh, you flatter me! now that they'll think i'm weaker than ever, we need to plan out everything to be just right for this next move. janice? do you have my cape?"

⎊‎⎊‎⎊

"j.e.e.p.," dakota mumbled breathlessly, flying in her suit, "can you find happy hogan for me?"

"happy hogan is currently on his way to broek op langedijk." the ai responded with its cheery voice.

kodie almost stopped mid air, blinking as she tried to process the location "broek op langedijk?" she repeated, trying to think of where the hell that was. her suit's helmet pulled up a map to help her, and she blinked again. "the netherlands? what is he doing in the netherlands?"

"i am not sure, miss stark. but mr. hogan has been flying to the netherlands for some time now and appears to be almost there. would you like me to make a travel course to his location now?"

"yes, please."

⎊‎⎊‎⎊

dakota made her way to broek op langedijk in admittedly less time than she had expected it to take, and was now lowering into a field of tulips, above which was a jet that she recognized to be happy's. she landed in front of the ship, and her suit scanned for heat signatures. she frowned as she saw two bodies inside of the ship. "happy? she called out. "hey, happy?"

the man stumbled onto the ramp of the jet, shielding his eyes from the sun. "kodes?" he asked, a small smile appearing on his face. "you're okay!"

"yeah, why wouldn't i be?" she replied, taking a small step closer.

"wait!" happy said, his eyes widening as he remembered what peter had asked him earlier. "how do i know you're actually you? with the whole tech thing and the illusions.. how do i know it's you?"

kodie looked up at him in disbelief, though her suit was still on. "um.. remember when you were carrying tony and pepper's engagement ring around like a mad man? and i asked you if you were doing the same thing with may and you said you weren't but then you stayed at the cabin and i was doing the laundry, right, and i found a ring in there? and i asked you if it was yours because it definitely was, and you said you didn't know. and then morgan and i were making fun of you because, dude, what? and then pepper was confused because why did you have a ring, and then you had to tell everyone you were in love with peter's aunt, and it was really awkward for you but really funny for everyone else and-"

"okay! okay!" happy stopped her. "it's you. i'm glad you're here." her suit dematerialized, and happy was about to walk down the ramp to meet her and give her a hug when peter came practically flying out from the ship.

"peter?" dakota asked, laughing slightly as he beelined towards her, immediately wrapping his arms around her waist to hold her body close to his chest. "how did it go talking to fury?"

he shook his head. "beck was tricking me. he got ned and mj's names, and he's probably gonna hurt them, and i got run over by a train and happy had to give me stitches."

"what?"

"and beck told me he was going to hurt you, so happy and i were going to go and try to save you but it looks like you.. you already got that covered." he cracked a small smile.

kodie smiled, pressing her forehead to his. "thank you for at least.. wanting to come save me. but, yeah, i got that part covered."

he shook his head, completely overwhelmed with how happy he was to see that she was still in one piece. his arms, which were still wrapped around her, squeezed her closer, picking her up slightly as he hugged her. he pulled back as she groaned, setting her back on the ground. "hey, what?" he asked, wanting to know what had hurt.

"oh, it's nothing," she mumbled, pressing a hand to her side as she winced, "just, uh, just two fractured ribs and an injured organ."

"oh my god, oh my god!" peter fretted, his eyes widening as he looked down at her. "what.. how.. aaaa!"

dakota laughed. "peter, stop screaming, you're not the one with the fractured ribs!"

"i know, but how did... how did you get fractured ribs?" he asked.

"mysterio, who else?"

"so you clearly didn't have it covered?"

"no, i most definitely had it covered, just not at first!"

"no, if you had it covered, then you wouldn't have fractured ribs."

"it isn't even that big of a deal, i beat the 20% survival rate."

"your survival rate was 20%???"

"okay, now that we're all caught up, let's just focus on the good news. good news: i'm fine. good news: you're fine. now, we have to figure out how we're gonna stop the drones, right?"

peter looked down at her, still shocked. "i.. yeah, i guess. did you see him? what did he do?"

"yeah, well, i karate kicked him and left him on the floor unconscious. i also transferred edith's power over to my ass, but i don't think that's actually possible so who knows." her eyes widened as she remembered the most important part. "oh! okay so remember how i hated him right off the bat and i always knew there was something wrong with him and i'm just so smart and incredible?"

he nodded. "right, yeah."

"well, i found out that he actually worked for my dad! so pretty much he like made this invention and then tony rebranded it and now his panties are in a twist cause he doesn't like the rebrand." she explained. "and now that tech that he made is what just got stolen from stark industries. and he's doing all of this as his final.. middle finger, i guess, to dad, to say that he's better than him, or something. he wants to be the new iron man."

peter nodded. "that makes sense then, i guess. so how did he manage to steal the tech from stark industries? shouldn't that be impossible?" he looked over his shoulder at happy, who the two had forgotten had been listening in to this conversation.

"after seeing the way you two morons interact, i don't think anything is impossible." the man responded.

the two just ignored him, looking back at each other. "i think he must have people working for him." kodie suggested. "there's no way he pulled this all off by himself. i mean, the tech only works so much. he had to make his own costume and everything, that part was real. and unless he's a master seamstress, he had help."

peter nodded his head. "okay, so how do we stop him if he has people working for him?"

"well, if we expose him, then eventually his people will get scared and hide. that, or the cops will find them. pepper already has people running all over to find who stole the tech."

"but if he still only has partial control of the glasses, how can he do anything?" peter wondered.

kodie bit her lip. "that's the thing. i think the people working for him are smarter than he is. i think he probably found a common motive for all the people, maybe they all want to be better than tony, or something, and now they're all working together. so if these people are as smart as i fear they might be, they'd probably be able to hack into the glasses. they're a complex system, but so are the drones. if they can work those, who's to say they can't hack into edith?"

peter nodded. "so, basically, we're screwed."

"i mean, that's the pessimistic way of looking at it, but, yeah, i guess."

"what other way is there to look at it?"

"'oo this is going to be fun!'"

"what part of this is going to be fun?"

"superhero, pow pow."

happy cleared his throat. "are you guys gonna.. get on the jet? you've been standing there for five minutes."

dakota rolled her eyes, leading the way up the open ramp. "yeah, yeah."