No Strings attached - a Tony Stark/Iron Man Fanfiction

Part 1: No surrender

It was late at night and Christine was sitting on her desk in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquaters in Chicaco, in front og her a huge stack of papers, files and pictures. It allready had been more than five years since she was hunting a criminal of the name Taylor Johnson or like she called him - the godamn motherfucker. A gangster boss who was trading everything illegal from weapons and nuclears to drugs and humans. His network went all across the globe but he was controlling everything. The spider in the centre of the web. If he was to be taken out, it all would fall apart. The only problem was that this guy was was way too smart. Always a step ahead of her and always a safety rope nearby. Time after time he had slipped slipped through her fingers whenever she got closer. It was like he could read her mind and foresee what she was about to do. Chris had chased him all around the globe, had been to hell and back and had sacrifieced a lot to this mission.
Right now, insteat of relaxing on her couch with a glass of whine, she was checking the accountings of a small, local bussiness. Johnson had bought it under a fake name and she was sure that he was using it to sell his products. She was trying to find evidences for unregularities of any kind.

"I thought I would find you here, Agent Flannigan"

A deep voice filled the silence of the office and Christine looked up. A tall, trained man, with short black hair, that slowly started to turn gray at the sides stood in the doorway. Marcus Russo was the boss of Chicago's S.H.I.E.L.D. base.

Like always he looked more like a business man, than an agent with a hand-tailored black suit and the blue button-down-shirt he was wearing. With her simple jeans and green long-sleeved blouse she felt completely underdressed beside him. For once Russo didn't wear a tie, a style he considered as casual clothing.

"I just want to finish this"- She rubbed her tired eyes and turned towards her boss as he walked up to her. Now she noticed the file he was carrying with him "You don't have to bother with this anymore". Chris exactly knew what this ment and she groaned in frustration "He sold it?". Instead of answering Russo dropped the files on top of the pappers. It was the copy of an purchase contract.

He did it again.

Frustration spread as a bitter taste on her tongue and she felt tears stinnging in her eyes. Marcus sympathetically padded her shoulder "I know", When she didn't reply, just kept starring at the sheet completely defeated, he took hold of both of them and pushed her back to look in her eyes. "Christine". He rarely called his agends by their first names, so it had to be something important he had to say "When someone will get this guy, then it's you!" "But it's been allready so long"
She dropped her head "Maybe someone else should take this over". Bring in some new energy, new ideas, a new strategy that he might be able to se through so easily.
"Denied!" Marcus strong hand forced her face back up and held it, so she was unable to turn away "Like always, you will find another hint, another trace that no one else had seen. Hell, I still have no clue how you'd found this small company here" he gestured to the scattered papers across your desk. "You will go on and you will find that guy and beat his sorry ass"
A small smile found it's way on her face but she actually did feel a little better."You sure know your pepp talk". The faith, this long-served agent was putting in her had rewoken her confidence. Chuckling Marcus streightened up again "At least I have one good news for you". First, he pushed her officr chair a little to the side, then dug through the papers until she and found the keyboard. A picture appeared on the screen. It was the shot of  an security camera and showed a brown haired man in his fourties. "Johnsonn"