Stolen - Tony Stark

19.

Avengers Facility, Upstate New York, 2017

"Say what?"

"There was a break in at the facility,"  Pepper repeated. Kass had put her on speaker phone. 

"Uh, no."

"Tony-"

"That's impossible. Security is untouchable." Tony was in complete denial.  

"You two had better get over here."

Well, this wasn't exactly the welcome home they had been expecting - they had been feeling something more like pajama day and order in multiple kinds of take-out. Not investigating a break in. But fate, it seemed, had other plans in store for them.

"We were gone for like five minutes," Tony said as they greeted Pepper outside the front of the building. 

"Actually it's been over a week since we were last at the facility," Kass corrected.

Tony shrugged.  "Same thing."

"At least in your books." Pepper rolled her eyes. "This isn't in my job description - I'm head of Stark Industries, not the Avengers. That's your job."

"It was my job," Tony sighed. "We got any security camera footage? I mean, we should, unless whoever did this took out the cameras."

"Nope, we've got some." 

"Good. What sort of damage are we looking at?"

"That's the strange part - none."

"Huh? Then what was the point of breaking in in the first place?"

"To leave this, I guess."  Pepper held up her tablet on which there was a photo of a large envelope sitting innocently on the desk.  

"Huh. So they left something, didn't steal something?" Tony clarified.

"As far as we can tell, yeah.  It's funny, because it almost seems to me, when watching the security footage, that the person wanted  to be caught on camera."

"This is all backward." Tony turned to Kass. "You're an ex-thief-"

"Ex-merc, still a thief."

"Still a thief. Tell me this is all backwards."

"It's all backwards."

Tony turned back to Pepper while gesturing to Kass.  "See, take the word of a professional."

Kass squared her shoulders.  "I am very professional."

Pepper rolled her eyes at the couple.  "Yeah, you don't have to  convince me. Something weird is definitely going on here. Just wait until you see for yourself." Pepper pulled up the footage on her tablet and handed it over to them to watch. 

For the first few seconds, nothing. Then, a hooded, masked figured entered the main offices, looking around, before placing a large envelope on the desk. 

Then, before leaving, they turned and looked up at the camera, giving it a long, lingering glance before disappearing.  Almost as if they knew where the camera was...

"So, by the looks of things, they broke in, left something, and then left themselves, they didn't actually steal anything." Backwards indeed. 

"But left something instead." Tony pondered aloud.

"What's in the envelope?" Kass asked Pepper. 

"Not sure, haven't opened it yet."

"Why not?"