Reloj

Tony Stark built a circuit board at the age of 4. He built an engine at 6. He entered college at age 15. He inherited a multi-billion dollar company at the age of 21. He was held captive in Afghanistan for three months, and spent days hooked up to a car battery to keep him alive. He managed to built a miniature arc reactor that he stuck in his chest to avoid dying when said car battery ran out of juice. Tony Stark is Iron Man. He helped save New York from the Chitauri. He built an army of Iron Man suits. He saved 14 people without being physically present. Hell, he helped save the world numerous times.

Tony Stark has just spent the past five hours having JARVIS search and cross-reference every corner of the Internet for a fucking Dora watch. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part wasn't that while Tony was still dealing with the aftermath of the Mandarin, his house getting blown up, moving all of his shit that wasn't destroyed to New York, and having his people try to get the press to stop screaming for ten seconds. No, the worst part was that after five hours JARVIS couldn't find the same fucking $2 piece of plastic crap watch.

"What do you mean there are no search results again, JARVIS? It's a Dora watch. The kid had to have gotten it somewhere." Tony was far past irritated, tapping his fingers rapidly against the table in his New York workshop, sipping on his coffee as he looked at the hologram display in front of him.

"I tried to match the picture you supplied me from the security camera with those available on the Internet, sir. No exact matches were supplied, nor was I able to find a matching description. However, I was able to locate other matches for the search 'Dora the Explorer watch', if you would like to see those." JARVIS supplied as Tony shook his head.

"No, it has to be exact, that was part of the conditions of me borrowing it." He scrolled a bit through the interface. "JARVIS, bring up the latest ads for boxes of cereal."

"Cereal boxes, sir?"

"Cereal boxes, JARVIS. Cereal boxes. Poptarts. Boxes where you're given toys in the box or you collect cutouts and send them in. Commercialized promotions. I need them."

The page loaded and Tony started scrolling. "JARVIS, take notes."

"What would you like for me to note, sir?"

"Trix. Fruit loops. Strawberry Pop-Tarts. Dora the Explorer brand cereal." He paused. "Is that actually a thing? That can't actually be a thing. Cocoa Puffs. Kix."

Tony stood up out of the chair, pausing, before he remembered he no longer had any suits. "Car. Gotta take the car." He snagged his keys on his way out of his workshop. "JARVIS, if anyone asks, I've gone out. I'll be back soon. I've got a couple of errands to run."

"Five grocery stores, all sold out." Tony murmured to himself as he strode through the automatic doors, pushing his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. "How does that even happen?"

Tony practically marched himself to the breakfast isle in the nearly empty, seeing only four or five other groups of shoppers on his quest. He leaned against the opposite aisle scanning the shelves for what he needed.

He saw the Poptarts first, sitting on the bottom row some distance to his left, and he rushed over, sliding down onto his knees in front of the aisle as he grabbed the blue box, flipping it around quickly in his hands. "Four tokens for a Pop-Tarts t-shirt? Fuck." Tony grabbed the box behind it, and the box behind that, scanning the labels. Nothing besides redeemable tokens found for a t-shirt, nothing not unrelated to the company or product.

Tony put the boxes back, ignoring some of the looks he was getting from a father with his daughter strapped into the cart inside the store. He walked over to the General Mills section, picking up a box. "1 in ten shot of a 'Dora the Explorer' product." He murmured to himself. "Not even of the fucking watch. I could get forty different Christmas ornaments before I even related to that show."

He sighed, grabbing four of the boxes and moving on towards the soup aisle.

Tony pulled out one of the Dora brand soups out of the rack, turning it around on his hand. "Explorer themed cereal, Explorer themed soup. Still no results."

Tony nevertheless grabbed two cans ("just in case", he told himself), and headed over to checkout.

The checkout girl looked young, and flipping through a People magazine with Reese Witherspoon on the cover when Tony dumped all of his Dora products on the belt.

He looked up at the girl, stuffing his hands into his sweatpants and pulling out his wallet.

"You look in a rush." She commented, beginning to scan them. "Any reason you're having a crisis on a Tuesday afternoon?"

Tony looked at her over his glasses. "You have no idea what kind of week I've been having, kid. Who says I'm having a crisis?"

She quirked her eyebrows at him. "Something tells me you're not just some late-40s guy with an obsession with Spanish." The girl (Leslie, her nametag supplied) said, putting down her magazine and beginning to scan the items. "My sister loves this show, buys all the merch, parks herself in front of the TV and watches it." The girl looked like she was holding back a laugh. "Wouldn't have pegged you for the type. Unless-"

Tony snorted, cutting Leslie off. "More like I borrowed a watch and broke it and am now enduring the nine levels of Hell attempting to find another one."

Leslie nodded, continuing to scan. "I know that feeling. Would you like paper or plastic?"

Tony dropped the last of the bags onto the counter, throwing himself into one of the chairs around the island. "That's it, JARVIS, I quit. Is anyone else around? Can I make anyone else do this instead?"

"Negative, sir." JARVIS supplied. "The top twenty floors of the tower are vacant."

Tony nodded, moving over to the bar and starting to mix himself a drink. He'd be spending at least the next hour searching through breakfast items for a watch, which he may or may not find. If he couldn't then this search would just get longer.

"Not anyone at all, JARVIS? Are you sure? Where are Dummy and You? Think they could help with this?"

"I wouldn't recommend it, sir. To answer your question, Ms. Potts is currently in Malibu, as well as Mr. Hogan, Ms. Romanov and Mr. Barton are on a mission and are expected to remain there for the next two weeks, Dr. Banner is with Ms. Ross in Greece. Mr. Thor remains in Asgard. Mr. Rogers is currently in the United Kingdom."

"How much longer are Bruce and Betty in Greece? What are they even doing there, anyway? Why is Mr. USA in the UK?"

"They are expected to be there at least until the end of next week. Dr. Banner did not mention specifically what he was doing but alluded to handling an issue within Ms. Ross' family. As for Mr. Rogers, it was implied he was visiting old friends of his still living in the country. "

Tony sighed, standing up and grabbing some of the bags. "Down to the lab it is then. Huzzah for cereal."

"Dummy, don't knock over that bowl!" Tony demanded. "You're panning for a watch, not rocks. We're not quarrying stone, here."

Dummy rolled around in a circle, bumping into one of the trash bag-lined buckets he had set up. He had taken some old fencing and put that overtop so that one could easily dump the cereal into the buckets, but anything bigger would be caught.

"JARVIS, how many boxes we got left?"

"We have approximately 278 boxes of cereal left, sir."

"And how many have we been through so far?"

"674, sir."

Tony groaned. "This is a joke, right? This is about my comment about fathers leaving isn't it? Fuck. Some universes can't handle the truth."

"Sir, an incoming call from Ms. Potts is coming. Shall I ignore the call?"

Tony waved his hand. "May as well put her through, JARVIS."

"Tony, what is going on? There were sightings of you in a grocery store, wearing baggy sweatpants and bad sunglasses."

Tony sighed, sitting down in his chair. "It's nothing really, Pepper. They weren't that bad. Remember that kid I told you about from Tennessee who gave me a hand?"

"...Yeah?"

Tony nodded again, standing up and grabbing a box of Trix, shaking it a few time before tearing the plastic on top and eating a few, before shuddering. "These are gross. Trix used to be so much better before they all became little spheres. Even then they were terrible."

"Tony!"

"Right, sorry Pepper." He set the box down on his worktable, leaning against it. "You know how I always need a watch? Right, well, this kid, Harley, he lent me his sister's, because he used to have one, but it broke when he wore it in the shower. Hers was a 'limited edition' Dora the Explorer watch." He put air quotes around the title, because as far as he was concerned, limited edition meant it was actually possibleto find it, not that it had been sold once and then fell of the face of the universe. The kid had said his sister had gotten it recently. "One of the Extremis guys stepped on it and broke it. So now I'm going insane, searching through cereal boxes in an attempt to find a watch I may or may not be able to get."

"I- no. I'm not going to question it. Do what you have to do. I'll be back in New York in three days."

"Thank you, Pepper." Tony grinned.

"Don't thank me yet. Clean up when you're done, okay?"

"Love you Pepper."

"Love you too, Tony."

"End call, JARVIS." Tony commanded, pushing himself off the table and walking over to another bag, pulling out six more boxes of cereal. He tossed one towards Dummy, who gave a half-hearted attempt at reaching his claw out to grab it. The cereal fell through one of the claws, tumbling to the floor not unexpectedly.

"Butterfingers at its finest." He looked up towards the ceiling. "JARVIS, can we get the stats up on display here?"

"Certainly, sir. Would you also like for specifics on the kind of prizes found in the boxes?"

"Why not. Also, calculate how long it'll take me to go through the 40 Star Wars pens we've now landed ourselves with."

Tony groaned, ripping the top of a box of Fruit Loops. "Fantastic. This is exactly how I imagined my week going. Fucking cereal boxes and no fucking Dora watch."

"Richard from Customer Service of General Mills, how may I help you?"

"Richard. My name is Tony Stark, and I am inquiring about the Dora the Explorer watches that, according to Kellogg's, you gave away inside your cereal boxes and they did not. Because I am far past the mood for small talk and simple questions, I need to know where I could get one of these. Now."

"Mr. Stark, I-"

"No." Tony interrupted the General Mills person on the other end. "No." He paused, taking a deep breath. "I'm sorry, what's your name again?"

"I- Richard. Sir-"

"Richard." Tony said in a final way, making Richard from General Mills shut up quickly. "Richard." Tony leaned forward on his elbows, rubbing his temples. "Richard. I am asking you a simple question. My lab space is covered in disgusting and sticky children's cereal that I will probably never be able to get rid of by going at it with a wrecking ball or covering it with something worse. Now, Richard, let's return to the important question. Where. Might. I. Find. A. Dora. Watch."

"Mr. Stark, I'm not sure I understand-"

"Richard from customer service. I want you to understand that I have spent the past two days purchasing over $5,000 worth of breakfast products from both you and Kellogg's, and no donation center will accept these cause I've had to open all of the packages to pan for a cheap not to mention fake watch that is seemingly impossible to find. Do you want to know how many people in my house actually eat sugary breakfast cereal?"

"I- not many?"

"No one!" Tony practically yelled, exasperated. "No. One. I have spent two days continuously searching for a watch which I now realize was a mistake to borrow, because I borrowed it from a little kid's sister and some idiot broke it that wasn't even me, and now I feel like I'm descending into hell because no one should have to spend $5,000 dollars on cereal no one will eat. Do you understand me, Richard?"

"I- yes I understand why that might be seen as a problem." Richard from customer service sounded like he didn't even know what to do anymore, though Tony could distantly hear tapping on the other end. "I- I'm going through the production and sale receipts. It says here we stopped selling any commercially licensed Dora products at the end of November to make room for Christmas editions."

Tony leaned up off the table, crossing his arms and sitting back in his chair. "So, basically, the only way I'll be able to get one is if I find someone who already has it and gets them to give it to me?"

"I- I'm not quite sure, sir. But yes, that seems the easiest option."

Tony threw up his hands. "If only I knew that before my workshop because a surrogate cereal storage room."

He looked over to You, currently giving him a confused look, if robots could even do that. Which, since Tony built them, they probably could. "Don't look at me like that. I've got to go see someone really fast. JARVIS, what time is it?"

"10:27 PM, sir."

"Perfect, JARVIS. Just enough time to make it there before closing."

Most of the lights in the store were turned out, and it was even emptier than it had been that morning, and only had about three or four workers still around. Tony walked straight up to register #14, with a girl flipping through an US Weekly magazine.

The girl looked up as he approached, leaning off the register and putting down her magazine. "Hello. I like the suit; it's a much better look than the sweatpants. Here for more Dora?"

Tony grinned, crossing his arms. "Leslie. I have a proposition I'd like to offer you."

She nodded, looking interested. "Okay. Shoot."

"Are you in college, Leslie?"

She nodded, leaning forward as she tucked a bit of her brown hair behind her headband. "Yeah. Barnard. Why?"

"What are you studying?"

"Chemistry with a minor in computer sciences."

Tony grinned, stretching out his hand. "Leslie, I'm Tony Stark. I've got a job I'd like to offer if you ever get bored of this place. I need you to do something for me first, though." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card, handing it to her as proof.

Leslie took the card and looked it over, nodded slowly, and then peering up, looking around them. "Bored of this place, I couldn't ever imagine it. I couldn't ever imagine such an outlandish concept. What do you need?"

"Humor. I like that. Always need more of that around." He paused, taking off his sunglasses. "You mentioned how your sister was a really big Dora the Explorer fan. I'd like to make her an offer."

A week later in Tennessee, Harley Keener received a package in the mail, his name and address clearly typed on the front. The return address had the Stark Industries logo printed clearly, with their New York office listed.

He brought the package inside, listening to his mom play with his sister in the next room as he tore open the packaging, stuffing his hands inside the box.

His hands were met with long strings of receipts, taking up most of the box instead of packing peanuts or anything similar. Harley stared in disbelief than anyone, ever, could spend this much money on what seemed to be the same thing. He kept shoving his hand around, pulling out something wrapped in tissue paper with a letter attached. Harley took the note off, carefully unwrapping the tissue paper

He tore open the envelope and pulled out a short piece of paper, written in messy scrawl. A grin spread across his face as he took in the words written there.

You wouldn't believe what I had to go through for this. -The Mechanic.

Posted 13 May 2013