(March 22, 4:08pm. It has been 2 months since kai became tony,and damn, a lot has happened in this amount of time)
(Jan 15: The day he became Tony and met clara
Feb 1: The day he met Mia
Feb 14: When he enjoyed luxury for the first time.
March 3: The Clara situation, her revealing she knows him and stuff
March 17: The boardroom beast
March 18: Dent's Call
And now, the fight against Dent, who may be tryin to destroy the company)
The office lights had dimmed to their usual evening hush, but the war was just beginning.
(It was Time to Fight)
Tony sat at his desk, the only light coming from the glow of his monitor. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city shimmered under a navy sky, unbothered by the storm he was about to start. The distant hum of traffic below was almost meditative, a cruel contrast to the pressure building in his lungs.
"She's in," Aaron said softly, stepping in and closing the door behind him. He wore a casual grey hoodie now, his earlier corporate polish swapped out for something more forgettable—perfect for blending in after hours.
Tony stood. "Let's go."
They moved quietly down the hallway toward the server annex. The whole floor felt different after hours—emptier, stiller, almost too quiet. It was like walking through the bones of a sleeping beast, careful not to wake it.
Alina was already there, crouched beside the access terminal near the glass-cased mainframe, tapping into the secure port with a customized drive, one that could trace shadow files, duplicate logs, and sniff out any ghost accounts hidden beneath the surface of Bellingham Industries.
She didn't look up. "I had to disable two alarms to get this far. You owe me dinner."
"You'll get a restaurant if this works," Tony replied.
"Really? Well, I believe you."
Alina's fingers danced across the keys, her eyes scanning rows of code with the calm of a pianist playing a familiar piece. The screen was a blur of letters, numbers, and symbols, like a language only she understood.
"The good news?" she began, chewing lightly on her lower lip. "Dent's been hiding files. Deep. Not in the mainframe—offsite cloud, masked under one of the Berlin subsidiaries. It's weirdly encrypted though."
Aaron frowned. "Meaning?"
"It means Dent didn't do this himself," she said. "This is pro-level stealth. Like someone ex-military or underworld-type built the firewall."
Tony clenched his jaw. "So Dent has help."
"And not just help," Alina continued. "I think he's moving something. Or someone. Look at these logins? They're timed around our last few internal meetings. Like he's tracking you."
(Dent is just....crazy.)
Tony's eyes narrowed as the pieces started rearranging in his head. "So this is bigger than Dent."
"Feels like a shell game. Multiple hands, one prize," Alina said, voice steady but clipped.
A cold chill ran through Tony. "We need to copy it all. Now."
She nodded without hesitation. "Already on it."
The silence that followed was sharp, broken only by the quiet click-clack of Alina's keystrokes and the occasional hum of the server fans. Then, the screen flickered.
(What the.....?)
The data stream paused, lines of code freezing mid-motion.
"What the hell?" Alina murmured.
Aaron leaned in. "Is that a trace?"
"No..." she said slowly, fingers hovering over the keyboard. "It's... an intrusion. Someone's trying to crash the system from the outside."
Tony felt the weight in his chest shift. The room suddenly felt colder. "Dent?"
"Maybe. Or someone just protecting him."
Then the server let out a low warning beep.
"Unauthorized access detected. Terminating session."
Alina's eyes widened. "I can hold it off—but only for a few minutes. I need more time to finish the download."
Tony pulled out his phone. "No signals. They jammed the room."
Aaron stepped to the door, testing the handle. "Still unlocked. For now."
"We hold them off," Tony said. "You finish. No distractions."
Alina didn't even blink. "Done."
Outside, the hallway lights flickered again. A second later, somewhere farther down, a heavy door slammed. The sound echoed like a hammer on concrete.
Tony narrowed his eyes. "They're coming."
Aaron rolled up his sleeves. "Guess it's time for Act Two."
Footsteps—multiple, slow, measured—echoed in the corridor. The kind of steps that weren't in a rush. The kind that knew they had control.
Aaron glanced at Tony. "If they jammed us this fast, they knew this was coming."
Tony nodded grimly. "Yeah. We're not stealing files anymore. We're starting a war."
He reached behind a cabinet near the door and pulled out a collapsible baton—standard-issue for Bellingham's high-security personnel, but he'd made a few modifications.
Aaron took position by the frame. "Two, maybe three."
Alina's voice came from the terminal. "Thirty seconds left on the download."
Another bang echoed. Closer.
A flicker of movement showed under the door crack—shadows shifting.
Tony whispered, "Lights out."
Aaron hit the switch.
The office fell into total darkness, lit only by the pale, eerie glow of Alina's screen.
Silence.
Then the door handle twisted.
One slow click.
Aaron tensed.
Tony stayed still, waiting, heartbeat hammering against his ribs.
The handle twisted again—and stopped.
Another silence.
Then—
Crash!
The door burst open, metal slamming against the wall. A figure stepped through, dressed in black from head to toe, face obscured by a tactical mask. Behind him, two more followed—silent, disciplined.
The lead agent moved fast, scanning the room with a mounted flashlight.
Tony didn't wait.
He lunged.
The baton cracked against the first attacker's wrist. The man grunted but didn't drop his weapon—he swung instead. Tony ducked, slammed his shoulder forward, and they both stumbled into a filing cabinet with a metallic crunch.
Aaron tackled the second figure, sending them both crashing into a side wall. Fists flew. The office turned into chaos—papers scattering, shelves tipping.
(Aaron, although he was a 43 year old butler was a martial-act and judo expert. Even has awards for the fighting competitions he attended. Even has a black belt.)
In the glow of her screen, Alina remained frozen, except her fingers. Her face was calm, hyper-focused.
"Fifteen seconds," she muttered.
Tony wrestled his attacker to the ground, knee pressed against the man's ribs. The baton jabbed hard under the arm, making the masked man finally drop his gun. Tony kicked it aside.
"I got you now, boy"
Aaron wasn't faring as smoothly—his opponent was trained, even more than him. The third figure joined in, turning the fight against him two-to-one.
Tony grabbed the downed agent's stun baton and launched it across the room. "Aaron—duck!"
Aaron did. The baton flew overhead, cracked against one assailant's head with a sickening thud. The man crumpled.
Aaron landed a final punch on the other, who staggered and fell hard against the glass wall.
Alina's voice rang out like a siren through the madness.
"Done! We've got it!"
She yanked the drive and tossed it to Tony just as the flickering red lights in the corner turned solid.
"Someone tripped the system," she said. "Full lockdown in ninety seconds."
Tony caught the drive and slid it into a hidden compartment inside his belt. "We need out. Now."
Aaron grabbed the nearest office chair and jammed it under the door handle. "This won't hold long."
Tony glanced at the corridor. "Fire stairs?"
Alina nodded. "East end. Two floors down to the parking vault."
Another slam from the door. The agents outside were regrouping.
"Move!" Tony ordered.
They sprinted down the hallway, feet pounding against the marble floor, every second counting. The emergency lights bathed the corridor in a dim red hue, like running through the belly of a submarine.
Down the stairwell they went—floor after floor, no time to breathe.
(They had to get away as quickly as possible.)
By the time they burst into the parking vault, Tony's shirt was clinging unto him from sweat. The echo of alarms had begun, soft but rising.
A black unmarked sedan waited, one of Aaron's backups. He jumped in the driver's seat. Alina scrambled in back.
Tony slid in beside her, gasping as Aaron slammed the pedal.
They peeled out just as the vault doors began to close behind them.
Tires screeched. Sirens started in the distance. The city lights blurred past as they raced into the night.
In his hand, the drive felt heavier than it should've.
Hey...Aaron, Alina? Tony spoke with less or no oxygen.
"Sir?" They both replied.
"That was....amazing"
Operation Deep Vault was underway
And the storm wasn't waiting anymore.