A Friend in Need

"You're the Mechanic, right? So make something!"

Tony's breathing was getting back under control. Yes, he could do that. He could definitely do that. He was Tony freaking Stark, he'd built the single greatest weapon on Earth in a cave out of spare parts. Already in his head he was seeing improvised flash bombs, taser gloves, smoke grenades...

His mind snapped back to the present. "Sorry, Jarvis, what was that? Had a genius moment there."

"I was saying, sir, that it might also be possible to pick up some help in Miami."

Tony's ears pricked up. "What, you mean one of the Super-friends is there? Who is it? Cap? Thor? Clint? Red? I know Big Green's still in Tahiti."

"Unfortunately they're all unavailable." Jarvis's tinny voice sounded a touch apologetic. "But there may be other resources available."

"Sam, do you know what 'meet the client at the motel' sounds like to me?"

"Look, Mike, don't start on that again..."

"It sounds like a trick. It sounds like an ambush. It sounds like death."

"Mike, why you gotta be so morbid?" Sam looked over at his friend from the passenger side of the car. "He said he'd give us a thousand dollars just for showing up!"

Michael, still in the driver's seat, shot his friend a skeptical look. "And that doesn't sound like a trap to you."

"No, it sounds like a trap." Sam agreed. "But we come here, we sit outside, we get Fiona and Jesse to cover the approaches with sniper rifles from different rooftops, then we find out who's trying to trap you, maybe get..."

"Someone coming." Michael interrupted.

A man wearing a baseball cap and a leather jacket carried several large paper bags up to one of the motel doors, unlocked it, and went inside.

"Well, he doesn't look like an assassin." Sam shrugged.

"An awful lot of an assassin's job is to not look like an assassin." Michael rolled his eyes. Popping open the car door, he stepped out. "Come on."

"Huh?" Sam got out, but his brow was furrowed. "Mike, didn't you just say..."

"I'm tired of waiting." Michael checked the action on his pistol. "Chances are pretty good they're going to have a team in the room next door, so we bust into the adjoining room, catch them off guard, and then find out what this is all about."

Sam clapped his hands. "There's the Michael Weston I know!" He grinned, grabbing an assault rifle.

The ex-Navy Seal and ex-CIA agent approached the motel from the south and sidled along the wall until they reached the adjoining door. Michael nodded to Sam, who kicked the door down.

The adjoining room was empty. The two men quickly swept it before going to the door connecting it with the other. Michael held up three fingers. One, two...

The door splintered under Michael's kick, and they charged inside...

...to confront a goateed, middle-aged man bending over a bed with a lot of spare parts strewn across it.

Tony Stark glanced up at them. "Hey." He nodded. "Sorry, be with you in a sec. Working magic here." His left hand dug around in one of the paper bags sitting by the bed and came out with something wrapped in white paper. "Shawarma?"

"The Mandarin." Mike stared at the man levelly.

"Traced him with a combination of temperature indexes and video lifted from AIM servers... look, it's kinda complicated brilliant stuff that I really doubt you'd pick up on at the first go, and really short on time, so let's just skip to the short part again." Tony was trying on a strange-looking glove. "The Mandarin's in Miami. He's got my girlfriend. I'm going to get her back. Now, you guys..." He gestured at the table, which now included Fiona and Jesse, "...are a little bit below my usual partners, but you look like fast studies."

"The Mandarin." Michael repeated.

Tony stopped. "I'm... I'm sorry, is the word of Iron Man not good enough for you?"

"It's just, it seems like if he were here in Miami, one of us would have heard something by now." Sam explained. "By the way..." He indicated the glass in his hand. "...42' McCallisters?"

"44, actually." Tony frowned regretfully. "Best I could find on such short notice."

"If we're so low on time, how come you had time to shop for scotch in the first place, let alone contact us and..." Fiona gestured, "...build all this?"

"1, building things is what I do. Kind of a genius, remember. 2, ideally, getting you guys on board won't take longer than it does to put this stuff together, and 3..." Tony shrugged. "...you gotta have scotch when you work."

"Truer words never said," smiled Sam.

"Right. So Ronald Reagan here seems onboard." Tony slapped Sam on the back with his glove, causing the Navy Seal to suddenly go rigid and then collapse. "Aaaand the taser glove works! Things are looking up already!" He glanced up to the three guns pointed at his face. "What do the rest of you say?"

Jesse had more or less agreed to the plan the second he realized who the client was (he was a total War Machine—and by extension Iron Man—fanboy), but he kept it cool and waited for Michael's lead.

Michael kept his gun on Tony Stark for thirty seconds before agreeing. While he didn't totally believe the billionaire's story, given the man's history, at the same time he also felt that if there was the slightest chance of the Mandarin BEING in the area, it was all their duty, not just as Americans but as human beings, to investigate the lead.

Fiona was not fond of Iron Man, War Machine, Americans, or even most humans. She was, however, fond of the several million dollar payoff Stark promised them.

Sam woke up halfway through the drive. "What the hell?" He grunted, squinting in the light.

"Hey, sleepyhead!' Tony smiled back genially at his victim. "You've been out for..." He checked the watch on his wrist. "Thirty-seven minutes. Wow. Am I good or what?" He proffered a second taser glove to Michael. "Sure you don't want one of these?"

"Gee, thanks, but it's really not my style." Michael smiled.

Tony shrugged. "Your funeral." He proffered it to Sam. "How about you?"

"Mike, how come we're with this psycho? What'd I miss?" asked Sam, glaring at Stark.

"Three million dollars." Stark answered.

Sam's animosity disappeared. "I can work with that." He shrugged, taking the glove.

"Stark says his computer-butler tracked the target to a mansion on the east end, so we're looking into that." Michael answered. "Looks like a pretty tricky layout, and whoever's living there is likely to have pretty high security, so the assault is going to be difficult."

"Wow. 'Assault,' 'target,' you really are from the CIA, aren't you?" Tony arched his eyebrows at Michael. "Hey, BTW, a kind of non-negotiable part of this whole arrangement is that nobody dies. Seriously messes with the whole hero thing."

"You're as bad as he is." Fiona grumbled, glaring daggers at Michael.

"Casualties are always something we try to avoid." Michael confirmed. "But that said, Mr. Stark, I can't promise anything once we're in there. If this is actually the Mandarin's HQ, we can't be pulling our punches."

Tony shrugged. "Fair enough. Oh, another thing you guys should know—it's very possible there's going to be a couple regenerating super-soldiers in there with fiery hands."

Everybody stared. "What?" asked Jesse.

"You're the Mandarin." Michael stared in disbelief.

"I'm an actor!" insisted the clearly-terrified man. "Trevor!"

"You've killed people..." Stark appeared in an equal amount of shock.

"It's all greenscreen! You don't think they'd let me anywhere a real gun, do you? My hands shake too much!"

"I don't believe this." Tony lowered his gun and massaged his temple.

"A front man." Michael nodded. "Should have realized. Useful tactic, keeps the leader masked and means if one gets killed, you can just come up with another."

"Cut off a head and two more will always take its place, huh?"

"Something like that." Michael agreed.

"So what now?" Stark asked.

"Well..."

Michael caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and ducked just in time. A gun smashed into the back of Tony's head, dropping the inventor like a stone. The man behind the gun swiveled to attack Michael, but Michael's hand came down on a nerve, and the gun fell to the floor.

The man just grinned, though. And as his eyes began to light up and his fists flare with strange fire, Michael realized that Stark hadn't been joking about the super-soldiers.

"Hey Mike."

"Hey." Michael, a bruised and bloody mess chained to a pipe, nodded to Tony's hanging form.

"So, you've looked better."

"I'd say you should see the other guy, but..."

"Yeah, I know. I've fought them."

"Wanted to say, it's an honor to meet you, Colonel Rhodes." Jesse told the man, as he and Sam struggled under the weight of the Iron Patriot prototype.

"Not at the moment, it isn't," groaned Rhodes. "Hardly my finest hour. You say Tony's here too?"

"Somewhere." Sam glanced both directions down a hallway. "He's not answering his calls, though, and neither is Mike."

"He all right, do you think?"

Sam shook his head. "Let's worry about that later, okay? Right now we need to all get out of here. I do not want to do a round two with those psychos they had guarding you."

"Ain't gonna be easy, lugging this thing around." Jesse grunted, shifting his half of the Iron Patriot suit.

"Here, let me take over." Rhodes motioned Jesse out and hefted the suit. "We can't leave this suit behind. It'd be like giving a nuclear bomb to a madman."

"Isn't there a self-destruct function?"

"Not that Tony told me about." Rhodes shrugged under the weight. "Trust me, if there was, I would've activated it as soon as I woke up in the dungeon."

"Plus, hate to think what sort of blast this thing would give off." Sam threw Jesse a wry look. "Gotta have a crazy power source."

Rhodes shook his head. "If we could just get in touch with Tony, I'll bet he could tell us how to get it started again. Or blow it up, either one. I mean, not to be negative here, guys, but I don't think we're going to get out of here with this."

"See now, that's negative." grunted Sam.

"Just relax, man." Jesse admonished him. "We got a girl watching the outside. If we're not back out in time, she's got orders to call the authorities."

"So the police are about to show up?"

Jesse and Sam shared a look.

"See, the thing about Fiona is..."

A massive explosion ripped the compound.

A massive explosion suddenly ripped through the building, causing Adrian Killian to pause. "What the heck?" He muttered, glancing away. "Stark, what're you up to now?" He demanded, rounding on the imprisoned inventor.

Tony blinked. "What time is it?"

"10:15" Michael supplied.

"Huh. Well then I have no idea." Tony shrugged. "I wasn't expecting any party crashers for another half-hour or so."

Adrian's cell rang, and he held it up to his ear. "What?" He shouted. "What do you mean it's missing? Why wasn't I told?"

Tony and Michael exchanged significant glances.

"Right, comb the building, search everywhere, find that suit. They can't have gone far, the suit should still be in operable. Do whatever you want with the thieves, but the Iron Patriot must be captured intact." Another pause. "No, I'll deal with that. You get out there and see what trigger-happy psycho's blowing up the outer walls. If it's SHIELD out there I want to see bodies flying." Kilian clicked his phone shut and smiled at his guests. "Sorry Tony. Business before pleasure. I'm sure you understand." He walked off toward the door. "Don't go anywhere."

"Ha, yeah, that's funny," answered Tony without enthusiasm. He smiled at the two guards who entered the room after the boss. "Oh, new babysitters. Let's see, we'll call you 'Dopey,' and you..."

Michael slipped out of his cuffs and, before the guards could react, knocked one to the ground and snatched away his gun. The other guard managed two or three shots before Michael capped him in each kneecap.

Tony blinked as Michael shot away at the guards pouring in the front door. "How long have you been able to do that?" He asked.

"For the past ten minutes." Michael answered, popping off shots at the guards. "Didn't see much point in breaking free while the supersoldier mastermind was in the room." He leveled his gun at the last guard.

The man dropped his weapon. "Honestly, man, I hate working here, they are SO weird."

Michael raised his eyebrows, but let the man run.

"Um, hello?" Tony wriggled his wrists in the bed frame as Michael walked over to one of the groaning henchmen. "Genius superhero still tied up here, faithful sidekick."

"I'm not your sidekick." Michael answered, pulling a cell out of one of the men's coats.

"Why does no one ever want to be the sidekick? Seriously, even that ten-year old was adamant about it."

Michael ignored him, dialing away on his new cell phone. "Hey Sam. What? Yeah, he's right here." Michael walked up to Tony and pressed the phone to his ear. "Talk."

"Y'know if you cut me loose I could..." Tony started, then cut himself off. "...what? Oh they probably fried the cortexian spinal interface, it's kind of a weak spot I wrapped up somewhere around MK 25. Would have fixed it on War Machine, but Jimmy was too..." Stark winced. "...take it easy, geeze. It's a simple fix, open the right inner lateral plate, switch the champagne with the bourbon." Tony rolled his eyes as Mike cut off the left zip-tie. "The wires. The light tan one with the... look, just let me talk to Rhodey."

As they walked out the door, five minutes later, Tony was still on the phone. "...okay, now that Rhodey's off punching bad guys we can coordinate some more stuff. Reinforcements are due in about fifteen minutes but until then, there's a girlfriend of mine we need to locate..."

"Well, that worked out surprisingly well." Tony said as they stood at the airport later. He was fully dressed in his gold-and-red power armor, and Pepper Potts, a long-haired strawberry blonde, leaned thankfully into him. "Just got word that they took down some sort of harbor place where Killian had most of his extremis weirdos. Good thing they weren't here. Sorry about that part where Killian sort of blew up, Mikey."

Michael, who looked even more bruised than before and had bandages covering roughly half his body, managed a smile. "It happens."

"Thank you so much for everything." The long-haired blonde told them again.

"Oh, our pleasure." Sam's grin could have eaten up half of Miami.

"Um, hello, also involved in the whole rescue thing." Tony cast a wounded look at Pepper. "Risked life and limb, charged into a terrorist stronghold to save you. Just..." He looked away. "...wasn't actually on the spot."

Pepper smiled and kissed the billionaire. "I'm thanking them for keeping you safe, honey. Which really, you should be doing yourself."

"Thanks are nice, but I'm a bit more interested in that three million dollars you promised us." Fiona pointed out.

"Coming, coming." Tony waved irritably as a helicopter came in for a landing. "I can't believe none of you have bank accounts. It's not like even I can just waltz into a bank and walk out with twelve million in cash, you realize. Got all these pesky IRS hoops to somersault through. Takes time."

"Don't even think of flying out of here without paying." Fiona's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Ummm... guys?" Jesse was staring at the helicopter with a strange look on his face.

Tony appeared affronted. "You realize I'm not waiting on a flight here, right? That I could hop into the sky anytime I wanted? I'm just sitting here because your payment methods haven't entered the 21st century yet.

"Thank you so much again for everything." Pepper said, smiling nervously.

"Guys..."

"...It's your lack of proper financing that's keeping me grounded here instead of flying off into the sunset with my unbelievably hot girlfriend..."

Fiona grinned. "That, and the C4 strapped to your..."

"Saw that. Took it off."
"Guys."

"We're sorry the rest of us aren't up to your financial standards, Mr. Stark." Michael smiled pleasantly. "Not everyone has what you might call a stable source of income."

"Oh, and you think being a hero has a paycheck attached to it?"

"No." Michael smiled. "I know it doesn't. Trust me."

Tony actually stayed silent for a moment or two. Then he smiled. "Heh. Guess you would, at that." He reached and shook Michael's hand with a metal gauntlet as the helicopter touched down. "Makes me glad to be able to put a dollar sign to this one. Thanks for your help, Mr. Weston."

Michael smiled. "My pleasure, Mr. Stark."

"Yeaaaaah, kinda doubt that." Tony frowned. "I know what my personality's like."

Turning, he indicated the five men walking out of the helicopter and the eight suitcases four of them were holding. "Right, so there's about a million and a half in each suitcase. I wouldn't spend it all in the same place, maybe invest some in a trust fund, put a bit in oil, a bit in eco-trading, maybe a few bonds in Stark Enterprises, just a sugges..." He stopped suddenly. "What the heck is he doing here?"

"Guys." Jesse cut in again. He pointed at the helicopter, indicating the eagle-on-a-shield logo etched into the black metal.

"Gentlemen." A tall, black man with a bald head, a trim goatee, and a stark eyepatch strode up behind Stark's money carriers. Nick Fury, director of SHIELD, studied them for just a moment before turning to Stark. "Tony, we need to talk. On the copter."

"I just got back together with my girlfriend from several life-threatening experiences, 'boring government debriefing' is not on my list of want-to activities."

Fury smiled. "There's scotch in the cabin."

Stark hesitated. "Fine. A quick one." He headed off to the helicopter.

Then Fury turned to look at the rest of them. "Mr. Weston." He said, holding out his hand. "Man without a country. I understand you and your friends..." nodding to Fiona, Sam, and Jesse, "...are out of work at the moment."

A smile flashed. "I have a few openings I'd like you to consider."

A/N: Another in the line of incredibly obvious crossovers I'm surprised no one's done yet. Tony's assault on the Mandarin compound was practically straight out of Burn Notice, improvised weapons and all. Obviously this takes place in Season 5 or so... when Michael hasn't gotten back into the agency and Jesse's just joined the team. It would be a pretty easy setup. All JARVIS would have to do is drop a line. But maybe everyone wants to forget IM3 ever happened. I could sort of understand that.

Anyway. Reviews would be nice. I made the cover myself, which is why its sort of a mess.