12 Chapter 12) – Heart On My Sleeve

Back in the car, the two ladies continued on the journey towards their first tourist destination. Natalie had learned from her earlier mistake and provided a brightly coloured tourist map, seemingly designed to appeal to children, to Mara and asked her to plan out a route to cover what she wanted to visit. The goal of this was to distract Mara by making her think a little, so that she didn't annoy her during the travel from place to place like she had up to that point.

"Hey, this tourist map you grabbed is pretty interesting Natalie. It even includes the locations of where Tony fought this Iron Monger guy half a year ago. By the way, Iron Monger, really? What a shit name. At least come up with something meaningful or fear inducing if you're gonna be a bad guy, like devastator or property wrecker. It says here that his name literally means to specialise in selling iron. With how advanced the weapons he sold became, he didn't really sell iron and was more of a robotics monger if anything. Hell, warmonger would have been perfect! No matter how advanced his weapons got, they would always be intended for war, but nooo! He had to call himself a name that would have been fitting like 1000 years ago or something, the decrepit pensioner."

Finishing off her rant with a huff, Mara took a few breaths to calm down from her spontaneous tirade.

"I mean, that sort of makes sense Mara, but he's dead now so it's not really worth getting angry over now, is it?"

Turning to face Natalie, who hadn't taken her eyes off the road for even a second while saying what she did, Mara said, "I know you're right, but it still annoys me. Such a bad naming sense. It's no wonder the muscle head made such a bulky suit. How he even managed to successfully run Stark Industries while Tony was missing is a mystery."

Stopping the car at a red light, Natalie turned to Mara and asked, matter of factly, "Well if it's so easy to come up with hero or villain names then why don't you think of one for yourself?"

Raising her nose to the sky, almost like it was growing with how smug she suddenly became, my host replied, "Jokes on you Natalie, I've already thought of one for myself!"

"What is it? Nightmare Fuel? Hehe." Giggling to herself at her own joke, Natalie started driving the car again as the traffic light turned green.

Rolling her eyes, Mara gave a sarcastic laugh, "Har Har, very funny. Although that would be a cool name for a villain, mine is Elysium, I'll have you know. Very meaningful and sophisticated, a fitting for me, wouldn't you agree?"

"How do you even know what that means? I thought you had no memories?" Natalie asked with veiled suspicion.

Either acting, or genuinely not noticing Natalie's suspicions, Mara promptly answered with her previously thought up explanation, "I used the internet obviously. All I had to search was 'perfect happiness' and just chose from the list the Google box gave me. I went for perfect happiness because I don't want to be anything but perfectly happy with my life and the decisions I make. Plus, Elysium can also be interpreted as blessed after death. Since my memories are gone, the old me is technically dead. And since I would class superpowers as a blessing since they let me indulge in whatever I want, within reason, I am kinda blessed after death. Cool and poetic, right? That's how you choose a super-person name."

Taking her eyes off the road while driving, showing incredible special awareness, the undercover spy questioned the burgundy haired menace sat parallel to her, "Why do you dislike referring to yourself as a superhero, Mara? Mr. Stark does it all the time and doesn't have a problem with it, even if he isn't exactly the perfect hero blueprint."

Thinking she would finally be able to get one over on the undercover agent, Mara put on a wide mocking smile, "Wow Natalie, slandering your own employer like that."

Unfortunately for my host, as Natalie focused back on the road, her next words caused Mara to drop said smile less than a few seconds after sporting it, "Actually Mr. Stark isn't my employer. I am employed by Stark Industries, so Miss Potts is my employer currently. I am Mr. Starks's babysitter, so fortunately I have free reign to say whatever I want. Plus, slander implies that the statement I had spoken was false in an attempt to damage his reputation and none of what I said was false. Remember, I WAS in the legal department before becoming a babysitter~"

Turning to look out the passenger window, Mara, clearly miffed at being countered so easily, commented, "Tsk, nerd. Well to answer your question before you went off on a tangent. I don't refer to myself as a hero cause I'm not one. From what the Google box told me, heroes are benevolent people that would willingly sacrifice themselves for random people they don't even know. I won't sacrifice myself for others, and I don't have any other noble qualities so I don't really fit what a hero should be. Don't get me wrong, I'll happily help others, stop bad guys and whatever cause it sounds fun, but I won't do it at risk to my life or if I'm doubtful about the success of the plan. I also have no qualms about killing either which seems like something a superhero probably wouldn't do. Not sure if I've ever done it before but thinking about it doesn't make me react in a negative manner emotionally. Basically, I guess you could say my moral compass isn't exactly aligned with what a hero should be."

Sensing that Natalie was about to rebuke my host's explanation as the assistant took her eyes off the road again, Mara turned to face her and held up a hand before pre-emptively continued her dialogue, "Before you say anything let's go through a theoretical scenario. Say, for example, a bad guy sets a building on fire with innocent people in it and runs away. Thus, I have a choice; to save the innocents or chase after the criminal and catch/kill them. Personally, I could probably do both with my abilities, but let's hypothetically say I could only choose one, which should I choose Natalie?"

Without giving it a second thought, Natalie, still watching the road, replied almost instantly, "The bad guy, right? If you catch them, then they wouldn't be able to harm innocents again."

Smiling at her answer, Mara remarked, "From a logical standpoint you would be correct Natalie. But heroes shouldn't be logical. Ideal heroes shouldn't let any innocents die, so they would let the villain run free while they save the innocents. Now, Tony might not be a perfect hero since he at least kills the bad guys… for the most part. But even he would give up on capturing a villain to save innocents if it came down to it. Even if he knew the criminal would cause further damage in the future, he would without a doubt save the people. Now I, on the other hand, would sacrifice the people in the building 100 out of 100 times. It might be heartless, or downright evil of me, but if I were to save the people in the building, who's to say the next thing the villain targets isn't something with twice as many people. Unknown outcomes can't be planned for. It's better to remove the variable, in this case the villain, as soon as possible no matter the cost. Logically I am correct, but people don't want logical heroes. People want the unrealistic, 'save everyone at all costs' superheroes. And that's not me, so I don't try, or pretend, to be. I am what I am, and as long as I can sleep at night, that's all that matters to me. Now, even after saying all that, I would still TRY and do both. I'm not saying I'm so heartless as to condemn the innocent people straight away without considering any other alternatives or options, but if I HAD to choose, I would do as I said."

Once she had finished speaking, silence was the dominant presence inside of the vehicle. Mara clearly had no plan to expand on what she had said, and Natalie was either ingesting the harsh truth sandwich Mara had forced her to eat or was too shocked by what she heard to even want to continue the conversation.

Noticing a slight discrepancy with her words, I made sure to notify Mara just in case she had forgotten about it, <Dear, what if she asks about Whiplash? You contradicted the principles you just spoke by letting him live.>

[Bollocks.]

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The remaining part of the journey to the ladies' destination was a total of 10 minutes. Those 10 minutes were spent without any interruptions in the unending silence.

As Natalie parked up the car at the National History Museum of Los Angeles County, the undercover agent got out of the vehicle and finally broke the silence.

"Mara. Although you said all that about having no moral compass, you still kept the man who attacked Tony at Monaco alive. If you really believed what you said about yourself, you should have killed him, no?"

After I had highlighted the glaring contradiction in her statement, Mara had thought of a suitable answer if Natalie picked up the flaw in her explanation and asked this question. Since she couldn't exactly say that it was because she wanted to watch the massive robot battle that would occur at the end of the movie, as she didn't want to expose the fact the universe was a media fabrication, she had a solid enough answer prepared. Well, as solid as it could be when she spent the 10 minutes of silence in the car thinking about it.

"Astute observation, Natalie. Normally you would be correct, and I wouldn't hesitate to kill such a criminal. However, I avoided that this time for a few reasons. The first is that I wanted to build a positive rapport with Tony. Although I could argue that saving his life would be enough to do that, I didn't want him to think I'm some kind of psychopath that can't control her desire to kill someone, as opposed to knowingly choosing to kill someone. Second, I wanted to let Tony at least somewhat interrogate the guy. It would make sense to know exactly why he was targeted. If it turned out the Russian dude was part of some super-secret pervert cult, Tony would at least have a lead to root out such a group. And if the guy was solo for personal reasons, like he was, he could kill him and be done with it. This also further proved my hero argument as well. Tony could have easily killed the Russian after interrogating him, but he didn't and thus the man is still alive leaving the door open for him to wreak havoc sometime in the future. This leads me perfectly onto the third, and most important reason, so I guess it should have been first, but dramatic impact and all that jazz. Truth be told, I fully expect Wanko, or whatever he was called, to have already been broken out of prison by Tony's enemies/despisers for his knowledge of the little battery he was flaunting around between his tits. Hell, I wouldn't put it past the US government to have him work for them secretly with how much of an erection that senator I see plastered on the news all the time, seems to have for the Iron Man suit."

Staring intently into Mara's eyes, Natalie appeared to be searching for any signs of her lying or trying to bluff her. Unfortunately for the spy, she found none and was forced to continue with the conversation to get any further information out of Mara.

"If you knew all this, why have you done nothing about it? Didn't you say yourself that unknown outcomes can't be planned for, and yet you've willingly allowed it to become such an unknown outcome?"

Breaking out into a broad smile, Mara happily chirped back to the inquisitive assistant, "8 out of 10 points Natalie, good stuff. You remembered what I said earlier so it seems I've made you think about some things which is good! Challenging what you are told as fact should be what everyone does. But I digress, the reason I haven't done anything is that it isn't unknown what the not-so-whipper snapper is going to do. See what I did there? Hehe, I make myself laugh sometimes~. *Ahem* Anyways, let me ask you Natalie, what was the nutjob's target when he stepped onto that track? Why, exactly, did he travel all the way over to Monaco, from cozy little Russia? What was his goal when he decided to make an imitation of Tony's core and show it off to the world?"

Giving Natalie a few seconds to come up with an answer as the spy looked at the ground while thinking. Mara slowly walked around the front of the car so that she was stood between Natalie and the museum ticket entrance. By the time she finished her steps, Natalie looked up from her pondering with visible realisation in her eyes, "Iron Man… He's still after Tony."

"Ding Ding Ding, 10 points to Miss Rushman. Correct, he's still after Iron Man or Tony, honestly doesn't really matter since they're the same person, can't exactly have one without the other. I'm not sure if Tony told you the reason why the Russian was after him, or if you overheard, but he told me and Pepper on the flight here that his whole objective - his entire purpose for building his harness, whips, battery and travelling halfway across the planet - was simply to show that Tony isn't invincible and that he can bleed."

Giving Natalie a second to absorb what exactly she was saying, Mara continued speaking before any additional questions could be asked, since she could already roughly guess what Natalie was thinking.

"Now we've acknowledged that the target for his evil plan will most definitely be Tony, the only real unknown of value we need to figure out is what exactly his dastardly plan consists of. If someone had the capabilities to break him out of prison, for the purpose of using the forbidden knowledge of batteries locked in his noggin, they would undoubtably have the resources to put said knowledge to use, and then some. Question time again sweet cheeks! Little Wanko would have settled on just making the metaphorical god bleed due to the resources available to him. If it were you, the next time you had a shot at said god, would you settle for just making it bleed again with the exact same method as last time? OR would you use the infinitely better resources at your disposal to improve what you already had, to such a degree, that you could kill said god? I know which I would choose… And it's not the former."

Stepping closer to Mara slightly, Natalie asked, "So you mean to say you think Vanko is going to bide his time, wherever he is, until he improves his reactor and is confident to kill Tony this time?"

It was not lost on Mara that Natalie had stopped referring to Tony as Mr. Stark, and although she was unsure if the spy was acting unaware, or genuinely was unaware, of what was happening behind the scenes with Whiplash, she decided to indulge her regardless.

"Wow, another 10 points! Damn you're good at this Natalie. But yeah, chances are very high he'll be back fairly shortly and probably have his own Iron Man suit, or would it be a bondage suit to go along with his whips? Meh who cares, you get the point. On the plus side, for the civilians that is, it would appear that although he is a criminal, he won't just kill people willy nilly. Instead of walking onto the race track in Monaco, he could have easily just started cutting down the crowds of people with his whips to get Tony's attention, but he specifically chose to single out Tony. This means we probably don't have to worry about major acts of terrorism or anything, and he'll charge head first at Tony like a bull. Cause, ya know, Iron Man is red… It was funny in my head, okay?"

Being on the receiving end of the 'I'm disappointed in you' eyes that Natalie was giving her, Mara became slightly embarrassed that her joke was not appreciated and turned around to storm towards the museum.

Natalie, recognising that the conversation had ended for now, followed after Mara so that she could enviably pay for their entry since the burgundy haired woman was flat broke.

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"Wow, look at how big those bones are! Oi Natalie, are you sure these Tyrant thingies really existed at one point?! They look so surreal."

Walking into the entrance of the National History Museum, the very first exhibit was the Dinosaur Hall. Needless to say, the dinosaurs on display were identical to the ones Mara had in her world. But, as she was currently playing the role of the amnesiac, she had to pretend that all of it was completely new to her. Every bit of information she could gather was further cementing the fact that she was in a universe identical the MCU she knew and loved from her world, and was not just one that was extremely similar, regardless of how small the chance of that was.

Surprisingly, her acting seemed good enough to fool the undercover spy. It was either that, or Natalie was just so sick of her at that point she had stopped treating Mara as a threat and more like an annoying child. As such, she was seemingly not even trying to find falsehoods in my host's words anymore.

"Judging by how the bones were dug up from the ground, I would say I'm fairly confident that yes, the Tyrannosaurus Rex did exist at one point in Earth's log history. And can you please stop shouting? Think about everyone else trying to enjoy the Museum."

Stopping mid-way through her 3rd lap around the same T-Rex bones, Mara walked back towards Natalie. Although on the outside she appeared to be slightly down at being treated like a child, even though she was purposefully acting like one, internally she was actually having a discussion with me, her all-seeing Klyntar.

[El, what do you think? Has she stopped considering us a threat? She seems to be a lot more relaxed now, but I can't tell if it's just an act.]

Pleased at the progress her acting had caused throughout the day, Mara relaxed herself, [Thank Stan. Having to overexaggerate all the time is exhausting, mentally more so than physically. Don't forget to thoroughly examine all the displays as well El. Some animal evolutions are surprisingly ingenious and could inspire some new applications of our abilities.]

[Oh, there'll be plenty of lethality later. Wait until you see some of the bugs or reptiles that could kill tens of humans with a single bite, all while being the size of a human hand, or as long as an arm. Now that's some lethality! Although said capabilities do come from poison so I'm not sure you could copy that exactly.]

<Unless you could somehow get me samples of the poison or allow to consume and study said creatures, then no, I couldn't replicate it.>

With the internal discussion coming to a close, Mara finally finished the short 5 second travel from where she was stood, to within arm's reach of Natalie. Externally, she had stopped acting downtrodden and instead briefly apologised to the red head before continuing on with their tourism of the Museum.

"Sorry Natalie, I was just fascinated by how big the animals were in the past. I'll be more considerate of the other museum goers going forward. Do you want to see anything in particular?"

Slightly suspicious again with how quickly Mara's mood changed, Natalie hesitated for a second before giving her an answer, "No, this is what you wanted to see, so you can do what you want. Just remember that others are trying to enjoy all the exhibits as well."

Sporting a slightly wry smile, my host responded, "Yes ma'am. Next stop, Nature Lab!"

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