Chapter Text
As Pericles ventured deeper and deeper into Russia, the PEACE program noticed a possible interruption for continued operations. Due to being kept in a dormant state, all the life support systems of the behemoth were in a disabled state. There was sufficient oxygen on board if needed, but the inventory of food, drinkable water, and fuel was completely empty. It processed all the information from its sensors and, after finding zero solutions to rectify them, forwarded it to FRIDAY, who would be able to provide a solution. This dispatch of data, being non-urgent, was sent through the standard channels instead of the secure network as the protocols of PEACE dictated. While FRIDAY did receive it, more than a few systems in the SHIELD did too, and one of them was being monitored by a competent agent. The spy organization that had been working from shadows in reduced capability for some time was already spread thin trying to manage the rampage the members of Avengers had gone on when they received the news about the Helicarrier. Coulson and Fury were shocked when the information reached them. That helicarrier had been their backup option for any possible crisis and had taken a considerable toll on their already meager resources. Now to learn that it was missing along with the SHIELD agents guarding it was enough to make them divert most of their agents to find that carrier. Both of them also feared the program that managed it, being two of the few people who knew about its origins. The paranoia of Ultron coupled with the upheaval that was going with the accords forced them to come to a conclusion hours after they had received the news, the A.I. on the carrier had gone rogue. A few minutes later, every SHIELD base across the world, active or mothballed, received the same command.
"Search and locate the helicarrier, PERICLES. Should it be unresponsive or hostile when found, permission is granted to destroy it. Follow with urgency."
Minutes later, aircraft from those bases lifted off, every sensor in them looking for familiar readings. The hunt was on, and an unconscious Tony Stark was right in the center of it.
After receiving the message from PEACE, FRIDAY had immediately started looking for ways to replenish the stores on the aircraft. With the authority provided to her by Pepper Potts, she had arranged for a business jet from the Moscow office to fly towards the carrier. A group of employees of that office, who use to be SHIELD agents not long ago, were discreetly contacted, and an hour after that, the jet took off, heading to meet the carrier at its top speed. While FRIDAY was trying to erase the flight plan from the system as soon as the jet activated its stealth features, she noticed a sudden increase in military flights across the country. A cross-check from other countries showed the same thing happening, making her pay a little more attention. A pattern soon emerged over eastern Europe when multiple flights flew over the city of Joensuu before arching out of there is a continuously expanding circle. It was clear to FRIDAY that someone was searching for the Helicarrier, but she had no idea for what reason. The notification from EBIB about approaching the carrier took most of her attention, but she still kept track of the flight paths.
Instead of landing the suit of the flight deck, she flew the EBIB suit inside the carrier through a hangar door. Every medical equipment that might be needed had already been moved to the Hangar, and three agents were standing by in bomb disposal suits. Even though Boss's body temperature was in the optimal range for Extremis, there was always a chance of things changing fast. A few minutes later, the agents had placed Boss in an isolation compartment and started the procedures that Dr. Cho and Dr. Wu had mentioned. Twenty minutes later, the suit carrying Dr. Cho landed in the same Hangar. The geneticist struggled only for a few minutes before she had her bearings back. As the doctor was busy scanning Tony's body, FRIDAY noticed one of the flights approaching 100 km away from the carrier. Things turned for worse when both planes of that flight turned towards the behemoth and went on full afterburner. When PEACE's systems recorded search and locate radars, FRIDAY classified them as hostile. She brute-forced her way through the Russian military command and took control over the two jets, disabling them when she found the active weapon systems. The pilots jettisoned as soon as the jet started to fall, but the damage was done.
Multiple other flights had started converging towards the carrier, and there was not enough free processing power for FRIDAY to disable all of them. While destroying such a large number of jets was going to raise a lot of problems in the future, at the moment, FRIDAY did not care. At her command, PEACE activated the defensive and offensive systems of the PERICLES while she started disabling the fighters one by one. Back at SI headquarters, Pepper and others could do nothing but watch as Tony Stark's A.I. went to war to protect him.
FRIDAY's action had done nothing but made Coulson and Fury gain more confidence in the deduction that the Carrier's A.Ị. had gone rogue. The command went to the flights to attack and retreat, while in a hidden base in Russia, a heavily modified surface-to-air missile was activated.
Back near the carrier, FRIDAY was still disabling the aircraft when as one, all the aircraft in range launched missiles at it before turning around. With no other options, she left them for the PERICLES to handle and continued disabling the still closing flights. PEACE noted the incoming message from FRIDAY and started preparing accordingly. The long-range air to air missile systems were the first to launch, with PEACE emptying the entire port battery as it began to maneuver. It also started dumping the reserve fuel in the aft engine afterburners, increasing its speed. By the time FRIDAY had managed to disable the last of the aircraft flying towards the carrier, 37 missiles were flying towards it. PEACE managed to shoot down 21 of them before they came in the zone of short-range defensive systems. Notifying the agents and the doctor about the situation and asking them to brace, PEACE fired off the short-range missiles. Six of the incoming missiles escaped the carnage and continued zeroing in. The entire carrier lurched in mid-air as PEACE turned it around to expose the point defense systems. Three different type of CIWS, the Russian Kashtan, the American Phalanx, and the dutch Goalkeeper, opened up at different ranges as soon as the missiles crossed the 6000-meter mark. The multiple lines of bullets managed to shoot five of the inbound, but one still escaped, hitting the carrier right in the center of the flight deck. While the agents inside tumbled around due to the impact and the shockwave, the armor installed under the deck took the brunt of the significant damage. Damage control systems came on, controlling the few fires as PEACE evaluated the entire Helicarrier. The hit had managed to knock off the defensive system as a whole, along with taking off the ATC systems. As PEACE begin rebooting them, another alert came from the early warning radar. Noting that it was another missile that was approaching them, but with a much higher speed, it concluded that the situation was out of its scope with the carrier's defensive systems knocked out, and passed the information further.
FRIDAY, who had been observing the air battle, processed the information and came upon a solution. With the defensive systems knocked down and the flight systems unoperational, the only defense the carrier had were the two Ironman suits on board. The commands went out as she asked PEACE to take PERICLES out of the detection range.
Onboard the helicarrier, PEACE started closing the airtight doors as the large fans keeping it airborne rumbled with increased speed. Both the suits in the Hangar lifted off and flew outside the Hangar doors, which closed and sealed behind them. While the EBIB suit landed on the deck, the one which had carried Dr. Cho to the carrier shot off towards the incoming missile. It had accelerated to its maximum in seconds as FRIDAY removed all the restrictions from the arc reactor powering it. At the speed of Mach 4.3, the suit hit the incoming missile head-on, destroying both of them in a large explosion. Taking advantage of the disturbance created by the blast, PEACE pushed the carrier at the maximum achievable height, and the SHIELD system's lost all contact. With the lack of any proof about the carrier's destruction, the search continued on, but PERICLES had gone out of the detection range as it headed towards the North American continent.
By the time Dr. Wu reached the carrier half an hour after his estimated arrival time, Dr. Cho had managed to stabilize Tony Stark. She had to use the antidote of Extremis, which was developed by Tony and Bruce, to prevent it from healing the worse of the injuries. With FRIDAY's help, she was able to deduce that along with severe head injuries, frostbite, and broken ribs, which had broken into his left lungs, thereby collapsing it, Tony was suffering from a fractured sternum and multiple pieces of shrapnel that were littering his chest area and had entered into his blood cavity. It was only a miracle that the arc reactor was still working in some capacity despite being cut in near half, thereby preventing these tiny shrapnels from entering his heart and thereby his brain. Extremis had started to repair all these injuries, but the broken bone parts and the metal shrapnels had to be removed before all those organs could be healed. Dr. Wu went to work immediately, thanking the technological help he had in the form of FRIDAY. The A.I. even came up with a method to use the reactor to push the shrapnels away from the heart, while Dr. Wu worked on the bone fragments. The medical agents of the SHIELD were also competent, assisting the doctors flawlessly when needed. The operation continued on as the carrier crossed over the European countries.
FRIDAY had used another EBIB suit along with one on the carrier to bring the heavily laden jet abroad. Thankfully, the lower of the two runaways was still intact enough for a landing. Soon, vital supplies were unloaded, including pouches of blood that matched Tony's, which were mandatory storage items in every country Headquarters. Pepper was thankful that she had granted FRIDAY the freedom to arrange all of it, as they had to change Tony's blood twice during the operation. While she and others had been shaken at the ruthlessness FRIDAY had displayed in handling the threats to the carrier, none of them were able to come up with any better option. There was also the matter of her core protocols, which had been developed by FRIDAY herself. 'Protect Tony Stark' had been more than just an internal joke between Tony, FRIDAY, and her. The operation continued well in the night and the following day, with FRIDAY and the agents taking over when the Doctors were taking small breaks for rest. It was at the end of the 32nd hour after the operation started that both the doctors stepped back from the battered but still alive body of Tony Stark. Through the use of Extremis, Helen Cho's cradle which had arrived sometimes during the night, some very questionable medicines brought by the SHIELD staff, they had managed to position most of the things back in their original place. Even the sternum, which was damaged the most, had broken into large pieces, which were quickly recovered. At Dr. Cho's direction, Extremis was once again inserted into Tony's body as everyone vacated the Hangar. FRIDAY continued monitoring its progress as it spread through the body, healing everything along the way. By the time PERICLES crossed over Rhode Island, most of his wounds had sealed, and his vitals were stabilizing. After discussing with Pepper and FRIDAY, both doctors agreed to shift Tony down to the tower, which had much better facilities. The cradle was transferred to the Quinjet the SHIELD agents had arrived in, and soon most of them were off and heading towards the carrier. The skeleton crew that remained onboard settled in for a journey to the state of Maine, where the helicarrier would be stored in a mothballed SI weapon testing range.
It was only when Tony was safe within the medical wing that Pepper and others relaxed. Their friend was going to survive, and that's all that mattered right now.
Not for FRIDAY, as now free from the work of getting Boss home safe, the A.I. focused its attention on the people who had placed Boss in such condition. The hunt for the rogue avengers was on.