There was something not quite right about Kendis Black.

When Tony woke up in the morning with a green-eyed beauty sleeping peacefully beside him, he had given himself a mental high-five for pulling such a hottie. His eyes had traveled over their tattoos, taking in the thick black lines on their bodies. Kendis lay on her side, turned away from him. Tony, from his vantage point, could make out a large red and gold bird tattooed between their shoulder blades. The bird’s wings had stretched against the length of her back, and a swirling line of flowers cascaded down her arm

The thing that interested him the most was a strikingly accurate lightning bolt scar on her forehead.  

Tony remembered her name, her pronouns, but beyond that, he only had flashes of memories from last night.  Those memories of how perfect her tight asshole felt around his cock were enough for Tony to try to persuade her long enough for another roll in the hay.

But Tony never did morning afters; he figured it was best to get dressed and get gone before things got awkward.

Spending time downstairs in the hotel lobby was a no-go unless he wanted to get mobbed by the press. He kicked himself for not bringing Pepper on this trip. Over the years, Pep had gotten kicking clingy one-night stands out down to a science.

With a sigh, Tony had regretfully gotten out of bed and started to dress. What he had expected to find was leftover condoms, not a marriage license and a ring on his finger.

He also hadn’t been expecting to have someone point a thin stick in his face. And what the hell had that been about?

Now, his new spouse was gone, and Tony had to figure out what to say to Pepper to make her spare his life. He would, of course, buy her all the shoes she wanted, but Tony had a feeling that shoes would not cut it this time.

“Jarvis,” Tony said. “I want to know everything I can about Kendis Black.”

“Affirmative, sir.”

Tony winced as he got another scathing text from Pepper, and then ignored the five missed calls from Obadiah. He noticed he even had a voicemail from Rhodey. It was likely the middle of the night in Afghanistan, so Pepper had probably snitched him out to his honey bear.

Letting Pepper and Rhodey become friends had been an epic mistake on his part.

Tony called Happy instead.

“Tony,” Happy said.

“Happy,” Tony replied, nonchalantly. “Tell the pilots to get the jet ready. We are heading out in an hour.”

There was a long judgmental pause. Tony wondered when Happy had become this judgey?  Then a sigh, “Alright.” Happy hung up, and Tony whistled to himself as he walked into the bathroom to take a shower.

****

“What do you mean, this is all you could find?”

An hour later, Tony was on his private plane and on his way back to Malibu. He was supposed to be working on a concept for a new weapon that would hopefully distract Pepper and Obadiah from his latest blunder.

But instead, Tony could only stare down at his Stark Pad in shocked disbelief.

Jarvis was the most advanced artificial intelligence on Earth, but all his A.I. could find was a deed for ‘Enchanted Engines’ and an old Yelp page with a 4.0 rating.

Kendis Black was from Sutton Green, England, an orphan who grew up in foster care, went to a typical public school, barely passed their A-levels, and then spent a year backpacking through Europe and Asia before finally settling in Los Angeles.

There was a record of a work visa that they had applied for in 1998. They had worked under Consuelo Maynard for three years before they applied for dual citizenship.

And it was all bullshit. Whomever Kendis had gotten to set up their new identity had been very good. The style of whomever hacked into the government servers to leave a paper trail for Kendis reminded him of The Phantom, a promising hacker who disappeared five years back. 

He had a hunch that Kendis and The Phantom were connected somehow but he had no real evidence to back it up. 

“What about facial recognition?” Tony asked Jarvis as he tapped on the side of his chair in irritation. He was considering getting a drink, but he hadn’t quite recovered from his last hangover.

And he was already on Pepper’s shit list, so there was no need for him to be drunk when they landed.  Tony was smart enough not to add fuel to that fire.

“Nothing, sir,” Jarvis said, and if he didn’t know better, he would say that his son was irritated. To make Jarvis express any emotions was a sign of how dire things were.

“That’s not possible.” Tony shook his head. “You are telling me that I married a ghost?”

Jarvis didn’t reply.

“Pull up the CCTV from the hotel.”

A window pulled up on Tony’s tablet, and a video started to play. He watched as Kendis hurried down the hall, but the strangest thing happened every time they looked toward the camera.

Their face would immediately become pixelated or just plain out of focus.

“What the fuck?” Tony shook his head. “Jarvis, is there something wrong with the hotel’s security feeds?”

“Not that I can tell, sir,” Jarvis said. “I’m attempting to adjust for the disturbance.”

Tony sighed as he noticed that the quality of the footage didn’t seem to get any better. He thought about the photos he had seen on the Bugle website. They had managed to get a shot of Tony and Kendis huddled together outside the White Wedding Chapel.

The shots had been blurry, and Kendis’s face had been heavily pixelated. However, Tony had thought that Jonah Jamison had just hired shitty photographers, but now even Jarvis was failing at finding a clear shot of Kendis’s face.

And then there was the way Kendis had waved that stick at him like it was some type of weapon. At the time, Tony didn’t know what to think, but things just weren’t adding up.

Did Kendis have some access to a new technology he hadn’t heard of yet? Tony looked outside the plane window at the bright blue sky. He could see the airplane’s wings moving through the white, fluffy clouds.

Tony Stark was one of the smartest men in the world. Definitely smarter than assholes like Reed Richards or David Xanatos. There was no system he couldn’t crack, nothing he couldn’t build, but before him, it was a mystery he hadn’t anticipated.

Kendis Black had been meant to be just a little fun. They had been sexy and snarky as hell with that British dry wit that always turned him on. And from the little he could remember, they had been a wildcat in bed.

What he didn’t expect was to be met with a puzzle. And Tony was not in the habit of ignoring a good challenge when he saw one.

Tony looked at Kendis’s pixelated photo. “Who are you, Kendis Black?”

​