The Avenger Series - Part One
"Yes he should be-" The nice blonde lady said, possibly the same one you spoke to on the phone. Her voice sounded familiar. She had told you when to arrive, 10:30 am.
Arrive where? The Stark Tower, house of Stark Enterprises. A prestigious company ran by the man who had become the youngest CEO to take hold of a company, after his father's death when he was around 20 years old.
The nice blonde lady was taking you up the glass elevator, and through it, you got a view of the city. In all its trashy reality, you found it quite beautiful. Of course, thats coming from someone raised in a farmhouse on the outskirts of a small Canadian town.
Well, not really raised. That wasn't the right word the way you spent your childhood. No, it was the house you lived in when you weren't in a boarding school, when you weren't at an awards ceremony, and when you weren't being interviewed for being a "Child Prodigy."
The elevator opened up to a pristinely kept floor, the tunes of ACDC blasting through your eardrums. You thought the traffic on the street was loud, yet this was like thunder clapping in your head.
"Hold on, Sweetie," The blonde woman touched your arm, her voice kind. It's turns shrill and seems to be full of anger as she screams, "TONY!"
Your hands go up to your ears at the blindsiding change of energy. You drop them just as quickly, shaking them as you follow the woman, and her clicking heals.
"So, you go to MIT?" She asks you, voice kind again. You had been so distracted when she told you her name, all you could come up with were states. It was definitely a state, but which one...
Maryland?
"Uhm...yeah. I- I got a letter, and a scholarship to go there. And uh... My guidance counselor wanted to set me up for an internship at a tech company," You were explaining, and she seemed genuinely interested as the two of you walked through what seemed to be the towers lab-area floor. "I...I got a lot of offers, but uh...I picked this one. It seemed..."
You voice trailed off ad you walked through automatic doors, that opened up to a room filled with things you'd dreamed of, and seen in magazines and on TV. It was a tech geeks wet dream, and you were guilty of the stereotype.
"Different," you finished your sentence, barely audible.
You were mostly focused on mechanical engineering. You planned to double major in something after those four years were up (you were two years in). You hadn't picked what yet.
You had started at MIT at 16 (technically 15, you had a late birthday). Although, you had graduated from secondary school officially at 13.
You had wanted to go to a real college, in person, not just online like your mother wanted. You wanted the experience.
You wanted to be in the world.
Also, you ran track for MITs team. Just for fun. And for the record, you were good.
The music on this floor seemed to originate, and be the loudest, in this room.
"TONY!" You regrettably flinch again at the unexpected snap of noise.
The man working at a silver table seemed unbothered, although you got the notion he heard her.
Half of Manhattan heard her.
You could now see the clutter of the lab. The tools scattered hazardously over all the surfaces. Projects, both finished and seemingly discarded ones, lay everywhere, in their own heaps.
The woman clicks a button on the wall, and the music dies away. Not looking up from the panel he was working on, the brown haired man says, "Don't turn down my music. We've been over this."
"Well, Tony, your intern is here, and I'm not just gonna leave her on your doorstep like a lost puppy," The blonde lady's eyes roll, and her tone makes you understand that, whoever she is, she's probably the most reasonable, sensible person around here.
Tony abandons his project to spin around in his stool to face you.
"J.A.R.V.I.S, why didn't you alert me that my intern was here?" He looks up at the ceiling, as if expecting Jesus to answer.
And he does.
"Sorry sir, but, you've threatened me many times that you don't like me speaking over your music."
Oh no. Oh God. Jesus is here, in the ceiling, and he's British. You always knew stealing candy from that blind priest would catch up to you.
"Then turn the music off."
"The music is off, sir."
"Are you serio-!?"
"Sir, your intern is here."
Tony gives the ceiling a nasty look, scoffing, before clapping his hands and turning his attention towards you.
"Jesus is British?" You ask, getting all your priorities straight out of the gate.
"J.A.R.V.I.S. It's Just A Rather Very Intelligent System," Tony smirks, looking pleased with himself.
You blink. You wonder why you have to think about blinking so often. "It's an acronym."
"Oh goodie. Thank you Captain Obvious."
"You're welcome."
Tony sighs for a good ten seconds, pinching the bridge of his nose, before gathering himself. "Take a seat, Mr. Starks class is starting."
You looked around the lab. Among the clutter, and among the hazards, you came to the conclusion that the only seat was the one Stark was sitting at, a poor excuse of a stool.
"There aren't any," You say, in an even tone. Tony was perplexed, how you had done basically nothing, yet stepped on every nerve he had.
"Then...lesson one! Build a chair," He said gleefully.
"I didn't sign up for a woodworking class," you cross your arms, and the smug smile drops from his face. The first emotion you expressed besides indifference, and it just had to be snarky.
You just had to be like him.
You earned a seat at the table. Minor correction- on the table. You pushed aside a very expensive looking piece of equipment, and it clattered to the floor.
You hopped up onto the surface, and smiled at his blank face.
"What the hell?" You shrug, and he waves it off, turning back to his work. "How old are you."
"Eighteen...next month," you say, picking at your fingertips, but also watching his project closely. He seemed to work on autopilot, like he didn't have to think at all.
"Hmm," He says, nodding, with a smile on his face. You got the notion he liked you. You annoyed him, you confused him, yet he liked you. "Go to any cool parties recently?"
He was getting you something to work on. He had a basic blueprint, a holographic sketch, that you were admiring as he gathered your tools.
"I've never been to a party," you say. You take the titanium alloy, and lay it out in front of you as you grab a tape measure. You spread it over Tony's chest, and he spreads his arms out for you as you do so.
You could've been a tailor, you thought. Move to Romania, or Sokovia, live in a quaint little shop. Nonetheless, measurements were elementary to you, as were most things. Like astrophysics or quantum science.
"Well, what do you and your geek burger friends do then," He pops a cherry twizzler in his mouth and you turn back to your titanium. He watches you hesitate. Watches you fumble on where to set the tape measure, before you speak again.
"You should make it red and gold, can we do that? Like Captain America was red, white, and blue. It's about the marketing process of things. The capitalism in it," you say, clearly interested in the propaganda of things. You pull up old Captain America adds from the forties on your clear pop up screen.
Tony analyzed you for a bit, long enough for you to turn your head since you were clearly expecting an answer. "Yeah," He nodded. "Red and gold works. Whatever floats your boat Miss America."
You smiled warmly, it lighting up your whole face. You had moved onto the repulser technology Tony had planned.
People weren't easy. They weren't predictable like other things in the world. You couldn't use stoichiometry to figure out what would happen when you started a conversation with someone.
And Tony Stark may not have been predictable either, in fact he was the opposite. He was impulsive, if nothing else. But you liked talking to him. It felt...
It felt like what having a friend felt like. What you remember it feeling like.
And Tony seemed to like you too, and although you couldn't fathom as to why, you accepted it.
Embraced it, actually. His dialect and diction rubbed off on you.
☆ ☆ ☆
"I don't think it's the best idea," you were saying. Tony stood in front of you, dressed in the titanium alloy suit you had helped create. One of many, someday hoped to be millions.
"I do, you trust me, don't you?" His little metal helmet tilted to the side. The tone of voice he was using was the one you recognized as how he got Pepper to do things he wanted. Pepper being the blonde woman who had first greeted you.
"Do you trust me?" You asked back. In your left hand was a repulsor, ready to beam a bright light.
"A suit of armor around the world," Tony had said. "That's what I want. To just...make everything..."
"Controlled?"
"Protected, y/n. When horrible things come, not only would we be able to stop it, but they'd be protected in the end."
"We?"
"Yes, we. I trust you. With my life. More than anyone. You're the smartest person I know, and you know better than anyone how to work these kinds of things."
"You're the hero. I'm just...I'm not sure I'd be so good at that."
"You don't need to be so scared."
"Im not scared. But I'm also not a hero."
" You can be."
So here you stood, armed for target practice. And for whatever bright idea he seemed to always have, Tony's newest was making himself the target.
"Of course. With my life," He makes a motion of crossing his heart, making you laugh a little. "Okay Wonder Kid. Ready, set-"
You shoot from your hand before the go comes, knocking Tony to the side, and a hole in the back wall of his mansion.
"Oops," you say sheepishly. Tony is laughing inside his suit, you can tell, and Pepper suddenly comes out onto the lawn.
"What is going-! Tony, what is this?" She looks at him, as he steps out of the suit, and towards you.
"Target practice," you shrugged, as Tony was adjusting the repulsor loosely strapped to your hand.
"Isn't she doing great?" Tony cooed at you, as if you were a small dog learning tricks.
"NO!" Pepper gasped.
"I told I didn't think it was a good idea using one of these outside of a suit," you say. The two of you were barely holding it together over Pepper's distraught state.
"Then why'd you do it?" He says in a mocking tone, obviously knowing why.
"'Cause I trust you...Clearly a horrible decision."
"Yeah, my wall thinks so."
☆☆☆
You had a room in the tower. It was empty, mostly, but not as bare as when you had gotten here. You took a lot of pictures, that Tony allowed (did not have the knowledge of) you to print on the tenth floor. You hung them up on your walls, and on your bedframe. It made the place less lonely.
It was dark out, and you were sitting on your bed, one leg hanging off. The overhead light was off, but your small bedside lamp illuminated your writing space.
It was an idea you had when you were young. To keep notes on the people you met. Things you wanted to remember about them, their personalities, who they were. It helped your brain, to organize things better.
You were sure most people kept lists like these on a subconscious level. And maybe one day you wouldn't feel the need to write that Tony Stark was genuis or a billionaire. Or that he was your friend.
But you liked the safety net. You liked knowing that it was something you could turn to. Something you could reread, something that ensured you would never forget.