IRON MAN: Kidding Right?
Disclaimer: Iron Man characters belong to Marvel et al. Lucas Anthony Chase and Elizabeth Maria Chase belong to me! :)
Author's Note: I'm inspired to write an Iron Man fanfiction after becoming obsessed with the amazing Robert Downey Junior. I don't have much knowledge on Iron Man apart from what the two movies and occasional Wikipedia searches tell me so I hope I do it justice! All reviews including constructive criticism and suggestions are welcome and much appreciated. Also I'm English so sorry if you find the occasional 'Britishism' in my work and my knowledge of America all comes from TV, movies and the internet so please don't hate if I portray it wrong lol!
Additional notes: Movieverse! Set after IM2!
Summary:The young lad held out his hand across the desk for Pepper to shake, "I'm Lucas, Tony's son," then he nodded towards the baby, "and that's Elizabeth, his daughter." Pepper looked at her billionaire boyfriend and cocked an eyebrow, "He's kidding right?"
CHAPTER ONE:
Tony Stark hated board meetings, especially ones that dragged out longer than needed. Surely as CEO of Stark Industries he could hire someone to go to these things for him. Oh that's right, he'd tried that 3 years ago which resulted in very angry share holders and one very bad telling off from Pepper. Although in hindsight grabbing a random high school kid off the street and paying him $100 plus an Armani suit to take his place for a couple of hours hadn't been one of his brightest ideas considering he was a genius.
Like a teenager wanting to play truant from school; millions of feeble excuses to miss the meeting today ran through his mind as he entered the massive Stark Industries building, with a half eaten box of Randy's donuts in his hand. He walked up to the front desk and plastered on a smile for the pretty young receptionist. "Good morning Sarah."
"Sandra, my name is Sandra, Mr Stark." She corrected.
Tony just took a bite out of a donut and continued, "Have you seen Miss Potts this morning?"
"Not this morning Mr Stark."
"Okay, no worries Sarah." Tony smirked to himself as 'Sarah' was about to correct him again but he walked away before she got the chance. Oh how he loved winding up employees, it made his day at the office ten times better. Although what usually made his day a hundred times better was seeing his personal assistant/girlfriend of 4 months, Virginia 'Pepper' Potts. Even if she did usually prefer to keep him busy with useless business related stuff all day rather than sneak off for a 'quickie in the supply closet' so to speak but, he was working on that. The billionaire playboy was living proof that business and pleasure could be mixed.
Tony was now so caught up in his thoughts of Pepper, he was hardly conscious of entering the elevator and pressing the fourteenth floor button.
First floor.
He couldn't wait until tonight, hopefully there would be no major crime in the city so he could wine and dine Pepper without interruption, then afterwards they could curl up on the sofa cuddling, something Tony had grown quite fond of over the past months, talking about nonsense and stealing quick kisses in between having their usual banter.
Third floor.
Then when it went silent he'd tell her, he'd whisper it softly into her ear that he loved her, something he'd came to the conclusion just one week into their relationship but he was having trouble expressing it. But tonight he decided it was time, he could easily say them three words, there was nothing to be afraid of. He and Pepper were great together.
Fifth floor.
He found his thoughts interrupted by a young man who wanted the twelfth floor.
"Good morning Mr Stark." He said nervously. Tony just nodded at him and gave a slight smile. The man fiddled nervously with his black tie as they went up three floors in silence before eventually saying, "My son is a really big fan of yours sir, I was just wondering if you could sign this for him?"
Tony watched the man pull out a piece of paper from his jacket pocket, he unfolded it to reveal a magazine page with a picture of his superhero alter ego Iron Man taking up half of it.
Ninth floor.
The CEO rolled his eyes, he hated constantly being asked to sign autographs on behalf of Iron Man partly because he already got enough media and fan attention just from being Tony Stark without Iron Man and partly because most of the time he didn't know what to write. He recalled one incident 6 months ago some woman in accounting asked for him to sign an Iron Man themed copy of TIME magazine for her daughter and he'd put 'To Louise from Iron Man, call me ;)' how was he supposed to know that Louise was a four year old? Especially considering her mother looked about 65.
Just then the elevator doors opened, thank god, Tony thought, twelfth floor. "Give him these instead," he pushed his box of donuts into the employee's hands "they're part of Iron Man's upcoming limited 'diet range' merchandise."
With a look of confusion the man mumbled his thanks and backed out the elevator. Tony sighed as he continued going up. Thoughts going back to Pepper, he pulled out his Blackberry and quickly typed up a message to her; 'Hurry up, I'm being harassed by employees and I need you to save me! ;) xx' and send. The Blackberry was nothing compared to the one of a kind transparent Smartphone he'd designed alongside LG but he'd bought the Blackberry just so he could 'BBM' Pepper and continuously 'ping' her during meetings just for amusement.
Fourteenth floor.
Tony left the elevator, as he made his way down the corridor he said the ritual 'good mornings' to passing employees four of which he had never seen, two he recognised but still didn't know their names and one that he'd once bedded, he didn't know her name either. This one winked at him as he passed, which he ignored, even after 4 months women still pursued him as if they thought he was incapable of being loyal to his girlfriend though looking back at his previous promiscuous life style he couldn't really blame them. He finally made it to his office which was going to be his hiding place from going to the upcoming board meeting for the next three hours. Admittedly it wasn't a very good hiding place but he knew it was the first place Pepper would come looking for him and the sooner he saw her, the better.
He pushed open his office door, so caught up in his thoughts he wouldn't have noticed the person sitting in his desk chair straight away if they hadn't have spoken.
"Tony Stark!"
Tony stopped in his tracks; sitting at his desk was a young boy of about 7-8 years old, dark brown maybe black hair and brown eyes. If the thought wasn't so ludicrous, Tony would have thought he was looking at a miniature version of himself. These interns are getting younger and younger, he thought to himself.
"Did you bring me coffee kid?" he asked nonchalantly.
"Erm, no sir."
Tony gave an exaggerated sigh, then he noticed a baby with a mop of brown hair, lighter than the boy's and brown eyes just as dark as his in yellow baby grows sitting on the floor playing with the Newton's cradle that had been on his desk, gurgling away contently trying to figure it out. Could this get any weirder? None the less he took a seat opposite the boy, this could keep him amused until Pepper arrived.
"Where's your parents kid?" Tony didn't remember any rules about employees being able to bring they're brats to work, he'd have to ask Pepper about that one, after all she was usually the one making and agreeing to company rules on behalf of him.
"I snuck into the building sir," the boy replied, avoiding a direct answer to Tony's question. "We've been here since 7." He seemed to be boasting about this fact.
The older man looked at his black and silver Jager-LeCoultre watch, it was just gone 9 now, caretakers usually opened up around 6:30 with security showing up about half an hour later, so if this was true the boy must have managed to sneak in un-noticed between that window.
"Impressive kid," said Tony, "let me guess, you and your..." he looked at the baby.
"Sister,"
"You and your sister are big Iron Man fans so you crept out before mom and dad woke up, hopped on the first bus and thought you'd wait here until I turned up for an autograph or something."
"Erm..."
"If this isn't going to somehow earn me a lawsuit from the parents I don't now what is," he thought out loud, "Iron Man kidnaps helpless children."
"It's not like that sir, my mom dropped me and my sister off outside the building this morning then she left."
"Uh-huh," Tony nodded although he didn't believe a word of this, anytime soon security was going to come looking for some random employee's two children, he was sure of it. He felt his Blackberry start to vibrate, he took it out his pocket; new message from Pepper.
'You'll need saving from me if you're not ready for your meeting today, I'll be with you in about 10 minutes! X'
Tony glanced at the young boy in front of him who was just sitting there patiently before replying to Pepper: 'I think the company is being taken over by miniature adults xx'
'Huh? X' she replied straight away.
'You'll see :P xx'
Pepper read Tony's last message but he could see that she wasn't replying. She'd be here soon anyway. He turned his attention back to the children. "So kiddo I bet you can't wait to tell all your friends that you met Iron Man."
The boy just shrugged then held his stomach "I'm hungry," he said. "Have you got any candy?"
"Yeah actually, I was saving them for later but here," Tony pulled a bag of skittles from his jacket pocket and threw them to the kid, smiling at the memory of his mom always scolding him for eating too much candy.
"Thanks sir!" said the kid as he ripped the packet open, "I love skittles! Especially the red ones!" he picked out a red one, threw it in the air and caught it in his mouth.
"Nice one!"
The boy smiled, "Here," he passed Tony a purple skittle, "your turn!"
Tony accepted the challenge, not wanting to be bested by a kid. Like the boy he threw it up in the air but failed the catch it in his mouth, instead it hit him in his eye. "Dammit..." he mumbled rubbing his left eye.
The boy giggled and his sister seemed to be amused too. He held out another skittle and Tony took it.
"Okay, this time I'll do it." Again he threw the skittle into the air, this time he managed to catch it in his mouth. "Oh yeah!" He high fived the boy.
The boy then started throwing the skittles for Tony to catch into his mouth, every time Tony caught one he moved backwards a bit. He enjoyed acting like a kid, it sure beat preparing for the meeting he wasn't planning on going to even if Pepper was going to kill him. Oh yeah, where was Pepper?
"Anthony Stark!"
Speak of the devil. Tony spun round thus getting hit in the back of the head by the last piece of candy the kid had thrown. "Good morning honey." He said with an over exaggerated smile but his girlfriend was not impressed.
She marched up to him waggling her finger. "This does not look like preparation! Do you know just how important this meeting is!"
"Erm..." Tony mumbled, feeling like a little boy who's mom just caught him wagging off from doing homework "...as important as all them other meetings that I'm never prepared for?"
"Don't get smart with me!" Pepper prodded Tony's chest with every word that left her mouth.
"It's his fault," Tony pointed to the boy behind the desk, "he distracted me!"
Pepper looked to where Tony was pointing, "Who are they?"
"I'm not sure," Tony shrugged, "They were just here when I turned up, ready to prepare for the meeting."
"Didn't you think to call security?"
"I was just about to when you came." He lied.
Pepper rolled her eyes and marched past Tony over to the desk, "Hey sweetie," she said softly to the boy, "I'm Pepper, what's your name?" she asked, something Tony had not even thought about doing.
The young lad held out his hand across the desk which Pepper shook, "I'm Lucas, Tony's son," then he nodded towards the baby, "and that's Elizabeth, his daughter."
Pepper looked at her billionaire boyfriend and cocked an eyebrow, "He's kidding right?"