This happened... maybe :3 Ok so no.
So, we're just two fangirls who decided to work together to make this :) We promise mischief and dancing and lots of love and laughter. Please do enjoy...
Also, we don't own any Avengers...dammit.
Tony Stark tried hard to keep his face neutral. He was pretty certain some of the ire he felt was evident in his expression. Honestly, the constant noise of the helicopter blades was drumming in his head like a chorus of native war drums. It was insufferable, but Pepper had demanded that he take an aerial tour of the new Star Industries building, sans Iron Man suit. 'Like a normal person', she'd said. Ugh... normal people.
At the moment, he was really trying to keep things as kosher as possible with Pepper. Their relationship had ended the way most of his early experiments did – up in smoke. Still, she was trying to be professional and remain his friend and business partner. So, she was still putting up with a lot from him... it only seemed fair that he try to meet her half way. Still it was upsetting.. Pepper had a tiny smirk on her face that worried him.
"You know, I could've done this in 10 seconds if I'd brought my suit." He muttered into the receiver on his headphones.
"But if you were in your suit, you wouldn't be here." Pepper said sweetly. It was unnerving. Normally when Pepper was being sweet it was because she wanted to be sweet, but this was... it was odd. Like she was leading him up to something.
"That's kind of the point." He grumbled, wishing the throbbing headache from his hangover would just give it up already.
"Oh, but I wanted you here. Without your suit." And that was when Tony noticed her eyes. They were green... vivid, bright green. Not blue like they normally were. He watched with something akin to horror as Pepper's hair darkened to black, her form shifted from feminine to masculine, and Loki grinned back at him from the other seat. "At. My. Mercy."
…. shit berries.
I fidget nervously as I sat in one of the biggest corporate interviews of my life. Pepper Potts was looking over my credentials analytically. Unfortunately, just like every other interview, it was going much too slow for my taste. Most of my teachers called it ADHD, except for one. Professor Xavier had called it Technopathy.
My brain functioned on a psychic level with computers and machines run by computers, and, as such, my brain functioned like a high-speed computer. It made interviews and other stuffy social affairs that much more tedious. While Miss. Potts surveyed my various references, my mind was patching into the internal network around me. Even just sitting here I could view everything Stark Industries had on file and see everything the security cameras could see. I'd learned about my mutant abilities, and I knew better than anything how to cover my tracks. If anything, it would appear in the system like an elite hacker or highly functioning AI. No one would know it was me, especially since all I was doing was sitting here.
"Everything seems fine." she said, drawing me back into the present. "I'd just like to ask you a few more questions." She continued as she stacked my various papers into piles. I nodded with a smile. "So, do you-" Miss Potts started. She was interrupted by a thunderous crash and a man who suddenly came hurtling through the ceiling.
Miss Potts screamed and we both ran over to the man lying on his back in pain. Upon further inspection, we saw that it was Tony Stark.
"Are you all right?" Miss Potts asked, touching his face as if making sure he was still intact.
"I really have to crash proof these ceilings," he said absently, opening his eyes. "Can we get someone on that?" Mr. Stark sat up and brushed himself off.
"Tony, what happened?" Miss Potts asked, sounding even more nervous.
Mr. Stark looked over at me curiously. "Who's this?"
I cleared my throat. "I'm Elizabeth Gracious, Mr. Stark. Pleased to meet you."
Miss Potts rolled her eyes. "We need to get you to the hospital."
Before anything else could be said, an alarm finally decided to go off. My face became stricken while tapping into the system. I knew who was coming. Loki, the Norse god of mischief and one of the nation's most feared super criminals, came flying through the hole in the ceiling, aiming the heels of his boots straight for Mr. Stark.
Miss Potts and I darted out of the way. She shrieked something that sounded like "Happy!", which I thought was rather bizarre, and plastered herself against the wall nearest to the door. I let my back hit the far wall, staring in horror as Loki towered over Mr. Stark. The villain's foot had landed squarely on Mr. Stark's chest, pinning him down to the floor again… but his back was to me, and I doubted very seriously that he'd be paying attention to what I was doing.
My brain riffled through the electronic plans on file for the building. I'd noticed several pocket cashes that were hidden in the walls early on, but I'd thought nothing of it. Still, there was one right next to me, and I knew its contents would help. With my mind, I opened the secret compartment in the wall that kept an arsenal hidden away. I grabbed a rocket launcher and aimed it straight at the small of Loki's. "Bazanga." I growled to myself as I pulled the trigger. The rocket sailed forward, hitting the intruder right between his shoulder blades….. Okay, so the damn thing had kick, and I wasn't used to actually firing rocket launchers. Guess it was good that I'd aimed so low. Loki sailed through the wall of windows in front of him. I lost sight of him as the rocket exploded. When the debris cleared, the man had disappeared. I hefted the rocket launcher off my shoulder. My knees bent heavily as I sagged not only from the weight of the rocket launcher but from the sudden lack of adrenaline.
From his spot on the floor, Mr. Stark looked over at Miss Potts and pointed at me, "Okay, she's hired."
Theresa heard footsteps upstairs. That was what woke her up. The near constant purring of her two cats had become so ingrained that she barely even recognized it. Unless they did something like meow repetitively and very loudly, she rarely heard her cats, and they had little reason to do that when she kept them fed properly. She wondered absently what time it was, rolling just to the side to reach for her cell phone. 1:48PM. Oh, it was definitely time to get up and moving. She rolled languidly onto her belly. She lifted herself up onto her hands first and then pushed back away from her hands, shifting her weight onto her knees. She felt the tension bunch and release along her spine.
Her calico cat, mostly solid black with faded splotches of orange with her vivid blue eyes mewled at her and She smiled. "Good afternoon to you too, River." Theresa murmured with a happy smile. She scoured the shadows and found her other cat, a dark gray cat with bright orangey-gold eyes staring back at her from her bedroom door. "I'm coming, Vlad. I'm coming." She murmured, rolling onto her back and stretching again. River moved out of the way, joining Vlad on the ground near the door. She let herself indulge in another long stretch before letting her body go lax and sliding out of bed quite literally. She carefully slid the door open, releasing the cats.
The doorway to her bedroom was actually a bookcase. The moving book case tilted inward just so to allow her to pass through the doorway, then slid back so that a three column book case covered the entry to her bedroom. And though her bedroom was painted in a dark purple that suited her when she slept, her living room and kitchen were painted in a bright chartreuse green – the color had been called 'Petal' but it really looked more like celery to her. There were pictures covering so much of her wall.. most of them taken by herself. Simple pictures protected by thin plastic with little in the way of frames. Most of her fixtures and draperies were all in sleek black.
She walked over to her tiny kitchenette corner and picked up the two cat bowls that were empty on the floor. Setting them neatly on the black and tan speckled counter top, she carefully took a few scoops of cat food for each cat before setting them back down on the floor. Theresa smiled, sitting down with her back against the cabinets, watching the two cats eat. She would absently pet them now and then, but for the most part she just enjoyed taking care of them.
Theresa smiled happily when she smelled the distinct aroma of coffee wafting from upstairs. Elizabeth hated coffee, so she knew the pot that was brewing was just for her. she pulled herself up into a standing position just in time for her 'back door' to open.
"Hey, Sleepy head, it's 2... oh. You're up." Elizabeth said upon seeing her. "I've got coffee brewing." She said in a sweet bribing tone.
"I was on my way up." Theresa said slipping her slippers on.
Elizabeth and Theresa shared a 'two story' house. Really, it was a basement with a house above. Granted, Theresa's basement dwellings were perfectly finished, giving her a full one-level house of her own. The stairs that led upstairs started in the basement pantry, just on the other side of Theresa's kitchenette wall. Theresa's 'back door' was the door that led into the pantry from her side of the house. The stairs led up to Elizabeth's part of the house, opening in Elizabeth's living room...though, technically the entire house belonged to Theresa. She had built it all with the money she got from her parents... From her inheritance.
Theresa followed Elizabeth upstairs to the living room, and turning a corner from the hallway to the back bedrooms, she found her way to the very open kitchen...where the delicious coffee was brewing.
"When did you finally get to sleep?" Elizabeth asked.
"6:45." Theresa answered, pouring herself a cup of coffee.
Elizabeth was nodding. "So.. right after I left."
"Pretty much." she murmured, spooning a bit of sugar into her cup and mixing in the appropriate amount of cream. She liked a bit of coffee with her cream and sugar. "How'd your interview go?"
"Uh." Theresa looked up to find a strange expression on Elizabeth's face. She seemed somewhere between shocked and amused. "I got the job." she said with a soft disbelieving laugh.
"Congratulations!" Theresa cheered. "I knew you would. You've totally got the skills for it. You look a little shell shocked."
"I kind of don't want to talk about it right now. I don't want to think about it. I think my brain hasn't fully processed it yet, and.. I could use a bit of our own version of normal right now." Elizabeth explained tiredly. Theresa nodded, offering her friend a concerned look. She didn't fully understand Elizabeth's reasoning, but she wouldn't push the only friend she was left with.
"What would you like to talk about?" Theresa asked, letting the heat from the coffee seep into her fingers.
Elizabeth sighed. "What about that research you were doing before I left? Did it end well?"
Theresa nodded eagerly. "Did you know that the Ash tree is the female equivalent of the Oak tree?"
Elizabeth looked confused, her face scrunching up slightly. "What?"
"It's said to be the first tree created." Theresa continued quickly. "The Ash is the Queen of the Forest, and the Oak is the King. Basically the feminine equivalent of floral tree royalty."
Elizabeth blinked rapidly, obviously taking a moment to process what Theresa was saying. "I did not know that." She said. Theresa took a long swig of her coffee and closed her eyes blissfully at the lovely hazelnut taste. "So.. that's helpful?"
Theresa nodded rapidly again. "It's useful... and interesting."
"I suppose that much is true. The interesting part at least." Elizabeth admitted with a smirk. "Did you get more writing done?"
"In the AM? Are you kidding?" Theresa asked, giving her peculiar look. "Early AM is for research. I'll pick up writing where I left off this afternoon around 5."
"As usual." Elizabeth said with a nod. There was even an alert on her phone that reminded her that it was time to gather up materials and start writing again. It was so basic, even with Elizabeth moving in so suddenly, Theresa'd just assumed she knew the routine by now.
"When do you start work?" Theresa asked.
"Tomorrow." She said with finality. That was good. The sooner she got into her own routine, the better.
"And what will you be doing?"
"I'm not sure..." She said. "Mr. Stark said something about directly assisting him with a project, but he didn't elaborate."
It took a moment for those words to sink in fully. "Tony Stark?" Theresa asked dumbfounded.
"That is where the interview was." Elizabeth reminded with a bit of snark.
"I know, but I just assumed..." Theresa trailed off, her face a comical mixture of landed fish and kid in candy store. "You're going to be working directly with Tony Stark?" Theresa knew that her pitch and tone was rising, but it was mostly due to excitement. Honestly! The girl had gotten a job with a man she idolized, working very near to him? Why wasn't she more excited?
"It's a long story. I... I haven't fully processed everything that happened yet. " She sighed heavily. "We could probably turn on the news, and you'd see what happened. I'm still reeling from it all."
Part of what Elizabeth was saying made perfect sense. She'd just scored an amazing job under a man she admired greatly... that would be quite a shock for anyone. But something about the way she was saying it suggested there was so much more that had happened.
"News, huh?" Theresa asked. "Let me just fix myself some eggs and toast, and we'll migrate over to the living room."
And that's all of the first chapter :3 See you later!
