Books
I know I should probably update my other fanfiction, but this idea keeps coming back to me. I kept on wondering, what happened if Tony loved books and kept this as a secret?
Warning: Hints of child abuse, nothing graphic, nothing physical, very, very, very subtle, can be viewed as a scolding instead of child abuse
Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers or the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan. I do not intend to make a profit out of this piece of writing and have only written in for enjoyment purposes.
There was something about the pages of a book. The leaves of the binding with words on them were beautiful. There was a certain art to it, Tony was sure. He did not know why people wanted to trade the beautiful books for e-books. And worse, he could not speak up against the people who did that, for then his status as a technological futuristic visionary would disappear into thin air. He had to keep his love for books an absolute secret, or else there was no way that the Avengers would stop making fun of him.
Tony had loved reading since he was a child. But Howard discouraged his reading. "Why are you reading these stupid useless books when you have so much to do? Go design another bomb. I want it by tomorrow or else…" Howard always ranted to him. But Tony kept on reading. Books were a thing that no one could take away from him. He was glad that Howard was dead. Tony loved the smell of a new, wonderful, book, where he could lose himself and all his worries into a paged wonder. So he placed his hand on a wall. It began to open. He spoke a password, "republicans-Texas-Florida-oranges-ironman-red-me" He loved his password. Nobody could ever guess it. The wall that the passcode was on simply disappeared, and Tony entered a room. The walls began to close again, and the room that Tony entered seemed to simply disappear.
But the room did not disappear. The room sped up 100 mph, and enter the bottom of the Earth's crust. He had paid a lot of money to the construction workers to dig this hole. Since nobody could ever know, he had paid each one of the construction workers a million dollars to keep quiet. They had accepted, and just shrugged it off as his 'eccentricities' that his annoying faked persona (genius, billionaire, socialite, and philanthropist) played. The room stopped. The hologram that blocked the door appeared. Tony opened the door. Inside the room were millions of books, and Tony had read them all.
These books were dog-eared, bookmarked, and annotated so much you almost couldn't read the actual text. Even if Tony wasn't reading these books, he used to go to this room to calm down. It was so relaxing, the environment, and the peaceful silence that nobody could interrupt. It was pure beauty itself. It was paradise for Tony. And that is exactly what he named it: Paradise. Some of his greatest inventions, including JARVIS, were built here. This was the room where he had shared all of his memories with, all of his troubles. The room never questioned him. It was a good listener. It calmed it down. Tony had destroyed all the blueprints of the room, and all the mentions of this room too. When Rhody stole one of his suits, he wasn't surprised, just saddened that his best friend since MIT would do that to him. Even his dorm room once had a connection to the giant underground library. Tony was never good with organic life forms anyway. After Obadiah Stane (no longer called 'Obie'; he didn't deserve that) ripped out his reactor, Tony went down here. This room seemed to hold him, to comfort him, even.
Tony wasn't a genius for nothing. Every one of his previous dwellings, not just the Avengers tower, connected here through some method. All of a sudden, interrupting the peaceful blanket of silence, came JARVIS's voice over the speakers. "Sir, Captain Rogers has repeatedly asked where you are. What do you want me to do?" Tony hesitated. "Don't do anything, JARVIS." He paused. "I will be going back up through the passage." (That's what they called it.)
He sighed. He had wanted to reread the book series named Percy Jackson and the Gods of Olympus. Even though that series was meant for children, it had a particularly interesting plot you could never find in the books meant for adults. He in particular liked the character Leo Valdez. He was just like Tony. He would always be a third wheel and be forced to be shoved out of the way because of the more perfect (and annoyingly frustrating to read about) (cough, cough, Piper and Jason L , Hazel and Frank L, cough cough) But Leo was some much awesome and cooler than any of them except Nico. He was jolted out of his thinking state by a ding-like sound. That meant that the room had arrived.
When he opened the door, he went out and began acting like he was working on one of his inventions. Unsurprisingly, Steve soon called out. "Tony!" He yelled, annoyed at the self-proclaimed genius, billionaire, philanthropist. Tony came down. "Yes, mother?" he said with a smirk on his face sarcastically. Steve was so irritated. He had an urge to wipe that smug, frustrating smirk off his face. But this was his teammate. He couldn't do that to his camaraderie. Plus, he had to learn about some things in the newer century. Who better than to learn it from than the most futuristic of them all? "Can you teach me more about 21 century electronics?" He asked. The smirk on Tony's face disappeared. "Sure." He said, with a real smile. Tony loved teaching people about electronics. He made electronics for a living, after all. Electronics were his life.
Steve had liked that smile on Tony's face. He wanted Tony to wear it more often. Tony said, "Follow me." Steve did just that. Tony took him to the lab. "Wait here." Tony said. "I have to get some electronics to teach you about." Steve nodded. HE did not point out to Tony, however, that there were some electronics right around him. Sometimes, Tony could be a little strange. Steve was curious though. Then Steve was tired. The blue light of the holograms had made him sleepy. He leaned against the wall that was behind him. Suddenly, the wall opened.
A question was asked, seemingly out of nowhere. "Would you like to enter the password orally, or type it on the hologram?" Steve was curious what was in that area behind the password protected doors. He had second doubts. He did not know if he should be doing that action. But his sudden curiosity got the better of him. So he typed random keys in the front hologram screen as an answer to that voice.
The doors opened. Steve looked in, ready to be breath taken, but there was- nothing. Nada, Zero, Nilch. He walked into the room. All of a sudden, the doors shut, and alarms began to sound. Steve panicked. He was for sure going to be never trusted in Stark's lab again. The room moved, down, sideways, zigzag, and finally, came to a stop with a pleasant "ding". The doors of the room on the other side opened to reveal a giant- stash (library?! Even) of books, but they were ragtag. He walked in. He opened on book and found notes written in – Tony's handwriting? If Tony hated books, then why would he have so many?
Above the lithosphere, on the surface at Avengers Towers, Tony heard alarms. He panicked. Tony was not sure if he was hearing the exact alarms correctly. There was no way that a person could be in Paradise. "JARVIS, is there an intruder in Paradise?" JARVIS only confirmed his actions. The other Avengers came out of their rooms. "What's going on, Tony?" Tony was worried to see what was down there. The Avengers might be the only option. "Should we trust them, JARVIS?" Tony asked. JARVIS said, "I think they can be trusted, sir." The other Avengers, who caught the wind of the whole situation, each said a variant of the words, "We are coming with you." So Tony went up to his lab, and placed a hand on the wall. "What are you doing?" asked Bruce. "Just wait." Tony said.
The walls opened. The password hologram came up. Tony pronounced, "republicans-Texas-Florida-oranges-ironman-red-me" The doors opened to reveal an empty room. "Come inside." Tony motioned, rather hastily. As soon as they all came inside, the doors snapped shut and the room dropped, extremely fast. The Avengers screamed. Banner just turned into the Hulk. Natasha was screaming. Tony was the only one who was standing on the "ground' of the room. "Why are you so unaffected?" Natasha screamed/asked.
"I'm the Ironman pilot, remember? I can withstand the G-force any day." Tony yawned. This just made Natasha more annoyed. The room stopped, with a ding. Tony pulled out a fully-loaded gun that seemingly came out of nowhere, Natasha copied his movements, and Banner was ready to transform into Hulk. Tony said, "One, two, and three." Then he turned on the lights. The Avengers were in awe. What they saw was a marvelous library. And they also saw Steve, in a corner, frightened out of his mind.
Tony sighed. "Well, I guess with so many people living in this house, this was bound to be discovered." Steve, glad that Tony wasn't mad at him much, asked, "What is this place?" And then he began the long process of explaining the room to the people around him. "I built this room because I liked to read since I was a child…" At the end, the people around him let him know that they wouldn't share this knowledge with anybody. And this was the first step of Tony trusting the Avengers…