The following day came and Alex was excited as she entered the main headquarters of Stark Industries. She took the elevator up to the fourth floor where Stark's office was. She noticed the secretary and approached her.
"Hi. I'm here to see Mr. Stark. My name is Alex Knight."
"Yes. He's waiting for you. You can go in." she told her while pointing towards his office.
"Thanks." Alex said as she walked to the doors, which were closed. She slowly opened the one to the right and peeked in before walking through. Mr. Stark was reading something on his computer when he looked in her direction. She noticed and walked in.
"Good morning Mr. Stark." she said as she walked in.
"Alex! Nice to see you came. And please, call me Tony." he told her.
"Ok, Tony." she said.
"I brought some designs from home I want you to look over." he told her as he walked to her with some papers. "I also have an office for you, near my personal assistant, Pepper Potts. If for some reason you can't reach me, you can always get with her." he told her.
"Ok." she said as she began looking over the blueprints. "Did you just come up with these?" she asked, amazed at what she saw.
"A couple, yes. But some are from last week." he told her.
"Amazing." she said under her breath as he led her out of his office and into hers. She looked up and saw her office was a decent size. She had her own desk with computer, and a small work table.
"I hope this will be good for you." he said.
"Oh, it'll do fine." she said as she took it in.
"Good. Any other questions?"
"Just one." she said. "Will I ever be meeting this bodyguard of yours?"
"Oh." he said, thinking for a moment. "Probably not. Unless you're in trouble, then that's a different story." he told her. She just nodded. Then he left her to her work, while he went off to deal with something.
Three months passed by quickly. Alex was learning so much from working with Tony. There had been days when it was just him and her working on creating new chips and tech at a factory. They never talked about each others lives, they both kept to themselves. It was strictly business, till now. It was Saturday evening and Alex was heading over to Stark's house in Malibu to show him some designs she came up with. He had told her the day before for her to stop by and show them to him. She had the directions in hand as she headed to her car. She hated her car, it was getting old, but she knew one day she would get a new one, especially with her new position which was paying pretty damn nicely. She drove off for Malibu, not knowing that she was about to have an unforgettable night.
Alex drove up into the driveway. She was taken back as she got out and saw the house. It was huge, it was gorgeous. She walked up to the door and rang the bell. No answer. She rang again. No answer, still. She began to wonder if he was even home. She couldn't tell as there were no other cars in the driveway. She started to take out her cell phone when the door finally opened. She peered inside. "Hello?" she said as she walked in. She saw the living room, which was enormous. She looked over the place, holding onto her folder. "Tony? You home?" she asked as she made her way to the living room. She noticed some stairs to her left. "Tony?" she yelled down. "You down there?" she asked. No answer back. She began to make her way down the stairs, feeling a little uncomfortable in the process. She was near a door that was made of glass. There were long glass windows on both sides of the door. She looked in and could see work tables and machines. She wanted to go in but couldn't, when she noticed a computer keypad within the window of the door.
"Sir, Ms. Knight is outside the workshop at home." Jarvis told Tony as he was flying back as Iron Man. Jarvis was a computer program that Tony had created. Jarvis took care of everything in the house. He also was the program that ran his suit.
"What time is it?" he asked Jarvis.
"6:30pm, sir."
"Damn, I'm late." he cussed himself as he neared his home.
"Yes. This will be interesting to see how you explain yourself to her." Jarvis commented back. Tony sometimes wished he hadn't made Jarvis so human like.
Alex sighed as she began to head back upstairs but stopped short when she heard noise coming from the workshop. She turned back and tried looking in, to see what the noise was. Then she saw him, Tony Stark. He was in normal cloths, jeans and a shirt, and sneakers. He opened the door and came out.
"I'm sorry. I was in the back working on something." Tony said to her as he escorted her back upstairs. "I hope you weren't waiting long."
"No, not long." she said back. This was the first time she was seeing him away from work. She noticed something under his shirt. She stared for a moment then stopped.
"You hungry?" he asked her as he made his way to the cordless phone. "I know I am."
"A little." she replied.
"Good." he said as he began to dial out for pizza. He placed the order while Alex sat down on his couch.
"Nice place." she told him as he hung up the phone. He sat down next to her. "So, you live here all by yourself?"
"Yes, I do live here by myself. But I do have Jarvis." he told her.
"Who's Jarvis?" she asked. He looked to her.
"Jarvis is a computer program I made. He pretty much runs my house." he told her. "You wanted to show me something."
"Oh, yeah." she was taken a bit off guard, once she noticed herself staring at his chest again. She handed the folder over to him. He opened it up and began looking over the papers inside, impressed at what he was seeing.
"You came up with these all by yourself?"
"Yes, sir, I did." she said.
"I'm impressed. I may have a project for you." he told her while closing the folder and placing it on the coffee table. He looked at her and noticed she was looking at his chest. "You're wondering what this is, aren't you?" he asked while pointing at the thing that was under his shirt.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't stare. I was wrong." she said as she turned away quickly.
"Don't be sorry." he told her as he placed a hand on her shoulder. She didn't know how to react when she felt his touch. He slowly turned her around. "I'll tell you, 'cause there's something about you I like, I feel I can trust you." he told her. "It's a miniature arc reactor." he told her. "It's what's keeping me alive." he explained.
"Keeping you alive? I didn't know you had something wrong with you." she said.
He leaned back on the couch, looking up ward. Alex fixed herself on her side, intrigued by what he said. She looked at him, feeling things about him that she never did before. Maybe because he wasn't wearing a suit, she wasn't wearing her work cloths. Maybe because they were both away from work; or a combination of both.
"You see. I got this shrapnel inside of me, close to my heart." he began to tell her, now looking at her. He began to have the same feelings that she was having. "This arc reactor is what's powering the magnet inside of me, which is keeping the shrapnel suspended, keeping my heart safe."
"And what happens if the reactor dies, or breaks?" she asked, even more intrigued.
"Then I'll go into cardiac arrest and die. But I try not to think about that. Plus, this baby won't be going out any time soon." he told her as he straightened up, now on his side, looking at her. She smiled then turned her head away. He smiled also. He placed his hand on her leg and she noticed and once again, didn't know how to react. This was her boss, and she was feeling oddly attracted to him. She turned around and their faces met. The hand that was on her leg was now near her cheek. She could feel herself being pulled in, as their lips slowly met, the door bell rang. Thirty minutes had already gone by. Alex pulled away quickly, feeling ashamed while Tony got up to get the door. He paid the teenager and gave him a nice tip. If only Tony had knew how the drivers were fighting over who delivered the pizza once they found out who had placed the order. Tony shut the door and walked back into the living room, placing the box on the coffee table. He then sat down beside her again.
"Maybe I should be going." Alex said as she got up, grabbing the folder off the table.
"But the pizza just got here. You can't leave now." he told her. "Please, stay." he said. She sighed and sat back down. "I'm sorry for what almost happened." Tony said to her while opening the box.
"It's ok. It was just as much as my fault as it was yours." she told him. Tony got a slice out and gave it to Alex before taking one for himself. They sat there, eating, not saying much, till she broke the silence. "I grew up in foster care." she said. Tony looked at her, puzzled as to why she would say something like that to him. She noticed. "I figured since you told me about your reactor in your chest, I would share something about myself."
"Go on." he said.
"I grew up in foster care. I don't know who my parents are. I was never adopted. And here I am eating pizza with you." she told him. "Who would have guessed."
"Both my parents died in a car crash due to faulty brakes. I fixed that brake problem after that." he told her. She nodded. They ended up talking for hours. Tony found out just how smart Alex was by how she would explain things she did as a kid and teen. Alex found out how much stress Tony has at work and how he was as a teenager. After they spilled each others life story to one another, they both felt closer. Like really good friends, yet each wanted more then that. Alex looked at her watch and saw it was already ten 'o clock.
"I really should be going, it's getting late." she told him as she got up. "It's been real fun." she added. He got up also and walked her to the door.
"See you Monday at work." he said to her.
"Yup." she replied back. Tony watched her go to her car. She waved good-bye and he did so back. He watched her drive away before heading back in. Once inside, he headed down to his workshop to work on his newest creation. He sat at his computer and began to bring up renderings of Iron Man armor, he was in the process of designing a new suit. He had been working on it off and on for about a month. He started to think how the night went, how much fun he had with Alex. He wished he could have told her he was Iron Man, but he couldn't. Though the night did go well. Hopefully one day he could tell her. He only hoped.
"I take it Ms. Knight still doesn't know." Jarvis said as production of the armor was commencing.
"Yes, but she'll know soon enough." he told him as he began to work on a new computer program that was for another project. It wasn't till four in the morning when he finally went to bed.