Tony and Lex worked together for a few more hours piecing together the Iron Girl suit that would be completely her own. They had put a lot of time and energy into finalizing the design and neither Stark could be more proud of their efforts. With the final wires being soldered into the glove they were currently bent over, Lex realized this was the longest time she'd spent alone with her father since they'd met.
At first she'd worried that meeting the great Tony Stark would be but a fleeting disappointment in her life. She never imagined that he'd want to get to know her or have his daughter in his life. As the past months had unfolded she was surprised to learn what an amazing, supportive, person he turned out to be. Sure their dynamic wasn't perfect. Sometimes he was more like an older best friend than a father figure. Sometimes she was more trouble than an adult daughter ought to be. But they were family and when everything else falls away, family is all you have. Lex's own musing was interrupted by JARVIS, an artificial intelligence of Tony's own design.
"Mr. Stark, Mrs. Potts wishes for me to inform you that dinner is ready. Should you and Miss Stark choose not to attend, the kitchen will be locked and neither of you will be given access." Being that he didn't have eyes or any physical features, JARVIS couldn't actually glare disapprovingly at his creator. That didn't stop the computer's automated voice from emoting the same criticism.
"Uh oh." Lex immediately powered down her soldering gun and placed it safely on the workbench's marble block where it couldn't melt or burn anything. "How long have we been down here anyway?"
"Like ten hours." Tony shrugged. "Don't worry about it. She can't lock me out of my own my own kitchen."
"Normally I'd agree with you, but this is Pepper we're talking about. She can do anything she wants."
"That..." Tony was about to say this was not the case. He was the only one with the power to do as he pleased but he realized, looking into his daughter's eyes, that he'd gone soft in his oldish age. "Is a very good point, kiddo. Let's get up there before she threatens to changed the WIFI password too."
Captain Steve Rogers was standing at the top of the stairs expectantly. His girlfriend emerged from the downstairs laboratory with her father's arm around her shoulders. They made quite a pair the two Starks. Tony was wearing jeans and a ripped t-shirt, his bright blue arch reactor shining through the cotton material as he casually climbed the steps. Lex's smile was easily visible even with the oversized pair of goggles resting on the bridge of her nose. Her outfit was mostly obstructed from view by the starched white Stark Industries lab coat she'd recently received as a gift; her name embroidered under the company logo in a large purple font. Steve couldn't tell which of them had enjoyed their day together more.
"I didn't know you were coming up for dinner!" her smile seemed to get wider as she broke away from her father to kiss Steve on the cheek.
"Did you forget?" The super soldier frowned, his eyes briefly flicked in Tony's direction. "Today is the big meeting. Hill is here. We have to go over everything before your press conference in two days."
"Press conference." Lex shuddered. Her nose crinkling in disgust. Now she remembered. It wasn't that it wasn't a great honor, becoming the youngest member of the Avengers, but why exactly did she have to hold a press conference for it?
"Hey, cheer up! You're last press conference went really well." Tony reminded her of the day when he officially announced to the world that he was in fact a father.
"But a lot has happened since then." She rolled her eyes. "Sure they like me last time, but the media's had some pretty tough criticisms about me since then." Lex then reminded Steve and Tony about some bad press she'd received regarding New Year's Eve. She'd been accused of wearing a dress that was too revealing. Some B level news channel had also spotted her going to the party with Kyle but leaving with Steve. This sparked and entirely new controversy about the youngest Stark inheriting her father's promiscuous tendencies.
"Well, maybe if they get to know you, they'll lay off." Rachelle, Lex's best friend, had popped up from seemingly nowhere. She dragged her boyfriend, Sam Wilson, along with her. "We were just watching a movie." She added as Tony glared Sam down. He'd seen the couple emerge from the girls' bedroom and didn't like the whole idea.
"Everyone else is waiting in the dining room." Steve said, leading the march into the other room. It seemed that "everyone" wasn't exactly a true statement as not all the Avengers were present. Pepper was seated at her usual spot at the table directly to the right of the head; Tony's usual seat. SHIELD Agent Maria Hill was sitting across from Pepper with a pile of documents in front of her. Her dark hair was pulled back and knotted into a bun at the base of her neck, her short bangs cropped just above her eyes. Those blue green eyes seemed to smiled as she talked with the Stark Industries CEO. To Hill's left sat Lex's figurative Aunt Nat and Clint Barton, AKA Hawkeye.
Completely absent from their dinner meeting were founding Avengers Thor, who was probably on Asgard, and Dr. Bruce Banner. Lex regretted the absence of the later much more than the former. Despite being known as a big green rage monster, Dr. B was actually a fairly calm person. It took a lot to get him to Hulk levels of anger and because of this he seemed to radiate calm whenever the situation demanded it. Really could have used some of that calm Dr. B. She thought, pulling out the chair next to Pepper.
The others filed in after that. Tony took up his place as the head of the table. Steve Sat to his girlfriend's immediately left, and with Sam and Rachelle claiming the fourth and fifth chairs on that side respectively. That was when Lex noticed that Tony's friend and the final, though semi-unofficial, Avenger was also missing from the table.
"No, Rhodey tonight?" She asked looking directly over at her father.
"He had some important military thing he had to fly out for. Sends his love though I'm sure." Tony explained pulling his chair closer to the table.
"Hey kid, what's with the goggles? going swimming after this?" Clint raised an eyebrow from across the table.
"What?" Lex reached up and touched her face. She was surprised to find the protective goggles still covering her eyes. She immediately pulled them off. "Thanks. Wow everything's so clear without those on." She blinked a few times. "Anyway what's first dinner first? Meeting first?"
"Dinner first." Pepper insisted without giving anyone else an option. "At least for you and Tony. You two have been locked downstairs all day and I doubt you've stopped for air, let alone food." Lex shrugged and so did Tony. She was probably right. If breathing wasn't an autonomic function, they would have forgotten all about it. Technology didn't need to breath. Wires and circuits craved power not oxygen. Power. Lex thought with a yawn. That's what she really needed.
"I could eat." She shrugged again. Maybe the press was right. Maybe she was turning into Tony.
"Are we having take out, or something of the Barton secret menu?" Rachelle asked excitedly. She hadn't been living at the Tower as long as Alex or the others, but she had already learned that even on his worst days Clint's food was a thousand times better than what the others could collectively scrape together. (Except for Alex, who Rachelle was pretty sure was the only other tower resident who even knew how to turn on the stove.)
"I wouldn't say it's off the secret menu." Clint scrapped his chair across the polished floor as he stood up. "It's just cheeseburgers, but I cooked and seasoned them myself." He stopped just shorted of the doorway as if reading the younger women's two separate thoughts. "They're store bought, so no Barton cows tonight." He pointed at Lex who would asked this question anytime a beef related item was being served. "But yes, I did bring Barton cheese because I knew you'd be here." He promised Rachelle, who given the choice, would probably survive exclusively on the organic cheese produced from Clint's family farm.
When dinner was over it looked like business was the last thing on everyone's minds. Tony's ear was tilted towards Pepper. To the untrained eye it would look like he was actually listening to her for once, when really he was thinking about all of the work still left to be done in the lab. Natasha was the last to finish eating, her mind also not exactly present during the dinner. Across the table, Sam and Rachelle's meals were both long gone. The couple had their phones out under the table sending secret text messages back and forth. Clint had just re-entered the room with a warm apple pie between his hands.
"Please tell me there's ice cream?" Tony tore away from his one-sided conversation to ask. Clint shook his head, 'no'. The billionaire leaned back in his chair and sulked. "Well then I guess I'm not having dessert.
"You're such a baby." Lex snorted. She reached forward and defiantly cut herself a large piece of pie.
"Takes one to know one." Tony made a standoffish face in response.
"Whatever." She rolled her eyes. "Barton pie is good pie. And apple's my favorite."
"That's my girl!" Steve smiled with approval as he cut offer the pie out to Agent Hill who politely declined.
"That's my girl." Tony hissed, snatching the pie from Roger's grip. He then cut himself a piece of pie clearly equal to a quarter of its whole. Dessert was then passed around the rest of the table with the other guests taking more reasonable slices.
"Okay," Hill sighed now that the great pie debate seemed to have ended. "Let's get down to business..."
"To defeat the Huns!" Rachelle chirped from the other end of the table. She sank low into her seat when the others stared back at her. "Sorry," She half-whispered. "Civilian peanut gallery shutting up."
"Look," Maria said, turning her attention back to Alexandria. "I don't have too much to tell you. We want your answers to be as genuine as possible, because we don't want the public to know that even a shell of SHIELD still exists. Your responses should sound concise and prepared but not too prepared."
"Got it. It shouldn't sound like I'm being coached by anyone, especially a government agency." Lex was vaguely aware that SHIELD had been secretly taken over and publically disbanded by HYDRA within the last two years, but it had happened before she'd come to live at the tower. Before things like that seemed relevant enough. The specific politics of it all were confusing even now.
"Exactly. And for obvious reasons avoid using words like 'SHIELD', HYDRA, government..."
"Anything that could link me or the Avengers back you and Fury basically." Lex said. She wanted Hill to know that she understood the importance of letting civilians know what happened behind closed doors. Maria nodded.
"So let's try a few questions then." The agent suggested. "Miss Stark, how do you feel about SHIELD, an organization created by your own grandfather, being so easily taken down by a terrorist organization like HYDRA?"
"Wow, you really know how to go for the belt, Don't you?" Lex's mouth felt dry as she tried to think of a politically correct answer. "Well, I'd say...an organization such as SHIELD, can never be taken down easily. And...well to be honest I was never a part of SHEILD, so I can't speak too much of it specifically. But I can speak to you as the granddaughter of Howard Stark. Grandpa Stark believed in change and innovation above all else. He started SHIELD during World War two as a response to Russia's SSR. That's what America needed at the time. Our own secret science agency. But seventy years have passed since then. America's changed, her needs have changed. In an age of cell phones and WIFI, with information at the tap of your finger, Americans need transparency. Any agency not willing to comply to that at least on some level, wouldn't survive much longer in today's America." Lex bit her lip. She'd said SHIELD too many times for someone who wasn't suppose to mention it at all.
"It's a little preachy," Hill observed. "But otherwise an appropriate response. Doesn't give anything away, but maintains the idea that you hold some authority. Anyone else?"
"Tell us something personal about Captain America!" Nat called from her seat. "Sounds ridiculous I know, but it doesn't matter if you've got a license to kill in fifteen countries. If you're a woman all they want to know is who's shoes are you wearing and what juice detail can you tell us about your current boy toy. So come on kid, tell me something personal about Captain America." Lex thought for a beat. This time trying to come up with something revealing enough that the public would consider it personal, but common knowledge enough among everyone in the room that Steve would feel comfortable having the information exposed.
"Captain Steve Grant Rogers, owns a pair of American flag printed boxers." She admitted to the table. Everyone laughed except for Tony. "Which I have only seen on one occasion while he was washing his laundry!" She rushed to explain. This seemed to dissipate the laughter a little, Steve was smiling next to her.
"What's the worst thing about being Tony Stark's daughter?" The billionaire asked, cutting across everyone else's cackles. Pepper opened her mouth to chide him for once again making something about him, but she stopped when it seemed Lex was seriously considering the question as if it were part of the mock interview.
"The worst? I mean I could say that you don't know how to cook and we eat take out like every night. But that's every kid's dream. I could say that having a famous dad sucks because it means I'm in the public eye twenty four-seven, and we barely have time to hang out just the two if us, But the truth is there are no bad things. Tony Stark is an amazing Dad and I'm so lucky to have him in my life."
"You've just got an answer for everything don't you." He smirked. The uncomfortable air in the room disappeared instantly.
"Learned from the best!" She promised, raising her glass of soda in his direction before tilting it towards her mouth for a sip.
So a lot of Chapter 2 is mostly exposition to drive the story forward. In fact the next few chapters will basically be set up until we get into the Age of Ultron Story line. Before I get involved with Ultron I really want to set up Lex as a member of the Avengers and cover a little bit of that transition between who she was and becoming a hero. Basically that's where I'm at, as a heads up!
Ziggy55 I found this amazing iphone app (Not sure if its available for Android) called "Social Dummy" to make all the social media "Screenshots" on Lex's Tumblr. It's a free app and as you can tell it makes the profiles look 100% real! My favorite part of that so far has been creating everyone's twitter handles!
I want to thank Ziggy55, Irianna Marie, gotmoreissuesthanvogue & SummerMistedDragon for their wonderful reviews of Chapter 1! I'm so glad to see that so many readers have followed Lex and I over from Melting Hearts of Iron and Ice. I only hope that you all enjoy this sequel as much as the original was loved! As most of you know I don't have an official update scheduled, but I'll try to be back with updates as often as I can! In the meantime please continue reading, reviewing, favoriting, following and enjoying!