So sorry it took so friggen long. Truth be told, I had this written since before uploading chapter two, its just that I just graduated highschool yesterday, and I've to busy with huge English projects and dissecting fetal pigs in Anatomy to think about anything else. So Sorry!
Jubilee had to admit to herself that her first week as Tony Stark's Government sanctioned guard had not gone the way she thought it would. He was late, like always, and this was going to look bad more on her than on him. At least, that's what she felt.
Now she was in the passenger seat of his drop top Audi, at 7:23, about two hours after the plane was supposed to leave, tired as all hell, and with an important training meeting at the Los Angeles Base at eleven that day.
Luckily Tony picked up on her mood and decided not to bother her this morning. She was hunched over, leaning on the door with her chin in her hand and her eyes but she really couldn't sleep, not with the three cups of coffee she had just twenty minutes ago. She decided that any amount of silence was better than conversation, where Tony could say something stupid that could bring her closer to popping off the head of the person she was supposed to protect.
Jubilee just sat there, feigning sleep and thinking about how she got into this predicament in the first place.
"Mr. Stark, whom you see here are twenty strongest, bravest men who were trained specifically to protect you and Miss Potts," Sergeant Robert Drees, said. He was tall, very muscular and had neat white hair on top of his head that was buzzed low.
"So what makes my guards suddenly incapable, Sarge?" Tony asked crossing his arms over his chest. Pepper Potts stood just behind him, holding a clip board to her chest.
"I'm sure, your guards are excellent, Mr. Stark, It's just that the Government wants to aid in your protection, since we have such an interest in your survival," the sergeant replied, his hands crossing behind his back.
Pepper tapped Tony's shoulder and whispered to him. "Tony, just pick someone, okay? I'm sure they mean well."
"I can have anyone I choose?" Tony asked, looking at the twenty men in front of him.
"Anyone you choose," The sergeant affirmed. He looked at Tony expectantly.
"I choose... her." Tony pointed to the woman that entered his eye sight. She was wearing an army green tank top and green camouflage pants with relatively small combat boots.
The woman saw him point and started walking toward him when he beckoned her.
"Whoa, Mr. Stark, I can't let you choose her, she wasn't in the group."
"You said I could have anyone." Pepper put her face in her hand and shook her head slightly, embarrassed. "I chose her," he said just as the woman pulled up. "What's your name, soldier?"
"Private Lee," she responded somewhat warily.
"Private Lee, how would you like to be my personal body guard?"
Jubilee, was jolted from her day dream but the sharpness of Tony turning into the airport. She stretched slightly to finish out her act of fake sleeping before he stopped the car. Colonel Rhodes was waiting at the bottom of the stairs of the plane, a controlled look on his.
Tony took his bags from the driver that had followed behind him. "Your good. I thought I lost you back there."
"You did, Sir," said the driver genially. "I had to cut across Mulholand."
Tony grinned at his driver before walking up to Colonel Rhodes. "What's wrong with you?" Colonel Rhodes asked angrily.
"What?" Tony asked innocently. He handed his bag to one the flight attendants.
"Three hours," Colonel Rhodes said simply. He crossed hims arms angrily.
"I got caught doing a piece for Vanity Fair." Jubilee had to snicker at that one, no matter how peeved off she was.
"For three hours," he said. "For three hours you got me waiting here."
Tony patted him on the chest and ran up the steps in front of him. "We're waiting on you now. Come on. Let's go."
"Have a safe trip, Sirs," Jubilee called out. Her hands were clasped in front of her body as she waited for them to take off.
Tony turned around then lightly tossed his keys to her. "Try not to miss me."
She caught the keys deftly and replied sarcastically, "I'll try."
She watched from the driver's seat of the Audi as the private jet flew off.
She now had a few hours to eat and drive herself to the Los Angeles, by 10:30 AM, even though it started at eleven. It was 8:47 and it would be an hour and a half of driving so she barely had time to get herself a crossain'wich from Burger King so she wouldn't starve through the training exercise.
"'Jubilation Lee, born in Los Angeles, California, raised in upstate New York. Hand chosen by Anthony Stark himself to be his body guard, despite no formal training as such." The man interrogating her, the Secretary of Internal Defense, Leonard McDormand, read her file with a slight edge to his voice.
Jubilee looked around. It was dark except for the harsh bright light in her face. "Am I in some kind of trouble here, Sir?"
"You may be, Private." The secretary sat down in front of her and looked her straight in her eyes. "How do you know Anthony Stark?"
She looked at him, confused. "I'm his guard..." she said slowly. She had now clasped her hands together loosely and put them on the metal table in front of her.
"Did you know Mr. Stark before you were assigned to guard him?" His face was serious, and slightly uninterested, as if he had done this type of thing before. He was reading his questions from the clipboard her file was on.
"No, Sir. The first day I met Mr. Stark, it was the day he chose me." She felt nervous, not because she was guilty of anything, but because she had no idea where this questioning was going.
"Be sure to tell the truth, Private. This will go a lot better for you if you do."
"It's still a 'no,' Sir," she said curtly.
"Why do you think Mr. Stark chose you?"
"Honestly, and not to toot my on horn, per se, I think he chose me because I'm pretty." Then she added, "Mr. Stark has a pretty notorious or successful relationship with women, depending on how you look at it."
"And has Mr. Stark been successful with you?"
Jubilee couldn't help but blush. She could take all the obvious flirting from Tony Stark any day, but had a hard time if people she respected thought less of her because of assumed activities. "No, Sir," she said quickly. "Boundaries are very important to me."
Ten more minutes of questioning was done, before the Secretary left her in that room for nearly an hour. She would have been bored if her mind wasn't reeling. This was not what she expected to happen today.
The secretary finally came back in and he was holding a box about the size of his hand. "Private Lee, you probably don't know this but, when Tony Stark chose you, he jeopardized something very important for this government." They had finally turned on the lights and removed the harsh one from her face. It seemed more relaxed but, Jubilee had a weird feeling."We've decided to let you stay in the army, and on this mission."
"Um..." Jubilee's eyes widened, she had no idea that her job was at stake.
Secretary McDormand ignored her. "The thing is, the government suspects that Stark is not being completely honest."
This was news to her. "What do you mean?"
He ignored her yet again. "The original twenty guardsmen that were preselected were trained in surveillance and told to report and strange or suspicious behavior and write a report about their experience there every week. Since Stark has bypassed those twenty, you now must do it. Any questions so far?"
She looked at him warily. This new objective did not sit with her well. "And how is this any different from spying on an upstanding (she used that term loosely) member of the community?"
"The Patriot Act, Private. And Stark may not be as upstanding as he seems." He did not let her ask anymore questions. "In this box, is a computer so firewalled, even Stark, could not break into it." Jubilee doubted this, but said nothing. "You can type your report on this computer, and send it back to base every week, virtually unknown by Starks systems."
Despite her uneasiness, Jubilee accepted the computer from Secretary McDormand without a word. She opened the box to see a very small keyboard.
"The screen is a hologram projector. You will be expected to send a report every Wednesday, starting as soon as Stark returns. Do you understand?"
"...Yes, Sir."
"Before you go, Private, is there anything you think you should tell me, before you're deep into the mission?"
Jubilee's hands twitched, she hoped unnoticeably. She hadn't told anyone, not soul in that army that she was a mutant. She wasn't supposed to, with Don't Ask Don't Tell. No matter how she looked at the situation it just didn't seem right to her. She went with her gut instinct.
"No... Sir."