Please read the prolog. You will be lost without it, because I changed a shit-ton of history. Seriously, it's really important.
disclaimer : I own nothing. Also, there are quotes from the movies in this.
Thanks to everybody who read and stuff! Enjoy!
-June 28th, 2008-
Obadiah has sand in his shoes. A few yards farther Tony, clad in a plain black bikini, stands at the verge of the foaming surf, bent over with sand between her toes and edge after edge of seashell passing under her boney hands. In Obadiah's shadow sits a small picnic and Tony's clothes.
Tony looks over her shoulder at him. Obadiah squints into the sun and waves. She waves back with one hand and balanced in her thumb and forefinger there's a rounded shell. "For you." She whispers as she stands in front of him. He pulls her into a tight embrace, and all she can do is hold on.
-July 31st, 2008-
Tony stands with her ear to the thin wooden door to her fathers office.
"Whatever you think your doing with her it needs to stop." She hears her father say.
"I'm not hurting her Howard. She's never said she didn't want to do this." Obidiah says calmly.
"You're not good for her! She's only a child! She can't even make that choice!" Howard sighs hater a long moment, and Tony removes her ear from the door. She walks down Howard's secretary's office where they left her to wait. "Fine. I won't stop her. It would be good for the company, and I know you can take care of her."
-August 9th, 2008-
She twisted the ring around her finger, the single diamond sparkling in the dim moonlight. Obidiah had given it to her. She wasn't sure about it, or really what it had meant. He gave her that look of his again, the one that she could never place, as he slid it onto her finger.
As the night dragged on Obadiah shepherded a sleepy, tipsy Tony up to her bedroom. She'd gotten her hands on Obadiah's drink at some point, and Obadiah had just shrugged and pulled out a second tumbler. He closed the door behind them, and the only light in the room came from the bright green numbers form her alarm clock. The cleaning staff had been in and out while she was away at school, and all of her tools and half-finished projects were neatly organized on her desk in the corner. Obadiah pulled back the corner of the quilt and Tony collapsed on top of it. He knelt on the floor and began pulling off Tony's shoes.
"I can undress myself, you know." Tony complained, half of her words swallowed by a jaw-cracking yawn. She sat up and pulled her sweater off and tossed it to the floor, followed by her jeans that she hadn't even felt like taking the belt out of. In just her t-shirt and underwear, Tony looked vulnerable; her pale, willowy body composed entirely of awkwardly long limbs and pale skin. She pulled off her socks and dove under the covers.
"I know," Obadiah said, "I just like looking out for you. Didn't your dad ever do this kind of thing? Tuck you in, say good night?"
Tony scowled. "A long time ago, when... when mom was still here... Now dad doesn't do anything but work."
Obadiah sat next to Tony on the bed and toed off his own shoes, then threw his suit jacket over the back of a chair. He scratched his beard thoughtfully and sighed. "You're an adult now, so I can tell you this. The truth is, Tony-not everyone is cut out to be a parent. Howard wants to like you, but maybe it's just not meant to be, sweetheart."
"What do you mean?" Tony asked. Her voice crackled in middle of the sentence, and Obidiah moved his hand to the side of her face.
"Come on, Tony. Don't play dumb. Why do you think he was so happy you went off to college so early?" Tony didn't respond, her eyes firmly focused on the ceiling. "I know it's not what you want to hear, but your going to have to learn to accept the hard truths if you want to run the company someday."
For a while, the room was entirely silent save for the electric buzz of the alarm clock on the bedside table. Tony sniffed once, twice, and the next time Obadiah turned to look at her, her cheeks were wet with telltale moisture.
"Why doesn't he like me?" Tony's voice was muffled by the edge of the comforter she was using to wipe at her eyes. "What did I do wrong? I've tried so hard, and I never get anything from him. He doesn't even remember my birthday any more."
"I don't know, Tony. But I like you. I always will."
"Good." A pause. "I love you, Obie." She whispered, felling dirty as soon as the words fell out of her mouth.
Obadiah lifted up the quilt and curled up against Tony's back. He worked his thumbs into the knots of tension at the base of the Tony's neck until she relaxed a little more and leaned into Obadiah's touch. Tony began to drift off and Obadiah changed tactics, running his hands over Tony's body in broad strokes. He leaned his head over her shoulder, and whispered in her ear. "I love you too, Tony."
It was nearly one a.m.-Obadiah needed to be getting home. There was a board meeting tomorrow at eight a.m., and Howard wanted to meet with him beforehand. He carefully disentangled himself from the comforter and kissed Tony goodnight.
-August 27th, 2008-
"What the fuck is that?" Rhodey said pointing at her outstretched hand. "Why in the hell was I not told about this?"
"About what?" Tony said pulling her hand out from Rhodey's. He simply sighed. "Fine, Obie gave it to me."
"Stane?! Isn't he like, forty or something?"
"Yeah, so?"
"So your fifteen Tony! FIFTEEN! He's old enough to have been your dad, and your going to MARRY him?!" He yelled.
"Marry him?"
"It's an ENGAGEMENT RING, Tony! What else would that mean?"
"He didn't ask me to Mary him..."
"You put on the ring, so he probably thinks you want to!"
"Ohh... Fuck."
"Yeah."
"Screw it, why not."
"Why not? Because he's too old for you, creepy, and you didn't even realize you were engaged Tony!"
"I think dad wants me to marry him anyways, so I might as well just go through with it."
"Why don't you just do what you want? He doesn't rule your life, tiger." She wants to say that she doesn't want to disappoint him again like she has her whole life, but she keeps her mouth shut. He makes her feel wrong, and she doesn't want to marry him, but she can't say no.
-January 1st, 2009-
They kiss at twelve like every other couple before he starts pulling at her hand to take her upstairs. She doesn't want to go, doesn't want to feel that sick, used feeling again, but it's not like she can say anything.
"Ms. Stark! Oh, wow! Hey, Tony! Aldrich Killian." A man calls from down the hall. He hobbles over to Tony and extends his hand. "I'm a big fan of your work!"
"Who isn't?" Obidiah says a bit sarcastically, no longer smiling. He tightens his grip on Tony's arm, and pulls her into the elevator.
Aldrich simply smiles."Well, of course. But, my organizations been tracking Ms. Stark's research since she went to MIT." He says as he's moving closer to the elevator door.
"Yeah, we're full." Obidiah says in a flat, final kind of tone. He puts his arm out to block Killian's entrance, but he ducks under Obidiah's arm and comes in.
"Be nice." She whispers as she elbows him in the ribs. "Oh, wow. He made it." Tony says glaring at Obidiah. He sighs and rolls his eyes.
"What floor are you going to, pal?" Obidiah says to him clearly annoyed.
"Oh, now, that is an appropriate question. Floor 28, actually. I've a proposal I'm putting together with myself. It's a privately funded think tank called Advanced Idea Mechanics." He says holding out a business card to Tony, who gives him one of her own cards in return. Stane simply glares until he gets handed one as well.
"Okay, sounds neat." Tony says shoveling the card into her wallet.
"Advanced Idea Mechanics, or AIM for short." He says pointing to a neatly printed logo on his shirt. "Do you get it?"
"I see that, cause it's on your t-shirt." Obidiah dead-pans. She ignores him.
"Oh! Of course!" Akidian nods exasperatedly. "Currently, were working on a repair serum."
"Really? Like Erksine's super serum?"
"Even better." He says as Tony follows him into his room. They stop in the living room with Obidiah trailing behind, and he points at a huge ficus on the coffee table.
"Come on! I thought that was just a theory!"
"Well, it was. If I'm right, we can access the area of the brain that governs repair."
"Wow! That's amazing!"
"And chemically recode it."
"That's incredible. Essentially you're hacking into the genetic operating system..."
"Genetic operating system?"
"Err...of an organism, of course."
"Ohh!" He nods. "Exactly. Yes."
"Wow." She whispers as Obidiah moves to touch the plant.
"Can you..." Killian says looking down a bit.
"What?" Obidiah interrupts.
"Can you not touch my plant. It's not... it doesn't like it. It prefers..."
"It's not like other plants." Tony says pinching the bridge of her nose. He touches it again. "Obie, leave his ficus alone."
"No, seriously don't touch it please."
"So you're starting with plants?" She asks bent over to see the screens, reading all the data.
"For now, yeah. I'm calling it Extremis." He says turned away from the plant, not seeing that Obidiah is pulling off some of the leaves.
"Human application?"
"Exactly! Exactly. It's dentra-degree vitalization."
"It's absolutely revolutionary. Disease prevention, and even regeneration of mutated cells. You could cure cancer with this! It can change the world." They turn around as the plant starts to regrowth some of the leaves that were pulled off.
"Even limb regrowth." He says as they wach the plant, until it explodes.
"This is what I'm working on now, the glitch." He whispers nervously.
"Have you checked the telomerized algorithm?" She asks cocking her head to the left.
"The what?"
"What was that?" Obidiah yells coming back from the bathroom.
"It's just a glitch in my work..."
"It's not going to do it again, right?" He says backing away from it.
"Not as long as people don't touch it..." He whispers, and Obidiah growls. Obidiah leans down and whispers in Tony's ear, then picks her up and starts toward the door. She feels helpless in his grip, and wishes would just leave her alone to work with Aldrich.
"I'll talk to you in the morning." She calls back to Killian. "If I don't see you I'll call you when I get back to my place." She smiles and waves at him, and he waves back.
-February 3rd, 2009-
Tony sighs as she opens her fridge. "Damn it. I have to go to the fucking store!" When she leaves her apartment, there is a man dressed in black and leather waiting behind the door.
"I have a job that you'll love, ." He says in a low, dark voice. She stares at him until he shifts his gaze because he needs to know that she's most defiantly in control here.
"My official consulting hours are every other Thursday between-"
"I don't have the time to stand in a line to meet you." The man says firmly and she grimaces; there are always people who want to meet with her, she never gets to everyone there. "Trust me, you'll be interested in the proposition I want to make."
"Why are you here?" She says, not even letting him introduce himself. Not that he needs to, she already knows who he is. Not that she's supposed to, of course.
"I had intel that said I could find you here."
"You're an asshole, just showing up at my house." She declares as she marches into the lobby of her apartment building with the man still following her. "You do realize that's a major invasion of privacy, right?" She asks him as they get out to the street.
"No more than you hacking our systems."
"Thats different." She says with a small laugh. "Took you long enough to figure it out."
"No, it took me a long time to figure out what to do with you." He says as she laughs at him again, buttoning up her coat. "You know who I am." He says as they walk into Walmart.
"No shit director Fury. You think I wouldn't have called the cops or something if I didn't? I've read all of Howard's papers, it was interesting to know what he was doing when he wasn't home." She says picking up a can of Spaghetti O's and putting them in her basket. "So what the fuck do you want, I've got shit to do if you haven't noticed."
"We need a new HQ for S.H.I.E.L.D. -"
"When exactly did I become an architect?"
"A mobile HQ. We need it to be able to house around a thousand people, and have room for supplies, equipment, and transportation. Plus, it needs to fly and be nearly invisible. Interested yet?" She sighs, already having hundreds of ideas in her head.
"What is this, a James Bond movie?"
"We can, and will fund everything you could possibly dream of." He adds.
"That's nice. Might be fun." She says, sounding amused. "Time frame?"
"The sooner the better."
"Just what I like to hear. I'll take it. Expect first draft blueprints in two weeks." She thinks that surprises him a bit because he flinches and then blinks. She gives herself a point for that.
"I will." He says.
"Just don't invade my house again, asshole. I have a question, though." She calls to him as he's leaving, her words firm. Fury nods, looking as impassive as always, but she can tell he won't do that again. "Why not ask Howard? He's worked for you for years."
"We needed the best." He says simply as he turns away, leaving her to her shopping.
-February 13th, 2009-
Tony juggles her schoolwork to get the blueprints done faster - being surprisingly early with projects is always fun because she loves seeing people's faces when they realize she is in fact a genius, not some bitchy rich kid. Fury actually whistles when she spreads the plans out on his desk. "Tell me what you think." She says flopping down in a chair.
"Half this stuff doesn't even exist." He says after a long moment as he fixes his eye on Tony.
"Yet." She says. "You need to think fourth-dimensionally, Fury. Things aren't gonna work with anything current, and I can make it all work." It's the biggest challenge she's ever taken on, and it thrills her to no end.
"I don't doubt that in the slightest." Fury replies, still watching her, but his gaze is different somehow. She can't quite place what's changed, but she thinks it feels like he approves. Tony pushes that thought away, because somehow, she feels as if that's what having a normal father would feel like.
Somehow, the more they interact, the more Tony gets to know S.H.I.E.L.D. From the inside, and gets to know Fury, she feels welcome and it's strange because she's kept a secrete from most of the agency. She enjoys being around them, and loves the challenge that the helicarrier is proving to be. Fury feels like more of a father than Howard ever has, and Tony enjoys every moment. "Why couldn't we have met sooner?" She thinks.
-March 24th, 2009-
"Hello? This is Tony Stark, can I talk to Dr. Killian please?" She says smothly into her phone. "He's at a meeting? Alright, tell him I called. He has my number."
-April 13th, 2009-
"Are you sure you're not trying to do too much, Tony?" Rhodey asks while shes downing her morning coffee.
"No." She says flashing him a smile. "It's so amazing pineapple, I've never felt this good. This is what I've always needed."
"I'm just... I'm just worried, if you... I don't want you to fail, ok. What happens if you fail at something? You've got so much on your plate-"
"I won't fail." She whispers, looking into his eyes. "You know that. I could do twice as much work. I never fail at work stuff. Just, you know, the normal people stuff." Rhodey smiles sadly and pats her on the back.
-May 3rd, 2009-
"Yeah?" She sleepily says into her phone.
"Ms. Stark?"
"Dr. Killian! Finally, I've been trying to call you!"
"I know, I've been... Busy... I was wondering if you're still interested in my project? I need someone that actually knows what there doing instead of the morons I've got working on it now."
"Absolutely!"
"How about we work on it this summer then? I know you've still got school and such."
"Sounds awesome."
-May 22nd, 2009-
As she walks across the stage proudly she scans the crowd. There both here, sitting right in the front row. Obidiah is watching quietly, and her father is not-so-casually taking a drink from his flask.
Nick Fury is there as well, hiding in the back with a single tear coming from his eye as she gives her speech. As she's going to leave, he comes up to her, before Howard and Obie get there, of course. His eyes are dried, not that she knew he was crying. "Top of your class at sixteen. You did a damned good job kid." He puts his gloved hand on her boney shoulder for a minute, and then walks off.
-June 12th, 2009-
"Tony?" Howard calls out in the quiet lab. "Tony, where are you?"
"Over here, I'm changing my oil. What do you need?" She says pushing herself out from under her new car that she bought herself for her birthday.
"I was looking for the ramps for the car, but I guess you've got them. We just got a new missile contract, and I'm busy with something important. I need you to design it." He says handing her a manilla folder marked 'Jericho missile'.
-July 14th, 2009-
"I need you to go test it. The military asked me, but you built it so you go." Howard says to her without even a simple hello. He sighs when she doesn't say anything.
"Fine. Where?"
"Someplace in Afghanistan. I don't really know."
-July 16th, 2009-
Carefully she pulls off a leaf, and ducks behind a table. The plant glows a soft red, and the leaf begins to grow. A minute passes. Then five. Then ten. "Hey Killian?" She yells standing up from behind he table. "I think I might've fixed it!"
-July 20th, 2009-
"Tony!" Obidiah yells. "Tony! Wake up! Your late! Hurry up!"
"How am I late, it's my plane. Isn't the point of having your own plane that it leaves when you want?" Hank Hogan, her dads new driver, speeds all the way to the airport. "Thanks Hogan." She says before she gets out.
She almost falls asleep until Obie starts talking. "I had somebody make you some waffles." He says letting the plate clink against the hard table in front of her, and he puts the fork next to her hand.
"I'm good, but thanks." She says pulling a book out of her bag and propping her feet up on the table next to the plate. She's almost asleep again when he speaks again. She's not really sure what he said, so she just replies with, "Shh. I want to sleep." He huffs off and grabs himself a drink.
-July 21st, 2009-
Something explodes. Everything goes black for a moment, and then it's all to vivid. She can't hear anything, all she sees is death and blood. She thinks she feels a man pick her up, but she can't tell. "Why is there so much blood? Is it mine?" She questions, but she can't tell if she's said it or her thoughts are just loud. "Am I dying?" Is her next query, and she knows she said it because a man looks down at her with pity in his eyes. Then she feels a wave of pain hit her like a brick wall, and she screams. She doesn't sound right to her own ears, she sounds far to much like an animal.
"This can't be real. It's got to be a dream. It's not real..." Is her last thought before she passes out once more.
