XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI
By:"Gunsmith3000"
Started 5-19-08
Completed: ??
Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won't let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss.
Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.
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"The Talk"
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"Okay, I probably deserved that." He said the moment the door slammed shut behind them.
"You think?" she replied heatedly.
Xander rubbed the side of his face as the red hand print that marred it started to fade, he looked around the living room of his teacher's apartment, noticing the decor the the first time.
Kinda messy, he thought, but what the hell is that sweet smell? He took an even longer sniff and found the object of the scent on the long table in front of the sofa.
It was Vodka. A very expensive bottle of vodka that you wouldn't normally find in the cheap liquor stores. And it was already open and it's contents had been lessened by half.
At the sight of alcohol, he started doing long division equations in his head at light speed in order to steer himself away from the bottle that was beckoning him.
"You're drinking?" he asked to the only other occupant in the house. "Why are you drinking?"
"You have a problem with women drinking?" she asked, then leaned dangerously close to his personal space, still slightly ticked off about his earlier comment.
The scent of the sexy woman before him mixed with alcohol and tears with a glimpse of cleavage so close to taste sent his mind reeling.
The long divisions in his head switched to ZPE formulas, and one of the nerdier Starks inside his mind was screaming that he was running out of black board space.
A traitorous few in the peanut gallery were in front of a karaoke machine singing: "And here's to you Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you will know… oh-oh-oh…"
"What do you want anyway?" Jenny asked as she moved away from him to sit on the sofa to pour another glass, then emptied it in one gulp.
The young genius barely managed to hide a full body shiver when the already short bathrobe she wore revealed a very generous slit with the way she sat down. He measured it in inches as it almost reached up her mid-thigh.
The karaoke Starks in his mind began dancing to a reggae version of the same song and started a conga line.
"Well," he said as he licked suddenly dry lips. "I was serious about the job offer I mentioned, I just didn't think I would get to that so soon."
The woman wiped her tears on the long sleeves and stared at the young man, and noticed that he was oddly dressed.
He wore some tight-fitting rubber-like black body stocking that she could have sworn that it must have been spandex because it showcased some rather impressive set of muscles, not too big, not too small -- just perfect. Around his waist was a very bulky belt that looked more at home in a Batman movie, with the ornate looking buckle the blinked on and off from time to time. And she noticed strange looking ray gun was clipped to his right hip, completing the ensemble.
"What's with the cosplay costume?" she said as she stifled a giggle at the sight, though a part of her wanted to see if those muscles were real. "Was there a sci-fi convention in town I didn't know about?"
"Well, well, Miss Calendar." Xander said, surprised at her question. "I didn't know you were a closet sci-fi geek."
She shrugged. "A girl can't always be all about sewing and dolls, Xander. Come sit; now tell me about the job thing. Aren't you too young to even be having one, let alone own one?"
He nodded and sat down near her, but not without making sure he was at a respectable distance so as not to invade her personal space despite the fact that the karaoke Starks in the peanut gallery were salivating at the sight of the well-toned legs that she obviously sported.
He took a deep breath as he centered himself, the peanut gallery in his head settled down as well. After he took several deep breaths, he told her the unabridged version of his watered-down confession that he told to his friends. He still left out a few pertinent facts of course, like the foreknowledge of what might come to pass in this reality.
Her eyes grew wide and she sobered up enough as his story grew. He really was serious about the job; and he really did check her background thoroughly and knew that she had the capabilities he was looking for. And while she was kind sore about being checked up on in that manner, she understood where he was coming from.
She was also amazed when he said that the costume he was wearing really wasn't a costume at all, but a very sophisticated personal stealth camouflage gear that he had put together.
"So let me get this straight." She said, as she thought about the possibilities and forgetting her problem for the meantime. "You're trying to create a company to make use of the stuff the Stark memories crammed into your head since Halloween, but you're too young and at this point you need a figurehead to run the day to day concerns as well as introduce your technology into the mass market one small piece at a time, am I right?"
"Indeed you are, Miss Kalderash." He replied, and used her real surname to show that he wasn't joking.
"Don't be too free with my real surname, Mr. Harris." She said with eyes narrowed. "I haven't decided anything yet after all the hell I have been through the last few days."
"Speaking of which," Xander switched topics. "What seemed to be the problem? Granted that outing yourself wasn't the stellar move you'd envisioned, but that was a few days ago. So unless whatever you're going through is related to that somehow, I wouldn't have any idea for anything else that might mar that beautiful face of yours with tears."
She blushed at the not-so subtle comment, taking a drink to hide the flustered look. "My father called and he was very upset about how I handled things here. I wasn't supposed to get close to you guys at all and just keep watch on Angel. But I fell for Rupert and then saw how they accepted your twisted confession in regards to getting smart, I just thought I would have that same chance. I just thought you guys deserved to know the truth."
She looked down as fresh tears started to fall. "And you saw how well that turned out. I tried to explain to Rupert after you all left, but he dismissed me with such finality that it hurt. So now, the clan is sending someone else to do my duty, and I am to return home immediately. But since I have a contract with the school and have my own wish to see this through, I told them I would go home as soon as the semester closes."
She felt a hand reach for her chin as Xander lifted her head up to meet his eyes.
"I understand," Xander said, and he really did. "But I also think it would be a shame for you to leave after all this is done. Just think of my offer as a better alternative than a life living only for revenge. I've read up on you, you know."
She cocked her head to one side, just wondering how much information Xander was able to get on her. The young man took that as a sign to continue.
"You're way too overqualified for a simple computer teaching position." Xander said, "You have a few MBA's at a young age to your credit. Economics, Business, enough to make that the salary you're getting from the Sunnydale School District woefully inadequate."
She stared at him, shock on her face as he said the next thing.
"You also have this penchant for hacking into the most challenging places with the use of technology and magic." He continued. "A true techno-pagan with the power to back it up, and that's not all. I dug further and found that amongst your many accomplishments, was a Masters in Computer Sciences. Not to mention earning top place in the hacker community alongside Willow."
He snorted as he stood up and walked around the living room. "Those credentials alone can give you a CEO's salary and yet here you are, doing your duty to your clan's single-minded obsession with misguided revenge."
"It is an HONOR to serve the will of the clan of Kalderash!" she said with steel in her voice.
"That's the company line, honey." Xander shot back as Stark's boardroom attitude came to the forefront of his psyche. "You said it yourself, in revenge against the demon Angelus; your people stuck a soul – while not that completely innocent – into a demon-infested corpse to make them both suffer. Not even giving a second thought to the soul that was kicked out if its original body when he got vamped in the first place."
"Well it was the soul of Liam that couldn't keep his hormones in his pants that turned him into a vampire in the first place." She stood up and almost shouted. "It's his fault that the demon killed my ancestor, if he wasn't turned then this wouldn't have to happen."
"Well thanks to your clan," Xander said, and dropped the bomb. "You people might get a chance to see Angelus again. If your people wanted complete revenge, you should have gotten rid of that clause!"
"What?" that stopped what she was about to say as that comment derailed her thoughts.
"Think!" Xander growled, "What's the best, most primal thing to a guy to be able to get him a piece of total happiness? And believe me, it's not a late night poker game."
"Uh, sex?" She said in disgust.
"Not really all that," Xander sighed as he sat on the couch. "That's only a part of it. Physical gratification is easy because that's part of the result."
"Then what's the rest of it?" Jenny sat down beside him as she considered the words of the surprisingly mature-sounding teen before her, never mind the fact that he really was an adult both inside and outside now thanks to the changes the possessions left him.
"The complete and total love and acceptance of who and what he is from the person he most cherishes." The genius replied.
"Buffy." Jenny had hit the nail right on the head in horror.
"Exactly, you get a cookie." He said, chuckling at the scowl she gave him. "Give them enough time and it'll happen sooner than later. And if he gets loose, we need to get the big bad genie back into his proverbial bottle. It that doesn't work, I have no qualms in killing him no matter how precious he is to Buffy. The fact of the matter is: your people should have dusted him in the first place instead of doing something that made no sense. "
Jenny stood up and went to the bookshelf, took out a heavy, ancient looking tome and pulled out a piece of parchment stuck between the middle and brought it with her as she sat back beside him and refilled her glass and took a swig from it.
"From what I was able to find," she said as she handed over the parchment with faded writing. "This is a close copy of the original spell they had used."
Xander stared at the leathery paper, the words looked familiar to him thanks to the Iron Sorcerer Supreme memories, but he had to be sure. "What language is this in?"
"It's in the original Romany dialect used in the olden days." She replied, "If what you said is true, we need to have this translated as soon as we can."
"I've got software to do that," he hedged, "Though if Angel or his Mr. Hyde gets wind of this thanks to your confession, you know he'll go after you with everything he's got."
"It's a risk I am willing to take." She said with fatalistic conviction.
"That's stupid," Xander muttered. He mulled things over in his head with the peanut gallery as they weighed the risks before they all settled on unanimous decision.
"Accept my job offer," he said suddenly. "Quit your teaching position and move in with me until this thing is translated. That way we can kill two birds with one stone, you get the time and resources to translate this and I get to teach you the ins and outs of the company I want to set up. The warehouse where I live is big enough to accommodate the two of us and I can have an apartment installed there bigger than the one you have at the moment and you'll be protected. And you can also probably add some wards to it while you're there, too."
"Some ladies need be proposed to first before you ask them to move in with you, genius." Jenny said with a leer, her smile turned into a smirk at his suggestion, she leaned forward a little to reach the glass and took another drink.
"And I still haven't said yes, you know, in regards to your offer."
Xander reddened as he saw a great deal of cleavage from the way she reached for her glass, the karaoke Starks in his head started up again with gusto when they all noticed that she wasn't wearing a bra.
"You're too tense," she said, then offered him a drink from her glass. "Here, have a drink and loosen up some."
"But I…" He began.
"Please?" she said, her voice turning husky as her sobriety slowly vanished, "For me?"
She's so pretty, he thought as his resolve crumbled when he got another whiff of the almighty nectar.
His last thought before he joined here was, "What the hell was Giles thinking?"
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Somewhere else:
"Sir," A voice spoke into a red phone. "We have a security breach."
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The next day…
Janna woke up feeling satisfied and sore all over in a good way. She also had the familiar weird buzz in her head that was the usual evidence of a hangover that came from binging the night before. With eyes still closed, she stretched her body out in guilty pleasure as she tried to smother herself back to sleep on top of the warm, yet strangely hard pillow that she was laid on.
After dozing off for a few minutes, her eyes flew open as the memories from last night hit her like a runaway freight train. Unable to stop a full body blush, she turned to the pillow and saw the masculine line of rock hard abs leading up to a chiseled chest; then she let her eyes roam all the way up and spotted the slightly snoring head of Xander Harris.
"Oh my God." She said as her body blush went up a notch and turned her into the color of a ripe tomato.
She could tell that they were both naked with only the sheets as a cover.
As if of its own accord, her head swiveled downwards from where she stared at his abs.
"Oh! My! God!"
A cough made her head snap back the other direction, enough to give her whiplash.
"Good Morning Nurse?"
WHAP! was her reply.
"You'll still take the job, though, right?" asked Xander in a nervous voice, the left side of his face was again covered with a red hand print.
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-- To Be Continued --
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