Chapter 9
Disclaimer: I own nothing Marvel related!
**Author's note at the end**
Enjoyy :)
Takes place durring Iron Man 2
Maria is 15 years old, and goes to MIT, but is home on vacation
Maria was sitting on the floor in her room doing homework, and was occasionally hearing big bangs from the workshop. Nothing new there. But it started to concern her when the sound of a jack hammer seemed to be coming from the living room. Maria set down her pencil and stood up. She opened her door and stepped into the hallway, and the noise got louder. She walked down the hallway and entered the living room, and sure enough, Tony was there using a jack hammer. There was a pile of rubble on the floor surrounding where he was drilling, and a cart of tools off to the side.
"What are you doing?" Maria yelled over the noise. Tony glanced back, then looked down at the jack hammer and turned it off. He carelessly let it drop to the floor as he turned back to Maria. He took off the safety glasses he was wearing, and crossed his arms.
"Remodeling" he answered simply.
"Can I ask you why remodeling includes using a jack hammer in the living room?"
"Im trying to get to the power box under the floor" Tony explained. Maria looked around him, and to the hole in the floor. A piece of metal inside the hole caught her eye. She grabbed a rag from Tony's cart, and then walked over and sat by the hole. She started pushing rubble aside, and wiped the dust off the large metal rectangle in the hole with the rag.
"You mean this?" Maria questioned, looking up at Tony.
"Yup" he replied, then he grabbed a screwdriver off the cart and took a seat on the floor next to Maria. The metal rectangle was the cover to the power box, and Tony unscrewed it so he could get a look inside. Maria stood and walked over to Tony's cart, looking at all the tools he had, trying to figure out what he was up to. She looked up, and saw 2 men in suits standing outside the window.
"Um... Who are they?" she asked, pointing to them. Tony glanced up, and his gaze followed where her finger was pointing.
"Oh, them?" he said, looking back down to the box. "Security. Pepper gave Happy the day off."
"I dont remember Happy ever standing watch."
"Yeah, well, he does. You just dont see him." Maria just stared at him. Happy doesnt stand gaurd. She knew that for a fact.
"Grab me those cables, will you?" Tony asked her, pulling her out of her thoughts. Maria looked at the cart, seeing nothing but tools. She leaned back a bit and saw a group of cables sitting on the floor in a box behind the cart. She took them out of the box and carried them over to Tony.
"So why are you doing this?" she questioned, dropping the cables on the floor next to him.
"Im um, creating a new element" he answered slowly, deep in thought. "Re-creating" he corrected himself after a moment.
"What for?" Maria asked. Tony grabbed a cable and started to attatch it to something in the box, and Maria waited patiently for him to answer. He was taking too long to answer, which let Maria know something was up.
"Dad. Why are you making a new element?" she asked, her tone serious. Tony stopped fiddling with the cable and looked up at her.
"To replace the paladium in this" he said, drumming his fingers on the arc reactor in his chest. He grabbed another cable, and started attatching it in the power box just like he had with the other. "Paladium poisoning."
"Im assuming thats the cause for this" Maria said, running a finger over the blue lines on her father's neck.
"Dont assume" he said. "It makes an ass out of you and me."
"But you know Im right. And thats also why you keep getting sick" Maria said, starting to put 2 and 2 together. Tony had the weird blue lines on his neck, which she had noticed more than once before this moment. He randomly got sick, and looked run down all the time. And for the past couple weeks, he was being completely reckless. The race in Monaco was proof. The paladium in the reactor was poisoning him. He was dying.
"The thing keeping you alive is also killing you" she stated. Tony rubbed his eyes with the back of his wrist, and looked up at her. Maria's thoughts went back to the men in suits outside, and her father's obvious lie about Happy. Were they some kind of hospice or something? Pretending to be body gaurds, but really just waiting for him to keel over and die?
"Those guys outside..."
"Im under house arrest. Technically. Theyre from SHIELD. Theyre supposed to be making sure I dont leave until I 'solve the riddle of my heart'" Tony explained, using air quotes when quoting Nick Fury. He looked out the window at the two men. "Theyre not doing a good job though. I left earlier. No one tried to stop me."
"So SHIELD got to know that youre dying? But I didnt? Your own daughter?" Maria said, alot of emotion building up.
"Hey, they approached me. Okay? Theyre the last people I would have gone to."
"But thats the thing. You werent gonna go to anyone. You were gonna let yourself die, when we could have tried to help you!" Maria exclaimed, her voice shaking.
"Maria" Tony said, trying to calm her down. He was still sitting on the floor, and she was still standing above him.
"Yeah, so you know what youre doing. Youre Iron Man. Youre a genious. That doesnt mean you should go through this on your own. It doesnt mean I couldnt help you" she said, her voice going to almost a whisper by her last words. Tony finally stood up, and pulled her into his arms.
"Hey, Im still here okay?" he said, then he pulled back and held her shoulders, looking into her eyes. "Im sorry. I should have told you. But now you know. So you gonna help me? Im kinda on the clock here."
"No, I think you got it" said Maria. She looked back towards the living room. "Ill just be over there."
"What? You just-"
"Dad" Maria said, a small smirk on her face. "Im kidding."
"Oh. I knew that" Tony lied. He took his hands off Maria's shoulders and let them hit his legs.
"So you gonna show me what exactly youre doing?" asked Maria. Tony nodded.
"Follow me" he said, and he led her down to the basement to show her the model of the city marked 'The Key to the Future'.
"So when you said re-discovering..."
"I meant it. Dad already had this figured out" Tony said, finishing Maria's sentence.
"So youre building a particle accelerator."
"Yup."
"Okay, lets do this!" said Maria, and the two continued to destroy the house in an attempt to synthesize Howard Stark's element. The element that would later save Tony. The element they would later name 'Bad-ass-ium'.
Authors note:
This chapter is noticable shorter than the rest. Sorry about that! And shoutout to Carolyn, the next chapter will take place durring Avengers! Which means Tony and Pepper will officially be together, which means more Pepperony! So be ready! Lol :P
