Unbetaed, no one is replying. Also I'm not a fan of this chapter.

Tony - JARVIS - Butterfingers - Tate - Tori - YOU/U - Dummy/DUM-E


I took over the company not long after my return to the states.

First things I had to do were:

First: Hire a PA (who would most likely quit pretty soon anyways).

(Whats that, Dad?

A personal assistant.

Which is?

This would be someone to help Sir with the paperwork he does not want to do, YOU.

JARVIS, why don't you call Dad Dad?)

Second: Go to what had to be one of the most boring meetings in the history of board meetings (why had Howard only hired such assholes? Well, I suppose people of the same kind tend to stick together).

Third: Meet the guy responsible for the relationship between SI and the oh-so-great American Military.

Fortunately, this guy positively surprised me.

(I like him!

Me too!

Tate, Tori, how do you know him... did you sneak into the surveillance system again?

Maaaaaybe...

If I could sigh while conversing mentally, I would do it, trust me.)

The man had also been (forced to be) at the meeting, but he too seemed rather bored (not that anyone but me paid him enough attention to notice. Oh, how I look forward to working with racist douchebags. Because his position was not what made them ignored the man).

When these – let's go with people, shall we? – when these people hurried out of the room, he stayed behind with me.

"Hello, Mr. Stark. I am Major James Rhodes and I am assigned as liaison between Stark Industries and the United States Army." He held out his hand.

I took it.

"First of all, please, call me Tony. Or Anthony, if you refuse to use nicknames. Please."

You could almost touch the desperation in my voice, I'm sure of it, but this Mr. Stark nonsense reminded me of Howard and heaven knows I do not need that.

"Okay... Anthony."

Rhodes may have stumbled over the name, but he did say it without arguing (and I could tell it was more curiosity than disagreement which caused him to hesitate), so he seemed like a type of person I might be able to like.

"Second, just to warn you: No matter how hard you try, neither my company nor I will make any weapons against specific groups of people, like, let's say... mutants." This sounded like I was not doing this simply for them, I'm sure. "Some group is actively killing people? Sure, will do. But not if the majority of a group is just minding their own business, I refuse. Am I understood?"

Rhodes nodded.

"Finally, I will slowly over the next decade move the company away from the whole weapons business. There is no stopping me."

I had thought over this decision a lot over the years and, in my opinion, the pros outweigh the cons by far.

"So you will just leave the US Army behind?" Rhodes questioned accusingly.

"No. I'll just do other stuff, like improved body armor, holographic displays – which includes better training areas – and properly sterilized shields for medics, as well as more stuff I haven't made enough progress on to name them yet."

Rhodes blinked a few times. "I have to admit, that actually sounds great. The odds of being killed by ourselves or roadside bombs would certainly go down, if nothing else."

"I promise you, there will be way more than that. In fact the things I mentioned are between 63 and 87% done already."

Rhodes nodded. "I will inform my superiors of this development," he replied, leaving the room, and me alone.

(I sense trouble.

I did not know you could sing, Tori.

That's because she can't!

Dad, Tate and YOU are making fun of me!

Stop it!

HA!

All of you!

HA!

HA!)

In conclusion, everything was going well, until, literally from one second to another I got the worst headache ever.

It got worse every second.

I lost my balance.

Fell to the ground.

Hurts.

(Did I scream?)

Pain.

(I do not know – or care.)

Make it stop!

Makeitstop!

Ma-

ke

it

st-

stop!

Mkisto!

St-

op!

St-

o-

psto-

pst-

op-

ST-

OP!

H-

u-

rts!

P-

A-

IN!

H-

ow!?

W-

HY?!

St-

Op!

mA-

kE!

It!

St-

o-

P!

Then it stopped, just as sudden as it started.

JARVIS voice came from my watch (he was liked into the building already, but there were no speakers for him to use yet).

"Sir? Are you-? Have you-?"

For the first time in his short life, JARVIS had neither a idea what to say nor what to do.

Neither did the bots, I could feel their helplessness.

I was shaking and hyperventilating. At the verge of crying too.

"I... I have no clue what the actual hell that was. It felt like I'd imagine torture would. I couldn't think clearly. No, I couldn't think at all. Not more than 'Make it stop' at least. It was... weird. And this was most likely the understatement of the freaking century!"

"Sir, it seems you were not the only one with these symptoms, albeit yours were by far the strongest."

Really? Could it be that...?

"Was everyone affected or-?"

A second passed.

"While you were... showing symptoms, only those selected few who visited the Professor's school did. Now, the majority seems to be complaining about headaches of varying degrees."

This basically screamed 'X-Men involved'.

(Unless someone asks we will pretend this never happened

Understood, Sir.

You mean Dad.)


Arthena818: Thank you! Now I (finally) did!

Guest: Thank you!