Chapter Ten
Wow, it's been a while. I am truly sorry about that. You'll be glad to know that I've made some big changes to how I conduct my writing now. To start with, I'll be updating each week on either Monday or Tuesday. Up here at the beginning, I'll write my review responses each week for the previous chapter and at the bottom, I have previews for the next chapter. Enjoy and be assured that this story is in progress again.
"You gave him a bow and arrows?" Steve rasps with disbelief clear in his eyes. "We left you alone with Tony for all of half an hour and you brought him to an Avenger's training room, not exactly known for being the safest area in the helicopter, and gave him a dangerous weapon?"
"Um...Yeah, that pretty much sums it up." Hawkeye tries his most charming apologetic look and scratches the back of his head.
Captain America seems at a loss for what to say.
"Oh, come on." Clint tries to defend himself. "Who's ever gotten hurt while shooting a bow and arrow? It's not like I got one out, took aim, and fired at the kid."
"How am I supposed to know you didn't?" The buff man motions over to the arrows dotting the walls and targets across the wall.
"That was just the kid. We were playing a game."
"There are acceptable and unacceptable games to play with children and you should know well enough where this falls. Come on, guys." Steve looks over his shoulder to the other Avengers who were refusing to participate in the conversation. "Will no one else help me on this?"
"Why don't you ask me what I think?" Tony speaks up from his apparently invisible corner. He tries to not look like he had just broken some rule or something which is difficult because that does happen to be his natural posture from years of experience.
Rubbing back his hair, Steve sighs.
"I'm sorry, Anthony, but Clint should not have brought you down here."
"I'm not five."
"And yet you were playing a game with the man child over there." Natasha seems to almost be teasing and grins just a little over to the teen.
Tony couldn't tell if it was nice or creepy that she was trying to be friendly and cool with him. Probably scary. Scary should be the choice word when you think a spy is trying to do anything to you.
"Haha."
Huh, look at that. Sarcasm was still his chosen response to everything.
Whizzing past the group, an arrow lodges itself right up against another in the center of one of the farthest targets.
"I win again." Clint whoops. "You know what that means."
Great, Tony wonders how he got suckered into this game in the first place. Probably because he's a big sucker in a big sucker's world where everyone runs around and gets suckered into limos then helicarriers then games of archery against a trained archer when you've only seen the first fifteen minutes of Brave.
"Clint, geez." Captain looks over to Tony with a flash of concern in his eye like he was expecting the teen to curl up in a corner at the first loud noise or fast object in his path.
"It's fine." Tony mutters, shrugging his shoulders. "We're just playing a game. It's…" Tony feels the teenager part of himself throw up a little at admitting this. "Fun, I guess."
"See." Clint cheers a moment to himself. "The kid likes it. Now, pay up, kid."
"Fine," Tony rolls his eyes. "What do you want to know?"
A moment of Clint over acting his contemplation ensues. "So, you claim your favorite food is pizza? What's your favorite topping?"
A wave of confusion spreads to the others in the room. Except for Black Widow. Tony wishes he could always seem like he knew exactly what was going on the situation.
"What?" Bruce is the first to ask the obvious question, letting Tony grumble more to himself before having to answer.
"It's the game." Clint gives his best duh impression. Apparently being around a teenager wasn't the best kind of influence to the man. "If he wins by getting an arrow anywhere on any target, then he gets to ask me a question. If I win by hitting the center of those moving targets at the far end of the room, then I get to ask him a question."
"I feel like you might have an unfair advantage, Hawkeye." Bruce raises his eyebrows and Tony groans. He figured that it wouldn't matter whatever questions he was asked as long as he got to ask one of his own questions. It wasn't like he couldn't just lie if he wanted to even if that left some risks for Hawkeye lying too.
Not that any of this matters since he apparently will never win.
"Oh, yeah." Clint nods. "Hey, Tony. How many times have you won?"
"None." He grumbles and earns a few hidden grins around the room to his unhappiness. "None times so far. And pepperoni, I guess."
"And how many times have I won?"
"Hawkeye…" Captain America can't help the little bit of a laugh in his scolding.
"Five." Tony answers before the super soldier pulls himself completely together to continue. "You've won five times."
Hawkeye spins his bow around his hand and looks too proud of himself for beating a sixteen year old teen.
Tony makes a note to himself that he will approve his aim at some point in the future. Okay, that's probably not true. He'll probably just look up on Google how to improve his aim then get distracted by something way more interesting than a skill that would only benefit him if he were somehow a part of a superhero team.
"You may have won, but your questions are stupid."
"What did you ask?" Steve crosses his arms.
"Well,-"
"It was just about food or music." Tony interrupts. "It wasn't even about anything important or whatever."
"Did you know this kid likes AC/DC?" Clint points over to the group. "I have to admit, I thought it was going to be emo. Don't kids like emo these days?"
Tony groans and steps up back toward the targets. He doesn't make too much of a fool of himself this time when he pulls back the bow and takes what he figures would be an okay stance or at least he figures he doesn't.
He isn't pointing it backwards this time. Or upside down. That would be bad whether he was aiming toward his eye or his foot.
The arrow flies straight and it's the best one he's done this entire game.
It still misses by about a foot.
"Okay, let's stop the game before something happens." Steve says his final warning to Hawkeye and Tony.
"I haven't gotten to ask my question yet. Any of them." Tony protests, swinging around with a gaping look to Steve.
"You can ask us whatever questions you want to know without winning some kind of insane game."
"What's Project Beta?"
"Except some things." Steve purses his lips and looks like he is in physical pain.
"Is it what's in the laptop?"
"It's complicated."
Wow, this is getting Tony really far.
"That's great. Why do you guys hate Stane so much?"
"We don't hate Olivia."
Hawkeye groans behind him and elicits an exasperated look from Capt.
"Do you see why I had to agree to this game now?" The teen asks. "If we could actually play a fair game, then maybe I would be getting somewhere." He grumbles.
What feels like a long beat passes between the group as everyone tries to figure out where to go from here. It's not like anyone had an experience with it.
During the time, Steve looks away from the group. All of them. Whatever was crossing his mind was hidden to them.
"What game do you want to play?"
For a moment, Tony thought that somehow Hawkeye or maybe even Window's, because she hasn't acted anything near like he would have figured, voice was actually coming out of Captain America mouth because he was the one asking the question.
"Really?" Tony raises his eyebrows.
"Yep. You can choose a game that's not archery to play Hawkeye."
"Why?"
Steve shakes his head.
"I believe the rules state that you only get to ask a question if you win. So what game do you want to play?"
"Well…" Tony smirks, not looking a gift horse in the mouth.
The computer terminals glows on in front of them, lighting up the different work tables in one of the new rooms Tony was just introduced to.
"This is what you want to do?" Hawkeye asks, looking completely disturbed at what Tony was trying to explain.
"Yeah, whoever makes best mechanical power circuit in three minutes wins. It's simple. Back in grade school, I had to do a competition with circuits in a science class. It was with marshmallows, but I think the principle was secretly impressed when he was suspending me for a week afterwards for the explosion."
"You're just going to let him do this?" Clint looks over to Steve with big eyes.
"It seems educational to me."
"I think it's a little more educational than you figure, Steve." Bruce speaks up. He looks over to Tony like he couldn't decide if he was just trying to make up words or not. "You really want to build a mechanical power circuit in three minutes?"
"Yep."
Three minutes and thirty seconds later
"I win." Tony gloats, gesturing down to the complete and running circuit in front of him. It glows with a brighter blue than any of the lights in the room.
Clint throws down his tweezers onto his work table. In front of was a partially completed circuit. Being a superspy does lead to him learning about most everything. Even so, though this task was slightly above him.
"I think...this was rigged."
He looks back and forth from both of their final products.
"I think Tony has a lot more under his sleeves than we thought." Bruce studies the circuit. "Tony, what highschool do you attend?"
"Did I attend," He corrects. "And when? I went to three."
"Any of them." Bruce tries to ignore the past tense.
"I don't know." Tony shrugs, thinking back. He obviously remembered, but didn't really feel like having to go back to those memories. "Enter-American-war-hero's-name-here public school."
"Public schools?" He laughs. "I'm impressed. Have you ever been tested for advanced intelligence.?"
"No."
"Why not? It seems like-"
Tony's expression darkens at the scientist/hulk's pushing on the topic.
"I didn't want to be tested, okay."
Bruce's eyes widen and he nods, pulling off his glasses.
"Okay." He repeats.
"Good, now, I believe it's my turn to ask a question." He glances between the adults as if he was waiting for one of them to say no.
"Go ahead." Steve says, raising a hand for a moment.
Feeling suddenly strange, Tony swallows and lets himself hesitate for a moment. What was he doing? Ask your questions, Tony, he berates himself. The memory of Hawkeye's stupid questions keep coming back to himself.
"What…" The question is on the top of his lips.
He imagines their faces if he just asked a stupid question like Clint had.
They would probably smile a lot. Maybe, even Bruce even if he did kind of just snap at him for no good reason.
It would different from what he usually does.
Not that there's anything wrong with what he usually does. It had kept him alive.
This was a different situation, though.
Who was he kidding? He knew perfectly well why he just wanted to go with some silly question.
"Can I check out those advanced computer terminals we passed on the way up here? Cause they look sweet."
Tony tries to convince himself it was just because he knew they would have lied or not really answered the question anyway. He would figure it out on his own. He always did.
Steve and Clint walk side by side as they turn away from the room or 'box' as Tony put it that they had just dropped the team off at.
"So, why'd you let him choose another game. I was almost sure you would lock him right back up in that room the moment you found us."
"Why did you start that game to begin with?" Steve counters after a beat.
Clint laughs.
"Yeah, I get it, but I'm cool with young people."
"Maybe, I was trying to be cool too."
"Nah." Hawkeye drones. "Or at least that's not the full reason. You want him to know what's going on a little bit, don't you?"
The super soldier walks a little faster.
"Of course not. He's sixteen. It's our jobs to keep civilians away from these things."
"Yeah, but you have to admit that this time, it might do the kid a little good to have some idea of what he's been sucked into the middle. It's not like Fury will ever agree to it."
Steve doesn't answer.
"Come one, the kid's a genius. Did you hear all those smart people questions he and Bruce were talking about around the computers? He might even understand what Bruce is talking about when he goes off about the worldwide implications of what's on that computer."
"Don't go there, Clint. We just need to get what's on the laptop and turn it over to the people here who might be able to do some good with it. It's what Howard would want." Steve stops at the corner, but doesn't look over to Clint. "I think this whole thing is dragging up a lot of forgotten memories because I just can't keep Howard out of mind. Everything seems to remind me of him these days."
Hawkeye nods and lets Steve stay wrapped up in his thoughts.
Next time on Not So Stark, Tony, Tony is visited by a dangerous and unexpected guest in his room.