Invincible
By: Eva Grimm
Interlude One: Pressure

"There is no such thing as talent. There is pressure."

Alfred Adler

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Iron Man, Tony Stark, or any other Marvel intellectual property. Invincible is a fan-based work and not sold for profit.

***SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for any Marvel movie and comic book — they're going to happen. You've been warned.

Wednesday, September 4th, 1996 01:27p, EST | Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139

Megan Stark stared out the window of her father's sedan, her eyes glazed over as she watched the scenery blur by. This is so ridiculous, she thought to herself. Why can't all of the classes be online? I took a whole year's worth of classes — including the summer semester! — online. But nooooo, this one professor just wouldn't bend… And why couldn't Mom and Dad just let me get an apartment? Flying me out here every Monday and Wednesday for one class is ludicrous!

The petulant sixteen-year-old diverted her eyes from the passing scenery to gaze at the back of her father's head as he drove. "Are you sure I can't convince you?"

Her mother, Maria Stark, answered in lieu of Howard, twisting around in her seat to fix her onyx eyes on her daughter. "Yes, Megan. Our minds are made up. We're just not comfortable with you living on your own yet."

Megan groaned, throwing her hands up in frustration. "Just like dating. I will live on my own someday."

"And when that happens, you'll wish we were there, honey. Trust me," Maria retorted with a motherly, knowing smile.

Before Megan could continue to express her disdain, Howard chimed in, announcing, "We're here, gang."

Megan diverted her eyes from Maria to gaze in wonder out the window at the structure before her. MIT — her school. She drank in the sight, unable to help herself. She had seen plenty of pictures of the institute, but this was the first time she had actually visited it. The quad was gorgeous with its well-kept grass and lush foliage, and the massive, U-shaped building encompassing it was as well.

So this is where my "classmates" took those classes. She imagined herself walking through one of the entrances of the institute and shivered slightly as butterflies filled her stomach and her adrenaline began to rush.

"I-I'll see you when I get home," Megan murmured as she opened her door and twisted on the car seat to slip her capri covered legs out of the car and set her red and white striped flats on the paved sidewalk.

"Hey now. Hold on a minute, Meg. Before you go, I just wanted to rem—" Howard began to say.

"Daaaaaaad," Megan cut in indignantly, whipping her head back to face her father. "Honestly, I remember! Happy will be here by the end of the class to pick me up, since he's my escort to and from class from now on. If any boys try to flirt with me like the ones on TV do, I'm supposed to turn them down because you feel I'm 'not ready to date yet.' If any of them try to force the issue, I should use the mace Mom gave me."

"Don't cut me off, young lady," Howard replied, fixing his frustrated daughter with a look. "And actually, I was going to say: Before you go, I just wanted to remind you that we love you, and we couldn't be more proud of you."

"Oh," Megan said as a brilliant flush began to grow on her cheeks. "I-I'm sorry…" She averted her eyes for a moment, embarrassed.

Howard smiled and reached back to lay a gentle hand on her head, ruffling her messy, pixie cut black hair. "Apology accepted. Now, you better go find your way to class. You don't want to be late on your first day!" Maria looked on with a smile of her own.

Megan managed to summon a weak smile. "Okay," she replied as she began to move out of the car once more. Before she got out, however, she paused then turned back to face her parents. "I love you too, Daddy, Momma." Before she could lose her nerve, she slid out of the car and began to jog along the memorized path to her only on-campus class for the semester.

The parents watched their only daughter as she rushed off, their pride and joy in her evident. Eventually, Maria turned to face her husband and asked, "So, where would you like to go while we wait to surprise her?"

Howard chuckled as he shifted the car into gear. "How about we take a tour of the town? Even though Meg is taking almost online courses, it's still where our daughter is going to college."

"I'm glad you were able to put off work for long enough for us to both drop her off and pick her up from her first, in-person class."

"You and me both. Here's hoping it's uneventful and we can all just enjoy her milestone together."

-tap- -tap -tap-

"Ruckerson, Emily."

"Here."

-tap- -tap- -tap-

"Stanford, Michael."

"Here."

-tap- -tap- -tap-

The young man sitting next to Megan, gave her a look of annoyance as she continued to tap her pen against the desk. She had been doing so when he had arrived and had continued to do so, all the while maintaining an air of boredom. He had briefly entertained the idea of introducing himself to the cute girl, but had held off because she appeared to be under eighteen and because he was experienced enough to know when a girl was telling him, "Not interested — leave me alone."

"Stark, Megan," the gray-haired professor said as he continued down his list.

The classroom broke into murmurs immediately. "Did he say 'Stark'?" "Wait, the Megan Stark?" "Where is she? I want to see her!"

Megan's pen, meanwhile, had clattered to the desk as her fingers went numb and her practiced look of boredom broke, revealing that she was actually barely controlling her panic. "P-p-present!" she half yelled half squeaked as she shot her hand up into the air — the first person to do so.

"Ah, yes… Ms. Stark," the somewhat aged professor drawled with a frown. "It's only fitting that the student with the highest GPA in the entire institute attend at least one class with the other students." His eyes rose from the roll call and fixated upon her with a coldly calculating look. "I daresay it will be rather difficult for you to rely on your father while you're away from him, no?"

The professor's obvious implication made most of the class gasp although some snickered. Megan said nothing, both because she had suspected this might happen and because she didn't trust herself to speak while her heart still felt like it was in her throat. Instead, she took a calming breath, trying to push past her fear. It was difficult. This was the first time she had been in such a public setting without one of her inner circle with her, and it was her first in-person college class.

The professor abandoned his roll call sheet on the podium and stepped past it, his eyes locked onto Megan. "Let's have a small, pre-semester exam. Enlighten us, Ms. Stark, about…"

"Then the energy pulse gives the system a simultaneously positive and negative charge, which allows the generation of the 'Stark Chart' I discovered. Sorry, but I've never been very… err, inventive with names for what I invent, heh." Megan turned away from the whiteboard, which she had covered nearly completely with diagrams and formulae, and found that the professor was still following her impromptu lecture with rapt attention while the class had mostly retained their goggle-eyed expressions. The surge of adrenaline that had coursed through her once she'd been thrust into her bailiwick, science, had begun to die down as she concluded her explanation of her discovery of 'Stark Charts.' Slowly, but surely, the distress she had felt at the beginning of the class began to creep under her skin once more. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, to try and retain her emotional control, but the professor beat her to the punch.

"Do you think there's any way you could… eh, go over that again?"

The boy she had been sitting next to had raised his hand but went unnoticed by the professor, whose eyes were still gazing lovingly over the whiteboard, but Megan saw him. "Err, yes? Um… You?" she said, awkwardly pointing at the raised hand of her would-be neighbor.

"Class is over, Professor Stark," he drawled out with a quirky grin.

"Oh," Megan simply replied. "I, err…" She returned her gaze to the class' actual professor and inquired, "May we leave, Professor?"

"Hm?" the older man initially replied as she drew his attention away from his musings. "Oh, yes, yes, yes. Class!" He turned to face Megan's classmates then continued, "I expect a two page report on Ms. Stark's discussion of Stark Charts submitted to me via email before our next class begins. Double-spaced, twelve-point Times New Roman, one inch margins all around. Check your syllabus for my contact information. And Miss Stark?" He turned back to face the now fidgeting genius. "You can skip the homework assignment. In fact, I think we're still early enough in the semester to make you my teaching assistant. Interested?"

Megan blinked, caught completely off guard.

"And so what did you tell him?" Howard replied, with no small amount of humor, as Megan finished recounting how her first class had gone while they drove back to Logan International Airport.

"I said 'yes,'" Megan said as she began to flush. "I wasn't going to at first, since I'm still really getting over how scary it all was, but… If I have to attend class in person anyway, then I figured I could, you know, try to get better at being… social."

Maria laughed outright before replying, "Yes, but I imagine it will be a trial by fire, honey."

"Well, yeah," her daughter retorted, "But it would make the class an efficient use of my time. The only thing that would have been more efficient was bringing my laptop to class and working on my usual projects, but that wouldn't really help me with my social skills, and I could just do that at home. This was a unique opportunity."

Howard and Maria chuckled for a moment before Howard replied, "And that is why you're our favorite daughter."

Megan groaned. "Dad, I'm your only daughter."

"A win by default is still a win, Meg."

"I love you too."