Ava laughed, and Tony frowned. "Hey…" She covered her mouth, but her shoulders kept shaking, giving away her laughter. "I'm glad you're so amused." Tony grumbled.
Ava stood up and stretched, the grin still on her face. Tony pretended to be upset, but secretly it made him glad when Ava smiled. She deserved to be happy. Even if that meant keeping Frederick around. He had signed up to take care of a human child, not a goat. He didn't see much of Frederick anymore, not since he ate another one of Tony's shoes, and been banished to one of the empty rooms on the third floor.
Jarvis interrupted the conversation. "Sir, there is a call for you, from Director Fury."
Tony glanced at Ava, who got a strange look on her face. "Erm, Ava, will you excuse me?" She nodded, so he got up and headed to the conference room on the nineteenth floor. He instructed the AI to put the call on the large screen. Fury's face was suddenly filling the room, and he looked, well, furious.
"Stark. You've been avoiding my calls for the past two days. I know you said that you needed time away from the Avengers, but that was almost a year ago. Luckily for you, things have been relatively quiet, up until now. But we can't ignore the growing threat."
Tony sighed. He remembered how awkward that conversation had been, when he told Fury to count him out of anything Avengers related. It was too difficult to run a multi-billion dollar corporation, raise a teenager, and be a superhero. Plus he was pretty sure that the director of S.H.I.E.L.D would be pissed to discover exactly how much top secret information Ava was privy to.
"What do you need?"
Fury's frown deepened. "Well, as I'm sure you haven't heard, since you've been ignoring me, there was an attack on headquarters, and it is no longer considered safe."
Tony sighed. "So you want to meet in my tower." It wasn't a question, he knew that that was at least part of Fury's motivation for calling him. "What else?"
"It's too dangerous to talk out in the open like this. You'll be briefed with the rest of your team. They are already headed to your location, and should be there within the ten." Then the screen went black as Fury hung up.
Tony's eyes widened. Less than an ten minutes? There wasn't enough time to get Ava somewhere else, and remove all signs of her from where the Avengers would be able to see. He rushed back downstairs, and saw that Ava was flopped on the white couch, a bucket of popcorn in one hand as she held the television remote in the other.
"Ava, I know this is going to sound a little odd, but I need you to gather all your things that are down here and bring them up to your room. Then I want you to stay there until I tell Jarvis to let you know you can come out."
Ava frowned. She had a tv in her room, though a little smaller than this one, but that wasn't really the issue. "You're right, that does sound a little odd. Are you going to tell me why this is necessary?"
Tony shook his head slowly, and Ava stood up with a shrug. "Well, I have a ton of crap down here."
"Then just grab your bag and get upstairs."
" I don't unders-"
Jarvis spoke. "Sir, your guests will be here in approximately four minutes."
Ava grinned. "Oh, you could have just told me." She set the popcorn aside, and scooped up her bag which had been lying next to her on the couch. She slung the strap over her shoulder, and hurried past Tony, slipping into her shoes as she hurried past him. She got in the elevator, and Tony sighed with relief.
He looked around, and shook his head. Most of the random stuff lying around were things he could claim belonged to Pepper, if anyone even bothered to ask. He went into the kitchen, and frowned at the mess. He returned the deli meat and cheese to their proper places in the refrigerator, and spotted the stack of papers on the table.
Hopefully no one would look close enough to see that they looked like the algebra homework of a high school student. He furrowed his eyebrows as he glanced at the problems. They seemed pretty easy for an average student, but most of Ava's answers were wrong. Well, he didn't have time to worry about that right now. He would discuss the matter with her tutor later.
"Sir, your guests have arrived and are at the door."
Tony nodded tiredly. "Let them in and direct them to the conference room on the nineteenth floor."
"Of course, Sir."
He made his way up on the service elevator, which was much faster. He straightened his tie, shoved on a pair of shiny loafers, and sat at the head of the table, a bored expression fixed on his face. He watched as the Avengers filed in, and took their seats around the table. They all gave him funny looks, and he felt a little self conscious about that.
The screen turned on, and he saw the delightful sight of Fury on it again. "Now that we're all gathered, it's time to brief you on the latest threat to the world." Tony rolled his eyes, but listened as Fury began talking.
Ava was sitting on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. "Jarvis, who are Tony's guests?" There was a pause, and Ava rolled her eyes. "Geez, he just doesn't want me to meet them, and he said that he won't tell me who they are. But that doesn't mean that you can't."
Jarvis sighed, or made the closes sound possible for a computer. "His guests are the Avengers team, Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton, Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers, and Thor."
Ava gulped. "Oh." She obviously knew who the Avengers were, but she had never thought that she would actually meet them in person before, not even with her constant wheedling. "Jarvis, show me the conference room." She added, "Please?"
The tv screen on the wall across from her bed flickered on, and she saw all six impressive figures sitting around a large table, focusing on the scary looking guy. There was no audio. She watched with fascination. She wondered why they had never bothered Tony before now, but decided that it was unimportant. Then the guy on the screen held up a glossy photo, and it was some weird steampunk looking robot. Interesting.
After a few minutes, it looked like several of the Avengers were shouting at each other, and she felt a little uncomfortable. The fate of the world rested in the hands of a bunch of squabbling childish people. Then she grinned. This was a great photo opportunity. But she would need a picture of them up close to be completely authentic.
She rushed down the hall to the elevator and got in. "Nineteenth floor please, Jarvis."
The elevator began to move. It made the usual ding when it stopped at the proper floor, and the doors slid open. Ava was clutching her holographic camera in one hand. It had better quality photos than most cameras, and they were somehow actually saved. She threw the door open to the conference room and snapped a picture before Tony could force her out.
It only took a second for all the heroes to register the intruder, and they all jumped up, their weapons drawn, in their fighting poses. Tony walked over to a small table and poured himself a glass of scotch. Ava stared calmly at the intimidating people. She didn't want to push her like by trying to take another picture, so she made the camera go away.
She cleared her throat, and glanced at Tony, to see if he would back her. But he seemed intent to just sit back and enjoy the show, at least for now. She was pretty sure that if the situation escalated and violence was introduced, he would defend her. Well, now she finally got to meet the Avengers, the people she had been pestering Tony to introduce her to for months. She hoped that she wasn't going to make too bad of a first impression. She cleared her throat again. "Um… Hi?"