Author's Note:

Next chapter! Thanks for all the amazing favorites, follows and reviews...especially regarding the ones about my amazing cliff handgers ;)

Enjoy!

10.

It's been one month since I started working for Tony at Stark Industries. It's been an interesting experience. Tony had stopped zapping Bruce with miniature shocking devices to get reactions a week ago and they had just started sifting through all of Charlotte's old research, getting rid of the outdated material and keeping some that was able to meld with Tony's research.

Charlotte watched as Tony controlled all the files on her flash drive bypassing her encryptions, her firewalls only stopping to have her put in her passwords in her password protected files. All her pass codes were the same though: Halloween. It was random enough not to guess on the first try and to overlook because who would use a holiday as a password?

"This one isn't finished," Tony said pulling up the file that her entire theory written down in multiple pages.

"Yeah, I got my license revoked at that point," Charlotte murmured from her lab bench, "It was a couple days after the military told the government that I had destroyed the bomb prototype."

"Really?" Tony asked.

"Yeah, I think they said I did it on purpose as an act of protest," Charlotte mused, scrolling through the files on the holographic screen.

"Oh I've actually read this one," Tony exclaimed, "It was your thesis, I read it when it was first published."

"How old were you?" Charlotte said, "You couldn't have been much older than I was."

"Well unlike you, Little Miss Dr. Sunshine," Tony started, "I graduated college when I was 22, so I read it once I completed my Masters. I'm seven years older than you."

Charlotte nodded looking at her thesis paper on her own tablet.

Bruce walked into the research room they were in. When Tony remodeled Stark Tower, he added on entire floor that was just a research room for anything along with rooms for specific sections of research. The main one was divided between Bruce, Charlotte and Tony.

The differences between each person's lab area was comical. Tony's was all robot arms and cluttered with papers despite all of his files being digitally saved by JARVIS and spare parts; Charlotte's was filled with files, whiteboards, the stench of dry erase markers; and Bruce's was incredibly clean, filing cabinets in alphabetical order and clean and spare lab tables.

"What's up?" Bruce asked looking at the holographic screens and tablets in both of their hands.

"We're looking up Charlotte's files to separate the out of date ones and the ones that pertain to the research I am already conducting," Tony said.

"Since most of my research ended seven years ago, some of it is bound to be out of date," Charlotte said with a shrug.

"We were just discussing her thesis paper," Tony said, "I read it when I was 22 and just starting out at the company and it was really inspiring. The fact that someone had dared to suggest that nuclear energy can be contained was something I had never seriously considered."

Charlotte smiled at him.

"I read that thesis as well, one of my colleagues who researched with CalTech showed me the latest genius's work," Bruce said.

"Oh stop it boys, you're making me blush," Charlotte said walking over to her stations and collecting a pile of files trying to organize them.

In truth, it wasn't Tony that made her blush, it was the fact that Bruce had read her thesis. He had read her work and he liked it. They hadn't talked about their kiss a month ago. Honestly, every time she saw Bruce she blushed and wanted to flee the room. She felt like the stereotypical high school teenager with a crush on the footballer. However, she had never been a teenager in high school once she turned thirteen she was already in college and hadn't had a crush on a boy until she turned eighteen. And then it never happened again. She didn't know anything about relationships. She had been in one. As a scientist she knew that an experiment could not be conducted once in order to determine validity.

In order to gain an understanding of dating, she would need to repeat the act multiple times in order to gain an understanding. She was sure that Bruce had been in many relationships. She had been in one.

One relationship that lasted four years. She tried to date again once but most men did not fancy the idea of having intercourse with a winged woman. Well, some did but they usually weren't good people.

"Charlotte," Bruce said.

Charlotte's head snapped up. She had been staring. Directly at him. You idiot, she thought, you are so transparent.

"Sorry, lost my mind for a moment," Charlotte murmured.

Bruce gave her a kind smile with which she returned with an awkward smile and a blush.

"Sir, there is someone at the door," the computerized British voice of JARVIS sounded through the room.

"Pull up video feed," Tony said distracted by the tablet.

A feed came up on the screen. It was Annabelle's blond head pulled up in a ponytail, her eyes squinting at the camera lenses.

"Is this high resolution?" Annabelle asked, "Where did you purchase this? Did you invent this? This must get amazing pictures and video feed."

Those were all mutterings that the three people inside the tower could hear.

Annabelle raised her voice louder than her regular talking voice, "Mr. Stark? Could I see the prototype for this or some blueprints, I'm pretty good with putting things together-sculptors' gift or whatever. I have to take a couple pictures for my portfolio and these would make really high resolution pictures."

"Your sister seems charming," Tony said looking at the feed with a smirk, "I like her she seems spunky."

Charlotte rolled her eyes. Every weekend Annabelle would stay with Charlotte. Usually she met her at the apartment Tony had secured for her and they would go out for coffee or Chinese. She wondered why Anna was coming to Stark Tower.

"Can you let her up?" Charlotte says, "She doesn't come usually, it might be important."

"JARVIS send the lovely Miss Carlson up to the main research room," Tony said bowing at Charlotte.

"There's no need to be sassy, Tony," Charlotte chided him. Bruce snorted over in his work section.

Annabelle bounded into the research room, "Did you know your elevator talks in a delightful British accent Mr. Stark?"

Tony quirked an eyebrow at her, "I am aware, I programmed it."

"You know you're kind of like Batman," Annabelle said, "You've got it down to the British butler."

"Except I'm not made up."

Annabelle smiled, "Were those original Picasso prints in your front room?"

"Yeah, every piece of art you see is an original, Pepper, my old assistant-"

"Now lover," Charlotte muttered again awarded by a snort of amusement from Bruce and a glare from Tony.

"She took a lot of effort into the design for Stark Tower."

"Yet she only gets 16%," Bruce said. Charlotte laughed as she walked up to her sister.

"What's up Annabelle? Why didn't you wait at the apartment," Charlotte asked.

"Well I have some exciting news," Annabelle answered, "I'm getting showcased at a gallery. It's extremely high end, super hard to get into, no one ever gets in if your just starting out."

"That's great Annabelle," Charlotte exclaimed, "We'll have to go out to celebrate. Tony I'm leaving, see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah sure, congrats Annabelle," Tony said with a wave. The two had met when Charlotte first came back to New York permanently.

"Congratulations," Bruce called.

"Thank you!" Annabelle said with a smile, "Bruce right?"

"Yeah," he said coming over to shake her hand, "And you're Annabelle, obviously."

Annabelle laughed, "Yeah I am. Charlotte talks a lot about you, you know."

Charlotte's smile dropped and her cheeks turned red, "Okay Anna let's go."

"Goodbye," Anna trilled.

As they walked out the door of Stark Industry Anna said, "I like him, he seemed nice."

"And you had to tell him I talked about him?"

"Hey, I never got to play the annoying little sister role, I rather like it."

Charlotte answered this with an eye roll.

Back up in Stark Tower, Tony was giving Bruce his usual shit-eating grin. Bruce rolled his eyes and tried not to show how much he was affected by learning that Charlotte had talked about him to her little sister.

Were they nice things? Or was she telling Annabelle that he was a poor kisser and she wanted to avoid talking about it ever?

It had been a month and he knew it was partially his fault for not being a man and initiating the conversation but it was the 21st century and she wasn't Steve Rogers. She could start the conversation too. Bruce shook his head, she wouldn't do that. She had been in a rocky relationship too, she was bound to have the same insecurities as him.

He looked up and saw Tony staring intently at a S.H.I.E.L.D. labeled file. It was Charlotte's.

"What are you doing?" Bruce asked walking towards Tony.

"JARVIS saved some things when I hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s mainframe, including the good doctor's files," Tony said.

"You shouldn't be looking through those," Bruce said, "It's a private thing."

"Aren't you the least bit curious about it though," Tony asked, "I mean we all knew about each other's powers but hers. Fury just kind of thrust her into this. She has no super hero back story. She hardly used her powers then all of a sudden she turns into some crime fighting, super bird. She doesn't even have a hero name for god sakes."

"We know that she can sprout wings and blast sonic booms from her mouth, and that's all we need to know," Bruce said.

"The government doesn't keep someone locked up for three years if that's all they can do," Tony countered.

"It's a touchy subject for her and we shouldn't be branching into it."

"You know how they say, keep your friends close and your enemies closer?"

"Yes, but Tony, Charlotte's not your enemy, she's your friend."

"Exactly, I never liked that phrase. It's your friends you can't trust. I thought my dad's old business partner was my friend but he was illegally selling my product to terrorists. It's your friends that can really mess things up for you, not your enemies. "

"Charlotte's not going to turn on you," Bruce protested, "She's not some kind of power hungry psychopath."

"It says in her file that she broke into a government facility that had numerous locks and security systems and she managed not to trigger a single one until she tried to hack into the mainframe," Tony said looking at Bruce, "Just because you want to make moony eyes at her doesn't mean you should ignore what's in front of you."

"She was trying to get her research license back, you'd do the exact same thing if someone told you, you couldn't do what you did best, in fact you kind of did."

"Exactly, if I can turn on people and change so can she, we're dealing with something we don't know, I read all of your files and Steve's and Thor's and Natasha's and Clint's. I'm not a very trusting person, I like to know all about a person whether they like it or not."

Bruce stared at Tony. He knew Charlotte would be pissed if she ever found out about this. But he had to admit he was curious to know about her power as well since it was so similar to his. And she was out with her sister. What harm could it be to take a peak?