Disclaimer I do not own Inuyasha, nor Iron Man or the Avengers
A/N: Kagome's personality might be a little OOC, but you have to remember she has spiritually experienced hundreds of years of craziness in a single physical moment. Also helped provide some clarity for Kagome helping Tony out on projects from my earlier chapter. I know some people were like she was just supposed to be a secretary, but it's not like Kagome didn't love school, she was just preoccupied with the jewel and Inuyasha.
A/N 2: Sorry that it took so long to release this, you guys. I started writing this last year, but I lost access to my google account and finding my backup on my icloud notes was like a godsend to give you guys another chapter while I'm getting back into the swing of things. I promised myself I would do better with my stories and updating them, but it's been hard to find motivation most days. Some of my faithful followers knew, but many didn't know that I was in an off and on again abusive relationship for almost eight years and after finally saying I was done with that, I found out almost two weeks later that I had stage two cervical cancer, and then I lost my job and well it was—excuse my language a real shit show it MarMar's world. Thankfully, I am fine now and I've been cancer-free almost seven months now, but it was a rough go for a while with my health and just putting my life back together. Big, big shoutout to all of my fans who kept reviewing or checking up on me, you guys give me life when I see your reviews or PMs! But enough rambling I hope you guys enjoy this chapter and leave a review.
My Secretary Continues to Surprise
Life is full of surprises: new opportunities come up; that's part of the fun - the adventure of life. The thing is, chaos doesn't allow us to enjoy the adventure.
- Patrick Lencioni
To be truthfully honest, Tony has always been curious about these so-called gods and the tesseract ever since Director Fury had approached him with information on the Avengers Initiative.
'I know he has to be from another planet where humans simply evolved faster than we have and became so powerful that they came to see themselves as gods.'
He had similar theories about Kagome.
'If only she would let me run some tests.'
Thinking about his sometimes-employee and friend/science partner, he wondered what she was up to right now. Their last conversation had not ended well. Truly he had never meant to irritate the Japanese woman who had become one of his closest friends, but his skeptical and rational mind couldn't fully accept magic and spiritual stuff that was going on in the world.
'I'll have to do something to mend her mood when I get back if she's still mad at me.'
One of the good perks to Kagome's personality is that while she is quick to anger she is also quick to forgive. And with him it was a must—for those intertwined in his life as he tended to do things that irritated a lot of people, even if it was mostly unintentional.
Just as more thoughts of Kagome's steadfast friendship and trust came to him, he noticed Dr. Banner jumping back a little, obviously spooked by something.
'And it wasn't me who did it this time. Although I really want to see him Hulk out in person...I could make a new suit to combat it. Oh what fun Kagome and I will have coming up with one, but we'd need more data.' Kagome might not have had the best grades in high school, but she was creative and thought outside of the box when it came to helping with experiments and science projects. Not to mention she really did have a brilliant mind, he could only see how much she could have contributed to society if she'd been nurtured at a younger age towards science.
'Thankfully I persuaded her to take physics and computer programming with JARVIS, so she could understand his jargon when they were in the lab. And despite her many complaints about math she wasn't bad at it like she made it seem. Rather when she wasn't distracted her ability to absorb knowledge and bring about real life applications was kind of awe-inspiring if he wasn't the same way. She even had his AI teaching her about biomechanics, biochemistry, and mechanical engineering.' It touched his heart that she took the initiative to broaden her mind just for the sake of furthering his work.
It took him but a moment to regain himself and turn his attention back to the room aboard the helicarrier. Thor's grip on his hammer had tightened, but loosened the more he stared at something.
Tony's eyes were drawn to what everyone was staring at and his jaw slackened slightly at the sight before him.
'Think and she shall appear,' he thought wryly.
One brow rose as he noticed her new outfit.
She reminded him of the Dandy Gunslinger Man, a steampunk movie they had watched with Pepper for movie night like a month ago. Only the feminine version. Pepper had jokingly said she wouldn't mind seeing him dressed in similar fashion and Kagome had even asked if he decided to do it to make her an outfit too.
'The look is pretty good though, we both could pull it off. Perhaps at the Halloween mixer.'
Kagome wore a white button-up shirt with a full Victorian style neck ruffle tie with an ivory green corset thrown over it with black ribbons laced tight. Black skin-tight pants were paired with green and black boots, with two black and green guns holstered at her side. A red fascinator perched on the side of her head, her ebony hair had been pulled back into a french braid that fell mid-calf with long bangs framing the outside of her face.
'Weird, her hair is definitely longer. Did she get extensions?''
Had it just been Kagome and him at his house he would have laughed at how she actually went through with the Dandy Fashion idea. And wonder if she'd made one for him too. But they were not alone in his house.
Kagome, who had been staring at Thor, now turned her focus to him. Her whole face lighting up with barely contained mirth. Her eyes sparkled and his brow furrowed as they looked a little different to him. He also noticed she was grinning like a Cheshire cat who had found the hidden catnip.
"Hey Tony, I'm back!"
Bruce glanced between the acclaimed billionaire weapons genius and this new person, wondering silently who the eccentrically dressed woman was. She didn't look like a member of S.H.I.E.L.D. Her outfit was reminiscent of steampunk fashion and she appeared to be Japanese, his traveling around the world helping deduce which part of Asia she was from. He was sure her face seemed familiar, but he couldn't place her at the moment. Also she seemed friendly with Tony and no woman was ever really friendly with Tony unless you were a lover, or a potential one. That made him wonder, because he was sure the billionaire was dating his ex-assistant turned CEO, Pepper Potts. He might not keep up to date with much, but when it came to Tony Stark aka Iron Man his life tended to be all over the news and tabloids in a lot of countries.
Thor, on the other hand, was struck with awe and happiness. The infamous Shikon Miko, she had been recorded as disappearing over five hundred years ago. Yet here she stood before him in all her glory.
'Praise be to Vallhalla's grace, for surely stands before me the key to ending all of this madness!'
"Umm hey Kags, umm quick question how are you here? I thought you said you were doing something...in New York...on the ground...you know like forty thousand feet below us and hundreds of miles away," Tony asked as he stood up and began to approach her.
Now she was giggling like a little kid on candy crack.
"Sorry," she apologized stifling her laughter, "I was and I did and let me tell you something I've seen things that will make your head spin and leave you questioning the very fabric of this universe and your very being, but that is something we should talk about later...when there aren't so many prying ears, neh?" She said her head tilting to the side in a very childlike manner.
He nodded dumbly, kind of thrown for a loop. Hundreds of questions were bubbling up in his head, while the cogs were starting to fire off.
"A-alright Kags...I take it you're no longer mad then?"
Kagome rolled her eyes, "Of course not, I had a long, long, long time to get over my anger. Now I'm just happy to see that arrogant face of yours."
He scoffed, "Arrogant face? Ha, you should look in the mirror woman."
A silence fell over the group as the other two men in the room observed her more. She twitched a little underneath their gazes that were boring holes into her, as if trying to see through to her soul. Although one might be capable, if he were a little more self-aware hadn't left behind the true nature of his spiritual mindedness. His spriggit certainly hadn't and zipped and zapped circles around her with knowing eyes.
Both Bruce and Thor were surprised by the easy camaraderie between Tony and this 'Kags' woman.
Thor's booming voice filled the awkward silence that had fallen around them. "This must surely be a great day that the heavens would bless us with one of your great stature and power," the Asgardian gave a bow in Kagome's direction, everyone else now looking between the two of them.
"Um who exactly is this," Steve Rogers aka Captain America asked, having walked in while Kagome was chatting it up with Tony and looked perplexed at the sight of the strangely dressed woman.
An uncharacteristic noise came from the back of Thor's throat, as he looked at everyone in the room in surprise.
"Surely you jest. How far has human knowledge fallen that you do not know of the legendary priestess of old! Defender of all that is good and pure! Savior of this world. Slayer of the vile creature Nara—"
"Ehem, Thor please stop," she said, cutting the alien god off.
While she was honored to be in the presence of one of the old gods, an alien god at that. She was not about to let him go spilling all of the beans. Her sensei had told her about many different worlds and their gods, but she hadn't stood in the physical presence of one.
'I mean if anyone is going to tell them my story it should be me—not that I know any of them well enough to really go telling my whole story right now. Best to go with a basic introduction'
"Hello, my name is Kagome Higurashi, Tony's ex-personal temp-secretary and current science partner and friend. I have heard much about you guys or read about you. As Thor said, I am a priestess from Japan," she bowed after her introduction.
Banner, familiar with the Asian custom, considering he'd traveled to many places around Asia bowed in kind as did Thor—though the Asgardian did so more in reverence to her station than her customs.
Tony was trying to keep his mouth from opening and closing like a fish. When he finally gathered his thoughts to speak, Director Fury walked into the meeting room with Natasha behind him.
"Well this is quite a surprise, it is a pleasure to see you again Miss Higurashi. Now please tell me— how is it that you came to be on my helicarrier?"
Director Fury was perplexed when he had been informed of sensors picking up an extra body in the same room as Banner and thought perhaps it really was someone targeting the scientist. Only for the security feed to show Japanese woman who worked for Stark. She hadn't been there when they lifted into the air and there had been no planes to land on their vessel. The video feed hadn't been much help as she seemed to appear out of the dark corner of the hallway.
Kagome brushed off her paranoia about being a science experiment, she straightened her posture with confidence in her training.
"Hmm, well I walked in between the lines of what is possible and impossible towards Tony's location, which is here on the...what did you call it again heli~carrier?"
Brows rose around the room, at the weird answer given by the Japanese woman.
Natasha had always found the woman to be quite an open, normal person; perhaps a little too motivated to make more money, but nonetheless loyal to Stark Enterprises when she was working undercover for Miss Potts, so this baffled her as well. Director Fury had mentioned odd energy signatures that seemed to be linked to the woman, but spying on her hadn't revealed anything out of the ordinary about her. Outside of her work for Stark, the woman lived a pretty normal life with her most interesting thing being her doing parkour twice a month with a bunch of college students who lived in her area.
Deciding to not push it anymore, Kagome exhaled, rolling her eyes before she decided to go with the easiest explanation.
"Magic. I came here by magic," and then to prove her statement she disappeared and came up behind Nick Fury to tap him on the shoulder and naturally the ex-military and director of the super secret agency turned with his gun pulled only to find air. A clearing of the throat and gasps had him turning around only to come face to face with Kagome grinning at him, before she walked over to where Tony had been seated.
"Like I said m~ah~gick, so what has been happening while I've been preoccupied Tony?"
Tony couldn't even believe what he'd seen and was speechless.
'Always keeps surprising me, but damn if it doesn't keep me on my feet. I guess this is her proof she came back with.' With Loki, the apparent god of mischief and magic extraordinaire on the helicarrier he was starting to think rational thinking may not be the case anymore. While speechless at Kagome basically teleporting around him, it wasn't nearly as shocking as when she'd first shown him her other priestess abilities. Although how everyone else would take this magical surprise of Kagome's was another thing.
'And for the love of science how the fuck does Thor know about Kagome?'
Review tell me what you think!
