I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. If you or anyone you know is an essential worker please know you have my greatest thanks and all my prayers. I don't want to dwell too much on what is going on outside as I and probably many of you use this site as an escape for the everyday. So, I just want to come on here and say thank you for your Favs, Follow, and reviews, it means so much to me that people are reading and liking my work! At the bottom of this chapter I will be answering some of the reviews people have left me! Happy Reading.
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Elena should have realized something was wrong when Obadiah had brought two pies from Joe's Pizza with him on the plane back to California. They hadn't spoken to each other since that moment in the kitchen yesterday, but the tension between them was palpable. Happy had been concerned by their stare down when Stane had entered the plane. The glare Obadiah had sent Elena's way did not sit well with Happy, and he made sure to sit close to Elena the whole trip back.
After they made their way back to the Stark mansion Elena quickly made her way up to her room, not ready to see her father. Also, a lack of desire to spend any more time in the same room as Obadiah motivated her decision as well. Elena took her time showering and decompressing after her flight. She had done pretty well with her flight anxiety this past trip, and she couldn't help but wonder if it was because so much else was going wrong around her.
As she got dressed into lounge pants and an old worn-out MIT sweatshirt, Elena could hear a soft piano tune coming through her door from the living room.
"Salieri, how on the nose Obadiah," Elena muttered to herself as she recognized the tune Obadiah was playing. She knew it had to be him because he was the only other person in the house who could play. She also had immediately recognized the composition he was playing belonging to Salieri, Mozart's envious colleague.
Elena still wasn't sure how to go about a dressing the Stane situation, but she did know one thing, she and her Dad needed to talk things out. She couldn't stand this fighting anymore. Even though her father could drive her crazy faster than anyone, he was still her Dad.
She made her way into the living room after she had heard Obadiah slam the front door behind him. Pepper looked exhausted as she cleaned up the mess left over from the pizza. She looked up and smiled at Elena, "Hey stranger how was your trip?"
Elena smiled and sat on the couch with her feet tucked under her. "It was good till Obadiah crash at the penthouse." Pepper looked up at her in surprise, "Oh he never told me he needed to use the penthouse, or I would have sent you a warning." Pepper explained to Elena.
Elena shrugged and said, "Yeah he said there was a last-minute investors meeting." Pepper once again had a look of shock befall her face. She turned around hesitantly, "He told you himself it was an investors meeting?"
Looking at Pepper with confusion she replied, "Uh, yeah pretty sure."
"Funny, he just told us it was a board of directors meeting."
"WHAT!" She shouted as she shot up.
"When did he tell you about it?" Pepper asked trying to get a handle of the situation, not really believing that Obadiah wouldn't have told Elena to be there if he knew it was a board of directors meeting.
"When he first arrived at the penthouse, he told me. Pepper I have to confess, I fully believe that he knew what that meeting was going to be. He purposefully made sure I did not make it there."
Pepper nodded her head as she contemplated this information, Elena hesitated before she spoke again, "And in the spirit of being honest I don't believe Obadiah has Dad's or the company's best interest at heart. I think he wants to take over. He made damn sure to threaten my involvement yesterday."
"He threatened you?" Pepper asked aghast.
Elena wiped her hand in front of her as if to dismiss it, "Only technically."
She paused and continued her confession "Honestly Obadiah has always been threatening towards me. More so with words than with actions, but he has left a bruise or two." Elena spoke softly but never broke eye contact with Pepper.
"He hurt you?" the menace in her tone was not to be missed. Elena shrugged not knowing what else to say. Pepper anger deflated in anguish, "Why did you never tell anyone."
Again, Elena shrugged, "When I was younger, I thought no one would believe me, or it would hurt dad knowing that Obie hurt me. Then when I was older and he had stopped because it was harder for him to get away with it, I figured it was too late. I also thought it was just about me, I never until recently thought he had any issues with Dad." She explained to Pepper in a soft tone.
Pepper walked over to the young woman in front of her and brushed her hair behind her ear with her right hand gently, "How did no one ever see?"
Elena shrugged, "The bruises look like they could have been from any of my activities and he was good enough to know to wait till people were preoccupied."
"Oh, Ellie bear I'm so sorry. Just wait till we tell your father. He will be furious." Pepper stated knowing that this would not go by unpunished.
"Actually, Pepper let's wait, Dad seems to be going through some things right now and I don't want to pile on. Let's wait till we have concrete proof about Obadiah before we go to him about it." Elena proposed.
Pepper held Elena at arms-length, "Your word is proof enough Ellie."
Elena closed her eyes and spoke softly, "But what if it's not? Obadiah has been a part of the Stark dynasty long before Dad or me, we need solid proof to root him out. I don't want to play this hand too early Pep. Let me dig around and see what I can find." She bargained. Elena knew she could try to put her rudimentary hacking skills to the test with digging into Stane.
Pepper understood where Elena was coming from, if she accused him too early with little to no concrete proof, Stane could turn this around on Elena to say she was a paranoid naive girl and any future attempts after that would be dismissed.
"Okay, but now you need to let me know if he makes any more threats, I'm always here Elena, always. I love you." Pepper said with such determination, she hoped Elena understood. She had no children of her own just yet, but Ellie was as good as hers.
"I know Pep, love you too." She closed her eyes and laid her head on the redhead's shoulders as they embraced in a hug. They release from their embrace, and Elena looks up hesitantly, "Is he busy or do you think I can go down?"
Pepper sighed in exasperation, "He's been working on something down there since you left, however, I'm sure he would love to see you." She spoke smiling down at Elena.
Elena smiled and started to make her way down to her Dad's workstation whistling for Remy to follow her down. When she got to the door, she could see that his workstation was a mess, and he was obviously working on something new. His ideas were all over the room. Stuff was all over the floor as if he had wiped it off the work desk. He was at his computer typing things into a program, AC/DC was blasting, and for a moment Elena wondered if this mood was geared towards her return. Maybe he hadn't forgiven her for running off to New York in her anger.
She opened the door and Tony didn't make any motion that he had heard her enter. Elena snuck up behind him to read what he was working on. If she was reading it correctly it looks like he wanted to harness the arc reactor energy to be able to create a flight stabilizer.
"Is this for personal use or are you trying to make flight suits for the military?" Elena asked, scaring the shit out of Tony. He jumps in his seat and whirled around to see his daughter behind him with a huge grin on her face, hinting that she had meant to surprise him.
"Wow squirt, way to give a man a heart attack." He quipped with his hand laying over the arc reactor on his chest.
Elena smirked at her Dad and replied, "Sorry Old Man your hearing must be going."
He mockingly laughed at her, as he stood up and brought Elena in for a hug. "Missed you Squirt, are we okay?"
She sighed and looked up him, "Yeah Dad we are good. I'm sorry I left here angry I should know not to leave things on the table like that."
He smiled at her "I shouldn't have been so reckless."
Elena returned her smile and went in for another hug. When they separated Elena looked around at the mess, "Speaking of leaving things on the table, what do you have going on down here?" she asked, raising her left eyebrow at him.
He smiled nervously and rubbed the back of his neck, "I've been improving on an idea I had. Now it's not a weapon. It's more of a precaution," He defended.
"A precaution," She said in a tone that didn't really portray that she was convinced he was telling the truth.
"Yes, I think this could be more of a deterrent. Maybe once people see this thing they will think twice." Tony explained in earnest.
"So it is a weapon." She said in a disappointed tone.
"No, it's more of a shield. I promise you Squirt, I am not making this to sell for mass production. I really think this thing could make a difference. We could even supply one and make a med rescue unit from them." He tried to pitch to her.
"Okay, but what is it, Dad. All I see is a mock-up of a personalized slight stabilizer. not much to go on here Old Man." She snarks at him gesturing to the project in front of them.
He smiles and walks her over to his station, he motions his hand over it and a schematic for a giant metal suit projects in front to them. Elena walks up and starts to shift through the sketch, humming and making modifications as she goes. Once she's finished Elena turns to her dad in amazement and ask, "How did you come up with this?"
He laughs, "This is a more refined version of what I used to escape the camp." He cupped her shoulder with his hand gently.
"This!?" she asked amazed, "But you were in a cave with no tools." Her father's genius had always impressed her, but this was beyond anything even she could comprehend.
"I had some help and they gave me a few supplies when they thought I was building a missile." He a toned, trying to skirt around the topic.
She nodded in understanding and turn to look at him asking, "How can I help?"
Tony gave her a quick hug, "Let's get to work."
With Elena's help, they were able to calculate and build a set of boots and a pair of stabilizers to attach to Tony's hand.
As they went throughout the night, Elena could hear Tony yelling at Dummy, "You are useless."
She turned from her computer and yelled, "Hey be nice to Dummy, he's doing his best."
"Yeah Well, I'm glad I let you name him that when you were little because you were spot on." He said touching his finger to the tip of his nose.
"He means well." She defended going over to pet the machine, "Also be nice he was my first invention, that I made to help you out down here." She chastised.
"Yeah, yeah you've always had my best interest at heart kid." He said fondly as he stood up from crouching over the boot.
"I think we are ready for another test run Squirt." He said confidently as the boot moved into place.
"Oh boy let me grab the first aid kit." She grumbled.
By the time she arrived back to the lab with everything she thought they would need for these tests, Tony was waiting in the test area with the equipment strapped on and was yelling at Dummy.
"What did I say about being nice to him," She reprimanded. He smiled at her and took a deep breath, "I threatened to donate him if he douses me with the fire extinguisher one more time," He grumbled.
"You will not, I designed him to be over cautious when helping you since you never are," She teased as she stuck her tongue out at him. Tony mirrored the action back to her.
Elena gnawed at her bottom lip in nervousness before saying, "I think you need a helmet. if you over calculated the thrust compacity you could bang into a number of concrete walls around here." She said looking around at the lab realizing how unsafe it was for this kind of test.
"Yeah, little late for that Squirt." He mumbled under his breath thinking back to the time his face broke the rest of him hitting the concrete ceiling.
"What does that mean!?" She asked in exasperation.
"Don't worry about it let's just get this test started, I'm gonna start off with 1% compacity in the thrusters okay?"
She nodded and made a note in their system. While Tony was counting down Elena received a text message from Frank asking if she was coming to work out again or if New York had already made her too prissy for his gym. She sent a quick note that they could meet up later that day if he was free.
Once he got to one, Tony was lifted in the air a few feet off the ground and Elena gasped in surprise as he hovered for a few seconds and then landed with a clang. She sent him a thumbs-up as he breathed out and then turned to yell at Dummy.
"Elena a little help here," he asked in exasperation as dummy was still pointing the extinguisher at him. She giggled and said, "it's okay Dummy stand down." the machine whorled with what sounds like a disappointment as it lowered the extinguisher.
"Okay, let's try it again and raise the thrust capacity to 2.5%" Tony commanded as he got back into place.
"You got it, Dad, raising capacity now." She intoned as she monitored the increase.
Tony gave another countdown and raised up a little unsteady as he began to move around the lab with the thrusters.
"Steady it, Dad," Elena called out as she saw his unsteadiness in the air, he groaned in response as he began to steady himself but began to sway over to the cars
"This is where I don't want to be!" He called out, in the closest thing to panic Elena had ever heard out of her Dad. She watched in horror as he began to hover over his expensive cars, but her real worry was her prized jeep that she had built from scratch at the end of the row. "DON'T HURT MY BABY!" She yelled out when she realized he was headed straight for her car.
"Your baby what about my babies?" he shouted out incredulously as he tried to move his body and pushed the stabilizers away from all of the expensive, one of a kind, cars.
"MOVE SQUIRT" Tony yelled out as he was heading for where she was seated with her laptop.
She quickly grabbed her stuff and hustled herself away from her dad's area. He moved the thrusters in front of him in order to gain more control. He began to glide through the air looking as if he was on a surfboard. Elena watched in awe at what her father had thought of and what the two of them together had been able to accomplish.
She smiled and cheered as he came in for a smooth landing. He faltered a little at when his feet finally met the ground but other than that Tony looked up at his daughter with one of the biggest smiles she had ever seen and said to her, "Oh Yeah I can fly!"
She cheers again as she sprinted over and wrapped her Dad in a hug, "This is amazing Dad!"
He smiled at her and ruffled her untamed curls, "Couldn't have done it without you Squirt, we make a great team."
She smiled, nodded and waited for him to unhook from the prototypes before she walked over to her laptop and showed him what modifications she wanted to improve on. Especially for his helmet design, it was not specifically designed for impact. Elena wanted to adjust it so concussions wouldn't be such an issue.
"I think if we have Jarvis make these adjustments in his prototype assembly you should be good for actual flight outside." Elena surmised to her father. He nodded and smiled feeling a swell of pride at his girl.
"God squirt you are a genius. I think your talent is wasted in medicine. I should hire you as head of R and D right now." He expressed.
"Dad," Elena said in a short tone, that basically told him that her career wasn't up for debate.
"Yup, shutting up." He nodded as he concedes. Back at his station Tony orders Jarvis to start building the modifications Elena had set out. "Jarvis, estimated time on assembly?"
"If I hurry I could have it done in about 6 hours, however, I would like it noted I do not think this is something that should be rushed." The A.I. system informed.
"Yeah noted, six hours is great." Tony snarked as he went to work on something else.
"Hey, Dad I'm going to go fit in a workout with my trainer while we wait. If it's ready before I get back to make sure Jarvis monitors and records your vitals in the suite. I want to see if there are any stressors on your body that we need to adjust for." Elena asked as she started to pack up her stuff and grabbed Remy's leash.
"Come on Rem we are going to go see Frank!" Elena called out. Remy quickly bounded his way over to Elena, his tail wagging in excitement. Elena knew he likes to go on her visits with Frank because he for some reason always had some treats at the gym.
"Your trainer's name is Frank, that different for a girl." He snarked in amusement, his eyes bulging in shock a little. Tony had just realized he had no clue who this trainer of hers was, he would need to get a background check run on him.
Elena sighed, "Yes Dad, Frank is guy, he has always been a guy. His last name is Bowman and yes, I ran a background check. No, you don't have to, and you better not have Happy trail him."
"Oh, I didn't think of that last one." He smirked welcoming the idea.
"Dad, he is fine. I trust Frank completely and thanks to your cynicism, that is not something I do lightly." She snarked as she adjusted Remy's harness to use in her Jeep. It was a nice day, so Elena wanted to ride with her rooftop off. That meant putting on Remy's car seat harness.
She luckily left all her gym stuff in the lab so ready to go as soon as she sent Frank a text that she was on her way.
"Bye Dad love you." She called out as she zoomed out of the garage.
Before she knew it, Elena was at Frank's gym and once again landing on her ass, "I thought-" She wheezed out and coughed before continuing. "I paid you to teach me so that this doesn't keep happening Bird Brain." She snarked still trying to catch her breath.
"Hey, the time you no longer end up on your ass, is the time you no longer have to pay me." He mocked as he crouched down on his knees to be at her level. "However, I am concerned about those lungs of yours keeping up. You been taking your medicine regularly?" He asked tilting his head in concern.
She nodded as she took some deep breathes to try and control her breathing. While she was laying down on her back Clint tapped her leg, letting her know to straighten it out so he could help her stretch it. The worked together mostly in silence as Elena tried to get her breathing under control without the help of her inhaler. She spoke once she had basically gotten it under control, "I always keep up with my meds because attacks are a bitch and I hate having them, however, it later at night than we usually train. My breathing is always worse at night," She explained. He gave her a doubtful look, and Elena looked away too quickly for him not to believe that she wasn't leaving something out. "And?" He offered knowing there was more to it.
She sighed in defeat and looking up at the ceiling she spoke, "And the doctors did say it could get worse the older I get. Also, that I would probably have to adjust my meds. But I don't want to do that because with the last new rounds of meds it took me a year to get over the dizziness side effects." She confessed.
"Yeah, but you got to be able to breath Trust Fund." He said gently. She pushed away his concerns and said, "Eh only most of the time."
"Elena," he said a bit more strictly.
"Frank." She replied back, mocking his tone.
"They always did say docs make the worst patients." He joked letting it drop for now. He stood up and then reach down to help her to her feet. He walked over to his bag on the side of the floor and his hand came back out with a tennis ball. He quickly whistled out of the corner of his mouth and Remy barked back an answer. Without another word he threw the ball all the way to the other side of the gym. The mass of tan and white fur that was Elena's pup flashed by her as he chased after the ball.
"Hey traitor remember who feeds you!" she called out as Remy caught the ball and brought it back to Frank in exchange for a treat. "Good boy." Frank praised the pet. "See someone's got to train him." Frank scratches his head and then orders, "Go to mama." And points at Elena.
Remy with his goofy smile bounded over the Elena, she crouched down to hug Remy, "Good Remy, ugh I love you, you big goof." Remy barked in response and jumped a little with excitement. Elena then snapped her fingers says "Remus."
Remy comes to attention. The dog sits still with his head tilted up to look at Elena, "Good now Remy go lay down," She ordered while snapping twice and pointing to the spot by her bag. Remy without compliant quickly moves to the spot where Elena wanted, turned in a circle, and made himself comfortable as he laid down.
"So good Remy." She expressed as Remy's tail wagged happily. She turned to Frank with a smirk said, "And you thought he wasn't trained."
Frank smiled and jokes, "Chump stuff. Come to me when he understands a different language." Elena's smirk drops and in serious tone she replies, "All of his attack commands are in French."
Frank tries to school his expression and asks, "Why French.?"
Elena shrugged "It's the second language my Dad taught me. I figured it was less common for Remy to hear those words, if they were in another language. When I first got Remy, his vision wasn't so great from glaucoma that was untreated by his shelter. I decided to train him mainly with strong vocal and sound cues. Such as my snaps or French." She explains shrugging it off like it's not a big deal.
Clint nodded in understanding and then joked gently, "Have you always had a need to help broken things or is that just coincidence?" His smile was sincere as he expressed his fondness for the woman in front of him who had such a gentle heart. She shrugged and said, "Just looking to help when I can."
At that moment Frank knew he had to tell Elena the truth about why he was here and who he was, "Elena listen, I have to tell you something-"
She interrupted him before he could finish, "I know I'm sorry I flaked on our meeting with your boss, because of my fight with my dad."
"No kid, don't worry about it honestly, he can be a bit much anyway, Speaking of that meeting I need to-"
Before he could finish his sentence, Back in Black by AC/DC blasted throughout the gym. Elena rolled her eyes and put up a finger, signaling him to wait a minute. She ran over to her bag and grabbed her phone "Yes Old Man?"
"I think I may have broken something." Came out his rush response
She raised her eyebrow and tried to press the phone closer to her ear thinking she had heard Tony wrong, "I'm sorry, come again?"
"I went out for a test drive and sort of had a crash landing. I can't tell but everything hurts so maybe nothing is broken or everything is." He laughed out and then gasped in pain.
"Uh okay give me 20 and I'll be there. Do I need to call Rhodey or Happy to help?" She asked in concern and began to pack up her gym bag up.
"Uh no, I got myself to the couch. Don't involve anyone else just yet." He asked calmly.
All of this was a good sign that he hadn't actually broken everything, "Okay if you give Dummy the command to go get ice, he can do that for you. Put some on anything that may be starting to swell, Also, do anything you can to stay awake for me, I need to check if you have a concussion." She advised him.
"Thanks, Squirt." He said fondly, thankful for his daughter. "Love you Dad." She said as she ended her phone call with him.
She quickly put Remy's harness on him and turned to Frank, "I'm so sorry I need to go help my Dad." She explained as she walked over to him gave him a quick hug.
"Yeah but Elena I need to tell you-" She began to walk away and did a double whistle which had Remy jumping up from his spot and trotting over to her side. She clipped his leash and looked over to him
"I'm sorry Frank, I'm a sucky student." She rushed as she made her way out of the gym.
Frank tried to talk again, "I'm not-"
"I promise we'll take later this week," she called over her shoulder as she made her way out the door while yelling "Night Frank!"
With a defeated sigh Frank rubbed the back of his neck and called out, "My name's not Frank." His voice echoing off the empty gym as his guilt started to eat at him.
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Hey y'all I hope you liked the chapter, the reason it took me so long to write is I had it half-way done and realized I hated it, so I scrapped it and had to start all over again. Again, please review with any comment questions or concerns you have. I will try to answer them the best I can if not in person like this, then I may end up addressing it in the story itself!
Reviewer: Famond- I love the idea of stun bracelet, but don't worry Elena has a few things in the works as far as inventions go. However, SHIELD will play a part in her story, probably not in the typical sense you see but the storyline I've laid out for her wouldn't make sense if they didn't. So hopefully you will like where I go with it. Thanks for your ideas and for reading!
Reviewer: BeautifullySarcastic22 – I hope I answered your questions with this chapter. It was always my intention to have the stuff with Obadiah come out later, you're just too quick for me! While Elena does trust Pepper, there are times where Elena does doubt her position and she always thought Stane was never worth the effort. Plus, an active child's bruises can be easily written off if no one suspects harm to them. Thanks for your honest opinion and for reading!