Alright guys, this is a longer chapter than normal because I decided that I'd jump straight to the ball (the vet can be told through flashbacks).

Also, remember when I said that Elle and Laxus won't have a third joining them? That might be a lie. This sort of just happened, so...we'll see how it turns out. (To be fair, I didn't have a partner planned for this person yet anyway).

Enjoy the surprises!

Chapter Eighteen - Friday, Part One

In the next couple of days, Tony and I finished up most of my plans for the next week or so, and Virgo and Tony continued to argue about my costume.

The superhero one, not the dress for the ball. That was taken care of pretty quickly.

Tony eventually won the argument in eventuality, but not for now. Considering the magic I was using, we hadn't done enough testing to create magic-proof clothing, so I'd be wearing Celestial Spirit armor for this run. He did style the design for me, though, and we started magic-testing Kevlar, which really just boiled down to me throwing magic at a mannequin wearing clothes.

We might have run out of mannequins.

So yeah, this might take awhile.

Anyway, Tony styled the suit and Virgo made it with Celestial Spirit armor until Tony was able to create one himself. It was designed similar to Natasha's formfitting style, except in purple.

"You want it to be the same color as your hair?" he deadpanned.

"Yes."

"And you don't think that will stick out?"

"You are not allowed to talk," I responded. "It's not like you have a stealth suit. And besides, I can use Pluto to sneak in," I shrugged. "But I need to make a scene. And besides, my hair won't actually be purple when I'm in costume. Virgo will take care of that."

And because why the hell not, I'm going to have two superhero identities. One of them (this one) will be a secret. The other, not so much.

I've been told I do things overboard, sometimes, but hey, I want to see what it's like to have a secret identity, too. Plus, there will be things I can do in my secret identity that I can't with my public one.

"Elle-sama, I have returned," Virgo announced, appearing out of thin air.

"Heart condition," I said, pointing at Tony.

Tony smiled. "You know, I actually think I'm getting used to it."

"Remember what I said about magic and frequencies?" I asked. He nodded. "That's why," I continued. "You can feel the adjustment of magic in the air."

"Does that mean you can't sneak up on me, if I get to used to it, then?" Tony asked.

I shook my head. "Shadow Magic would give me a bonus. Some people – not a lot, but a few mages – can sense when someone with Shadow Magic is there. But they're really sensitive and attuned to it. It's why we make Corvus appear at the front. Virgo is like the opposite. You can feel her magical presence from a while away – you can with most Celestial Spirit Magic, actually, because the opening of a gate is like…well, like a flare. Lucy's gotten pretty adept at hiding it in the middle of a combat situation, but it can stand out a lot normally, and now that she's more powerful it's actually a lot harder for her to try and hide it. Then again, Virgo is also appearing directly here. Corvus is still summoned in Roswell – he just comes here through shadows. So you don't feel his gate open."

Tony nodded. "Okay."

Virgo cleared her throat and held out two pairs of magical shoes. One, a pair of boots I would be fine with (for my costume and for kicking ass), and the other, a pair of flats.

"Nooooooo," I whined, recognizing the Flats of Doom.

"What is it?" Tony asked.

"It's the Flats of Doom," I announced, glaring at them. "Remember how I mentioned I can't dance? These can make me dance."

"If you are going to appear elegant, you need to be able to do at least one waltz," Virgo pointed out.

"I hate you," I told her.

"No you do not, Elle-sama," she replied, handing them over to me. I requipped them away and she held out one last thing; a hair tie.

"I had Gemini and Cancer make it," Virgo said as she passed it to me.

"Awesome," I smiled, before pulling my hair back into a ponytail. "This is how my hair will be in costume."

"Wow," Tony said.

"It's cool, right?" I asked him, smiling. "You could probably make something like it with technology if you wanted."

The hair tie changed the color of the hair it was tied back with, so my hair was back to the plain original chocolate brown color of my first life.

"Why brunette?" Tony asked.

I shrugged. "This was how I was born, originally. But purple hair fits my personality better, so I prefer it." I pulled off the hair tie and requipped it away.

Tony shrugged. "Fair enough."

Happy promised to watch the cats while we were in New York, (which was just overnight). We'd be staying at the 'Stark Mansion of Doom', Tony's childhood home. I'm pretty sure it's because he wants to pick up all of Steve and Bucky's old stuff from his Dad's collection.

Maybe not. Either way, it's there, so we should probably grab it.

And by we, I mean me, because of my requip space.

"First time on a private plane?" Tony asked me from where he sat.

I snorted. "First time on any plane." I reclined in the seat. "It's pretty cool, I'll admit."

"The private or the flying?" Tony asked.

"Both," I shrugged. "I'll admit that the ear thing is annoying. And it's also taking a lot of time. I think I prefer teleportation."

Tony nodded. "I prefer flying in my suit, too. But this is more convenient. And it also allows us to get ready on the plane, so we can take a limo straight from the airport. Speaking of which…" he trailed off, looking at the time, and raised his eyebrows at me.

I rolled my eyes and got up. "Yeah, yeah, I'm going."

I entered the bedroom (still can't believe there's a bed on the plane) where Virgo and Cancer were waiting to help me with makeup and hair. They decided they'd return to Lucy or the Spirit World when the plane landed (we didn't know if disappearing would do something to it).

I mean it would probably be fine, but it's like airplane mode. You still switch your phone over…just in case.

It didn't take very long before I was done, and Virgo gave me the Flats of Doom, which looked nowhere near as evil as they actually were (if they did look as evil, they'd also be heels, though). She had also adjusted its color and style so it'd match my outfit.

I returned to the main part of the plane, where Tony whistled upon seeing me. "Alright, I'll admit that I'm looking forward to their reactions. We look awesome."

We did look awesome.

I smiled at him. "Come on. Let's knock their fucking socks off."

"You nervous?" I asked Tony as we approached the carpet.

He shrugged. "Kinda? They're going to write about me anyway, always have and always will. I just went with the stuff they did in the past because it was easier to be a businessman if the people you're making deals with think you're some partying drunk most of the time."

"That's fair," I muttered.

"This, though?" he smiled, gesturing to our clothes. "I'm looking forward to their reactions. How about we give them something to talk about?"

He smiled at me and with a burst of confidence, threw open the door and stepped out of the limo. Cries of "Mr. Stark" echoed back to me, and I could hear murmurs about his clothes ringing out.

Tony held out his hand for me, and I took it, with him carefully helping me out of the limo.

"Mr. Stark, Mr. Stark, who's your date?" "What are you wearing, Mr. Stark?" "Who are you wearing?"

We made our way up the steps, just smiling at the reporters and not answering any questions as we made our way inside.

"You're not really out of your element," Tony told me later, kinda surprised. "I mean, you obviously stand out, but you...still make it seem like you belong here, even though you don't fit the norm."

I smiled at him. "When I was…twelve, I think…I was pretty much knighted. And they didn't want to call a twelve-year old girl 'Dame' so they would call me Lady Elle. I was close friends with the Royal Family – most of us were, especially since there was the Stellar Connection between a few of our bloodlines. Also, Laxus's mother is related to the Queen, who married into royalty. So we'd spend a lot of time with them. And they made me go to balls and stuff. Belonging there but also standing out was kinda my thing. We had our version of…I guess like the Magical Olympics, maybe? So I was kinda well-known."

"Why did they knight you?" Tony asked.

"I, uh…saved the Queens life. Kinda," I admitted.

"How do you kinda save the Queen's life?" Tony asked.

"Well, originally, she was supposed to die in childbirth…" I started.

"And you have magical childbirth magic," Tony said, a dawn of realization on his face.

"Actually, no, that was before I knew about that," I admitted. "But I basically put her in stasis for a year or so until Lucy was strong enough to summon Phoenix, who could heal her. And…yeah."

He stared at me. "What the hell was even going on in your last universe?"

"So many things," I said. "So many things."

I shrugged.

"You know we should probably start dancing soon," Tony mentioned.

I made a face. "Alright."

Tony gathered us into the middle of the room and caught everyone's attention.

"Hello, everyone. Thank you for attending our charity benefit for clean energy. It's time we start saving the environment. And starting now, we've decided to start a new tradition of dressing up according to the theme of the charity," Tony announced, and I curtseyed next to him.

My outfit was a lot more obvious than Tony's. While he looked a bit like a prince, I looked more like…well, like a fairy. Minus the wings.

Virgo's having a laugh and we all know it.

It was a fancy pink dress that flowed out like a flower, and the top part above my chest was mostly made with twirling pink...I dunno, vines? The straps curled around the side of my arms rather than over my shoulders, and it swirled down my back, which was mostly laced up (Virgo covered the guildmark for now). The bottom of the dress flowed out, but didn't hit the floor, rather stopping near my knees and slightly longer in the back. The top part of the dress (not the upper body part, but the rim think on the edges) also had flowers in them, and those same flowers were in my hair, too. Cancer had twisted hair from each the front of each side and pulled it back, the rest of my curls falling underneath the makeshift crown. Then he weaved the purple flowers into the twists. My flats were no longer white, which is basically like a blank shade - instead they were purple and curled up my legs like vines.

Yeah, Virgo was having fun.

Tony took my hand and lead me out onto the middle of the dance floor as the music started up.

We stood there and I clicked the heels of my feet together three times.

Tony snorted. "Really, Dorothy?"

"It activates the Dancing Magic," I said, shrugging.

He snorted and his expression changed as he whispered in my ear and began to dance with me. "See that group of older ladies in the corner?"

"What about them?" I whispered back.

"They're internally panicking right now," he muffled another snort. "They like our outfits but are unsure they're 'appropriate' and have no idea what to do. They'll probably ambush us when we get off the floor." He hid a smirk. "And they also spent a few thousand dollars on their dresses."

"Ohhh, that's perfect," I said happily. "Are they gossipers?"

"You have no idea," Tony muttered.

He twirled me around.

Even though I don't like the Flats of Doom, I do like the dancing, especially when Virgo gives me a flow-y dresses like this one. Whenever I'm spun around, I feel a bit like a princess.

I'm guessing he probably had dancing lessons when he was younger. I wonder if they hurt or helped him. With the amount of energy he had, it could be good to let off steam through dancing, but I doubt that Tony had the patience to learn dance normally.

The song ended and other people made their way onto the floor. Tony started spinning me again.

"Another song?" I whined at him.

"After this we can leave the floor," he promised.

I didn't tell him, but the Flats of Doom hurt. When they're activated, of course. Magic can do a lot of things, but dancing doesn't like me. They don't hurt that much, compared to some things (needles) but they were still painful. It's not like the original little mermaid, where every step she took felt like shards of glass (look it up). The pain was more in the muscles of my feet, cramping them into doing things they didn't like to do. It was almost as painful as normal cramps, actually.

Ugh, my feet were going to hurt for the rest of the night. I wonder if anyone would notice if I hovered a few centimeters off the ground?

I'm not as skilled at Wind Magic as Erigor was, but I can still do a few things related to flying.

But I still wasn't going to risk it. Still, it was kinda funny to picture everyone's faces if I just floated for the rest of the night.

Tony twirled me right off the dance floor, over to a buffet table. He got us glasses (not that I'd drink it; alcohol has always been…well, everyone else's thing but mine. In Fairy Tail, anyway) and I clicked my heels three times, turning off the Dancing Magic. My feet cramped as the magic let them go, and they stretched out again in my shoes.

There's a reason I call them the Flats of Doom, and it's not just that I'm melodramatic.

(Hey, I can be self aware, alright?)

The group of ladies Tony had mentioned were heading our way, and several other groups of people were looking at us and trying to hide their curiosity.

Jeez, they're like sharks.

I miss Fiore.

Not that everyone's nice there. We still deal with asshole rich people, and dark guilds and stuff, but it was a lot friendlier.

I feel like I just graduated to a much more dangerous video game.

Graduated? Leveled up? Is it leveled down because I died?

I honestly don't even care right now, my brain just won't shut up because I'm excited and nervous for this to go down.

"Mr. Stark!" the woman in front cried, reaching forward and kissing each of Tony's cheeks.

"Meredith!" he said enthusiastically.

"Margaret," she corrected.

"Yeah."

"Who's your friend?" she asked, eyeing me up with a face I couldn't read.

"This is Elle!" Tony said, introducing me. "She's…a friend."

"Hey!" I said, shaking her hand enthusiastically, which she wasn't expecting. "It's nice to meet you. I love your dress."

It did look pretty – not as pretty as mine, though.

And certainly not worth over a few hundred dollars.

And even then, I DON'T GET THAT. It's one thing to spend money on things like dresses for special events, like weddings and stuff, but I just can't process the idea of spending so much money on something they don't even really wear more than once because it's out of fashion.

"Thank you," the woman said, bragging. "It's Versace. It cost six thousand."

"What?!" I shrieked. More than a few people looked over.

Okay, that kinda came out louder than I was expecting.

Tony looked like he was hiding a mix of embarrassment and amusement.

"You spent six thousand dollars on a dress? WHY?"

"I need to look my best, dear," the woman said imperiously.

"This is a charity ball," I pointed out. "Why not spend less money on the dress and more on charity, it doesn't even make sense!"

Tony's eyes were definitely leaning more towards amusement now.

"Well, how much did your dress cost?" the lady asked snobbishly.

I paused. "Uh…Tony, how much did we spend?"

"One hundred and eighty."

"Like you're one to talk!" the woman scoffed. "You spent one hundred and eighty thousand dollars on a dress!"

I stared at her. "No, I didn't. I spent one hundred and eighty dollars on fabric, and then my friend made the dress. And besides, that was fabric for me, and Tony."

The woman stared at me, her mouth open in shock. So were her friends. Lots of people were staring, actually.

"Seriously, do you guys really spend that much money on how you look?" I asked everyone. "Wouldn't be more impressive if you could spend less money on how you look but still look awesome?! Especially since your dresses go out in like a season or something. Right? Have you ever worn the same dress twice?"

Someone coughed. No one answered.

Finally, Meredith, or Margaret, or whatever, finally spoke. "You spent one hundred and eighty dollars…total?" She looked back and forth between me and Tony.

"Yeah, it's great," Tony said, nodding. "Her friend is gonna be making stuff for us from now on, I'm really looking forward to seeing what she comes up for the next few."

"I think it's a brilliant idea," a calm voice said in a thick accent.

Okay, totally not expecting him, but awesome, I love curve-balls.

Okay, that's a lie, I usually hate them, but this is fine.

"Hello, Prince T'Challa," I said, curtsying to him.

He smiled at me and held out his hand. "May I have this dance?"

No.

I took it and smiled. "You may."

He led me back to the dance floor and the crowd eventually returned to their previous positions.

"I'm surprised to see you here," I commented, clicking my heels as discretely as possible. He still noticed. "I didn't think you'd be attending."

"Neither did I," he said. "But my younger sister insisted. Something about…a girl with purple hair and knowledge of the future?"

"And of all the people in the room, you were drawn to me," I teased.

"You do have purple hair," he commented.

I shrugged as he spun me. "I thought cats were colorblind."

There wasn't a falter in his step (that wouldn't happen, he's a Prince, he's been trained for this) but his smile did twitch.

"Knowledge of the future, remember?" I told him. "Are you ready for a bit of a history lesson?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Not really, but I believe you're going to tell me anyway."

"Well, if you really want, I could leave you alone…but then you'd be a curious little kitty."

"I am not little," he sniffed.

"You're only a few inches taller than me, T'Challa."

"That is not what I meant."

Oh. Oh.

"You win," I told him. "And I'm married. And we're not looking for a third partner right now."

Again, his face was very composed, but there was still a small twitch.

"Anyway," I continued. "So the giant-ass vibranium mine you guys have, it came from an asteroid, right?"

His eye twitched now. This was kinda fun.

"Anyway. You guys probably realize that there's alien life out there, right?"

"I do not follow."

"The asteroid came from somewhere, and yeah, you made some of your tech out of it, but you had to have found some tech with it. Which means that someone else built that technology."

"…Why are you telling me this?" he asked.

"Aliens are going to become a bit of a problem in a year or two," I said. "One of the reasons I'm here is to warn you guys. But I also know one of your possible futures. Anyway, I was hoping we could fast-forward a few years and you could join our team. It'll be fun, we'll fight aliens together and topple secret government agencies and stuff."

He raised an eyebrow. "Secret government agencies?"

I nodded. "You know about Captain America?"

"Yes," he said.

"Well, the organization he took down, HYDRA? They're still out there, and they've got their hooks into just about everything. And personally, I don't want Nazis running my government."

He gave me an odd look. "You're serious?"

"About toppling governments, Nazis, aliens, or you joining our team?" I asked, before shaking my head. "You know what, it doesn't matter, I'm serious on all of it. Which is saying something, most of the time I'm just chaos embodied."

He stared at me intently as we danced some more, and I tried to keep a straight face. I still had the urge to break down in giggles. I was having a staring contest with a cat on a dancefloor about aliens.

At least this conversation was distracting from my feet.

"Let me give you my phone number," T'Challa finally said.

"Sure," I said. "But, uh, it might be a bit before I contact you. Tony hasn't given me a phone yet. I'm kinda trying to wait and see how long it is before he notices." I laughed. "But you can tell Shuri to hack us once the weekend is over. Tony's been impatient about meeting another genius and I've been bragging."

"What's this weekend?" T'Challa raised an eyebrow.

"I'm kidnapping a brainwashed assassin," I said, shrugging.

"A…brainwashed assassin?" T'Challa questioned.

"Yep," I nodded.

"Well then," he said, as the song ended. I clicked my heels again. "I wish you luck…"

"Elle," I said, smiling.

"Elle," he smiled and handed me a card.

Tony stepped up next to us. "May I have this dance?" he asked me.

"No," I said bluntly.

His brief look of shock was so worth it, especially when T'Challa laughed.

"I've danced enough for one night," I said. "Let's get some food."

I grabbed Tony's hand and dragged him over to the food table.

"So, what did you guys talk about?" Tony asked.

"You know, HYDRA, aliens, the huge vibranium forge under Wakanda, joining our superhero boyband-"

"Wait, back up," Tony interrupted. "One, you do realize we're in public? And two, 'huge vibranium forge'?"

"Mine, whatever," I rolled my eyes. "And I have magic, Tony. Any time I start to talk about something top secret I use Saturn to redirect the sound vibrations in the air, keep up."

He let out a bit of a strangled sound, and I took a bite of the cake on my plate.

"Oh, I'm spoiling myself," I said, frowning at the cake. "This isn't as good. Awwww."

"What did he give you?" Tony asked.

"His number," I said.

"I knew I was forgetting something," Tony muttered.

"There's usually no need to give me a phone because I'm usually right there, because I can teleport," I said. "But yeah, one might kinda come in handy."

"Especially now that you've got the number of royalty." He winked at me.

"Married, Tony," I reminded him.

Tony's eyes moved over to T'Challa. "Are you telling me that hunk of chocolate isn't yours, or your husband's, type? Because if not…"

"Oh my god, Tony," I snorted, taking a bite of a cookie. My eyes widened. "Oh, Tony, these are good!"

"There are more on the back, we can grab some on the way out," Tony said, shrugging.

"Alright, let's go," I said.

"Wait, right now?" he asked.

"Yep! Just a feeling I've got," I said. "Will Pepper kill us if we leave now?"

"No, we should be good," Tony said.

"Great, let's go!"

He chased me into the kitchen, where I grabbed a platter of cookies and put them in a bunch of Tupperware containers before requipping it away.

"You good?" I asked him.

"Yeah, why?" he asked.

"Let's find out!"

Teleporting blindly is a bit weird, but sometimes I just get feelings. It's usually God pushing me in a certain direction, or giving me a bonus, or something. It's happened a few times back in Fiore.

At least this was a good feeling, rather than an 'oh shit it's urgent' feeling.

Tony blinked as we appeared. "Why are we at the Stark Expo?"

"I have no idea," I answered. I requipped a set of jeans and a T-Shirt for him, along with his baseball cap and sunglasses. "Here, let's go change, we're kind conspicuous."

We went into the bathrooms and we exited a bit later, both in our more casual clothes. And wow, was it a relief to be back in normal shoes.

"Now what?" Tony asked me.

"Now…" I took a bite of a cookie. "We explore!"

Now, don't get me wrong, the Stark Expo is really cool. And Tony was using my Tablet to take a shit-ton of notes on ideas he was getting, conversing with JARVIS at the same time. But we've kinda been walking aimlessly for around an hour, and the feeling hadn't gone away.

And I'm not exactly the most patient woman.

"You realize you're practically vibrating with impatience, right?" Tony asked me, amused.

I shrugged, still tapping my foot. "Some people have calm magic. They focus their energy through things like meditation. Others, like me, have a chaotic type of magic. I do better when I'm moving, and since I use my magic so much, staying still isn't exactly fun for me."

"You could maybe hide some magic, if you're careful enough," Tony told me.

"Eh." I shrugged again. "I'm already reorganizing my requip space in my mind. Well, more or less…"

Look, I like being organized, but again…it's hard to keep things in place. There are a few things that are always in the right place because of labels and stuff.

Like food, any magical artifacts that are important, weapons, and clothes.

The rest is just sort of a mess. All of the jewelry I have, except for the ones that are actually mine, are kinda just off in a pile.

Other than that, I was also floating about an inch off the ground, not that Tony noticed. But I didn't really want to draw attention to it either, because then he'd ask why, and then he'd feel all guilty about the Flats of Doom.

"You usually do a pretty fine job, normally," Tony said.

I shook my head. "Normally I don't have an overwhelming urge to get something done when I don't know what it-"

I paused.

"What is it?" Tony asked.

"I don't know," I said, frowning. "It just disappear-"

A small body crashed into my legs.

"…ed," I finished, looking down.

The body backed up and kid looked up at me, a small Iron Man helmet covering his head.

So, what do you think of T'Challa joining Elle and Laxus? I have no idea if it will happen, but I'm interested in seeing your opinions. If it's an overwhelming majority for or against, I'll probably do that, but if not, I'll probably just see where it goes. Also, it could be a triangle, in which T'Challa and Laxus love each other (eventually) too, or it could be a V, with Elle in the middle.

Also, it's canon in the comics that Tony has a huge crush on T'Challa (there's this one point where he's making a speech and he idly mentions that he thinks he speaks for everyone when he says he's in love with him, and T'Challa replies that he always has been). Plus, who can blame any of them? Chadwick Boseman is very attractive. And 6 feet, for those who were wondering when they talked about height.

Also, does anyone understand who the kid is? Looking forward to your comments!