Good morning! 'm back on schedule with my Monday updates, so you can expect them on time from now on. Enjoy this next section, and remember that reviews/comments are always more than welcome! :-)
Clint had left for work early, Steve was out, Bruce was busy doing whatever it was he did when Tony wasn't watching, and Natasha was still asleep. Pepper had insisted on getting some work done today, and she had disappeared for the duration. So, for all intents and purposes, Tony and Elizabeth had the tower to themselves. For a short time, at least.
Except Tony hadn't heard a peep from his guest all morning.
He wandered the tower, coffee mug in hand, looking for her. It was hardly urgent, but he had yet to even lay eyes on the woman. He wouldn't say that he didn't trust her; he more got the overwhelming sense that she might find a way to get into trouble, because, as elegant and refined as she seemed, he could see something in her eyes that screamed of shenanigans waiting unfold with her at the center. Such was the nature of her mysterious smile.
So much about her was completely unexplainable, though Tony chose to ignore that – not because it was the better option, but because it was the easier one.
When he finally found her, she was sitting on the floor of the library – a place he rarely frequented – clad in a tank top and plaid pajama pants, hair still looking a little messy from sleep, though it was infinitely better than most people's in the morning. Around her, like the shrapnel from a grenade, were dozens of books. Some lay open, others closed, still others turned upside-down to mark her place.
"Morning," he said to her by way of greeting.
She looked up briefly from a volume in her lap. "Yes, it is," she replied absently before flipping the pages and scribbling something down onto a legal pad in long, looping cursive.
For a moment, he just stared at her, trying to make sense of her response. Eventually, he just gave up, moving to stand over her. "Whatcha got there?" he asked, bending down to see her notes, which she quickly spun around for him. Littering the yellow page were fragments of ideas – most taken from books, undoubtedly.
When he gaped at the words uncomprehendingly, she pointed to three boxed phrases in succession. "No," she said, "look at these."
With mild difficulty, Tony read her handwriting, and her intent dawned on him. "You're planning the rebuild," he said, deadpan.
In reply, she just offered him a wry grin before turning her notepad back to face her. "You needed a plan, did you not?" she asked, abandoning her current book in favor of one by her left foot.
"Yeah," Tony muttered, "I did. How'd you know?"
Elizabeth looked up at him skeptically. "I know a struggling man when I see one. This much was clear to me the first time I saw you."
He raised his eyebrows. "You're pretty good. Where'd you learn to read people like that?"
"In this lovely institution called 'life,' Stark," she said without even so much as a glance away from the page before her. "Although I would have expected more from one with your intelligence and creative ability." She shot a very pointed look at his arc reactor, revealed by a subtle blue glow coming through his Guns and Roses tee shirt.
Tony shrugged, glancing down at the object of interest. "I had some pretty strong motivation to make this baby," he told her. "Ever had a hunk of metal try to stab its way into your heart?"
For a moment, it looked like she was going to say yes – like she was about to pull some experience out of her memory and throw it down on the table, trumping his little excursion in Afghanistan. Instead, she just smirked. "Afraid not."
"Then count yourself lucky, Lizzy." She arched a derisive eyebrow at the nickname, but otherwise offered no opinion. He cleared aside some books with far too little care, judging by the irritation that flared across her face, and sat down across from her. "When you've spent a while hooked up to a car battery just to keep alive, you start thinking there must be a better way," he said, granting her a smile as a mini-peace-offering and picking up some loose papers, shuffling through them, attempting to appear helpful.
Re-angling her legal pad, Elizabeth flipped the page and wrote out a neatly organized paragraph. "Before you become involved enough to give me more work," she drawled, a shadow of mockery in her tone, "read this off to your Director Fury." With a fluid, practiced movement, she tore the page from the notepad and shoved it under his nose.
Tony made a bit of a show of taking it, claiming that he "doesn't accept charity," despite the fact that he had just folded the paper and shoved it into his pocket. Elizabeth merely raised a disbelieving brow and gathered several books in her arms, rising with all the grace of a dancer. She didn't say a word aloud as she replaced the volumes on the shelves, though her mouth moved as she alphabetized them, silently muttering the last names of the authors as she scanned for the correct locations.
"You don't need to bother with that," Tony stated, watching her. "Nobody ever comes in here anyway."
She glanced over her shoulder at him and said, "I plan to." Then, as her eyes roved back to the shelves, she added, "I rather like books."
Picking up a few volumes to help her, Tony replied, "Well, good. Someone has to." When she turned around, she looked almost surprised to see him there, holding a heavy, hard-backed copy of an Atlas out to her. Slowly, she took it, nodding her thanks, and slipped it back into its spot.
"And you don't?" she asked. Tony made a gesture somewhere between a shrug and a shake of the head, to which she scoffed. "How can you be a man of science and not love books?"
"Trial and error," he answered. "I read when I have to, but I prefer to learn by kinda playing with stuff and seeing what happens."
Elizabeth laughed. Actually laughed. The sound was completely foreign to Tony, though not entirely unpleasant – heady and grounded, if a bit throaty. Not the sort of laugh he would have attributed to this woman. Still, he had to admit that it suited her.
"That," she leered, "is how the primitives discovered fire."
"Fire was a pretty great discovery," he taunted, his ego clipped and ruffled by her snide remark.
"That very well may be," she gave, still chuckling to herself, "but it does not make you any more sophisticated—or evolved—because of it."
"I know quite a few stockholders who'd disagree," Tony grumbled, turning around to get more books and trying to resist the sudden urge to chuck one of them at her.
He was saved from having to use excessive amounts of self-control, though, as Bruce had been passing by and now peeked into the room to see what all the noise was about. "Bruce, she's being mean," Tony stated. "Make her stop."
"Go and call Fury, Stark," Elizabeth chimed. "I need to know soon if I need to rewrite the plans."
Tony let out an exasperated sigh, mumbling, "You see what I have to deal with," under his breath as he passed Bruce and went to go make a phone call.
"Everything alright?" Bruce asked, ducking partway into the library, taking in Elizabeth's expression – one which seemed to be taking far too much delight in teasing the resident billionaire.
"Oh, splendid, doctor," she replied, unexpectedly pleased with herself as she bent to scoop up the remainder of the misplaced books, heaping them in her arms and putting them back into their places one by one.
Taking a chance, Bruce stepped into the room, letting the door yawn wide behind him. "You sure? Cause he seemed a little –"
"Miffed?" she supplied, shooting him a smirk. "Yes, I know. Delightful, is it not?"
"I don't know," Bruce replied, glancing back at the open door just to be sure Tony wasn't listening. "He can be a bit of a pain when he's mad."
"He is not the only one," she murmured so quietly that Bruce almost didn't hear. Before he got a chance to say anything in response, she covered her tracks quickly by saying, "It will be good for him. An ego of that magnitude requires occasional pruning." The last of her books found its proper place on the shelf, and she turned around to face him.
For the first time since her arrival the day prior, he noticed just how straight her posture was – almost like she had a metal rod implanted in her back instead of a spine. She was hardly rigid, though; in fact, she was quite the opposite, moving with enough grace and poise to give Miss America a run for her money. It just seemed so natural to her – like how her face settled into the smallest of smirks when she was completely relaxed, or how her eyes alone would shift in accordance with her mood, making her face a very difficult one to read.
"You're new around here, aren't you?" he eventually asked, looking her up and down. Though she looked completely normal in her pajamas, she possessed different airs than anybody he had ever met before.
After eyeing him for a second, she replied, "Yes." She turned, straightening some loose papers on a writing desk off to her right. "And, with any measurable sort of luck, I will not be here for very long."
"Stuff to get back to?"
She arched an eyebrow, the gesture shadowed by her sidelong glance at Bruce, her grin appearing too sharp. "More than you can imagine," she replied, the darker look on her face fading as she turned to Bruce once again, though the image of it still burned in the back of his mind, and he asked himself where he had seen a similar expression before.
No answer flew readily into his memory.