Chapter 6: Games

The next morning, another seemingly innocent cup of coffee appeared on his kitchen counter. "Mr. Stark, sir, it appears that your mystery guest has returned with another beverage," the AI called, just as he was stepping out of the shower.

Before Jarvis had finished his sentence, Tony had thrown on a pair of pants and practically vaulted down the stairs, hair dripping as he ran. "Jarvis, check all the security feeds and let me know what you find," he ordered.

This time, Laurel had waited to witness his reaction. In amusement, she watched as he peered cautiously into every corner, and eyed the cup as though it was full of plague germs. "Jarvis, analyze the beverage. Screen it for every toxin in the database, and check it for radiation and anything else that doesn't belong in a cup of coffee," he continued.

Laurel felt a bit embarrassed that she was putting him up to extra work, but didn't feel too badly, because he had seemed to come alive with the onset of the mystery and potential danger. Settling back to watch his antics…and his lovely, well-muscled chest, with the few droplets of water chasing each other down the lean lines of his torso and skirting around his arc reactor….she startled when he suddenly drawled a question to the room at large.

"So what are you exactly? You're invisible, right? So you could still be here watching me. In fact, you probably are. Let me guess, you're some sort of mutant spying for S.H.I.E.L.D. But why would you blow your cover? …Are you a wannabe supervillain, trying to send a message? Telling me that there's nowhere you can't reach me?" he queried.

Laurel frowned at his words. She hadn't wanted him to interpret her as a threat, but supposed that suspicion would be anyone's natural reaction.

"A cyborg from the future? An alien? Angel? Demon? Failed experiment? …Successful experiment? Casper the friendly ghost?" he continued.

Laurel suppressed her amusement, and watched him pace. As he moved ever closer to where she currently leaned against the wall, she began to tense up. She told herself that he didn't know she was still here. He was just trolling, testing. Laurel shivered, feeling a bit like Bilbo in Smaug's lair. Stark's mind was a formidable thing, and she already regretted forgetting the silencing and scent-neutralizing charms.

She had seen him alternate between merriment and sorrow many times, had witnessed frustration, anger, obsession and a hundred other emotions flash across his face at one time or another. It was easy to forget how predatory he was when that intent gaze was directed at something else. But as it swept the room, carefully cataloging even the slightest change, watching for any movement at all, she remembered that Stark was someone that had killed, and was almost certainly a candidate for smartest man alive. She lost her nerve and disapparated.

Every day for the next week, she brought him coffee, levitating it to the counter to avoid any traps he might have set. She always watched to see what he would do, but made sure to cast a thorough set of concealing spells on herself first. Each day, he cajoled her to reveal herself. He threatened to mention her to someone named Coulson. He made outlandish guesses about her identity (some of them were actually rather close), and her motives. He challenged her, calling her a coward. He promised not to hurt her. He asked her leading questions.

Laurel found Stark to be a pretty good interrogator. She had actually been tempted to answer several of his more interesting queries. But she never did, and he always deliberately dropped the untasted coffee into the trash. This irritated her to no end, as was his intention, judging by his knowing smirk and the flourish of his wrist as he threw out her gifts. He was always such a damn showman. One day, Laurel couldn't take it anymore and left a note. She didn't even bother to stay and see his reaction, she was so exasperated.

That morning, as he picked up his coffee and issued his customary mumbled "Good morning" to Jarvis and the Coffee Bandit, as he had taken to calling her (Even though Jarvis assured him that this made no sense, as she was bringing him coffee, not stealing it. Tony had rejoined that she was probably stealing it from somewhere.), his eyes widened as they fell on a post-it note attached to the side of it. His eyebrows rose as he read the rather choppy script.

"Mr. Stark, Let me assure you that this is safe to drink. In fact, the swill you brew in your lab is far more likely to harm you. Sincerely, A visiting poltergeist"

He stared at the note for a moment before snorting with laughter. "Uppity little ghost," he muttered with a grin.

The note had the desired effect, and Tony began drinking the coffee she faithfully delivered each morning. Laurel and Tony kept more or less the same hours. Both experienced troubled dreams and insomnia, and made do with very little rest at night. She spent more time in his company than she had before, and realized that he required more coffee in a day than just his one cup of gourmet brew. She watched how his face would screw up in distaste as he reluctantly made his way to his battered coffeemaker to supplement her offering, and so after a couple days of this, Laurel took to bringing him one coffee and leaving it in its usual place on the kitchen counter, and delivering four additional cups in a carrier that she deposited directly in the lab. She placed a stasis charm on each beverage that would be deactivated the moment his lips touched the liquid.

When Tony first saw the drinks settled unobtrusively on his workbench between a pile of schematics and a gauntlet he was in the middle of rewiring, his mouth went slack for a moment before he was galvanized into motion, sweeping his eyes into every corner of the room and calling out, in a voice calculated both to dare and annoy, "So, invisibility and teleportation…not the usual skill-set."

From her vantage point near his suit displays, Laurel had been leaning against the wall and waiting with more anticipation than she should be feeling for him to discover her newest gift. She jolted with surprise when he called out to her. She hadn't realized that he had already managed to deduce her teleportation. But that was because she didn't know he had booby-trapped the stairwell. Since it was the only way to enter or exit the lab, he had placed heat and pressure alarms along every surface. An insect couldn't fly through without Jarvis finding out.

Tony added conversationally, "You know, I'm steadily learning about you. I know you've been watching me, and you must know that I don't give up. I will find out everything sooner or later….Ready to tell me what you are? I have lots of new guesses today. What are you? God? Wizard? Fairy? Elf? Vampire? Genie? 'Experimental investigator' of optical density? …Please be a succubus."

Laurel grinned at his antics. Stark, who appeared to be enjoying the sound of his own voice thoroughly, continued, "So why did you bring more coffee down here? To show me that you could infiltrate the lab? You know, I don't consume it that fast. Most of the cups will grow cold before I get around to drinking them, and there's no one else here for me to share them with. I guess they'll be wasted," he said with an exaggerated sigh, before adding, as if the thought had just occurred to him, "unless…you drink one….Come on out. Have a cuppa with me."

He smiled charmingly and looked all around, as if he actually thought the ploy would work. After a few moments, he smirked and shrugged, returning to his work. Hours passed, and Laurel kept looking up from her book, impatient for his counterattack, because she knew it was coming. Finally, Stark decided to take a break from whatever he had been furiously working on—something with cables and mesh that appeared bizarrely complicated. Laurel saw him eye his battered coffee machine with displeasure. His face was surprisingly easy to read when he was "alone" in the lab. He displayed his emotions freely, and his eyes and mouth were very expressive. She noticed his speculative glance towards the three remaining Starbucks cups, and smugly waited to see what he would make of her stasis spell.

He reached towards the closest cardboard cup and nearly dropped it. Stark's expression of amazement struck her as almost comical. He gasped and murmured, "This shouldn't be possible. These have been here for hours."

Leaning closer, Laurel watched his enraptured expression. He lifted the drink, and a haze of steam rose from it. Cautiously, he took a sip, and his eyes widened even further. She gave a secret smile at sharing how wonderful magic could be. She knew that the stasis spell would make the coffee taste exactly as it had moments after it had been brewed. "Energy preservation…no insulators….Jarvis, record the temperature of these liquids and let me know when it changes," he demanded.

"Sir, my sensors indicate that the cup in your hand is losing heat at a constant rate, however, the temperature of the other two remains unchanged," Jarvis volunteered.

Stark stared at the cup in his hand for several long moments before whispering, "Remarkable. There must be some sort of force field….How…" he trailed off, and Laurel grinned brightly, feeling supremely satisfied that she had given him something new to puzzle over.

The next day, she noticed that the three cups of coffee were where she had left them. The engineer had turned them into some sort of bizarre science project, which probably afforded him far more enjoyment than simply drinking them would have. The cup he had sipped from the day before had gone stone cold, but the stasis spell remained strong with the others. Stark was upping the ante. He spent the first part of the day installing motion sensors all over the house, and especially the lab, although Laurel figured that it was more to cover his bases than because he actually expected to catch her out.

The next day, a platter of chocolate chip cookies rested innocently on the kitchen counter where she had grown accustomed to leaving his first beverage of the morning. She stared at it in perplexity. Stark obviously intended it for her, and it was most likely a trap. Not willing to back down from the challenge, she began scanning the treats. Once she had identified every ingredient, and spotted no sedative or poison, she grudgingly took two cookies off the top. She still smelled a rat, but would play his game for the moment.

A few days passed, and she enjoyed a cookie or two each time. Stark was lying low, and so she was taken completely off-guard when she wandered into a bustling Starbucks one morning and spotted the man himself, sporting a pair of dark sunglasses, and hunched over a cup of coffee at a corner table. He had clearly placed himself in a position to get the best view of the counter and simultaneously be able to cut off her retreat. She smirked at his cleverness. He must have gone to a considerable effort to find her. She wasn't even in Malibu proper, but had apparated to a suburb called Westlake Village. She knew that it had been a mistake to come to the same place three days in a row, but what fun is a game with no risks?

He must have somehow infiltrated the coffee chain's computers for the surrounding area, waiting to see when an order that matched his would come up. He had probably thought that this would be his opportunity to see her, because she couldn't remain invisible and still conduct a business transaction. Laurel was cloaking herself from the security cameras, and had placed a mild notice-me-not charm on herself, which she would selectively drop when she reached the counter.

Stark didn't appear to have paid any attention to her entrance. He had his smartphone out and was scowling at it. Laurel felt relieved that several other people stood around the counter waiting to pay or pick up their drinks. Having such a crowd around would make misdirection much easier. When it was her turn, she ordered the usual five drinks for Stark, and a decadent caramel frappuccino for herself, just because she felt daring. Laurel glanced behind her and saw that Stark was staring intently towards the cash register. Her notice-me-not spell appeared to be working, because his eyes kept sliding right past her, but he seemed to be fighting it, concentrating his gaze around the vicinity of the counter. His phone had obviously alerted him to her order, and he knew he was in the presence of his quarry. Excellent. On a whim, she also pointed out a chocolate chip muffin and had the barista add it to her tab.

The pretty, bleached-blonde teen working the counter rang up her order, accepting Laurel's handful of bills. Laurel waited impatiently for her drinks to be ready, glancing over her shoulder all the while. She felt a curl of excitement in her gut as Stark abruptly rose from his table and stalked towards the counter. In another moment he would catch her, so she regretfully cast a tripping hex on a woman heading for the door with a tray of iced coffees. Laurel was torn between wincing in sympathy and howling with laughter when she saw Stark pelted with four large iced macchiatos.

He froze, still about halfway across the room, as the woman dabbed at his sodden t-shirt and babbled apologies. His eyes were narrowed, but he looked past her, knowing perfectly well that she wasn't responsible for his current predicament. The 'accident' only delayed his approach by about thirty seconds, but it was long enough to allow Laurel's order to come through. She received her tray of coffees and cast a silent stasis spell over the lot, before singling one out and placing it beside the muffin. She mischievously instructed the barista, "Please deliver this to Tony Stark with my compliments….And if he asks about the muffin, tell him I said he earned it."

Laurel intended to disapparate, but was loath to leave without seeing the look on his face, so she hung back, going from unnoticeable to completely invisible. Stark's reaction amused her. She overheard him interrogating the barista, who faithfully delivered Laurel's message, much to her delight. When he urged the teen to remember who had given her the message, she couldn't seem to recall if the person had been a man or a woman, young or old. He asked to see the receipt, which she allowed, probably only because he was Tony Stark. He appeared stymied when it turned out that the mystery shopper had paid in cash.

Feeling a little guilty and still high on adrenaline, Laurel magicked a fifty dollar bill into the purse of the woman she had tripped, and cast cleansing charms on both her and Stark. The woman didn't appear to notice, but the inventor definitely did. The last things the witch saw before apparating away were his comically widened eyes.

Tony had turned to walk out to his car with his coffee and muffin, when he happened to glance down at his coffee and notice the attached post-it. On it were messily scrawled the words, "Sorry about the mess."

"Touché," he thought ruefully, and couldn't help the huge smile he wore all the way home. After all, the muffin was delicious.