Chapter 3

The Pursuit of Knowledge

The next week went by just as quickly as the first, though Emily had more to do.

Most of her time was spent reading and assisting Tony but when he wasn't around she'd sneak into the lab and demand that Jarvis pull up all the information available about the Avengers. Usually she stayed as far away from "superheroes" and "super humans" as she possibly could - having no interest in the extremely abnormal side of Tony's life - but this time they offered a possible clue into her cousin's mental state. Something she couldn't just ignore. It hadn't taken long for Emily to realize just how little the public knew about the heroes but she didn't let that deter her for long. In a rather desperate moment she dug through Tony's files and stumbled upon the name SHIELD in multiple documents. Curious, and it being her only lead, she dug a little more and tried to search public records for any mention of SHIELD only to come up with nothing. One move led to another and before she knew it she'd hacked SHIELD's database; taking extreme care not to leave a trace of her activity after she realized just how serious the information they dealt with was. She hoped that they would think it was just her cousin attempting to retrieve something: since she used the Tower's many features to do her digging. It seemed like something Tony would do. Yet, in the back of her mind, she understood how ridiculous that excuse was but she just couldn't rid herself of the desire to find out everything she possibly could about the Avengers.

For people dressed in such outlandish outfits no one seemed to know anything about them. Which made no sense.

Every time she was done she made sure to ask Jarvis to erase her searches; often having to threaten him with permanent shut-down. But he'd eventually oblige and, after a quick double check that they were truly erased, she'd sneak back to her room to read White Fang or Macbeth before Tony returned and caught her red-handed. When he headed for his lab she'd tag along, as if nothing had happened, for the lab made her feel safe.

Back home her safe place was the barn where she was surrounded by animals and earthy smells. The one place she could always count on being left alone since none of her siblings were as infatuated with farm life as she was. Without her animals around Tony's lab had become her safe place. Even when he was there doing something incredibly stupid, or banning her from assisting with his suit, she felt safe surrounded by the technology. She did have to intervene once or twice but it didn't affect her love for the therapeutic whirring of the machines. When she closed her eyes and slowed her breathing it sounded like the collective hum of her farm animals.

Although she still had a distrust of the air she managed to surprise everyone by accompanying Pepper on a few of her outings. 'There's this horrible toxic haze that clings to the air,' she'd complain. Pepper just took it light heartily - happy that Emily was going out at all. Which was more than she could say for Tony.

During their outings Emily engaged in chit-chat but the conversation usually had to be propelled by Pepper. Mainly due to Emily being clueless about what to talk about; with very few hobbies on Emily's part there wasn't much the two had in common. But the silences they would fall into were never awkward and often times the best part of the outing.

Working with Tony was fun. Listening to him drone on and on wasn't.

In the last week of August Emily finally accepted her fate and freely left the Tower of her own accord; meaning to get a better grasp on the layout of the city before she started classes. Finding the best coffee stands available and gaining a tolerance for the taste of the air were simply happy accidents. Unfortunately for Emily her first solo outing was a disaster. She managed to get lost in the one part of the city that she couldn't see the Tower's bright sign and was forced to ask strangers how to get home. On more than one occasion she heard the 'damn tourist' a stranger muttered as they hastily walked away. For the sake of her sanity she chose to ignore them.

After that single time she was quick to learn the streets and distinct markings; laughing at the fact that Stark Towers didn't stand out enough from ground level to be useful. She had compared it to Tony at first: figuring that, without his wealth and influence, he'd be lost in the sea of average people. Just another brilliant mind vying for attention. Immediately she corrected herself. Tony was too outgoing and flamboyant to ever fade into a crowd. Money or no money.

Much to her family's dismay.

Overall, Emily opted to walk where she wanted to go, since it helped her commit the city's layout to memory, but there were times when she'd steal the keys to Tony's various cars and speed through the streets. Such trips were merely breaks from being cooped in the Tower for so long with very little to do. And they usually ended with Tony being irritated yet unable to stop her no matter what he tried. Such as placing the keys in rat traps or hiding them in his room. But after Pepper almost lost a finger reaching for one without looking he gave up.

For as annoyed as he was... Emily knew he was just glad she was going out at all. Not that he'd admit it should she ask.

By the end of August she'd memorized what she needed to memorize and even accompanied Pepper on all her errands: discovering a shared love for coffee, Shakespeare, and clothes shopping. Their frustrations with Tony had always been common ground. Ground they frequently discussed and laughed about; Emily gaining more than one embarrassing story to use against Tony.

As exciting as getting to know the city was, and spending time with Pepper, Emily spent most of her outings at the library in an attempt to learn more about what had happened the prior year - more importantly what happened to her cousin - via legal methods. Too many times hacking into government files would raise suspicion. She dug through newspaper articles, first account recordings, and even went so far as to give a few sci-fi books a shot. But her digging turned up little to nothing. There just wasn't anything to be found about the Avengers. Odd considering they had saved an entire planet from an alien invasion. Creatures only ever found in myths or fantasy.

Finding nothing on the Avengers she turned her focus to finding out what had happened to Tony. At one point she asked the librarians if there was anything about panic attacks that didn't exist in psychology textbooks but the looks they gave her made her apologize and scurry away. She didn't hate psychology, it had its merits, but it didn't interest her. Biochemical engineering, electrical engineering... even physics was more her speed. Regardless of her interest it was all she had and her most successful research came from the psychology text books she begrudgingly turned to.

As fate would have it, she discovered how to confront Tony about his panic attacks and how to cope with her own fears. Failing to find anything useful about the Avengers, though, she soon gave up on the library and settled into a routine in the Tower; helping Tony during the day, reading in her room or going out with Pepper while he was at meetings, and delving into her, slightly illegal, research in the middle of the night.

Everything she learned fascinated her.

There was more than enough information on Captain America that she felt she knew him a little more intimately than she would have liked. It was interesting to her to think about the situation he had found himself in and more than once Emily wondered what it felt like to be thrown into the middle of a technology-dependent society without any knowledge of that technology. But she always concluded that she'd never fully know, not without being in the same situation. Something she had no desire for. The thought of Tony working with Steve did puzzle her since they were polar opposites but as interesting as some of the information was she didn't spend much time thinking about what she had uncovered about Steve. For the most part he was just like the average person. With the added benefit of being able to take down a multitude of enemies.

Surprisingly to her she managed to understand more about her cousin than he'd ever tell her. So much that she decided, should she get caught, she'd have to thank SHIELD for their file on Tony.

The hulk was the only one she was able to pry information about out of Tony himself which made her giggle like a giddy fool. He tried to hide it but she knew he talked to Banner on occasion and she'd started referring to them as the 'science bros' after eavesdropping on a particularly dorky conversation between the two.

Natasha and Barton were the ones that confused her the most since there was very little she could dig up about either of them that was actually legible; a lot of the things she found had been tortured with a black pen to the point that she couldn't pull any information off of the files no matter what she tried. There was only one thing that she was constantly seeing that began to haunt her even in her dreams. It was a single word but it was going to be what killed her: 'Budapest'.

Coulson's file was the most entertainingly written but the information itself wasn't all that fascinating. He was just your average worker doing his job with all the dedication he could muster. As for Fury… she made a mental note not to get on his bad side if she ever ran into him. She doubted that would happen but still. Caution was a good rule to live by. More so when you're a citizen hacking into a government agency's top secret files.

The built-blonde, Thor, was the one that caused her the most frustrations. And occasional break down. She'd heard the name, knew the legends and mythology, but trying to distinguish what was fact versus fiction was a task she couldn't seem to tackle with a level head. She lost her temper more than once and had to take numerous breaks. It was infuriating to have so much information at hand but no hint at what was fact versus fiction. The name 'Jane Foster' came up enough times in paperwork relating to Thor that Emily figured it couldn't hurt to take a peek at SHIELD's file on Jane out of sheer curiosity. Immediately she decided she liked the woman and her assistant, Darcy. Other than their connection to Thor the two girls didn't catch Emily's attention that much.

It was the heavily protected file titled War Criminal: Loki that taught her what Hell really was. Again, she had heard the name before and knew about the mythology, and once again trying to sift through it all was a fucking nightmare, but the details the file contained gave her goosebumps. She'd never been the type to judge anyone based off things they did in the past but he was slowly becoming one of the exceptions. The more she learned about him the more Tony's panic attacks made sense. And Emily started wondering if she truly wanted to know what her cousin had gone through or if knowing would give her nightmares too.

Luckily she didn't have too much time to worry about it since Tony demanded her assistance most of the day and she had started going with Pepper on all of her outings. On one such occasion Pepper surprised her by taking her clothes shopping for school. They picked up actual school supplies as well but that wasn't nearly as fun as trying on the lavish cloth; all of which fell around Emily's body in a way that made her feel anything but the country girl she was. Yet as much as she loved the clothing she didn't end up with much; it was fun to try on but she was most comfortable in her hand-me-downs.

In general Emily had settled in extremely well for having only been there for a month. Attending NYU was becoming the second best thing she'd ever done.

Hacking Jarvis being the first.

Emily loved spending time with her cousin and, in a manner of speaking, defacing government property but she was more than relieved when she woke up on September 3rd and prepared to attend her first day at NYU.

College itself wasn't a new experience for her. She had attended an in-state university for the first two years after high school under the impression she'd be the one to take over the farm. Her siblings liked the small town but taking care of all the animals wasn't their favorite thing to do, which meant that she was the most likely candidate. Besides, prestigious universities didn't appeal to her. They were too high-strung for her tastes and she didn't like the idea of having to constantly be on guard around classmates - a farmer's daughter at, say, Harvard, probably wouldn't be seen too well. Which meant attending NYU was extremely out-of-character for Emily; especially considering they didn't offer majors in Agriculture. It really was just a lucky break that she had already taken all the necessary classes pertaining to farming and could take the necessary business classes at NYU.

She'd set her alarm for an hour earlier than usual and when it sang its irritating chorus that morning, Emily jumped out from her sheets and shut it off in a hurry. Excitement filled every cell of her body and she immediately threw open the armoire and began pulling the new clothing Pepper had gotten her out in full view.

The novelty of new clothing soon wore off as time passed and she had yet to get dressed.

Appearances had never been a big worry of Emily's in the past. Usually she'd been too busy chanting 'don't forget your homework, don't forget your lunch' over and over in her mind to the point that there was no room in her thoughts for clothes. That and she'd attended smaller schools where nearly all the students wore hand-me-downs or equally low-key clothing. But not today.

Presently Emily was hyper-aware of the clothes she chose, the way she styled her hair, and even the way her freckles trailed like dust sprinkles across the bridge of her nose. Her mind was filled with frantic thoughts pertaining to the sort of person she wanted to present herself as and worries about the way her physical attributes would come across. But the thought that kept sneaking past the others every few minutes was why it mattered all of a sudden. What had changed to make her put so much effort into what she wore? On average she spent seconds deciding what to wear in the morning and relied on automatic reflexes when dealing with her mid-back length hair. True, she did care enough about her appearance to put on non-wrinkled clothes and run a brush through her hair but this was ridiculous.

'It should not take this fucking long to decide on clothes,' she hissed at herself. But when she turned away from the heap of new clothing and stormed over to her dresser to grab her favorite hand-me-downs she couldn't bring herself to tug them on as she normally did. 'I'll stand out like a fox in the hen-house… right?'

She glanced at the clothing pile.

"Pure idiocy!" She threw her hands up and fell onto her bed in defeat; burying her face into the soft duvet. "Knowledge is important, not society's ludicrous notions of women and the insecurities instilled upon them."

With her face buried in her sheets Emily sighed. Not once in her life had she ever worried about how she presented herself or what she looked like. It seemed so insignificant compared to watching the birth of her mare or the joy she felt when out in the field assisting her father. It had paled in comparison to spending holidays dressed in baggy pajamas and watching old movies while squished between her parents, siblings, and dogs. For her entire life she'd put happiness and family above appearance and material things. So why was she doubting herself all of a sudden?

The thoughts swirling in her head made her groan.

The room was depressingly quiet.

Emily flipped onto her back.

Her clock ticked.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes.

Silence.

When she opened them her gaze was met with the only picture that had been hung on her wall. One look at the sincere smile on Tony's face and the memory came flooding back.

Everyone was cheering and laughing and bouncing in place. Hats of all sorts were being thrown towards the sky while students screamed in sheer delight. They were happy the ceremony was finally over. Happy to see family and friends. Happy that they had made it to graduation. High school was over and they could move on to bigger and better things.

As people laughed, cried, and hugged one another, Emily said a final farewell to her best friend of twelve years - crying and promising to keep in touch - before searching for her own family. Maneuvering her way through the writhing mass of family, friends, and graduated students she couldn't help but smile: pleasantly surprised that a town so small could find a way to collect so many individuals for one of its biggest celebrations of the year.

"Emily!"

When she heard her name she made a final push and found herself outside the main group: directly before her family. Grinning ear to ear she ran to her parents and hugged them both at the same time, not caring that it was awkward and put unwanted pressure on her shoulder. They congratulated her and barely finished taking pictures before a familiar laugh echoed behind her. Twisting on her heel she screamed in excitement before throwing her arms about Tony's neck and practically cutting off his oxygen supply.

"I distinctly recall telling you that you'd make it," he laughed.

When she released him from her choke hold he wrapped his arm around her shoulder in support.

"You were the reason I almost didn't!"

"Holding onto the past is a terrible way to live."

She rolled her eyes in mock annoyance but her smile gave her away. "You blew up the science building!"

"That was a building?" He faked a look of shock. "Felt more like a closet."

"Compared to your house, maybe!"

He didn't get a chance to reply before her parents descended upon them with the camera. But the glimmer of mischief in his eyes was all she needed. As her parents took picture after picture the feeling of doubt settled into her stomach. All she could think of was how ill-prepared she felt to face the rest of her life. How inadequate she was compared to Tony. How clueless she was in regards to what she was doing. And she wondered just how big of an accomplishment graduating high school really was.

Tony squeezed her shoulder and she looked up at him.

"I'm proud of you, Emily."

Click.

Chirping from her second alarm, set as a back up, pulled her back to the present and she wiped the tear threatening to fall from the corner of her eye before standing up. Five small words from Tony had blown her uncertainties to dust back then and that was all she needed to remember who she was. She wasn't some rich college kid hoping to make an impression for no reason other than to make an impression. She wasn't Tony Stark either; fancy clothes and extravagant possessions didn't interest her. She was Emily Veras Stark: twenty year old farm girl from Wisconsin who's only concern at that moment was getting dressed and making it to school on time.

Faster than she thought possible, she threw a white t-shirt on, yanked her long sleeved plaid over-shirt over it, and pulled up her flared jeans. With a renewed self-confidence she strode into her bathroom to pull her hair into its familiar ponytail. Satisfied with her appearance she threw what she needed into her backpack - making sure to grab White Fang - before running to the kitchen to grab a pop tart; managing to finish it before she returned to her room to brush her teeth.

After practically jogging to the garage, she shoved her backpack into the passenger seat, started the engine, and headed for the streets. Happy that she had memorized her route to school before the first day of school. The entire ride was relatively peaceful and traffic surprised her by being almost nonexistent. But she didn't have much time to think about it: the sudden sight of NYU made Emily squeak in surprise and her heart leap into her throat.

"Should have taken the tour last month," she muttered to herself as she stepped out of the mercedes Tony had let her borrow.

Her uncertainty of her ability to locate her classes didn't stop her from striding through the doors of the main building. Just like Tony Stark's cousin should.

Once inside, though, she realized just how much she had overestimated herself and a familiar dizziness washed over her.

'Fuck…'

Finding her classes was truly a struggle and by the end of the day she considered it the biggest challenge so far. It was like the airport all over again; even in the sense that she had to ask more than a few complete strangers which way to go. 'You'd think someone with my IQ could work a map,' she'd complained to herself. But once she had found her classes and sat down they were more interesting than she could have ever imagined. When they were over she'd been filled with a sort of melancholy - not wanting to wait until the next class day to continue the lessons.

By the time she left to find the mercedes, her head was spinning and she couldn't figure out how six hours had passed by so quickly. It had only felt like ten minutes.

The sight of the mercedes made her realize it truly had been six hours.

'This is going to be better than I hoped,' she mused, sliding into the driver's seat.

In a stroke of luck Emily managed to avoid rush hour and pulled into the garage in record time. But after the engine had been switched off she couldn't quite bring herself to move; not until the car had cooled off and the eery silence brought her back to reality. Grabbing her backpack she walked inside.

'I'm never going to get accustomed to an animal-free house,' she pouted.

Back home it was rare for her to walk through the door and not be trampled by the small heard of dogs that belonged to her family. Seeker would always be at the head of the pack followed by the youngest dogs with her parents' older dogs making up the rear. They'd all have their tongues rolled out of their mouths and butts wagging; excited to see her no matter how long she'd been gone.

But at the Tower she was met with empty space.

She didn't even run into Pepper very often.

With her homesickness tugging at her stomach she sprinted to the kitchen to grab a quick snack on her way to her room. Emily had the urge to peek in and say hi to Tony but she had homework to start on and assignments to organize. So she suppressed the urge and trotted to her room.

Once in the center of her room she tossed her backpack down and stretched: preparing herself to dive right into what needed to be done.

As an afterthought she locked her door to keep Tony from distracting her before getting all the work for her classes organized on the largest whiteboard she'd ever seen; one Pepper had bought for her.

It didn't take long.

"There," she smirked; taking a step back to admire her handiwork.

The whiteboard was filled with dates, assignments, and a range of colors all coordinated by the class and due date. She couldn't help but stare at it. At her prior college all she'd had to organize her assignments in was a planner and it got too cluttered too quickly for her tastes. This way she could just erase things as they were done.

Finished, she considered going to help Tony but the excitement of the day - mixed with homesickness - hadn't worn off quite yet so she started in on her homework. Hoping to stay one step ahead. God only knew how many times Tony would keep her from classes by pulling some stupid stunt.

The only time she left her room was to steal food from the kitchen.

Author's Note:

I'm not overly fond of this chapter but it's a necessary evil. Mainly because I am tired of rewriting it.