Note: This story is a gift for my lovely friend Llowyn_Maelai on the occasion of her birthday! It's going to have a couple of short chapters, and is set mostly in the time after Captain America: Winter Soldier.
2012
The helicarrier is spectacular technology, Tony has to admit. The lab is windowless and comforting, and he settles in and forgets where he is until his stomach starts growling. He's told there's a small cafeteria on one of the lower levels, and directed to take the elevator in the middle of the complex to get there.
The elevator.
That just feels wrong, somehow, like there's a fundamental rule of nature that says if you're in a sky vehicle that's sometimes a boat, you're limited to stairs and ladders, or else.
"Have I finally reached an advancement I'm too curmudgeon to appreciate?" he asks himself aloud as he pushes the button for his floor.
"Hmm?" a female voice replies.
He'd been so focused on his gripe that he hadn't even seen her, but the whole car is black, and so are SHIELD's uniforms. "Technically, an elevator here makes sense," Tony says without turning around. "Who holds the railing on every stairwell? But if the carrier goes sideways, so do you. You never saw Trek characters get hurt in elevators, just the bridge stairs." He's rambling, but JARVIS's snooping won't be done for hours, and Doctor Banner is still talking to Fury. A snack will help his restlessness and his rambling. "It won't matter anyway. I definitely count as a major character, so if something goes wrong I'll be on the bridge, falling on those stairs."
"There are stairs between decks, too," the woman behind him says quietly.
"Well now you've done it! If I use those and end up falling? Your fault." He's smiling, but she probably can't tell, and his dignity won't let him turn around to see if she's smiling, either.
The doors open, and Tony gives himself permission to look at his captive audience. She's SHIELD, all right, with her dirty blonde hair up in a smart ponytail and a tablet computer clutched to her chest.
"Ladies first?" he offers. She'd have to push past him to get out.
Instead of being offended, the woman just shakes her head. "It's not my floor."
Tony rewards her with his most charming smile. "Fair enough." He slides a confident hand into his pocket and starts walking, knowing the tug of fabric makes the rear view enjoyable. Sure enough, she calls out his last name.
He spins around smoothly and lifts his eyebrows. Her crooked half smile reminds him of the actress who played Anne Boleyn.
"Don't worry about the bridge."
He decides to mirror her first sound to him. "Hmm?"
"If you fall, I'll catch you," she says with a twinkle in her eye. It's cheeky, challenging, and he's instantly interested in her name at the very least, but the door closes, leaving Tony standing there staring.
88888888
2013
"Care to explain this?"
Tony's two weeks post surgery. Pepper's three weeks post-Extremis. They're both four weeks post Killian, and things aren't going very smoothly. Tony walks over to look at the tablet Pepper is holding up, steeling himself for the fight that her expression hints at. The picture on the tablet is of his remaining two Iron Man suits guarding the destroyed wreck of his house as the clean-up crew works. He looks from the picture to his girlfriend.
"What do you want me to say?"
Her face creases into a joyless smile. "Did you know that I've been contacted multiple times by those workers to thank them for stationing those things at the site?" Pepper's tone implies this is a bad thing.
Tony suppresses a sigh. He's tired. "Yeah, the place was attacked by terrorists in helicopters. Regular police would be useless, and the government doesn't condone hiring a private army with anti-aircraft capabilities."
"You said you destroyed them, Tony!" She scoffs and starts for the door like that's some kind of last word. Tony stuffs his hands in his pockets and accepts the thing he'd been trying to avoid.
"I never said that. The clean slate protocol was always set up to destroy all but two of my suits, including schematics," he says, touching the healing place on his chest that feels more than a little empty. "They're gone. But you're not the only person I am obligated to protect, and if I have to choose between your disappointment and fighting the next global threat, you bet your ass I'm sending you flowers and a card that says 'sorry you came second to the fate of humanity!'"
I should have known," Pepper says, head down, hand on the doorknob. "It's never enough."
"I'm sorry my recklessness put you in danger, Pepper, I am. I'm not sorry that I learn from my mistakes these days. Maybe I took my anger out on Fury for his misuse of the Tesseract, but someone's got to crawl up into the driver's seat and steer us away from the cliff. It's not enough to hope the airbags work."
Pepper turns around. She's a good person, and he really does love her. "Tony, what does that even mean?"
"It means I'm finished reacting to the bad things, Pepper. I need to try to stop them from happening in the first place." Tony walks over and sets a hand on either of her shoulders. "That's why I'm breaking up with you. You deserve better than the shit that's coming."
88888888
2014
Tony won't pretend he's not pleased that a percentage of former SHIELD agents have chosen Stark Industries as their new employer. It's just that there's a very real chance that one or two of his new employees are secretly members of a decades' old secret fascist organization. Maria Hill isn't one of them, of course, and her personnel knowledge has helped ease his concerns about some of the higher-ups they've hired. The grunts are anybody's guess.
Most of them have settled in by early March, so Tony's afternoons spent wandering the tower watching Happy Hogan playing the part of a tin-pot dictator and riling everyone up are almost over. Hogan's means of recovery is heartwarming, really. Makes the newbies earn their keep, weeds out the weak-willed ones, and most importantly, it has healed some of Happy's emotional wounds. Tony had let his own emotional wounds fester, instead focusing on the physical after working out an arrangement with his CEO. He can be the genius in the lab while she's the philanthropist in the boardroom, both on behalf of the company, out of each other's way. He's not ready to resume being a playboy, but at least the billionaire part isn't in jeopardy.
Today, Tony's lurking in an alcove near the lobby thinking about finding himself some lunch when a woman bundled up for the biting cold heads for the minimal door checkpoint. She's pushing a tarp-covered, double decker plastic meal trolley in front of her. Happy's nowhere to be seen. That's a shame, because as Tony watches, she pulls the tarpaulin away to reveal multiple potted plants.
He wouldn't have guessed that.
Security seems to recognize her, even with her shape obscured by a bulky coat and her eyes the only feature visible above her scarf. She converses with them for a short time and then starts for the elevator bank against Tony's wall.
With the blizzard going on outside, he's one of the only other people in the lobby, and Tony's not the inconspicuous type. There's no way he's going to miss this elevator ride, though.
"JARVIS, delay that elevator for a minute to give me time to board," he says, speaking into his new specially designed watch.
"Ahh yes. Why couldn't I have predicted you'd develop a sudden interest in gardening in the middle of a snowstorm?"
The doors open when Tony reaches them, and he's greeted by a trolley full of houseplants and an object flying directly at his face. Instinctively, he jumps inside and uses voice commands to lock down the elevator. A few seconds later, he's got the impulsor gauntlet pulled out of its watch housing and pointed at the elevator's other occupant.
…who is staring at him, stunned, the end of a long scarf held in her hand.
He drops his hand, tipping his head to the side. The woman is vaguely familiar, with cloud-gray eyes and light colored hair mussed by her hood. Nothing about her is threatening.
"You're smoking," she says, an attractive lilt to her voice.
Tony admires her recovery. He's wearing one of his favorite suits, and working out has a way of shaking loose his regrets and flushing them out as he sweats, so it's not even a stretch, as compliments go. The palms of both hands heat up as he realizes this is a spark of attraction, something he hadn't expected to feel for a while yet.
"I mean, you're literally smoking," the woman says, nodding down at his right hand.
He hisses and releases the emergency catch for the watch-gauntlet, and it falls to the floor of the elevator, sizzling.
"New tech, haven't worked out all the kinks yet," he says ruefully. His hand is all right, albeit warm, with a few singed arm hairs that tang the air with a sour smell. "Consider yourself part of Quality Assurance."
There's a brief flash of surprise that crosses her face before she laughs. "Swapping jobs so quickly might look bad on my resume, don't you think?"
"I'm sure exceptions can be made, letters of recommendation, and the like." Tony reaches out and pats the wall. "Resume normal operations, JARVIS."
"Normal operations will now resume."
"Oh, nice. I've tried to talk to him a couple of times in here, but he always ignored me," the woman says, folding up her scarf and tucking it between two of the plants.
"My protocols require that I avoid engaging in conversation that could encourage employees to spend more time in the elevators, Miss Hathaway. I apologize for any unintended slight."
Her pleased grin is reserved but luminous.
"J, this thing isn't exposing us to any toxic fumes, is it?" Tony asks, crouching down to poke at his failed experiment, testing whether it has cooled off enough to pick up. It has not.
"No fumes, sir."
"Good." Sticking his fingertip in his mouth, he stands back up, sliding the device to the side of the elevator with his foot. "Are the plants for an experiment up top?" he questions, referring to the colloquial term for the cluster of floors dedicated to lab work.
"No, they're a goodwill gesture, for the most part." She lifts her eyes to the floor indicator light, and Tony glances up, too. They're past HR and finance, getting into the programming and QA floors, so maybe his joke wasn't that far off.
"And the part that isn't goodwill?"
Before she can answer, the elevator dings, and the doors open. Tony sticks out a hand to hold the doors but doesn't step out of the way. Since JARVIS referred to her by name, he'll be able to look up her file, but he still wants to know the answer to his question.
"Surveillance cameras, of course," she says pleasantly, starting toward him with the cart. Stunned by her audacity, Tony moves to the side by sheer force of habit. Nearly all of the former SHIELD agents they've hired have sought to distance themselves from the possibility of HYDRA contamination, and here this woman is, joking about it. He likes her.
"We scan the whole tower for those regularly, you know," he tells her.
"I'm counting on it." The woman is right beside him when she speaks, gray eyes mischievous as she looks up at him. She's so close that some of her scarf-staticked hair clings to his suit jacket for a few seconds. Then she's gone, nonchalant and businesslike. It's only when Tony steps back into the elevator and stands nonplussed for a full minute that he finally understands the sudden feeling of déjà vu.
"Penthouse," he says, adding, "Was Agent Hathaway stationed on the helicarrier in 2012 when I was aboard?"
"Well spotted, sir. She was injured when Agent Barton and the assault team attacked the carrier. Last year she managed to avoid the Triskelion battle, as she was on annual leave visiting family."
Tony steps out of the elevator into the penthouse and frowns. If she wasn't in the building, she didn't have to pick a side that day. He makes a note to ask Hill whether there was some kind of purity test given to any of the agents who were off-duty during that battle. His initial spark of attraction is still there, but it's tempered by realism, now: if a complete stranger wanted to catch his attention, their interactions so far would be a reliable way to do that.
A challenging thought comes to him. What if she is a HYDRA agent? Could he use that to his advantage, suss out the scattered remains of the organization?
It might be fun to find out.
88888888
Tony lets the file JARVIS put together about Agent Hathaway sit for a full day before he lets himself look at it. Ideally, that should help him avoid confirmation bias, but once he does get a chance to look, everything seems aggressively non-suspicious.
On paper, the most interesting thing about Alixys (Alix) George Hathaway is her unusual name. She got decent grades in school, graduated in the solid middle of her college class while working a job to make ends meet, and applied to SHIELD on the basis of a senior internship. Tony almost laughs at the generic language used in various places in her file, such as the job description stating she was involved in 'basic oversight of vital software functions.' Stark Industries hired her as a software engineer in Quality Assurance (which explains her startled reaction when he joked about it), but from what little concrete information he can see, she'd been more involved in systems management for the helicarrier. A mission-critical kind of job, really.
He sits back in his chair and frowns. Is there actual cause for concern, or is he just bored and thinks she's cute?
"Wipe it all off my machine, J. If I want to chase wild geese I'll drink vodka," Tony decides aloud.
It's too soon anyway.