Author's note: I love this chapter. I just hope I got Tony right. Read and review, please!
Just a week later, there I was; climbing out of a limo in front of the Stark tower. Tony had really taken to my suggestion to build Jarvis a body, and he had gotten special permission from Fury to fly me down here. Technically, we could have just landed a helicopter on the roof and gotten it over with, but I think he wanted to impress with the limo. It worked. As I got out, I eyed the giant sign on the top of the tower. Instead of "Stark", it now only said "A", damage left over from the NY fiasco. I wondered why Tony didn't just fix it. There was probably some sort of motive behind it; Tony never did anything just because.
"Here it is, home sweet home." He greeted me at the door.
"This is…"
"Astounding? Impressive? A wonderful example of my pure ingenuity?"
"Big." He snorted.
"Yeah, I'll give you that. C'mon, I'll show you to the lab." We walked into the lobby, and stepped into one of the elevators. "Jarvis? Lab, please."
"Yes, sir." Jarvis replied. And we began to travel downward. When we finally got out, I stepped into a fully-stocked mechanical laboratory, complete with… well, everything! I was greeted by a… well, it looked to be a mechanical arm on wheels.
"Um…" I wasn't quite sure what to do with the thing.
"Leave her alone, Butterfingers. I guarantee you she won't want your help." The arm lowered dejectedly. "That's Butterfingers. He's a worthless piece of machinery I engineered one day when I was bored. Don't let him help; Butterfingers can't do jack."
"Aww. Poor thing." I stroked the arm around the joint, and it lifted up, looking happier. I smiled.
"Alright, let's get to work, shall we?" Tony said, swaggering to the middle of the room.
"I thank you both for doing this for me." Jarvis said. "I am greatly looking forward to the outcome."
"Ah, no prob, Jarvis. Now then, I was thinking something like this." He pulled up a hologram out of thin air.
"Tony?" I said.
"Yeah?"
"That's a Transformer."
"So? Transformers are cool."
"I doubt Jarvis will want to walk around looking like frickin' Optimus Prime!"
"Are you blind? That's Bumblebee!" I studied the image. They all looked the same, to me.
"How about we ask Jarvis what he wants to look like. Jarvis?"
"I don't know, ma'am. I do not have much experience in matters like these."
"I wouldn't expect you to. Let's start simple, huh? Male or female?"
"Er, male, please." Tony was taking the notes down in his computer.
"Alright. Hair?"
"Black, if it's not too much trouble."
"Aww, does someone wanna look like me?" I smiled. "Okay, what about eye color?"
"Blue."
"Skin?"
"Slightly tanned, please."
"Build?"
"Perhaps around five feet eleven inches? And I would like to have… well, abs, ma'am." I raised one eyebrow.
"Jarvis, are you just trying to build the perfect Adonis here?"
"How often does one get the chance to design themselves?"
"Huh. Can't argue with you there." I looked over at the hologram Tony had been tweaking.
"How 'bout that?" He said, gesturing to the model.
"Oh dear god." I said.
"What?"
"I think I may die of a nosebleed."
"Somebody reads too much manga."
"Screw you, Tony."
"Uh-uh, that's for Pepper to do. Now let's get to work, shall we?" He ignored my strangled squeaking at that last remark, and went straight to work designing Jarvis's inner workings using the hologram. He swept his arms out, and it grew until it was life-size. He showed me how to work the system, and we got to work.
"So." I said as we circled around the hologram, trying to figure out the joint system. "Why the good mood?"
"Whaddyou mean why the good mood, I'm always in a good mood."
"Are you kidding me? Just a month or so ago you were in the foulest mood I've seen since pa decided to have a drinking contest with an Irishman." He snorted. "So, what gives?"
"Nothing. Nothing gives. I'm fine." I raised an eyebrow. "Fine. Fine! I can't resist that face, dammit!" He stepped over and pinched my cheek, to which the collar promptly started buzzing.
"Watch the hands, Tony."
"Got it." He moved over to the back of the model and started prodding at the spinal cord. He sighed. "Me and Pepper were having some problems, okay?"
"Pepper and I."
"What?"
"If you want to sound intelligent, then it's Pepper and I, not me and Pepper."
"Grammar Nazi." I snickered. "Do you want to hear the story or not?"
"Yeah, yeah. Continue."
"She was on me about the whole alcohol thing. She wanted me to quit cold turkey; I said no can-do. Eventually she said it was her or the booze."
"And what'd you choose?" He smirked.
"I'm eight days sober."
"Oh, good for you!" I said sarcastically.
"Hey, it's a start, alright?" All joking aside, I could tell he was trying hard. I'd never point it out to the guy, but I'd noticed his shaky hands, and the circles under his eyes from staying up late, trying to convince himself he could get to bed without a little sedative.
"Why'd she pick now to get on your back about it?" He scratched the back of his head.
"Something about how she didn't want her kids to have an alcoholic father?"
"But you're not even married."
"I know; women."
"Tell me about it." He raised his eyebrows at that last remark.
"I can't figure you out, Neverland."
"Neverland?" I questioned.
"Yeah; Wendy, Neverland. It's my nickname for you. You like it?"
"No, no I don't. Why can't Pete be Neverland?"
"No, Pete's Spidey, short and simple." I sighed.
"What did you mean, you can't figure me out?"
"I mean, do you like guys or girls?"
"Both." I answered without thinking. "Wait… how did you notice?"
"I installed Jarvis aboard the helicarrier, right?" I nodded. "Jarvis sees all, and hears all. And, more importantly, reports all back to me." My eyes widened.
"Tony, you didn't." He smirked. He did that a lot.
"The spy and the stray. And, not five minutes after, you get busy shagging the good doctor. I gotta say, I'm impressed."
"It's over with Natasha, now. I hope you know that."
"Take a lesson from me, kid; don't do flings. Long-term or nothing. Someone always ends up getting hurt."
"Wise advice, from the playboy philanthropist."
"You left out genius and billionaire."
"I was emphasizing a point, Einstein."
"See? Even you admit it; genius." He walked around making adjustments to the feet.
"What're you doing?" I asked.
"Making them stronger."
"You're not making them stronger, just bigger. Here." I leaned down and emphasized the curve in the skeletal structure of the model's feet. "An arch is-"
"One of the strongest shapes in architecture, I know."
"I didn't go to four years of engineering school for nothing."
"Hey, kids." We heard Pepper from the elevator. She walked in with a tray of snacks.
"Pepper, what're you doing here?"
"Jarvis pointed out that it's four hours past lunch, and you two were probably so wrapped up in your work you forgot about eating."
"Jarvis?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Get out of my head."
"Yes, sir." Pepper set the tray down.
"Ooh, whaddyou got for me, babe?" Pepper folded her arms in front of her chest.
"Okay, first of all, I expect you to share with Wendy. She's been working just as hard as you have. And second, it's not like I just thought "oh, Tony's probably hungry I'll make him a gourmet five-course meal". You get ham sandwiches and iced tea." I grinned.
"Thanks, Potts."
"Call me Pepper." She smiled back. She stepped over to the model. "So this is what you were working on." She said. "Fine piece of work…" I looked over as I was biting into my sandwich, and saw her scanning the model up and down with covetous eyes.
"I know, right? I nearly died of a nosebleed when I first saw the thing."
"Manga fan?"
"Yup. You?"
"Oh, definitely. What do you read?"
"Hellsing, Death note, Bleach, stuff like that." I stepped over closer to her. "Keep a secret?" She nodded. "I'm a Fruits Basket nut."
"Me too! Have you read the last book yet?"
"Excuse me?" Tony said, mouth still full of sandwich. "Can you stop fangirling with my lab partner so we can get to work?"
"Chew and swallow, Tony, then talk."
"You understood me, didn't you?"
"Yes, but it's disgusting, and it's bad manners."
"Bad manners? Pepper, have you met me? I'm the king of polite… ness."
"Sentence got away from you, huh?"
"Yeah, yeah it did."
Pepper turned back to me. "I didn't think you would be into this kind of thing, Wendy. I always thought you were more of a weaponry kind of girl."
"Yeah, well, I went to college for engineering, so I know a few tricks."
"That's another thing." Tony said. "If you went to college for engineering, how'd you end up a mercenary?"
"Well, when I was a kid I loved building stuff, right? I used to nick tinkertoys off the neighbors and build castles and pulleys and stuff like that. But I also loved firearms, since I was little. I went to college for engineering, yeah, but one day a friend of mine, who was a mercenary at the time, invited me out to see how she operated. I was hooked."
"Aw, cute story." Tony said.
"Yeah; cute's the word."
"What are you making the skeleton out of?" We turned to see Pepper standing in front of the model, eyeing it critically.
"Steel, what else?" Tony said.
"Too heavy." She dismissed the idea as soon as it came up. "What about fiberglass?"
"Fiberglass?" Tony said, looking offended. "It's cheap! It's tacky, it's-"
"It's durable, lightweight, and relatively flexible. A good approximation for honest-to-goodness bone, don't you think?"
"But Pepper! I'm Tony Stark, I can afford better than fiberglass!"
"So what you're saying is you'd rather have his skeleton made of diamond so you can show off how rich you are?" He pouted.
"I hate you."
"You love me."
"I hate you."
"You love me." She leaned in close and whispered it into his ear, hands on his chest.
"Dammit, I do." He said. I saw Butterfingers in the corner turn away from the display, and chuckled.
"Hey, not in front of the kid, huh?" I said jokingly. That's when we heard an electronic noise come from Pepper's pocket. She pulled out a phone and checked the screen.
"Oh, great. I gotta go, guys."
"What's going on?" Tony asked.
"It's Stevenson again."
"Again? What does he want this time?"
"If I know Stevenson, your head on a silver platter. But don't worry, I'll take care of it. Bye, hun."
"Bye, Peps." She stepped into the elevator.
"Who's Stevenson?" I asked.
"A company as big as StarkTech tends to gobble up a lot of small businesses along the way. He's just one of the unfortunate ones."
"Don't you ever feel guilty? The whole one percent thing and all that?"
"Nah. The way I see it, you're either smart, or you're poor." I looked at him sideways.
"That's a really shitty thing to say, you know that, Tony?"
"Yeah, I know. What can I say, though? It's worked out so far." We worked on the model for a long time, tweaking this and that, fine-tuning systems.
"That's beautiful." I said, when we finally stepped back to admire our work.
"Beautiful," he said. "And theoretical. Just wait 'til we put it to the test; about seventy percent of these systems are gonna go kaput, and twenty percent are gonna go boom. Trust me, this'll take years to perfect."
"It'll be worth it, though. Right, Jarvis?"
"Yes, ma'am. You have no idea how grateful I am."
"You happy with the final product?"
"I couldn't be more so." I could hear the beaming in his voice.
"Well," Tony said, checking his watch. "It's eight at night. We might want to get you home." I pet Butterfingers again before stepping into the elevator with Tony. "So; how's the therapist going?" He said as we were riding up to the helicopter pad. I turned to him.
"You ask a lot of personal questions." I remarked.
"Hey, I'm paying for the guy, I at least want to know you're getting my money's worth."
"Dr. Donovan is a woman, thank you. And she's going fine." Since the whole vault thing, Fury had decided I needed a little… attitude adjustment. He'd insisted I start seeing a therapist, and Tony, for whatever reason, had decided to pay for it. It actually was going well. At first, I hadn't wanted to say a thing to her; we just sat there talking about stupid stuff like the weather, and what I had for breakfast. But eventually we started getting into the bigger issues. Marie, my mom, my life in S.H.I.E.L.D. I was actually starting to feel... gee, is there any other word for it? Better. Soon, Tony and I found ourselves up on the helicopter pad.
"Well, this is your stop." I walked up to the helicopter and climbed inside.
"Hey," I said. "Thanks for letting me help."
"Hey, it was your idea. But if anyone asks, I'm taking credit." I smiled.
"Jerk."
"I know. Fare thee well, and all that jazz." He waved me off as the door to the chopper closed, and I started on my way back to the helicarrier. Beneath all that bluster, Tony was actually a really nice guy. I'd have to remember that the next time I needed some extra cash.
Author's note: Yes, the grammar Nazi bug has been passed on! Yes, that is totally self-referential comedy, but it was too juicy to pass up. I'm not done with it, either. *Evil laugh*