A/N: Hello! Sorry for the long break between chapters. I was dealing with midterms, went to a few concerts and then more exams popped up. Finals are now over and hopefully I'll have time to update more. I do have a surgery scheduled this week so we'll see if I can edit my chapters while I'm in recovery but if not, sorry in advance. This chapter has a bit more action than any of the past ones and it'll contribute to Al and Tony's relationship greatly.

TRIGGER WARNING: There are mentions of an EATING DISORDER in this chapter. No, Alessandra does not have one but Tony is making a logical assumption based on what he's seen. It is only mentioned briefly. Nothing specific.

Check out the previous few chapters for the disclaimer.

Chapter 9

January 5, 2010

Tony would never admit this to anyone but deciding to let Al into his life was one of the best decisions he had ever made.

After introducing her to his lab and J.A.R.V.I.S. they spent nearly all of their time together. He went to Java during her shifts and drank Amanda's god awful coffee creations, stayed at her place marathoning sitcoms almost every other night, and made a standing Tuesday food date with her. Every week they would switch off picking a new restaurant to try. It could be anything from a hot dog stand at the pier to a five-star gourmet restaurant in the heart of Beverly Hills. On those occasions (whenever they went in public, really) they wore disguises. Al came up with the idea for disguises after the Grocery Store Incident as she liked to call it. If they were honest, it became more of a game than anything. Dodge the paparazzi and see who can come up with the craziest costume. In his whole life he never thought he'd spend that much money on wigs, glasses, scarves, hats, and Tommy Bahama tourist t-shirts.

The Tuesday Date was Tony's idea. He was always an observant man—not that it was public knowledge—and he had noticed Al's eating habits almost immediately. She never ate. It was subtle on her part and when he brought it up she would shrug and make an excuse. He may have been drunk that Halloween night (Gwen Stefani always came up when he was drunk) but not clueless. She had mostly shuffled the food around on her plate before taking a few bites and sucking down a glass of water. At first he figured it wasn't his problem. He's been surrounded by models and socialites often enough to notice the signs of an eating disorder and in the beginning, it didn't matter. Al was just some girl he couldn't quite figure out, one that didn't bore him to tears after ten minutes.

But after the Suitcase was built, things changed. She was valuable to him. Her ideas had helped him solve a problem he was too smart to come up with himself (yes, too smart!) and she kept him entertained. Really, it was the best of both worlds.

So, he decided to let himself care about Al's problem. He began taking her to exotic restaurants and diners hoping that she would start eating more or that she would tell him what her problem was. Tony would never bring it up himself; that was crossing the line of concern he had set himself years ago. He may care about his friends, but he would never be overt about it. He had a reputation to maintain, thank you very much.

But she never did tell him what her problem was. Instead, she began eating more and even contributed to the exotic food finds. (Don't get him started on that Honduran food she made him try…he loved it.) Al was putting on more weight and her skin color was no longer pale and ashen. Tony thought he deserved a humanitarian award for that.

Okay, so maybe she was less fortunate—almost everyone was compared to him—but he really did feel good about helping. She treated him like any other guy and while in the beginning that may have bothered him, he wouldn't change it for the world. Al became one of the few constants in his life and that was worth all of the disguises he had to wear when they hung out.

Pepper had returned from China the day after Al stayed over and he wasn't the least bit surprised to see her holding a tabloid with his face on the cover. It was a horrible unflattering photo of him wearing Al's baseball cap and holding up a can of pasta sauce in the middle of the grocery store checkout line. The back of Al's head was just visible behind him but thankfully nobody mentioned her in the article. Pepper was curious though. The great Tony Stark going grocery shopping on his own! What a shock.

The conversation went a little something like this:

"Where is all the food?" Pepper pointed to the tabloid as she rummaged through the refrigerator.

"What food?"

"The food in that photo. It looks like you bought half the store! Did you already eat it all?"

Tony's face remained impassive as he answered her. "I gave it away. Except for the Nutter Butters, those I kept. They were good, too."

At this point Pepper was just confused. It wasn't normal for Tony to just give food away to people unless they were his leftovers he couldn't be bothered to throw away.

"You willingly went to the grocery store, bought as much food as you could, and then you gave it away."

"Not the Nutter Butters." He interjected.

"…and then you gave all of it away except for the Nutter Butters. Did I get that right?"

Tony thought it over for a second before responding. "Yeah."

After that Pepper had just stared at him for a few seconds, nodded her head, and walked away. He could tell she was confused but it definitely wasn't the weirdest thing he had ever done so she dropped it.

Al thought the photo of him was hilarious and insisted on keeping it. Something about seeing him "ruffled and confused" was hilarious. As you can image, he didn't appreciate that very much, so for the next week he had walked around with his camera ready to take an awful photo of Al in return. Unfortunately for her he managed to get a photo of her mid-sneeze, her eyes scrunched up, mouth open, and her shoulders braced.

It was the new background on his phone.

He was broken out of his thoughts by an alarm blaring through the lab and a hologram screen appearing in front of him.

"Sir, it seems that more Stark Weapons have been seen long the coast of Africa, moving towards Israel." J.A.R.V.I.S. informed him.

Tony cursed under his breath, "Get the suit ready for flight, J, we're going sightseeing."

Al had just worked a six hour shift at Java and was relaxing on the couch, hoping to get her energy back.

Before her move to Malibu, or meeting Tony, she couldn't have handled so much physical exertion. Now she was working full days, spending nights with Tony or Amanda and eating full meals. It was more than she could have ever hoped for because as much as she liked to pretend to be normal, she was dying. She was slowly withering away as the cancer spread through her lymphatic system and there was nothing she could do about it. Chemo wouldn't help and even if she wanted to live longer, the pain was not something she ever wanted to go through, not after the first time.

So, Al was reveling in the small miracle she had been given the day she snuck up on Tony Stark. He had made her feel more alive in their short friendship than anyone in her entire life (not that the list was particularly long). They spent every Tuesday afternoon together wearing their ridiculous disguises and raving about her favorite thing in the world: food. She may not have been able to stomach much of it when she was younger but she had always been something of a foodie. Much to her surprise, Tony was as passionate about food as she was. But of course he would be! He probably grew up with a five-star chef cooking all of his meals and eating at the most fabulous restaurants around the world.

What really surprised her was how many run down diners and fast food restaurants he frequented. Every Tuesday they would switch off in deciding where to spend the afternoon and more often than not, Tony would choose a small shack or truck with a sign in the window claiming to have the best something-or-other on the west coast. More often than not the signs were horribly misleading but there were a rare few that got it right. Those visits were when Al had the most fun because despite Tony being insufferable when he is right about something, it usually meant that she would be laughing the entire time.

Although they had been friends for a few months, it still surprised Alessandra how well they got along. From their very first meeting it was almost as if something had clicked and Tony had become the best friend she had ever known. There was a pretty big age gap (he was old enough to be her father!) and he was a genius billionaire so she was completely on board with Tony's unspoken decision to keep their friendship on a need to know basis. People were inherently nosy and that always led to misunderstandings so they would just avoid the media frenzy for as long as possible.

Despite their easygoing friendship, Alessandra wasn't delusional. She knew that someone like Tony Stark would move on from her eventually, most likely with no notice whatsoever. It was inevitable. She was some random teenage girl who had the decency to hold his fake hair while he puke on some dude's front lawn. That does not sound like something that would have a fairytale ending. Besides, even if Tony decided she wasn't completely worthless, she would be leaving him soon enough. For now, she would take whatever hand of friendship he was extending towards her and when the inevitable fallout came to pass, she would suck it up and move on as well. The horrible ending would be worth it when all was said and done…at least that's what she planned on telling herself.

The beeping of her phone (a new Starkphone Tony insisted on getting her for Christmas because her old pre-paid was horrifyingly old enough to have been used by Alexander Graham Bell and no friend of mine should ever use anything other than the latest Stark tech) broke her out of her thoughts. The screen was nearly translucent as the text message popped up.

T: Heading to Egypt so I'll be late today. Want me to bring you back a mummy?

A: Only if it comes with a Canopic Jar.

T: Done.

Alessandra chuckled to herself before deciding to take a nap. It would probably be a while before Tony returned from whatever it is he's doing in Egypt of all places, so she had time.

Before she knew it, hours had passed and her phone was ringing once again.

Running a hand down her face and using the other to grab her phone from the bedside table, she answered it in a rough voice, "Did you get my mummy?"

"You sound tired, pipsqueak, have a nice nap?" Tony's voice was slightly distorted but the amusement rang through loud and clear.

"Yupp. How was Egypt?" She turned on the speaker and tossed the phone onto her bed knowing he would be able to hear her as she headed to the closet.

"Dry."

"Like your sense of humor." She replied almost immediately.

"You know me so well." He deadpanned. "Anyway, I'm somewhere over the Atlantic so I'll be back in about an hour."

"Cool. That gives me time to go to the bank."

Alessandra finished brushing the knots out of her hair and stood back to look at herself in the mirror. She was wearing a black wig that only hit the top of her shoulders with a bright read headband. Her look was complete with one of Amanda's old Halloween costumes; a light blue Lindy bop dress and red belt to match her headband. She thought she looked like a Grease reject but the overall outfit served its purpose nicely.

"Well, keep me on the phone. Tetris gets boring after a few hours of flying."

She shook her head, "Should you be playing arcade games while piloting a vehicle, Tony?"

"That's what J.A.R.V.I.S. is for, Al, keep up." His tone was mocking but she knew he was only joking.

She held her phone in one hand and her bag in the other as she locked up the apartment and made her way to the station wagon.

"Is that the Beast I hear?" He always referred to her car as a Beast and considering its condition she couldn't really blame him, although she'd never admit that out loud.

"Hey, this car has been good to me okay? Don't diss my ride."

"It's a behemoth, Al, a death trap. Come on, if you won't let me buy you a new car, at least let me have a look under the hood."

They had had this argument several times since Tony first set eyes on the Wagon but Al was a stubborn as ever. She could take care of her own car, thank you, and she would be damned if she let Tony spend all that money on her. Besides, buying her groceries and taking her on their Tuesday Dates was more than enough.

They argued the entire way to the bank and even as Al was waiting in line to deposit her latest pay check.

Just as the man in front of her was leaving the teller and Tony was rattling off the list of cars he could buy her, a series of loud bangs echoed through the room and shattering glass fell to the floor. Before she could register any of what was happening, women were screaming and she had been shoved to the ground by the man behind her.

"Listen up! We only want the money, so shut up, do what we say and this will all be over soon."

Peering through the black strands of her wig, Al spied a group of men standing near the entrance of the bank, all holding some sort of weapon. They were wearing plain white masks and all black outfits. In any other circumstance, she would be laughing about how cliché these bank robbers were but the sight of the gun erased those thoughts completely. She was terrified. Nothing this dangerous had ever happened to her (given that she had been traveling the country alone for months before Malibu, there were plenty of opportunities) and she was positive something bad was going to happen.

Her life was never terrible but just as Murphy's Law dictates, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. I mean, what were the odds of a fourteen year old girl getting cancer, overcoming that illness, and then getting it again only for her grandmother to die that same day? Alessandra knew she had the worst luck in the world and honestly, she figured something like this was bound to happen. Everything had been going too well lately and Malibu seemed more like heaven with every day that passed. Only now, she'd be too dead to appreciate it. She was smack dab in the middle of an armed robbery and she just knew that with her luck, she'd be the one to go.

The sound of glass cracking under feet reached her as she followed the gunmen with her eyes. Three men were headed for the counter and another stood watch only a few feet away from where Alessandra was sprawled out on the floor. The floor itself was freezing cold except for one spot near her knee. Shifting slightly to see what she was lying on, she froze when she realized that it was her cell phone. The cell phone she had been using when he shots rang out. The phone that had a superhero's number programmed into it!

Al carefully kept her eyes on the nearest gunman as she slowly reached for the StarkPhone. She glanced at the screen the moment the robber turned his back to her and she saw four missed calls from Tony. Honestly, she was a bit surprised that the phone survived the drop at all but seeing as it was Tony's design she could probably guess that it was fire and waterproof as well. When it lit up again with an incoming call from T, she didn't have enough time to answer it before she was being dragged to her feet by her hair.

Letting out a small scream, she tried to pry the hand from her wig but that only served to get her a slap across the face.

"What did I say about following orders?" He barked harshly. The man released her and turned her phone around in his hands, examining it. "This is one of those fancy hologram phones. What are you doing with it, sweetheart?"

She didn't answer him as tears streamed down her face and a gun was pointed at her chest.

The buzzing of her phone turned his attention to the screen.

"Is this who you were trying to call? Maybe say your last goodbyes?" Without another word, he answered the call and put the phone on speaker.

Immediately the worried voice rang out loud and clear, "Were those gun shots? What happened?"

"That would be my fault. Don't worry, your girl's fine, just wanted to say goodbye." The gunman's voice was filled with sarcasm as he spoke.

This time Tony's voice came out harsh. "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm the man who told your girl to shut up and do as I say, only she must have thought I was joking." His eyes found hers as he redirected his comments. "Did you think I was joking?"

Alessandra took a second to breathe before shouting, "Tony, there are four-!" Her warning was cut off by her groan as she was hit over the head.

"That's enough of that." The gunman hung up the phone and pushed Al to her knees. "You should really listen to the guy with the gun."

The sound of pounding footsteps echoed around the space as the three other men ran towards their leader.

"We got the cash, boss, let's go."

Their leader was still focused on Al as he replied. "Sure, I just have some business to take care of first."

At that, he cocked the gun and placed it against Alessandra's temple.

A/N: There you go, folks. It's not the longest chapter ever but it'll have to suffice. Sorry about the cliffhanger but it was the best place to stop. Thank you to everyone who reviewed, added the story to their favorites, and followed. I've gotten a thousand new ideas in the last month so maybe I'll upload a few new stories soon. REMEMEBR, THERE IS A POLL ON MY PROFILE ABOUT ALESSANDRA! Vote.