CHAPTER 4
OF FIRST STEPS
"We sit and talk,
quietly,
with long lapses of silence
and I am aware of the stream
that has no language,
coursing beneath the quiet heaven
of your eyes
which has no speech"
― William Carlos Williams
It was strange.
Eris had never imagined herself in her messy life having a conversation with a sassy and quite bossy A.I. who was in possession of a dark sense of humour.
It was so strange that she found herself smirking when, after asking Friday for some ingredients to cook, she had surprised her with an offended 'oh, now you need my help?'. And then, after a strange apologize written with a lot resistance in her part, the artificial intelligence had helped her with her questions she didn't want to ask aloud.
She also graced her by telling that some people would come every two days to bring food, so if she wanted something to be added, she could just type it in the tablet.
Eris finally had found out where the gym was, along with various room she had the permission to visit. She was extremely surprised and pleased to know there was a library almost unused, mostly because the books could be read also online, she often wondered who was the one of the Avengers would visit it, maybe the one who liked to draw. She could also go to the genius laboratory, but only under his permission and only with him in it.
And here she was, cooking pasta alla carbonara after what had to be years and years she had eaten, or even seen, one. She had 'woken up' after not really sleeping, feeling a deep craving for some Italian plate she was so found when younger.
Her aunt, who had raised her, had been Italian like her mother, and when she was younger they would frequently cook delicious foods together. She had learned how to prepare a few of them, but it had passed years since she had done so, and she felt today was the day to restart.
In the end there was only one thing she hadn't remembered well, and it was the portions. Now there were two full fuming plates on the counter, silently calling her, begging to be eaten and devoured, but there was absolutely no way she could eat all on her own, even if she had a big stomach, and thankfully a fast metabolism, that had helped her kept a lean form even after months of eating trash.
She half wanted to wait for one plate to cool and then put it into the fridge to eat it later, but carbonara was made to eat just made, not heated. The mere thought was blasphemy.
And she felt somehow in debt with Stark, who had given her the tablet. Which was irritating.
Eris had always hated charity from the bottom of her heart, but his gift had been unexpected, and extremely useful in the nights where she couldn't sleep, letting time mercifully pass quickly until the sunrise had appeared. So even if she didn't really close eyes, she had at least a mean to distract herself and save her fingers from the pain of continue drawing.
It wasn't healthy. She knew it, Fury knew it, and she was sure the sleep deprivation she was putting herself under was going at some point do some damage. Like Stark, who she knew had the same problem, one day he was going to fall asleep on a project and likely blow up the entire Facility.
Eris really didn't want to meet the billionaire just because feeling in debt was annoying, but the plate was getting cold, and she didn't want to throw it on the garbage. That also was annoying. Grabbing both and two sets of forks and napkins, and before she could think of it twice, she made way to where was his cave.
It didn't take much and it was easy to find, the blasting music of Highway to Hell resonating from the room was quite fitting and a good way to find the room without Friday's help, and soon she was in front of the door, protected by a pass code and probably thousands of other security measures.
Eris knocked on the lab door with her foot, not knowing if he knew she was there, and waited.
The music didn't stop, but simply lowered tone as the door opened automatically. She slowly entered the room, half-expecting something to explode on her, half wanting to turn on her heels and avoid him.
It was bigger than she imagined, at least two time the size of the hall where was her self-proclaimed window. The lights were dimmed, rending the room darker, with a central illuminated station completed with a big glass desk and holograms circling over it. On top of it, a plate of half forgotten sandwiches and an empty cup of coffee, or whiskey.
Numbers and imagines were dancing and changing without emitting any sound, as if trying to come together, only to break a few seconds later and fall down, then doing it again and again. Eris couldn't understand anything.
All around her, piles and pieces of metals and work tools were scattered around as a tornado had passed, crating havoc and destruction. On a side of the room, a big black spot stood out even in the dark, as if something had exploded near it, probably on one of the many she had heard.
Stark was at the centre of everything, like the eye of the storm, looking apathetically at the holograms, not moving a muscle as he stared at them with his head leaning on the elbow. He was slouched on a chair, white t-shirt and jeans for the first time not painted with black and oily spots. Eris knew he was aware of her presence, she wouldn't be inside the laboratory otherwise, but he didn't ask what she was doing there, with two plates and forks in her hands, or the why. He simply stood there, looking blankly at the falling images in front of him, illuminating occasionally his pale face in a severe need of shaving, and making even more darker his circles on his eyes.
It seemed Eris wasn't the only one to not have slept. She wasn't surprised.
Finally, he moved his body away when the image collapsed once again, sighting heavily, passing a hand on his tired face. Stark focused his half awake attention to her figure while the music dimmed more down, becoming more a background noise.
Eris slowly walked to his figure, trying at her best to avoid the debris, feeling his too intelligent eyes follow her movement, and stooped when she was a meter away of him.
"Did you cooked it?" he asked, eyeing quite hungrily at the food, going fast from it to her face, eyes finally illuminating a bit with hunger.
Eris nodded, placing the still fuming plate on the table, ignoring the way it clattered hard on the glass. She had read that the billionaire didn't like being handled things. She had found that a little strange, but the man was an eccentric one, and it wasn't so bad as a quirk. There were worst around.
She also put the fork down and sat on a nearby chair, eating her own food before he could ask more questions. She felt his hard stare on her side as he also wolfed down his, but he didn't talk.
She just ate hers, enjoying the taste after years, feeling some nostalgia in her heart.
She should also cook some pizza.
Tony didn't exactly know what time it was. He was in so deep into the equations and holograms he had forgotten to check out the time.
Not that it really mattered these days. He had restarted his work just after Happy had left, worried face and with a 'be careful Tony' after he had told him that the young woman he just encountered was there on S.H.I.E.L.D. request; well Fury request, but the man was essentially the entire walking organization.
It appeared that she had left quite an impression on him. He had always been suspicion, basically of everyone who appeared into his gaze, but these time Tony couldn't just brush off his words as he would often do.
He knew she was dangerous. He could see in the way she looked at him the few times he had met her at the window, he could see it in her eyes, in the way she looked coldly at his form, as if assessing the fastest way to kill him had he decided to attack her. Of course, if something like that had to happened, and he really hoped not, he would wear his own armour.
He was just going to grab something to change, just to appear a little more presentable, when Friday contacted him again, quite alarmed, telling him that somehow Happy had managed to put juice on the hair of the walking hazard.
The first reaction was to laugh, and a promise to himself to watch and re-watch the video later, which he did and it was hilarious. But then his A.I. told him her heartbeat was increasing too much, and all trace of humour had left immediately, completely overpowered by fear.
Happy was his friend, one of the few he had and could sincerely rely on, and even if he really didn't want to fight her, Happy came first. Without thinking of it much, he grabbed one of the syringe Fury had given him and put it into the back of his jeans, but decided to not take the armour with him. He was quite sure that that would have definitely spoked the sleeping dragon.
She didn't seem one to take threatening well.
Tony was however, very surprised to see the first traces of humanity in her face since she had arrived. Sure, when she had entered the first time she appeared quite pissed at Fury, but everyone was pissed at the stoic man for one reason or another, so it didn't count much.
This time she was visibly annoyed, trying to take as much as juice off her hair with the towel in irritated movements as she looked angrily at the other man, who had a quite confused face as he watched from his taller position, and Tony just couldn't do anything but smirk at her first real display of emotions.
Then, when he dimmed she wasn't going to go hazard any time soon, he gave her the tablet that he had brought without thinking.
And again, she quietly amazed him. At first, she had looked like what he was giving her was something venomous, as if even his arm was a snake, and then, she showed some surprise at the gift. She had looked like she couldn't believe he was giving her something, like it was the first time someone had given her something out of kindness.
Tony thought that was it, that after giving her the tablet they would return to their silent treatment and kind forgot each other presences. He was so deep into his project he almost missed hearing Friday speaking directly at him, and him muttering a distracted yes to her question. Then her words entered his sleep deprived mind and he turned his head to the new figure in the laboratory, just to see her standing in the centre of the mess, two plates in hands with forks, looking completely out of place.
Her face was blank, not letting any thought as her eyes roamed around, stopping on the burn on the wall from last week. The hair were escaping the small messy tail and pointing in every direction, and she was wearing an extremely oversized t-shirt that looked worrisomely to be from Rogers closet.
Tony hoped not, but he knew she had taken residence in his room, for whatever reason, and he didn't even want to think about her staying in his room. Just even thinking of it made him irrationally angry. And nauseated.
"Did you cooked it?" he asked before his mind could go further, as he felt a low rumbling in his stomach at the sight and wonderful perfume of the food. He had eaten so many sandwiches he had forgotten the taste of a real meal.
She nodded and slowly walking to him with careful movements, like half expecting that one of the pieces on the ground were going to explode any seconds. They might, he didn't even know no more what he had tossed around.
He didn't feel ashamed for the mess, just kind of sheepish. Pepper, nor Bruce, ever liked the way he would just toss things around, and they always complained about it. His missing friend would complain the danger of it, 'one day you will kill yourself when you will toss something dangerous just out of share habit' and he kind of agreed with him.
Pepper… Pepper hated with a passion his mess. She would always complain that it was her to do the cleaning, and always asked at least be just a little more mindful. He managed for maybe a week or two, but then the mess always returned.
She interrupted his thoughts when, instead of handling him the plate, she put it on top of moving imagines, a bit to hard he thought, and then walked away, leaving him staring down at the wonderful sight of pasta alla carbonara. His mouth watered just at the sight of it.
How much time had passed since someone cooked just for him?
Tony savoured the food with hunger and greed since it had been too much since he had gone out on some restaurant to eat some good stuff, and she was excellent at it.
He would glance between the bites at the raven girl perched a little away on a chair, looking at the tiny frown on her face he had never really noticed was there.
"You should cook more" he said to her as he savoured the last few pieces.
He didn't exactly wait for a reply, but watched her nonetheless. She too had just finished, and was looking at him without emotions in her eyes. God, she could split a man in half with just the eyes.
She nodded, a small nod to his unspoken question, and he felt some kind of unknown victory. He smiled widely before turning back to the glass table and his project, moving at one end the plate and fork. Maybe there could be something beneficial in having her there.
He saw from the corner of his eyes her quietly going around on the few survivor closets, until stopping on an old shelf, and returning with a cropped pen and a few white papers he didn't even know still existed in the laboratory.
She settled a little far away, down on the ground on a corner of the room. They worked on an unusual but comforting silence, him trying to resolve his problem and her sketching something down with still the songs of AC/DC going on the background.
It was unusual for Tony to be in silence with someone and not feel the need to talk, to fill the void in some way, but her presence was strangely reassuring and not at all alarming, and he managed to make small progress for the first time after weeks of blocked work.
She didn't leave for hours, until probably mid-afternoon, but she returned at dinner, carrying with her a big plate of fuming self-made pizza, just taken out of the oven.
Tony could have cried.