Chapter 15: "Green-Eyed Monsters"
One of Zoe's favorite things to do since she and Cody had started dating was to trace his tattoos over his chest. It didn't matter if they were just waking up or going to sleep or if she'd just managed to catch him with his shirt off from a good training session or a shower — she liked to trace the designs he had, especially the pin-up girl on the fighter jet.
That morning, she really just wanted to take her time waking up, and Cody seemed to pick up on that cue, because he wasn't in much of a rush either, simply leaning back with one hand behind his head.
"I'm thinking about getting another one, but I haven't decided on the details," Cody told her at last when she was through tracing the "Hale at Heart" banner that he had, in fact, decided to get under the magnolia.
"You should do something for the Avengers," she suggested. "You've got the institute, and you've got Alaska — what about the tower?"
"Mmm." Cody pursed his lips as he thought about it and then shook his head. "Maybe the Avengers logo?"
"That would work," Zoe said, nodding slowly.
"Maybe I'll get that for a year mark, though," Cody said. "I've only been on the team for a few months."
Zoe let out a breath. "Well, what do you want, then?" she asked.
Cody smirked, which was what tipped Zoe off that he already had something in mind and was just being coy about it. But when she rolled her eyes at him, he finally broke into a grin and leaned forward to kiss her. "I was thinking about something a little more understated," he said.
"Well, that's boring," Zoe laughed.
Cody had to chuckle at that. "I haven't decided where yet, but I thought it could be interesting to have an arrow or two. Somewhere."
Zoe blinked at him and then let out a laugh before she simply pinned him down and started to kiss him hard. "Oh, I'm sure we can figure out somewhere between the two of us," she teased.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking, Cody said, and even in his mental voice, she could tell he was laughing — though he was too wrapped up in kissing her to pause what he was doing to say it out loud.
The way that James knew Kari's trip to Amsterdam was over was that there was a poof of pink in his lab and a called out, "Locked in your tower, huh?"
"How was the Van Gogh museum?" James asked as soon as he heard the tell-tale sound of one of the Elves appearing.
"It was amazing," Kari said, teleporting closer to him. "And I came home to find out you've got a new girl on your arm?" She hit him in the shoulder. "What, I don't rate on your list of people to tell about your romances?"
He let out a snort of a laugh. "She's not my girlfriend. So there's nothing to tell."
"She's in an awful lot of pictures to not be a girlfriend. It's not like you don't know how to ditch girls," Kari pointed out.
"I'm keepin' an eye on this one. She's trouble." But when she gave him a look over crossed arms, James let out a breath. "Not like that."
"Uh-huh."
"Seriously," James said with a crooked smile. "I'm not dating her."
"Good, because she does not seem like your type."
He let out a breath and shrugged. "Not that I have a type yet."
"Uh-huh."
"Alright then; what's my type, smarty pants?"
Kari leaned back and watched him with a slowly growing smile. "You like girls who know what they want, go after it — but somehow seem to be the sweetest, most excitable people on the planet at the same time."
"That's … the kind of girls that I've let start things, yeah," he said as he hopped up on the bench.
"And you think you have a type for girls that you start up with?" Kari asked, one eyebrow arched.
"I think that I haven't had enough experience attempting to pick someone for myself to judge properly," James replied carefully. "At least not anyone serious."
"Fair enough," Kari said, hopping up to sit on one of the few uncovered desk spaces.
"So, come on," he said, tossing a washer at her. "You didn't come down here just for that, did you?"
"Well, no," she admitted. "And yes?" She closed one eye and shrugged her shoulder up to her ear. "I wanted to make sure you hadn't gone off the deep end without me… but also… I maaaybe met someone in Amsterdam."
He grinned at her for that. "Yeah? Big stoner type? Didn't think you'd roll that way."
Kari let out a little scoffing noise and hit him in the shoulder. "No!" she said. "He's an art student.'
"Like I said …"
Kari shook her head at him. "His name is Lucas. He's actually very smart, and he was able to talk to me about my art. The process, the style. It's nice to find someone like that."
"Well, good," James said, still smiling at her. "All I'm finding are girls that are either too quiet, too handsy, or just … evil." He shrugged. "Maybe I'm being too picky."
"No, no," Kari said. "There's nothing wrong with having standards."
"Yeah? Tell that to the still-growing group that are giving each other high fives for grabbing my ass."
Kari let out a little 'ooh' of frustration at that. "I can 'port them into Siberia," she offered, only half joking.
"You'd have to stick with me all the time. That'd be boring and not at all good for your new affair with Lucas."
She pulled a face at him. "You make it sound like I'm rushing off and breaking my father's heart."
"You aren't?" he said, making a spectacular go at being confused. "Huh."
She reached over to hit him in the shoulder. "No, I'm just trying to date around and find someone I like."
"Well, are you gonna tell me about this guy beyond stoned art student, or what?"
She shook her head before she hopped down to show him her phone, where she had a few smiling pictures of herself with the dark-haired, slim boy in front of a few museums and other tourist traps.
He let out a little 'ah' and smirked as he flipped through the photos with her. "At least you're having fun. If you want to grab some coffee … well. I'm out, but we can head down to Tony's lab. I know he's stocked. And you can tell me if you can spot anyone that's not just looking for some kind of assistance in their projects."
"Sounds good to me," Kari said with a smile. "I'll be your wingwoman."
"That means we'll have to take the long way. You know… walk." He rolled his eyes for emphasis and started toward the door.
Kari let out a groan before she teleported over to him and took his arm. "You are so boring," she said, though she kissed his cheek anyway.
"You don't know the half of it," he said before he opened the door, and the two of them stepped out of the lab. He made a point, once again, to be sure the door was locked before they started toward Tony's lab — right past the one where Cleo usually was. And as if on cue, she didn't miss catching the two of them going by.
"Where did she come from?" Cleo asked with a frown.
"My lab," James replied without looking her way.
Kari shook her head at that. "I thought I came straight from the depths of hell to tear through your enemies," she corrected him as seriously as she could.
"Right, right. That. Through a pentagram made entirely of pink flowers," James added before he turned to Kari. "Which … is in my lab. Obviously."
"Oh, obviously," she agreed with a smirk.
"If we make a frowny face out of blue ones, then your dad can't follow you, right?"
"But if you lay down a trail of purple band-aids, my mother will appear," she said.
"I know where we can get some," James said, grinning broadly.
"You want to summon my mother?" Kari asked, one eyebrow raised.
"I never gave her my last book report. I finished it. Finally." James said, and it didn't escape his notice that Cleo was frowning after them, looking overly confused.
"I thought your lab was off-limits," Cleo said, arms crossed as she glared at Kari.
"It is," James agreed. "But not to her."
Kari looked incredibly smug at that answer, her tail moving slowly behind her and her nose in the air.
James didn't engage the girl further, even when it was plainly clear she was irritated, and the two of them made their way toward Tony's lab, with Kari paying close attention to who all was looking their way as they made the short trek. And when he opened the high security doors and the loud rock music blared out into the hallway, it was clear that it wasn't just Cleo that was irritated in the nearby labs, either.
"Watching the cameras in the hall," Tony called out as the volume lowered a little bit. "She is so tweaked at you."
"She's tweaked she can't get in," James clarified before he pointed Kari to the coffee pot. "Coming to steal your coffee."
"It had better be good," Kari warned Tony.
"I've survived on it for all these years," Tony deadpanned. "What do you think, magical Elfling? The Brazilian girl ... how much madder do you think she can get before she makes a mistake?"
"Well, if you really want to tweak her, I could start waltzing with James down the halls," Kari giggled.
"Unless you were sucking face at the same time, I doubt that one would care," Tony said, though he was clearly amused. "She's got what? Three different promising inventors chasing her? Four?"
"This is why you'd be a horrible spy, Tony," James said flatly.
Kari shook her head and turned to James. "So, what, are you seducing the spy?" she teased.
He shook his head lightly. "No," he said easily. "She's trying to get information out of me. And she's already mad that I won't look over 'her' designs for problems and fix them."
"He went over the plans and said 'that won't work' and just left it at that," Tony cackled.
"I'm starting to question who, exactly, thought it was a good idea to leave you two alone together," Kari laughed.
"His idea," James said, tipping his head at Tony as he poured himself some coffee.
Kari tipped her head to the side with her lips pursed into a frown before she shook her head. "Well, your coffee is almost as good as what we have at home."
"K won't tell me what she does," Tony admitted before he went to stand next to James and refilled his own mug. "And this one said it's a trade secret."
"I'm not telling you what Mom does," James said stubbornly.
"It's pretty close to what I had in Stockholm," Kari said.
James was smirking at her and nodding his head. "Yes, yes, it is. Imagine that." He kicked off from the counter and headed toward the door. "You coming, Kari? Or did you want to listen to the cackling all afternoon?"
"Lead the way," Kari said, teleporting over to take his arm with a smile.
The two of them headed back down the hall, clearly with the coffee in hand, but at least this time, when Cleo stuck her head out, it was only to watch as the two of them passed and slipped into James' lab.
"Oops. Your flower pentagram is gone. How did that happen?"
Kari snorted at that before she turned his way with a much more serious expression. "James, why are you letting Tony use you as — as bait?"
"I'm not sure it really qualifies as that," James pointed out. "He warned me she'd be sniffing around. She's got a habit of it. I'm just pissing her off, really."
"It absolutely qualifies," Kari said with her arms crossed. "James, he knows that you're getting all this unwanted attention, and he's using that!"
"I don't really care right now, to be honest," James said. "It's not a big deal."
"James!" Kari threw her hands up. "This isn't right!"
"Which part?" he asked. "Specifically?"
"You can't just… it's not right for him to use you like that."
"Here's the thing," James said calmly. "Either way, she'd be doing what she's doing. The only difference here, as far as I'm concerned, is that if he hadn't warned me what she was like, I might be actually dating the nutbag."
Kari froze and turned his way. "Wait. Why."
"I thought about it, and I realized that I do have a history of letting girls set the terms. So, I'm trying to not do that." He shrugged. "Might be a little extreme in this scenario …"
"So you were thinking of dating… because you want to pick… James, no," Kari spluttered.
He chuckled at that. "That's an extreme oversimplification," he said. "I don't want to date anyone right now. But I know I get caught up when I do start dating someone and just … let them run it all."
"Because you fall in love so very hard," Kari said. "Don't change that! I love that about you!"
"Pretty sure that's not something I can change anyhow," James pointed out.
"Oh, good, because I was about to get upset!" Kari said, shaking her head with her tail switching behind her.
"This is more of a self-protection thing," James said. "Both personally and professionally, in this case." He shrugged again as he raised his mug. "Maybe not publicly, though."
"You've never cared about your public image," Kari said in a sigh.
"Exactly," James said, nodding.
"But other people do, you know," Kari said. "Nobody who loves you wants to see you dragged through the mud, James. For any reason. Even your own very questionable decision-making process."
"Listen, this girl has ruined the careers of at least half a dozen different inventors trying to make a name for herself," James said in a low rumble. "Stark realized it, but HR needed proof."
Kari kept her arms crossed as she watched James carefully before she finally let out a little huff. "I hate that you have a good reason for letting that … person around you."
"I hate to be the one to break it to you, but there are people like her everywhere. But this time, I'm helping to stop her path of destruction."
Kari shook her head and then leaned over to kiss James' cheek. "Just don't get lost while you're doing that, will you?"
"Why do you think I'm being so cold with her?" James pointed out. "I'm more reasonable in the middle of a SR rally than I am with her."
Kari couldn't help but let out a little snort. "Okay. Fair point."
"And … nothing seems to bother her more than when she spots me being nice to nice girls. So there's that."
"Then maybe I should visit more often. I need a quiet place to work on my next piece anyway, and I love having you around."
"As long as it's just graphite and charcoal, you're welcome any time," James said. "View of the river ain't half bad either."
"I was thinking of doing some sketches first to play with some ideas before I did any paintings," she admitted.
He nodded and smirked at her. "You put any more thought into sharing your other sketchbooks?"
She bit her lip. "I… I'm still not sure about the Apocalypse sketchbook," she said softly. "I know you said it was my best work, but it's so…."
"I know Amadi said the same thing," James said. "And Sying. Haven't had the chance to talk to Leslie Ann, but I'm sure she'd agree."
Kari continued to chew on her bottom lip. "She said it was the most beautiful thing she'd seen," she admitted softly.
"Chicken Hawk." He shook his head gently. "Never thought that would apply to you, but here we are."
Kari let out a little gasp of disbelief before she leaned over to sock him hard in the shoulder. "It's not cowardice to try to keep my friends safe!"
"You're gonna break your hand if you keep hitting me like that," he said, frowning at her. "And we're fine. All of us."
"I just…" Kari let out a sigh.
He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Relax. And believe us when we tell you that you'd blow the doors off of even your best fans with that stuff."
Kari flushed purple at the compliment. "I… don't even know what to do with you when you say things like that," she said quietly.
"Drop me in Siberia?" he deadpanned.
She laughed and shook her head at him and then simply rushed over to hug him tightly. "No, do this," she corrected him, hugging him a little more.
James set his mug down and returned the hug. "How about you trust your friends on this one?"
"Those sketches were also very emotional for me," she explained softly.
"Yeah, I know," James said, nodding, though he hadn't let her go yet. "But the four of us are still here, right?"
"And I'm really, really glad," she agreed.
"Tell you what, we can go grab a bite. I'll cut out early and you can tell me how your tour finished out before I have to be back to the tower for the 'other' job."
"That sounds lovely, thanks," Kari agreed with a smile.