Mr. Stark and the Two Assistants
Pepper Potts gave Alice a confused smile. “Oh, aren’t you sweet?” she finally decided on saying. “I don’t think anybody’s ever said I look like Gwyneth Paltrow before. No, I’m just Pepper Potts, soon to be your new boss.” She sighed, resigned. “Well, come on in, it’s best to get this over with.” Pepper turned and began leading Alice into the mansion.
“Get what over with?” Alice asked. “Aren’t you more excited to run Stark Industries?”
“Oh, it’s not that,” Pepper said. “It’s you meeting Mr. Stark. I apologize in advance for anything he might say or do.”
Alice gave her a reassuring smile. “It’s okay, Miss Potts. I’ve been known to have a runaway mouth myself.” She paused. “…Did your parents name you Pepper, or…?”
“My parents named me Virginia,” Pepper explained. “Then Tony started calling me Pepper one day — I’ll tell you the story another time, if you’re really interested — and…” she groaned. “…Now everybody does. I don’t even think of myself as Virginia anymore.”
“You and West Virginia are in the same boat, I guess,” Alice said.
Pepper laughed unexpectedly, composing herself as she entered a gym area. “The notary’s here!” she called out to two figures sparring in a boxing ring. “Can you please come sign the transfer paperwork?”
Alice dawdled a bit, gawking at everything in the mansion, remembering (or trying and fail to remember) another mansion. Hadn’t it had a funny name to it? Something related to her own? She shook her head and caught up.
She looked over to the two men in the boxing ring and clutched her chest in surprise. “Robert Downey Junior?”
The man who looked suspiciously like the Brat Pack star clutched his own chest. “Molly Ringwald?” Alice snorted out a laugh.
“I promise you this is the only time I will ask you to sign over your company,” Pepper said, unenthusiastic.
Alice opened up the binder with the paperwork and moved over to Pepper. “You need to, uh, sign this stuff…” She trailed off, realizing she should probably have paid more attention to that fucking briefing instead of being distracted with the whole ‘Trapped in a fucking comic book’ shit she was grappling with. “Hey, why is Mr. Stark signing over his company anyway?” she asked.
“Who knows, with Tony?” Pepper said aloud. “I would say midlife crisis, but he’s always been recklessly impulsive like this.”
Tony (who was probably not Robert Downey Jr.) kicked his sparring buddy, sending him back against one of the corner posts. He picked up a bottle with some revolting liquid in it, took a slug, then pointed at Alice. “What’s your name, lady? When you’re not starring in some of the 80s’ most classic movies, anyway.”
“Alice Abernathy!” Alice beamed. “And I guess you’re Tony Stark, right?”
Tony and Pepper and the unnamed third fella (well, yeah, we know he’s Happy but Alice hasn’t been introduced yet) all gave her a funny look at not recognizing Tony freaking Stark. “Front and center,” Tony said, gesturing into the ring. “Come into the church.
“No,” Pepper attempted to veto. “You’re seriously not gonna ask —”
“If it pleases the court,” Tony begged. “Which it does.”
“Hey, I can kick some world-class ass,” Alice said nonchalantly.
As Pepper apologized, Tony held up the ropes, but Alice decided to show off a little and just leapt straight up over them, clearing the highest one easy. She then proceeded to cross herself — it was church, after all.
“Were you a cat in a former life? Or the present one?” Tony asked, impressed with the verticality.
“Nah, pooping in boxes is extremely uncomfortable,” Alice said, shaking her head.
“Wait, you’ve tried to poop in a box?” Tony’s sparring partner asked.
Tony took another long pull from his bottle as he scrutinized Alice. “What’s in that stuff?” Alice asked. “It looks like doody.”
Tony shrugged. “Doesn’t taste much better,” he admitted. “Typical health smoothie, all the usual ingredients. All perfectly normal.”
Alice crossed her arms. “Wait, are you being evasive on the contents of a smoothie? Does it have, like, bald eagle eggs in it or something even more heinous?” She’d noticed the briefing had said something about heavy metal poisoning from his arc reactor. Maybe this was related?
“Tony, what have I said about eating endangered species?” Pepper scolded.
“I’m not —” Tony began. He turned to Happy (I’m sick of waiting for him to introduce himself) and said, “Can you, uh, give her a lesson?”
“Oh wow, you want him to be brutally murdered, huh?” Alice said.
Happy looked mildly offended. “No problem,” he told Tony. Tony left the ring as Happy began to give her a little lecture that she mostly ignored as she attempted to eavesdrop on Tony’s and Pepper’s conversation, until he finally got her attention once more. “You ever boxed before?” he asked her.
“No, but I have killed numerous folks in hand-to-hand combat,” Alice said. Happy looked a little dubious at that.
“How do I spell your name, Alice?” Tony called out.
“A-B-E-R-N-A-T-H-Y,” she said, watching as he started tapping away directly on a glass table next to his chair. “Oh cool, you got one of those on your toilet tank too?”
A thoughtful look crossed Tony’s face, and Pepper massaged the bridge of her nose. “Please don’t give him ideas,” she asked.
“Rule number one,” Happy said, still in lecture mode. “Never take your eye off your opponent.” Alice felt him cuff her a little on the side of her head, gentle-like.
She turned to him and gave him a sweet smile. “Rule number two: advantage goes to the high ground,” she said, before she leapt into the air and did her spin-kick move, her heel just barely grazing through the hair on the top of Happy’s head, gentle-like.
Happy stared at her for a moment, processing what happened. “Yeah, I’m out,” he said, pulling his gloves off and evacuating the ring.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Tony said with elation, pointing at Alice before ringing the bell. “Looks like a TKO to me!”
She climbed out of the ring and grabbed the binder. “Okay, I think this thingy needs your fingerprint thingy,” she said.
“Is ‘thingy’ an official legal term?” Tony asked, getting his thumb into the inkpad and onto the space where it went.
“Yeah,” Alice said. “Pretty sure it’s in the Constitution somewhere.”
“So, how are we doing?” Pepper asked, walking up to them.
“Great, just… wrapping up,” Tony said, making sure to leave a good print. “Hey.” He tapped the document. “You’re the boss.”
“Okay… is there anything else to do?” Alice said, again scolding herself for zoning out whilst reading the briefing thing.
“Yes,” Tony said.
“No,” Pepper said simultaneously. “That will be all, Miss Abernathy. Thank you very much.”
As she walked away, she overheard Tony say, “I want one.”
“No,” Pepper vetoed.
The limousine was waiting for her outside and she got in. “Hey, Philly, I thought I was gonna be recruited to be Iron Man’s assistant, but then… I wasn’t? This spy shit is confusing.”
Coulson gave her a reassuring smile. “You’re doing great,” he told her. “Our psychological profiles of Mr. Stark and Miss Potts determined that there was a very high chance she would veto your appointment as assistant, with a very high chance that Mr. Stark will be calling you in less than an hour to offer you the position — once Miss Potts has left the premises.” The limo began to move once more. “We can, ah, circle around the block, so to speak, until then.”
They went onto the highway, took the very next exit, and parked at a rest area. Sure enough, a few short minutes later Alice’s brand new cell phone began to ring. “Hello, this is the delightful Alice Abernathy,” she answered. “May I ask as to whom is calling?”
“Hey, Pretty in Pink, this is your fellow Brat Pack member RDJ,” Tony answered. “Was wondering if you were interested in a little promotion? Say, from the legal department to, oh, my assistant?”
“I’m not going to lie, Mr. Stark, I’m a little intrigued…” Alice said. “But if you have any funny business in mind, I should let you know that while I’m not sure I’m 100% gay, I’m at least 99% gay, and you don’t qualify for that last remaining percentile.”
“Oof!” Tony groaned. “But hey, I’m incredibly down with that. I already have Rhodey as a wingman, so maybe you could be my wingwoman. Or I’ll be your wingman. Not sure how it works, exactly, and I’ve been trying to turn over a new leaf with my more debauched behaviors anyway so it’s a moot point. Look, we both know you want the job, so why are you even wasting time parked one exit over? Get the hell over here!”
“Not sure I appreciate being spied on, Mr. Stark,” Alice said lightly, feeling massively hypocritical.
“Is it spying, or am I just a really good judge of character?” Tony asked, trying to sound innocent.
Alice recalled glancing through the stuff about Obadiah Stane, but figured it’d ruin their fun little moment if she brought him up, so conceded. “Alright, Mr. Stark, I’ll be right over.” She hung up and beamed at Coulson, giving him a thumbs up to boot.
“‘The delightful Alice Abernathy’,” Coulson quoted, looking bewildered. “Have you ever answered a phone before?”
“Once or twice,” Alice said. “But it was right at the start of the zombie apocalypse, which lasted ten years. I guess I’m out of practice.”
“Oh, I forgot about that, how silly of me,” Coulson said with a straight face.
***
Alice went to knock on the mansion’s door, but it automatically opened for her. “Oh, fancy,” she said. She walked in and looked around, not seeing Tony around.
“Mr. Stark is indisposed at the moment, Miss Abernathy,” a cool British voice said to her. “He will be with you soon.”
“Number one or number two?” Alice asked. “Also, may I ask who you are?”
“Neither; he is in the shower,” came the answer, in a droll tone.
“So, number one, then,” Alice guessed.
“We can only hope,” the voice said. “And as to your second question, I am JARVIS, an AI created by Mr. Stark to assist him in various areas of his life.”
“Cool!” Alice grinned. “I knew a… or I think I did…” Her face crumpled up in frustration once more. “Ah fuck, I may or may not have known an AI in my past life. I wish I could say for sure. This sucks.”
“Employment as Mr. Stark’s assistant comes with numerous fringe benefits,” JARVIS assured her. “…Including counseling for various mental health conditions.”
“Does it cover ointment?” Alice asked. “Because that was a sick fucking burn, Jervs.” She grinned, showing no hard feelings.
JARVIS proceeded to tell her about salary, days off, benefits package, etc. etc. — basically all the boring nitty gritty shit that goes into getting a new job. He was almost done when Tony came out, dressed but with damp hair, another disgusting-looking smoothie in one hand.
“J, you’re gonna scare her off with all that boring crap,” Tony complained. “I didn’t hear a single word about the glamorous jet-setting lifestyle she’ll be piggybacking on by being my assistant.”
“Nor the copious amount of metaphorical fires she’ll be putting out in your wake,” JARVIS added. “Not to mention the real ones.”
“Hey, that was one time!” Tony protested. “Look, I promise that most of your job duties will actually be a whole lot of boring crap that I don’t want to have to deal with myself — something you should be used to working in legal.” He smirked. “Later this week I’m supposed to show up at the Monaco Grand Prix — SI has a car in the race there — and while Pep already did most of the prep work, it’s now your job to make sure everything’s finalized — call the FAA about our flight plan, confirm the reservations at Hotel de Paris —”
“Um, Mr. Stark?” Alice interrupted. “I haven’t accepted the job offer yet. And before I do… I should disclose a few things.”
“What, besides the gay thing?” Tony asked, eyebrow arched. “Oh, I appreciate you trusting me enough to tell me that, by the way,” he said off-hand.
Alice smiled, then took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I’m here on orders from SHIELD. …I may be employed by them or something, I’m not sure. …They want me to spy on you, and figured that you’d hire me based on your psych profile or something.”
Tony nodded, not looking very disappointed or shocked. “To be honest, Pretty in Pink, I kinda figured they’d come for me again sooner or later. Once I locked down JARVIS’ systems from further tampering, I figured they’d want to keep eyes on me some other way. Plus, the limo you drove up to the house in had government plates. Pretty sloppy move on Agent’s part. …Coulson’s your handler, right?”
Alice nodded, smiling. “Yeah, he seems like a nice guy, except he wouldn’t let me keep the notary stamp. Such bullshit.”
Tony snorted. “Sounds like him, yeah.” He took a long drink from his smoothie. “You know, you are astonishingly bad at this spy gig. What’s up with that? And you don’t even know if you’re actually working with them or not? How does one stumble into the snooping biz so blindly?”
Alice gave Tony a nervous grin. “Well, I’ve got some more disclosures, and I should warn you ahead of time: I’m going to sound like a fucking crazy person.”
“JARVIS, have the men in white coats on standby,” Tony cracked.
“I already had their number memorized, sir,” JARVIS assured him.
Alice snorted out a laugh, before taking a deep breath and plunging into the deep end. “…I’m from another universe. I traveled back in time, which is apparently impossible so it’s just a lateral move to another universe that happens to be earlier in time —”
“Well duh,” Tony interjected. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“— and in this other universe there was a zombie apocalypse. The virus that caused it gave me various superpowers. Oh, and in my universe of origin you and other superheroes existed in the form of comic book characters. Iron Man, Spider-man, the X-Men, etc.”
“…Huh,” Tony finally said. “I’ll grant that you were right, you sound really nuts. I would think SHIELD would be able to pick up on your level of crazy before sending you out to do field work. And hey, I’m the only superhero around… unless someone fishes Steve Rogers up from Davy Jones’ locker.” A look of derision crossed his face for a moment.
Alice grimaced. Only superhero? Surely not… but that’d be something to look into later. “I told you I’d sound like a fucking crazy person!” she finally said. Look, I know I can’t prove most of it, but I can show off my super strength!” She stood from the couch she’d been sitting on and jogged past Tony into his home gymnasium, Tony following gamely. “Look, load that up with weights, as many as you can, okay?” she said, gesturing to a barbell. “So you know I’m not doing any tricks.”
“Oh, just like Unbreakable,” Tony remarked. “Where the guy who thought he was a comic book character was institutionalized at the end,” he added pointedly. Still, he played along, loading the barbell up with every possible weight he could.
“Try to lift that now,” Alice said.
Tony wrapped both hands around the bar and tried to lift. He was putting a lot of strength into it — and he was a pretty strong guy — but it didn’t even budge. “After you fail to lift this, will you pretty please not make a fuss when I call the authorities to come take you away?” Tony asked, hands loosely clasped together in a begging gesture.
Alice grabbed the barbell one-handed and lifted it straight up over her head. “I’m sorry, what was that?” she asked. “I couldn’t hear you over the sound of my fucking awesome superpowers.” She proceeded to twirl it around a bit, before dropping it back onto the bench with a hard CLANK. “I’m also supposed to have some cool-ass mind mojo, but that hasn’t kicked in just yet.”
“…Huh,” Tony said, mildly impressed. “Okay, I’m provisionally declaring you sane, but just because you were dosed with Super Soldier serum or whatever doesn’t preclude any of that other stuff you said being the product of an ill mind.” He crossed his arms. “Not sure why you think the X-Men are real, though. Those movies are mediocre at best.”
“…Movies? They only made the one, though…” Alice looked pensive. “By any chance, could you tell me the year?”
“2010,” Tony replied. “Two oh one oh Anno Domini.”
Alice’s eyes went wide and she gripped Tony’s shoulders with excitement. “Mr. Stark, do you know what this means?!”
“That you went forward in time, not back?” Tony guessed.
“No, it was 2012 where I came from,” Alice dismissed. “Mr. Stark, the zombie apocalypse I lived through started in 2002,” Alice said. “I have eight fucking years of brand new movies to watch!”
Tony beamed. “That’s great! You can get started on that after Monaco!” Alice’s face fell. “…What, you’re not excited you still get the job? I mean, granted it’s a ‘keep your friends close, and your enemies closer’ situation, and I hope you won’t go running off and telling Agent every last little thing I do, but —”
“Um,” Alice said, biting her lip nervously. “One more disclosure: I’m a clone, and the memories they implanted me with only include badass soldier shit, not… uh… any social niceties that are required of a billionaire’s assistant.”
Tony blew air from his mouth slowly, mildly frustrated. “Hey, just call Agent up and have him do all the heavy lifting, alright?” he suggested. “My tax dollars at work!”