Surrounded by Prix
Alice took a commercial flight over to Monaco, and marveled at the novelty of commercial flight. Flying was actually quite fun when she didn’t actually have to do it herself… or when she wasn’t being kidnapped… or on a near-suicidal death charge facing down dozens of gunships…
She’d binged on French learning audiotapes on the flight over, and discovered when she got off the plane that she was fairly conversational in the language. Whatever it was that enhanced her physically must have also given her a boost in the ol’ noggin department — though since it also gave her freaking psychic powers it shouldn’t have come as too much of a surprise.
Everyone kept giving her funny looks when she spoke, though. Probably something to do with the fact that she hadn’t once actually spoken the language before. Oh well, fuck ‘em. The taxi driver even grumbled about damn tourists when she paid her fare. “Hey, your country gets a quarter of its income from tourism, so show some appreciation!” Alice chided, tipping him generously. He said something about eating merde, a word which wasn’t in any of the tapes Alice had listened to. Perhaps it was a local delicacy?
Coulson was handling all the travel shit Tony was meant to do, while he’d given Alice a little checklist of everything she was meant to do on site. She made sure the rooms reserved for Tony and Pepper (and her!) were in order, ensured their schedules were set, and all sorts of fine little details (i.e. making sure none of Pepper’s food had strawberries in it).
Finally, the big day arrived, and Alice was waiting for Tony and Pepper in the hotel’s restaurant. “Hi, Mr. Stark!” she greeted with smile and a wave. “Hi, Miss Potts!”
“Boy, it’s nice to see you,” Tony said, as a man with a tray walked up with drinks for both him and Pepper. Alice privately wondered if drinking was fine with the whole palladium poisoning Tony was going through… but she wouldn’t pry about that unless it was necessary.
“There’s a photograph guy from, uh, something-or-other to take your photo,” Alice said, stumbling as she forgot the exact purpose of the photo. Pepper hadn’t noticed, at least, too busy staring at Tony aghast. “I’m guessing Mr. Stark didn’t tell you about my promotion?” she wagered.
Pepper hadn’t heard her at all. “When did this happen?” she finally asked Tony, the photographer snapping a shot of her grimacing at him.
“You made me do it,” Tony replied through a forced grin.
“I made you do what?” Pepper asked.
Alice zoned out of the horribly awkward conversation until it was clear Tony was talking to her again. “You look fantastic,” he said. “But that’s unprofessional,” he amended. “What’s on the docket?”
Alice took a peek at her little cheat sheet she had stowed in her pocket. (At the top of which said ‘Arrival, photograph with ACM — note to self, look up what ACM is sometime’). “Let’s see… there’s a dinner thing at 9:30,” she read.
“Perfect, I’ll be there at 11,” Tony said.
“But won’t you be really hungry by then?” Alice asked. “And they’ll have to reheat the food and so forth…”
Tony took a second to give her an indulgent smile. “You know, I am tempted to believe that whole clone thing now,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t think even the greatest actress in the world could pull off faking your level of naivety. It’s actually kind of cute.”
She noticed Pepper talking to some rat-faced looking loser. “Hey, beat it, creep,” Alice horned in, pushing him back. She had a sixth sense about these kinds of dipshits. “Miss Potts is far too savvy to get in the back of your van, no matter what kind of candy you’re handing out.”
“Excuse me?” Ratface said in a confused tone. “I wanted to ask Mr. Stark about my idea for an electric jet —”
“Yeah, all jets are electric, you stupid shit,” Alice said. “Now get out of here before I figure out how far you can fly sans airplane.” Ratface’s face went wide with terror and he quickly cleared out.
“What’s the matter?” Tony asked. “Got something against trust fund billionaires with daddy issues?” He smirked at his self-depreciation.
Alice scowled at the retreating Ratface. “That guy just gave me the icks,” she said.
“Well, at least I don’t have to pretend to be interested in whatever it was he had to say,” he said, squeezing Alice’s shoulder in thanks.
Tony and Pepper started walking towards the bar, engaging in more of that Couples Bickering that Alice found to be an odd mix of awkward and endearing. She followed them at a distance, keeping out of earshot for their privacy. She saw another fellow at the bar peek his head out, grinning Tony’s way, and Alice had another odd moment of disconnect. “Wasn’t he in the first Ninja Turtles?” she said aloud.
“Anthony, is that you?” said the guy who probably wasn’t Sam Rockwell.
“My least favorite person on Earth!” Tony said sotto voce.
“Hey pal!” the dude said, slapping Tony on the shoulder.
“Excuse me, are you the guy from Ninja Turtles, or are you not in fact a famous Hollywood actor?” Alice said, interjecting herself into the conversation.
“Justin Hammer,” Tony muttered, giving a thinly veiled look of disgust at him.
Alice nodded in understanding, the name twigging a vague recognition in her memories of comic book characters. Some competitor of Tony’s, she gathered.
“Hey, I don’t know what the Ninja Turtles are, but it’s nice to know I’ve got the looks for Hollywood,” Hammer said with a smile. He turned back to Tony. “How you doing, Tony? You’re not the only rich guy here with a fancy car. You know Christine Everhart from Vanity Fair?” A blonde gal approached from where she’d been sitting with Hammer. “You guys know each other?”
Alice scrutinized the woman, but if she was supposed to have an actor’s face like so many other people seemed to have in this fucked-up universe, it wasn’t anything Alice had ‘seen’. Tony and Pepper both responded in the positive, but with extremely awkward vibes. Not a fan of hers?
Alice said the only thing she could think of. “Everfart.”
Pepper suddenly bit down hard on her lip to keep from laughing out; Tony couldn’t hide the little satisfied smile as Christine looked disgusted at the name.
Hammer hadn’t noticed. “Bee tee dubyew, big story,” he said, pointing to Pepper. “The new CEO of Stark Industries. Congratulations.”
“I know, I know,” Christine said, doing her best to ignore Alice. “My editor will kill me if I don’t grab a quote for our Powerful Women issue. Can I?”
“Oh, sure,” Pepper said, having composed herself enough to speak.
“She’s actually doing a big spread on me for Vanity Fair,” Justin continued. “I thought I’d throw her a bone, you know.”
“Well, she did quite a spread on Tony last year,” Pepper pointed out.
“And she wrote a story as well,” Tony added, confirming Alice’s suspicions that this was a sex jealousy thing.
“Did she spread her cheeks to fart? Like her name?” Alice asked.
Pepper again bit down hard on the inside of her lip, standing up and evacuating the area before she could publicly guffaw. Tony again gave a little satisfied smile at Christine’s discomfort.
“Who the heck even is this?” Hammer asked, gesturing to Alice.
“My new assistant, Alice Abernathy,” Tony said. “She’s in charge of the cake topper for my birthday later this month — I hope she gets me more than sixteen candles.” He winked at Alice, who snorted.
Christine narrowed her eyes, sensing a point of attack. “Does Miss Potts approve? She seemed awfully protective of your interests last year, so —”
“If you think Tony and I are boinking, Everfart, think again,” Alice said. “I am a gay lesbian interested in homosexual gals.”
That sure shut down that line of inquiry. “…Okay then,” she conceded.
Hammer put his arm around Tony. “Hey buddy, how you doing? Looking gorgeous.”
“I’m alright,” Tony muttered, Hammer not really hearing it. “Please, this is tough —” A photographer ambushed, snapping Tony and Hammer’s picture, prompting Tony to hurriedly slap a pair of sunglasses onto his face.
Christine pulled out a little recorder thingie. “Can I ask you, is this the first time that you guys have seen each other —”
“Oh God, that’s so awful,” Tony grimaced, gently pushing away from Hammer, who awkwardly laughed.
“Listen, is it the first time you’ve seen each other since the Senate?” Christine finished.
“Uh, since he got his contract revoked,” Tony clarified, walking off after the killshot. “When you were attempting to…”
“Actually, it’s on hold,” Hammer tried to argue.
Alice quickly got bored with the business talk, gossipy as it was, and zoned it out, until Tony arose from the table, announced “Hammer needs a slot, Christine!” (finger pointing at her with emphasis) as he headed off to the bathroom.
She followed and dutifully waited until Tony was done in there. “You know, they’ve got women’s bathrooms too,” Tony said, gesturing to the door next to the one he left. “Maybe that’s something else different about this universe? Does everyone go in one big room over there?”
Alice giggled. “No, I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
“As well as can be expected,” Tony shrugged. “What did you think about Hammer?”
“Oh yeah, dude’s a dead ringer for Sam Rockwell,” Alice said. “Other than that, he’s oddly charming, kind of like a used car salesman who puts out eccentric commercials on all the local stations.” Alice pursed her lips in thought. “It’s eerie how many people here look just like movie stars.”
Tony narrowed his eyes. “Do you think there’s any special significance to it?”
Alice rubbed her chin, deep in thought. “…I don’t know,” she finally decided. “One more thing about Mr. Hammer, though — I’m pretty sure he’s at least a little gay for you, though.”
That made Tony’s eyebrows shoot up in skepticism. “Justin Hammer has a crush on me?” he said, incredulous. He stood there for a minute, mentally calculating all the interactions they’d had over the years. “…Actually, you may be onto something,” he admitted. “I gotta tell you, Abernathy, I wasn’t averse to a little experimentation back in the day. Before Afghanistan, I might have even thought about giving it a shot. Now…”
Alice nodded her head. “I know what true love is like. It’s really magical.” A pained look flashed across her face, as she remembered what (who) she didn’t remember.
Tony looked uncomfortable with Alice’s distress, so aimed for distraction. “Hey, do you know where my car is?”
“The one you drove here? Pretty sure you can just call Happy and ask him,” Alice said.
Tony chuckled. “No, my F1 car. I want to… ah, personally inspect it.”
Alice let out a wide grin. “Ah, inspect it. Right this way, Mr. Stark,” she said.
As Tony followed alongside, he gave her a look. “What, not gonna try to talk me out of it?”
“I’m not Miss Potts,” Alice pointed out. “Besides, you fly around in a freaking suit of armor at Mach speeds, you clearly already have the reflexes for racecar driving.”
“Don’t tell Pep, but you’re a way cooler assistant than she was,” Tony murmured to her.
**********
Any resemblance to characters in Iron Man 2 or this derivative work and real life individuals is purely a coincidence. (And I'm sure he wanted an electric jet so he didn't constantly burn through jet fuel heading over to his buddy's island. His entirely fictional buddy who 100% definitely died of suicide in prison).