Model Employee
Alice scraped together enough courage to join Tony in his workshop as he began to go through the crate. (The bird was perched on one of the robot arms, which seemed to love the monstrous thing, seriously lowering Alice’s opinion of the contraption).
The first thing right on top of the inside was a rolled up blueprint. “Oh, cool, arc reactor!” Alice said. “Oh, and look, Daddy Vanko is credited first!”
“It was probably alphabetical,” Tony disputed. “A for Anton, versus H for Howard.”
“Ooooor, since names are traditionally alphabetized via the surname, that’s not actually the case?” Alice pointed out. “V for Vanko. And victory.” Alice held her fingers up in the V for Victory pose, which made Tony respond with a solitary finger. He then unrolled the blueprints, glanced at them, saw nothing new, and tossed them aside.
Next up was a newspaper headline announcing Vanko’s defection to the United States. “Ooh, the British strengthened their international policy,” Alice said. She looked at the bottom. “Uh, who’s Nikolai Turitzin?” The name Nikolai seemed to nudge, if not ring, a bell somewhere in her missing memories.
Tony gave her a speculative look. “He was the Soviet Premiere until, like, 1964,” he said. “You guys did have a Soviet Union in your home universe, yeah?”
Alice nodded. “Yeah, but I think some dude named Khruschev ran it then in my universe. I think he banged his shoe during some speech, I dunno.”
Tony couldn’t help but smirk. “You know movie after movie after movie, but the people who programmed you couldn’t be bothered to give you a basic primer on geopolitical history?”
Alice shrugged. “Shit’s fucked up, what can I say?”
Next up were several old canisters of film. Tony happened to have a projector in storage and spent the better part of an hour pulling it out and getting it set up. It turned out the first reel was footage the elder Stark had recorded for the 1974 Expo. “Everything is achievable through technology,” the flickering image of Howard Stark declared.
“Your dad has kind of a ‘Walt Disney knocked up Howard Hughes and he’s the baby’ vibe,” Alice said.
“Well, dad did know both of them,” Tony said, trying really hard to purge the mental image Alice had given him from his skull. He began flipping through his dad’s journal.
Alice glanced over at the pages. “Oh, so your dad was autistic,” she said. “Most people use their journals for extremely mundane shit, or talking about who they wanna fuck, not boring-ass math shit.” Tony was about to comment on her theory when a whole intact goddamn memory hit her like a bolt of lightning. “Beccers! REBECCA FUCKING CHAMBERS WAS AUTISTIC!” She grabbed Tony by the shoulders and started shaking him vigorously. “I FUCKING REMEMBERED SOMEBODY!”
Tony pried Alice’s hands off, torn between happiness for her and extreme annoyance at her. “That’s great, but maybe spare me the whiplash? I’ll have J run the name later.”
As the reel went on, it became obvious it was a bunch of outtakes/alternate takes, and Alice tried to focus on it and not lose her goddamn mind that she’d remembered somebody.
“Oh hey, it’s Baby You!” she said gleefully, pointing as Tony messed with the 1974 Expo model and Howard scolded him. “Just think, a mere twelve years after this was filmed, you showed up in Weird Science.” Tony snorted, but was still engrossed in his dad’s writings.
Howard once more faced the camera, a look of mischief about him. “So from all of us at Stark Industries, I’d like to personally show you… my ass.”
Alice roared with laughter. “MY ASS!” she screamed through her mirthful spasms. “MY ASSSSS!”
Tony gave her a rueful look, then tossed away the journal after reaching its end, having gained no new insights.
There was one last shot on the reel. Howard walked away from the camera, then turned to face it. “Tony?” Tony’s head jerked up, his blood turning to ice. “You’re too young to understand this right now, so I thought I would put it on film for you.” He gestured to the 1974 Expo model. “I built this for you. And someday you’ll realize it represents a whole lot more than just peoples’ inventions. It represents my life’s work. This is the key to the future.” There were several shots of the model, as well as of the model arc reactor that had shown up earlier in the film. “I’m limited by the technology of my time, but one day you’ll figure this out. And when you do… you will change the world. What is and always will be… my greatest creation… is you.”
The reel ended, the last flap of celluloid slapping against itself, drowned out by Alice ugly crying once more. “So… so fucking beautiful…” she murmured, trying to constrain herself for Tony’s emotionally cathartic moment.
Tony glanced at Alice and decided this was far too much emotion. “You know what? We’ve been cooped up in here for too long,” he declared.
“It’s been three hours,” Alice pointed out, the waterworks finally tapering off.
Tony ignored her. “Let’s go see Pep.”
***
They picked up strawberries from a man selling them out of his truck along the way. “Ooh, a snack for us?” Alice asked.
“Nah, they’re for Pepper,” Tony said. “Sort of a peace offering.”
“Mr. Stark, if you want to murder her, I’m sure there are more interesting ways you can go about it,” Alice said gently. “Pepper is super fucking allergic to strawberries.”
Tony stared at her for a moment. “See? That right there is why I need an assistant. Remind me to give you a bonus.” He started driving again. “How did you remember that, when you had to have Agent hold your hand through most of Monaco?”
“Because allergies are serious business,” Alice said. She opened her purse and showed him an epi-pen. “I even got this to use on her just in case.”
“Awesome,” Tony said, roaring past the speed limit to try and stifle the surge of emotion that shot through him. “Go ahead and eat those, if you want. They cost me a five grand watch, so…”
Alice grinned and gave him a thumbs up. “Five grand tashtesh aweshome!” she said, her mouth already full of strawberries.
***
Tony breezed past Pepper’s secretary (Tony’s old secretary? Alice wondered) and barged into her office. Pepper held up her hand, asking for a moment as she was on the phone. Alice zoned out as it was some blah blah legal crap about the suit Tony had blatantly handed off to Rhodey. She tried paying attention to the TV, but some stupid asshole was on there talking about how the entire planet was practically on the brink of collapse without one man to hold it up. “Oh wow, this stupid fucking shithead just said you were a secretary,” Alice said to Pepper, not really thinking about her being on the phone. “Maybe this asshole should worry about how qualified he is to search basic fucking information that’s freely accessible on the Internet.”
“Mute,” Tony said, cutting off the stupid dickhead before he could actually call her a pinhead.
“Pepper, swear to God, once I can kill people with my mind —” Alice began.
Pepper put a hand over the receiver. “Alice, don’t kill people, okay? Especially not on my behalf!” She removed her hand. “…No, Burt, I think there must have been some static on the line…”
After another few moments, Pepper finally hung up. “Got a minute?” Tony asked, sliding into the chair in front of the desk.
“No,” Pepper answered.
“Come on, you just got off the phone,” Tony wheedled. “You’re fine, thirty seconds.”
Pepper made a point to look right at her watch. “Twenty-nine, twenty-eight…”
“Okay, I, um…” Tony stammered.
“Tell her, ass!” Alice hissed into his ear.
“I was just driving over here, and I thought I was coming to basically apologize, but I’m not,” Tony started.
“Jesus wept!” Alice grumbled.
“Oh, you didn’t come here to apologize?” Pepper said, leaning back, giving her ex-boss a scathing look.
“Look, that goes without saying,” Tony backpedaled, trying to salvage things. “And I’m working on that. But I haven’t been entirely, uh, upfront… with you, and I just want to try to make good.” He gestured with frustration at the perpetual motion thingie on her desk. “Can I move this?”
Alice sighed. “Mr. Stark, do you want me to say this?” she asked.
“No,” Pepper vetoed before Tony could say one way or the other. “Tony is, theoretically, an adult, and perfectly capable of using actual words to discuss genuine feelings. And no, Tony, you may not move that.”
Tony cleared his throat and rolled the chair to the side of the desk opposite the perpetual motion thingie. “Do you know how short life is?” he asked. “And if I never got to express… and by the way, this is somewhat revelatory to me… and I don’t care — I mean, I care, it would be nice, I’m not expecting you to… look here’s what I’m trying to say. I’m just gonna say it.”
“Let me just stop you right here, okay?” Pepper interjected. “Because if you say ‘I’ one more time, I’m gonna actually hurl something at your head, I think.” She leaned forward once more. “I am trying to run a company. Do you have any idea what that entails?”
“I do,” Alice volunteered. Tony and Pepper put their tiff on hold to stare at her. “…Yeah, I guess for whatever reason I have the know-how to run a multibillion dollar international corporation. …Sorry, continue on with your cute as fuck lover’s quarrel.”
“Lover’s quarrel?” Tony mouthed.
Pepper turned back to Tony. “People are relying on you to be Iron Man, and you’ve disappeared, and all I’m doing is putting out your fires and taking the heat for it.” Tony’s fidgeting made something fly across the desk, Alice wasn’t paying too close attention lest she be compelled to comment again. “I am trying to do the job that you were meant to do.” Tony began to sulk… or pout… though Alice didn’t really know if there was much of a distinction.
Before Tony could try to recover, the office door opened and Natasha stepped in. “Miss Potts?”
“Hi, come on in,” Pepper said, once more composed.
“Wheels up in 25 minutes,” she announced. She nodded to Alice. “Miss Abernathy.”
“Hi!” Alice waved. “Where are you guys headed?”
“The Expo, of course,” Pepper said. “Thank you, Miss Rushman.”
“Anything else, boss?” Happy asked, who’d also entered the office.
“No, I’ll be just another minute,” Pepper said, speaking over Tony’s own reply.
“Well, at least I only lost one of the kids in the divorce,” Tony joked.
Alice gasped. “Oh my God, you two were married? Why would you two divorce, you’re perfect for each other!”
Pepper narrowed her eyes, then leaned in to Tony again. “Is she joking? I really can’t tell.”
Tony shrugged, then looked at Natasha. “Are you blending in well here, ‘Natalie’? Here at Stark Enterprises?” he asked pointedly. She shot him a dangerous look. “Your name is Natalie, isn’t it?” He turned to Alice. “What do you say, Abernathy, remind you of any celebrities?”
Alice considered Natasha for a second. “Nah.”
Pepper stood up. “Actually, while you’re here, maybe you and Natalie could discuss the matter of the personal belongings,” Pepper said, pointing to the big pile of crap that took up one whole corner of the office.
“Absolutely,” Natasha said. Pepper walked out, and Tony watched her leave. He turned back to Natasha, who remarked, “I’m surprised you two can keep your mouth shut.”
“Well, it took Tony, what, a few weeks before he blew his own secret identity?” Alice pointed out. “And hey, I like you, Natasha, I wouldn’t blow your cover.”
A speculative look was on Tony’s face. “When you say ‘like’…”
Alice giggled. “Oh! No, just friendly-wise. No offense, Natasha, but… you’re not really my type.”
“None taken,” Natasha said, an amused look on her face. “May I ask, what is your type?”
“Oh, maybe a tad more butch?” Alice said. “I’d say 75% feminine, 25% butch. A soldiery kind of gal, you know?” A mildly panicked look crossed her face. “Oh, but I’m not really looking right now, you know? In case you had anyone in mind. If I change my mind I’ll let you know.”
Natasha nodded. “…Out of curiosity, do you actually see a celebrity when you look at me?”
“Oh yeah!” Alice nodded. “None other than the star of Home Alone 3 herself, Scarlett Johansson!”
Natasha blinked at that for a few seconds. “I’d have thought you’d know her from the Spongebob movie,” she finally settled on. “Now, Tony, I suggest you either drive yourself home, or I have you collected.” She left the office.
“…They made a Spongebob movie?” Alice said, gobsmacked.
Tony ignored Alice and stood to follow Natasha out, but Alice loitered by the pile of crap in the corner. “Hey, what about all this stuff?” she said.
“See anything you like, grab it,” Tony said offhand. “The rest can be… tossed…” He stopped and took a second look. One of the objects — one of the rather large objects — in the corner, Alice suddenly realized, was the 1974 Expo model, the one she’d just seen on the old film reel.
And Tony was staring at it like it was a tortilla that had the face of Jesus on it.
He pulled the sheet off of it that had mostly obscured it and took it all in… then curled one hand into an imaginary telescope and scrutinized it further.
“What’s up, Mr. Stark? Or is this first name shit?” Alice asked.
“Definitely first name shit,” Tony agreed. He stepped back from the model, then turned to her. “Do you know what this means, Pretty in Pink?”
Alice looked at the model, then back to Tony. “…We can pretend we’re Godzilla?” she ventured.
Tony shook his head no and grabbed her by the hands. “Alice, this means… you’re gonna have to call yourself a cab, because this baby’s coming home with me.” He immediately got to work getting the model ready for transport in his car.
“Well, shit,” Alice said, before shrugging and helping him cart the model’s slabs down to the parking garage.