Chapter 1
Now, who didn’t love being invited to charity events? They were a great time to schmooze. Whether you needed a grant for research or you were trying to secure a contract with a government agency for exclusivity and seemingly endless funding, they were the go-to place to be to get what you wanted.
For the Stark siblings, Tony and Y/N Stark, the brother and sister team of chaos and genius attended these things with no desire other than to see what everyone else was working on. These were just observational experiences for them. They had the contracts they needed, all the money they could ever ask for, and a general distaste for just about everyone. To go here was to simply just be in-the-know and learn about what was going on in their fields.
Besides, generally, they both disliked everyone. Tony came as an ego boost to himself and to take someone’s promising grad student home for a few hours a night. Y/N, however, usually came for the sake of appearances. She loved her brother, but like him, hated this whole thing very much. Attending showed a united front, and, well, sometimes it kept Tony out of trouble.
“Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in,” a voice behind you prompted you to stop drinking and turn around to see who it was. You smiled seeing the stocky, strong, bald man in front of you and the grin on his face.
“Ben Grimm,” you beamed and set down your glass to hug him. “You look amazing! I haven’t seen you since you test piloted our mini-jet. How are you?”
“Ah, come on, I don’t look as good as you, kid,” Ben returned your hug and held you at arm’s length by your elbows to look at you. “You look great as always. I’m good, I’m good, you?”
“Oh, you know, running around with big bro doing dumb things,” you shrugged easily while he chuckled.
“I kinda know the feeling,” He nodded in agreement with you. “I’m surprised to see you here. I thought the cash threshold was a little low for you guys.”
“You know me, I like to be in the know, Tony likes to be in a grad student,” you explained while Ben laughed with you. “What about you? I mean, you’re still flying, right? The world isn’t missing an amazing pilot?”
“You flatter me, Starkette, yeah, I’m still flying. Actually, tonight I’m just here to accompany —“
“Oh, look at this guy pretending to be an adult,” Tony quipped as he came up by your side, elbow nudging your waist as Reed Richards came up beside Ben, already wearing an exasperated look. “Look at you, Richards, you almost look like you know what you’re doing.”
Ah, Reed Richards, your brother’s arch nemesis. The two of them together had the worst ego battles. They were obnoxious, so jealous of each other, and couldn’t possibly understand how to be civil in public. Usually, you just let them duke out their own battles, you didn’t want to get involved.
Besides, if you were fighting Reed, how could you have the time to stare at him? The man never bothered you. Actually, it kind of seemed like he didn’t really acknowledge your presence, which sucked, but it gave you more time to your own thoughts. Reed was handsome. A few years older than you, closer to your big brother’s age, you felt like you couldn’t tell anyone about your secret crush on Reed. He was a handsome, smart man, if not horribly awkward and absolutely terrible at being anything but in science mode 24-7.
Although, now he mostly didn’t acknowledge you, in prior years he was always nice. He’d ask what you were working on, give suggestions, even though you didn’t ask, but he thought he was being nice and helpful, and compliment you on whatever you had recently released, and save his insults for Tony.
“Ah, Tony, they let any old mechanic just stumble into this place, don’t they?” Reed replied, tilting his head to the side to study Tony. “Let me guess, fourth whiskey?”
“Fifth, actually,” Tony said easily as he chugged the rest of his drink and set it on the platter of a passing waiter. “Let me guess, the boy scout is staying sober tonight so he can trick some hapless fool into giving you funding for your next greatest failure?”
Reed smiled, a phony, annoyed smile that sent a pang of need that made the appetizers in your stomach do somersaults as you watched him and your brother face off for the millionth time, “They’re not failures, Stark. They’re just part of the scientific process, something you would know nothing about given that you’re not actually a scientist.”
“Oh, I know nothing about the scientific process. Did you hear that, Y/N? I know nothing about science,” Tony said as he stuffed his hands into his pockets.
“I heard, Tony —“
“It’s not like our family basically won us World War II or anything like that, not like we’ve single-handedly advanced numerous technologies and — “
“And advanced warfare far beyond any scale that was ever needed in society?” Reed finished. “And you’re proud of that, all the lives you’ve helped take? Science should be about the preservation and the betterment of life, not the destruction of it. You Starks are nothing more than glorified war profiteers — “
“Hey, enough,” You snapped, your hand coming up in front of Tony’s chest to keep him back. Your family history and relationship with Howard Stark was a touchy subject that Tony hated addressing. You, on the other hand, being the younger sibling didn’t have quite the same memories with Howard as he had, leaving you slightly more level-headed in comparison. “Shouldn’t you run off and grovel for money somewhere? I hear Victor Von Doom is feeling generous tonight if you want to test your luck that way.”
Maybe that was mean of you, but this bitter rivalry between Reed and Tony over the years had become so annoying to listen to while you were just trying to waste your time fantasizing about Reed. You were tired of watching Reed disrespect your brother, you were tired of listening to their senseless back and forth. It was stupid, and childish, and —
“Oh, I’m sorry, did you speak?” Reed chuckled a bit just as Ben started to groan and cover his face with his hands. “Here I was thinking you were just Tony’s voiceless little shadow.”
Tony went from wanting to kill Reed to becoming utterly relaxed. He smiled and sighed happily to himself, muttering that Reed had finally done it. Tony watched you with complete content as you lowered your hand and stepped closer to Reed, your hand grabbing his tie and smoothing it down before you yanked on it and pulled him down to meet your eye-level.
“Reed Richards,” you began, a disturbed smile on your face. “I will end you.”
“Did I hit a sore spot?” Reed replied, raising an eyebrow. “Here I thought you were the composed one.”
“It’s easy to lose my composure around a grown-ass man whose head is so far up his own ass he can see through his mouth. You, Reed, are insufferable, childish, and a complete brat with absolutely zero concept of how to execute a plan from start to finish. Good luck funding your space expedition, asshole,” You shoved him away and turned on your heel to leave, Tony sticking his tongue out at Reed and following behind you.
“How did you know about that?” Reed called after you.
“I’m Y/N Stark, I know everything!” You shouted over your shoulder.
As you and Tony disappeared from his view, he sighed and turned to look at Ben who was glaring at him, “What?”
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Ben sighed and shook his head. “On what planet is that how you impress the woman you’re into? Do you not remember her and Tony’s explosion at that Congressional hearing a few years ago? She has a temper! Why would you do that? You like her, Reed, you’re supposed to woo her, not start a war!”
Reed opened his mouth before closing it and opening it again, “It got away from me.”
“And so did another woman. Again. Geez, Reed, I gotta put a leash on ya or something,” Ben sighed as he hit him on the back. “Come on, let’s go talk to Victor and get this over with.”
~*~*~*~*~
The next time you saw Reed, that obnoxious man was fresh from space with superpowers alongside three other people. He was quickly becoming a local celebrity, not unlike Tony, who also had a bit of a superhero origin of his own. Now, they were two titans in their fields, and heroes, and their egos couldn’t possibly get any bigger.
Or so you thought.
“I’m sorry, I constructed my arc reactor to save my life. What did you do, again? Pull an Icarus?” Tony shouted at Reed, the two of them screaming at each other in the middle of yet another event.
“It was a storm —“
“That he made a very obvious miscalculation for and nearly killed his whole team and the man who funded the expedition. He’s a real winner, right, Tone?” You looked to your brother as you joined his side.
Reed was utterly exasperated as he stared at you, “I’m sorry, do you even have any idea how to count high enough to even read those calculations?”
You smiled and raised your phone to show him the screen, “Obviously, but I don’t have to. You see, I create these different algorithms and programs that do it for me and are perfect every single time. Science.”
Reed rolled his eyes, “Coding is hardly a science. Children do it for their MySpace pages.”
“MySpace? Are you 100?” Tony joked. “Made of plastic and 100 years old, the world’s oldest condom.”
“We should give him credit, Tony, now he can make his dick big enough so he could find it,” You smiled at Reed who turned red in anger as he glared at you.
“Stark, if you were so desperate for my dick, all you had to do was ask nicely.”
You didn’t even have to say anything at that point, because Tony, the world’s most overprotective brother in the universe, reeled back and threw his fist into Reed’s face, starting a brawl that left you standing there feeling a range of emotions. On the one hand, you did want to kill Reed yourself. On the other hand, that grey in his hair was lovely, distinguished, and he just looked utterly delicious in that stupid blue suit of his.
!~**~~*~*~*~*~*~*
Okay. That was it. You had to kill Reed Richards.
The man had been interviewed by the Daily Bugle, and openly said that you and Tony were hacks that were glorified mechanics who had no business being referred to as ‘great minds,’ saying that Tony was nothing more than a money-hungry monster and that you were just his shadow saying yes to whatever you did.
Stomping through the Baxter Building, you greeted the doorman with a too-loud ‘hello’ before going into the elevator and jamming the button several times with your index knuckle. You stood in the elevator fuming as it rode up to the penthouse.
When the doors opened, you saw Reed sitting on a stool, a pencil in his mouth, surrounded by a cluster of papers in just about every direction. There was a cold cup of coffee on the desk, and his hair was sticking up in various directions. He looked up from his clipboard and stared at you in shock as you stormed toward him. His eyes widened and he sat there in shock while you made your way over to him.
“You have a lot of fucking nerve, Reed. Talking to the press? Telling them how we’re basically two stupid, lucky morons? What’s the matter with you, dickhead! All of my insults are to your face, but you go to the press? To that J. Jonah Jackass?!” You shouted as you threw the newspaper at him.
Reed was momentarily speechless. His mouth fell open as he gawked at you from his seat. After taking a few seconds to regain his composure and actually realize that you were standing in front of him, in his building, in his lab and screaming your lungs out at him, he stood up from his seat, lab coat moving with him as he stepped away from the chair and looked down at the paper you threw at him.
“Well, hello, Y/N.”
“Oh, hello, hello?” You yelled at him. “You know, you’re an asshole, Reed. I thought whatever you had with my brother was just some sad contest between two men with mini dicks trying to make themselves feel better, but you actually are just an asshole. Un-fucking-believable, Reed Richards.”
Reed bent down to grab the newspaper and bring it up to his face to read about what you were screaming about. He skimmed it quickly and shook his head, “I, I didn’t say this to a reporter!”
“Well, you said it to someone, because it’s all over a freaking newspaper. Way to go, Reed.”
“Hold on, Y/N,” Reed tossed the paper to the side. “You’re not exactly the nicest girl out there.”
“You started it!” You shouted at him. “You started it by being you! Socially inept and fucking annoying and arrogant — “
“It isn’t arrogance when you have the intelligence to more than back it up,” Reed countered easily. “It’s not my fault you just can’t understand what I do and the genius behind it —“
“Is that all there is to you, your stupid big brains and thinking you’re so elite and amazing and better than everyone? God, you’re infuriating.”
“I’m infuriating? You’re infuriating! You and your brother — “
“Don’t talk about my brother — “
“Then don’t storm in here screaming at me for something that was clearly taken out of context!” Reed snapped. “You don’t respect my work, it’s one thing, but you can’t just come in here and scream at me because some reporter misheard me when I was talking to Ben!”
“So it’s my fault you were caught slipping up? Why are you even talking about me anyway? God, you know what, Reed? Just keep my fucking name out of your stupid, annoying, frustrating, dumb-looking mouth!” You turned on your heel and marched straight for the elevators. You couldn’t stay there any longer. You were positive you were going to put your fist through Reed’s dumb, stupid, beautiful-looking face, even if it was technically rubber and it wouldn’t do much harm to him, you still wanted to kill him.
Why did you have to find the stupid ones to be so pretty??
Just as you grabbed the door handle, you caught Reed’s hand passing in front of you. Actually seeing his powers put to use in front of you was unnerving, causing you to scream in alarm at first. It slammed the door shut in front of you. His arm, covered in blue from his stupid suit underneath his lab coat, wrapped around your waist and arms. You shouted as Reed pulled you back to him. He maneuvered his arm so you were turned around and facing him, but he kept his arm around you to keep you from leaving.
“Let me go, Richards,” you spat. “I will scream bloody murder, and trust me, my voice carries.”
“I know your voice carries because all you do is talk. All you do is talk and yell and scream and say horrible things to me, so, for once, can you please just shut your mouth?” Reed begged of you, watching as you shrugged a shoulder and mumbled that it might be possible. He sighed and ran his other hand down the front of his face. “I was talking about Tony to Ben, yes, and you came up.”
“Maybe just don’t. Ever think of that?”
“No. I can’t do that, okay? It’s not that easy. You—you—you haunt me, Y/N,” Reed confessed. “You plague my every waking moment of being.”
“Well, try not to sound so romantic about it,” you replied, staring up at Reed as his face turned red and he struggled to find the words to explain his feelings to you. “What are you saying, Reed? I bother you that much?”
“Yes,” he seethed. “You are so….so annoying, Y/N. You are confident and funny, and people adore talking to you. Every room you walk into, you light it up, and you have its attention for the entire night. No one can possibly look away from you, because you are the sun in any room you enter and everyone else is just this sad little sapling dying for some of your light. You, you, you make me want to throttle you every time you call me stupid and point out mistakes that I make, but you make me want to kiss you until I can’t breathe.”
Holy shit.
Hold on a moment.
Your brother’s enemy, who became your enemy, was he really doing this? Was he confessing that he, well, that he liked you? He was flattering you more than anyone had ever done. He was confessing to wanting to kiss you, even though he found you somehow insufferable.
You liked this man. You thought he was cute and smart, but, god, was he so annoying. A woman could flash him her breasts and he wouldn’t notice because he was so focused on whatever project he was working on. His drive and desire for knowledge and success would hinder any relationship he’d have, he’d done it in the past with others, but you couldn’t stop the curiosity that was burning in the back of your mind.
“That’s why you’ve finally acknowledged me by insulting me every time you see my brother?” You asked him. “Oh my god. Is this what you do when you like a woman, you’re mean? Are you five?”
“You were mean to me first!”
“You started it!”
Reed growled, “God, you’re infuriating!”
“So are you!” You shouted in his face. “So let me go!”
“No! I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because if I let you go, you’re going to walk out that door and turn your back on me and never look back, and I can’t let you do that without telling you, first, that, that if things were different and I actually knew how to do this part of, well, socially, that, that, that I’d have….I’d have taken you to dinner somewhere, or coffee, or, or anything you wanted.”
Oh, my god.
This was Reed Richards? This was unlike anything you had ever seen. You’d seen two sides of Reed: obnoxious, arrogant brat, and intelligent, isolated, lost-in-thought genius. This was foreign and unlike anything you’d ever seen from him before. It must have shown how confused you were, given the look on your face as he slowly unwrapped his arm from around you.
“Okay,” Reed nodded once, swallowing a lump in his throat. “You can go now.”
You blinked twice as you stared at him, “Wow, you really are…stupid as a fucking door.”
Reed took a deep breath in to keep himself calm. He nodded his head once and turned away from you to get back to his work. You grabbed his arm and turned him around, hand coming up to grab his bearded chin, “Next time, just tell the lady she looks nice and get her a drink, okay?”
He frowned, “Uh. What?”
Rolling your eyes, you pushed Reed backwards until he stumbled and fell onto the stool he had been sitting on prior. Now that he was at eye-level with you while sitting, you tilted your head to the side, lifted his chin, and pressed your lips against his.
Reed was stunned. You could tell because you heard the sharp inhale and could no longer feel him breathing. After realizing this was actually happening, his hands came up to grab your shoulders before they fell to your waist and he wrapped his arms around you, pulling you close to stand between his outstretched legs as he deepened the kiss with you.
When you pulled away, Reed nodded quickly, like a little puppy as he stared at you, lipstick smeared over his mouth, “So, next time, don’t insult you every single time I see you. Got it.”
“Now you’re getting it, Reed,” you nodded once. “Maybe I owe you an apology.”
“Oh?” Reed raised an eyebrow, “I love to hear a Stark admit fault.”
“After you,” you lifted your chin slightly and looked down at him, “say it.”
Reed, chewing on his lip, took a deep breath, “Fine. I’m sorry I insulted you and your brother. You are not glorified mechanics or juvenile computer programmers. You are both intelligent and skilled individuals.”
“And I’m sorry for calling you a socially inept moron who should pull the stick out of his ass and learn to double-check his math,” you replied.
“Stick in my ass, huh? Wow.”
“Hey, you’re the one with the stick in your ass. That’s a ‘you’ problem, buddy,” you replied.
“Actually,” He cleared his throat. “I think the ‘you’ problem will come in when Tony finds out about this.”
You smirked, “And what is there to find out about this, Reed?”
He blushed as he cleared his throat, “Well, hopefully, a whole lot, Ms. Stark.”
“I guess we’ll see about that, Mr. Richards.”
“It’s actually Doctor — “
“Shut up, Reed. Just shut up and go back to the kissing stuff.”