Chapter 7
After grabbing a coffee for himself, Tony led the girls across to the sofas in the centre of the room. Tony and Pepper sat side by side on the middle sofa, with Ashley placing herself on the furthest end of the sofa to the right of them. Her fingers twitched nervously in her lap and she couldn’t meet either Tony or Pepper’s gaze. Pepper decided to break the silence first, hoping her voice would be more soothing than Tony’s, especially as her fiancé had a tendency to be blunt.
“Ashley, I’m very impressed with the work you did on FRIDAY. Not many people would be able to repair an advanced AI quite like that and certainly not as fast as you did. Even Tony was stuck on it. Although, that might have something to do with the lack of proper sleep and over-dependence on coffee…” Pepper fixed him with a hard glare before turning back to Ashley with a sweet smile.
Ashley simply looked at Pepper with awestruck, glazed-over eyes, her mouth hanging ever so slightly open at the compliment. “Th-Thank you Miss Potts,” she stuttered out quietly, gaze falling back to her fidgeting fingers.
“Tony and I would like to offer you an internship with us – similar to Peter’s. But we would also like to know what you would want to get out of this experience.”
Ashley was struck speechless. Her eyes were open impossibly wide as she regarded Pepper and Tony, looking for the slightest hint that this was a joke, or that she was dreaming. With all the injuries lately and the distinct lack of food, perhaps she had finally succumbed to a fever?
“I think you broke her, Pep.” Tony chuckled light-heartedly. He leaned forward, reaching for Pepper’s Stark Pad and brought a hologram up for them all to see. Ashley recognised her school’s emblem on the documents he had pulled up. She didn’t have time to register that Tony had clearly hacked her school’s server before he began reciting her latest report card. “IT and Computer Science A, Physics A, Biology A, Chemistry A, Advanced Biochem Studies A, English A, Maths A, Statistics A, Psychology Studies A, Geography B, History A, Modern Foreign Languages A, Art & Design A, Music A and Physical Education C. If that isn’t the most remarkable report card I’ve ever seen, I don’t know what is.”
“I need to pick up my Geography and P.E. grades…” Ashley mumbled. Her cheeks were flushed red as Tony continued.
“Midtown Science Fair winner this year and second place to Peter last year, fixed member of the school’s Academic Decathlon team… Kid, you’re a genius. When do you have time for all this?” She muttered a response along the lines of ‘I study a lot’, which seemed to satisfy Tony as he closed the hologram down. “Stark Industries is in some dire need of fresh blood. All these old engineers and scientists are has-beens – not including myself of course. It needs the inspiring and creative minds of youth and even if Stark Industries isn’t somewhere you want to spend the rest of your life, how good would it look on an MIT application?”
Ashley couldn’t deny the logic there. She would have a much better chance of getting a scholarship to MIT with a Stark Industries internship under her belt. Even if it wasn’t a full scholarship, after exams she could get a job and start saving up some money and she could probably work during university as well.
“Your skills and knowledge put you far ahead of some of the employees that have been here for years,” Pepper commented. She picked up a stack of papers that were sitting neatly on the coffee table and handed them across to Ashley. “Therefore, this would of course be a paid internship. We are not in the business of exploiting child labour after all.”
“Th-This would be paid?” Ashley’s voice was scratchy as the sounds clawed up her throat. Pepper nodded and smiled softly.
“Yes - it’s paid based on the current internship wage packet, but of course there is always flexibility to discuss it further. It also comes with private medical insurance and access to all medical and recreational amenities available at the tower.”
“I understand exams are coming up in the next couple of weeks,” Tony began. “So, to start off I was considering one compulsory afternoon a week on Wednesdays after school. Once exams are over, we’ll up it to Wednesday afternoons and a day at the weekend. Of course, if you want to come over more frequently than that, all you have to do is ask.”
This was a dream come true for Ashley. She subtly pinched her hand to check if she was dreaming. It hurt, but she didn’t wake up so either this was real, or she was in deep with the dream. She thought it was more likely to be the latter, so maybe she could just indulge herself a little longer. Pepper’s voice distracted her from her thoughts as the red head continued explaining the internship.
“As you’re only fifteen, we need a parent or guardian to sign this. We were wondering if we could possibly meet your parents?”
“No.” The reply came out sharply, startling both Pepper and Tony. Ashley’s breaths began to pick up with the rising panic in her chest. “I mean, they both work really long hours and have to take care of my little brother, so I don’t think they would have time to come here…”
“We could always come to your home to meet them. I’m sure the meeting wouldn’t take up too much of their time.” Pepper countered, growing more wary as Ashley’s hands fisted into the fabric of her hoodie. The same hoodie, Pepper noticed, that the girl had been wearing on Friday. It was black with a white skeleton transfer that was fading. The hoodie had been a present from her grandparents a couple of years prior and was wearing into holes in the cuffs.
“Could I just take the paperwork home and get my parents to sign it?” Although it made Pepper uneasy, she nodded her head in consent and made a mental note of the visible drop in Ashley’s shoulders.
Tony clapped his hands together loudly, breaking the tense atmosphere. “Great! Now that that’s all sorted, why don’t we get you settled in the lab and we can discuss some projects?” Both Tony and Pepper stood up, Ashley following suit. Pepper chuckled to herself and lightly whacked Tony on the shoulder.
“I’m guessing that’s a cue for me to start getting dinner ready?” In answer, Tony’s stomach grumbled rather loudly. “You two go have fun for a bit. But not too much. Dinner will be ready in less than an hour.”
Ashley followed Tony back into the lab, where Peter was casing up some vials of white fluid. There were about ten different vials on the table, marked with various coloured stoppers. Tony picked up one with a blue stopper at the top and examined it carefully. “How did you get on adding the electrodes?”
“I got it first time,” Peter boasted gleefully. “And I didn’t accidentally fry the nanites this time.”
Tony grinned and put the vial back on the table. He gestured to the small bottles, capturing Ashley’s attention. “Although there are plenty of Stark Industries projects I will want you two working on, Peter also works on some of the Avengers’ tech and upgrades. He’s currently working on refining Spider-Man’s web fluid.”
Ashley stared at Peter as if he had grown a second head. Peter sheepishly smiled and picked up the vial Tony had set down moments before hand. “This one is quite special – it’s a special taser web. It contains dozens of small nanites and electrodes to produce a charge large enough to incapacitate a person without doing serious damage. It can also be used to fry circuitry so if he ever gets attacked by killer robots, he’ll be ready.”
Tony sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “I feel like that’s a dig at the Ultron fiasco. Why did I ever tell you that story?”
“You didn’t,” Peter answered. “Captain America told me after I tried to build a cooking robot.”
“And how did that go?” Ashley inquired her friend, genuinely intrigued with the idea of a robot that could assist with cooking.
“Terribly,” Tony answered for him. “Peter now has a life-time ban from using my kitchen.”
Ashley sniggered lightly, imagining a robot with a whisk and wooden spoon for hands chasing the Avengers around the large penthouse. Tony couldn’t help but crack a small sound at the laugh as he picked up a pair of prototype web shooters. These were smaller than the ones Peter was currently using. They were shaped like a thin cuff that would wrap around the wrist, a small trigger jutting out that would sit in Spider-Man’s palm.
“Peter is working on a more compact web shooter which would not only be able to shoot different kinds of webs but also use different kinds of web fluid. The web fluid formula would need to be condensed down into these…” Tony pulled out a small disk, the size of a small coin. As he turned over the shooter in his hands, Ashley could pick out five more slots filled with these small disks. “We would therefore need to create some sort of program so that these could become easily interchangeable in a fight, whether that be a holographic screen or if we linked the shooters up to the suit’s AI.”
“Spider-Man has an AI?” Ashley was quite surprised to hear this. As she considered Spider-Man to be a bit dense at the best of times, she thought it would be a bit strange that Tony had given him access to an AI.
“Yeah, for some reason he called it Karen…” Tony shook his head disapprovingly, while Peter fixed his mentor with a hurt glare. “Also, I probably shouldn’t have told you any of this without getting you to sign an NDA first.”
“I promise this conversation doesn’t leave this room, Mr Stark.” Ashley was quick to chime in.
Peter just simply laughed, clearly getting some amusement out of the whole scenario. “Don’t worry Ash. Mr Stark just isn’t very organised when it comes to this sort of stuff. He’s normally got an army of lawyers behind him who do it all for him.” Peter only laughed harder when Tony smacked him lightly round the back of the head with a stack of papers.
“You’re getting too damn cheeky for your own good, Underoos.”
“Language,” Peter snapped back light-heartedly.
Ashley couldn’t help the grin spread across her face as she watched the pair interact. The lab had a warm and comfortable atmosphere and Ashley hoped she could settle quickly into the same rhythm.
“So, we’ve probably got a few more minutes before Pepper calls us for dinner.” Tony advised as he led Ashley over to a worktable just behind Peter. “Why don’t you get yourself set up here and have a think over what sort of stuff you want to work on. This area is all yours, so if you need any equipment or any tech, just let me know. I’ll get you your own laptop and Stark Pad ready for next week.”
Ashley sat down on the desk chair at the table. The chair was comfy – much more so than the desk chairs she was used to at school all day and it looked like it hadn’t ever been sat on before, unlike the ones in the library, where holes had ripped through and the stuffing was hanging out the sides. Against one wall was a collection of books on mechanical engineering, coding, physics and biochemistry. There were various pieces of lab equipment including microscopes, beakers, test tubes and burners as well as welding equipment and mechanical tools. Her desk had some drawers and she opened the top drawer to find notepads and a collection of stationary – mostly in pink and purple for some reason. She frowned at the thought that Mr Stark had gone to so much trouble for her.
She pulled out the notepad and picked up a mechanical pencil, clicking the top a few times before she started to write out some ideas. At first, she wrote down the things she had daydreamed about in class – ideas she had previously noted down on scrap bits of paper, but never had the time or resources to follow-through with. There was one thought in particular that had stayed with her for the last few years. It was an AI system that could be used to monitor both physical and mental health. She had never considered the application before, but maybe now she could actually propel some force into the idea. It was something that could be used to help assist vulnerable people with being able to live independently.
The thought had originally come when her grandfather’s health started to decline from Alzheimer’s. He had always said he never wanted to go into a home or be away from his wife. Her nana had vowed to look after him for the rest of their lives together. A stroke killed him shortly after. Around six months passed before her nana left as well, her death brought on by a sudden heart attack.
She crammed all the thoughts she had on the AI design onto a page before flicking over to start a new one. The web shooters on Peter’s desk caught her eye and she began drawing a rough diagram for an interface that could be added for ease of access. She jotted down several ideas, such as an easy-to-navigate holographic system in order for the superhero to quickly select the desired web and a voice command system for even quicker selections. She scribbled down the logistics of connecting it to the AI, which could be more useful in certain situations if Spider-Man needs to be discreet, but also be used stand-alone if he found himself without Karen, as Mr Stark had called her.
She was brought out of her musings when FRIDAY spoke over the speakers. “Lady Boss would like to inform you that dinner is nearly ready.”
Tony and Peter finished organising the vials of web fluid they had been working on and Ashley filed the notebook and pencil back into her drawer. She followed the boys to the sink in the far corner of the room to wash their hands. Beside the sink was a door, marked with a large ‘No Unauthorised Persons' sign. Tony caught Ashley reading the sign and decided to explain what was behind the door.
“My suits are stored behind that door. Along with a few other top secret things...” Tony informed her. “Maybe one day I'll give you a full tour inside.” He winked and left to help Pepper dish up the dinner, leaving Peter and Ashley alone.
“Are you okay?” Peter asked as he dried off his hands and allowed Ashley to move to the sink. She nodded her head as she washed her hands, knowing there was probably some dirt underneath her fingernails from where she had been sorting through FRIDAY's wiring. “You just seemed really overwhelmed and I wanted to make sure you were alright. MJ, Ned and I have all been worried about you...” Peter trailed off, wondering if he should have said the last bit.
There was a brief pause before Ashley spoke quietly, and if it weren’t for Peter's enhanced hearing he doubt he would have heard her. “I'm sorry... I’ve just had a lot going on.” Her voice wavered and her eyes were filling with unshed tears. Peter swooped forward to collect her in a tight hug, being careful not to crush her with his super strength. Ashley hesitantly laid her forehead on her friend's shoulder and wrapped her arms loosely around his middle, but she refused to let the tears spill over. “Peter... Is this real?” Her voice was barely a whisper, frightened that this little bubble of hope would burst, and she would find herself waking up in her tent for another day of school; or even worse, locked in the airing cupboard, her parents shouting horrid insults at her through the door.
Peter's hold on her tightened imperceptibly. He worried that his grip would break her fragile body as he felt her ribcage poking into his side through the fabric of both their hoodies. “It's real Ash. I promise it's real.”
For the first time, Ashley was truly thankful to have Peter as a friend.
Tony popped his head in the door a minute later to hurry them both along, but halted when he saw the two embraced, Ashley's back to him. Peter caught Tony's gaze and held up a finger, indicating the two would be out in a minute. Nodding his head, he turned and left to let Pepper know. Sure enough, not a minute later, the pair were heading out to meet them at the dining table that Ashley hadn’t remembered being in the room previously. The table was set for six, with Pepper, Tony and Colonel Rhodes already being sat down. Pepper motioned to Ashley to sit in the empty seat beside her, while Peter went to sit opposite, beside Tony. Rhodes was sat at one end of the table between Tony and Pepper, leaving an empty space the other end between Ashley and Peter.
“Brucie-bear will be joining us shortly, so go ahead and tuck in.”
“I hope you like Spaghetti Carbonara,” Pepper added, smiling at Ashley as she began twirling the pasta on her fork. Ashley simply nodded and looked down at the food. Truthfully, it looked really appetising, but Ashley wasn’t sure she currently had the stomach for it. She absently twirled the spaghetti on her fork when the elevator dinged, signalling the arrival of their final dinner guest. Ashley's fork fell from her grasp with a loud clatter as she realised the Bruce Banner was standing in front of her.
Tony smirked as he stood up to greet Bruce. “Jolly Green, meet SI's newest intern, Ashley Sampson. Ashley this is-”
“Dr Bruce Banner!” Ashley finished for him. She was now standing up to greet the renowned scientist, who extended an arm for a handshake towards her. She shook his hand eagerly. “Your study on the medical applications of gamma radiation is amazing! I was particularly interested in your hypothesis on using it to enable organic limb regrowth!”
Sensing she had been shaking his hand too long, she quickly let go and dropped her head, hoping she hadn’t embarrassed herself too badly. Bruce was looking rather bashful himself, but all three of the other adults present could tell he was rather happy to hear the compliment. Bruce had a bit of a complex when it came to The Other Guy, so for someone to recognise him first and foremost for his scientific work made a welcome change of pace. It was rather reminiscent of Peter's first encounter with him and Bruce had definitely noticed the wide grin on Peter's face at the exchange.
“It's very nice to meet you Miss Sampson. Unfortunately, my work is still only in the hypothesis stage as it is proving very difficult to control the isotopes, but perhaps you could assist me with my research some time?”
Ashley nodded eagerly in answer as Bruce sat down at the table. The dinner continued with some light-hearted conversation and a few questions sent in Ashley's direction. She slowly ate her way through the spaghetti, trying not to disrupt her sensitive stomach and used answering questions as a welcome break between bites.
“What sort of projects would you like to work on at SI?” Pepper asked.
Ashley quickly swallowed the mouthful she had. The meal was very delicious, but the creamy sauce wasn’t sitting well with her. She sipped on her glass of water to try to rid the nauseous feeling in her throat before answering Pepper.
“I want to work on things that will help other people. I want to help people, maybe by creating tools for emergency services or schools... anyone really.”
“And do you think you will be able to achieve that at Stark Industries?” Ashley simply nodded in answer to Pepper’s question, which seemed to satisfy the CEO.
Once everyone had finished eating, (Ashley was quite impressed that she had managed to eat over three quarters of the bowl) she offered to clean up after the meal and had even started gathering dishes, but Pepper told her the boys had it covered as Rhodey took the dishes from Ashley’s grasp. Pepper sat down with Ashley on the sofas for a few minutes, chatting about some of the accomplishments of Stark Industries through the years, before Happy was called to take Ashley home – despite her insistence that she would walk as it wasn’t that far away. Peter was apparently allowed to take the subway home even though he lived further away, which Ashley found a bit odd, but maybe they trusted Peter to look after himself.
When she arrived at her tent, she didn’t go to bed immediately. She kept on walking, far into the trees to find somewhere fairly far away from the tent. It was nearing nine o’clock in the evening, and her stomach had been a bundle of nerves for the last few hours. It was getting to the point that the stomach pains were becoming unbearable, so she found a spot and crashed to her knees, throwing up everything she had eaten that day. Granted, it wasn’t much – just the most delicious pasta she had ever had and the apple she had eaten at lunch time.
Ashley was rather upset that she had found herself chucking up the lovely meal that Pepper had gone to the trouble to prepare for her. She hoped this was just a one-time thing as once the internship started, she should be able to start paying for some food for herself. It might not be much, but she could probably afford a meal a day while saving the rest of her money. However, that presented another problem. She needed a bank account. To open a bank account, she needed to be sixteen or accompanied by a parent/guardian.
Swallowing her pride, she pulled out her phone and hovered over one of the three contacts she had in there. After a minute of debating with herself, she finally pressed the dial button and held the phone up to her ear.
“Carter, to what do I owe the pleasure?” A low voice answered after two rings.
“Murdock… I need that favour.”