Legend

I was glad to get back to work, and not just because it was a relief to escape my taskmasters. While the past few weeks had been some of the best of my life, I was ready to get back to some discipline, my daily routine, and focused intellectual effort. I hadn't worked out much, and Bucky didn't reprove me, but he didn't have to. I worked harder to compensate for the inactivity. Today was a day I worked with Sif, who was thrilled at my news and we talked as we sparred. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her son Magni watching us and mimicking some of our movements. I nodded toward him and feinted in such a way to put him in her line of sight. She smiled. We stopped and she beckoned him over.

"Would you like to do what Mama is doing?" she asked him, smoothing his hair. He nodded and looked eager. I grinned at him and showed him the first block Bucky had taught me. We worked until his concentration ran out, then he went back to sit down and I resumed work with Sif. At the end of her session, I offered to add Magni in to her lesson; he was still pretty young and didn't have a huge attention span so wouldn't take a lot of time out of Sif's time. "Hogun will be returning to Earth next month," she mentioned as they were ready to go. "He would like to spar with you if you have time."

I loved fighting Hogun with the two swords, and he was the only person I knew who fought like that. "I'll make time if I have to," I said enthusiastically. "Oh, wait a minute." I went tot he desk and found an envelope. "My future father-in-law is having an engagement party for us next month. I don't know what your plans are like, but I'd love for you to come if you can."

"Thank you, Alex," she said as she opened the envelope. "I have not been to many Midgardian celebrations. I will check the schedule and let you know."

After training was done for the day, Bucky had me go up and practice in the driving simulator just to keep sharp, then it was up to the lab. Finally. I felt like I was home, and acquainted myself with the data that had been collected while I was gone. Tony came in with cookies. Darn. I'd forgotten to restock the Cookie Star. He generously shared half of his haul and in return I gave him the drive that had my edits and additions to our article. We sat back in our chairs, discussed the work and general lab business, ate the cookies. Great to be back. I'd also had a couple of ideas while on vacation, and came up with some exciting new approaches. Or what I hoped would be exciting new approaches, anyway. After a couple hours, he left to work in his own lab and Madison came in. She'd been acting like she thought I blamed her for Lewis, which was ridiculous. After she'd sat down at her desk and checked email, I brought over a few things I'd found for her on the trip and her face brightened. She asked about the cities I'd visited and loved my ring.

"I've been thinking of doing a gap year, working for most of it, then backpacking across Europe before college," she said. "I wasn't really planning on going to eastern Europe but now I really want to."

"That sounds like fun," I said. "We can check with Tony about maybe increasing your hours here, or if there's not enough work in the lab, finding another place in the tower that could use the help." I brought up the matter to Tony the next day, and he agreed. "Nice to be able putting off training somebody new for awhile. Speaking of that, I think it's time to get another scientist in here with us, get you more management experience, another perspective."

I wanted to object; I enjoyed our collaboration and didn't want anything to intrude on it. He was right that a fresh perspective could be valuable, though, and ultimately this was a business that needed to generate a product. "Why do I need management experience, though, Tony?" I asked with a slight narrowing of my eyes.

"I wasn't going to bring this up yet,' he said, playing with a desk toy rather than looking at me. "But I won't be around forever, and there's the company to consider. What I want to do is groom you to head the labs. R & D, all of it. Pete is learning the business side and you'll need to know more of that in order to provide the most effective guidance, but basically... that's it. I want to know that my company is in good hands. I started to think about that after Natasha."

"Wow," I said breathlessly. It was both appealing, appalling, and terrifying. "Ultimately, I'll probably have to give up lab work, then."

He nodded. "You'll still be able to do some, like I do here, just not as much. And it'll have to be balanced with your work as trainer for the Avengers until you get too old to do that too." I smiled a little at his baiting. "I don't want an answer now, take your time and think about it. The implementation is a ways off, definitely after we start having successes here."

When I got home I was still a little staggered. "The thing to consider is if you want that kind of challenge," my better half said, carefully hanging up his suit. We were hanging out in the closet. I love that place. "I'll tell you, that kind of responsibility is terrifying until you get used to it, then it's exhilarating and kind of addictive. It's a lot of responsibility but also an incredible opportunity to make your mark in a larger context. Your work with the bacteria I don't really understand but it has a great many practical uses in lighting. This new job would allow you to impact other fields too."

Finally I voiced my biggest fear. "But what if I'm not competent, in the end? It's a big responsibility, guiding that big a department into the future. An enormous trust. You know that."

He stopped, dressed only in his boxers, and smiled at me. "You're marrying me. You can handle anything. And you know that you can delegate, don't you? It's not like you'll be personally responsible for each drop of acid and every scientist. Use your organizational chart to alleviate the burden. You might want to take some management classes, Petal. After the wedding and all. If you want to do it."

"I kind of feel like I have to. Tony hand-selected me."

He shook his head. "That's the wrong reason to do something. I know you think highly of him and you're probably one of the few people he trusts, but if you don't want to do it, if you'd really rather stay in the lab, tell him that." Regrettably, he pulled on a t-shirt and stepped into a pair of jeans. "If you do it, do it because you want the challenge." He pulled me up and into a full-contact hug. "And make sure that you really can work with Parker. You'll be miserable if you're always butting heads. And make Stark define how you could be fired and under what circumstances, so that you'll have protection if things go badly between you and Parker." He gave me more excellent advice, ending with the suggestion to keep the offer to myself unless I wanted advice.

"Dad means well, but you know how he is with this wedding? He'll be even more intensive providing you information and alternatives." I shuddered and he laughed. "You might want to wait until you make up your mind, if you want to accept it. Then he'll still go to town with the advice and information, but then you'll be in a position to use it better. He's a one-man MBA."

I hemmed and hawed over it for a few days. Finally, when Tony strolled into the lab on a day when Madison didn't work, I offered him a fresh cookie from the Cookie Star (Alfred had devised the most awesome oatmeal-peanut butter cookies drizzled in chocolate) and waited until he was chewing pleasantly. "I've thought about it and I've decided that I'll take you up on your offer," I said. I grinned as he sat upright, his words muffled by the cookie.

"Great," he said, swallowing fast. "You're getting married when?"

"Late August."

"So we'll start looking around for a support scientist now and you can train him or her, get married, honeymoon, I'll give you a month off, then when you get back you'll start learning the ropes." I had a few conditions, mostly about needing to have my rights and responsibilities clearly defined, especially regarding Peter's authority.

"I get that you two just don't click, and I'm sorry about it, but I think that you can still work effectively together. I'll work with you both and hopefully we'll get everything running smoothly before I kick off."

I didn't like the reminder that one day I'd come into work and he wouldn't be there. "Take your time with that," I advised, and he laughed.

"Not planning on it anytime soon," he said, and grabbed a couple more cookies. Usually he had the best dietary habits of anybody I knew, but he was helpless to resist a quality cookie. When I was mad at him, I stocked the Cookie Star with Oreos. I liked them just fine, but Tony was spoiled. He disliked packaged cookies so much that I sometimes wondered that if I waved a package of Oreos in his face he'd act like a vampire confronted with a cross. We spent an hour hammering out an agreement, then got down to the science, puttering happily around the lab. We had a strain of algae that looked very promising, and we thought to work on better electron capture for the chemoluminescent bacteria. It was a very productive day.

At home, I'd been hoping that the wedding planning would be curtailed since it was almost Thanksgiving, but no. There was a timetable to keep and Bruce had updated our slowly filling binders with a more detailed checklist. It was a little aggravating, but people paid a lot of money to wedding planners to do just this. He was on me about my dress, but here I put my foot down. I couldn't begin looking til after Aslyn found hers, but we were going the week after Thanksgiving. And we weren't meeting with the hotel people until January, so other decisions related to that, including table decor and flowers, couldn't be made until then. Bruce understood, but it really chapped him that the trains weren't running on his schedule.

I threw him a bone. "I thought I'd start looking for my dress somewhere around Christmas, then my grandma could come over for Christmas, the engagement party, and dress shopping."

That diverted him and he started to make plans for Christmas, planning to invite my parents and J too, and of course Dick and Barbara, but they were local, and... We left him to it and on our way out of the library, Alfred offered me an extremely discreet fist bump.

At work, Tony had his lawyers draw up a formal agreement detailing my transition. It would be slow and gradual, and all the steps were laid out clearly. I took it to the Wayne family lawyers who reviewed it for me, suggested a few modifications to which Tony agreed, and it felt like a pretty momentous moment when I signed. He popped a bottle of champagne to celebrate, which we drank in the lab at our desk.

Bruce was thrilled when I told him about my promotion, but it just about shorted out his brain. "I know you don't have much of a background in management, Alex," he said immediately. "I'd be happy to help you out there..but perhaps after Christmas. There's a lot going on with work and the wedding and Christmas."

"I don't want to impose," I started to say.

"It's not an imposition," he assured me. "It's just that my head can only hold so much at one time. And after the engagement party and Christmas, I'll have freed up some space and have had a chance to think about what kind of information you'll need. "

"That's just fine, Bruce. It's not going to happen overnight. I really appreciate it."

"It's a pleasure, Alex. I'm glad to be able to contribute to your success." We started talking about Christmas, and Damian grinned at me and squeezed my hand.

"Told you," he murmured, nuzzling my hair.

We tuned right back in when Alfred spoke. "I wonder, Master Bruce, if I might invite a guest for Christmas as well?"

"Of course, Alfred, you don't need to ask, you know that," Bruce said. "Who are you inviting?"

"My niece, actually."

"I didn't know you had a niece, Alfred," I said, feeling stricken. I'd never asked. Alfred was very private, but that didn't excuse me.

"Two, Miss Alex. I had a younger brother. We were estranged when he died, a little over sixteen years ago." Whew. I hadn't been with Damian then, I didn't miss something that big. "But his widow contacted me and I went to the funeral and found out that he'd had two daughters. Since then I've kept in contact with them, provided some assistance. They were living near the poverty line." He paused and nobody interrupted. "They live in Japan, in Kyoto. The older girl is getting ready to attend university."

"What does she want to study?" Bruce asked.

"Hospitality, sir." He drew a deep breath. "It is my desire to get to know her better, see if she might be a suitable candidate to take over as butler here after me." For some reason, I was shocked. I couldn't imagine the manor without Alfred. Damian's hand clenched around mind and I knew he felt the same.

"Of course you're welcome to have your family here, Alfred," Bruce said a moment. "We'll enjoy meeting her." Nobody wanted to talk about a future without Alfred, it seemed.

"Thank you, Master Bruce," he said, and after a few hiccups, we started talking about the menu for Christmas dinner.