Educational efforts
We hung out in the workshop until it was time for dinner. When we went up to the caf, Odin had left in a huff, Thor was very irritated with me, and the boys were not sympathetic to him.
"Are you really going to sit there and tell me that you really think all that women are good for is housework and kids?" Tony said in amazement. "Your own wife is a pretty impressive warrior."
Everybody, including Sif, looked at him, awaiting his reply. "Well, obviously not, but..." He'd have been so much better off without the but. Or butt, depending on how you looked at it.
"You're just a baby who wants to be cared for," Wanda observed. "You have always had someone picking up after you, seeing to your comfort and needs, and now you expect your wife make you her focus in place of your mother. Did it ever occur to you that women want to do something interesting and more meaningful than anticipating your every whim?"
Wow. Didn't expect that from her. Neither had anybody else, judging by the shocked faces. Sif managed to stifle a snicker.
"Where would you be without your hammer?" Bucky asked. "A woman made that for you."
"A few years ago, women in a remote city in Colombia went on a sex strike to pressure men into forcing the government to repair the road in and out of the city. Took over a hundred days, but the government started construction work," Natasha mentioned casually. "The Lysistrata strategy, cross your legs for peace and prosperity." I smirked at her. Steve looked alarmed.
"Not to worry, honey, you're an equal rights kind of guy,' I said to him, patting his hand. Most of the others started to laugh.
"But do you understand why rape as a punishment is so grotesque?" Wanda asked Thor suddenly.
"It's just sex," he said warily. "You have those parts so that a man may mate with you." Pietro inhaled his water and started to choke.
"You dumb bastard," Tony sighed, and offered Steve a dollar. Steve waved it aside.
Wanda just unloaded on him. She questioned Thor's hostility to women in power or who wanted to expand their power, his views of violence as something manly, danger as excitement, an endorsement of callous sexual attitudes, attraction to sexual aggression, whether he would force himself on a woman to put her in her place, as a show of power, to get revenge or feel better about himself, or whether he feels himself so superior to women that he's entitled to what he wants. I'd have felt sorry for him but...naw. Her lecture about consent and empathy took us through dessert.
"You may not have a vagina," Natasha said as she got up to leave, "but you have two other orifices. Think about what you'd feel like if somebody bigger than you decided it was just sex and bent you over." We left Thor at the table, his dinner uneaten.
We walked back to the house with Bucky and Natasha; she'd given us Cards Against Humanity and we were looking forward to playing it. "He's probably never wondered about it," Bucky said. "Women have probably always been willing to drop their panties for him. But if he's going to live and work here, he needs some sort of cultural acclimation. People already think we're too violent. All we need is some rape charge."
"You think he'd cheat on Sif?" Steve asked him.
"If she gets pregnant again, has the kid, he expects her to take care of it, which would mean he's not the focus of her life and he'd probably take that as a reason to fool around," Bucky shrugged.
"Tony can handle it," Steve said cravenly. "He's got a whole HR department." Suddenly Torburn bolted through the bushes. I looked after him curiously. Sigurd trotted after him, then after a few moments, began barking. We followed the sound to where Torburn was whining anxiously. There was a dead cat, a tiny kitten by her side. I sighed. I could see where this was going. Steve checked the cat, which was cold. The kitten was mewing in distress, and Steve looked at me with a twinkle in his eye.
"I guess we're adopting a kitten," he said.
"Guess so," I said. We couldn't leave the poor thing to die, after all. Natasha and I went to the pet store while the guys took the kitten to the vet for a checkup. "I hope Torburn doesn't start bringing wildlife home," I said as we piled a cart with formula, a small cat bed, clippers for the kitten's needle-like claws, and a litterbox, to be prepared, since we didn't know how old the kitten was. An associate told us that we needed to keep it warm and provide a cozy dark place for it, so we got a special heating pad for pets and stopped by a fabric store to buy some fleece. We liked a pale green one, very soft, that would look nice with the kitten's black fur.
The guys had beaten us back to the house and Steve was feeding the kitten with formula they'd gotten at the vet. Bucky was smiling and wanted to try too. I went to find a box and scissors to cut up the fleece. Steve told us that the vet estimated that the kitten was about four weeks old, so it was good that we had the litterbox now since that was when they were supposed to start using it. It was small and shallow so the kitten could get in and out by itself. Well, herself, actually. Following her feeding, Steve put her in the box and encouraged her to dig around, which she started to do in a very determined manner. We put the litter box in a box lid with one end cut out to help contain the flying litter. After that, the kitten sagged to the ground, exhausted, and Torburn looked anxious. Ultimately, I put the heating pad in the cat bed with a piece of fleece over the top to make a nice nest-y feeling, and Torburn curled around the bed with the little kitten. Sigurd looked at his son with amusement, but he also settled down close by. Bucky and Natasha left once everything calmed down.
The next morning, we packed up, leaving the dogs and the kitten in my workshop while Steve and I did the obstacle course and worked out in the gym. Word about our new addition spread and it was hard to focus on work with Avengers wanting to meet the kitten. When it got closer to lunch, I packed it in and we all trooped up the hill. First, though, I went down to introduce Loki and see how he was settling in again. He seemed delighted by the kitten and passed her back through the slot in the glass only reluctantly. The cleaners had been through and he was unpacking the things that had been boxed up, arranging things on shelves. While he wasn't thrilled to be back in his cell, he also wasn't as depressed about it as I'd thought he might be.
"I may not have my freedom," he shrugged, "but this is much nicer than the dungeons on Asgard. You visit, and the guards talk to me." It made me wonder what his previous confinement was like, and I made a note to look up the effects of solitary confinement. I asked if there was something particular he'd like to read, and he requested history books. After lunch (the caf staff and the guards also liked the little kitten) I ordered him some books on world history, starting with antiquity, some anthropology and archaeology.
I felt pretty good about things, all in all. Thor was frosty when I ran into him, but he'd get over it. Thor wasn't as smart as Loki, but he wasn't stupid.
That night, as we were preparing to go to bed, I got a call from Peter. Steve leaned in to say hi on his way to the bathroom. "Uh, I wouldn't have called, but you said to call if I needed help," he said uncertainly after we'd gotten the chat out of the way.
"Yes, and I mean it," I said immediately. "I'd be hurt if you didn't tell me if you needed some assistance."
"Well, there's this new figure who's shown up lately," Peter said. "He calls himself Silvermane. He's associated with organized crime, which normally I don't touch." I nodded approvingly. "But I think he may be after me and I don't know if I can beat him. Daredevil and Dr Strange haven't been around lately, so..."
"She'll come out tomorrow, so stop in at Stark Tower after school," Steve said, emerging from the bathroom. "Stay in tonight, will you? Just in case. You need to develop a plan of attack in any case." Peter's face looked relieved, and he agreed. After we hung up, I accompanied Steve downstairs to give the kitten her last feeding for the day.
"You want to come too?" I ask, watching him with the kitten. "What are we going to name her, anyway?"
"I kind of like Sarah," he said, not looking at me.
"Ok," I said, after trying it out. More importantly, she meeped after hearing the name. "Any special reason?" I squeezed his hand before petting the kitten as she ate.
"That was my mom's name."
"I like it," I said, and he smiled at me.
"No, I can't go, I'm still doing paperwork from the Asgard mission and Loki's continuing incarceration here. Fury has me doing threat assessment in my spare time. Plus if Captain America shows up for no good reason, it might tip off this Silvermane that we're coming for him. No point to that. I'll send Stark with you, though, he's always going back and forth and he's good in a fight. If you need more help, I can send in additional personnel, maybe ditch the paperwork and come myself. The three of you should be able to take care of him, though." He put down the syringe of formula and I cleaned up. I appreciated his confidence in me and was happy to demonstrate it after we surrendered the kitten to Torburn. As I was drifting off to sleep, I heard Steve call Tony, who wasn't all that thrilled to hear from him. I drifted off to sleep smirking at the edge of laughter in Steve's voice and Tony's complaints.
Steve had timed our departure for after the obstacle course and gym. "New York is looking pretty good," I muttered as I did an agility drill with old tires.
"What was that, sweetheart?" Steve asked, as he zoomed past me. Man has ears like a bat.
"Gonna miss this sooooo much," I said sarcastically, and he laughed. After the work out, he carried my bags to the quinjet. I was dressed up in a suit and pumps. He's so sweet. I kissed Sarah's little head before patting the dogs--Torburn didn't want to leave the kitten, so they were both staying put, although if anybody else came out Sigurd would come too--and kissed Steve goodbye.
"On your own time, Harrington," Tony said briskly, popping my shoulder as he went by. "No time to suck face, we have a teenager to rescue." In revenge, I gave Steve a couple more quick kisses before turning to Tony and giving him my luggage. He rolled his eyes and walked up the ramp.
"I'll call later," I said, and he walked me to the jet, making sure I got up the ramp ok.
"Good luck, sweetheart," he said, and backed away. The ramp closed, and we were off. I texted Wanda, Pietro, and Bucky, asking them to check on Loki while I was gone. The reading I'd done on solitary confinement was pretty horrifying.
Partway to New York, Tony shoved a file of paper at me. I took it warily. "You're going to be the new coordinator of the tech and science interns," he said.
"Am I," I said.
"Yep."
"Tony, I have a job already," I complained.
"Yep, but I could use your help wrangling the mutts. Besides, it'll give you an excuse to come to New York once a month or so, you can visit Peter. Com on, it's just a day or two. It'd be a big help to me if you could track their interests and check on their progress with their mentors. You know I like to keep my eye on talent and I'm reinstating scholarships for kids with promise who will work for Stark Industries after graduation. It's hard to run the business from Seattle, even if I come back East a lot."
I sighed. When he put it like that, I couldn't very well refuse. He nominally had somebody running the company, but he still had a lot to do because he didn't entirely trust his board not to try to oust him. As it was, his board had insisted that he agree to transfer day-to-day operations to a CEO--who they found, when he got more involved in the Avengers. But the man had been selected by the board and he didn't entirely trust him either. Tony was stretched thin these days. He no longer had majority control and that worried me a little. "Ok," I said reluctantly.
He smirked and I started to read the papers. For such a large and important company Stark Tech didn't have many interns in science and tech. They did get a great experience, though; they were paid and rotated through several different divisions helping scientists and engineers with their projects, getting experience and developing their interests. By the time we landed, I had a pretty good grip on the kids and what they were doing. Peter was the youngest one; most were seniors, and the application deadline for the next years' interns was fast approaching. I bet there were tons of applications.
When we landed, we dropped our bags off at the secured levels and Tony walked me down to my office on the level just beneath the Avengers altitude. "You've always had an office," he said with an eye roll. "Everybody's got an office." It was nice, a good view of the skyline, a nice solid desk, comfortable chair. A personal assistant hurried up shortly after we got there and asked how she could help me. I asked her to set up interviews with the interns over the next couple of days, and she moved to the desk down the hall and turned on the computer. I blinked. I've never had a personal assistant before. Tony smirked and said he'd see me after work. Tech support arrived and set me up with management access. I sat in my executive chair and spun in circles until my PA reported that she'd contacted all the interns and would calendar them for meetings starting tomorrow.
"Great. Thank you," I said. "I'm Emma Harrington." She smiled.
"I'm Eliza Nelson, Ms Harrington," she said. We talked a little about my new job; she knew a lot more about the company than I did and had some great suggestions. Then, since I had nothing to do, I went out into the city. I got my hair cut; I was amused to hear from the stylist that white hair was trending due to the Paladin, and went shopping. I could keep a wardrobe here with a few things so I wouldn't have to pack. I stopped by a bakery on the way back and picked up a treat for Eliza. She was pleased to see me and had about half the appointments set up. Peter was my first one tomorrow.
Tony had dinner delivered and we chatted about work, then he went back downstairs to do some more work before Peter stopped by. I called Steve, and after I heard about his day and received an update on Sarah, I told him about my new job.
I'd been kind of afraid he'd be peeved with me for accepting a job without talking to him about it--a lifetime of making my choices solo was hard to break, but he started laughing. "I think it's good that you'll be able to monitor Peter more closely," he said, his chuckles dying away. "We have a responsibility to him and you'll like spending more time with him." His dear face sobered. "I'm worried about Tony, though, and this kind of confirms it. He's working too hard, and I'm worried that he'll burn out. Bourbon's his best friend when he gets under too much pressure, and the last thing he needs is a drinking problem." We talked about this some, and Steve said he'd talk to Nick about maybe encouraging a more truly bi-coastal presence for the Avengers, encouraging members to spend time in New York, maybe going back to the old facility and setting up special training units there. That way Tony wouldn't have to go back and forth so much and we could help him out too. Then there was a ping as the tower AI Friday let me know that Peter had swiped his card, and I sighed.
"Miss you," I said wistfully, kissing my fingertips and pressing them over his lips on my screen. "Love you. I'll talk to you tomorrow."
"You better, sweetheart," he said fondly. "Take care." He cut off just as the elevator opened and Pete stepped out. I stood up and gave him a big hug, which he returned. Tony said he'd be up shortly, so we got to chat a bit and I told him about my new job. Gratifyingly, he seemed pleased that I'd be in town more often. Then Tony showed up and brought up research he'd done on Silvermane.