Duty (An Armorer/Paladin Story)

I was woken up the next morning at seven. I had gotten all of two hours of sleep. All-nighters are for suckers and college students. I open the door to my hotel room to a hotel employee with a big tray of breakfast. "Room service!" she chirps, and I instantly hate her.

She bustles in and stops dead when she sees the dogs, still crashed on one of the beds. Sigurd wakes up briefly, dismisses her, and goes back to sleep. Torburn just twitches one of his feet. She carefully puts the tray down and hastily unloads it onto the table.

"They're really well trained," I say, yawning, and put on my robe. "The big one is a service animal." She just smiles nervously and heads back the way she came. I hold the door for her.

And in strolls Tony, immaculate in a suit except where scruff indicated he's going to start sculpting his facial hair again. "I don't sleep, nobody sleeps," he says, inspecting the room. "I like this place. I might buy it."

"Could you add to your empire in another room?"

"Nope. I brought breakfast, and this is the thanks I get. You're going to eat a hearty breakfast, missy, and when you're done, you're going to sign the employment contract so you can't back out."

"I won't back out," I say, scowling. "I just want some sleep. "

"You do look a little rough around the edges," he mentions, lifting the cover off one of the plates. "Haul your pretty ass over here and get going." He puts two enormous bowls of dog food on the floor by the water bowls, and the dogs wake up. Sigurd accidentally rolls off the bed and I wince, hoping there's nobody in the room below. He gets up and strolls over like nothing happened. I sit down.

"When have you ever seen my ass?" I ask, taking a sip of the mimosa.

"I'm extrapolating data. Now come on, there's work to be done." Conversation is brief, but in Tony's case at least witty. When I pick up my last piece of bacon, he whisks my plate away and piles it all to the side. The dogs are back on the bed, but they're paying attention.

He places a folder in front of me and opens his. There is a sheaf of paper there, heavily flagged with little post-its to indicate where a signature or initials are needed. My flags are blue, Tony's red.

"Ok, first page is the short form of the agreement. Here's compensation and the terms of your workweek, which is what it was when you were Avenging, you're a workaholic, I'm not worried--come in when you want, leave when you want, work on the projects you get. People will sent you proposals, you accept or return, prioritize them, but you can work on whatever you fancy. Start date--"

"Is not what we agreed to only a couple of hours ago," I interrupt, shaking my head. "It was supposed to be five days."

"I want you back on campus. We need you back. Three."

"Fourteen," I counter, outraged, and it's back to bargaining. And we end up at seven days. A small victory.

We get through the NDAs and all the rest of it when he tries to gloss over a page toward the end. I take the time and read it, because I'm probably not going to like it if he's taking so much trouble to be casual about it.

"Oh, Tony, that's not going to happen," I sigh.

"Why not?" he says immediately. "You said you were never going to work for me again, but here we are, a few signatures more and you're mine."

"Because I'm not an Avenger any more. I never should have been."

"Are we back to that? Because you made a splendid addition to the team." He got a crafty smirk on his lips. "You should be grateful. It's an escape clause. You come back to the team, the contract is null and happily void. If I get to be too much for you, you can always convert your contract." I give him a look and pen an additional term, then turn the page and show him.

"And I promise not to try to make things so bad you'd rather do anything other than work for me," he said, wryly, coping the wording from my term onto his copy. "I paraphrase, of course."

And finally we come to the end of the paperwork, then trade copies and sign and date and initial. Tony finishes first. I don't know how he does it, but it's like he's on speed or something. I know he won't touch drugs, but that's the effect. It's damned irritating.

"Great. Now that you're all signed, up, put some clothes on, and we'll move you back."

"That's not in the contract," I say.

"Yes it is."

I shake my head. "Isn't. Residency is not addressed. I can live anywhere I want." Tony pages through the papers we just signed, then pages through each numbered page again, looking for a missing page, and curses at the omission. There's a clause that guarantees I can bring my dogs, but nothing about where I live, or anything else too creepy and controlling. Victory! I control my smirk.

"Ok, thanks for coming by, boss," I say, getting up. "See you seven days from now. Remember to let the gate guards know that I'm back on the roster."

"I like the sound of that coming from you," he muses, letting himself be pushed out. "Boss." That might have been a tactical mistake. I should get some books and read up on strategy and tactics if I'm going to be fencing with Tony regularly.

I think about going back to bed, but I'm up now. And I have to find a place to live.

After a shower, the dogs and I go for a drive, and I pull up in front of a house I saw last night when I had temporarily misplaced my direction. It's a two story stone building plus what looks like an attic, and a turret on the left side with a new, shiny conical copper roof. The impression overall is kind of shabby looking, but the weeds in the yard have been mowed down. There are some big, old trees in the yard, one with an actual swing hanging from one limb. I walk up the flagstone path, past the for-sale sign, and knock on the door. A pregnant lady opens the door.

"Hi," I say. "I'm sorry to just barge up to you like this, but I was driving by last night and saw your house was for sale." Her face cleared, and she smiled.

"Would you like to take a look around?" she asks, and invites me in. I smile. The entryway is high-ceilinged, with a nice wide staircase going upstairs. "We bought the house about a year ago and did the work to bring it up to code, fixed the chimneys, rewired, all of it. Hot water is on demand rather than a traditional hot water tank, there's a new furnace and air conditioning. We needed to replace a lot of windows and couldn't find enough old replacement glass so we gave in and put in all new double-pane windows and sprayed insulation while the walls were opened up. We wired the place for sound and security, everything we could think of. We kept the wiring for landlines, and you can hook up cable in all the rooms, so you can put a modem wherever you want. About double the number of electrical outlets." She sighed. "Then I got pregnant, and I just don't think we can devote the time to finishing it. The baby is due next month, and we don't want a baby around construction." She looked around. "I love it here, though. My husband and I closed on a new place earlier this month, which is why this house is empty, it's perfectly nice and a lot closer to the ocean, but it's not this place." I nod.

"This place is special." I give her my name and she introduces herself as Kelly Samuelson. She shows me around. There's a half bath under the stairs, a parlor to the right that connects to a formal dining room, which is connected to the kitchen by a butler's pantry, and another parlor to the left, completing the circuit around the ground floor. On the back of the house is a sun room that opens up to a patio. There's a cellar downstairs, which is not the kind of creepy, earthen pit I was kind of expecting in an older home, but finished with nice floors and walls. The washer and dryer were down here as well as an area that Kelly said she used as a pantry. Upstairs is a master bedroom, spacious, with a tray ceiling. What must have been another bedroom has been split in two: a walk-through closet leading to a big bathroom with a six-foot cast-iron bathtub and a separate shower. Windows let in light.

"You don't have to worry about anybody looking in," she says. "The nearest house is a mile away, and there's a lot of woods around." She looks at me nervously. "The Avenger complex is nearby, but we don't see anybody from it. There's an airstrip, but it's pointed away from the house, and the planes are surprisingly quiet, anyway."

I want to shake my head. Figures. "I've actually just signed a contract to start work there," I say. "Nice to know the commute will be short." She relaxes a little and we chat a little about my new job as a metallurgist as we tour the rest of the second floor, which is two smaller bedrooms connected by a bathroom with jack and jill sinks. There's another smaller staircase, and she asks if I'd mind exploring the attic without her. I go up and find there's more than enough room to stand up straight in; the roof is pitched steeply, like an "A" shape, leaving about three feet by the floor that is straight up and down. Bookcases could be built in, I think, to avoid wasting the space. There are bullseye windows at either end, and four skylights provide plenty of light. I descend the stairs.

"How much are you asking for it?" I ask, and she names a very reasonable figure. She shows me the signed-off inspections for the work; there's new wallboard throughout, but only the kitchen, master bedroom and bathroom and the powder room are mostly done. She shows me the patterned tin they'd gotten for some of the ceilings, still in its boxes. The floors were refinished and the fireplaces worked. I'd have to split my own wood, but I could do that; there was a supply of logs in a neat little shelter in the back. The repairs had all been made; it was the cosmetic work that needed to be done, mostly.

It was perfect.

I thanked her and drove to the agency that was selling the house, where I met with both the partner, explaining that I wanted to put an offer on the house and that I was hoping that the sale could be done quickly since I only had a week until I had to start work. Since I didn't have to line up financing, they thought it could be done, and my offer was above the asking price as compensation for the rush, along with the stipulation that I'd pay closing costs. With a new baby on the way, I thought the savings would be helpful. I signed the offer and they set me up with coffee while one of them went to present my offer. They let me bring the dogs in while I waited; as usual, their size was intimidating, but Torburn was still obviously a puppy despite his size and charmed the other partner.

"It looks like you've got security covered," the woman said, smiling as she petted Torburn. I attended to Sigurd so everybody got some attention. When the other realtor returned, she told me with a smile that they were going to accept my offer, and I finished the paperwork, writing a check for earnest money. I was a little relieved; the seller had seemed really nice, but you never know what's going to happen when money is involved.

The next day I went to New York, cleared out my box at the bank and arranged to transfer my account to a branch in the Seattle area. Then I thought about it and texted Bucky, telling him I was in the city and asking if he'd mind if I dropped by the house and took some boxes out of the attic.

BB: No problem. I'm here too. I forgot to tell you in all the activity. Moving out, relocating. Come by.

So I did. He gave me a hug at the door and followed me up to the attic. There were five boxes there, and Bucky helped me carry them down. "Are you moving back here?" he asked. "Have you decided what you're doing yet?"

"No, I'm not moving back," I said. "Now that you're leaving, I'm probably going to sell the house." If it had been one of the other guys, I'd probably have teased him a bit, but he looked anxious. "I'm staying in Seattle." I sighed and shook my head. "I accepted a job offer from Tony yesterday."

"Are you feeling ok?" he asked, feeling my forehead for fever.

I laughed. "Physically, I'm fine. I may have lost my mind, though."

"Maybe," he agreed, and I swatted him. "I thought you said you'd never work for him again."

"It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind," I said.

"First time I've heard you play the woman card," he observed.

'Honestly, I didn't really want to relocate," I confessed.

"What are you going to be doing for him?"

I sighed. "Pretty much the same thing I've been doing for the Avengers." I shook my head. "I love the work."

He shot me a keen look, then began to smile, the big gorgeous smile he didn't do much. "On campus?" I nodded, and he grabbed me in a big hug.

"Good. I've missed you. Constance said not to bug you, but..."

"Are you going to do distance sessions or find somebody local?"

"I'm going to Skype my sessions. When are you moving back?"

"Ah. I'm not. I just bought a house, actually. Or I will be. I close tomorrow."

He looked disappointed but rallied. "Is that why you're taking your stuff?" I nodded and opened one of the boxes.

"My grandma's china and crystal," I said, showing him. "I got the sterling when I cleaned out my safe deposit box earlier. I might just have everybody over for Christmas."

"So where's your new house?"

"You won't believe it," I said, rubbing my face. "It backs up to the Avenger complex. Maybe the dogs and I can walk to work. I bet I can have Tony cut a hole in the fence."

Bucky laughed. I told him a little about the house, and he offered to bring my boxes with his stuff; the quinjet was coming tomorrow to pick him up. "If you're selling, can I make you on offer on the furniture here?" he asked. "I love that sofa." We struck a deal; I'd have just given him the furniture, but I doubted very much that he'd accept anything he might think was a handout.

"Don't tell anybody," I said after we'd talked a bit. "I have no doubt that Tony's got some reveal planned and I'd hate to spoil his fun." Bucky agreed, saying he wanted to watch the reactions, and I said I'd see him later.

"You bet," he said, and closed the door behind me as I crossed the porch. After I left, I went to see an old classmate who was a realtor here and signed a contract to put the house on the market. Now I wouldn't have to come back unless it was for fun. I flew back home late in the afternoon. The closing was first thing in the morning, and I took the keys with a sense of pleasure and excitement. The pups and I went out immediately and I looked around, figuring out what I needed to do, taking measurements. Then I left them with food and water so they could explore their new home and hit Home Depot hard.