“No one lives in the Compound. There are not bedrooms or even beds.” The poor manager looked frustrated and completely confused.
“Unless you are talking about the beds in the medical bay?” one of the techies wondered out loud.
“That was our home!” Wanda cried out.
“Uh –” one of the officers frowned at the tablet in his hands, “my files say that it was actually owned by Howard Stark and then inherited by Tony Stark, not affiliated with SI and two years ago purchased by the UN. It doesn’t even mention that it was ever used as a residence. It was a facility that held old projects and files from Howard Stark’s time, once it was purchased by the UN, all personal objects were moved. Dr. Stark took his belongings and the rest of it was donated.”
“Donated? We used to live there. What about all our clothes, books and everything else?”
“Yours?” the officer frowned again, now looking a little alarmed at his tablet and swiped it a few times, “I have in good authority to say that everything inside was bought by one Dr. Anthony Stark. If you are able to get proof of purchase I know it will be easy enough to compensate you. Since you might be referencing to two years ago, 2016, then it’s easy enough to pull your credit info from your respective banks accounts and whatever personal items will be returned.”
Steve gritted his teeth. He knew very well what would come next: all the times he used Tony’s credit cards to buy for the things they needed.
For the officer, secretary…? For the young man’s credit, he truly believed that nothing was amiss with anything he said.
“That’s not the point,” Steve tried to compensate Wanda and Clint’s earlier outburst and almost violence against the very much untrained and unenhanced tech and manager, “We used to live here.”
The manager was now looking even more frustrated when the automatic doors opened to reveal a 7 foot tall green skinned woman. Everybody present immediately straightened out.
She-Hulk wasn’t exactly the kind of woman one wants to run their mouth with… which makes it very weird the fact that everybody present knows that she used to be a thing with Tony. In both their descriptions: bed buddies and neither blinked an eye when they suddenly showed up with different dates to the latest social event. Shocking everybody at the genuine laugher they shared in the very same afternoon.
“Welcome to this century, when both men and women can and will use each other for sex and not have hurt feelings about it.”
Steve still scowled at that. And it was Jennifer not Tony who said it.
“What seems to be the problem? I’m trying to give a tour for Xavier’s students but all we can hear is your yelling.”
“Ms. Walters, there seems to be confusion towards… living arrangements.”
“There is no confusion! We live here!” Wanda’s explosion warranted no more than a raised eyebrow from Jennifer. Well, to be honest Steve has been trying to keep Wanda away from both Jennifer and Jessica, both expressing their displeasure at her mind control abilities for different reasons.
Whatever their reasons were, Tony has long since came up with an idea to block mind control and both were too fast for Wanda to properly use her telekinesis and once close enough a punch from one of them could easily mean death.
“Maximoff, no one lives here, there are not even bedrooms.”
Steve could feel his frustration rising, “Yes, so we have been told but we used to live here and if Tony is so petty as to…”
“I will have to interrupt you because a picture is being painted that I have no idea whether to laugh or be shocked of.” Jennifer organized her thoughts that led her to a conclusion that… didn’t say very good things about the people before her, “First of all, Tony is not the one that decided anything, when he sold the Compound, everything was redesigned by the UN personal with a purpose, bedrooms weren’t included for several reasons, among them: the fact that we didn’t manage to amend the ‘Cleaning the Sleight’ clause in the Accords, meaning that people with criminal background could work off their sentences by ‘Avenging’. Any crook that packs a punch would jump at the chance to live in a spacious compound personally maintained by Tony Stark, so no one lives with said amenities. Can’t you agree that, as willing as you are, Rogers, to forgive people with unsavory pasts, there are those that would use the Accords and your own philosophy to ‘do some good’ and ‘clean the red off your ledger’ to stay out of prison?”
And Jennifer waited until the bunch swallowed and nodded. There was a reason she was so good a lawyer, using Rogers’ own argument against him was kind of fun too. She used the clause that came from SHIELD’s habit of all things, to use people that could be used regardless of their past and this little group’s own habit of doing the exact same… and the lawyer was kinda predicting the same outcome of being infiltrated too, there was that saying of insanity on doing the same things and all.
“So taking out the possibility of being literally maintained by a billionaire was a huge factor of weeding out the kind of people that would simply be interested in Avengers membership just because they would ‘live the good life’. Can you agree that there is people like that in the world, Enhanced or not?”
Once again, Jennifer waited for the grudging nods before continuing, this time with the pointed argument she wanted to make this whole time, “And there is also the fact that many of us were a little offended by the fully stocked kitchen and the clearly personalized bedrooms.”
“‘Offended’?” Rogers was incredulous as was Wilson but Romanoff at least seemed to know where this was going and she didn’t like any of it, Maximoff was just confused which… didn’t really surprised Jennifer.
“Yes. Having this kind of setup, basically a house… offended me, offended Carol, Helen, Hope, Luke, Jessica, Stephen…we all have jobs and lives outside this place. We have work and even careers, we like our own spaces and our independence. We like to be able to say ‘We are independent adults, perfectly capable of maintaining ourselves’ and just like that, the thought that someone assumed that we would volunteer to be Avengers, to protect other people’s lives if we can’t even take care of our own by putting a roof over our heads…is offensive.”
Steve gawked at that and didn’t even notice the way Sam was blushing and Wanda fuming in anger. Natasha, on the other hand, didn’t seem surprised by any of what was just said which Jennifer noticed and tried not to think of the reasons why.
“Tony didn’t mean that! I mean he can be offensive but most of the time I don’t think he realizes that…”
“We know he didn’t think we can’t be adults,” Jennifer stared at Rogers completely baffled at where his mind took him, “When the UN purchased the building, the first plan was to keep it the way it was, we were the ones that protested the setup. The thought of living on a billionaire-decorated-mansion that this place used to be, complete with a heated pool at that, was… plain humiliating, like we were the lady of the week for Bruce Wayne. I don’t know why you people don’t think so… shouldn’t you be wondering why Tony felt the need to decorate this entire place to look like a hotel for fully capable adults? I mean… the youngest among you is Maximoff and she is what? Twenty seven? Don’t you think that this is a bit awkward to say the least?”
When no one managed to say anything else, Jennifer sighed, “Look, I won’t pretend to know why you are insisting on this… ‘living in the compound that used to be owned by a billionaire’ thing…but…I, personally, would go crazy coexisting with this many people on a daily basis, I would feel like one of the older kids of Cheaper by the Dozen. I like a little ‘me-time’, privacy, you know? There is a reason kids get out of their parents houses to go to college even if they live close by and there is a reason college kids can’t wait to have their own place away from other college kids. I gotta say: I miss the friends from college and law school that I lost contact with… but I do not miss living with them. Stop trying to treat an international Enhanced headquarters that deals with global threats like some kind of… Kappa Avengers Sigma, this is not a fraternity.”