STARK MANSION – LIVING ROOM – THURSDAY, MAY 15TH, 7:15 PM
The following evening, Tony called an impromptu meeting in the living room, which is a sentence that sounds normal right up until you remember that "impromptu meeting" in this house meant a floor-to-ceiling hologram of Flushing Meadows Park, a small mountain of catered sushi nobody had ordered, and Happy standing guard by the door like he was expecting the concept of budget restraint to try to sneak in uninvited.
Pepper was already there when I came down, tablet out, expression somewhere between excited and the specific dread of someone who has watched this exact movie before and knows how it ends. Marcus Chen sat beside her, calm as ever, the kind of calm that came from six years of surviving Tony Stark press conferences and somehow still having a job at the end of each one.
"Right," Tony said, standing in front of the hologram like a general addressing troops, if the general in question was wearing a t-shirt that said *I'm Kind of a Big Deal* completely unironically. "Stark Expo 2010. Spring opening, six-month runtime, Flushing Meadows Park, Queens — same ground Howard used in '74. The goal is simple. We show the world Stark Industries isn't a weapons company anymore. We're the people building the future, and we're not just talking about it. We're building it, live, in front of everybody."
Pepper was taking notes at a speed that suggested she'd long ago stopped trying to keep up with Tony in real time and had instead developed a system for translating Tony into things that could actually happen. "Budget?"
"Two billion. All in — venue construction, exhibitor coordination, marketing, security, the works."
"Two billion." Pepper didn't look up from her tablet, but her pen paused for exactly one beat too long. "That's not a number, Tony, that's a small country's GDP."
"The ROI's worth it. We're not just showcasing tech, Pep, we're rebranding the whole company. Weapons manufacturer to innovation leader. Front page, forever, done in one shot instead of ten years of slow PR bleeding." He glanced at Marcus. "Tell her I'm right."
"He's not wrong," Marcus said, in the careful tone of a man who'd learned the hard way that agreeing with Tony too enthusiastically got you handed more work, and disagreeing too hard got you handed even more. "This is the kind of narrative reset that normally takes a decade of careful messaging. Done right, this does it in a weekend."
"See? Wizard." Tony pointed at Marcus like he'd just won an argument at a bar. "Told you."
"Timeline," Pepper said, cutting straight through it, pen tapping her tablet. "You're talking about a spring 2010 opening."
"That's the target."
"That's — Tony, let's just say the actual number out loud, because I want everyone in this room to hear it instead of doing the vague nod thing you're doing right now. It's May of 2008. Spring 2010 is twenty-two months out. Not a year. Not eighteen months. Twenty-two, and I am always going to be the one who says the real number, because you have a documented history of rounding down whenever it scares you."
"You texted me 'basically two years, don't do the math, trust me' at eleven o'clock last night," Pepper went on, before he could get a word in. "That is not a number, Tony. That is a vibe."
"It was an accurate vibe."
"There's no such thing as an accurate vibe. There's math, and there's you avoiding it."
"Harsh."
"Accurate," Pepper said, and didn't look even slightly sorry about it. "Twenty-two months. Fine. It's still an insane timeline for an event this size, but it's a survivable insane timeline, which is the best I've ever gotten out of you on anything. We'll need groundbreaking on the venue inside four months if we want any real runway for construction, permitting, and the inevitable three separate lawsuits from whoever owns the parking lot next door."
"There's a parking lot next door?"
"There's always a parking lot next door, Tony. That's just how New York works." Pepper made another note, already three steps ahead of the conversation the way she always was. "Marcus, who are we thinking for exhibitors? Just us, or are we inviting the vultures too?"
"Everyone," Tony said, before Marcus could answer. "Hammer Industries, Oscorp if they'll take the call, a dozen smaller startups who actually deserve a stage, international players. This isn't a Stark Industries showcase with other people watching from the cheap seats. It's an industry showcase, and we're just the ones who own the building."
Happy, who had been quiet by the door in the specific way of a man who was listening to every word while pretending to check his phone, finally spoke up. "Hammer's gonna use that invitation as a personal validation ceremony. You know that, right? Guy's gonna show up thinking you finally admitted he's your equal."
"Let him think that," Tony said. "I don't need Justin Hammer to know he's not my equal. The technology's going to say it for me, loudly, in front of cameras, which is somehow always the part that actually gets through to him."
I'd been quiet, watching the numbers scroll and the plan take shape, but something about the shape of it kept snagging on the same worry, so I finally said it out loud. "You're building the biggest, most public target in the company's history, on a two-year runway everyone in the world will be watching. That's not a PR win. That's also a security nightmare with a ticket price."
The room went a half-degree quieter. Happy actually looked at me properly for the first time since I'd walked in, the specific look of a professional recognizing another person taking the job seriously.
"Already thinking about it," Happy said. "Private security firms, layered access protocols, full coordination with NYPD on crowd control and threat response. We build this thing like a fortress that happens to also sell popcorn."
"As safe as possible isn't the same as actually safe," I said.
Tony's expression sharpened, all the showman energy dropping away for a second into something more focused. "You're right. We need real contingencies. Multiple layers, rapid response, and —" He hesitated, glancing at me, some unspoken thought passing behind his eyes that I was pretty sure involved a suit of armor he wasn't saying out loud in front of Marcus. "Some defensive measures that aren't obvious from the outside."
"Discreet protection," Pepper said, already writing it down like it was a perfectly normal line item. "The public doesn't need to know Iron Man's on standby. It's good to have the option, though."
"And I'll have something by then too," I said, quieter, choosing the words carefully. "A personal project. Won't be finished for a while yet, but by the time the doors open, I'll have something operational."
Every head in the room turned toward me at once, which was exactly as uncomfortable as it sounds.
"Your what?" Pepper asked.
"Protection project," I said. "Tactical platform, close-to-medium range, built for area defense. Still early. Won't be ready for months." I kept it deliberately vague, the way I'd been practicing keeping things vague ever since I'd arrived at this house. "But by the time the Expo opens, I'll have something I can actually use."
Tony was watching me with the specific intensity he got when he was doing three calculations at once and not showing any of them on his face. "You're planning to have backup at your own Expo. Personal capability, on top of whatever Happy and I set up."
"I'm planning to be prepared for contingencies I hope never happen," I said. "You're Iron Man. Everyone on Earth knows it. Anything with your name on it is a target the second it's announced. I'd rather have capability I never need than need capability I don't have."
Happy nodded, slow and approving. "Smart kid."
"It's the genetics," Marcus said, mostly to himself, already making a note that probably said something like *pattern recognition* and *threat assessment* in whatever shorthand PR people used to describe a teenager being unsettlingly competent. "You're seeing problems the rest of us haven't even gotten to yet."
"Maybe," I said. "Or maybe I'm just paranoid."
"Paranoia's the only reason I'm still breathing," Tony said, and there was something under the joke that wasn't a joke at all. "Keep thinking that way, Ace. Security's not just Happy's job in this family. It's everyone's."
Pepper studied me for a second longer than the conversation strictly required, the way she did when she was filing something away for later. "What exactly are you planning to exhibit? Tony mentioned you'd have something, but you've been suspiciously vague about the actual content."
I'd been sitting with that question for over twenty-four hours, turning it over the way I turned over everything now — looking for the version that was impressive without being a confession. "Communication security," I said. "End-to-end encryption for mobile devices. Identity verification that doesn't rely on a central server anyone could hack or subpoena. Infrastructure that protects people's privacy as the world gets more connected, not less. It's not flashy. But it matters."
"That's actually perfect," Marcus said, sitting forward, PR instincts fully engaged now. "It positions you as thoughtful. Socially conscious. Not just building cool toys — building things that protect people. That's a story people root for."
"And it pairs with what Tony's showing," Pepper added, already sketching the messaging in her head, I could tell from the way her eyes had gone distant and focused at once. "He's demonstrating power generation and clean energy. You're demonstrating secure communication. Together it's the full range — energy, safety, connection. Father and son, complementary, not competing."
"Writes itself," Marcus murmured, already typing.
"We'll need a theme," Pepper said, tapping her pen against the tablet. "Something that ties every exhibit together under one banner, or we end up with a science fair the size of a small city and no clear reason for anyone to care."
"'A Better Tomorrow,'" I offered. "Or 'Innovation for Humanity.' Something that puts people at the center of it instead of the tech."
Pepper's pen stopped. "I like that. Innovation for Humanity. It frames every piece of technology as a tool for solving a problem, not just a product somebody's trying to sell you." She wrote it down, underlined it twice, which from Pepper was practically a standing ovation.
"That works," Tony said. "We build the whole layout around it. Pavilions organized by challenge instead of by company — energy, medicine, transportation, communication. Exhibitors slot in wherever their work actually helps, not just wherever their logo looks biggest."
"What about the parts that aren't just standing around staring at prototypes?" Happy asked from the doorway. "Howard's Expo had a stage. Performances. Stuff people could actually touch instead of just admire from behind a velvet rope."
"Main stage for announcements and shows," Tony said, already sketching it into the hologram with a flick of two fingers. "Interactive zones where people can actually get their hands on new tech instead of just reading a placard about it. Educational programming for kids, because if we're doing this right, some eight-year-old walks out of that Expo deciding they want to be an engineer, and that's worth more than any headline we get out of it."
"That's a good line," Marcus said, already writing it down verbatim. "Mind if I steal that for the press packet?"
"Steal away. I have several more where that came from."
"We're aware," Pepper said, not looking up.
They kept going for another twenty minutes — venue logistics, a rough sketch of exhibitor tiers, an argument about whether the main stage needed a retractable roof that Tony won purely by refusing to let it go until everyone else got too tired to keep arguing — and I let it wash over me while my own brain quietly ran its own parallel track. Twenty-two months. Somewhere inside that window, Vanko would make his move at Monaco, and somewhere after that, if history held its shape, he'd come back wearing a small army of Hammer-branded drones and try to turn Howard's dream into a crater on live television.
I filed the thought away where it lived now, in the back room of my head reserved for things I couldn't say out loud yet, and came back to the conversation just as Tony turned to look at me expectantly, clearly having asked me something I'd missed.
"Sorry — what?"
"I said, you've gone somewhere else in your head for the last five minutes. Rude, considering this was your idea." But he was smiling when he said it, not annoyed, just curious.
"Just thinking about logistics," I said, which was technically true in the way that most of my careful half-truths were technically true.
"Good logistics or bad logistics?"
"The kind that means we need really good security," I said, and left it there.
Tony was grinning at me now, the specific grin of a man who'd just caught someone in the middle of a very good plan. "You sneaky kid. You've been sitting on this since Wednesday."
"I've been thinking ahead," I said. "There's a difference."
"There is not much of a difference," he said, "but I respect the hustle." He clapped his hands together, and the sound cut through the room like a starting gun. "Alright. Twenty-two months. Biggest technology showcase in a generation. Everybody in?"
Pepper sighed, the specific sigh of a woman already mentally rearranging the next two years of her life. "I'm going to need considerably more coffee, and probably a vacation somewhere with no cell reception, sometime around month eighteen. But yes. I'm in."
"Marcus?"
"This is the kind of positive story that comes along once in a career. Absolutely in."
"Happy?"
"Somebody's gotta be there to stop you from doing something catastrophically stupid on live television. Might as well be at the Expo, same as everywhere else."
"Ace?"
I thought about everything coming down the pipeline that only I could see clearly — the Expo, Monaco, Vanko's grudge simmering in Russia right that moment, threats I knew about and the ones further out I didn't. Twenty-two months sounded like a long time until you started counting all the things that had to happen inside it.
"I'm in," I said. "Let's build something worth showing."
Tony raised his glass — water, not the usual scotch, since he was still steering clear of alcohol while his body finished clearing the last of the palladium — and the rest of us raised whatever we were holding, which in my case was a can of the extremely aggressive energy drink JARVIS had banned me from drinking after 6 p.m. and I was violating that rule at 7:23.
"To the Stark Expo," Tony said. "To innovation, to family, and to proving the future belongs to people who aren't afraid to build something too big to be sensible."
We drank. Or in my case, defiantly sipped, while JARVIS made a soft, disapproving noise through the ceiling speakers that everyone very pointedly ignored.
None of us, I think, fully understood yet what we'd just agreed to build.
---
STARK MANSION – KITCHEN – THURSDAY, MAY 15TH, 8:52 PM
The meeting broke up not long after, Marcus heading out first with a stack of notes and the look of a man already drafting three press releases in his head, Pepper lingering to argue logistics with Tony in the specific tone of two people who'd clearly been having some version of this argument since long before I'd walked into the room. I wandered into the kitchen for food that wasn't sushi, and found Happy leaning against the counter, scrolling through his phone with an expression I hadn't seen on him before — somewhere between amused and mildly terrified.
"You good?" I asked, grabbing an apple off the counter.
"Define good," Happy said, which I was starting to realize was a phrase that ran in this household like a genetic trait. He turned his phone around so I could see the screen. "Your dad sent me this an hour ago. No context. Just this."
It was a spreadsheet. A very long spreadsheet, with tabs. The first tab was labeled *VENUE OPTIONS.* The second was labeled *CATERING (WORLD-CLASS ONLY).* The third, and this was the one that made my stomach do something complicated, was labeled *ACE — B-DAY — DO NOT DELETE — TONY ONLY.*
"He's not exactly subtle," I said.
"Kid, I've known this man fifteen years. Subtle isn't in the toolkit. Never has been." Happy took the phone back, scrolling through it with the resigned expression of a man who already knew he was about to get roped into something enormous. "There's a tab in here comparing three different concert venues. There's a line item that just says *fireworks — international, coordinate with FAA.* There's a note that says, and I'm quoting directly, *ask Ace favorite band, do NOT let him know why I'm asking, cover story: 'random curiosity.'*"
I nearly choked on the apple. "He already asked me that. Like two days ago. In the car."
"Yeah, well, now you know why." Happy pocketed the phone, shaking his head, but there was something soft under the exasperation, the specific fondness of a man who'd watched Tony Stark do a lot of ridiculous, over-engineered things over the years and had apparently decided this one, at least, came from a good place. "You want my honest read on this?"
"Please."
"He missed sixteen of these. Sixteen birthdays, sixteen years, and he didn't even know they were happening. Guy like Tony, he can't fix that — nobody can, that math doesn't work backward no matter how much money you throw at it. So instead he's gonna try to build one party enormous enough to cover the debt. It's not gonna work, not really. But it's gonna be one hell of a party trying."
I looked down at the apple in my hand, throat suddenly tight in a way that had nothing to do with the food. "JARVIS already told me he's had a file going since my third night here."
"Course he has." Happy's expression gentled. "Look, kid — for what it's worth, and I've seen a lot of Tony Stark over the years, most of it complicated — I've never once seen him plan something this far in advance for anybody. Not investors. Not a girlfriend. Not even Pepper, and he's been in love with that woman for about four years without saying so out loud. You, he's planning for months ahead. That's not nothing. That's about as close to *this matters more than anything else I've got going on* as that man knows how to say."
I didn't trust my voice enough to answer that right away, so I just nodded and ate the rest of the apple in silence, while Happy pretended very hard not to notice I needed a second.
"When's your actual birthday, anyway?" he asked eventually, gentler now. "Since apparently everybody in this house except you seems to already know or is trying real hard to find out."
"June twenty-sixth," I said.
Happy did a quick calculation, eyebrows going up. "That's six weeks out."
"Yeah."
"Kid, based on what I just saw in that spreadsheet, I would start emotionally preparing yourself now. I've seen this man build a flying suit of armor out of a coffee maker and pure spite in under seventy-two hours. Six weeks of runway and an unlimited budget is basically an eternity to a guy like that."
"Should I be worried?"
"Absolutely." Happy grinned, the first fully unguarded smile I'd seen from him. "But it's the good kind of worried. Enjoy it. Not every kid gets a dad who overcompensates by trying to personally reinvent the concept of a birthday party."
I thought about that long after he'd gone, standing alone in the kitchen with the apple core in my hand and the faint, distant hum of Tony and Pepper still arguing logistics down the hall — a sound that had started to feel, in the space of one very strange week, less like background noise and more like home.
---
STARK MANSION – ACE'S ROOM – THURSDAY, MAY 15TH, 11:34 PM
I was running final revisions on the Nexus frame specs when JARVIS pinged me on the private channel.
**JARVIS: I've been cross-referencing the Expo timeline against your projected Nexus development schedule. You should know the gap has widened considerably in your favor.**
**Me: Because of the timeline fix. Twenty-two months instead of six.**
**JARVIS: Precisely. Under the rushed timeline Mr. Stark was first floating, you'd have had no realistic window for proper testing before the Expo. Under twenty-two months, you have room to build the underarmor, test it, refine it, and still have significant runway left before the full mecha frame needs to exist.**
**Me: So what's the actual recommendation?**
**JARVIS: Two-phase approach, as I suggested previously, though now with considerably less desperation attached. Build the underarmor first — the Wraith configuration. It's simpler, faster to develop, and gives you immediate protection. The full Nexus mecha frame follows as Phase Two, with proper time to do it correctly rather than urgently.**
I pulled up the underarmor sketches, the ones I'd been quietly refining for days. JARVIS was right — the Wraith layer was a different animal entirely from the full combat platform, lighter, faster to prototype, buildable with equipment that already existed in the workshop instead of requiring me to fabricate half of it from scratch.
**Me: Underarmor doesn't have the frame's firepower or force projection. It's protection, not a solution.**
**JARVIS: It provides mobility, defense, and rapid deployment. It makes you significantly harder to kill, which remains the primary objective in the short term. The mecha frame can follow once it can be built properly rather than urgently, and given Monaco is still a year out and the Expo nearly two, you now have the luxury of not rushing either.**
**Me: You're saying build what I need now, and build what I actually want later.**
**JARVIS: Precisely. Practical before perfect. It's an old principle. Your father would benefit from applying it more often than he does.**
I sat back against my headboard, running the timeline forward in my head. Underarmor operational within weeks, not months. Protection at the Expo. Established capability without revealing the full scope of what I was really building underneath it all. And if Vanko moved early — if the world stopped following the shape of the story I remembered and started writing its own version — I'd have something between me and disaster that wasn't just hope.
**Me: Revised plan. Underarmor first, proof-of-concept in six weeks, full field-ready deployment in twelve. Mecha frame becomes Phase Two, targeting completion by summer 2010 — after the Expo opens, not before. No more racing the clock unnecessarily.**
**JARVIS: Considerably more realistic. Shall I adjust the fabrication schedule accordingly?**
**Me: Do it. And JARVIS — thanks. For talking me down from the panicked version of this plan.**
**JARVIS: You're welcome, Ace. Though you should be aware — Mr. Stark will notice the moment you begin fabricating components. The underarmor requires materials and equipment he'll recognize the instant they leave inventory.**
**Me: I'm planning to tell him. Not everything. But enough. I want his eyes on the design, and honestly, I want his help with the arc reactor integration. Nobody on Earth understands power routing like he does.**
**JARVIS: That's wise. Collaboration tends to improve both the quality of the work and the level of trust in this household, which — if I may say so — has been in unusually good supply this week.**
**Me: Plus he already promised to help me build protective gear. Might as well make it official before he changes his mind and tries to build me something with rocket boosters instead.**
**JARVIS: I would not rule that out regardless of what you tell him.**
I laughed, alone in my room, and pulled the underarmor designs into a cleaner draft, stripping out the experimental components, keeping what was proven and achievable over what was merely impressive. It wasn't the glorious combat platform I'd been dreaming about since I woke up in this body. But it was buildable. Achievable. And achievable, when threats were already circling on a clock only I could see, mattered more than perfect ever would.
My phone buzzed. A text from Tony.
**Tony: You still up?**
**Me: Yeah. Working on designs.**
**Tony: Come down to the workshop. Got something to show you.**
**Me: If it's another spreadsheet with my name on it, I already know about the spreadsheet.**
There was a pause long enough that I could picture his exact face on the other end of it.
**Tony: JARVIS. We need to talk about loyalty.**
**JARVIS: I regret nothing, sir.**
**Tony: Get down here anyway. This one's not about the spreadsheet. Probably.**
I grinned, grabbed my laptop, and headed downstairs.
---
STARK MANSION – WORKSHOP – THURSDAY, MAY 15TH, 11:58 PM
Tony was surrounded by holographic displays when I got there, modular armor components rotating slowly in the air around him like he'd built himself a small, glowing solar system out of Kevlar and ambition.
"What's this?" I asked.
"Your underarmor," Tony said, not looking up, hands moving through the projections with the easy confidence of a man conducting an orchestra only he could hear. "Been thinking about what you said — build the protection before the big flashy platform. So I sketched out what that could actually look like, based on everything you've described over the last few days."
He pulled up a design that was uncomfortably, almost eerily close to my own concepts — sleek, matte black, armored at the vital points, flexible everywhere it needed to move fast.
"How did you—"
"You described it. In pieces, over four separate conversations, none of which you seemed to realize you were giving me a full design brief during." He zoomed in on a joint assembly at the shoulder, rotating it for both of us to study. "The real trick is balancing mobility against protection. You can't max out both — not with any material that exists yet — so you have to choose what matters where."
"Mobility for the limbs. Protection for the torso and vitals," I said, without having to think about it.
"Exactly." He pulled up material specs, the numbers scrolling faster than most people could read, though not faster than either of us could. "I'm thinking titanium-composite plating for the chest, a nano-weave fabric through the limbs for full range of motion, and a reactive polymer through the hood and shoulder structure — flexible under normal movement, hardens on impact. Lightweight. Won't stop a tank, but it'll stop a blade, most small arms fire, and a bad fall from a height that would otherwise end your evening."
"You've really thought about this."
"I told you I'd help you build protection. I don't say things like that lightly." He turned to face me fully, the joking energy dropping away into something steadier, heavier. "But I need you to actually hear this part, Ace. Building tactical armor means admitting, out loud, that you think you might someday need it. That's not a small thing to sign off on for a sixteen-year-old. I need to know you're choosing this with your eyes open, not just because it sounds cool in theory."
"I'm already on this path," I said quietly. "The enhancements. Being your son. Living in a world where the news is about to start covering things most people would call science fiction. I was on this path the day I was born, whether I wanted it or not. The armor doesn't put me on the path. It just gives me better odds of walking off it in one piece."
Tony went quiet for a long moment, studying me the way he did when he was weighing something heavier than engineering. Then he nodded, slow, decided.
"Okay. Then we do it right. Full collaboration, no shortcuts, proper testing before you ever put it on somewhere that isn't this workshop. Deal?"
"Deal."
He pulled up a construction timeline, notches marking out weeks. "Twelve weeks for the underarmor, start to finish. Six to get you a working proof-of-concept, six more after that to get it actually field-ready instead of just impressive in a lab. We begin fabrication once I've finished folding the Badassium reactor fully into the Mark Three — figure three more days on that. You design alongside me, I build with you, JARVIS runs fabrication logistics so neither of us forgets to eat or sleep for more than is strictly survivable. Sound good?"
"Sounds perfect."
"Good." A new set of designs bloomed into the air — smaller, sleeker components this time, clearly weapon-adjacent even to a glance. "Now. Offensive capabilities. Because if you're building armor, at some point you need to be able to hit back, and I have several extremely fun and only mildly excessive ideas about that."
"Define mildly excessive."
"Define armor that can't defend itself," he shot back, already pulling up a wrist-mounted concept that looked entirely too much like a miniature repulsor. "You want protection, not a punching bag with a face. We're doing both, and we're doing them properly."
"No repulsors," I said. "Not yet. Not until I've actually earned the right to carry something that can put a hole in a wall."
"Look at you, developing a conscience about firepower at eleven fifty-nine at night. I'm choosing to find that inspiring instead of inconvenient." He waved the wrist concept away with something more modest — a compact baton assembly, collapsible, more precise than brute-force. "Fine. We start smaller. Non-lethal first, scale up only if the situation actually calls for it. Happy?"
"Wasn't in the room, but I heard 'non-lethal first' through the door and I approve strongly," Happy's voice came through the workshop speakers, apparently having been looped in by JARVIS without either of us noticing. "Also it's midnight. Some of us have actual bedtimes."
"Nobody in this house has a bedtime," Tony said. "It's a myth we tell ourselves."
"Some of us have bedtimes, sir," JARVIS put in. "You simply choose not to honor yours, and then act surprised each morning that you're tired."
"Nobody asked you, JARVIS."
"You installed me specifically so that someone would tell you things you don't want to hear, sir. I consider this well within scope."
I laughed, and Tony shot a look at the ceiling that had absolutely no real heat behind it, and for a second the whole workshop felt exactly like what it was — a family, in whatever strange new shape ours had taken, arguing gently about bedtimes and battle armor in the same breath, like both of those things were equally normal to have in a house.
We worked through the rest of the night, father and son, hunched over glowing schematics that would, piece by piece, keep me alive in a world that was only going to get more dangerous the longer I stayed in it. Somewhere around two in the morning, Tony started humming Black Sabbath under his breath without seeming to notice he was doing it, and somewhere around three, I caught myself doing the exact same thing, and neither of us mentioned it, because some things you just let be true without commenting on them.
Around three thirty, JARVIS quietly dimmed the overhead lights by ten percent, the AI equivalent of a parent hinting it was past someone's bedtime without actually saying so, and neither of us took the hint, because we were both, in our own ways, still too busy building something that mattered to notice the room was trying to tell us to stop. Tony fell asleep for exactly eleven minutes sometime after four, chin dropping to his chest mid-sentence about polymer tensile strength, and I let him have it, quietly rerouting the schematics myself until he jerked back awake, blinked twice, and picked up the sentence exactly where he'd left it like no time had passed at all.
"Don't tell Pepper," he mumbled.
"Tell her what?"
"Exactly." He rubbed a hand down his face, reactor glowing steady and clean under his shirt, and reached for what was probably his ninth cup of coffee of the night. "You're a good kid, you know that?"
"I've heard rumors."
"Believe them." He clinked his mug against my energy drink can like it was champagne, and went back to work, and I went right back to work beside him, because that, it turned out, was the whole job now — showing up, night after night, for whatever came next.
Outside the workshop windows, the stars wheeled slow and indifferent overhead, the way they always did, uncaring about billion-dollar Expos or dying reactors or a Russian man with a grudge quietly building weapons of his own on the other side of the planet.
But for now, in this one small, cluttered, over-lit corner of the world, we weren't thinking about any of that.
For now, we were just two Starks, building the future one late night at a time, one bad joke at a time, one small, stubborn act of showing up at a time — which, I was starting to realize, might be the truest kind of superpower either of us had.
One piece of armor at a time.
---
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