Ch46. Maya Hansen

When Maya woke up, she found herself in a bed in a quite lavishly furnished room. She quickly raised the sheets and checked if she was still clothed and much to her relief she was.

'So I wasn't kidnapped by some insane admirer of mine.' She resolutely nodded to herself, ignoring how utterly ridiculous that notion was for a woman who spent 99% of her time locked in a basement lab trying to solve chemical formulas.

Unknown to her, her initial assumption was not completely wrong. Tony did admire her work on the Extremis Serum.

"Miss Hansen, please tidy yourself up. Boss was notified you woke up and is waiting for you in a conference room." A voice with an Irish accent suddenly spoke and Maya started to frantically turn around, trying to find the person who spoke to no avail.

"Who are you?" She eventually asked, pulling the sheets closer to her body as if it would provide some sort of defense for her.

"My name is FRIDAY and I am... er, you can call me Artificial Intelligence if you wish. Hurry up. Boss is waiting."

Maya's eyes widened at that.

It also gave her an inkling who had her kidnapped as the only one with A.I. was supposed to be Stark... which only managed to rile her up at the jerk... but she was not aware the Artificial Intelligence was so advanced it could have a semblance of emotions!

That was amazing!

Seeing as there was nothing she could do, Maya decided to listen to the A.I. and went to prepare herself for the meeting with this 'Boss'. She was still alive so maybe this wasn't going to end too badly for her, right?

...

Tony watched as Maya Hansen walked inside the conference room while looking around in both caution and curiosity.

Their eyes suddenly met and Maya huffed, crossing her hands on her chest.

"I would have never imagined being kidnapped by you, Stark."

"Well, there is a first time for everything, no?" Tony smirked at her, gesturing at the armchair opposite the one in which he was currently seated.

He did call it a conference room but it was more of a lounge. He thought an informal setting would provide better results in this discussion. Especially since he did sleep with Maya in the past and never called back.

"I guess I would know," She grumbled as she sat down and instantly took one of the mugs on the table between them, curiously peering inside and finding hot chocolate in it. "I did let a known playboy fuck me, expecting something he was not willing to provide." She offhandedly jabbed at their past before nonchalantly shrugging and taking a sip from the hot chocolate only for her face to lit up in surprised enjoyment.

Yeah, JARVIS was incredible at making those...

"Glad you like the drink." Tony drily deadpanned, feeling a bit annoyed she felt the need to throw it into his face. "In my defense, Stark Industries did call you with a job offer and research funding but you never picked up the phone so... jokes on you, Maya."

Tony enjoyed how her eyes widened in surprise at that. The best part? It was completely true.

He enjoyed her disbelieving surprise for a bit before deciding to stop with the pleasantries and get to the point.

"I want you to work for me on the Extremis." Tony bluntly said, taking his own mug of hot chocolate. As if he would have JARVIS prepare one for his unwilling guest and not for him. Pfft, what a laughable notion!

"Is that why you kidnapped me?" Maya asked in disbelief, "Because you suddenly gained an interest in my research? That..." She did expect it but hearing it spoken out loud still made her speechless.

Tony could clearly see she was confused and flabbergasted so he simply quietly let her process what was happening while enjoying his hot chocolate.

After a while, Maya's expression suddenly turned defiant, "I can't! I have a contract with A.I.M. I can't just..."

Tony sighed. It was a long shot, hoping for her to turn sides without any sort of persuasion from him but Tony had his own fair share of happy coincidences behind himself so he dared to hope.

Since it clearly didn't work out as he wanted, it was time to take out the big guns.

The table between them suddenly produced a holographic window, showing several documents and a logo of a skull with several tentacles.

"A.I.M. was mostly sponsored by Hydra. You might have heard of them as the Nazis who had a big part in causing the Second World War, by the way." Tony dropped the bomb.

"That's impossible. They were destroyed by C-" Maya instantly rebuked. That was just ridiculous. If he thought it would work on her then he was sorely mistaken!

"Captain Spandex. Yes but really no. Read." Tony gestured towards the holographic window, not interested in arguing with her. Showing her some proof would be much more effective with a woman like her.

Maya pursed her lips, still wanting to argue but the logical part of her was telling her to listen to him and read the documents. Who knows maybe she would find some sort of hole in his story...

Tony watched for ten minutes as Maya's face underwent several emotions and changed through several colorations, highly amused by how expressive it was. When she was finally finished and raised her horrified gaze from the documents JARVIS went through great difficulty to secretly get, Tony simply couldn't help himself.

"Congratulation, Miss Hansen. You just became an international criminal." He clapped his hands while Maya opened her mouth in shock, leaning back into her armchair, trying to process what she just read.

Normally, she would try to protest, saying it was not true but she could link several parts of these documents with a few happenings around the facility. She never paid it much attention but now...

Maya lowered her head, sullenly looking at her hands. "I just want to make a cure for diseases. I never wanted to create human weapons." She quietly muttered in resignation.

Tony wordlessly snapped his fingers and the documents on the table changed, showing a contract he was willing to sign with Maya where was explicitly stated Stark Industries would only use her research for finding out cures.

He was prepared!

"Well, I am neither army nor a government intelligence agency so..." Tony shrugged, grinning at Maya. "Up for working for me? I will even help you finish it!"

Maya's head snapped upward at that, "You will?" She was aware of just how much of a help Tony could give her. The equation he wrote after one drunken one-night stand helped her solve so many problems in her research and she didn't even crack it all yet!

"Yup." Tony eagerly nodded, 'After all, the contract never stated Tony Stark as an individual will not misuse the research either.' He shrewdly thought.

Seeing how her expression lit up, Tony mentally cheered.

Hook, Line, and Sinker.

She was totally in his pocket.

But then Maya had to give him a scare when her eyes widened in horror again and her breath hitched as if she just got a sudden revelation.

"Crap! My research is in Killian's mansion. The Hydra-" She whispered and Tony sighed in relief.

That was it? The girl better not give him a scare because of something as insignificant again!

"If they could replicate your research and your ability to actually advance it, you would have been dealt with already." Tony rolled his eyes, "You don't really think they did not try to research it on their own, do you? Considering there are no heated nazi super regenerators running around the world yet, they did not succeed."

He really wasn't afraid of Hydra finishing it. They didn't manage it in his past, they won't do it now either. Especially not with the only scientist crazy enough to understand her special case of madness taken away from them.

"More importantly, you will need a new name and identity, probably even an image change if you don't want to wind up assassinated." Tony casually said, "How does Hannah Mayers sound?"

Maya... had no idea how to react to that. Things were just happening far too quickly!

'Wait? When did I even agree to his offer!' She suddenly realized, baffled at Stark's 'my-pace' attitude. Worse yet, it actually seemed to work!

She knew she would not be rejecting his offer and that made her even more sullen.