22 Chapter 22) – Strawberry Skies

Rather than leaving the mansion through the front door, Tony grabbed a set of car keys, which operated his car of choice, from the desk where his Palladium cores were stored in the garage, we were in.

Not bothering to lock the front door of his mansion, which would have been meaningless in the state it was in, Tony directly made his way over to the car that the keys corresponded to; a white, convertible, Audi R8 sports car. As the convertible roof of the car as well as the windows were already down, Mara put her hand on the top of the passenger door and hopped over said door, directly into the car without opening the door.

After my host had performed said manoeuvre, Tony, now in the driver's seat, turned to her and said, "You know the door IS unlocked, would it kill you to do anything normally for once?"

Shrugging her shoulders, Mara looked over to the man and replied - as I transitioned our agent form into regular clothing, so she was more inconspicuous, "Meh, it looked like it'd be fun. The most important thing in life is to enjoy yourself Tony. It is YOUR life you're living after all, not someone else's."

Evidently not impressed with my host's answer, he retorted, "Within reason, Mara. You enjoying yourself doesn't give you free reign to get footprints on my leather seats."

With the clothing transition finished, Mara was wearing a navy blue, surplice V-neckline, flutter sleeve, playsuit. Similarly to the party the night before, I kept the remaining popcorn and the communicator in a separate bag. The bag this time, however, was a tan coloured, shoulder strapped, canteen bag, rather than a clutch bag, so Mara didn't need to hold onto it.

Waving her hand down at him, Mara responded, "Relax. I sat straight onto the seat, didn't I? Not a footprint in sight. Besides, your argument would be a lot more convincing if I didn't see how you had no problem half demolishing your own house last night and the danger you put the guests in to have your own fun firing repulsors left, right and centre."

Shaking his head Tony gave up on convincing my host of his point of view and refocused his eyes forward at his windscreen. He also to the time to wear the sunglasses that had been left on the dashboard at a previous point in time, "We're not getting anywhere with this. Let's go."

As such, Tony started the car and began to drive it up the garage ramp, leading up to the surface. While he was making his way around the curved ramp, Mara opened the glovebox of the car and fished out one of the many pairs of spare sunglasses Tony appeared to always have on hand, before putting them on to block out the sun.

Although I hasn't replicated sunglasses before and wasn't sure if the imitation would function the same as the real thing, I was going to ask my host if she wanted me to create some for her. Mara seemed to read my mind and answered my query before I even got it out, [I wouldn't wear just any sunglasses, El. You could try replicating them if I need to wear them again, but these are Iron Man's sunglasses. I wanted to wear them at least once since he always looked so cool wearing them in the movies.]

With Tony picking up speed as we left the grounds of his mansion, the wind started to whip Mara's hair around as we started our small road trip to Stark Industries with the blaring California sun overhead.

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About halfway through our journey along the Pacific Coast Highway, Tony drove the car onto the dirt next to the road and slowed it down to a stop in front of a pop-up fruit vendor.

Noticing a customer had pulled up, the owner of the stall grabbed a box of Strawberries from his pick-up truck and turned to face us, still in Tony's car, "¡Hola señor y señora!"

Mara waved at the smiling man, while Tony went straight into the transaction, "¿Cuánto cuestan?"

The salesman first replied to him in Spanish before recognising that either Tony wasn't a native Spanish speaker, or was the famous Iron Man, and then repeated himself in English, "Seis dolares. Six."

Tony tapped his pockets and looked in the door pocket as he replied, "I don't have any dough. Here." As he came to the realisation he didn't have any money; he began to take off his watch to use that as payment.

The vendor must have realised that Tony was Iron Man, or just a very wealthy individual from the car he was driving. As such he didn't even question if the watch was fake or not, but rather refused the payment as it was too excessive, "No, sir, that's too much."

Tony, not taking no for an answer, finished taking the watch off and held it out to the stall owner as he told him, "No, it's fine. Take it. It's fine."

However, the vendor still politely tried to refuse the watch, "No, señor."

Eventually getting involved, Mara grabbed the watch, which was held out in front of her face, and swapped the strawberry box in the vendor's hand with the watch while she told him, "Just take it, don't worry about him overpaying. He's got too much money anyway."

With the fruits secured on Mara's lap, Tony started to set off as the vendor called out, "Are you Iron Man?"

To which Tony shouted back a reply of, "Sometimes." And received a response in return from the vendor, but the car had sped too far away from the stall to hear it, as we resumed the journey.

Tony took his eyes off the road, once he was back on it, to face Mara and tell her in advance, "Those are for Pepper, don't eat any of them."

Rolling her eyes at the remark, my host responded, "I guessed as much, Loverboy. Focus on the road or you'll kill yourself before the Palladium gets the chance."

Doing as he was told, for once, Tony turned back to the road and increased his speed to get to his destination even quicker.

------

Walking through the main entrance of Stark Industries, Tony started to make his way over to his old office, and Pepper's current one.

Tony and Mara made their way into the lift to take them to the upper floor where the office was located. Although Tony wasn't the CEO anymore, he was still a majority shareholder of the company and also owned the building. As such, he still had all his access to the Stark Industries facilities.

While they were in the lift, Mara turned to Tony and held out the strawberry box as she said, "Are you gonna take these, or do you want me to eat them?"

Looking slightly torn, Tony replied, "I don't like to be handed things, it's my peeve. Do you mind giving them to her?"

Sighing, my host answered, "Haah. If you take them out of my hands, I'm not handing them to you, right? You're taking them from me."

Still not happy with the action, Tony said, "Ergh, I can't, can you put them on a table or something when we get out and I'll pick them up."

Rolling her eyes, Mara placed the box on the floor of the lift and took a step back, "Can you get them now? I'm not your assistant, I'm your babysitter."

Picking up the box as the lift chimed and the door opened, Tony came up against another obstacle – the secretary.

Situated in the upstairs lobby, the area separating the lift and the various offices, were 2 desks. Both of these desks had women sat behind them with the desks themselves being mirrored, position wise. The side the desk was located, denoted which executives they worked for. One was on the left of the room and the other on the right, matching the 2 available office corridors.

Since Tony headed to the right as soon as he exited the lift, it was the right secretary that called out to him, "Can I help you Mr. Stark?"

Halting in his tracks, Tony asked the secretary, "Actually yes, you can. Is Pepper in? I need to speak with her about something."

Staying sat down, and clearly underestimating Tony's resolve, the secretary replied, "She's currently unavailable as she's in a meeting. Can I schedule you an appointment?"

Reading between the lines and hearing what he wanted to, Tony responded, "So she is in. No thanks, I'll just see her now."

Standing up at his words, the secretary said, "Mr. Stark, you really can't go in."

Completely ignoring the secretary, Tony resumed his mission to see Pepper and walked through the glass door separating the lobby from the offices.

Moving as quickly as her pencil skirt and high heels would allow her, the secretary, whose name was Bambina going off her name tag, made her way around her desk to catch up to the ex-CEO.

Since the secretary appeared to be in her 50's, it was highly likely that she worked for Tony previously, so she knew his personality well. That must have been why, when she managed to get ahead of Tony, instead of stopping him, Bambina opened the door to Pepper's office herself.

Through her experience she must have recognised that trying to stop Tony when he had set his mind to something was impossible, and so went for damage control instead.

In a slightly quieter voice then she had used in the lobby, Bambina called out, "Miss Potts?"

Mara followed behind Tony as he walked by the secretary and muttered, "Relax. It's fine."

Rather than continue to argue her point after Pepper had looked up from her desk to acknowledge Tony's presence, Bambina exited the office and closed the door after Tony stopped her from stringing together a sentence, "Mr. Stark is- he refuses…"

The Iron Man had cut her off saying, "It's fine, I'll just be a second. You are excused. Thank you very much, Bambi? Is it?"

Rather than get too involved in their personal discussion, Mara leaned herself against the wall next to the door after she had entered the room.

While Pepper finished off the conversation she was having on the phone, Mara, and Tony, both directed their attention to the television on the wall of the office. The show that was displayed was called the O'Reilly Factor and consisted of a man on the screen ranting about the topical headline. In this instance, the headline just so happened to be 'Tony Stark is Done!'

'When Mr. Stark announced he was indeed the Iron Man, he was making a promise to America. We trusted that he would look out for us. He obviously did not. And now we learn that his secretary, a woman named Virginia "Pepper" Potts, has been appointed as CEO of Stark Industries. What are her qualifications? Ms. Potts is doing nothing to manage this terrible-"

"Mute." For the second time since meeting the Iron Man, he had muted a television berating him, or anything related to him, with his voice.

With the TV silenced, Tony began to look over the personal belongings that he had left in the office as he waited for Pepper to finish her phone call.

While he was touching all of said belongings, Tony pulled off part of a sheet that was covering an exceptionally large, square, object. Said object was vertically propped up against the bookshelf that was hidden behind it. As half of the sheet fell off the square, it revealed itself to be the very Expo model that was present in Howard Stark's film reels.

Expecting the model to be present, Mara made sure I recognised it, [That's the target, El. Since we can't expect the movies to follow along the exact same tracks, we need to make sure he takes that back so Jarv can scan it.]

Receiving the message loud and clear, I replied, <Got 2 it. How exactly are we going to get it back the mansion though? It's not like Tony brought a big car, there only seats. Will need carry or take different car back?>

Pausing for a few more seconds than I had expected, my host replied, [You know I didn't even think of that. Yeah, we'll have to carry it on our lap or hold it onto the back of the car with some tendrils.]

Not needing to reply to my host, we both tuned back into the outside world as Tony was partway through his conversation with Pepper since Mara had taken a little time to answer my query.

Tony had, at some point, sat down opposite Pepper at her desk and was animatedly talking about something.

It appeared that we picked an apt time to direct our attention back to the pair as clearly Tony had, yet again, done something to piss Pepper off as she raised her voice at him, "Let me stop you right here, okay? Because if you say 'I', 1 more time, I'm gonna actually hurl something at your head, I think. I am trying to run a company. Do you have any idea what that entails?"

Tony cut into Pepper's rant with a, "Yes." But since she didn't intend for her question to be answered, Pepper didn't slow her tirade, "People are relying on you to be Iron Man and you've disappeared, and all I'm doing is putting out your fires and taking the heat for it."

While Tony was being berated like a child for his transgressions, he was tapping on the desk with a small ball that subsequently fired out of his hand and over the desk towards Pepper, as if to physically punctuate the period at the end of her sentence.

Angrily catching the ball, the CEO took a breath to calm down slightly as she continued, "I am trying to do the job that you were meant to do."

Knowing that Pepper's point was perfectly valid as he was the one that wanted her to be CEO, while also creating trouble for her now that she had the job, he looked down at the floor.

Finishing off the verbal beatdown she had just given Tony, Pepper asked, "Did you bring me strawberries?-"

Tony raised his head slightly to look her in the eyes, hopeful that his gift would be appreciated, before his hopes were crushed with what came out of her mouth, "-Did you know there's only one thing on this planet that I'm allergic to?"

Already noticing what Pepper was implying, he finished her sentence himself at the same time she did, "Allergic to strawberries. Mmm-hmm."

Tony then tried to justify his actions, "This is progress, Pepper. I knew there was a connection between you and this fruit."

Not wanting anything more to do with the Iron Man, Pepper looked away from him and towards Mara as her expression changed to that of a pleased smile, "Mara, nice to see you. How was the hotel that Natalie booked for you last night?"

Pushing off from the wall she was leaning on, Mara walked closer to the CEO's desk as she replied, "It was good, yeah. Natalie offered to let me crash at hers for a little while as well going forward, at least until I get myself organised. I didn't want to sponge off you or your company for too long since it was an expensive looking place and I already owe you so much."

Waving a hand at my host in dismissal, Pepper responded, "It's fine, don't worry about it. I'd happily spend the money for all you've done. We could take you on as a bodyguard if you wanted. You would be more than capable from what I've seen."

Mirroring the gesture, Mara declined the offer, "Thanks Pepper. I really mean it. I doubt many people would take a random person they've met and offer them a job without knowing much about them. But I have to decline, sorry. I've actually recently been offered a job and I think I'll be quite good at it."

Slightly surprised, but in a good way, Pepper congratulated my host, "Congratulations, but is that job the reason you're here with this narcissist? And if he's the one that hired you, I think you would enjoy working at Stark Industries a lot more."

Giggling at the remark, Mara answered back, "Technically it is the reason I'm with him, but he's not the one that hired me. I think you've met one of my bosses before? Phil Coulson with the Strategic, yeah not gonna do the whole name, it was S.H.I.E.L.D., they hired me based on the abilities I showed at Monaco. Since I'm new, they want to ease me into the job so they've got me babysitting this tin can 'cause he's been a tad off the rails as of late."

Nodding her head, the CEO was about to reply when the office door opened, accompanied by the arrival of Natasha, in her undercover role as Natalie, and Happy.

Whether Natasha didn't notice Mara or was just flawless in her assistant role, she didn't even hesitate as she entered the office and spoke directly to Pepper exactly as a professional assistant would, "Ms. Potts?"

Redirecting her attention to the new arrivals, Pepper responded to the undercover agent, "Hi, come on in."

Making her way over to the CEO's side of the desk, Natasha updated her 'boss' on their schedule while handing her some new documents that required her signature, "Wheels up in 25 minutes."

To which Pepper replied with, "Thank you." As she signed the documents placed in front of her.

As Mara made her way back to the wall to re-lean against it like she was previously, Happy asked his new boss, "Anything else, boss?"

This, however, resulted in both Pepper and Tony replying at the same time, "I'm good, Hap." "No, I'll be just… another minute."

"So, this is how it feels to lose the kids in a divorce." Tony said as he proceeded to chuckle in fake amusement.

With an awkward silence settling after Tony's remark, he decided to bring out his reliable snarky quips, but this time it was a hidden implication about Natasha, "Are you blending in well here, Natalie? Here at Stark Industries? Your name is Natalie, isn't it?"

Natasha completely ignored Tony as Pepper closed the folder that contained the documents she was just signing. Tony then pointed between the women and asked, "I thought you 2 didn't get along?"

Handing the folder to Natasha, Pepper answered the sour man, "No. That's not the case at all."

Recognising that Pepper was still angry at him, he responded trying to get any other emotion out of her, "It's just me that you don't care for. No? Nothing?"

As she got up to go and catch her scheduled flight, Pepper informed the Iron Man, "Actually, while you're here, maybe you and Natalie could discuss the matter of the personal belongings lingering around, cluttering up the office."

Natasha, still in her perfect assistant role, replied, "Absolutely."

While Pepper walked towards the door of the office, not looking back at Tony once, she spoke to my host, "It was nice to see you as always, Mara. You're always welcome around here."

Giving a prompt reply as to not hold her back, Mara said, "Thanks, Pepper. Always nice to see you too. Have a safe trip."

With the conversation over, Pepper made her way out of her office as Happy followed behind her, after giving Mara an acknowledging nod, with the CEO's luggage.

Once they had left, the only people remaining in the office were Mara, Natasha, and Tony.

Natasha, going tit-for-tat with Tony, spoke first, "I'm surprised you didn't give up my cover outright after those not-so-subtle remarks."

That seemed to set Tony off, however, as he turned away from the office door he was staring at, to face the undercover agent in order to retort in equal parts astonishment and amazement, "Damn, you're good. You are mind-blowingly duplicitous. How do you do it? You're a triple impostor. I've never seen anything remotely like you. Were you grown in a lab? Is there anything real about you? Do you even speak Latin?"

Natasha began her walk around the desk to head out of the office as she said, "Fallaces sunt rerum species." Which I assumed was Latin, and thus proved she could, in fact, speak it.

Tony, evidently unable to speak Latin, questioned, "Which means? Wait. What? What did you just say?"

Ignoring the billionaire, Natasha stopped in front of Mara and checked in on her as well as me, "Is everything going alright, Mara, El? He's not too infuriating, is he?"

Shaking her head, my host replied, "Nah he hasn't been too awful… yet. But Coulson gave us permission to beat him up if he was, so we'll be fine."

Creating a head for myself I also, appreciatively, replied to the spy's enquiry, "Thanks for asking, Nat. Like Mar said, he hasn't been completely unbearable, so we've had no need to take action."

Seemingly pleased with the answers she received, Natasha responded first to me, and then to my host, "Happy to hear it, keep up the good work. And Mar, huh, that's new. I can use it as well since you've given me a nickname, right?"

Nodding in agreement, Mara said, "If you can't think of another nickname, feel free to use it. It's only fair you can do the same to me as I do to you."

Resuming her exit, the spy left my host, and the office, with, "I'll keep it in my back pocket for now and see if something else comes to me before I lock-in the nickname."

With just the 2 of them left in the room, Tony grabbed the strawberries and was about to throw them away when Mara stopped him, "Woah, woah, what are you throwing them away for?! Give them here if you don't want them. That vendor worked hard to grow those. The least you could do is give them to someone who'd eat 'em, instead of binning them."

Sighing and rolling his eyes, Tony passed Mara the box of strawberries, "Haah, happy?"

Putting a strawberry in her mouth and biting off the stem, Mara started to reply with her mouth full, but swallowed halfway through, "Yesh, dow't - forget your dad's model."

Slightly confused, the Iron Man questioned, "My dad's model? Why would I take that?"

Rolling her eyes, Mara gave Tony an unquestionable reason, "You just told Pepper that you would sort some of this out. If she gets back and you haven't moved any of it, she'll be even more pissed than before, and that's saying something considering the stinker of a mood you just put her in. Since it's the biggest thing you might as well ask me to help you take it back since, ya know, superpowers and everything."

Unsure exactly how Tony figures out the model is the cure to his poisoning, I also got involved to drop a hint as I still had a head created, "Howard said the Expo was the key to the future and the model literally has a plaque on it that says, 'The key to the future is here.' Sounds like a bit much to be a coincidence. If you're going to die anyway you may as well figure out this key to the future thing so you can leave something positive behind."

Snarky Stark returned again as he replied, "Yeah, still don't believe you're real, demon spawn. But you could be right hallucinated voice in my head."

Walking over to the model, Tony pulled off the rest of the sheet and took a step back from it. He must have noticed something as he suddenly raised his right hand to make a cylinder shape, like a telescope, with the digits on his hand and looked through it to view the model.

Uncharacteristically of him, Tony spoke aloud, and I suppose apologised, in a very Tony Stark way, "Well shit. I think my subconscious delusion demon was right."

Slightly, insulted? Annoyed? I wasn't sure exactly what the emotion was, but I had felt similar things from Mara in the past, as well as a little of when I had lost control with the worm. Without even meaning to, the words were formed and said aloud before I even really thought about them, "Not yours. Not a delusion. Very much real. Very much want to eat you."

Not wanting either of us to start arguing, Mara jumped in to tell Tony, "C'mon old timer. I assume this thing folds or comes apart in segments since it's bigger than the office door. Get to disassembling it and we'll get back to the mansion."

Not giving a verbal reply, Tony lowered the model, so it laid flat on the floor, as he began to slide the segments apart for transportation.

While he was doing that, Mara contact Coulson to update him on our expected return to the mansion. I also absorbed the head back into our agent form to try and understand my newish emotions, without being disturbed by the one who brought them out in the first place.