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The Forge	By : IndigoMiko Category: Marvel Verse Movies > Iron Man (all) > Iron Man (all) Views: 1688 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Iron Man, X-Men, Avengers, or any other Marvel verse property. I also don't make any money from writing this. All I do is wile away my free time kicking things around inside my head. It's a mess up there.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
- 7
Chapter 6: Rebellion
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra
Stark helped her roll a few large tool boxes over to her corner of the garage. It was far enough away they had quite a bit of space between their areas, but close enough they could see each other.
That first day was an adventure in odd. Forge was part fascinated and part weird-ed out by Dum-E, U, and Butterfingers. Stark’s robots, when not given specific commands, wandered around causing what Forge could only consider mischief. She wondered if their creator had programmed them that way on purpose. Captain C had a little bit of crazy like that.
She’d thought he’d be after her for more demonstrations, or start questioning her, but instead he had simply asked if she wanted to get to work. Knowing she had a very tight schedule, Forge got right to it.
The 1971 Mustang Boss 351 hadn’t been driven into the ground by it’s previous owner, but it showed a lot of wear and age. A few body panels would have to be fabricated, which was a snap for her. The fiddly parts that rusted or wore down would take a bit longer. By noon Forge had the drop cloths down, a grease pencil behind her ear and half the interior out of the car. It was a decent stopping point, she decided.
Upstairs, away from Stark’s ear bleeding level of music, Forge vowed to take some time to order noise canceling headphones of the highest quality. She didn’t care they’d set her back three hundred dollars. She’d be deaf by the time she finished the rebuild if this kept up. As a stop gap she ducked into her room and grabbed some ear plugs. She meant to make a sandwich, but wanted to get the car stripped more. A granola bar in her pocket later she was back down in the garage.
Ear plugs in she made her way over to her area, noticing that Dum-E was much closer than he’d ventured to it all day. Scooting around the little bot, Forge dove into breaking down the dash. Hours passed. She refilled her water bottle and took a few bathroom breaks. She’d just gotten the driver’s interior door panel out and laid down, when she noticed the screws she’d taken from it, put on the cloth, and labeled, were short one. Forge started at the little white grease pencil circle the screws were supposed to sit in. It remained one short. She wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand, and looked again. Still short.
Forge figured she must have kicked it and so the search began. She took a moment to concentrate. One by one all the metal things in the lab started to light up in her minds eye. When she was younger, scanning the whole of a large area filled with metal bits easily overloaded her senses. After the incident with The Brotherhood and the junk yard though, she’d made a point of practicing.
There, Forge thought. The screw was behind her with an unfamiliar concentration of metal parts. A nudge in the back from the direction made her yelp and spin.
Dum-E was behind her with the screw in his gripper. “Oh, hey Dum-E. Where did you find that?” She had seen Stark talk to the robots like they were people so decided to adopt the same approach. Why not? Forge held her hand out under the gripper and the robot dropped it into her hand. “Thanks.” The bot clicked its gripper together and trundled off. “One minute away from Sky-net in here,” Forge muttered.
Forge was manhandling the steering column free untold hours later when it happened again. She stared at the little grease pencil circle that was once again a screw short. Same circle, same damn screw. “Does that thing have fucking legs?” she mumbled.
She didn’t bother looking for it this time. Just cracked her neck and rolled her shoulders before making a notation on the cloth next to the wheel that it needed new leather wrapping. The continual thumping of music she could still partially hear through the earplugs had stopped, so she pulled an ear plug out.
Stark was looking at her. “What?” Forge asked, still half in the fog of work.
“What do you got Dum-E?” Stark asked.
Forge turned to the side startled to see the bot back again. He also had the screw in his gripper again. “Hey,” she frowned, “how’d you end up with that again?” She put her hand under the gripper and he let go of the screw. “Um, thanks again?” This time she could hear the robot whir happily. She carefully placed the screw back in it’s circle home, double checking it didn’t roll anywhere. When she stood back up, Stark was still watching her. Forge gave him a confused look when he started laughing.
“Are you messing with me? I’m not over on your side of the garage messing with your stuff.” A whir from nearby caught her attention and she turned to see Dum-E picking the screw up from the cloth. Forge gasped and couldn’t stop herself from pointing and calling, “Thief!”
Stark was still laughing when Dum-E started trundling as fast as he could back towards his maker. Forge hopped over the drop cloth in chase. “Get back here Robin Hood. I need that screw!”
By now Stark was full on guffawing as she caught up to Dum-E only to have him roll around where she stood in his path. She could have stopped him and made him give her the part, but that seemed tantamount to snatching a toy out of a child’s hand. “Hey! Where are you taking that?”
The robot went right to Stark and dropped the screw into his outstretched hand. Forge stopped in front of him and brushed the flyaway hairs off her face. “Did you tell him to do that? ‘Cause not cool.”
“No,” Stark choked out. He turned to Dum-E and proceeded to scold him like a bad puppy. Dum-E whirred. The tone this time sounded sad.
“Aw,” Forge couldn’t help but feel bad for the little guy. Noticing she had Stark’s attention again she held her hand out with a grunt and made a ‘gimmie’ motion.
“Have you been down here the whole time?”
Forge frowned. She wasn’t sure what time it was. “Yeah,” she drew the word out.
“J, what time is it?” Stark had a little lopsided grin on his face and some truly epic mad scientist hair. It was even worse than his drunk hair. So much for the coiffed prince on the magazine covers.
“It is currently eleven thirteen a.m. Sunday August first.”
“Sunday?” Forge asked a bit numb. That would explain why she was so tired. Mind over matter evaporated and a jaw cracking yawn split her face. She rubbed a hand across her eyes. “I think I’ll call it a day. Get a few hours of sleep.” Another yawn made her eyes water. Her stomach also chose that moment to growl.
Forge pulled the smashed granola bar from her back pocket in an absent manner, unwrapped it, and took a bite. Day catching up to her, and not paying much attention to her surroundings, she turned and headed toward the stairs. The granola bar was gone in four bites so she tossed the wrapped in the bin upstairs. “Hey Mr. JARVIS?”
“Yes, Miss Maddix?”
“Could you give me a wake up call if Dum-E moves anything important from my drop cloth downstairs.”
“Of course Miss.”
“Thanks,” Forge mumbled. She’d made it to her bedroom and was in the process of stripping down to head to the shower. Stark was different than she expected. Arrogant? Yes. Unrepentant flirt? Check. Constantly drunk, careless, waste of potential? Not so much. Whatever. Quick shower, nap, then back to work.
………………………………..................................................................
Ten hours later Forge was up, fed with a real sandwich, and armed with improvised ear buds for her ipod made out of ear plugs. She had hope they’d hold up against the Stark noise pollution. The music was still going strong downstairs so she figured that meant Captain C was busy with science still. After a moments pause, she threw together another sandwich, grabbed two apples and headed to the bat cave.
Inputting her security code while balancing everything was a bit of a challenge. Juggling things around Stark seemed to be a trend. When she finally managed to get in and steady everything in her hands she realized the billionaire was asleep with his head on the desk. It wouldn’t have bothered her so much if there wasn’t an empty scotch bottle next to him.
Maybe she’d been a bit hasty about the not constantly drunk. Forge mentally roped herself in. She had no idea how much had been in that bottle. The lack of drinking glass looked bad though.
She reminded herself he wasn’t her, and she wasn’t Judy. She could never pull off that stern Southern woman look anyway. Forge decided not to bother him, and only settled the plate with sandwich and apple on the side of his desk. After a moments thought she ran back upstairs to grab a bottle of water and added it to the stack.
On the walk to her side of the room she put in her ear bud plugs. The man was dead to the world and ACDC was still Thunderstruck at a billion decibels. She’d be fine to work on the car if that racket didn’t wake him up.
The evening was spent detaching the hood, draining the fluids, taking off the belts, pulling the reservoirs, and radiator. In between she rescued screws from Dum-E twice, and a wrench from U once. Forge was in the middle of a long harangue at the two bots. It involved words like leash, baby gate, and spike strips. Mid lecture out of the corner of her eye she saw Stark’s head jerk up.
Not wanting to act weird she continued until she felt she’d vented, then sent the bots on their way. She turned back to her work and tried not to notice when he left the garage briefly, then returned and stared at the corner of his desk. After a few seconds he sat back down and grabbed the sandwich. Forge flipped her play list back on. Ray LaMontangne sung out loud enough in her ears to drown out Stark’s current rock song, and Forge lost herself in work again.
……………………………….....................................................................
Tony watched Four bop around the car that was coming apart with amazing speed. She was mouthing the words to some song, lost to the world. Now and then she would pat Dum-E’s arm and take a screw from him. Once she marched across the garage and reclaimed three wrenches from U. Tony wondered if that glazed, completely in your own head look, was one he sported when he was deep in it.
He was working, but he was also paying more attention to her than last time. Tony had been completely zoned out in the Mark VII armor then and hadn’t noticed she was even there until he’d seen Dum-E over by her. He’d watched the whole screw fiasco from beginning to end. Best free entertainment in the lab yet. The music in the lab suddenly dropped volume significantly. There was only one person who would do that.
“JARVIS, time?”
“Ten a.m. Monday August second.”
Happy must have spilled the beans about Four. About that time he could see her. Black pencil skirt, sleek heels, white ruffed blouse and amazing red hair. She put her code in and the door swished open. Tony clenched his jaw and continued designing the repulsor system for the back of the Mark VII.
“Good morning, Tony.”
Tony typed away. “Pepper. I thought I’d cleared my schedule for this week. Don’t tell me. I missed a board meeting, again.”
He could hear the little disapproving sigh she made through her nose. “No. Your schedule is still clear, though I do wish you’d go to the finance meeting on the fifth.”
He grunted in disinterest.
“I came to see how you were doing.” Code for see if Four had off-ed him and made free with the suits yet. “Meet the new employee,” she continued.
Ah, yes. Tony finally looked up at Pepper and then spun and gestured to the other side of the garage where Four was coaching Dum-E into helping her block up the car. Must be time to drop the gas tank. “There she is. You can’t turn down her music though.”
Pepper had a strange look on her face. “How long has she been here?”
“Um,” Tony scratched his goatee. He was getting stray hairs again. “Picked her up Friday. She started working Saturday.”
“Have you been helping her, or is she so far because of her..?” She made a vague gesture he figured was meant to demonstrate Four’s powers.
Tony gave a little snort of laughter and Pepper brought her attention back to him. “No. No, haven‘t seen her use those much. She’s been down here almost as much as I have in the last few days. She’s fast too.”
“I can see that,” Pepper said it slow, like there was some magic trick she wasn’t seeing. Well, Tony supposed Pepper wasn’t completely wrong.
She shuffled her clipboard. “I thought it’d be more Sorcerer’s Apprentice in here with parts whizzing around, not so, hands on.”
“Nope,” Tony turned back to the screens in front of him, “mostly hands on.”
“Why don’t you both come upstairs and take a break so we can be introduced properly.”
Tony hummed. “Nah,” he watched Four snatch another wrench from U and tell him to ‘cut it out Little John.’ “It’d be cruel to break up her flow. Plus I’m busy with the Mark VII…”
“Tony,” Pepper was giving him that disapproving look again. He hated that fucking look. It made him feel like he was the same screw up he was years ago, like nothing had changed.
“Fine,” Tony bit the word off a bit. “Butterfingers, go grab Dum-E and U’s shiny and bring her here would you.” The bot whirred a bit. Tony pointed to Four. “Go, fetch the squishy human.” Butterfingers trundled off and Tony watched as he approached Four.
He could hear her from his side of the lab greeting the bot. “Oh, hi. So you’re the shy one. Should I call you Maid Marian?” The three robots all turned their arms toward Tony. Four rolled her shoulders before standing and then pulled the ear buds out of her ears before turning in his direction.
“What?” This was to him he knew. She blinked a few times when she took notice of Pepper and then slowly picked her way over to them.
“Four,” Tony gestured, “Pepper Potts, current CEO of Stark Industries. Pepper, Four.”
Four rolled her eyes. “You are so good at introductions.” She turned to Pepper. “It’s Georgia actually. Is Pepper a nickname too?”
“Legal name change,” Pepper held out her hand to shake.
Four held her hand out, then grimaced and wiped it on her jeans. “Yeah, my hands are filthy Miss. Potts, probably not the best idea.” She chuckled a bit.
Pepper dropped her hand with a grimace.
Tony saw Four turn to him with a mock serious expression. “You didn’t make her change her name legally did you?”
Tony’s jaw ticked a bit. Not that he’d ever considered, remotely, some day, being a reason for a possible legal name change, for anyone, ever. “No. Before my time.”
Four’s eyes went mock wide then. “Oh my mechanical Jesus. Things happened before your time,” she sounded scandalized and Tony couldn’t help but crack a grin. “What ever do the people around you call that epoch in their lives?”
Pepper said, “Freedom.”
Tony said, “Strangling insignificance, and lack of purpose,” at the same time as her. The freedom thing kind of cut though. He wasn’t that bad was he?
“Oh I don’t know,” Four pondered. “After a few days in your lab, I feel like you’re one pool of sharks with frickin’ laser beams away from becoming the next super villain, Captain Catastrophe. So, I’m going to have to go with ‘unprepared for the apocalypse.’”
Tony grinned. “Have I made you a prepper?”
“I am feeling the need to hoard five gallon buckets of dehydrated eggs under my bed.”
Pepper cleared her throat next to them and Tony was a little disappointed. He’d had a really good come back for that. “Well,” Pepper gave a tight little smile. “I just came to see how you were settling in. Make sure everything was going okay for you.”
“Oh yeah,” Four waved a grease stained hand in the air. “I’m used to basically living in my garage, so as long as I have a bathroom, kitchenette, and some form of semi soft sleeping surface I’m good. The tools are great.” She turned aside to him, “Thanks by the way. Although you’re bots are fomenting a forest uprising. You should see to that.”
“I couldn’t crush their rebel spirit. That‘d be mean,” Tony chuckled.
Four grinned and opened her mouth but before she could get started Pepper cut in. “Don’t feel like you need to keep Tony’s hours. They’re not fit for normal consumption.”
“Ha,” Four barked. “The first day we were down here, both of us worked twenty eight hours before we noticed, and neither of us remembered the other was in the room. Seems like we both get sucked into project holes. We’re good, so long as I can’t smell him on my side of the garage.”
“I do not smell,” Tony protested.
Four raised an eyebrow and Pepper wrinkled her nose. “You smell,” Pepper agreed.
Tony pouted, but saw Four smile. She had grease on her left ear and eyebrow.
“Well, if you need anything JARVIS has my number.” Pepper turned to go.
“Got it. Candyman has the hook up.”
Both Tony and Pepper turned to look at Four this time. “Candyman?” Pepper asked.
Four gave her a very serious look. “Oh Miss. Potts, Mr. JARVIS is made of candy.”
“Thank you Miss. Maddix.” JARVIS replied.
“You are very welcome Mr. JARVIS.”
Tony’s lips kept trying to twitch up into a smile as Pepper made a hasty escape from the lab. His first face to face with Pepper since the day-that-shall-not-be-mentioned, and he’d genuinely both smiled and laughed. Tony kind of thought Four might be made of candy, and wasn’t that a delicious thought.
- 5
- 6
- 7
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The Forge