(𝙎𝙤𝙧𝙧𝙮, 𝙣𝙤 𝙜𝙞𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙖𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙞𝙩❜𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜)
Parties weren't her favorite thing in the world. Sure, she would go, hang around, chat to some people, maybe have a drink or two. But, fun wasn't really on the list even though that's basically the whole point.
Marlene sat down at the bar, waiting for the man who invited her. "Boo." Tony placed his finger on her soldier, making her grab and twist around his back. "Fuck Marlene!"
Once she finally realized who her 'attacker' was, she let go and mumbled a few apologies while Tony cradled his finger.
"Tony, who's this?" A woman with her hair pulled into a ponytail put her hand on his shoulder and gave her a weird face: an expression that she couldn't really identify.
Marlene suddenly felt very insecure at the sight of the her. She had beautiful blue eyes unlike her dark and dull brown ones. And her bright red hair in a pristine style contrasted Marlene's, who had an basic afro puff. And one was wearing a posh dress while the other was wearing a polo shirt and some random jeans she found at the bottom of her closet. I think you guess who was wearing which.
"Uh... this is my friend, Marlene." He replied, unaware of the fact the two were glaring at each other. "My least favorite person on Earth." Tony said, referring to the man who was desperately calling him.
The women broke from there staring contest they were in and directed the attention to Justin Hammer. Stark Industries' biggest rival and a bug that Tony just couldn't seem to get rid of.
"Hey, pal." he said. Oh my god, Tony thought.
"Justin Hammer." he said curtly.
"How you doing? You're not the only rich guy here with a fancy car. You know Christine Everhart from Vanity Fair. You guys know each other?" Another lady - with blonde hair this time - appeared (much to Tony's frustration) and nodded at him.
"Yes." "Yes roughly." "No."
Pepper sighed, "We do."
"BTW, big story. The new CEO of Stark Industries." Justin told Christine.
"I know, I know."
"Congratulations." Justin pointed at the redhead.
At that point, Marlene stopped listening and just followed their footsteps until Pepper told Tony she was going.
"Don't leave me." he pleaded.
Not as if he would care but the other girl went to go sit at a corner table to watch the happenings around the room: one lady and her husband were having a very heated argument about 'Trisha', an old man was dozing off at the table next to her and Tony was headed into the bathroom only to come out a minute later to go out the door. Where is he going, she pondered.
Not being bothered to go after him, her eyes scanned the room and saw Justin Hammer still talking to Christine (who seemed to not be paying attention to him anymore). "Tony and I... Tony... I love Tony Stark. Tony loves me. We're not competitors. Him being out of the picture created tremendous opportunities for Hammer Industries, you know? Everything that Tony and I do..."
A voice from the TV spoke over him. "Well, what's the use of having..."
"...is a healthy..." Justin continued.
"...and owning a race car..."
"...competition."
"...if you don't drive it?"
Everyone in the room's attention was on the man in the TV. He was wearing a blue racing suit that read 'Stark' across the middle and holding a helmet underneath his arm. Tony.
"I used to drive." The sleepy man that was sitting at the table beside Marlene told her. "But then an alien told be that I would die if I continued." He adjusted the glasses on his face and fell back asleep.
"Ok...?" she replied and fixed her sight to the TV once again.
And engines revving, set, go! The race takes off.
Much to everyone's confusion, a man dressed in orange as pit crew walks beside the track. He looks familiar.
Tony's surprisingly not bad at this race car driving. Orange man is on the track.
The French commentator is babbling so quickly, Marlene couldn't understand. The lightning whips strike a car. Her heart almost pounded out of her chest. For Tony.
Another "Mon Dieu" (My God in French) from the commentator is heard.
Meanwhile, Happy appears at the door and holds up the briefcase. Marlene runs up to Pepper when she sees her follow him.
"Wait," she breathed. "Let me join."
Pepper looked her up and down. "I'm sorry, there's no space..."
"Do not lie to me! You think I didn't see the goddamn limousine outside?"
"Let her come." Happy sighed.
✎... End of chapter
There wasn't any proper interaction between our two mains but there will be next chapter :)
