Simsalabim // T. Stark

III

Trigger warning (you know the drill by now. Enjoy the chapter!)

Tony laughs.

"Oh, that's good! Amelia doesn't have a brother. What a pity, I had such high hopes for this man to be archnemesis worthy, but having a slightly better excuse than the average fan is still pathetic. It was a creative excuse. Very risky. Only a slight chance for it to work, that's probably why he chickened out every time."

He turns towards the witch with the smile still shining on his face, but it slowly starts slipping when he doesn't get one back in return. Amelia's expression was stone cold, glaring at the 'mystery' man that by now had removed the cap on his head. Black short hair dresses the top of his head, flowing into a good amount of facial hair around his mouth. His expression was stern and serious as he waits for the secretary, who was nervously typing into the computer, to finish. That cold expression does look alarmingly similar.

A beep sounds. The identification proces was done. Another tab opens next to the footage, showing the ID picture of the man they had been watching before. Tony blinks dumbly as he reads the name, facing Amelia once again for an explanation.

"I don't have a brother."

And with that she simply walks out of the room, leaving the two men and the file of 'Phineas Martin' behind.

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Tony stays clear of Amelia's room, or the room her suitcase was laying in. Explosions and crashes sound faintly in the background. He would go down to check if she was in trouble, if he didn't know that Amelia liked to excessively practice dangerous spells when she was feeling conflicted or frustrated.

It happened quite often.

Flinching as another particularly loud bang reaches his ears, he tries to focus back on the project he was working on. He had decided to work on something to occupy his mind so he wouldn't think about what had happened before. Not an easy feat apparently when you can hear one of those key players explode something every few minutes. How was he even still hearing it? Amelia's room was almost on the other side of the tower. And she was in a soundproof suitcase! Wait what if she's not practicing magic in the case but in her room? Nope, he's not going to think about. 

"Jarvis, play something loud for me."

"Certainly sir."

The AC/DC booming through the speakers was helping, although he suspects Bruce enjoying it a little less in his lab down the hall. Oh well. Tony pulls up another blueprint, fingers swiping through the data in search of something, anything to distract him. He just couldn't believe Amelia had a brother that she'd never talked about. Sure, they weren't the most communicating pair, but they talked. He wonders what happened between them for Amelia to react the way that she did.

Shaking his head, he forces himself to focus on his work again. He tries another blueprint. And another. But his mind just wasn't interested in anything that wasn't: A. Amelia, B. the mystery brother or C. the monster capable of turning into peoples fears. Great, now he brought that up again.

He pushes his desk chair back in frustration, giving it a twirl while glaring at the ground. How come Amelia stays such a mystery to him? Everytime he thinks he has her figured out, she does something like that.

She's a friend of Fury's. Oh wait, she actually isn't. She's a witch who can do magic, okay. And she can talk a snake language, that's new. But apart from that, she's a normal woman- oh, she worked with dragons for a year, cool, cool... but she likes food like any other person. A little too much actually, never leaving as much as a crumb behind. And then an offhand explanation that she learned to treasure food more after being on the run for a year. Who even is this woman?