Framed

MIT and The News

2016, MIT University, Cambridge Massachusetts

Tony was giving a lecture at MIT University, hoping to bring some inspiration for the field he had wanted to succeed in when he was a young man himself. "Binarily Augmented Retro Framing...or BARF". He chuckled a little for the show as he walked forward, tracing through one of the many old memories he had looked back on with his newly built device, "God, I need to work on that acronym." A few people among the crowd laughed with him, "An extremely costly method of hijacking the hippocampus to clear traumatic memories."

As he neared the end of the lecture, Tony informed the students that their projects were funded by the September Foundation Grant. The entire whole broke into applause unshared, including the students and teachers standing around the edges. Never in the history of MIT had someone like Tony Stark offered something like this to the people of their school.

As he continued the speech, Tony paused, looking at the one name that stared back at him. Pepper Potts. Everyone who occupied the room didn't understand why he stopped and stared at him. They thought he had more to say, but he just stood there, like he was staring into space and trapped within his mind.

Tony eventually snapped out of it as quickly as he could and placed a smile without feeling on his face. He pretended he hadn't just nearly made a fool of himself and rushed to finish the lecture, "Go break some eggs." He said with a final note. He didn't leave it another moment before taking off towards the side of the stage, done for the day and no longer in the mood to speak to anyone right now.

As he left with a wave goodbye, the racket of another round of applause let him out, along with a mountain of cheers.

______________________

He walked out of the backstage door and was greeted by a blast of cool air that calmed him down... a little. The hallway was nearly empty, which made it quiet- something he wanted right now. As he approached the elevator down the hall, right next to the washrooms, a woman in front seemed to be waiting for the transportation he wanted to take.

She was a small black woman with dark clothing and a short brown bob. Glancing over to turn as he came forward, she had a distant and broken look in her eyes. One Tony had seen many times before and on other people. One being himself daily.

They were standing in a noiseless hallway until she decided to speak.

"That was nice what you did for those young people." She commented as she broke the silence. She kept her head staring towards the silver elevator door with a passive look.

Tony gave a slight shrug at the mention of what he had done just a few minutes ago, "Ah, they deserve it." He replied with honesty." Plus, it helps ease my conscience." He couldn't help but an add-on.

There was another short silence before the woman finally turned towards him," They say there's a correlation between generosity and guilt." She disclosed, giving a one-shouldered shrug," but... if you've got the money... break as many eggs as you like. Right?" Using the last standing remark, he gave to the students before leaving the stage. She had watched the entire thing backstage, hidden away as best she could. There was something she wanted to get into Tony Stark's head, and this was the only opportunity she had in months to do so.

Tony couldn't help but agree with her there.

Glancing towards the lift, he wondered why it took so long to come down to this floor. It wasn't like there was much traffic - there were only a couple of floors it needed to travel between. It was when he noticed that the lift button wasn't shining. It made him pause. There was no light surrounding it at all. Furrowing an eyebrow of worry and confusion, he moved forward slowly to press it.