Iron man 3 [MCU x OC] [Book 3 of the Stephanie Stark Series]

Chapter 2

The TV was rarely ever on now. 

One day a couple of weeks ago Stephanie was home alone, which happens often as Pepper has a business to run and Tony is...  Well, Tony is home she just never sees him. She was working on some of her school work while watching conspiracy theory shows on the television when a video, one that she didn't click on, interrupted her show. The video was a warning of some kind and was narrated by a guy who called himself the Mandarin, a terrorist. 

Stephanie wasn't able to look away in time before seeing bombs, guns, and hundreds of people dying. It was all so quick. 

When looking back at this day Stephanie remembers being frozen to the screen, the only sounds Stephanie could hear were of gunfire and screaming. Even after the video ended and was replaced by the original show she was watching Stephanie couldn't break herself out of whatever she was in. 

Gunshots, crying, yelling, marching, training, crying, screaming 

Crying. Stephanie remembers crying, she doesn't know how long she cried until Tony was kneeling in front of her, having woken her up from whatever had just happened.  He cradled her in his arms for a while until she relaxed and when Pepper got home she remembers hearing him tell her what happened. How Jarvis wasn't able to get through to her so he had to contact Tony, who apparently was out of the house.

She remembers Tony telling Pepper she'd been like that for maybe a bit less than an hour. 

Since that day she hasn't turned the TV on and hasn't used anything else with a screen. For the past week or so Stephanie was contempt with drawing in silence alone in her bedroom. She has been, very much so, out of the loop, but never out of Tony's loop.

She has dedicated her time to being his personal assistant in the workshop whenever he was home helping him create at least 30 new suits. And by helping she means watching and adding in some snarky remarks, she would then continue her work of drawing them all out, she even got to design one and pick out its color. She made it blue!

A little while ago she even watched him test out a new "suit-up mechanism." It was so cool, and honestly really funny to watch, especially when the whole thing fell apart. Tony didn't find it very funny.

It was an easygoing week before it started getting tense again. She had heard mumblings of the Mandarin between Tony and Happy, sometimes even Pepper. She never physically saw anything involving him again but she knew something was going on and because of it everyone, including Tony, was once again too busy. 

She was lonelier than ever; she would ask to go to public school, that's where most kids apparently make friends, but she knew it would never happen. Especially with a terrorist targeting the country. To make up for her loneliness she's decided to work on her eavesdropping skills, and she was getting pretty good at it. 

Tonight was supposed to be family night except Pepper wasn't home yet and Tony was still in the garage; well, sorta in the garage. "So, is the suit - uhm" Stephanie was standing in front of an Iron Man suit-- a tony-less Iron Man suit who was sitting on the couch. "is the suit filling in for you tonight?"

Tony's voice responded, "No! Yes, in a way. I'm still here, just, in two places at once." 

"But I want you here one place at once." She maneuvered around the coffee table to sit next to the pile of tin. 

"Yeah, so does Pepper. But she doesn't have to know." The soulless lit-up eyes look down at her. 

"Pepper doesn't like the suit." 

"But you do." The suit's finger lifted up to poke Stephanie on her stomach which made her giggle.

"What the -" Both Stephanie and the suit looked up at the new voice. "What is that!?" Pepper asked, although her tone had a bit of fun in it. "What like, Mark 15."