Brother's Rivalry of God-Like Proportions

Chapter 9

“Mr Stark can’t come to the phone; he’s in a meeting; yes, I know he said he would come to the Mayor’s office today – oh Mr Mayor, I’m sorry, sir, please keep your voice down; Mr Mayor if you don’t, I could have you for verbal harassment; as an employee of Stark Industries and a personal assistant for Mr Tony Stark, CEO of the company, we have higher jurisdiction of authority to enforce punishment on the harasser.” Stark cared for his personal assistants very much, and considered their security in the highest degree, so he bought the authority for the highest security to keep them safe.

“Sir, Tony Stark is in a meeting; Sir, unless you want to take it up with Homeland Security and the Director of SHEILD, Nick Fury, I suggest that you stop talking. Thank you. SHIELD? I’m sorry, I can’t disclose much more information; but Mr Stark is in a meeting with the Avengers. Sir, please, I’ll tell him you called.” Lori quickly hung up, and she potentially had cut him off, however she didn’t actually care; he spoke vilely to her. Anyway, she was late; she needed to get to the meeting so she could take the minutes.

She stepped through the doors, everyone looked at her, Thor beamed at her, though she noticed that Loki had given her the twice over as she sat down next to Stark and Thor. Director Fury stood, and walked in front of the table, in front of the screens.

“Now, in case a few of you don’t know, we’re here today because I thought it was high time that I told you that we’ve lost Agent Romanoff and Agent Barton.”

“Lost them?” said Bruce.

“They’re dead?” Steve asked.

“No, we – SHIELD – sent them on a mission and we’ve just misplaced them…” Fury replied.

“Misplaced? Look, Nick, see, you don’t just ‘misplace’ a couple of master assassins – and why is Reindeer Games in here? He could hear all of this, then find them, then kill them…” Loki shot Tony a death glare. Tony shrugged, “Just saying…”

Thor spoke, “Loki is here, because he can’t be unsupervised.”

“Why don’t you let Jarvis do it?”

“I’d rather do it myself.”

“Well, Rock of Ages; think of it this way – you step out of line, we’ll give you over to Banner and the Other Guy…”

Steve chuckled at Tony; Bruce looked at Loki apologetically, “Hey, sorry about last time, I was angry, there wasn’t much I could do about that, sorry, I mean it.” Loki looked as if he had just been personally victimized, though it could have been an act.

Lori spoke, “Mr Stark—

“Lori, call me Tony.”

She corrected herself, “Tony, The Mayor called; he’d like to speak with you, he’s very persistent.”

Tony sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, “I’ll deal with him later.” A weighted silence filled the room.

“Anyone for a drink?” Lori asked.

Thor looked like a puppy when he asked, “Coffee?”

“Yes, Thor, coffee, anyone else?” they all nodded.

Lori handed the coffees out and she even gave one to Loki, and he quietly said his thanks.

She sat back down, “You know Lori; I really like this drink… I’d really like another…”

“THOR! PUT IT DOWN! DON’T SMASH THE MUG. SMASHING IS HULK’S JOB.” Everyone in the room tensed. Thor lowered the mug onto the table and everyone exhaled.

Each person left the room one by one and Thor engulfed Lori in a huge hug and kissed her. “How was your day?” Thor asked.

“You saw the past hour or so of it, and this is the only thing that’s been remotely exciting…”

“What would you like to do now then?”

“Hold up, Point Break, not so fast, the day isn’t over yet. And Lori has still got some work to do…” Tony walked by, and patted Thor on the shoulder; totally ruining their little moment, but that was Tony’s point.

Lori looked at Thor apologetically, and she followed Tony to her desk outside his apartment of Stark Tower. The phone began to ring. Lori and Tony looked at each other, who was going to get the phone?

Ring.

Ring.

Lori picked it up. “Hello? Oh, yes, hello Mr Mayor…” Her voice got smaller. Tony took the phone off her.

“Right, I don’t care if you’re the President or a God – yes, a God – if you harass any of my employees again, you’ll be in trouble. Okay? Good, remember I can buy your company out, Bob, about seven times over; that’s how wealthy I am…” His voice went deadly quiet. He hung up the phone.

“How…?”

“Jarvis told me what he said, and how it affected you.” Tony tapped his ear – he had an ear piece in. “Don’t let them get to you.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Tony stepped closer to Lori, and hugged her, it wasn’t awkward, like you’d expect a hug with your boss to be; it was caring. They took a step away from away each other, Tony cleared his throat.

“Lori, I’m having a party on Friday, want to come? The Avengers are invited, so yeah… What do you think?”

“Sure! That would be great, where is it?”

“Here, that’s pretty obvious, Lori…”

“I guess so. So Friday – eight o’clock, right?”

“Yeah; brilliant, okay, I’ll be in here…”

“Okay, thanks Tony…” He smiled and entered his room.

On Lori’s desk was a pile of mail, for Stark, most were invitations to Summer Balls and charity events, it could help with publicity for Stark Industries… thought Lori, she decided to agree that Tony would go to a few… what Tony didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him…

Lori made a few memos for Tony to get a few new suits and tuxedos. She phoned Pepper, she was at a conference on Tony’s behalf because the Avengers meeting had been so last minute.

“Hi, Pepper, um, I took the minutes for the Avengers meeting, is that okay? Good, on my desk I had heaps of mail, inviting Tony to a few Summer Balls and charity events, I’ve agreed that he’ll go to a few, because I thought it would help with press for Stark Industries. Okay? Yep, right. Tell Tony? Okay… Thanks Pepper, bye.” She put the phone down; and walked into his room, carrying the memos and the invites.

“Tony…?” Lori asked – she couldn’t see him.

“Yep – I’m over here.” Tony immerged, “I heard your conversation with Pepper – Yes, Jarvis tapped that too…”

Lori looked him, exasperated.

“I’ll go to the events – it gives me an excuse to act like a rock star…”

“Don’t you do that anyway?” Tony considered it, Lori continued, “No one gets in the way of your ego; do they?” Then she realised what she had said, she covered her mouth. Tony looked at her.

“Yes, I do consider myself as a rock star – I live the lifestyle… and yes, no one gets in the way of my ego – you’re right, but I’m a billionaire, sometimes, the ego thing comes with the lifestyle…” Tony smiled. Lori hadn’t said anything that would get her fired. Thank God – or Gods, for that matter…