The Scientist (Loki x OC)

Pt. 19: Scorpio the Scorpion

"Mr. Stark is ready for your lab meeting." FRIDAY's voice cut through Luna's music.

"Tell him I'll be right with him after I finish this," she responded, not bothering to look away from her paper.

"Of course, miss."

"Yup, I can make him wait," she mumbled under her breath.

Resting her fists on her lab coat-covered hips, she admired the progress she had made during the week. Fed up with wondering and filled with an unknown sense of urgency, Luna spearheaded to the next step in her work, which entailed coming up with an experiment to transcribe the DNA in question and see what really lied before her instead of just the usual string of chemical structures. Ideas flowed anew from her, but she wasn't ready to proceed yet. A lab meeting with Tony would open the door for her to keep going.

A quick glance at the wall clock gave her a clue as to how long she spent pondering her many avenues. "Ok, that's long enough." Luna tossed her lab coat onto the back of a chair and moseyed out the back door.

Tony, always elated to see her, flashed her his billion-dollar smile as she entered his lab.

"Oh, there she is; the prodigal daughter, still alive," Luna smirked and shook her head a little.

"Mm, yeah. Surprising," she said, her words laden with harmless sarcasm.

"Alright, first thing's first, before I change my mind," Tony put down the thing occupying his hand and reached into his back pocket, "I have a little something for long-haired Johnny Weir." Avoiding eye contact, he handed Luna a check worth about three months of her apartment's rent, notably addressed to her as Loki had no account of his own.

She grinned and caressed the edges of the flimsy paper. "Oh, look at you, Mr. Charitable."

"Hey, we talked about you calling me that." Luna put the check in her own pocket.

"And the fact that I'm the only one allowed to."

"Yeah, and only about you. Anyway, I'm not one for slavery, and, though I hate to admit it, he has been a big help so far."

Luna rocked back and forth on her feet. "I'm sure he's enjoyed helping you, though he would never admit it either."

"Good thing, too. Cabin fever would not be a good look for him."

"You can say that again. Anyway, what have you been working on?"

"With just about all the exterior panels off of the ship's skeleton, analyzing its molecular structure has been much easier." Tony expanded his digital display for the two of them to look at it with ease.

"Have you found out more about what it is yet? Anything familiar to Earth?"

"Unfortunately, no, but I do know definitively that it's an alloy of multiple materials."

"Like how your suits have been gold and titanium."

"Precisely, but this is next level."

"What can be said? Alien technology." Luna took it upon herself to scroll through a few new ship schematic details alongside Tony. "So, do you know what you're going to do with it?"

"Build a suit, of course. Maybe even two." He picked up a stray panel piece on the table and handed it to her. "It's lightweight but strong and dense. It survived turbulent interstellar time travel so it would be able to provide absolute protection while taking up the minimum amount of space."

She tossed into the air a few times, getting a feel for its weight as it fell over and over into the palm of her hand. "You got any design ideas?" Tony leaned his hand on the table edge and faced her.