Just Out of Reach

Prologue: Just Out of Reach

"A love that runs away from me. Dreams that just won't let me be. Blues that keep on bothering me. Chains that just won't set me free. Too far away from you and all your charm. Just out of reach, of my, two empty arms." 

The first time you met Tony Stark, he destroyed your car.

Your first year at Empire University had been easy, simple. It was just like every other freshmen in college's experience. You make some friends, you join some clubs, you get lost a couple times, and you work hard for your grades. It had all seemed to have come rather easy to you - easier to you than some others - but you hadn't had any big issues.

There had been the bank robbery you'd nearly avoided that the Falcon had shut down, and sure there had been that one moment you'd seen a guy held up at a bodega counter but the police had been on that quicker than you could cross the street.

You lived in New York, how were you supposed to suspect that crime wasn'tgoing to happen?

But this experience just seemed exceptionally cruel.

Not because your car had been destroyed, or because it was cold out, or because you had heard the sirens and the chaos coming down the street as you'd stepped out of your building.

But because you never parked in front of your building. And of course, the onetime that you did, the literal one time you had decided to go through the perils of parallel parking in the city of New York, your little blue car was squashed like a pancake.

Going into your second year at Empire University, you and your roommate Thandie had decided to get your own apartment, finding a decent sized space for the two of you and your good friend Lazlo. It was more freeing than student housing, and you'd gotten a good price on a small apartment not far from the university.

The only issue was the parking.

You had a car, but you only used it when you absolutely had to. You hateddriving in the city, but sometimes if you were going out late at night there was no way you were going to walk to the metro to get to the grocer's and then drag all your bags back with you.

The parking garage was a shitty place and there were not enough parking spots for all the tenets. It was a severe shit show and though you usually were able to snag a spot, after coming back from Thanksgiving break you'd simply parked along the side of the road so you could run inside, drop off your bag, and head back out.

Your older sister Aggie (Agatha) and her fiancé Whit (Whitman) were waiting for you. They lived in New Jersey where Aggie worked as a financial advisor and Whit worked as an interior designer. You'd just seen them at Thanksgiving with your mom in Philadelphia, but now you had to get to this cake testing (which you'd been looking forward to for weeks) and you'd said you'd drive over and join them.

You'd been in your apartment for literally three minutes and that's how long it took to lose your sweet ride.

The approaching vehicle - whatever it was - was careening down the street as you stepped out of your building. You weren't sure exactly what was happening or what kind of crime was being committed, but you heard the telltale 'swooshing' of Iron Man zipping at high speed after them.

The criminals didn't look alien. You could tell they were human and you could see that they had somehow acquired alien tech that they were flying on and trying to escape from Iron Man. One of them heaved a huge gun up onto his shoulder, shooting it as a plum of white smoke trailed towards Iron Man and hit him square in the chest.

He tumbled from the sky, landing smack dab on your car - smashing it like it was nothing.

Your first thought was - how am I going to explain this to my car insurance?