Little Wars ☆ Steve Rogers

08

THREE DAYS PASSED, and in addition to her usual notes for Bruce Banner, Maisie had begun to spend a couple of hours out of her day in Tony Stark's workshop. He'd developed a habit of barging into Bruce's lab randomly and dragging Maisie out the door, in the middle of both Bruce's and Maisie's work. In the workshop, he'd tinker or experiment, and sometimes he'd have Maisie assist in small ways, like holding a fire extinguisher or a camera while he ran tests. But there was a pair of robotic arms that seemed rather disgruntled by Maisie's presence, and she had a feeling she'd been stealing their jobs.

The real reason she was there was to keep Tony company; she could tell he wanted it. He was extroverted, and talked incessantly as he worked. He liked having her there to laugh at his jokes and be impressed by his genius, neither of which were difficult tasks for her, really. Especially the latter. In Tony's workshop more than anywhere else in the Tower, Maisie felt like she was in a big budget science fiction movie. It was the life of it, the motion of the technology all around that made it so surreal, she thought. He had an effortless ecosystem with his machines, which all worked in response to his cues.

It was Thursday morning, and Maisie was at the counter in the center of the workshop. She sat on a tall stool, and her feet dangled uncomfortably, because they didn't quite reach the ground, and there was no rung to rest them on. The stool and counter were built for someone much taller than her—namely Tony, who at the moment was working across from her, referring to three different screens at once while typing on a touchscreen that was built into the counter.

"What are you doing this weekend?" he asked, after quickly glancing at his phone, reading a text, and then continuing to type, attention on the screens again. Maisie didn't understand how he multitasked like that. Both the conversation and the engineering were second nature—everything was easy for him.

"I don't know," Maisie said. "Why?"

"I'm still going to the west coast if you want to come. Leaving tomorrow."

Maisie swung her feet, crossing her ankles and then uncrossing them, a habit she'd developed over the past days spent on that particular stool. "What are you going for?"

"I get cabin fever in New York for too long," Tony said. "If we get any more snow, I might snap and kill Steve. Or anybody. Or Steve."

"You don't have a meeting or anything?"

"No," he said. "That a deal breaker? No business school?"

Truthfully, Maisie was picturing what exactly he might be doing there, if he was going for pleasure and not business, and she didn't come along. She pictured the models and celebrity women from the covers of the magazine stand she passed by each morning on her walks to and from work.

"I'm gonna stay here," she said. She re-crossed her ankles.

"Alright," he said. "Miss me while I'm gone. Don't have sex with Steve. Or anybody. Or Steve."

Maisie didn't react, because she wasn't listening. She was still thinking about the magazine women—Even worse, she'd remembered a specific celebrity woman who graced those magazine covers from time to time. Tony had called her "P-uttercup" more than once, and Maisie had finally googled his relationship status to find the P name in question.

"Would I stand out in Los Angeles?" Maisie asked. "Would you be embarrassed of me? If I did go. Even though I'm not going to."

Pepper Potts was five foot nine, according to Google. Maisie couldn't envision that height in her head without having seen her, and so she constructed in her head a woman who was more like a tall, slim goddess than a human. She was, in Maisie's mind, as tall as a skyscraper. An elegant one, too, she thought, modern, yet classic, Art Deco—the Chrysler Building, maybe. And Maisie felt like something else entirely. Shorter, and not so slim, and yet still much more likely to sway in the wind until she was swept out of the city entirely. Maisie was a flimsy tent, really—hollow and with no foundation, not belonging, not built to belong.