Iron Phoenix | Tony Stark x oc

Chapter 9

"I think I got something" Tony said and Athena hurried towards where he was sitting, to take a look herself at what he found. "The Arc reactor DOES emit some sort of radiation, and JARVIS and Alpha didn't find any research on this type of radiation, so we could be the first people to find it" Tony explained, but Athena wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying. She was more interested in the data shown on the hologram.

It did look like the Arc reactor made Tony stronger, Athena was no expert in biology but it seemed like it made his bones and muscles stronger and maybe also made his senses, such as sight and hearing sharper. Athena knew he still wouldn't be able to outmatch her senses but if her guess was correct Tony probably could hear and see better than any other human, except maybe a few with exceptional training.

"Actually, could we test something?" Athena interrupted Tony, who was saying something about gamma radiation and a certain Dr.Banner, Athena had never heard that name before and decided to just forget about it, she could always ask Tony later.

"Hm?" Tony was clearly annoyed that she cut him off, but he also knew that he wasn't any different when thinking about stuff like that.

"Could this radiation also have affected your hearing or sight? Because It does look like it could have messed with your senses" Athena explained and sat down on the table, since she knew this was going to take a while. The holograms disappeared where she sat down and appeared again in front of her.

"So do you want me to do a hearing test?" Tony asked, not convinced at all. Athena shook her head and said: "Not really, I'm just curious if you can hear sounds normal humans can't hear. Alpha, can you make a sound with 20.000 Hz?" "Sure" Alpha answered and Athena could hear a noise coming from the speakers.

She didn't actually think that was possible with speakers, but maybe Tony had made his own, more advanced than anything ever created, like the holograms they were using instead of screens.

"There was something, that's for sure" Tony answered, confirming Athena's suspicions.

"Ok, so your hearing is sharper than human hearing, the only ones that can hear frequencies that high are small children, and not even all of them" Athena saw that Alpha wrote it down on the note that listed all the effects the Arc reactor had on Tony. Tony just turned to look at the screen, but he didn't look like he was paying any attention to it.

He was probably thinking about what they had just discovered.

After a while of silence where both Tony and Athena were lost in their thoughts, Pepper came down and brought them lunch, like she usually did. They thanked her and started eating. Athena told her she would probably come upstairs later, to which Pepper's face seemed to light up. In the short amount of time they had known each other they had become good friends.

Pepper left again to deal with some paperwork Tony didn't want to deal with. Athena nearly rolled her eyes at that. From what she saw the past week of spending the entire day with Tony she had seen that even though he was the CEO of Stark Industries, Pepper did at least 90% of the work. Tony was always busy with engineering stuff. Not that Athena could blame him, she knew that if she would be in his position, she would probably do the same.

"So what do we do now? Do we just pretend we never found out or.." Tony trailed off, probably thinking about the consequences of revealing a discovery like this.

Athena sighed: "Well I think we should keep it to ourselves, the public and the government are probably not going to react very well to this. But we need to keep it in mind while designing the Mark II. Maybe doing some more research wouldn't be bad either"

Tony nodded, but before he could open the file for the repulsors again Athena stopped him "No. We agreed to take a break before. It's not going to help us if we try to build something whilst running on two or three hours of sleep. Because I definitely do and from what I heard from JARVIS, you don't sleep much either"

Tony was taken aback. He had never heard Athena so serious about something before. There was always some sarcasm mixed in with everything. He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again when Athena pointed at the scar on her shoulder "Or do I have to remind you what happened the last time I tested stuff when I didn't sleep enough?"

Reluctantly Tony agreed and they walked towards the living room. "JARVIS, make sure that Tony can't work on the Mark II until I arrive tomorrow morning" Athena said after they left the lab. "WHAT?" Tony was staring at her, he looked like he didn't believe what he had just heard. His eyes widened even more when he heard JARVIS answer "Sure thing Athena".

"Betrayal" he mumbled, which made Athena laugh. "How did you hear that?" Tony asked, he was sure that there was no way Athena had just heard what he said, he could barely hear it himself.

You fucked up, Athena said one of the voices in Athena's head, the others quickly joining in. Athena tried her best to ignore them and answered: "You'd be surprised how much Paranoia and Anxiety help you get better at hearing what people near you say, even if it's quiet" Tony looked at her for another few seconds, not quite believing her tale, but decided to ignore it and jogged to catch up with Athena, who didn't wait for Tony to snap out of his daze and continued walking.

They sat down in the kitchen, both on opposite sides of the counter. Athena slumped down in her chair and laid her head down on the table.

"Anything the matter?" Tony asked, Athena didn't seem the kind of person to just fall asleep on a desk, so there had to be something bothering her. Athena just sighed and Tony thought she didn't want to talk about it, they had only known each other for two weeks, after all. But they did spend pretty much the entire day together in the workshop and talked a lot.

Athena lifted her head and looked into Tony's eyes. He has beautiful eyes; He's handsome; Yep; vouch. The voices were going crazy, but Athena managed to block them out and focus back on reality. She had to admit that Tony was handsome, especially right in that moment, when he looked at her, slightly concerned and-

"Hello? Someone there?" Tony asked, bringing Athena back to reality. "I- Yeah, just ...thinking about something" Athena shook her head slightly in an attempt to get rid of her thoughts and continued talking at noticing Tony's questioning look.

"You see, one of my close friends has been diagnosed with Sarcoma, a rare form of cancer last year and he's getting worse-" her voice cracked and forced her to look down at the table.

Athena shook her head and wanted to say something, but was interrupted when she felt Tony place his hand on top of hers. She looked up in surprise. That was something she wasn't expecting. Especially not from probably the most famous playboy worldwide, even though he wasn't acting like a playboy since he returned from Afghanistan, focusing on making the Mark II instead.

"I know you were going to apologize, but you shouldn't. It's normal to be concerned about your friends. You should apologize if you're not concerned" he said, but his tone was serious, which surprised Athena a little. She had never heard the King of Sass be this serious about something.

"I guess" Athena mumbled and quickly added: "Thank you. I needed that" Tony smiled at her and removed his hand from hers. Athena found herself disappointed, to which the voices made fun of her, obviously, but smiled back nonetheless. 

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