Disoriented » Captain America

chapter eight

08 x hello, smartest person in the room speaking

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This one was a slight mistake, given I was a tad earlier than I'd planned on being.

That is to stay, I appeared ten minutes earlier than I should've, and basically scared Tony Stark out of his skin. It was hilarious, especially when he cursed, then managed to ask me, "Who're you? How'd you get in here-- where . . . where did you come from?"

Now, had Tony and I met before? Nope. Did I still know a whole lot about him? Absolutely. That's exactly why I had to swallow down a laugh at the response I brought out from him.

"Tony Stark," I said with a short wave, taking a few steps over to him and flipping my hair out of my face in the process. "Hi. I'm Jo Wilkes, friend of Cap's."

Tony immediately gave me a perplexed look. "Cap has friends I don't know?"

I couldn't help laughing at that one. "Of course he does. I'm here, aren't I?"

Tony's brow furrowed, and he studied me unabashedly, moving toward me then going to circle around me. He was studying me, likely with the intent to figure out if I was real. It was humorous, to say in the least. It was the reason my placid smile remained. "Two things. One, you didn't answer my last question, you completely ignored both parts. Two, Steve doesn't have any friends I don't know, because everyone else he knew has, well, died. Blunt though that may be, it is what it is." He paused in his steps then.

He and I stared at each other for a long moment, my smile never wavering, while his suspicion only seemed to increase. "All right, Stark," I said before giving an over dramatized sigh, "you got me." I turned away, shaking my head in pretend shame. "I completely ignored your questions . . . and also I'm a ghost." I turned to him then with a teasing smirk, watching his features shift from startled to unamused at my little joke.

"Ha ha," he said dryly. "I'm not in the mood to play games with a crazy chick who appeared out of nowhere in my Tower."

"No, no, of course not," I said to pretend before moving to take a seat in one of the various chairs in the living space. "You're too busy for that, huh?"

"In fact, I am--"

And though I could tell he was getting more irritable by the second, I just couldn't help it. "Uh uh, Tony, I wasn't done." I pretended to observe my nails then, watching him in my periphery as he fumed silently. Then I actually turned serious and looked back up at him patiently. "D'you want answers, or to tell me how important you are? Because I can tell you, I already know everything you'd like to spew at me, so that'd be a bit of a waste of time."

Tony's eyes narrowed then, his stare becoming accusing. "You're a telepath, aren't you." His disdain for the ability was obvious.

"No," I replied calmly. "I'm much worse." I brought my legs up onto the chair with me then, crossing them like a child before leaning on the arm rest. "I'm the master of time and space . . . and we have five more lovely minutes to converse before the actual reason I came is going to show up. I.E.: Steve."

He blinked owlishly at that, his mouth thinning out into a line as he processed all this information as quickly as he could. Which, I must say, is faster than a great many others I've encountered. "And you know we have five minutes because . . ."

"I control time and space, yes," I nodded, finishing for him.

His intelligent brown eyes glimmered with intrigue. "That must be a consistent headache. But, not the point, how do you know Steve?"

"Aside from the obvious?" I smirked.

Tony nodded. "I mean, preferably, yeah."

"We met, we took a liking to each other, I stick around . . . or rather come around, if you'd like to get into the technical schematics," I mused, propping my chin up on my hand then.

Tony had always been a character, I knew. I'd always wished I could prevent his parents' deaths, but that was a fixed point in time. There was nothing I could do.

"Define 'liking,'" he pressed, moving to sit across from me then.

"I'm honestly surprised you believed me so quickly," I observed. "I mean, this is kind of a big deal. Not exactly easy as pie."

"I never said I thought it was easy," Tony scoffed, before studying me again for a long moment. "It's just . . . it made sense. You handle yourself too confidently. If you hadn't said what you did, I would've thought you and Natasha were related, or something."

I snickered. "No, Natasha is someone I've yet to have the pleasure of a meeting with. I'm looking forward to it, though. She's definitely something."

Then he shook his head, disbelief on his face, and I smiled somewhat to myself. "Are you going to answer my question about Steve?"

"I'm supposed to define 'liking,' and I don't think you want the dictionary definition," I said with a bemused smile as I watched him.

Tony rolled his eyes. "Still waiting."

I shrugged casually then, though the thought of what we were discussing made me anything but calm. In actuality, Steve was one of the very few things that remained to excite me. I liked it. "We're dating."

Tony stared at me for a long moment, unblinking, before he finally broke into a smile. "You couldn't just lead with that? Remind me of your name."

"What, it didn't connect in your big brain when you were trying to figure out how I got in?" I asked sarcastically, grinning all the while.

"No," he admitted, "though I think it's safe to say I can guess teleportation, right?"

"Obviously," I chuckled. I sat up some then, smile widening, "Your five minutes is up."

Then in came Steve, and I was on my feet the moment he was through the doorway. It was obvious that he was surprised to see me -- all you had to do was look at his face -- but that didn't stop him from hugging me, and gasping out, "Jo!" from the force I flung myself at him with.

"Jo! Right, got it," I heard Tony say in the background.

Steve and I pulled apart and he grinned down at me. He leaned down for a kiss and I granted him a short one before pulling away and waving toward Tony; "We were having a nice chat."

Steve hummed at that, giving Tony a suspicious look before arching a brow at me. "Were you now?"

"She scared me half to death," Tony announced. "Also, she's very cryptic. And sassy. I didn't peg her as your type."

"None of us pegged Pepper as your type either, Stark," Steve pointed out with an amused smile. He turned back to me then, "What're you doing here? Is everything okay?"

"Oh, yeah," I assured him with a confident nod. "Everything's good. I just figured this was a good time for me to, you know . . . stick around longer than a few hours at a time."

Steve's smile was positively radiant then, the kind that I was convinced I could live off of. "You're serious?"

"Wait a second," Tony said, "I should be expecting to see more of you?"

"Given you don't live at the Facility and Steve's here for a meeting, maybe not as much as that look on your face says you're scared of," I said with a catty smile. I could see Tony relax at that, but his response was not my main concern. I turned back to Steve and arched my brows patiently, "Is that okay with you?"

My answer was a kiss, and if the look in his eyes was any indication, he was just as excited at the notion as I was.

I was just a tad concerned because I wasn't sure how I would handle it. Though I'd be lying if I said I wasn't giddy with excitement for this newest adventure.

Steve probably had something (everything) to do with it.