Chapter 4
Athena's POV
I would never say no to some father-daughter bonding with my dad. I'm always up to help him in what ever he needs. Like when I helped him build the many missles for the compnay, which now seems to be going no where, but I trust that my dad will come up with something even more better, which brings us to tonigh at the work shop.
"Jarvis, you up?" my dad said.
"For you and Miss Stark, always sir" he replied.
"I'd like to open a new project file, index as Mark Two" my dad said as I gathered some of the equiptment we needed around the work station.
"Shall I store this on the Stark Industries Central Database?" Jarvis asked.
"Actually, I don't know who to trust right now. Till further notice, why don't we just keep everything on my private server?" my dad said.
He doesnt know who to trust? What's that about?
"Trust dad?" I said.
"Working on a secret project, are we, sir?" Jarvis said.
He looked at me and responded, "I don't want this winding up in the wrong hands"
I shrugged, couldn't complain with that, but Stark Industries is like family, right?
I gathered more materials while my dad worked on some kind of 'boot' with Dummy. I was putting all the data into the private server while I had my coffee aside. Its going to be a late night, but I dont mind. From what I saw earlier in the halogram that my dad was working on, it looked like a suit of some kind.
As I kept typing up more data, I heard my dad arguing with Dummy, of course he would be, poor robot. I love him!
"You're of no benefit at all! Move down to the toe. I got this. Okay, I'm sorry, am I in your way? Up." Dad kept telling Dummy, "Screw it. Don't even move.You're a tragedy!"
I laughed, "Dad just let Dummy be!"
"He's getting in my way, ehh--Dummy down!'
Poor Dummy, I swear I do feel like most of our robots have feelings.
A few hours later, dad had his 'boots' finished. I was really starting to get intrigued by this project. I stood my our robot recorder to watch.
"Start mark, half a meter, and back and center" he said, "Nina did you get all the data in?"
"Yeah everything's locked and ready!" I said.
"Dummy, look alive. You're on standby for fire safety" he pointed to Dummy, "You, roll it!" he pointed to the recorder next to me. "Okay. Activate hand controls. We're gonna start off nice and easy. We're gonna see if 10% thrust capacity achieves lift"
So he's trying to fly? Cool!
"And three, two, one" he lifted of the floor, but only to hit part of roof behind him, and Dummy being the fire extinguisher, sprayed him.
"Dad!!" I ran to see if he was ok.
"Uhg, dammit! More calibrations to work on" He said while I tried helping him up.
"Let's do this!" I said and the both of us walked back to the computers and started to remodel and put new data in. Dad left that work to me while he remodeled next to me, but now with something different, for his arm.
What are we doing? We never talked about what happened to him in Afghanistan and why he shut down the weapons.
"Dad..?" I said.
"Yeah kid?"
"Wha--What actaully happened over there to make you do all of this...?" I asked.
He sighed, "I guess I should tell you, you're the only person I can count on now"
"What happened? I saw you being kidnapped and working in a cave with some man named Yinsen and some teorrits"
"Your visions are getting stronger!" he said, I smiled.
Yes my dad does know of all my powers and Pepper too, they are the only ones I trust with my abilities.
"Yinsen the man you saw was a captive there by a teorrist group called the Ten Rings, when I got there he saved my life because I was attacked--"
"Yeah I saw that too..."
"When I got to the cave the teorrist group wanted me to build the Jericho missle we worked on remember? "
I nodded.
"I told them yes, just to get them off my back, but instead I built a suit out of all the Stark weapons they had--"
"What! A teorrist group had all the Stark Industry weapons?" I was shocked. How?
"Yeah see the reason I trust you and Pepper only, I don't know how they got them but they do-- Anyways I built a suit to help Yinsen and I got out, but he got killed in the process and I made it out with the suit flying"
"So tha'ts why you shut down the weapons and its also the reason we are working on a new proto type to enhance the suit you made" I said.
"I can never get enough of your smartness dammit!"
"I'm a Stark! It's what I do!" I said.
He rolled his eyes at me and I giggled. We kept working up late until the last thing I remember was crashing on the computer keyboard and my dad calling me.
"Athena! Kid! Nina!' I heard him sigh, "Let's call it a night"
I was still awake sorta, but my eyes closed trying to sleep.
"Alright kid" I felt my arm being lifted with my whole body. He was carrying me like a baby with my arms behind his back and my legs wrapped around him.
"Hey!"
It was Pepper's voice.
"Is she alright?" she asked.
'Shh! She crashed!' my dad whisperred.
"Of course she would, you guys have been working all day, here let's get her to her room"
I felt my dad walking again, till he stopped and I was in my comfy bed and he kissed my forehead.
"Get her you know--her pjs please Miss Potts"
There it is again, I felt that 'string' between them. My dad so like Pepper!
"Good night Tony"
~*~*~
"I've been buzzing you. Did you hear the intercom?"
Huh? Pepper?
"Good Evening Miss Stark!" Jarvis called in.
Evening? Holy crap! I slept mostly throughout the day!
"Jarvis, what time did my dad drop me off at my room last night?"
"Around 4 am Miss"
That explains it!
"Obadiah's upstairs" Pepper said. Damn, I need to learn how to control my hearing, but Obie's here!
I changed real quick, but then I heard an explosion from my dad's workshop. I bet he's been working all day, and he didn't want to wake me.
"Dad!" I hurried out of my room and said hi to Obie and ran downstairs.
"What happened?" I said reaching Pepper helping my dad up.
"He was expirimenting with this glove" Pepper said.
It was the one he was working on yesterday with me. I glared at my dad.
"Why didn't you wake me? I could've helped!" I said.
"What I wanted you to sleep, now let's go see Obie" he said.
Pepper was already upstairs when we got there.
"How'd it go? It went that bad, huh?" my dad said and I took a sit next to Pepper."
"Just because I brought pizza back from New York doesn't mean it went bad" Obie stopped playing the piano.
"Sure it didn't, Oh boy!" my dad said grabbing a slice and handing me one. We both bit into it. Oh Pizza!
" It would have gone better if you were there" Obie said coming over to us.
"You told me to lay low. That's what I've been doing" dad said, "I lay low, and you take care of all--"
"Hey, come on. In public. The press. This was a board of directors meeting"
"This was a board of directors meeting?" dad questioned.
"The board is claiming you have posttraumatic stress. They're filing an injunction" Obie said.
"A what?" I said.
"They want to lock your dad out" Obie replied.
"Why, 'cause the stocks dipped 40 points? We knew that was gonna happen" dad said,
"Fifty-six and a half" Pepper corrected him.
"It doesn't matter!" dad raised his voice.
Oh boy...
"We own the controlling interest in the company" dad said.
"Tony, the board has rights too" Obie said, "They're making the case that you and your new direction...isn't in the company's best interest"
"I'm being responsible!" my dad argued, "Thats a new direction for me and the company! I mean, me on the company's behalf being responsible for the way that..."
I understood him. Only I could.
"This is great" he said getting up. I sighed, things are so not going the way I imagined, I know we are loosing money, but I trust me dad. I know he's doing the right thing. After all, he told me the story from Afghanistan, he's right, he's being responsible.
"Oh, come on. Tony. Tony!"
"I'll be in the shop, you coming Nina" dad said. I got up and followed.
"Hey, hey! Hey, Tony. Listen" Obie followed my dad, "I'm trying to turn this thing around, but you gotta give me something, something to pitch them."
Like what?
"Let me have the engineers analyze that. You know, draw up some specs" Obie pointed to the arc reactor in my dad's chest.
"No, No! Absolutely not!" dad said.
Now they started to argue... great!
"That's it, Obie. Forget it." dad said and signeled me to follow him.
"All right, well, this stays with me, then" Obie said taking the pizza away from my dad's hands, "Go on, here, you can have a piece, take two!"
"Thanks"
"You mind if I come down there and see what you're doing?" Obie said.
"Goodnight Obie, come on Nina" dad said and I went downtstairs with him.
Well... that went well, sorta.
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Hi Guys! Here's chapter 4! I promise it does get better! Like I said before, It will be a while until she meets Steve, but a lot of action will be happening with Athena till then, but thank you so much for your votes! I would love to see some comments on how you think I'm doing so far, but thank you!
Comment and Vote please!
Thanks!