CHAPTER 11
Red Lollipops
Have you ever lost your breath completely? Not from singing too loud at a concert, not from screaming for your teammates from the side-line, but purely lost your voice, a loss for words in general. On a rare occasion, Claire wouldn't have a witty comeback, she would stay in her lane, but the woman would rather step out and take control over a situation. Phil Coulson was annoyed by that fact that she constantly got herself into his business, he called it nosey but she called it 'lending a helping hand'.
But never once in her life, until this specific day, had Claire felt as if she had forgotten her very own first language. She had lost her voice; it was far away, in a different country, maybe city, or even on an entirely different planet, she supposed that she would never find it again. It was all because she underestimated Tony Stark.
The day begun as a surprise, at the very beginning she was already left doubting her opinion on Mr Stark, or maybe she knew deep down that hypnosis was very, very, powerful.
She sat at the edge of the kitchen counter, too afraid to be lonely at the large dining table, with a single cup of tea warming up her hands. She was able to catch the ending of a sunrise above the metallic blue water, a quick reminder that she was not at home. Simba had been left in her room, locked away with a comfortable bed and food. She was too afraid of the cat going a-wol because of being in a completely new environment, wide and open unlike anything he had been raised in.
The magic voice of the house had tried speaking to her, JARVIS, but she wasn't quite comfortable with getting a reply from nothing just yet. It was crazy, all of a sudden sitting in the kitchen of the world's best-known billionaire, someone she had been assigned to, and someone she was supposed to hack into, recall all their memories and figure out what makes them tick.
Clearly her job was only beginning. She anticipated the soft steps on the staircase, expecting maybe a woman, Pepper? No, Mr Stark had been placed under a trance, he was stuck in her mind manipulation. Thanks to her hypnotic show yesterday, he was walking up the steps at exactly 7 a.m.
He had been underneath her, in the basement, working on who knows what, but the impact she had made on him had drawn him away from the mechanics, and up the stairs to talk about 'feelings'. He didn't believe anything had changed with him yesterday, feeling no different and only recalling the joke of a sandwich, yet here he was.
"Do you regularly eat lollipops for breakfast?"
Claire looked down to the spherical red candy that laid on the counter next to her. It was one of her methods, stolen from the doctor's office you could say, and it was all part of her plan.
"It's an addiction," which was true, it was her favourite candy, "you want?"
"Why not?" Tony agreed, coming to take a seat next to her, unwrapping the ball of candy and popping into his mouth.
Claire watched how his jaw moved, immediately biting at the side of the sweet as his hand moved it around using the stick. He was clearly an impatient man, making this harder for Claire. Her eyes landed on her own lollipop that was half-bitten in her hand, the empty tea-cup next to it.
"Why lollipops?" he asked her.
"Keeps me busy, otherwise I might go mad."
"You alone that often?"
"Aren't you?" she questioned, raising an eyebrow as her gaze swiftly flew past the stairs he had bounced up from.
"Touché. Some coffee?" he now left the candy to rest in his mouth, starting up a prestigious coffee machine.
"No thanks, I'll have another cup though," she replied, edging her cup to his side of the counter. He was curious about the tea, but figured she disliked caffeine, perfectly normal, after all, Pepper hates the taste of coffee as well.
"So, what's your M-O?"
"My method is listening."
"No hypnotic system of working? Mind control? Just that nudge to get them to confess?"
"I don't work that way. I once thought this was fun, until I made a man do ungodly things and I realised the extremity of this... power." She replied, 100% honest in order to calm him down about the whole ordeal.
"But it's not a power, right?"
"It's not. This is a talent, like how you're able to take apart and put an engine back together without even thinking about it."
"Then what is your power?" he rested against the side of the coffee machine, the foam filling the cups to the brim.
"I can zip up my suitcase after a whole holiday of just shopping. No sitting on it, no force, just the correct packing," she didn't think Tony Stark was prepared for the conversation of oral persuasion. She didn't think anyone was, they wouldn't understand her day-to-day life of making sure that the cashier wouldn't end up quitting their job and moving cities because of a simple sentence she had mumbled under her breath. Powerful.
"Is that a superpower?"
"Can you do that?"
"I suppose not. Superpower, I get it. What's mine you ask?" he suggested for her, flipping a switch and bumping the side of the machine to get the remains out, "I always win the game of 'notice anything different about me?' works every time."
Claire laughed at this, catching onto his joking manner and the way he liked to play one-for-one, just as she did back in her training days. There was no other way Phil could get anything out of her, and Fury had learnt very recently that the mistrust has never left her. Tony was mistrusting.
"Notice anything different about me?" she played along, spreading her arms out wide.
"Hm," his thumb rested on his chin as he pretended to think, "It's the sweater, right? A new sweater?"
"Ding, ding, ding. How'd you know?"
"It says Stark Industries on it. You took it from my wardrobe."
"You gave me the room, sweater included."
"Should've thought that one through. You wanna move this downstairs?" his cups were ready, and he was eager to get back into his work.
Claire nodded, curious to see what the man did in his spare time. She was sure that it wasn't just anybody who got invited down to his lab of robotics. They both threw away their sticks from their sweets when passing the bin on the way to the carpeted stairs, Tony warning her about the very last, abnormally short step.
The first thing she noticed in the dark was the beige walls hidden behind blueprints, paintings, and fan art. The second thing was the clutter spread out along the room. There were at least a dozen desks, holograms left abandoned in the air, metal all around the show. A suit hung in the middle of the room, red and gold titanium alloy... the Iron Man. It looked absolutely destroyed, the result of a previous fight with the one and only Stane. She wasn't sure if it was left there as a reminder or as encouragement.
"Do you just build, and build, and build?"
"My mind is busy." His explanation didn't change her wonder and admiration. Tinkered objects roamed around the room, robots ready to replace so many jobs in the real world. He was continuously inventing, even if he suddenly grew bored of the idea.
"Are you building a new suit?" she asked him, eyes lading on a very specific hologram.
"Of course. No one else is protecting those people out there."
"That's not your job, that's for the police."
"Clearly, they aren't doing it well enough. Let's face it, they need me."
Claire rolled her eyes at the ego, the day was going perfectly fine until she remembered who she was dealing with.
"I'm glad you think so, but have you ever considered that they don't?" she offered, pointing out the obvious to any sane person, probably giving a speech Pepper had recited countless times over.
"Yes, I have, and I was a fool for doing so. They need me."
"Why is that? Tell me." The small slip up of the force was unintentional, but she had asked the question with such confidence it was too late to catch the intangible wave of force falling out her mouth with the words.
She knew he was uncomfortable already, he avoided looking at her during the banter and rather focused his slight shake in his hands to the metal parts on the counter. Yet, as soon as she asked the question it was too late. Tony was already focused on the sound of her voice, she was already the centre of his attention, and he was concentrating on thinking about the situation. He was already half in a hypnotic trance just by speaking to her naturally, because Claire never realised her habit she had grown up with, her immediate first thought during a conversation is to capture them.
She knew he was uncomfortable. His jaw was jutted out in stubbornness, his facial expressions pulled back in panic, his shaky hands fidgeting.
She knew he was uncomfortable.
"Because I needed that hero, god knows who else does- you tricked me! You said you don't like taking control of one's mind!"
"I was getting nowhere!" she argued back, "I didn't mean it!"
"So what, it just 'slipped' out?" his voice raised higher, his fists coiled in anger, his shoulders slumped forward. Claire stepped back.
"Well, yes! I can't control it, okay!"
"Then why would you get sent here?"
"Because I'm the best shot you have at stitching up open wounds."
"I can do that myself. I don't need someone with a loving family, a best friend, to help me. How the hell do you relate?"
Loss of voice. No words. No sound. Her voice was trapped in another country, another city, another world. She could've recalled all the times she had sat down with a seven year-old kid who had told her about their alcoholic, abusive parent. She could have told him about the time an adult came in, referring to his own anxiety that prevented him from walking out of his home during the day. She could have referred to any situation she has ever helped, been paid to help, but she didn't get the opportunity as his shaky hand pointed towards the stairs they had only just walked down.
"Out," his confidence came back, masking the betrayal tear in his blue eye, "I'll see you at dinner." Yet despite everything, even after what she had done, he would see her at dinner. She knew he was upset, but not entirely at her specifically, why else would he break his own rule that stated she were to get her own food?
And so, without pushing it further, she decided she would continue tomorrow, and walked up the stairs still in search for her lost voice that had been stolen by the evil Ursula from the Little Mermaid. She walked up the stairs, listening to the clanking of metal and the mumbling of Tony Stark and his butler, Alfred, JARVIS, a simple A.I. machine.
You got a habit or addiction?
Procrastination
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