ｔｈｒｅｅ ｍｏｎｔｈｓ ｌａｔｅｒ
"Every time I pop into this house to say hello, you're always staring at your screen like that,"
Audelia quickly shut her laptop, the smiling faces of both her and Tony Stark at one of his many birthday celebrations disappearing as the lid met with the keyboard. Adjusting herself in her desk chair of her personal home office, Deli placed her arms on the table as she looked up.
Obadiah Stane was leaning against the door-frame, that smirk that always made Deli want to roll her eyes resting on his lips.
"Obadiah, what an unpleasant surprise," Deli hummed, picking up her glass of water and taking a sip. "Although every surprise visit from you is unpleasant so that's to be expected."
The man looked at his feet, laughing for a moment. Tucking the manila folder further under his arm, he walked into the office and took a seat at one of the chairs in front of her desk.
"And when will they stop becoming unpleasant?"
"When you walk in here and tell me that you've found my best friend," swallowing the lump that formed in her throat, Audelia looking down at her lap for a moment. "Thirty-six hours before I was sat at that table at the Apogee Award Ceremony with you, knowing that Tony was running around the casino. If I knew what was going to happen, I would've let him blow his fortune at the craps table for the rest of his life."
Grabbing onto the stack of papers that sat next to her laptop, Deli placed it in front of herself as she went through the stacks, quickly scanning them over as she placed her signature on the dotted line where it was required. She was supposed to be working on these papers, but the second that she opened her laptop and saw Tony's face she froze.
"It was hard news to hear," Obadiah confessed, grabbing one of the pens on her desk as he twirled it in his hands. "Weren't you supposed to go Bagram Air Base with him for the Jericho missile test? You were instrumental in it's design, after all."
"Nathan planned a last second vacation for us to celebrate our engagement, since Tony decided to make our engagement party the 'Tony Stark' party, as usual," Deli looked up from her stack to the man in front of her. "As you can see, we had to cancel it."
"Where is Nathan right now?"
Deli watched with narrowed eyes as the man's eyes trailed over to the frames engagement photo of Audelia and Nathan on her desk. She quickly grabbed onto it, turning it around as her eyes met with Obadiah's.
"He's at work, which is where I believe you should be as well," her eyes trailed down to the manila folder under his arm as she sighed, leaning back in her chair. "But I assume that's why you're here."
Taking the folder out from under his arm, Obadiah opened it and placed it on the desk in front of her. Deli eyed him for a moment before taking the folder from him and flipping through the pages inside.
"It's just a quick and simple signature, that's all I need. Fourth page at the bottom, all you have to do is-"
"This is the contract with Payne Industries for the PeaceMaker 95, the one you've been pushing for the last three months," Audelia narrowed her eyes at the man before her before closing the folder and tossing it back at him, leaning back in her chair once again. "Stark Industries doesn't do any outside contracts. All weapons are designed by Tony or me, no one else. That's how it's always been."
Obadiah sighed, slamming his hand on the table as he stood up, gripping the folder in his hands as he glared down at Deli. She never flinched.
"Tony made it clear in his will that in the case of an unfortunate event, you are the interim CEO of Stark Industries, which means I need your signature. Tony would want you to close this deal-"
"You don't get to sit in front of me and tell me what Tony would want," Audelia cut in, staring up at Obadiah. She rose to her feet, placing her hands on the edge of the desk as she stood eye to eye with the man before her. "As interim CEO, I make the final call. Tony wouldn't want this, so we're not doing it. Go back to warehouse and contact Jason Payne and tell him that the deal is off the table."
Audelia placed herself back in her seat, returning to the stack of papers in front of her.
"Deli-"
"My friends call me Deli, and right now you are not one of them. You may call me Audelia, or Ms. Motter," Deli looked up at Obadiah, raising an eyebrow at him in challenge. "If that is all, I will have to ask you to leave. I'm kind of in the middle of running my best friend's company."
Obadiah Stane narrowed his eyebrows at the woman before angrily grabbing the folder from the table and stalking out of the home office, slamming his hand into the doorframe on the way out.
Deli listened in as she heard the footsteps moving down the hallway. A sigh escaped her lips as she ran a hand down her face.
"Jarvis, please make sure that he actually leaves,"
"Of course, Ms. Motter,"
The room fell silent as she heard the front door of her home finally slam. Audelia rubbed at her eyes, the stress running through her body as a headache was slowly forming.
Slowly, Deli reached over and opened her laptop, a fond smile crossing her lips as she stared at the old photo of her and Tony. His arm was wrapped around her shoulder, holding her close as they grinned at the camera, both Rhodey and Pepper standing in the background of the photo. Nathan had been the one taking the picture, laughing as the best friends pulled funny faces at the camera, laughing as they did so from the amount of drinks they had already consumed.
The smile never left her face as she rested her head on her hand, staring at the photo. These last three months without her best friend had been hard. Of course, Nathan, Pepper, and Rhodey had been by her side through it all, everyone supporting one another, but without Tony nothing felt right.
The sound of footsteps in the hallway drew Deli out of her trance, her eyes moving toward the doorway as an emotional Pepper Potts stood there, a large smile on her lips.
"Pep?" Deli questioned, quickly standing up from her chair as she looked at her assistant and friend. "What's wrong, what's going on?"
"Rhodey called," Pep swallowed the lump in her throat as she grinned at Audelia. "They found him, they found Tony."
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It's SO WEIRD to be back at the beginning oh my god. It feels like so long ago that I was at the beginning of Lottie and Steve's story and now here I am, at the beginning of Tony and Audelia's story. Wow.
Also, it's so hard to get out of the habit of typing Lottie lol I almost did it like seven times this chapter.
I hope you guys really like this chapter, I'm so excited to share their story with you all! (also, peep that new ending gif I love it)