School Field Trip [Maxine/Tony Stark] There weren’t a lot of educational sites to visit in The City. There was the park and City Hall, but as far as school trips were concerned, options were limited. Stark Tower had set up educational tours for students in the public school system with different activities based on what was age appropriate.
After the duck head incident, which had been cleared from her school record, things went on as if nothing had happened at all. Maxine wasn’t sure what to make of this and walked with her teacher, some volunteers including a seemingly ordinary house cat named Socks, and the rest of her first grade class into the lobby of Stark Tower. It was a large, impressive skyscraper and being from the west coast even Maxine appreciated how tall it was, and how spacious everything seemed to be.
For the first part of the tour the students were directed into a small room to watch a video about Stark Tower and give an example of the types of research that was done. After the video the students were lead into a couple of rooms where a few low level employees shared what they did.
Most, if not all, of the children knew who Iron Man was. They kept whispering excitedly to one another if they’d see him. All of the children, that was, except Maxine. The more superheroes were discussed, the less happy the girl looked to be there.
- -
Tony, for his part, had little to no idea that Stark Industries did anything to do with school trips. Such things were long standing programs instituted by marketing and community outreach coordinators, and had been reviewed and approved by Pepper. Tony had had nothing to do with them before, and didn’t not, although it seemed like Stark Industries was running normally enough to put one together now.
He wouldn’t have noticed this one either if he hadn’t taken recent steps in security. With what happened to Annie and Edward both he’d put in stricter surveillance of anybody who came near Stark Tower’s door, with alerts on anybody who crossed the threshold who didn’t work there.
Most of the alerts were minor, running by as blips on a screen, which Tony hardly noticed. It was much harder, however, to ignore a whole list of names and faces jumping up on the screen, including a cat.
“J?” Tony pushed over on his wheeled stool, looking at the monitor.
“The City Elementry School field trip, sir,” Jarvis responded. Tony stared. He’d never been around kids much, even when he’d been a kid himself. He never really knew how to deal with them. “The first grade class and their chaperones.”
“And heightened security means what, in this case?” Tony stared, pulling up video and a low setting of audio.
“I can send a request for them to leave,” Jarvis responded at once, which was about the time Tony realized that the students were talking about Iron Man.
“How many times have they brought Iron Man up?” he asked.
“Including a running conversation held by three right now, 67 times, including thirteen inquiries to the adults,” Jarvis said.
Tony leaned back, hand over his mouth as he thought it over. It was true, things had been pretty serious around here lately, but for now everything was secure. And maybe a bit of community work wouldn’t be so bad. Plus, ego massage was always worth its weight in liquor to the billionaire, even if it was knee-high bundles of energy who were about as alien to him as the Chitauri.
“Let’s give them something interesting to look at,” he said, standing up. “Send them up to the living room.”
“Sir?”
“They want to see Iron Man, let’s let them watch him land. Should give the kids a kick,” Tony guessed. It did for most proper human beings, why should the urchins be harder to impress?
“Right away,” Jarvis responded, contacting the tour guides to update them on the change in itinerary while Tony left to get suited up.
- -
“Alright kids, we have some exciting news for you!” There were two tour guides, both wearing bright red polo shirts and khaki pants which made them look a bit like Target employees. Maxine thought they looked like teachers. “Iron Man will be landing here at Stark Tower. Shall we go meet him?”
It was instant chaos. The children started screeching in excitement, many of them hopping up and down to indicate their joy. It took a few moments for the teachers and chaperones to calm them down enough so that they could listen to directions.
Maxine’s face fell and her shoulders slumped as if being asked to complete a chore.
While the rest of the children nearly stampeded the grown ups to get to the landing site, Maxine walked a few feet behind in the back. Besides the cat, there didn’t seem to be anyone watching her directly.
Once in the living room, the tour guides made a half circle a safe distance from the balcony and started lining up kids to sit down patiently with their hands in their laps. Everyone had their eyes peeled, waiting for Iron Man, except Maxine, who looked anywhere but at the sky for Iron Man’s arrival.
- -
Tony had left the back way, and looped around in a wide arc. He knew people, he knew machines, and he definitely knew showmanship. His reputation was what it was because he was always on, even for a herd of ankle biters who’d shown up out of the blue.
He came in from higher up, jetting over and stopping abruptly mid air, allowing himself to fall vertically a full story before hitting the hardened deck in an action pose. He straightened up effortlessly, then started to walk down the runway, the machinery circling him dismantling the armor and taking it away. It was a show not many got to witness, and was much more involved than the simple suit-opening he used when not at home.
By the time the glass doors opened for him he was once again Tony Stark, the bright circle of his chest gleaming from behind a Rolling Stones graphic.
He turned and looked at the children, arching a brow as if only just noticing them.
“Why are you all sitting down?” he asked, voice loud and clear, but not at all serious.
- -
The child stared at the display, wide eyed. The clapped and cheered until the man himself was standing before them when they suddenly and uncharacteristically went dead silent. Dozens of eyes were locked on him and in complete awe.
All of them, actually, even the chaperones, except Maxine.
Once he invited the children to come forward, however, was when it became obvious. They swarmed Tony Stark, holding their brochures in the air, begging for autographs. Tiny hands sometimes tried to pull on his hands for attention, everyone wanted his attention and it was up to the teachers to make sure that he wasn’t too badly molested by the swarm.
Maxine stood, but she was a safe distance away from it all, preferring to look down at the cat, who stared up at her and meowed. Maxine, still looking down at the cat, shrugged.
- -
Tony started slightly at the swarm, and quickly realized that large groups of children needed to be treated like Paparazzi. He wrestled his arms free and kept from from grabbing his hands by signing the pieces of paper. Normally he would flatly refused being handed anything, but it seemed like he had the option of doing autographs or being swarmed and suffocated by waist-high barbarians.
Barbarians he wasn’t allowed to hit.
He signed them all fairly quickly, then with the help of the teachers got a decent barrier of space between himself and the enthusiastic kids, all of whom were definitely looking at him like he was a god or something. He did wonder why people had to grow out of that part.
“Alright,” he said, noting one little girl in the back. The one with the cat, who by the way she stared at and avoided eye contact with him, must have been a service animal of some sort. “You all were downstairs looking at the pedestrian stuff, right?”
A few confused looks made him reassess the level of language he needed to use. “The boring stuff.” He got a few nods and nodded back. “That’s all Stark employee level, but most of the good stuff gets developed in the private research labs. My labs. That’s where the Arc reactor was designed. That’s where I build Iron Man suits. But you wouldn’t all be interested in seeing that. Not when you already saw the home water recycling hookup being built downstairs.”
His eyes were on the one quiet girl about half the time he spoke. He was still waiting for some reaction. Some semblance of interest.
- -
The children, once more, were barely able to contain their excitement. Sometimes they shouted out questions about flying or being a superhero or the suit. A few let Tony Stark know that he was absolutely their favorite superhero of all time.
Maxine looked up when one of the chaperones herded her along. She was quiet, unhappy and reluctant to follow the others.
“Can I just wait at the bus?” she asked quietly.
“No, sweetie. You need to stay with the grownups. Come on! This is going to be fun, right?”
Maxine didn’t say anything and still looked like she was being punished.
- -
Tony had them line up in twos and took them down the stairs, not wanting to be caught in a confined elevator with them. He was sure he’d be cornered and suffocated at first opportunity.
In his lab the reassembled Iron Man armor descended on a rotating platform. It was usually used to bring in a broken set of armor, but with it being the goods of this demonstration Tony had it come down anyway, instead of going to storage.
He checked his watch to check in on how the suit was doing, but it seemed fairly indifferent to the kids, so he figured it wasn’t too bothered by the attention.
“Don’t touch anything and you’ll get a prize at the end of the tour,” he told the kids. The lab was alive with schematics and readings, a bunch of screens that normally stayed off but were turned on for the tour’s benefit.
Inside the lab Tony sat on the back of the hot rod he did all of his thinking and movie watching in.
“So, you have any questions?” he asked nonchalantly, and arched a brow at the barrage he received. He answered shortly, a bit sarcastically at times, and after a few minutes of hearing all of the normal, boring wonderings he turned his attention on the truly miserable looking child in the group.
“You, with the cat. What about you?” he asked, holding up his hand to stop one of the more obnoxious blonde boy’s interruption.
- -
Maxine looked around and felt some eyes on her. When she’d first come to The City all she could talk about were superheroes and her dad. Now that she’d spent some time, she was over it.
“You’re not really a superhero,” she said.
The other children immediately came to Tony Stark’s defense, as if he needed it. There were choruses of nu uh!s and other children raised their voice to argue with her. Maxine said nothing while the teachers tried to quiet the riled children up.
“You can fly in suit,” she said. “That doesn’t really make you a hero, though. A hero would save all the people stuck here so they could see their moms and dads.”
The children stared back at Tony, eager to hear his rebuttal.
- -
Tony wasn’t sure what he expected. The first accusation wasn’t a surprise. She didn’t seem to be impressed, so why would she think he was a hero like all her classmates?
Her next statement did make him pause, however. He took a long moment and mulled over what she said. He should have known she wasn’t a City kid, she was too different. Not that he’d say that in front of these other urchins, almost all of whom were definitely natives.
“Didn’t think the City kidnapped kids,” he said, folding his arms over his chest. “Maybe I am working on something to take us all home. Maybe a bunch of people have tried to get out an it’s impossible, at least for the moment. Have you been working on getting home? Have any ideas on the matter? What’ve you tried so far?”
- -
“Yeah!” said the little blonde boy. “What have yooou tried?”
Some of the children snickered. Maxine looked around at the other kids with a frown.
“I’m only five. My dad is Animal Man, but he can’t even come and save me either. I don’t know what he’s tried because he’s in San Diego.”
She shrugged, and looked very tired, as if the act of just explaining her situation was exhausting. Emotionally, it was, but she didn’t cry.
“My guardian is a pilot and he can fly spaceships. He’s the best pilot in the whole wide ‘Verse. He works here, but he’s not a superhero either. He just flies things.”
- -
Tony glanced at the kid, then rolled his eyes, though he didn’t say anything.
“You’re only five,” he repeated. “A five year old with a brain, a voice, and who was specially selected to come here, to this City. I don’t know if you’ve looked at the roster of abductees, but none of us are ‘normal’. Most have powers or abilities others can’t fathom. So, ask yourself, why would the City take you, a five year old, instead of your father, who’s a named super hero?”
He was asking himself the same question, but it seemed like this was something she should hear out loud. Being a little girl wouldn’t spare her the inventor’s opinion. He never held back when he deemed something important to know.
“So you can do something. All that’s left if to figure out how that can help. Limitations and obstacles don’t end when you grow up. You’re five now, so overcome that. And when you’re older, and you own your own company, and you’re one of the most brilliant men from your planet you might find yourself taken by aliens with technology you’ve never fathomed, and then you can sit down and start doing what you know to figure out how to overcome that, too.”
The fact that she was staying with Wash shouldn’t have surprised him, but it did.
He stood, gesturing. “Jarvis. Get an image of Wash in here,” he said, for her benefit. A life sized hologram of the dopey blonde popped up, staring vacantly ahead of himself. Tony stood toe to toe with the picture, as if sizing him up.
“Wash has something about him, too, or he wouldn’t be here either. At the least, he’s willing to test pilot technology that my girlfriend would be pissed for me getting into.”
He walked over to a monitor and hit a button, and the Iron Man suit Wash had been fitted to came up. It was lighter than the usual Iron Man suit, and still being modified. One of the lower gauntlets was missing due to a total reconstruct.
“You’re probably right about him being a good pilot. He’s done well with this so far,” he said casually, then threw a look over his shoulder to the blonde kid. “You might want to remember to be nicer to her. Her guardian’s flying the next generation Iron Man suit, her dad’s a super hero, .”
- -
Although Maxine didn’t completely follow Tony’s monologue about owning a company, he had mentioned something she never considered. Why did The City take her and not her dad?
“I can only see the Red here, though. I can’t see or hear any of the Red at home.” The cat pawed at her leg and Maxine realized she wasn’t articulating what she was trying to get across. Wash never understood her explanation of The Red, either.
A bunch of the children’s eyes started to glaze over during this entire conversation as they watched Tony and Maxine converse passively. Some of the chaperones weren’t looking much better.
- -
Tony tilted his head at the mention of some kind of ‘Red’. He knew enough to know when to listen, even if it was coming out of the mouth of a kid.
“Jarvis, put her in the system,” he said. There was a quick, passive scan of the girl’s appearance and basic stats, and Jarvis accessed her school records to fill in the missing information. Tony looked at a screen as it brought up her information, and nodded.
“Maxine. I’m going to talk to Wash about you coming in. I want to hear more about this Red,” he said. But he wasn’t one for talking about strange phenomenon in front of just anybody, especially if it was a bunch of adults and students who would be talking up a storm about all of this later on.
The image of Wash disappeared and a full layout of New York City lay down on the floor, popping up into three dimensions.
“So, any of you hear about the Battle of New York?” he asked loudly, casually to recapture the attentions of the tour, the image of a wormhole above Stark Tower appearing as a show for the kids.