Username: 
Password:    
Remember Me

Search by :  Username E-mail Region Interest AOL IM ICQ Number Yahoo! ID MSN Username Jabber

Virgil Hawkins (shock2ursystem) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-07-14 18:29:00

Who: Merlin and Virgil
When: Earlish July
Where: Stark Industries
What: Meeting
Rating/Warnings: Low/None
Status: Complete



Merlin enjoyed his job at Stark Industries, he had a good team to lead and Tony was one of the best bosses you could ask for. Even if he could be a little eccentric at times. And of course the daycare was extremely handy.

Merlin was currently making the rounds installing new anti-virus on all the computers, while it could be done remotely he liked walking around the building and saying Hi to everybody, it was good to be able to do so. And he got to know names and departments that way.

Knocking on the door to one of the engineering offices he stuck his head round, “Is now a good time for me to borrow your computer?”

This was tight. Tighter than tight. Virgil had been reading about Tony Stark in technological magazines since he was in high school, and now he was working for the man. Maybe, if he was lucky, he’d be able to meet him. It was a big company, and Virgil doubted a lowly intern would ever meet Mr. Stark himself, but a brother could dream. It was like a dream. No, it was doper than any dream. It still didn’t really feel real.

Which may have been one of the reasons he started when the man spoke to him. “What? No! You can’t take my computer, I need it for work!” Virgil blurted out immediately, before it sunk in that the guy probably wasn’t asking to take to computer away. He could feel the heat rushing to his cheeks, and cleared his throat. “I mean, uh. What do you need it for?”

Merlin laughed a little, “I don’t want to take it anywhere, just need to install some new anti-virus on it” he held up his ID badge, “Merlin Emrys, IT” he added, “I can come back later if you’re in the middle of something”

He didn’t want to intrude if the new guy was busy, though it had looked as though he’d just been grinning at himself before Merlin came in.

“Oh, no, I’m not in the middle of anything,” Virgil said a little sheepishly. Well, nothing any more important than sitting around thinking about how dope all of this was. “Virgil Hawkins,” he said, extending his hand for a handshake. “I’m new.” As if he hadn’t already made that painfully obvious.

He got up from his seat in front of the computer and offered it to the newest man. “You’re not going to tell anyone about that little misunderstanding, are you?”

Merlin shook his hand with a smile, “I thought you might be, I didn’t recognise you” he said, saying nothing about his obvious behaviour. Merlin kind of found the newbies in awe of everything to be sweet.

“Don’t worry my lips are sealed” he said in amusement as he nodded his thanks and took the seat, entering his admin details so he could do what he needed to do.

Virgil pulled up another chair, this one sadly lacking in wheels, and sat backwards in it, his arms folded casually over the back of the chair so he could watch Merlin at work. It wasn’t that he’d never seen someone installing anti-virus software before; he’d done it plenty of times himself. But he’d never seen a Stark Industries employee installing Stark Industries anti-viral software.

“You been working here long?” he asked.

“Since 2012, I got the job and moved out here from the UK” Merlin said as he worked, “I've now got a wife, son and baby number two on the way. Great job on top of that and it's the best move I ever made”

“Yeah, I thought you might be from the UK,” Virgil said. He might not be able to tell a Welsh accent from a North London accent, but he could at least tell a British accent from an American one. “Congrats on number two though! That’s dope. How old’s your first?”

“Yeah, don’t think my accent plans on going anywhere” he smiled, “Thanks, Ben is almost 19 months now. Seems to have flown by” he admitted, “Feel free to switch subjects, I know kids aren’t everybody’s ideal conversational topic” he knew it was irritating to some when people went on about them.

Virgil shrugged. “I don’t mind if you want to talk about your kids,” he said, grinning. “Getting to know the people you work with is important.” At least, that’s what his Pops had told him before he’d left. Virgil’s only job so far had been flipping burgers, and this was a different ballgame altogether. But there was something Virgil was dying to know.

“Have you ever actually met Tony Stark? What’s he like?”

Merlin grinned, “Be careful, next I’ll be stopping by with pictures to show you” he teased finishing the last few commands and letting the computer run a diagnostic to make sure everything was installed okay.

“Tony? Yeah he’s a great boss, really nice. He put in some great daycare too. He’s a seriously intelligent guy but he listens to everybody if they have an idea. You’ll meet him at some point, he sometimes wanders the building when he needs a break”

“Hey, I’m fine with pictures so long as your baby isn’t ugly,” Virgil said, grinning. He figured the comment was safe. No one thought their baby was ugly. Then again, Virgil had never actually seen an ugly baby.

“Wait, you mean like, meet him meet him? Or just see him walking down the hall?” Honestly, Virgil was cool with either. Richie would be jealous no matter which one happened. “Because that would be dope.”

Merlin laughed, “Luckily he definitely isn’t, though between you and me I have seen some really unattractive kids in nursery”

He smiled, “Meet him, meet him. Especially if you’re new and doing something interesting, he keeps an eye on everything in the building. And he’s a really nice guy as well as a good boss”

“You have?” Virgil asked, incredulously. “I didn’t think ugly babies even existed. They’ve got unibrows, don’t they?” Mostly because the image of a baby with a unibrow was one that would make Virgil laugh.

Virgil could barely contain his excitement, but after a brief struggle, he managed to rearrange his face into something that could almost pass for casual indifference. “Oh yeah? That’s cool,” he said. Cool and breezy. He totally sold it.

Merlin laughed, “Oh they do, there are all sorts in the maternity ward in a hospital. My cousin had a really ugly baby, it grew up to be pretty but it was terrible to begin with. Unibrows are pretty awful” he nodded.

“You’ll be fine. He’s used to people freaking out a little, and once you have that out of the way it’ll be a lot easier” Acting cool? Merlin wasn’t buying it sorry Virgil.

“So the ugly duckling. That’s cool,” Virgil said. “My sister had the opposite. Baby pictures of her are adorable, and then she grew up to be, well, Sharon,” Virgil said, making a face. He and Sharon didn’t fight nearly as much as they did when they were kids, though insulting her still came as second nature to him. “Though, speaking of ugly babies, did you ever see that photoshop of Mr. Bean’s head on a baby’s body?”

Well, at least Virgil tried, and he managed to repress the urge to dance around his the room at the idea of meeting The Tony Stark, so he still thought he’d come out on top. “Right. Well, so long as I don’t fall on my face I think it should be okay.”

“Oh no, that’s awful. The other way around is much better” Merlin grinned, ugly babies weren’t so bad since you hoped they’d grow out of it but growing into ugliness was upsetting. “I don’t think I have but it sounds disturbing” Merlin said imagining the image.

“You’ll be fine” Merlin assured him, “Tony’s pretty cool”

“It’s the creepiest thing,” Virgil said. “Did you wanna see it? I could probably find it on my phone.” Which was on the other side of the room, normally an easy push away, though with the lack of wheels on his chair Virgil actually had to stand.

Virgil let out a sigh of relief at hearing that Tony was actually pretty cool. He’d of course read things that said the same, but you couldn’t always trust everything you read. Besides, if it was coming from one of his employees, it had to be true. “Seems like a lot of people here are pretty cool,” Virgil said. He really hadn’t met any sour grapes yet.

“I'm not sure I do but why not?” Merlin said before nodding, “Stark Industries is a great employer which makes for happy employees. Everybody has stood sense of community and camaraderie around here” It was one of the things Merlin liked the most.

Virgil went to get his phone, grinning as he brought up the photo. Then he handed the phone to Merlin. “Personally, I think so long as a baby’s less ugly than this, it’s probably alright.”

He took his seat, again sitting backward on his chair. “That’s good. Truth be told, I was kind of worried it was going to be one of those really cold, keep-to-yourself type environments. It really does seem too good to be true that a place this huge and innovative could be filled with such dope people.” He’d always thought you could either have a well paying job or friendly coworkers, but not both.

“Oh my god, I don’t think I will ever be the same again” Merlin said, covering his eyes after handing the phone back, “I think you’re right. Any child is adorable after that”

Nodding Merlin replied, “I know what you mean. Big corporations always give that impression of being cold don’t they but with the right leadership I think this place proves it doesn’t have to be that way”

Virgil couldn’t help but laugh. “Hey, if I had to see it, then you had to see it. Fair’s fair, after all,” he joked. He did close the image on his phone though, because it truly was the creepiest baby photo he’d ever seen.

He was still a little nervous about working at Stark Industries, but talking to Merlin had really helped put him at ease. Now most of his worries were more along the lines of screwing up and blowing up the lab somehow, instead of not getting along with anyone and then screwing up and blowing up the lab. “Phew. I’m glad you cleared that up. Thanks, dawg.”

“Share the pain kind of thing huh?” Merlin said with a smile, well fair was fair though Merlin was mentally adding Virgil onto the IT departments list for silly memes now.

“Anytime, now I should go and make sure the rest of the buildings computers are up to date, I’ll see you around though”