Chapter Text
T.J. sighed through puffed-out cheeks as she rested her chin on her knee and spun in the office chair. The code compilation program was taking forever to finish, and she was ready to go home. Not that she was looking forward to what awaited her there, either. Abby, T.J.’s best friend and roommate, had set her up on yet another blind date, and she loathed them with the fiery heat of a thousand suns. Making inane small talk with a stranger was not her idea of a good time.
But you could meet one of your soulmates! Abby had protested as she practically begged T.J. to go.
Yeah—no.
There was no way that the words inked across the inside of both wrists would ever be uttered during some blind date in a coffee shop, of all places. Of course, T.J. hadn’t shared the content of her soulmarks with Abby, only that she had more than one. It wasn’t forbidden by any means; most people didn’t feel the need to share that much about such an intimate bond. Abby only had one soulmark, but she’d had no problem sharing what it said with T.J. simply because the words were so generic that it would be no help when it came to finding the one person the universe deemed to be just for her.
T.J., on the other hand, spent hours trying to decipher what kind of people her marks would belong to when the words I’m not going to kill you, I’m here to get you out were written in flowing script on her left wrist and Get out of the city, they’ll be coming for you was in neat block print on her right one. Just what in the hell kind of fucked up situations did she get herself into? Or worse, what kind of fucked-up situations did her soulmates get into?
When the words appeared on her wrists when she was sixteen, T.J. had feared them. It had been the only logical reaction to such cryptic words. She was a good girl—she grew up on her grandparents’ corn farm in nowhere Nebraska, was the captain of her high school drill team, made straight A’s, and dreamed of nothing more than finding her soulmate and settling down into the only life she’d ever known, having 2.5 kids—maybe some chickens if she was feeling adventurous.
Then, in the way things tend to do, everything flipped upside down, and T.J.’s life would never be simple again.
Her soulmarks had appeared at the exact time of her birth on her sixteenth birthday and at virtually the same time. It was just the way it worked, and it was the same experience that every one of her friends with a soulmark went through. A week later, her grandpa had a heart attack. He was the only father figure T.J. could remember, and his death hit her so hard she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get back up, but she was trying to hold it together for her grandma. A few weeks after the funeral, she’d been out on a drive through the backroads just trying to clear her head when she’d swerved to miss a deer and lost control of her car, rolling through a hundred feet of fence line before hitting an electrical pole so hard the live wire snapped and hit the car. It lit the vehicle and T.J. up like a Christmas tree, and her life just got weirder.
Everyone at the scene that night said T.J. should have died in the crash. Surviving had consequences, though—gifts from the universe always seemed to have a price like that.
It started small—well, she thought it was a huge thing, but it was small compared to what was in store for her later. After she was released from the hospital, T.J. Archer, computer illiterate dumbass extraordinaire, could parse and understand any programming language. Overnight she became a hacker genius, and the only explanation the doctors could give her was that the jolt of 7200 volts of electricity seemed to kickstart several thousand neural pathways inside her brain that lay dormant for most people their entire lives. The weirdness didn’t stop there, though—soon enough, she could manipulate electrical energy and discovered a latent talent for throwing lightning. Then her intelligence practically quadrupled, and she’d leaped from being an average student to graduating high school two years earlier than she’d planned and heading off to college to pursue a major she’d never considered before the accident.
The compiler beeped, drawing T.J. out of her memories. She glanced down, barely noticing that she’d been rubbing her left wrist, idly tracing the outline of the script writing between the dozens of bangle bracelets she typically wore to take the focus off her double soulmarks. She’d been doing that a lot more lately, and she wondered for a moment if it was because she would meet that mate first. She told herself it probably had no significance whatsoever before putting the thought firmly out of her mind. She quickly corrected the errors the compiler spat out and reran it, giving the program a bit more incentive to run faster this time.
What? She had the gift—it would be wrong not to use it, right?
On its second run, the program finished in half the time and with no errors. T.J.’s lips curved into a self-satisfied smirk as she tapped out a progress update email to her boss, then closed her laptop and shoved it into her messenger bag. She slung the bag over her shoulder and made her way to the elevator, pressing the close door button rapidly out of habit to prevent anyone else from getting on behind her. She hated crowded elevators, and her anxiety about being trapped in small metal and glass boxes suspended by a few cables and surrounded by people she couldn’t escape only seemed to make the damn things go haywire anytime she stepped foot on one.
She could take the stairs—in fact, she told herself she would every single day. It never happened; T.J. knew herself well enough to know it never would. She wasn’t out of shape; she usually walked the twenty-five blocks between her office and her apartment, and it had nothing to do with the fact that the subway seemed to like her about as much as elevators did. Like everything else in her life since the accident, T.J. knew without knowing that electronics fritzing out whenever she was frightened or angry—or feeling any emotion, really—wasn’t coincidental. She did her best to control it—she’d even taken up hot yoga and meditation three times a week to keep her emotions on an even keel after what her best friend had deemed the Great Subway Freakout of 2009, but it didn’t always work.
T.J. unlocked the deadbolt and dropped her keys in the bowl as she shut the door behind her. She carefully flipped through the stack of mail she’d only barely remembered to collect from the mailbox downstairs—God knew Abby never did—separating the household bills and junk from hers and Abby’s mail. Her throat tightened, and the hallway light flickered above her head when she saw the Stark Industries logo on the thick white envelope addressed to her. Her pulse flitted wildly at her throat as she stared at it, almost dropping the rest of the mail in the middle of the hallway.
Two years before, on the day she’d graduated from MIT, T.J. applied for a position programming security protocols on some new top secret patent pending project that emerged from the eccentric genius that was Tony Stark, but she’d never gotten a response. Abby had helpfully pointed out that it probably had to do with the number of times that unmarked black SUVs showed up outside their apartment building because T.J. liked poking government agencies that she was better off not knowing existed. She might’ve been a good girl, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have a dark side after all. After wallowing in misery for a few weeks, she agreed that Abby was probably right in her assumptions and moved on.
T.J. dropped her messenger bag on the end of the U-shaped couch, staring at the envelope as though it might bite her as she set it down on the counter. She dropped Abby’s mail in her tray on the end of the bar, along with the rest of her mail she didn’t care to deal with right then. The bills she stuck to the refrigerator with one of the many geeky magnets she and Abby had collected since becoming roommates at MIT eight years before. She snorted at the irony of randomly choosing the one that said, well, well, well, if it isn’t the consequences of my actions.
“Cys, lockdown protocols,” T.J. muttered, more out of habit than actual thought on her part. “No disruptions except for Abbs.”
“Right away, Lady Tempest,” the pleasant A.I. responded in a cheeky British accent. The deadbolt clicked into place behind her, and the wall of windows overlooking their penthouse view of Central Park darkened to one-way glass. Video monitors flicked on in every room of the massive open-concept living space, showing coverage from the array of cameras T.J. had installed in all the public areas of the building.
She’d tried to keep her gift hidden from the world, but she wasn’t naive enough to believe that no one anywhere knew about her. Abby was one of T.J.’s best friends and the closest thing she had to a sister, so the moment she’d learned the truth about her college roommate was when T.J. became hellbent on protecting her from anyone who might hurt her for it. Through trial and error and a bit of T.J.’s spark—pun 100% intended—the fledgling A.I. was born. CYSBIB, or Cys for short, was a cheeky acronym based on a line from one of Abby’s favorite—albeit extremely short-lived—T.V. shows.
With a sigh, T.J. picked up the letter and carried it from the bar to the massive U-shaped couch that was so modern looking it might have been cut from cardboard for as comfortable as it looked. Its looks were deceiving as always, thanks to Abby. After eight years, T.J. should have learned to trust her best friend's design skills. Abby hadn’t been named the best and brightest new architect and interior designer in Manhattan for the last three years just because she was jaw-droppingly gorgeous.
T.J. flopped onto the couch, dropping the unopened letter onto the large square glass coffee table. She kicked off her heels and put her feet on the coffee table, wiggling her sore feet. She might’ve given her left arm for a foot massage after today, but she didn’t dwell on that too much. If anything, she was used to being alone now, and at times she preferred it.
While she knew that finding her soulmates would be inevitable, she no longer believed in idyllic happily ever after fairy tales of picket fences and backyard barbecues. Her grandmother would be so disappointed if she could see her now, but how was T.J. supposed to believe any of that? Her soulmates were probably terrible people, and she could burn a man to ash with a touch of her hand if she wanted to. Well—she thought she could, anyway. She’d never really felt the need to test that particular theory, and she hoped like hell she never would. Besides, there was always the genuine possibility that her soulmates would reject her because she had more than one, or for any other number of reasons. It was childish to think that they’d instantly fall in love the moment they met, and T.J. hadn’t been a child since the accident.
“Shall I cancel your seven pm coffee date, Lady Tempest?” Cys said, jolting T.J. out of her thoughts. Shit, she’d already forgotten all about that—again. T.J. sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose below the rectangular tortoiseshell frame glasses, trying to stave off the headache brewing behind her eyes. She sighed heavily and was about to say yes when the thought of Abby’s disappointed frown stopped her.
“No, Cys,” T.J. said defeatedly. “I said I’d go, and I will. Not that it matters much.” She leaned back against the couch and stared at the ceiling as though looking for the A.I. “How much time do I have to get ready?”
“Less than twenty minutes if you wish to only be ten minutes late,” Cys replied helpfully. T.J. groaned, shoving herself off the couch and scooping up her shoes as she shuffled toward her bedroom, leaving the letter unopened where it had landed on the coffee table. “Would it be helpful to know that Lady Abigail picked out something for you to wear before she left for her dinner meeting?”
T.J. rolled her eyes. “Depends on what her idea of an acceptable outfit is.”
“On your bed, madam,” Cys said as T.J. pushed open her bedroom door. She glanced around the lived-in room. Her oversized king canopy bed stood in the middle of the room like a beacon, the super soft gray Sherpa blanket laying smoothly across it in a way that T.J. was one hundred percent sure she did not leave it in her rush to get out the door that morning. Her floor was tidied too, she noticed a moment later, and the clothes that had once called the floor home were now neatly placed in the laundry basket next to the door and ready for the weekly housekeeping service.
T.J. took a deep breath and let the soft blue-gray walls and smoky hardwood floors calm and center her. It wasn’t that she was a slob exactly, just that she seemed to be perpetually late to everything and didn’t much care that her bed wasn’t made or that she left her clothes wherever they happened to fall off. Abby, on the other hand...
T.J. put the thought out of her mind and turned her attention to the outfit Abby left on the bed after she’d no doubt straightened the mess of covers. A small smile curved T.J.’s lips at the sight, and she had to begrudgingly accept that Abby knew her better than she knew herself at times.
“It’ll do, Cys,” T.J. said, tugging at the zipper of her dress and stepping out of it when it hit the floor. She thought about leaving it, but at the last second, she picked it up and tossed it into the basket.
“Lady Abigail will be so disappointed to have missed the moment hell froze over,” Cys quipped. T.J. scowled as she shimmied into a pair of black high-waisted skinny jeans with shredded knees that fit her ample hips like a glove.
“Shut it, smartass, or I’ll reprogram you into a porn bot.” T.J. nodded firmly at the A.I.’s silence as she tugged on a cropped, soft pink off-the-shoulder wrap sweater over a solid black cami. She completed the ensemble with a pair of wedge sneakers that cost more than T.J.’s first car—a gift from Abby, of course. She pulled her honey-colored hair into a messy ponytail, double-checked her makeup, and then grabbed a clutch that was only large enough for her phone, keys, and some cash or credit cards. “Time?” she asked as she slipped on the smartwatch that allowed her to continue her conversation with the A.I.
“Five minutes to spare,” Cys replied. “If you walk fast, you may only be seven minutes late.”
“Thanks for the pep-talk, Cys,” T.J. muttered as she flipped the deadbolt and rushed out the door. She cringed as it slammed behind her, pausing to listen for the tell-tale click of the Cys turning the lock. Nerves settled in T.J.’s stomach as she put in her headphones and approached the elevator at the opposite end of the hallway, but she quickly steadied her breathing. She’d taken all the precautions she could in this building, and the elevator was relatively immune to T.J.’s quirks—if she didn’t completely freak out. “Where am I going anyway?”
“Six blocks south,” Cys said in her ear. “A corner coffee shop called The Brews Brothers. Your date will be wearing a red, white and blue scarf.”
T.J. snorted and rolled her eyes. “So, a patriotic hipster? Great—that's all I need.”
“It would seem so, Lady Tempest,” Cys replied with a note of humor.
T.J. practically ran the six blocks to the coffee shop and arrived only five minutes late for her date. Suck it, Cys! she thought petulantly as she entered the building and scanned the patrons inside. She found her date sitting alone at a corner high-top table, a cocky half-smirk on his lips as she approached. T.J. groaned internally and painted on her best forced enthusiastic smile—a holdover from her high school drill team days—then introduced herself.
“The next time you take it upon yourself to fix me up on a date—just don't.” T.J.’s voice rang across the penthouse as she slammed the door behind her and dropped her clutch on the nearby table. Abby watched her with a half-amused and half-exasperated smile as T.J. walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of Bombay and two glasses from the bar before crossing the open space and flopping down on the couch next to Abby. “Seriously, Abbs, I’m begging you. I’m not interested in dating anyone—ever. Not after tonight.” T.J. poured two fingers of liquor into one of the glasses and handed it to Abby, then did the same for her glass before downing it in a few swallows and immediately refilling it. She set the bottle on the coffee table next to the unopened letter, trying to ignore that too.
“It couldn’t have been that bad, Teej,” Abby laughed as she sipped from the glass. “It was just coffee.”
T.J. snorted and shook her head. “He ordered my coffee for me, Abbs!” she sputtered. “Didn’t even ask what I wanted, just assumed it was some unicorn farty basic white girl drink. Then—get this—he informs me that if I wanted to date him, I would have to lose weight because he’s not attracted to fat women—but I have a pretty face, so if I commit to the gym five days a week, he’ll consider dating me.” The asshole played on her insecurities hard with that one. Still, the truth was that no matter how much time T.J. spent in the gym, she would always have a figure closer to Jessica Rabbit than Victoria’s Secret Angel, and most of the time, she was more than happy with that.
“Oh, my God!” Abby nearly choked on her gin, and her eyes went wide as saucers as she dabbed at her mouth with the back of her hand. “He did not!”
“He absofuckinlutely did,” T.J. said, holding up two fingers as she took another sip of her drink. “Scout’s honor. He’s lucky he didn’t end up with the unicorn fart coffee poured on his dick. Swear to God.”
“I’m sorry, Teej,” Abby said, looking genuinely remorseful. “I had no idea. I’ve worked with him several times, and he seemed nice.”
“It’s not your fault, Abbs,” T.J. sighed and shook her head, “but if that’s what constitutes a nice guy in this city, then I’m much more afraid to meet my soulmates.” She glanced down to find she was absently tracing the script on her left wrist again. “Maybe it’s not a bad thing that we haven’t met.”
“Don’t say that.” Abby’s mouth turned down sadly. “You have no idea how special you are. Only half the population on the planet even has one soulmate, but you ended up with two. Do you know how rare that is?” She shook her head. “It’s, like, less than one percent. And don’t get me started on how literal sparks will fly when you meet them.”
T.J. scoffed but chose to take a long sip from her glass instead of answering. The two best friends sat in companionable silence for a while, watching the flickering electric fireplace before them. “So,” Abby said finally, unable to contain her curiosity about the unopened envelope on the table, “you gonna tell me why there’s an unopened letter addressed to you from Stark Industries on our coffee table?”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” T.J. said flatly, her eyes darting to the offending item sitting stark against the smoky glass surface. “Not even sure I’m going to open it.”
“Why not?” Abby said with a bewildered frown.
“Because it can’t be anything good,” T.J. said, rolling her eyes so hard she was pretty sure she caught a glimpse of her ass. “It’s probably just a ‘sorry you suck’ form rejection letter, and I’ve already moved on. No need to wallow again.” She shook her head. "Besides, why would they send a letter? Why not an email or a phone call? They’re a tech conglomerate for chrissake—a letter is like stone age tech to them.”
“Right—because you’re so great about checking your email.” Abby arched an eyebrow as T.J. glared, refusing to admit she was absolutely right. Email was quite possibly the worst time suck in the history of time sucks, ranking right under social media—which T.J. also avoided like the plague it was.
Abby pursed her lips and tried another tactic. “Well—the only way you’ll learn the answer to that question is if you open said letter.” Her tone held far more patience than T.J. could ever hope to have. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
T.J. glared at her. “Don’t you know you’re never supposed to ask that?” Abby waved a hand dismissively and reached for the envelope.
“Well, even if you don’t want to know—I do,” she stated. “I’m opening it.”
“Please don’t. It doesn’t matter.” T.J. whined, half-heartedly reaching for the envelope that Abby held out of reach.
“Your opinion on the matter is acknowledged, but since it’s a stupid-ass opinion, I’m ignoring it.” Abby stuck out her tongue and stood up, letting T.J. fall face first into the cushions where she stayed as Abby neatly tore open the letter and quickly scanned the contents.
Several seconds of silence passed so loudly that T.J.’s ears started to buzz like a mosquito stuck inside her head. She didn’t dare raise her head, not wanting to see whatever expression was most certainly plastered across her best friend’s face.
“Holy flying shitballs, Teej,” Abby murmured, the astonishment in her voice too much for T.J. to ignore. She lifted her head and narrowed her eyes at Abby, trying to figure out if that was a ‘holy flying shitballs, this is awesome’ or a ‘holy flying shitballs, life as we know it is over.’ She couldn’t tell. “This is a contract. They’re offering you a job as Tony Stark’s personal R&D manager.”
So—option two, then.
“Wait—what? Without an interview?” T.J. made a face and sat up. “Why? There's no way this isn’t some elaborate prank.”
“Says the woman who graduated summa cum laude from MIT with not one, but three Phds.—at age twenty-two,” Abby snorted, rolling her eyes just as hard as T.J. had a few minutes before. “Seriously? Why the hell wouldn’t they want you?”
“Because they sure as hell didn’t want me two years ago!” The lights in the penthouse dimmed and flared, and Abby gave T.J. a soft look before returning to the letter she held. It was enough for T.J. to reign in her emotions, returning the lights to normal.
“Stark Industries didn’t want you because you were overqualified for the position you applied for,” Abby said as she continued to skim the letter. “Tony Stark, on the other hand, thinks you’re a damn genius—well, Pepper Potts does, anyway.” She held out the single sheet letter between her index and middle finger as she continued to skim the first page of the contract in her other hand. When T.J. didn’t move to take it, she wiggled it impatiently. “Go on, read it yourself.”
“I don’t want to.” T.J. shook her head stubbornly. “It’s a mistake. It must be.”
“Just read it!” Abby snapped, finally reaching the bottom of the seemingly endless well of patience she had when it came to dealing with T.J.’s quirks. T.J. snapped to attention at Abby’s tone, then reached out and took the page with a trembling hand. The words swam on the page behind the wall of water in her eyes, and T.J. had to read it three times just to be sure.
“This is fake,” T.J. announced as she sniffed back the tears and dropped the letter back onto the table. Ignoring Abby’s sputtering arguments, she squared her shoulders, climbed the stairs to her home office, and softly closed the door behind her, leaving all the lights and various electronic gadgets strobing in her wake. The more she tried to keep her thoughts from spiraling, the more they did precisely that.
“...Mr. Stark read your dissertation titled Transcranial Electrical Neuromodulation Based on the Reciprocity Principle... your findings are wholly unique... he is extremely interested in discussing the topic further... our efforts to reach you by phone and email were to no avail... would like to offer you a position as his personal R & D manager... enclosed is a preliminary contract discussing responsibilities and wages... I’ve scheduled a meeting... Please review the contract and be prepared to discuss any changes at that time...”
T.J. spun in her office chair, spotting a point on the ceiling directly above her to avoid dizziness. There was no way this could be real. Tony Stark wanted her to work for him?
More to the point—he was goddamn Iron Man! His life was chaos incarnate since he’d announced that tidbit of information only a few short months before. Even if this wasn’t the worst prank in the history of pranks—was she really cut out to manage a multi-billion-dollar R&D lab?
No—no, she was not.
T.J. was still slowly turning in circles and forcing herself to keep breathing when Abby knocked softly on the door and poked her head inside. “Teej, you’re my best friend, and I love you with all my heart, but you gotta calm the hell down—every lightbulb downstairs just exploded. You keep this up, and the neighbors will call the power company and complain.”
“Shiitt. This is why I didn’t open the damn envelope,” T.J. muttered, closing her eyes and running a hand down her face as she tried to slow her breathing along with her thoughts. “I’m sorry, Abbs. I’ll fix the lights in a little while.”
“Well, at least if you take the job, you’ll never have to worry about affording light bulbs again,” Abby quipped as she held up the contract. “I’ve never seen so many zeros in my life—and that’s saying a lot given what I do.”
“All the more reason to call bullshit,” T.J. muttered, shaking her head and refusing to look at Abby.
“How is it that a woman with three Phds. can't figure out the obvious answer to this problem?” Abby rolled her eyes and slapped the thick contract across T.J.’s keyboard, waking her ultramodern computer setup. T.J. frowned at her, and Abby groaned, gesturing toward the computer. “You literally have access to all the information you could ever want—and you can’t figure out if this is legit or not? Why don’t you do your keyboard magic and check his schedule—if the meeting is on it, you’re golden, genius.”
“You want me to hack into Tony Stark’s fuckin’ personal schedule? Seriously?” T.J. arched an eyebrow incredulously. “Do you have any idea what kind of encryption that man uses? His security puts the NSA to shame!”
“Oh, come on—don’t tell me you’re not up to the challenge.” Abby narrowed her eyes at her longtime friend and knew the instant she took the bait. “It took you—what—an hour to crack open NSA’s supposedly unhackable server?”
“That's because I am an untouchable badass,” T.J. said, planting her foot to stop the chair from moving as she began typing furiously, still oblivious to what Abby had done.
“That’s what I thought,” Abby muttered. “You want Chinese or pizza for midnight hacking fuel?”
“Chinese,” T.J. muttered, only half listening and not taking her eyes off the half dozen computer monitors in front of her.
“Coming right up.” Abby flashed a satisfied grin and left the room.
Tony was hunched over his workbench and fiddling with his newest idea for the suit when Jarvis spoke, startling him half out of his mind. “What? What time is it?”
“It’s a few minutes after two, sir,” Jarvis said patiently.
“Shit, I missed lunch with Pepper again?” Tony whined, letting his head fall back and closing his eyes.
“It’s two in the morning, sir.”
“Oh, well—in that case, what were you saying?” Tony said, settling back into what he was doing now that the imminent threat of death or dismemberment by his assistant turned CEO turned girlfriend had passed.
“I believe my security protocols have been triggered, sir,” Jarvis replied.
Tony frowned, spinning his chair to pull up a holographic image of the thousands of lines of code that made up Jarvis’ A.I. “What do you mean, you believe it’s been triggered?” he demanded, on high alert as he quickly scanned the lines flowing up the screen. “Either it has, or it hasn’t.”
“I’ve done a normal and a deep scan and have found nothing out of place or changed, but something still seems—off about the results, sir.”
“Eat some bad Chinese food?” Tony quipped, staring at the scan reports. “Happens to the best of us, you know.”
“Sir, I highly doubt Chinese food is the culprit unless you spilled something somewhere you shouldn’t have,” Jarvis replied.
“Not me—DUM-E, what did I tell you about eating Chinese food near the computer?” Tony turned to mock scold the robot arm, who in turn shuffled away. He sighed, flicking the lines of code away. “Just keep on alert and let me know if anything seems off, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
An hour later, Jarvis interrupted Tony’s train of thought again. “Sir, my protocols were definitely triggered, although nothing looks out of place in my code.”
“Then how do you know?” Tony said, sounding more exasperated than usual.
“Because they left you a message, sir.”
“Wait—what?” Tony’s head snapped around to stare at the screen. “Pull it up.”
Unknown IP: Hello, Mr. Stark…
Tony let out a strangled noise in his throat and grabbed the keyboard to answer. “Jarvis, track that IP.”
“Already on it, sir. Whoever is on the other end of that transmission has masked themselves extremely well. The signal is pinging all over the world.
Tony: You hacked my Jarvis…how did you hack my Jarvis without leaving a trace?
Unknown IP: You say that like it’s hard…
Tony sputtered and stared at the screen incredulously. Of course, it was hard—he’d designed it to be damn near impossible to hack. Now someone had broken in and was taunting him—but who? And more importantly, why?”
Tony: What do you want? Money?
Unknown IP: No…I just needed a peek at your schedule…
Tony: Why?
Unknown IP: Wanted to make sure someone wasn’t playing a practical joke on me…that’s all.
Tony: Find what you were looking for?
Unknown IP: Yes… talk to you soon, Mr. Stark.
The chat window disappeared, and Tony owl-blinked at the screen. “Jarvis?”
“I was unable to discover the hacker’s location, sir—they were too well hidden,” Jarvis replied, sounding regretful.
Tony forgot all about the suit upgrade and spent the next several hours going through Jarvis’ code line by line to find the crack the hacker slipped through.
T.J. leaned back in her chair, one foot tucked underneath her butt as she toed the floor with her other, moving the chair from side to side. A self-satisfied grin marked her features as she shoved another chopstick bite of long-cold pineapple fried rice into her mouth. It was almost four in the morning, and she had to be up for work in two hours, but she’d found what she went looking for.
She had an appointment with an eccentric billionaire and his CEO girlfriend in two days. It had been there in unmistakable bold lettering. 3pm - Interview with Dr. Tempest Archer – Pepper’s office, SI HQ High Priority
“Well, son of a bitch,” T.J. muttered, unable to keep the grin off her face as she traded the pineapple fried rice for bites of cold beef with spicy garlic sauce and started to read the contract.
Abby walked into T.J.’s office a few minutes later to find her frozen, eyes locked on the proposed salary with a full bite balanced in the grip of her chopsticks that were currently hovering halfway between the container and her mouth.
“I told you it was a lot of zeros,” she said with a knowing smirk.
That seemed to snap T.J. out of her daze, and she quickly shoved the bite in her mouth and chewed slowly, doing mental calculations. “That’s over ten times my current salary—it’s way too much.” She shook her head, still dumbfounded.
“To be on the literal bleeding edge of new technology, are you kidding?” Abby said incredulously. “You should jump on that! Where the hell else are you ever going to work in a privately funded lab without bureaucratic oversight or having to beg stuffed shirted, swaggering peacocks to open their tight fists and fund your ludicrously expensive but ultimately world-changing research?”
T.J. pursed her lips and reached for the pineapple fried rice again. She took a quick bite, then pointed the end of the chopsticks in Abby’s direction. “You have an excellent point there.”
“The first question is—did you find out whether it’s legit?” Abby asked as she crossed the room to sit in the leather armchair near T.J.’s desk. She was the only one that used the chair, and only when she wanted needed to bounce ideas off something other than the walls—well, the illusion of something anyway. Once T.J. was in the zone of one of her projects, she didn’t hear or see ninety-five percent of what happened around her and barely noticed when Abby put food or coffee in front of her. Abby grabbed the second set of chopsticks and took a bite of the spicy garlic beef, the feeling of déjà vu nearly overwhelming her. How many nights had they sat like this in their dorm, eating Chinese food and quizzing each other for midterms or finals about subjects the other could barely grasp?
Abby missed those days more than she cared to admit.
“It is—I got in,” T.J. said with a cheeky grin. “I even talked to the man himself. He’s understandably miffed that I hacked his AI and didn’t leave any breadcrumbs, but a girl’s gotta have her secrets.”
“So, did he tell you himself?”
“No, of course not,” T.J. rolled her eyes. “I couldn’t ask him outright; he’d know it was me. I just told him all I wanted was to look at his schedule, and I found what I was looking for then I got the hell out of cyber-Dodge. Easy-peasy lemon squeezy.”
“And he won’t be able to trace it back to you?”
T.J. leveled a flat stare at her best friend. “Woman, are you new here? My hacks are untraceable. He and his AI buddy will be chasing their tails for the next decade trying to figure out that puzzle.”
“If they’re untraceable, why’d the no such agency show up at our building six times last year alone?” Abby said, arching an eyebrow as she took another bite and studied the inside of the container.
“Because they’re government dicks who think they’re smarter than they actually are, which is why they found nothing to link me to wherever they illegally obtained their data.” T.J. rolled her eyes and picked up her phone, quickly firing off an out-of-office email. “There, now I can spend the day catching up on the sleep I missed.”
“No,” Abby said, standing up and tossing the empty takeout container in the trash, “now we spend the day shopping for the perfect interview outfit and get fresh mani/pedi’s. You want to look your best for the meeting tomorrow.”
“Well, I’m not going to look my best if I’m running on zero sleep, am I?” T.J. retorted, rolling her eyes as she tossed her container in the trash too. “C’mon Abbs,” she whined as Abby took her hands and pulled her to her feet. “I have plenty of interview clothes, and I need sleeeeppp.”
“You don’t have clothes worthy of landing a job with a seven-figure salary, Teej—and I don’t give a damn what you say. I know you want this so bad you can practically taste it.” Abby swung their clasped hands between them. “Come onn, it’s been so long since we’ve had free time at the same time. Let’s make it a day. Please?”
“Fine,” T.J. grumbled with a soft sigh, “but I need at least three hours of sleep and a quadruple espresso light roast with a double shot of mocha and whipped cream.”
“Ask, and you shall receive, my sweet,” Abby said with a thousand-watt grin. “You have exactly three hours, and I will wake you up with your caffeine jolt to the heart.”
“Thanks, Abbs.”
True to her word, Abby woke T.J. three hours later with a piping hot brew to kickstart her brain. Stifling a yawn, T.J. quickly dressed and did her minimal makeup—winged eyeliner and bright red lipstick on her plump lips, then completed the look with a cute messy bun. If Abby wanted polished T.J., that would require at least four more hours of sleep.
“So where are we going?” T.J. asked nervously as they left their building and headed for the subway. She had a feeling she knew what Abby was up to, but she hoped to keep it low-key. Of course, she wouldn't get that wish.
They spent the day at The Westview shopping mall, with T.J. modeling outfit after outfit for Abby’s scrutiny. Finding a middle ground between a corporate drone and a basement-dwelling hacker was harder than Abby expected, but they somehow finally found a look that T.J. affectionately referred to as “hacker couture.”
By the time they got to the nail salon, T.J. practically had a completely new wardrobe, and she was almost certain she’d have to mortgage her firstborn child’s soul to the nearest cosmic entity to pay for it. Sure, she pretty much had this job on lock—at least until Stark figured out that she was the one who hacked his A.I., but she put that thought out of her mind as she picked her standard polish color—black.
“You can’t wear black fingernail polish to an interview like this, Teej,” Abby whined. “You have to ease them into the fact that you are a black-hearted emo goth girl who hisses violently at sunlight.”
T.J. flipped her off and stuck out her tongue, then set the polish on the workstation where she’d been seated and politely asked for a French manicure with black tips. She didn’t see the little smirk that twisted Abby’s mouth when she assumed that she’d won that argument, but it didn’t matter. T.J. was planning that look no matter what Abby said, simply because it was her favorite.
Once her manicure was done, T.J. took the time to reread the preliminary contract. Nothing jumped out at her as completely unacceptable except maybe the nearly ironclad NDA she’d have to spend the next year of her life signing just to tour the lab. Although she supposed it could be worse—it could be a non-compete agreement.
“What’s on your mind?” Abby asked after T.J. had made a humming noise for the fifth time. “Take it from someone whose job is forty percent negotiating contracts and work scope—Stark is being overly generous with what he’s offering. I’d take it as is and renegotiate when it’s time to renew it.”
“I can see that,” T.J. said quietly. “But how generous is he going to feel like being once he finds out it was me who hacked his A.I.? Or worse—what happens when he figures out that all his little techy doodads only fritz out when I’m near them?”
“The man is a genius and a billionaire—if anyone can figure out a way to help you control that quirk of yours—it would be him. So maybe learning your little secret wouldn’t be the end of the world. If he can’t, maybe he’ll just buy you a lightbulb factory instead.” Abby shrugged. “Just something to think about.”
“Suppose so,” T.J. said noncommittally. “I just don’t want my life to become a public spectacle like his.”
“Well, that’s avoided easily enough—just stay out of his bed,” Abby laughed.
“Done and done,” T.J. chuckled, but the words rang with more certainty than she ever had about anything.
Getting home on the subway was a disaster. It was crowded, and T.J.’s mind was flying a hundred miles a minute. Her anxiety got the better of her around Fifth Avenue and almost shut down the entire line. She opted to take a cab the rest of the way home, and she spent the rest of the evening changing light bulbs and making room for her new wardrobe in her closet.
Morning came far too fast for T.J.’s liking, and she would’ve sworn on a stack of Bibles that she only got five minutes of sleep the whole night so she stayed in bed until after eleven, then protested loudly when Cys finally urged her out of bed. She finally moved to the shower, only to doze under the stream until the hot water ran out and it drenched her with frosty mountain runoff. “Well shit, I’m awake now,” she yelped, then quickly got out and wrapped herself in a fluffy towel.
Abby entered the bedroom on silent cat feet as T.J. was doing her hair and makeup, deposited a fresh cup of steaming coffee with good luck scrawled on the side, then left just as quickly. It was for the best, anyway. If T.J. uttered a word, every lightbulb in a six-block radius might shatter. How the hell was she supposed to get through this interview?
Abby was right—she wanted this to be real more than she’d wanted anything in a long time. She closed her eyes and tried to center her thoughts, to stay calm, but the thrum of electricity just beneath her skin felt like fire, and she thought she might implode. Just let me get through this meeting, and I’ll drive upstate for the weekend and blow off some energy, she begged any god that would listen.
T.J. felt marginally better after sending off her prayer but still a little too much like a livewire about to snap. She’d take what she could get, though. After three outfit changes, she settled on a navy blue boat-neck pencil dress that hugged her curves in all the right places and nude Louboutin stilettos—at Abby’s insistence. The shoes alone cost more than most people made in a week, but Abby had a great paying job, was single, and had one vice—expensive shoes. Lucky T.J.
If you walk into that meeting dressed like you don’t need Stark’s money, by the end, they’ll be begging you to take it—trust me, she’d said as she shoved the heels into T.J.’s hands and spun her toward the dressing room. Plus, they’ll make your ass look amazing. Just in case you happen to meet one of your ‘mates, of course. T.J. had rolled her eyes at that but eventually relented and bought the damn shoes.
“Alright, Abbs—I’m taking your word for it,” T.J. muttered as she put on her grandmother’s pearl drop earrings and gave herself a final once over in the three-way floor-length mirror. “We’ve come a long way from a corn farm in nowhere Nebraska, haven’t we, kid?” she said to her reflection. She turned and grabbed her new—and also ridiculously expensive—leather messenger bag. She’d put copies of her work portfolio as well as the abstracts for most of her master’s and doctorate research papers. If Tony Stark was that impressed by her dissertation paper, he might want to know how she arrived at her conclusions, right?
With one final breath and a note of encouragement from Abby and Cys, T.J. took one last deep breath and went downstairs to meet the cab. After the previous night’s subway fun, she wasn’t about to risk it again for a while—especially not when she knew she was heading for Stark Tower and an elevator that wasn’t mostly T.J. proof. Nor would it be empty.
Just breathe—one thing at a time.
T.J. closed her eyes and ignored the sounds of the city as the cab maneuvered through traffic, arriving at their destination ahead of schedule. She checked her watch as she closed the cab door and grinned to herself. This might be the first time in history that Tempest Archer was on time. She let the thought carry her through the front door and the security checkpoint. Her nerves started to creep back in as she stood at the reception desk to receive her visitor’s pass, but she chose to focus on the building’s design instead. Abby would want details about everything.
T.J. clipped the visitor pass onto the collar of her dress and made her way to the elevator. She had to ride up seventy-eight floors in that tiny glass and metal box tube with god only knowing how many other people. Her knees wobbled slightly at the thought, but she easily righted herself before she tripped and royally embarrassed herself. The soulmark on her left wrist itched again, but she wasn’t going to remove the matched set of cuff bracelets to touch it. Maybe the itch would keep her mind off the claustrophobia that blanketed her as she stepped into the elevator with four other people and quickly pushed the button for the 78th floor, ignoring the curious stares from the other people who seemed to be stopping on floor 56 through 66.
The elevator moved faster than any other she’d ever ridden in, and within a few minutes, it was empty except for her. It also didn’t seem to react the way normal elevators did, but before T.J. could truly contemplate why, the robot voice announced they’d reached her floor. She stepped out into a lavishly decorated lobby with sleek modern décor that bordered on clinically sterile if it weren’t for the rich mahogany accents and soft gray carpeting. A reception desk sat directly across from the elevator, and a pretty brunette receptionist smiled at her.
“Good afternoon,” she said with a plastic smile and saccharine customer service voice. “How can I help you?”
T.J. returned her plastic smile with a real one as she approached the desk and held out her visitor’s pass like the man in the lobby had instructed. “Good afternoon, I am Dr. Tempest Archer. I have a meeting with Ms. Potts and Mr. Stark this afternoon.”
The receptionist glanced at the badge and quickly entered T.J.’s information into her computer before handing the badge back. “Have a seat, and I’ll let Ms. Potts know you’re here. Mr. Stark will be joining you in the conference room in about fifteen minutes.”
T.J. nodded and did as she was instructed, crossing her legs at the knee and trying not to pick at the hem of her dress. Her heart felt like a jackhammer battering the inside of her ribcage, but she forced herself to breathe and keep an outwardly calm façade. Barely five minutes later, the receptionist beckoned T.J. to follow, leading her to the conference room adjacent to Pepper’s office. She was already waiting, and she stood up as the receptionist entered, holding the door open for T.J.
“Dr. Archer, it’s so nice to meet you in person,” Pepper said with a warm smile as she extended her hand. “Tony has been obsessed with your work for months now.”
“Thank you, Ms. Potts,” T.J. replied as she took Pepper’s hand to shake it. “I’m glad to be here.” She glanced around the room, admiring the wall of windows that overlooked Park Avenue. “This is a beautiful building.”
“Thank you,” Pepper replied, gesturing to a seat across from her at the table. T.J. relaxed slightly when she saw the tinge of pink coloring Pepper’s cheeks at the compliment. “Tony is running late, but he’ll be here shortly. Shall we get started?”
“Sure,” T.J. said, settling herself into a seat. Silence fell across the room as Pepper skimmed over the file in front of her, which T.J. assumed was all about her. Normally, she’d be inclined to babble on to fill the silence, but instead, she studied Pepper’s micro-expressions as she read.
“It says here you graduated summa cum laude from MIT two years ago with three Phds., is that correct?” she asked, her brow arched as she glanced over at T.J.
“Yes, ma’am. The first is in Brain and Cognitive Sciences, the second is in Computational Science and Engineering, and the third is in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.”
“That is impressive,” Pepper quipped with a smile. “No wonder Tony insisted on this meeting. He’s working on several personal projects that could use someone with your level of expertise. Do you mind telling me a little more about what you’re doing now?”
T.J. thought for a moment, then explained her current role in the startup tech company where she currently worked. Sure, she was a glorified code monkey, but the pay was phenomenal for a startup company, and it was gaining traction quickly. “My dream has always been to help shape the world—to leave my mark in some small way, like an architect having a cornerstone on a building.”
“Well, Stark Industries certainly has the resources to help you achieve that dream,” Pepper said, her smile widening. “Did you get a chance to look over the contract we sent over?”
“Yes, I did.” T.J. reached inside her bag and retrieved her copy, turning to the pages she’d flagged first. “I only had a couple of questions.”
“Sure, go ahead.”
T.J. and Pepper spend the next several minutes going over the fine print of the contract. It was mostly straightforward—T.J. agreed to a one-year employment term after which the contract could be renegotiated or renewed. She would be put in charge of all of Tony’s personal R&D projects, as well as some other duties that would be discussed further once her security clearance was pushed through. Tony walked in the door right as T.J. was about to sign a fresh copy of the contract.
Well, blowing into the room was more like it—the man certainly knew how to make an entrance.
“Dr. Archer, I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” he said, quickly shaking her hand and then stepping out of her personal space. He glanced between Pepper and the papers spread across the conference table. “I hope Pepper’s been making an excellent impression.”
“She’s the epitome of grace and poise, Mr. Stark,” T.J. said with a smile as Pepper blushed again.
“Tony—Dr. Archer was just about to sign the employment contract,” Pepper said with a loving smile. “Can you stay for a few minutes, or do you want to come back to give her a tour of your lab and workshop?”
“Sure, I’ll stay,” Tony said, gesturing toward the contract as he smirked at T.J. “You can talk and sign, right?”
T.J. chuckled softly. “I think I can handle that.”
“That’s what I like to hear, Sparky,” Tony replied, popping a blueberry into his mouth. T.J. frowned, then shook her head. She swore he didn’t have anything in his hands a few minutes ago. Pepper cleared her throat, and T.J. picked up her pen and started the lengthy onboarding process while simultaneously defending and debating the merits of her research and how it related to his current projects. At one point, he went quiet for so long that T.J. worried for a moment that she’d offended him. He watched with a piercing gaze as she signed the last pages of the contract and NDA, but he didn’t speak until Pepper had gathered all the paperwork and tapped it into a neat pile.
“Congratulations, Dr. Archer. We’re pleased to have you join the team,” Pepper said, extending her hand once more. T.J. stood and shook it, nodding her thanks. “Tony will give you a tour of his lab and workshop, then you’ll be free to go, and he’ll see you on Monday.”
Tony stood from his chair and practically strutted across the conference room to open the door for T.J. and Pepper. As T.J. passed, he shot her a cheeky grin. “Welcome to the circus, Sparky. Buckle up; it’s going to be one hell of a ride.”
T.J. returned his grin with a nervous smile, and somewhere at the far end of the hallway, a light bulb shattered.