"Hello, my name is Virginia Potts, but feel free to call me Pepper." A thin redhead shook the hands of both travelers while smiling enthusiastically. By the callouses on her fingers, Alex could tell that she spent the majority of her day working by phone or computer. A secretary then.

"Tony?" Jack questioned.

The secretary nodded, then continued, "I feel as if I already know you, Tony speaks of you all the time."

"Nothing bad, I hope."

Pepper shook her head. "No, though from Tony's descriptions I always imagined you as some sort of goddess to put up with him."

"Yeah, those were the days," Jack trailed off and seemed to be remembering a time long past. She recollected herself. "This is Alex, I've been watching him since he was seven." She tried to ruffle his hair, but he dodged at the last second, leaving her hand hanging. "He's practically family."

The secretary seemed to just notice their bags and motioned for the two to follow her. "The STARK tower, or Avengers tower as the public are calling it, was bought two years ago from a downsizing insurance company. Although Mr. Stark has other homes both in America and abroad, Tony seems to favor this one for any long term stays he has in New York. Of its sixty floors, twenty are used by the management sector of STARK industries. The rest have been renovated into mainly guest rooms and labs. Residents of the tower include myself- when I'm in New York- Tony, and Dr. Bruce Banner who is a permanent resident when he isn't traveling."

"Who?" Jack asked, not recalling Tony mentioning another resident.

"You might know him better as the Hulk. It would be best if you don't annoy him, though he has become tolerant of Tony somehow."

Jack nodded in understanding, completely at ease with the fact that the man below could kill all three them easily if he became irritated. Alex shuddered.

"Tony doesn't like having cleaning personnel living in the tower. Instead, we have a contract with a local cleaning service that we trust to tidy up the tower once a week top to bottom, along with the well used areas like our lobby every morning and after large events. They have to show photo ID before they are let in."

Alex gave a nod in silent recognition of the man's apparent forethought. After all, the teen had lost count of all the occasions in which he had infiltrated an event or some business under the guise of being part of a cleaning crew.

They came to two rooms side by side along the hallway. "And these will be your rooms for the duration of your stay. Both are equipped with everything you should need, but if we forgot something just call out and JARVIS will take care of it."

"JARVIS?"

"That would be me," a mechanized voice intoned. Jack jumped several inches as Alex tensed.

"Sorry about that, JARVIS is Tony's A.I. system," Pepper explained patiently. "His butler, if you will."

The spy wondered why the accent was British of all things.

...

Already unpacked, Alex watched Jack unpack with mounting amusement as she tried to stuff her two extra large suitcases into a closet.

He stepped in to help her before the woman began swearing.

"Thanks, Alex." She smiled, though it fell into a grimace. After living with her for several years, he could tell when the American felt stressed. "So what do you think of Tony?"

The spy had to think for a moment before answering. "Chaotic." Alex tried to put the question that teased him incessantly into words. "Why am I just now hearing about him?"

"Yeah, that's Tony." She replied to his earlier statement with some amusement. "He was always a little whirlwind growing up. We were best friends once, but after he graduated from high school and got his acceptance letter to MIT we both had a shift in priorities." Jack flopped onto the luxurious bed, looking down at her ragged cuticles. Alex sat down beside her. "He was always on the cutting edge of things, diving off into new adventures. Me, I could barely use a toaster." She looked at him sadly. "I just couldn't keep up. So I moved to Britain and continued my schooling, taking a housekeeping position on the side. Never did I imagine that I would stay to take care of a little urchin like you," Jack smiled.

She was biting her nails, Alex observed. Jack only fell to the habit when she felt nervous. Rather ill at ease, the spy tried to look comforting. After working as an agent of MI6 for two years, Alex could instinctively feel when someone was lying. There was more to the story than what Jack told him. He did not push her, though. Experience had taught the teen that it was best to be patient and draw information out slowly than to spook the one he was interrogating.

…

Tony bounced into the state of the art lab singing, "Honey, I'm home!"

A brunette barely caught his test tube before taking three deep breaths. He slowly turned around. "Tony, don't do that. You could've ruined the experiment and I would've had to start all over."

"Aww. Come on, Brucie. What's life without a little adventure?"

Bruce grinned wryly, setting down the test tube and removing a latex glove. "Normal. I don't think you want the other guy to come out quite so soon after our last repairs." He glanced at a massive crack in the ceiling which was covered in plaster.

Tony pouted, but conceded his companion's point

"Don't antagonize Bruce, Tony," Pepper came up behind him, kissing the billionaire on the cheek. "I believe the repairmen are getting suspicious after having to come out here every week."

"They didn't come here last week," Tony pointed out childishly.

"That's because I haven't called them yet."

Bruce had the grace to look slightly sheepish. "Where are Natasha and Clint?"

Pepper opened her mouth, but Tony beat her to it. "The Spider and Legolas won't be in until next week. It's apparently 'classified.'" He said this with air quotations. As if Fury's lackeys could keep him out when he practically built all of their equipment. "I know they're chasing down leads in Italy, specifically near Venice at the moment. I sent Clint an email to pick up some olives for us."

Pepper rolled her eyes and changed the subject. "What should we do about your cousin?"

"You have a cousin?" Bruce couldn't keep the wonder and slight nervousness from leaking into his voice.

"Why do you sound so surprised?" Tony asked defensively.

Bruce and Pepper exchanged looks then shrugged. "They were never mentioned in the tabloids."

"You actually read that junk?" To prove his point, Tony had JARVIS pull up the cover of that day's most popular gossip column on one of the lab screens. Its title read, TANYA STARK, IS IRON MAN REALLY A WOMAN? A FORMER LOVER SPEAKS OUT.

"I think we might have noticed by now if you were a woman," Pepper spoke wryly

"Anyways," Tony changed the topic rather quickly. "Jack's side of the family was always careful to not get caught in the tabloids. I figured that I would take the two to see the sights. Alex has probably never been out of the country before and my precious Jack has been corrupted by those horrible Brits who drive on the wrong side of the road."

Bruce seemed faintly amused. "Should we take them to the wrestling match?"

"Nah," Tony waved it off. "Most girls don't like that sort of thing."

"Alex can stay home with Pepper."

Tony grinned. "No, you misinterpreted me. Jack is a woman and Alex is a sixteen-year-old boy."

There was a moment of awkward silence as Bruce digested that fact. "You seem oddly considerate of her." The unspoken 'Why?' hovered in the air like a nasty odor. Tony had rarely, if ever, considered another's feelings or preferences, often putting himself above them in terms of importance.

Tony sobered. "Jack practically raised me when I was a kid. She was the only one who actually had time for me." Bruce moved to protest, but Tony held up a hand. "Howard was too obsessed stalking the whereabouts of his precious Capsicle to care about his only son and Maria felt she had already done her duty of giving birth to an heir, leaving me with an army of nannies."

"If you two were so close, why is she living in Britain?"

"It's complicated," Tony mumbled. "Jack decided that she didn't want to hang out with her geeky cousin and I realized that I liked machines more than people. At least they wouldn't leave." The last part was whispered, but his companions heard it all the same.

All three fell silent.

"Shall we have pizza or burgers?"

Tony smiled at Pepper gratefully as Bruce decided the meal.

…

"So...tell me about yourself, Alex. You're sixteen, right?" It was surprisingly Dr. Banner who broke the carefully cultivated silence permeating from the dinner table that evening.

Alex grunted in affirmation while trying to finish the pizza slice.

"I remember when I was that age," Tony mused with a lecherous grin. "Those were good times."

Not about to subject the others to Tony's brand of weirdness, Bruce addressed Alex once more. "I wanted to become a chemist, but it wasn't until I was in college that I began gravitating towards radiation studies."

He ignored Tony's "Thank goodness."

"What about you? What do you want to do with your life? "

The spy felt Jack's fish eyed stare. "I don't know. I'll probably become a banker like my uncle-"

"Boring," Tony drawled. "You'll never find excitement in a job like that. I'll tell you what. I'll send you to college, any college, and when you're done you can come back and work for me. What do you say, kid?"

"Tony," Pepper chastised. "Maybe Alex wants to be a banker. Not everyone can handle the stress of saving the world."

Alex choked down a laugh, but disguised it as a cough when Bruce glanced at him. "No, I suppose many people couldn't cope with being forced to save the world."

Tony looked disgruntled. "Who said anything about being forced? Celebrities like me save innocent citizens all the time from living in a world with no beauty. I know this because we have a plaque somewhere in the tower. Show them Bruce."

The doctor rolled his eyes, stating, "That plaque was for saving the people of New York, not for appearing in a shampoo commercial."

"Hey. I think the aliens were more distracted by Thor's hair flipping than his actual fighting. I want to know what the big guy uses for conditioner."

"Admitting you're less than perfect, Tony?" Jack grinned.

His reply was quick. "No, I'm just telling you what I've been asked."

"I don't know," Pepper smiled. "You sounded a little jealous."

"I am not jealous," The inventor frowned petulantly.

…

It was later that evening when Alex came to his room to find Jack sitting on the bed. Her arms encircled her long legs. She had been waiting for him.

"Hey Jack," Alex wondered why she wasn't in her room and asleep already. Dark circles made their presence known under her eyes. Unlike him, she wasn't accustomed to the sleep deprivation that came with jet lag. "Are you okay?"

"I'm just peachy," The redhead muttered, clearly not "peachy."

The spy flopped onto the bed beside her. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

The teen resisted the urge to sigh, feeling sympathy for psychiatrists everywhere. It seemed it was time to bring out the big guns. He sat up, moving closer to her. "I'm not blind, Jack. I'll find out what's wrong one way or another."

His surrogate sister turned, but it was too late. Quick as a bee stings anyone who gets close to it's hive Alex poked Jack in the ribs causing her to squeal.

She glared at him, but the spy smiled innocently. Returning the smile, Jack lunged for his ribs. "Don't forget that I'm the one who taught you that trick," She called triumphantly while holding one of his feet when he fell off the bed. The redhead proceeded to tickle it mercilessly, reveling in Alex's forced giggles.

It might have gone on longer if Bruce Banner hadn't yanked open the door at that moment, revealing the two red faced guests. Tony Stark stood behind him, armed with a blowtorch. "Are you two alright? JARVIS told us there was screaming coming from this room."

Despite still heavily panting Jack managed to ask. "You were going to fight off whatever was attacking us in your pjs?"

Bruce reddened. Tony grinned, "Pepper tells me that I look good in anything. If they want Iron man then your attackers should come when my suit isn't being repaired. Instead they will get a not so jolly green giant who needs his beauty sleep." Tony clapped the other on the back. "We've done our duty and protected two helpless citizens. Let's turn in."

They walked off. Tony ignored Bruce's assertion that neither had been attacked.

Alex turned to Jack once the two left. "Are you going to tell me why you're upset or are we going to repeat this."

She mumbled something.

"What?"

"I don't want you to leave me."

Suddenly it clicked. A warm sensation uncurled in the spy's chest. "I don't want to leave you either." He hugged her.

"Then why are you going to follow your uncle?"

"I'm the best man for the job."

Jack smiled ruefully. "When did you turn into such a responsible young man. I hope your enemies don't learn of your weak spot or you'll be out of the business." She giggled slightly, "Maybe I should tell them."

The teen snorted. "As if they would believe you. What kind of spy's weakness is being tickled?"

The redhead laughed. "No James Bond character I've ever heard of."

He glared at her.

"I won't tell," She raised three fingers, "Scouts' honor."

"Didn't you tell me that you were kicked out of the scouts?" Alex's lips tilted upwards.

Jack pushed him. "That was all Tony's fault."

Alex leaned in. "What happened?"

Jack grinned and began weaving her tale. "I was supposed to present an idea for an invention and create a model for it. I left it at Tony's house the night before, thinking that I could pick it up in the morning. Man, was that a huge mistake…"