Here is the starter chapter for my new story entitled Supernova! This is the sequel to Seraphim, so if you haven't read that, you might get a little confused. I think you can read it on its own if you really want to, but you might be a little confused. Thanks to everyone who supported Seraphim and thank you to anyone who reads this story too. I hope it lives up to your expectations! Let me know what you think and if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

For the hundredth time in a row, Nova attempted the simulation for the thrusters she was trying to design, fingers flying over the keyboard as she input updated data from the new schematics she'd just finished designing. Technically, her specialty ran more towards biomechanics and advanced robotics, but Tony had personally requested that she work on a new thruster design for the Ironman suit. She'd reluctantly agreed after hours of Tony badgering her. Given his propensity for focusing on style instead of common sense, it was possible that he was downplaying the functionality of the suits without realizing it, which was why he called her in to consult so often. Nova had already found a few repairs he could make to increase his aerodynamics and blast radius. Sometimes, it payed to skip the spinning rims.

Nova's work would have been much more interesting if he would let her fashion him a rocket launcher or connect the suit to a neural interface that could be implanted directly into the wearer's brain. Too bad Tony wasn't interested in any of that. He was interested in increasing the thrusting power, which was practically child's play compared to the work she had been doing for SHIELD before the HYDRA attack. She could finish thrusters in her sleep if she had to, which was looking more and more probable the longer she stared at the project on the screens. Without a proper cooling system in place, it was a good trick not to overheat the wires. Technically not impossible but still annoying when he wouldn't let her have artistic license.

Sighing in annoyance at the current simulation results, Nova tugged on the end of her ponytail and grabbed a lollipop out of the bowl on the corner of her desk. The Dumdums were Tony's own private joke about her family, not that Nova actually minded. Tony was practically family when it came down to it and it was kind of funny, when she was feeling charitable. Ripping off the wrapper with no more than a cursory glance at what she was sticking in her mouth, she was pleasantly surprised when the flavor burst along her tongue. Bubble gum was her favorite.

Spinning her rolling chair in a lazy circle, Nova hummed along to her music as FRIDAY ran yet another simulation with a minute change in the wiring she was attempting to update. The loud music helped her think, blocking out all the other thoughts in her head and bringing forward the helpful ones. It was a habit she'd picked up from Tony when she was little and used to sneak into his lab.

A shadow shifted in the corner of her lab and Nova threw her feet out to halt her progress, her wide eyes landing on the form of a man when she focused a little, shoving her reading glasses up to the top of her head to stare at the man who had randomly appeared. Clicking her fingers together, the lights flared bright, throwing the entire lab into stark relief. Nova gaped at the man in the corner, her shock masked by the immediate opening of her mouth.

"You know, that's hella creepy," she informed the super assassin that was currently lurking in her corner. He'd even managed to drag a chair into the space without her noticing. Honestly, she wasn't sure how she hadn't noticed the elevator come down to her level. Usually FRIDAY made sure that it made some sort of noise to warn her. And it wasn't like it was completely inconspicuous when a section of her wall randomly opened up to allow someone into her lab.

He couldn't have been there very long, she'd spun around in her chair in the exact same way less than twenty minutes ago when she'd been trying to figure out a way to tell Tony that she hated the color scheme of his suits. Tony was all about flash and not stealth, which made doing her job a hell of a lot harder than it seemed. If he'd just listen to her, she could help him make his suits undetectable. Not that he would. One of his greatest joys in life was being seen by anyone and everyone.

"Most people announce themselves when they come into a room if the other occupants don't notice right away. I know you're not really from this time, but wasn't that common place back in the day? This is creepy, even for you. Evie told me to stop calling you that the last time I talked to her, but I don't see why I should when you continue to do shit like this," Nova clarified.

The assassin just stared at her blankly, his dark blue eyes as hard as granite. Whatever he was thinking, she probably didn't want to know. It wasn't her fault that her mouth literally never stopped working. And it wasn't like she wasn't nervous around him. Look at him. He was built like a tank and gorgeous to boot. How was she not supposed to be nervous around him? That was what made it all worse.

"I mean, if you need something, you can just ask. I promise I won't bite. I've never bitten anyone. At least, not anyone I didn't know very well. I might have bitten Evie once or twice but that was to prove a point, so it doesn't count. Oh, and I bit Tony once, but he deserved it, I swear. And I was, like, eight, so that doesn't count either," Nova winced as that came out of her mouth. She probably wasn't helping her own case and, technically, this guy could kill her without a thought. She was trained, but not well enough to defeat a ninety eight year old super assassin at his own game. He could probably even dispose of her body before anyone could figure out she was even dead. That wasn't really a comforting thought… "Anyway, was there something you needed or are you just watching me work?"

Because just watching her work wasn't creepy at all. It wasn't like Nova didn't know who the guy was. In fact, she owed him a thank you for helping Evie when she was captured- again- by HYDRA. If he hadn't been there, they might not have gotten Evie back. But it was hard to remember all the good things he'd done when all the bad were at the forefront of Nova's mind now that she was alone with him. After all, she hadn't been stuck in a room with him all by herself when they'd rescued Evie. In fact, they'd never been alone in a room together. Either way, she was extremely thankful he'd taken out all of those HYDRA jackasses who had tried to hurt her best friend.

"Stark," was all he replied. Which could have meant a lot of things, honestly. Tony wasn't exactly the greatest person, even Nova admitted that, and he could be looking for Tony to kill him. Nova had wanted to murder Tony a few times and she probably wouldn't blame the guy much if he acted on that impulse. Or he could just want to ask Tony a question. Or Tony could have sent him to her, which wouldn't make sense in the least. After all, Tony and this particular assassin weren't really that close. As in, Tony kind of hated him and thought that he'd murdered his parents. Frowning, Nova puzzled through what he could possibly want with Tony, cocking her head at him and ignoring the loose strands of her hair that were falling out of her bun, brushing along her collarbone.

"I'm really sorry, but Tony isn't here. In fact, he's not even in the building at the moment. He went to Malibu. Pepper broke up with him again after fighting about the Ironman suits and he's taking a few personal days to figure things out. I don't know how he got Pepper to date him in the first place because she's amazing and he's kind of a dick most of the time, but now they're officially broken up and he's really upset about it. The whole fight was something about him using company resources on one of his suits or something. I don't really know; I only eavesdropped on the first half of the conversation. Once it gets into relationship territory, I usually bail. Anyway, he's not going to come down here anytime soon. I don't know when he's planning to come back either. It's just me and FRIDAY," Nova blurted. On second thought, she probably shouldn't have mentioned that she was all alone to the homicidal Russian assassin, but it wasn't like she could take her words back now. She knew, she'd tried before. It had taken her a long time to get used to having to filter her words and, obviously, it still wasn't something she'd mastered.

The man, James or Bucky or the Winter Soldier, whoever he was today, scowled at the news that Tony was MIA. Nova didn't blame him in the least. Tony had a way of making plans and completely blowing them off. Nova wasn't sure Tony and James actually had plans, though. If they did, why did Tony send James to her lab? If he had planned on making the appointed meeting time, he would have sent the assassin to wait in his own lab. Unless he was planning on blowing off the appointment the entire time, at which point Nova was going to leave him a particularly nasty voicemail so that he knew she wasn't impressed with his behavior.

"I could try and help you, if that's alright. Technically, I have more degrees than Tony does anyway and I'm a hell of a lot nicer. Well, I like to think I am. I'm not really sure it's the truth because Tony is actually pretty generous and generally awesome once you get to know him. He's just a sarcastic son of a bitch. I just don't know when to shut up, which some people prefer. I guess it's all about preference in the end. But most people like me because I show up to appointments, so…" Nova clamped a hand over her mouth to get herself to stop talking when James turned to her with a dark glare, loose strands of dark hair falling into his eyes and making him seem ten times scarier.

Nova could definitely see the Winter Soldier in him. All hard lines and bulging muscle, ready to attack at a moment's notice. The clench of his jaw pointed out how desperately he needed a shave and she itched to pull back his hair, even if he was in crazy killer mode. No one should have to work with hair in their eyes, even if that work was picking off targets for a living.

Sadly, James never seemed to appreciate her nonstop chatter. Then again, not many people enjoyed it. They just put up with it so they didn't have to deal with the notoriously whiny Tony Stark. He had a painfully offensive way of speaking that usually put people off more than her incessant chatter.

"I don't need help," James snapped, his glare intensifying as he moved it off of her and towards one of her many lab tables. It was a good thing HYDRA didn't give him laser eyes because that would be particularly disastrous. Sure, it would definitely be ridiculously cool, but he would also activate a lot of equipment in her lab, which would be a problem with a capital P. Especially considering he had his murderous glare focused on a batch of explosive materials she was planning on smuggling out for her grandfather when she went home for Christmas. If those went up, she wasn't sure the Tower would survive. There was a reason she didn't usually let other people in her lab.

"Oooo-kay. Well, I'm working on thrusters for the Ironman suit at the moment, so, if you don't mind, I'm going to go back to that. Of course, you're welcome to stay and observe, since you seem fine doing that. Just, um, try not to touch anything, please. Not because I'm a prude or anything, but because I have enough explosive materials in here to contemplate world domination and I don't want you to get hurt. That would be bad. Though, if I ever feel like blowing up the Tower, I'll let you know so you can get out. Or help me, whichever works for you. Tony's only fixed the Tower like a hundred times, so it's not like he doesn't know how to rebuild… Oh! Yeah, shutting up now, sorry!" Nova slapped a hand over her mouth, wincing when her palm struck the stick of her lollipop. She'd been talking around it the whole time, which was incredibly rude according to her mama, but most of the time she didn't do it on purpose. Not many people bothered to visit her lab.

If Nova learned anything from seeing Natasha, though, it was that talking too much would give James more material to use against her if he felt like it. Natasha was a close friend of Evie's now, but Nova had a hard time trusting the woman. She was always gathering information on people, using it against them at the most inconvenient times. Most of Nova's relatives were deadly, yeah, but she'd become more comfortable around ex-SHIELD agents than she was around ex-Soviet assassins who had no emotional ties to her well-being. If this guy was anything like Natasha, Nova needed to keep her guard up so he wouldn't learn too much.

Glancing back at James quickly, Nova found that he was still in the corner he'd taken over. She quickly faced the screens again when he noticed she was watching and met her gaze, sending her a harsh scowl in return. Keeping her body rigid, Nova tried to figure out what he could possibly want from her. Whatever it was, he wasn't going to come out and tell her yet. If he was looking for Tony, it could be for a number of reasons. Anything to do with the Avengers was generally kept a secret from her, so going to Natasha or Steve would have been his best bet if he couldn't find Tony. Of course, the only thing that made logical sense was his prosthetic. Nova would literally kill to be able to even look at that piece of machinery. He didn't even have to let her touch it. It was a work of art and the biomechanical potential of understanding that sort of technology was honestly astronomical.

She had so many questions she wanted to ask. Was he able to feel with his prosthetic? Sense heat and cold? Did it hurt? Was it wired to his nervous system? He tended to use it just like a normal arm, but the gripping strength was obviously enhanced. How enhanced was it? How enhanced was he? He could kill a man by crushing his skull with just the fingers of his prosthetic, she'd seen it happen during the raid, but how gentle could it be? Did he have full motion control? Could he tell when he was gripping something too tightly? How did the paneling move? She could imagine what their design would be, had seen enough of the prosthetic in action to generally be able to make a rough sketch of the possible circuitry and general wiring, but to be able to study something with so many practical applications would be the highlight of her career.

If they could adapt the design and figure out how to get materials that were less rare, it was possible they could make similar structures for wounded veterans and amputees. The tech would be leaps and bounds ahead of any of the current studies going on around the world and Nova was desperate for just a peek. That sort of technology could honestly change the world. But, instead of letting that happen, James seemed almost ashamed of the mechanical miracle that HYDRA had given him. Which was a damn shame because it was beautiful. Even with the ugly Soviet star on the shoulder. That could easily be fixed though. Either by another star or simply by painting over the red with the same metallic coating as the rest of the arm had. Nova could imagine a hundred ways of fixing it, but it wouldn't due to mention that to him. He was already suspicious enough.

"Okay, FRIDAY, I'm uploading more schematics. Obviously, these aren't going to work. Rework the design for Tony's arc power and I'll see what I can do about the wiring failures," Nova mumbled around her sucker, grabbing the glasses on top of her head and dragging them down over her eyes. Being farsighted was a bitch, but at least she got the best frames that money could buy. These, a dark purple frame with large lenses, were perfect for her purposes. She only wore them when she was working anyway.

A few minutes of observation showed her the problem with the simulation and hummed under her breath as she stared at it. The rework would need to include sturdier wiring as well as a new, heat resistant coating.

Typing out various commands into her Stark tablet, Nova swung her feet idly, half spinning the chair while she attempted to figure out the proper components she needed to use. Tony's design and his pain requirements were a bitch to work around and she was going to need to think out of the box if she was going to finish this project anytime soon. Because of the aerodynamics, she'd need a small propulsion system and compact wiring that wouldn't overheat, which would probably include a fan and a filtration system for cool airflow…

Crunching on the end of her sucker, Nova pulled the stick out of her mouth and chucked it into the garbage, mind completely occupied as she searched various websites for inspiration. The original design she'd come up with definitely wasn't going to cut it, but the rework might if she could find the proper materials. It took a bit, but it wasn't completely impossible. Finding lightweight metal that would work was harder than it sounded, but she still calculated the different options, FRIDAY assisting anyway she could.

Nova wasn't a genius like Tony Stark. Her family wasn't full of inventors either. Her family was made of grunts. SHIELD specialists and military special agents, they weren't the ones that planned missions and invented weapons, they were the ones who kicked ass and took names. Nova herself was the only child in her family that had taken after her father, who had worked as a SHIELD engineer before the collapse. He was smart enough to help make some of the most deadly weapons to ever exist, but he was no Stark. The Stark family was made of ingenious inventors and Tony had gotten all of that and more. Nova had a working knowledge of Tony's tech, but that didn't mean she was anywhere near as smart as he was. That meant that she had to study hours to understand the compounds of half of his work. And that took more time than she was willing to admit before the man himself. He had a big enough ego.

"If I put a protective layer on the wires, it could be possible to resist the heat coming through the thrusters. If I push this wire over here, though, we blow up the suit. If I change even a small bit of this design here, the rest of the suit is incompatible and it goes boom. Working this design on arc power is ridiculous. Adamantium is out of the question because of the weight. Vibranium is too expensive and limited, not to mention that the world's supply was lost in Sokovia. They're still trying to get it out of their water sources. Though, if anyone can manage that, Tony can. Still, I can't just change the suit's metal structure; Tony would kill me," Nova muttered, grabbing a sketch pad and pencil, scribbling out three of the possible designs.

Tony's jet propulsion system was antiquated at this point, but enhancing it would take more than her mind would be able to come up with. Not only did she not have the proper information to even begin that overhaul, she didn't know the specifics of the rest of the suit. Tony wouldn't send her all of the designs because he was afraid to let anyone see them. Which was completely unfair considering she'd helped him design his weapons' system.

Still, he shouldn't have put her on an impossible task. Tony did theoretical, but not impossible. Well, he did send impossible equations to some of the younger recruits or people he didn't like, but Nova knew without a doubt he wouldn't do that to her. He knew exactly how much she knew about his advanced robotics and he wouldn't have given her the work if she wasn't capable of completing at least a running model of what he wanted. Technically, he could have overestimated her intelligence, but that was unlikely. He was more likely to underestimate it.

"Okay, if I reroute some of the power into this conductor, I might be able to avoid overheating the wires. But that means that this circuitry would need to be removed too and that wasn't what Tony asked for. Tony's an idiot, though, so it could be part of the problem he wants me to fix. It's completely possible he just didn't give me all the information and left me to go crazy because he thinks it's funny. FRIDAY, is Tony fucking with me?" Nova asked the AI, scribbling out an equation that was on the corner of her sketchpad. Throwing the pencil away, Nova leaned back and stared at the various computer screens, sucking in her bottom lip and chewing on it thoughtfully.

"I don't believe so, Dr. Maddox," FRIDAY answered in her slightly lilting accent, her words nowhere near as reassuring as she probably mean them to be. Tapping a finger against the notepad she'd been using, Nova cocked her head to the side, squinting to read the mathematic equations that Tony had scrawled on the corner of the specs he'd sent over.

"That's really not as reassuring as I would have hoped. Maybe he's messing with me. It would make sense and it's not like he hasn't done it before. If I can figure out what he left out of the explanation, I can finish this in a few minutes…" Nova hummed, slumping back into her seat and settling in for the long haul.