The Dragon & The Witch (Iron man: Armored Adventures fanfic)

Chapter 3: Whiplash and Finding out secrets

Tomorrow Academy

6:56 A.M EDT

September 25, 2009

Manhattan, New York

For a whole week, I've been avoiding Maria, which I really hated doing, let me explain, ever since I got kidnapped by the Maggia with Gene, Pepper and Tony the next day Maria was at the house to check up on me. But for some reason I didn't tell her about it, I knew she would worry about me and go all shield agent on me, asking me questions about it, try to find Killer Shrike and Unicorn, maybe tell Fury about it and I'd get a lecture from him probably, then she'll ask if I used my powers and if anyone knew I was a mutant.

When we were driving up to my house after I left Shield she made me promise to not use my powers in front of a lot of people due to people's view on mutants and how people turn violent when they see a mutant, I had to be completely as normal as possible but I would let my emotions get the better of me like when I got scared While we were being held hostage and I would let my powers show through.

So I've been avoiding her for a week, only doing very small small talk but I could tell that I was hurting her. I just didn't want her to worry about me. I had my powers to protect me and I could have protected the others if only I hadn't gotten so scared. That's what I was thinking about as I stood next to Tony and Rhodey as he opened his locker. There was a carburetor/water jug in place of the inside of his locker. It was quite cool. Tony takes a sip and looks at Rhodey.

Rhodey is glaring at him. "What? I wasn't using it for anything else" Tony says. He closes his locker and there's Pepper. "Tony!" She says kind of alarmed. "Ah!" Tony jumps. "Where have you been? Why didn't you call me? Didn't you get my messages? Uh did you screen me? Oh can I get a drink of that?" Pepper asks pointing at Tony's drink. "Woah Pepper slow down use few words" he tells her. She doesn't say anything for a bit. "What's going on?" I ask her. "Uh, um... Guh, worried.... About my dad" she says slowly. "Is everything okay?" Rhodey asks.

"I don't know, he's being all weird, he's working on this case but he won't tell me anything about it" she explained. "Um, Pepper? Shouldn't he never tell you about his cases? Like isn't that a F.B.I rule?" Tony asks. "More of a guideline in my opinion" She adds "But I was hoping maybe you could uh, I mean, there's something I have to ask you, uh...." I noticed that Gene walked by, I can't help but give a small smile and blush a bit. "Can we talk in private?" Pepper asks but she turned around and noticed Gene. Tony see him too "Oh, hey, it's Gene, I have to catch him before class, can we talk about this later?" He hands her his cup and walks away "Thanks Pepper". She turns to me and Rhodey and gives a sad sigh as she takes a sip.

"I need something to take my mind off my dad" Pepper says. "Well I could try" I tell her. Rhodey goes over to the water fountain and gets a drink so it's just me and Pepper. She gives a small smile "I've been meaning to ask you, when we got taken by the maggia trying to escape, when Gene saved you by that thug and he helped you up, I noticed that your face was really red, do you like him?" She asks. I was going to answer but Pepper quickly adds "And if you do like him, I'm gonna give you a hard time about it". I sigh, I know that Pepper doesn't like Gene probably because she kept on bugging him about his stepfather and he yelled at her a lot. "I do like him" I admit. She looked a bit displeased "oh".

"Oh what?" Rhodey asks as we began walking to class, "Emma has a crush on Gene" Pepper tells him. "Really? Not that it's any of my business but why?" He asks. "Yeah, why?".

"I don't know, he just seems different, he's kind of mysterious and it's very intriguing" I say. "If you mean different you mean like something off with him, right?" Rhodey corrects. I shake my head and smile "No, I mean like a not a bad different like a interesting and good different, I don't know" I explain. "Well now that I know that don't expect me to say nice things about him" Pepper tells me "just because you like him, doesn't mean that I have to be nice to him". I laugh "Because it's so hard for you to be nice to someone". She glares at me playfully "Hey!". We entered class and I sit next to Pepper while Rhodey sits next to Tony at the table in front of us. I see Gene out of the corner of my eye and I smile to myself and blush. I hear Pepper scoff to herself. "What?" I ask her looking at her. "Oh nothing" she says sarcastically. My head begins to hurt and I hear that painful ringing, it's been off and on again for months now, I once again winced as I heard it but it went away. It's been getting worse lately, I've been experiencing it more and it's been getting really painful, to the point where I literally can't stand up, luckily it isn't like that today. The bell rings and class begins. Mr Klein is writing equations on the board "Which. In turn, creates an amplified beam of light, also known as a laser". Tony raised his hand "Actually, sir...". He turned around but Rhodey grabbed his hand and forced it down shushing him. "What? There's been a lot of-" Tony began. Rhodey shushed him again. "Yeah, but-". Happy whispered over to Tony "Dude shut up".