REALITY || MARVEL

ᴱᴾᴵˢᴼᴰᴱ ᴼᴺᴱ ᴾ.¹ ⁻ ᶠᴵᴸᴹᴱᴰ ᴮᴱᶠᴼᴿᴱ ᴬ ᴸᴵⱽᴱ ˢᵀᵁᴰᴵᴼ ᴬᵁᴰᴵᴱᴺᶜᴱ

"Here is your new office." Pepper said with a cheerful voice as she showed me the new said office. It was huge. Spacious. Luxurious. And there goes the guilt again.

"Pepper, this is too much." I muttered as I went to the desk. Name plaque, pencils, binders, pens and my very own private tool bench in the corner of the room. A couch, a wine/beer cooler. It was so white and shiny and pristine.

"It's only the best for the new head engineer of STARK INDUSTRIES." Pepper praised, "Also might be a birthday gift. And speaking of." Pepper paused to pull out a box from one of the shelves. It was an old cardboard box that looked like it hadn't been touched in years.

I stared at the box in amazement and wondered as I recognized everything that was inside. "But- but I thought everything was lost at the compound." For the past month I've thought that everything I owned went up in flames. Destroyed, gone forever.

Pepper sighed, embarrassed as she handed the box over. "After you disappeared, Tony packed up a few things from your bedroom and put it in a box and shoved it in the basement. I would have brought it to you sooner but with everything-"

"It's okay." I quickly assured her. I hugged the box close to my chest. "Thank you Pepper."

Pepper nods. "If you ever need help adjusting you'll know where to find me."

I nodded thankfully and Pepper left me to adjust to my new office. The new office almost gave me chills. It looked like an office. My old office never looked like this. What I mean by that is that I basically lived in my office back at the compound. But I never had a pullout because Tony literally built a bed inside the lab for me to crash in.

And Vision would fly through the walls and leave behind his little quotes from famous scholars and philosophers. And then my hundreds of cups of frozen ice chips that I would get hungry for. All the things I had left of pietro.

And all of that was gone. Or I thought it was. I looked down at the box and opened the flap to see everything inside. A few of my mugs, the saved notes I had of Vision. The only picture I had of Pietro. It's been 8 years. Just a month ago, for me at least, he'd been dead for only 3 years. I closed the box up. No, no, no.

I shake the feelings away. New technical year, new life. I sit down at the swiveling chair. Time to start fresh. "This is nice." Wanda mused as she strolled in my new office with Steve. We took the time to stop by the office and see the new apartment we were moving into. It was already furnished, considering this was Pepper we were talking about.

I nodded with a grin. "Right?"

"As much as I would like to continue this," Steve said. "We gotta go." I nodded and lifted the box. "Let's go."

We stopped by Starbucks to get me some coffee. At least that's one thing that hasn't changed.

"I see the attention still hasn't gone down." I muttered as I walked with Steve and Wanda down the streets of New York City and tried not to notice that we were being followed by paparazzi and a few onlookers taking pictures. It hasn't changed in the slightest in the past 5 years since we've been gone.

It's almost comforting.

Steve shrugs as he lugs the bags of groceries we had just bought. Aurora sent us all on errands. But I suspect she just wanted some time to herself and honestly I can't blame her for it. We have been living there for the past 2 weeks.

"The attention went down, but now with everyone back it's skyrocketed."

"Doesn't that draw attention to you and the kids?" Wanda wondered and it was a good question. Steve nods. "It's why Freya's been attending classes online. Once everything settles down it'll be safe again."