Metallic Lights {Metallic Charms Book #3}

Chapter 34: Suiting Up Again

Chapter 34: Suiting Up Again

~~~~~~~~~~~{Tony's Point of View}~~~~~~~~~~~

I sat in the leather chair, staring blankly at the holographic screen that was backed up against the window. The sun was lined up perfectly with the globe of the world, it span and span, some parts of country's flashing red on occasion, tricking me into thinking we'd found our man.

But it was always a false alarm.

At times I felt like hitting a wall, punching it until my knuckles bled just for something to do. I'd been sitting here for six hours while Bruce was off sleeping and Noel was off getting her weekly psychiatry and psychology test -she all thought we didn't know about her little visits to Dr. Kane and Dr. Cal, but we did, we knew it was one of her conditions of coming back to her agency job. Danielle Brandt had skipped out on us a day or so ago. Fury had given her permission to leave since she'd told us everything she knew. I, for one, was glad she was gone. I didn't like her, she rubbed me up the wrong way, I guess. But Noel had taken it pretty hard. We'd only known the girl for a few days, but they'd become pretty buddy-buddy with each other behind closed doors.

I think she was just glad to have someone talk to her without judging her. I wasn't going to deny it on behalf of everybody, but we did all judge her whenever she spoke. She'd bolted for over a year, spent that time on a foreign planet hanging out with a highly dangerous criminal. But that wasn't to say that we solely blamed her, Thor was also on probation for putting her up to the task without notifying S.H.I.E.L.D, or at the very least, the Avengers.

Anyway, Noel hadn't spoken to anybody since Danielle ran out, so I hoped she was getting some help from the doctors -some form or closure, hopefully.

Around three hours later, Noel snuck into the lab and sat with me. She had a mocha coffee clutched in her hands and she sipped at it religiously until it was finished -and even then, she got up, disappeared for around five minutes, then returned and sipped at the refill. It was only about an hour into her being there that I realised; this was the longest amount of time we'd spent together since she'd gotten back two and a half months ago. I realised how much I'd missed just having her...there. Having her there like my safety net -always ready to catch me if I fell.

She was wearing her favourite black skinny jeans, a faded orange Camp Half-Blood fandom tee shirt and her unruly brown hair was up in a rare pony tail that swished about when she moved.

"You know..." I started to say quietly, looking at the holographic screen. When I didn't follow it up with anything, Noel elbowed me gently and I looked at her. She was holding out an opened, silvery packet with little purple orbs inside; blueberries.

"Thought you might be hungry." She said with a tiny, tiny smile tugging at the right corner of her lips.

I pursed my lips and frowned jokingly, "You're not going to shove them down your shirt again are you?"

She giggled a little bit and I felt something sink in my chest. "No."

I happily took some of the blueberries and went back to watching the screen. "Nobody blames you about being pissed that Brandt skipped out, you know."

"I know." She said, popping another couple of blueberries in her mouth, followed by another sip of her mocha coffee -I wondered how weird that must taste. "I just liked having someone around that didn't know what horrible things I put you guys through. I had a clean slate with her."

"I get it. Like me and Pepper." I slipped out before I could manage to stop myself. Shit, why the hell would you bring up Pepper, Tony? She hates Pepper! Do you want her to shut down the ship's power?