sunset. [wanda maximoff]

1.2

Scottie stood at the side of the stage, her arm wrapped tightly in bandages as she watched Tony walk across the platform. His smile had dropped from his face but she knew his excitement about his latest invention was still resting in his chest.

"That's how I wished it happened. Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing, or BARF. God, I gotta work on that acronym. An extremely costly method of hijacking the hippocampus to... clear traumatic memories," he explained, blowing on a fake candle as the environment around him dissolved to reveal the basic base of the environment he had created to display the device.

Scottie sniggered slightly at the name, ignoring the looks and stares she was receiving from faculty members who had also crowded into the wings of the stage to catch a glimpse at the famous Iron Man. They all knew exactly who she was too, especially after the Queens incident months prior. It was taking her time to get used to life in the public eye but now that everyone knew there was a deep father/daughter relationship with Tony she knew it was a constant that she was going to have to get used to.

"It doesn't change the fact that they never made it to the airport... or all the things I did to avoid processing my grief, but...," Tony paused as he removed the glasses that rested over his eyes. He shot a small glance to Scottie before he continued talking. "Plus, 611 million dollars for my little therapeutic experiment? No one in the right mind would've ever funded it. Help me out, what's the MIT mission statement?"

Scottie smiled back as everyone in the crowd began to speak the words along with Tony, reminding her that this was the life she would never get to experience. College had once been her biggest goal, and now it was something that she would never need to think about.

"To generate, disseminate... and preserve knowledge. And work with others... to bring it to bear on the world's great challenges."

"Well, you are the others. And, quiet as it's kept... the challenges facing you are the greatest mankind's ever known. Plus, most of you are broke," Tony added, a smile gracing his lips as he remembered the struggles his fellow classmates had when they had attended MIT together many years before. He was lucky to never have faced the struggle, but he had been made very aware over the years that he was simply that: lucky. "Oh, I'm sorry. Rather, you were. As of this moment... every student has been made an equal recipient of the Inaugural September Foundation Grant. As in... all of your projects have just been approved and funded!"

Scottie cheered along with the rest of the crowd, proud that he was using his money for much better things than he used to. Gone were the days of bomb making and weapon selling, and good riddance to that.

As she watched him wrap up his speech, a small lump in her throat formed as she noted that the teleprompter had read for him to introduce Pepper to the crowd. Tony had reassured her that it wasn't her fault that the couple were on a break but she knew the stress of almost losing Scottie had been one of the many things that had lead to their arguments.

Tony walked straight off the stage once he was done, ignoring one of the faculty members that was muttering on about some self-heating hot dog as he headed straight towards Scottie. Patting her on the back ever so slightly, he turned to look at one of the MIT teachers as Scottie noticed that he was needing some air.

"Restroom's this way, yeah?"

"Yeah. Embedded in the meat shaft."

Scottie nodded, falling into stride beside him as the two Avengers continued to head down the corridor towards where the toilets were. She needed space from everyone crowding them - so she wasn't surprised he was beginning to lose his cool too.

"Mr. Stark, I am so sorry about the teleprompter. I didn't know Miss Potts had cancelled. They didn't have time to fix it," one of Tony's assistants told the man, clearly worried that they were going to lose their job. Tony barely paid any attention, simply informing them that he and Scottie would be back in a moment.