Chapter Text
Tony Stark is many things, but a doctor he is not. Which is what he thinks this maybe 20 something woman may very well need. That and perhaps a round the clock protection detail.
He had no idea why or how this young woman got HYDRA in a tizzy, but he was determined to get her out of there.
So he had.
"Stark? Where are you? You've got an Avengers teleconference briefing with Fury in fifteen minutes" Coulson said over the phone
"Sorry Agent, Nick's gonna have to wait" Tony said before he hung up his phone and continued to tail the two HYDRA Agents that were chasing a young brunette through the back alley streets of Malibu, California.
He sped up his pace when he heard the woman cry out and fall to the ground with an audible thud. It was 10:30 on a Friday night in the suburbs. Don't ask why Tony Stark is in a place like this on a Friday night. Tony really doesn't want to go there right now. Let's just say he needed some fresh air and leave it at that.
He manages to catch one of the HYDRA Agents off guard, they'd fallen behind a little so Tony pounces. Grabbing the guy by the back of his shirt and yanking backwards as hard as he can. The agent is about to yell for his partner but is silenced by Tony putting a hand over his mouth. Tony drags him backwards and puts an arm around the agent's neck. He squeezes until the guy passes out. He figures that Fury might be happier with at least one live HYDRA Agent to interrogate in the aftermath of Tony blowing him off.
But hey, he was out for a walk, he saw someone being chased by dodgy people, so he reacted. When he heard the agents mention the Winter Soldier, he knew that they were HYDRA. Though why the hell they'd be looking here of all place for Bucky Barnes is something that he can't quite figure out. He then lays the guy down on the ground and then grabs his gun before rushing off to get the other agent.
He rounds a corner, gun raised but safety still on, only to stop in shock as the agent screams. He's surrounding by sparkly glowing blue/white orbs as he's thrown backwards. The agent hits a wall and the lights disappear before he lands on the ground with a loud thud. Tony doesn't know if the guy is dead or just unconscious.
Tony quickly tucks the gun into his belt on his back before slowly and cautiously moving over to where the brunette is standing. She's got a hand raised in the air, pointing towards where the now immobile agent is now laying. Her tiny 5ft'3, slightly thick and curved frame is shaking and her dark brown eyes are wide with shock, fear and disbelief. There's blood dripping down her face from a head wound. It stands out in stark contrast against her medium olive toned skin.
"Well...that could've gone better" Tony quips before even thinking about it. He curses his damn mouth when the woman jumps a mile at his sudden voice. She hadn't seen him before. Tony raises his hands.
"Hey! It's ok, I'm here to help" he tells her gently
"You- I...I don't- I never meant to do that! I didn't mean to do that, I swear! But he just, they kept chasing me and then that one came running at me so I just..." She explained hastily before trailing off. She looked on the verge of having a panic attack she was that scared
"Reacted?" Tony guessed curiously, she looked him right in the eye at that
"Yeah, it was a pure reaction. I don't know why I did that" she said honestly as she lowered her hand
"Do you know who I am?" he asked her as he slowly moved closer.
She nodded her head
"Ok, so you know I'm not gonna hurt you" Tony said as he quickly shot a text to Coulson, telling him about the HYDRA agents but leaving out the bit about the girl. Something kept him from telling Coulson about her.
"What's your name?" Tony asked her then
"My, my name?" she said in confusion. Tony panicked a bit at this. Her eyes were starting to look glassy and her eyelids were starting to droop as she swayed on her feet a bit.
"Yeah, what's your name?" Tony asked little louder, trying to keep her alert.
"My name is Cora" she said before passing out. She wasn't even able to say her last name before the pain overtook her. He only barely managed to catch her in time before she hit the ground
"Ok Cora, guess you're coming with me" Tony said as he summoned a Suit and took her to his place.
Once she was settled in and a doctor had seen to her injuries, Tony called Pepper and asked her to come home. Tony didn't leave the woman's side at all, he was worried about her. There was something about her that did funny things to his insides, and it's not the sexy kind of funny things, he thinks it might be the caring kind of funny things.
Pepper Potts came home to her boyfriend sitting in a chair next to a large bed with a very unconscious and injured female laying in it.
"I'm almost too afraid to ask" Pepper quipped quietly as she slowly crept into the room
"You won't wake her, don't worry" Tony assured her as he pulled Pepper into his arms and sat her on his lap
"What's happened?" Pepper asked in a curious and gentle tone as she ran a hand through Tony's hair.
"I needed a walk" Tony started to explain
"Oh" Pepper said in understanding. She didn't need a further explanation, when Tony said he "needed a walk", that was the only thing that could calm him down these days. In the aftermath of the Battle of New York, Tony has been prone to panic attacks. When Pepper found out, she made him take longs walks if he ever felt like he was going to lose it. At first Pepper would join him, but most times the pace he walked was too much for her, so she sent him out alone.
"I needed a walk and then I saw this girl being attacked, she managed to get away but they kept coming after her. So I followed them and...yeah..." Tony explained quietly
"Should I ask who "they" are?" Pepper asked gently, Tony vehemently shook his head.
After the alien invasion, he'd become quite clingy and protective of her if he knew that there were bad guys in the area. He wasn't paranoid, just now more cautious and protective of her.
"This girl's in really bad shape, Pep" Tony told her
"You should help her then" Pepper told him simply.
And Tony did.
He helped her with everything he could. He made her do everything the doctor said to do to get better. Even when she stubbornly tried to do things on her own. He helped her practice with her powers. Despite the fact that they both had no idea where they came from, he let her use one of his larger labs and just let her loose in there. They both quickly figured out that she had some variation of telekinetic powers. Though they worked differently than how they'd both expected them to work. Tony would describe it as being able to teleport things, and people, away from and towards her. At one point, Cora even accidentally teleported him outside. She apologised to him for that for the next week.
Another thing they both figured out pretty quickly was that Cora had absolutely no idea who she was. She only knew her first name because she'd said it to Tony before passing out when they both first met. Tony had his new AI FRIDAY looking through every database possible to find her, but there wasn't a single piece of information to be found. It was maddening, and Pepper was quickly coming to find it concerning. She wanted to at least tell Coulson, but Tony wouldn't let her. Tony still couldn't figure out why he was becoming so close to Cora, nor why he was becoming so protective of her, but Pepper was starting to realise the reason.
She wanted to tell him, but saying it out loud right now might trigger a panic attack, or break him. She couldn't do that.
She couldn't tell the man she loves that the reason Cora is so familiar to him is because she's a near carbon copy of Ella Stark, Tony's younger sister. Who had died way too young at the tender age of 14. Ella was killed by a hit and run driver a month before Tony's parents were killed. Tony had been 17 and a total wreck during that period of his life. Happy had told her all about that dark time a few months after she had first started working for Tony Stark.
Cora's powers were advanced, and she got the feeling that it's because she's had them for many years. She also got the feeling that there was a lot more to her powers than telekinesis. Tony kept saying that they were teleporting powers, but it didn't sound right to her so she stubbornly kept calling them telekinetic powers.
One day when she and Tony were in one of his labs, she discovered that she was bilingual. Tony was working on one of his old cars and Cora had decided to tinker with something that had been left laying around. She seemed to have a knack for tinkering. Something had gotten stuck, Tony had yanked too hard on something, and had dropped a spanner on his foot. He'd sworn loudly in Chinese, and Cora had just rushed over to him, asking him if he was ok, and worrying about a possible broken toe. It was when she'd stopped babbling in worry that she noticed Tony giving her a strange look.
"What?" she asked in curious confusion
"You were speaking in Chinese" he told her strangely. Cora gave him a confused frown
"What?" she asked again in confusion
"You were speaking in Chinese" Tony repeated
"I was?" she said in surprise
"Yep, I'm pretty sure you were. I don't know a lot of Chinese, just some colourful swear words from Firefly. But that sounded like Chinese to me" Tony explained
He'd been having a Firefly marathon all week that week
"It was definitely Chinese, Sir" FRIDAY supplied helpfully
Purely on a whim, Cora got an idea
"Uh, FRIDAY?" Cora began awkwardly, she hasn't really gotten used to speaking to thin air like this
"Yes, Cora?" FRIDAY replied promptly, it had taken some time, but Cora had finally gotten the AI around to addressing her by her first, and only, name. Being called "Miss Cora" just felt weird to her
"Can you uh, can you speak another language? Just...any language" Cora requested
"Certainly. Pogoda na ulitse pryamo seychas priyatno teplo" FRIDAY replied promptly
"That was...Russian?" Cora guessed, though she didn't sound too sure
"It was" FRIDAY confirmed
Cora and FRIDAY tried this in a few other languages before Tony finally spoke
"Ok...so you're definitely bilingual" Tony said with surprise
"Which doesn't feel all too surprising for some reason..." Cora replied thoughtfully
"You're not gonna go all Jason Bourne on me, are you?" Tony asked her, he was only half joking.
Cora glared at him, before she got a wicked look on her face
"Tony, how about we test my telekinesis?" she asked him with a scary glint in her dark brown eyes
"Uh...ok...?" Tony replied hesitantly
The look in Cora's eyes was scarily similar to a look that Pepper would get whenever he was being particularly annoying and inappropriate
"Good" Cora said before she thrust her hand up in his direction and said
"Beach!"
Tony disappeared in a swirl of sparkly blue/white lights and appeared on the beach that was closest to his Malibu home.
Thankfully no one was around to see that.
It would take Tony at least 20 minutes to walk back home.
Unless he summoned a suit.
"FRIDAY, where is Pepper today?" Cora asked as she walked out of the lab and headed upstairs
"Miss Potts is in Vancouver for a Conference" FRIDAY informed smoothly
Pepper had been away on various business trips for nearly three weeks now, if she wasn't out of the country, she was in various meetings. Being the CEO of a company as large and successful as Stark Industries was no walk in the park, even if you knew exactly what you were doing.
While Tony helped Cora get a hang of her powers, and the two of them tried to discover her identity, they had been living in a blissful bubble of peace. Of sorts. Tony wanted to keep SHIELD and more importantly, the World Security Council, away from Cora, so he'd been keeping her hidden away in his large house. He knew that the Council would snap her up in ten seconds flat if they ever found out about her powers. He didn't trust SHIELD or the Council all too much to begin with, but after Rogers and Romanov discovered several HYDRA moles within SHIELD, and The Winter Soldier had publicly surfaced, he was even more distrustful of them. Tony wouldn't trust the Council with keeping a hamster alive to be honest, not after they sent a Nuke to take out the whole of New York City during the alien invasion.
Many HYDRA moles had been revealed in many different organisations. He was gleefully happy when Senator Stern had been exposed as an undercover HYDRA agent. Tony had celebrated for weeks and really wanted to go after the man himself, but Pepper had persuaded him not to. Tony had hacked the Senator's servers and left a few interesting things for the authorities to find. He was content with screwing with the Senator one last time.
Pepper had been saddened to find out that Agent Sitwell was a HYDRA agent, she knew that the man had been Coulson's protégé for a long time. Coulson really hadn't taken that blow too well.
Thinking of Pepper, Tony wondered when his Girlfriend slash Soulmate was due back from her latest business trip.
"Friday, when's Pepper back?" Tony asked curiously
"She'll be back tonight, Sir" FRIDAY answered promptly
"Ok, time's up" Cora announced as she got up from the chair she'd been sitting on. She put aside something that she was tinkering with and went over to Tony
"What do you mean?" Tony asked in curious confusion
"It's time for a break" Cora told him without preamble
Cora had started to force Tony to take regular breaks lately. If he didn't come upstairs willingly, she'd simply teleport herself and him upstairs and wouldn't let him go back down there for an hour minimum. Tony was quickly learning that it was best to just go along with her rather than try and get out of it.
"You know, you're very pushy, just like Pepper was when she was my assistant" Tony grumbled childishly as Cora grabbed his arm and started yanking him away from his desk. He quickly used his other hand to put down his things before he allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.
Tony then got an idea
"Hey" was all Tony said as he let Cora pull him out of his lab
"Hey, what?" Cora said back as they headed upstairs
"You need a job, little Freeloader" Tony told her as they walked upstairs
"Little what?" she asked him with a raised eyebrow after turning to face him
"You're what...5ft'2, 5ft'3 at the tallest? You're little" Tony explained flippantly
"I noticed that, but what was the second part of your little comment?" she asked with her eyebrow still raised
"Oh you noticed that, huh?" Tony quipped as she casually walked into his living room and over to his couch
"Yes, I noticed" she retorted as Tony sat down without a care in the world
"I said you need a job" he replied, still using that flippant tone
Cora glared at him again
"Tony!" she practically growled in warning
"Aren't you bored?" Tony asked her instead of responding
"On occasion" she replied a little tersely as she went over and sat down beside Tony
"Well become my PA and be done with it" Tony said flippantly as he grabbed a remote and turned his TV on
Cora raised an eyebrow at him
"Were you like this when you offered Pepper a job?" Cora asked him curiously
"Yep" Tony replied simply, popping the 'p'
"It's a wonder you managed to hire any staff at all for your company" Cora snarked under her breath
"What was that?" Tony asked quickly
"Why would you want me as your PA? I don't even know if I have any experience being a PA" Cora asked instead of answering his question
"Well basically you'd be doing the same thing you've already been doing, plus a whole bunch of other boring stuff that I don't want to do" Tony explained
"Boring stuff, huh? How exciting" Cora quipped sarcastically
"Just take the job" Tony said as he channel surfed
Cora looked at him and said "fine" and that was that.
For the rest of the afternoon, Cora and Tony lazed around and watched movies and some TV shows. It wasn't long after 2pm that Cora fell asleep, so Tony put a blanket over her and snuck back downstairs to his lab.
By 7:30, Tony decided that it might be a good idea to go check on Cora, so he went back upstairs to find her still on the couch, fast asleep and snoring softly and head nearly buried completely under the blanket he'd put over her.
Cora wasn't fully recovered from her attack, despite what she'll stubbornly tell you, so using her powers a lot would wear her out quickly. She had to build up her energy tolerance again, which was going to take some time.
Pepper came in to see Tony carrying Cora, blanket and all, in his arms.
"Y'know Tony, when I said you should help her, I didn't mean adopt her" Pepper said softly with a smile and a shake of her head. She and Cora had been keeping in touch with each other, and a good friendship was developing nicely between them. Tony just shrugged as best as he could and took her to the spare bedroom that he'd given her.
"I haven't adopted her, I've hired her. She's going to be my new PA" Tony explained quietly