"Look! Look at this. I just… I thought I was ready to move on. I thought Extremis was completed and all that was left was tweaking it to dilute it and make still useful but less powerful forms. But something kept niggling at the back of my mind. Something had me going back and doing a bit more tinkering." Pepper watches as Maya gushes over her work, an affectionate smile worming its way across the red head's face. All that time ago, when Tony had first told her he wanted her to help him seduce the beautiful scientist, Pepper hadn't been sure what would come of it. But now? Maya felt like part of their family truth be told. And Pepper wouldn't have it any other way.
Still, the other woman could get a little excitable at times. And being dosed with Extremis and the Serum had only exacerbated the issue. Reaching out, Pepper captures a lock of Maya's hair in her fingers, and in doing so captures Maya's attention as well when she gives it a gentle tug.
"Calm down, Maya. Breathe, darling."
Flushing a little bit, Maya nevertheless does as she's told. For a moment, Pepper can tell that the other woman is losing herself in Pepper's eyes, growing calmer and calmer simply by virtue of the connection they share. And then… "This is incredible, Maya."
Tony's disbelieving voice breaks Maya out of the momentary trance, causing Pepper to huff in good-natured annoyance as she leans back and watches Maya reorient one hundred percent of her attention onto Tony.
"I-Is it? I mean, I know I'm smarter now… everything is so much easier to figure out then it was before. But part of me still couldn't believe I might actually be onto something…"
Tony scoffs, eyes still fixated on the tablet.
"More than something, Maya. This is… so far beyond my expectations for Extremis that it's not even funny. With this…"
Pepper raises an eyebrow. "What is it, Tony?"
Looking over at her, her husband grins.
" Technopathy, basically. Maya has begun developing an upgrade to our Extremis that would essentially give us the ability to interface with and directly control technology with our minds. Forget stuffing microchip implants into our brains, with this we could have it all without any of the true risk. Elon Musk and Neuralink, eat your heart out."
Pepper raises an eyebrow at that. She recognizes the name Elon Musk… a man who she knows wishes he could be Tony Stark with every fiber of his being. But…
"Neuralink, Tony?"
Tony freezes like a deer caught in the headlights and after a moment Pepper does the same as she realizes that Tony had clearly referenced something from the future… right in front of Maya, who did not know about Tony's future visions even now after years of them being lovers.
Pepper had never pushed for Tony to tell more people about everything he'd seen and she didn't intend to start now. If Tony wound up letting more people in on the secret, great. If he never told another soul other than her and JARVIS, also great. Still…
"You know Maya, if you're going to be on your knees down there…"
Going into damage control mode, Pepper turns on seductress like flicking a switch. She gives Maya a raunchy grin, one that has the scientist blinking for a moment before grinning right back. A moment later and Maya is spreading Tony's legs apart, her hands on his knees as she shuffles forward. Tony gives Pepper a look of appreciation and gratitude, and she just gives his shoulder a squeeze as she rises from the couch. "I'm going to make the three of us some drinks. I'll be right back."
By the time she gets back, Maya is full-blown multitasking, switching between sucking Tony's cock and answering his questions about her latest work with the ease of a woman who had her natural born genius further enhanced by science.
Pepper sets down the drinks and sits back down on the couch, letting the two scientists talk shop as she listens with a smile on her lips. Eventually, things do descend into the truly debauched and depraved, but not for a few hours as Tony and Maya tinker and tool with this new upgrade to Extremis.
Being able to mentally interface with technology… Pepper can already imagine half a dozen ways she could use such a thing in her daily life and she's not even a scientist. Needless to say, she doesn't think it'll take long for Tony and Maya to figure this out. They're both way too excited about it, after all.
Pepper provides what she always provides in such situations… a more grounded presence, to keep the two geniuses from floating off into the clouds together, always ready to bring them both back down to Earth.
-x-X-x-
"Mr. Secretary."
"Director."
As Nick Fury sits down in Alexander Pierce's office, he stares at the man on the other side of the desk for a long, quiet moment before deciding to just get on with it. "We need to revisit the Avengers Initiative. And we need to start developing weapons that can protect us if the Norse fucking Pantheon comes back any time soon as well."
Behind his desk, Pierce smiles grimly.
"This week was a bit of a shock, wasn't it? Eye opening to say the least."
Nick scoffs, knowing that Pierce wasn't actually trying to make an eye pun at him.
"That's an understatement, Mr. Secretary. We're lucky nobody got hurt. We're especially lucky that all that got damaged was Stark Facility built in half a day. This could have been a disaster, both in terms of destruction and in terms of exposure."
Here, Pierce smiles a bit more broadly.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"Unlock the full story now—click here to download the complete novel in PDF and embark on the adventure today!"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ko-fi.com/abrahamsmith1b