Meeting

Since she could remember her biggest dream was to lead a regular life. Valerie wanted to be normal and she had the opportunity to archive that dream. Although mutants and superheroes were real, she was determined to grasp the chance to lead an uneventful and combat free life.

She needed a lot more money to start her new business but first, she needed identification papers so she could open up a bank account. So she began her research on the internet how identification papers should look like. The problem of conjuring identification papers was that she needed to know how they looked like. Another problem popped up as she researched about them. Paper trails. The technologies that existed in this reality were something completely alien to her, so she didn't have a clue how to make such a paper trail. For her magic to work she would need to understand the technology behind them. It went completely above her head. Nevertheless, she hoped a person without a paper trail would be less likely to catch the eye of the government than a person who walked into a jewelry store and changed a lot of gold and jewelry into money. In her storage ring, there were enough valuables to last for several lifetimes but she didn't know where to exchange them safely. It fascinated her to find several internet pages on how to illegally make a passport and identity card. With the helpful advice of the writers and some pictures, it was easy for her to conjure up her own identifications.

After that, she searched for and visited the nearest bank to open up her account. She deposited a little bit over one thousand dollars, the leftover money from the pawnshop, into it. Now she only needed to find a quick way to make money. After some searching, she found something called: the stock market. Most articles about it warned about how difficult it was to truly make big money with buying and selling those stocks without in-depth knowledge of the business one wanted to invest in and knowledge about upcoming business trends. But Vali had an unfair advantage: magic more precisely her sixth sense which warned her of dangers. She didn't know initially but her danger sense included the stock market which was awesome! It could not tell her if a stock would rise but it would give her a warning if she thought about a specific stock and those share prizes were about to lose value.

Over the next few weeks, she bought and sold stock shares and amassed a fortune. Every day she would go out to explore the city and Valerie would stop at a different coffee shop or bistro each time. She would sit down and order different kinds of things to check out her competitors. During one of these visits, she watched TV purely by chance and witnessed Tony Stark giving an interview: "..... I am Iron Man." The report continued by playing compo­sitions of scenes with Iron man saving the day. For Vali, the Iron Man suit looked like magic. She couldn't phantom someone building such fantastical things without it. So she went home and started researching Tony Stark and Iron Man. The more she uncovered the more impressed she was with Tony Stark. It looked like he was really a reformed man. After the Afghanistan incident, he even shut down Stark Industry`s weapon production. She was able to find out where Tony Stark was at the moment: in his house in Malibu. Information about Tony Stark was everywhere: where he lived, where he was going to, what he liked to eat, what he invented, his sexual escapades. It frightened her that someone could lead a life so completely open, the complete opposite of what she lived so far. The boundless courage it took to confess being Iron Man when everyone knew everything about you, was something that really impressed her.

Now that she found out where she could find Stark, she googled Malibu, looked up his villa on Google Maps and teleported to a nearby beach. After she read so much about him, Vali was almost certain that Stark was not a magical being but an engineering genius, but she couldn't let it be. If there even was a slight chance to meet someone like her, she had to take this chance and confirm the truth. So she jogged along the beach until Tony Starks villa came into view. Before she reached his property she made herself invisible and muted her steps, then she teleported to the nearest window. From her standpoint, she could see inside his house, but nobody was in sight. So she teleported again, but this time inside the living room, which was visible from outside. Arriving there she could hear someone talking downstairs, so she silently sneaked to the railing and listened.

Tony Stark didn't have a good day, no he would say he didn't have a good week, maybe even a good year. It started with his kidnapping in the Afghanistan desert subsequent torture, his escape from his kidnappers, the betrayal by one of the three people he trusted most in this world and ended with the revelation that his own arc reactor was poisoning him. As soon as he knew he was dying from the palladium, he tried finding an alternative but ultimately he failed to invent a new element. After Afganisthan, meaningless sex didn't appeal to him anymore and he began to notice that the only woman he trusted was Pepper. He really liked Pepper, maybe even loved her, so he tried to take their relationship onto the next level. Tony knew that it wasn't fair to pursue a relationship if one of them is dying but he was afraid of dying without one meaningful and true relationship.

Today Pepper visited him in his home in Malibu, but it wasn't a social visit rather he had to sign some papers for her. "Why are you so irresponsible? It looks like you lost weight again and your t-shirt needs to be washed. Tony, we talked about this, you are a grown man. Please be more responsible. " Pepper scolded. She only visited rarely so he hoped they could sit down and talk about them and their relationship but it seemed Pepper was not in a good mood. "Pep, I AM responsible. I lead a multimillion-dollar company. If you think I lost weight you should stay here and look after me." Tony flirted, but Pepper wasn't amused. "Maybe I could look after you, but you are not in your company and who do you think has to do your work? "Pepper complained. "Ok, let's go and eat at a restaurant then. My treat." Tony grinned at her. "Do you even hear yourself? Are you not listening to me? ...Tony, I cant... I just can't" Pepper shot him a disapproving and disappointed look which reminded him of his father and went up the stairs and out the door.

During Pepper and Tony's argument, Valerie slowly descended down the stairs into the laboratory. She could see first the happiness in Stark's face to have Pepper visiting him and then the sad look after she made it clear she wouldn't stay and didn't approve of his current state. The last look Pepper shot Tony reminded her too much of her caretakers when she was young. She was never good enough and they liked to put her down. Tony went to his minibar and poured himself a full glass of whiskey.

Valerie didn't know why she didn't teleport home because she already confirmed that Stark didn't have an ounce of magic in himself. Maybe the truly sad and hollow eyes she noticed on Stark or the way he simply took the accusations and didn't defend himself arose her protective instincts. The whole afternoon she stayed there and looked after Stark while he drank himself unconscious and collapsed on the couch in the living room. She was tempted to transport him to his bedroom, but in her research, she came upon a report where the text mentioned JARVIS. So Vali knew she would be found out and most likely recorded if she went and helped him. That left her with only one option: to be an invisible overseer.

At night while Tony was sleeping off his intoxication Valerie ported back to her abandoned building, which was quickly feeling like home to her. Yesterday she scouted out the house. It was a two-story building with one very big room by the front door and two smaller ones in the back. A round staircase in the back of one of the smaller rooms led onto the upper floor which was divided into one medium-sized living room with an open kitchen, a small bedroom with a walk-in wardrobe and a relatively big bathroom. Now that she had enough money it was time to look for a house to open up her business. Valerie booted up her laptop and searched for the two-story building, she was already residing in. Luckily the house was still for sale and on the market. It felt like fate. She didn't possess a phone so Vali had to wait until tomorrow to call the number of the realtor.