📍MALIBU, CALIFORNIA 2010
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(Y/N) would've never guessed this is where she would end up in. After being back on Earth for almost 15 years, she had time to adjust back into the planet with a lot of Fury's help. He made sure she kept contact with him even though she never left his side, since they both knew it would be for the best; especially with Fury's new secret plan.

Speaking of Fury, he had selected her personally for a new mission; one where she had to go undercover inside a company named Stark Industries. (Y/N) wasn't a huge fan of undercover missions herself, but Fury had insisted and she had no choice but to accept.

It sounded so simple; sneaking undercover and working as the assistant of the new CEO of Stark Industries and figure out what Fury had asked her to do. (Y/N) totally missed the days when Fury wasn't the boss and she had freedom to correct him and tell him what to do.

(Y/N) confidently walked towards the inside of the Stark mansion, her heels clicking on the hard white floor as she got closer to the indicated room. When (Y/N) took a good look at it, taking her eyes off the view of the ocean on the farthest side of the room, she spotted a boxing ring where two men were in with the respective gear.

Their grunts and small talk had died out once their attention was on her, the man, named Happy Hogan and the infamous Tony Stark had their eyebrows raised though (Y/N) could feel how the billionaire's eyes lingered on her form longer than she expected.

"I promise you this is the only time I will ask you to sign over your company," Pepper Potts's voice echoed through the room as (Y/N) headed to her.

Pepper gave a polite smile at her approach and (Y/N) opened her binder and handed the woman a pen. "I need you to initial each box."

Tony's eyes must've been still focusing on her because Happy caught his attention once again. "Lesson one. Never take your eye off — "

Tony aimed a kick to Happy's stomach, which sent him flying back to the ends of the ring. (Y/N) barely lifted her head at the grunts as Pepper kept filling the paperwork in her hands, until a bell rang and the punches were over.

Tony pointed towards her. "What's your name, lady?"

"Vance. (Y/N) Vance," she responded. She knew it wasn't that much undercover to use your real name, but after her experience with having her identity and real name stolen from her; she just felt the need to switch the last name.

"Front and center. Come into the church," Tony gestured to the ring with his energy drink in his other hand.

"No," Pepper tried to interfere. "You're seriously not gonna ask — "

"If it pleases the court, which it does."

(Y/N) closed the binder and faced Pepper. "It doesn't matter."

"I'm sorry. He's very eccentric."

So I've heard, (Y/N) responded in her head, but she walked towards the ring where Tony was already holding a space between the lines so she could step in with no problem.

(Y/N) didn't even try to do anything seductive or set him off, but when she got back up after entering the ring, she found that Tony was already staring at her with an unfamiliar look in his eyes as they moved up and down her figure.

"Do I know you?" he asked in a low voice.

"I bet you say that line to every woman you see," (Y/N) replied without biting her tongue.

"You're not wrong," Tony said smugly, before his face contorted to confusion. "But still — "

(Y/N) tilted her head. "What?"

Tony shook his head with a scoff and took a sip from his energy drink before turning to Happy, who was still inside the ring. "Can you give her a lesson?"

"No problem," Happy muttered.

Tony stepped out of the ring and made his way towards Pepper, who was comfortably sitting in a small couch with her phone on her hand. He count quite understand why he was so entranced in the woman who had entered the room a few minutes ago, it was like a sense of deja vu hit him across the face.

He called Pepper's name under his breath and sat down beside her on the couch as her eyes left the small screen in her hands.

"Who is she?" he questioned immediately.

"She is from legal," Pepper explained while continuing to type on her phone. "And she is potentially a very expensive sexual harassment lawsuit if you keep ogling her like that. One of your worst pick up lines I ever heard you say, by the way."

"I need a new assistant boss."

"Yes, and I've got three excellent potential candidates," Pepper argued in an uninterested tone. "They're lined up and ready to meet you."

"I don't have time to meet. I need someone now," Tony insisted. "I feel like it's her."

"No, it's not."

Meanwhile, inside the ring, (Y/N) tried her best to keep her cool and act like she didn't notice how Pepper and Tony kept muttering about her under their breaths, constantly looking behind her shoulder to make sure everything was well.

"You ever boxed before?" Happy drew her attention.

(Y/N) tried to block the memory from her old training. "Not that much, but yeah."

"What, like, Tae Bo? Booty Boot Camp? Crunch? Something like that?"

(Y/N) didn't answer to that since neither of the stuff Happy mentioned made sense to her, so she cleared her throat awkwardly while wishing this could be over already.

"How do I spell your name, (Y/N)?" Tony called out to her loudly.

(Y/N) spelled out the name she'd used to introduce herself a few minutes back and turned back to face Happy, not before she saw how Tony typed that into some sort of table.

"What, are you gonna Google her now?" Pepper peaked on what he was doing.

"Hmm? I thought I was ogling her," Tony bit back, before different files came up with the same name and picture of her. "Oh, wow. Very, very impressive individual."

"You're so predictable, you know that?"

Tony kept reading through to see if he found anything interesting or to check if he had spotted her by chance in any sort of event he's been in, but not a single clue was found.

"She's fluent in Spanish, Italian, Russian," Tony read out, and Pepper didn't even try to hide her look of impression.

Pepper looked over his shoulder and read out something from the screen. "Looks like she was in the Military."

That rang a bell in Tony's head, however, he couldn't read anything else about it since there was no details to support that fact. He cursed under his breath, but shrugged it off after a second, he shouldn't be worried about where this (Y/N) person came from.

(Y/N) could still listen to the mutters about her and only tried to look behind her shoulder to see if it allowed her to listen more carefully, but she wasn't allowed to.

Happy noticed her distraction. "Rule number one, never take your eye off your opponent — "

(Y/N) was able to sense that Happy's fist was aiming directly at her face and she grabbed his arm just in time to twist it just enough to turn Happy around and have him down on his knees with his arm twisted behind his back and extended far enough so (Y/N) could hold onto it.

"Oh, my God!"

"Whoa!"

Happy's whimpers rang in (Y/N)'s ear and she let go of his arm with an apologetic look in her face, trying to offer a gentle smile to the poor man as he stood up from his knees.

"Happy," Pepper called out worriedly.

"That's what I'm talking about."

Happy panted. "I just slipped."

"You did?" Tony rang the bell.  "Looks like a TKO to me."

(Y/N) controlled the urge to roll her eyes at Tony's remarks and stepped out of the ring carefully, placing back her shoes as she looked back to face him while still holding onto the side of the ring for balance.

"Look, I need your impression," she told him.

"You have a loud reserve," Tony described. "I don't know, you have an old soul."

"You flatter me, Mr. Stark, but I meant your fingerprint," (Y/N) offered a smug smile of her own after perfectly placing her heels back on.

"Right."

(Y/N) grabbed the binder from where she'd placed it before stepping into the ring and opened it. Tony did was he was asked to do as Pepper made her way over with genuine curiosity of what Tony was going to say next.

"So, how are we doing?" she asked.

"Great. Just wrapping up," Tony placed one last fingerprint in the papers. "Hey. You're the boss."

Pepper gave him a thankful look and (Y/N) closed the binder and held it in between her hands, looking back at the other two adults in front of her. "Will that be all, Mr. Stark?"

(Y/N) was received by two different answers.

"No."

"Yes, that will be all, Ms. Vance," Pepper gave her another smile. "Thank you very much."

(Y/N) nodded and cleared her throat before walking away from the two, still feeling their gazes on her as she disappeared from the room.

"You know what? Now I'm not entirely convinced," Tony looked back at Pepper once she was gone.

"Oh, please!"

i always hate the first chapters of every book i write, and i hope it wasn't so confusing with the narrative. i promise some stuff will get explained throughout the book.

-see you soon, bex <3