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Walking home from the store one day, you realized you had eaten with Tony Stark over a week ago and you were still seeing his name everywhere. The newsstands around you were practically bursting. Interviews, pictures, full-blown articles on this man-Tony Stark-the guy you just ate dinner with. He was famous. And powerful. And a crazy smart.

That was the week you learned celebrity encounters tended to be like blunt force trauma: you go into shock at first and feel a bit numb, but then you get used to it. Until the next day, when the memory hangs on you for a few days like a bruise you want to show off to everybody

Another wave of remembrance made you clutch your groceries closer to your chest, trying to stop thinking about the fact you had mentioned that one time you got pink eye in middle school to an internationally-known mastermind.

The sky darkened to muted granite as you turned the corner to face a familiar building, the luminescent “STARK” glowing white against the grey sky. You slowed down, eying the tower carefully. Tony had technically told you to come over whenever you liked…but that would be awkward, wouldn’t it? Just showing up out of the blue? And expecting him to...care or something?

The thought of going over turned in your head, flip-flopping and fluttering until you finally decided living with the torment of indecision would be worse than a little embarrassment. So with a still developing determination, you rushed home to drop off your food, then ran back out onto the street and went down a new path.

Somewhat nervously, you approached Stark Tower. The door was blank and black, with no apparent door handle. You frowned. Suddenly blue lights and an electronic voice lit up.

"Hello, my name is JARVIS. How can I help you?"

WOAH. SOMETHING NOT HUMAN WAS TALKING TO YOU. Well, you were certainly not expecting that. "I, uh, I'm here to see Tony?"

"How nice, ma'am. Do you have an appointment?" the JARVIS chirped.

"Well-"

"I'm sorry, that is incorrect. There are no appointments today. It is Saturday."

Saturday? Were there no appointments on Saturdays? Your mind was still kind of blown away that you were having a conversation with a door. "Oh. Well, is Tony here today?"

"Yes, Mr. Stark is working."

Oh, good! "May I speak to him please?"

The quipped tone of the virtual butler didn't skip a beat. "What is your blood status?"

"My-what??"

"If you are not directly descended from a line of royalty, you cannot speak to Mr. Stark."

You stared blankly ahead. Is this a normal process???? "Can I speak to an employee, then?"

"There are no employees present, ma'am. It is No Boring People in the Building Saturday." he said serenely.

Op. That's why there are no appointments. "I-ah, o-okay then. I'll, I'll just go. Thank you for your time."

You turned and hurried away from the building. What a stupid idea! Of course you'd never get in. He was probably just being polite when he said to drop by. And to top it off, you'd just apologized to a computer program that probably couldn't even-

"Wait! Excuse me miss, may I acquire your name?"

You turned around. JARVIS has just called, blue lights blinking rapidly as his electronic voice reached you on the street.

You took a few steps back toward the burnished metal building. "My name?"

"Assuming you have one, miss."

"Oh, ah, (Name). (Full name)."

"(Full name)...ah yes! You're in my system. Come in ma'am."

The door clicked and swung opened. For a moment you just tried to absorb the fact you were in the system, and then you took a few delicate steps inside the tower, as if you were nervous you would destroy some important piece of technology if your footsteps echoed too loud.

Uhhh, ok, you were in the labs. What now?

"Tony?" you whispered.

"Up in the shop." a voice boomed over the PA system, causing you to stumble back in shock. "Get on up here." You could recognize Tonys characteristic drawl anywhere. (Even before you spent five hours watching interviews with him on YouTube the night you got home from your dinner date.)

Regaining your footing, you smiled cheekily. "And, keeping in mind that I don't have an inherent knowledge of the layout of your building, where would that be?"

His voice hummed through the building. "Hmm. Seems like the cognition diffuser I installed in the door frame is having maintenance trouble again. Well, guess you'll have to learn the manual way: in the elevator and up to the 7th floor. Third door on your left.

You followed his directions, getting in the glistening transport and and off at the seventh floor, traveling down to the end 'till you reached a large steel door, the third on the left. "It's not locked!" you pushed the door handle and peered in, seeing a glint of medal and a hotshot grin.

"That's 'cus I told Jarvis to let you in!" A motorcycle was cranked up to expose its underbelly, and crouched under the machinery was Tony, clad in a oil smeared white tank top and a mess of tousled hair. "Just doing some mechanic work." He stretched out and put the wrench down.

Crossing the room to Tony, you got down on your knees next to the bike and gazed at the handsome 'cycle. "You fix your own motorcycle? You're Tony Stark-don't you have people or machines for that?"

He leaned back on one of his built arms and raised a finger in the air. "First of all, I'm not fixing it: I'm improving it. There's going to be hydraulic thrusters on this part, and a sweet audio set up in place of a horn, so that when I press the center of the grill it will play that "Get Out the Way" song. At least, until I get a violation for it, which will probably be after five weeks if my history of evading the coppers is any precedent.

"And, secondly of course I'm Tony Stark, so obviously I'm the one fixing my bike. Who else would I trust with her?"

"Fair point." you crouched next to him at his gesture, looking at up the inner workings of the bike. "So what are you doing now?"

He mentioned that he was adjusting the bar clamp and then leaned up to tighten something in the undercarriage. When he moved you noticed his abs stretch under the ribbed texture of his white shirt. Wow. He was buff.

'Wow. That was inappropriate.' you thought. "Well, I mean, not inappropriate, inappropriate. Just inappropriate in the sense that he is a very well respected innovator and I should not be mentally commentating on the toned-ness of his stomach. No matter how great it may be."

You sensed his eyes roll towards you, and a slip of a smirk play across his face. Aw crap, he noticed. Quick, ask him a smart person question-"What's this?" you pointed randomly at the bike.

His gaze followed your finger. "That would be the kick stand." he stated in an amused tenor.

"No, no! Not that!" you said vehemently, heat crawling up your face because that was totally what you had been pointing at. "I meant this!"

Still smiling, he launched into another wordy explanation of the functions and dynamic of the “capacitor discharge ignition” that your could only half follow. But though some of the conversation flew over your head, his smile soon caught on to you as well, along with some speckled streaks of laughter. And you suddenly became very glad you decided to go to the tower today. After all, you honestly couldn't think of a better way to spend your afternoon: sitting on a garage floor and laughing about mechanics with Tony Stark.