#me instead: gets invested in this new york au that came out of nowhere

[jouretnuit-nightandday]

From your last prompt can you write a bit about the party they went to?? Like is it there first kiss Ect

Hi Anon, sure! Here’s a little prequel to this post. 

This is the most boring party Fatin’s ever attended. She’s not even sure it qualifies as a party, honestly. Where’s the excitement, the energy, the glamorous outfits? The dancing and laughter? The fun? All she sees are old white people in bland yet probably super expensive clothes sipping from their champagne glasses, and her fellow Juilliard classmates wandering around, stuffing themselves with canapés and trying to catch the attention of their favorite professors by saying something witty at just the right moment, while an honestly uninspired rendition of Chopin’s Nocturne plays softly in the background.

This is so not what she was expecting when she moved to New York. Fatin's not an idiot, she knew there’d be a fair amount of studying and practicing involved, but she thought at least the party scene would be fun. But she’s barely had time to explore Manhattan’s clubs, and all the Juilliard parties have been… disappointing. She’s supposed to take this opportunity to mingle, get to know her classmates, impress her professors, meet a rich benefactor - in one word, network. But she is so fucking bored. 

Disgruntled, and making absolutely no effort to smile, Fatin starts making her way towards a group of students arguing about something that’s sure to be captivating - at least one of the guys is fantastically dressed, and though she’s pretty sure he’s gay and won’t be interested in a quick fuck, she’s hoping he’ll be less of a bore than the rest - when suddenly someone taps her on the shoulder, from behind. She swivels around, expecting one of the girls from her dorm, or - God forbid - her faculty advisor. 

“Leah!” she exclaims, instead, and blinks, incredulous. Maybe her friend is an apparition, a mirage produced by her entertainment-deprived brain. 

But no, it is in fact Leah, in the flesh, smiling at her. “Hey,” is all Leah has time to let out, before Fatin wraps her in a fierce hug. “Oh my God, you actually came! Thank fuck.”

“Of course I came, you invited me,” Leah mumbles, sounding amused. 

Fatin lets Leah go, and peers at her, raising one eyebrow. “Girl, you’ve literally stood me up the last five times I’ve invited you to go out. Don’t act like I’m not allowed to be surprised.”

Leah rolls her eyes. “I didn’t stand you up, I just said I couldn’t come. I don’t know if you’re aware, but --”

“You’re a sophomore at NYU and you have a lot of work, blablabla,” Fatin interrupts, with a dismissive little wave of the hand.”Yeah, yeah, I know the drill.” She grins at the grumpy face Leah makes. “You got here just in time: this party fucking sucks. There’s literally no-one interesting, and they won’t serve you alcohol if you’re under twenty-one.”

“Sounds like a good time to let you know I’ve got rhum in my purse,” Leah says, in a conspiratorial tone. 

“Oh, Leah,” Fatin says, “I could kiss you right now. With a little tongue, even.”

Leah’s cheeks redden, as they always do when Fatin flirts with her, and as she crosses her arms against her chest, it draws Fatin’s gaze to the rest of her. She lets out a little whistle. “Dude, you look hot. That dress is perfect on you.”

“Thanks,” Leah replies, still blushing. “You look nice too.”

“Nice?” Fatin repeats, offended.

“Sorry,” Leah amends, in a drier tone. “You are the most fuckable person at this social event.”

“There we go. Thanks, babe.” Fatin winks, and grabs Leah’s hand. “Alright, let’s go somewhere private and have a look at that purse of yours.”

They escape the main gallery, giggling as they hurry up the stairs and find refuge in a small side room that must serve as an administrative office during the day: there’s a very large desk, and chairs, and a set of dusty shelves. They both sit - Leah on the chair, Fatin on the desk - and Leah takes out a flask from her purse, twists the cap off, and takes a long sip. Fatin watches with interest as the movement leaves Leah’s throat curved and exposed ; her eyes follow the lines of Leah’s collarbones peeking from under her dress, the shape of Leah’s lips around the mouth of the flask. When it’s her turn to drink, the rhum pools, warm, a bit dangerous, at the bottom of Fatin’s stomach, and she glances at Leah’s face again, at her eyes, strikingly blue, framed by dark hair. It’s not the first time she notices how pretty Leah is ; they’ve known each other since high school, though they only really became friends after they both moved to New York for college. 

“I’m glad you came,” Fatin says, softly, a bit more earnestly than she intended.

“That’s what she said,” says Leah, and Fatin almost chokes on her second mouthful of rhum. 

She laughs, passing the flask back to Leah. “Oh, I’ve taught you well. I’m so proud.”

Leah, smiling, puts the flask inside her purse. “Should we go back downstairs?”

Fatin is about to answer when, suddenly, voices resonate in the hallway, right by the door. “Shit,” Fatin murmurs, because they are most definitely not supposed to be here. “Get under the desk.” The two of them scramble on their hands and knees under the massive desk of polished wood, and Fatin has the presence of mind to drag Leah’s purse under there as well just as the door opens. 

“-- believe he wants these documents right now, this really could have waited till morning,” says someone, sounding extremely irritated, and tired.

“You know how he is,” a second person answers, which Fatin recognizes as one of the music division’s secretaries. Oh, God, she’s in so much trouble. “You got them?”

“Give me a minute.”

Leah and Fatin don’t move an inch, as they listen, barely breathing, to someone rummaging through the shelves. Leah’s fingers are tight around Fatin’s hand, and they’re huddling so close to each other, Fatin swears she can hear Leah’s heart pounding, hard and fast, inside her chest. 

“Got it. Let’s go.” Footsteps retreat, the door closes, the voices fade away. Fatin lets out a shaky breath. 

“Fuck, that was terrifying,” she whispers. She turns her head, minutely, and Leah‘s face is right there, so close they could be touching, so close she smells the rhum on Leah’s breath. Leah’s eyes are wide, and she’s staring right at Fatin, her cheeks pink. Fatin’s gaze drops to Leah’s lips. 

“Leah,” she exhales, and before she can say anything else, Leah surges forward and kisses her, both hands cupping Fatin’s face. Fatin threads her fingers in the silky mass of Leah’s hair, and kisses her back.

When they part for air, Fatin traces the wet, enticing line of Leah’s lower lip with her thumb, and smiles. “You’re full of surprises, Leah Rilke. I would not have pegged you for a girl who enjoys making-out under a desk.”

Leah laughs, and it’s the most beautiful sound Fatin’s ever heard. “I mean, I can’t say I’ve ever done it before, but, when in Rome...

“Hm. Well, I have a very comfortable bed, and a roommate who definitely won’t be in tonight. Do you wanna get out of here?” Fatin asks. She holds out a hand.

Leah takes it. “Lead the way .”

[tempestaurora]

Hi I just need to share this idea before I fall asleep: AU where Beck targeted Harley instead because Tony left Harley EDITH instead of Peter

read on ao3

They showed up in the hand of a suited man who looked uncomfortably hot in the Tennessee sun. E.D.I.T.H., the card in the glasses case read, Even In Death I’m The Hero – T.S.

Harley had been to his funeral the month before, had stood outside the lake house with a collection of plain-clothed superheroes. He’d recognised some, but not all. Captain America, Falcon, Hawkeye, Bruce Banner. They were all red-eyed and sombre, donned in black suits and congregating in small groups after the ceremony. Harley had come alone, without his mother or sister, and had spoken to barely anyone, bar Colonel Rhodes who recognised him, Pepper and Morgan, who’d invited him, and the kid called Peter Parker, who looked about his age - though, post-snap, it was hard to tell anymore.

He hadn’t touched the glasses for two days before finally working up the nerve to try them on, then he’d played with them in complete awe for three days before finally putting them away again. He’d read the texts of strangers on the street, peered inside the Mustang’s engine and dissected every part, stared at the maths problems on his homework sheet and watched the numbers float off the page and solve themselves. It was a lot of power, Harley figured. Too much for a kid in fuck-all nowhere Rose Hill.

He made a small hole in the floorboards of the garage, and hid the glasses away.

He’d vanished in the snap, like half the universe, but his sister and mother had lived on for five years, continued to grow and change. He’d been in his senior year when he’d died, and now his sister was too. They shared the same classes, and though she’d desperately tried to get into science and engineering; to make use of the tools in the garage that Tony had provided Harley with, she just wasn’t interested, and leant heavily towards history, with dreams of archaeology and excavation.

They looked like twins now, and started to tell people that they were.

His little sister was five years younger than him, but they were both eighteen now anyway.

In all, despite having E.D.I.T.H. under the floorboards of the half-gutted garage (the equipment inside was both too sentimental to sell, and too expensive not to), nothing much changed with Harley as the world tried to right itself after the second snap. Time continued on, the world slowly rebuilt itself and struggled to house all the new homeless folk, and superheroes re-emerged from the cracks, fighting the everyday bank robbers and crazy scientists, rather than colonising aliens.

Harley and Ariel graduated side by side, her name read out first, then his, and they wore matching robes and smiled matching smiles for their mother’s photos. They packed up their things and both headed for New York, both of them studying at Columbia, and both of them scoring rooms in the same dorm. On the day they left; Harley’s Mustang idling out front with his sister’s music blaring from the stereo, Harley wandered around the garage, decked out by a dead man, and pulled back the floorboard. E.D.I.T.H. still sat there in the case, just as it had when Harley had first received it a year before, and he removed it, replaced the floorboard, and started the long drive north.

His classes were the good kind of difficult, and he threw himself into electrical and mechanical engineering, scoring high grades and making new friends. Parties were a rare thing in Rose Hill, as everyone lived so far apart and kids his age were rare, so now he and Ariel had new experiences to make; dorm parties and frat houses, night clubs and bars. Despite the new laws about post-snap identification, his I.D. from before still worked in some places; technically twenty-three rather than the lived eighteen.

“We’re twins,” he and Ariel would say to whoever asked; the two Keeners living on the same floor and going to the same parties. They shared a lot of friends, though drew themselves to different areas; Harley falling easily into the D&D Society, and Ariel finding herself in three separate book clubs.

“Family has become more important than ever,” the post-snap counsellor would say in their mandatory session in their first semester. Every student had to meet with them, only a year since the world came back, but Harley and Ariel attended theirs together, more joined at the hip than they had ever been when they were five years apart in age.

They went home for Christmas and returned in January, starting classes anew. It was then that Harley met his new teacher, Quentin Beck, an M.I.T. graduate who’d once been a successful head developer in R&D at Stark Industries. Harley took every reference to Tony like a stab in the side; Tony’s face was everywhere, painted in every mural. All his classmates were obsessed with the arc reactor and the Stark tech, they all held Starkphones like once everyone had held Apples. Beck’s entire first class was essentially a spiel about what he learned at S.I., and Harley felt sick by the end of it.

Just as he was rushing out of the class, Quentin – all the tutors insisted being called by their first names – called him back. “I hear you’re the student to look out for,” he said easily, resting against the edge of his desk. “Tell me, where did your interest start?”

Harley had never been asked this question, but he had always thought he’d lie if he were. Instead, facing a man who’d also known and cared about Tony Stark, he said, “I’ve always liked building things, but I don’t think it was until I met Tony Stark myself that I really got invested.”

Quentin raised an eyebrow, surprised. “You’ve met Tony Stark?”

“It’s a little hard to believe,” he admitted, rubbing at the back of his neck, “but back in 2013—the Mandarin incident? With the President?—when Tony vanished after his house got bombed, he ended up in my hometown. Broke into my garage to hide out from the snow, and well—I dunno. I got to hang out with him for a few days.”

He thought he’d be scoffed at, honestly – it wasn’t a particularly believable story, though Harley had realised that was the case with a lot of truths – but instead, Quentin smiled, like he’d found someone similar to himself, a friend. They talked for a bit about Tony, and then after the next class, they talked again. They went to Quentin’s office and told stories about working with Tony and their experiences with Iron Man. Harley showed him the photos from when he was fifteen and visiting New York mere weeks before Ultron, when he and Tony worked on the code for his own helper bot and later went to a museum together.

It was—strange, honestly. Having someone to relate to about this stuff. Having someone who cared—about Harley, about Tony, about his legacy. Quentin was the only person who got it. Ariel had never met Tony, had been too young to really remember the events anyway, and Harley hadn’t wanted to bother anyone he’d met at the funeral; their connections to Tony far stronger than his could ever be. He hadn’t known the man like Colonel Rhodes had, like Pepper had – but he still grieved, still mourned, still wanted him back.

Talking to Quentin, then working with him on his project, was a little like that; like finding Tony in the world again.

So, one day, as they worked in the shop he said, “Tony left me a gift actually.”

Quentin paused and leant back on his stool, saying, “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. When he died. Some lawyer showed up at my door with it; said he’d left it in his will for me.”

“What was it, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Glasses,” Harley replied. “They’re—it’s an A.I., called E.D.I.T.H..” He shrugged. “I don’t know why he left them to me, honestly. He already gave me a whole workshop and a vintage Mustang. And we weren’t—we didn’t talk a whole lot, even before the snap. Couple times a year, I guess. I came up to New York like, twice, and he would email out of the blue to see if I wanted to test the new Starkphone…”

“What does the A.I. do?”

“What doesn’t it do?” Harley sighed. “I’m pretty sure it’s a borderline surveillance state A.I., I mean, if the government had it. It can see everything, I think. In the wrong hands… it could be catastrophic.”

“Are your hands the wrong hands?” Quentin asked.

Harley hesitated. “I hope not. Tony trusted me with it, so he must think… must think they’re right.”

“Well,” Quentin said, “I’d love to see them sometime. They sound incredible.”

That afternoon he returned to his room, where he knelt by the drawer he’d fixed a false bottom into, pulling out the E.D.I.T.H. glasses for the first time since he hid them away in September. He tried them on, and E.D.I.T.H. greeted him in the warm tone, information pouring out before him. He peered around his room slowly, and as the sight caught on his roommate’s laptop, their tablet, E.D.I.T.H. captured the data and sent it scrolling before his eyes.

“E.D.I.T.H.,” Harley said quietly.

“Yes, Harley?”

“Why did Tony leave you to me?”

“Tony Stark left gifts for all loved ones in case of his demise. He did not tell me the significance or reasoning behind his actions.”

Harley sighed and flopped backwards onto his bed. “What did other people get?”

“Virginia “Pepper” Potts and Morgan Stark received the majority of the wealth, assets and properties under the name Anthony Edward Stark. Virginia Potts was also left controlling ownership of Stark Industries. Colonel James Rhodes was bequeathed several vintage cars, a large sum of money, and several sentimental items. Harold Hogan was bequeathed the same. Should I go on?”

“Sure.”

“Mr. Stark left various moneys, cars, sentimental items and properties to individuals he worked with under the Avengers Initiative: Robert “Bruce” Banner, Natasha Romanoff, Steven Rogers, Clinton Barton and Thor Odinson. Other moneys were left to various organisations, foundations and charities supported by Mr Stark. He bequeathed myself and a college fund to you, Harley Keener, and a matching college fund and equipped workshop space in Queens, New York, New York, to Peter Parker. He left—”

“Stop,” Harley said.

Peter Parker had been the other kid at the funeral. The one with the internship with Tony. The one at the front of the dock, who’d cried beside his Aunt, who’d been introduced to Morgan for the first time mere minutes after Harley had.

“E.D.I.T.H.,” Harley said, “do you have the contact information for Peter Parker?”

“Of course, Harley.”

Peter’s phone number, email and address appeared before his eyes. His personal information scrolled beside it; seventeen, in his senior year, Midtown Tech High School. Harley thought about calling him; about saying Hi, we met at the funeral, want to be friends? About the bond he had with Quentin, the only person who understood what Harley was going through, even a little, and how he could have it again, with someone else. Someone who had worked beside Tony and looked up to him, just like Harley.

He was about to ask E.D.I.T.H. to call the number when his phone started ringing.

QUENTIN BECK CALLING his glasses read. He and Quentin had shared numbers because Harley’s college email was glitchy and Quentin had needed a way to contact him about class schedules and extra shop time.

“Hi, Quentin,” Harley said as he picked up.

“Harley! I’m glad I caught you. I was just thinking about those glasses Tony left you…”

It didn’t take much, really, for Quentin to persuade Harley to let him take a look at them. He was a friend, he was trusted – he, too, might be the right hands. Quentin and Harley talked for hours about them, trying them out and asking E.D.I.T.H. about her various functions. Harley had been right about how incredible they were, but he’d also been right about how much power they held for trouble. How far the wrong hands could take them; they were connected to satellites across the globe, had an enabled drone strike, and could send missiles to any given place on the planet. And Tony Stark had made this?

“They’re… truly something,” Quentin had said when the sky grew dark. Ariel was texting about dinner and Harley was packing up to leave. “Don’t… please don’t take this the wrong way, Harley—but do you think they’re too much responsibility for you to have?”

“Quentin, I—”

“I know you’re not a child, I know. You’re eighteen, you’re an adult – but these glasses,” he gestured to them on the table, shaking his head. “You could destroy the world with this, Harley. You could literally take it over. And that’s—that’s terrifying. It’s terrifying that Tony would’ve made something like this in the first place, and frankly, more so that he would leave them to someone else upon his death, rather than destroying them.”

“You think they should be destroyed?”

“I think these are simply another foray into weapon building,” Quentin sighed. “Though rather than selling it to the U.S. military, he’s privatised it and kept it for himself.”

“Then why did he give them to me?” Harley asked, nervous hands picking up the glasses. Quentin was right, of course, they were too much responsibility for him. He’d stuck them under the floorboards where they couldn’t be touched because of it. Left them in the drawer and pretended they didn’t exist. Practically ignored the one thing Tony had left for him.

He bet, bitterly, that Peter Parker wasn’t ignoring the gift Tony had left for him.

“I’m not sure, Harley. And this isn’t something I’m saying about you—rather, about him—but I don’t think it was the right decision.”

Harley swallowed, turning over the glasses in his hands. “You think I should get rid of them entirely?”

Quentin sighed, passing a hand over his forehead. “I’m not sure, Harley. I’m not. Perhaps they’ll save the world someday—but only in the hands of the right person.”

Harley bit hard into the inside of his lower lip. He wasn’t the right person. His hands weren’t the right hands. What had Tony been thinking, leaving a weapon this powerful to him? He was a kid from fuck-all nowhere Rose Hill, not a superhero. He was no Captain America, no Thor, no Iron Man.

“Quentin,” Harley said, his mind made up. “If I gave them to you, would you hide them somewhere?”

“What?”

“Hide them. Like you said, they might save the world someday—but that day’s not today, and they need to be somewhere where they can’t cause trouble until then. And if I’m not the right hands—then I shouldn’t know where they are.”

Quentin took the glasses in careful hands. “Are you sure, Harley?”

He nodded, resolute. “I’m sure.”

Quentin hesitated, turning the glasses over in his hands. “Perhaps you should—you should pass over the control to me, too. They only work for you, and if you don’t know where they are…”

Harley swallowed then shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’ll keep the control.”

“But, Harley—”

“No,” he repeated. “Maybe I’m not the right hands, but maybe you’re not either.”

“Harley—”

“If you were, Tony would’ve given them to you in the first place. I just need… I just need them hidden. Until I am the right hands, or until the world needs them. Whichever comes first, I guess.”

On the way home, he called Peter Parker and arranged to get coffee in some Queens café the next weekend. After dinner, he shot off an email to Pepper Potts, too, to see how she was doing and apologise for not reaching out for so long. Her response was prompt, and the weekend after, he was to meet her at her Manhattan apartment for dinner with her and Morgan.

He felt strange, that night, and the nights after it, going to bed without the glasses in the drawer beside his head, but it was for the best, he thought, not knowing where they were.

During class on Friday, Quentin seemed busy, side-tracked, and on Saturday, Harley met Peter, who was happier than the last time he’d seen him, and more than willing to share stories about Tony all afternoon, until it grew dark and the two of them went next door for a bite of pizza.

Classes all the next week were cancelled due to Quentin being sick, and he responded to Harley’s get well soon text positively, saying he was already on the mend. At dinner with Pepper and Morgan, Harley told her about college, about meeting Peter even. He didn’t mention Quentin or the glasses, and neither did she. Instead, they laughed at Morgan’s bad jokes and afterwards played a board game and let her win.

And then Quentin didn’t show for class the week after. Didn’t cancel it either, so Harley and his classmates sat around, confused and waiting, until they got bored and went home. Harley tried Quentin’s number and he didn’t pick up. The next day he did the same and the number was cancelled.

“This number no longer exists,” the voice at the end of the line said, and Harley shuddered to a halt in the middle of the packed corridor. People bumped into him from all sides and he squeezed his way over to the wall, the truth playing in front of his eyes on loud, flashing repeat.

Quentin Beck had hidden E.D.I.T.H. and then vanished. He’d taken E.D.I.T.H. He was in possession of the most powerful and dangerous A.I. since Ultron. And Harley had given it to him.

Harley called Pepper as he from campus, searching for a cab.

“Hi, Harley,” Pepper said, “I’m actually about to head into a meeting, so could I call you back—”

“No!” Harley cried, skidding to a stop on the pavement. “It’s important!”

“Is everything alright?”

“No, everything’s not alright! It’s E.D.I.T.H.!”

“Edith? Who’s Edith?”

“E.D.I.T.H.!” Harley repeated. “The A.I. Tony left me! I was kind of overwhelmed by the responsibility of it, and my teacher Quentin convinced me that I shouldn’t have it at all, so I asked him to put it somewhere until I could use it, and now he’s gone! He’s gone and he’s the only one who knows where E.D.I.T.H. is!”

Harley was panting out on the street, but Pepper’s voice was even, hard, “Harley,” she said, “did you hand over control of E.D.I.T.H. when you gave it to your teacher?”

“No,” Harley said. “I didn’t think I should, so it’s still under my control—”

“Alright. That’s very good of you, Harley. E.D.I.T.H. can only be used by the person who has control. Tony gave that control to you, and so long as you don’t ask E.D.I.T.H. to obey anyone else, control will remain with you. Now, can you tell me the name of your teacher?”

“Quentin. Quentin Beck.”

“Oh, fuck,” Pepper said, eloquently. “Amy, would you mind rescheduling my meetings? Harley, come to the apartment. We’ll call in some help and get this sorted.”

Harley grabbed his sister on the way, relaying the events and watching as she chose between a scoff that he could be so dumb, and a pitying smile. She chose the latter and the two of them climbed in a taxi, taking it to the Upper West Side, where Pepper lived when she was in the city. The elevator opened not on the penthouse floor like last time, though, but on the floor beneath, where Pepper stood by an array of computers and Happy paced around behind her.

On one of the screens was Quentin’s face, though a good few years younger, and a long list of information.

Pepper greeted them and then told them all about Quentin Beck, the man who became his college teacher. He had worked for Stark Industries, that much was true, and he had led the development of what eventually became B.A.R.F., an incredibly complex piece of technology that extracted memories and could replay them in 3D, just like Tony had displayed at M.I.T. in 2016. But Quentin hadn’t designed it for use as a billion dollar therapy tool; he’d seen it as a weapon, as a way to manufacture events, hallucinations. With B.A.R.F., the user could extract memories exactly as they were remembered, or exactly as they decided to remember them. It could be used for interrogation, for criminal cases – or it could be used for exonerations. And in other events, it could just as easily be taken advantage of; a guilty person misremembering a murder; a victim being forced to replay a traumatic memory again and again.

He was infuriated what Tony wanted to do with his technology, and had eventually been fired for it too. He was off the deep end, Pepper said, a little crazed and dangerous. His reference had been anything but glowing, and yet he’d still managed to doctor the facts and land himself a role at Columbia during the five years between snaps. He still managed to end up as Harley’s teacher – though, it seemed, by coincidence. One Quentin took advantage of as soon as he discovered how close Tony and Harley had been, and who owned the large fund that was paying Harley’s tuition.

After Pepper told her story, Harley told his – about how dangerous E.D.I.T.H. truly is, about the responsibility of a world killer that he could wear like a pair of smart glasses. Quentin had been right, as awful as it was; Harley wasn’t ready for them, wasn’t prepared to own something like that, and in the wrong hands…

“Why do you think Tony gave them to you?” Pepper asked softly, hers hands on his arms.

“I don’t know!” Harley complained. “I don’t know why he gave them to me—”

“He gave them to you because you are the right hands,” she said. “Because you are responsible. And yes, they’re a weight to carry, and they can be scary—hell knows I feel that pressure with F.R.I.D.A.Y. standing over me at all times, knowing what she can do if I asked—but he wouldn’t have handed them down to you if he thought you couldn’t handle it. And maybe… maybe you can’t yet. Maybe you do need to grow into them, but E.D.I.T.H. is yours, and will be for as long as you want it.”

“But it can do so many bad things.”

“And it can do so many good ones, too,” she replied. “Tony was a futurist. He saw the way forward and brought it to the present. He could see the value of A.I.; of a being that learned and grew and changed, but wasn’t human. They can do a lot of bad, if you ask it to – and they’re installed with safeguards for that exact reason – but they can do a lot of good. F.R.I.D.A.Y. is a personal assistant and security system as much as she can be used as a weapon. She can keep an eye on Morgan, can deploy security measures if someone breaks in, can keep an eye on body temperatures, on health and how hydrated we are. She’s a friend as much as she’s technology. If she sees dips in mood, she can work to relieve it; when Tony was struggling after the first snap, she was also the one that alerted me, so I could help. And maybe—maybe they’re small things, compared with missiles in the sky and drone strikes, but they’re also good things.”

She sighed, smiling. “It’s like being a good person or a bad person, Harley. Just because you think bad thoughts, doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It’s what you do that counts. We all have the potential for chaos, for hurt and harm – we have to choose not to act on it. In the same way, with A.I.s in our hands, we have to continuously choose to use them for good, not evil.”

Harley felt his chest loosen a little, where it had tightened and knotted up. Maybe Pepper was right.

“But E.D.I.T.H. isn’t in my hands,” he said. “I lost her!”

“Anything lost can also be found,” she said easily, turning to the monitors. “I have F.R.I.D.A.Y.,” she said, “and I am using her for good by locating Quentin Beck using New York’s CCTV cameras and S.I.’s advanced facial recognition software—not for sale, distribution or government use,” she added, with a smile. “I could go out there myself, too, but I figured there was someone closer by.” Pepper pressed a button on the dash. “How’s it going Spidey?”

“Hey, Pepper!” a voice responded; the cheery, upbeat tone of Spiderman. “I’m actually just watching him through the window of his buddy’s apartment. They’ve been trying to hack into the glasses since way before I got here and its fun seeing them stressed. They haven’t even noticed I’m here.”

“Spidey,” Pepper sighed, “would you mind getting the glasses back sooner rather than later? And finding out who the buddy is?”

“Oh, KAREN’s already figured that out. Ex-S.I. employee. Guess they all have it out for Mr. Stark, huh?”

The image of a balding man appeared on one screen, clearly taken through the bedroom window. His name popped up next to it, with his details.

“Guess so,” Pepper replied.

It was less than an hour later that Spiderman vaulted through the window of the lab, glasses in hand.

“Oh, pizza?” he said, looking at the boxes Happy had ordered to keep himself busy. “Save any for me?”

Pepper tapped her hand on a closed box. “Pepperoni. Just for you.”

“Oh, you’re the best,” he said, passing Harley on the way to the box and handing back the glasses as he went. “For you,” he added along the way.

Harley eyed the glasses in his hands; they were very Tony, just like the ones he used to wear. He wasn’t ready for them, really. Not yet. But someday, he might be – someday, he might be able to use E.D.I.T.H.’s reach and power for good. Might be able to use her to build good things that help people, to change the world just as Tony had done.

Harley said, “Thanks, Peter,” and grinned as Spiderman, Pepper and Happy froze.

Then Spiderman whined, “How did you know? I didn’t even tell you! I swear, Pepper, I said nothing,” and Harley laughed, waving the glasses around.

“E.D.I.T.H. knows everything,” he said, remembering all the details that appeared when he asked the glasses for Peter’s phone number, “from your class schedule to your secret identity.”

Peter pulled off the mask and Ariel sniggered into her pizza as he did so. He looked so put out. “No telling,” he said, slumping onto a free chair. “I can’t believe everyone I come into contact with figures out my secret identity.”

“It’s probably because you take off the mask every time you want to talk to someone or look dramatically into the middle distance,” Happy replied, with his mouth full.

They all laughed, and Harley grinned, placing the glasses carefully on the table.

Not yet, he thought, but maybe someday.