Chapter Text
“This idea that all forms of life must need water to survive is conceptually flawed—”
“How long can the human body survive without water?”
Grace gritted his teeth, ignoring the heckler in favour of his slides. “Our understanding of life is based on the tiniest fraction of existence. We assume life must exist as it does on Earth—carbon-based, requiring water—but we are a needle in a haystack, a pinprick of space.”
He was interrupted once again. “We’ve explored enough to know other environments are unsuitable for life.”
Grace took a deep breath, hands clenched in fists by his sides. “Exploration done under the assumption that all life must follow our own.”
“Under the research that has prove it must! Who are you to come in with the arrogance to reject every understanding we’ve ever had!”
“This is a conference I have been asked to speak at. Could all questions wait until the end.” He was quite proud of his restraint, releasing the tension in his body slowly, massaging his cramping hand. The room fell silent once more.
“Thank you.” Grace took a deep breath. He’d always known there’d be doubt, and there’d be backlash, but the utter disrespect to interrupt during his presentation—it was hypocrisy and irreverence at the highest level.
“As I was saying. Water isn't magic. It's a solvent. The question is whether another solvent could perform the same role under different environmental conditions. For example, liquid methane— ”
“This is utter horseshit!”
He’d tried. Tried so, so incredibly hard to be patient and calm and—
And…
Fuck it.
“How can you be so stubborn as to not allow your mind to be open to other possibilities?” He demanded, gaze meeting the idiot in the crowd. Okay, so… definitely not an idiot; in fact, a very, very highly renowned biologist in the field.
“My mind is open to the scientific process. Research and testing, not make-believe thought up on a what if!”
“I have done research! Years of it,” Grace seethed. “I have a grant and a PHD for this research.”
“Which idiot funded that?”
“You staggering waste of carbon!” Grace yelled. He threw his pointer down, hearing the thing shatter on impact. “How dare you come to my—”
He never did get to finish that thought. At that precise moment, two arms looped under his own, his legs kicked out from under him as he was dragged from the stage. He lashed out, flailing slightly, but the security were far stronger, half dragging, half carrying him out of the conference room.
As soon as he was backstage, they released him, and Grace tumbled to the ground. Every ounce of his being, every fibre of his existence, every molecule of his stupid water-based body, was filled with an unequivocal rage, and yet there was an exhaustion, heavy and quick in its onset.
He knew there’d be backlash. He’d just never expected… this.
He keeled forward, hands landing heavily, body curled in on itself as he knelt on the floor. There he stayed, head thrumming, heart pounding, crouched over, alone. The corridor was silent, nothing but a fan above his head, air rushing through it, moving on and on and on…
Eventually, he wrenched himself from the floor, settling back against the wall, his head falling backwards until it collided with the stone. His hand fell to his chest, rubbing over his heart. He took a deep breath, air rushing into his lungs.
What a disaster.
“Grace, right?”
Grace snapped his eyes open, his head spinning with the speed at which he turned. His gaze fell on a pair of knees before him, and then a hand, and he hesitantly accepted it, letting whoever it was pull him to his feet.
“Tony,” the man said, shaking his hand as though that had been his intention all along. And shit yeah, that was definitiely a Tony.
Tony Stark no less.
“Mr Stark,” Grace nodded, pulling his hand back as soon as acceptable. The other man was quiet for a moment, eyes narrowed, sweeping over him as though assessing something.
“Quite the presentation in there,” he finally said. Grace felt his cheeks burn, a heat crawling up his neck as something ugly twisted in his chest.
“Look, Mr Stark, if you’ve come to mock me, I’d really rather you didn’t right now. Give me two to four business days, and I might be more receptive but—”
“You actually believe it, don’t you?” Stark interrupted, tone serious, and yet there was something in his eyes, almost like a glimmer.
Grace frowned, brow furrowing. “What?”
“Your research,” Stark said, as though that clarified anything. “You still believe it.”
Grace could almost laugh. This was ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. He’d been made a mockery of, laughed at and ridiculed for his life's work, and now Stark had actively sought him out to do the same. “I should hope so,” he muttered.
And Stark—he smiled.
“Good.”
Stark paused, head cocked slightly to the side as he watched him, and then he said the absolute last thing Grace had been expecting. “I’ve got a job for you.”
What the hell?
What did a weapons dealer need with him?
“I don’t want it,” Grace replied before he’d even thought about it. He held Stark’s gaze steady, meeting it with every ounce of defiance he had left. Stark looked away first, shrugging his shoulders with far too much laissez-faire.
“Figured.”
Grace blinked. What?
Stark met his gaze once more, as though sensing his confusion. “I have been told no before.”
He reached into his pocket, Grace tracking the entire movement—hey, Stark was a weapons dealer; who knew what he might pull out—taking out a piece of card. He held the card out, keeping it there even when Grace made no effort to take it.
“This isn’t blowing over, Grace. You’re going to need me, and when you do, call me.” He waved the card slightly, and with extreme reluctance, Grace took it. Stark’s lips twisted into some not-quite-there smile, and then the man spun around, walking away, around the corner, and then he was gone.
Leaving Grace standing alone again, holding that stupid business card like it was radioactive.
He took one last look at the door he’d been thrown out of, hearing the faint sound of applause inside. There was nothing left for him here; that had been made abundantly clear. He turned, walking the opposite way to Stark.
His fingers hovered above the trash can, business card held loosely between his index and middle finger. He wouldn’t work for a weapons dealer, never. And yet something made him pause.
He left the building without a second look back, fists clenched in his pockets, the corner of the card cutting.
*****
Grace’s life was falling apart.
A day after the conference, his funding was cut.
A week after, the university fired him.
He’d been completely and irrevocably rejected from the scientific community.
“I’m sorry, Grace, but with no income I can’t renew your rent. You know this; it was in your contract.”
And just like that, the very last thing he had was gone too. The end of the month, that’s all he had left. Twenty-two days.
The bar was welcoming in its quiet. Three in the afternoon—it was practically empty. And yet there he was, sliding into a counter-stool.
“A single,” he told the barkeep. “Whatever’s cheapest.”
His job was gone. His work was in ruins. His career was over.
Everything he’d built, gone.
Maybe he shouldn’t have been spending his last dollar here. He took a drink, warmth burning down his throat and blooming in his gut, a fuzzy haze drowning out the mess his life had become. Another and then a third.
A warm buzz was building in his mind now, his head emptier than it had been in weeks, the weirdest sensation of what should I be thinking about? replacing every real thought.
He slept better that night than he had in weeks.
He typed in the number he’d been given.
A ring.
A second.
The ringing stopped as the line was picked up.
“Tony.”
Grace froze. He’d been expecting an assistant, maybe even a hiring team—anything but this.
“Mr Stark?” He finally asked. He swore he could hear the other man smile.
“Took you long enough.”
*****
The car pulled up at eight sharp, just as Stark had said it would. Whatever this job was, Stark wanted to see him pronto; not even twenty-four hours later, and Stark was flying him down to LA. Private jet. Private airstrip.
He watched as San Francisco faded out of sight, smaller and smaller until it disappeared into the cloud, Golden Gate the very last thing he saw, sun rays glinting off the paint, before it too was gone.
Once again, Stark broke his expectations, his driver turning West from the airstrip onto the freeway away from LA, delivering him directly to Stark’s personal home in Malibu.
Clicking heels, a door opening, a figure framed by the light reflecting off the ridiculous glass panels of the mansion. He was led through by Pepper Potts herself, direct to what looked like Stark’s personal lab. She left before he could even thank her.
The place was insane. Grace had worked in some of the best research facilities across the world where the technology made the stuff he’d worked with at Grad level look like kids' toys, and yet Stark’s place dwarfed even that. The place was gorgeous, all sleek surfaces and sharp edges, and yet it was so alive, holograms illuminating the space with a luminescent glow.
And right there in the middle, Tony Stark. Moving around with such ease. Manipulating the holograms as though they were nothing more than an extension of himself.
The man looked up, eyes crinkling slightly as his lips twisted up into a smile. Lopsided, a little toothy, far less perfect than the one he’d seen when they’d met and all the more real for it.
The lab door slid open, and Stark beckoned him in. He stepped forward, overly aware of Stark tracking his movement like a predator watching prey, or someone watching an animal in a zoo until he was right before him, and neither had spoken still, until:
“So he was a waste of carbon, huh?”
Grace froze. Nothing could have prepared him for that greeting; his words stuck in his throat. And yet Stark said nothing more, watching and waiting, as though he could predict Grace’s very next move.
“Staggering waste,” Grace finally corrected and Tony—he laughed. Head thrown back, crow's feet crinkling. Grace felt his heart skip, taken aback by the reaction. Mere minutes he’d been here, and yet again Stark had defied his every expectation.
Stark’s laughter stopped suddenly, his smile fading into a far more serious expression.
“Plenty of other wastes of carbon around these parts, don’t you think?” He asked. His tone was light, almost teasing, and yet…
Grace narrowed his eyes. “What exactly are you asking me for—”
“It’s what you’re asking me for,” Stark interrupted, cutting across him with force. “You need a job; I’m in a position to give you one.”
Grace gritted his teeth, feeling the bones catch and scrape over each other. He’d hit a low; he knew that, but this attitude, this blithe indifference, it was infuriating. Yet, Stark was right. He needed a job, and whether he liked it or not, Stark held all the cards.
“What’s the job?” He eventually asked. Hating his words as soon as they were out there in the world, but Stark just grinned. He reached into a drawer, pulling out a stack of paper and sliding it over.
“Sign this first,” he grinned, and that smile, the one that had felt so real just minutes ago, Grace was beginning to hate it already. He looked down at the paper before him, taking in the sight of the NDA, already printed, as though Stark had always known he’d agree to this.
He had every intention of just skimming it—what was the point of reading it after all? Who was he going to tell any of this to—but the final line caught his eye.
There, written just above the signature box, was quite literally written, “I hereby agree not to tell anyone of the contents of my conversation with Tony Stark, blah, blah, blah.”
“Blah, blah, blah”
In actual print. On a legal document.
And just below it: “Sign here so my lawyers don’t kill me.”
Grace let out a surprised laugh—nothing more than a quiet chuckle, but when he looked up, there was Stark, grinning back at him, something stupidly smug, and he quickly stopped. He couldn’t even explain why.
He grabbed the pen, scribbling his signature, and holding both back out to Stark.
“Just leave them there,” Stark replied, patting the desk in front of him, and Grace complied; he was in no position to be obstinate. Besides, the quicker he did this, the quicker he’d get to find out what Stark even wanted him for.
Stark quickly scanned the NDA, checking the signature before nodding shortly to himself. He looked back up, eyes meeting Grace’s, a shit-eating grin plastered across his face.
“You ready?” He asked, glancing not-so-subtly at the wall to his left. It was just like every other wall in this place, sleek and modern but otherwise totally nondescript.
Grace shrugged, and Tony hit a button.
A faint click, then a whirring, and the wall quite literally melted away to reveal… Iron Man.
Grace felt his heart stop, just for a second, before kicking back in, pounding twice as fast.
Iron Man. A vigilante that had cropped up just a few months ago. He’d been sighted over and over again blowing up Stark Weapons all over the globe.
Why was the armour here? What had Stark done? Captured him? Kidnapped him?
Tony stood, marching towards it with his arms held wide until he was close enough to touch, the armour looming over him. He turned to face Grace, smile so wide his face was practically splitting.
“I am Iron Man.”