37A/n – Third time's the charm! I started this waaaaay back in high school when Iron Man first came out. I had writer's block for a good eight years and then finally picked it up again a few years ago…it's taken me this long to finish. But it IS finally finished. I'm pretty damn happy about that, considering this epic has spanned twelve years of my life. My writing certainly changed during that time but I've done my best to edit, rewrite, and overall polish everything out so that it sounds like one piece.
This fic takes place after the first Iron Man movie (remember that one? XD) and after the conclusion of Fullmetal but before Conqueror of Shamballa. It starts off in Tony's POV to start out, but I do switch back and forth. Later chapters are mostly Ed.
Disclaimer: I obviously don't own Iron Man or Fullmetal. Everything you see here is borrowed with love. ;)
Something Out of Contact
Prelude
The trouble with being a genius billionaire gunslinger turned philanthropist was that things generally came back to bite you in the ass. It made a man wonder if there would ever be a time when the past didn't come back to haunt him. But that was the funny thing about the past—people had a tendency to hold onto it even when it was long overdue…
"Please, Mr. Stark. We need you there."
Tony Stark could imagine the slightly robust, middle-aged woman adjust her glasses in that nervous fashion he remembered from when she was merely a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was a habit he had always disliked—a habit that led him to believe that perhaps Marilee Jones wasn't as qualified as the faculty at MIT cared to think. But, he mused, she wasn't his dean and so he didn't really care. He just wanted to be through with this call as quickly as possible—he had better things to do than negotiating his appearance at the MIT Time Traveler's Convention.
"Really. We? Who needs me exactly?" The woman on the other line sighed.
"Half the university—along with half the world—thinks this convention is a waste of time. Child's play. Like something out of Contact. But if the famous Tony Stark was there…"
"Marilee, I have a million things on my plate. Attending the Time Traveler Convention doesn't even make the list."
"Mr. Stark, please." The woman was growing desperate, Tony could tell. She would huff and puff for a bit, in which he would antagonize her, and then she would mention the MIT Commencement Speech he had missed last June. He owed her one, and she knew it. Mentally, he sighed—ah, well, might as well save a few precious minutes. The new render for his suit was nearly complete and like a magnetic pull in the back of his mind—very distracting, very hard to resist—like a new toy just waiting to be unwrapped.
"Alright, Marilee. I'll go. But if there's going to be media, expect sunglasses and a wig. I don't want the world thinking I'm into that sci-fi crack."
"I'll try and keep the cameras off you."
"You do that. Or Hogan will, in which case you better hope your insurance is up to par."
He hung up, letting out the sigh he'd kept bottled up before. He rolled his head back, stretching first one side of his neck, than the other. A few minor cracks and he straightened, shrugging his shoulders. Marilee Jones, black cloud of the morning (and on the upcoming 7th of May), had successfully been pushed to the back of his mind. Now, about that new suit…
Author's notes:
P.1: Marilee Jones is actually a real person. She was a dean at MIT when I first started this fic in 2008.
P.2: The Time Traveler's Convention is also a real life thing. I don't remember how I came across this information, but I must have been rabbit-holeing down into the strange depths of the internet one day and come across it on wiki. I decided it was the perfect place for our two protagonists to meet!
P.3: Not much changed here, but I do add in some new scenes in the chapters to come…I suggest rereading if you are familiar with this fic because things have changed. As always, let me know what you think and thank you for reading!