The Reporter

She supposed she should feel lucky, after all, it she was living the million dollar journalist dream. Against all odds, she was in Stark Tower, sitting in a conference room, a pile of donuts towering in front of her. A pot of freshly brewed coffee sits, already half consumed by herself. Another cup sits next to the pot, currently untouched, but she hopes not for much longer.

She had arrived at her appointment exactly 30 minutes early, she hated to be late to anything, and she wasn't about to let a mistake on her part ruin this. For she knew if she walked back into her office without this story, she would be fired without a doubt. They had been teasing the exclusive for months, and here it was finally time for her to do it. She's still in disbelief of the whole thing, when she arrived she had half expected to be turned away just like the other reporters that were waiting like vultures eagerly outside. But, when she had given her name to the not so friendly receptionist, the woman had nodded and told her to take a seat. She had picked up her camera bag and walked over to the exact spot she had been assigned, again it was probably stupid to think that she would be kicked out for sitting on a seat too far to the right, but she wasn't about to chance it. It had taken exactly five minutes for a man to arrive to collect her, slightly more friendly than the receptionist, he wore a full suit and an earpiece, marking him as security. He had motioned for her to follow him, leading her through a door into what was obviously a security checkpoint. She wasn't surprised, she had fully expected it, Stark Industries was after all a high profile, and high security company, the products that came out of the company's R&D department were unparalleled. And while no one knew for sure which ideas came from Anthony Stark himself and which ones came from his underlings, every success was credited to his name. So she had willingly submitted to a search, the man had been polite and professional about it, simply waving a wand around her. He had then asked for her camera, which she willing gave to him. He had then led her to her current location, a conference room on the third floor. She had been waiting exactly 20 minutes.

The most shocking part about being where she currently is she didn't ask for it. She would have never even dared do something so brave, millions of reporters had asked over the years since he had retreated from the spotlight after the Sokovia Accords, none had succeeded. Young reporters like herself were told to not even think of asking for assignments as big as this, and had he not asked for her name specifically she would have never been allowed to work through the glass doors downstairs. She had been brought to tears when her boss told her about the assignment over two months ago, her fellow reporters had been shooting her dirty looks for months, she had only just started at the paper, she was only a few months out of college and here she was about to cover the story that the public had been dying to know for almost 10 years. She had been working on the story almost exclusively since it had been assigned to her, all with her boss' blessing, for if she messed this up, it would be both of their heads. She had covered a few small profile stories, but nothing that took more than a few hours of her times. She had prepped an entire 3 subject notebook for this interview just on background information on her subject. She had learned everything she could from him, from his birth to 10 years ago when he suddenly dropped off the face of the earth. She had taped photos, written questions upon questions, notes upon notes, all so she wouldn't look like a complete idiot or an ass when she walked into this very room she is now sitting in. She probably knew just as much about Tony Stark, as he knew about himself

She reaches for her notebook, a fresh one, meant only for Tony's answers. She places it on the table and then smoothes over her skirt, a nervous habit. Her fellow reporters would probably laugh at her for bringing a notebook, they all did things digitally, and it was safe to assume so did Tony Stark. But she had always found something comforting in writing during her interviews, even though both a camera and a tape recorder would be rolling the whole time. She didn't work for a television station, but her paper was partnered with one, and when it had become public that she would be given an exclusive, they had begged her to film it. After a few hour-long conversations with Tony's publicist, she had gotten permission to do so.

The sound of a door latch sliding open catches her attention. She stands and waits in anticipation, she tries to steady her hands, but it's obvious that they're shaking. She folds them in front of herself and waits, staring at the door.

A slight look of disappointment falls across her face when she sees Tony's company publicist enter the room. The woman is familiar, she has been associated with Stark Industries for years, and has basically become the public face of the company for any public or charitable event. The woman walks into the room, a purposeful gait in place as the crosses to the young reporter. They both extend hands and shake.

"Georgiana." The woman says with a pleasant smile.

"Madeline." The reporter answers introducing herself.

"Yes, I know." The older woman replies while motioning to the reporter's equipment. "Gather this up, and I'll take you up to meet Mr. Stark."

"Oh, so the interview isn't happening here?" The reporter asks, honestly shocked.

"No, Mr. Stark hates conference rooms. I'll be taking you up to his private floors. He would like to do the interview in his living room."

The reporter doesn't question this, an interview in Anthony Stark's personal living spaces is more than she could have hoped for, it's something she would have never dared dream. It is something that had never been done before. She quickly gathers her things, throwing her backpack and camera bags over her shoulder, her knees buckle slightly under the weight but she pushes forward, following Georgiana so not to get left behind as the woman is already charging ahead out of the room. They both get into an elevator, and Georgiana punches in a series of codes, unlocking a separate panel with more buttons with levels marked on them. She pushes the button labeled penthouse and the elevator shoots upwards. When it stops, the doors slide open revealing a rather shocking site.

Madeline doesn't know what she thought a billionaire's home would look like, but it certainly is not this. The layout of the room is stylish and modern, the furnishings are obviously expensive, but overall the room looks no more impressive than her own apartment. The elevator opened right into an open concept floor, to the right is the living room, to the left the kitchen and dining and forward and to the right is an office like space and a staircase. Madeline assumes that the staircase leads to bedrooms. Georgiana motions towards the living space, obviously an invitation to settle in.

"Mr. Stark will be right down, he's expecting you but he's not used to being punctual. He was in the middle of a project and he told me to pass on his greatest apologies that he has kept you waiting." Madeline simply nods, too curious to speak. She walks over to the living space, noting the lack of personal touches. The entire living space gives off no more an impression of being lived in than a hotel room. There isn't a single photograph in the space, not a single item is out of place or left somewhere to be put away later. The kitchen is spotless, the office is neat and organized, the living space looks likes it's been untouched for months. Sitting down on the couch gives her the impression of being an intruder, she's not supposed to be seeing this. She's not supposed to know that Tony Stark, lives as if he's a guest in his own house. The space seems so untouched that she questions if he does, in fact, live here, it had long been established in the public eye that Tony had moved to New York after a terrorist blew up his Malibu beach house, but now seeing the lack of homey touches in this apartment, she questions if maybe he really lives in one of his many other properties.

It is five full minutes before she hears the arrival of the elevator, the doors sliding upon a little too roughly. Her eyes immediately are attracted to it, drinking in the sight before her. She witnesses, Tony Stark, who looks exactly as he does in her notebook full of photos if aged only a few years. He's mostly clean shaven, and nicely dressed wearing a white polo and a pair of dress pants. She notes that the outfit must have been at his publicist's insistence for she never found a photo of him dressed in anything similar to it. She notices that his mouth is pulled into a tight smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes, suggesting that it is forced. But the most interesting part of him is his eyes, his bright blue eyes that would always sparkle in any of the photos she had ever seen of him. They don't sparkle today, there is no dance, no emotion at all contained in them. In fact, they look dead, blank and staring ahead as if they see nothing around him. Her mother had always told her that eyes were windows to the soul, and while it sounded cheesy, it had been good advice. She had studied people's expressions since she was a little girl, she was good at reading people, their emotions, their thoughts, their ideas. She could tell when someone was lying to her just by looking at their eyes. Through school and her short term as a reporter, she had seen lots of eyes, she had seen the lost eyes of prisoners on death row, the desperate eyes of suicidal people being talked down by police officers, the despaired eyes of those who had just witnessed a great tragedy, and even the eyes of the dead, but she had never seen a pair of eyes so lifeless. It's unnerving and it throws off her confidence, she had prepared herself for many situations, but she had never run the situation of talking to a man who was dead inside.

She realizes that he is crossing the room towards her too late, she stands when he has covered over half the distance to great her, she quickly smoothes her pencil skirt and then steps forward, reaching his handshake at the same moment that he offers it.

"It's nice to finally meet you, Madeline." He says, a joyful light tone flooding his voice. She watches his eyes and sees a tiny bit of life, so minuscule that if she blinked she would have missed it come to them. She quickly looks away, hoping not to appear rude for doing so.

"I'm flattered, Mr. Stark." She offers, focusing on his right ear so to appear as if maintaining eye contact. "The pleasure really is all mine."

"Oh, no." He smiles a playful grin. "It really is mine, it's been so long since I've met such a beautiful young woman. I hope I haven't inconvenienced you making you wait, time got away from me."

"Not at all, Mr. Stark. We're actually right on time, I just arrived early."

"I do admire punctuality, personally, it is not one of my strong skills, but I do appreciate when others can do what I cannot. But I suppose in your profession if you're late you'll miss the reason for arriving at all."

"I never thought of it that way, but I suppose that is true." He releases her hand and motions for her to sit back down on the couch. He moves and sits on the opposite end. Madeline reaches for her camera, but before she pulls it out she sees a flash of panic briefly run across her subjects face, she quickly places the camera bag back on the floor. "Is it alright if I film this interview as well, Mr. Stark?" She quietly hopes that she hasn't just ruined her chances by listening to his publicist's word.

"Yes, of course. Georgianna mentioned that a television station wanted to run the story. Go right ahead and set up your equipment, and call me Anthony, Mr. Stark was my father."

Madeline quickly pulls out her camera and a tripod, she clumsily sets it up, unaccustomed to using the equipment. It's been almost a year since she's picked up such equipment, yet alone used it, but by some miracle, she is able to assemble it and connect the microphone that she hands to Anthony. He expertly runs the mic up through his shirt and out of site. She then pulls out a tape recorder and places it between the two of them. The tape recorder gives her some solace, and she begins to relax. This is just another interview.

"I haven't seen one of those in a long time," Anthony says, motioning to the tape recorder, it is an actual tape recorder, recording onto actual tapes. Madeline blushed, embarrassed to have her old school technology pointed out by a tech mogul.

"I've tried newer devices, but there's something satisfying about holding a tape of someone's words in your hands. I did my first ever interview with one of these when I was 8, and I've used one ever since." She reaches to put it away, realizing that the video audio will be sufficient but Tony reaches out and stops her hand.

"Don't put it away, all the best things in life were recorded on tapes." He offers her a small smile. She withdraws her hand and settles it back onto her lap.

"So what would you like this interview to be about?" She asks. Her boss had never given her a storyline to prepare, which was part of the reason she had to research so much, her boss nor her had any idea what she would be walking into. It had been Anthony Stark, through his publicist, who had set up the story. Her paper had not contacted him, they had shown no interest in him in over five years, so it had come as a surprise to everyone when Madeline's extension had wrung displaying his company's number. They had been given little details, simply a time and place to show up too. They were flying completely blind.

"Did Georgiana not tell you?" Tony looks genuinely confused. Madeline shakes her head no, unable to currently find the words. Tony looks shocked, but he quickly recovers. "Madeline, I'm dying." The words are the last things she expects, they are mind exploding, boggling words that completely and utterly confuse her. Of everything he could have said she would have never thought those to be the words, she had imagined a million different situations. That he had built a new suit, that the Avengers were once again on good terms, that he was getting married, that he had a new product that he had developed, that he was donating all his wealth to a charity, but she had never thought that it could be possible for him to be doing something as simple as dying.

He allows her to collect her thoughts for a minute before he continues, he can tell that he has completely caught her off guard. He feels as if it is a little unfair that she hadn't received a heads up.

"I'm dying, Madeline," He repeats so she knows that what she initially heard was correct, "And I want you to write my life story. The one that will be published after I'm dead, the one that will expose my life, my failures, and my shortcomings. I want the world to know Tony Stark, the real Tony Stark so that everyone remembers me as I really was. I don't want to be someone who is immortalized and erased until only the good parts are left, I want everyone to know the good, the bad and the ugly."

"Why me?" The words come out weak and foolish sounding. She sounds as if she's a spooked child, there is no professionalism, no ounce of herself in the breathy completely bewildered sound.

"I read an article you wrote, about 4 months ago, on a death row victim. It was amazing writing, you really captured his life, all parts of it. When I was done reading it I really felt as if I knew that man that was being put to death. I mourned him, as I would mourn one of my friends. I know he wasn't a good man, but you made it so I felt it as a personal loss. No one has been able to bring out such feelings in me in such a long time… I've been looking for someone to write my story for a long time now, and after I read your story I knew it had to be you. No one else can do it justice the way I know that you can."

She takes a deep breath, processing all he has said, something inside her clicks and she is once again a journalist, she realizes that she should be recording, she presses start on both devices.

"Where would you like to start?" She asks, a slight wobble present in her voice.

"You're not going to ask me how I'm dying?"

"You'll get to it eventually." She says, her voice more confident.

"You're not curious?"

"We all die eventually, Anthony. That's not the interesting part, the interesting part is life. How about you tell me something about that."

"What would you like me to tell you?"

"Anything, after all this is your biography."

"My favorite breakfast cereal is Lucky Charms."

"I'll make sure that's my opening sentence." She says giving him a small smile.

"Good, it's an important life fact. Now you going to open that notebook I see peeking out of your bag and ask me a question or not?" She blushes and pulls out the 3 subject notebook. Opening it to the first section of questions, she pulls out the secondary notebook.

"You know, this is probably going to take a while." She says, smoothing out the page, testing her pen to make sure the ink will flow.

"That's alright." He says leaning back into the couch. "I don't have anything better to do."

"You know, usually a team of people works on something this big."

"Promise me it will be just you." He says leaning forward, he looks at her with such fierceness that she can feel her will bend to his. "It has to be just you, through the whole thing. No one else can do it justice."

"I promise." The words come out with such force and clarity she can tell that she really does mean them. He settles back down into the couch cushions.

"Then ask away."

"What was the first thing you ever built completely by yourself?"