───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

"ALL SYSTEMS CHECK," LENA reports, eyes scanning over the information that pours over the screen at record speed. She gnaws on her bottom lip until the text finishes loading. A green box pops up underneath it, signaling that everything is running smoothly so far.

"Are you sure about that?" the voice of Tony Stark questions through the panel of glass separating them. He's busy keeping an eye on her as she works, simultaneously nursing a cup of black coffee as he does so. Though his tone is playful, there's an undertone of worry lurking there as well. She knows he's nervous that something will go wrong. He tries to let her do as much as she can by herself, but he constantly fears that something catastrophic will happen when he isn't there to peer over her shoulder.

Lena puffs a sigh through the corner of her mouth and shakes her head at his inquiry. "I've run diagnostics four times, Mr. Stark. I think, out of the two of us, I'm the one who knows firsthand how dangerous this is."

"I know, but what kind of mentor would I be if I didn't worry a little bit?" Tony rises from his seat and walks closer to where Lena stands near their experimentation zone. Since she's immune to her own abilities, she doesn't need to worry, but he'd built an energy-proof containment center anyway. The chamber itself is small— big enough to fit a relatively moderate amount of power that's just enough for them to run their experiments. The rest is pure padding for safety reasons. A tiny camera built into the cushioning is the only way they can see inside. After what had happened to Lena's biological parents, he doesn't seem to be taking any chances.

This is the fifth month they've spent in Tony's secret laboratory located in a nondescript building in New York City. Since Lena's biological parents had perished in a lab explosion before they could finish stabilizing the energy inside of her — a fact she knows thanks to Tony himself — she has spent her entire life in constant movement. It's been a nuisance to say the least. A constant itching beneath her skin that no scratch could relief, an incurable desire to tick or run or do anything except sit still, a need that would swarm around her brain until she could focus on nothing else. At times, she would even have to excuse herself from class in order to run to the bathroom and expel some of the pent-up energy. Their hope is to create an agent that will neutralize it enough for her to live normally again... or as normal as she can get with energy manipulation powers and being a teenage vigilante.

Even with her immunity, he still makes her wear a pair of high-tech glasses that turn dark upon activation so they aren't blinded by the countless tests they run. Presently, they're merely clear lenses that Lena can read the diagnostics on. The level of security blinks in her lower right lens: the word STABLE in green letters.

"Looks good," she says with an excited grin, barely able to contain her joy. "I think we're all set to start the next test."

"Then, by all means, do the honors," Tony tells her as he adjusts his protective coat— one that matches her own nearly exactly except for the size and engraving of their initials over the heart. She's never seen him wearing much safety gear in the countless pictures of him working that she'd poured over as a child. However, with this unexplained power and the knowledge of what carelessness had done to Lilabeth and Rasalan Santos sixteen years ago, he's taking every precaution he can.

Lena side-steps toward the other side of the screen and presses her palm onto it. The scanner reads her prints and, confirming her authorization, grants her access to the laser's control system. She pulls up the activation panels for both her energy and the stabilizing agent. After double-checking the green text in the corner of her lens, she brings the laser to life.

"Starting agent at full capacity," she announces so F.R.I.D.A.Y can hear and record their messages for later use. "Activating energy at ten percent."

Tony stops beside her, both of their glasses immediately going dark as soon as she presses the button to begin this round of experiments. The camera turns on. On a larger screen, the live footage of the inside of the chamber begins to play. A small jet of blue emits from the laser built into the right-hand wall. It's wobbly, signaling that something about this round is a bit off, but she'll keep going until Tony tells her to stop.

Lena presses the plus icon. "Twenty percent." The green is still present; she prays for it to stay there. "Skipping to forty."

"Looks good, F.R.I.D.A.Y. Just some minimal shaking, but much better than last time," Tony says while keeping his eyes locked on the camera footage. He takes a generous sip of his coffee. "Bring it to sixty."

"Skipping ahead to sixty."

Lena instinctively squints as blue light begins to seep through the chamber. She'd always wondered why Tony hadn't made the thing solid concrete or something where light couldn't easily escape, but he'd simply said that he likes the "pretty light show" that (usually) symbolizes that whatever they're doing is working.

"Seventy." A pause as the light becomes brighter. "Eighty."

Tony mumbles incoherently under his breath, presumably encouraging the stabilizing agent to hold enough for them to bring her energy to full power. Lena glances at him for confirmation. When he nods, she releases a slow breath of nerves and taps the plus sign twice more.

"A hundred percent!"

Tony lifts his free hand to rub at the perfectly manicured goatee along his jaw. "Well? How's it lookin', kid?"

"Still a little unstable, but we made it the whole way this time without having to pull the plug early, so I'd say that's a big improvement." She hesitates, waiting a beat before asking, "Permission to high five?"

"Permission granted."

Lena grins as their palms clap together, feeling accomplished that Tony has a small smile of pride on his face as well. It usually takes a lot for him to do so; everything about their relationship in this lab is strictly business. However, since he had seen her at her lowest point and still decided to comfort her through it, she knows that there's something special about them. Some sort of strong backbone that she hopes will never break.

Lena glances at the digital clock on the wall and bites back a curse. "I'm supposed to meet Peter, Graham, and Ned at Ristretto in twenty minutes. I can help clean up, or—"

Tony holds up a hand to stop her, perching his glasses on top of his raven locks of hair. "Go ahead. I've got cleaning duty and I'll give F.R.I.D.A.Y the full report." When he sees her hesitation, he says more firmly, "Go."

"Thank you, Mr. Stark," she says with a thankful smile, sliding her own glasses off of her face and setting them back in their holder. Her protective coat slips from her shoulders as she wriggles out of it and hangs it on its respective hook on the wall. She does this with bounds of excitement, snatching her backpack from the floor and waving goodbye to Tony as she jogs out, signature red Converse slapping against the tile.

"You just have double cleaning duty next time!" he calls after her.

"You got it!"

Lena isn't sure if they'll ever get her energy completely stabilized, but she doesn't mind. Spending time with an Avenger and being surrounded by all of his awe-inspiring technology makes all of her hours researching worth it.

_______

IMPORTANT A/N. PLEASE READ!

this is a direct parallel to havoc's prologue, only now lena is a willing test subject, is in much less danger because of them, and has a mentor who keeps her as safe as possible. i was really excited to write this because it shows how lena and tony's relationship had grown between homecoming & infinity war. obviously his death is a huge part of this book for both her and peter, which is another reason why i wanted to include it!

now comes the ultra important part. i never intended to write around spideychelle. ever since i first started writing for havoc in july 2017, i always planned for parkos to become romantic during the second spider-man movie. i don't want you to think "oh!! she's just going to replace all of michelle's scenes with lena!!" because, no, that's not what i'm going to do. if you've seen the movie, you know that it's pretty hard to ignore the fact that peter has a crush on SOMEONE (regardless if it's michelle in canon or an oc in fanfic) so some of his drives will be the same, but other than that, i plan on having parkos be different from spideychelle because, well, they're obviously not the same type of dynamic.

i just wanted to get that out of the way so you guys didn't assume that i found romantic!spideychelle to be a convenient opportunity to build a bridge for romantic!parkos. thanks for coming to my TED talk

the first chapter should be posted fairly soon! this book is going to be filled with a LOT of my own scenes since ffh jumps around so much. i hope you enjoy!

—kristyn