“Bah, semantics.” Summer grinned. Tapping the backpack next to her with one foot, she glanced at the doors and said, “So, is there a protocol, do you need to do any kind of showy thing, or shall I just march in and take over?”
Tony shrugged, and slid his hands into his pockets. ”If there’s supposed to be a light show, they failed to tell me about it. So, best make with the marching and the taking over.” He turned, sweeping one arm towards the doors like some sort of extravagant doorman.
It should have taken half a second to sling the backpack over her shoulder. Unfortunately, the curse of ‘hair to your knees’ kicked in just then, resulting in three seconds of swearing, followed by ten seconds of pulling all the strands including the annoying elusive ones out from under the straps — and the total ruination of the cool impression she’d been trying to make.
“Aaaand now I look like an idiot.” Shoving her hair back over her left shoulder, Summer pulled the glass door open and asked, “How is this supposed to work, anyway? Am I supposed to follow you around, or … boss you around?” She accented that last with a raised eyebrow.
Tony cleared his throat behind his hand to mask his short burst of laughter, but it wasn’t an entirely successful endeavor. ”An idiot? I wouldn’t say that,” he said, his tone one of pure innocence. ”But it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep such an impressive mane tied back.”
As she brought up who was supposed to boss who around, his eyebrows rose. ”I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to be in charge. Besides, if you just followed me around, all mystique would be lost and I’d be revealed as just a rather eccentric business man with very nice toys.”
That earned him a grin. “I like nice toys. What kind of toys are we talking about here?” A blast of cold air hit her from the open door, and she shivered. “Come on, then! I want to know what’s here. Can I see your garage? Workshop? Is there a pool?”
Can I touch you? Because fuck, you’re gorgeous.
Summer thanked the gods Tony wasn’t a telepath. And that she knew how not to project. No sense wasting a perfectly good psuedo-vacation by screwing it up from the start.