IN

Y/N Stark had never been particularly good at staying out of trouble. A foster kid with a reputation for being difficult, she had learned early that adults usually decided what they thought of her before bothering to know her. Her school wasn’t exactly helping. It was the kind of place teachers privately described as “if juvie had a high school”—packed with kids who were constantly fighting, skipping class, getting suspended, and looking for someone weaker to pick on. So when her class is given a field trip to Stark Industries, Y/N expects nothing more than a few hours of boredom. Then another student starts picking on her. Y/N ignores him. For a while. Eventually, she’s had enough. Without telling anyone, she slips away from the group. Twenty minutes later, Tony Stark finds her. Except she’s not causing trouble. She’s sitting alone in one of Stark Industries’ research labs, surrounded by interactive intelligence puzzles designed to challenge Harvard graduate students and junior engineers. And she’s beating them. One after another. Tony watches silently as she solves a particularly difficult problem, pauses the simulation, mutters something about the algorithm being inefficient, and starts again just to prove her point. Tony is fascinated. And irritated. Because the kid isn’t supposed to be here. Because she’s got an attitude. Because she’s entirely too confident. And because, unfortunately, she’s really, really good. Tony starts testing her, expecting her to eventually reach her limit. She doesn’t. What begins as an annoyed confrontation turns into an unexpected battle of wits between a billionaire genius and a teenager who refuses to be impressed by him. Tony initially writes Y/N off as a smart-mouthed troublemaker. Then he starts noticing the similarities. The sarcasm. The stubbornness. The reckless curiosity. The refusal to ask for help. The instinct to turn every vulnerable moment into a joke.