Eli was, despite some people’s claims, a pretty smart kid. He’d gotten all A’s in school, taken AP classes, done his best to exceed everyone’s expectations of him. In all honesty, it wasn’t that hard; no one had expected much of him to begin with. When he came into class with reports about historical events people’d rather forget (Tuskegee, Jim Crow laws, segregation, slave trade… history gave him no shortage of material), most of his classmates were too busy being pissed off to recognize the intelligence presented in his research. That was just fine with Eli. They weren’t who he wanted to impress. He made the people who mattered proud, and that was all he set out to do.

Nevertheless, people still considered him pretty dumb. He wasn’t sure if it was his brawny looks or his confrontational attitude, but people insisted on underestimating him constantly. He guessed he shouldn’t have been shocked when the US government did the same.

He wasn’t happy to be branded a criminal. He didn’t like the fact that someone had looked at him, at Patriot, and decided that he was doing more harm than good. He guessed that shouldn’t have come as a surprise, either. They’d called his granddad a criminal, even after everything he’d sacrificed for the country. Eli’d done far less good than Isaiah, so it wasn’t a shock that they’d treat him just as bad.

But Eli wasn’t stupid.

If the government thought he wasn’t gonna run, they were the dumb ones.

Not many people knew about the ‘hideout’ that he had in the woods. It wasn’t much, honestly; a cave that he and Teddy had stumbled upon a few years ago just outside of the city, big enough for the two of them to lay down side by side without being seen from the outside. It was more than enough to keep him out of sight for a few days. He wasn’t stupid enough to think this would all blow over, not for someone like him, but he could hide out until he got an idea what he needed to do.

Footsteps outside his hideout, he wasn’t expecting. It was actually the last thing he’d considered.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered, trying to calm himself down. Could be nobody. Or maybe it was Teddy. Eli wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d been put on the list, too. Cautiously, he stuck his head out of the entrance of the cave, ready to fight if he had to. The face was a familiar one, but not in a good way. Not in the ‘come inside and we’ll discuss an escape plan’ kinda way.

Pepper Potts. CEO of Stark Industries, friend, confidant, and maybe something more to Iron Man himself. No way she was here to offer him a private jet somewhere safe. Eli looked up to the Avengers like no one else, but he knew which side they’d fall on for all this. They had been formed by the government, after all, hadn’t they?

Swallowing, he decided to act under the assumption that he hadn’t been seen and ducked back into his cave.

The best decision Tony ever made was placing Pepper in charge of Stark Industries. Despite the fact that she was overwhelmingly qualified, could make a grown man pee his pants with one look, kept the company running against all odds, and was better at dealing with the criticism and the stock drops than anyone Tony had ever met, he was also selfishly glad not to have to do the job himself any longer. He could be a good CEO if he had to be: he shined up well in a suit, could charm any group of people he was set in front of, and his face looked damn good on a magazine cover, but he'd never wanted to run a business. He wanted to change the world; he wanted to build the future, one machine, one cure, one tool at a time. Paperwork, business meetings, and pencil pushing was not his idea of fun, nor could he play the "professional" role long enough not to embarrass someone or another. 

No, Pepper was meant to rule, meant to be in charge, meant to give the orders. Now that he thought back on it, he'd seen it all along: from the moment they'd met, she'd taken control where help was needed, stepped up where a spot needed filling, embraced her job with more tact and skill than a dozen men in her spot ever could. From the moment she'd corrected his math that day over a decade ago, he knew, even if it was just a distant idea, that they'd be here right now: her in the boss' seat, pulling this company up from where he'd left it--a weapons company that no longer sold weapons. Had it been anyone else, he never would have trusted them to maintain that agenda, but he knew Pepper shared at least that part of his interests: that given the right amount of dedication and hard work, Stark Industries could be the face of a better, healthier, safer new world, not the face that blew it up. 

The only problem with being the boss was the time commitment. Long stretches without seeing Pepper were normal these days--she had a lot on her plate with the company, and he with the Avengers--but it didn't mean he liked it. They may not be together anymore, but she was still his best friend, and frankly, a week without seeing her was far too long. And, if he was being honest, a bit worrisome. It was a new situation to say the least--him checking up on her instead of the other way around--but while he might go for days at a time without eating more than coffee and seeing less daylight than a bat, his work binges were simply unhealthy: hers were a potential explosion.

Potential only because Tony was 99.99% sure he had fixed the Extremis inside her, sure that there would be no "blow-ups" in their near future, but one could only be so sure. He could already imagine it: Pepper hunched over her desk, on the phone with one of their distributors while she signed a stack of papers taller than she was--a normal day when you ran a multi-million dollar company. With a bag of take-out in one hand and a coffee in the other, he wiggled past her secretary and her security and let himself into her office. 

Ryon was furious. The Marazzo had just come out with the new roommate list, and Ryon was paired with Pepper, the one person he couldn't stand. Ryon was generally a nice guy, he got along with everyone. But when it came to Pepper, Ryon just wanted to throw her overboard. He would have much rather been paired with Tori, who he believed he was getting feelings for; or even Elle again, despite her crazy roommate 'dates'. Sighing, Ryon moved away from the roommate list and onto his new room. It only took him a few minutes to get there, and when he opened the door he discovered Pepper already there. Ryon stood in the doorway staring down the woman, not really knowing what to say.

One of the few things Loki actually enjoyed spending his time doing was exploring the university library. Isolating himself in the aisles of books, away from prying eyes, Loki found himself becoming more and more intrigued by the literature he was reading. He'd read Midgardian books back on Asgard, even studied some of their famous poets and historical figures but it was nothing compared to the books he had in his hand.