Chapter 6

                                    

                                          
A part of Max still couldn't quite believe what was happening. Every morning when she would open her eyes, she would still half-expect to wake up in her own bed - or a hospital bed for that matter - and realize that this all was a dream, but she would always, without fail, wake up to see the four off-white walls of her hotel room staring back at her.
Today was no different. Waking up to see her hotel room and remembering that today was her first official day as an employee of Stark Industries felt so surreal to her. The fact that this seemed like something out of a fanfiction she'd probably write wasn't helping her doubts about this all being real. This all seemed too much like a dream come true for this to be actually happening to her. 
Except for the fact that it wasn't actually all that great of an experience so far. Besides landing her new job, nothing good had really happened to her yet, except maybe getting to eat Oreo Cakesters again. If this really was all something she'd made up in her head, wouldn't something have happened by now? Wouldn't she be friends with the Avengers and getting to live out the domestic Avengers life she'd always dreamed she would?
So far, she'd had yet to meet anyone she knew from the MCU, so if this really was some fantasy world she'd made up in her head, she was going to have to have a discussion with her subconscious about what the word "fantasy" actually meant.
With a quiet sigh, Max rolled herself out of bed and began getting ready for the day. She'd allocated an hour and a half to getting ready and was ready in about an hour and ten minutes. With her extra time, she tried to think about anything else she could do to make herself look more professional, but every idea she had seemed like too much. She wanted to be able to make a good impression with these people, so every detail mattered. This job...it wasn't just a job for her, it was her only way home. That meant she couldn't afford to lose this job, and part of that was making sure her coworkers and boss liked her.
Despite wanting to use that extra time to better prepare herself, nothing she could come up with in those twenty or so minutes seemed good enough. So, feeling about just as prepared as she could be, Max grabbed her purse and headed out the door.
The subway ride to work was both long, and not long enough. Her excitement and nerves battling it out inside of her was making it difficult to focus on the task at hand, which right now was only to get to work, so a part of her was worried for what she would actually be like once she got there.
When she finally arrived, Max forced a smile onto her face and made herself seem as relaxed as possible. And who knows, maybe if she tried hard enough to pretend that she was fine, she'd actually feel fine.
Max entered the building the same way she had for her interview and waited in the lobby for her trainer to come get her. In order to go further into the building than the lobby you needed a key card, and she didn't have that yet. She was supposed to get one today, but until then, she needed to rely on her coworkers to let her in and out of different parts of the building.
"Ms. Bowen?" she heard her name being called.
Taking in a deep, cleansing breath through her nose, Max perked up in her seat and smiled in the direction of the voice.
"Yes," she said, making eye contact with the woman standing just a few feet away from her. From the looks of her, she was in her late thirties, blonde, and a little bit shorter than Max. "Hi, that's me."
"Hi," the woman greeted, holding out her hand for Max to shake. Max then stood from her seat and gladly accepted the gesture. "My name is Ashley, I'm the cybersecurity team lead and I'll be the one training you for the next ten days."
"It's nice to meet you Ashley. And you can call me Max."
"Max," Ashley repeated. "Okay, then. If you'll follow me on back, I'll give you the grand tour."
Max nodded and followed the woman as she moved through the lobby, and then past its doors. The first area was already familiar to her, since she'd been led through this part to get to the conference room where she'd had her interview. Beyond that, however, was completely new territory.
Unfortunately, since parts of the building were still under reconstruction, they didn't get to see the whole building, but she'd gotten to see the vast majority, as well as all the areas she needed to be familiar with for her own job. Even more unfortunately, the room with the arc reactor was the room that got blown up, so she didn't get to see that, but she was okay with that. Mostly. She knew she'd most likely get to see it when the reconstruction was done - or at least, what was left of it.
At the very least, she wanted to see that before she went back home. There was no way she'd been thrown into the literal MCU and all she would get to see from it is the newscast where Tony Stark reveals himself as Iron Man to the public. Granted, it was a pretty iconic and pivotal moment in this universe, but no, if she was going to have her life turned upside-down for who knew how long, then she was getting something more out of it than just a newscast. She deserved more for all the hoops she was having to jump through, even if that was just getting to see the remanence of the arc reactor.
She supposed that she was also getting to see Stark Industries Headquarters, and that was pretty cool, but it wasn't the same as getting to see something like the arc reactor. From the outside, sure, there was no doubt that this was something unique to this universe, but from the inside, for the most part, it looked like her brother's lab. It was cool that this was the Stark Industries and all, but there was very little in the parts she'd been able to see on her tour that was much different to things she'd seen back home.
After her tour, she was taken to security and issued an ID badge with her name, picture, and barcode, as well as a lanyard to attach it to. Once she was in possession of both and put it on, she twirled it in her fingers as she stared down at it in both pride and awe.
She was in. For two and a half weeks, she'd been stuck in a foreign world with only one way home, and now, for the first time since she'd gotten there, she had a real sense of hope. Before, everything had ridden on her having access to this facility, and now, she had that access. Knowing that she was even one step closer to getting home lifted a huge weight off of her shoulders.
But she knew she couldn't lose focus now. She still had a lot of work ahead of her. Before she could even begin teaching herself astrophysics, she needed to verse herself in engineering - both mechanical and electrical. She hoped she would be able to pick it up a little easier, having already been fluent in most programming languages, but she knew that it was most likely still going to be a challenge, as well as time consuming.
The road ahead of her was long, but for now, Max was celebrating the smaller victories. She was now a cybersecurity agent at Stark Industries, with a database of scientific information at the tips of her fingers. Getting home seemed way less impossible to her than it had before, and that made her feel like she could handle anything thrown her way.
Within reason, of course.