[center][color=00ffff][i][b]That morning...[/b][/i][/color][/center]
"Rise and shine, Alex! Today's the day!" Thomas called out form the stairwell as he was coming down for breakfast. He knew there had to be breakfast, because the smell that spread from the kitchen was heavenly. The staff really outdid themselves today! [i]Except... we [b]don't[/b] have a personal chef... Why don't I have a chef?[/i] he thought, wandering lazily into the kitchen to see the most peculiar thing.

A fully operational and armed ASTRA, covered head to toe in flour.

[color=00ffff]"You're up early! You weren't supposed to see that."[/color] Alex said flatly, with what seemed like an attempt at a look of guilt on her face. She brushed the bit of flour form her face, pointing to the table by the sofa in the living room. [color=00ffff]"I've made pancakes for you. To celebrate. I guess."[/color] she felt like she needed to say more, but no way how she could explain the abysmal mess in the kitchen came to be for just one plate of pancakes came to mind. [color=00ffff]"Sorry I made a mess..."[/color]

Thomas looked back to the table, then back at Alex and smiled. "My girl's growing up so fast!"

[color=00ffff]"I am the same height I was-"[/color]

"As a person, honey, as a person." he patted her over to get the white powder off of her. "Thank you. I can smell they will be delicious. FRI-"

[color=00ffff]"No."[/color] Alex stopped him form calling up the virtual butler, undoubtedly to arrange for a cleanup. [color=00ffff]"I caused this, so I will fix it. With great cooking comes great responsibility."[/color] Alex smiled weakly.

"Well, actually, I thought you might want to see your 'getting in' gift too." Thomas teased.

Alex raised an eyebrow. Thomas knew that to elicit such a reaction, he must have really surprised her. While in a normal conversation Alex's personality matrix did fairly well already, under pressure the machine still came to the surface. "You didn't think I would just send you off into the big bad World empty handed, did you? what kind of a father does that? Come along." he said and grabbed Alex by the wrists, leading her to the elevator and down they went into the workshop.

"I was thinking about just giving you one of mine to tinker with, but excuse your dad's profane Ego, there can only be one Titanius. You're going to need to be your own woman." he said as she dragged a cloth cover off of what Alex assumed correctly was an armor suit. Now, her face was positively surprised, all with the wire eyes and gaping jaw, making Thomas warm up a little on the inside. [i]I knew I made you right.[/i]

[color=00ffff]"It's... different!"[/color] was the first thing aLex managed to squeeze out of herself, laready having ran the suit through the variety of her sensors.

"Yeah. Noone but you can fly it for once, it's just armor modules, there is no power and no operating software. It's the perfect anti-theft solution, but the catch is that like that, it can't exactly fly to you. Hopefully, you'll take less than forty two tries to figure that one out." Thomas grumbled silently, still a little bitter about his inability to build the ultimate suit. Then, THEN he would show Rodgers that heroes aren't born, they are built. Either that, or let Alex prove herself, whichever came first. His thoughts were scrambled, when a set of arms wrapped around him from behind, accompanied with a girly giggle.

[color=00ffff]"Best dad ever!"[/color] Alex laughed.

[i]Yeah, you will do just fine.[/i] "Come on, what are you waiting for, try it on." he encouraged.

Nodding, Alex let him go and turned to the suit, approaching it with reverence. She wasn't kidding. The sheer bulk put every Titanius suit save for Veronica and Igor to shame. That was where the similarities ended though. ASTRA modeled her exterior appearance as quite a petite girl, and she could see the humor in the irony of her wearing this jagged, rough, [i]brutish[/i] looking thing to battle. Time to get on with it. She raised her hands to look at them as the surface of her 'skin' shimmered, flattening out the texture of skin it assumed and the folds of the clothing, changing back to it'S natural silver color, save for a pattern of what looked like golden printed circuit running all over her surface. [color=00ffff]"Ready."[/color]

Nodding, Thomas set the robotic arms to motion. It may not have looked like it, but the suit was heavy, and even the arms struggled with it until the inner layer interfaced with Alex's skin and received power for the first time.

The whole operation took about five minutes, longer than it normally would because of the first time engage. Alex would later struggle to describe the feeling. Her powerplant was more taxed than usual, but that only meant that it was finally needed to operate at more than borderline on levels. The armor's mobility suit was clanky. But the imporoved sensors and all the new equipment? [color=00ffff]"I can't wait to see what this can do!"[/color] she squealed excitedly.

"Then don't." Thomas said, clapping his hands and the launch bay opened, leading straight up through the helipad. "Take her for a spin, just be home for the meeting!" he called out to her encouragingly.

Alex smiled and nodded before putting on the helmet and engaging the multifield generators, creating a point of gravity above herself and launching into the air with nothing more than the gust of wind.

[center][color=00ffff][i][b]Present time...[/b][/i][/color][/center]
[i][color=00ffff]I'M LATE![/color][/i] Alex thought for the umpteenth time, having to dodge passenger air traffic and face the wind on her way back from halfway across the globe. She had to slow down even further over the land, lest she sonic boom everyone deaf. Finally she saw Avengers' tower in fornt of her, and sure enough, the gathering was already on the helipad. She focused the microphones in the helmet, just in time to catch Logan asking for a kid. [i][color=00ffff]Damit damit damit![/color][/i] she panicked, immediately aligning the kid reference to herself.

She switched from repulsors back to gravity, gently gliding to a landing on the pad with just a soft thud. It turned out her panic was for naught, as Logan was apparently referring to Black Panther Junior. Good. Perhaps Alex wasn't in too much trouble then. Turning around, she took a first look at some of the people she would be spending the next days with.