"Well, the thing is, it needs to be available now, I'd need to have the keys in a few days, tops," Lana confirmed into her phone as Bucky entered. He sent her a small smile as he passed her, sitting down by the computer and logging onto it with his password.

"A couple of hundred, yeah," she added, nodding at whatever her counterpart said.

"That'd be great, thank you. Yeah, I'll get back to you. Thank you, bye," she ended, pulling her phone away from her ear before letting her fall into her chair with a heavy sigh. She grabbed her laptop from her back and placed it in front of the stationary screen, quickly opening it and going to her email, refreshing it repeatedly.

"Realtor?" Bucky asked in a hum, hardly looking away from his screen.

"Yup. She's going to send me a few options and I'll have Yanya check them out asap, get some contractors and lawyers to look at it or whatever," she explained equally distracted; "Just so I can at least pretend to learn from my mistakes."

"They're almost at the base. We need to talk, Doll," he suddenly told, spinning in his chair to face her. Placing his elbows on his knees he gathered his hands in front of him, looking at her with concern as she slowly turned to him.

"You're right," she agreed quietly, taking a deep breath.

"It's - wait, I am?" he interrupted himself, surprised.

"You... Aren't you?" she asked, furrowing her eyebrows confused.

"I am?" he repeated.

"You're... Not?" she asked slowly.

"I might be?" he told honestly.

"Ah," she agreed, even though she had no idea what they'd agreed on.

"Clint is coming," he told her before she had a chance to overthink their conversation so far.

"Oh," she realised.

"I'm sorry," Bucky told her honestly.

"No, it... It's not your fault. And he didn't do anything wrong," Lana pointed out, sounding unconvinced herself.

"That doesn't mean you're not allowed to find this difficult. It is difficult, everything about it," he added with a humourless laugh.

"It is pretty messy," she agreed flatly, licking her dry lips.

"Base in sight, first check in," Steve's voice appeared over the com before the sound cut off again.

"I'll be with you every step of the way, to the end of the line, Doll. Just know that," he told her seriously.

"I know," she told, smiling softly at him. Seeing that, he couldn't help the smile that sneaked on to his lips. An honest moment dedicated to the connection he hoped to God he wasn't the only one feeling and a slow, almost waveless, stream of care flowing through his body, only moving enough to make its presence known and never more.

"Please confirm message," Steve's voice ordered, making Lana roll her eyes.

"We're here, Captain," she told, pressing down the button allowing her to be heard as she did so.

"Good. Don't be silent," he told her decidedly.

"Alright. William said your suit is poorly designed because you look like Captain Puerto Rico," she told, glancing at her nails.

"Once again, this is on you, Freddie," Tony's voice exclaimed lightly through the com.

"Does that make you Shaggy?" Lana asked her father curiously.

"I'm obviously Daphne, thank you very much," he replied offendedly.

"I'm confused, who is Captain Puerto Rico? Is he coming?" Bruce asked confused.

"There is no Captain Puerto Rico, so you see the confusion," Lana pointed out.

"Freddie's got the Puerto Rican flag on his chest," Tony explained impatiently.

"Ding, ding, ding! Ten points to Buffy," Lana complimented, smiling slightly.

"Shut up, we're going in," Natasha told them, cutting off the communication. Lana didn't waste a second before turning to her laptop, looking over the possible offices, forwarding the options to her assistant Yanya before turning to Bucky.

"When is he coming?" she asked quietly.

"I don't know," he admitted, turning away from the blinking red dot on the map.

"Right. Well, I probably won't even see him, I'm going to be pretty busy," she told, picking at the skin around her fingernails as she said it. Bucky agreed with a slight hum, watching her carefully as she scratched her cheek. Her phone rang and she fished it out of the pocket, seeing William's smiling face on the screen.

"So far no trouble," Steve told over the com. Lana looked at Bucky, who sent her a reassuring smile before answering her phone. She said a quick hi before he began rambling, quickly getting out his point.

"They're there now? The meeting's not supposed to be until... Shit," she realised after opening her calendar on her computer, quickly shutting it again before running her hand through her hair.

"I can't! I'm at SHIELD. Alright, alright, just... Keep them distracted, alright? I'll get there. Bye," hanging up the phone she groaned in frustration before turning to Bucky with a pleading look.

"What's going on?" he asked flatly.

"That local college agreed to do a flash course to the employees that will have to go to the sales department, but we need to work out the overall plan and schedule," she explained quickly.

"And you can't do that at some other point?" he asked unimpressed.

"I can, the problem is that they can't, and it's already two weeks worth of salary I have to pay to have them educated and two weeks we have to go without employees so if they can start the course monday, then I can have the new office ready when they're done and they can-"

"Fine. I'll cover for you," Bucky agreed, not quite as annoyed as he sounded.

"Really?" Lana asked happily.

"Obviously. That's all I do around here, save your ass," he told her.

"Well, my ass is very thankful," she said, hugging him from behind before rushing off, not noticing how Bucky's eyes followed her, his mouth muttering a silent prayer.

Entering the office of MSS, Lana immediately had to hold back a sigh. William was tinkering with a project of his, entirely disconnected from reality, while a slightly overweight man in a suit stood looking weirdly at him.

"Mr Hanson, so good to see you! I'm sorry I'm late, there was a minor... Well, I won't bore you with the details," Lana interrupted herself, shaking the hand of the man in front of her before passing him, sitting down by her desk.

"Please, have a seat. I assume you've been offered coffee?" she asked, gesturing for him to sit down across the table from her.

"I have not," he told, glancing oddly at William, who was using a screwdriver to push a piece of toast into what looked like a halfway taken apart toaster lying on its side.

"This is William Mateo, the genius behind everything the company has to offer," she introduced, standing from her chair.

"Will, what are you working on?" she asked, placing a cup in the coffee machine and desperately pressing any and every button when it refused to work.

"What? Oh, I realised that if the toaster is on its side, you can melt cheese on the bread!" he told excitedly.

"That's great. Did you do something to the coffee machine?" she asked, trying not to sound annoyed.

"Oh, I, we, we didn't have a toaster, so I had to find some stuff to make it out of. This is actually from under the drip tray," he told, pointing at the gittered metal the toast was lying on; "I'm not sure what it did, but it's great at conducting heat evenly through the bread!"

"That's great, Will," Lana complimented, holding back her sigh as she turned to Mr Hanson.

"Perhaps we should get to business," he commented, still eyeing William weirdly.

"Definitely. What we need is a crash course for a couple of hundred students, follow-"

"That's all fine, Miss Stark," Mr Hanson agreed, finally turning his attention to her; "But we can't offer that much. We have several thousand students spending every day with us for years, Miss Stark, we can't offer a diploma to someone who spends a few weeks with us. We don't even have classes to accommodate that many."

"Alright," she agreed, letting her smile fall; "We'll provide the location. All we'd need is your teachers, and there's no need for any diplomas. All we want is so-"

"We can't spare the teachers for that," he interrupted her. Lana furrowed her eyebrows slightly, placing her elbows on her desk.

"If I may ask, why did you agree to meet with me, Mr Hanson?" she asked directly.

"You asked for this meeting," he reminded her.

"I know, and I can tell you why. I did that because I believe we can be of help to each other. Your teacher would get paid, compensated for their time, as would your institution, and considering our exponential growth, your income is likely only heading one way. Now, if this doesn't interest you, why did you agree to the meeting, Mr Hanson?". The man looked at her for a few minutes.

"I read about you," he told honestly.

"As did I about you and your school, Mr Hanson. What's your point?" she asked.

"You're Tony Stark's daughter," he said. William looked up from his toasters, finally seeing the man properly.

"That's correct," she admitted reluctantly.

"I thought he'd be here," he told flatly.

"Alright. Thank you for your time, Mr Hanson," Lana told with a heavy breath, standing up from her chair.

"Why would Tony Stark be here?" William interfered, standing up and stepping closer to the table.

"It's his employee, his money, I figured-"

"William isn't Tony's employee," Lana corrected quickly, crossing her arms.

"And Lana hasn't been paying for this with his money," William agreed, glancing at Lana to see how she was reacting to Mr Hansons statement.

"C'mon, you expect me to believe a girl with no experience suddenly... Did this?" he asked, gesturing to the big room around them before pointing at each of them; "And then I got here, and I saw how you two work, you hardly noticed when I came in and you weren't even here!"

"Because we were both working, she was-"

"Will," Lana interrupted, sending him a soft smile when he stopped. She took a deep breath before turning to Mr Hanson.

"Thank you for your time. Feel free to show yourself out, I have some business to attend to," she told him flatly.

"There's no need to get rude, miss Stark," he told her sharply, standing up and buttoning his blazer.

"I believe there is, actually, Mr Hanson. My name is Lana Williams, I own fifty percent of everything you're looking at, and I don't appreciate you insinuating that we have not worked for nor deserve it. This is ours, and that is the case for a reason; because we built in, because we are it. This is ours, and this is us. Thank you for your time," she finished, sending him a cold smile.

"Fine," he agreed, narrowing his eyes slightly; "You can use our school, but for bookkeeping reasons, you have to pay a regular yearly tuition for each student, we can't go giving half prices."

"Thank you for your kind... For your offer," Lana corrected, smiling annoyed; "I already made arrangements with another school, though. I wanted to work with you because I wanted to support the local community college, but I happen to have some connections and have secured deals with both Oxford and MIT."

"Fine. Half the regular tuition," Mr Hanson negotiated; "No way those schools can match that!"

"Probably not, but it probably helped that we agreed to hire them for biyearly courses for all new employees for the next five years. Meaning we'll be giving them, at the very least, 100.000 dollars, since we agreed to pay ten for one teacher for two weeks," Lana told him, her smile becoming sincere as well as vindictive.

"You're going to give 100 thousand dollars to two colleges because you dislike me?" the man challenged.

"No, I'm giving 100 thousand dollars to two colleges because I have a business and they offer a service we needed. Sadly, no community college closer to us decided to go along, otherwise they'd have gotten that money... As well as the auditorium we were planning on donating since no existing classrooms met our standards and requirements," she added, ignoring William's slight laughing.

"You're going to regret this," Mr Hanson warned her, pointing at her threateningly.

"Funnily enough, I think you might be the one regretting it. Thank you for your time, Mr Hanson, you may see yourself out."

With only a few swears, the man left, William immediately breaking into a laugh once the door closed behind him.

"What a dick," Lana just said, sitting back down in a huff.

"Lana, love, you could've negotiated with him. You were about to, I saw that. You did the 'why are you here?'," William reminded her, sitting down in his chair, too.

"He pissed me off," she explained with a shrug, crossing her arms.

"Well, you being pissed off is costing a lot of money," he joked. Lana refused to reply, just spun slightly side to side in her chair.

"You made deals with Oxford and MIT?" he asked instead, sensing she wasn't in a very joking mood.

"MIT called when they caught attention of us hiring from their classes. They came with an offer themselves, I don't think there's much they wouldn't do to get us to keep hiring their students. Then I called Oxford to compare, gave them the offer, and they matched it. Probably could have negotiated it down, but I thought we'd be going with the community college anyway," she admitted, scoffing at herself as she remembered a slogan a teacher of hers had had; ABC. Always Be Closing. Any deal has to be closed as well as possible, to the best possible outcome.

"Well, luckily, we can afford it," William reminded her in a cheerful voice, smiling at his friend.

"Yeah, guess we can," Lana realised, furrowing her eyebrows slightly.

"What? You're thinking something," William said, sounding only slightly worried.

"Do you still have student debts?" she asked instead of answering.

"Uh, yeah, I do. I mean, I'm assuming I'll pay them off soon, everything considered, but yeah," he answered confused.

"I have over 50 thousand quid in debt, William," Lana told him, still thoughtful.

"Alright? I know we've reinvested a lot and haven't really made that much each yet, but it doesn't sound like it'll take long before we manage that," he reminded her.
"Yes, but you saw the article in The Times, according to that, we're both worth several million dollars, and we both have student debts still," she pointed out, looking at him.

"Yeah, that's because that insane amount of money isn't ours, it's MSS's, MSS is just in our names, that's all," William pointed out with a shrug. Lana muttered something before opening her laptop and quickly clicking through the spreadsheets she'd looked at just that morning.

"Look," she told, turning the screen to him; "This is the prognosis Geoffrey and his team made. According to this, if we follow our initial agreement of payment, you'll be making about 20 thousand a month, and that's the worst case scenario. If our expansion in Europe goes even slightly as planned, you'll be making a lot more."

"Okay, so why are you worrying about our student debts, love? It doesn't really sound like you have to," he told, pointing at her laptop as evidence.

"I'm not worried about our debts, Will, I'm thinking about Alexander and Madison and Daniel and every other employee we have," she told him.

"Lana, we can't pay everybodies debt off. What if they quit in a month?" William pointed out seriously; "We already give them a pretty good salary, once they finish school and come on full time, they'll be able to pay off their debts. Maybe we could make some arrangement, say that if you've finished college you get pay plus twenty percent so you can pay off your debts or something."

"Cristopher never went to college. You want to be the one to tell him everybody around him gets a raise and he doesn't because he couldn't afford college?" she challenged.

"What else can we do, Lana?" William asked with a sigh.

"Make a deal with MIT and Oxford, maybe more with time, if we expand. Madison works, what, ten hours a week? Say she makes 250 dollars a week, what if we didn't give her the money?" Lana suggested, hey eyes widening in excitement of her preposition.

"Then we'd be criminals, love," William informed her helpfully.

"No, I mean, what if we paid that money directly to MIT? What if we worked out a deal where students could work here in exchange for us paying off their debt?" she urged on.

"That's nice, but that's probably what she uses the money for, anyway. It wouldn't make much of a difference for anyone," he told with a shrug.

"William, you absolute git, didn't I just say MIT was beyond thrilled that we hired their students? Imagine if they could put in their stupid little flyers that a good percentage of their employees were as well as guaranteed a job in their field? How much do you think they'd pay for that? How much is MIT tuition, Will?" she asked instead.

"Around 50 grand a year," he told flatly.

"Alright, that's around 4000 a month, and I am willing to bet... What if we paid half her monthly tuition in exchange for her hours here, and the college matched our money because we will be the reason they can say I won't even dare guess how many of their students will finish their education and be able to start working in their field the next bloody day," Lana told excitedly; "Imagine they could say that 60% of their students was secured a job, and on top of that, they'll get more students, because, at least for our employees, the insane tuition won't be as big a deal. Cristopher, who's one of the most dedicated people here, couldn't go there because he couldn't afford it. This way, he would be able to. We could work something out with them, Will, this could make an actual difference."

"You do realise it's going to cost us a shitton of money, right?" William asked, almost tiredly.

"I know," Lana told honestly.

"Let's do it. If you can work it out with MIT, and if your plan includes them agreeing to work here for at least five years after they graduate. I don't want this to just be some loophole, I want this to actually, genuinely, help people get the education they want, alright?"

"Definitely, I'll get on it, don't even worry about it," she assured immediately, smiling excitedly.

"I'm not worried. I trust you, love," he added, smiling kindly at her.