Athena rolled her eyes and went back into the other gallery.

"I swear if I wasn't absolutely certain one of the displays was magic..." she grumbled.

Further into the exhibit, Tony heard that bit about magic and twitched. Hard. Alana pinched him before he could indignant about it, though.

Athena got busy with her work again, arranging displays and checking diagrams and paint swatches. She sent one of her assistants away with a wall-mounting pedestal and a swatch of paint and instructions to bring the pedestal back the right color, and then checked the time.

"Another fifteen and it'll be break time," she said.

"We're almost done here," Alana said, watching her work. "Tony's just about ready to leave. He's actually been pretty good today."

"Good, excellent, I want to get this gallery done in the next day or so," Athena said. "I promise we've already sent out invites for the opening gala."

"I know," Alana soothed. "I already have the reply list that you've got, I'm not worried about that." She smiled a bit. "Go on, keep bossing your underlings around. I've got a handle on Tony."

"I just need him to not be underfoot," Athena said. She sighed and rubbed her eyes for a moment. "I'll be glad when this is all done."

"Just a few more days," Alana told her. "And then you'll have the gala and then you can sit back and bask in the glory of it all."

"I will be so glad," Athena said. "At least I'll get to dress up for the gala. I'm getting tired of work clothes."

Alana snickered a little and shook her head. "Go manage minions," she said. "Looks like Tony's done so I'm going to go drag him back to the tower."

"Yes, yes," Athena said. She grinned a bit. "Go wrangle Stark. And Strange, if you can get him to listen to you."

"Oh my god no not at the same time." Alana grinned. "Separately, though, I am totally willing to take on the challenge of Strange."

"Done, he's your problem, enjoy," Athena said, grinning. "I might need you to go poke him out of my gallery with a stick, I think he makes people nervous."

Alana rolled her eyes. "Let me get Tony packed up and on his way, then I will," she said. It didn't take her long to go bully Tony back out to the car and get him to go back to the tower. Even if he did whine at her because "you work for us, not the museum, why are you staying to help?" "Because I said so and I'm already in overtime for the week so stop whining."

Athena stayed at the museum late into the night, getting the new exhibit into shape. It would be finished by the next night, and the opening gala would be the night after that, and everything was right on schedule. So when the gala finally rolled around, Athena was much more relaxed and content, knowing that her gallery was pretty and put-together.

Alana was more than ready for this gala. She had a pretty new dress and fabulous new shoes, she'd already wrangled the Avengers into going and cooperating for once, and things were turning out okay. So she was actually rather excited for this one.

Athena had managed to put together a rather nice, if a little unorthodox, outfit for the gala. Black and gunmetal and peacock pearls framed a vibrantly blue tulle skirt, and her makeup was tasteful and understated. She gave a small introductory speech for the unveiling of the exhibit, and then opened the gallery for people to mingle and have cocktails.

Tony was there, of course, and found that he kind of liked the outfit. He didn't pay any attention to the speech, but he liked the outfit. Unorthodox, sure, but pretty. Different. Huh. There was something new to consider. Or maybe not.

"Turned out nice," he said when he ended up next to Athena, looking around. "Good turnout too, got a lot of other VIPs here."

"We couldn't have done it without your generous donation," Athena replied, taking a champagne flute from a passing server.

Tony snorted quietly. "Yeah, well, better out here than sitting in storage forever," he said with a little shrug.

"Now people can enjoy it all," Athena said, sipping from her glass and looking around. "Though I have to say I wasn't expecting the last-minute addition of the prototype Arc reactor."

Tony shrugged. "Might as well show it off," he said. "And then put it to use after."

"It's definitely going to end up a major attraction," Athena said. "Not a whole lot of people have gotten to see one up close before."

"I'm still developing the tech for public use," Tony told her. "Your museum is one of the first places to have one. Besides the tower."

Athena raised an eyebrow at that. She knew that, of course, it was written on the description next to the reactor, but still.

"Why give it to us?" she asked, curious. "Not that I'm not grateful, but I'm sure there are other places that need it more?"