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cap_ironman2008-08-28 07:56 pm
mardahin.livejournal.com) wrote in cap_ironman2008-08-28 07:56 pm
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Fic: All That Remains (5/?) (PG-13)
General FYI: With the start of the academic year, something relevant to both my co-writer and myself, we're going to be shifting onto a structured posting schedule. A new part will go up every Sunday. This part, however, is the exception to the rule, as it is ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kijikun's birthday, and she wanted to post this early.
Title: All That Remains (5/?)
Previous Parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Authors:kijikun & miriel
Rating: PG-13 (eventual NC-17)
Pairing: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark (Implied)
Warnings: Spoilers through "Fallen Son", references to an institutionalized childhood
Author's Notes: Marvel Time is always kind of flexible, so we're setting this somewhere in the first half of 2008. As always, con-crit welcome.
Summary: Franklin Richards had met some odd people in his life.
"I know you have an issue with me carrying his shield," Bucky - no, his name was James. He wasn't Captain America's sidekick, anymore - James said, carefully avoiding Tony's gaze.
"I wouldn't have given it to you if I had a problem with it. Steve would have wanted you to have it," Tony's voice was firm, even if his resolve wasn't. The truth was that it killed Tony to see someone else in Steve's uniform, holding Steve's shield. Steve had told him once how the uniform had been based off of his own sketches, and even a blind man could have seen that Steve loved that shield. Just like that classic bike, although Tony could never fault Steve for an interest in vintage transportation. The bike, the shield, they were Steve's, and Tony would never stop thinking of them as being so. Even if Bucky carried the shield for the next twenty years. "He'd be proud that you're carrying on the Captain America name."
James snorted softly. "I'm never going to be him. Everyone knows that I'm not him. Who the hell can replace Captain America?" Tony could hear the bitterness in his voice, but as often happened in his conversations with James, he couldn't tell if it was grief at losing Steve, or if it was frustration at never crawling out from under Steve's shadow. Tony knew that James had loved Steve - everyone had, really - but it had been an odd relationship toward the end.
Tony made a conscious effort to shift his thoughts from that particular path, crossing his arms as he used Extremis to finalize last minute details for his business trip to China as well as checking up on Maria. "There have been other Captain Americas before, and you're unlikely to be the last. You know that as well as anyone."
He watched Maria in his mind's eye, through the security cameras in the gym as she worked on the balance beam. Her movements had the surety of someone who'd trained on the apparatus for years, and he found himself absurdly grateful that the people who had "raised" her had waited until the children turned ten to start serious combat training. Gymnastics he could deal with, and once he was assured that the two weeks of relative calm that had followed her metaphorical explosion were the new norm, and not merely a holding pattern of some kind, he could see about finding her a civilian instructor. He knew that he'd have to tread a very careful line with an outside instructor, but there were some areas in which he simply didn't have the experience to teach her. Steve would have been a wonderful teacher, or, hell, if he hadn't fallen off the grid so spectacularly, Spider-man would have been able to do a better job than he could. Never mind that Peter would probably be a better father than he would.
Maybe Carol would know someone trustworthy. He'd have to ask, but that was weeks away, if not months. It was also neither here, nor there, and James was speaking again.
"They were never really him, and I'm not either," James sounded tired, and he had a right too. They were all tired, and James had extra shit mixed into the pile. He'd been a trained assassin at age, what, sixteen? He'd probably understand Maria better than Tony did, but that wasn't a route Tony planned to take. The less the new Captain America knew about Maria, the better. "I know he told you to take care of me, but he also seemed to think I'm still twelve. Steve, he had this need to protect, and I was the convenient focus for that during the war. I was sixteen when I meet him, and I could damn well take care of myself then. I can take care of myself now."
"I'm sure you can," Tony spoke softly, trying to avoid getting into an argument that wasn't his to have. "I wouldn't have given you that shield if I didn't believe that."
James was still frowning at him, but whatever he seemed to want to say, he didn't. "I should go."
Tony nodded, and silently watched the Winter Solider leave his office. As the door to the commander's office on the Helicarrier slid closed, Tony once again set about trying to figure out if Dugan was relieved or annoyed that Tony was going to be in China until the end of the week.
* * *
To the best of her recollection, Maria had never been on a plane before. She'd learned about them, studied them, seen them - but had never set foot in one. She stared at her large travel bag, called a "suitcase" because it was traditionally used to transport only clothing, checking again that it contained everything she'd been asked to pack. The shoulder-bag, Jarvis had called it a backpack, was packed, too, filled with books and some drawing supplies.
Since her episode - an odd term, but the one Mr. Stark had used when he'd interrogated her the next morning - she'd had more strict scheduling. After learning that drafting had been one of the skills she'd been training in, Mr. Stark had assigned her thirty minutes of drawing, every day. He had told her that it didn't matter what she drew, but that he wanted to see her work at the end of each day. He always seemed pleased with her work, and she had been rewarded with new pads of paper and varied drawing supplies. Her current project was a draft of the ship from the book From the Earth to the Moon.
Maria frowned at her suitcase. Mr. Stark had told her that the flight would be very long, since they were flying to China. She knew where China was, and she knew where she currently was, but she hadnt traveled enough to draw her own conclusions about the time in transit. Mr. Stark had said they were scheduled to be in the air for thirteen hours and thirty minutes. Maria had no idea what she'd be expected to do during that time. She'd wanted to ask, but this project was under Mr. Stark's direct supervision, and she needed to save her questions and breaches of protocol for important things. In this case, even if she asked and was answered, the answer might not make any sense. Mr. Stark's answers often made little sense, even if he tried to explain the in detail if she slipped and made her confusion known.
China - Maria wasn't sure what she thought about actually going there. It wasn't her place to think about the trip, or to question it, but she found herself doing so just the same. No one could see what happened inside her head, right? Everything she'd ever been taught had demonstrated China to be an enemy nation. One of the languages that they'd received training in at The Complex had been Mandarin Chinese, and it had been Maria's worst subject by far. Her French and Spanish were flawless, neither carrying an American accent. Her German near perfect, although she knew that her vocabulary was smaller than what she'd learned in the other languages, and while her Russian needed some work, she'd still been one of the best in her group.
Her Mandarin, on the other hand?
Mandarin had landed her in isolation more than once, no matter how hard she practiced. Her reading comprehension was good, but while she could hear the tonal differences, something just didn't connect right when she tried to repeat them back. She shivered unconsciously at the memory of those days in isolation, sitting down on the bed and pulling her knees to her chest as she considered the possibility that Mr. Stark was bringing her along to translate for him, or worse, to conduct recon. So far, he'd been pleased with her performance; what happened when she failed him?
It brought up the doubts that had lingered in the back of her mind ever since her arrival, half-formed and incomplete, but still present. Was she the first one to be assigned to Mr. Stark? Had others been assigned and failed? He never spoke of such things, but that meant nothing. In The Complex, no one had spoken about the girls who Failed and were deemed a waste of resources. But everyone knew what it meant when someone was taken down the corridor and turned left instead of right. Mr. Stark was difficult to read, because he never seemed to get angry with her, never more than a momentary outburst. Not even when her behavior had been such that she was sure she'd be taken away - she'd wanted to be taken away, just for the familiarity of the routine and the known expectations.
Maria wanted things simple again, like they had been in The Complex. Even with the changes, Mr. Stark presented too many confusing things, his home contained too many people that didn't behave as they should. She didn't want to think about why he didn't punish her for her transgressions. Or why something inside her felt... odd when he praised her or smiled at her. She didn't want to understand Jarvis' tendency for the strange embraces he referred to as "hugs".
Staring back down at her suitcase, Maria bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.
* * *
For the most part, the flight proved uneventful, and for that Tony was grateful. He'd taken a fair amount of pleasure in showing Maria around the plane - explaining the various mechanisms, the innovations he'd designed, etc - and the flight attendants had fussed over her as well, especially after learning that it was the young girl's first flight. Maria had taken the whole thing in stride, and the biggest problem had been the need to limit her once she'd realized that she could get cookie after cookie simply by asking for them (and that asking was allowed).
After takeoff, Tony had settled in to work on a new design - not anything for SHIELD or the Avengers, just something that had been buzzing around his brain on and off for the past few weeks. He didn't often have the chance to just play around with equations and lines anymore, especially not with pen & paper - so many of his designs were done on computer, often in his 3D design studio.
At one point, he'd looked over at Maria and seen with amusement that she also had her a pad of paper out, and was drawing her own set of specs. She'd been working on that ship for several days now, ever since he'd pointed out that if she disliked the illustrations in From the Earth to the Moon that she should draw her own version.
And that's exactly what she'd set out to do. He watched her now, with her tongue sticking out just slightly as she concentrated, her fingertips dark from the pencil, a little line on her forehead where her brow furled - and it looked so familiar it hurt. He wondered if all artists had that expression when they worked.
Tony looked away, forcibly ending that train of thought, and threw himself back into his own art, the comforting and absorbing process of design. If that didn't distract him, then he was sure he could find something on one of the many data streams that would.
It was hours later when he resurfaced after finishing yet another cup of coffee. Running a hand over his face, he left his seat to use the bathroom, mentally running down the checklist of things he had to do before they landed. He'd review a few reports, get Carol's report on the State-of-the-Superhero, check in on Bob, and then maybe catch a few hours of sleep before they landed in Beijing. It was as he walked back to his seat that he noticed Maria's fidgeting. She'd put her drawing pad away and was restlessly squirming in her seat, looking out the window, then at the ceiling - never more than a few seconds of attention in any given place.
He opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, and then it clicked. Manfully resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, because he knew it wouldn't actually help the flaring headache and he'd learned that Maria had a tendency to read that kind of body language negatively, he mentally cursed himself for not realizing the problem sooner. "Maria, you may use the bathroom."
The girl was up and out of her seat in an instant, not even giving one of her customary 'yes, sir's as she dashed to the bathroom.
Tony looked up at the roof of the plane, and once again wondered if he was doing more harm than good. Even Reed might have been a better choice, well, all right, if he were honest with himself, Sue was the reason those kids had turned out mostly-normal, but at least she knew what she was doing, and then Maria wouldn't be alone so much. He made a mental note to introduce Maria to the Richards family once she was stable enough to handle regular outside interactions. She needed contact with other children, or she would.
When Maria came back out of the bathroom, he put a hand on her shoulder before she could return to her seat. She stopped obediently, and turned to face him, her face carefully neutral. "Maria, I'm not angry with you. But from now on, you have permission to excuse yourself to use the bathroom whenever you need to. Do you understand?" He hated how much like an order it sounded, but orders were what she responded to.
Maria nodded slowly, as if she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. "Yes, Tony."
Tony sighed and tucked a loose piece of hair behind her ear. "You should try to get some sleep. It'll be another five hours before we land, and it'll be early afternoon. Did Amy show you how to work the seat?"
Maria nodded again. "She did. It does seem quite practical to have the chair and bed in the same unit."
He chuckled softly. "It is indeed. Go on, then, genius." Tony patted her head affectionately, and watched her as she adjusted the seat and curled up under the blanket she'd been given earlier, falling asleep almost immediately.
Convinced that she was down for the count, or at least well on her way, he settled back in his own seat, allowing himself to sink into the appropriate data streams as he read through the SHIELD reports that had made it to his inbox before they'd left town. Amy, who was both the jet's chief mechanic on the ground and his head flight attendant in the air, came back around a few moments later, refilling his coffee and making sure Maria had all the pillows and blankets she needed.
When he looked up again, he realized that the lights in the rest of the cabin had been dimmed almost to darkness, his work light shining all the brighter for the contrast. He looked over, and saw that Maria was asleep, her arm hanging over the edge of the bed slightly. He was surprised to realize that she seemed more at ease sleeping here than he had ever seen her in the penthouse. He wondered if it was the light or the noise that put her at ease. Perhaps both.
Rising from his chair, Tony crossed the cabin and gently shifted her arm back onto the cushion. He ran a hand over her back, and paused his hand slightly as he felt the gentle rise and fall of her breathing. She stirred slightly, making a soft noise. "Shhh," he murmured, watching her settle and drift back into a deeper sleep. He eased the blanket back up around her shoulders, and allowed himself another moment just to study her in a peaceful state. She was rarely so relaxed, and the calm suited her well.
So small, so innocent, and so disturbingly young; he wondered how anyone could have seen her as anything but a child that needed protection. Not a tool or a bargaining chip, but a little girl that desperately needed someone to think about what was good for her - not some ill-defined greater good.
He very carefully didn't think about what the most likely fate for her "sisters" had been. She'd asked once or twice about them, and he'd promised to look into it, although no information had surfaced so far. Standing there, watching her sleep, he wondered if she even understood the loss.
* * *
Franklin Richards had met some odd people in his life. By most of the world's standards, his whole family was odd. On a more personal scale, his own life hadn't exactly been something out of a family sitcom. So, when given that kind of a context, Maria Stark was not the strangest kid he'd ever met. He was hesitant to decide whether she was in the top ten or not, though. That kind of strange needed time and exposure to quantify. She'd certainly seemed nice enough when they'd been introduced, and while Tony had looked kind of stressed, he always looked kind of stressed, so Franklin hadn't really thought anything of it. He'd just been happy to run into someone else from back home, especially since his dad had forgotten to mention that Tony was going to be in town. Franklin was still trying to convince Tony to let him take a spin in the armor, and while Tony kept maintaining that it wasn't happening until his dad said it was okay, Franklin lived in hope. A lot of hope.
His dad and Tony were off with business associates of some kind, involving the engineering behind the new buildings going up for the Olympics. There were other children around, mostly the children of Stark Industries employees. Tony hadn't wanted to let Maria out of his sight when it had been time to head for the meeting, but Franklin's dad had told Tony that Franklin would keep an eye on her. And then he'd turned to Franklin and told him to take care of her. Tony had looked skeptical, but Franklin's dad had started talking about something involving a lot of numbers and an experimental element, and Tony had allowed himself to be dragged away without a fuss.
An hour and change later, Franklin was definitely considering moving Maria up the rankings in the strange department, even if he totally understood why she was about twenty-five degrees to the right of the rest of the world. He hadn't meant to pry, but then he never really meant to. He was a kid, well, sort-of. Accidents just sort of happened, right?
"I'm not sure that I understand these swings. What is their purpose?" Maria was asking. "Is this more of 'playing'?"
He could hear the quotations in her question, and was reminded that really, he'd had a comparatively normal childhood, all things considered. She'd asked about everything, once they'd entered the playground, and looked positively mystified when he'd laughed and said that the other children were just playing.
"It's supposed to be fun," Franklin told her, pumping his legs to gain altitude. "Don't you like it?"
Maria frowned her brow wrinkling. "It is…" She leaned back as she reached the top of an arc. Her lips curled upwards. "It is enjoyable. I'm just not sure what the purpose is. What does this teach us? Surely there are more effective manners in which to learn balance and geometry skills."
"It teaches us how to have fun?"
Maria frowned, and on any other child her tone would have been called a whine. "That doesn't make any sense."
Franklin shrugged and jumped off his swing midair. "Maybe it's not supposed to. Ever think of that?"
"I'm not supposed to think, just obey," she sounded angry. Following his example, she jumped off of her swing at the top of its arc, executing a neat double-twist followed by a somersault before landing easily on her feet.
"Whoa." Franklin hadn't meant to stare, but he found that he couldn't stop. Sure, he'd seen Spider-man do all sorts of fancy flips before, but Spider-man wasn't nine years old. Spider-man also wore a costume. "Look, I didn't mean to make you mad," Franklin told her as she walked past him toward the monkey bars. Some of the other children were staring at them, but Maria ignored them. After a moment, he followed her example, although he was relieved when she decided to bypass the bars and instead settled in one of the open areas filled with sand.
Maria sat down in the sand and looked up at the clear dome above their heads. "Tony designed that. It's transparent, lightweight, and it filters out the smog, but it can stand up to a close range explosion."
He plopped down next to her, fidgeting with a handful of sand before asking something he knew he probably shouldn't. "I know you weren't living with Tony a few months ago. And I know you were in a lab at one point. So where are you from? Another planet or something?"
"The Complex," Maria's voice was soft. "I lived there with the others." She was still looking up at the sky, but her eyes were unfocused, her fingers digging into the sand.
Franklin reached over and squeezed her hand gently. "Tony's a good guy, you know." He knew that better than most people, he suspected, even if Tony wouldn't let him take the armor out for a spin. "He and my dad are friends, have been for as long as I can remember. He'll take care of you."
Maria looked over at him and he had to catch himself before he slipped into her head again. He wasn't supposed to do that anymore. "I'm confused. Nothing here makes sense. There are too many new things to learn, and it gets so quiet…"
"Hey," Franklin squeezed her hand a little tighter. "If it gets too quiet, you ask Tony to call me, and I'll answer anything you need me to. I'll take care of you, too, okay?"
She looked at him quietly for a long time before nodding. "Okay."
* * *
Tony approached Maria's bedside with soft steps, wanting to check on her before he caught some sleep himself. He had a few more early meetings before they headed back to New York, and he needed to be functional, but it was hard to get his mind to settle. Running into Reed had been a pleasant surprise, but he'd spent the entire time that they'd been in joint meetings watching Maria and Franklin through the security cameras to make sure that a crisis didn't happen. Surprisingly, the two had gotten along well, and Maria had come through the experience none the worse for wear. In fact, Maria had acclimated to Beijing on the whole better than he'd hoped. He'd been worried that she wouldn't sleep well in a strange place, that she might not be willing to eat unfamiliar food, but she'd proved more flexible than he'd feared. Granted, she never slept terribly well - even at home - but the fact that she slept at all was reassuring.
"Will Franklin be there tomorrow?" Maria asked, startling him. Her voice was sleepy, but still articulate enough to indicate that he hadn't woken her, and least not just then. He'd thought she was asleep, curled so deeply into her cocoon of blankets. He wondered how long she'd been awake, but knew he'd never have an answer.
Tony shook his head. "No, he and his father flew back home a few hours ago. Did you have fun with him today?" He'd meant to ask her that before, but by the time he and Reed had gone to fetch their children it was time for dinner, and there had been that new project of Reed's to discuss. Tony was ashamed to admit that the more comfortable Maria had seemed with Franklin, the less attention he'd focused on her and the more he'd allowed himself to become absorbed in the conversation with Reed.
"I think I did," Maria told him. "Would it be permissible to see him again?" There was that hesitant note, back in her voice. It came and went, but it was always strongest when she asked for something. She didn't realize that he'd give her anything in the world, if she asked.
"I'm sure we can work something out," Tony assured her, stroking her hair. "Now, you need to go back to sleep. We have to be up early. You can tell me all about Franklin tomorrow on the plane."
Maria nodded, yawning softly. "Yes, sir."
"Good girl," he told her, leaning down to kiss her forehead. "Goodnight, Maria."
~ Part 6 ~
kijikun's birthday, and she wanted to post this early.Title: All That Remains (5/?)
Previous Parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Authors:
kijikun & mirielRating: PG-13 (eventual NC-17)
Pairing: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark (Implied)
Warnings: Spoilers through "Fallen Son", references to an institutionalized childhood
Author's Notes: Marvel Time is always kind of flexible, so we're setting this somewhere in the first half of 2008. As always, con-crit welcome.
Summary: Franklin Richards had met some odd people in his life.
"I know you have an issue with me carrying his shield," Bucky - no, his name was James. He wasn't Captain America's sidekick, anymore - James said, carefully avoiding Tony's gaze.
"I wouldn't have given it to you if I had a problem with it. Steve would have wanted you to have it," Tony's voice was firm, even if his resolve wasn't. The truth was that it killed Tony to see someone else in Steve's uniform, holding Steve's shield. Steve had told him once how the uniform had been based off of his own sketches, and even a blind man could have seen that Steve loved that shield. Just like that classic bike, although Tony could never fault Steve for an interest in vintage transportation. The bike, the shield, they were Steve's, and Tony would never stop thinking of them as being so. Even if Bucky carried the shield for the next twenty years. "He'd be proud that you're carrying on the Captain America name."
James snorted softly. "I'm never going to be him. Everyone knows that I'm not him. Who the hell can replace Captain America?" Tony could hear the bitterness in his voice, but as often happened in his conversations with James, he couldn't tell if it was grief at losing Steve, or if it was frustration at never crawling out from under Steve's shadow. Tony knew that James had loved Steve - everyone had, really - but it had been an odd relationship toward the end.
Tony made a conscious effort to shift his thoughts from that particular path, crossing his arms as he used Extremis to finalize last minute details for his business trip to China as well as checking up on Maria. "There have been other Captain Americas before, and you're unlikely to be the last. You know that as well as anyone."
He watched Maria in his mind's eye, through the security cameras in the gym as she worked on the balance beam. Her movements had the surety of someone who'd trained on the apparatus for years, and he found himself absurdly grateful that the people who had "raised" her had waited until the children turned ten to start serious combat training. Gymnastics he could deal with, and once he was assured that the two weeks of relative calm that had followed her metaphorical explosion were the new norm, and not merely a holding pattern of some kind, he could see about finding her a civilian instructor. He knew that he'd have to tread a very careful line with an outside instructor, but there were some areas in which he simply didn't have the experience to teach her. Steve would have been a wonderful teacher, or, hell, if he hadn't fallen off the grid so spectacularly, Spider-man would have been able to do a better job than he could. Never mind that Peter would probably be a better father than he would.
Maybe Carol would know someone trustworthy. He'd have to ask, but that was weeks away, if not months. It was also neither here, nor there, and James was speaking again.
"They were never really him, and I'm not either," James sounded tired, and he had a right too. They were all tired, and James had extra shit mixed into the pile. He'd been a trained assassin at age, what, sixteen? He'd probably understand Maria better than Tony did, but that wasn't a route Tony planned to take. The less the new Captain America knew about Maria, the better. "I know he told you to take care of me, but he also seemed to think I'm still twelve. Steve, he had this need to protect, and I was the convenient focus for that during the war. I was sixteen when I meet him, and I could damn well take care of myself then. I can take care of myself now."
"I'm sure you can," Tony spoke softly, trying to avoid getting into an argument that wasn't his to have. "I wouldn't have given you that shield if I didn't believe that."
James was still frowning at him, but whatever he seemed to want to say, he didn't. "I should go."
Tony nodded, and silently watched the Winter Solider leave his office. As the door to the commander's office on the Helicarrier slid closed, Tony once again set about trying to figure out if Dugan was relieved or annoyed that Tony was going to be in China until the end of the week.
To the best of her recollection, Maria had never been on a plane before. She'd learned about them, studied them, seen them - but had never set foot in one. She stared at her large travel bag, called a "suitcase" because it was traditionally used to transport only clothing, checking again that it contained everything she'd been asked to pack. The shoulder-bag, Jarvis had called it a backpack, was packed, too, filled with books and some drawing supplies.
Since her episode - an odd term, but the one Mr. Stark had used when he'd interrogated her the next morning - she'd had more strict scheduling. After learning that drafting had been one of the skills she'd been training in, Mr. Stark had assigned her thirty minutes of drawing, every day. He had told her that it didn't matter what she drew, but that he wanted to see her work at the end of each day. He always seemed pleased with her work, and she had been rewarded with new pads of paper and varied drawing supplies. Her current project was a draft of the ship from the book From the Earth to the Moon.
Maria frowned at her suitcase. Mr. Stark had told her that the flight would be very long, since they were flying to China. She knew where China was, and she knew where she currently was, but she hadnt traveled enough to draw her own conclusions about the time in transit. Mr. Stark had said they were scheduled to be in the air for thirteen hours and thirty minutes. Maria had no idea what she'd be expected to do during that time. She'd wanted to ask, but this project was under Mr. Stark's direct supervision, and she needed to save her questions and breaches of protocol for important things. In this case, even if she asked and was answered, the answer might not make any sense. Mr. Stark's answers often made little sense, even if he tried to explain the in detail if she slipped and made her confusion known.
China - Maria wasn't sure what she thought about actually going there. It wasn't her place to think about the trip, or to question it, but she found herself doing so just the same. No one could see what happened inside her head, right? Everything she'd ever been taught had demonstrated China to be an enemy nation. One of the languages that they'd received training in at The Complex had been Mandarin Chinese, and it had been Maria's worst subject by far. Her French and Spanish were flawless, neither carrying an American accent. Her German near perfect, although she knew that her vocabulary was smaller than what she'd learned in the other languages, and while her Russian needed some work, she'd still been one of the best in her group.
Her Mandarin, on the other hand?
Mandarin had landed her in isolation more than once, no matter how hard she practiced. Her reading comprehension was good, but while she could hear the tonal differences, something just didn't connect right when she tried to repeat them back. She shivered unconsciously at the memory of those days in isolation, sitting down on the bed and pulling her knees to her chest as she considered the possibility that Mr. Stark was bringing her along to translate for him, or worse, to conduct recon. So far, he'd been pleased with her performance; what happened when she failed him?
It brought up the doubts that had lingered in the back of her mind ever since her arrival, half-formed and incomplete, but still present. Was she the first one to be assigned to Mr. Stark? Had others been assigned and failed? He never spoke of such things, but that meant nothing. In The Complex, no one had spoken about the girls who Failed and were deemed a waste of resources. But everyone knew what it meant when someone was taken down the corridor and turned left instead of right. Mr. Stark was difficult to read, because he never seemed to get angry with her, never more than a momentary outburst. Not even when her behavior had been such that she was sure she'd be taken away - she'd wanted to be taken away, just for the familiarity of the routine and the known expectations.
Maria wanted things simple again, like they had been in The Complex. Even with the changes, Mr. Stark presented too many confusing things, his home contained too many people that didn't behave as they should. She didn't want to think about why he didn't punish her for her transgressions. Or why something inside her felt... odd when he praised her or smiled at her. She didn't want to understand Jarvis' tendency for the strange embraces he referred to as "hugs".
Staring back down at her suitcase, Maria bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.
For the most part, the flight proved uneventful, and for that Tony was grateful. He'd taken a fair amount of pleasure in showing Maria around the plane - explaining the various mechanisms, the innovations he'd designed, etc - and the flight attendants had fussed over her as well, especially after learning that it was the young girl's first flight. Maria had taken the whole thing in stride, and the biggest problem had been the need to limit her once she'd realized that she could get cookie after cookie simply by asking for them (and that asking was allowed).
After takeoff, Tony had settled in to work on a new design - not anything for SHIELD or the Avengers, just something that had been buzzing around his brain on and off for the past few weeks. He didn't often have the chance to just play around with equations and lines anymore, especially not with pen & paper - so many of his designs were done on computer, often in his 3D design studio.
At one point, he'd looked over at Maria and seen with amusement that she also had her a pad of paper out, and was drawing her own set of specs. She'd been working on that ship for several days now, ever since he'd pointed out that if she disliked the illustrations in From the Earth to the Moon that she should draw her own version.
And that's exactly what she'd set out to do. He watched her now, with her tongue sticking out just slightly as she concentrated, her fingertips dark from the pencil, a little line on her forehead where her brow furled - and it looked so familiar it hurt. He wondered if all artists had that expression when they worked.
Tony looked away, forcibly ending that train of thought, and threw himself back into his own art, the comforting and absorbing process of design. If that didn't distract him, then he was sure he could find something on one of the many data streams that would.
It was hours later when he resurfaced after finishing yet another cup of coffee. Running a hand over his face, he left his seat to use the bathroom, mentally running down the checklist of things he had to do before they landed. He'd review a few reports, get Carol's report on the State-of-the-Superhero, check in on Bob, and then maybe catch a few hours of sleep before they landed in Beijing. It was as he walked back to his seat that he noticed Maria's fidgeting. She'd put her drawing pad away and was restlessly squirming in her seat, looking out the window, then at the ceiling - never more than a few seconds of attention in any given place.
He opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, and then it clicked. Manfully resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, because he knew it wouldn't actually help the flaring headache and he'd learned that Maria had a tendency to read that kind of body language negatively, he mentally cursed himself for not realizing the problem sooner. "Maria, you may use the bathroom."
The girl was up and out of her seat in an instant, not even giving one of her customary 'yes, sir's as she dashed to the bathroom.
Tony looked up at the roof of the plane, and once again wondered if he was doing more harm than good. Even Reed might have been a better choice, well, all right, if he were honest with himself, Sue was the reason those kids had turned out mostly-normal, but at least she knew what she was doing, and then Maria wouldn't be alone so much. He made a mental note to introduce Maria to the Richards family once she was stable enough to handle regular outside interactions. She needed contact with other children, or she would.
When Maria came back out of the bathroom, he put a hand on her shoulder before she could return to her seat. She stopped obediently, and turned to face him, her face carefully neutral. "Maria, I'm not angry with you. But from now on, you have permission to excuse yourself to use the bathroom whenever you need to. Do you understand?" He hated how much like an order it sounded, but orders were what she responded to.
Maria nodded slowly, as if she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. "Yes, Tony."
Tony sighed and tucked a loose piece of hair behind her ear. "You should try to get some sleep. It'll be another five hours before we land, and it'll be early afternoon. Did Amy show you how to work the seat?"
Maria nodded again. "She did. It does seem quite practical to have the chair and bed in the same unit."
He chuckled softly. "It is indeed. Go on, then, genius." Tony patted her head affectionately, and watched her as she adjusted the seat and curled up under the blanket she'd been given earlier, falling asleep almost immediately.
Convinced that she was down for the count, or at least well on her way, he settled back in his own seat, allowing himself to sink into the appropriate data streams as he read through the SHIELD reports that had made it to his inbox before they'd left town. Amy, who was both the jet's chief mechanic on the ground and his head flight attendant in the air, came back around a few moments later, refilling his coffee and making sure Maria had all the pillows and blankets she needed.
When he looked up again, he realized that the lights in the rest of the cabin had been dimmed almost to darkness, his work light shining all the brighter for the contrast. He looked over, and saw that Maria was asleep, her arm hanging over the edge of the bed slightly. He was surprised to realize that she seemed more at ease sleeping here than he had ever seen her in the penthouse. He wondered if it was the light or the noise that put her at ease. Perhaps both.
Rising from his chair, Tony crossed the cabin and gently shifted her arm back onto the cushion. He ran a hand over her back, and paused his hand slightly as he felt the gentle rise and fall of her breathing. She stirred slightly, making a soft noise. "Shhh," he murmured, watching her settle and drift back into a deeper sleep. He eased the blanket back up around her shoulders, and allowed himself another moment just to study her in a peaceful state. She was rarely so relaxed, and the calm suited her well.
So small, so innocent, and so disturbingly young; he wondered how anyone could have seen her as anything but a child that needed protection. Not a tool or a bargaining chip, but a little girl that desperately needed someone to think about what was good for her - not some ill-defined greater good.
He very carefully didn't think about what the most likely fate for her "sisters" had been. She'd asked once or twice about them, and he'd promised to look into it, although no information had surfaced so far. Standing there, watching her sleep, he wondered if she even understood the loss.
Franklin Richards had met some odd people in his life. By most of the world's standards, his whole family was odd. On a more personal scale, his own life hadn't exactly been something out of a family sitcom. So, when given that kind of a context, Maria Stark was not the strangest kid he'd ever met. He was hesitant to decide whether she was in the top ten or not, though. That kind of strange needed time and exposure to quantify. She'd certainly seemed nice enough when they'd been introduced, and while Tony had looked kind of stressed, he always looked kind of stressed, so Franklin hadn't really thought anything of it. He'd just been happy to run into someone else from back home, especially since his dad had forgotten to mention that Tony was going to be in town. Franklin was still trying to convince Tony to let him take a spin in the armor, and while Tony kept maintaining that it wasn't happening until his dad said it was okay, Franklin lived in hope. A lot of hope.
His dad and Tony were off with business associates of some kind, involving the engineering behind the new buildings going up for the Olympics. There were other children around, mostly the children of Stark Industries employees. Tony hadn't wanted to let Maria out of his sight when it had been time to head for the meeting, but Franklin's dad had told Tony that Franklin would keep an eye on her. And then he'd turned to Franklin and told him to take care of her. Tony had looked skeptical, but Franklin's dad had started talking about something involving a lot of numbers and an experimental element, and Tony had allowed himself to be dragged away without a fuss.
An hour and change later, Franklin was definitely considering moving Maria up the rankings in the strange department, even if he totally understood why she was about twenty-five degrees to the right of the rest of the world. He hadn't meant to pry, but then he never really meant to. He was a kid, well, sort-of. Accidents just sort of happened, right?
"I'm not sure that I understand these swings. What is their purpose?" Maria was asking. "Is this more of 'playing'?"
He could hear the quotations in her question, and was reminded that really, he'd had a comparatively normal childhood, all things considered. She'd asked about everything, once they'd entered the playground, and looked positively mystified when he'd laughed and said that the other children were just playing.
"It's supposed to be fun," Franklin told her, pumping his legs to gain altitude. "Don't you like it?"
Maria frowned her brow wrinkling. "It is…" She leaned back as she reached the top of an arc. Her lips curled upwards. "It is enjoyable. I'm just not sure what the purpose is. What does this teach us? Surely there are more effective manners in which to learn balance and geometry skills."
"It teaches us how to have fun?"
Maria frowned, and on any other child her tone would have been called a whine. "That doesn't make any sense."
Franklin shrugged and jumped off his swing midair. "Maybe it's not supposed to. Ever think of that?"
"I'm not supposed to think, just obey," she sounded angry. Following his example, she jumped off of her swing at the top of its arc, executing a neat double-twist followed by a somersault before landing easily on her feet.
"Whoa." Franklin hadn't meant to stare, but he found that he couldn't stop. Sure, he'd seen Spider-man do all sorts of fancy flips before, but Spider-man wasn't nine years old. Spider-man also wore a costume. "Look, I didn't mean to make you mad," Franklin told her as she walked past him toward the monkey bars. Some of the other children were staring at them, but Maria ignored them. After a moment, he followed her example, although he was relieved when she decided to bypass the bars and instead settled in one of the open areas filled with sand.
Maria sat down in the sand and looked up at the clear dome above their heads. "Tony designed that. It's transparent, lightweight, and it filters out the smog, but it can stand up to a close range explosion."
He plopped down next to her, fidgeting with a handful of sand before asking something he knew he probably shouldn't. "I know you weren't living with Tony a few months ago. And I know you were in a lab at one point. So where are you from? Another planet or something?"
"The Complex," Maria's voice was soft. "I lived there with the others." She was still looking up at the sky, but her eyes were unfocused, her fingers digging into the sand.
Franklin reached over and squeezed her hand gently. "Tony's a good guy, you know." He knew that better than most people, he suspected, even if Tony wouldn't let him take the armor out for a spin. "He and my dad are friends, have been for as long as I can remember. He'll take care of you."
Maria looked over at him and he had to catch himself before he slipped into her head again. He wasn't supposed to do that anymore. "I'm confused. Nothing here makes sense. There are too many new things to learn, and it gets so quiet…"
"Hey," Franklin squeezed her hand a little tighter. "If it gets too quiet, you ask Tony to call me, and I'll answer anything you need me to. I'll take care of you, too, okay?"
She looked at him quietly for a long time before nodding. "Okay."
Tony approached Maria's bedside with soft steps, wanting to check on her before he caught some sleep himself. He had a few more early meetings before they headed back to New York, and he needed to be functional, but it was hard to get his mind to settle. Running into Reed had been a pleasant surprise, but he'd spent the entire time that they'd been in joint meetings watching Maria and Franklin through the security cameras to make sure that a crisis didn't happen. Surprisingly, the two had gotten along well, and Maria had come through the experience none the worse for wear. In fact, Maria had acclimated to Beijing on the whole better than he'd hoped. He'd been worried that she wouldn't sleep well in a strange place, that she might not be willing to eat unfamiliar food, but she'd proved more flexible than he'd feared. Granted, she never slept terribly well - even at home - but the fact that she slept at all was reassuring.
"Will Franklin be there tomorrow?" Maria asked, startling him. Her voice was sleepy, but still articulate enough to indicate that he hadn't woken her, and least not just then. He'd thought she was asleep, curled so deeply into her cocoon of blankets. He wondered how long she'd been awake, but knew he'd never have an answer.
Tony shook his head. "No, he and his father flew back home a few hours ago. Did you have fun with him today?" He'd meant to ask her that before, but by the time he and Reed had gone to fetch their children it was time for dinner, and there had been that new project of Reed's to discuss. Tony was ashamed to admit that the more comfortable Maria had seemed with Franklin, the less attention he'd focused on her and the more he'd allowed himself to become absorbed in the conversation with Reed.
"I think I did," Maria told him. "Would it be permissible to see him again?" There was that hesitant note, back in her voice. It came and went, but it was always strongest when she asked for something. She didn't realize that he'd give her anything in the world, if she asked.
"I'm sure we can work something out," Tony assured her, stroking her hair. "Now, you need to go back to sleep. We have to be up early. You can tell me all about Franklin tomorrow on the plane."
Maria nodded, yawning softly. "Yes, sir."
"Good girl," he told her, leaning down to kiss her forehead. "Goodnight, Maria."
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*Shivers* It's amazing how much damage can be done in such a short time. And I don't mean that in the good way.
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Maria had fun. And she... already likes two people now. I am happy.
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Glad you liked this part! Hopefully the next one will be up today, the long weekend messed with our posting schedule.
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Is it sad that we have the next 5-7 years of Maria's life reasonably well plotted (and a whole set of subplots revolving around her eventual peer group)?
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Just saying*g*
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But yeah, Mayday might take after her dad in superheroing early but she's going to be more likley to be peers with Val, Luna, and Danny.
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