Being Maria Stark
She isn't sure what the hell is wrong with her husband.
(That's a lie. She knows EXACTLY what's wrong. Obsession is an ugly, ugly thing and, all of a sudden, she wants her own source of money from a non shared account again. She did was her parents expected and married the up and comer and had come to genuinely appreciate him... until now. She was round with child and he couldn't care less, except for the fact that she was carrying his heir.)
Whatever it is though, she's becoming increasingly uncomfortable around him and it's not due to her pregnancy.
He isn't interested in that save for the fact she's gestating his Heir as expected. He isn't interested in HER. She's not his life partner anymore. Not even a feature in his life. Simply the wife he married as expected. Gestating the heir as expected.
After that, she's not even a blip on his radar...despite the fact she's fought hard to make a life with him, to connect and be his wife.
This, apparently, no longer matters. Nothing matters save his obsession, save finding the 'brother'/ scientific subject he lost.
Never mind that she was friends with Steve too, that it was Peggy AND her the two leaned on.
She wasn't just 'the wife', she was a scientist in her own right. She too had been to collage, she held her own PHD's that, despite her place in society, she's kept her qualifications updated. She's not the genius her husband is, but she's no dullard either.
He's not the man she though she knew. He's leaning on the bottle more and more. It's starting to scare her.
No, a separate source of money is beginning to look like an absolutely FANTASTIC idea.
Part of her 'shopping funds' are given to Jarivs to squirrel away for her. Her bills might got to her husband but she is pregnant, heavily.
Giving the butler money to by baby things isn't unexpected. That not all of that goes on baby things... well, her husband isn't really paying attention right now. Too much of anything.
She starts making plans depending on how he acts.
She knows she told him the sex of their child but she doesn’t think he was listening. She'll know soon enough.
As she predicted but dearly hoped wouldn’t be true, Howard takes one glance at their daughter and storms away, blaming her. The sad thing is, she gets the feel he would have done the same to a son. Nothing and no one will be good enough until or unless the man he had a hand in creating is found.
Time to put her plans into play. She will have to be distant until she can take steps… even if it kills her to do so. That’s her baby girl.
Still, she’s had time to plan and she has given her husband his one last chance.
He failed. Miserably.
She thinks her husband and many, many others forget that she is a BIO chemist even if she has been mostly playing around with it on an Artisan basis.
The testing phase is done and it’s time to use her additives to her husband. With as much as he’s been drinking it won’t be hard. A compound here or there to plant his attention, make him directable and or distract attention as needed.
They will take time to set in properly.
Jarvis is her enabler and he already adores their daughter. Their little Toni Sophia.
Funds are already being diverted and set up.
Toni will need to be raised carefully. She will need to be raised to present a certain front while planning for another.
No true Slytherin… she isn’t sure what that means. Simply that it’s motto to live by and she’ll raise her little girl in that mind set.
Those first two years were hard, hard, so, sooo hard.
She was with her little girl as much as she dared but she couldn’t draw Howard’s attention by changing her habits too much. A little is acceptable to accommodate the new infant but he still expects her to handle the social front. It’s what a wife is for, after all, beyond breeding an heir.
She is careful not to do anything that would draw attention.
Toni is so, so bright. Her little girl is a delight and Howard can’t fucking see it. It’s heart breaking. She does her best to ensure the man isn’t around as much as possible.
If she could. If she dared, she would divorce the man but she can’t give her little girl access to the running start she needs to step up and take over for her father when the time comes. Don’t get her wrong. Her little girl would go far just on her own genius but it’s a parents role to smooth the way where they can and this is HER LITTLE GIRL. Her precious daughter. She will go to and through Hell for this precious scrap of stubborn life that she's helped create.
Already her little one is following her the cues her mother gives and learned to watch.
Peggie blows in and out of their lives and if she sometimes brings along a girlfriend who passes on a tip or two, well…
Jarvis is no Alfred to have a past that allows him to pass on training to his young charge but he IS an excellent male role model. Far better than Howard was.
Twice their little genius takes something she’s created to her father and twice she is smacked down, literally and her creation broken… but little Toni is already playing a role. She will be brash and hasty. She will be irreverent and ballsy. Most of all, she will HIDE are ability to watch people and play a long game.
She already has her father figured and knows that, despite the official distance between them, her mother loves her more than life. Loves her enough to make sure she has the training and weapons to do as she wishes and defend herself from her father and his cronies. Knows how to figure out who to trust and who not too…
Maria is SO proud of her headstrong, brave, genius of a daughter and finds careful ways to let her know it.
Sadly, she needs to keep her husband alive for as long as she can until her daughter is ready to step up.
They are assasinated when her daughter is fifteen but Toni has learned her lessons well. Maria has poured everything she can, love and affection included, into her precious, precocious girl. Even though Maria does NOT trust Obadiah Strain she does trust her daughter.
Maria lingers, unsure how she is, but remains tied to her daughter, unable to do anything but watch. Even so, she’s so, so proud.
Her daughter, though she grieves, doesn’t forget her lessons.
Even as he sells her out, Obadiah Stain is being taken down.
The Ten Rings was hell and she’s got a new glowing chest accessory but Mama didn’t raise no quitter and Toni Stark is NOT going to die here!
Meeting a slender, dark haired, green eyed Asgardian wasn’t in the game plan, even if she did practically land in his lap. The smoking hot guy with the metal prosthetic arm was a nice bonus too… and hottie A managed to fix Yinsen. Which she’s, you know, grateful for. He was sort of bleeding out.
While Starktech was split between weapons and actual technology they’re now going to be leaning towards the tech end of the spectrum.
She’s NOT going to just abandon the weapons side of things, despite being on the opposite end of them thanks to the Ten Rings (Fuck YOU fucking STAIN!)
She’s a loyal American and America’s soldiers deserve the best quality the armed forces can afford… besides, it gets her a LOT of leeway.
She takes Yinsen and hottie B home with her. Hottie A has an open invite even if she wasn’t entirely sold on the whole ‘Magic is real’ deal OR that he was supposedly an Azgadian God.
Hottie A or Loke’s as she calles him, starts turning up more often because it isn’t often she finds someone who can keep the fuck up, with minimum prompting and it’s the same for him.
Asgardians aren’t innovators and the races who do tweak and build, the dwarves and occasionally the elves, aren’t peoples he’s really welcome among.
Midgard, Earth has so MUCH space for invovation and creation and people are lauded for it.
Made much of, rewarded and paid for their efforts.
It’s acceptance and he RELISHES it.
It doesn’t take him much to update himself on tech even if he’s a little clunky using it still.
They spark ideas off eachother and it’s SO much fun.
She’s never had a partner who can keep up before…
He’s helping her Magic Proof the Tower too.
Apparently her mama didn’t move on but Hottie A, Lokes, can help there if they both want.
Toni does.
Her awesome, elegant, cunning Mama who didn’t deserve the dick bag her sire had become, deserves her rest.
Hell, Lokes cane even get the glow ball of doom out of her chest. Magic is SUCH a cheat!