Of Slight Reparations and Foreshadowing
“ - I was thinking-”
“God save us.”
Tony ignored Rhodey’s mumble, and continued, “I need a prodigy. Someone to carry on the Stark Legacy.”
“Tony, you are not having a child purely to inherit your company.”
Tony gasped, “I would never, Honey Bear. It would take far too long for it to stop being small and annoying. I was thinking more about collecting one from MIT or something, a ‘here’s one someone else made earlier’ type of thing.”
Rhodey opened his mouth and shut it. “That’s… not the worst idea you’ve ever had. It could work. How would you do it?”
Tony shrugged, “I’ll work something out. I could do a competition or something. Or - … why is there a child on my couch? Honey Bear, it’s 1:37pm. There should not be a child on my couch.”
Tony had stopped dead in the hallway, staring at the aforementioned child and the God currently sat on his couch.
“Reindeer Games,” he greeted,”Pixie. Any, uh, reason you’re not at school? Because I distinctly recall you having school today. Are you skipping? Starting your rebellious teenage years early? Trying to - “
Tony was cut off by a knife casually embedding itself into the wall next to his head.
Beside him, Rhodey leapt back a full foot, pulling out a handgun.
Tony rolled his eyes, “Calm down Rhodes.”
Rhodey cocked his weapon. Which promptly disappeared from his hands, reappearing in the lap of the God currently sat on the couch. With the child. Who had pulled out a second knife.
“Tony!” he hissed, “She threw a knife at you!”
“Rhodey, meet Ava. Pixie, meet Honey Bear. Believe it or not this is a regular occurrence. If she wanted to hit me, she would’ve.”
Rhodey gaped as Tony strolled past the pair, who had apparently elected to ignore them, and go back to watching… FRIENDS Eww. Imagine. And it was totally unrealistic as well. Seriously, New York was expensive, no way 6 people on low-income could afford that big of a place. Bitch ass producers.
Setting the coffee machine on, Tony spun back around.
“So,” he started, “Any particular reason you’re skipping school? Not that I’m saying anything.”
A muffled voice came from the sofa.
“-ooper ates ee.”
Tony frowned, “ooper ate who?”
Ava poked her head just over the top of Loki’s shoulder, a mark on her face from leaning on it, strands of hair stuck to her face with a mixture of tears and sweat. Not her usual look.
“I said,” she sniffled, “Cooper hates me. And so does Peter and Ned.”
Tony blinked. That… didn’t sound good. Or right. Weren’t they best friends? What did he say? I’m sorry? God he was a genius. He graduated MIT aged 19 with two masters degrees in engineering. He should be able to talk to an 11-year old. Right, he just needed to say something nice. Something comforting.
“Want me to buy you a pony?”
He could hear Rhodeys facepalm from across the room.
The girl sat in silence for a moment and then, “NO I DON’T WANT A PONY YOU EGO-CENTRIC PRICK! I’LL SHOW YOU A- LOKI GET OFF ME! I’M GONNA STAB HIM!”
That was probably his cue to run.
Loki gave him a dead stare, “Run.”
Okay, yeah definitely his cue to run.
—-------
It had taken quite a bit of convincing to peel Ava away from the couch following the whole chasing-Tony-around-the-tower deal, but Loki eventually managed it with the promise of hot chocolate and a film. While yes, they did end up sitting on that same couch after getting the popcorn and drinks, at least Ava had stopped sulking for the most part.
The opening of Harry Potter: And the Ghost of Draco- hey what the fuck is going on? Had just begun to play, but was interrupted by the sound of the door slamming open a few floors below them. Had he not teleported them in, he’s pretty sure that Ava would have done the same.
That being said, he’s pretty sure that he knows who had turned up. Ava seemed to as well, as she buried her face into his side with a groan of frustration. So much for not sulking.
“You are going to have to talk to him at some point,” he says, shifting slightly so she could continue her impersonation of a limpet.
“I don’t want to. Besides, he's never going to want to speak to me again. Like, ever.” Loki frowned - weren’t humans supposed to begin their ‘fatalistic and depressed’ era at thirteen? Surely this was a little early?
“Perhaps if you told me what happened, vennen, I could help? An apology always helps.” Perhaps a bit hypocritical, considering how much he loathed apologising himself, especially when it was categorically not his fault, but that was the wonders of being an adult. You didn’t have to make sense.
“I said one mean thing to MJ, and now everyone hates me; Peter, Ned, Cooper- I’m pretty sure Betty Brant of all people gave me a dirty look about it.” she sniffled.
Loki paused, “Cooper hates you? Cooper as in your best friend? The one who I’ve never once seen angry with you?”
“Yes! They all sat at lunch without me, and they all did this glare thing,” she scrunches her face up to demonstrate, “and now everyone hates me, and they don’t want to be friends, and I can never go back to school again because I’ll be alone forever.”
“I see.”
Ava glared at him. “No you don’t! You’ve never had all your friends hate you!”
Loki blinked at her.
“Uh well, I mean - ughh stop iiiit.” the blonde said, plonking her face back into Loki’s shoulder, “You know what I mean.”
Loki chuckled, “I think you’ll find I do. And you know what the best thing to do when you feel like everyone hates you?”
“Stab them?”
“No, I asked what the best thing to do was, not what I would do.”
“Okay then, what?”
“Talk to them.” Loki said gently.
“... can I just stab them instead and then apologise later?”
“Is that actually going to help them forgive you?”
“Come on, Thor always forgives you after you stab him.” That’s because he’s an idiot, says Loki in his head.
“That’s because Thor is a lot more stab-proof than most people. A knife wound is an inconvenience for him, Cooper would likely bleed out.”
“At least then I don’t have to apologise to him.”
“I don’t know if that’s how it works. Especially because then you’d have to apologise to Barton and Laura, and probably your Aunt Nat, and especially your mother, because you’re not meant to have a knife.”
“Ugh fine, I’ll apologise.” There we are. Successful parenting achieved.
With that Ava swung herself upside down on the couch, and promptly hit her head on the floor with a clunk.
Successful parenting not achieved.
—---
Ava found Cooper after a long search throughout the tower, on the roof. Well, actually, Cooper finds Ava looking for him in his room, and she dragged him up to the roof to have a conversation.
“I-” she started, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It’s not me that you upset though, is it? What about MJ? Have you apologised to her?”
Ava immediately tensed up, a scowl forming on her lips, “Why should I?” she said, snarkily, “She said something first. So she should apologise first.”
Cooper sighed, swinging his legs over the edge of the roof, “Ava…” he said, “It’s not the same. And you know it. MJ said that because she’s scarily observant. You said that because you hacked into her record and her personal life. And she didn’t even get it right. I’m your best friend, and I love you, but Tavvy? You can be a teeny tiny bit spoiled.”
Cooper winced as he said it, already shifting away to duck the half-hearted fist Ava thumped against his arm.
“Hey!” she said, but there was no real bite behind it, only resignation mixed with denial.
They sat a moment, swinging their legs in sync.
Ava sighed, “Okay. Maybe I could’ve handled it a little bit better.”
Cooper grinned, “That wasn’t so hard, was it - owowow, no i’m sorry!”
And just like that, scrapping around on the rooftop, they were back to normal. Well, almost.
Sitting back up, sweaty and giggling, Cooper headbutted Ava’s shoulder.
“Don’t be mad.” he started.
Ava turned to look at him, “Cooper… “
He winced.
“Yeah?”
“What did you do?”
“Well, uh, you see… imayhaveinvitedMJPeterandNedtothetowertotalkitout?”
Silence.
“YOU DID WHAT!”
—-----------------------------
Thud thud
Thud thud
Thud thud
“You’ve, uh, got a lot of stuff to work out today I guess.”
Ava didn’t look up from the punching pad she was currently working on, Steve bracing it for her.
“Yup.”
“You wanna talk about it?”
“Nope.”
“You sure? What I’ve learnt, is that when somethings bothering you, it's always best to talk it-”
“All due respect Captain, the last time you had a problem, you committed several cases of identity fraud, joined the army, took a drug and then proceeded to disobey like 90% of all the orders you received. I’m not sure you’ve talked out anything in your life.”
Steve sighed, shifting his weight to better hold the pad. Bucky would’ve loved Ava. The same sassy snappy personality, combined with the face of an angel.
Sweat sticking tendrils of hair to the girl’s face, she finally finished the last set of punches, and moved on to a cool down, before she’d go shower.
Steve had to admit that even after Ava’s performance in the battle, and both Natasha and Clint’s affirmations of her strength, he’d been slightly sceptical of the girl.
Which was terribly hypocritical of him - doubting the scrawny blonde and all - but over the last year, he’d been more than impressed by not only her skill, but also her dedication.
Yes, martial arts and combat seemed cool, but very few people truly realised the effort and time needed to be anywhere nearly as good as they’d imagined. But if there was anything he’d learnt about the girl in the last year, it was that when it came to her, stubbornness and determination made a lethal combination.
She spent almost as many hours training as professional SHIELD agents did, and on the rare days she didn’t have a class or a session, she’d be found in the training rooms, putting herself through her paces, or sparring with the agents, or polishing her collection of throwing knives (which were endless and uncountable).
In all honesty, Steve wasn’t quite sure how she managed to balance it with both schoolwork and leisure time, but she seemed to make it work. And anyway, she had her family to help her manage, it wasn’t his place to butt in.
“Urghhh.”
Steve looked over from where he was placing the pads back in the cupboard.
Ava looked back at him from where she was lying on the floor.
“I just… you ever feel like the world hates you? Except it kinda likes you at the same time? But you can’t really tell when is what, and you just really want everything to just stop? Or at least like give you an instruction book or something.”
Steve blinked.
“Uh that’s not really, uh, my area of expertise. My life’s motto’s always been that the world won’t give you anything you don’t take. I would never have been Captain America if I’d stayed on the street in Brooklyn. But I always had Bucky by my side. I guess you could say he was my instruction book. Mostly ‘No Steve, don’t do that’” he chuckled, “Or my Cooper, you could say.”
“Yeah well my Bucky is currently being very uncooperative and sneaking behind my back.”
“Is this anything to do with why you were chasing Tony round the tower earlier?”
“Do I need an excuse?”
“It usually helps. Personally I just use the shield. It saves a whole lotta time.”
The girl remained quiet for a minute.
“Did you ever fall out with Bucky?”
“All the time.”
“Wait seriously?”
“Yup. we might’ve been to the end of the line, but that line sure was bumpy sometimes.”
“Then why did you stay friends?”
“Because that's what we were. Friends. He was my best friend,” and maybe more at one point, “and I would’ve given up the world to save him. We annoyed the hell out of each some days, but in the end, it was us two. Bucky and Steve.” Steve laughed, “After I got him out of the base, we were pretty much glued at the hip for the next few months. The USO girls started to refer to us as one person. Stucky. Stupid ass name, but apt. Never one without the other.”
Ava giggled, “Stucky. Yeah it’s dumb. But also oddly encouraging. You’re a strange man Steve Rogers. But I like you. Thanks for the advice.”
And then she was gone. Literally gone. Like poof.
Of all the weird things in the new age, Steve wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to magic.
Or Ava for that matter.
He hadn’t even given her any advice?
He sighed. He could figure her out another day.
Right now he had a sudden urge to outrun his problems. Whoever said you can’t run from them clearly had never met Steve Rogers. Well, Bucky had, but that clearly wasn’t the point.
Uh.
“Fuck him.”
“Language.”
“Did I just say language outloud to myself?”
“Yes Mr Capsicle, I believe you did.”
Steve sighed again.
“Thanks JARVIS. I think I’m going for that run now.”
“Very well Mr Capsicle. Enjoy your run.”
“Fuck you Stark.”
“Language.”
Steve paused, “Clint?”
“No?”
Okay, commencing running away from his problems slightly faster.
Sometimes he missed his shitty little Brooklyn apartment.
At least no one sat in the vents.