Popping the QuestionTM
“Sage?”
She looked up from her book at the knock on her door, smiling softly at Tony’s unwillingness to enter without her permission. “You can come in.”
Tony opened the door and peeked his head around it, grinning at her. “Hey, sweetheart. Can I ask a favour?”
“Of course. What’s up?”
“Loki and I wanted to talk to you about something. Mind popping out here?”
“Yeah, sure.” She grabbed a bookmark from the table beside her and slipped it between the pages, setting the book down and following him out of her room. Loki was seated on the courch looking vaguely nervous, but not enough to set her on edge. “What’s happenin’?”
Tony sitting so that she was between him and Loki, but not close enough to either of them to feel smothered. The smile reached his eyes, but only just, and there was a tension in his posture that she couldn’t place. “We need your opinion on something.” He reached toward the table to pick up a sheaf of papers and hand it to her.
Sage shakily took the papers, beginning to get an inkling as to what was going on. She flicked through the papers, eyes glossing over the pages and pages of legalese, picking up just enough to start to understand. “A- are these…?”
“Adoption papers.” Loki spoke up for the first time, poison green eyes meeting olive. “We would very much like to adopt you, darling, if you’re amendable.”
“Am- y- you’re asking me?” Her head whipped between the two, and a lump that tasted a whole lot like overwhelmed began forming in her throat. She saw Tony nod and quickly looked back to the papers in her hands and clutched them to her chest. “Can I think about this?”
“Of course.” Tony smiled at her again, more strained this time. “Take all the time you need.”
“Okay.” She kept holding the papers to her chest and stood, slowly moving toward her room. “I just- I um.” She blinked several times and nodded. “I’ll give you an answer by tomorrow.”
“Sage, darling, there’s no need to feel rushed or pressured, or-”
“No, no.” She smiled at them both. “It’s okay. I just need to figure out my feelings. By tomorrow. Promise.” She darted back into her room and sat on the bed, blowing out a breath and pulling out her phone to text Sam.
“That could’ve gone worse.” Tony grimaced at Loki. “Guess all we have to do now is wait.”
Loki hummed quietly, eyes stuck on the door to Sage’s room, more nerves showing on his face now that she was out of the room. “Anthony, what do we do if she rejects us?”
Tony inhaled sharply, chest hurting at the very thought. “It- it’s up to her, Lokes. We can’t change her mind on whatever conclusion she comes to.”
---
Of course Sage texted Sam the news immediately. She was ecstatic. She could barely believe this was happening. Tony and Loki wanted to adopt her. They’d asked her opinion! Half of her was going out of her mind with happiness, having hoped for this from day one. The rest of her was cautiously optimistic. She’d been in a similar situation before. This wasn’t the first time she’d had a set of parents talk about adoption, and her heart clenched at the memory. She looked over to the map she had taped to the wall and all the little pins she’d stuck in, one for each place she’d been. She skated her eyes over the phone number scribbled in the margin, before typing it into her phone and laying back on the bed, letting her eyes fall closed and praying that she would pick up.
“Hello?”
The voice on the other end was sleepy, and Sage swore for a moment after looking at the clock, realising that it was still six am in California. “Hey, it’s Sage.”
“Sweetie? Are you okay?”
“Wh- yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. Sorry, I didn’t mean to alarm you. I forgot how long it’s been since I called you.” Sage couldn’t help but smile. She did this every time, and somehow she always forgot.
“Okay, good. No, Dan, go back to sleep it’s fine I’m just getting up to take a shower. You should consider it too, you smell.”
Sage snickered, picturing the scene perfectly. “Did I make you wake Dan up?”
“Oh, he fell asleep on top of me while I was reading last night, he deserves it. He’s getting sad in his old age.”
“Oh please. You guys are, what, barely thirty?”
“I wish that was still the case, sweetie. So what’s up?”
She blew out a breath. “So I’m with a new family.”
“Sam’s parents didn’t keep you?!”
“Please. I didn’t want them to. Anyway, We’re not here to talk about them.”
The woman laughed. “Of course. New family, I’m listening.”
“I’ve been with them a few months, and I- I like them a lot. I feel like I fit in with them.”
“That’s good, Sage. You know it is.”
“Yeah, and I also know that I’ve felt like I fit in with other families who dumped me out on my ass as soon as they could. And sometimes situations don’t work out. But again, not what we’re here for.”
Another chuckle.
“Jess, they asked me if they could adopt me.”
She inhaled sharply over the line. “Oh, Sage. They asked? Damn, they’re serious. This is good, sweetie!”
“I know. I know it is. I’m just… I’m having flashbacks of you and Dan. And I know that can’t happen this time, no offense, but there’s still a lot of me just going over and over what ifs. I just needed you to talk me through it.”
“Of course, sweetie. Dan’s here, I’m putting you on speaker.”
“Okay.” Sage whispered. God, she missed them. She missed lazy Sunday mornings and being greeted with orange juice after a bad night. She missed being able to curl up in Jess’s lap and Dan just playing the banjo after a horrendous day when they knew she didn’t want to talk. She missed his good morning smiles and her welcome home waves. She’d been heartbroken when Dan lost his job. Not just because it meant she would have to be put in another foster home, but also because it meant she didn’t know if they would be okay in the future. Jess and Dan were the reason she’d sworn off talking about adoption with foster parents. Because she’d thought, not only would no foster parents ever love her like they did, but no foster parents could ever measure up to the pair of them. She was right in the end, she supposed, because Tony and Loki didn’t measure up. The two couples used two different, incomprable measuring systems, and trying to pit them against each other would be ridiculous. “Hi, Dan.”
“Hey, starkid. What’s up?”
“She’s about to be adopted, Daniel.”
“Oh shit.”
Sage laughed, and then smiled wider than she had been. Dan was always good for a laugh, and dammit, she loved him. “Yeah. They asked my opinion.”
He whistled. “Keep those ones, Sage. You don’t find people like that often.”
“I know.” She whispered again, wishing she could just stay here and not have to face this. “What should I do?”
“Accept it if you want to, sweetie. Don’t feel pressured, but if this is what you want, take it. You’ve wanted real parents for so long, Sage.”
“I know, I know, it’s just- I almost feel like… Like I’m betraying you guys if I tell them yes.”
Dan sighed. “Sage, you would never betray us. Unless you Rick Roll me again, you little fucker.”
She snickered.
“Seriously, starkid. Do something for yourself for once. Make this decision for you not for us, not for them, or anyone else. You’ve gotta do this for you, Sage. But either way we’re behind you one hundred percent, okay?”
“Okay.” She smiled softly. “I love you guys a lot. Sorry I woke you up.”
“You can wake us up anytime, sweetie. Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
“We love you!”
“Love you too.” She smiled again and turned off her phone, blowing out a huge breath and sitting up, nearly fainting back down again at the sight of Natasha standing over her. “You know, this is getting problematic. What if I had been naked?”
The spy shrugged, sitting beside her on the bed. “So they asked you, huh?”
“Yeah.” Sage sighed. “JARVIS, what happened to warning me about the vents?”
“Agent Romanov walked through the door, Miss Ahlers.”
Sage rolled her eyes and muttered, fucking rude. “What’s up, Nat?”
“First of all, fuck Tony and Loki, because Clint just won our bet. But also,” her face softened as she looked the girl over. “How are you doing? Need to vent at all?”
Sage shrugged. “Just remembering the last time someone tried to adopt me.”
The redhead nodded. “That’s who was on the phone.”
“Yep.” She started picking at her fingernails. “Jess and Dan. I- I think I’m going to tell them yes. Tony and Loki, not Jess and Dan. I- they told me it was okay. I guess- I just needed to hear that from them; that it was okay to be okay with having parents that aren’t them.” She scoffed. “They aren’t even my real parents.” She glanced up at Natasha. “You know that stupid thing some girls do when they get married?”
Natsha smirked at her. “Which thing, you’ll have to elaborate.”
Sage giggled. “The name thing. Where they take their maiden name as their middle name.”
“Yeah?”
“I think I wanna do that. Because hyphenating is tacky, ya know? But, I still wanna keep my middle name. I like it.”
“Colette, right?”
She nodded.
“Definitely keep that. It’s gorgeous and it suits you.”
Sage grinned. “Thanks. I think Sage Colette Ahlers Stark has a nice ring to it.”
“Sage Colette Stark Ahlers sounds even better.”
The blonde shoved at the other woman gently, unable to hold in a snicker. “Stop. I like taking Tony’s name. Loki did, didn’t he?”
“Ah, yes, the good old tax marriage.” Natasha smirked at her. “Tony will be thrilled. You’re sure this is what you want?”
Sage nodded. “Yeah, it is. I was really worried at first, but… they wouldn’t ask me this if they weren’t serious about it.” She couldn’t help the tears welling up in her eyes, a faint sense of belonging settling in her chest. “I don’t want to put off becoming a real family just because I’m afraid that one day I’ll wake up and no one will want to have anything to do with me anymore. Besides, if I say yes then y’all can’t get rid of me.” She smiled sardoncially. “In all seriousness, I do want this. And if Loki and Tony are ready to do this, then I can’t see any reason to say no. That’ll mean I get freaking Thor as my uncle, are you kidding?”
Natasha laughed. “As long as you’re sure. I’ll back you up, kiddo. Even if that means I have to beat Tony up because he’s spending too long in the lab.”
Sage smiled. “Well, do you suppose I should go tell them?”
The older woman grinned. “Nah. Let’s let ‘em stew for a bit longer.”