Princess of Death

Wife of Magic, Mother of Chaos and Light

I loved with all my heart, without reservation and absolute devotion.

June was a very good month for the Stark Expo, SI in general, and our family in particular. On the latter, Aylen Margaret Potts-Stark was born the first week of the month, which was great cause for delight for us all. There was a thing with the Board and the Stark lawyers, some of them bringing back up the matter of me being an 'illegitimate' Stark, and therefore somehow unfit to be dad's heiress... I'd never cared for inheriting the company, so in the end I convinced dad to make Aylen his heiress, with me put down as executor in case something happened to both him and Pepper before Aylen reached her majority.

On the rest, we got a lot of people joining the Expo, many of them either joining the company, or at least sponsored by us. Miss Rushman left us, supposedly due to some sudden family emergency that made it absolutely necessary for her to leave the country for an indeterminate amount of time. We of course wished her the best, she was then gone and we hired a new PA a week later; her name: Darcy Lewis.

That was also the month when I went public with my engagement, during a charity ball for the Eileen Grayson foundation. As far as the public was concerned my fiancé: Luka Hvedrungr, was an English immigrant of Scandinavian descent with degrees in Sociology, Development and Law. We'd been pen-pals for years, since we shared one major and many more interests. He'd moved to the States looking for something new when working in an office in London became too boring for him. And then we'd met in person (he hadn't know who I was since I always signed my letters with a pen-name). We'd been in love with each other for years, but hadn't been sure it'd get us anywhere; and upon meeting we'd realized how serious we really were about one another. And so we'd become engaged.

The truth was a whole other thing, of course, but the public simply did not need to know that Luka Hvedrungr was in reality Loki, God of Mischief and the second Prince of Asgard; that we'd been husband and wife in another life (another life of mine, still the same one for him) and had decided to practically continue where we'd left off. It was also probably a good thing dad trusted me so much, because I couldn't imagine something that would have served as incontrovertible proof of that particular story of ours.

One thing I couldn't help but think whenever I looked at him the first week or so after we woke up in my bed, holding hands, had been how little he looked like the Loki I remembered from a lifetime prior. Apparently dad and the others had rushed to us at my screaming (screams caused by our soul-bond activating for the first time and me being hit by all the pain Loki had been in at the time, pain caused by being under near constant torture for nearly a month). My family had done their best to help Loki, which somehow included cutting off almost all his hair when they decided no amount of washing would be enough to get out all the dirt, ash, blood and grime in it. At some point they'd also realized that we were both restless, unless we were in contact with each other, so they'd laid us side by side on my queen bed, our hands had intertwined on instinct.

Once Loki was healed enough to move without too much pain, to sit up and talk, we all had a quite serious conversation: We were still in my room, on my bed, sitting side by side. We'd also both showered and Loki was left wearing one of dad's old sweatshirts and a pair of dark-gray sweatpants I thought might have belonged to Rhodey (dad's would have been too short on him). I was wearing a simple pale-green short and cami set, with my off-white robe with a jacaranda tree in the back, on top for modesty's sake. We were also holding hands (it wasn't even a conscious decision, just something we did automatically the moment we were side by side again).

"So, let me see if I understand this." Rhodey stated, once we were done with the story-telling. "You," he signaled to my love. "Are Loki, as in the actual Loki, God of Mischief, Magic, Lies, Chaos, and whatever else. Not quite like the Norse Mythology we know, but with just enough of is to give us all a headache." He shook his head before turning to me. "While you are the, what? Reincarnation? Yes, that, the reincarnation of an honest-to-god princess of some other world, as well as his wife, mother of his child, etcetera, etcetera." He let out a breath. "You died, were reborn here and now you've found each other again... oh yes, and you're bound together. Which is why Ari has been having awful nightmares and night-terrors over the last month, and the night you arrived she screamed like someone was killing her, nearly giving Tones a heart attack!"

My match and I seemed to almost be taking turns to look down and blush in embarrassment, and to tighten our hold on the other's hand in a show of support. We didn't deny anything as, while I did think Rhodey was exaggerating some things just a bit, none of it was really a lie.

"That is correct, in general terms." Loki murmured quietly. "I understand that you never asked for this. Also, having me here might draw the wrong kind of attention towards you all. Which is why, if you ask me to, I'll leave tomorrow."

"You would leave Arianna?" Pepper asked in disbelief.

My beloved didn't dare answer that, but I wasn't about to allow any misunderstandings:

"No Pep, if that was necessary I'd be leaving with him tomorrow." I clarified. "You... I know you cannot understand this, what we've been through. What these memories of a past life mean to me, to us both. We've been pulled apart once, by force, it's not happening again, neither of us will allow it. We're a match, and together we'll stay."

"And here." Dad spoke for the first time since we'd all come together again after the meal and shower. He looked straight at me as he spoke. "You're my daughter Ari, I promised your mom, but more importantly, I promised you and myself that I'd be your family, that any home of mine would be your home for as long as you wanted it to be. I'm not taking that back. We might not have exactly planned this angel, but family remains family in good times and bad, right? And this isn't even a bad time, just a bit freaky and..."

And dad was babbling, something he did when nervous. I didn't care. I didn't allow it to continue for long either, as I practically jumped off the bed and straight into his arms.

"Love you daddy..." I whispered straight into his arms.

The way his arms tightened around me confirmed that that was the first time I'd said those words to him. So long I'd been hung up on the fact that we weren't really father and daughter, that it was all a lie, nothing more than a stratagem to keep me safe from those who might try to hurt me because of who my mom once was... I'd failed to realize that blood mattered very little where true families were concerned. We were family by choice, and that was enough.

The next morning Luka Serrure Hvedrungr was created...

'Luka' had more or less been introduced to the world in May, when Ivan Vanko seemed to return from obscurity to file a lawsuit against SI regarding the proprietary rights to the arc-reactor; because apparently his father had been working with Howard Stark when they came up with the original design, and so the son insisted that he had a right to it. He'd even proven it by showing that he'd been able to create one as well (it was cruder than dad's, but it was still compact, and worked... which no one else, not even the people working for Stane, had managed).

The case had been getting more than a bit hairy, until some old videos were revealed, particularly one showing Vanko Sr. stealing Howard's plans for the reactor. All in all the files revealed that while he'd been involved in the idea of the arc-reactor, the man hadn't done anything regarding the design or the theory behind it. Vanko Jr.'s achievements were therefore irrelevant; while he had some ability, he'd done it all working from plans stolen from Howard Stark.

The information that allowed us to win that case had been brought to use by none other than Darcy who, as we later learned, was in fact none other than TaserQueen!

The only real problem we had that particular month came from Justin Hammer. Apparently at some point the man got it into his head that he could replicate the Iron Man armor (and no, neither he, nor SHIELD, nor anyone else in the world knew yet that dad was Iron Man). It had been an absolute disaster and people might have ended dead if it hadn't been for a little magic from my love; which we later on explained as a prototype EMP device, something that created an EMP wave strong enough to potentially shut off anything in a half mile radius or so. Of course that meant that dad disappeared into his workshop until he'd created the device, just in case any of the authorities asked to see it (and to eventually add it to the SI catalogue).

We got yet another visit from SHIELD then, or rather dad did. His response was the same one as the first time. Except in that occasion it was Pepper who went and pretty much threw them out of the mansion when they tried to insist. She really was dad's perfect match. The unexpected part, was when Fury took a detour on his way out, and went looking for me...

"So you are Stark's daughter..."

I'd sensed him coming long before he reached me, standing at the top of the stairs leading to our private beach; usually I preferred relaxing among my roses, but it didn't feel right, allowing Fury anywhere near them.

"Arianna Stark." I gave him the short version of my name. "Cannot say it's nice to meet you."

"Are you that hostile to people you don't know?" He asked, sounding half-curious, half-annoyed.

"I know that you're a man who sees people as pieces in a game." I stated as eloquently as I could. "You want my dad to be one of your pieces, and have little care for what you might harm, who you might hurt in the process, including any and every member of my family. That's really all I need to know. A man who sees people as things is not a man worth anything in my book." My eyes narrowed at him. "I don't like you Mr. Fury, it's unlikely I ever will..."

"I suppose you are, indeed, Katharine's child..." He murmured, and his tone was so completely changed I had no idea what to say to that, except:

"Her name was Eileen Grayson."

"Perhaps." He looked away, to the sea. "She had many names."

"I know." I contemplated the wisdom of my choice before adding. "I know she worked for the government, with SHIELD even."

"You are in possession of very dangerous information..."

"Necessary, when it's the enemies she made then that threaten us both." I answered stiffly. "That are responsible for my losing her."

That wasn't true, of course, and I knew it. But I couldn't exactly mention my birth-father, so instead I held onto the original belief dad and I'd had about those enemies being behind mom's assassination. Besides, it wasn't like I was about to trust family secrets to Nicholas Fury of all people! She might have known mom once, but that still have her no right...

"If I'd known you were in danger... if I'd known you even existed..." There was something in his tone, it froze me.

I moved automatically, avoiding his touch, of more precisely the device in his hand.

"What the hell?!" I demanded, harsher than entirely necessary.

I didn't even think about it, as I plucked the small device off his hand. It was one of our (SI's) medical scanners. Only that one wasn't meant for blood toxicity, but something much more simple, and entirely more shocking...

"Paternity test?!" My voice might have gone through an octave (or two) at that. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

I could sense my beloved appearing just out of sight, on the beach and rushing up the steps, however my thoughts were pulled away from that, and from him, with the next words to come out of Fury's mouth:

"You might not know this, but Katharine... Eileen... she was my wife."

The rest of the conversation didn't really register with me. I blacked out at some point and from what I later learned, my match got there just in time to catch me before I hit the ground. Fury was sent away, though not before explanations were demanded.

So apparently mom had worked for SHIELD for about ten years or so (second half of the 1980s and first half of the 1990s). The first mission she'd been involved in, had been an undercover one, in Egypt, her partner? None other than Nicholas Fury. Their other teammate: Shannon Carter, had been their contact with SHIELD HQs and mostly stayed away. There had been some kind of torrid romance thing, and a wedding ceremony that wasn't really legal, but it mattered for them. Which made the whole situation all the more confusing because mom had never told me about it! The most she'd ever said about Fury was that they'd worked together.

Apparently she'd left with little explanation, other than citing family. Back then it'd been Fury's belief that she meant her brother, the widower with a child. But after finding out about me, about my mom, he'd come to believe that mom had lied to him. She hadn't, of course, but I couldn't explain the truth to him. Wasn't sure I should anyway, there had to be a reason why mom hadn't told me about him. Perhaps the same reason why she chose to walk away?

So that was why Fury had tried to use the scanner on me. He was convinced that mom had lied to him, that she'd had me in secret and had chosen to pass me as Tony Stark's child for whatever the reason. He was convinced that he was my dad... I knew the truth of course, but it was one I could never allow him, I did not trust him not to use it for his own benefit, even if in ways that might end up hurting someone in my family. So we let him walk away, keep believing the lies we'd spun. And life went on.

Loki and I married before the end of the summer, and on March 20th of 2012 our beloved daughter was born...

It... She took us by surprise. Which was one of the reasons why we decided I should have the baby home (which, by that point, was Stark Tower in NY, we'd moved there in January, less than a fortnight after the end of the StarkExpo). The main reason for the choice though, was the fact that my beloved was Jotun, even if he hid it behind beautifully tanned skin, sun-bleached hair and bright jade-green eyes; and I, while I looked no different physically from what I had all along, I knew I was changing, could feel it inside me. It became especially obvious when I gained the ability to channel Loki's magic, but that was just the most obvious aspect. There were other things: like the lightness of my steps, my near-inhuman agility and flexibility, I was lighter than it should have been possible even with my size, and the fact that I needed less sleep than I ever expected (without being a genius insomniac like dad, who only slept when he managed to quiet his mind enough for it to let him rest).

So, we knew the baby was quite probably going to be different. It was why I'd never actually gone to an OBGYN either. It wasn't like it was necessary either, Loki was quite capable of using his magic to check-up on our daughter. A daughter... I knew she'd be so from the moment I knew I was pregnant, both my Maverick and I'd dreamt her (or a grown version of her). The name Rose was never in any doubt, she was our Rose, our beloved baby, who we'd lost once. The last piece of our past, our last regret...

The moment Rose opened her eyes to the world I knew having her at home had been the right choice: her hair was red, a lighter, more vibrant shade than mine (though I knew it'd darken in the coming years, until it would be a shade or two darker than my own), her skin was rosy and her eyes... her eyes were the most dazzling mix of red, orange and black and I could almost imagine a live-flame dancing in their center (much like we'd once seen the vision of her grown self dancing a midst fire...).

And then the next surprise came, in the form of none other than our firstborn daughter, the light of our lives: Helena...

"Cara amin (my light)..." I breathed out, not even noticing that I'd spoken in elvish.

"Nana (Mama)..." She whispered in return, climbing beside me on the bed and curling against my side, as if she were still a little girl and not a fully grown woman, technically older than me.

Loki had already used his magic to vanish the blood and afterbirth, changing the sheets when they couldn't be fully cleaned. Which left me laying on the bed in a simple nightgown, with Rose in my arms and Loki sitting half beside me, half behind, holding us both.

"I've missed you Nana." She murmured.

"You've kept an eye on me." I commented calmly.

It wasn't a question, I knew, for the mist-place I'd been in at least twice could be none other than Helheim, and there was no way my soul had been there and the Queen not known...

"I wanted so much to come to you, yet I knew I had to wait, wait until you were all ready." She commented, looking at me, then at her Ada (Papa) and then her eyes laid on her baby sister... "Pia nésa (little sister)..."

There was such feeling behind those two words, a near-reverence, I wasn't actually surprised that Helena was choosing quenya of all the elven dialects, the formality implied in the choice only served to reinforce her tone of voice. And then it came to me, what was in her voice: it was pure and simple adoration...

"Meril..." Helena breathed out the name I'd once chosen.

"Rose..." I clarified softly. "In this world, her name shall be Rose."

There was some kind of voice in the wind, a voice only I could hear... or at least that was how it seemed to me. I didn't even stop to think about it, I just took it and went with it:

"Rose Alfdis."

I didn't know it then, but Alfdis was Helena's own choice of name for her little sister, and a part of me had known... or perhaps it was Rose who had known, I had no idea. But that didn't matter. The choice had been made. And so Rose Alfdis Stark-Hvedrungr came into the world (and Helena Miriel Hvedrungr, Luka's little sister, joined our family as well).

xXx

That summer we had an incredible experience. Helena had a house in the outskirts of Salem, Massachusetts, and my husband was almost giddy at the prospect of being in a place where there had once been so much magic. I, for my part, almost cringed at the knowledge of all the blood (figurative, of course) that stained the ground, the water, and all the surroundings, the blood of all those who'd died during the Inquisition, witches and non-witches alike.

What we weren't expecting was when we found threads of magic still there, living magic. Helena had told us about the 'Brothers of Ipswich' four men, heirs to their respective lines, four magical lines that had managed to escape from the killings in Salem and kept their heritage alive in secret. They carried a huge burden, for they possessed a form of magic that was very dark, so much that it consumed them, their life-energy, making them age faster than any human should. It was their curse, for their brand of magic, and one no one, not even Loki and I, had the power of breaking. Though Helena had kept an eye on them through the last few generations, and she believed that if they had their matches, the young men stood a chance at living longer, more plentiful lives, I could only hope so, for them and their loves. Perhaps one day our paths might cross, but that wasn't the day, Helena didn't believe them to be ready to know about us.

The threads we'd discovered did not belong to them, no, they pulled us in a different direction entirely. To a rather small town in a little island only connected to the mainland through a two way bridge, a place that wasn't even in any maps: New Salem...

We had no idea what we were going to find, but we followed the threads through the highway and then onto the main street: Crowhaven Road. There were houses in that street, twelve of them. Not all looked too-well maintained, but every single one carried a trace of magic, some stronger than others. We didn't actually stop the car (a rental we'd gotten in the airport in Boston, for the little getaway weekend).

"What do you know of this place?" My love asked our oldest daughter.

"Spell-weavers live here." Helena began with the obvious. "Or at least they did, a generation or so ago. Something happened in the nineties, a storm, or hurricane... only it wasn't completely natural, there was magic involved, I received about half a dozen souls that day, they were all witches with unfulfilled potential... they had all died in a fight against a dark being I couldn't really track. His power too different from mine to get a hold of it."

My eyes narrowed, that wasn't good. While I didn't think any human spell-weaver could ever have a power comparable to either of my loved ones, I still didn't like not knowing everything when going into a new situation, and I knew my Maverick would agree completely.

We didn't get the chance to talk things over, to back down, because right then the big wooden door of the old manor we'd parked before opened wide and a figure stepped out. She was a bit on the small side (though not quite as small as I), with fair skin, cornflower blue eyes and topaz-brown hair that seemed to have natural highlights in it; she was wearing a floor-length, square-necked, sleeveless dress that began off-white at the top and then eventually became blue; there was a long shawl like cloth wound around her back and elbows in the same mix of colors.

"Greetings." She called in a very formal tone of voice as she curtsied elegantly before us. "My name is Cassandra Blake, also known as Muse, one of the triumvirate that lead the Circle. It is an honor for us to receive the God of Magic, his Songstress and their daughters..."

I wasn't sure which shocked us more, the fact that the young woman before us (she had to be in her late teens, at most!) knew exactly who we were, including the fact that Helena was as much our daughter as Rose was; or all the young people looking at us from the door and windows of the house she'd just stepped out of, there was a lot more magic in Midgard than we could have imagined, even during my previous life!

So in the end our weekend didn't go as we'd originally planned it. We spent less time sequestered in Helena's old cabin, and more in New Salem, hanging out with the Secret Circle, getting to know them. We learned that they were, in fact, all in their late teens. They'd fought a great battle less than two years before, against their most terrible foe: Black John. The same man who'd been responsible for much of the death caused in the 17th century, the very same who'd been behind the storm/hurricane and the deaths of the 1990s. They were also heading for college in the Fall, all of them to Boston, though they were not all studying the same, they wanted to stay close to one another. They were more than just a coven, (the Circle, they called themselves), they were family in every way that counted, something we understood all too well.

We met two other covens in the following months, the Ipswich Brothers. They weren't much older than the Circle, though all four already in college, two were also engaged to women who were perfectly aware of their heritage and the risks therein. Then there was the Halliwell clan in San Francisco. The most shocking part with them wasn't their numbers, or the fact that the three sisters that served as heads of the family, and at least half of their children were effectively demon hunters (not actual demons, simply beings of other races); making sure humanity was safe; no, the true shock was realizing that they were but one line, part of a huge sub-society that existed all around the world, and we hadn't known. Even having realized before that the Spanish Inquisition had been less effective at eradicating magic than baseline humans believed, it was a lot to wrap our heads around. Most of them had magic so subtle even we couldn't sense it easily; on the plus side, that also meant they weren't much threat to us. Especially not to my match (whom every magic user kept referring to as the god of magic...).

We even paid a visit to the Xavier Institute at one point, my Maverick was absolutely fascinated by mutants, and the easy acceptance that his Jotun form found among them helped ease pains so deeply carved into his soul that even I hadn't fully been able to heal. Just that was enough to make me promise myself that if Charles (Uncle Charles, as he'd long since insisted I call him, much as dad did) or any of his children ever needed us, we'd be there.

SHIELD made such a scandal about the Hulk, about finding Captain America (certain friends of mine might have kept hacking their network ever so often... not like I complained), about the few gifted in their so-called Index... they had no idea about all the wonders hiding in plain sight in the world around, and they never would...

xXx

In May of 2013 the skies of New York opened and an army of alien monsters poured out. It wasn't actually a surprise, not to us, my husband had warned us of what was coming since first arriving. After falling off the Rainbow Bridge and through the Void, Thanos had found him, tortured him (hence both my terrible nightmares, and the awful wounds he'd had upon arrival) for nearly a month (though time passed different in the Void), before my love had gathered enough energy to pull himself off the Void and back onto the branches of Yggdrasil. Then somehow our bond, old and mostly inactive as it was, had been enough to pull him to us, to me.

Originally his plan had been to go back, to play double-agent or something like that. But I refused to allow it. I'd had it with spies in my family. The loss of mom, even after the years that had passed, ached still; I wasn't willing to risk my match like that, especially with stakes that were so much higher. Thankfully, he saw things my way, eventually.

We couldn't exactly warn SHIELD about what was coming, but we did warn the X-Men, the Fantastic Four (the leaders of both knew and respected dad enough to take the whole 'confidential source' when he used it as excuse not to explain where the information came from). Then Darcy had had the idea of putting the idea in the dark-web. Have it be seen as some conspiracy theory, or perhaps the ramblings of a precog. She repeated the process enough times for SHIELD to stop and take notice, for the Avengers Initiative to be activated... and something called Second Phase, which we all hated and did our best to boycott from a distance.

Fury and Hill both actually tried to get dad to agree to consult for the Initiative, but when it became obvious that all they wanted was access to his tech, probably weapons and had no interest in listening to his suggestions, he turned them down. Though in the end he did give them an extremely good deal for some of his tech because the mere thought of them going to Hammer was enough to make us all cringe.

There were other preparations on our end, of course. Dad had prioritized the construction of Stark Tower, so it'd be ready faster than originally planned. He also had a number of arc-reactors ready. Most were fixed into Stark buildings, powering them; others were in reserve, to be used in case of an emergency. And it hadn't ended there. Dad had created a special watch that folded out into a basic gauntlet, simple compared to the Iron Man armor, but enough for some defense. Pepper and I had gotten each a pair of bracelets that created energy fields, shields. All the pieces were made of the same alloy, a synthetic vibranium that dad had created, based on the same element that he'd created (rediscovered?) to put in place of the original palladium core. It was something only he could create, and so, it could also be used to track us if necessary.

My Maverick also did his best to help protect us. Using all the mithril he'd left in one of his subspace pockets he'd created a nightingale pendant for me, a pair of earrings for Pepper, delicate bracelets for both Aylen and Rose, and cuff-links for dad; all the pieces carried as much magic, as many protective spells as he and Helena could pour into them. Helena herself had a pendant of her own, in case of an emergency; at our insistence my love also began to use a pocket watch enchanted in the same manner, just in case.

That day we stood back and watched. Much as it went against our instincts, we knew we couldn't interfere. The world wasn't ready to find out the truth about Iron Man, much less about my love and I, about our daughters; and we especially weren't allowing SHIELD to have that kind of information. No way.

In the end we couldn't just do nothing, not completely. We got the idea when JARVIS informed us about the young man in bright red and blue spandex swinging around like a human-sized spider, using his abilities to keep the Leviathans as contained and away from most civilians as possible. So we followed his lead. There was just enough of a mess that most people wouldn't think much of us, and if they did they'd probably think us to be nothing more than mutants, perhaps even some of the X-Men.

The moment the battle was over (Black Widow had closed the portal, and from the safety of Stark Mansion in Upstate New York TaserQueen had used her own talents to disarm a nuclear missile the WSC had been intent on sending to Manhattan), dad already had another project. He was going to find the one calling himself Spider-Man and offer him help, at the very least a better suit, spandex just wasn't enough protection with the dangers he was likely to face.

We didn't know it back then, but Spider-Man (Peter Parker, as we'd eventually learn his name to be) ended being but the first hero we'd come to help, and also the first to join us as we, ever so slowly, began forming a team of our own. A team of those who wanted to help in any way they could (protect the innocent, bring justice where needed, keep the peace...), but had no interest in being seen as heroes by the people (bunch of sheep who were as likely to hail us all as heroes or call a public lynching upon us, depending on the day and their mood), a family bound by more than blood or names.

xXx

In December things got messy. Aldrich Killian, Maya Hansen, their creation (which they called Extremis), a conspiracy in the government that went all the way to the Vice-president, and a mess that almost cost both Happy and Pepper their lives. I wanted to help, but dad and Loki had pretty much packed me into the jet with both Rose and Aylen the moment things began going downhill, and I knew I needed to keep the girls safe, so in the end I relented. Didn't make it any easier when things began happening, when our home in Malibu was literally blown into pieces, dad was reported missing and possibly dead, Happy ended in the hospital and Pepper kidnapped. Of course it helped when dad and Loki got in on the action and made all those responsible learn why it was a bad idea to mess with a Stark, or the family of one.

The one truly ridiculous thing of the whole debacle was when Iron Man was repeatedly seen around, helping dad... and even after it was all said and done, no one thought to connect one to the other. Rhodey did find out the truth. He kept the secret though, of course he did, he was family too, in many ways. All the important ones.

The most sobering part was Extremis. There was no way to take it out of Pepper, once it'd bonded to her. She was so strong... became part of the 2% to survive the injection Killian gave her. But once the serum had become part of her, it couldn't be taken out again. My love promised to teach her to control it; we all helped make her see that being different wasn't a bad thing, and it could even be good, considering the dangers we all tended to be in...

And then dad went and got himself injected with Extremis too. Right after convincing my love to use his magic to take out the pieces of shrapnel. It was something that could be done, but even all my healing could have never been enough to heal the damage; and we knew that at least two of the pieces were keeping dad from bleeding out internally. However, with Extremis in the picture it was possible for dad to heal himself.

It was a gamble, and one Pepper probably would have never allowed had she known about it. I myself hated it, once I learned about it, but could understand why my husband had agreed to help dad: he'd known dad would find a way to go through with it no matter what, and he respect dad's choices, reckless as they might be sometimes. At least things ended well on that front.

xXx

There were some amazing times, and other not-so-amazing ones. The important part was that we were happy. I was Arianna Stark-Hvedrungr, daughter of Anthony Stark, big sister to Aylen Potts-Stark, wife of Luka Hvedrungr, mother of Rose (and Helena) Stark-Hvedrungr; with an extended family that included a lot of people (Pepper Potts-Stark, Harold 'Happy' Hogan, James 'Rhodey' Rhodes, Darcy Lewis, Dr. Helen Cho, Peter Parker and his aunt, Gwen Stacy and her family, Harry Osborn, Mary Jane Watson...) and it just kept growing! In charge of PR in Stark Industries and, unknown to the world, the Nightingale, empath and blessed healer.

The first time we came in contact with the Wakandans was in early 2015. We (meaning my love, our daughters and I) were in south New Mexico, retrofitting a ranch-house dad had bought some years prior. The place was off radar (and did not appear on any maps), under my original name (that of Silbhé Salani) and buried under so much red-tape as to be virtually nonexistent as far as the bureaucracy was concerned. We were making the place into a safe-house, in case we ever needed to effectively disappear, lay low for a while, whatever.

What we certainly weren't expecting was when that very same night we got unwelcome visitors. Earlier that same day I'd used my elven affinity to connect with what few plants could be found in the ranch (we were in the middle of a desert, after all). That meant that when one of our unplanned guests placed a hand on the desert rose by the side of the house, I knew it.

Surprisingly enough my match did not wake up when I did and, thinking that the feeling I got might be a fluke, I decided to go check it out myself. So I pulled on my night-robe and slippers (I didn't really need them, even with the cold of the desert, but it was habit), and padded silently down the hall and then to the ground-floor.

I found two figures dressed in dark bodysuits that seemed to almost shine under the starlight slipping through the windows. They looked into each of the areas; the floor was open-plan, so there were few walls, and no actual doors, except for the one at the very end, the one that lead into the basement... I couldn't allow that so, without actually stopping to think about it I used magic to call my bow and arrows to me (created with a mix of the traditional mallorn wood from Alfheim, the same material my past-life's bow had been made of, with some gold-titanium alloy dad used for his suits to make it more resistant and mithril used on the runic patterns that had been used for the magic that made the bow unbreakable and respond only to me; and so the quiver of arrows refilled automatically).

I shot two arrows in quick succession. The first had a diamond tip, which allowed it to go through the wooden bar that worked to keep the door closed (once we were finished with retrofitting the place it'd have a biometric lock, but we hadn't gotten to that part yet), effectively nailing it to the wall. It would require someone with a strength considerably superior to a human (and some fancy moves) to open; or magic capable of working through Loki's. The second arrow landed on the floorboards and carried the equivalent of a flash grenade. I didn't expect it to be enough to take the two unknowns out, but at least to give me an advantage.

I didn't realize there was a third intruder until my enhanced senses caught on the sensation of the air breaking. My reaction was instinctual, as I spun around on one heel, at the same time as I allowed myself to drop to my knees and bend backwards to avoid the two long legs encased in a similar bodysuit to the first two.

I allowed my momentum to carry me as I twisted just slightly to release my legs from underneath me, throwing them out in a sweeping motion. My attacker was taken enough by surprise by this move that it made her stagger backwards, though she did not fall. A moment later I was on my knees again and going into some of my favored jujitsu moves. I managed to take her down then (I knew the person beneath the mask to be a woman, and not just by the curves on the bodysuit, I could sense it in her aura; and those of the other two as well).

It took some effort, but I managed to move just fast enough to pinch her in the neck and knock her out before she could recover from the fall and attack me again.

I'd barely stood again when I suddenly felt a gloved hand grabbing my throat, pressing slightly but purposefully on my trachea, while another hand pressed a thin blade against my flank, in an angle I knew would gut me if the move was completed. I froze physically, while my mind ran every which way, as I made plans and discarded them just as quickly. I couldn't teleport, for my assailant would be going with me; same applied with shadow-walking, though that would also mean killing her, as it was few who could survive in the shadow dimension; I wasn't too good at summoning the elements, which made that risky to both my opponent and myself (and possibly everyone else in the house); and couldn't think of another spell I could direct in a manner which did not end up with me skewered, half-strangled, or both.

"Who the hell are you?" The hissing voice of the woman holding me demanded in an accent I couldn't identify.

"Shouldn't you be introducing yourself first?" I just couldn't stop myself as I replied, I was my father's daughter in more ways than would be advisable, sometimes. "This is my house, you're the one invading here."

"So you're the thief then?" The hiss turned almost into a snarl.

I felt the blade going through my robe and thin night-clothes, pressing into my skin enough it would draw blood if I so much as breathed in.

There was a sudden yelp, followed by the sound of a body hitting the floor. My attacker immediately turned around, pulling me along, a half-strangled yelp escaping my lips as I went. And then we saw my husband, wearing nothing but his sleeping pants; the remaining intruder unconscious at his feet.

A wordless exclamation of rage came from the one restraining me, but I paid her no mind. Instead I looked straight at my match as I mouthed three words:

Let It Go...

He almost rolled his eyes at me, and while I couldn't actually smile in my position, I was sure he could sense my smile inside our bond (just like I sensed the roll of his eyes and his dramatic, long-suffering sigh). The words were in reference to the movie Frozen, of course we'd watched it, dad found it incredibly hilarious for some reason we couldn't quite fathom, he'd even jokingly called my husband 'Elsa' a couple of times, until my love retaliated by freezing his coffee before dad could so much as taste it. That seemed to be more than dad could take (either that or Pepper warned him off starting a prank war with the god of mischief of all people...), so that was the end of it. Still, my love knew what I meant.

The change was easy, fast, the woman still holding me by the neck had no idea what was coming until it was too late and the rush of frost hit us both. It wasn't bad enough to kill her, but still bad enough to make her feel like she'd been suddenly dropped in the arctic, or something like that. Me, being the match of a jotun had its advantages, while my core temperature went down, I was able to adapt to the change, which meant that I could still function. It was quite easy then to push the blade at my side away and pretty much step away from my attacker.

"The girls?" I asked my love softly, switching to Old Norse so as not to be understood by any of our uninvited guests.

"Helena's with Rose." He answered me promptly. "Just in case."

I nodded, then called my phone to my hand. I took a number of pictures of the three women, with and without masks, before calling on Friday.

"FRI." I spoke in English then. "I need you to run those pics through any and every database you can think of. Find out who they are, where they come from, and especially why they're here, everything you can."

We needed to know. Was it a hit? Something connected to the name Stark or Grayson? Or did someone somehow knew about the gifts any of us possessed? Or the truth about my beloved's identity? Though if it was a hit, why had they gone for the basement instead of the bedrooms? Could they possibly know what we'd just left there earlier? How when no one outside family even knew it existed?

Things definitely did not improve when FRIDAY informed that two of the women seemed to be ghosts, they did not exist in any of the databases my AI had access too (and both she and JARVIS had access to a lot more than most people would have liked...). The third was a bit better: her name was Nareema and... I couldn't help myself, I cursed, long and in at least half a dozen languages in quick succession.

"Nightingale...?" My husband asked softly, worried.

"She's Wakandan." I bit out. "More precisely, she's a royal bodyguard." I cursed again under my breath. "Something is really wrong here, Maverick. I need to call dad."

xXx

Two days later we made our way to an abandoned airfield in Texas (secretly bought by my dad years prior under one of mom's old aliases). Helena had taken Rose to keep her safe, while my love had used his magic to keep the three Wakandan warrior-ladies in a haze, as if they were drugged or tranqued or something.

We were the first to arrive, though we weren't on our own for long. Two cars arrived less than five minutes later: the first was dad's red convertible, and he was the one driving it; the other one was a plain, black sedan with darkened windows (obviously a rental) three people stepped out of it: a man and two women, all tall and with the darkest skin I'd ever seen...

"Introductions." Dad called loudly, playing the part of the obnoxious rich man. "This good man here is T'Challa, crown prince of Wakanda; the two ladies with him are his bodyguards, two of the Dora Milaje, whose names I do not know." He shrugged, before turning towards them. "Your Highness, these are my daughter Arianna, and her husband: Luke." His brows narrowed as he added. "It was their ranch-house that your ninjas invaded two nights ago, my daughter that they almost killed..."

"They were there to recover stolen property, nothing more..." Prince T'Challa said in what was probably supposed to be a calming tone.

"We're not thieves!" My Maverick stated in an even tone.

I was the first to notice something was off. I didn't even think about it, I didn't have my bow with me and wasn't reckless enough to summon it in such company, though I wasn't defenseless either. A twist of my wrist allowed a thin dagger to drop from inside my sleeve, into my hand, and then I threw my arm out, releasing the blade in the exact moment... no one even got the chance to look at me, to ask what I was doing, the yelp gave them the answer.

As we discovered, there had been a third lady in the black car, dressed in the same kind of catsuit as the three that had invaded the ranch. She'd used our apparent distraction to try and get to the three in the back of our van, probably intending to release them. But I'd seen her in time. The blade went through her hand. Painful, though no permanent damage.

"Is that how things are going to go then?" Dad asked, steel in his tone.

Bracelets glinted in his wrists, and I knew he was ready to call the Iron Man armor to him at any moment. Even if it meant revealing his secret to those present, he'd do it to protect us.

"No, it's not." T'Challa gave a step forward. "Dr. Stark, you must know we were not aware the property in New Mexico belong to you, or your daughter."

"What were you doing there?" I asked, cocking my head to a side. "You're a prince, a future King what could possibly push you into doing some b&e, or ordering it for that matter? You must have known all the ways things could have gone wrong. Do you honestly believed thieves wouldn't have been pursued? Whether the property had been ours or not? And what of the attack, if your warriors had hurt me? Or my husband? Or my daughters?!"

I actually lost it, just a little bit, at that point. Still, apparently the Wakandans were either affected enough, or just weren't paying enough attention, for none of them seemed to notice the plural.

No platitudes of reassurances were offered, which was just fine by me; I wouldn't have believed them anyway.

"You know all about vibranium, of course you do." The Prince said instead. "It's our metal, our heritage; and yet twice now it has been stolen from us. Once by a man we believed to be an ally, a personal friend to my father even and..."

"And once by my father." Dad finished for him.

It wasn't actually like that, not exactly. Then again, we were all sure Howard Stark had never told anyone the full story. The public version was that his people had discovered vibranium in Africa, taken all they could find and brought it back to the States, where it had been used for a prototype shield that would eventually become Captain America's signature weapon. Back then the world hadn't known that a country called Wakanda existed, much less about their connection to the metal known as vibranium. What we did not know was if Howard Stark had learned of Wakanda back then, or if he'd somehow just been lucky enough to find the metal. Still, for the people of that country it probably amounted to the same, grandfather had taken something that wasn't his...

The other case was more recent, and not quite as well known, though we did know about it. Ulyssess Klaue was a man of Dutch origins, an arms-dealer; he was also the one who'd stolen a considerable amount of vibranium in the nineties and managed to get it out of Wakanda, though he almost died in the process.

"I'm sure we all know where the vibranium good-old dad got is." Dad deadpanned. "It's not like the whole world hasn't seen the Capsicle throwing it around like a freaking frisbee." He shook his head before moving on. "Which means you're not talking about that. I knew Klaue once, more than a decade ago. He wanted to buy weapons from me, weapons he'd later re-sell to some of his more 'interesting' clients. I wasn't interested in the slightest. He did offer some of the vibranium in exchange... I didn't believe in trading with stolen goods." He let out a breath. "Stane tried to make a deal with him years later, but Klaue apparently wasn't interested." He looked straight at the prince as he added. "I have no idea what brought you to my daughter's ranch, but know this. I do not have your vibranium. I have no interest in it."

"Everyone is interested in vibranium!" One of the women by the prince hissed.

"Indeed." Dad just couldn't seem to be able to help himself, he smirked. "I didn't say I wasn't. I said I wasn't interested in yours."

"What is that supposed to mean?" All Wakandans seemed to react to that.

"Years ago I sort-of discovered... re-discovered?" He waved a hand dismissively. "Dad studied the vibranium he got from you, was very interested in its composition, in the possibility of one day replicating it, synthetically. He didn't get very far with that idea; but then again I am not Howard Stark, and I have a lot more at my disposal than he did."

"You created synthetic vibranium..." Several of the women gasped practically in unison.

"It's not quite as strong as actual vibranium, but it's good enough." Dad shrugged in a self-deprecating manner.

"That's what's in that ranch-house." T'Challa breathed out in realization.

Dad just smiled, full of teeth, dangerous (I was sure he'd learned that particular smile from my beloved, when he was being particularly vicious).

"You have my unreserved apologies, Dr. Stark." The prince actually bowed slightly to my dad. "On behalf of the Dora Milaje. For any hurt, physical or mental they might have caused yourself, your daughter and her husband. I promise you, the Dora Milaje would have never hurt you, much less your daughter." He shook his head slightly. "I have to admit we acted precipitately. Seemed like a good idea when we planned it. For the first time in more than a decade we had what looked like a clue about the location of our stolen resource... we could have never imagined something like this happening."

"So I was right then!" Dad's smile seemed to almost split his face, he was delighted. "You can track vibranium... and metals similar enough to it."

"There are limitations, of course." T'Challa stated vaguely.

Of course they wouldn't tell us what the limitations were, but I could guess at least two: magic and the arc-reactor, which would explain how none of them seemed to have any idea about the pieces we each wore, or the rest of our family, or the small cachés we kept in Stark Mansion in NY, and the sub-levels of what had once been the Malibu mansion (the house itself was gone, but the sub-levels were still there). I was sure dad would be able to deduce a few more...

"You have trouble tracking it through other metals with opposite charge, don't you?" He asked, in an almost eager tone.

The Prince's eyes narrowed again.

"What makes you so sure about it?" He asked, evenly.

"That I'm almost sure I know where your metal is, and that would be the only reason why you haven't managed to track it with your own fancy tech." Dad quipped.

The expressions on the faces of all the Wakandans were priceless. I had a feeling that before it was all said and done we'd all be allies and who knows? Perhaps even friends, someday.

xXx

It took just a few months but things to go a bit crazy yet again (though that one was not our fault, at all); when something called the Convergence took place. We traveled to London so Dad, Peter and Gwen could make tests and take samples to study; we had some very interesting few days until suddenly we found ourselves in the middle of a battlefield.

"What the hell is going on?!" Harry demanded.

He was there too, with his fiancée, MJ, he'd insisted on seeing the trip as a little vacation, and even though he didn't really understand everything that was going on (and that had two of his closest friends acting like they'd just won a million bucks), or why them, my dad and husband, were so gone on all the testing, he'd wanted to be there; at least until veritable holes appeared in the fabric of space and creatures began coming out of them... and a black space-ship that was probably bigger than the freaking Big-Ben!

"Dark-elves..." Loki muttered in a scathing tone.

The memories of my old life informed me what dark-elves were, and a whole lot more.

"This is bad." I murmured as I realized the implications of what was going on. "Guys! We need to get out of here! Now!"

Of course it couldn't be that simple. Helena and I had each our little sisters in our arms (Dad was gathering samples, and Pepper was at some meeting for SI with Darcy). It got insane for a while, with dark elves popping in and out all around us, and not even just them, one time Mjolnir flew past me, so close I felt a slight pull on one of my bangs. On the plus side, Gwen and MJ had been with their respective superheroes enough that neither of them panicked; I could sense their fear, their tension, but they remained completely focused as they followed their respective matches.

Eventually we managed to get out of that mess, and no one except Dr. Foster's intern saw us, and he thought us nothing more than a bunch of civilians who'd become accidentally trapped in the middle of an inter-dimensional battle.

Dad of course was absolutely delighted for all the readings he managed to get, and even Gwen managed to bounce back the moment the science-babble began.

"So, still think this was an interesting vacation?" I couldn't help but ask Harry saucily.

"Well, at least I'm not falling asleep to one or more members of OsCorp's board droning on and on about stupid things." He drawled in return.

MJ just slapped him in the arm. It was obvious she, from all of us, had been the most terrified. Unlike Gwen, she'd never been in danger from a supervillain before, her life had never been on the line... in my opinion she had acquitted herself admirably. I also knew her fiancé was only saying that to add some levity to the situation. Usually dad would be the one to make the stupid jokes, but he was too busy going over all the information JARVIS had gathered.

Still, the sentiment wasn't wrong, there was never a boring moment when it came to us.

xXx

The next people to join our patch-work, dysfunctional and more than a little insane family were the Banners. It actually started in a most unexpected manner: with Ms. Elizabeth Ross knocking at our door, a three-year-old dark-haired blue-gray eyed boy holding her hand and half hidden behind her dress pants.

Of course dad knew who Ms. Ross was: Doctor in Celullar Biology, daughter of the (psychotic in my opinion) General Thaddeus 'Thunderbolt' Ross, former professor and scientist in Culver University, ex-girlfriend to one Dr. Bruce Banner, alias the Hulk... and apparently mother of his child as well.

The shocking part was learning that little Robbie Banner had inherited his dad's invulnerability; they'd discovered this when some insane maniac had put a bomb in a small park the mother-son pair frequented. We'd known about that event, months earlier in Virginia, several children had died, even more were terribly injured. The Maria Stark Foundation had sent relief teams and monetary aid, and my love and I had even managed to join them under glamours, I'd taken it upon myself to heal as many kids as I could before someone noticed something was going on. That part was never made public, apparently the doctors in the hospital had decided not to report it, they simply called it 'a miracle'.

Betty had been running since. Her son had been in the middle of the affected zone, the only one in that very area to have survived... he'd also made it out completely unscathed. Knowing that it was only a matter of time before the wrong kind of people got interested in that fact, she'd packed a couple of bags and begun running. None of us knew for sure why she'd ended knocking at our door (figuratively, it was Stark Tower, and the doors weren't the kind you knocked on, but still), she never explained that part; though she obviously had known that we'd take both and her son in, no strings attached. What I'm sure even she wasn't expecting, was when dad got Dr. Banner to join us too.

The Hulk was technically on the Avengers' rooster, though he'd left NY (the States, really) after the Chitauri invasion, obviously not too keen on staying around. It took dad two days to find him, and one more to convince him to come back. He was still surprised when Robbie was introduced to him, though. It was a precious moment.

Dad made a point of offering both Banners jobs in SI, and Robbie a place in the Stark Daycare (a whole floor in the Tower was dedicated to that). The people there were the best, not just in child psychology and development, they'd also been screened to make sure they were accepting of every race, religion, and status (meaning human, mutant, meta, etc...). Aylen and Rose too spent at least half the day every day too, and we had no doubt that they were both gifted, they just hadn't manifested yet (though JARVIS, FRIDAY and the bots all agreed that they could sense Aylen's aura whenever she was around, which made us believe her gift would have something to do with technology).

All in all, 2015 was a good year, more insane than we were used to, but good nonetheless. Which of course meant that the next year just had to start with a bang.

xXx

The 'bang' was Darcy discovering just a few days after my twenty-fourth birthday (less than a week, in fact) that a terrible, poisonous, multi-headed snake had made its nest in the very heart of SHIELD (and in every piece of it, really). It was shocking, heart-chilling, and enough to make dad let out a string of curses in every single language he'd ever learned (and considered my love and I had taken great pleasure in teaching him a few that weren't really known on Earth...).

We began working immediately, hatching plans, making preparations, looking for ways to chop down the needed heads of the snake, while keeping the good, loyal men and women safe from the mess that the first part would cause. None of us understood why, exactly, but we all had a sense of foreboding, an instinctive knowledge that time was short, and there was much that needed to be done before things went to hell.

When that happened, we still weren't exactly ready, but there was nothing that could be done about it. We'd done everything we could in the previous three months. Dad had called in every single favor he was owed (discreetly, of course); my match and I had taken multiple, secret trips around the globe, trying to make alliances, or resurrect old ones. We had magical friends across the States, of course, but we knew more help would be needed, a lot more. Thankfully the Halliwell Clan had connections, it helped a lot. There were old tribes of gifted who, while they didn't exactly know us, they had records of having met us in the past (during my life as Tinúviel), some even had still records of alliances, of debts owed...

The most shocking though, was finding the Halls in Cairo. Carter Hall, an Archaeology professor in the best university of Egypt, and his daughter Kendra, college senior and soon to graduate (also, as we'd eventually discover, she was promised to none other than Prince T'Challa... they were apparently a match). Carter was none other than the reincarnation of Kontar, an Egyptian prince (not the King, nor in any way liable to inherit the throne, but a royal nonetheless) from a thousand years prior; one of our dearest friends (and whose death, beside his beloved wife, Sharifa, my beloved and I had witnessed). It took a while to convince him we were who we claimed, but eventually we managed, and not only he helped us convince the Wakandans to help us, but he also put us in contact with another group of gifted: the 'retired' Justice Society of America (whom most believed to be nothing more than criminals, though they were in fact heroes, and always had been).

Six months after we first discovered something was very wrong with SHIELD, the shit hit the fan. It started with the news that Nick Fury had just been declared dead, sometime after midnight, the first week of August. By the time we were working on it, trying to discover if it was true or some kind of trick, another announcement went through all SHIELD servers (and was intercepted by us): Captain Steve Rogers and Agent Natasha Romanoff were considered rogue, hostile and being pursued by the STRIKE team, Considering that that particular team was more assassination than capture... it wasn't a good sign.

We gathered together the next morning, with videos of the shooting against Nick Fury, and a the one against Rogers, Romanoff, and some other man by the name of Samuel Wilson that had taken place the previous afternoon in the middle of D.C.

"There's no more time." Loki said what we were probably all thinking.

Helena wasn't with us today, ever since January she'd spent as much time with us as away. We didn't know everything that was going on, only that something huge had happened back then, which had almost caused her to lose her match. Her match... whom she hadn't met in his current life, though she'd seen him from a distance in the past. Even if they hadn't pronounced their vows in lifetimes, a trace of their bond still managed to endure, and it had been enough for her to sense the moment that his life nearly ended. Since then Helena had taken to spending time around him; she kept herself to the shadow dimension, watching him yet not letting him know she was there. She couldn't, it was against the rules.

My daughter was hurting so much... I'd actually offered to go find this man... I didn't even know who he was in his current life, she always referred to him as Stephanos. But he knew, and if she'd just tell me... I was willing to go to wherever he might be and find a reason to introduce myself. Since I was alive and all, the rules that kept her away did not apply to me; and once we'd been introduced I could find a reason for them to meet too... She hadn't taken me up on my offer yet, and I hadn't insisted too much, not while we were dealing with the mess of HYDRA-in-SHIELD.

"The way things are going in DC it won't be long before Rogers and Romanoff are either caught again, or killed..." Darcy began babbling a bit.

Because of course we knew they'd escaped. Even though that wasn't public knowledge in any way, Darcy wasn't the queen of hackers for nothing.

"We need to call all our contacts." Pepper stated, seriously. "Get them moving. Initiate 'Sword' protocol stat. If we're lucky we might be able to save most of the people who'll find themselves in the cross-hairs once these two monsters have it out."

The 'Sword' Protocol was a play of words dad and I'd made months earlier, and it consisted of a simple (though not exactly easy) plan. Our allies would be alerted, some were meant to make sure that whatever HYDRA Agents came out of the woodwork were stopped before they could do too much damage, others were meant to help get the SHIELD Agents out, especially those doing undercover work, doing dangerous missions; the ones who were likely to be in the most danger if worse came to worst.

And us... we would be staying right in Stark Tower, it was a bit less fortified than the mansion, but more central, and with all the work we were all doing we'd been staying there and more, since it was convenient, being in the same building that housed the company. It was less than an hour flight to DC in case we were needed; and in case of a real emergency we could get there even faster with a little magic.

"Sword Protocol Initiated." JARVIS and FRIDAY announced in unison.

We knew it'd be a matter of minutes before everything would be ready. So we just sat right there, in the living room, waiting. What we weren't expecting was when JOCASTA (the AI keeping all of Darcy's hacking completely secret from both SHIELD and HYDRA) blared an alarm.

"Shit!" Darcy cursed loudly as her fingers flew across her keyboard. "Jesus on a cracker!"

Usually we'd laugh at her choice of words when cussing; but right then we couldn't, we knew instinctively something was very wrong...

"I have no idea why I didn't find this before, the bastards kept the information too well hidden." She muttered under her breath, before saying, louder: "Project Insight, three helicarriers are being activated right now. They carry enough guns to start and end WWIII all on their own."

"Who's their target?" Several of us asked at the same time.

"Who isn't?!" Darcy snapped in return, never stopping in her frenetic typing.

"Hey, I know that project!" Dad called suddenly. "It's supposed to be used to stop the threats before they actually become such."

"Threats against whom?" The words were out of my mouth before I really thought about it.

It took no time at all for the others to catch up to my line of thought. Perhaps the original idea was to use those helicarriers to target terrorists on the rise, potential risks for the safety of the innocent people in our country, and others. But with HYDRA embedded in SHIELD...

"Abort!" Dad practically yelled. "We need to abort that project!"

"I know!" Darcy practically wailed, edging on hysterical. "I can't! No matter how hard I try, I cannot hack those helicarriers! I cannot stop them!"

My Maverick and I turned to look at each other instantly, and I knew we were thinking the same. Iron Man would never make it there in time, but we could. It was a huge risk, and we weren't even thinking about all the people who would be there, who might discover us, who might attack us, might die... and then something we could have never in a million years expected, happened:

Hard as it might be to admit, when Aylen first entered the room we didn't really notice her. She and Rose were supposed to be having a nap in their little game-room down the hall. And yet they went in and rushed straight to us.

"Aylen!" Dad and Pepper cried out at the same time.

Pepper made to rush towards her, but before she could so much as stand my hand was on her arm, stopping her. I didn't even know why I was doing it, all I knew was that Rose's eyes were shining in a mix of red, orange and black... her eyes hadn't looked that color since the day after her birth. I just knew there was a reason for that.

Then, instead of approaching her parents, Aylen went for Darcy, who had finally stopped typing and was looking at her screen as if the world had ended and we just hadn't noticed yet (and maybe, for all intents and purposes, it had). Darcy wasn't really looking at her, probably didn't really notice her there... until she began clicking. That was perhaps the part that confused us most. Aylen was no baby, she was five years old, and quite probably a genius (Pepper had refused to have her tested until it became absolutely necessary, not wanting that kind of burden on her, at times being a Stark could be enough); and besides that, we'd never heard her made such noises before. Then things got beyond strange, as Darcy's eyes widened almost comically and she began gesturing and making half-formed words, all the while looking between Aylen and the screen of her laptop time and again.

"What's going on?" Dad finally demanded.

"I believe the little miss is hacking SHIELD, Sir." JARVIS informed us in what I would actually call a deadpan tone.

"She's hacking...?!" Pepper couldn't even finish the sentence.

"I would almost say she's making my computer hack SHIELD." Darcy offered, finally able to string a full sentence again.

We never fully understood what happened that day, what my little sister did, even after a meeting with Professor Xavier and some of his colleagues confirmed dad's and Pepper's suspicion that Aylen was gifted, a technopath, to be precise (and some believed there might be more to her gift, it just hadn't manifested yet). It was like she somehow spoke a language that only machines could understand, a language that bypassed all protections, all firewalls; as if any and all technology felt compelled to follow her commands. It was what happened that day, what stopped those three helicarriers from taking off that fateful day. Aylen saved us that day, saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and no one but us would ever know...

At the end of the day, there was just one more conversation that needed to take place; one between Dad and I:

"You saw the man who attacked first Fury and then Rogers and his friends." I said, it wasn't a question, and we both knew that.

"The Winter Soldier." Dad said stiffly.

The Winter Soldier... the man responsible for Sebastian Salani's death... and also for Howard and Maria Stark's... and so many more people we'd never be able to finish listing.

"You saw the results of the face recognition software." I murmured next.

"Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes..." He said the words with absolutely no inflection.

I said nothing more. The offer was on the table, my Maverick had made it the day before the two of us married: the moment we had a way of tracking the Winter Soldier, and we found it, my love would take care of the assassin himself. Avenge my biological father, dad's parents, and everyone else that might have suffered because of him; give us justice, closure, and make sure that no one else would ever suffer because of him.

"JOCASTA found this." Dad said for all answer.

What next came up on the holographic screen was something I could have happily spent the rest of my life without ever seeing. It was so bad my magic went out of control for a moment and it fried the screen, just so I wouldn't have to watch it anymore. Even that didn't stop me from having to rush to the nearest bathroom when the nausea simply proved to be too much.

"What's the plan now then?" I finally asked, once I'd washed my mouth.

After everything dad had gone through, in Afghanistan especially, I knew he'd never be able to see James Barnes as evil. No, the man had gone from being the soulless Winter Soldier to a prisoner of war who had been tortured, brainwashed and used for more than fifty years... perhaps by that point the answer to my question was obvious.

"We're going to get your hubby to find the Winter Soldier." He announced, conviction in his tone.

"And then?" I asked, suspecting that wasn't the important part.

"And then we're going to get Sgt. Barnes back." He finished.

Yeah, I just knew he was insane. Then again, so was I, because I really couldn't think of anything else we could do. It wouldn't be easy, but it was the right thing to do. And so we would.

xXx

Of course it couldn't be as easy as that. Even with HYDRA falling into pieces (mostly thanks to all our allies), it wasn't easy to find the Winter Soldier. The man was obviously very well trained, and whatever might have changed, he certainly knew how to stay off the spotlight. And searching for him wasn't all we were doing. We were working (along with all our allies) on taking down what HYDRA cells still remained, and tracking down the staff the leader of the Chitauri invasion had used. It was supposed to have been in SHIELD custody, but with HYDRA inside it, of course someone had managed to take it. So we were trying to find it.

The biggest surprise during that time was, perhaps, when Darcy came to us, asking for sanctuary, not for her but for a very good friend of hers, and his people... as it turned out that 'friend' was more than that, it was actually her lover, the rest were his team; they were SHIELD... or former SHIELD, because our life couldn't get any freakier. Except it could, as we soon learned: the man in question was none other than Phil Coulson, Fury's former third in command...

There was no doubt that the only reason we ever allowed any of them into our homes was that Darcy vouched for Phil, for all of them... and that the youngest member of the team happened to be none other than BlueCloud... though her real-name was Skye, or at least that was the name she'd chosen for herself, after erasing everything about her with some clever hacking. It turned out to be one of the best decisions we ever made.

It took several weeks, but while most of the 'outside world' was still reeling with the fall of SHIELD, and all the information that had been unexpectedly dumped in the internet (because Rogers and Romanoff were even more stupid than any of us imagined possible and went and put everything in SHIELD, and HYDRA, servers online); Darcy and JOCASTA, and later on Skye, JARVIS, FRIDAY, Dad and even Aylen worked together to get everything that might be in any way dangerous out, but we were aware that we couldn't get to everything, and some people might have managed to copy at least some things before we got to them.

Still, while most of the world was still trying to fully process the fact that SHIELD, a super-secret organization that was supposed to be devoted to the protection of the world, had been infiltrated by the epitome of villains, from its very inception; meanwhile we were working on making sure that no villains would remain free, and on making sure that those agents who were not HYDRA, and had lost their job, standing and reputation due to that mess, had some safety, for them and their families. It somehow eventually morphed into them becoming a new security agency, a sub-group of the UN Peacekeepers (they worked on the same level as them, though the former Agents' focus were the people and situations normal Peacekeepers might not be able, or simply not know how to deal with).

It was a good deal, and even Maria Hill ended working with them, leading the group (so they could be separate from us, and no conspiracy theorist might one day begin yelling that the Starks were creating their own militia or something) along with Phil Coulson. Darcy and Skye worked as intermediaries between them and us.

There was a bit of a hiccup when Skye disappeared for a few days, only to then come back with her boyfriend, former Agent Grant Ward… who also happened to be a former HYDRA Agent. Hill had tried to attack him, only for Skye to defend him, Phil and Darcy choosing to take Skye's side (though it was obvious Phil didn't quite agree with her choices). We didn't know for sure how Skye managed to convince the others to let her boyfriend stay, but she did; and eventually there were even other former-HYDRA that joined (though not without a loyal Agent who would vouch for them, and thorough testing to make sure they wouldn't betray them again).

When we were finally (mostly) done; when we knew our family was safe, and the Peacekeepers were working well with the UN and most countries; not everyone trusted them yet, but we were getting there, slowly but surely. We weren't like SHIELD, we weren't about to try and impose us, our actions, on anyone, not our country, and certainly not others. Even the things we could do to help them still had to be their choice. It might make things slower, but if it allowed for people to learn to accept us, to embrace those different than them, then it was a small price to pay.

Things got a tad complicated in early January of 2017, when an explosion in central London made everyone go practically crazy. The government intermediary we had to deal with: Mycroft Holmes did not trust us, did not want us there; until some blonde man with a military bearing, accompanied by a much taller one with dark-ringlets of hair and wearing a Belstaff coat, went straight to him and began whispering. None of us knew exactly what was said, though later on, Sharon Carter's comment that the blonde, Dr. John Watson, was in fact her little brother (and apparently living with the other man, Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective and younger brother to Mycroft Holmes) at least explained why they'd spoken in our favor.

I traveled to London for that, intent on healing everyone I could. What I wasn't expecting was when Helena popped in briefly to explain what exactly had happened, and why. And when later that same day Loki and I felt the considerable rush of magic coming from the east it really did not help matters any. So much magic so suddenly… it wasn't normal. Also, Rose worried us, she was so quiet, eyes fixated in something seemingly only she could see. That was perhaps the first time I began wondering about her possible gifts.

A week passed before Helena dropped by again. She looked absolutely devastated. I didn't even get everything she was saying, nothing more than half broken words and phrases, and sometimes mixing different languages even. She eventually fell asleep on me, which didn't make things any better. Much as a part of me might love having her so close, my eldest hadn't acted like that since long before my past life's death. What was happening wasn't normal, and I just knew I had to do something to make it better, anything.

"What are you going to do?" My Maverick asked me quietly as soon as I left the room where Helena was sleeping, more than a little restless.

"Can you help me track her steps the last few hours?" I asked in turn.

"You're planning on finding this man, this Stephanos." He wasn't asking, he knew me well enough to be able to deduce it.

"I've been planning it all along, but we had that problem with HYDRA, and I didn't want to put any pressure on Helena, but this..." I broke off, the beginning of tears almost chocking me. "I cannot stand this Fintalë-haryon (trick-prince). Helena… she's my girl, no matter how old she might be, if she's technically older than me. She's my child, and I need to take care of her, I need to, I..."

I broke off, a feeling so close to impotence weighing me down so badly that I felt like I'd drop to my knees any moment. But I couldn't, I couldn't collapse, there was no time to let the misery have me. Because my daughter needed me and I just needed to do something, anything.

"I always knew you'd be a perfect mother, from the very first day you told me you were pregnant… before that even." Maverick whispered as he kissed my hair tenderly.

It was almost easy for Loki to track down where our daughter had been last. He didn't offer to go with me; he knew that was one thing I needed to do on my own, so I absorbed the information he offered me through our bond and then used the Shadow Paths to get to Greenwich Village, in NY.

It was a bit of a surprise, to find myself in the same city, and not even that far away from Stark Tower, but I chose not to focus on that, instead I went to knock on the door, which a young woman (early twenties perhaps) of Japanese-American descent in a maroon tunic-like attire and simple sandals opened, looking at me questioningly:

"Hello," I greeted her. "My name is Arianna Hvedrungr and I'd like to talk to Dr. Stephen Strange please, if he's available."

She obviously wasn't expecting that. I could also tell she felt very protective of Dr. Strange, in an entirely platonic manner.

"You may ask him if we could receive me." I tried to reassure her that I wouldn't be forcing my way in, then something else occurred to me. "Tell him I'm here about Elaine."

I wasn't even sure what made me decide to use that name, instead of the one I'd actually given my daughter all those years prior… except it seemed right, somehow. I also knew it was as important as the name Stephanos, and that had to count for something.

Less than two minutes later the door was opened again, by none other than Stephen Strange:

"What do you know about Elaine?" He half-demanded (I wasn't willing to search too deep into what the other half of his tone meant, there was just something wrong with the mere possibility of a man like Stephen Strange begging…).

"Stephanos..." I said simply.

Somehow it was enough, because before I could say anything else I was being pulled inside through several halls, a staircase or two, and into what looked like a private study.

"Who are you really?" The sorcerer wanted to know.

"My name, like I told the young lady who first opened the door, is Arianna." I assured him. "Arianna Maria Grayson-Stark Hvedrungr."

Dr. Strange's eyes widened noticeably, but he said nothing. I knew who he was, of course. I'm sure the whole world knew who he was. The genius neurosurgeon (and asshole, according to many stories I'd heard) who had permanently damaged his hands in a car accident the previous January… and just like that a lot of stuff began making sense. I still had no idea how he'd become involved with magic, but that would come up later.

"What do you know about Elaine, and about Stephanos?" He asked me, hesitant.

"I know they're a match, souls bound to the end of time, even if they may not always find one another in life." I told him kindly. "And I know because I am Elaine's mother… though she goes by Helena nowadays..."

"Helena Lokidottir..." He breathed out.

I had no idea how much he might know already, though he obviously knew something. That was good. At least it meant I wouldn't have to try and convince him that matches were real, or about magic. Those details were already taken care of. And so we began talking…

As it turned out, he knew a lot. More than I was expecting. Another thing I wasn't expecting was what had happened in Hong Kong days earlier (when we'd sensed the huge magic), the idea that the world had been in such danger and we hadn't know… it didn't sit well with me.

"Will you take me to her?" He asked me in the end. "To El… Helena?"

"I can do one better." I told him with a soft smile. "I can bring her here."

I could see in his eyes how much he loved her. It didn't matter if I didn't really know him. He loved my daughter, as much as she loved him, they were a match… that was enough for me. So I focused on my bond, the whole telepathic communication was still a bit of a new thing for us, but I managed to get in touch with my love, tell him to get Helena to NY as soon as possible.

"You're staying?" He was obviously confused.

"You must have injured after what happened in the last few days." I said for all answer. "Take me to them, I'll help them as much as I can."

At least with them I didn't need to hide my abilities, or try and give an excuse for them. It was liberating in a way, to be able to help without having to worry about it.

When Helena arrived and embraced me, whispering her thanks in quiet elvish before going and practically falling into her match's embrace, that made everything absolutely perfect.

xXx

I'm not sure whose idea the party was. Though I'm quite sure dad was behind it getting as big as it did. Every year he tried to get me to agree to a birthday party, but aside from the one when I'd turned twenty-one, I'd refused every single time. So when someone gave him an excuse, a party was soon arranged. It was at least a good excuse: the new Peacekeepers were fully established. The situation in London had shown the world that they could be trusted. Also, our family had never had it better, we were all incredibly happy. Helena and Stephen took the opportunity to announce their engagement. It was one more thing for us all to celebrate.

What I certainly didn't see coming was when Rose rushed to me, she'd been playing with the Maximoff twins, two Peacekeepers, and gifted. She'd become attached to them seemingly from the moment they met. And then she went to me, climbed onto my lap and whispered in my ear:

"Can I tell you a secret Mama?" And of course she could, and I knew she knew that. "One day I'm going to marry Pietro..."

I really had no idea what to say to that.