This is a revision of my previous Doctor Strange/OC Fic. I will keep the original listed for a while until I feel the revision is complete enough to replace it. To everyone who read the original, thank you for your comments and feedback and I hope you enjoy this new take on Max's story.

As always, this isn't Beta'd. My mistakes are my own and I'm sure there are a few. Feel free to leave a comment or review.

~Mischief's Angel


"I am Iron Man."

The press whipped into a frenzy of questions as cameras flashed relentlessly. The news often speaks of pivotal moments that change history, but this time the reports were not exaggerated. This one moment was a start to a series of events so spectacular that they would change the course of the world. On a smaller scale, however, this one moment wasn't simply a new life for renowned inventor Tony Stark; this was also a new start for a young girl, watching the press conference on a TV in yet another foster home. She had no idea that, standing there in the hallway, hidden out of sight from the foster parents who were returning her anyway, nothing would be the same after that.

Max, only twelve years old at the time, had spent most of her life in the foster system. When she was young - young enough to barely remember - she was taken from her birth mother by child services. It had something to do with the woman being unfit to care for a young child. Max had never been truly connected with the woman. Her birth father was even more of a mystery since Max had never known a thing about him. It wasn't likely that he and her mother spent more than a few hours in each other's company. Home after home, Max was taken care of for a short while and then sent away. Never truly understanding why none of her caretakers would keep her, she grew to believe it was simply because no one wanted her. It was at her last and final foster home that she watched down the hall, over the back of the couch and between the heads of the family who sat there, as Tony Stark revealed Iron Man to the world.

It wasn't long after that Tony Stark's "new leaf" turned over. He not only sought to fix current mistakes and create a brighter future, but he also began to look back at past wrongs as well. This is what led him to learn a startling truth about a drunken night at a technological convention years before. The woman he'd met that night had filed numerous reports about being pregnant with Stark's child, but it was the 90s. A lot of women falsely filed that complaint and were met with a team of lawyers. This one, however, had passed away shortly after losing custody of a child. The pregnancy was real, so the case merited attention. The results spoke for themselves as he inspected the claim. He had a new lease on life, a new superhero identity, and a daughter. He had gotten himself into this situation and he'd be damned it he didn't try to make it right. It wasn't long before Tony won custody of his child. Strings were pulled, paperwork was filed, and Max was finally given a real home. It wasn't as normal as she had expected, but normal wasn't something that described Max anyway. She hadn't only been introduced to her biological father, but she had also been adopted by Iron Man.

The weird life she lived only grew more strange as the Incident in New York brought together the Earth's mightiest heroes: The Avengers. As Max grew up, she saw disaster after disaster unfold only to be stopped by superheroes. This life became the new normal to her and the heroes, her new family. She spent more time around gods, spies, and soldiers than around normal people her age.

Her life seemed perfect until it was shattered by a Sokovian city being dropped from the sky. This was the start of the fracturing. From then, the Accords started tearing people out of her life. This team of heroes she looked up to for so long was revealed to be flawed, broken people like anyone else. She continued to work for her father, acting as a liaison for all Avengers business, buffering his life as Iron Man and his life as Tony Stark, as well as helping the other heroes as often as she could. However, it was never the same when the team changed. A few years passed with no word from many of the people she'd once considered family. Through all this, she still hoped that things could get better again.

After all, there are more heroes in New York than just the Avengers...