It was a slow, rainy afternoon in Toledo, Ohio. With the Spring season bringing tons of rain the city had been kind of quiet, and that didn't make for good business when you were fresh out of college and trying to make a living off of the automobile's no one was driving in that sort of weather. This is what Antoinette Stark was thinking about on that dull April 26th, 2005, laying upside down on an old futon she had sitting under the awning of her Auto-Repair Shop, flipping through a comic book. She was wearing an old grey tank top, absolutely covered in grease, and some baggy cargo shorts, her untidy black hair falling into her deep brown eyes as she attempted to read some old Batman issue she had found under her mattress. She hadn't had much business at all in the last couple of hours, so she was startled when she heard the screeching of tires being forced against the gravel road toward the entrance of her building. She through her book down and slid off the couch, her strong, muscular arms pushing her back up to her feet with ease.
"Hey man! What the hell are you doing?" She called out as she approached the two gentleman who were pushing the end of a '67 Chevy Impala up the embankment. The taller one, dressed in a button down flannel shirt stopped and brushed his sweaty brunette hair from his eyes.
"We need gas, my brother forgot to fill up the tank and this is the first place we saw." The shorter boy, in a black t-shirt and torn jeans shot a death glare to the other man, both absolutely drenched and covered in filth.
"Shut up, Sammy, this is not my fault! I told you to fill her up while I was getting the frigging directions!" Antoinette smirked at the men in amusement.
"Where you trying to go?" The one they seemed to call Sammy opened his mouth to respond, though his friend looked suddenly unsure and uncomfortable.
"We need to get to the Maximoff residence, its right up the road isn't it?" Antoinette narrowed her eyes.
"What business do you have with the Maximoff's?" The short one folded his arms tightly against his chest.
"What's it to you?"
"I went to school with their foster daughter." Sammy leaned down to whisper something to the other man, though Antoinette couldn't quite make it out.
"Good, maybe we can help each other. Can you get us some gas, please? We'll be happy to talk to you about the Maximoff's while we wait." Antoinette shrugged, taking the front end of the car into her hands and helping them pull their Impala into her garage. She quickly grabbed a red canister of gas and pulled open the Impala's gas tank, earning a concerned grunt from the short man.
"Be careful with her please…" Sammy rolled his eyes.
"She's Dean's baby." Antoinette snorted as she took the gas cap off and began to fill the car up.
"It's all good, man. I know what it's like to love a car, if I didn't I wouldn't be in this line of work." Dean looked around in boredom for a bit before deciding to break the silence that had followed.
"So Stark Automotive, huh? Does your old man run Stark Industries out in New York City?" She nodded.
"Yeah, that's me. The one and only heiress of Stark Industries, Antoinette Stark. I moved out here to get away from that asshole and his pretentious company, didn't exactly live up to Howard's standards. People out here call me Tony." She stuck out her hand to shake and Dean took it firmly.
"I'm Dean Winchester, and this is my brother Sam." Tony finished with the gas and the sat the canister in a corner of the garage.
"Nice to meet you. Now what is it that is going on at the Maximoff house? Your license plate is issued to Kansas." She asked seriously, watching intently as Dean's bright green eyes seemed to avoid her own.
"You won't believe us if we tell you." She hopped up on top of the Impala's hood and had a seat, laughing to herself as Dean appeared to be internally screaming.
"Try me." It was Sam who spoke, who seemed to be the most open and honest of the two brothers.
"We have reason to believe that they are in trouble. My brother and I are what we call hunters. We get rid of ghosts, demons, things that go bump in the night…your friends out at the Maximoff place called our friend Bobby out in South Dakota. We aren't sure how the family came to know about us and what we do or how they got Bobby's number, but we do know that they are in danger and we need to get over there as soon as possible." Tony just kind of stood there, allowing her mind to process everything he had just said. Tony had always been incredibly smart and her mind worked in only the most logical ways. Ghosts? Demons? She didn't believe in that shit, but something in her gut told her that if Mr. and Mrs. Maximoff were scared enough to call a bunch of so-called ghost busters then she'd better head over there and check it out.
"Alright then, get in the car, I'll take you out there." Tony reached for Dean's keys, but he quickly drew his arm back, knocking an elbow into a picture sitting behind him and bumping it into the floor.
"Sorry." He mumbled, bending down to pick it up as he pocketed his keys. No one was driving his baby. He sat the picture back on the small table behind him, freezing as he noticed the people photographed in the picture.
"Who is that?" Dean pointed to the woman standing beside Tony in the picture. She smiled fondly at the woman and gently caressed the glass.
"My mother, Maria Stark. She's the only thing I regret about leaving home. Why do you ask?" Dean looked guiltily from Tony to Sam and back, causing both of them to furrow their brows in worry. Wearing the same expression, Tony and Sam looked so similar it was scary and Dean swallowed hard.
"When is your birthday?" He asked quietly, furthering the severe confusion eating at both individuals before him.
"May 2nd, 1983. I fail to see why that has any relevancy…" God she even sounded like a nerd like Sam.
"Get in the car you two we need to have a talk."
They rode toward the Maximoff house in an angry silence, following what Dean had had to say. Tony and Sam both were about ready to burst.
"What the fuck do you mean, adopted?" She spat, earning a frustrated nod from her supposed twin brother. Dean sighed and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. This trip was becoming more trouble than it was worth.
"I already told you. You and Sammy were six months old when mom was killed, Dad gave you up for adoption, and asked me to never tell Sam. Only reason I knew it was you is because I saw your mom when she came to get you the last day we had you. That's all I know." Tears shown in Tony's dark eyes, earning a hug from Sam.
"Why me, then? Why did Dad keep me and not her?" Sam asked quietly, flinching slightly as he felt Tony tense in his arms.
"Because by the time we got you both pulled out of the fire, Tony was badly injured. Her chest was burned and she was having trouble breathing from all the smoke she inhaled, the doctors said there was a possibility that her lungs would never work right, and Dad knew we couldn't live with a sick kid. It's kind of hard to hunt with two healthy ones as it is." A few tears trickled down Tony's cheeks but she brushed them away quickly and was managing a pretty good poker face.
"What was my name?" Dean was quiet for a moment before answering.
"Stacy. Stacy Erica Winchester." Tony crunched up her nose in disgust at the name, though she gingerly touched the burns on her chest, which she had covered up with a circular blue tattoo that was designed to look like a high end piece of technology when she was sixteen. Her parents had always told her it happened during a hospital fire when she was young. She caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror, looking at her small breasts and her bob of a haircut that made her look like Leon from Resident Evil if his hair had been just a little longer. I do NOT look like a Stacy….She was stuck in this thought when they pulled up the Maximoff's driveway. Django and Marya Maximoff were pacing on their front porch, terrified to death by something, that was obvious, but Tony didn't know what. The three siblings piled out of the car, running towards the steps where the couple's teenage children were sitting.
"Wanda, Pietro, where is Loki?" Pietro, the son, who had two tone silver and black hair wrapped his arms around his twin sister.
"She's inside….you don't want to go in there." Dean began to question the parents about what was going on and Sam took on Wanda and Pietro, a horrible look crossing Tony's face.
"Well what are we waiting here for? If Loki is in trouble we need to go in there and help her!" Dean rolled his eyes.
"Look, sis, we need to figure out what we are even up against, it's a suicide mission to enter the house unprepared." Tony looked to Sam pleadingly, hoping he would take her side but he only shrugged sympathetically and continued to ask Wanda about what Loki had been seeing.
"Fuck you then!" Tony growled, running inside the house despite the desperate yells from her newfound brothers. Loki, who had been a new foreign exchange student from Sweden during their junior year of high school, was a girl that Tony had always felt sorry for. She had come to America with her older brother Thor to escape an abusive situation, being put immediately into the foster care system. Not long after arriving her brother was murdered, and Loki had been a recluse ever since. She had no friends besides her younger foster siblings, and everyone had always made fun of her. Whatever was going on in her life now, Tony wanted it to stop. She bolted up the stairs and skidded to a stop at the third bedroom, where she heard shrill screaming and crying. Her steel-toed combat boot met the door with a splintering crack and she raced to Loki's side.
"What is going on?!" Loki was sitting in a ball on her bed, hands over her eyes, crying into her lap. There were sheets covering all the mirrors and windows, and strangely enough, there was no one else in the room at all. Tony slowly walked toward the bed, sitting down carefully and forcing Loki's hands away from her face.
"Hey, Loki, it's me. Its Tony Stark…remember me? I know we didn't talk much in high school." Loki didn't open her eyes, but she nodded.
"You were one of the few kind ones." Tony couldn't help but think her thick accent was cute, taking a moment to also admire her porcelain skin and long jet black hair.
"It's okay, I'm here, you can open your eyes. Can you tell me what is going on?" Loki shook her head almost violently.
"No, no, I can't open my eyes, I can't!" Tony took her head in her hands and shushed her gently.
"Why can't you open your eyes, sweetheart?" Tony's voice was soothing and her touches were soft, Loki felt like she could trust her.
"She said it…my sister Wanda said it…." Tony tilted her head to the side.
"Said what?" At about this time Dean and Sam walked into the room.
"Bloody Mary. You would know that if you had waited like we told you too." Dean barked, walking around and sitting on the other side of Loki. Tony glared at him but didn't say anything as he began to softly whisper a question to the girl.
"Your parents told us this has happened to two other people in the area, is this true? Do you know why?" Loki nodded and let out a shaky sob.
"Y-Yes…a man down the street was killed by her after his daughter summoned her to the mirror…and then a girl that was friends with the family thought it would be funny to try it out in her own bedroom after the funeral…she just couldn't leave well enough alone, she didn't believe the little girl…." Dean thought on this for a moment, exchanging a perplexed glance with Sam.
"But doesn't Bloody Mary only kill the people that call her? Why would she kill the little girl's dad?" Loki laughed, but it was a distorted, hysterical sound.
"That's not the way it works. And here I thought you were the expert." Tony fought a laugh at the look that crossed Dean's face and wove her arms around Loki's waist.
"Why don't you tell us about it then, hm?" Sam and Dean watched tensely as their sister took the reins of the investigation, and Sam could have sworn he almost saw a glint of pride in Dean's eyes. It came naturally to her.
"I pride myself on being both a horror movie and lore expert, and I followed the Bloody Mary legend relentlessly. It all traced back to a girl named Mary Worthington, although I never had the means of investigating her death passed what was available on the internet. From what I read she was murdered in front of a mirror, and attempted to write his name in blood on the back of it but died before she was able to finish. Now she kills those responsible for the deaths of others, it's her ultimate revenge." This seemed to make a light bulb go off in Sam's head.
"I'll be right back!" He ran to the mirror in Loki's bathroom and carefully pulled the sheet off, taking the mirror down and flipping it over. Nothing. He walked quickly back into the room and headed for the door.
"What the heck are you doing, Sammy?"
"Give me one minute!" Sam went out to the car to get the black light from their trunk. He scanned the entire back of the mirror, finally becoming irritated with lack of results and peeling the film off of the back to expose the bare paint. There, finally, the word 'Thor' was written out messily in what could only be blood.
"Who is Thor?" He asked when he came back in, giving her a knowing look though she still had her eyes screwed shut. She shivered.
"M-My brother…" Understanding flooded Tony and she covered her mouth in horror.
"Oh my god I'm so sorry…but you're going to have to tell us what happened…." Loki nodded, though she was once more crying very heavily.
"We hadn't lived here very long, we had just been brought into the Maximoff household. We thought we were safe, so we were pretty happy for the first time in a long time. About a week after they took us in Thor wanted to take me out to celebrate, and I told him I wanted to go to this restaurant down by the docks on the eastern side of the city. Mrs. Maximoff warned us that it was a dangerous area and that we shouldn't go….b-but Thor was such a good brother, and he told me I could have anything I wanted, so he took me anyway. When we got there….someone pulled a gun on us in the parking lot a-and…." Loki gripped Tony hard and she pulled Loki against her tightly.
"It's okay, you don't have to say anything else. Shhh." She soothed, rubbing her back while Dean and Sam talked out a game plan. It seemed like there was only going to be one way to get rid of Mary since they had no idea where her bones were and they were running low on time. Somehow, they were going to have to summon Mary to her own mirror and smash it.
"Just how do you propose we do that, genius? No one here has killed anyone except Loki, and she's already―" Both Tony and Sam glared daggers at him and he quieted, looking down at his hands with a pout.
"You know it really sucks to have another Sammy to give me hell." He mumbled, making Sam crack a smile briefly, before his mind was made up on the plan.
"I'll summon her." Dean scoffed.
"Oh c'mon, Sam, this has got to stop! You did NOT kill Jessica, okay? Get that outta your head!" Sam shrugged.
"If Thor's death was good enough for Mary I think Jess's death will be too. Mary doesn't seem to exactly see shades of grey. A death is a death to her." Tony decided to interrupt.
"Who is Jessica?" Both Dean and Sam ignored her question, staring each other down hard.
"We don't even know where the mirror is."
"I do." Loki whispered quietly, pointing to a bunch of papers strewn about on her desk.
"I tracked it down ages ago." Tony smiked.
"Looks like she would make a decent hunter herself."
Tony stayed with Loki while Dean and Sam followed the directions from Loki's desk on a sticky note. It was located at a pawn shop right down the road. Dean was unsure of how this was going to play out, because even though it had gotten dark out, he knew the moment they stepped inside they were going to trip an alarm and they had no time for any fuck ups or Loki was going to die.
"Run in, grab the mirror and run out, that's what we're gonna do okay? We will smash it at Loki's house we don't have time for this." Sam nodded and both of them jumped out of the car, Dean staying out front to deal with any police that may or may not show up while Sam dealt with the mirror snatching.
When they returned, they set the mirror up in Loki's room and she finally decided to be brave and face her fears, opening her eyes as Sam summoned Mary to the mirror. They all held their breaths, even Dean as the phrase slowly rolled off of Sam's tongue. Bloody Mary…Bloody Mary…He didn't want to say it again, his throat feeling as if it might swell shut before this was all over. …Bloody Mary….
"Ugh!" Loki screamed, unable to look away as blood began to poor out of her eyes. Sam opened his mouth to tell Mary to leave Loki alone when his head began to sudden throb, as if every blood vessel in his brain was exploding. You killed her…you had those dreams about Jessica's death for months before it happened! Blood began to poor from not only Sam's eyes, but Dean's too, and before she knew it Tony was the only one not writhing in agony. She was terrified, she couldn't see a damn thing in that mirror, but she could certainly see her siblings and her friend dying before her eyes and she panicked. She grabbed the lamp off of Loki's night stand and smashed it repeatedly into Mary's mirror, the glass shattering into a million pieces on the floor.
"You guys okay?" Sam was about to reply when there was a loud moan and suddenly Mary's figure began to creep from out the mirror's frame.
"I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say fuck no…." Dean retorted sarcastically as Mary twitched toward them like something straight out of the grudge. He thought fast, pulling another one of Loki's mirrors into his hands and flashing it at her face. You killed them….you killed all those people. Mary suddenly melted into the floor with an agonizing screech and Dean fell backward with a sigh of relief.
"Good riddance you son of a bitch." Loki couldn't believe it, bringing her hands tearfully to her mouth.
"I-Is she really gone?" All three Winchesters grinned at her and Tony kissed her forehead very gently.
"Don't worry. You're safe."
