Hello, all. Thank you for taking the time to click on this story. I hope you will find it entertaining.

I suppose I should take this moment to remind you I don't anything but the majority of the plot and my O/C. Everything else is property of Marvel, particularly Steve Rodgers (much to my distress.)

So, with that in mind, I give you…

Prologue:

Daddy's Little Girl

"Have I ever told you about the time I flew Captain America across enemy lines to save his best friend and the rest of the 107th?"

Howard Stark sat down in a too-small pink chair and smiled at the little lying in bed to his right. A copy of his brown eyes looked at him eagerly. It was a look he wasn't used to from his family. At least, not from his wife or son. Tony had grown out of his war stories many years ago, but had never cared from them anyway. His daughter was the only who understood. She was the only one still listening after all these years.

Susan Stark nearly jumped out of her bed in excitement. She knew the story, had recited it word for word hundreds of times. In her five-year-old mind, it never got old. Every year on her birthday, her father came to visit her and told her the same story. Those were the best days, full of presents and falling asleep listening to the sound of a voice telling her stories about Captain America.

She saw them both as heroes.

The young girl practically bounced up and down on the mattress while her father spoke. Both of them knew perfectly well it was passed her bed time. They knew her mother would be up at any moment, telling them to pipe down, and to usher Howard out of them room. Neither of them cared about any of that in those moments. Both of them were engrossed in a different world one of them had never seen before and one was still secretly searching for.

All too soon, as if on a cue, a woman appeared in the doorway looking at father and daughter like she had caught them misbehaving. At almost the same moment, both of their faces dropped. Susan was nowhere near ready for the stories to end. She stood up on her bed and fearlessly jumped the distance to Howard's lap, relishing the short moment she spent unsupported in the air. She half expected her tiny weight to keep him from leaving. The stern look on her mother's face intensified. Howard wrapped his arms around his daughter and grinned down at her mischievously in spite of himself.

"Quite the little flier already aren't you, little Susie?" He mused at her self-satisfied look, so much like his own already.

"Uh-Huh" she shook her head, her brown curls dancing wildly with her movement. "One day, I'm gonna fly all the way to Aus-tria. Just like you."

"I have no doubt you will," Howard indulged.

"But now, it's time for little pilots to go to bed."

"'But mommy-"

"But nothing, Susan. Your father has to go and you have to go to sleep. It's a school night."

"Maggie, come on."

"I've asked you not to call me that, Howard." Susan involuntarily hugged her father tighter at the tone in her mother's voice.

"I'm sorry. Margret" Howard's voice remained level, unphased by the woman in the doorway's anger. "I'd like a few more minutes along with my daughter please."

Margret looked down to her watch and then back to the man impatiently. "Ten minutes. And I am counting."

Without another word, the door to Susan's room unceremoniously closed. No footsteps followed the sound. Father and daughter both knew she would spend the next ten minutes tapping her foot and staring at her watch outside the door. The extra time was a stretch, an extra birthday gift from a mother who didn't believe in spoiling her daughter by giving her everything she wanted. It was yet another point she and the man inside the room disagreed on.

Howard's grip on the little girl's middle tightened as he stood up and lifted her with some effort above his head. Susan extended her arms as make-believe wings, her childish delight unable to keep her from giggling. If she tried hard enough, she could imagine clouds around her, blue sky as far as she could see, and flying without falling into her father's lap or his arms to help her.

"Stark control tower to Susie," Howard called in a mock pilot voice, "You are cleared for landing."

Susan laughed louder, feeling the slight resistance of the air around her as she got lower, finally finding herself back in her bed with a single bounce. Her father was standing above her now, looking at her in a way she didn't understand. She reached for one of her many stuffed bears scattered out across her bed. They were both quiet for what felt like forever until she finally spoke.

"Daddy, where's Captain America now?"

Howard sighed and looked at his daughter quietly for another moment. He was astonished at how perceptive she already was, surly another genius like himself (hopefully, she would be more focused than Tony was.) Her 5-year-old mind had hit upon the target question, one he had been trying to answer for the better part of 20 years. If she only knew… how badly he wanted to know the answer to her question, to know where the man he considered his greatest scientific contribution to the world (besides his children, of course) was. He has spent years and millions of dollars in the artic trying to find answers.

"He's lost right now, Susie."

The look on her face dropped instantly, as if someone had snatched the toy right out of her hand. He instantly regretted the level of honesty in his reply.

"But… he'll come back… won't he?"

"I believe he will."

"But when, daddy?" Susan demanded. "When will he come back?"

"Someday, maybe a long time from now, when the world needs him like it did before, he'll come back."

"Will I get to see him then?"

"I'll make sure you do," he promised. Howard was nowhere near ready to give up on trying to find him. When Susan had been born, he had at last came to the conclusion that it may not even happen in his lifetime. Yet, nights like these, seeing that passion for his life's work had been passed onto the next generation, gave him hope that the search would continue without him. Something about how she spoke, even so young, made him believe she would be the one to finish the search he began at the end of World War II. Like his son, she had a destiny. Tony was destined to inherit his empire. Susan was destined to inherit his obsession.

Susan's smile returned. She trusted her father to be as good as his word. Even so young, she knew he could do whatever he wanted. If he told her she would one day be as good a pilot as he was and meet Captain America, then that was exactly what she was going to do. Nothing was going to stand in the way of the things that had been promised to her. It never had before in the years she could remember.

The little girl watched as Howard pulled something out of his suit coat. She hugged her bear tighter in anticipation. It was a tiny box wrapped in red, white, and blue paper, the color of Captain America's suit. The wrapping was yet another private joke the two of the shared. She smiled wider and waited impatiently for her father to hand her the box.

"But if you're going to be a pilot, you'll need this." Howard watched as he handed the gift to his daughter, her small hands practically shaking with want. He watched her expertly rip the wrapping paper away, the product of a full day's practice.

When Susan opened the box, she saw something silver. A circular something around a chain. It looked like something she had seen before, but couldn't remember where. Her forehead creased in concentration.

"It is a locket, daddy?" She asked.

"Not quite Susie," Howard explained, lowering one of his hand sand unleashing the clasp to reveal what the circle held. "It's a compass. I had one just like this when I flew during the war. It always helped me find my way home. Do you know who else had one?"

Their eye met again and Susan nodded. Her father told her Captain America had one that he kept a picture inside of. Her father had one that had brought him back safe from the war to be her daddy. And now, she had one. To her, it was belonging to a group of heroes. Both men she had known to have a compass like that had saved the world.

'Someday,' the young girl thought to herself. 'I'm going to save the world too.'