Chapter One: In Which We Introduce A Monster

Ragn was brought into the world with three affirmations: a body, a name, and two parents to call her own.

She was adopted. When "Dad", Tony Stark, had first gotten around to explaining it, it didn't take long for the fact to register; she was clever, and adaptive, from the minute she could talk. Parental origins didn't seem to affect her upbringing, so Stark assuredly focused on better things while he and his fiancé Pepper raised her in the revolutionized environment of their home. She couldn't call her childhood average, as Tony wasn't the average father: the renowned philanthropist-prodigy-multi-billionaire-superhero, known for lavishing in as much wealth as he accumulated, would prove no less the man he always was by spoiling his adopted daughter in that same respect. Well-to-do in the home of the technological future wasn't a typical situation to be brought up under, no; but Ragn was a "special" child in other senses of the term.

She learned to speak quickly and thoroughly. Upon the first time she could ask intelligible questions, the first thing that came to mind was her own name.

"What does it mean?" she asked him, two years old with a brightness in her eyes that revealed a bizarre maturity about her.

And Tony replied, as he would many times, with quiet unease: "Uh…gods. It's Norse for 'the gods'." And he would leave it at that, because at least he had his usual distractions if he needed to get her off the topic.

The context of her name was oddly fitting, however. If Ragn was human, Tony had a hard time overriding her doubts – she was born extraordinary. From the first time Tony held her in his arms, the weight of her tiny body alone felt like he had drawn the legendary sword of Camelot out of the earth (to put it in the most distinct of his descriptions); he felt metal and power, and he could never prove the sensation wrong, because as she grew, he witnessed it himself. At four months, she had crawled from her crib all the way to the near-exit of his workshop – shocking, if not alarming to her parents' safety precautions, but Tony sat at his desk for a week after the fact trying to comprehend how a baby had the strength to pull itself up on the bars of a crib and climb down without accident. He made sure to adjust the bars at an extra-safe height, and concluded to himself, after she had crawled up his head a few weeks later, that she was a skilled climber. He knew that was barely the truth, though, and could no longer comfort himself with excuses when Pepper finally dared to use the word "super powers" in context. So Tony blamed his girlfriend for the remainder of Ragn's childhood.

Pepper's jab about "super powers" – inhuman strength, in Ragn's case – wasn't far-fetched from possibility and Tony knew that; the girl's bones were big and heavy, and even as a baby, one thrust of her hand or swing of her arm could "knock the eureka out of someone", as Bruce Banner had put it upon meeting the adopted phenomenon for the first time. Strength flowed in currents through her blood, it seemed, because the highly-adaptable muscles in her arms and legs were not the limits of her proven dexterities. The first time Stark had taken her to walk through the city in deepening rain, she tripped and skidded across scabrous concrete; he ran to her aid and expected to find blood washing into the puddle she had landed in, but the girl surprised him by the lack of bruises to her leg, and more so, the giggle that escaped her lips as she swept herself off the ground in a whim and continued bolting happily along the path. He thought nothing of her flexibility, then, until she began proving over and over to him that pain was seemingly disintegrate in her hardy little brain. Tony remained half-unconvinced of her capabilities until about age nine, when Ragn had successfully shocked her parents by lifting them simultaneously into her arms above the floor; he considered himself a believer from that point on, and put an 800-dollar gift in Pepper's hand as a silent surrender to the idea that they'd adopted something from planet Krypton.

It wasn't a surprise when Ragn questioned her own body; she was smart enough to notice the conspicuous differences. Tony's first attempts to ease her in were little stories that Pepper knew she would eventually grow out of; stories like, "when we found you, you'd been dropped out of the sky from a meteorite" and "you were actually born from a seed of one of Dr. Banner's radiation-prone plants". And Pepper would shake her head when Tony's answers didn't suffice the child. Eventually, they settled on the idea that she'd been adopted - solely for the purpose of and nothing less than that - because she belonged in a house of superheroes: unordinary, strong, and too precious to exist in the hands of anyone else. And Ragn believed it without a second thought; she had concerned herself with more dynamic topics anyway.

Physical unlikeness continued to thrive as her trademark; by age thirteen, her height had overshadowed Tony into the floor by two inches. Hence, the term "special" became mundane as Ragn matured. "Special" applied to kids who could draw photorealistic portraits in third grade, who could win track races with asthma and could speak intelligently about stock trades and try to change futures; Ragn didn't fit the generality of "special" and she began to see herself above it – that's when Tony and Pepper started considering intercession.

Ragn's father never deemed much respect for personality profiling. He was, after all, Tony Stark – and whoever the hell tried to categorize him for his demerits, that was their problem. Raising a child under that notion, he didn't hold expectations for what came to be; he taught her etiquette, and right from wrong, and to open her eyes with empathy – as a parent should. But Tony had never given much thought to the development of a child's emotions. He was no stranger to scars, and if anything, prevented Ragn from ever enduring the pain of the childhood he once fervently drank away at night; but Ragn proved to be the product of her own ruling, something he'd never thought to teach nor prevent.

"I want to be put in a different class," she had said the day her parents finally registered her in private school; up until then, she had had home schooling and no exposure to other students.

"Why?" Pepper had asked.

And Ragn's answer seemed to bother Tony more than it should have: "Because the grade's incompetent. I don't want to be stuck with average-level kids."

Incompetent. Tony wasn't sure then if the word itself had disturbed him more, or the fact that she was only thirteen and somehow believed those in her grade level were crass. He did know, however, that Ragn's attitude had been yet undeveloped, and he wondered then if he was thinking too hard or perhaps that small moment was a precursor to some part of her he would regret lecturing in the future.

Regardless, she grew: all blonde hair, green eyes, tall bones, and sass. Tony supposed that she acquired the sharp-witted tongue from himself, being that he was second-to-none master of wise-ass sarcasm. But Ragn was more clever than he had prepared for, because she divulged in intelligence; to be a smart-aleck took ego – but Ragn had an apparent and profound talent that amplified itself as she learned.

And she was an impassioned learner, at that. Tony knew from the early years not to force the books on her unless she was willing – and unsurprisingly, she grabbed at knowledge the way children grabbed at candy. He didn't mind setting up a big library in the newly-finished Stark Tower for her; he did mind, however, finding her on the floor with a pile of textbooks beside her at 5 a.m., after specifically declaring anything past 12:00 as bedtime. She liked studying – and it wouldn't have bothered him if he knew she was innocently passionate about it. But what interested Ragn was challenging herself, and in turn, beating others to the game; Tony wasn't sure he liked the sound of that, particularly hearing the words come directly from her mouth. True, competition was healthy and encouraged by society; but Ragn took it to another level.

"Why can't I have night classes?" she would insist, and Tony would set the textbook down at the table and shake his head.

"You have credit courses going past five in the afternoon, and you just added three more between Saturday and Sunday," he would reply, irritation in his voice as he would never have thought to use on her. "You need a break, you're literally killing yourself. I understand that you like physics, and calculus, and all that – I get it. I was just as eager as you when I was a kid. But you're fifteen – you have a whole lifetime to challenge yourself, write novels, get a PhD. Right now, enjoy your childhood. And get sleep, you need it."

"I don't want sleep, I want an internship."

"Wait a few years and we'll consider it then."

She would pout, but her expressions always vaguely left him wondering. The persistence would stop for a while before something new came up – and when Ragn begged, she didn't, she bargained. Tony wasn't sure if "spoiled" quite defined her anymore.

What perhaps frightened Tony most was her overall aggression. Or, more than that, her control of it. Pepper didn't seem to agree with him when he began to limit her study hours; she didn't understand why he superimposed their child's impulses, and she questioned him often that he had been too harsh on a "kid that just happened to be interested in school rather than smoking and drinking and partying". As much as she condemned him, Stark had reasons – reasons he never thought he would have to consider, but they were there and he wasn't naïve to Ragn's behavior. He just wanted her to be a good kid. That control about her suggested something different, however; she was intelligent enough to be clever, even so clever that her aggression was tame and tucked away when it suited her, and Tony knew the feeling that came from such an advantage – he had seen it in her eyes.

So it hardly surprised him the first time he figured out she was a liar. That little girl with the super-strength wasn't a baby anymore, and with the wit of something beyond earth, she certainly prepared him for the probable best and worst. His pride in her became irresolute the day she came home with a bloodied lip and told him she'd bumped into the sink washing her face; he found out later that she'd beaten the hell out of two boys after school who had flung a spitball into her hair. He knew there was aggression in her veins; but additionally, he found out that day that she was not only physically violent, but a definite and convincing liar. She wore no sensitivity on her face when he reprimanded her afterward. The cold expression wasn't new to Tony, but perhaps what fazed him more was the distinct clinching of her thin lips that seemed too familiar. He was disappointed; inwardly, he was scared.

A string of violent teenage actions later, Tony cut her Tae Kwon Do courses, and any video games that involved blood. Ragn cried, but briefly so, and ceased to catch his attention for some time. A calm, incisive sixteen-year-old followed, and Tony's worrying halted when he found he could trust her again. He determined - alone at his desk and going over the years with Jarvis switching through files of their family photographs – that he had been using the word "aggressive" loosely and inadequately with Ragn. She was tenacious, she was ambitious, she liked testing herself and proving herself; but she was young, and unfulfilled, and maybe Tony had mistaken the danger in her eyes for a willingness to find purpose. He wanted her to be a good kid; but she was born with qualities he couldn't obstruct.

So he determined he didn't want to intervene. She was born strong; that strength was meant for something. He didn't believe in fate, but then again, he didn't have to – he'd seen it the green of her eyes and gold of her hair. He'd only served as a fraction in the whole equation she would have to riddle as her life. So he said good-night to Jarvis that evening and closed up shop. Ragn was brought up with three affirmations, and all the rest was lying in wait.

The Avengers were spending the afternoon in Stark Tower; Ragn had made casual note of it this morning without dismay. Tony preferred her not to be present when they visited; not that it bothered her - she could use some time alone to think and study. Maybe she was over-thinking, though, as she found it strangely convenient that every time a mention of Thor coming to Earth came up, her father aptly convinced her to stay in school a little longer. Or maybe she just concerned herself with small impressions like this too often; she'd only met Thor once, and briefly (though that wasn't to say she didn't raise her suspicions when Tony interrupted their conversation in the manner of totally blocking the physical space between them). The other superheroes, she'd known for several years through childhood, though she found the company dull when they weren't out "avenging". Oh well. It might be better to stay out of their way regardless, seeing as how heroes tended to unintentionally attract villains.

She idly crossed one leg over the other. Sitting at the edge of a concrete step outside the doors of her school, Ragn pulled out a book of insipid interest and attempted to read. She would have liked to access better text in her library at home; but she really had no choice here, considering there were intrusive eyes peering at her from the corner of the building. Three boys – perhaps in their senior year – made it an obvious show to stare at her and gawk at each other. Conveniently alone, they had little idea what she could do to them – a thought that both irritated her for such a waste of time and excited her because she quite liked having the silent but deadly upper hand. Stroking fingers delicately between pages, she hid the smile that would have presumably encouraged them. But inwardly, oh yes, she was smiling – she found it a strange and sometimes frightening fact that malignance aroused her in a kind of way. Or, malignance was a bad term – best to accept the word "challenge" for now. Yes, she liked a good challenge.

And one of the boys seemed to read her mind, as he promenaded his way over to her with a smirk that was definitely going to earn him a broken nose at the least. Ragn tensed her legs together, shifting in her seat while the boy nonchalantly made room for himself beside her. She didn't take a single moment to lift her gaze from her book, as she already knew there was a stupid grin wide across his face.

"Hi," he said between smiling teeth, and Ragn could hear his posse in the back snorting obnoxiously. When she regarded him no response, he leaned in closer – and the pen in her hand clicked with the twitch of unnerved fingers.

"I said hi," he tried again, and this time was rewarded with a glance of her attention. She looked up at him expectantly, lips curving in slight amusement. She studied him beneath the brainless expression, eyes piercing in a way that meant warning, but possibly just encouraged him all the more.

"Can I help you?" she finally acknowledged him. The giggling got louder behind them, and inwardly Ragn was rolling her eyes; such a waste of time.

Taking advantage, the boy went on to maintain a few good lines and throw in something she guessed was supposed to turn her on. He knew she was pretty, and she knew it too – and it excited her knowing how base and gullible teenage men were, as though she had no interest in boyfriends and physical contact of any sort, she could at least assure herself that there were people available for her to take her mischievous frustration out on. This kid was just another ant to her custom-cut slipper.

He took a pause to smile at her, face closer to hers than she would have preferred, and nodded "yeah" after mistakenly assuring himself that she found him cute.

"Yeah," Ragn egged him on, grin wide and eyes batting.

He nodded again and snorted stupidly, arrogantly. "I think you're cute too," he added as the two sniveling idiots behind them whistled.

"Oh yeah?" She laughed with him, teasing.

"Mhmm."

"Really?"

And the sound of a car attended Ragn's ears from the corner of the street; her ride home was here, how perfect. She scooped the underside of her book in one hand while the idiot next to her cracked up sickeningly and raised it to his face – he stared back with a slight smile, questioning. And with the cruelest of sneers between perfect teeth, she chuckled at him a last time before snapping the book shut between his nose. He cried out instantly and clenched his eyes; the book was conveniently heavy with thick pages, and the force of Ragn's hand was conveniently strong.

She stood as the book fell from his face and simpered a quiet "eheheh" as blood spurted through the ruptures where cartilage had cracked. She had hit him harder than expected – good. Bleeding and weeping, the kid motioned an attempt to hit back, but she swiftly kicked him back against the concrete and he whimpered into a daze. Dusting herself off, Ragn slung her tote over her shoulder and kept walking. She brushed off the memory of hearing his nose crack under her pages, though it gave her a twinge of pleasure she didn't like to admit existed.

Oh well. Challenge attained.