Ch. 2: Purple Hearts

She's purple, and I don't mean slightly red in the face, kinda tinged purple. I mean my daughter's face resembled a red plum a little too much for my liking. She hasn't stopped crying for the last six hours! Six hours of non-stop, pitiful wailing! Nothing has helped! I tried rocking her, walking with her, swaddling, feeding, burping, changing diapers, and talking to her no matter what, it doesn't seem to matter!
I thought something was seriously wrong, that she had to be in pain to be crying for that long. So at 11:00 pm I wrapped her in her receiving blanket and rode the elevator down to the lower level laboratories, hoping that I hadn't missed Bruce. I guess I should've knocked or asked Jarvis to locate Bruce, but I was desperate and strolled through the doors without a thought! Even though Evy had been pretty quiet (considering the earlier ear-drum rupturing screams) during the elevator ride, the moment the glass doors opened, we greeted the sleeping Iron Man with a God-awful screech. Of course, Tony didn't help, crying out obscenities from the floor-teaches him to sleep on the lab stools.

Since the day we brought Evy home from the hospital, all the Avengers seemed to fall in love with her with the exception of the playboy-billionaire-philanthropist. He avoided Evy, constantly referring to her as 'that' or 'it'. It was never a problem before. The tower was large, and outside of just general interactions in the common areas, the two were never around each other. But the few times Tony has been around my daughter were not pleasant; so her sudden wake up call in his private sanctum was bound to cause trouble.
"Why is that in my lab?" He gestured to my little bundle.
"Where's Bruce?" I ignored his question, irritated that he just referred to my daughter as a thing.
"On the helicarrier." Evy screamed louder. "God cap. Can't you burp or change her or something?"
"I've tried everything. ' ."
"Two words. Duct. Tape." Evy stopped howling, sniffled and hiccupped-pretty darn adorably. "See?"
The silence lasted for two whole minutes-just enough time for me to tell Tony off, for Tony to gloat about 'shutting the kid up', and for Evy to decide that not enough attention had been paid to her. She let loose a howl that even startled Stark's robots from their duties. One rolled its way over, raising its claw toward the infant like a dog would curiously tilt its head. After conveying to Tony that this had nothing to do with me taking revenge on Tony for the bagel incident (it's best not to ask), he finally decided that Jarvis should do a full medical scan.

Is it horrible of me to want something to be wrong? That her crying had nothing to do with me being a lousy parent, but an invisible pain she just didn't have the words to communicate? Something that Jarvis could detect and that we could fight with medicine or a warm blanket and her stuffed tucan? The scan showed nothing out of the normal-if anything Evy was an extremely healthy, vocal little girl. Without Tony's consent I collapsed in a nearby swivel chair, daughter in one arm, fire extinguisher in the other (the robot gave it to me, I'm not sure why). It took a few minutes to realize that she had stopped crying. Looking down to the bundle, I saw her bright blue eyes, gazing at the ceiling. Following her line of sight I realized that a holographic sphere was floating above our heads. It bounced its way across an invisible path above us, mesmerizing my little girl. When the ball stopped bouncing or it was no longer in her sight, she would give a warning whimper. The ball soon morphed into a 7 point star that danced around her head. She reached her little hand out of the blankets trying to touch it. I just watched her. There have been so few times that I could actually just sit and watch her-see her bright eyes filled with wonder and discovery. I guess I was so engrossed in watching my daughter find her way in this new, technologically overwhelming world, that I didn't sense Tony approach me.
"It's called the purple cycle."
"What?" Startled I look to the weary engineer.
"Babies have a normal period of development called the purple period of crying. Usually nothing is wrong. They're just learning how to interact with the world."
"And they couldn't be quieter about it. Is that why she's so purple?"
"Partially. Purple is also an acronym for the symptoms of the cycle," he knelt down so that he was eye-level with Evy, tapping her heart and speaking to her. "But it's all right. You'll be okay. You're not hurt, are you? No purple hearts for you." Evy grabbed his pointer finger, and I swear that she shook it. And for the first time, since Evy arrived at the tower, the little girl and the billionaire made a truce.

I don't know how Tony knew what the cycle was or for that matter how he was right. It doesn't matter. That night, I saw a part of Iron Man that I never expected. He's denied it to Pepper and anyone else who has asked him about the incident, but I won't forget the look on his face when she held his single finger in the palm of her hand. The same wonder I saw on my daughter's face could be seen on the stoic and nonchalant man.