No copyright infringement intended here. No profit being made. All our continuity are belong to Marvel. All creative rearranging of it is my fault. I take responsibility, but I make no apologies... Think of this as working with character archetypes, with continuity thrown in for lolz.
Chapter 8
JARVIS gently interrupted Tony in the afternoon the next day, telling him SWORD was requesting landing privileges on the landing pad on the roof. "Are you kidding me, J? Now? Can I just get a quiet moment, please?"
"Shall I deny the request, sir?" JARVIS asked.
"You can, but she won't listen." Tony said and sighed. He was trying to catch up on work, and simultaneously communicate with Richards. They had resorted to text messages, because actually speaking to one another via phone was only resulting in shouting matches. Tony was firmly convinced that Richards was slacking off, and Richards was firmly convinced that Tony was an asshole of the highest order. "Tell Abigail that she may land, but she may not enter until accompanied. Where's Audrey at the moment?"
"In the gym with Captain Rogers."
"Tell them to clean up and that I need them. Tell Steve I need him to escort Abigail down to one of the meeting rooms. Tell Steve to disarm the SWORD agents, and make sure he's not alone with them. Ask Audrey to meet me down here though after she cleans up. I have to ask her if she's cool with this." Tony said.
"That's quite thoughtful of you, sir." JARVIS said.
"Yeah, don't let that get around. I got a rep." Tony said.
"Of course sir. Your secret is safe under the Proof Tony Stark Has a Heart and We Should Tell No One of This protocol." JARVIS said.
"Now you're just mocking me." Tony grumbled.
"Never, sir." JARVIS said, sarcasm dancing on the edges of his tone. Tony laughed.
"At least we'll be able to ask Brand about Hank's whereabouts."
Audrey showed up shortly, fur damp from a shower and wearing clothing to wick the moisture away from her skin. She waited for Tony to close the projects he was working on. "I take it this has to do with the wacky looking aircraft on the roof." She said.
"Abigail Brand seems to have made the inevitable discovery that there is a blue furry female mutant living among the Avengers. I am surprised that it took her this long to get here though. She must have been busy... I haven't been lying about the abrasive part, so I asked you down here in order to ask if you think you're ready to meet her. If not, you and Steve can take Mac for a walk and I'll handle it." Tony said.
"No, I think I should make my introductions. Even if it goes badly."
"Okay... And it might not go badly. You two might hit it off... If you do, and you want to go with her, I know she'd do her best to keep you safe." Tony said softly.
"No. While I appreciate your respect for my freedom, I will not be going anywhere for the foreseeable future." Audrey said. "You're stuck with me, Tony." Tony gave her a small, relieved smile.
Tony and Audrey went down to a more public meeting room lower in the tower. Steve was waiting for them outside the door. He was wearing tactical gear, though not his uniform, and looking serious. Tony's briefcase armor was on the ground next to him. "I should be this worried?" Audrey asked.
"I wasn't joking about her wanting to shoot me." Tony said, trying to keep the mood light.
"Cute." Audrey said. "Really though, should I be scared?"
"No?" Tony said, implying that he was fairly certain that was the case, but not entirely so. "I mean, I highly doubt she'd actually cause harm to you, but I'm taking no chances whatsoever. You know enough about our world to understand our usually justified paranoia about things."
"Very reassuring. Good job." Audrey said to Tony, who grinned and shrugged.
"Auds, you've already stared down and did well in a battle of wits against Cyclops, Magneto, and Emma Frost. Those people can be very scary. Abigail is at least sort of on the side of the angels."
"Cyclops, Magneto, and Emma Frost aren't my mother." Audrey said.
"Mmm..." Tony nodded, eyes rolled up, running the variables in his head. "Your mother is the one that loved you and cared for you. Your family is the one that is missing you right now. If we can't get word back to them, we can be your family. I'd welcome it... Until she proves herself otherwise, you can look at Brand as a genetic donor if that makes it easier." Tony reasoned.
"I'll keep that in mind." Audrey said softly. "Shall we?" She asked and sighed.
"Not a second before you're ready for this." Tony insisted. Audrey gave him a sidelong glance, and smiled at him. She reached out and hugged him for a change, and she saw him smile as she pulled him close.
"Thanks for being awesome, Tony." She said quietly, took a deep breath, centred herself, and let him go. "Okay, let's do this thing." She was much more confident and relaxed. Steve took that as his cue and opened the door to the meeting room.
They entered to see Coulson, Natasha, and Barton standing across from a woman with rich green hair, and green sunglasses over her eyes. She wasn't visibly armed and seemed anxious about that fact by the way she kept on bringing a hand to her hip, searching for a holster. Not a particularly good sign, but at least there was no weapon there for her to grab. Still Audrey kept going. She knew that Coulson, Natasha, and Barton would be armed, and there was comfort in that.
Brand laid eyes on Audrey and instantly assessed her. Audrey had seen that expression on her own face many times. "What the fuck did they do to you?" Brand asked.
"Nothing that my X-gene didn't do for me." Audrey replied steadily. All the tact that her parents had carefully trained into her showed through. Clearly no one had done this for Brand, or she'd banished it from her personality.
"You thought you could keep this from me, Stark?" Brand asked him.
"Nope. That's why I didn't try. It's Audrey's choice if she has contact with you." Tony said. Steve looked between them and despite differences in physiology, saw a similar set to Brand and Tony's jaws, and a determined glare in their eyes.
"You couldn't leave well enough alone." Brand said to him.
"What, like your boyfriend has done and is continuing to do so?" Tony asked. He was going to push back just enough. Brand didn't respect you if you let her steamroll over you. "I don't consider correcting the timeline a bad thing."
"I'm not responsible for what he does." Brand said.
"No, but you could help prevent him fucking us all over." Tony said.
"Let's all just take a moment and relax." Coulson said in his practiced, nothing will ever bother me EVER, voice. Audrey knew it was a ploy, but grinned at him and decided to go along with it. She looked Abigail in the eye, and then moved forward a couple of paces. Not enough where Brand could get into her space, but enough to show interest and friendliness.
"Hi, Abigail. My name is Audrey Whelan. I'm told I'm your daughter. Well, genetically speaking." She said calmly. Brand glared at her, making direct eye contact and looking very conflicted about it.
"Hi." She replied flatly. Audrey studied her carefully, and was glad for the limited facial expressions she had now. She wasn't giving anything away to Brand to use later. "What do you want from me?" Audrey gave her a perplexed expression.
"Stark and Richards pulled me through a portal, and then you showed up here, so I think that should be my question to you." Audrey replied calmly. Brand turned and glared at Tony.
"Why did you bring her here? What was there to gain by it?" She demanded of him.
"Long story made short and terribly blunt, I'm hoping Hank will get the message that if he can fuck with the timeline by what he did to the original X-Men, that other people can do the same, and that maybe he should stop. At least that was my original intention. Turns out though, your combined genetics and some decent nurturing have made a pretty cool person. So, all in all, I gained a friend. Not a bad deal on my end." Tony said. Audrey heard the practiced hardness in his voice. He was purposely making himself a target to Abigail would remain more neutral to Audrey.
"You selfish fuck, Stark. We had her safe." Abigail spat. "And you brought her back to this. How long until you and Rogers start another war between yourselves? How many more people will die? Will she be one of them? Forced to choose between your territorial pissing contests and end up dead as a result."
"Yikes." Audrey said. "You're right about the truth thing. That's muriatic acid kind of harsh."
"Nobody uses muriatic anymore. The proper term is hydrochloric acid." Tony said softly.
"Fucking nerd." Audrey teased. Tony grinned.
"You like it." He insisted.
"I do. But that doesn't mean you're not a fucking nerd." She said. Tension cut, she made contact with Brand again. "Look, I'm not here to get anything out of you, I just want to get a message home to the people I care about, and learn about where I am now. I suppose I could ask why you did what you did, but I don't know if I'm ready to hear your answer yet."
"There was an invasion imminent. It was the only way to guarantee..."
"If you wanted to be rid of me, fine, but man the fuck up and abort. I have an entire life that's vanished from me. People I loved and may never see again... Because of your guilt complex." Audrey cut in. Brand glared at her again. She was not used to being interrupted and told she was emotionally compromised. But she wouldn't back down, as that was not in her nature when she was in the right.
"I wanted you... I wanted you as much as the others. I swear." She said.
"The others? Fuck. You've done this before?" Audrey said. Her voice was incredulous.
"No, you infuriating girl. I lost the other two. Killed in invasions. You have no idea what it is to lose like that." Abigail said. She'd mean to make that admission softer, but her anger, which she felt justified, was winning.
"Girl? Don't you dare fucking diminish me. In my timeline, I'm as old as you are. Seeing as I am facing down never seeing the ones I love again, I would say I have been confronted with loss. I am aware of the magnitude. So stop attacking me and say something useful, because I'm an idiot and I have to ask. I have to know. Why? Why did you abandon me?" Audrey said. The silence in the room after that question was heavy. No one moved, everyone waiting on Brand's reply. Tony was slightly in love with Audrey's fearlessness, but he was glad the briefcase armor was close incase this went south, which is where it was heading.
"We didn't abandon you. We tried to save you. It was going perfectly well until Stark here fucked up yet another thing I've worked towards."
"And how's it all working out for you? From my perspective, I'm going to assume shitty. Families should pull together during a crisis, not... compartmentalize."
"And here's where it's going to hurt." Abigail muttered and then continued in full voice. "Tony's told you about me, correct? He's told you about what I do and have done? Of course he has. Do you honestly think that someone like me would have the emotional wherewithal to raise and protect a child? You should be grateful for the family Hank found for you. I couldn't have done it. Not effectively. Not with... Love."
"Yeah, I'm starting to see that." Audrey said.
"Well this is going terribly. Timeout." Phil said.
"That surprises you, Zach Morris?" Audrey asked.
"I said timeout, Audrey. Don't make me give you the standard Tony Stark taser threat, okay? I like you." Coulson said.
"Ha, I'm not the only one he pulls that on." Tony said.
"But it does warrant him naming it after you, so pipe down." Steve said. Tony rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest.
"You know I just take that as a compliment, right Coulson?" Tony asked. "You should too, Audrey."
"I think I'm going to let a mediator step in here. I grew up in farm country. I've taken a hit from a cattle prod. I have no interest in finding out how well the contact points on that thing can make it through the fur... Discretion is the better part of valour and all that."
"Pussy." Tony teased.
"Please no tasers they make me quiver. Oh god, Coulson, not my liver." Audrey sang quietly to the Meow Mix jingle. Tony's sharp burst of laughter brought tension in the room down again. He laughed loudly, with no effort to cover it, and he recalled distinctly an event during his M.I.T. days that had him and Rhodey facing down an extremely pissed off Dean. Rhodey had taken the whole thing in stride, and had everyone in the room, except for the Dean, laughing. He wasn't alone in his reaction. But Steve and Clint's hands had gone to their mouths to cover their response. Steve's ears were turning decidedly red as he tried to suppress it. Tony let go and laughed for a full two minutes. Moments like this had become so rare in his world that he was not going to try to stamp it down. Audrey laughed and looked affectionately over at Tony.
"Tony, look, I get what you're doing. You're trying to deflect any negative feelings Brand might have for me on to you. That's endearing, especially given her history of threatening you with space guns. But if she wants to hate me, or simply not know me, I'd prefer she make that choice based on my merits or lack thereof, and not yours." Audrey said.
"Holy shit, she's just like Hank." Abigail said suddenly.
"Given what I've heard about you, I think that you and I share some significant personality quirks that I won't get into here, because I anticipate that's gonna be a... thing... between us." Audrey said, looking at Abigail again. "So I'm not above resorting to joking about taking a taser hit in order to avoid that... How much do you know about the dimension Hank sent me to, Abigail? Did he tell you anything?" Audrey's voice became much softer now, but Abigail was fixing her with a hard glare.
"No, there wasn't time." Abigail said. "I told him I couldn't lose another child, and he did what he had to do."
"Could you find out?" Audrey asked.
"I am a genius, just not in that area of expertise, so no." Abigail said. She was fighting something within herself, and the edge to her voice wasn't convincing Tony anymore. Audrey was slowly winning over Abigail Brand, notorious badass leader of SWORD.
"Do you have any idea where Hank might be?" Audrey continued.
"Even if I did know, I wouldn't sell him out to anyone." Abigail said with a small sneer.
"I'm glad he has your loyalty." Audrey said, letting go of her line of questions for the sake of not getting excited again. "Thanks for coming to see me. I appreciate you stepping up like that. But I get the distinct feeling that this conversation isn't going to result in anything more constructive, and I have a dog to walk, so we should probably leave it there for now." Tony gave her a look, finally understanding the part of Audrey that she'd said was like Brand. The calculating, logical part, which most people had a hard time getting used to was showing through. It was just more subdued than it was in Brand.
"All right." Abigail said, looking relieved. Audrey headed for the door, but paused when she got there.
"Oh, and Abigail, if you don't want to lose another child, then don't lose me. I'm willing to work on this if you are." Audrey said.
"Try Switzerland. For Hank." Abigail said bluntly.
"Thanks." Audrey said sincerely. "But I mean it... I'll work on this if you're willing to. I'm not trying to manipulate you. I can't imagine you'd get to your position in life without being an interesting person. I think I'd like to get to know you." She left quietly then, Mac really did need a walk.
"Okay, that went less terribly." Coulson said.
"You're just going to let her go, Brand?" Tony asked.
"Heading back to terrible country." Coulson said, and remained on guard.
"You said it yourself, she gets to choose her level of involvement with me." Abigail said.
"And she just left the door wide open for you." Tony said.
"I... Soon. I'll come back soon." Abigail said. "Soon. Just not... Now."
"I'm going to go catch up with Audrey." Steve said. "Don't be an ass, Tony. She's trying." He left just as quietly.
"Why not now?" Tony asked, and even he was surprised at how reasonable he sounded for a change.
"I haven't gotten through mourning her yet, not really, and now here she is an adult who is so much like her father it's jarring... I need a little while to process." Abigail said.
"I'm trying to understand, Abigail. I am. Why isn't this a happy thing for you? The world is getting back to stable. Your daughter is alive and healthy, and pretty fucking awesome." Tony said.
"It may get to be that way sometime, Tony. I hope it does. I spent so long worried that..." Abigail trailed off and looked away, which was a huge concession on her part. Tony knew her body language well enough.
"Worried about what?" Tony asked.
"That she'd be like me." She said, and looked him in the eye again.
"What? Obstinate, ass-kicking, fearless, and brilliant enough to be legitimately scary?" Tony asked.
"That she wouldn't ever fit in anywhere. That she would always be an outsider. That she'd live a dangerous life and have to do it alone. I've done it. It sucks." She said.
"She won't." Tony said easily. "She can stay here as long as she wants. Even Natasha is getting to like her a bit, and she doesn't like anybody."
"Hey, speak for yourself, Stark. Nat and I are tight." Clint said.
"It's okay, Barton. Nobody likes you." Tony said. Natasha's expression remained neutral and alert to their guests. "I am asking you though, Abigail, to make the effort. Richards has been very quiet the past couple of days about where the dimension Audrey was put has gotten to. I don't like when he goes all radio silence. It doesn't mean good things. He likes to hear himself talk too much."
"That sounds familiar." Clint quipped.
"Haaaaaa." Tony said. "That would be cute except for the seriousness of the situation. Audrey needs people right now. She's taken to us it seems... But if we can't make contact with her home, she's going to need people around her more than ever so she can start to establish lasting social bonds. I don't want to see her alienate herself from society like Hank did at times. All of us need to learn that lesson to a certain degree. Maybe helping her will help us." Tony shrugged and grinned.
"I think that is the most mature thing I've ever heard come out of your mouth outside of you talking about long term investing." Coulson said.
"Yeah, well, we've all been through some shit. I would hope that I've learned at least a couple of things." Tony said. "Is there anything else you need, Brand? Shall I accompany you out?"
"I'll go, Stark. But I will be keeping an eye."
"That's fine. I can get you set up for certain limited security clearances around here so you can come visit Audrey if she's willing."
"Do that." Abigail said brusquely, and her usual hardness came back to her attitude.
Steve and Audrey were walking though the park, calmly and quietly. Audrey's face was tense and unsettled, and Steve's expression matched. But Steve, being who he was, wanted to help. "Well, that could have gone a lot worse." He finally said.
"Yeah, from what Tony told me, it's sort of what I expected. She's interesting, but I'm not sure she was wrong to send me away." Audrey said.
"Oh, she was wrong." Steve said. "No doubt about that." Audrey's stride paused and she looked directly at Steve.
"That's kind of an absolute given the lack of real information we have." Audrey said.
"Doesn't matter. She was wrong. So was Hank." Steve said. He'd stopped beside her, and pointed briefly to his chest. "Impoverished single mother, during the great depression in Brooklyn, with no government aid, and a small, sickly, son... She kept me. She pretty much worked herself to death to keep me. Because that's what parents do. It's quite possible that you had a better, more stable family life, but it doesn't negate the responsibility Abigail ducked out of. This wasn't the end of Krypton type situation. We deal with alien invasions way more often than I'd like... We survive them. And we find ways to protect those we love. It sucks that she felt she couldn't do that. It says a lot about her, actually, that she felt so compromised by the idea of a family, and yet did something so extraordinary to keep you safe. Even if she made the wrong choice."
Audrey pulled him into a half hug. "You're a good guy, Steve. There should be more people on this planet like you." Steve put a brotherly arm over her shoulder, and they continued on their walk.
"There should be more like you too. Tony's fascinated by it. It's refreshing to see him take an interest in someone who isn't out to use him for their own purposes, which tend to be nefarious. I'm glad that he's finally starting to make some better choices for friends... Anyway, let's finish this walk, give the paparazzi something to print tomorrow, and grab a coffee on the way back." Steve said, keeping her close, but nodded to indicate someone far off to their right.
"Really, Steve? Trolling the press?" Audrey asked.
"If they were legitimate press, I might care. That being said, they aren't, and I have to amuse myself when I can." Steve replied.
"Some guy grabbed a few shots when I took Mac out the other morning with Tony. Tony flipped the guy off, and then asked if I wanted to make out in order to screw with the guy." She said. Steve's face relaxed into an easy laugh.
"He would do that." Steve said.
"This is nice." Audrey said.
"Trolling the paparazzi is nice? I would say funny as hell, but not nice." Steve said.
"No, just... Being treated normally is really nice. There was a lot more stigma in the stories I grew up with. Even what I have seen of the tabloids hasn't been particularly focused on what I look like now. Except for that article that speculated we were dating, but fuck that article." Audrey said.
"Society is getting better with it. People generally are getting better with it. It's not perfect. It may never be. There always seem to be bigots out there. But the general feeling among the public is a lot more accepting than when Hank was first dealing with it... He lost a long time relationship over it. Her loss for not being able to deal." Steve said. They continued on quietly as the afternoon shadows started to stretch out, just enjoying the day.
