Hello all

here is the last update for this week, this chapter is serving as a bridge between young Bryanna and HYDRA facing Bryanna. I hope you all enjoy! I'd love to hear what you all think of the changes to how I publish her story and the newest chapters:)

Four Years

(One year later)

"Y'all have a good afternoon!" Misty called to her customers as the little bell above her diner door rang cheerfully with their exit.

Once they were gone she navigated out from behind her counter and set to work cleaning their table, humming softly under her breath. She was in the process of washing the table when she heard the tv.

"I can't believe it's already been a year since the tragedy that hit one of the post prestigious and well known families that lived here and even now the shockwave of those deaths is still felt."

Instantly all work froze and Misty straightened before looking over at the tv with suddenly teary eyes as the two news anchors continued to talk.

"A tragedy indeed! When I heard about what had happened I was broken-hearted for the family! When the owner of Stark Enterprises Howard Stark and his wife died in a tragic accident, their deaths shocked people around the world and condolences poured in for their two children, their eldest son Anthony Start and their young daughter Bryanna Stark."

The other anchor gave a sad nod.

"Many were indeed affected by the death of Howard and Maria Stark, but the death that truly shocked everyone was the death that took place little over a week later. Their youngest child, their daughter Bryanna Stark, was placed in temporary foster care soon after her parents death. Mere days after going to live with her new foster parents a deadly fire was started in their home and she died alongside her foster parents. Bryanna was part of several community groups and enjoyed helping and the community garden downtown. Many people new the bright and bubbly girl personally and her death in the fire certainly had a impact on a lot of people."

Misty wiped her eyes as she watched the screen.

"Firefighters later confirmed that the fire had been started intentionally, although it is still unknown by whom. The foster father, Brent was a police officer that had worked in their Organized Crime Unit, and unfortunately had more then a couple people who had some serious grudges against the man for the operations he had played a part in shutting down so they are investigating a connection between the two."

A click and the camera panned towards a screen with a picture of a banner that said goodbye Bryanna Stark on it, with a picture next to it sitting on a stool and flowers all around.

"A memorial has been set up at the house in memory of Bryanna today on the first anniversary of her passing for anyone who wishes to lay flowers in memory."

Misty sat down, glancing out the diner window as the coverage changed to the weather.

Oh how she missed the smiling and happy girl.

(Two years later)

Pepper Potts, the recently hired personal assistant to Tony Stark sighed, blowing her bangs off her face as she stood with one hand braced on her hip. The haphazardly piled boxes all over the storage area made her tired just looking at them.

"I still cannot believe that you told them to just pile them like this! You had two years after originally starting this building project to figure out how to place the boxes in a logical way around this house and yet it still ended up like this!"

"Sorry sweetness, wasn't thinking." Tony called from the other side of the room.

"I cannot believe that I'm actually doing this for you. I don't get near enough for putting up with this." She muttered.

Tony laughed and Pepper rolled her eyes before pulling another box off the stack and checking inside before moving it to the designated spot for boxes that carried that same stuff. Tony would move the piles to the correct places in the mansion as they got too big.

The two of them had fallen into a comfortable rhythm of checking and moving boxes. Eventually the pile began to slowly dwindle and as Pepper lifted another box down, she felt her brow furrow at how light this one was.

Setting it down on the ground she opened the box before her jaw dropped.

"What in the...?"

Reaching inside she withdrew the first object off the top with a mixture of bemusement and confusion. It was a doll. A Barbie doll to be exact. Brown hair, brown eyes, a cute little light purple dress that made her think of a kids dressed. The plastic was slightly melted and the dress had a couple of tiny ash marks. She stared at it with furrowed brows as she set it down on another box.

Again she reached into the box and withdrew a tattered and fluffy blanket, one that smelled faintly of the kids strawberry shampoo one would see in the stores.

"This doesn't make any sense. Why would-"

Upon fully pulling out the blanket she saw a large container sitting in the box on top of what looked like the clothing of a young girl. She withdrew the box, sitting down on the ground and removing the lid.

The first thing at the top of the container was a poorly done drawing in crayon. Messily scrawled in the corner was the word love with what looked to be something like a attempt at a artists signature. Utterly perplexed by everything she was seeing she gently set the picture aside on the box next to the doll.

She went through the papers and realized that they were almost all drawings, each one slowly getting better then the last. There were poems and birthday cards that she didn't open interspersed throughout the pile. The stack of paper was huge and Pepper forwent going through everything in favour for just lifting it all out and looking underneath to see if there was anything that might explain what she was seeing.

There was. Below everything sat a framed photograph and a unframed photo in a plastic baggie that she withdrew so she could study. In the framed photo a much younger Tony sat grinning at the camera, a girl of maybe seven or eight next to him. He wore casual clothing and appeared to be sitting outside on some sort of picnic blanket. The girl was holding a massive cookie and beaming at the camera, leaning against Tony with a utterly content expression.

Pepper stared at the photo, she had a bad feeling that she knew why he had this box full of girls things.

Her eyes then turned to the photo in the baggie and she felt her chest constrict, she was right.

The photo was one that had a waterstain in the corner, one that drew your attention but did not obstruct the view of the memorial set up on what looked to be the side of a road. In the background was a horribly burnt wreak of a house, part of the wall and a good portion of the roof gone. At the very front of the lawn were there was still green grass a sign had been placed that said "Goodbye Bryanna Stark" with flowers and several small stuffed animals around the sign. A photo sat on a tiny stool on one side of the memorial, of Tony with the young girl who was clearly Bryanna on his back.

"Hey! What are you doing? You've been sitting in that corner for a while now, you need a break?" Tony called from his side of the room, his voice getting louder as he approached.

"I didn't know." She whispered.

"What?"

"That you had a daughter. I didn't know..."

"What?! I don't have-"

Tony rounded the corner and fell abruptly silent with slightly widened eyes, shock and alarm flickering across his face for a mere moment before vanishing altogether and being replaced with a tense look as he strode over to her and pulled the box from her, taking the photo back and putting it back in the box wordlessly before replacing the papers and closing the box up.

"Tony-"

"I think that we're done organizing for the day. I'm going to take a break for the night, maybe go a drink and a meal. You go ahead and leave for the night." Tony said in a forced cheerful tone and he quickly repacked the box, handling each item with care before closing the box up and carrying it over to his bedroom pile of boxes.

"Tony, I'm sorry. I didn't know that box had..."

Tony sighed and rubbed his face before turning to face Pepper, his expression closed off even as he attempted a smile.

"It's fine. You didn't do anything wrong. I'll see you tomorrow."

Tony then ushered Pepper out without another word, the door closing behind her and closing her out. Pepper looked at the door for a long moment, confusion and concern filling her as she thought about Tony's behaviour and his mentioning his plan to go for drinks.

With a sigh Pepper turned away from the door and went to her car, climbing in and navigating out onto the street, driving herself home. When she got to her high-rise apartment building and headed up to her apartment, shedding her coat and shoes before locking the door and going straight to her computer.

It took mere moments to boot it up before she was bringing up her search engine, her fingers flying over the keyboard as she brought up the search.

"Bryanna Stark."

Less then a second later search results were popping up on her screen, news reports and interviews. She clicked on the first article and scanned the first couple paragraphs with interest, reading the article talking about Tony's father Howard's appearance with his family, his wife and Tony and his daughter Bryanna.

"So she was his sister..."

She backed out of that article and went to one that explained the girl's death, the corners of her mouth drooping.

"Died weeks after her parents in a fire. How heartbreaking..."

Pepper finished the article, taking note of how she was described as a loving girl who was close to her family and her brother especially. Once she was done she closed the article before leaning back in her seat. This explained a lot of things, Tony's unwillingness to talk about his family, his lack of personal and sentimental photos, and of course the box of girls things.

Sadness filled the woman as she stood to her feet, shutting everything down before curling up on her couch under a blanket as she stared out the window contemplatively. They had mentioned in the article that the girl's remains had never been found, presumably burned beyond recognition. Also, her social worker had mysteriously vanished from life altogether, leaving nothing behind but a Ancient Greek symbol for the goddess Nyx behind at her home, carved into her dining room table. Adding together the lack of remains and the suspicious nature of the fire as well as the strange vanishing of the social worker, Pepper couldn't help but wonder...what if the girl hadn't been in the fire at all?

A moment passed before Pepper shook her head with a soft laugh. She was being foolish right now, of course the girl died. That was just stupid to think otherwise...

Wasn't it?

(3 Years Later)

Men and woman bustled around in a steel lined facility, carrying clipboards and hurrying in and out of the various rooms lining the hall. In one specific room a put together man stood at the side of a hospital bed, gazing down at the slender figure lying upon it.

"It's been three years since the injection, and still Project Nyx has shown no signs of ever awakening."

A man in a surgical white coat walked over, irritation clear on his face.

"We must have calibrated something wrong. She should have woken up by now! I sincerely apologize for this Mr Pierce, your money may have...not returned the way you had hoped."

Mr Pierce shook his head with a soft sigh before turning to the doctor.

"Well, continue to monitor and keep her on life support in case her body stops self sustaining. This is unusual, but the fact that her body can keep itself going is a good sign."

The doctor nodded with a hint of resignation.

"We will continue to monitor Project Nyx until she awakens or the Baron comes for her. Whichever comes first."

Line:-

(4 Years Later)

A tall brown haired male stood on the balcony of a massive palace, looking out over the shining waves of the water below as blue wisps darted through the air, playing a never ending game of tag.

A hand was outstretched and the male extended a single finger to brush it along a wisp who darted over.

"Prince Rashnu?"

The male turned and his shimmering multicoloured eyes flicked to focus on the servant that stepped out onto the balcony.

"Yes?"

"With the Baron and his right hands dead we have started putting our realm back together. However, upon going through the paperwork that the guard who was secretly working for us left before he..."

Rashnu bowed his head.

"I will be eternally thankful for how much he has helped our underground rebellion to take the throne back from that monster, even to the detriment of his own life. What is the problem?"

"It appears that the strange human weapons that were used against us were obtained through a trade with the humans. In exchange for the weapons, they gave the humans some of our blood. And it was injected into a human to transform and enhance them."

Rashnu nodded tiredly, his hand brushing along his temple as he closed his shimmering eyes.

"I was informed of this. It was my blood that was given to the human."

"What do we do about her?"

"Nothing. Mœshchnóst is in a state of disarray, there are whole massive cities that need to be rebuilt after being burned to the ground. The sex slaves that the Baron took need to be cared for and reunited with their families, the entire realm needs to be united once again without the divide and hate. We cannot bring a human here, humans are the chief cause to my people's suffering and my citizens know this. They will not accept a human, and they certainly will not accept a human that has been altered with my blood."

The servant gaped.

"But what if the human causes problems on Midguard?!"

The prince glared out over the balcony.

"I care not. They brought this upon themselves and I will not cause further problems in my realm by cleaning up their mess. She will die eventually, the blood does not make her immortal."

"But my prince-!"

"Enough. If I concentrate hard enough, the link through my blood allows me to feel her. She is still asleep, although I can feel she will awaken soon. Her spirit is strong, I anticipate that it won't be long before she will grow and change enough for the connection to be severed, in which case she will not ever have a effect on this world again. Do not worry yourself with the affairs of mortals, all will be made right in due time."

Then he paused, his eyes going unfocused as one brow raised.

"Interesting, I believe the wheel has begun to turn."

On a table in a lab lay a girl of twelve, the steady sound of her breathing and the beep of her resting heart filling the otherwise silent room.

Beep-beep!

The monitor skipped a beat and the girl took a deeper breath, delicate eyelashes fluttering.

Then with a gasp, shadowed eyes flew open.

So what did you think? Reviews are welcome! Flames shall be laughed at, posted for others to laugh at, and ignored as I continue the story.