Obadiah munched on some popcorn as he watched the scene unfolding on his large television screen. Tony was such a fool. He believed that just because Ava was technically no longer being controlled, it was completely safe around her. He would have thought that the billionaire would be smart enough, or at least paranoid enough, to make sure Ava's electronic parts weren't in constant recording mode.

Everything he could see on his screen, and everything he could hear through the speakers, were all the things that Ava was seeing and hearing. It was perfect, because she had no idea that she was acting as his spy, and even without her memories, Tony would trust her, and wouldn't exclude her from important conversations.

Obadiah frowned. Actually, the kid could be kept out of the loop, once they factor in how useless she is when she doesn't recall anything of the past year. But erasing those memories were essential to his plan, so that Ava couldn't just straight up tell everyone where to find him. Also, if she could remember everything, then she would probably purposely leave herself out of important conversations.

Really, the only way that anything could be communicated to Ava without Obadiah knowing of it would be if they wrote something in braille and Ava read it without looking. But the odds of that happening were very slim, considering Ava couldn't even read braille, for one, and that no one knew there was a need to be secretive.

Obadiah watched as Ava followed Banner up to the first floor of the tower, and he chuckled. They were all completely unaware of the spy in their midst, reassuring Obadiah of his brilliance. Tony was looking at her uncertainly, like he was afraid she would disappear, or maybe try to attack him again. But as amusing as that would be, it wouldn't serve Obadiah's plan very well.

Ava sat gingerly at the edge of the couch, ready to flee at a moment's notice. She was the weak, meek version of herself, the one that had lived for sixteen years before meeting Tony and getting a new personality. It was obviously unnerving to the Avengers to see such a drastic change, especially to Tony, who had only ever known Ava as her 'new' self, the way she was after she had jumped.

Obadiah knew why that upgrade had happened. Her body had gone into self-preservation mode, and the easiest way it saw to keep her alive was to make her regret her decision, which would only happen if she became a stronger person. It wasn't a foreign personality on her or anything, she had always had the potential to become that Ava. But her sorry excuse for parents had never nurtured her in any way, and had instead fostered that pathetic side to the teen.

There was the sound of someone clearing their throat, and Obadiah turned away from his screens, spinning in his swivel chair to face the door. Margie Bench was standing there, her hands on her hips. "After all the trouble I've gone through to bring you the girl, and you just let her walk right out the front door?"

Obadiah smiled. "I believe she was carried. And don't be alarmed, there was a purpose to that. I only needed to mess around with the computer parts of her a little bit, and then return her. But he would never accept it if I tried to simply hand her over, so I let him think that he's won, so he would feel safe taking her with him. And as for you… what troubles would you be referring to, exactly?"

Margie spluttered. "Maybe the fact that we had to clear out our entire house, pack up and move away from our lives, and pretend like they were never ours. And I had to track you down, don't think that that was some simple task."

Obadiah sighed, and shook his head. "Don't take me for a fool. You moved out of that house weeks ago, and just happened to be back there because you got a tip that it would be good of you to return to your old house, for some mysterious reason. And no, tracking me down couldn't have been easy, in fact, it would be downright impossible in just a few hours. You've known where to find me ever since I faked my death. Anything else?"

Margie balled her hands into fists. "How about the fact that we had to raise your stupid project all by ourselves?"

The older man laughed. "Yes, if that's what you want to call it. I would consider your treatment to be more along the lines of abuse and neglect, but if raising makes you feel better, then by all means. And you would never have had that burden if you hadn't decided to steal that project. That was your choice."

Margie scowled. "Well, if I had known that you had, quite literally, pulled the plug on the project, I wouldn't have bothered to go through the tiresome task of stealing it."

Obadiah tilted his head thoughtfully. "Yes. You've still neglected to explain to me how she isn't some vegetable coma patient drooling away in some hospital. Even if she survived having life support or power or anything else that was being pumped into her, she was brain dead. Both doctors working on the project confirmed."

Margie shrugged. "I didn't do anything, honestly. I grabbed a baby, and ran off with my husband. We were planning on returning her to you, saying that we got her back from whoever stole her. But then you went and announced that the project was a failure, and that there was no way you'd want it back. When I found out, I felt horrible."

Obadiah laughed. "How did you find out about that? You never showed up to work after that day."

Margie shrugged. "I've got my ways."

"Okay. Well, once you found out that the project was useless to you, why did you keep it?"

Margie narrowed her eyes. She thought about when she had found out the truth, after Ava was already three years old. That day, Ava had waddled over to her in that awkward way children had of walking. It was before the kid had learned that it was best to stay away from her parents. She had reached up and Margie had picked her up, rather reluctantly, only to stop her from screaming.

The child held out something, and Margie graciously accepted the gift. It was a bracelet of little seashells, and the girl looked so proud of herself. Something in the woman told her not to get rid of the kid. She was already used to the little girl's presence, and it would feel wrong to make it go away. But there needed to be boundaries. She threw the bracelet down with disgust, and put the kid down. She told Ava to just leave her alone and stop bothering her.

"Mrs Bench? Are you still with us?"

Margie blinked and pulled herself back to the present. She snapped at Obadiah, "Yeah I'm still here. I'm going back to the apartment, contact me as soon as anything happens."

She hurried away, absent-mindedly twisting the worn away leather cord between her fingers, the way she always did, and sped up so she could get home as quickly as possible. Obadiah creeped her out. She ran her finger gently over the only chipped shell, and kept walking.

A/N I know this is kind of out of nowhere, but I felt bad. Margie and Stan may have been bad parents the majority of the time, but that doesn't mean that they never cared, especially since Margie was incapable of having her own children, and probably got some kind of complex from that. So sorry if this seems out of character, though, it just needed to happen.