3

"Freak," Teenager number 2 hissed one morning as she came out of the bathroom with wet hair.

"You lot hog the showers all the time, sorry but I needed one," Astrid grumbled at him as she pushed her way back to her room to put on her shoes.

Her mood had been getting worse the longer she was in the foster home. Things started to seem less funny and more obnoxious. She pushed her hair back from her face as she slipped her feet into the shoes that were already growing too small for her. Her mood grew worse as she remembered that the entire class was heading to Stark Industries on a field trip. She'd rather go to an art museum and try to figure out modern interpretations of the world than possibly face Tony Stark. She was mad at him. She didn't like when her theories were proven wrong. It was annoying and showers she wasted her time hoping.

She headed to the bus stop with the older kids, an apple in her hand. She was starting to feel the effect of not eating enough. Her mood was horrible, and that was with her anger towards Stark, and her body was sluggish. Her thoughts remained sharp. Which she counted as a small blessing. The bus ride was the same as usual. She sat in the back of the bus, alone. People seemed to sense her mood and steered clear. She turned her attention out the window and watched as they passed cars. She thoroughly disliked the city. She may have been raised in London, but she had always enjoyed going to her grandfather's country home during the summer holidays. She went all the way up until his death. Sometimes she would get the feeling that he was hiding something from her, but it never bothered her. He treated her like his daughter, something that she had craved as a child due to her father being constantly busy. She wasn't bitter about it, not any more at least.

The bus stopped at the school, and she made her way to her class. Her schoolbooks were in her arms, and she messed with some of hardcover pieces that were sticking out. Her class was loud and rowdy, the best place for her to cause chaos. But she wasn't quite in the mood. Uncle Ben would joke that she was moping around. Now she was depressed, great. She hid her expression behind her English textbook and slowly found herself slipping into the familiar world of punctuation and spelling. Years of studying the subject rearing its head in her thoughts.

"Let's get ready to go everyone!" The teacher announced and Astrid closed her book.

They headed back to the buses and got on one. Once again, she was the odd one out. She clenched her jaw as they drove to Stark Industries. It was the old location, not the tower that would eventually take over the city skyline. The bus came to a stop, and they all piled off the bus.

"I swear Tony is compensating for something," She mumbled as she looked around the lavish building.

No one really heard her, and she was thankful for that. She stood away from the group as a tour guide walked up to them with a false smile. Astrid was good at faking a smile, too much practice makes perfect. Her hands went into the pockets of her patched-up trousers. Everything about her was a hand-me-down. She looked at some of the computers at a bar with workers and felt the urge to mess with them. She yearned to work with computers again, she had gotten quite good with them.

"Stark Industries focuses on creating weapons for the good of mankind and the safety of civilians," The guide said.

Astrid's expression darkened slightly. The good of mankind, huh. She didn't believe in that little spiel, not one bit. Weapons would only cause more problems then solve them. She understood that pointing a gun at someone was just inviting someone to point one back in response. Getting shot wasn't fun, and she didn't heal half as fast as Wade, so she was left feeling the wound for a long period of time. She looked to the computers again and a small part of her mind let out a single saying. Fuck it. She slipped away from her school mates and walked up to the computers. They were running the usual programs, mostly an index that showed the history of Stark Industries. She rolled her eyes slightly and placed her hands against the keyboard. It wouldn't take her long to get into the system, she just needed to be smart about it and make sure she didn't get caught hacking. Then again, it might be the one thing to get Tony's ass in gear and adopt her all ready. She had Pepper wrapped around her finger and she knew that he was slightly endeared to her. She just didn't know what was taking so long. She huffed quietly as her fingers flew across the keyboard with graceful strokes.

Tony had top notch security and she wanted to ask him if he had designed it himself so badly. It had so many firewalls and passwords that she began to grin in excitement. It had been far too long since she had been challenged by a security system. She made quick glances around her and noted that she wasn't really drawing any attention towards herself yet. No, the adults seemed to be watching the group she had quietly stepped away from. Well, that just worked wonderfully in her favour. She slowly bobbed her head to some music that only she could hear. Lady Gaga's Replay in full blast in the back of her head. She was going to live till it came out, much to her joy. That was just depressing. Her eternity was just her living through the early 2000's repeatedly, wasn't it? She didn't even have the nothingness that was the void of death to look forward to. She almost paused in her typing but caught herself. There was no need to depress herself. She made it through the firewalls and let out a quiet breath of relief at now being caught.

JARVIS was still being programmed, much to her surprise. Astrid thought that the AI had been older than he probably was. She quickly skimmed through different files and found herself laying small pranks for Tony, or whoever tried to access the files really. One file would start playing Rick Astley and another would just take them to a picture of a cat. It was childish, but she didn't really care. She was mad and this was one of the ways she could get back at how long it was taking her to get adopted. If she even would be adopted. She looked at another file and raised a brow. He was working on missiles. A part of her felt uneasy about that, knowing what Jericho did to him. She wouldn't change that; no, Jericho was too crucial to his future. She left the computer and headed back to the group. She put her hands into her pockets and stood at the back of the group of her school mates.

Astrid felt slightly upset that her genius hadn't been noticed by anyone else. It was such a shame. She looked at the other children and noticed the wonder on their faces. A part of her knew it would've been easier on her if her memories had come back later in life. She was unable to show such wonder at a large building. It set her out from the other children.

"What's got you so down, Astrid?" The teacher asked.

"Nothing, I just wonder what's so interesting about a giant building," Astrid commented, "we're surrounded by them."

"It's who owns the building," The teacher answered with a raised brow.

"Tony Stark?" Astrid asked before tilting her head, "He's just a man."

The Teacher gave her a funny look at that, and Astrid looked over at one of the large screens that showed some technology on it. Yes, Tony was impressive, and she'd be the first to admit it. Hero worship wasn't something she was interested in. He was just a man, though he would mostly be the first to bring some form of Asgardian technology to the planet with just his thoughts. He was intelligent, more so then anyone she personally knew. Astrid looked to the side, perhaps there was some hero worship there. How annoying. She needed to channel Wade more often, he would know what to do in this situation. His childish nature worked better than her personal brand of insanity. They made references together, but he was able to perform infiltration where she couldn't. It annoyed her to no end. She was brought out of her thoughts by the appearance of Pepper. It made sense that Pepper would be there to greet them. Tony was a true mess around children, save for her.

Pepper looked at the group of children and kept a smile off her face as she saw a familiar face. Astrid gave her one without any shame and it amused the older woman. The chin length dark hair was a curly mess which showed she had finally been able to get a shower, much to Peppers relief. Tony had been looking into getting guardianship of the small girl. His attempt at hiding it from her had been unsuccessful when Obadiah Stane tried asking for her help to dissuade him. Pepper didn't, even though he was in the right. Tony could be forgetful on his worst days and too busy on his best. He could easily outclass all the children

"Welcome to Stark Industries," Pepper greeted the children, "I'll be showing you around the labs where our weapons are created."

A few of the children looked up at her with awe and she allowed a smile to slip onto her face. Astrid stayed in the back of the group, and Pepper gathered that she wasn't adjusting well to the class she was in. It might be due to her mutant status, but Astrid was decent at hiding her mutations. She let those thoughts go as she showed the class the workshops. Stark Industries was automated, but they had human employees double checking the products that were shipped out. It wouldn't do to have a weapon stop working on one of their troops while in the field.

Astrid let out a quiet sigh as the children were allowed to play with some of the mechanical parts of the guns. These parts were defective and could cause issues if they were to be used. Astrid picked up a barrel and looked through it, it was slightly bent inwards, and she wondered how that had happened. If she were a regular kid, she would have thought it had been dropped, but this seemed intentional. She tilted her head in thought before grabbing another part and easily slipping it into place. Guns were so simple to build, especially when the parts are all there. It wouldn't work, not with all the defects, but she could enjoy the way it looked. Sadly, she wouldn't be able to take it with her. She placed the two connected pieces down on the table in front of her and looked towards Pepper. The red-head was talking to her teacher with a slight frown on her face, she caught the glance her teacher sent her, and she frowned in response. Did she do something? Did her little excursion on the computer get caught? That was the likely issue, but she wasn't sure.

"How are you able to lift this?" One of her classmates asked and she looked at them, they were struggling under the weight of a larger barrel.

"Why'd you try to lift a big one?" She countered as she helped them put it back down, "I was able to pick up a smaller one due to it's size, it'll weigh less the smaller it is."

That wasn't always true for certain objects, but she wasn't about to tell the kid that. She sighed as they gained a thoughtful expression before shrugging off her words. Children were like that, normal five-year-olds were like that. She frowned in thought. Her head jerked to the side as her spidey senses went off and she dodge a part that had been thrown on accident. She reached out with a hand and caught it with some ease. It was a larger part, and it was obviously heavy. She paled slightly before placing it back on a nearby table while the teacher chewed out the boy that had been holding it. Astrid found that using her senses brought her a strange sense of calm. She couldn't fully explain it. She missed being a vigilante, which was ironic seeing as her stance on death was so skewed that it didn't even have grounding to stand on.

"You have wonderful reflexes," Pepper quietly informed her, and she got a tiny smile out of the girl.

"How have you been Miss Potts?" Astrid asked, genuinely curious.

"I've been well, better than Tony," Pepper answered with a slight sigh, she got a confused look out of the child, "he had an argument with a man he thought of as a father."

"Ah, poor Tony," Astrid quietly said, her tone showing she understood completely.

She hadn't liked it when she argued with Uncle Ben, she could only imagine how Tony was feeling. His father figures were few, and his own father hadn't been the best parent. He was, however, a bit better than Odin. Pepper gently patted her shoulder and she pulled herself away from those thoughts. She brought her hands together and rubbed her palms together. She wasn't cold, in fact she rather disliked the heat, just worried.

"How is it that whenever I see you, you always seem worse for the wear?" Tony's voice caused both girls to flinch in surprise.

"I'll try not to take offence to that," Astrid dryly informed him, and he simply grinned in response.

She didn't get to spend much time with them, seeing as her field trip was over. She inwardly pouted as she sat in the back of the bus. There was nothing she could do while waiting, just go to school and be a good kid. She could try and shoot for the upper grades and get elementary school over with. She truly was getting more and more annoyed as the world around her seemed to try and cockblock her from being adopted. As long as it wasn't by Odin, she'd be quite happy.

Astrid let out a hiss as teenager 2 decided to elbow her head that morning. It had been two weeks since she last saw Pepper and Tony. She missed them. They would've treated her much better than the people she was currently with. It somehow got out that she might be a mutant, one of the kids at school noticed that she was stronger than a normal five-year-old and had started a rumour, and her "family" was now weary of her. The Walters tried to keep up a kind front but even she could tell that they were scared. It wasn't like they couldn't figure out that she had "mutations" without being told. She was good at regulating her strength and keeping quiet. She finished her toast before drinking from her glass of water. It was the weekend, so she had nothing better to do.

She'd most likely lurk in her room for the rest of the day reading. She had the Lord of the Rings, trilogy so she was set for a while. She cleaned up her dishes and left them to dry before heading up the stairs. She plopped down on the uncomfortable bed, grabbing the first book, and opening it. 'When Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would be shortly celebrating…' The story of the destruction of the one ring slowly pulled her in, though the excerpt of Bombadil took her out of it. She twitched when she heard a couple of raised voices. She picked up a bookmark and placed it in her spot. She got up from the bed and moved to the door. She slowly opened it and winced at the level of the voices.

"We don't want a mutant in our house," Mrs. Walter's voice stated.

Astrid frowned in thought. The mutant hate never made sense to her. People hated a majority because of one person. She stepped back from the door and grabbed the backpack that belonged to her. She placed her clothing inside of it, what little she had, and her books. She was going to be removed from the home, she knew that. Human nature was predictable to a point. Only to a point.

"Good because she won't have to."

Astrid froze at Tony's voice and Peppers soft, but firm, reprimand. Her eyes welled up with frustrated tears and a sense of relief. He finally came through. She looked towards the sky and thanked whatever deity that pulled through for her. She was gonna go with Frigga because she was cool. She was partial to the all-mother and disliked the all-father completely. His secret keeping was legendary. The man even waited till he was dying to say anything about Hela to his two sons. Even then that hadn't been helpful to them. She looked back through the crack in her door and noted that Pepper was heading up the stairs. The two stared at one another before Pepper quietly motioned her forward.

"Hullo, Miss Potts," Astrid quietly greeted as she walked up to her.

"You were listening in," Pepper commented, "I think you and Tony will get along far too well."

Pepper was going to be right on the money about that. Astrid knew for a fact that she shared traits with Tony that were going to confuse people. The dark messy hair, though his had calmed over the years, and snark would be enough to make people think they were truly related. Her eyes would set her out, the light blue colour was completely different from his dark ones. Pepper placed a hand on her shoulder and gave her a kind smile, it was enough to cause her to relax slightly. It was the Potts specialty to calm those who seemed to be panicking.

"He really doesn't mind that I'm technically a mutant?" Astrid quietly asked.

"Not at all, he thinks the prejudice is stupid, as do I," Pepper answered, "you are a good kid."

That was comforting. She was lead down the stairs and saw Tony giving the Walters a serious look. It was such an odd expression for him. She liked it better when he was grinning or joking around around. He spun on one of his heels and hurried towards them. Astrid found it strange that she was being rushed out of the home, but gathered they didn't want an altercation. It wouldn't do for the press to get ahold of any information that could potentially hurt Tony's reputation. Granted, he had an extensive line of lawyers that would shut down any attempt at slander. She looked towards him for a few seconds. No wonder he'd been able to get her under his guardianship faster than normal. The amount of people he had to pay off had to be impressive. She was put into the back of a nice car, and she looked towards the driver.

"That's Happy," Tony informed her.

"You must be the kid," Happy greeted with a slight grin.

"Nice to meet you, Happy," Astrid greeted back, "I'm Astrid."

That was enough for introductions. She turned her attention out the window of the car as they drove off. Tony's home was in Malibu, so she'd have to take a plane ride to California. She bit the inside of her cheek in annoyance. She wasn't the biggest fan of planes, having no control over their movements. She enjoyed swinging from her webs, not planes. She cringed on the inside, Wade thought that had been amusing as shit. She believed that her fear was justified. She had seen the two towers fall more times than she'd like to. It was something she'd never been able to stop, she had tried. It seemed fixed to happen and she hated it with a passion.

"You were born 1994, right?" Tony asked and she looked over at him to see a stack of papers in his hand.

"Yep," Astrid confirmed.

He wrote something down with a nice pen and she watched as he frowned at something on another piece. She was going to let him figure it out in peace and quiet. Astrid knew better than to butt in when someone was doing paperwork. The last time someone bothered her while she was doing her's they were left hanging from a nearby streetlamp. She paused for a few seconds. Sounds morbid, she mused. No, she hadn't hung them, she left them hanging by their ankles. She did let them down after an hour, but the message had gotten across. Never bother her while she was working.

"Favourite colour?" Tony questioned and Astrid tilted her head to the side.

"I like blue, but I also enjoy green," She answered, "I don't like pink."

"Strange most girls do," He commented, and he got a dry look out of him.

"Funny seeing as boys used to be associated with the colour," She countered.

Pepper gained a slight smile as Tony smirked. It was nice to see them somewhat bantering, pushing through the awkward stage. A new parent that was starting with a five-year-old instead of a baby. It most likely confused Tony to a point. He wasn't sure what he could say around her and what was appropriate. It was going to put a dent in his behaviour towards women and alcohol. Tony truly refused to be anything like his father, he was going to do right with the kid. The small mutant that would swing around on webs and helped people. A kid with their heart in the right place.

"Gold or silver?" Tony questioned.

"Depends on what it's paired with, gold looks fabulous with red and certain shades of green, but silver sometimes looks better with blues," Astrid seemed to have thought a bit about that question.

They stopped at the airport and the car was sent to a house that Tony owned in New York. Astrid wasn't too sure where it was, it didn't matter how long she'd been in New York she couldn't figure the large city out. An impressive feat really. It did not take her long to be strapped into a seat on the private jet and Tony watched as her head dipped back until it hit the seat. She passed out.

Out of all the things he could've guessed, his new kid being afraid of planes wasn't one of them. Her passing out made it easier to talk with Pepper, and lessened the likelihood of a sick kid on their hands. He turned towards the red head as they took off and noted that she was double checking all the paperwork. He knew for a fact that he had filled everything out, and in the proper order. It was like she didn't trust him to do so. He was almost thirty, if he couldn't fill out paperwork correctly then he needed to rethink his profession.

"She isn't that small," Pepper dryly informed him.

"No but she's smaller than she should be," Tony countered as he spared a glance towards the kid, "I'm guessing that her mutation causes her to have a faster metabolism."

"We don't even know what sort of mutation she has," Pepper added as she put all the paperwork into a manilla folder, "all we know is that she has spider-like abilities."

"Which most likely includes wall climbing," Tony mumbled, the kid didn't seem to want to touch anyone with her hands, keeping them in her pockets or moving them as she talked.

He'd have to get that information whenever she wanted to give it to him. Astrid wasn't the type of kid, or person, to give information freely. It had to be given on her terms or not at all. He was used to people like that, Pepper was sometimes like that. He rubbed at his jaw in thought. He was hoping that he hadn't just bit off more then he could chew.