It was three weeks later when someone else moved into the Tower.
Isabelle had settled very much into her new home, and her new Aunt and Uncle's presence in her life.
As Bruce settled in himself, both living there and working on site with Tony, Isabelle learned to come and go as she wanted between the eighth floor, where she and her father live, and the twelfth floor, where Pepper and Tony lived. The floor directly above their living space was a laboratory, where Belle sometimes sat in the corner and worked on her lessons while Tony and Bruce worked. Sometimes she would wander up to Tony and Pepper's floor to sit with Pepper while she worked, coloring and letting Pepper braid her hair while she talked on the phone to various business contacts. There was no real worry for Belle's wandering around, as JARVIS always had eyes on her, and Bruce only needed to speak up and ask to check in on her at any time.
However, one day, as she stood on the elevator, riding back down to her home floor when the lift stopped only halfway back down. Belle backed against the back wall, flattening against the cool metal as the doors opened. A tall, beautiful, redheaded woman stood on the other side of the doors as they opened, and she looked equally shocked and surprised to Belle as she was to see her.
"Uh. Hey." The woman greeted gently. Belle looked her over with large, shining brown eyes- she was dressed more casually than Pepper normally did, who was usually in business suits or blouses and skirts and heels. This woman had on jeans and boots, and a tucked in t-shirt with a vest. Belle swallowed and scooted toward the corner of the elevator. "Are you okay?"
Belle nodded and squeezed herself into the corner more. The woman stepped over the threshold of the lift and paused, arm held backward to keep the door open.
"Is it okay if I ride with you?" She ask softly. "I can wait and catch the next one, if you'd rather. I don't want to interrupt you."
Belle slowly nodded, indicating she was okay with the company. The woman stepped into the lift completely and dropped her arm. "You're on eight, right?"
"How do you know?" Belle ask, and the woman gave a small, breathy laugh.
"You look very much like your dad, Miss Belle." The woman explained. "Bruce couldn't deny you if he wanted."
"You know my dad?" Belle said, easing herself off the wall only slightly.
"I do." The redhead nodded. She knelt down and held a hand out to the young girl. "I'm Natasha."
"Belle." Belle replied, giving Natasha's hand a single shake before dropping it.
"Thank you for allowing me to ride with you, Belle." Natasha said before standing back up.
"'S okay..." the little girl peeped. The elevator stopped on the eighth floor and Natasha stepped to the side and allowed Belle to slip out past her, which she did with such speed that the gust made Natasha briefly lose her footing, and she braced against the doors.
"Bye!" Natasha called as the doors shut and the lift continued on down the way. She laughed and shook her head at how shy the little girl had been. It was almost the exact behavior that her father had exhibited when she met him in India. She continued on her way down, only to be met once again on the first floor by Tony, who was coming in.
"Ah! Miss Romanoff!" Tony greeted with outstretched arms and a grin. "How are you settling in?"
"It's amazing, Tony. Thank you." Natasha said with a small nodded bow and smile.
"Are you sure it's okay to keep Barton on your floor?" Tony ask, propping on the wall. "I mean- It is up to you, completely, but you do not have to share. Robinhood can have his own apartment."
"No, my guest room will be fine, for as often as he will be here. Thank you." Natasha insisted. "He lives... Out of state."
"Got it. Spy stuff." Tony rolled his eyes. "But everything is good on your floor?"
"It's perfect. Even met a neighbor today." Natasha laughed.
"Belle?" Tony guessed.
"She's precious." Natasha nodded. "She's just Dr. Banner made over, isn't she?"
"You have no idea." Tony chuckled. "Glad you're getting around well, Nat." He said with another nod, letting the spy go on by. He then rode up to the eighth floor. He stepped off and peaked around the corner.
"JARVIS?" Tony ask.
'Sir.' The AI answered from the ceiling.
"Where is young Miss Banner?" Tony ask.
'Coloring in her father's study, sir.' JARVIS replied, and Tony headed down the hall. He stopped and tapped at the door, looking in where Belle was laying on her belly on the floor, coloring in a book she and Pepper had bought on one of their outings.
"Hey kid." Tony greeted, coming into the room. "You having a good day?"
"Mhmm." She hummed, filling in a butterfly with pink marker.
"Listen..." Tony said, sitting down on the floor next to her. "I want you to be happy here. It's really important to me, sweetie."
Belle looked up for a second and capped her marker. She tilted her head and looked Tony over.
"Why?" She ask.
"Because we love you, kiddo." Tony explained. "Pepper and I really love you."
"I love you too, Uncle Tony." Belle replied, skeptical.
"I just..." Tony sighed. "Come on, Belle. You're a smart kiddo. You and I both know that this isn't super ideal, and you have a lot of time to yourself."
"Yeah?" Belle shrugged. "It's safer, anyway."
Tony felt his heart break. He looked her over as she went back to her coloring as if he wasn't trying to have a heart to heart. Isabelle was a truly remarkable child, and her school load was already in the sixth grade level, three years ahead of her age. Tony felt a deep connection to her being so alone in a Stark building, surrounded by machinery and mechanics but no friends her own age.
"Belle." Tony said firmly. "How would you like to go to a class?" Tony ask when she finally looked up to meet his eyes.
"I can't." She replied, a matter of fact flat tone in her voice. She moved her hair out of her face and uncapped a new marker. "You know that."
Tony sighed. He shook his head and rubbed his hand roughly over his face for a second.
"Isabelle, sweetheart. You're Aunt Pepper and I have been talking to your dad. This wouldn't be... It wouldn't be like, school. You know, the whole eight hour haul and all of that- but it would be time with other kids your age. Someone them even close to your level, you know, mentally. There are several options. You could do piano, or French..."
"Je n'ai pas besoin de cours de français." Belle replied without looking back up.
"Clearly." Tony snorted. "It was an example. Listen..." Tony gently took the book from before her and closed it. "I was a lonely kid, Belle. I don't want you to be a lonely kid. I want you to be a happy kid. Your dad does too, and Pepper and I spent all week convincing him that if Pepper went with you, a once a week extra curricular class would be good for you. Surely something out there you'd like to learn about?"
Belle snorted and looked up. She looked as if she were pondering this for a moment, her tiny eyebrows knit together. Finally she looked as if she had an idea.
"Ballet." She said definitively. Tony smiled.
"I knew there was something you'd like!" Tony cheered. "Ballet? We can definitely do ballet."
"Okay." Belle replied quietly, looking back down where her coloring book had been. Tony felt a bit awkward and he slid the coloring book back over into the space before her.
"Good talk, kid." Tony said, standing up. "Where's your dad, anyway?"
Belle shrugged and went back to coloring. Tony waved her off and took out, up to the lab on the next floor. He found Bruce in the middle of an expanded hologram of several molecules of some sort, but he did not bother to take notice of what exactly it was before he killed the projection.
"Hey, man." Tony greeted. Bruce looked a bit annoyed to have his work shut off abruptly, but he returned a small greeting.
"Hi." He offered, looking his friend over.
"So I talked to Belle." Tony said, leaning on the counter. Bruce closed his eyes and sighed.
"Oh?" He questioned, removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. "How did that go?"
"About as well as this, really." Tony snorted. "Look man, I have been this kid."
"I feel like this is a judgement on my parenting, and I am not sure how I feel about it." Bruce said, crossing his arms over his chest.
"It's not!" Tony defended, hands raised. "I swear. I do. I just... I have some issues of my own, okay. Yes, I get it. But I just... I just want to do my part to make this a good place for you both, that's all. And I mean, this takes a lot of your time, not that- Not that you don't give her enough time." Tony stammered. "Listen, man. She said she wanted to do ballet. Can we sign her up? Pepper or Happy will stay right with her. Two hours a week."
Bruce studied Tony's face for a long moment. He looked overly annoyed, and one of his eyes had a slight twitch. It was evident by his very carefully regulated breathing that Bruce was more upset than he wanted to let on, and he was working very hard to remain in a neutral space to continue the conversation.
"Fine." Bruce relented after a long time. "But if anything, and I mean anything happens..."
"You can kill me personally." Tony promised.
"You nervous?" Pepper ask, gently leaning over in the car into Isabelle's shoulder. The young girl shrugged and looked over.
"I dunno." she replied honestly. "I used to play with the other kids in the streets in Kolkata sometimes, when dad worked long. We played games." She said quietly.
"It'll be good. I'm sure there are nice of kids your age to be friends with." Pepper offered. "I'll be with you the whole time."
Belle nodded as Happy pulled the car up to the door, and together they got out and headed inside. Pepper held her hand as they walked in, and she handed her registration paperwork to a woman at the counter as they walked into the studio. Belle held back to Pepper at first, watching the other children who were already over by a workout bar, stretching. Pepper knelt down beside Belle and took her hand.
"Hey. It's okay. I'm right here." Pepper soothed. "You still want to do this?"
Belle nodded. Pepper smiled and nudged her over toward the rest of the class. Pepper came over and sat next to some other adults who were watching the kids, but a few of the women started to whisper as Pepper sat down. She gave a friendly smile and wave, and the women looked stunned that she'd acknowledged them.
"Uh, hi?" Pepper said awkwardly.
"Are you... You're Virginia Potts."One of the women, a blonde with large hair stated, almost in shock.
"Yeah?" Pepper laughed. "That's me."
"I didn't know Tony Stark had a kid." Another woman commented. Pepper tried to maintain her positive smile, but she felt a bit annoyed.
"Oh, no. Tony isn't- she's not..." Pepper took a moment and blew out a breath. "Belle is a friend of ours' daughter." Pepper explained.
The women both blinked back at Pepper as if she'd grown a second head, and Pepper had already guessed that there was a tabloid rumor about to be spread, so she adjusted in her seat.
"What?" She ask, smiling tightly. "She has some dark hair and brown eyes and I brought her- She has to be Tony's? Don't believe me, wait for roll call." Pepper snorted, crossing her legs and taking out her phone. She began to type out something and she looked back over at the other women. "What are you ladies names? I just ask because- well because Like I said, Belle is a very close friend's child, and any other rumors that could potentially come from any misconceptions about this that would hurt her... Well, that wouldn't do." Pepper smiled pointedly. The other women quickly hushed and looked away, and Pepper giggled to herself, satisfied with the silence of the moment.
Roll call began, and due to the alphabetical order, Belle was third to be called.
She froze in place for a moment, almost seemed to be startled by the sound of her own name. Pepper edged up onto the very end of her seat, in case she needed to step over, but finally, Belle moved and came over to the bar where the teacher was lining the class up. Class had started two weeks prior, but because she was new, Belle was ask to introduce herself, which she did in a very quick and quiet fashion. The teacher, a young woman in her very early twenties, was all smiles and gave Belle all the room and warmth she could to try and make her feel welcome. She also ask the rest of the class to make sure that Belle felt welcomed and to help her if she needed.
The rest of the time was spent practicing stretches and poses. There was light piano music playing in the background, and the young teacher, Miss Jessi, walked around and helped the girls all with their feet positioning and movements.
At the end of class, some of the girls began to group up, talking and giggling amongst themselves, but Belle immediately came over to Pepper.
"I'm ready now, Aunt Pepper." Belle said quietly, rubbing the toes of her silk ballet shoes together nervously. Pepper tilted her head and brushed back Belle's hair from her face where some of the curls had escaped her bun.
"Are you sure? Some of the other girls are going to stay and practice extra." Pepper explained, nodding over to where they were gathering.
"Not today." Belle shook her head.
"Okay, that's fine sweetheart. I'm ready when you are." Pepper said gently, taking Belle's hand. The two of them walked out and met Happy at the door, and Pepper put her in the car before swinging around to the front. "Hey Happy- Let's swing by Cartello's on the way?" She suggested. Happy gave her a wink and nodded, and she went around and climbed inside.
"What is Cartello's?" Belle ask, scooting back into the large leather seats of the SUV before buckling her seatbelt.
"It's a gourmet cupcake bakery." Pepper said casually. "You know, you did a lot of exercise. You probably need a snack... Right? I mean, I could use a cupcake." Pepper said pointing to herself. "And I just thought you might want one, too."
Belle's eyes grew wide and she nodded eagerly. Pepper gave a laugh as Happy pulled the car off toward the bakery.
Bruce reset the microscope before sliding the entire thing over to Tony, who was waiting patiently nearby. Tony sighed as he looked the slide over, clicking down closer and then back up.
The two men had been looking at samples of Chitauri Leviathan tissue for hours. There were samplings of blood, skin and muscle, all of which Bruce had been trying to pick apart and understand. The issue at hand was clean-up; Somehow, Bruce and Tony were going to have to find a way to get rid of the bodies of the alien bodies left after the invasion. Weeks had began to pass and there was no real indication of any significant decomposition in the bodies of any of the creatures. The smaller Chitauri warriors, the humanoid ones, could be cremated efficiently enough, but the larger Leviathans were much too large for such a feat.
Bruce had put forth the hypothesis that there should be a bacterium or fungi somewhere on earth that would break down the soft bodies of the creatures, but as of yet nothing had come to fruition with that idea. He'd been trying sample after sample, hoping to see some progress.
For their credit, the people of New York were mostly understanding. After all, it was Loki and the invading Army who had done this, not the Avenger's, though the Government had tried to place some of the blame on the heroes. But Tony, along with SHIELD and Stark Industries, had vowed to do everything they could and needed for the clean up.
"I' don't understand." Bruce snorted, as Tony looked up from the microscope. "They're carbon based at their cores, but they're nearly half cybernetic. It is so intertwined that I am not sure how we can do anything with them."
"We could..." Tony stopped and clicked at the table with his knuckles, thinking. "We could cut them up and ship them back to space?"
"Where they will orbit for a bit before being pulled back down?" Bruce reasoned.
"We could... Feed them to sharks?" Tony laughed. Bruce rolled his eyes.
"Ocean's are polluted enough." He retorted.
"Well, we have to figure something out with the big worms, man." Tony sighed. "They're gross, they're enormous, and they need to go away."
"I think the best we are going to be able to do is dismantle and incinerate them with the others." Bruce sighed. "It's going to take forever, and it's gross work. I realize it isn't ideal, either. But these things... They're just not willing to decompose."
"Sounds good to me." Tony shrugged. "We said we would find a way to get rid of them- That is a way. I'll call the White House tomorrow."
"Wow, what a sentence." Bruce laughed, and Tony shook his head. An alert sounded overhead, distracting the two men from their conversation.
'Sirs, Miss Potts has returned with young Miss Banner.' JARVIS announced.
"Thanks, J." Tony said, crossing his arms and nodding to the samples. "Why don't you call it a day and go see how dance class was? I'll clean up." Tony suggested.
"You sure?" Bruce ask, looking his friend over. "I'm sure she'll be fine for a bit."
"Go." Tony said, shooing Bruce toward the door. "I got it. See you in the morning."
"Yeah, okay. Thanks!" Bruce called over his shoulder. He walked down the long hallway and stood, waiting for the elevator, which opened with a guest already on board.
"Good evening, Doctor Banner." Natasha Romanoff greeted as the doors slid open.
"Agent Romanoff." Bruce nodded, stepping on. He stood by and stared straight ahead at the doors, awkwardly waiting for the lift to move.
"Seems like every time I ride the elevator I have the company of a Banner." She laughed. Bruce stopped for a moment, then looked over at the redhead.
"You met Belle." He guessed. Natasha smiled.
"She's beautiful, Doc." She complimented. "Absolutely adorable."
"Thanks." Bruce replied with a smile of his own. "I'm pretty fond of her."
The lift came to a stop on Bruce and Belle's floor, and he stepped forward, but Natasha held the close door button for a moment, and Bruce looked her over cautiously.
"Pepper tells me she's starting ballet." Natasha says, looking Bruce over. "If she needs any help... Let me know. I'll be more than happy to work with her." She offers.
"You do ballet?" Bruce looks a bit surprised.
"Ah, yeah." Natasha nodded. "All my life." She releases the door hold and they slide open. Bruce hesitates for just a moment, looking the spy over.
"Thanks, Agent Romanoff. I'll keep that in mind." He says finally, stepping off the elevator. The doors shut behind him and Natasha smiles to herself as she continues on her way.
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