Hello! Starting now, I'm going to have a more specific timeline. It's now the beginning of December, so I guess just assume it's been getting progressively colder.

Apparently December of 2012 in Manhattan was extremely mild, with only 0.4 inches of snow. There was a lot of rain, fog, and wind with occasional light snow showers. It was a green Christmas. Most of the snow was towards the end of the month, and it snowed a lot more in January of 2013.

You know, I really hate some of the stuff I've had to look up for this. I spent over two hours rewatching and taking notes on Iron Man 3, I spent close to an hour looking up the exact MCU timeline of 2012, and now I've just spent 10 minutes trying to find the weather synopsis of December 2012, Manhattan. It's like this for almost every chapter. Way too much of fanfiction writing is researching stuff. I imagined myself like, sitting on a couch with a blanket and typing merrily on my laptop. But noooo, I have to research drakons and Starbucks shift schedules and whether Barnes and Noble hires 16 year olds and what the light poles look like in Midtown and maps of New York and I have to completely rewatch the first season of Daredevil, it's a mess.

Also, you know that feeling when you know exactly what the word you're looking for means but you forget the word itself, or you can think of a word that would work but you have a feeling that there's a synonym that would work much better? Way too much of my writing time is spent staring distantly at sentences and looking up synonyms. It's embarrassing.

Back to the timeline. Specific days are going to be important for handling movies, but the timeline is already so messed up (Daredevil season 1 doesn't canonically take place until 2015, it being a year after the Giant War means the war would have happened in 2011, whatnot) that I'm not going to worry about big picture timeline stuff. Also, (canonically, I'm not just making this up) the first Mandarin bombing is April 1st 2012, the Battle of New York is May 4th, 2012, and the main events of Iron Man 3 start December 20th. Then Age of Ultron isn't until 2015. I don't have time to wait around for that or just time skip to it, so I'll have to move Ultron much sooner. I know it's really unrealistic, but I'm here for a good time, not the most realistic as possible time. There will be a pretty big time skip of a month or so coming up, because not much happens from now until December 20th.

I'm going to assume that the Avengers mostly drop the issue of Aura, because really what are they going to do about it? They haven't told SHIELD anything so they don't have a ton of motivation or resources to get to the bottom of it, Aura's not causing problems, and they have enough information to be decently confident that demigods (I'm using the word demigods, but all they know about is the existence of powered children who hunt/are hunted by monsters) aren't much of a threat but could be if they wanted. They're staying updated on Aura and on the lookout for new events but have other things to worry about. I should also mention that in chapter 5 when Tony visits Aura and says, "SHIELD is interested in your connections to Daredevil." He's lying. He saw Aura on a traffic camera or something and decided to look into her himself. He hadn't even told the other Avengers yet. And in chapter 10 when Natasha implies that she's talking to Aura on behalf of SHIELD, SHIELD is still not involved. The other Avengers (excluding Thor of course, I don't know if he's going to be involved at all until Age of Ultron) are listening on a microphone, but SHIELD doesn't know. Considering Aura's a minor and has done nothing but help people, they wouldn't want to get the government involved.

The events of Daredevil (aside from the bombing of four buildings in Hell's Kitchen, which Aura hears about and gets a text from Daredevil about after it happens) are going to be more internal for a while, taking place behind the scenes. Considering Matt Murdock (my version of Matt Murdock of course) is a married man and has a successful law firm, vigilantism can't be his full-time job and although he rescues anyone who needs to be rescued and is trying to find Wilson Fisk, he doesn't do everything that he does in the show. This is where the pacing of the show speeds up a lot, so all it takes is a few missed encounters for my Matt Murdock to have way less information than show Matt Murdock does. A Wilson Fisk confrontation will still happen, but I think the information that Matt has will have more to do with Karen Page and Ben Urich's investigation of Union Allied. Matt's involvement of the police and arrest of Wilson are cool, but I can't think of anything that Aura could add to that. She'll be around for Wilson's arrest, but that won't happen until after the events of Iron Man 3. I know that in the show his takeover and arrest happen in quick succession, but Wilson's plan of attack to take over Hell's Kitchen being super fast with no bumps is great for a show but probably not realistic. Playing the long game takes work, he's too smart to rush it that much.

Thanks for all the kudos and supportive comments, it means a lot! I've gotten no comments regarding my controversial views on Tony Stark so either no one read my whole thing, everyone who read it agrees with me, or no one felt like arguing in the comments. I'm a little worried, as I expected to have to defend myself over that. I love Tony Stark as a character, and most of the terrible stuff he does is at least somewhat out of character and because the writers needed him to do it to push the story along, but everyone who is definitively Team Iron Man seems to support his decisions, not think that both he and Cap were really out of character.

Though, I guess that if you think Tony blackmailing a fifteen-year-old to fight a dangerous fight against adult Avengers (after arguing about responsibility and accountability), and becoming so blinded by unfounded rage that he tries to murder a brainwashed victim were in character, that's an argument against Tony Stark in and of itself.

Again, to be fair, I wouldn't say I'm Team Cap either. I do think Steve's decisions are much more worthy of defending (if you don't understand what I'm talking about or can't understand his decisions, I would look up arguments in favor of Cap, I don't have time to go over the whole thing. I will say that the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (where SHIELD was corrupt and infiltrated by Hydra and didn't have his best interests at heart at like, any point) probably influenced his decision, Peggy's death was weirdly coincidental (it's not like SHIELD had any motive to get rid of the one thing Steve might put before the Avengers to make him feel more alone and vulnerable), Steve recognized that the whole thing was being manipulated by Hydra after Bucky was blamed for the bombing (though, he still did exactly what Zemo wanted him to do to tear the Avengers apart, there's no defending that), etc.) There are a lot of things that the more you really think about, the more right Teamp Cap seems, or at least the less cut-and-dry the whole debacle is.

I can see where everyone is coming from but it's an insanely stupid split. It's also worth pointing out that since there are so many points of view and each Avenger has different perspectives and motivations and reasons for doing what they did, if you sympathize with Tony from the beginning, all of Tony's decisions are understandable and you don't see Team Cap's perspective, and if you sympathize with Steve from the beginning, all of Steve's decisions are understandable and Tony seems like the absolute worst. The layout of the movie and what's focused on is designed to let you have biased opinions about facts and events, and if they just showed you everything as a story instead of a completely two-sided argument you're supposed to feel strongly about then there would be much fewer conflicts of interpretation.

If we actually knew the entirety of the contents of the Accords and what they mean for the Avengers and other enhanced people, we would be able to make better decisions. I think people often forget that this is about way more than the Avengers and their emotions. People tend to phrase it as 'Tony wants to keep the Avengers together and focus on accountability for their actions and Steve wants to protect Bucky and not take responsibility for things', not 'Tony is okay with the government controlling the entire Avengers Initiative and who they can and can't help and he also thinks laws like the government being able to detain any enhanced person indefinitely without a trial are acceptable, and Steve thinks sticking together at the cost of the government having a lot of control over the Avengers and every enhanced person is not a moral decision to make, especially considering the way that the government is treating Bucky, his oldest friend and a brainwashed victim.'

Sorry if you're not interested in my large (and open-minded, don't forget, I don't think my perspective is the be-all-end-all. I just feel that to make an informed, unbiased decision you need to be informed and unbiased) opinions on Civil War. I've been engaging in the Marvel fandom, especially on fanfiction sites and TikTok, for a while now and it's hard not to feel strongly about this. My sister is tired of hearing about it and I feel unheard, so now you all have to deal with it. I am super open to civil discourse and other perspectives, I think this is a very broad topic and I'm not trying to invalidate other opinions.

As long as your opinion doesn't revolve around Tony. I would love to hear literally any other argument in support of Team Iron Man that isn't about Tony's emotions. Please talk about his decisions, or the other people on Team Iron Man, or why Team Cap is wrong, I don't care. Tony is an adult man and his actions regarding the Accords impact billions, especially enhanced people who were given no representatives or influence regarding the decision. I understand that he feels guilty for Ultron, he feels treated unfairly by the other Avengers, people on Team Cap won't have a conversation about it, he's devastated when he finds out Bucky killed his parents, etc. He needs to see a therapist or something and focus on his own accountability, not take it out on others. Sorry not sorry. I feel somewhat bad for him, but that doesn't change the fact that his feelings are misguided and this doesn't revolve around him.

I can support a lot of Tony's argument, at least the main message of it, but he's a massive hypocrite for giving the other Avengers a hard time for something they were doing the best they could about, and then recruiting a 15 year old and trying to assault an innocent.

Also, "Bucky technically killed my parents"? Cool motive, still attempted murder. Tony talks about limitations and taking accountability but I bet he'd have a fun time defending that in a court of law.

I'm done now, promise. No more monologues about Civil War at the start of chapters.

…

Chapter 11: Why Couldn't It Be A Normal Drug Warehouse Bust? AKA My Very Own Y/N Moment

Aura was left alone, for a few days at least. She hoped it was because the Avengers were laying off, but it was entirely possible they were just planning a new approach.

So Aura continued life as normal. She went to her part-time jobs, she gave Sally a long-overdue call (Sally had seen the news that day and it wasn't long before their call dissolved into Aura giving Sally a play-by-play of the gryphon attack and the Avengers' reactions), and she mostly tried to stay under the radar.

She could always go to camp if things got bad, but this was about so much more than her. If she ran at the first sign of mortal interest, the Avengers would assume that she had something big to hide. If she didn't run, hopefully it would send the message that she was telling the truth to the Black Widow and she wasn't worried about what the Avengers might find if they digged deeper.

She was worried, of course. But maybe if she stayed in the area their first move would be to talk with her about it instead of hunting down other demigods and treating them as threats.

If her chat with Black Widow had done one thing, it had hopefully conveyed to the Avengers that monsters were the bad guys and demigods were the good guys, who couldn't get outside help without it hurting the mortals they asked.

Though, Aura now saw that it was a great overlook on her part that she had made it sound like the only reason she didn't want others involved was because it would hurt them. She hadn't really said that it would also probably hurt demigods.

…

It was the start of December when Aura got a text from Daredevil about a warehouse that was used as the center of operations for an illegal drug trade.

Which would have sounded like less fun, if she wasn't antsy and bored.

And recuperating from a disaster of a fight with a laistrygonian that may or may not have involved getting a car thrown at her, hiding in a store, getting confused for a robber, and several hundred dollars worth of property damage.

Everyone has their tough days, but not everyone has tough days that include a showdown in a Costco Wholesale with a giant recovering from a breakup.

Aura met Daredevil on the roof of a building near a nondescript-looking warehouse.

"There are a lot of innocents in there. If you can get them out, I'll distract the guys with guns," Daredevil (Mike?) said, serious as always.

"Come on, you get the innocents out and I'll distract the guys with guns."

Daredevil turned to her. "You're young enough to be my daughter, we're not having this discussion."

Aura gave him a look, but dropped it. Even with the mask covering most of his face, she could tell that that was the expression of someone who would rather push her off the building than allow her to fight men with guns.

They waited silently for about a minute, confirming that the coast was clear. Daredevil kept cocking his head slightly and focusing entirely on the building, almost like he could hear or sense something that Aura couldn't.

He lifted his metal pipe, said, "Now's a good time," and started climbing down the fire escape.

Aura followed, feeling a hum of nervous anticipation.

Daredevil motioned Aura to wait out of sight and she stood in the corner next to the door's hinges, hoping that the door opened outward. She wrapped her fingers around the hilt of her kopis in case it didn't.

Daredevil did a melodic sequence of knocks on the door, then stepped back.

On the other side of the door, Aura could hear a few words in something that sounded like Mandarin, and the door opened up.

The door opened outward, hooray.

Daredevil swiftly knocked out the man who had opened the door. Aura couldn't see it, but she heard a body crumple.

Daredevil lugged the body into the alley, putting the man's gun on the ground next to him. Aura followed him inside the building.

The door was at the end of a hallway. To the right was a blank wall, and to the left the hallway lead to a large open room. Aura could see the edge of two long tables. Chinese people with acid splotches around their eyes were facing straight ahead, unseeing. There was a row of people on both sides of each table. The people moved methodically, packaging, closing, labelling, and boxing small baggies of white powder, probably cocaine. A man with a machine gun was patrolling between the tables. He was focused on the workers, and hadn't seen Aura and Daredevil yet.

Daredevil put up a hand, signalling for her to stay put, and went to knock out the man with the gun. The man yelled something in Mandarin and pointed his gun at Daredevil, firing off more questions in Mandarin. The workers stopped their work and looked panicked, but they couldn't see what was happening and probably expected the man with the gun to handle it. Daredevil dodged his gun and used the metal pipe to knock the man out. He caught the gun before it fell, stopping it from making a noise, and lowered the man quietly.

The workers didn't seem to know what had happened. Daredevil started trying to calm them.

"I'm here to help, you can-"

A voice that sounded like it was coming from high up yelled something in Mandarina, and the workers started feeling for Daredevil and crowded him, everyone joining in. They effectively blocked him off, making it so he couldn't move anywhere without fighting his way out.

Aura sunk deeper into the hallway, scanning her brain for songs to imbue power into that would be appropriate for the situation. Get Back? Thou Shalt Not? Runaway Baby?

The problem was, she could only limit the strongest effects of her music to general directions. A demigod who was aware of her ability could ignore the forceful suggestion aspect of the music, but Daredevil wouldn't be able to. Maybe she could sing something sad and put the whole room at a standstill? She could do Someone Like You or Burn decently well without an instrument to back her up.

Whelp. This was happening. Aura took a deep breath and started walking as she launched into Someone Like You.

"I heard that you're settled down, that you found a girl and you're married now..."

She poured intent into it, drenched it in sadness and loss and regret. It was a pretty sad song already, but when it comes to imbuing power into music, the intent is more important than the song itself. Whether or not everyone in the room found Adele sad, Aura's mournful voice was hypnotic. The workers stepped away from Daredevil, stunned.

And that was only the start of the song.

"...I heard that your dreams came true, Guess she gave you things, I didn't give to you…"

Aura walked through the main room. She went straight for Daredevil. Aura was surprised by how much more susceptible mortals were than monsters. Stunned into a near paralyzed state, Daredevil didn't protest as she lead him up the rickety stairs to the half second-floor half catwalk of the warehouse, where the man who had yelled was.

Aura knocked him out and put his gun into Daredevil's hand. She knew he didn't kill, but she didn't want to leave him near defenseless in a dangerous situation while he was unable to make rational decisions.

"...Never mind, I'll find someone like you, I wish nothing but the best for you, too, 'Don't forget me,' I beg…"

Aura walked through the whole warehouse, singing Someone Like You and knocking out everyone she came across, tossing their guns as far from them as she could. Once she left a room, the people in it recovered, so she had to walk back through the main room a few times.

When she had taken out all the unremarkable henchmen and was sure the main part of the warehouse was clear, she stopped singing.

And immediately started coughing, putting a hand against the wall to steady her suddenly wobbly legs. Imbuing power into music always took a lot out of her, especially when she was only using her voice.

"What the- Was that you?!" Daredevil asked from the catwalk, leaning heavily on the railing.

"I couldn't find Madame Gao, she's probably still here," Aura said. Choosing to not answer his question was basically the answer, and they had more important things to worry about.

"I can hear her and some of her men over there," Daredevil said, coming down the steps and heading towards a side room, probably the garage. "You start getting people out."

Aura was largely unsuccessful getting people out. They didn't seem to speak much English. Aura wondered if they felt like they needed to be saved in the first place.

Many were still crying, and they all looked decently dazed. That probably didn't help.

Aura's endeavor was interrupted by the smell of smoke.

At least she was pretty confident that there were no other innocents in the building. She just kept going, grabbing people's arms and herding them towards the door. She added, "Fire, you have to leave!" to her other pleas, and people started moving a bit faster when they too noticed the smoke smell.

Daredevil leaned out of the door he had gone in. "Fire, and it's spreading quickly! Get everyone out now! I'll be there soon!"

"Got it!" Aura yelled back, and started manhandling people out the door.

Smoke was starting to fill the room. Daredevil had left the door open, and Aura could see hot flames in the room. The wall was blackening and starting to crumble, the fire escaping to the main room.

One person in particular was being an absolute ass, and seemed to be encouraging others to do the same. Aura kicked his legs out from under him, swung him over her shoulder fireman-style, and carried him to the alley, depositing him on the ground. A few smart people followed, pulling friends and feeling for the wall. Aura went back to help everyone else.

The roof had caught on fire by the time everyone was out. Aura could hear a firetruck in the distance.

She got the last person out, yelled: "Do NOT go back in there, lots of fire!" And ran in the direction she thought the garage door might be.

Daredevil met her halfway, coming out of the garage door with the fire raging behind him. His clothes were blackened and burned and he looked injured.

"It's handled, we need to leave now. Thanks for all your help."

"No problem," Aura said. "We should probably leave separately."

Daredevil nodded. "See you around, though hopefully now."

"See you, stay safe."

Aura took a long route home, staying out of the way of the firetrucks, ambulances, and police that would be heading her way.

Then she slumped into bed because she had to be up at three tomorrow. Looks like it was going to be another tough day.