Disclaimer: Zilch is what I own in a very real sense
Cassie has been asked some weird ass fucking questions over the course of her life. She's been asked if she needs a magnifying glass if she wants to fry bugs and if she thinks it would be possible to actually steal sunshine. A boy from the Demeter cabin she had dated for exactly three days when she was fifteen had asked her if she could photosynthesize like a plant. She's also been asked if she can see color when she listens to music.
At least that question had led to an interesting discussion on the medical condition known as synesthesia.
Luke had once asked her to foreswear her godly family and pledge herself to the titan lord Cronus. That question hadn't been so much weird as it had been insane. Not to mention that the asking had been nothing short of surreal and deeply psychologically disturbing as experiences go. Cassie's fifteenth birthday hadn't been the "best of times" as Dickens might have said.
So when she says that the question Tony Stark is asking her is weird it should seriously mean something about the nature of what she's being asked.
"I'm going to need so much more context for what you just said before I even try to answer that question," Cassie says, her words being picked up by the phone on speaker on the polished desk of her brand new research lab.
"Oh come on," Tony's voice says in cajoling and tinned tones. "The reason we hired you was so you could answer the weird questions. Just give it a shot in the dark. You should be good at those."
"There are shots in the dark and then there's trying to deal with everything you just said," Cassie tells him, beginning to open and unload a box of test tubes and microscope slides as she does. She can already feel her brain spinning over the question despite her words. It feels a bit like trying to pedal a bike in too high a gear, flying and clicking over space that isn't there.
The sigh that follows sounds a lot like a rush of static and yet still perfectly relays Starks' impatient tones. "Oh c'mon it's not that hard. Could being bitten by a radioactive spider on a field trip give a kid the supernaturally enhancing superpowers of sensing crime and being able to lift several thousand pounds? All I need is a yes or a no here."
Cassie frowns even though she knows Tony can't see it. "Whatever you're thinking don't do it," she says. Just in case some kind of dangerous thought is brewing. A part of her starts wondering if she should immediately hang up and call Pepper. "I have no idea about the rest of it, but messing with radioactivity is never good."
"Banner was pretty clear on that one too," Tony says. "Don't worry, I'm not planning anything-"
"Which is only slightly more terrifying than you planning something," Cassie interjects.
"-but I've got a bit of a situation here and I need to know if someone's trying to bullshit me," he continues as though she hadn't spoken.
Cassie crosses her arms and props a hip against the edge of the desk. "Do better," she commands in her best I-went-to-medical-school-damnit-so-listen-to-me voice. Then a part of the earlier conversation floats back to her. "Hold on, did you say a kid? Did you abduct a child Tony? Because there are seriously not enough words in the English language for me to describe to you all the ways in which that is bad. Legal, moral, and ethical to start with."
Another rush of static, another deep sigh. Honestly, anyone listening to this phone call on playback would think she was the unreasonable one. "No one is being kidnapped. We're just having a little conversation which one of the participants is not at liberty to leave until we sort out somethings. Don't worry, I even paid for lunch."
Now it's Cassie's turn to sigh. "Put me on the phone with the very not-kidnapped child who got bitten by the scary spider," she says, mental exhaustion evident in her voice. Gods she'll handle. Gamma rays and super serum, sure, why not?. Radioactive spider bites might just be a bridge too far. She'll see how she feels after this conversation ends.
"Jeez Breslin," Tony says. "Between you and Cap which one is more bossy?"
"Spider Child," Cassie reiterates. "On the phone. Do it now."
"You know maybe it makes sense," Tony muses. "I knew Peggy Carter. I'd believe Rogers likes bossiness."
She rolls her eyes. "Alright I'm calling Pepper."
"Mr. Stark would like you not to call Miss Potts," says a young and nervous seeming voice. Gods, this kid sounds like he's about fourteen. "And to tell you that I had a really nice lunch."
Cassie gathers herself and accesses the pool of calming reassurance she keeps at her core for situations of medical assessment. It's the kind that provides reassurance and the vague sense that she can handle any and all problems with the right tools for her patients. "What's your name?" she asks as gently as she can.
There's a momentary pause before the answer. "Parker. Um, Peter. It's uh, Peter Parker. Peter Parker Ma'am. Doctor? Peter Parker Doctor. Not that I'm a doctor. You're the doctor. Well I might be a doctor some day. But more like a Doctor Banner kind of Doctor than the kind of doctor you are. Not that there's anything wrong with your kind of doctor! I think medicine is really important and a super vital area of study and innovation it's just me with the problem cuz I don't like dissections. Or blood. My class at school dissected a frog and I nearly threw up so-"
"Hey Kiddo?" Cassie interrupts. "I get it okay? You're name is Peter. I'm not in any way offended by your personal feelings on surgical medicine. I'm glad you've eaten and apparently haven't actually been kidnapped. Unless you have, in which case say the word 'kiwi' and I'll call the police for you. Just don't name me as an accomplice okay? Now make like Julie Andrews and the Von Trapp children and start at the very beginning. Tony said something about a spider?"
Pubescent Peter is clearly used to obeying female voices in authority because he pours out the story of his life for the last month with no further prompting or encouragement from her. It's a long story, but Cassie thinks she's got the salient details within about seven minutes. There's probably a more complicated and detailed version that takes approximately ten times longer, but she figures she'll hear it some other time. Basically, Oscorp is a sketchy company, a genetically modified spider bit a teenager, said teenager has been swinging around the city shooting spider webs and stopping accidents and petty crime (Cassie found the YouTube videos), and school field trips suck.
"Okie dokie Spider-ling," Cassie says. "Put me back on the phone with Tony. The two of us will have a chat and work some things out."
"It's Spider-Man," Peter mutters dejectedly. "The internet's going with Spider-Man."
Cassie scoffs. "Uh huh sure. Tell me this, do you have a driver's license?"
Long pause... "Here's Mr. Stark."
There's a brief shuffling noise as the phone gets handed around. "Well?" Tony demands. "Any thoughts Sunshine State?"
She rubs her temples and ten pinches the bridge of her nose. "Plenty. The ones I share with you kinda depend on what you want to do here. There's no reversing genetic alterations on a DNA coding level. Bruce has proved that one pretty thoroughly with his research. I can't know if that's happened to Peter without a blood test, but that's what it sounds like to me." She's quiet a beat then says, "You know this is gonna get complicated, right?"
"Yeah, copy," he says in short, clipped, words. "So do I bring him upstate for a physical?"
Cassie looks around at the current status of the unpacking and makes a few quick calculations. "Yeah that's probably best. Half of my equipment is in boxes around here. If you drive here and follow normal traffic practices, I should have time to dig out what we'll need." He agrees to the plan and is on the point of hanging up when Cassie stops him. "Call whoever is responsible for that kid before you come. Panicked parental calls to the police because their kid got snatched by Tony Stark is the material that paparazzi dream of."
"Why are you so convinced that I am kidnapping this child?"
Cassie hangs up without bothering to answer and goes to help her newly hired lab minions with the unpacking. The freshly minted medical research staff she and Will employed after a fevered month of interviews are intelligent and efficient people more than capable of setting up equipment and supplies to her specifications. The flow chart Reyna helped her draw up is no-end useful.
By the time the knock on her door sounds to indicate Tony's unusually pre-announced arrival, she has an array of equipment set up ready for any relatively non-invasive test she can ever think of running and a set of medical forms waiting to be filled in. She's even wearing her medically official white lab coat with her name embroidered above the chest pocket and her hair is bound back in a neat braid. She figures the kid Tony's bringing in is probably more than a little nervous and apprehensive so she might as well make the effort to look as mundane as possible.
The kid that follows Tony through the door is nearly a decade younger than her and about six inches taller. He's lanky the way that only a teenager can be and has an air of being unsure where to place his limbs so common to teenagers undergoing massive and unplanned growth spurts and have no idea what their bodily dimensions actually are. He speaks in a jittery quick way that reminds her of Leo and an anxiously well meaning manner that reminds her of Frank.
Gods he's young. So very very young. Cassie's no stranger to teenagers taking on the weight of the world. Two of her best friends have literally held the sky before, but somehow it seems different from the other side.
As Cassie gets older, she's becoming more and more aware of the fact that it's easier to do something dangerous when you don't have a choice and all of your friends are in the same boat than it is to watch other kids do the same kinds of things.
"You're Peter?" Cassie verifies.
The boy nods, opens his mouth, visibly decides not to talk, shuts it again, wipes his palm on his pant leg, and then holds it out for her to shake.
Cassie takes the proffered hand and gives him the smile she used to reserve for newly introduced half-siblings at camp. "Nice to meet you. For the record, you are allowed to talk. In fact, I'm going to be asking you questions so you're actually going to have to."
Peter starts to nod again, then realizes what he's doing and stops. "I can do that- talk I mean. I can talk. And answer questions. I'm actually an honor student at the science academy in Brooklyn. Which took me on the field trip with the spiders and the radioactivity in the labs that bit me. The spider I mean. Obviously the lab didn't bite me. Labs don't have teeth. Well I mean, some dogs are labs, and they have teeth. I'm gonna stop. Now."
She shuts down the next smile because it'll set a bad medical tone if Peter thinks his doctor is laughing at him and motions to the standard elevated exam table with a nod of her head. "Hop on up and we'll do a quick physical. Normal stuff like your blood pressure and reflexes first." Peter moves to comply, hopping lightly on to the table instead of scrambling like the other ninety percent of the population and Cassie turns to Tony. "You sticking around?"
He shakes his head once. "I'll stick around the property. Make sure the contractors aren't screwing with my workspace." He glances at Peter, "I'll be back when you're done and we'll do a campus tour. FRIDAY'll call me." Then he leaves and Cassie goes to work.
Peter Parker has excellent blood pressure, clear lungs, slightly better than average hearing, and exceptional reflexes. He doesn't react a bit to her drawing an ampule of blood for testing but winces when she pricks his finger for a hemoglobin check. He also gets more comfortable talking to her as the exam goes on and seems abundantly pleased when she offers him a lollipop as the appointment begins to wrap up. He wanders out with the candy and the promise of directions from FRIDAY and Cassie gets down to the business of analyzing the test results and cross referencing those with the impressions her magic has given her.
She's ready with her report when Tony comes to hear it a few hours later after having given Peter a tour and presumably arranged his transportation back home.
"This is weird," she states as an opening. "Like medically and professionally weird. The kid's got hyper efficient mitochondria, systematic hyper-jointedness, adhesive fingertips, near perfect muscle elasticity, and the ability to lift nearly six thousand times his body weight if the stress test isn't malfunctioning. He's also got twenty-twenty vision which he says didn't used to be true and can apparently sense crime."
"He mentioned," Tony says. "Said it was a feeling. Pins and needles. That kind of thing. No idea what that has to do with spiders though." He quirks an eyebrow. "Any thoughts?"
Cassie shakes her head. "Not on the crime sensing. I know there are animals out there that are hyper sensitive to environmental changes, cataclysmic weather events and that sort of thing. That's the closest link I can see, but I don't know anyone who could ask a spider for us. Believe me, I thought it over as an option. His DNA's also gone bizarre. I'm seeing what looks like fragments from three separate RNA strands. And so far as I can tell, those DNA changes are permanent. Whatever Peter Parker now is on a genetic level, he is forever."
A stray bit of her conversation with Peter floats back to her. "He says he doesn't get dizzy anymore. One of the tests I did was to look at the movement of fluid in his inner ear. The fluid in the canals is hyper reactive and doesn't need time to swirl and settle. His circulation is also nearly over efficient so he doesn't and won't ever get head rushes." Cassie bites her lip and then continues. "He says he has nightmares where he's floating in blackness and can't tell which way is up."
There's a moment of silence for Tony to absorb all of this and Cassie uses the time to re-order the file she's been digitizing with the results.
"Doesn't it go against medical ethics to tell me all of that detail?" Tony asks, probably to buy him a bit more time to think.
"Generally yes," Cassie says honestly. "But he signed a wavier specifying that I was allowed to share the medical information with those parties whose concern I deemed it. I've deemed it yours and Steve's. You because you made the initial enquiry, Steve because he should know about new potential team members in the field. Fury and Hill have maybe a dozen files like that Steve has access to. I also sent a summary sheet of results to Peter so he can read it all for himself."
Tony leans against the edge of her desk. "You think he's a potential member of Team Avenger."
Cassie leans back in her chair and drums her fingers on the arm. "He's smart, fast, and obviously wants to use his new abilities to help people and do something good. He's also fifteen and feels invincible. He's never gotten seriously hurt or had to hurt anyone else and he thinks being able to swing around roof tops is the most amazing thing ever. He's learning, and scared, and thrilled, and confused, and he's going to end up growing up way too fast." Her fingers stop taping. "He's like Katy," she concludes. "He's got a ton of potential, but he shouldn't have to use it yet."
"Yeah," Tony says the word quick and short. "I'm with you. I do remember some of what I was like at fifteen. Couldn't tell my head from my ass and I wasn't spending half my time upside down. Doesn't mean I know what to do with the kid though."
"Mentorship program?" Cassie suggests and Tony huffs out a laugh which she joins in. "No really," she continues. "It might be good for him. Have him work at the New York office as an intern. Pay him a nice salary for it and keep him busy outside school so he doesn't spend all his time running around the city trying to stop crime in a homemade spandex suit. Get FRIDAY or Happy to send him out to deal with small stuff where no one has a gun. Start him gentle and work up to bigger things." She shrugs. "Best I can come up with."
He nods as he considers. "Not a bad idea. Pepper and I are announcing the September Foundation soon. Maybe I'll shoot him a piece of the grant if he's got any likely projects going at school too. Might be able to announce the internship position as part of the program." He leaves muttering something about Iron Spiders and Cassie gets the sneaking suspicion that Christmas might be coming early for Peter Parker.
Cassie calls Steve to relay the events of the day and promises to bring home a paper copy of the notes. She then buries the electronic copy behind the same firewall software that Chiron uses to keep demigods off the radar plus a secondary encryption that Vision assures her is unbreakable. The information is further protected by the fact that Tony has an entirely self-contained electronic network and processing system maintained by FRIDAY.
She does all this because while the Avengers do work with the government, the government seems to be realizing that they do not work for the government. Shockingly (please note the fact that absolutely no one involved was actually in the least bit shocked) the government isn't really happy about that. Senate hearings and testifying before Congress seem to be activities that take up more and more time for the government savvy members of the team and every time Cassie sees Rhodey the man seems to be grinding his teeth to someone over the phone.
Steve and Tony meet at least once a week. Just them, and Steve doesn't tell her what they talk about. He doesn't have to because she knows. The two of them are being strategists, planning for the worst.
Cassie has seen a little too much 'worst' up close and personal to want to ask what Steve and Tony together think that might be here and now. She also knows that it has to be planned for. The catastrophe you don't expect is the one that smacks you in the back of the head with a two-by-four.
So Cassie hides all of the information she has on any of the team in as many layers of security as she can possibly manage and hopes she won't need to use most of it. Her worst case scenario involves everyone she cares about hurt or dying with no way for her to help them. Having all of their medical information is only the beginning of her preparations for that.
Meanwhile, Cassie and Steve face such complicated questions as exactly how much stuff they should bother to unpack in to the apartment set aside for them in the upstate complex when they're just going to have to move again in two months when the construction of their custom designed house is done. The fact that both of them can and have lived out of singular back packs makes the process easier. Though neither of them particularly enjoys it.
Moving as a drawn out process proves to be exhausting. Making wedding and honeymoon plans at the same time feels like an exercise in insanity. Fortunately, both Cassie and Steve operate well on levels approaching madness and defying reason.
Spider-Man sightings hit a massive decrease online which Cassie sees as a positive sign.
And this is a time when positive signs are kind of really needed.
Speaking of positive signs, Cassie gets to tell Jane Foster that she's looking at a lot of them. On a number of different kinds of tests. It gives Cassie some interesting things to sort through during the month of March. Not that she had been bored. As previously established, several dozen things are going on in her life at the moment.
It's still nice when the enormous life altering things are happening to other people.
She breaks the news in Thor and Jane's newly minted and pine fresh living room. It's a cozily, though haphazardly, furnished room that reflects the somewhat scattered personalities of the home owners. The furniture is comfortable though mismatched with arm chairs big enough for even Thor to recline comfortably, and there are piles of books scattered across the floor. The really impressive feature is the entirely clear glass ceiling. It actually reminds her a bit of the descriptions of the ceiling of the Great Hall in the Harry Potter books.
Jane is making toast when Cassie pops her head through the kitchen door, FRIDAY having let her in to the apartment. "Knock knock," she says. "Sorry, I would have rung the doorbell but FRIDAY opened the door as I was coming down the hall so I figured she told you I was coming."
She waves her hands in dismissal of the apology which is nice, but a little dangerous considering she's still holding a knife covered with some kind of dark purple jam. "Don't worry about it. I'm on a research break, figured I'd make it a meal time."
Cassie neglects to mention that it's currently nearly three in the afternoon and therefore in no way close to a normally designated meal. It's even farther from any mean she knows of where toast is involved. Given the news she's about to have to drop, she figures she'll let Jane have her toast.
"By all means continue," Cassie says with a gesture. "If you're going through a jam phase just say. Steve got a little obsessed with this black current kind over in London. Stark found out and imported a case of it because he thought it was funny."
"Remind me to drop some hints next time I'm around Tony," Jane says, licking her knife and catching the drops that start to slip off towards her sweater. "I'm with Steve. Fortnam and Mason black current preserve is seriously amazing."
Cassie makes a snap decision and makes for the electric kettle. "You know what, I skipped lunch. Throw another piece of bread in the toaster for me and I'll make tea. We'll make this a thing. Thinking of the U.K has reminded me that tea time is almost literally anytime. We haven't got scones, but if you've got the stuff we can make some strange finger sandwiches."
Jane makes a face that transforms in to a pleased grin when the toaster pops. "Living with Thor has put me off tiny food. When we were living in the city we did most of our grocery shopping at Costco. Darcy's got us set up with Amazon deliveries now. Is anyone hacks our account they're gonna think I've got a football team in the basement. Or eight kids."
Cassie manages to laugh, but thinks it sounds maybe a little hysterical. Thankfully the whistling of the kettle covers up the weirder notes. She pours out and Jane murmurs something distracted about there being shortbread cookies in a tin somewhere. The search for said tin takes them long enough for their tea to cool to the non-tongue scalding temperature and culminates with them both staring speculatively at the top of the refrigerator.
"Don't suppose you've got a step stool around have you?" Cassie asks hopefully.
Jane shakes her head in mourning. "No. Normally I just call for Thor and he reaches. Or picks me up. Or makes me float. Which was really surprising the first time but has turned out pretty convenient. When he's not here I climb the counters."
Cassie nods in understanding. "Me too. Hazards of loving the six foot plus men. Your house ends up organized so you can't get at half of the things you need. Pepper keeps trying to buy me heels."
"Shoes are how she expresses friendship. The more expensive the better. I wear the heels when I know I'm going to either kiss Thor or smack him across the face." Jane turns aside and begins rifling through a drawer before popping back up with a half full container of Oreos. She considers the package and then pops a cookie in to her mouth. "These'll work."
They move to the kitchen island with their tea, toast, and Oreos for their improvised tea time. "You've smacked Thor in the face?"
She nods. "When everything with the convergence was starting and he first showed up. He had been in New York for the battle but hadn't stopped by to visit so I was a little pissed, not to mention freaked because I'd just absorbed the ether. And there he was in the big red cape and armor holding his hammer standing in a perfect dry spot even though it was raining everywhere else. Before I knew it I was in front of him and hauling off. Then I apologized, then he apologized, and well," she waves an Oreo. "We went from there. He tells me when he's going off planet now, and Heimdall sends me updates if he's doing something dangerous."
Cassie slowly lowers her tea cup as her brain adapts to this news. "You get updates from the all powerful watcher of Asgard about when your boyfriend might be heading home? There's a godly messaging system for that?"
"Yeah," Jane says with a nod towards what looks like an ornate hand mirror propped against the fruit bowl. "That mirror over there. Glows gold when he's on the way home. Blue if he's going to be gone more than five days. Red if it'll be more than ten. It's supposed to turn black if there's an emergency and then I'm supposed to call Fury, Hill, and Steve in that order."
That- Well, that takes a moment to process. Cassie's dad has missed out on at least half of her birthdays and has never once talked with her about her mom. She doesn't know of a single demigod who has managed to spend more than three consecutive days with their godly parent and she's never heard of a god spending longer than a year intermittently visiting a human with the exception of Hermes checking in on May Castellan.
And Thor lets Jane know when he's going to be late for dinner.
Well not exactly. But the principle is the same. It's a bit of a pill to swallow.
Something of what she's thinking must show up on her face because Jane reaches out and covers Cassie's hand where it holds her mug of tea. "Are you alright?"
Cassie bites her lip, but nods. "Yeah, fine. It's just-" she searches for the words she wants for a second before they bubble to the surface. "Half my family is gods. I've lived my entire life with them interfering, and I don't have a magic mirror telling me when my dad is coming home." She shrugs. "All of my friends have similar stories. Greek, Roman, Norse, all demigods live some version of that outline so I just figured that was how it was. But Thor lives here on Earth and buys you pop tarts and worries about weather you've eaten dinner."
She picks up an Oreo in her free hand and rolls it between her fingers. "Now I'm wondering if maybe my gods are just bigger jack asses than I thought." There's an ominous rumble of thunder and Cassie rolls her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," she mutters. "I'll apologize when you prove me wrong." She manages to give Jane a small smile. "Maybe Thor is just a really freaking amazing exception to my idea of godly norms and the two of you are incredibly lucky to have found each other. For what it's worth, I'm glad he's been proving me wrong. It's just a little unsettling is all. Throws off the world view a little."
Jane smiles back at her and slathers jam on another piece of toast before holding it out to her. "Thor seems to have a way of doing that to people when he shows up. The moment I got my head around the idea that he actually was a god and not just a crazy buff guy suffering delusions, it was like my brain pretty much expanded out of my head." She tips her head. "And some people act like it was a huge shock, no lightning pun intended, when I couldn't get back to a normal life after."
Cassie takes in a sharp breath. "Yeah. Jane, about that whole normality thing..."
"Is it as completely out the window as I thought it was going to be the moment Thor's Asgardian healer friends said the words 'soul forge'?" Jane asks. Cassie grimaces and Jane puts her cup down on the table. "Farther than I thought?"
"You could say that," Cassie says carefully. Then she downs the rest of her tea, scalding her tongue in the process. A bit of sunshine filters in through the glass ceiling on to her skin and Cassie feels the skin heal just as quickly as it had burned. Next she looks back at Jane. "So this news is kind of a double header and I'm not sure how to prioritize it. The categories are pretty much the Ether and the Other Thing. Which do you want first?"
Jane considers. "Is one better than the other? Like a good news/bad news dichotomy, or are they equal measure on the normality through the window scale?"
Cassie runs through the ramifications of both sides of the news she's about to dump on Jane's head. "I'd call it even."
"Start with the Ether news then," Jane decides. "I've been working on understanding some of that through some of my research in to astrophysics and Banner's been helping me. And Thor has brought me a few books and answered the questions I could figure out how to ask. Then maybe, if that news hits me too hard and I need a break, you can come back tomorrow for round two."
Cassie nods and pauses to get her thoughts in order. "Well, the big thing that never made sense to me about the Ether was how you survived it for as long as you did. No offense or anything," she tacks on hurriedly.
Jane waves her on. "Don't worry about it. No one was more surprised by the fact that I didn't end up dead from that than I am. Please go on."
Taking the invitation, Cassie continues. "The Ether was- is, a cosmic level power. According to what Bruce has been able to tell me on the energy signatures, it scores on a level with the Tesseract stone now embedded in Vision's head. It should have burned through you in seconds, not let you carry it around inside you for nearly a week. I couldn't figure it out, so eventually I stopped trying to read it like an energy source and looked for other options. I looked for living things that us hosts."
"Like parasites you mean?"
Jane asks the question like it's purely academic which Cassie takes as a sign of encouragement. At least from a perspective of academia Jane can't be freaking out just yet.
"Yeah," Cassie confirms. "Exactly like. Now medically speaking, controlling parasitic organisms tend to steer their hosts in to destructive behavior so that they can be consumed and complete their life cycle, but not all parasites follow the trend, especially not the godly mythology ones. Thinking like that I called some friends over in Brooklyn. The gods they deal with like to hitch rides in their brains when they can't find a better host spirit. My friends said that a few times when the gods were hitching, they were able to channel huge amounts of power they haven't been able to access before or since to keep themselves alive. The gods involved changed their abilities. Anubis fully merged with a boy named Walt, but to do it the god fixed a generative genetic condition in Walt first. The parasite put the host in the best shape possible to better its own short term survival chances. More symbiosis than harmful parasitism."
"So you think the Ether changed me so that I wouldn't die while it was still inside me," Jane surmises. "That would make sense. While the Ether was inside me, it used to keep away people that scared me or threatened me. But I couldn't control any of it and the- the explosions would happen weather the threat was real or not, weather I wanted to act or not."
Cassie peels off the top half of her Oreo and licks a bit of the filling. "Right. So I started looking at your blood and DNA to analyze your cell structure. About three months ago I noticed something a little off, so I started running tests over time. You know this part because I told you when I drew the blood. The thing is, they aren't really changing from time to time."
With a pensive expression, Jane sips at her tea. "And they should be I'm guessing. Otherwise you wouldn't be bothering to tell me about it."
Finger drumming is a tick Cassie developed as a child and did her best to kick as a teenager. Apparently she wasn't so successful because her middle and index fingers are just tap tap tapping away on the marble surface of the counter.
"Human cells change," Cassie states. "They break down and get replaced. Genetic markers and bodily signatures in your cells change as you get older. Your cells- they're acting like Steve's or Bucky's. Like mine even. Repairing quickly and barely breaking down."
Jane frowns. "But I still get hurt," she protests. "And I don't heal any quicker. See," she rolls up her right sleeve to show a large purple band aid. Cassie's medical senses let her know that there's a large scrape underneath. Taken together with the bruises she can now tell are decorating Jane's shins, she's guessing her friend took a spill on the stairs.
Stairs are evil. Cassie's sticking with that.
"Your skin, muscle, bone, and other bodily construction pieces, for lack of a better term, aren't any less vulnerable to trauma," Cassie explains. "Trauma and break down over time are two different things. Your cells take damage and heal again exactly as per normal. They just aren't aging the way normal human cells do. Looking at my data over time, I'd call it one fourth the speed. Maybe one fifth."
There's a very long moment of silence as Janes' mind spins, desperately trying to catch up with what Cassie's just told her. Cassie lets the moment stretch. The kind of bomb she's just dropped will need that time. Time for the concussive wave to pass. The explosion of sound will come later.
In five, four, three, two-
"I'M NOT AGING?!"
There it is.
Cassie winces a little internally and then makes herself pull it together and posts up her medical manners. "You are," she assures. "You definitely are. Just slower. Bucky ages slower than a normal human but a bit faster than Steve. Steve's hitting about one half the rate. Since coming out of the ice, his body has aged approximately two years from a medical stand point. He should have sixty more years. If nothing kills him, he'll probably get another century. I'm looking at something similar given that each time I heal all my cells get a reset. You- you'll probably get two and a half. Maybe three."
Jane collapses backwards gaping at her. "Three. Centuries." She breaks down the last word in to each of its individual parts. Cassie supposes that might be a sign that she's trying to maintain some sense of control. She nods and jane collapses back in her chair. "Well fuck the damn bucket list and five year plan," she says, throwing up her hands. A realization passes across her face. "I need to start working on climate change! If I'm going to be here for three centuries I need the planet in better shape. We are nowhere close to having a big enough commitment to solving climate change. The sea level is rising at an alarming rate! Don't even get me started on the Ozone Layer!"
"Ready for Big News Part Two?" Cassie asks dryly.
Her friend stares at her, mouth opening and shutting repeatedly. "I need something other than tea and cookies if the next thing you drop on me is any BIGGER than tripling my life span."
This time Cassie's wince is more external than she might have liked. "About that. Can I have your hand for a second? I wanna check something."
Jane stares at her and then extends her hand wordlessly, clearly unable to believe that anything she has left to say can be a bigger bomb blast in the middle of her life than what Cassie's just told her. Cassie takes her wrist, placing her fingers over the place where her pulse is clearest and focuses the part of her mind that tracks rhythms on the pattern of the beats. The tempo is steady if a bit faster than usual from the last five minutes of shocks and revelations.
Thub dub, thub dub, thub dub, thub dub.
One two, three four. One two, three four.
And underneath that...
Thub dub thub dub thub dub thub dub thub dub.
One two three four one two three four one two three four.
"Yeah..." Cassie says, stretching the word like taffy as she gives Jane back her hand and lets the last bit of the jigsaw puzzle in her head that represents Jane as a living organism she might have to heal clicks in to place. "You're gonna wanna skip that drink. And coffee. For, if my senses are up to scratch, which I fully admit they may not be in this area since it's not really something I deal with much, exactly twenty-eight weeks and three days."
Jane blanches. "Oh don't tell me. I mean I'm not-" her hands drop to her stomach and her gaze follows. Then switches rapidly between that, the empty jam jar, and Cassie's face. "Seriously?"
"Congratulations?" Cassie tries weakly. A thought strikes her and she hops down from her stool, coming around the counter and shifting Janes' hand to put hers there. "Here," she uses a quick trick of audio manipulation, amplifying the rhythm she can sense running below those generated by Janes' natural patterns so that it can be heard, a tiny drumming echoing in the silence of the room. "Too early for gender, but we've got heart beat."
Her position next to Jane's chair turns out to be a very lucky thing. It means she's in the right place to catch the other woman when she passes out.
Other lucky things; regardless of positioning, Cassie is actually strong enough to do the catching thanks to the godliness in her bloodlines. Jane is also about her own size and happens to be sitting down at the time of her abrupt loss of consciousness. This means that there is, fortunately, not very far for her to fall anyway.
Cassie manages to shift her friend over to the couch and thanks whichever minor god happened to be in charge of interior decorating for the current trend in open floor plan house designs. She isn't all that worried about Jane's actual health given that according to her magic, her friend is technically physically fine, just shocked. She goes to bring a glass of water and their snacks in from the kitchen and returns to find Jane already blinking her way back to awareness.
"Here," she says, extending the glass. "Drink up. You'd be shocked how much of what you learn in the early stages of a medical degree revolves around making people hydrate the right way. That, and telling people they aren't getting enough sleep. Which, by the way, you are not. I'd work on that."
Jane stares up at her with a baleful expression and pointedly chugs the entire contents of the glass. She's possibly not quite ready for conversation yet. Clearly, the path forwards will need to be forged by Cassie.
"I'll tell Darcy and FRIDAY to set you phone reminders," she decides aloud, in what she hopes is a calming and cheerful tone. She perches on the couch next to Jane and takes her hand again. "I'm sorry. There was almost definitely a better way to say that, I just don't know what it is. I don't do a lot of news-breaking. Most of my work is in labs, humanitarian basics, or triage scenarios." She pauses. "Is section A or section B hitting you harder? We can prioritize."
The sound Jane makes could best be described as a chocked laugh. "Well apparently I'm going to have double the time to handle the first bit so I guess part B." Her free hand flutters unconsciously over to her stomach. "Didn't you tell me once that this was pretty much the exact situation to avoid?"
Cassie winces. "Well yeah technically. But I didn't know you and Thor or what your relationship was like as well then as I do now. And," she stops and swallows, trying to rid her mouth of the faint bitterness that accompanies her next words. "I think this might be different. For one thing, you know me, and I know other people to talk to. Percy's mom lives in the city and I'm sure she'd talk things over with you whenever you wanted, and my teacher Chiron must have dealt with situations like this before. Wrong pantheon I know, but Annabeth's cousin Magnus is the son of Frey and he's Norse. Got the most similar power profile to mine of anyone else I've met. His partner Alex is great. Thor probably knows them. A child of Loki."
Had Jane still been drinking her water, Cassie assumes this moment would include a spit take. "Loki has a kid?!"
Cassie nods. "Two demigod ones knocking around in the world today. Alex and Samirah. They're great. Loki's got some mythological kids too, but those stories are so beyond weird I can't even think about it. And my dad turned an ex-boyfirend in to a flower once."
This little tidbit at least seems to have the effect of distracting Jane from the jumbo jet worth of information she's just dumped on her head. "What, seriously? Which flower? I did a lot of brushing up on Norse myths when Thor first showed up but I didn't get to the Greek stuff."
"I get it, priorities," Cassie says. "I didn't do any Norse research until Magnus rocked in announcing he was a son of Frey who had died and gone to Valhalla, which, as it turns out, has it's mortal access point at a hotel in Boston. Check it out sometime. Anyway yes, seriously. My dad fell in love with a mortal guy named Hyacinth and then some THINGS, capital letters, happened. Now we have pretty purple-blue flowers. They're the only kind that make my eyes water. It's too bad really, I love the color."
Jane is silent for a moment and Cassie takes the time to mentally organize all of the information she can possibly remember about any of Thor's children, both demigod and fully mythological. Fuck if she knows how to broach that topic, but in this situation she's medically on the side of her patient which means giving Jane all the information she needs to make an informed decision. Weather that includes details of her boyfriends mythological personal relationships is just going to have to be a judgement call she plays by ear.
Fortunately for her internal debates on medical malpractice, Jane doesn't ask about Thor's mythological background. Presumably, it's information she's either looked up already or has decided she doesn't want to know. For her sake, Cassie kind of hopes it's the ladder. There's a lot of information on her dad and grandfather that she kind of wishes she had viable brain bleach for.
Unfortunately for Cassie's ongoing and unfortunately demigod-typical inner struggle with creating her own independent identity, Jane does still ask her a question.
"How much of your personality, of who you are, comes from your dad?"
"Honestly?" Cassie says with a sigh. "More than I'm really comfortable with when I think about it that hard. "Physically it's tough to call. Gods can change how they look, but both of the ones in my direct family tree are normally blonde and blue eyed. There's the dyslexia but that's not specific to me, just demigods in general." She considers. "My siblings and I don't like lies. None of us are very good at telling them either. We tend to be honest or silent. There or not. That's a bit sun related maybe. I love music, and healing, and I'm normally friendly though can burn the shit out of people or blind them if needed. Sometimes I'm dramatic though I avoid poetry at all costs, and that bit is different. And hyacinths make me cry."
She stops and breaths again. "The sad truth is that demigods end up getting a lot of nature, and generally less nurture. Percy the son of the sea god is loyal and always there but changeable and unstoppable when he's angry with you. Annabeth the daughter of the goddess of strategy is calculating, shrewd, a builder, loves olives, and hates spiders. Jason son of the king of the gods is a born leader in every sense of the word and quick as air when he wants to be, and you better believe he can add killer turbulence. In actuality, demigods are probably no more influenced by their godly parent than other kids are by their parents, we just have an easily referenced profile of abilities to cross check with."
Jane seems to pause, weighing all of this up in her head. "Is Thor going to be as ridiculous a dad as I think he might be?"
Cassie gives her a small smile, trying to picture the Norse god of thunder with a baby bjorn. "Worse," she promises. "Almost certainly worse."
It takes nearly another two hours for her to get home that evening. When she does she finds Steve sketching on the couch with The Smallest Bob purring and mostly non-skeletal perched behind his head.
She flops down next to him and shuts her eyes.
"Steve?"
"Yeah Cassie?"
"I have had a very strange week at work."
She feels Steve lean over as a kiss brushes over her forehead. The next kiss brushes the bridge of her nose, and the third brings their lips together in a warm and gentle lock. Then a hand brushes back her hair and Steve's other hand takes hers.
"I hear those happen sometimes."
A/N: So that's where I went with Thor/Jane. I have always liked Natalie Portman and wish she had been in more of the movies. Don't worry about Valkyrie though, I have other plans for her and I promise the vague shapes they're assuming in my head look awesome. This all plays in to my grand plan. I also wanted to bring Peter in earlier because I needed for that adorable little being to get involved differently than he did in the movies. It's part of my alternate Civil War development. In the next installment the team goes to Africa (and you all know the basics of where they end up from there). I meant to get farther in to that in this chapter, but this felt like the natural stopping point. Review for me! Tell me what you thought! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox