April 4, 2003
4:50 PM
Hospital, Konohagakure
The kid had weird hours. It wasn't that much of a surprise, but the kid was still in the hospital (officially to make sure there wasn't any lasting physical damage from the usage of the stupid eyes, and unofficially to keep an eye on the kid for psychological reasons and until they figured out what to do with him), and was sleeping through most of the day due to not being allowed to do any of his activities of choice, other than read.
Tony knew it would be stupid to wake the kid, so he pulled out a laptop, sat down in one of the (private) room's chairs, and started playing around with the designs for a new kind of missile. He wasn't getting any real flashes of inspiration, but there were at least a few little tweaks he could add to what he had laying around before he got back to Malibu.
He was midway through some adjustments on the fins of what was technically an ICBM when he heard some rustling coming from the bed. He glanced up, but looked back down within the second, and didn't try to get the kid's attention; that would probably make the kid panic. On the other hand, if Tony ignored him and just acted like he belonged there (which he did) until he tried to get Tony's attention, the kid would probably be a lot more open to the idea of talking to him.
Maybe.
"Oi."
Tony ignored that.
"Teme dare?"
Tony finally looked up at the kid, and then waved rather lazily. "Hey, kid."
The kid didn't seem to understand that. Fair enough; Tony hadn't spent his time at seven on foreign language either; Tony had studied circuitry instead (and the kid had studied ninja killing techniques, because the Hidden Continent was completely ridiculous).
The kid repeated the question, demanded, really, and seemed to be gearing up to fight him, because ninjas.
o.o.o.o.o
May 12, 2012
3:51 PM
Helicarrier
"Because… ninjas?" Steve Rogers, the lauded Captain America, seemed rather confused.
"Yes." Tony nodded as though the answer made all the sense in the world. "Because ninjas."
"Steve." Bruce reached over and lightly put his hand on the man's shoulder. "Ignoring Tony's disregard for the rules of grammar, you know what a ninja is in most of media, right?"
"Yes?" Steve hadn't learned everything about the modern era, but he'd picked up on a lot since Tony waltzed into his life with a sarcastic quip and absolutely no respect. "They're spies in ancient Japan. Or a special kind of spy, these days."
"Pretty much." Bruce hesitated. "These days, the only places where 'ninja' is really a standard job option is in the Elemental Nations on the Hidden Continent, and there… it's really more of a system of organized mercenaries."
"Nah, mercenaries are basically the freelance operatives with no ninja training." Tony butted in. "Though he's right in that they basically do anything they're paid to do, so long as it goes through the village first, and they function as the village's military, and also occasionally as the entire country's."
"The… village?"
"A centralized, city-wide military dictatorship that functions as a quasi-separate entity within the country that it exists in." Natasha explained, wry grin on her face; she had her own experiences with the system, some of which coincided with Tony's. "Imagine if a city or town, maybe the size of Staten Island, was 40% civilian and 60% military, and had an existing pact with the United States to function as a special ops force in case of emergencies, along with taxes and civilian laws in line with the rest of the country, but generally functioned as a separate entity, sending out operatives out on missions covering everything from agricultural help to reconnaissance to guard missions to assassinations. Due to the power of the denizens, the country can't get rid of them, and due to the money in the country, the village can't rebel."
"That sounds rather precarious."
"The villages are usually more concerned with each other and with their own rogue elements. No time for taking down the government." Natasha hummed a bit. "Very little interaction with the rest of the world as well. The Hidden Continent keeps to itself, as far as the shinobi go. Even the civilians mostly limit themselves to just trading by sea, rather than by plane or anything more modern."
"Hidden village politics are messy and ridiculous." Tony declared, and then tilted his head, considering. "I have an employee that understands it pretty well, though, and he can explain it if you ask him. You've met Mr. White, right?"
Steve nodded silently, because he knew exactly who Mr. White was. As embarrassing as Steve's mistake had been, he wasn't likely to forget it.
"Well, great. He can explain shinobi politics to you at some point when I'm not telling my story." Tony spun his chair around in a full circle. "Right, so, where were we?"
o.o.o.o.o
April 4, 2003
4:51 PM
Hospital, Konohagakure
"I can't understand you." Tony said, though he though he understood most of what was being said; languages weren't exactly his forte. He could become an expert on new scientific fields overnight, but languages took a little longer.
The kid seemed to understand what was going on, and deflated, settling back into his seat, arms folded, and glaring moodily at Tony. Tony raised an eyebrow and passed a spare phone over, the translation program already running. "Here, try this." He held his own phone up. "Look, I've got one too."
The kid picked up the phone gingerly, as though expecting it to blow up at any second. After a couple of seconds, he seemed to realize what was going on, and then repeated his question again.
"Who are you?"
"Tony Stark." Wait… "Well! You guys put family names first, right? So I guess I'm actually Stark Tony here. Wow, that's weird to say. You feel like introducing yourself now?"
"My name is Uchiha Sasuke."
Something clicked at that moment. Tony had known the name before, of course, but actually hearing him introduce himself… that was the moment when he went from "the kid" to "Sasuke."
Tony raised an eyebrow. "Not exactly a man of many words, are you?"
Sasuke didn't even bother to say anything this time, just grunted.
"You're going to be trouble; I can tell." Tony had had a few phases like this of his own.
"Are you supposed to be my new therapist?" Sasuke asked, almost wary. If Tony said yes, the kid wasn't going to be talking.
"Hell no." Tony shuddered. "I'm not exactly good at the comfort thing, and honestly, I don't think anyone would trust me with their mental health. No, I'm here for a different reason." He snapped his fingers. "Hey, JARVIS, bring up the family tree on Sasuke's phone, and make sure it's in Japanese, though you should probably keep the English for my branch, or at least have it as a subtitle-y thing."
"At once, sir."
Sasuke didn't jump when JARVIS's voice came out of the machine, but he did stiffen and glare suspiciously as the picture was brought up. After a couple of seconds, he looked back up at Tony, eyebrows furrowed. "This is impossible."
"Impossible? Impossible things sometimes pop up in front of me. Usually I get rid of them pretty easily. Tell me, though; what's so impossible about that?" Tony challenged.
"You should be dead!" Sasuke hissed. "Everyone is dead!"
"So… you think I'm lying? Or you're not letting yourself hope? Or you're bitter that it was me that survived and not someone you already knew?" Tony was pretty sure it was all three, and the uncomfortable look on the kid's face told him all he needed to know.
(The kid had a better poker face than most his age, but Tony was used to dealing with politicians and businessmen. He could read that kind of face without trouble.)
"Kid, listen. I live halfway across the world, in the United States, and do you know what that means? It means that, if your brother wanted to, at any point, come to kill me, he'd have had to travel for at least a few days, especially since you guys apparently don't do planes. On top of that, I had some genetic tests done when I was younger, and I didn't, or did, depending on how you look at it, win the superpower lottery, because I don't have the eyes that the Uchiha were so famous for. Besides that, I'm not even sure if I exist on your clan's paperwork, since my mom gave you guys the middle finger and only ever really kept in contact with her sister." Tony wasn't exactly sure that he'd breathed at any point, but oh well.
"…Her sister." Sasuke looked back down at the phone in his hands, visibly swallowing as his eyes found the name in question. Tony didn't wince in sympathy, but he definitely felt for the kid; said sister was Sasuke's grandmother.
"So, yeah. I don't have your eyes, don't have any chance of passing on the eyes, and traveling all the way to the US just to kill me was probably more trouble than it was worth." Tony tried to distract Sasuke, tried to draw the boy's eyes away from the screen. "JARVIS, hide the family tree."
Sasuke's head snapped up when the tree was gone, eyes accusing and just the slightest bit watery. The kid was nowhere near done mourning, and while Tony didn't actually know anything about helping out a kid with issues this bad, it couldn't be healthy to wallow with just a chart of names in front of him. To his credit, Sasuke seemed to realize that something was meant to be going on, and got right back to business.
"Why are you here, then? What is it that you want?" Sasuke's eyes were narrowing again. "The clan had money, plenty of it. Is that why you're here?"
Tony groaned. "Why does everybody ask that? No, it's not the money. That's all yours. I'm not touching it."
Sasuke kept glaring.
"Kid, trust me. I don't need that money. I'm one of the richest men on the planet, and when I say that your clan's money would barely be a drop in the pond, I mean it."
Technically, the Uchiha clan as a whole had somewhere around $170 million in various assets (Pepper had gone through the files for him), which was pretty well-off for a clan of less than four hundred, but not quite on the level of Tony's $8.6 billion net worth (and always growing). The Uchiha were worth a little more than two percent of his net worth, which was really closer to a couple gallons in the pond than a couple drops, but the exaggeration was acceptable.
Sasuke looked skeptical.
"I could quite possibly buy up your entire village's government if I felt like it." Tony declared, though he wasn't quite sure how much Konoha was worth. He could definitely buy up all the land, and a good chunk of the buildings, at least.
Sasuke's face didn't change.
"Ever heard of TIME magazine?"
"Yes."
"I've been on the cover, multiple times, if that's something you think might be important in judging my net worth." Seriously, how to convince this kid that he really was richer than the majority of the world's population… "And once you get out of here, I'll show you my private jet."
"Your… what?"
"Airplane. You know, the stuff people use to fly around outside your little ninja continent."
Sasuke pursed his lips. Okay, so Tony was getting through, a bit.
"But why are you here at all?" There were some words, unspoken, behind that, but Tony wasn't sure quite what the kid was trying to say. If he was anywhere near right, though, then it was probably something along the lines of 'what kind of idiot is coming near here where Itachi might get them?'
Bah.
Tony had been on the receiving end of so many death threats and kidnappings and assassination attempts that almost nothing really fazed him anymore, not unless he was in the middle of the last of the three, in which case he occasionally panicked.
Itachi wasn't here, ergo there was nothing to worry about.
"Well, you see, I'm your only living relative, and I'm a legal adult that signed all the appropriate papers and stuff, so I'm basically your full legal guardian until you get your little ninja certification in this country, and your partial legal guardian until you turn twenty here. In the US, though, I'll be your full legal guardian until you're eighteen. Of course, this is if I don't accidently blow myself up or go off the deep end." Tony mused, lacing his hands behind his head and tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling. "So you can call me Uncle or something. Uncle Tony? That sounds okay to me. What do you think, JARVIS?"
"I have no preference on the subject."
"Right, forgot about that." Tony brought his gaze back down to look at Sasuke. "So you'll be coming to the US with me and going to grief counselors and therapists and all that fun stuff until you're declared mentally healthy enough to go back to your ninja school."
The anger that flashed over Sasuke's face was almost impressive. "No! I have to stay, have to train, I have to be ready to kill Itachi when I see him again!"
Tony raised both eyebrows and tilted his head forward. "Uh… no. Just that would have been enough to make me take you to some shrinks, even if I didn't know the whole story. You need to get your head screwed on straight before you go back to learning how to kill people. And before you ask, the Hokage agreed to all this. He's agreed with me that you need to go to some kind of counselling before you go back to school."
Tony left out the bit that the Hokage couldn't legally enforce Sasuke's leave from the Academy. However, Tony, being Sasuke's legal guardian, could, and the Hokage could also grant several months of leave to Sasuke with no repercussions other than possibly remedial classes.
Sasuke didn't seem willing to give up on his need to go back to the school as soon as possible, and appeared to be trying to think up another argument. Sadly for him, Tony was king of rambling on forever with no real substance but lots of words and time and natter.
"You'll be able to go back eventually, brat." Tony tried not to make the last word sound like an insult, because being called 'brat' by the help when he was a kid had always been better than being called 'young man' by adults that didn't realize just how much of their condescension he understood. "You just need to get back into fighting condition mentally before you can get back into fighting condition physically. You'll be allowed to exercise and learn and all that, you know. You just won't be allowed near any weapons or anything too violent for a while."
Sasuke still didn't seem willing to agree and just calm down already, but he wasn't trying to argue the subject anymore, so that was something, at least.
Tony smiled, and it was so very, very soft compared to his usual smirks. "You're gonna be fine, kid."
o.o.o.o.o
April 4, 2003
6:07 PM
Hokage Tower, Konohagakure
"People keep glaring at me and asking me the same question." Rhodey complained as Tony sat down in a chair outside the hospital room. "And because you took both the translators, I don't even know what they're asking."
Even as he said that, a man with white eyes and one of the dirtiest looks Tony had ever seen passed by.
Tony shrugged and, in a move that many (including Pepper and Rhodey, who only groaned or sighed at him) would deem incredibly stupid, jogged after the man and tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, buddy, can I ask you something?"
The man raised an eyebrow, though it did nothing to minimize the angry look from before. Luckily for Tony, this guy seemed to actually speak English, even if it was rather heavily accented. "I am not your… buddy."
"Yeah, sure, whatever. Not the point." Tony waved it off without much interest. "Anyway, I gotta ask, why are there so many people glaring at my friend over there? As far as I know, he's never even been on the continent before—"
"I haven't." Rhodey chimed in.
"—so there's really not much he could have done to get you guys all to hate him that easily. Is it because he's Air Force?" Tony leaned in closer to stage-whisper the next bit, because making a person think they'd been mistaken for something they hated was usually the quickest way to get them to own up to what they were actually doing, and most people didn't want to be thought of as racist, at least not publicly. "Is it because he's black?"
The man, after several seconds of staring at Tony and Rhodey alternatively, shook his head. "We assumed he was from Kumogakure, and given the grudge that many in the village hold against Kumogakure after the event that occurred several years ago…" he trailed off. "As the only country in the Elemental nations to have citizens with that color skin is Kaminari no Kuni, we immediately thought he was one of theirs. We rarely get visitors from outside the continent."
"…So it actually is because he's black." Tony couldn't keep the incredulity out of his voice, because wow that had never actually happened before.
"I will see to spreading the information as necessary. I apologize for any discomfort we may have all caused you." The man inclined his head, and then turned and strode off.
Tony just turned to look at Rhodey and Pepper, neither of whom had a real explanation ready. Tony made a small noise of despair.
"Fucking ninjas."
o.o.o.o.o
A/N: I'm starting to toss in some more hints in the "modern" scenes as to what happened due to Sasuke's presence in the story, and if you notice any discrepancies compared to the movies (like the whole thing with Steve)… well, blame the ninjas.
Ja ne,
Phoenix
