April 12, 2003
11:28 AM
Malibu
"This is ridiculous." Sasuke muttered, looking like the picture of a huffy seven-year-old.
"This is something you need." Tony replied, scrolling down a page on his laptop.
"I do not."
"You're a traumatized kid whose current main goal in life is fratricide. Yes. You need therapy." Tony had tried explaining it more fully before, had tried to make sure that Sasuke understood fully just why this was so necessary.
Unfortunately, Tony's patience was quick to wane, and Sasuke was too stubborn for his own good, so by this point, Tony short answers were mostly automatic by now. Sasuke wasn't going to listen to him anyway, so the answers were no longer anything he put effort into.
Besides, Tony wasn't the one that scarily efficient in getting Sasuke to go. Tony was the one trying to compromise, offering to talk to the therapist before Sasuke, offering to have the bodyguards do a full pat-down, offering different rooms for the conversation to go on in, offering to make sure Tony and Pepper were the only other people in the building when it was time to speak with the woman in question (that one had actually been agreed to by all parties; Happy, Ms. Douglas, Obie, and the bodyguards were all either outside or had the day off).
Pepper was the one laying down the law.
Sasuke didn't hate Pepper. He respected and resented her, but he didn't hate her. Nonetheless, the glare he shot her as she lead the therapist in was twice as venomous as the one that he shot Tony.
The woman was tall, blonde, and wearing a little too much make-up for Tony's tastes. She was, however, one of the few licensed therapists with experience in helping children that were victims of unusual circumstances. Her most frequent clients, from what her résumé said, were either child mutants, the children or siblings of mutants, or even families of mutants.
(And as only Tony could tell, a handful of 'escapees' from the Hidden Continent.)
Given how rare any of those were, Dr. Frost was just about the only one in her field outside the Elemental Nations themselves, and even among the few others, she was the youngest.
"Mr. Stark, Ms. Potts." Emma Frost nodded at him and Pepper, then turned her attention towards Sasuke. "And you must be Uchiha Sasuke."
Intuitive multilingual, the paper had said, listing it as a subset of some strangely powerful telepathic mutant bla-bla-bla… Tony tried to ignore mutant abilities when they weren't causing him trouble, because they really were almost as ridiculous as ninjas. At least telepathy was somewhat understandable, and a lengthy conversation with Dr. Frost over the phone had assured him that she would be limiting her abilities whenever she came to the house, for everyone's sakes, unless someone asked her to do otherwise. Mind-reading was definitely not something Tony wanted happening, but hey.
NDAs and the ability to sue someone into the ground if he felt like it had to come in handy sometime, right?
Sasuke nodded, eyes trained on Dr. Frost's. "They said you were like a Yamanaka."
"A… what?" Dr. Frost tilted her head, a friendly look on her face. She clearly had a lot of experience with kids, not that she was all that old herself; must have graduated young. "I'm afraid I don't know what a Yamanaka is."
Sasuke frowned, thinking it over. "They're a clan back in Konoha, and most of them are mind-readers, and some of them are… psychologists." Sasuke stumbled over one of the words, but continued valiantly. "You kind of look like one."
Dr. Frost shrugged, and Tony made himself ignore the way her chest moved, staring at the wall instead (she's twenty-three, his brain reminded him, and yeah, the difference wasn't disgustingly big, but messing around with his nephew/cousin's therapist was not a responsible course of action, so he had to refuse to even be tempted).
"For all I know, I may be related to them, way, way back." Dr. Frost gestured at the couches. "Would you like to sit down somewhere more comfortable?"
Sasuke stared at her suspiciously, and then nodded.
"It could be worse." Pepper noted, and Tony couldn't disagree.
He glanced down at the résumé he still held in his hands, and his eyes lingered on the address:
Dr. Emma Frost, Psy.D.
Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, Room 105
1407 Graymalkin Lane
Westchester County, NY 10461
USA
o.o.o.o.o
April 23, 2003
4:21 AM
Malibu
Tony woke with a start as the sound of screaming pierced right next to his ear. He shot up in bed, and the screaming grew quieter.
"JARVIS?"
"You requested I wake you if Sasuke were to exhibit signs of a nightmare." JARVIS answered in that stilted way of his. Tony was constantly working on JARVIS's programming to make him more human and wow now was not the time to start thinking about that.
"So you projected his screaming here. Good enough." Tony flung the covers off of himself and, only pausing for half a second to slip his slippers on, rushed out of the room.
(This wasn't the first time Sasuke had had nightmares, but it was the first time that the nightmares had lasted long enough for Tony to get there in time to do anything.)
"C'mon, kid, wake up." It honestly hit Tony hard to see the kid this messed up, and the nightmares were the cherry at the top of the shitstorm cake. After several seconds of just trying to wake him up verbally, Tony finally just reached out and shook Sasuke's shoulder with one hand.
The reaction was instantaneous, Sasuke's hands flying out and gripping Tony's arm in what probably would have been a good way to break his elbow if the hands had switched positions. After a few seconds of silence, Sasuke finally spoke, rasping and still teary and pushing Tony away as hard as he could (which, for a kid that young, was really, really hard).
"Nokose."
Tony didn't know what that meant, but he could definitely tell what the shove meant. Slowly, he started backing away.
"Nokose!"
He sped up a little, already planning on what to do once he was out.
"Ore o hottoite!"
Tony got out, closed the door, and leaned against it. Slowly, he slid down until he was sitting on the floor, the back of his head pressed against the door. Through the thin wood, he heard the sounds of Sasuke beginning to sob as silently as he could, probably into a pillow.
Shit.
Tony knew, mostly, what taking care of a child entailed. He'd always been at least a little prepared, if only in case of an accident with one of his many one-night stands ended with a bun in the oven. If Sasuke had been a lot younger, or a lot older, or his family had died any other way, Tony would have been able to deal with him a lot more easily.
But Sasuke was a seven-year-old with trust issues and PTSD and revenge fantasies, and Tony wasn't, in any way, prepared for how to deal with that.
(Thank god he hadn't seen any hint of the eyes.)
Dr. Frost had been helpful, certainly, and they'd already set up a schedule for her to meet with Sasuke twice a week for the foreseeable future, and she'd given him tips and hints on how to help Sasuke through these problems, but that didn't mean that Tony was ready to care for a child this broken.
But he tried. He tried, and that would have to be enough. It needed to be enough.
So Tony got up. He got up, and he went and heated up a mug of milk and brought it back to the room, because he didn't know what to really do, but this, at least, couldn't hurt.
He knocked on the door. "I'm coming in."
There was silence on the other side, and Tony wracked his head for the right translation. "Um… Ore ga… dete kuru?"
This time, there was a sniffle on the other side, followed by an angry-sounding mumble that was too muffled for Tony to understand what Sasuke was saying. With a sigh, Tony pushed open the door.
Good news: Sasuke wasn't yelling and throwing things at him anymore.
Bad news: Sasuke still had tear tracks on his face and was curled up in the fetal position, glaring at Tony.
"I've got milk." Tony offered. "Ah… gyuunyuu."
(This word, amongst others, had amused Tony far, far too much when he learned it.)
(He couldn't find it in himself to even grimace, let alone smile, right now.)
Sasuke sat up, glaring at Tony, but resigned to the fact that he couldn't make the man actually leave. Tony held the mug out, and, quite slowly, Sasuke reached out and took it into his own hands. He sat on the bed, staring into the milk, and Tony slowly sat down next to him.
"…Why?"
Tony looked at Sasuke, and mulled over the question. "Well… why what? Why did I bring the milk? Why did I take you in? Why did you and your family suffer the way you did?"
Sasuke curled in on himself, knuckles turning white around where he was holding the mug. "Why… milk?"
Avoidance.
"Heard it helps with bad dreams." Tony answered weakly. "Warm kids' drink and all that."
Sasuke didn't respond, and Tony chose to think he was probably trying to translate, not just ignoring him for the sake of it. A few seconds later, the translator phone was out again, and Sasuke was looking at him in askance. Tony obliged, repeating his answer, and almost chuckled when Sasuke started glaring at him again. "It's true."
"Why…" Sasuke trailed off, frustrated, and switched back to Japanese; Tony didn't blame him. "Why are you taking care of me?"
"Because you're family. Because you're a kid. Because you've got no one else, and you've been through so much that I can't leave you alone. Because people have tried to break you, and you're barely holding on. Because you need someone, because I fit the criteria, because I have a duty, and because it's been a long time since I've had a family. Because I've only known you for less than three weeks and my first though when I look at you is already 'I gotta protect this kid.' Because you're my little cousin and you need me and I care."
Sasuke didn't speak for the rest of the night.
o.o.o.o.o
April 23, 2003
12:20 PM
Malibu
Sasuke wasn't related to Tony on the Stark side, but that didn't seem to matter; math and science were an adequate distraction that he chose himself anyway.
"I do not understand." Sasuke said, and Tony looked up from the blueprints he was editing, glad that he could at least translate that little without too much trouble, and gladder still that Sasuke was speaking of his own volition again.
"Can't understand what?" The fact that he could understand that much didn't mean he was going to start speaking Japanese himself, yet, though. He wasn't quite that confident in his language skills yet.
"This problem. The wording confuses me." Sasuke glared at Tony, as though it were his fault, which, yeah, it probably was.
"Okay, then, bratling." Tony rolled over on the wheelie office chair he favored at the moment, sliding up next to Sasuke, who shifted away accordingly. "What's up?"
It was a simple problem, and Tony had it figured out before he even finished reading it, but for a seven-year-old that had only had standard education so far… well, maybe multiplication happened a bit later in most kids' educations than Tony had thought.
(Tony'd been there at the age of three, but basically everything he'd been told had said that bringing up something like that was a bad idea, personal experience included.)
As Tony tried to talk Sasuke through the concept of multiplication, he thought back to the little toys he'd been using to practice when he'd been learning the same concepts. He was fairly certain that he had used some little thing where, when you pushed the button with the problem on it, the answer showed up, and thought that might be helpful here.
Maybe.
Still, he had to talk to the kid about something, and while TV and Tony's work were alright as far as shallow things went, Tony really wanted to know a bit more about Sasuke himself.
"You feel like taking a break?" He asked, tapping a pencil against the desk. "You like tomatoes, right? I think we have some cherry tomatoes upstairs, and salads aren't too hard to make; even I know how to make them, so we can have that."
Sasuke's stare was growing more and more deadpan, and Tony felt some part of him relax when the kid nodded. Getting Sasuke interested in anything the days after he had nightmares was a disaster in and of itself, and Tony really didn't know what to do, other than, just maybe…
"JARVIS, get Ms. Douglas and Pepper down here. We're going to the beach."
Douglas could take care of the disguises (yet another thing on that super-nanny résumé of hers). And Pepper? Well, someone had to take care of company emergencies while he was gone. She'd get a bonus, or overtime, or something like that.
Whatever.
It was time to go to the beach.
o.o.o.o.o
A/N: I would like to mention that some things (like Sasuke's nightmare and the beach episode) aren't actually being told to the Avengers and SHIELD by Tony in 2012. We, as the readers, see all the pertinent stuff happening in 2003 and on, but Tony's actually rushing through a bunch of the story, skimming and skipping information when necessary.
Emma Frost has a psychology degree in Earth-616, but in that universe, it is with a focus on sexology. During House of M, however, we're shown that she could have become a child therapist under different circumstances, basically doing what she's doing with Sasuke here (in House of M, she was working with Franklin Richards, whose parents had died in that timeline). Within the context of this story (which is Earth-199999, for the most part, with bits and pieces from other 'verses and fused with Naruto), she graduated young, her powers making it easier for her to learn, and achieved her doctorate in children's psychology by the age of twenty. At that point, she went into working with children that either had superpowers or were related to those with superpowers and had suffered from some level of PTSD. The Yamanaka thing was meant as a joke, but it will be brought up again when people call up certain questions regarding shinobi clans and the X-gene later.
Please stop asking who Ms. Douglas is; when I've set it up as a mystery like this, it's a little rude to just ask. If you want to discuss your theories, bringing up hints you thought you might have caught and telling me how you're piecing them together, then that's fine, but just outright asking me makes me feel as though no one's getting the point of it.
Ja ne,
Phoenix
