A/N: I'm sorry about the little discourse about Doctor Who monsters; you can skim past it, since it's mostly just so I can make an Ultron joke. Which is barely a joke and more just a call forward to Tony's overcompetence in the field of robots and artificial intelligence.

o.o.o.o.o

April 23, 2003
12:52 PM
Malibu

"Stay still, please, Mr. Stark." Ms. Douglas had a tin of some weird white stuff in her hands, and she was using it to white-out Tony's hair and eyebrows, already having bronzed his skin with some water-proof, SPF 15 make-up that Tony didn't know the name of.

He was going to look old.

"Your fingers are on my eyebrows, and it's weird." Tony didn't like having people touch him unless it was for sexy-times, and this was decidedly not sexy.

"I'm nearly finished, Mr. Stark." The manhandling continued for several more seconds, and then she stepped back and eyed her handiwork. She nodded. "That would be enough to divert suspicion, hopefully."

Tony looked at the mirror and pouted, his fears confirmed. "I look old."

"Yes, and as a result, people likely won't recognize you, especially not on a beach that isn't frequented by people outside your tax bracket very often." Ms. Douglas reminded him, packing up the special effects makeup she'd used for the "magic."

"So only other rich people, then. Other rich people that see me often enough to recognize me." Tony moaned, melodramatic to the last. "Now I'm going to be recognized, and I'm going to look old."

"Would you like me to add some liver spots and false wrinkles?" Ms. Douglas offered, sugary sweet, and Tony decided that she was literally the devil, because only the devil could act like that and not be weird about it.

"No. No liver spots. No wrinkles." Tony glanced over at Sasuke, who was mostly just staring at them, nonplussed. Given that the translator wasn't out, he probably didn't understand more than the occasional article adjective, but… well, tone said a lot. So did facial expression. "You okay there, kid?"

Sasuke had learned that particular phrase rather quickly, and the expression his face twisted itself into in response almost made Tony laugh. "Yes."

Ms. Douglas smiled softly, picking up the bag that held the beach supplies (Tony wasn't sure where it had come from, but he'd long ago resigned himself to the fact that the women in his life were probably hyper-competent alien robots from the future or something, because Pepper was the same way). "Ready when you are, Mr. Stark."

"Yeah. Let's go."

o.o.o.o.o

April 23, 2003
1:24 PM
Malibu

"Lucky we're this close to the ocean, and so far South, too." Ms. Douglas mused. She sat on a beach towel next to Tony, the both of them wearing sunglasses and watching Sasuke pick around in the sand a few feet from the water, too far away for the waves to do more than tickle his toes. If Tony knew that look, though, and he was pretty sure he did, then the boy would be building a fortress-like sand castle soon.

Ninjas. Ninjas with Stark relatives. Ninjas with ninja-y ninja training. Ninjas with science. Strategy. Trauma.

Of course a siege-resistant tower would be on Sasuke's to-build list on the beach.

"I wouldn't have suggested it if it weren't warm enough." Tony commented. He was wearing a shirt, to hide the fact that he was not, in fact, an old man, and Ms. Douglas was wearing some sleeveless knee-length dress that was really way too modest for the beach and probably just right for a nanny.

Meh.

"I suppose."

Tony looked over at the woman he'd hired, eyebrow raised. "I know that tone. What's got you all mopey?"

"Mm?" Ms. Douglas glanced over, a smile tugging at the edge of her lips. "Memories, that's all. Memories and buried dreams."

Tony waited a few seconds for her to continue, and then, when it became clear that she wouldn't, began talking himself. "I haven't really known you very long. Doesn't really sound like something you tell people after just a week or two."

"It's not exactly a secret." Ms. Douglas's voice was strangely empty. "I wanted children once. But that's not something that seems like it's likely to ever work out for me, so I do my best to make sure the children that do exist in this world are taken care of."

Tony didn't press the issue. He wasn't sure what exactly the sentence was supposed to mean, but whatever it meant (hysterectomy? Multiple miscarriages? Some kind of poisoning that rendered her infertile? 'History' catching up to her?), it was clearly not an issue he was supposed to press. For all that he was an asshole, Tony did know when to stop, and this was a very good place to stop.

"Right."

There was silence for several seconds, and then Ms. Douglas broke it like a wishbone. "And, if you don't mind me asking, what was your stance on children prior to Sasuke?"

"Wasn't sure. Wasn't ready. Kind of a thing that I was considering but not completely." Tony shrugged. "Always kept my options open just in case all my precautions weren't quite enough the one time it takes, but that never really happened. Only had one thing in mind, really, before Sasuke showed up."

"Oh?"

"If I had a daughter, I'd name her Eloise." Tony said, as though it was some kind of grand statement. "Not sure about the middle name. I'd probably leave that to whoever the mother was. Or the other father. Whichever. I just… I think I decided on that when I was twenty-four? I just really like the name."

"It's a fine name." Ms. Douglas assured him, as though he needed assuring. "And I'm sure that, when the time comes, your nephew will take to it quite well."

Tony snorted. "Yeah?"

"You know his history with his family better than I do. If you think he would be anything other than extremely protective of whatever child you have, no matter the other parent, then you are more foolish than I thought."

"Watch it." Tony said, though it had no bite. "I sign your paycheck."

"Ah, yes. Indeed you do." Ms. Douglas stood, strangely graceful. "I suppose I should do my job and go help Sasuke with his sand castle."

Tony levered himself to his feet and followed along. "Guess I'll see if I can teach him anything about structural engineering."

"It's sand."

"Doesn't matter."

o.o.o.o.o

May 15, 2003
2:00 PM
Malibu

"The blue looks better." Tony muttered, not quite comfortable with the words themselves yet. For all his discomfort, though, he got the annoyed look from Sasuke that had been half his goal, and watched as Sasuke switched colored pencils, fulfilling the other half.

"Better." Ms. Douglas commented, and when Tony looked up, he could see the amused look on both her face and Pepper's, and he mentally cursed them both. "But your accent is still rather glaring."

"At least it's understandable, right?" Tony groused. "That counts for something."

"If you say so, Mr. Stark." Pepper said in her picture-perfect-PA voice. "You have a meeting tomorrow, by the way."

"Can I skip?"

"No." Pepper smiled at him. "It's Research and Development, and even if you wanted to skip those usually, you've already skipped two meetings this week and skipping yet another would be a… very bad idea."

"Blargle." Tony muttered in lieu of an actual curse, mindful of the seven-year-old next to him. "Is Obie gonna be there?"

"I believe so." Pepper clicked through a few things on her computer, searching for something, probably an email. "There's a chance he might cancel, but he probably won't."

"Well, at least that's one good thing." Tony mumbled. It had been a while since he'd seen Obadiah, longer than Rhodey, even (and Rhodey was overseas and on duty at the moment, so that was quite some feat). If Tony wasn't mistaken, then Obadiah hadn't even met Sasuke yet, and that was obviously something that had to be fixed. "I can bring him by the house later and finally introduce these two."

"That'll be nice." Pepper, at least, new how important Obie was.

"Should I stay here tomorrow, or leave you to your family events?" Ms. Douglas asked, though it was mostly a question of whether she should stay out of the way or not; she was, technically, an au pair, living in the house with Tony and Sasuke, even if it was on the other side of the building. Granted, Tony hadn't ever imagined that his first offer to let a woman live in his home would be for an employee and not a life partner, but hey. Things always happened.

"Eh… Obie and I will probably end up drinking for a bit later on in the night, so you're free to come back around seven-ish." Tony ran the numbers in his head, estimating. Yeah, that sounded about right. He turned his attention back to Sasuke, who seemed very intent on filling in the diagram he was drawing. Tony was pretty sure it was a map of country boundaries detailing some decades-past war in Ninja Land, but he really didn't know, and so long as Sasuke cared to learn and it wasn't about killing people, then Tony figured it was probably alright. Still, though, all work and no play…

"Hey, Sasuke. Can you draw? Not just do this sort of stuff, but have you ever tried drawing?" Like a normal kid, Tony didn't add.

Sasuke blinked at him, glanced at the wall with the semi-permanent translation projection, and then eyed Tony with that half-lidded derision that a child should not have been capable of but somehow was. After a second, said kid was pulling out a blank sheet of paper, grabbing a silver colored pencil, and…

Huh.

Not bad.

Definitely not a masterpiece by any means.

But not bad.

"A cyberman head?"

Sasuke nodded, slowly.

"They're your favorite monsters, then?"

Sasuke paused, and then shook his head, faster.

"Which villains do you like best, then? Or which ones do you think are the scariest?"

If Sasuke suddenly became nonverbal (was that a thing? PTSD could make people lose their ability to speak or refuse to do so, but Tony didn't know if it could happen a good two months after the traumatic incident itself), then Tony was going to have even more trouble communicating than with just the language barrier.

Maybe Sasuke was just naturally quiet. Or… well, maybe the quiet wasn't entirely bad.

(He'd have to research that.)

"What was it? The Sensorites? The Daleks? The Great Intelligence?" Sure, the Second Doctor enemies were weird, usually, but the Great Intelligence was… creepy.

"WOTAN." Sasuke answered, cutting Tony off before he could go any further.

"Huh." Tony scratched his chin. "And why's that?"

Sasuke sent him a baleful look and pointed at the ceiling.

"…You think JARVIS is going to try to kill us? He's a pretty good program, but I haven't quite gotten him to the point of actual AI-ness yet. I mean, I'm trying, but even when I do, I don't think he's going to try to take over the world."

"A different one might." Sasuke muttered. "You make a lot of robots. One might go crazy and take over the world."

"Bah. If I make a robot with enough access to weapons that it can take down the world on its own, then I'll have something like that of my own, and I'll be really proud because at that point, it'll be self-replicating because any conquering overlord needs minions."

"…I'm going to ask Pepper to not let you near evil scientist things anymore." Sasuke muttered, going back to the cyberman drawing.

o.o.o.o.o

A/N: Really bad Ultron reference via Cybermen and WOTAN.

Also, I started with the 2005 series, so it kind of took me by surprise to see the Great Intelligence popping up as a Second Doctor monster. Didn't realize the history reached that far back.

Ja ne,

Phoenix