August 14, 2003
9:34 PM
Malibu
"Hey, kiddo." Tony grinned down at his laptop. Sasuke was framed on the screen, looking supremely bored, and Ms. Douglas was sitting behind him, reading a book. "So, first day back at school. How'd it go?"
Sasuke made a face, and Tony chuckled. Most kids had a reason for hating school, so he hadn't expected Sasuke's to be any different. "Okay, clearly not as well as I'd hoped. I thought you'd enjoy going back to your ninja training?"
"School is fine. The problem is my…" Sasuke paused, made a frustrated noise, and had a quick, hurried conversation with Ms. Douglas. Tony waited patiently. "The problem is my classmate…s."
Tony raised an eyebrow. "Go on."
"They ask where I was."
"And you said…?"
"That… I was with a… re-la-ti-ve in the Outer Countries." Sasuke made a face. "Then they ask more questions."
"You tell them it was none of their business?"
"Yes." Sasuke said bluntly. "They also ask about Ms. Douglas, but she can handle that herself. I just say that she is, ah…nanny?"
"Yeah, nanny." Tony tapped a pen against the desk. "If that's all, then it's better than I expected."
Sasuke muttered something, voice low and using Japanese, so Tony didn't actually understand any of it. "Mind repeating that?"
"…the girls are… kimyouna." Sasuke seemed frustrated, though whether that was due to the girls or not being able to remember the word was up for debate; Tony would have put money on both.
"Strange or weird," Ms. Douglas said, and Sasuke nodded, face still scrunched up funny.
"Strange how?" Tony asked, though he had his own suspicions; eight was about the right age for, well—
"They go…" and then Sasuke clasped his hands together, pasted a sickly sweet smile on his face, and squealed, "Sasuke-kun! Sasuke-kun!"
His face dropped back down to its usual deadpan in such a nonchalant way that Tony took a few seconds to process it, at which point he began laughing uproariously.
"It's not funny!"
"It is absolutely funny, and you'll understand why in a decade or so." Tony wiped at his eyes. "Nah, just tell them you're not interested in girls that come on too strong. Or just girls in general."
Sasuke stared blankly at him, and Tony remembered that idioms weren't exactly the sort of thing people picked up immediately when learning a language, and while four or so months completely immersed in the language was definitely going to lead to some language skills, especially at Sasuke's age, 'coming on strong' was still a bit out of his way.
Ms. Douglas, as usual, came to the rescue and translated for them.
Sasuke, as usual, sent an unimpressed look Tony's way, and shook his head. "I will just ignore them."
"That won't work," Tony warned him.
Sasuke, as per usual, just rolled his eyes and went on with his life.
o.o.o.o.o
October 11, 2003
1:03 PM
Malibu
"You can understand why I don't want any unnecessary visitors," Professor Xavier said, smiling pleasantly at Tony through the screen; he'd already signed the NDAs. "And while I understand that you would prefer to have your own security with you, I must ask that you leave behind everyone barring yourself and your nephew."
"I get it, it's just…" Tony rubbed the back of his neck. "Ugh. I'm not all that fond of the idea of running around New York without some kind of guard."
"This is a school, Mr. Stark." Prof. Xavier reminded him. "And due to its nature, we have plenty of our own protection as well."
Tony pursed his lips. Prof. Xavier had been hinting at what was so special about the school for almost as long as Dr. Frost had, and Tony was getting a little annoyed by it. "I'm getting pretty curious about why you guys have such good security. Dr. Frost's been hinting at something weird about the students, and I've got my suspicions, but…"
"Just as I signed an agreement with you to keep your nephew's existence a secret, and just as you asked that the other permanent residents of the school do, I will ask of you to do the same concerning the school's secrets." Prof. Xavier's pleasant smile never wavered, and Tony's eyes narrowed in the same suspicious they always did when it came to this man.
Prof. Xavier looked far too young to have been born in the earlier half of the twentieth century.
The man was almost out of his sixties, and, while completely bald, he was barely wrinkled. It was suspicious, and unnerving, and Tony needed to know what was going on.
"Nothing illegal going on there, I hope." Tony hedged, feigning disinterest.
"While unaware of our exact location, the government is aware of our existence and purpose, yes. Or SHIELD is, at least." And there it was; the name of the weird-as-hell alphabet agency that Howard had worked with for the better part of four decades. Tony rarely dealt with them directly, but he'd been involved in selling them tech and weapons since he'd taken over Stark Industries. He still wasn't completely sure what it was that they did, but they were UN-sanctioned, and the tracking of where the weaponry went all seemed solid, so he kept it up. The fact that Professor Xavier was associated with them was… interesting. "We're a school, Mr. Stark, not a military training facility."
"I get it, I do. Just… I hope you don't mind if I do bring something to defend myself with anyway." Tony could deal with going somewhere without bodyguards, especially a school that was hiding secrets.
"I should warn you that there are a handful of teachers here that will happily eviscerate you if you hurt any of the students." The pleasant smile was still there. Creepy.
"Okay, two things: one, I'd never hurt a kid. Anyone who would deserves whatever nasty stuff's coming for them. Two, I've met Dr. Frost. Quite a few times, actually. I know what she'd do to me if I hurt a kid in front of her, and none of it's nice. I wouldn't be surprised if you had a few more like her stashed away in that grand old building of yours." Tony held back a shudder at the thought of what those other teachers might be like.
"Some of them are worse." Prof. Xavier informed him, all nonchalance. "But so long as the children, including your nephew, are fine, neither of us should have reason to cause trouble with the other."
"Yeah." Tony's fingers tapped away at the desk. "No trouble."
o.o.o.o.o
May 12, 2012
4:05 PM
Helicarrier
"Excuse me." The voice wasn't incredibly deep, but it was clearly male and definitely on its way to some level of maturity. It was also coming from right at the end of the table that was currently occupied by various high-level SHIELD agents and operatives, and their… associates.
Tony's face lit up, and he spun around with his arms thrown wide. "Sasuke! Give Uncle Tony a hug!"
Sasuke blinked once. Twice. "No."
"Manly hug?"
"No."
"Handshake."
"…Fine." Sasuke held out his hand, and allowed Tony to grab it and pull him into a one-armed hug anyway. He didn't seem surprised by the move at all. The tall, orange-haired boy in what seemed to be a curtain silently stepped up behind him.
Tony turned to look at the rest of the table. "For those of you who haven't been properly introduced, this is my brat, Sasuke."
Sasuke closed his eyes, took a deep, fortifying breath (as many needed to do around one such as Tony Stark), and then opened his eyes and nodded around the table to the people he hadn't really met as himself yet. "Hi."
"Rude." Tony jabbed an elbow into Sasuke's side, completely ignoring the hypocrisy of his statement.
Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Pleasure to meet you. I'm Sasuke Uchiha. This is Juugo. Sorry for getting blood all over your floor."
Natasha held a hand up to her face, hiding a small smile, one of the few she'd had since the news about Clint had come to her over the phone in a the middle of a run-down apartment building in the middle of Russia.
"Already cleaned up." Fury said, the words low and slow and slightly growly. He gestured to Tony's chair, as well at the empty chairs that had been left next to Natasha, most of the room too scared of her to dare sitting there. "So, you two going to sit down, or are we going to have to wait even longer for explanations?"
"Explanations?"
"I'm explaining you and all our adventures since we've met, including how you met the others and what the hell you were doing to get yourself injured like that." Tony's face dropped into a scowl during the second half of the sentence, and Sasuke seemed a tiny bit taken aback by it.
"I'm too old for you to gr—"
"As soon as your business for Konoha is done, I'm dragging you back to the US and grounding you."
"…Fine." Sasuke sat down next to Natasha, Juugo opting to stand behind him instead of taking the other seat. "Where are you in the story?"
"Our first visit to Xavier's."
"It is probably best to mention as little of that as possible, Uncle."
"Other than Thor and your friend here, and you've told me he can't speak English yet, is there even anyone at the table that doesn't already know? And I'm guessing that Thor is cleared on the basis of SHIELD being involved."
"…True enough. But the details—"
"—can be skipped over, kid. We're on a bit of a time limit."
o.o.o.o.o
January 10, 2004
10:53 AM
Westchester
"Why do we need to visit this school?" Sasuke asked from the backseat; he'd wanted shotgun, but Tony had given that a no; the front was a dangerous place for a kid in case of a crash, not that Tony would crash, but… well, Sasuke's safety came first.
"Because we've been talking over some things regarding genetics, and I want to talk to the Professor in person and look over his notes with him." Tony explained, fingers tapping against the wheel. The school was supposed to be a large, old-fashioned building, that should be the next building in sight, but Tony had been driving without any such buildings in sight for the past few miles.
"And I have to come?"
"Yeah, we're interested in whether or not X-genes and the, uh… kekkei genkai have anything to do with each other."
Sasuke made a face, one that Tony saw in the rearview mirror. "What's wrong, kiddo?"
"Do I have to give blood?" Sasuke still had a habit of switching back to Japanese whenever the words or turns of phrase escaped him in English.
"Not if you don't want to. You don't have to give anything if you don't want to, but we could use something to analyze if you're willing. Blood would let us see stuff like hormone levels and other stuff, but even then, you're a single, underage kid. We'd need a lot more people to get any comprehensive data. Nah, all we'd really take is a cheek swab for DNA so that we can see if there's anything resembling an X gene in your DNA, and even that's up to you." Tony explained as well as he could, fully aware of how much Sasuke hated it when people talked down to him or acted like he was too young to understand them.
"Cheek swab?"
"Uh… take a Q-tip, swipe it along the inside of your cheek to collect a few cells, and that's about it." Tony shrugged, squinting down the road. "I think I see the school now."
"That is all? Just some… stuff from my mouth?" Sasuke seemed surprised.
"Yep, uh, that's about all it would take for us to see what's so funky about your DNA." Tony turned into the drive, relaxing. "We're here. Don't unbuckle 'til I've parked, okay?"
"I know, Uncle." Sasuke rolled his eyes in the rearview mirror, and Tony grinned as he parked.
"Alright, kid, let's get going." Tony pulled himself out of the car and held the door open for Sasuke, hiding a smirk at the way the little kid had to bounce over the seats to get close enough to the door to actually hop out.
"You said this is a school. Where are the students?" Sasuke asked as they walked up to the front doors, the grounds eerily silent.
"Saturday in early January. Most of the kids are probably still home on vacation and not coming back until tomorrow or Monday." Tony knocked on the door. "But there are a few permanent residents, which apparently includes a couple of the students for some reason, so there's probably someone your own age here for you to hang out with when the grown-ups get all boring.
Sasuke made a face, but didn't reply, as the door opened at that very moment.
"Dr. Frost! Good to see you in person again." Tony shook her hand, mind scrambling to come up with a suitably Stark-esque joke, but figured he could put off the insulting humor for later. "So, do I finally get to see what's so special about this place?"
"Indeed, you do." Dr. Frost nodded at him, and then leaned over a little to shake Sasuke's hand. "It's good to see you again as well, Sasuke."
"…You too, Dr. Frost." Sasuke said after Tony nudged him with one foot.
"If you'll both follow me, then?" Dr. Frost turned around and strode off, beckoning for them to follow her in turn.
"So," Tony began as he fell into step beside her, "Why are you the one answering the door? Don't you have TAs or whatever the school equivalent of an intern is to do that for you?"
"We don't have a tendency to take on more staff than necessary, for reasons that will soon be clear to you. We also figured that it would be easier for you if the person to meet you at the doors was someone you already knew." Dr. Frost lead them up a flight of stairs, not slowing down at all. Tony appreciated that, and Sasuke didn't complain, at least.
(Down the hall, he spied a pair of old-fashioned elevator doors, but didn't bring them up. If Dr. Frost preferred the stairs, he didn't really have any reason to complain.)
"Hopefully." Tony muttered. "You've all been dancing around the subject for a while."
Dr. Frost smiled, stopping by a door. "For good reason, Mr. Stark."
She knocked on the door.
"Come in."
Dr. Frost's smile only grew, as did Tony's apprehension. She opened the door and gestured inside. "After you, Mr. Stark."
Tentatively, hand ready to go for his 'protective measures' if necessary, Tony stepped in.
The first person he saw, he recognized. Bald and wheelchair-bound, Prof. Charles Xavier was someone he'd video-chatted with enough over the past few months to recognize.
The second person he saw, he didn't recognize. Short, muscly, and with a set of impressive sideburns, the man was scowling at Tony from the outset.
The third person he saw, he somewhat recognized. Middle-aged, redheaded, and still gorgeous, Jean Grey was someone that Tony had been accustomed to seeing at 'special functions' when he was younger, though they'd gradually entered different circles as they'd entered adulthood themselves.
The fourth person he saw, he recognize. This person likely would have been the first person he'd seen, had they been in his line of site upon entering, but had been hidden behind the door until Tony had taken a few steps in.
This person was very large, very furry, and very blue.
Tony took three very long seconds to stare, eyebrows slowly rising, and then stopped, telling himself that continuing to do so would be rude in ways that he wasn't.
(Tony was rude, but generally only in a 'general asshole' way, to anyone and everyone, with particular attention to people that he didn't like. There were things that were out of line even for him.)
Tony turned back to Prof. Xavier, who was smiling genially in his direction.
"So, I'm going to go ahead and say that my 'the school is at least partly populated by mutants' hypothesis was the right one."
