December 9, 2006
12:21 PM
Westchester, New York

"Okay, but you're wrong." Sasuke insisted, looking Anna Marie dead in the eye. "It's completely uncalled for and unnecessary."

"It's cute and they make each other better." She argued back. "Why do you even hate it so much? What bothers you about 'em?"

"He's, like, literally a hundred times her age!" Sasuke jabbed a finger at the computer screen with the open wiki page. He could feel Kurt and David rolling their eyes behind him, and Kitty was already distracted, but this was important, dammit. "I know he says nine hundred, but he spent at leasta full millennium as the eighth doctor, and was four hundred and fifty as the first, which gives us a minimum of a millennium and a half, plus all the time spent as two through seven and whatever time the ninth put into the Time War!"

"You've seen the way he checks his ears in the mirror in the first episode," Anna Marie pointed out. "He's only been Nine for a really short time then."

"That doesn't change the fact that Rose is nineteen and the Tenth Doctor is closer to nineteen hundred." Sasuke pointed out. "Not to mention the general power imbalance. The Doctor is practically a god and she's just a particularly lucky and athletic human. She isn't unimportant, but she's practically a baby compared to him."

Anna Marie crossed her arms and huffed. "I still think they're cute."

"And I'm still glad she's gone and am absolutely looking forward to the new season, starring someone other than Rose." Sasuke was a very mature young man, and so stuck his tongue out in Anna Marie's direction, garnering exactly the same response from her.

"Are you two done arguing about boring stuff yet?" Kitty asked, leaning back through her chair to stare at them. "Because it really is. Boring, I mean. Nobody cares except you."

"The internet does!" Anna Marie immediately said. "The internet cares a lot."

Kitty made a face. "But there's so much other stuff on the internet that isn't boring."

Sasuke and Anna Marie shared a look. They may have disagreed on the particulars, but they did agree on the importance of cheesy science fiction.

David sighed, once more wondering why they were all in his room instead of somewhere else. Kurt patted him on the shoulder consolingly.

o.o.o.o.o

December 9, 2006
3:46 PM
Westchester, New York

"So…" Sasuke wasn't normally prone to filling up silences with random words that were largely designed to fill up said silences, but the lack of conversation was currently stifling. Kurt had asked him to talk privately, so they'd gone outside and sat on a stone wall that cut off the edge of a hill to make room for a walkway, dangling their legs over the edge.

When someone asked you to talk and then sat in clearly nervous silence for several minutes, it generally got very awkward, very quickly. Living with Tony had exposed Sasuke to the tactic of filling awkward silences frequently enough that it now felt strange to revert to the silent habits that he'd had for several years after… well, after Itachi.

"Kurt?" Sasuke finally said, after his earlier attempt did nothing to get his friend to talk. "Is there a point to you asking me to come here, or are we just going to sit in silence until dinner?"

Kurt flinched, but seemed to jolt out of whatever haze had gripped him. "I need to tell you something."

Sasuke waited, and when an explanation didn't follow, gestured impatiently for Kurt to keep going. "And?"

"I don't… I don't know how to tell you." Kurt said, fingers twisting around each other.

(The back of Sasuke's mind commented that it was lucky shinobi opportunities were nonexistent outside of the Elemental Nations; having only three fingers per hand would have made learning hand signs an absolutely terrible experience.)

"Start at the beginning." Sasuke more ordered than suggested, because when it really came down to it, he could try to be sensitive and patient, but he ultimately had very shallow reserves of both virtues. "Or at whichever part is most important."

Kurt stared for a second and then, like it was being torn out, blurted, "I think I'm trans."

Sasuke blinked once. Twice. "What?"

Kurt deflated. "I know I'm only thirteen and a lot of people think that—"

"No, stop, Kurt." Sasuke grabbed his friend by the shoulders. "I don't know what that word means. I said 'what' because I'm confused. English isn't my first language either. I literally have no idea what you're talking about."

"…Ah."

Sasuke let go of Kurt's shoulders and turned back to face out from the hill. Languages were… people got over their pride very quickly when learning a new language. It was hard, thankless work that rarely stuck or made sense like, say, math or chakra control. Sasuke, when learning English, had had to let go of his pride and learn to ask for the meanings of words if he wanted to get anywhere, and that difficulty in adjusting to English was something he and Kurt had bonded over.

"I think…" Kurt paused, tongue darting out along lips as though trying to taste the words to figure out which ones to use, though it could have just as easily been a symptom of nerves. "I think I identify more as a girl than as a boy, despite what my body is like and what my birth certificate says."

Sasuke mulled over the words for a bit, parsing them out. "Okay. Do I need to change how I talk to you?"

Kurt stared at Sasuke for a few moments, wide-eyed. "I… not yet. I haven't told anyone else, yet."

"Not even your mom or sister?" Sasuke frowned. "Wouldn't the Professor know, anyway? Or Ms. Frost? Or Dr. Grey?"

Telepaths.

Telepaths everywhere.

"They try to stay out of our personal lives unless there's an emergency. I think the Professor only allows a passive scan of emotions, so he can pick up panic and things that can cause or be caused by bad situations." Kurt stopped. "Um… no, I haven't told Mother or Anna Marie."

"Because…?" Sasuke had a feeling he knew why, but he wanted to be sure. Konoha's shinobi population was largely ambivalent on the subject of sexuality so long as bloodlines didn't die out and deprive the village of useful weapons, but gender roles were much more rigidly enforced.

He still wasn't entirely sure why, but they were.

(Tony had thrown his hands up in the air after a story that hit rather strongly on the subject, and used his favorite excuse of "Ninjas!" which almost seemed to be a curse when it came out of his mouth by now. Sasuke had been confused and somewhat insulted initially, but he'd realized soon enough that Tony's habit was his way of inserting humor into a situation that made him uncomfortable.)

(The situation, of course, was ninjas.)

(Just their existence, really.)

"I do not know how they will take it." Kurt said, staring morosely at his her feet. "You are… you are rarely here, and you deal with a life that is more fantastical than even that of mutants. You are a ninja, so you know how to keep secrets. You are safer to tell, because even if you didn't approve, you wouldn't tell anyone."

Sasuke shifted, acutely uncomfortable. What Kurt had said wasn't wrong at all, but it was a bit awkward to hear it said aloud. "I guess?"

He rolled his next thought around his head a bit more before he said out aloud into the awkward silence that had sprung up. "I think you should tell your mom. Or someone else at the school. Anna Marie adores you, and I think David would understand no matter what."

Kurt shrugged, shoulders hunched inwards. "Maybe."

There was a pregnant pause that stretched to the point of awkwardness.

"Do you have a name picked out?" Sasuke asked, trying to steer towards what was probably a safer topic.

"I want something that starts with the same letter, and is German." She said. "I like Kerstin and Kharmen, but I am not sure yet. Certainly not Katherine or anything similar; it would cause great confusion with Kitty, I think."

Sasuke nodded along.

"Do you need anything else?" He said, when no other questions came to mind. He felt like there ought to be something else to say, but he just… couldn't really think of anything relevant.

"Not really."

o.o.o.o.o

June 2, 2007
7:27 PM
Stark Mansion, New York

Sasuke stood behind Tony, face impassive as he watched the guests that wandered through his uncle's 37th birthday party. He was wearing his Shisui-based disguise, the henge with his cousin's face and a three-piece suit.

He also had a kunai holster at his leg, hidden under the solid illusion that was henge, and had a fake gun in a fake holster attached to his fake belt.

Henge was useful.

"Having fun?" Pepper asked as she stepped up next to him, watching Tony and Obadiah schmooze with some random government official.

"Not particularly, no." Sasuke scanned the room again to check for possible threats. "Happy?"

"No sign of anything yet." The voice chirped in his ear, using the small devices Tony had designed himself. "And can I add that I still don't feel comfortable making an eleven-year-old the visible defense?"

"Almost twelve," Sasuke said before he could stop himself. "And with shinobi training. I was taking down horse-sized boar before you even met me."

"Boys," Pepper's voice held a warning. "Behave."

"Yes, Ms. Potts." Happy sighed. "You feel like trading out at any point kid, you just let me know. Sure as hell can't be fun for a kid to be at this thing."

"Hn." Sasuke didn't say it out loud, but Happy was right. The party was, despite being a party, incredibly boring. "I'll check with you about that in fifteen minutes."

Those fifteen minutes pass much as the first hour and a half did, with more people arriving all the time. Sasuke knows that, as a shinobi, he'll be getting even longer shifts, averaging on eight or more hours, for clients that he cares about far less than his Uncle.

That said, he's not getting paid for this and honestly has no obligation to be there, other than sheer paranoia and filial piety, neither of which were all that important to anyone except Sasuke, and even he was flagging in his devotion to the concepts. He held a champagne glass up to his face, eyeing his reflection in the glass and feeling the weight of Pepper's disapproving gaze. If he drank even a single sip, he was in trouble.

The reflection of Shisui's face, bored and impassive as his cousin's had never actually been in life, stared back at him.

"Happy, I'm ready to switch out." He said after examining his reflection for a bit. Henge didn't require a massive amount of chakra for upkeep the way some techniques did, not after initial setting, but there was still a small, steady drain on his reserves that was starting to get annoying.

They performed the exchange more or less flawlessly, and Tony didn't even acknowledge it. Sasuke made his way out of the room and up the stairs to the private area. There were at least two closed doors with some kind of clothing item on the doorknob, which he pointedly ignored on his way to the bathroom to ditch the henge.

He locked the door behind him, dropped henge, and fixed himself up as well as possible. While no one really paid attention to children at these things, a child that wasn't well-dressed and clean was going to garner some questions. So long as he was more or less presentable, he was also more or less invisible.

A knock sounded from the door. "Hey, are you done? I gotta pee!"

A girl, maybe his age. He made a face at the mirror and then sighed and went to open the door.

"Eh?" The girl, with black hair and eyes, and pale skin, could have fit in with any number of clans in Konoha if not for the European cast of her face. There were Asian features, sure, but there was definitely a mix. "Who're you? I saw a bodyguard come in here."

Sasuke thought a few words that would likely have gotten Raven to threaten to scrub his mouth with soap, back when she'd been around. "He climbed out the window."

The girl looked past him at the admittedly large window, brow furrowing in consternation. "Why?"

"I didn't ask." That was a great excuse, actually. It wasn't like anyone would expect him to know if the supposed bodyguard hadn't said anything. "Who are you?"

"Kate Bishop!" The girl stuck out a hand, and he could tell that she was trying to seem mature and important. It was cute enough that he felt the sudden urge to pat her on the head. He wasn't entirely sure where the condescension had come from, but he was sure there was at least one adult in his life that was that much of an ass.

He shook her hand, and then stepped out of the way. "The bathroom's all yours."

Kate stared him down for a second, and then said. "Stay here. You're the only other kid here and I'm bored."

She closed the door in his face before he could come up with an excuse, and all Sasuke could think of was how badly everything was going to go if Kate happened to mention his existence to anyone. Someone was going to question Tony as to which guest had brought him, and he couldn't just disappear before she came back out because that would make her even more likely to complain to her parents about him.

He resolved to ask her to keep their shrot friendship a secret, because civilian kids loved being entrusted with stuff like that.

(Tony and Pepper, upon hearing the night's events, were not amused.)

o.o.o.o.o

July 23, 2007
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Sasuke had no idea why Tony chose this city for his twelfth birthday, but it was… impressive.

o.o.o.o.o

September 14, 2007
2:03 PM
New York City, New York

Sasuke shifted the bag in his arms to one hand, pulling out a phone to check the time. He had a few hours left until Tony was finished, and that meant he had plenty of time to… entertain himself, basically. He'd gone shopping for parts for the newest project Tony had set him on, refusing to let him use any of the materials they had in the NYC Stark Labs and insisting Sasuke find and buy them on his own time.

Sasuke still wasn't entirely sure why, but it did mean he had an excuse to explore the city on his own. Chinatown, for instance, was nice and vaguely familiar, in the sense that every fifth or tenth store or restaurant was Japanese instead of Chinese. Seeing Shisui's face reflected in the windowpanes was barely startling him anymore, too.

His ears caught the slightest noise coming from an upcoming alleyway, and he was in a ready stance before his brain had even caught up to recognize the noises as those of a fight. He crept forward, putting away his phone after pressing a few buttons to mute it and turn on the recording. He carried the bag low to the ground, so he could drop it with minimum damage if needed. He didn't have many weapons, and certainly didn't want to pull them out in public, but against civilians, his fists would be good enough, assuming his henge held.

When he peered around the corner, he saw nothing. So he followed the sounds further, and climbed to the top of the nearest building via fire escapes and chakra-enhanced jumps. When he popped his head up to look over the roof, he didn't quite believe what he was seeing. This wasn't because he'd never seen anything of the like before, but rather that he'd never seen its ilk outside of the Hidden Continent.

(Outside of Konoha, basically, because while he'd traveled the world, he hadn't quite managed to get to parts of the Elemental Nations that weren't less than fifteen miles away from his hometown.)

A girl only two or three years older than him, with long, straight green hair that reached her mid-back was facing away from him, arms outstretched at a group of men in what appeared to be surplus tactical clothing.

Sasuke could have accepted the hair as a wig and the standoff as a matter of reputation rather than power, if not for the dozen floating guns around the girl, all facing away from her and towards the men.

"—thought you could back out on your end of the deal?" She said, with an accent Sasuke couldn't place and a tone that bode ill. The back of his mind, the part that sounded like Tony, mused that this would all look a lot more dramatic at night, instead of with bright, bright sunlight. "You told me you knew where my father was. You are going to give me that information. Now."

Sasuke wasn't entirely sure what to do. On the one hand, it was a dozen men against a single teenage girl. On the other hand, the single teenage girl seemed to be the one calling the shots and possibly being the bad guy. It was entirely possible that the best decision to make was to call the police.

The girl made a frustrated noise and scrunched up her hands. Sasuke lurched, going for a tackle that would never make it in time, but his fears were unfounded; rather than shooting the men, the girl had sent the guns careening towards them, knocking each one out with a slam of metal to the temple. A second later, her fists twisted and came in towards her chest, and each gun curled in on itself with a screech of metal. She spun to leave, jumped off the side of the building and floated down to the alleyway. She turned to exit, and froze.

"Hi." Sasuke said, arms crossed and leaning against the wall where the alley hit the street. He jerked his head up towards where they'd both just been, before he caught on to the plan and beat her to the ground. "Nice show."

The girl eyed him warily. "Yeah?"

"Mm-hm." Sasuke didn't really know what he was doing, but he wanted more information on the situation. Shisui always had been very good at getting girls to talk, through some combination of charm and a pretty face that Sasuke still couldn't perfectly mimic, no matter how hard he tried. But hey, maybe doing it under duress was the trick to doing it right. "So, there a story behind this?"

"Depends on how much you heard." The girl had a pretty face, even though it was currently twisted with exhaustion and suspicion. "You local?"

"I heard some. And no, I'm not." His home was Konoha, or arguably Malibu. New York was… a vacation house, at best. "You?"

"Sorta. Lived in France for a few years. Nice place." She was edging towards the alley wall. "Why are you here?"

"Shopping." He jiggled the plastic bag looped around his wrist. "And I heard the sounds of a fight coming from over here. You said something about your father?"

"He's in prison. No one will tell me where." She was almost halfway to the exit. "Who are you?"

"Shisui." He said before he could stop and think it over. "Shisui Uchiha. And yourself?""

"Lorna Dane." She was just a few feet away, now. "You don't seem surprised by… how I fight, let's say."

"Yours aren't the strangest powers I've seen." Sasuke twisted his henge just the slightest bit, and the Sharingan sprang to life… or seemed to, at any rate. "Telekinesis?"

"Magnetism." Lorna slipped around the corner and into the larger street. "See ya, I guess."

Sasuke watched her leave, then brought a hand down to his pocket to pull out his phone. "JARVIS, you got that?"

"Yes, Mister Sasuke."

"Please tell me you know what happened."

As it stood, Sasuke didn't see Lorna again for over a decade.

o.o.o.o.o

A/N: Me putting the final scene in Chinatown happened because I basically couldn't think of any other place in Manhattan where the streets are narrow enough that this could feasibly happen.