I wait for it to happen.

I wait for the lights of my cell to turn on in the middle of the night while I slept. They'd shout demands at me, cuff my hands behind my back and call me by my given birth name. I'd have been found at last, after all this time, and they'd haul me away to DC.

SHIELD would finally have me.

I count the days off, keep my head down and hope for Sam to retrieve me from this horrendous place. Despite being confined in a cell, I had never felt more exposed in my life. Apart from the time I spent in my room, there was always a pair of eyes on me. The inmates ate together, spent their days in the yard or rec hall together. We even showered in groups.

And being watched by the guards all the time did not protect me from my inmates-not at all. Twice in the same week I'd been caught in the middle of separate fights. I was still bruised from my last foster home when inmate 164 had come up behind me and thrown me into the cement floor and began kicking me in the sides. Two days later, inmates 98, 114, 170 and 65 grabbed me in the laundry room and beat on me mercilessly.

That had been three days ago and I still woke up with my face adhered to my pillowcase by the bloody drool which leaked from my mouth each night.

I sat in my cell on the seventh night. My head was pounding, my body ached. My skin was splotched in nearly every color I could name.

It had only been a week.

I knew I had to get out, but I knew I had nowhere to turn. Nobody wanted me…

I wait for the lights to go out- it was time soon, but they don't. After a long length of time spent listening to the hum of the overhead lights I hear the unexpected sound of a key in the door, and a guard calls out my fake name before she tells me to follow her. My heart races, knowing something wasn't right. They wouldn't move me otherwise this late-would they?

The guard directs me through a series of halls, eventually coming to a small interrogation room with a private restroom. On the metal table is a plastic bag and I immediately recognize my belongings.

"You can get dressed in the restroom." Is all the guard tells me. I quickly grab my things, my hands shaking with the anticipation of leaving. I figure Sam must have found me placement in a foster home. I can't help but let out a laugh of relief as I dress in the scummy little bathroom; I hurry in case it's some sort of trick.

I come out and set the prison clothes on the table before the officer leads me through the second door and into the little green waiting room where I'd been dropped of last week. Only the man standing before the desk isn't Sam…it's Mr. Stark.

He's laughing with a group of guards, taking pictures and telling a joke. I stand there, watching him chew fat with the officers until he looks at me. A bitter taste forms in my mouth, angry words catch in my throat. I nearly set them loose, but remind myself what lies behind the door just behind me. A cold fear tames my fiery resentment quick enough to keep me quiet. I lock my jaw stubbornly, look to Mr. Stark for direction. Now it was his game; his rules.

Our eyes lock for a second and he says "Looks like you made friends."

I don't respond; any words that will pass out of my split lips in this moment will only cause me a great pain in those that would follow. After waiting a few seconds for me to respond, Mr. Stark tells the officers that he needs to go, taking a small amount of papers from the desk. Upon reaching the exit, he looks at me still standing at the back of the room "You comin'?"

I glance cautiously at the guards before scurrying out the door anxiously. The cold February night cuts through me as we exit the building. I immediately start shivering, but clench my jaw tight so my teeth can't chatter visibly. I ignore the frigid air, the snow falling from the deep black sky as I follow Mr. Stark to the same white audi he'd pulled up to me in the week before. Had it only been a week? It felt like years-like another lifetime ago.

Mr. Stark gets into the drivers side. I look around the desolate parking lot contemplating the option of running off. I quickly determine I would only end up back in jail, so I open up the passenger door and get in the car. He starts the engine wordlessly and drives.

I don't look back at juvenile hall. I put it behind me then and there. Wounds can never heal if you keep them open. The nurses in there had stitched me up and given me medical attention. It was my job to keep moving forward; to heal. I watch as the lampposts go by; watch the glowing yellow streets of Boston fade away in their still light. My home, the city I'd grown up in, was going by in a blur. Familiar corners passed by in the darkness, the streets my feet had grown walking upon fade away into the distance. I knew nothing else, but as Mr. Stark pulled into the turn off for the airport, I knew it was gone.

We don't talk and the car is silent as Mr. Stark drives. I try to think of something to say, but I don't want to thank him-I knew this was some sort of obligation he'd felt. I can't ask why, because it might change his mind or make me seem ungrateful...I can't come up with the right thing to say-so I say nothing. Apparently, neither could he.

I pull my old grey jacket from my plastic bag before exiting the car, since the snow was falling thick and heavy now. It wasn't much, but it was all I had for now. A hand-me down left by an older child in a past life, in a past home. I put it on when the car stops inside a hanger next to a jet. Having never seen one up-close I stare for a good moment in awe. I stand back as Mr. Stark walks up the steps of the plane. I stare with my mouth agape at the lavish vessel, reminding myself that he was a billionaire and maybe I shouldn't act so impressed. I mean, I didn't want to make him feel too good about taking me in-his ego seemed big enough without my gaping at his cars and jets.

I then notice somebody else is on the steps, the woman from his office earlier this week is speaking to him in frantic whispers, both adults glancing my way, which means I am the obvious topic of their hurried verbal exchange. I look away uncomfortably, pretending something else has caught my interest until Mr. Stark calls me over. I walk to the base of the steps where they now stand and look to him as he says "You remember Miss Potts?"

I nod "Yes." holding my garbage bag over my shoulder.

The woman looks at me in an almost frightened way-but her calm and orderly front returns before I can assume she absolutely wishes he hadn't come and taken me. "Well, we should probably get headed west, it's a long flight and you must be tired."

She discreetly shoots another look of disapproval at Mr. Stark as she disappears into the plane. He drops his hands heavily against his sides, following her with an exasperated expression on his face. I bring up the rear, walking up the steps and through the plane entrance, only the inside looks nothing like I'd imagined. Instead of rows of seats, there are only a few plush leather chairs and matching couches. Miss Potts motions to the seats across from hers and Mr. Stark's and I sit nervously, holding the garbage bag in my lap tightly.

"We can put that somewhere-" Miss Potts starts, but I shake my head. The two adults are staring at me, the only thing to be heard is the sound of the plane starting. I avert my eyes, watching the lights go by out the window. I feel the plane speed up and hug my things tightly until the plane is in the air and it's quiet once more in the cabin.

"So...Caroline-" Miss Potts starts, but i quickly correct her.

"It's Ollie." I tell her, feeling nervous with their eyes on me. Being in such close quarters to strangers with no way to escape when things went downhill might make one justifiably so. "I go by Ollie Stark."

Mr. Stark shifts a little at the mention of our shared name. I glance at him, then look back to Miss Potts.

"Ollie." She corrects herself with her own uncomfortable smile. Beside her, Mr. Stark shifts in his seat, and stares at me. I look to them both expectantly, but it takes Mrs. Potts a moment to continue "Can you...tell us a little about yourself?"

I shrug. They didn't want to know about me, they wanted to know where I'd been, why I was here, why they were they stuck with me.

"Do you have any questions for us?" Miss Potts asks.

I'm so taken aback by being asked for my own voice that I come up short at first. After a moment I ask "What school are you taking me to?"

"School?" Miss Potts questions, then looks to Mr. Stark, who stares at me wide-eyed and angry "Pepper could you give us a minute?"

Miss potts looks like she may protest, until she nods curtly and walks off to the front of the plane without a word.

"Are you trying to make me look bad?"

"No." I answer quietly.

He sighs "Nevermind. Just forget about the whole...school thing. "

"But-"

"I mean, I could ship you off to some boarding school and forget about you there...you'd get an education and everything. If you're any bit as smart as I am, well you'll surely succeed and graduate at the top of your class. Right?"

I nod.

"Which I'm guessing doesn't seem too bad compared to juvie now does it?"

I roll my eyes and glare out the plane window. He was taunting me. Yes, had I taken his offer the day he stopped me in the street, I'd have never ended up in jail.

"What'd you do anyway?" Mr. Stark asks, unbuckling his seatbelt. He walks over to the bar and pours himself a glass of something dark. He looks up "Need a tall one?"

"You know I'm nine right?" I ask looking at him incredulously.

"Nine? You look younger."

"I'm almost ten." I defend.

"Kinda small for a ten year old" He frowns, grabbing a bottled water and coming back to his seat across from me. He sips the amber liquid and hands me the water. He looks me over "you didn't answer my question."

"I'm not sure what you were asking" I say unscrewing the bottle "did you want to know why I got my ass handed to me or why I was in Juvie? Or did you mean something else?"

"Start with the picasso some girl painted on your face"

"Girls." I correct, taking a big gulp of water "And like you said, I'm small. Easy target."

He nods "Easy target...so what crime did they pin on you?"

I smirk "Didn't they tell you? Or wasn't it on the forms?"

"No, actually" He frowns, pulling the papers out of his jacket. He looks them over "and your name is wrong on here-or at least it's different than your birth certificate"

"Locke was my mother's name." I explain, but know he won't remember her so I continue on the conversation fluidly "She named me Caroline, but always called me Ollie. My last name is Stark, same as yours"

"Got a middle name?"

"Not one worth mentioning." I scoff "Anyway, they put me in juvie because there was nowhere else to stick me. I didn't you know, steal anything or light a major fire. No. System was just full, no one wanted me."

"So they put you in Juvenile Hall?"

"Foster Care is a government system, Juvenile Hall is a government facility" I shrug "that's how it all works"

He takes a sip of his drink and I ask "So if you aren't sending me away, where are we going?"

"California." He says "I live in Malibu most of the time-when I'm not running a multi-billion dollar company"

I can't help it. At the mention of his work my eyes glance to his chest. The anti-shadow of the arc reactor peers through the fibers of his shirt. I know that glow-I know very well what it is. I recall previously reading about the arc reactor at Stark enterprises-how it had been developed in the 70s as way to burn clean energy, yet nothing came of it. Now, it kept Mr. Stark alive…and it was powerful enough to run his suit of armor-but I knew…if reconfigured, if expanded upon, the whole world could run on the arc reactor's principle technologies.

I look back up after a moment, knowing it's rude to stare. I can tell I've made him uncomfortable, but he's quick to cover his feelings with a bit of snark "I could let you poke it-give you a good zap."

I chew my lip and keep my eyes on the floor.

"Anyway...you'll be coming home with me. We can figure everything else out later." He says with a casual wave of his hand.

Later...later could mean anything. Days...weeks...hours? As we flew through the air across country I wondered how long 'later' would be this time. I wasn't sure, watching Mr. Stark sip his drink and discuss casual business with Miss Potts, just how long I wanted "later' to be.