2006 was the year that the Hulk was unleashed on the world and the hunt for him began.
Twenty-year-old Nattie watched the destruction he brought from Malibu while fitting fake-fur onto Howie so he looked more like a real dog.
She told Jarvis and Nanny absently that it was obviously not his fault such destruction was happening, and that the military was making a mess of things again.
She doesn't know Dr Bruce Banner, had only heard of him when Tony raved about his papers, and as such doesn't think too deeply of his pain. Though she would later tell Tony that Banner had breath-taking anger issues.
She would put him out of her mind and not think of him for quite a few years from now.
Peggy Carter could remember when she first met Nattie, Tony had brought Peggy back to the manor after Howard and Maria's funeral to introduce Nattie to her.
Peggy could remember the four-year-old girl clinging to Tony's smart trousers, peering at her with familiar dark curious brown eyes.
"Aunt Peggy, this is Nattie." Tony was almost uncomfortable as he introduced them, placing one hand on the top of the girl's curly head. "She's—"
"I know who she is." Peggy cut him off.
How could Peggy mistake those brown eyes? Howard's eyes staring out of an unfamiliar face, a young girl's face with the same shine of intelligences that had been in Howard's eyes and shone brightly in Tony's.
She knew there was a reason that Howard had hidden his daughter, and knew Tony was going to continue to hide Nattie—if only to protect the girl.
She crouched down like she had a million times for Tony and her own children, ignoring the groan of her old bones, and smiled at the young girl.
"You have beautiful eyes." Peggy told her.
"They're like Tony's eyes." Nattie informed her in a matter-a-fact tone, one arm clutching a teddy to her chest as she watched the older female.
She glanced up with dark eyes towards Tony in time to catch an unreadable look passing over his face.
It had been very telling that Nattie had said Tony's eyes instead of Dad's eyes. Part of her wondered what Howard had done, or not done for Nattie.
Peggy kept in touch with Nattie and Tony, visited them and had them visit her, and knew that apart from Tony, Peggy was basically the only other human in Nattie's life.
She had been hopeful that when Nattie started school she would make friends, but like Tony before her, she flew through school and didn't connect to others her own age.
Peggy's glad that she had met Nattie before her mind started to fail her, glad that she could remember different parts of Nattie's life as she grew up and never felt the disturbing confusion when someone that knew her greeted her while she didn't know them.
She was also glad that Nattie had Howard's eyes, Peggy would never forget Howard's eyes.
20th May 2010 was a date that Peggy would never forget, and she would never forget the look on Nattie's face.
Peggy was sat in the day room, letting the quiet chatter of the others who lived in the retirement home wash over her, when there was a clamour from the hallway.
"You can't go in there like that!"
"Slow down!"
"You're going to hurt someone!"
The shouts of the nurses drew everyone's attention to the doors of the day room just before they burst open.
"Nattie..?" Peggy gasped out as she took in the sight of her.
Nattie stood in the doorway with her arms spread out to keep the doors open, her chest heaving with choked gasps, with her long dark hair stuck to her pale face and her shoulders. She must have been wearing one of Tony's t-shirt because it was slipping down from her shoulder and was far too big for her slim and petite frame.
Her face was unnaturally pale with a broken almost dead look painted on it, her pert nose was red and her dark eyes were wide and bloodshot with deep bruises, and her clothes were soaked and sticking to her. A pool of rain water was starting to form around her old sneakers.
She stumbled forward, almost tripping over her feet and torn hem of her jeans, ignoring the nurses following after her or the concerned gaze of the other residents.
Nattie dropped to her knees in front of Peggy, burying her face in her lap making Peggy's fingers automatically run through her tangled wet dark hair.
"Nattie, what's wrong?" Peggy asked, heart almost beating out of her chest.
"Tony." Nattie sobbed into her lap. "He's been kidnapped."
And that would be the last thing Nattie would remember doing for some time.
Peggy felt the blood drain from her face before she hunched almost protectively over the younger woman.
She didn't tell Nattie meaningless things to try to make her feel better, she just pressed her lips to her head and held her. Peggy had never lied to Nattie before, and she wasn't going to start now.
Almost three months pass with Nattie staying with Peggy, no Howie in sight which surprised and concerned Peggy to no end as she knew that Nattie took that dog-bot everywhere, and it was like a ghost was walking through the halls. Peggy was worried about her, she doubted that Nattie slept much.
She kept mostly to the day room, playing the piano whenever she wasn't drawing furiously in her sketchbooks.
Peggy recognised the behaviour, Tony did the same thing when things became too much for him. He would withdraw into himself and go into a daze where he spent all his time building things or designing things.
Nattie was doing the same.
Peggy knew all the residents were worried about her as well. They adored Nattie from all the visits that Nattie did through the years, they loved when she would play the piano for them—especially when she played their favourites from their youth.
They tried to bring her out by asking the questions from some of the daytime quiz shows that they watched. Though she would absently answer the question correctly, she didn't look up from her sketchbooks for even a moment.
August 19th 2010.
Pepper had come for Nattie, and she had brought Howie. The moment the red head placed the bot down, he was racing off towards his person at high speed.
Peggy let out a sigh of relief when a single nudge from Howie did what she and the others had been trying to do for almost three months—wake Nattie up from her daze.
"Howie…?" Nattie's voice was slightly rough from disuse as she looked at her dog in confusion.
"Nate." Relief was clear in Pepper's tone when she entered the room making Nattie's dark head jerk up in surprise.
"Pepper?" The look of Nattie's face was almost adorably confused in Peggy's opinion. "What…?"
"You need to come home." Pepper told her firmly. "Or do you want Tony to come home to an empty house?"
"Tony's coming home?" The question is asked in a painfully hopeful voice and Peggy can almost see the shy four-year-old that she first meet instead of the twenty-four-year-old woman that Nattie was now.
"Yes." A happy and relieved smile was beaming on Pepper's face.
And Peggy almost sobbed in relief that Tony was alright, that he was alive.