"Don't play this game," Tony snapped at her.
"You think our lives are a game?" The obnoxious boy who had led them into the house all but snarled, stepping up to put a protective hand on the girl's shoulder.
The other teenagers shifted, ready to launch themselves at the Avengers at a word from their apparent leader, and Tony really didn't want to have to deal with that today, nor did he particularly want to see what these guys were capable of.
Apparently Pepper didn't want that either, because she stepped between Tony and the two teenagers, saying gently, "Do you want to know who Dakota is?"
The girl with strawberry blonde hair raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms, the very picture of defiance. "Who?"
"She's my daughter," Pepper murmured with tears in her eyes. "She's the daughter that I think about every day; the daughter that Tony and I gave up only because we were led to believe that would be the safest thing for her. We gave custody of her over to Agent Hill because we thought she was in danger living with us; we did it because we love her."
"Custody?" the girl – it had to be Dakota– looked to Agent Hill and asked a little sharply.
Agent Hill nodded once, her eyes turbulent despite her sure stance.
Dakota laughed dryly. "Yeah, she's been a great mother-figure, especially about… How long has it been, Maria? Six months?"
Agent Hill nodded, the sarcasm in the girl's voice apparently bothering the agent.
"Six months," Dakota added. "Three days, ah…" she glanced at a clock. "Seven hours, nineteen minutes."
"Why?" Pepper asked, looking with worry between Dakota and Agent Hill. "What happened?"
"Someone was supposed to kill her," a new voice spoke up, a voice that sounded both at once as sharp and as flat as the owner of said voice looked. "Five."
"Well, she's obviously still alive," Clint said, his eyes narrowing at the boy as he spoke past Pepper's sudden, ragged breath.
Tony's own breathing hitched and his vision got a little fuzzy for a second as "Two" said, "And that's when this stupid mission business got started."
"No, actually," "One" corrected. "That's when I told you guys about it. Missions had been Fury's endgame all along."
"Even when you were infants?" Natasha asked, getting a dangerous glint in her eyes.
"Yeah, from what I can find."
"So he did lie to us," Pepper said, looking at Tony.
"Of course he did," the billionaire ground out. "He wouldn't be Fury if he hadn't." Tony turned to Agent Hill then, asking, "How about you? Did you lie to us?"
"No," Agent Hill answered slowly. "I just… didn't tell you."
"Until umpteen years later," Tony said in frustration. "That's just great."
"Oh," "One" spoke up again, feigning helpfulness. "I can bet she still hasn't told you everything yet."
"Like what?" Tony asked.
The boy sighed, seeming to run through answers in his head before he said flippantly, "Ice, experiments, genes, electrocution, marks, marriages, abuse, abandonment… Where would you like to begin?"
"Wait, wait, wait," Tony ordered. "Slow down. 'Abandonment' I get. As your parents, we're the bad guys who got you here-"
"Well, yes, but that's actually not what I meant."
"Then what did you mean?" Pepper asked.
"Please tell me that Agent Hill has told you that there's no longer an adult living here."
"She did no such thing," Pepper replied, turning to glare at the agent in question.
"Yeah," "One" shrugged, saying in his same devil may care tone. "I basically run the house."
With her back still turned to "One" and the rest of her housemates, Dakota rolled her eyes affectionately – the force of sheer habit, Tony thought – and Pepper almost laughed aloud… for some reason, not that Tony knew what it was.
"What about all of those other things?" Tony asked. "Ice, electrocution…?"
"One" sighed heavily and gestured to the seats around him. "You're obviously not going away, so you might as well settle in; this is going to a long conversation."
The adults obliged and Tony had to fight not to drag Dakota over to sit down between him and Pepper. He finally had her back and he wanted her beside him, but he knew better than to try it – not in front of all of her friends.
"Where do you want to start?" "One" asked obligingly.
A thought struck Tony, and he voiced it before anyone else could speak up. "How about with how you seem to know all of this, 'One.'" The boy looked at Tony, but didn't say anything, so Tony explained further. "Somebody in this house has been hacking into my system for years. The first time they did, I was fit to destroy their technological existence – until I saw their hacker handle. 'Stark Contrast.' I traced the IP address, which of course, led me to this address, so – since they weren't actually doing anything to harm my systems – I assumed it was Dakota and let it go. I even thought that little connection with her was kind of cool – but it wasn't her, it was you, wasn't it?"
The boy ran his tongue over his teeth, saying with his tone full of spite, "Look who's earned his genius badge today."
"Just know you're not as slick as you think you are, kid; if I had known it wasn't my own kid, I would've shut you down a long time ago."
The boy's eyes filled with a sudden fire as his hands fisted at his sides.
"Tony," Bruce spoke up from across the room, just barely shaking his head.
"Believe me, you don't know a lot of things, Anthony Edward Stark," the boy said, everything about him suddenly filled with the slow deliberation of a man ready to kill another person.
"Like what?" Tony asked, trying his best not to show that he was tempted to shrink away from the kid, seeing as he had no suit here with him.
"Does the name Rosa Veracruz mean anything to you, Mr. Stark?" the boy asked.
"No. Should it?"
"You know what?" The boy turned to "Two" then, saying, "I can't right now. I just… you gotta give me a second here or I'm going to do something dumb like kill the head of a multi-billion dollar company. Or – as is more likely – set off his bodyguard."
"Two" got a look of confusion on his face, not understanding.
"Banner," "Three" croaked from the corner, where he was still pacing.
"Yeah," "Five" snorted. "Like Banner's the only thing in this place that's ready to explode?"