A/N: Here is the first cleaned up chapter of Guardian's Enchantment all good to go. Some of you may recognize the story, I assure you all the times you've seen this story up it has been from me under different pen names, I promise there is no plagiarism here. Just one super disjointed author trying to figure out where the best place to put her shit is so people can enjoy it. To new people I hope you enjoy the story!

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot and Arlowe. That is all.

She Will Be Loved

12 Years Earlier

10 year old Arlowe walked down the hallways of her orphanage. She hated this place but it was all she had and it was better than living on the streets. She tried that already and it royally sucked.

When she was first dropped off at the orphanage, she ran away at every chance she got. She didn't know why, but she always felt that she didn't belong at the orphanage and she belonged someplace else. She desperately wanted to find out where that was. She would disappear for weeks at a time before the cops always found her and brought her back.

For some reason, she really had no recollection of exactly how she ended up at the orphanage. She had no idea where she came from. She just assumed that she had been really, really young when her parents left her here. She tried to ask the lady who ran the orphanage called Mrs. Williams if she knew anything about where she came from and all she told her was that she found her standing at the entrance one day when she was 6 years old. She told her that she had no more information than that.

It was extremely frustrating because she had to come from somewhere, people just don't appear out of nowhere. Another frustrating thing was the dreams that she always had. None of them ever made any sense, they were always all garbled and they made her feel odd whenever she woke up from one.

Sighing softly, she clutched her small stuffed black cat that she called 'dark' closer to her and quietly walked toward the game room. If the stupid boys who bullied her were not there, she might finally able to get the Nintendo to herself for a little bit. The orphanage didn't have much, so getting play time on the Nintendo was pretty coveted.

Peering through the crack in the game room door, she saw that the bullies were already there and let out a frustrated groan. Of course they were, why should she get a chance to play the Nintendo anyway? Letting out another soft sigh, she turned away from the door and started to walk back down the hallway. Halfway there, she felt a hand grab onto her shoulder hard and she was forcibly whirled around.

Coming face to face with her bullies, her mismatched eyes of blue and green widened in horror.

Charlie, Toby and Alex were to put it quite simply complete jerks. Deep, deep down, she knew that it wasn't all totally their fault. Their situation was just as crappy as hers was and they were taking out their anger and frustrations with it on her. She also knew that Charlie and Alex were different than Toby, they just followed Toby around and tried to act tough. On the inside the were just as messed up as she was. Toby on the other hand was just a jerk and nothing would probably change that.

She knew that Charlie and Alex were just feeding off of Toby and trying to take some of their frustration out on her. Toby just wanted to make everyone feel as miserable as he did and she happened to be an easy target.

Usually, she was able to deal with whatever they tried to throw at her.

Today however, she could tell she wouldn't be able to get away that easily. She knew exactly what they were trying to do. Recently, they found out about her powers. She had no idea what they were or where they came from but ever since she could remember, she had been able to make things explode. She had no idea how else to describe it. She wasn't very good at controlling whatever they were either.

One day, she over heard them talking. They figured that if they made her loose control of them enough times that Mrs. Williams would have to send her away to be institutionalized and it would give them a better chance at getting a adopted and getting out of this place. She thought the whole thing was dumb.

Nobody in their right mind would want to adopt a kid with powers like hers. She knew that couples that came here looking for a kid to adopt looked for normal kids not a freak like her.

Everybody thought that she was just a mutant but she didn't think so. Her powers didn't seem to function 'that way. Most of the time she just made things explode but some times other things happened too. They seemed to manifest the most when she was feeling any emotion intensely. It seemed to be especially bad when she felt extreme anger and sadness.

Suddenly, Toby ripped Dark right out of her arms before she had a chance to react.

"Hey! Give her back!" She yelled angrily.

He merely laughed and held Dark higher.

"Make me!" He laughed.

She watched in horror as he made to twist Dark's head right off of her shoulders.

She tried everything to get the stuffed animal back from him to no avail. Dark was her most prized possession and most important thing she had. She had no idea where she got her from but she was the only thing that brought her some comfort in this stupid place. She looked at Alex and Charlie. Of course they did nothing but stand there and stare at her.

"No, please don't!" She screamed.

She could feel that the feeble control she had on her powers had begun to slip.

She watched the look on the boy's faces change from amusement to fear as she was sure her mismatched eyes eclipsed to black. Blue energy surrounded both her hands, she lifted on up and she pointed her palm at Toby who had frozen in fear.

"I said give her back!" She snarled, her voice suddenly deeper.

Before she could let the energy surrounding her hands, she heard the heavy footsteps of several adults coming towards her and the boys.

"Arlowe, please stop!" She heard Mrs. Williams shout.

Concentrating hard, she forced the energy around hands to dissipate. It took a bit but she managed to make it go away entirely. Gathering every ounce of courage she had, she turned around slowly. She was petrified that Mrs. Williams would send her away for this. She was shocked that Mrs. Williams was not alone.

A younger looking woman and man were with her.

The woman had very kind looking blue eyes and long blond hair. The man however, looked very proud and arrogant but she could see some emotions in his dark brown eyes. The man looked vaguely familiar for some reason. She thought long and hard for a moment and then the light bulb came on. She remembered hearing Mrs. Williams saying something about Tony Stark making a huge donation to this place. She blanched.

The millionaire Tony Stark was going to make a donation to this orphanage and now he was standing in front of her looking very angry.

She was sure she had just wrecked everything.

Suddenly, he started moving forward and she could do nothing but remain frozen in place completely petrified. The boys also remained completely frozen in place not knowing what to do or say. She watched in both shock and fascination as Tony Stark stomped up to Toby and snatched Dark right from his hands and handed the stuffed toy back to her.

She looked up at him with huge eyes completely speechless. He looked a her momentarily and his brown eyes softened. He quickly turned his attention back to the boys and became angry once more.

"Hey you little jerks! Didn't anybody teach you it is not okay to steal a little girl's toy and rip the head of it? Smarten the hell up!" He reprimanded.

"Now scram!" He added, glaring darkly at them.

Shockingly enough, the boys listened to him and took off quickly.

Finally unfreezing, she clutched Dark tightly to herself and ran to Mrs. Williams as fast ash she could. Clutching at Mrs. Williams' dress, she buried her face into it and started sobbing. She couldn't help it. She was petrified she would be sent away now.

"P-please don't send me away Mrs. Williams! I promise it won't happen again!" She sobbed.

She felt Mrs. Williams try to calm her down.

"Hush child, I promise I won't send you away. Calm yourself." She murmured softly.

Calming down some, she hide behind Mrs. Williams and watched with distrust as Tony Stark shared a look with the lady with the kind blue eyes that she didn't quite understand and she continued to watch him intently has he approached Mrs. Williams to talk to her.

While her mind knew that Tony had just saved Dark, the rest of her was still kind of scared of him. After he finished talking to Mrs. Williams, he crouched down in front of her and she could sense that he was trying to be as non-threatening as possible.

"Hey Kiddo, how would you like to come and stay with Pepper and me? That way you could be my official assistant and there would be no annoying boys to bug you anymore." He asked and then added jokingly. "Except me of course"

She looked at him like he grew 6 eye balls and sprouted tiny little green hairs.

Was he being serious? Would he really take her with him?

She watched Tony's face fall a little as he realized that she didn't believe him.

"I'm being serious, Kid. Why don't you take Pepper here to help you gather your stuff and I will get this ball rolling. I promise." He said.

There was something deep inside of her that told her that Tony was safe and that he wouldn't hurt her.

Cautiously, she let go of Mrs. William's dress and approached the lady she now knew to be Pepper. Pepper looked at her kindly and held out her hand. Taking Pepper's hand, she did what Tony asked of her and led her to where she kept her all of her stuff. She never really considered it a room just a place where she kept her stuff.

Rooms were supposed to feel safe this place never felt like that. She and Pepper gathered what little stuff she had. True to his word, Tony did get the ball rolling' as he promised and for the first time, she knew that it was the beginning of something 'good' in her life.

Present Day

Humming along to the music blaring from her speakers, Arlowe smiled to herself as she thought of that memory. It was by far her favorite. It was the day she became a Stark and the first day in her life that she actually felt what it was like to be cared about and what it was like to have parents who loved her no matter what. Even though it wasn't always easy, neither Tony nor Pepper ever gave up on her not even when she lost control of her powers.

They never ever once threatened to get rid of her because of them. They even tried to help her control them the best that they could. They taught each other new things every day. They became her family in every way but blood and she never cared very much about the blood part.

Currently, she was trying to fix part of Tony's hulk buster suit. Instead of becoming Tony's assistant like he once said, she ended up becoming his chief mechanic and she was damn good at it too. Tony taught her everything she knew and he was a very fun teacher. They blew up a lot of stuff together and it drove Pepper nuts. Now she was almost a better mechanic than he was. She knew that it made him proud of her as much as it drove him nuts to admit it at the same time.

Whatever he broke, she fixed. The same went for every Avenger that called the tower home. There wasn't anything she couldn't fix or make. That she knew of yet anyway.

Picking up a hammer, she started to try and re-shape the distorted piece of metal on the work table in front of her. Because she worked such a physical and demanding job, she tried to work in things that were both functional to her job yet still comfortable to wear at the same time. Her favorite things to work in were a pair of Tony's stolen work overalls and an old ratty black tank top. The overalls were a little big so she had to adjust them all the time but she didn't care. To keep her long, dark, curly hair out of her face, she always wore some kind of different coloured bandana.

Realizing that she would need a little help to get the stubborn metal to do what she wanted, she grabbed her goggles from the shelf above her work bench, momentarily she looked fondly at the ratty black cat stuffed animal kept up there with her goggles and iPod. She knew that iPods were out of date now but she didn't have much before she got adopted by Tony and it was too special for her to part with it.

Putting her goggles on, she readied her blowtorch and turned it on. Carefully, she heated the metal evenly and began to re-shape it. As she did this, her mind started to wonder. She thought about her powers and that how no matter what she tried, she still had about the same amount of control over them that she did when she was 10 years old. She was 22 for goodness sake. She should have better control by now but nothing she, Tony and Pepper did ever worked. She did develop a theory about them though, that they weren't a mutation and they were something else entirely.

One day, when she was being particularly naughty, she decided to eavesdrop on Tony and Pepper and she heard them talking about someone called 'Stephen Strange'. She being the person that she was, she decided do a little research via Tony's files to figure out who this mysterious 'Stephen Strange' was. It turned out that he was a Sorcerer.

A real actual magic practicing sorcerer. She had no idea such a thing existed or what it was. She wondered if it was like something out of Harry Potter.

The whole thing piqued at her curiosity. If mutants were real, she was sure that magic could be real too. At this point she was pretty much ready to try anything to stop blowing crap up in her sleep among other things.

She did more investigating and determined that he lived in the Sanctum Sanctorum. While she didn't exactly know where or what that was, she decided that she was going to go look for it and find it.

It took her several nights to actually find it and when she did, she felt something weird emanating from it.

Not bad just weird, it almost felt like what it felt like when she lost control and accidentally summoned her powers. Despite the feeling not being negative at all, she found that she just couldn't bring herself to knock on the door. She was scared of what might be on the other side.

Night after night, she would do the same thing. She would find the place, but would find herself unable to summon the courage to actually knock on the damn door.

was insanely frustrating, she had grown so much since she was that afraid 10 year old little girl all alone and yet she lacked the courage to do such a simple thing. She had no idea why that was. It make her feel weak and she hated it so much.

Suddenly, she was ripped from her thoughts when she sensed Tony approaching outside of her door. She could also sense somebody else that she didn't know with him. She barely had time to turn the music down and the blowtorch off before F.R.I.D.A.Y overrode the locks on her door and it slide open. She hated it when Tony pulled that crap on her. Just because she was his daughter and he thought he had the right to do whatever the hell he wanted didn't mean she didn't deserve at least some privacy!

She was adult now and the least he could do was knock dammit!

She opened her mouth to tell Tony just what she thought of his invasion of her privacy. When she got a good look at who was with him she shut her mouth instantly and just stood there awkwardly not knowing exactly what to do. Doctor Stephen Strange 'Sorcerer Supreme' was standing in her door way with Tony looking at her with what she could only describe as a look of amusement on his handsome features.

She could only begin to imagine what she looked like standing there awkwardly with a constipated look on her face.

The only coherent thought running through her brain at the moment was how in THE HELL did Tony manage to find out that she had been trying to go and talk to him?