March 29th 2001

It didn't take much incentive [a 1:1 leave accrual for the time spent teaching, a tutoring bonus, and an individually negotiated grant to each of their personal research projects] to have the vast majority of specialist scientists signing up to teach Astrid their areas expertise.

She spent two hours each morning on her basics with Katrina- English, with its reading, spelling and writing, where her current love was the Greek classics. History, mostly world and political as she learned plenty of science history in her other lessons.
Geography, which she hated with a passion.
And basic civics- societal things that she simply wasn't learning in her relatively sheltered world.

Then she stopped for a snack with Tony.
Sometimes he wished she wasn't such a naturally healthy eater because he was stuck eating fruit every morning at 10, when he sometimes really wanted to eat a fistful of candy and slam down a redbull like when he first took over Stark.
Those were darker days for his mind though, so he stuck with the fruit, and had coffee while she sipped lemony earl grey, a habit she had picked up from Peggy.

Most weeks he heard about the pointlessness of geography at least once. She begged regularly not to have to study it- not only was it boring, they had every technology available to tell them where they were. Then Tony found himself repeating something his dad had said 'they don't put a big dotted line on the equator and there's not walls along each border. You need to be able to find out where you are, in an emergency, with just a compass, landmarks and some coordinates. It's important'
He also had hated geography, but it was true. He'd had a few drunken mishaps that had got him lost in far away places. His geography knowledge he'd begrudgingly stored, had come in handy.

When they'd finished their snack, he'd walk her to the subject of the day. It rotated daily, through 30 specialists in various science fields. Chemistry, astronomy, physics, electrical and mechanical engineering where her favourites.

Kristina sat in the teaching sessions with her, taking notes to build exams, making sure Astrid had the confidence to ask questions of some of the more brusque scientists, and just generally supervising.

At 1 they stopped for lunch, and if he was free, Tony joined them. He was surprised at how happy his employees were to gain the almost one on one time with him, and how interested Astrid could feign being in their research, even if he could see in her eyes she was bored to death by it. The mathematicians especially bored her.

'Daddy I know we use maths in everything, but how can they be happy just thinking about numbers? It's not like it's groundbreaking- all the major questions have already been solved, now its just repetition. They must be so BORED'

He had laughed, tucking hair behind her ear 'just don't tell them they're boring you or you'll get a lecture about the foundations of the universe being binary'

Astrid made a face 'the foundation of the universe is matter and energy, and their opposites. Binary is the coding, they're wrong'

'And don't tell them that either, because you'll never hear the end of it. Best to just take the lesson, take the information and use it for what you need okay? Don't worry, sweet-pea, once you've exhausted their knowledge, pass your college entry exams, you can avoid direct math tutoring forever'

'Do I have to go to college?' She whined 'do I need the certificate to show I know things? We both know I'm going to work with you, here'

'You never know. You might decide you want to go work somewhere else? You love CERN, you might want to work with them'

Astrid looked a little amused with herself, holding in a laugh, her face not entirely serious 'well, daddy. I am a nepo baby' she looked at him, the corners of her eyes crinkling a specific way when she was being a smart ass.

Tony laughed despite himself 'yes, you sure are. You're my nepo baby' he swept her onto his lap and tickled her 'such a tiny. little. baby.' he punctuated his words with little pokes that drew squeals.

'Stawwwwwpppphhhhh' she giggled and wriggled on his lap 'let me goooo'

'Fine' he huffed playfully 'what's for lunch today?'

'Pizza'

'What… really?' He did a double take. She usually only ate pizza in New York, or Italy. God, that sounded pretentious. Was he raising a pretentious kid? No. Surely not. She just had standards. 'You really want pizza?'

'Yep. I want Dominos. Hagen got it for his lunch and walked past the lab with it. It smelt really good'

'We can get Dominos. You've got to promise me you won't get your hopes up for a New York pizza though. It won't be like that'

'Yes yes, I know, precocious little Astrid' she rolled her eyes

'Where did you learn that one?' He raised a brow 'did someone call you that?'

'Might've overheard it' she shrugged

'Sass' he wasn't sure if he should be worried or not. He knew from experience overhearing people talking about you wasn't always amazing 'you want to talk about it?'

'Matilda was called precocious and she could move things with her mind. You were called precocious when you built your first circuit board' she shrugged again 'it's a word grown ups use when they're uncomfortable with a kid being smarter than they are'

'You're so right, baby' he kissed her temple 'Always teaching me things, my Sassa Stark'