Chapter Text
“Tony,” A look. A shared look that Aaron doesn’t understand. She doesn’t like the fact that she doesn’t understand it. There’s something in that gaze—A message? A plea? Aaron wasn’t sure, but the dread pooling inside her demands to know it. “There is no other way.”
Then those eyes gazed her way, full of an expression of emotion that Aaron doesn’t get but with a silent message that she does. He had said everything needed to be said before Thanos arrived, and even though she couldn’t grasp what he feels at this moment she knows exactly what he wants to say.
‘I’m sorry’, that look says.
Aaron found herself screaming anyway, calling him ‘Father’ for the first time ever as he disappeared—dusted away. He left behind only his sentient Cloak and a chunk of rock
*
September 25, 2017
Like in her dreams, Aaron screams as she wakes up. Her breath labored and her cheeks wet from her stream of tears. Choked sobs break through her entire body, and the girl found herself sitting up on the unfamiliar bed in the unfamiliar room while hugging her legs close to her.
This is not her room in the Sanctum, not the one in Kamar-Taj either. She wants to go back to either one of those more familiar choices but she can’t.
“Stay with Tony. Please.”
She made a promise. So, despite every single cell in her body screaming at her to move and to leave , she didn’t. She could do it so very easily, she just needs to grab her Sling Ring from the nightstand and portals herself away God knows where.
But she won’t do it. She promised. Stephen never broke any of his promises to her, she didn’t plan to break any of her promises to him either.
For a while, she stayed in her position sitting up on the bed. There’s a sudden gentle warmth draping around on her back and around her shoulders—she doesn’t have to look to know that it’s the Cloak of Levitation.
She calms herself down, going through one of those breathing exercises Stephen taught her while the Cloak gently pats her head while enveloping her in its version of a hug. When everything doesn’t feel too much anymore, Aaron closes her eyes and counts to ten.
Arkharon ‘Aaron’ Strange is very familiar with pain.
It doesn’t matter what kind, pain is an old song—the way death is an old friend.
More often than not, she would waltz hand-in-hand alongside death to the rhythm of her painful existence she would call her life with grueling steps. The floors are made with shards of glass and she sometimes feels like she’s some sort of a puppet cursed to never stop dancing despite the torture.
So, yes, she is familiar with pain. Almost more than your ordinary thirteen-years-old, probably. Not that she knows what most of those ‘ordinary’ thirteen-years-old can take, mind you, she just assumes so since as far as she knows she’s the only living thirteen-years-old who survived from the things she experienced—signed by the mark they branded on her back.
The mark is gone, the man she acknowledges as her… father made sure of it. Her back is clean, and she has healed any scars she has on her own because magic is nifty like that.
That doesn’t mean, however, that the phantom feeling of its existence stops bothering her.
That doesn’t mean she immediately forgets the memory when they engraved that mark either.
But Aaron learns to live on despite everything. She learns to slowly move forward, starting to be and acts like ‘a brat her age’—according to her father—to the people she doesn’t mind spending time with.
Unfortunately, just as Aaron starts to believe that everything can get better, her world crashes and burns. Its demise is triggered by a purple alien with his obsession over his warped sense of justice and is followed by half of the universe turning to dust.
Half of the universe, including her father.
Everything was supposed to be fine , Aaron was supposed to be healing but suddenly the pain comes back in waves of tsunami and she almost forgets how terrifying and suffocating it was to be hurt like this.
“I’m sorry.”
Stephen was desperate with his apologies, and maybe that’s one of the very few reasons why Aaron will keep going to live on despite the pain.
With a deep inhale and a shaky exhale, Aaron opens her eyes again. She lets her amber eyes scan her surroundings, the knowledge of where she currently is helps her settle down. The Cloak who immediately moves to get a glass of water from her bedside also helps.
A wood cabin, near a lake in Fairbourn, Georgia. A very futuristic wood cabin, she might say. After all, Aaron doesn’t think an AI and a holographic table is your usual addition to a lakeside cabin. All of it being Tony Stark’s recently bought and built property—because she promised Stephen she would stay with Tony, and Tony doesn’t really expect her to go anywhere else.
Or maybe he does. She suspects Tony thought she would go back with Wong and the other sorcerers, but he never brought up the conversation. Maybe he expects her to return with her fellow sorcerers but he doesn’t want her to go? She isn’t really sure.
Aaron is perceptive. She notices things even though she doesn’t understand a lot. Every time Wong came to visit her, Tony was always a bit tense—she noticed it gone everytime Wong returned to his duty without bringing Aaron along.
It’s been about five months, give or take.
The first two weeks, they were lost in space. Tony, Aaron, and their aggressive resident alien-cyborg, Nebula. Aaron couldn’t portal them anywhere because the shock of what happened disrupted her ability to focus when she wanted to do anything with her magic. Her hands were shaking and she kept getting cold sweat.
Tony didn’t force her, though. He immediately tells her to stop trying for the day if it looks like it’s taking too much toll on her. Despite all of them knowing the alarming urgency of getting back home to Earth, Nebula and Tony didn't push her progress.
It wasn’t until their second week that Aaron managed to pull herself together enough to form some sparks, and it wasn’t until the end of that second week that Aaron actually created a stable enough portal to the New York Sanctum.
It was literally a breath of fresh air, but Aaron ended up passing out right after they walked through the portal. Apparently, everyone freaks out—Tony freaked out the most, according to Wong. Nebula threatened to harm anyone who tried to get close to them.
Aaron wakes up the next day in the hospital, Tony holding her right hand tight sleeping on her bedside. Nebula is on the couch of that VVIP hospital room.
Maybe that’s why, despite Aaron’s deep distrust and direct avoidance towards adults of any kind, Aaron doesn’t quite mind staying with Tony—other than the fact that Stephen made her.
The days after that, like what Stephen used to call her ‘ modus operandi ’, Aaron doesn’t talk to anyone who isn’t Tony, Nebula, and Wong. She would only respond with gestures to someone she’s familiar with from Stephen’s myriad stories of his beloved Tony Stark or people who have nothing to do with Earth before all this like Thor or Captain Marvel, but would blatantly ignore anyone else.
She followed Tony anywhere he goes during the first month back on Earth. The Stark Tower, the Avengers Compound, governmental meetings, ‘Avengers’ meetings, the Hall of Justice, the Justice League’s Watchtower, and so on and so forth. Where Tony is, you can always find the selectively mute girl following him like a baby chick following its hen.
Anytime Aaron is denied entrance, Tony will immediately stand his ground and refuse to enter. By the end of June, everyone knows the rule—Tony and the thirteen-years-old girl, they’re inseparable. They may not know who she is other than the name ‘Aaron’, but they know that she is important to Tony.
It wasn’t until the end of July that everything settled down—if you can even call it ‘settled down’, that is. The world still mourns the other half of their population, but society needs to continue to work in order to provide for the rest that stayed.
Like Stephen said, time waits for nobody.
Except the one who holds power over it.
You know, the cheat of being the Time Stone Guardian.
Someone knocked three times on her door, short and curt. It broke Aaron from her musings and brought her up to reality once again.
Aaron blinks, turning to look at the digital clock on her bedside. It shows seven sharp, and she gave the Cloak on her shoulders a mean eye.
It fluttered, releasing itself from her to float in front of her and crosses its lapel—probably its equivalent of crossing its arms.
The short haired girl raised her hand and knocked on her wooden headboard three times, loud enough to answer the knock on her door. The magical wards she set up around her room then told her the person behind her door walks away despite her not hearing any steps.
She then turns her full attention to the Cloak again.
“You need to stop turning off my alarm.” She mumbles grumpily, fingers combing back her short dark auburn hair—it’s wet with sweat.
She sets up her alarm at six.
It gave a short ruffle as if answering her with its own argument, gesturing to the door that was knocked just a moment before. Aaron’s scowls deepen.
“Just because I’ll wake up in time anyway because he’ll knock on my door at seven o’clock every day, it doesn’t mean you can turn off my alarm just so that I can get an hour more sleep.”
The Cloak replied by moving frantically. Aaron rolls her eyes at it, sighing.
“I appreciate the concern, but please refrain from doing so again. I would like to have more time to prepare for the day.”
After a while of just staring at each other, it reluctantly nods its lapel.
The girl gave it a helpless smile, “Thank you for being understanding.”
Aaron throws off her thick duvet and moves to sit on the edge of her bed, putting on her slippers before standing up to start a quick shower. The Cloak flew animatedly around her room and hung itself on the hanger stand on the corner of the room. She waves her hand, effectively getting her uniform out of her wardrobe, calling forth her towel all at once.
She walks out her door, heading straight towards the bathroom.
Magic, as always, is very convenient.
At least all those years of agony she spent down there are worth something.
About fifteen minutes later, she walks out of her room wearing her complete school uniform while struggling with her tie. The Cloak follows behind her holding onto her bag. She went downstairs, where the smell of breakfast greets her first before anything else.
“Good morning, Hermione. And you too, Magic Carpet.” Tony addresses her with one of his regular nicknames as he moves around the kitchen, giving her a quick glance and a smile as he finishes up preparing breakfast. It’s pancakes today. “I hope you like chocolate—oh who am I kidding, you love them.”
“Morning.” Aaron murmured, sitting down on the dining chair that the Cloak pulled back after it placed her bag on the living room sofa, still struggling with her tie. The Cloak of Levitation then folds itself small before settling down on the front pocket of her school blazer. Anyone who doesn’t know better wouldn’t think that it’s a magical sentient cloak and not a handkerchief.
Then she hears someone clicking their tongue.
“ Tt . Incompetent.”
Aaron stops her hand, looking up to narrow her eyes at the only other occupant of the table. Nebula isn’t here today, she’s temporarily living in the Compound for official reasons Aaron cares not to ask. She wishes Nebula is here.
“One day.” Aaron says, her voice smooth and saccharine sweet, even though her glare is downright venomous, “Just one day without your obnoxious remarks, Wayne.”
Damian Wayne, youngest and only biological son of Bruce Wayne. Aaron doesn’t understand why Tony seems really concerned about this asshole. Apparently his whole family got dusted, and leaving him alone doesn’t sit right with Tony.
So what? Aaron doesn’t say. Tony doesn’t seem to be close with the Waynes, as far as Aaron remembers. She heard Stephen mentioning some familial feud, even.
Maybe it’s because Damian Wayne is her age. Maybe it’s because Gotham is, according to Stephen, a ‘shithole of magical fractures on top of being hell on earth’ and it’s dangerous to be alone there especially as someone her age.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Aaron didn’t understand Tony’s concern over Damian Wayne, but she follows him to Gotham anyway and she was there when Tony prepositioned Damian to live with him and offering to help Damian to help with the whole Wayne Enterprises business after knowing that he spent four months after Thanos’ snap without anyone else in the Wayne Manor (She should probably give him credits for that. The manor is huge and it looks haunted. If she looks around enough, it probably is).
Apparently when they say everyone in the Wayne family got dusted, it includes the butler as well.
The youngest Wayne vehemently refuses at first, claiming that it is completely unnecessary and they’re wasting their time because he can handle being alone—he has handled being alone for four months, and he can do more. He had also made his distate of Tony’s help offering clear.
It wasn’t until Tony brought up ‘Robin’ that he started to sway.
When Tony revealed the Wayne family’s night time job as vigilantes, it clicked, to Aaron, why Tony is so concerned.
Damian Wayne reminds him of Peter Parker—the son Tony never had.
Damian Wayne is who Peter Parker will be if the one dusted instead is Tony (They found out Parker’s aunt was dusted as well). Aaron realized at that time too, unfortunately, Tony isn’t going to give up on Damian Wayne.
And the way Tony looks back then… Well, Aaron gets it now when Stephen says things like ‘ I can’t say no when he looks at me like that’ .
So when Damian’s only defense is that he needs to stay in Gotham because he’s the only one left and he can’t just ditch the Wayne legacy, Aaron steps in.
She voluntarily speaks up, to Tony’s complete shock.
Nevermind Tony, even she herself is surprised she would do that for him, actually.
“I’ll portal you to Gotham anytime you need.” She had said back then, “ Any time of the day, for whatever need. I can start my academic necessity in Gotham to assure you that you will still spend most of your days here. I’ll even help set a cleaning spell for the whole manor, that underground cave downstairs included. Say yes to Tony, and I’ll give you all these bundle deals.”
That was probably the longest ever sentence she said to anyone who isn’t Tony, Stephen or Wong. Tony looks so proud of her for speaking up he’d probably hug her or something if he doesn’t know how much Aaron despises being touched by others. It’s almost a glimpse of how Stephen would look at her when he sees her little progress.
Wayne agreed reluctantly after that. He brought along his pets—Titus the Great Dane and Alfred the black cat. He had to leave behind Goliath the giant dragon bat in the Batcave while Batcow and Jerry the Turkey stays on their small barn near the Wayne Manor because their new place is still being built not far from the lakeside cabin.
Right now, Aaron almost regrets giving all those deals without at least receiving any payment. He’s a pain in the ass on a daily basis, and those runes necessary for the whole manor exhausts her to the point of missing two whole days of school.
Almost, because she loves Titus and Alfred enough to ignore his horrible personality (not that she has any rights to say that considering she’s not the easiest person to be around). Both are currently eating from their own food bowls, organic and are probably priced more than the pancakes Tony is currently making.
Tony was reluctant about them at first, but he
quickly
became attached after the second week.
“I am only telling the truth, am I not, Strange?” Wayne’s words, like always, were told in a patronizing manner, “For the Sorcerer Supreme’s daughter to be so incompetent in— mph! ”
That’s right.
Arkharon ‘Aaron’ Strange is the Sorcerer Supreme’s daughter. Or at least the former Sorcerer Supreme, since Wong took up the mantle due to Stephen’s absence. If you run your mouth around her, then you should really expect your mouth to either be cursed shut or to be shoved with something.
Pancakes, for example, can be a lethal example if Aaron shoves it down his throat deep enough he’ll choke and die from it.
Of course, she won’t go that far. All she did was just shove a chunk of the pancake in his plate up his mouth using magic to shut him up. She even cuts it into a small triangle for him, she’s not a heathen.
“Aaron!”
She scoffed at Tony’s reprimanding tone, but she didn’t do anything else to the Wayne brat.
The man puts a plate of pancake in front of Aaron—with chocolate chips inside the pancake and maple syrup on top of it. As Tony had said earlier, she loves them.
“I won’t take any insult lying down.” She says bluntly, “It’s not my fault that people receive the consequences of their actions.”
Tony stares at her, for quite a bit. She doesn’t know what he sees in her but then he smiles, a bit resigned and maybe with a tint of longing. The futurist then kneels down and gently pushes her hands away to do her tie for her, “Let’s not shove pancakes to everyone who did you dirty, hm?”
She watches his hand work, watches the loop and the pulls. She usually learns fast, but she somehow could never get a tie right. Aaron blinks at her tie when he’s done, stepping away to pull the chair next to her and sits down.
“If they don't start anything first, I won’t retaliate.” She glanced at Wayne with a smug smirk to his scathing glare, “Besides, they’re lucky it’s just some pancakes. Like someone said, I’m the Sorcerer Supreme’s daughter and I could do so much worse . Maybe a curse, or something.”
She had actually started a small personal research on curses and spells that can shut someone up. Her list grows by the day and she can make people no longer say any blasphemous bullshit that would be a taint in her beautiful days.
She didn’t start it because of Wayne, it started way before him and it was because the rest of the non-dusted ‘Avengers’ just won’t stop trying to talk to her.
Aaron was this close to just sew Rogers’ mouth shut, Ouija style. She almost sent Maximoff to Mephisto’s hell-dimension too at some point.
But she didn’t. Because Tony wouldn’t like that. And Tony is basically the only thing that is left of Stephen right now.
“Yeah, I’d rather you not.” Tony sighed beside her, “Eat your pancakes, Wise Girl. And Damian, you’ve used up your quota of ‘pissing Aaron off early in the morning’ for today. Be a dear and finish your breakfast, will you?”
Wayne rolled his eyes as he swallowed the piece of pancake she shoved to his mouth, he grumbled something under his breath but he continued eating anyway—he still sent Aaron one last death stare, though.
‘Wise Girl’ is one of Tony’s nicknames that Aaron actually likes. She started having a Percy Jackson phase approximately eight months ago—four months before all the chaos that came with the existence of Thanos and his Black Order. It’s one of her… things , with Stephen. He would read all the books with her and shit-talk the movies with her. She didn’t know why she shared it with Tony too, but he read the whole series for her and… it’s not all that bad, to share it with Tony, too.
Her favorite character is actually Nico di Angelo, but she’ll accept Annabeth Chase’s nickname. She’s a badass, she’s cool, she’s intelligent, witty, and resourceful. She’s definitely a role model for Aaron to strive to match.
They all eat in silence.
One of the very few things that Aaron appreciates about Damian is that he’s generally quiet if he doesn’t open his mouth to say something that will definitely start a fight between them. It’s one of the reasons that made living with him quite bearable, actually.
She doesn’t like Damian Wayne, she doesn’t like sharing a space with him either. But Tony is very concerned about him, so she doesn’t mind compromising things as long as the other party doesn’t actively seek to be thrown into the dark dimension 90% of the time.
Damian Wayne is an annoyance, but she doesn’t have to deal with him 24/7. They mind their own business in school and even when they do have class together, they don’t really interact. They went their separate ways for their respective extracurricular activities too, since Aaron is far away in Kathmandu or locked inside the New York Sanctum most of the time and Damian does whatever he does in Gotham as its resident vigilante.
It’s the end of September, it’s almost a month of cohabitation. Their scathing remarks, banters, or arguments are usually reserved only for the morning before school or during dinnertime, because any other interactions of theirs merely consists of Damian asking for a portal through text or a call.
Sundays and Saturdays are exceptions, but they have some sort of an understanding of a truce during weekends. As long as nobody says anything to each other, everything is fairly an ‘okay’.
There are, of course, times where they end up in a nasty verbal fight that leads to Wayne falling for thirty minutes or them both receiving some bruises or wounds from an actual fight. Aaron actively tries to give as good as she gets—she may not be trained the way Batman’s Robin is, but she’s definitely one hell of a young sorceress.
But overall, Wayne doesn’t question what she does and she doesn’t poke her nose inside his business either. They just exist on each other’s respective orbit and that’s it.
Aaron can respect that.
Breakfast is finished fairly quickly, with Wayne standing up to wash his dishes first. Aaron follows right after, and Tony last because he had to finish up his coffee too while he does something with his StarkTab.
Tony was drying his plate when Aaron grabbed her bag and opened up a portal in the middle of the living room.
The other location beyond the portal is a very sketchy dark dead end, one near Gotham Academy. She found this place during the first day Tony brought her to Gotham Academy after actively looking for a place to portal near the school. Going back and forth to Wayne Manor and Gotham Academy is inefficient, after all. Especially when there wasn’t really any good method of transportation around the desolate area around Wayne Manor.
“Don’t make too much trouble in school, both of you!”—was Tony’s parting words as the portal closed behind them.
Aaron pockets her Sling Ring. After she made sure she didn’t leave any kind of trace, she turned to face the entrance of the dark alley where Wayne was still waiting for her with both hands on his pockets.
She doesn’t know why he does it every single day, but she never questions it either.
They walked up to school in silence together, separating near the school entrance even though they have the same first class with a quick nod to each other. It’s a weird habit of theirs, but it’s probably an equivalent to a friendly(?) greeting and goodbye for someone socially stunted like them.
If you tell the Aaron from a year ago that she’ll end up being your normal thirteen-years-old and attends a posh private middle school as Tony Stark’s ward, she’ll just stare at you and probably send you to the nearest asylum via a portal—free of charge.
Well, this is her life now.
Life works in a very funny way, and sometimes questioning it will only make it, no pun intended, even stranger .
So, yeah. This is the new chapter of Arkharon Strange’s life after the calamity that took her only family away; a building full of spoiled privileged children who were served everything in a silver spoon.
In case you haven’t noticed, she hates it. She would rather go back to fighting a horde of some Eldritch horror-looking creatures from another dimension, any day.
But Stephen… he would like her going to school, she thinks. For every single little progress she made after he saved her from the Sons, there’s that little proud grin he would give her.
To her, that’s enough reason for her to actually go.
Despite the stares, the whispers, the mocking sneer on her back as she walks through the hallway.
Despite the way that one popular girl purposely bumped her shoulder hard before apologizing kindly but laughs with her friends after a distance away from her, calling her a ‘freak’ when they thought they’re out of earshot.
Technically they are out of earshot. But for someone like Aaron who's a bit too well-attuned in magic, that isn’t an issue.
Aaron’s face is carefully blank of any sort of emotions anyone may perceive. That was one of the many reasons for the ridicule that she receives—the fact that Aaron doesn’t react, doesn’t talk, and doesn’t interact with anyone at all. To them, she is somewhat of a mute robot freak who transferred to Gotham Academy in her 8th Grade of middle school with no known background.
She didn't visibly react to the pathetic attempt at whatever it was that Desmond tried to do, but her right forefinger moved
And when Juliette Desmond falls down right after that, it was due to her own clumsiness and nothing to do with Aaron—whose lips slowly curl into a smirk at Desmond’s yell of pain.
The bell rings, so Aaron quickens her steps. Her first class for today is Medical Sciences, one of the classes she genuinely enjoys. It was kind of surprising that the 8th Grade Science course in Gotham Academy is split into four electives. Aaron was more than thrilled when she knew that she could choose Medical Sciences.
School wasn't all that bad when Aaron realized that she can once in every two days start her first subject of the day in this god awful place with one of the things that connects her to Stephen.
*
Thanks to Kamar-Taj, Aaron is more used to interacting with people.
Thanks to following Tony around the first two months they came back to Earth, she is more used to the presence of adults in general—since the adults in Kamar-Taj knows enough to avoid her if they can.
Forced exposure therapy, you can say.
That doesn’t mean she’s used to them yet, though. She’s just more… tolerant of their presence.
What she is very well more accustomed to now, is the crowd.
If you have told the Aaron from before that she’ll be stuck in a room full of humans her age inside a building filled with even more of them for seven hours, five days every week while being supervised by at least one adult for every minutes of those hours, she’d tell you she’d rather jump off Mount Everest.
It sounds like another form of prison. Just an upgraded form of her previous one.
It might as well be, honestly.
But learning actually isn’t all that bad, especially on subjects she is particularly interested in. The only downside is that she couldn’t ask the questions she wanted to ask the way she did Stephen.
Medical Sciences is a familiar area, and the materials she was given in class weren’t all that different from how Stephen introduced it to her. She’s reviewing what she already knows, since the entire subjects the teacher will teach in this class is already something she had already covered with Stephen’s help.
The familiarity of studying helps, at times. It’s what she mostly does in Kamar-Taj or the Sanctum, after all. The moment she gains access to the knowledge that was previously forbidden for her, Aaron doesn’t hold herself back from studying about everything that is available for her.
Aaron can read several different alphabets that are mostly used in magic due to the experiments done on her or using her, and she can do the most basic form of math. That is more than enough foundation, because all she needs is to read and to understand what she’s reading about. If she doesn’t understand, she’ll ask Stephen and eventually Wong when she’s comfortable enough with him. If they couldn’t answer her? Well, there’s the internet.
Her desperate thirst for knowledge has only settled down to something that isn’t frantic the third month after she was saved. It was only then that she didn’t abuse her ability of astral projection to read even more chapters as her body rests. Wong scolded her severely when he found out about this, but Stephen winked and gave her chocolates.
This was the only reason she can keep up with eight grade materials despite having just started learning after Stephen saved her. Those elementary school and middle school modules that she
stole by portal
borrowed
from the public library were the most boring ones and she would rather read a grimoire, but she knows it’s important for her so she still finishes them anyway.
It also helps that the teachers never really give her a hard time for the fact that she doesn’t want to speak—which she really does appreciate a lot. She doesn’t know what Tony told them about her ‘condition’, but it works for her sake so she doesn’t really care. As long as nobody forced her to do anything, she won’t cause any trouble.
She thinks they like her scores on quizzes and homeworks enough so far that they mostly leave her alone.
Not to brag, but even Stephen told her that her learning pace and comprehension level is impeccable. He said she reminds him of himself, and that is probably the highest level of compliment you can get from that guy. Aaron knows that she probably looks at Stephen from some sort of a savior-tinted glasses, but even she knows that Stephen Strange is at times an arrogant, too smart for himself, know-it-all stingy asshole. Any compliment he gives out means something.
First class passed without much issue, so does second and the rest of her Monday class before lunch break. Aaron finds herself in her usual spot several minutes after the bell rang— away from everyone else, sitting on a red translucent swing made of her magic under a tree in a quiet corner of the school that nobody really visits.
Aaron is herself, there. A Sanskrit tome, ‘The Wayward Believers’, and a bookmark floating side-to-side in front of her as she eats her lunch—a sandwich she bought in Delmar’s the other day, kept fresh and warm inside her pocket dimension. The Cloak of Levitation perched itself on her shoulder as it sways the swing gently.
Of course there’s an illusion spell around her perimeter, she’s neither dumb nor self-sabotaging.
Her gaze swept through the page as she tilted her head in consideration, taking another bite of her sandwich and munching it quietly as she flipped to the next page with a swish of her hand.
Aaron’s lunch is usually peaceful. She always looks forward to lunch times because of this small sanctuary she made for herself. More often than not she’ll make herself a hammock, but she’s in the mood for a simple Naruto-style plank and rope swing today.
She flips to another page while taking the last bite of her sandwich, slowly becoming a bit too engrossed with the tome. It’s basically a list of ‘cults’ and their ‘gods’, where these ‘gods’ they serve are actually mystical creatures from other dimensions deified by the humans who worship them.
It hits a bit too close to home, sure, but the whole book is fascinating, nonetheless. For each cult and each creature, the tome gave a rather extensive explanation about their beliefs and the way they worship their ‘gods’. The book isn’t really focused on these creatures itself, but Aaron is confident that she’ll find a second book with more information to that topic if she looks around in the same place she found this one on the New York Sanctum.
There’s even a section for the Zealots and Dormammu—the primordial-life that Stephen annoyed into leaving Earth alone with the power of the Eye of Agamotto.
That story will never be not funny, even though it’s probably a traumatizing event. In a way, Stephen Strange is such an impossibly aggravating creature who can save their reality by annoying the hell out of a primordial being. It’s hilarious, and it’s an accomplishment Aaron is proud of for such a ridiculous reason.
She was already one-third through the whole book, and it wasn’t until the Cloak gently flaps the corner of its lapel to her cheek as a reminder that she snaps back to reality. Aaron blinks, moving her hand that isn’t dirty because of the sandwich to pat the Cloak gently as a thanks. It fluttered happily in reply, once again molding itself to camouflage as a handkerchief in the pocket of her blazer.
Aaron burned the sandwich wraps in her hand with a quick fire spell before cleaning her hand with a cleansing spell.
She pulls out her phone to check on the time to find out it’s ten minutes before the bell rings, and it’s really sad that a sentient piece of fabric is much better than her in keeping up with time. You would think that as a magical object stored in the Sanctum for God knows how long it’ll be time blind. Apparently not.
Aaron stopped her reading, moving the bookmark floating beside the tome to the center of the opened pages before closing the tome. She stores it back to her pocket dimension with a gesture of her hand, jumping off the translucent swing before snapping her fingers to will it away.
The auburn haired girl walked behind the big tree before letting her illusion spell fall off. It’ll be problematic if someone accidentally saw her appear suddenly when she previously wasn’t there. Even though the magic around her told her there’s nobody else, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Once it’s all gone and Aaron deemed it safe after a quick scan of her surroundings, she walks away from the tree—heading towards the middle school building.
Gotham Academy separates its middle and its high school division. After several transfer exams, Aaron was accepted and was placed into the 8th Grade and same goes for Wayne—they share almost all of their pre-lunch period in the same classes, but they have a silent agreement of sitting as far away from one another as they can.
After lunch, none of their schedules match.
Wayne has Physical Education, while Aaron had chosen Introduction to Contemporary Dance to fill in her Physical Education credits.
Physical Education wasn’t much of an interest to her. Aaron sees how being physically fit is an important aspect for a child’s growth but sport doesn’t quite interest her. Her sorceress training had already included combat practice, so she didn't think any more education on the physical aspect was needed for her.
Sure, maybe she can get some hobbies in the athletic section. But that requires social interaction. And physical interactions. As she is, she would rather not.
Dancing… dancing isn’t something she is familiar with, to be honest.
But music is. And dancing, in the most technical form, is just moving one’s body to the sound of music. Aaron thought she could work pretty well with that, since she had fallen in love with music the first time she was introduced to it. (And not because of her growing attachment to pretty Korean boys more than six years her senior, of course.)
She was right, because dancing came to her like it’s second nature. Like the way she fell in love with music, she also fell in love with dancing. Practicing the technical aspects of dancing itself is kind of a challenge since it’s literally her introduction to the whole thing—it’s kind of different from the fighting style that she is used to, but it’s something she can get used to and it’s probably also something Aaron can somehow infuse into her fighting style as she gets used to it.
Aaron wants that. Something she can see as her own thing. So, yeah, she’s glad she decided to pick dancing.
Even though the touching from the teacher thing is still something a bit too hard to handle sometimes, Mrs. Mikhailova is a very understanding woman—she knows not to get too close if it’s unnecessary.
It’s also a good thing that Introduction to Contemporary Dance doesn’t have the annoying people whose presence she would’ve suffered from.
They’re all already in Dance Production and would perform in the March concert. This filled her with some kind of dread for what the future holds, because if everything goes right with Introduction to Contemporary Dance, then she’s actually planning to take Dance Production next year. It’s a repeatable class, that means there’s a chance she would meet them there.
Well. C’est la vie . Let’s just see.
Aaron was walking through the hall on the way to the performing arts center when she met with Wayne in one of the more quiet hallway’s intersections. They both blinked at each other, nodding in greeting as they walked the same direction some distance away from one another without exchanging any words.
The performing art center and the gym are in the same direction, and this hallway isn't usually used by others because it’s on the more desolate part of Gotham Academy—Wayne probably has the same thoughts as her. It wasn’t always that way. It used to be more crowded, but there was a villain attack in this hallway last year, she heard.
They walked in silence, and they parted ways without as much as a look at each other when Aaron arrived in the performing arts center first. She walks inside, immediately going straight to the changing room and looks for her locker to drop off her bag and to change into a dark green T-shirt and a pair of leggings. The Cloak subtly shifts, changing from a handkerchief to a wristband as she hangs her uniform in the locker before closing it.
Aaron was making sure that her locker is secure when she heard familiar giggling from the entrance of the otherwise suddenly quiet changing room.
She isn’t the only person there, but apparently she’s also not the only one to recognize that voice because the otherwise hushed light conversation between some of the other girls there quiets down.
She closes her eyes, and counts to ten.
“Oh? Well, well, well. Who do we have here?”
If it isn’t the girl who fell in the middle of the hallway just earlier today.
Inhale, Aaron, exhale.
Is she scared of them? No. Definitely not. Her whole character background arc has set one hell of a standard when it comes to something ‘scary’, she really does think that middle school children aren’t really up there when it comes to things Aaron is scared of, or at least wary of.
More than anything, Aaron is instead worried that one of these days she will lose control over her anger management and send some thirteen(fourteen?) years old to the Sahara desert. Or Mount Everest. Or the Mariana trench.
“If it isn’t… Strange .” Cue the snickers.
Aaron doesn’t have anger issues. But if they kept this on for one whole year and the years in high school after that, she might develop one.
Opening her eyes again, she glanced disinterestedly in the direction of Juliette Desmond and one of her followers whose names Aaron doesn’t really remember. Aaron only remembered Desmond’s name because her Student Liaison is very interested in the social hierarchy of Gotham Academy and had mentioned Desmond over and over due to her status on top of the middle school’s social ladder while on their tour around the campus.
Very old money. Very entitled too because of it.
“It’s been a while, hasn't it? I think I bumped into you earlier. Again, I’m really sorry about that.” A sweet deceiving smile, but not the best. Not enough. Aaron had seen better.
Like always, Aaron doesn’t answer. But she does turn to face Desmond’s direction with an indifferent look.
She thinks that’s what pisses Desmond off the most. Her indifference towards anything Desmond would use to try to rile her up and give her any kind of reaction. In a way, it’s funny. She started it, but she’s the one always taking an L—as Twitter would say.
Desmond blinks her blue doe eyes, the kind smile in her pouty red lips widens, “It’s almost the end of your first month here, isn’t it? I hope your experience in Gotham Academy is good so far.”
Aaron stares at her, tilting her head. She doesn’t quite understand how she should be acting as the new kid when the number one popular girl is acting kind to her. She watched some movies and series before school started to prepare herself for what’s to come, but reality and fiction can only be so similar. It’s almost a month and she’s still confused about the intricacies of school social life.
In the end she goes with the most basic response she deemed fitting for this current scenario; she keeps eye contact and nods. And then walks past her.
Aaron could feel the stares and heard some of the whispers as she walks towards the changing room’s door, but she brushes them off easily.
The Cloak shifted slightly on her hand—discreet enough so that nobody but Aaron would notice. She nods in agreement with the Cloak.
Yes, they’re annoying and Aaron doesn’t like them either.
*
The rest of the day wasn't all that eventful. Dance was okay, and the rest of the classes were routine. Since this Monday is a Red day and she’s on the A schedule, she has a forty minute free period after her dance class—she uses it to hit a quick shower in the available shower room in the performing arts center before changing back to her uniform and continues reading in her usual place.
Her last class of the day is Introduction to Photography. The class she decided upon for her visual art credits as Wayne chose Painting and Drawing.
She wasn’t sure that was a normal middle school class, but Gotham Academy is a school for the rich and the idea of capturing the moments in the form of a picture is something she finds attractive.
There are a lot of things that Aaron wants to show and tell Stephen when he’s back who knows when in the future, but only telling the stories seems… lacking. So she decided pictures would help, right? She can slowly capture the moments of her progress, and then she can show it all to him later while telling him all the things that happened.
Stephen is the Master of Time, but Aaron is not. So the closest thing she can do in comparison to him looking through 14 Million futures is to capture the times that she has now and show them to him later—even though he had probably seen them by himself in some of those 14 Million futures.
She had said that to Tony when he asked her why photography. He immediately went quiet and his eyes looked glassy. He had looked… sad. She thinks that’s the correct expression.
The bell rings, indicating today’s schooltime has ended. Aaron doesn’t waste more time than necessary in the photo studio, immediately packing up her things and standing up from the studio floor—heading straight to the door, and then the nearest exit of the visual art hall.
She walks on the middle school campus road, going straight to the giant gate leading to the streets of Gotham City. Like her daily weekday routine, she heads to the usual dead-end alley.
Wayne was already waiting there.
Again, they share a quick nod. Aaron pulls out her Sling Ring, creating a portal to the living room of Tony’s lakeside cabin. They both step into the portal and Aaron lets it close behind them. A quick scan of the whole cabin with magic tells Aaron that Tony isn’t home.
Wayne immediately turns to her after that.
“Half an hour.” He says— demands , more likely. His voice immediately summons Titus who barks and runs excitedly to their direction when he knows his master is back. Alfred’s meows comes right after that
He meant, he’ll need a portal to the Wayne Manor in half an hour. Such a way of interaction between them is common because the less they talk the each other, the less the probability of an argument or a fight. So Aaron only answers that with a nod before walking upstairs to her bedroom.
The Cloak manifests itself from the blazer of her pocket, settling down on the hanger stand near the door of her room.
Since she had already showered in school, she only changed her clothes into a simple red shirt and black shorts. With a snap of her hand, she summoned ‘The Wayward Believers’. Once again, she made it float in front of her to read it as she walked down to the living room with the Cloak following behind her to settle in a hanger stand there.
Yes, there are numerous hanger stands in the lakeside cabin. Tony had said they were facilities for the Cloak.
Aaron sits on the sofa, turning a page in her book as she pulls out her phone.
We’re home. She texted Tony. Wayne will leave for his manor in half an hour.
He replied soon after that.
At the company, will be back in two hours. Tony says, There’s still some frozen chicken wings in the freezer if you’re hungry.
She isn’t really hungry, so she just continues with her reading.
Half an hour after that, like Wayne had said, he came down in a black turtleneck and a pair of black trousers. Aaron opens up a portal for him straight to the Batcave without looking up from the tome she’s reading.
From the corner of her eyes, she can see him walk through the portal with Titus following behind him, while Alfred suddenly jumps to the sofa beside Aaron.
Blinking, she turns to the black cat. Alfred stares back at her, unmoving. Aaron turns to Wayne beyond the still-open portal.
His green eyes look at her, at his cat who didn’t follow him through the portal with a small frown, and then at her again.
The message is clear, take care of him .
Well, alright then. It seems like today is one of the rare times Aaron gets to have one of Wayne’s pets as a companion of the day.
Aaron shrugs, making a shooing gesture to Wayne with her left hand before closing the portal. Alfred jumps to her lap right after that, purring contentedly, making himself at home as he curls on it. She comes back to her reading as her right hand moves to stroke the black cat on her lap.
It was later, when Tony came home, that she snapped out of her reading. Tony hasn’t even stepped into the cabin yet, but the magical barrier she sets in the perimeter of the cabin tells her that his car drives through it.
She turns towards the front door with expectation, and it opens from the outside after the sound of a key turning.
“I’m home! Oh hey, Hermione. I see you’re in-character as usual.” The billionaire greets her when he sees her sitting on the couch with a tired grin as he walks into the household with a bunch of groceries. She was about to open her mouth to greet him when Happy Hogan walked behind him with some more groceries.
“Hi, Kid.” Happy grunted at her.
Her mouth clamps shut, and she decided to only move her hand to wave at them both as her version of greeting.
Happy doesn’t stay long, he nods at her again before walking out of the front door and closing it shut behind him.
Aaron then turns her head to look at the cat on her lap, only to find Alfred looking back up at her.
She then talks to him softly, “Can you please move?”
Other people would think that it was ‘as if’ the cat understood her, he moved. Aaron, however, lived in the society of magic. It may not be so for other people, but she knows damn well that animals can actually understand her to some level because of her affinity to magic. The stronger sorcerer you are, the more your affinity rises, and somehow you’ll start to understand other creatures more—and unfortunately this doesn’t only extend to animals.
Aaron stands when Alfred moves to jump off her laps and the couch to run at his (very expensive) bed. She walks to the dining room-slash-kitchen and sits down on the dining chair. Aaron left behind the tome she’s reading floating in the living room.
Tony is busy with the groceries, but he stops when he notices Aaron sitting down at the table staring at him.
“Did something happen?” Tony raises an eyebrow, immediately giving her his full attention.
He’s always like this. He doesn’t hesitate to drop things for her, even during the first few weeks they return to Earth. Tony also didn’t hesitate to figuratively flip his middle finger to the UN when they told him that he can’t bring her to the very important meeting they’re having.
From Stephen’s stories, Tony had… always been like this. He was an all or nothing sort of guy, and he won’t hesitate to put you over himself if you’re someone he cares about. It’s sometimes unnerving for her.
Slowly, Aaron shakes her head no.
She waves her hand, though, and they both watch as the various groceries that Tony just bought floats around and sorted themselves neatly in the air. She gives Tony a pointed stare, and the billionaire just chuckles in amusement as he nods.
Aaron snapped her fingers, and they moved to where Aaron remembered everything should be. Fruits and vegetables in the fridge, frozen stuff in the freezer, cereals and jams in the cupboard, and so on.
Tony laughs, sitting himself across from Aaron, “I appreciate your help, Kiddo. You sure you’re not just showing off at this point?”
She shrugs, “You look tired.”
Tony blinks in surprise, but he smiles gratefully at her before leaning forward and moves his right hand to mess up her hair.
“I am tired. Thank you for noticing. I’ll just rest for a bit, and then I’ll start dinner.” He says, slumping to his chair, “How was your day?”
Aaron doesn’t know how to answer that, actually. Tony asks her that every day after school starts because they don’t spend most of their time glued to each other anymore, and answering it doesn’t get any easier because she doesn’t really understand what she should and shouldn’t say.
So she picked a random topic of the day—something lighthearted, to help Tony take his mind off his exhaustion. She decided to tell Tony about what she learns in her photography class today.
Tony seems to be content enough with the topic, he looks relaxed. Despite not really being used to talking much, Aaron tried her best to keep going on with this conversation even as Tony started cooking dinner.
It seems like Tony noticed, however, and with a knowing look he gently stopped the conversation with a statement and focused on cooking. They’re having Italian tonight—pasta and soup, specifically.
They have dinner together after that—the three of them, because Tony insisted on always eating breakfast and dinner together. Not for any sentimental bonding things of the sort—it’s because he knows that all three of them have an unhealthy eating habit if left alone.
So, like usual, she portals Wayne from wherever he currently is—a place called Crime Alley, apparently?—five minutes before seven, they’ll have dinner together, and then Aaron will portal Wayne back to let him finish whatever he’s doing out there in Gotham.
Sometimes the three of them during dinner paint a hilarious picture.
Some nights, like tonight, Wayne would be in his full Robin suit. Some other nights, Tony would be half-Iron Man or Aaron in her sorceress regalia—complete with Stephen’s Cloak of Levitation for extra dramatic effect.
There’s even that one time all three of them are in their respective ‘other identity’ outfits.
They come for dinner (usually via Aaron’s portal if any of them are anywhere that isn’t the cabin), eat dinner, and then they either leave to continue their business or go inside their bedroom after washing the dishes.
That night, Aaron doesn’t really sleep because the nightmare from the night before still haunts her. She does let her physical body rest—her astral body is still very active, though, continuing her reading. She’s halfway through the tome already when Wayne messages her at 2.26 A.M for a portal back to the cabin.
He looks really exhausted.
Even though they don’t really get along, Aaron pitied the boy. Stephen always looks that exhausted when the missions are really taxing, and Stephen has Wong and the others. Wayne is… alone. So, it must be harder for him.
Aaron heard from the internet and from some of the local Gotham news channels during schooltime that crime rates are actually going down sharply in Gotham in contrast to how it was before the blip because the whole world is in shambles—a miracle that ironically happen because of a catastrophe, but some idiots there are still stubborn idiots.
She casted a frequently used good-night spell that would speed through all his needed regenerations during his sleep as he walks through the door of her room and closes it behind him. Aaron had looked it up for Stephen for when he had a really bad day and really needed to be well-rested. Now, she would use them on either Tony or Wayne.
Tony, only after asking for his consent. Tony has certain… issues, with magic, because of Wanda Maximoff. Aaron really only uses them on Wayne discreetly, almost on a daily basis.
This is her daily life now, Aaron guesses.
It’s… not quite ideal. But it’s something ‘okay’. And for now, ‘okay’ is already a luxury for her.