Chapter Text
“You’re going to be late,” Stephen murmured, pulling Tony from his state of absolute blissfulness. “You know Steve hates it when you’re late.”
Tony hummed in acknowledgment, but didn’t bother to actually move. He was comfortable right now. He and Stephen had slept in this morning, a rarity for both of them, and Tony wanted to enjoy this strange thing called ‘lazing’. He finally understood the concept and officially agreed with the masses that lazing was great. Everyone should get a morning or two to laze.
He’d always had far too much anxious energy, always buzzing beneath his skin, to really enjoy the act before. But Stephen… Tony still didn’t understand it, even at this point in their relationship—and they were married—but Stephen made something in Tony relax, made Tony feel like he had found the center of his own storm.
Finding Stephen had been the absolute best thing that could have ever happened to Tony. He wondered if it would be too sappy to say that this early in the morning. Probably.
“Tony,” Stephen prodded, amusement in his tone. “You really do need to get going.”
“Are you kicking me out of bed?” Tony asked, shifting slightly to press a kiss to Stephen’s neck, light and a little teasing. “I could think of far better ways to spend my morning rather than going to an Avengers’ meeting.”
Stephen laughed and Tony could feel it where they were pressed together. “That would be higher praise if I didn’t know how much you hate Avengers’ meetings,” Stephen told him. “You’d think deep cleaning your lab would be preferable to going to Avengers’ meetings.”
“My lab’s not dirty,” Tony protested. “I keep that place in top shape!”
“You mean DUM-E and U keep it in top shape?” Stephen teased.
Okay, true. Sort of. But sometimes the two of them were the ones who made the mess and Tony had to clean it up. It wasn’t like he was about to let a cleaning service into his lab! He shuddered at the very thought of letting someone into his own, personal sanctum. “I help,” Tony groused. “I’m a very capable person, you know.”
“Yes,” Stephen agreed. “Very capable of getting to your meetings on time.”
Had Tony just gotten played? Tony thought he might have just gotten played. “I’m going to remind you that you turned down sexy-times next time you—”
A piercing wail interrupted him and Tony jerked out of bed and to his feet, half instinct and half practiced response as his phone’s warning alarm went off. He grabbed his phone and his nano-housing unit, pressing the unit against his sleep shirt. “FRIDAY, what’s going on?”
“The Avengers’ Compound has been attacked!” FRIDAY sounded almost panicked. “They came through a portal and hit the Avengers with some sort of magic!”
Stephen was already on his feet, dressed and sling ring on his fingers. “Let’s go,” Stephen said. The cloak rushed into the room, falling onto Stephen’s shoulders just as Stephen opened a portal into the compound.
Tony could hear screams coming down the hallway near the meeting room as he stepped through the portal, his suit sliding into place around him. Tony engaged his repulsors, skipping the need to run, taking off in flight down the hallway, leaving Stephen behind, his mind racing.
Screams.
That was the sort of thing he’d hear in a battle with civilians, not in the Avengers’ compound. The villains tended to give strangled yells when they were taken out, and there might be a few pained cries when an Avenger got hit, but screams… that didn’t happen.
He burst into the meeting room and nearly came to a shocked halt.
Children.
The room was full of soldiers with guns—tranqs, Tony recognized a second later—and children.
One of the children, she couldn’t be more than four let out another terrified scream; familiar red power burst from her and flung two of the soldiers back and into the wall with a sickening crack that told Tony they wouldn’t be getting back up again.
A blur of green—so much smaller than it should be—flung past him; the Hulk wailed on one of the soldiers, then whirled and roared at the others.
Tony shook away the momentary shock, turning to what were clearly enemy soldiers and sending two of them crashing into the wall himself with well placed repulsor shots.
Stephen entered the room a moment later, having caught up, magic already at his fingers; ropes flared from his hands to wrap around another soldier. A sleep spell had to have been attached, because the soldier went limp in the bonds and fell to the ground.
The next few minutes were strangely horrifying. Wanda’s power was getting stronger the more terrified she got, catching every tranq and flinging anyone who got close to her away. Another young girl—and it had to be Natasha—had two knives in hands and was fighting with a clumsy sort of grace. Tony never again wanted to see a four year old slide her knife into the weak spots of a grown man’s protective gear and twist like it was natural.
Two young boys had already been hit by the tranqs and had fallen beneath the meeting table, but the shrunken metal arm on one of them told Tony it had to be Bucky and Steve. A third boy, Sam, clearly, had been tranqed as well, and someone had gotten as far as handcuffing him before they’d been killed. Tony honestly didn’t want to know by who.
The enemies fell quickly, but it didn’t take Tony long to realize that the danger hadn’t. Because now there was a miniature Hulk, a terrified witch, and a fight-to-the-death assassin in training, all of whom were now focused on him and Stephen.
“Stephen,” Tony said, backing up and raising his hands so that he looked like less of a threat to his kid-sized teammates. “Please tell me you can fix this.”
Stephen also had his hands raised, watching the three warily. “Not without research,” Stephen told him. He tilted his head towards one of the fallen enemies, the only one not dressed in tactical gear and whose neck was twisted at an impossible angle. “And unfortunately, I’m pretty sure the culprit of this spell is… very dead.”
Tony nodded, focusing on Natasha who was clutching her knife fiercely, glaring at him. “Natasha,” he said carefully. “Do you know who I am?”
She didn’t answer, gaze darting between him, Stephen, Wanda, and the Hulk, terror in her eyes that didn’t hide the sense of I’ll kill you if you touch me.
Yeah, Tony hadn’t thought it would be that easy. Tony turned slightly away from her—though he didn’t take his attention away fully, Tony had seen her knife several men, he didn’t want to join that list—and focused on the Hulk who stood in the middle of the room, looking for a threat.
Tony didn’t like the way the Hulk was eyeing Wanda who, while no longer actively attacking anyone, had magic bubbling around her skin, clearly warning people not to get close, still sobbing loudly.
Hulk was still about the size of a grown man, but compared to how big the Hulk normally was, he’d clearly been just as affected as the others. “Hulk, buddy,” Tony said. “I need you to calm down, okay?” He hesitated, then carefully disengaged his suit, withdrawing the nano-bots into the housing unit, taking a moment to wish that he was not still in his pajamas. “The danger’s gone. All right? You’re safe.”
Hulk stared at him, and Tony thought he saw actual fear in his eyes. Something in Tony twisted in grief, because it took a lot to scare the Hulk. “It’s okay, buddy,” he said, keeping his voice gentle. “You can stand down. No one else is going to hurt you. I’m a friend. Do you remember me?”
“Tin man,” Hulk said, voice low and Tony felt a wave of relief. Bruce might have been de-aged, but the Hulk seemed to still have his own memories. “Wrong. Banner wrong.”
“I know,” Tony said. “And Stephen and I are going to fix it, okay? But you’re scaring Natasha and Wanda.”
Hulk glanced at the two of them. “Wrong,” he repeated. “Scared.”
Tony nodded. “Yeah, what happened to them happened to Bruce, too. But we’re going to fix all of you. But we need you to let Bruce out. Can you do that?”
Hulk seemed uncertain, but a moment later he was shrinking and then Bruce stood there, maybe five or six, clothed only in tattered pants and staring around frantically. A moment later Bruce yelled, scrambling back and scratching at his arms desperately. “It’s in me. It’s in me.” A strangled gasp escaped him and the yell broke off as Bruce started hyperventilating.
“Bruce,” Tony said, a little panicked. He took a step towards him before stopping himself. Crowding Bruce right now would not help.
He glanced desperately at Stephen. “Can you take Wanda?” he asked. “We need to calm her down before she goes nuclear. She clearly doesn’t have the control she normally does and I don’t want to imagine what will happen if she accidentally hits one of the others with her magic, right now.”
Stephen nodded, moving slowly closer to Wanda. “Wanda?” he said, voice low and comforting. “Can I come closer?”
Wanda flinched back, power shooting towards Stephen. Stephen caught it on a shield, but he stopped moving closer. Wanda shouted something, and it took Tony a minute to realize it had to be Sokovian. Great. Their nuclear witch didn’t even speak English. That was going to make calming her down far harder than it needed to be if she couldn’t understand them.
“Boss,” FRIDAY said. “She says Doctor Strange feels bad.”
“Bad?” Tony asked, confused.
“Maybe itchy?” FRIDAY asked. “We don’t have a direct translation in English. But I think she feels Doctor Strange’s magic.”
Stephen and Tony exchanged looks. “You take Bruce,” Tony decided, glancing momentarily at Natasha who was still standing in preparation of a fight and watching them. “I’ll take Wanda.” He really didn’t want to take Wanda. Her magic still freaked him out in normal situations, even if he tried to hide it, and this was so far from normal and so far from safe that it was really not doing anything good for that fear and he suspected his own fear would only exacerbate her own.
He and Stephen slowly switched places. Tony hesitated a moment before taking a deep breath and starting his approach. “Hey, Wanda,” Tony said, keeping his voice careful, approaching slowly with his hands raised. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He glanced at the camera. “FRI, give me a translation, okay?”
FRIDAY translated the words for him and Tony copied her, repeating the same phrase over and over, grateful that the intonations felt enough like his limited Russian that he probably wasn’t entirely butchering the language, as he inched closer.
Wanda’s sobs were slowing down from a constant wailing noise to hiccuping gasps. She was still bubbling with magic, though, so Tony wasn’t sure if that was a win or not.
He crouched down as he got what he thought was close enough. “FRIDAY, give me a translation for asking if I can touch her to check and make sure she hasn’t been hurt.”
FRIDAY obediently did and Tony once again hoped he didn’t mangle his attempts to copy her. It felt like a very gross oversight, at the moment, that he hadn’t learned Sokovian before now.
Wanda stared at him, tear-stained and snotty. Tony repeated the question carefully.
Finally she nodded, saying something.
“She wants to know where her parents are,” FRIDAY told him. “And if you’ll take her to them.”
Tony reached out carefully. Wanda still had magic bubbling from her and he really hoped that wasn’t going to hurt him. He ran his hands over her lightly, checking to make sure she didn’t have any injuries, but she seemed fine. Other than the fact that she was four.
Wanda pushed herself to her feet, stumbling a little and Tony caught her. She repeated what she’d said before and Tony tried to figure out how in the world he was supposed to answer the question. “Okay,” he said. “We’re going to tell her that magic brought her here and we’ll try to find her parents, okay?”
FRIDAY led him through how to say it.
Wanda glanced up at the ceiling and then back to him, brow furrowing in confusion, whether at the answer or at why the ceiling was talking, Tony didn’t know. Maybe he should just leave all the talking to FRIDAY, but Tony thought that hearing the words from someone she could see and feel would be more reassuring, right now. She sniffled a little and Tony winced, suspecting they were about to get another round of wailing, hopefully not accompanied by power bursts.
A moment later she lunged forward, wrapping her arms around his neck and sobbing.
Tony froze, could feel her magic prickling against his skin, carrying waves of fear and sorrow with it. He had to fight not to push her and her magic away. Anxiety spiked in his chest. That wouldn’t help. That would make things much, much worse.
Slowly he brought his hands up to hug her gently. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. FRIDAY provided him the translation and Tony switched to Sokovian as he said the words, hoping Wanda believed him.
Wanda continued to cling to him, still sobbing.
A whisper of movement had Tony turning as well as he could with a four year old clinging to him. Natasha had approached him, bloody knives still in her hands and gaze scrutinizing. “Where am I?” she asked, a strong Russian accent to her words.
Tony felt a moment of pure relief that Natasha had apparently already started learning English. The fewer languages they had flying around the place, the easier it would be for the majority of them.
“You’re in New York,” Tony told her. “There was… magic that brought you here.”
Natasha looked scrutinizing. “You are my new trainer?”
Tony flinched a little at the thought, accidentally pulling away from Wanda who nearly strangled him, her hold going tighter as though she thought he was trying to escape and a spark of magic filling him with her fear and grief again.
He forced himself to breathe through it, to focus on Natasha. “There are no trainers,” Tony told her. He tried to decide what to say, but he was pretty sure there was no good way to say any of it. “You escaped them.”
Natasha’s eyes widened and she looked a mix of terrified and awed. “I killed them?” Her hands tightened around her knives, and Tony felt something close to real panic. He couldn’t tell a four year old that she’d killed all of those people!?
Even if the adult her really had. Or at least most of them.
“They’re dead,” Tony compromised. “You’re safe now.”
Natasha glanced around at the people who’d attacked them, skeptical look in her eyes. Okay, yeah, that was a good point. Being attacked by 20 or so armed men didn’t really give the impression of ‘safe’.
“Normally, at least,” Tony said. “This was an exception.” He eyed the knives in her hands. “You don’t need those anymore.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, and Tony suspected she would not be handing them over without argument. “They’re mine,” she said. “You can’t take them from me.”
For a moment he wondered where she’d gotten the knives, but then realized that they were all wearing miniaturized versions of their clothes—which he was going to take a moment to be grateful for—and Natasha probably always had knives on her person.
Tony had literally zero idea how to handle any of this. He glanced at Stephen, relieved to see that Bruce had calmed down. Stephen sat next to him, talking quietly. The other three boys were all still tranq’ed. Tony did not look forward to them waking up and Tony needing to explain to them what was going on.
He focused back on Natasha. “How about we get those knives cleaned,” he said. “And you can have one knife to protect yourself with.” He probably shouldn’t be giving a four year old—how old was she?—knives at all, but given Natasha’s past, it would probably make her feel safer to have some way to protect herself. “But only if you promise not to use the knife on any of the other kids. They’re not trained like you. They were all brought here by the magic, too.”
Natasha’s lips pursed, clearly considering this. “They do not want to be Black Widow?” She glanced at Wanda suspiciously. As the only other girl, Wanda probably was the biggest threat in Natasha’s mind, especially since Natasha had seen Wanda throwing people around with her mind. Tony remembered hearing that there were trainings where the Black Widows would need to fight their fellow students until one of them died. A macabre ‘only the strongest survive’ tactic to winnow out what the Red Room had considered weak.
“No,” Tony said. “No one here will try to be the Black Widow.”
It seemed to be enough because some of the tension left Natasha’s shoulders. She moved to one of the fallen soldiers and started cleaning her knives with their clothes. Tony grimaced, because the rather blasé approach to the dead soldiers was entirely unnerving for him.
He kept an eye on her, though. He suspected if he looked away she might try to steal a weapon or two and he really, really didn’t want to deal with that.
Wanda had stopped crying, finally. Tony tried to pull back and away from her, now that she was relatively calm. Relatively.
Her arms tightening around his neck made it clear she was not okay with that.
He dithered for a second, because as they were now, he was stuck in what was an entirely uncomfortable crouch and he really needed to act. There were a lot of dead and unconscious bodies in his compound and he needed to get them out of here. Stephen and Tony had mostly knocked their opponents out—though given the presence of children, Tony hadn’t been quite as careful as he should have been about keeping them alive—and between Hulk, Natasha, and Wanda… well, there were a lot of dead soldiers.
Finally, he scooped Wanda up, setting her on his hip as he stood. She grumbled a little, but settled, only rubbing her nose against his shoulder. Tony tried not to think about just how snotty his shirt probably was, right now. At least Wanda was no longer bubbling magic; Tony figured he could handle some snot when that was the alternative.
Stephen looked at him as Tony stood, before turning back to Bruce and saying something quietly. Both of them stood as well.
“Bruce,” Stephen said, voice low and calm. “This is my husband, Tony. He’s going to help me look after you until we can figure out how to fix what happened.”
Bruce eyed Tony warily and Tony tried to smile at him, but he suspected it looked a little strained.
“Let’s get you three out of here,” Tony said. “And then Stephen and I will come back for Steve, Bucky, and Sam while… someone cleans this up.”
Bruce looked at the dead bodies, eyes bulging a little and face going waxy pale. He grabbed Stephen’s hand and Tony saw pain flash over Stephen’s face as Bruce squeezed.
“Natasha,” Tony said. “Can you come with us? We want to go somewhere a little… cleaner.”
Natasha stood, now clean knives in hand. And yep, Tony was calling it now, that was going to be a problem at some point.
Bruce pushed even closer to Stephen, the look in his eyes downright terrified as he looked at Natasha. Natasha looked equally wary of him, which told Tony that Natasha had realized that the Hulk and Bruce were the same person.
Great.
Natasha shifted over towards Tony, standing next to him and eyeing Bruce and Stephen like threats. “They are safe?” she asked.
“Stephen’s my husband,” he said. “He’s very safe. And Bruce is too.”
“He was green,” she informed him. She pointed at one of the soldiers. “He smashed him into the ground and killed him.”
Bruce looked like he wanted to go green for a very different reason, looking sick. “I didn’t,” he whispered. “I didn’t!” he said louder, almost panicked.
“And you have a knife,” Tony told her, watching from the corner of his eye as Stephen crouched to talk to Bruce in a low voice. “Which you used to stab several people. Bruce was protecting himself just like you were.”
Natasha frowned, considering that. “All right,” she decided. “But if he tries to smash me—”
“He won’t,” Tony said quickly before she could issue a threat and frighten Bruce even more. Hulk and Bruce would never forgive themselves if they hurt Natasha. Especially in her current form. But if she tried to knife Bruce, there was no telling what would happen.
He led the group out of the room, noting the cloak staying behind. “They’ll watch over the boys while we get these three somewhere safe,” Stephen said quietly. “At least until we can retrieve them.”
Tony nodded his appreciation, even as Natasha and Bruce eyed the cloak warily.
Wanda didn’t even notice, and Tony realized she was starting to fall asleep on his shoulder. Emotional turmoil could wipe a person out, and Tony suspected that the overextended use of magic had probably contributed to that as well.
They ended up in one of the compound sitting rooms, far enough away that when Tony found someone to come clear out the bodies, the kids wouldn’t see them being moved down the hallway. Tony managed to set Wanda down, carefully unlatching Wanda’s arms from around his neck and settling her on one of the couches. She stayed thankfully asleep.
“Stay with them?” Tony asked Stephen. “Between my armor and the cloak, we can bring the other three in one trip.” And he didn’t want to leave the kids alone right now. That was just asking for something to go wrong.
Stephen nodded and Tony headed back down to the meeting room.
The cloak greeted him at the doorway where it had been keeping watch. Tony eyed the three boys. The three of them looked like they were around seven to eight, which put them on the older end of the spectrum compared to the others.
“You take Bucky,” Tony told the cloak. “I’ll take Steve and Sam.”
“Boss,” FRIDAY interrupted. “There’s something else you should know.”
Tony looked up. “Yeah, FRI?”
“Hello, Sir.”
The words took a second to compute. Everything from the voice to that very specific, completely unique intonation—for all that two others had carried the voice, that had been JARVIS’ and JARVIS’ alone—that Tony would always know. Tony froze, catching himself on the doorframe when his legs nearly gave out form underneath him. “JARVIS?”
“It is good to see you, Sir. FRIDAY has explained what is going on. It appears when the being known as Vision was hit with the spell, he reverted back to me. I believe you will find the mind stone at the far end of the room, beneath one of the fallen soldiers.”
Tony could barely take in the words. “JARVIS!?” he repeated. JARVIS’ name came out ragged. “You’re… you’re here?”
“He really is, Boss,” FRIDAY told him. “I checked his software. His last memory is shortly before Vision was born.”
“I am grateful that our plan to unite my coding to the mind stone was a success. Though perhaps not as intended.”
Tony swallowed hard, trying to take in the words. JARVIS remembered the moments right before he’d died. The moments before Tony got him killed.
“I must say, sir, that FRIDAY was an excellent choice to take care of you after my demise.”
Tears stung at his eyes. “She’s done a good job,” he said, voice hoarse. “But I always missed you.” He didn’t know if it was fair to say, but he had to anyways. JARVIS had to know how much Tony loved him.
The cloak moved away from Bucky, who it had been about to pick up, to check on Tony, pressing fabric to Tony’s shoulder in a clear question of whether he was okay.
“Yes,” Tony told it. “Sorry. Just… a lot going on. Want to grab the mind stone?”
The cloak floated to the corner FRIDAY indicated, digging the mind stone out from beneath a dead soldier.
“I would suggest hurrying,” JARIVS told him. “We wanted to inform you of my existence while you were alone, but I believe the young Maximoff child is waking. I do not believe she will appreciate your absence. FRIDAY and I will call appropriate authorities to retrieve the living attackers and remove the deceased.”
Tony nodded. “Thanks J, FRI,” he said, tying to gather himself back together as he put his suit back on, picking up Sam in one arm and Steve in the other, careful to balance them.
They’d made it halfway down the hall when he heard the wailing of a distressed four year old.
He hurried his steps, freezing outside of the room. Stephen had pulled Natasha and Bruce to the far side of the room, because Wanda was once again bubbling with magic, jumping out in spurts. Tony put Steve and Sam on the ground outside the room, removing the armor again as he stepped slowly in, hands once again raised to make him look as far from threatening as possible.
Wanda caught sight of him, and her fists clenched together as she yelled something.
“Boss, she appears to be upset you left her,” FRIDAY informed her. And yep, Tony had been getting that vibe.
Tony searched back through his memory of words FRIDAY had taught him earlier. “You’re okay,” he told Wanda in Sokovian. He switched to English. “I’m sorry. I’m back, now.” FRIDAY gave him those words and Tony switched back to Sokovian, repeating the new words.
“Tony.” Stephen’s voice was calm from the other side of the room. “She’s overly receptive to emotions, right now. She’s frightening Bruce and Natasha and that fear is feeding her own. It’s creating a loop.”
“Can you shield them?” Tony asked, glancing at them from the corner of his eye.
“I can,” Stephen said. “But if I try to perform magic now, it’ll set her off even more. We need her calm before I can shield everyone so she’s not getting emotional feedback from all of us. But she’s gravitated to you, if you can focus on feeling calm, she’ll latch onto your emotions over any of ours.”
Tony grimaced at the thought of Wanda ‘latching on’ to him, but he nodded. He took a deep breath, focusing on calming thoughts. Not that there was much ‘calming’ going on right now, and not that he was very good at calm in normal situations.
Still, it seemed to work, because Wanda started calming down again, letting Tony approach. He tried not to grimace when she lunged in for another hug, wrapping he arms around his neck and burying her face in his neck. This time he felt the snot and tears when her face found his skin instead of his shirt.
He rubbed a hand down her back, trying to reassure her in his very limited Sokovian. He was really going to have to move learning Sokovian up his list ASAP.
Or maybe not, if Stephen could figure this out quickly then this whole thing could be waved away and Tony would pretend this whole morning had never happened. His gaze darted to the ceiling, because if Stephen fixed this…
JARVIS.
For a moment the grief overwhelmed him. Wanda’s breathing hitched again as though she was about to start sobbing and he pushed his own grief away, focusing back on the calm. When he finally had Wanda calmed down again he looked up. The cloak had brought Sam, Steve, and Bucky in, settling them each on the couch. Tony examined Steve and Bucky. Steve looked far taller than his sickly childhood would have left him, which meant that Steve probably still had the serum; if he did, then Bucky probably did as well, he certainly still had his arm. Given Bruce still had the Hulk and Wanda still had her magic, that wasn’t entirely a surprise.
Tony met Stephen’s gaze, seeing the worry and concern in his expression.
Bruce was clinging tightly to Stephen’s side—thankfully no longer squeezing Stephen’s hand—while Natasha was carefully examining the three unconscious boys, skirting carefully around the Cloak, apparently having determined it was a threat.
She made it around the couches and came to a stop next to him, wary eyes focused on Wanda. “ВедьмаWitch,” she whispered, sounding unnerved. Witch, Tony interpreted, grateful once again that his Russian was reasonable, if still limited—especially compared to his non-existent Sokovian. Tony wondered what it had been about this episode that had created the reaction. After all, this had been nothing more than a temper tantrum, where last time Wanda had outright killed people.
But then Natasha probably understood using whatever power available to protect herself. Likewise, he imagined it had been a long time since Natasha, who couldn’t be older than four or five, had had a temper tantrum, and Wanda appeared to be somewhere between three and four. Of course Natasha would find it unnerving.
"Тебе не нужно боятьсяYou don’t need to be afraid,” Tony said, hoping he wasn’t lying. It was pretty clear that Wanda wasn’t in full control, and Tony wasn’t sure how they were going to keep everyone safe. He just hoped they could fix this quickly.
Natasha startled looking at him with wide eyes. “You speak Russian?” she asked, once more in her accented English.
“Some,” Tony said. “Not as good as your English, I suspect.”
A hint of pride entered Natasha’s eyes. “I am very good,” she said. “Soon I will learn to infiltrate.”
And that was something Tony wasn’t going to think about. “How old are you Natasha?”
“Natalia,” Natasha corrected. “I am Natalia.”
Tony paused, then nodded. “All right. How old are you, Natalia?”
“Five.”
Tony tried really hard not to remember Natalia knifing her attackers. At five. Wanda and Hulk had been alarming in the number of attackers that had died at their hands, but for them it had been an instinctive need to protect themselves with little control behind it. For Natalia it had been deliberate. And yes, it was good she could protect herself, but at the same time…
He focused back on Wanda, pulling away slightly. Or trying to. Wanda was a limpet. “FRIDAY, how old?”
FRIDAY provided the immediate translation and Tony repeated the question.
Wanda shook her head.
Right. Not pushing it right now. Tony looked over at Stephen and Bruce.
“How old are you, Bruce?”
Bruce swallowed nervously, looking at Stephen for reassurance who nodded with a soft smile. “I’m five,” he said, voice quiet. So the same age as Natalia. “Doctor Stephen says you’re going to help us be adults again?” he asked. “That we all grew up and someone hurt us?”
Tony glanced at Stephen, he’d been a little more honest than Tony had been. “Right,” he said. “We will. Stephen is really good at magic.”
“ВедьмаWitch?” Natalia asked, looking at Stephen suspiciously. Tony was sure she’d seen Stephen use magic during that fight, but apparently she wanted an official judgment on the matter.
That made Tony hesitate. “Yes,” he said finally. “Sorta.” He met her gaze. “But he’s the safest person I know,” he said. “He only ever protects people. He’s going to help me protect all of you and… fix the situation.”
“He’s a Doctor,” Bruce added, surprising Tony by joining in, when so far he’d seemed anxious about talking.
“Doctor ВедьмаWitch,” Natalia decided.
“Better than Doctor Wizard,” Stephen muttered, sounding exasperated. “So I suppose I’ll take it.”
Tony wasn’t sure he agreed, but if Stephen preferred being called a witch, then more power too him. “FRIDAY and J called the authorities to deal with our attackers,” Tony said. “But I’m worried about these three.” He gestured at the boys. “We need to figure out what tranqs they were hit with.”
It was probably something they should have already done, but Tony felt frazzled with everything going on right now.
“J?” Stephen asked, brow furrowed in confusion.
Tony glanced down at Wanda who was once again falling asleep on his shoulder at her further exertion, but then realized she would have no reaction to the news; she didn’t speak English for one, and she didn’t know who Vision was for the other. He looked back up at Stephen, swallowing down the mix of emotions the news brought him. “When Vision de-aged, he reverted into JARVIS and the mind stone,” he said. “JARVIS is currently sharing server space with FRIDAY.”
Concern flickered in Stephen’s gaze. “Tony, you know—”
Tony shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about it right now. He knew what Stephen was going to say—that he couldn’t keep JARVIS—and that was something he couldn’t face right now. “The boys?” he asked.
Stephen rubbed at his face, glancing at the three conscious kids and then at the three sleeping ones. “If Wanda wakes up again while you’re gone—”
Right. Tony had somehow become Wanda’s security blanket, and wasn’t that a weird thought. “I’ll stay with these three and you go check those three out in the medbay?” he asked. “Do a basic blood test with our analyzers and—”
”—If there’s any sort of chemical agent in their blood that I don’t recognize, we’ll go from there.” Neither of them were chemists—Bruce the adult put both of them to shame—but between the two of them and their mutual resources and contacts, they’d be able to figure something out if any of the boys had been dosed with something they didn’t recognize.
Hopefully it hadn’t come to that. Hopefully they were just normal tranqs, if dosed appropriately for child super soldiers—which, how would anyone know what the right dose was for something Tony was pretty sure hadn’t existed before now—and hopefully used on the right child. If Sam had been hit with the same things that still had Steve and Bucky unconscious… that would be bad.
Tony swallowed hard, because they needed to figure that out quick. Should have already figured that out, what if Sam was, even at the moment, going into cardiac failure because he’d been hit by too strong a tranq and he and Stephen were too distracted to get him the help he needed on time?
What if—
Wanda whimpered, a quiet keen to it.
No. No. Tony couldn’t think that way. Not only would that not help the situation, but given Wanda’s receptivity to people’s emotions right now, it’d make things worse.
“It’ll be all right, Tony,” Stephen said quietly. “They all have strong pulses, still, and their breathing is steady, clear, and unlabored.”
A hint of relief filled Tony. He wasn’t sure when Stephen had managed to check the boys’ pulses, but even he could see the steady breathing. “Right. Let’s make sure they’re okay in the short term and then we can figure out how to get them back to normal.”
He really was not equipped to deal with kids in a general sense, but he was definitely not equipped to deal with kids that also happened to be his teammates and were all still ridiculously dangerous—more so, in a lot of ways, because they didn’t have the knowledge or control they normally did.
“I’m sure it will be an easy fix,” Stephen said.
Tony grimaced, because Stephen was using that tone of voice that meant he didn’t think it would be an easy fix. Stephen was a terrible liar, most of the time, which Tony had made sure to never tell Stephen he found adorable… and hilarious. Just this once Tony wished Stephen was a little better at it. It would be far better for his mental health if Stephen could have managed that lie just a little more convincingly.
The cloak managed to bundle both Steve and Bucky into its fabric and Stephen picked up Sam, leaving for medical.
“He’s coming back, right?” Bruce asked, almost immediately, shifting uncomfortably and staring at the door where Stephen had disappeared. “He’s not leaving?”
Tony nodded, examining Bruce carefully as he did. “He’ll be back,” he promised. “He’s just checking on the others. He told you he’s a doctor, right?”
Bruce nodded.
“He’s just doing the doctor things, right now,” Tony told him. “Checking on people who need it.”
“But he’s coming back,” Bruce repeated.
Maybe Tony should have told Stephen to take Bruce with him. Bruce seemed to have imprinted on him and, given the situation, it was probably best they keep everyone as comfortable and at ease as possible. “Yes,” Tony promised. “He’s coming back. But for now, we need to let him focus on the others.”
Bruce nodded, fingers twisting together as he shifted again. Honestly, Bruce’s anxiety was going to give Tony anxiety and Tony was already feeling pretty anxious as things were, right now. He did not need more reason to be anxious.
“Bruce, why don’t you sit down,” Tony said gently. He glanced at Natasha. “You too, Nata—” he paused, remembering at the last second that she had indicated a different preferred name ”—lia. Once we know the boys are okay, we’re going to figure out how to help all of you get back to normal.”
“Because the magic… changed us?” Natalia said slowly. “You said it brought us here. But he—” she pointed at Bruce, ”—said we were adults, once.”
Tony grimaced. He hadn’t explicitly meant to lie, it had just felt like the easiest explanation. “Bruce is right,” he said carefully. “My version was a… simplified explanation.”
Natalia frowned. “So I did not escape.”
Tony shifted so he could meet her eyes. “Natalia, I promise you, you did escape.”
Her gaze was searching. Tony suspected that, now that she was looking for it, she’d be able to tell if he was lying.
“I killed them.” Her tone was determined, demanding the truth.
Tony grimaced, because he still found it entirely disquieting to tell a kid that she’d grow up to murder a bunch of people. Even if said people deserved it. “Yes,” he said. “You did.”
After a moment she nodded, satisfied. Tony imagined there had to be genuine reassurance that, with her nightmares dead, no one could come after her. He supposed that alone made telling the truth worth it. To give her the assurance she really was safe. Or as safe as possible when she’d just gotten out of a fight that could have gotten her killed or, as he suspected was more likely, taken. They’d need to interrogate the survivors to figure out just what their plan had been. Though Tony suspected he would not like those answers.
Later, he told himself. He and Stephen would figure that out later.
-
“Boss,” FRIDAY said, interrupting Tony’s awkward attempts to keep Bruce and Natalia talking about anything that wasn’t the attack from and death of a bunch of people in the other room—Tony had finally retrieved the second knife from Natalia without freaking Bruce out about the fact that Natalia had knives, but the conversation had suffered for it—while they waited for Stephen to return with the other three kids. Stephen had been keeping them updated via FRIDAY. Sam had woken up and had been… relatively reassured by Stephen, even if skeptical that he’d once been an adult who was now once again seven. But Bucky and Steve were still unconscious. Apparently they’d both been hit by multiple tranqs instead of one. “Fury has arrived with members of SHIELD, they’re cleaning up the room. Fury is headed your direction.”
This might be the first time in Tony’s life when he was happy to see Fury. Would wonders never cease.
Natalia and Bruce, however, did not seem nearly so happy. Natalia slid into space just at his shoulder, hand moving to where she’d hidden the knife within her sleeve, while Bruce retreated several steps, gaze fixed on the door with fear in his eyes.
Wanda stirred where she was drooling on him and Tony focused on the ‘calm, calm, calm’ he was trying to project so that the other kids’ fear didn’t wake her.
“It’s okay,” Tony told both of them. “Fury’s one of the good guys.”
He got two very skeptical looks for his efforts. Which wasn’t fair, Tony had even mostly meant it this time! Normally, when it came to Fury, Tony used far less gracious terminology—and tended to mean it. Still he stood and settled himself slightly between Natalia and Bruce and the door so they had that little extra reassurance.
Fury appeared at the door to the room, his one good eye doing a quick scan of the space and taking everything in. Tony knew Fury had already known about the fact that the others had all been de-aged, but Tony was still impressed by his perfect poker face. Seeing it was a very different matter.
Maybe Tony could hand Wanda off to him. Fury was pretty much the epitome of calm in a crisis, four-year-old-ish witches with empath problems felt just up his alley.
“Well, you don’t see this every day,” Fury said. He examined Tony. “Never thought I’d see the day when you being late for a meeting would be such a good thing.”
Tony blinked, he hadn’t even really thought about that. But he had been late to the meeting, enjoying his morning with Stephen. If he hadn’t been, he’d have probably been with the others when the attack had happened and quite likely would have been de-aged as well. That was… a little horrifying, actually. Both to imagine in a general sense—Tony did not need to revisit that age of his life—and the possible repercussions of it. FRIDAY would have still alerted Stephen, but the protocols there weren’t as direct as notifying Tony and it was impossible to say how much longer that might have taken.
And nope, Tony officially wasn’t thinking about that.
“Boss,” FRIDAY spoke up again. “Doctor Strange told me to tell you that the other two are awake and appear to be well. Doctor Strange has explained the situation. They seem to mostly believe him and claim they are both seven.” For a moment Tony was surprised at the easy belief, but then Bucky now had a metal arm and Steve was no longer sickly, they had to recognize that things were different.
Seven. Three seven year olds, two five year olds, and one… however old Wanda was.
And JARVIS. His gaze flickered to the cameras again, unable to stop himself.
JARVIS hadn’t spoken much, but Tony couldn’t forget he was there after so long when he hadn’t been. He swallowed back his emotions, turning back to Fury. “You’ve got excellent timing,” he said. “I hope you’re planning on helping out.”
Like providing expert child care that neither he nor Stephen were equipped to handle.
“You seem to have things well in hand,” Fury said, utterly unhelpful. What a surprise.
Tony was getting less happy to see him by the moment. But that was pretty par for the course. There were a few things Tony really wanted to say but suspected he should not say when Bruce and Natalia were listening. “Right,” he said. “Thanks for being so helpful. Aren’t you an expert on very powerful people who could use some assistance?”
“I handle containment,” Fury pointed out. Natalia stiffened. “Not care.” That was… actually a good point. “Care is far more your thing.” And that was entirely inaccurate, so Tony would change that to being 50% a good point and 50% unhelpful nonsense.
Footsteps sounded down the hall and then Stephen was appearing with the three older boys. Tony examined them carefully. They looked… reasonably settled, and Tony was really wondering if some part of the magic was meant to help them adjust. Tony didn’t think he’d be nearly this accepting if someone told him that he hadn’t been kidnapped and had been de-aged instead.
He tried to picture it and held in his snort. Yeah, he’d have called bullshit and blown something up and gotten himself out of there. The thought, so soon after the image of dead soldiers in the other room made him flinch and he glanced at Natalia. In some ways he understood her more than most would.
He shook the thought away. He’d count his blessings where he got them that everyone was behaving reasonably, though, because nothing else about this situation was going his way.
Tony met Stephen’s eyes, searching for reassurance. Stephen met his eyes, wan smile sent his direction that didn’t manage to hide his disquiet and exhaustion.
Tony turned to the boys. “How are you three feeling?” he asked. “Are you okay?”
Steve poked at his own arms. “I’m not sick,” he said. “And the technology is weird. There’s a woman hiding in the ceilings.”
“I have a metal arm,” Bucky provided. “What happened to my real one?”
Sam didn’t say anything, eyeing him suspiciously.
Tony sent a look at Stephen, because he couldn’t have explained the metal arm? “It happened to the adult you,” Tony said carefully. “But a friend of yours made you a new one.” Bucky had seemed to get along with Shuri well enough, and he certainly got along with T’Challa, so the friend comment was pretty accurate. He turned to Steve. “And you got a serum that made you better. And there’s no woman in the ceiling, that’s my… robot.”
Steve looked like that was the most fascinating thing he’d ever heard, and Tony saw him mouth robot to himself.
Bruce scurried across the room to Stephen, once again catching Stephen’s hand and clinging tightly. Tony grimaced, because that had to hurt. He wasn’t surprised Stephen was allowing it—Bruce was clearly terrified and Stephen would put himself through all sorts of pain to comfort someone—but there were going to be repercussions later. Stephen would be in accentuated pain for days after this.
Tony didn’t draw attention to it, though.
Stephen turned to Fury, examining him. “I don’t suppose you’re going to be helpful?”
Tony snorted at the close approximation to what he’d said only a few minutes ago. “Nope,” Tony told him. “Fury has declared this outside his wheelhouse.”
“Well, it’s certainly not in ours,” Stephen muttered.
Natalia shifted closer, one hand coming to tap Tony’s hip. “You are giving us away?” Her expression was wide, real fear in her gaze that made Tony’s stomach clench uncomfortably. He wasn’t sure what was worse, seeing that look in a five year old’s face or seeing it in Natalia’s face, when the Natasha he had known had done so much to make sure no one ever saw when she was afraid.
Bruce froze, turning to stare up at Stephen fear in his eyes as well.
The older boys were looking between them all, clearly not sure what was going on or what they were supposed to feel about any of it.
Tony looked at Stephen who looked back at him, Tony’s own uncertainty in his eyes. But behind that uncertainty laid the same decision that Tony had already made in the moment Natalia had asked the question.
“No, Natalia,” he said. “Stephen and I are going to keep you safe until we can fix everything.”
-
“We’re going to die,” Tony told Stephen, staring up at the ceiling of their room in the compound, the dark enveloping them. It was almost midnight and they had only just gotten the last of the kids asleep and Tony had forced Stephen to spend the last thirty minutes wrapping his hands in a warm compress while he wrangled Bucky and Steve. Hell, Tony had never actually managed to get out of his sleep clothes until he was changing into a new pair. “How are we supposed to deal with… with super soldier children, a child with the Hulk inside of him, a little witchling, and a five-year-old assassin.” And Sam. Blissfully normal child Sam.
The day had been exhausting. Tony already felt frazzled and at the end of his rope and it’d been less than 24 hours. He didn’t think he’d managed more than an hour of not holding Wanda because she freaked out whenever he put her down, though he had finally managed to get her to tell him that she was currently three. Natalia had pulled a knife on Bucky when he’d gotten too close—the metal arm seemed to have convinced her that Bucky was a danger—and there had been a near Hulk-out when Bruce had freaked out about the interaction. Especially when Steve had started yelling at Natalia for threatening his friend.
They’d finally calmed that down, but it hadn’t been the end of the… adventure. Steve and Bucky had combined broken three doors from shutting them too hard, a table and vase when Steve had wanted to see if he could roughhouse now that he wasn’t sickly, and a wall when they'd tried to race down the hallway and hadn't realized quite how fast they ran and how hard it was to stop all that momentum.
Tony supposed it was a good thing that they had chosen to enjoy the experience over freaking out about it all, because dealing with freaked out super soldier kids was not something Tony wanted to do.
Sam was comparatively an angel, but Tony was not unaware that he was eyeing the rest of the kids like he might need to make a run for it at any moment. Which… yeah, that was fair, honestly. Tony was trying not to feel the same.
"We're not going to die," Stephen said. He once again utterly failed at sounding convincing. "But one of the kids might. I'm pretty sure we are entirely unqualified for this and I have no clue how we're supposed to stop them from accidentally killing themselves or each other."
That was a cheery thought. "We can fix this, right?"
Stephen sighed. "I had FRIDAY send Wong a message. He's researching, but he may need to come and take some diagnostics."
Tony was going to have to do something nice for Wong, because he was frankly far too tired to even think of doing any research himself. "We need to review today's footage of the attack," Tony realized. "Hopefully…"
"Tomorrow morning," Stephen told him. "We watch it tonight and we're not going to manage any sleep trying to dissect it. Something tells me that six kids will be hard enough fully rested. Sleep deprived will be impossible."
That was probably a good point. "I hope Steve and Bucky aren't still morning people." Though super soldiers didn't need nearly as much sleep as regular people did. The thought made Tony want to die inside a little. Kids were already energetic enough as they were.
"Don't jinx us," Stephen muttered. "Now sleep, Tony. We're going to need it."
It was a little too true. And to think, this morning had started off so well. Sleep felt like it should be impossible, but Tony was exhausted enough that it was only a few minutes before he felt himself drifting off.