of the past

"There are way too many coincidences."

Avengers Facility - January 12th, 2016

Nerd

Hey... we haven't talked in a bit... did everything go okay with... you know

Somehow, when Christa opened up her phone to find the text message, something sparked inside of her. Or maybe it wasn't quite a spark; maybe a glass of cold water running through her system after a day without moisture and pounding heat. It was a weird and slightly pleasant feeling to say the least.

And Christa wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

It was like she had completely forgotten her friend existed over the past three days (had it only been three days? It felt like it had been a century, time dragging on slowly, slug-like, painstakingly). Like waking up from a nightmare.

If she was being honest with herself, every morning she had woken up these past several days, she'd desperately hoped everything bad that had happened in her life thus far was only a nightmare.

But so far, her wishes had not been granted.

A pause as she wondered how much she could tell him. Over the course of the past three days, she had acquired a sort of bodyguard/regulator/guide in the form of Happy Hogan. Which kind of pissed her off. Why not Pepper? Or someone who didn't have such a controversially endearing personality? Because, apparently (and highly unfortunately for Christa), the woman was extremely busy with "work stuff," which had had to be postponed in the first place when Christa first came into Stark's life. And the thing was, Happy had done what seemed to be absolutely everything in his power to prevent Christa from doing anything to distract herself over these past three days. Explore the facility? Only if there was a place "top-secret" stuff wasn't going on (and that place seemed to be nowhere). Meet the Avengers living at the facility? Christa would only "interrupt" their training. Which seemed to happen round the clock.

The most she seemed able to do was sit around in front of a t.v. screen, go on her phone, read a book, or memorize everything in her living area over the past three days.

And not only had she quickly grown to be bored of these things, they were so monotonous that she could not stop thinking about the terrible things that had happened over the past twelve days.

Wow.

Had it really been less than two weeks since her mother had died?

A vision of Happy Hogan's annoyingly stubborn face flashed across Christa's mind as she debated how much to tell Angus. Happy had explicitly told the girl not to say anything to anyone about anything that had happened to her when it came to "Avengers business."

Scowling scornfully with a slight smirk on her face at the thought, a whole mindset of "screw it" washed over her.

Christa

Where do I begin?

And she told him everything.

| | |

Eyes the color of a river in the morning. Dark brown hair framing the diamond-shaped face. A smile hard to bring.

But instead of reality, this face was only a picture in a frame, a dark brown frame in Tony Stark's hands. He sat on his bed in the living space of the Avengers Facility assigned to him. He rubbed his right thumb over the face in the picture, the face that he'd lost so long ago and done his best to forget.

And for a little while, he had.

But of course, a fifteen-year-old girl had had to walk into his life, and the memories he'd shoved into the dump in his mind were being pulled back up again, one after the other.

"So, my dear playboy, why do you make weapons? Graduating from MIT at fifteen, building your first circuit board at four years old--what made the great Tony Stark choose to go with such a... messy tool?"

Faintly drunk, she tipped her head to the side and stared at him like a puppy, a goofy, innocent, yet mischievous smile on her face.

They were alone in Stark's living room--nothing but themselves and a few glasses of wine.

Tony shrugged, the grin on his face unusually bright, brought on by an even drunker state than that of the woman before him. "I guess I just like guns. You know, it's pretty fun to do, shoot a gun, if I do say so myself. Especially if it's one of mine. Have you ever shot a gun before?"

She gave a tipsy giggle and put a hand to her mouth. "Shhhhhhh. I can't tell you that!"

Oh, she was so beautiful.

Memories tended to bring with them regret and longing--particularly the good ones.

And it was the oddest of cases when they brought up mystery as well.

Tony had shoved the comment aside, tying it into Rubi's drunken state, but... with all that had happened... and of course, the gun she'd pulled out at their final encounter... something was strange. She'd been hiding something, that was for sure.

And she'd hidden her daughter.

Their daughter.

Tony knew he had his own flaws--oh, he had them--but how could he forgive her from keeping whatever she had from him?

He realized he'd closed his eyes, perhaps while replaying that scene in his head. He opened them. Stared at the woman's face.

He had to know.

He'd pushed it off for long enough.

He rose off of his bed and left the room, setting the picture behind him.

| | |

Bang

Door slamming open. Panting. A shadowed figure leaning with his right arm up against the door, staring at the ground for the briefest of moments. And then walking through the main living space of Christa's apartment before stepping through the door to her bedroom.

Christa didn't move, still in her position on her bed, not having moved since she'd sent her final explanatory text to Angus. Stomach down, elbows where her feet would be when asleep.

She pressed the power button on her phone and dropped it onto the bed, raising her eyebrows at the panting man in front of her.

"What is it, Stark? Come here to tell me I can go back to the Bartons' house? Oh, wait, that got attacked and is currently uninhabitable, and Clint and Lila are currently lying in comas as we speak. What about my old house? Oh, wait, that got blown up!"

"Look, Christa, I know we've had our differences," Stark began, hurriedly walking over to the girl, ignoring her words, "but we need to figure this stuff out about your mom. There are way too many coincidences. I need you to--"

"Awe, would you just shut up about that already? I'll get it figured out. I don't need some jerk 'dad' to be hovering over me every second I try to--"

"It's been three days, Christa!" It came out as a yell.

Christa's mouth shut, and it didn't open again as he continued speaking.

"And you know what else? It's been sixteen years. Sixteen years since I last saw your mother. Sixteen years since she ran away--and I don't know why! I don't know the hell why she ran off! She had a gun, Christa! And she--"

Christa response was merely to lift a hand to take out the hearing enhancers, looking the man straight in the face as she did so.

Fury coursed through Stark, and without thinking, reached forward and grabbed the girl's right arm as it went to pull out the second hearing enhancer. He ripped the arm away from her ear, but the tool was already in her hand.

A scowl crossed Christa's face, and she opened her mouth as though to say something but then shut it. Stark's left hand was still wrapped around her wrist. Her eyes began to open wide, and she stared ahead of her as though without seeing.

She was lost in another time.

It was the same as before... the unfamiliar restaurant at night... the look of terror on her mother's face... glass raining down... her mother running away... and so many emotions--deep desire--fear--the pain of loss....

"I--we love you, Tony!"

And it all disappeared--the rush of a memory that wasn't Christa's was gone. And reality came back like she was being sucked right into it and out of the whirlwind she'd just experienced.

She didn't realize she was panting.

Stark seemed to be saying something, his lips forming words Christa couldn't hear.

"Shut up, shut up, shut UP!" she shrieked, hands over her ears, her head ringing like mad. It was a few moments before her flustered mind caught up with the fact that Stark wasn't in charge of the ringing inside her head, that it was her and only her and something wrong with her.

Christa leaned back, and Stark took a step back as well. He stared at her, an expression of deep concern, confusion, and almost offense on his face.

"I'm putting them back in, okay?" she mumbled angrily, shoving the hearing enhancers into her ears. "Chill."

Stark didn't speak for a moment, even after Christa could hear again. Finally, uncertain, hesitating, Stark spoke.

"What was that?"

"I don't know." Christa's expression softened slightly, and she stared off away from the man, lost in her thoughts. "I... I don't know."

Stark took a tentative step forward. "Do you... wanna... talk about it?"

It was a few moments that Christa thought, wondering, trying to figure out what had just happened before trying to explain it to Stark.

"It was... a memory."

She looked up at him, eyes wide.

"Your memory."

Stark's expression turned to one of shock and confusion, his face going white. He opened his mouth as though to speak, closed it again, and then opened it once more.

"And how do you know that it was... my memory?"

Christa let out a tired breath of air.

"I've been starting to have... weird things happen around my knowledge of reality, Mr. Stark. Feeling exactly what a baby is feeling just by touching it. Seeing five seconds into a future where a glass falls and breaks and seeing that happen right after. And now this. The only other time I've seen that memory--your memory--is when you accidentally touched me the day we first met, and I sure as hell don't remember ever being in a building under attack, with bullets and shattered glass, all that shazam, in a building that wasn't my own house or the Bartons. Or my mother holding a gun and saying 'We love you' before running out of the building. That didn't happen in my lifetime. But, based off of my mom's age, the fact that you used to know her, and everything else... what else could this be?"

Stark looked like he was having a heart attack.

"What? Am I not supposed to have visions of my parents' memories? Is that not normal for a teenage girl to have?"The sarcasm in her voice was so strong, it could have defeated the Hulk in battle. Any other person would have reacted with more shock displayed publicly, but... this was her special way of dealing with the situation.

Christa stared at him, eyebrows raised in contempt. But he still wasn't responding. Her expression softened to one tinted with concern.

"Stark?"

"Dr. Cho's lab. Now. Before something bad happens," he said bluntly, quickly.

"What's gonna happen? My life has already turned into something equivalent to Batman's. What more is there?"

"With what you just described, I'm placing a bet on a hell of a lot more."