Old Ones Shrinking and Enlarging. by Voracity2
Summary: Dawn finds some people have been shoved out of phase, and then they have to handle various things with and without the new geeks, who do come to appreciate the younger Starks.
Categories: Buffy Stories & Crossovers > Avengers, Buffy Stories & Crossovers > Other Movie Characters: None
Series: Old Ones, HET!
Chapters: 2 Completed: Yes Word count: 31141 Read: 39787 Published: 03/06/2020 Updated: 03/06/2020

1. Part 1 by Voracity2

2. Part 2 by Voracity2

Part 1 by Voracity2
Old Ones Shrinking and Enlarging.





Dawn was meditating, because she needed the stress break. The kids were driving her nuts. Her spouses were off on some sort of liaisoning assignment. Her mother was thankfully on vacation so Steve was stressing out, and bringing it home so it landed on her desk too. So she was meditating before she hired Steve a new personal assistant - to go with the one her mother had already hired - and sent the kids to the temple for a night off. Not that Beya wouldn't pout but she needed the night off too.

So here she was, trying to meditate at work while all her kids were in daycare and the Stark kids had joined them for after-lesson play time. Or if her son and Chris got it into their heads, dress up times with the makeup they had stolen from Pepper's vanity table. Though the eye shadows they had taken didn't suit either boy very well. She'd have to help them pick out good colors sometime soon.

She cleared her mind again, letting that thought drift away. She made herself concentrate on the energy flows around them. And that's when it hit her that something was wrong. She frowned, testing against it. "What the fuck?" she mumbled, concentrating to find the weirdness. It wasn't in the normal energy flows. No, that was in the ethereal level.

She knew it wasn't a ghost, Howard was still banished to the former house in the Bahamas, but it felt something like that. She frowned, waking herself up to look around. "Well, fuck me. JARVIS, we have an energy anomaly centered on the office area just beside the labs," she told the AI that ruled the roost around there. She got up with a groan, stretching her legs.

The AI cleared his virtual throat. "I've noticed some twitches but could not identify why we had another spectral entity, Dawn."

"No, it's not a ghost. Wrong wavelength. It's on the ethereal plane." She frowned, looking around then up at the ceiling. "Can you scan deeper than normal using Jonathan's scanning programs?"

"I can try," he offered. A pause. "Yes, I see that. It seems like it may be a different sort of spectral entity though."

"Yeah, that means they're stuck like Xander got stuck when he was without a body." She looked around again. "Get me Diana, Sean, and Jonathan if you can please? Andrew needs to help the others shield themselves. This is less weird and more energy manipulation."

"They're on their way. The older children are coming in anyway as their classes are just done."

"Cool. Let me get something to drink and I'll be right back here." She walked off frowning. A few guards gave her odd looks. She waved a hand. "We've got some ethereal plane entities hanging around. We're going to make sure they're not dangerous like Howard was."

"Mr. Stark is out for the day, Dawn," one of the guards said.

She patted him on the arm as she walked past him. "Good! It'll take weird science, not Stark science. Make sure the all the kids are kept from the area in case we get some bleedover." He nodded, calling that in. She got her iced tea and came back sipping, pausing to hug her niece and nephew. "Got a weird thing." She led them to the room, where Jonathan was staring at the virtual screen that held the scan results. "How many, Johno?"

"Looks like four. Maybe three but up to four." He frowned, looking at her. "We may need more magic." She waved a hand at the kids. "Point. 'Drew can guard the minors with his stuff better than I could." He went back to the results.

"That weird, watching feeling?" Sean asked. He frowned as he looked around. "It's getting stronger."

"Yup, it sure is," Diana agreed. She took her big brother's hand to squeeze. Dawn patted them on the joined hand and pointed at a wall so they moved there. "Are we shielding or summoning?"

"Shielding," Johno said. "We can summon. Do we need someone who can get to the magical field?"

Dawn snorted, waving a hand at herself. "What am I?"

"Good point. I forget you have magic, Dawn. Is this like where Xander lost his body?"

"Yup. Looks like a different version of it." They nodded and Dawn centered herself to call magic up. She let her magic reach out to touch the voids around them. No go, wrong area. She searched, finding the ghostly image of an older man scowling at her. She smiled. "Who're you?" she asked politely. "And are you a threat to anyone?"

"We're trapped, young lady. It's a long story."

"How many?" she asked.

"Just the three of us," the older guy complained.

"Four. I found her mom," a younger guy yelled. "We finally rescued her last night." The older guy smiled and nodded. The younger guy walked over. "I have no idea how to get us out of here. His younger self decided to stop him from doing something stupid. He did that by taking us out here without protection and taking over our lives."

Dawn stared at the older guy. "Pym?" He huffed but nodded. "Huh, I nearly ripped him apart at his molecules. You're not like that anymore, right? Your wife doesn't have to hide bruises...."

"No, I fixed myself about six months after I did that the first time, young lady."

She smiled. "Good! That means I don't have to destroy this you." He snorted. "Okay, let's get you guys onto a better plane to be drawn from." She concentrated and opened a small portal. "Through here, please. We can get you off this energy plane easier." The two young ones and the older couple walked through. Dawn brought herself out and then got into that energy plane. She waved at the former elder Gods with a grin. "Someone trapped them but they're still alive."

"They've been very amusing with their theories about how to get out of here," one of them said with a smile for them. "You are most interesting mortals."

Dawn grinned. "Then I'm pretty sure we'll enjoy having them back."

"Bringing me specifically could cause a problem with my younger self," Doctor Pym said.

Dawn nodded. "He's in Massachusetts this weekend. There's a conference. If I have to, I can come back for you, Doctor Pym." He nodded. "Okay, let's get the other three first then I'll deal with him for you. Or figure out how to protect everyone. Maybe a stasis tube?" She looked at the two women. The older one pointed. "You sure?" she asked.

"Yes. They've taken over our former roles, dear. Who are you?"

"Dawn Summers-Romanoff-Barton." She grinned. "Top PA at Stark Industries." She grinned at the two young ones. "Let's get you back to human. Jonho, I need something to stabilize them," she called. She felt the energy fields going up. "That'll work." She took their hands and walked backwards. "Follow, people." She got them back into the lab and then yanked magically to bring them back into the realm of the living. The woman shuddered and gripped herself but the guy steadied her for a second. Then a forcefield came down around them. Dawn looked over. "Thanks. Can they stand without it?"

Jonathan shook his head. "That's the automatic shielding for high energy, Dawn. They're both shedding energy. We can stabilize them and Dr. Shivs is on his way to help us. How many more?"

"Two. One's got a complication of his younger self is trying to stop him by trapping his older self. He's at the conference because he's supposed to be speaking."

"Thor's up there to talk to his friends Jane and Darcy," Diana said, pulling out her phone. "Let me call Artemis." She hit the speed dial and smiled at the unfamiliar voice. "Is my twin sister Artemis that busy?" She listened. "Oh! You're Jane! Okay, great even. Here, talk to Dawn about someone there who's played with many things he shouldn't." She tossed over the phone.

"Doctor Foster, Dawn Summers. We have an older Dr. Pym here trapped on the plane of creation with the Former Old Ones. His younger self, who is supposed to be speaking there this weekend, trapped him to stop him from doing something. Yeah, we could use him tied up and we have enough geek power on this end since it's mostly magical stuff.

"Thank you. Let us know? Blessed days, Doctor Foster." She hung up and tossed the phone back, looking at the doctor rushing in. "Someone's trying to stop himself from being a dumbass. Trapped them on the lesser ethereal plane. I moved them to the Former Old Ones plane. There's two more but one's the older version of the one that trapped them."

"We can pull him into a containment chamber," Jonathan said. He called those systems up. "They're part of the cryo storage and emergency asteroid systems." Dawn nodded, those were underneath their current building so easy enough. "Okay, got two set up in quarantine six. Go for it, Dawn." She nodded, merging again so she could pull them down there. He looked at Shivs. "Dawn called. She felt it somehow."

"We felt watching feelings," Sean said.

"We were hoping that the sensors or something around here would pick us up," the younger woman said. "Apparently we were on the wrong stream of energy."

"I need to check on my ex and kid," the guy said.

Jonathan smiled and nodded. "We can do that. Don't worry about that." He helped get them to the infirmary while the two kids evened out the energy planes so they weren't quite as earthquake feeling. He and Andrew held a talk and 'Drew brought in his laptop. "Here, we can dial."

The young guy smiled. "Thanks, guys."

"We have some semi-evil spawns ourselves," Andrew quipped with a smirk for Diana and Sean when they came in. "Speaking of, your triplet nieces and nephew need to quit sucking on the evil tit."

"We can calm them down," Sean said. "They like me." He went to the daycare to play with the tiny, evil things. And the older, evil things because kids thought he was great. Thankfully he got enough babysitting time to never need to have his own. He walked into a wailing fit and sighed. "Ladies!" he complained. "Enough!" The kids squeaked, staring at him. "Thank you! Let's sit up, burp some food up, and then we'll figure out other stuff so you're not bored."

"They have walkers," Chris called. "They're whiny about moving."

"They have been. They're spoiled." He stared down at them. "Spoiled, spoiled, spoiled." He grinned. "Your mother's busy but we can figure it out." He put two of them into the walkers the other kids pushed over. The other one threw up on him so he sighed and took her to clean her up. "You know I hate doing laundry, dear. Why did you puke on me that way? Now I need to get a clean shirt and I don't have one in the car."

"I'd let you borrow but you're not going to fit into mine," Chris said with a grin. "Or Stepmommy's. Probably not Uncle Bucky's either. But if you run around shirtless, a lot of girls will drool."

"Eww," Sean told him. "No drooling without my permission, guys. And that shade is not good for either of you. The lipstick or the eyeshadow." They pouted, going to wash the makeup off. "We'll figure that out, guys. Maybe we can shop this weekend." He finished cleaning up his cousin and put her into the walker, making her huff but the room worker had a teething cookie for her. They liked that so all three calmed down. The other kids mobbed Sean for a story. They knocked him down and sat on him until Philip gave him a book with a smirk so they could have boy time.

***

Dawn came back to herself, looking at the two beings in the containment chamber. "You two okay?" They nodded. "Okay, I'll let the docs come check you over in a few. Let me go find your younger, idiot counterpart." She walked off sighing. She ran into a really pissed off Stark. "Something that we didn't notice way back when but Dr. Pym is from the seventies."

Stark frowned. "What?"

"The one that was going to be put onto the team? That guy that argued with your dad?" Stark nodded slowly. "None of us realized he didn't age. He's supposed to be about halfway between you and Howard, right?" Stark groaned but nodded. "He trapped his older self in-between with his wife, somehow, not totally sure of that story yet, and two young ones. Shivs has them. Those two went into containment so there's no problem with two in the same realm."

"Shit," Stark muttered, going to the containment system. "That's not a bad solution. Tell Jonathan I said thank you."

"The replacing Pym is at the conference at MIT, boss. Diana called her twin because Thor's up visiting Dr. Foster. I talked to Dr. Foster for a minute."

"Good idea, Dawn. Thanks. Go get some food. You look shaky."

"The kids kept me up all night. Again. Triplets are hell!" She did go to get a snack and relax for a few minutes. Then she'd probably have to go to MIT to help grab the asshole.

Stark walked in and looked at the old guy. "Damn it, we didn't even realize it." The older Dr. Pym shrugged. "Sorry. And my father's still dead so you're okay there." He looked over. "Your wife? Wasn't she lost?" She nodded. He looked. "Press the blue button to turn on the speaker. Adjust the air flow with the knob. The lights are the press switch. The right hand panel moves the seat into a couch to nap on." They turned on the speakers. "I didn't realize either. I saw the picture and I didn't realize it. Sorry."

"Tony, you were short and messy when you last saw us," Dr. Pym said patiently. "I'm not surprised he managed it. I am a genius as well," he finished sarcastically.

Tony smirked at him. "Dawn found him having bad ideas about domestic things and nearly ripped him apart at his atomic level."

"Good!" He looked at his wife then at Tony. "We're still mostly energy."

"We can figure that out. You're not the weirdest we've had, Hank." He stared at him. "The other two?"

"My daughter," he said proudly. "And the one that took over for me."

"Okay. We can help them and you guys. Not like we haven't seen refugee heros a few times." He heard a wail and looked up. "JARVIS, why are we hearing the triplets this time?"

"That was not them and I meant to put that into the infirmary, sir. One of our geneticists just gave birth in a bathroom. Dawn's heading to help her and get her to the infirmary. The child ...I believe we'll call it problematic."

"Infected, disabled, or glowing with radiation?" Tony guessed.

"Yes," the AI said. "Quite possibly all that and more, sir."

"Great. Make sure they have what the infirmary needs for her. Tell Pepper to warn her so she can talk to the staff." He rubbed his forehead. "Don't let the kids near it."

"Too late. Liz found her before Dawn, sir. She's the one that summoned Dawn."

"Of course she did." He nodded. Then he sighed. "Okay. We'll figure it out. Authorize whatever we have to for the kid. And the new visitors."

"Yes, sir. Already going on. Steve is here, sir."

"I'll make a report in a minute. When I know what's going on. Tell him to let Dawn rest. The triplets kept her up." He looked at the older geniuses. "Yeah, we're still insane around here. That came down through the Stark genes."

Doctor Pym smiled and nodded. "I remember. Your father's ghost?"

"Stuck in the former house in the Bahamas for dragging some teenage heros here to handle things for him." He rolled his eyes. "So much hell from him so we banished him." He smirked a tiny bit. "Wait until you meet my spawns." He walked off. "Rest. I'll send down docs in a few minutes. Once they're done with the baby."

"That's fine, Tony. Thank you." He looked at his wife. "He's much more stable these days."

"That's a good thing for everyone." She settled in to rest her eyes for a few minutes. Being on the energy plane they couldn't sleep. He settled in too. It'd probably be a few hours.

***

Dawn teleported into the MIT conference, in a nicely tailored business suit, and with a folder being carried. She smiled at the guards. "So much hell going on. We need a few geeks to help." She walked off to find her niece, she could always track her. She found her and Thor together. And a few others. "Doctor Foster? We could use your help at Stark for a few days if you could."

Doctor Foster started and looked at her. "Where did you come from?"

"The lobby, where I appeared." She grinned. "Dawn Summers, head PA at Stark Industries. We had a geneticist who pulled a child from another realm to make herself pregnant." Doctor Foster shuddered. "She just delivered, the portal reopened because she stole the child from a higher level chaos sorceress who got pregnant by her half-demon lover, and they're fighting. We could use some help if you'd agree to come with us."

"I...I'm supposed to speak tonight. I can look over the files on it until then." Dawn handed over the folder. She opened it and stared. "Oh, damn." She looked at Dawn. "This is bad."

"This is the bigger of the two problems with portals today. The guy we called about earlier?" They pointed at the guy talking to other geeks. "Oh, good." She walked off. "Artie, make sure they get back to the compound please? And if you can, make the triplets stop whining?"

"I can try, Auntie." She grinned at her husband. "Diana said that the triplets are being annoying for the last day because people expect them to move themselves and not be carried everywhere."

"I've seen that in other children. Usually Dawn's children are more reasonable."

"Maeve taught them," she said sarcastically.

"Ah!" He nodded. "That figures quite a lot. Maeve is a bit spoiled." He looked at his former girlfriend. "Maeve is Pepper Potts' youngest. She's very fashionable. And squealy."

"That's what happens with some kids." She looked at the data again, shaking her head. "What did she do?"

"Something dumb probably," Artemis quipped. "Something truly dumb." Doctor Foster nodded, sitting down to go over them and see if she could figure out the portal problem.

Dawn walked up to the geeks she knew, smiling at them. "Hey, guys, can I steal Dr. Pym from you please? Stark would really like to talk to him about his time breach recently." She stared at him.

"I..." Dr. Pym looked around then at her again. "I'm rather busy, young lady."

Dawn nodded. "I can do what I did last time we met, Dr. Pym. Especially since I had to fix the mistake you made on the ethereal plane earlier." She stared at him. "Let's go talk before I summon SHIELD in. Shall we?" He backed up. She magically tied him up and floated him off. "I do not have the patience for this today because my triplets kept me up all night. Again. For the third night in a row. Having to fix your mistakes does not make me a happy camper by any standard you want to measure it against."

She nodded at the hotel's security team. "He needs to go fix his mistakes I had to fix earlier. I didn't like rescuing the people he tried to kill by trapping them on the ethereal energy plane." She tapped her headset. "Stark Security, it's Dawn. I've got him and we're coming back now please." They got beamed back. She put him in front of Stark and grinned. He was struggling but oh well. "Keep being so wiggly, Dr. Pym from the seventies." She walked off. "Let me see if I can unwhine my kids. Hopefully it'll work this time."

"Sean did," Pepper called after her. Dawn shot her a grin but left them to handle it.

Tony looked at him. "Wow, you look like it's 1978 again. I wasn't paying attention before but then your older self reached out and contacted Dawn from the great beyond." The guy winced. "Thankfully we can fix that." He stared at him. "What was this important?"

"I started off the downfall of the world. I had to stop it."

"Already handled that," Stark said dryly. "We got pulled into another realm for a few weeks to help them fix it in their realm and kept the cure for here so it can't happen." The guy slumped but nodded. Tony looked at Pepper. "Go check on them?"

"The boys have it well in hand, Tony." She patted him on the arm. "Though, Callia is talking to other scientists." He grinned at that. "The other problem I don't have the experience to deal with."

He nodded. "Neither do I. Thankfully we contacted people who know about portals." He grimaced at the tied up guy. "We need to figure out where we're sending you home. Tonight."

"I...I needed to stop a few more things."

"No. Hell no! That's my job, Hank! No!" He stared at him. "Because I'm not going to let you endanger my kids." He slumped but nodded. "So let's take a report and send you home."

***

Dawn walked into the infirmary, waving a hand to get attention from the screaming people. "Hey!" she shouted. "Enough!" The yelling people stopped to stare at her. "Yeah, shit's bad. She deserves to be screamed at. If not beaten for that. But you're making the baby upset. We can't heal the baby if she's that upset or with the level of shouting and energy being shot around. And the rest of us would like not to have to defend everyone else on this planet because she was a selfish cunt.

"So settle down so we can help the baby and I don't have to call out to any Gods today to get some help. Okay?" The staff member burst out crying. "Yeah, don't give a damn, it's your fault, and I'm not going to risk my kids for you." She looked at the sorceress and her half-demon lover. "Can we just calm down the magic so we can do what we need to so the baby's going to be all right?"

The sorceress huffed but nodded. "It may taint her."

"It may," Dawn agreed. "But better living and tainted than dead, right? She's a bit premmie by about a week." The sorceress sighed but nodded. "Thank you! My own kids are in the building and I don't want to have to destroy anything today. Now, Doc, how can I help?"

Dr. Pigalli looked at her. "You can take a nap, Dawn. You're crabby."

"Triplets, Doc. Spoiled, whiny triplets. For three damn nights." She stared at her. "Thankfully I'm told Sean still loves them anyway." A nurse hit her with a needle to the arm, then made her lay down. "I need to handle stuff," she complained.

"I can do most of it," Callia called with a grin and a wave. "I'm still amazing because I'm a female Stark who does amazing things. Let me handle a few while you nap, Auntie Dawn." Dawn yawned and had to drop out. Callia looked at the nurse. "The triplets have been super problematic for three weeks. It's like colic but they're not sick. Just yelling constantly."

She looked at the sorceress. "If the rest of us with magic can help, let us know. I'd never want the kid to be hurt. We had no idea she was pregnant. Dawn, and sometimes me, go around to check on everyone daily to make sure nothing's going wrong. We had no idea she was pregnant or I would've reported her for doing things with radiation while pregnant. Auntie Dawn would've made her stop too. We had no idea but we'll gladly help the baby be okay. Then you guys can figure out what happens next."

"That's reasonable, young lady, and I thank you and your aunt for the offer of help," the half-demon said. "We have no idea what to do about this."

Callia walked over, her rollator squeaking a bit. "Life isn't predictable and then the science can make it worse." She grinned a bit. "At least you're where insane things happen often enough that we can handle it easily." He smiled and nodded, patting her on the head. "Hey, Doctor P, should we put them into a room for a few hours?"

"Please," the sorceress said. "I could use a rest as well."

"Of course. C'mon. We have a few nice guest suites and one's just up the hall." She led them to it. "JARVIS, log them into this room so they can rest while we stabilize the baby please."

"I have and I've alerted one of the lower assistants to come get them in a few hours so they can be shown the cafeteria and we can handle any needs they have."

"Thanks, J." She grinned. "He's the AI, which is like a non-magical elemental helper being. Let him know if you need to know something or need something and we'll send you whatever." They nodded. She rolled back to the infirmary. "They're in the blue suite getting a nap." She looked at the two rescued geeks and grinned. "Still can't get her?"

"No, her mother's not answering."

"Okay, we can handle that." She smirked a tiny bit. "Sometimes, Starks are sneaky bitches." She rolled off. "Tell me if you need my help, Doc."

"Of course," she said patiently. "No leaving without telling your father."

"Yup." She went down to the garage, looking at the cars. She had her learner's permit. She had done over a thousand hours in the driving simulator. She knew where the keys were. She considered it then went to get a pair of keys. The security team was paying a lot of attention to the nursery, the containment system, and the infirmary so no one caught her getting the keys.

She rolled back out after getting a drink from the coffee pot in there. By the time she got her walker into the back seat and into the car, Happy had been told. She grinned at him hurrying her way as she started the car and backed out of the parking spot, speeding off. She turned on the illusion that made her look older so no nosy police officer would pull her over for her age.

Happy called the parent. "Boss, your daughter just stole your Audi." He hung up before Tony could react. That was going to be a loud fit. A very loud fit. He would get to hide from it at least.

***

Callia pulled up in front of the house she needed, parking nicely and getting out to grab her walker. She could handle the stairs, she had trained herself to do that. She knocked on the door and smiled at the guy answering it. "Hi, I'm Callia Stark and I'm looking for my newest penpal." She stared at him. He was looking horrified. "By the way, her daddy sent me. We rescued him earlier." He groaned. She walked around him and into the house. "Hey, Cassie." She held out a hand with a grin. "Callia Stark."

The other teen shook her hand. "What are you doing here? And penpals?"

"Auntie Dawn rescued four people earlier. Your mom wouldn't answer the phone so the greatly worried dad sort couldn't call. So I came to let you call him." She handed over her Starkphone after getting into the dialing pad and hitting the code for the infirmary system.

Cassie Lang took the phone, staring at it. "Hope?" she demanded.

"Oh, hey, Cassie. Scott, someone found Cassie." He came out of the bathroom wiping off his hands and squatted down to get nearer to the system. One of the nurses pushed over a chair for him. Hope grinned at her for it.

"Are you all right?" Scott demanded. "You've been okay while we were trapped?"

"You were trapped?" Cassie demanded back. "Why?"

"The earlier Dr. Pym did it to stop his older one from doing something. So we're mostly all back but Dr. Pym and his wife are in quarantine." Cassie grinned. He relaxed. "But you're okay?"

"I'm okay, Dad. Are you?"

"Yeah, I'm okay, kiddo." He stared at her. "I tried to call but your mom hung up on me. Who found you?" Callia leaned into view and waved with a grin. "That explains why your mom was ranting about cars I guess."

"Could be." She got out of view again. "She's going to be my email pal soon. I need more normal people to talk to. Especially since the girls at the college all consider me a toddler."

Cassie looked at her. "You're in college?"

"I'm six credits away from my combined Masters of mechanical engineering. I did it to myself by self paced education." She shrugged. "I started college with all but four credits for my bachelors. I really like Cal-Sci. That's why I decided to stay."

Scott grinned. "It's a good program for engineering." He looked at his daughter. "Did anyone tell you anything?"

"Some agent sort told me you were confined but otherwise no."

"SHIELD or someone else?" Callia asked casually.

"SHIELD."

"Hmm. We'll talk to Stepmom about that." She flapped a hand. "We're down at the Malibu facility so hopefully it won't be too long."

"I..." She looked at Callia then her father. "Are you under arrest again?"

"No, we got trapped on an energy plane by the younger version of Dr. Pym."

His daughter scrunched up her nose. "That sounds weirdly like things that happen to heros, Dad."

"I think it was, yeah." Behind him Hope laughed. "But we're okay. We should be back soon and I'm going to stop in as soon as I get close enough."

"That'll work." Her mother stomped in. "Mom, they found Dad where he and everyone were trapped by an evil, younger Dr. Pym." She looked at her father's picture again. "So now what?"

"Now, I really want to punch the guy," Scott admitted. "But I have no idea how long it'll be."

"Could be about a week," Dr. Pigalli called from her desk.

"The doc here said it could be a week."

"That'll work. You be safer. Please? You worry me stupid."

"I'd hate to see you turn stupid," he joked, grinning at her. "You're already smarter than I am and you're not allowed to fall below my stupid levels." His daughter rolled her eyes. "Callia, thank you for the help."

"You're welcome. Kids worry about their parents when they do heroic stuff. There's days I live on mylanta thanks to my parents. And the evil jackholes that want to own me because I'm smart." She sighed but grinned at Cassie. "Never let the bad guys realize you're a genius. They get all sorts of grabby and weird about you working for them." She shrugged but grinned. "I just sic Liz on them because she's kinda evil herself. Some day she'll be an evil politician or judge or something like that."

Cassie grinned. "I'm kinda glad I don't have siblings like that."

"It's better than Chris stealing my makeup for him and Philip to dress up with. They do a good job but still."

Scott giggled. "Brothers can be annoying, Callia." He looked at his daughter.

"Talk to mom. I wouldn't mind a sibling but I'm not going to ask for one because then I'd have to talk to her again about where babies come from. She got weird about that talk the last time." She looked at Callia. "Did your parents do that?"

"I got to watch Chris being born. We were out here for a meeting and Mommy Pepper went into labor suddenly. Dad and I had to come out of the lab to go watch him being born. So I got to see him coming out and they explained, when I asked, that they go in the same spot. After that, I just asked Grandpa Bruce. He doesn't give too many details."

"That's so weird," Cassie said.

Callia grinned. "Then again, I'm a Stark so weird is our native language."

"Point." She looked at her father again. "Call tonight?"

"I can do that and when we know what's going on too." She grinned. "Behave, be safe, be good. I'll see you really soon"

"You too, Dad. No getting arrested or anything."

"Nah. Not in my plans." He let her hang up and looked at Hope. "I'm proud my little girl is a lot more like her mother than me." He stood up. "Thanks."

"We're used to parents around here," a nurse quipped with a grin for him. "Dawn has a few. Andrew and Jonathan have a few. The boss's family has a few." She was looking out the door. "There goes a few." She picked up a phone, calling the lab. "Oh, Happy. It's the infirmary. We just saw four kids in walkers following the Xander puppy toward a side door. Yeah, you might. You know the triplets are headstrong and Bailey is nothing if not more stubborn than her mommy Patty. Thanks. Yeah, we're mostly calm and we just saw Callia in another area." He groaned but hung up to go chase the kids.

"Girls!" Chris yelled as he and Philip chased them. "Get back to the daycare! It's not time to go outside yet!" The nurse giggled but one of the lower level nurses followed in case the girls got hurt. There were a few stairs to the outside.

Stark went jogging past. "Ladies, let's not do that," he yelled. "Really. You'll get booboos from the stairs!" Then a minute later. "Oh, hey, you learned how to levitate already. Your parents are going to be *so* amused. Let's go in before you get a sunburn, girls! You hate being sunburned."

The nurses were giggling at that. Thankfully they didn't have genius or magically active kids to deal with every day like Stark and Dawn did.

***

Clint got summoned back to the labs, staring at the daughters flying too high to be caught without using the iron man suit and they were terrified of it so they floated away from him. "That's new." The girls and their brother squealed at him and waved but were chasing butterflies. The fourth kid was barely off the ground so he wouldn't worry about her right now. He looked at Tony, who shrugged.

"No wonder I got called." He whistled and pointed. "Who wants fries?" The trio squealed again and floated over to him. He took them out of the walkers as they got to him and carried them inside with Tony's help since he got the fourth one. The walkers fell to the ground but that was usual. "I didn't know you three had that much magic, kids. We'll have to figure that out."

"I was hoping no one made the walkers fly with tech," Stark said, going to get out of the suit. "I should've offered fries or shopping." The little boy squealed and waved at him. "I know, you shop like your mommy does."

Clint looked back at him. "Don't remind me," he said quietly. "C'mon, boys. Philip, that lipstick is the wrong shade for your skin tone. Chris, it's even worse on yours." The boys huffed, going to clean it off again. They needed to scrub, not take boy baths apparently. "We'll let you guys take Natasha out this weekend." He got them some fries from the caf and took them back to the daycare to let them nibble, cuddle, and then take a nap since they had worn themselves out. He grinned at the daycare worker. "They were flying in their walkers."

She shuddered. "We'll ask Dawn how to catch them." Clint waved a fry with a grin before eating it. "We can do that. Thank you for the idea. And they finally quit complaining."

"It could've been the not using magic headache that Dawn gets now and then."

"I hadn't thought about that. We'll have her or Tara check." Clint grinned and nodded. He got the girls onto the daybed for a nap so he could sneak off to check on Dawn and everything else. What he heard made him gladly go back to the boring, diplomatic stuff. He did not want to deal with dual people and people getting off energy realms. Ever.

***

Callia got out of the car, going to talk to the agent who she knew was a bad guy but also SHIELD. She cleared her throat, staring at him. "I know I'm not stealthy because I need to tighten the wheels on my walker, dude, but *really*."

"Miss Stark, what are you doing up here?"

She smirked a tiny bit. "I'm here to yell at you guys for telling someone's daughter he had been arrested when he was misplaced into another realm." The agent groaned. "Also, would you like the one I have in the trunk who tried to tell me I was a hydra when I was coming out of Cassie Lang's house?"

"What?" the agent demanded.

"He started to pray to hydras and I'm not one. Really, I don't intend to change form into one either, unless my sibs try to be mean and change me somehow," she continued dryly, staring at him. "I figured since there's no holy hydra he was saying prayers to my greatness. Do you want him or should I drive him home so Stepmom can talk to him? I'm pretty sure Stepmom Steve will *adore* having some stress relief talking to the guy who was vowing himself to my greatness if I ever change form."

"Um, that's probably not what it meant," the agent said calmly.

"I was there when we were displaced due to the idiot computer program. I remember them very well and having to take out a few because Auntie Dawn was pregnant with the triplets and napping." She stared at him. "I can drive him back to Malibu if you want."

"No, I'd like to get him out of the trunk. That way we can talk to him about his allegiances." He followed her back to the car, staring at it oddly. "Isn't that your father's car?"

"Yeah but we're only halfway done building mine." She grinned. "I had to deal with some stupid going on since some SHIELD agent tried to tell a young woman that her father had been arrested instead of being displaced. Which means that the agent is probably involved in him being displaced."

The agent shuddered. "If we know their name, I can look into it."

"Go ask Miss Lang."

"Oh, that family," he said before wincing. "Um...."

"Auntie Dawn and two of my older baby sibs helped rescue them earlier." The agent just nodded quickly and reached in to get the trunk release button so he could rescue that agent from the young genius. Callia smiled and waved at him. "Do you still think one of my sibs is going to change me into a HYDRA?"

The idiot shot her a dirty look. "You'll fall in line," he sneered.

"Dude, I helped destroy a whole HYDRA unit when we were merged for those few weeks. And helped my baby brother do a few others by running the suit while he walked it around. Do you *really* think you're ever going to get your hands on *any* Stark? I mean, Liz is still little but she can destroy all of you. We'd just cheerlead her on, dude. We already know she's evil." The bad one tried to grab her then screamed as his hand was eaten. "Um, yeah. Auntie Dawn taught us all how to be super safe around morons." She grinned at him. "How's that flesh eating nanite doing for you?"

The semi-decent agent backed away then nodded. "Let me get him arrested so we can kill those."

"EMP," she quipped. "And then probably some CPR when it shuts him down too. It's only supposed to work for two hours but no idea how much that'll eat on him." She leaned against the car, folding up her rolling walker to put into the back seat then closing the door and the trunk. "You have a lot of fun with him, kinda bad SHIELD guy." She smiled. "Not like we don't know and if he's your sort, then use him as a warning about coming near any Stark. Okay?" She slid back into her driver's seat and shut the door. Which locked automatically so she could drive off.

The radio came on. "You are in the deepest shit ever, daughter," it said in her Stepmother's voice. "You should probably have an *excellent* reason for that trip. Come directly home to give that excuse."

"I went to ease someone's worried daughter's mind and then I had to pause to drop off the guy who tried to pray to me if only I'd change my shape to a hydra, Stepmom. As for right home? I might have to break for a nap and a meal. It's been a pretty long day and I've never driven over four hours at a time before. But I'll hopefully be back in time for my lunchtime seminar at the college. I really do have to be there to present my newest wacky idea and the vet scanning device. So probably be dinner, Stepmom." She blew a kiss and turned off the radio, letting her phone play Pandora for now. She really could use a nap soon but that might get her into trouble. Who knows what sort of skanky idiot was at motels? That reminded her to turn back on the illusion.

Behind her, the agent looked at the HYDRA agent, shaking his head. "I'm so glad I don't have to deal with the genius contingent very often. She's worse than her father is." He hauled the agent off to have someone talk to him. He ran into a waiting Agent Coulson. "Sir!" He smiled as he handed him over. "Miss Stark handed him over because he was praying she became a hydra."

Coulson looked at him. Then at the other agent. "You're lucky she had the lighter nanites on her." The HYDRA one was nearly crying as his arm got eaten. Coulson stared at the other one. "Take him in for interrogation. Let's see what they're planning this time. Before I have to tell her father." The HYDRA agent was trying to get away now so the SHIELD agent dragged him off. Coulson went to the lab to calm his usual Stark down. "She's mouthy but fine. She turned over a HYDRA agent who came up to her at Lang's house. I'm going to set an agent near her to protect her until he can get back up there." Scott nodded from his seat in the corner. "She's at that hungry so warped stage, Stark."

"It's been a long time and I doubt she pulled through anywhere. She's only got a learner's permit and knows she's not supposed to be driving by herself." He put down his screwdriver. "Is she all right otherwise?"

"She seems fine. Hungry, a bit tired. Thinking about how there's probably some perverts at the cheaper, less questioning motels."

Stark nodded. "I need to get her another driver so she makes it in time for classes tomorrow."

"I've got to baby the magical headaches," Clint said. "Nat?"

"I can do that," she agreed. "We can talk about the proper procedures to do during such events." Stark got his daughter pulled over and beamed Natasha to where the car's GPS said it was. She walked back the few feet to get into the car. The girl had already shifted seats for her. "Nap. We'll talk later."

"Okay. I have to be at the symposium at eleven, Aunt Natasha." She yawned but tipped the passenger's seat back so she could nap. "The HYDRA guy hated the nanite system."

"Hmm." Natasha looked at her. "You led with one of your bigger weapons."

"I didn't want him to go near Cassie Lang. She's young and kinda innocent and really normal."

"That's fine. Still, use something lesser. If they hear you have it they'll try to get it from you."

"They can take samples from his arm." She grinned at her aunt. "And the SHIELD guy I gave him to is kinda not fully a good agent too."

"That whole office is full of people SHIELD should remove," Natasha admitted. "Hopefully they don't go after the younger Lang to make her father do something."

"She's got a mom and a stepfather."

"That's good."

"Plus her dad has some friends who can watch out for her up there."

"Even better," she agreed. "You should rest. It's still about eight hours back to Malibu." Callia nodded, curling up on her side in the seat. Natasha changed the radio station to something she liked better and sped up some. The highway wasn't that busy tonight so hopefully it would be an uneventful trip back. Then they'd have to talk about the triplets and their new skills.

***

Callia came back after her presentation, handing her father the notes on her devices as she walked past him. "They think the vet scanner is too Star Trek but they think the other fit the wacky theme we had today very well. Even though it works." She smirked a tiny bit at him. "The professors were astounded that I have a life outside the lab too." He grabbed her to walk her off so they could have a parental level talk. "I was totally safe," she defended.

"You're not licensed to drive by yourself, daughter. By law you have to have someone in the car. Also, as a reminder, that's an adult job. Not a teenage Stark job. Even you!"

She sighed but got her arm free from his grip. "Dad, you were all busy. I've spent thousands of hours in the simulator and about another two hundred with Happy, Uncle Clint, and you in that very same car. I know what I was doing and I could've went off the highway to the lesser used roads if it was too bad for me to handle.

"The map on my phone did suggest it at one point because there was construction around one of the exits. I did good. Even if I did forget to grab something to eat when I stopped for gas, I did really good. I even parked on a hill and did it right." She stared at him. "You were busy and it's not nice to worry the kids. It also helped him calm down finding out she was okay. I may be fifteen but...."

Tony swatted her across the back of the head. "Yes, you are fifteen. I could've sent one of the guards up to help with that. Or Happy. Or you could've asked Happy to go with you! You have common sense, Callia! You inherited it from your aunt!"

She huffed. "I was being helpful!"

"You're fifteen! Helpful for you is doing computer things!"

She glared. "I'm better than that."

"Unless you're planning on building your own suit, you're fifteen and your place is here guarding your siblings!" he shot back, glaring at her. She glared back. "Grounded, young lady."

"You know, by the wills and everything, I now own my percentage of the company since I've got my bachelor's already, Dad. I'm not the average fifteen-year-old-girl."

"No, you're in more danger because people know who you are and what you can do. There's all sorts of idiots who'll want you for your skills or my skills."

She crossed her arms over her chest and sat on her walker's seat. "And if that should happen I'll remember I'm a Stark first and build something to destroy them. Just like you did, Dad." He flinched a tiny bit. "And if that doesn't work, I'm a Summers woman too!" She stared at him. "You're not going to win this argument."

"I am because I can have your learner's permit taken for that."

She grimaced. "Dad, I can fly things thanks to the simulators. I can pass all that."

"Have to be eighteen," he said smugly.

"No. Small aircraft I started at thirteen. That's the law," she finished with a smirk. "I was being helpful. I was doing something we didn't have the people to do and helping the stress levels fall. I was careful and knew what I was doing because I've had more time in the simulators and on the streets than most thirty-year-olds. All I did was make a personal call to hand over my phone and talk to the young woman. And the agent that I had to hand over the HYDRA guy to." Her father spluttered.

"Apparently he thought I was going to change into one because he was beseeching me as his future goddess hydra to bless him. Thankfully, I had my security stuff with me so I just let the nanites eat his arm. Aunt Natasha thought I had used something too large but it was handy. And the evil SHIELD guy I handed him to can get worried about Liz since I said she was the evil Stark." She stared at him. "If you were that guy and I was at home worried wouldn't you have done that?"

He scowled. "Quit using logic, Callia. It's not sweet or cute." She grinned. "Still, not your job. Against the law because you're not old enough to have a license, and even then driving times are limited for teens in this state."

"Sure, next time I'll fly the helicopter up there, make a total spectacle when I land it in a parking lot or a park, and then stroll up to her house to talk to her. Let me draw more attention to myself, Dad. At least I learned what subtle was from Uncle Clint." She yawned and stretched. "I need a nap and a shower. If I'm grounded, tell me later. When I'm less cranky." She stood up and strolled off, going to hide in her lab for now.

Tony huffed and turned, finding Natasha there. "She learned how to be mouthy from your wife."

"They do argue the same way, but so does Joyce. That's probably where they both learned it from."

Tony frowned. "I still need to yell at her."

"She could have been much more Stark and much less Summers. Including taking the helicopter. Though they would've made her land much sooner due to her age."

"Her permit is taken. She's grounded for six months."

Natasha smirked a tiny bit. "You need to figure out who's taking her to college then. The last one left after being kidnaped by Barney's people."

Tony rolled his eyes as he walked off. "Find her one."

"I'll talk with Bucky about that," she agreed, strolling off being amused. Callia had her points but she was still too damn young. Sometimes the child acted her mental age instead of her physical one. She ran into Bucky and Steve in the caf, staring at them. "Stark has said his eldest is grounded for six months from using her learner's permit or any other license she may have."

"I'll figure out which guard can take her to classes," Bucky said, grimacing some. "She really drove all that way by herself?"

"She does know what she's doing. She has done a lot of simulator time plus driving with anyone available. She also finally told her father she had been taking flying lessons for years." Steve moaned. "She offered the point of her doing things in a Stark way by flying up and landing nearby then hiking to that house."

Steve shook his head. "No. I would've beaten her to death for that."

Natasha smiled slightly. "So she did show some subtlety. Even if she is a teenager."

Both soldiers huffed but nodded that was true. Natasha got her coffee so she could check on the children. She had the thought to call Tara to get childhood witch lessons for the triplets. Before they did something that damaged them. Or had to rescue themselves thanks to something coming after one of their parents. Dawn did still draw a lot of problems.

***

Callia found herself down in the containment center that night. She had slept all afternoon so she was probably going to be up all night. She paused in front of the two chambers, staring at one. "I've seen your picture," she said. "And Howard complained about you a lot. Which means I should probably see if you're not an asshole like Howard was."

Hank Pym burst out laughing. "Your grandfather was quite the asshole on occasion, yes." He came closer. "You must be Callia." She grinned and nodded. "I've been following your skills in the press."

"I get bored really easily." She smiled and waved at the lady. "I'm Callia Stark, heir to the insanity but not the suit."

The older woman smiled and waved back. "That's wonderful, dear. I'm Janet."

Callia stiffened, staring at her. "Hope's your daughter." She nodded. "You're the lady that was flying way back when they tried to make the first Avengers team!" She stood up straighter. "I looked them up for a report and they all complained so many got removed from the realms."

"I got stuck."

Callia nodded. "A few got removed from the realm. We ran into their clones and some guy who tried to pat Auntie Dawn on the butt named Starfox. He was kinda slimy. Men like him are why I think I'll just hire out instead of having a boyfriend."

Janet burst out in giggles. "There's perks to having a real boyfriend, dear."

"Yeah but I'm not ready for that yet. I'm in my bouncy, fun years. Not time to settle down and start weeding out gold diggers yet." She grinned. "Your daughter's pretty neat too. We were talking about scanning earlier when I was fixing my vet scanning device." She looked at the other guy. "You know, Dad's not like Howard. We have a tinkering group too. Have you met Uncle Rodney or any of them yet? Grandpa Bruce?"

"No, I tried to stay away. Your grandfather and I had a bit of an argument."

She shrugged. "He tried to get me to become a bimbo. I nearly banished him into atomic bits but Chris took the weapon from me before I got the living room as well, mostly because his legos were in the way." He stared. She grinned. "Grandpa hated me. I'm female. I'm just as good as he was. At one time I was on the list as a potential slayer." She shrugged again. "The guy really needed a better life. Maybe he caught something from all the bimbos he cheated on my grandmother with. Was she nice?"

"Mostly quiet," Hank said. "She didn't really do much with the company outside of some minor research. Your grandfather didn't let her."

She nodded. "Yeah, he thought I shouldn't be in science either. Just push out future engineers." She sat on her walker's seat. "He hated my pets too. I have cats, a bunny, and a dog."

"I've seen that said in the press," he said, smiling at her. "I remember Hope being your age but she was so focused on getting into her mother's suit."

She nodded. "I thought about it a lot but it never felt right. I like all that stuff but I don't want to fight that way. I will if I have to," she said dryly then grinned. "Some people have found that out. But I'm starting a think tank to take my weird ideas and turn them more useful. Like the nerve bridge."

"I know some engineers who've used it for mobility suits to help paralyzed people walk again." She beamed and nodded. "It was a great job." Tony strolled in sipping something green.

Callia looked back then snorted. "Dude, I know you're not my father. Stop it before I have to turn into a Summers woman again." Loki changed back looking smug. Callia stared at him. "That's not your natural form either." He wavered then disappeared. Callia blinked and shook her head quickly. She looked at Hank. "Visions and they suck." He looked worried. "Um.... JARVIS! I just had a vision. Someone pretending to be dad then changed into Loki but it wasn't him."

"I've alerted your father and there's a nurse coming to check you over," the AI said. "It's a possibility that their extra energy signatures could have prompted it."

She looked around. "I'm right near those stupid spores and the energy metal too, J. Nice to meet you two. I'll be back tomorrow I think." She frowned, rolling off. She ran into the nurse, who got her moved to the infirmary quickly because she was about to pass out.

Hank looked at his wife. "She's quite the heir."

"She is. Hope turned out so normal and I was happy for her not to have gotten that from you."

He nodded. "She's definitely the next great Stark." He looked at the being in the corner. "You probably shouldn't be here either, kid."

He grinned and waved. "It's okay. I'm a good boy."

The AI cleared his throat. "Doctor Pym, who are you talking to?"

"There's a boy in the corner. Not a normal one. But he's watching." He pointed. "He's in that corner. Could that have caused her vision or whatever?"

"Yes, it probably was. I'm alerting sir to come scan that area."

Xander appeared, staring in the corner. "You're a myth. Get out of the compound before I have to punt your realm for bothering my people."

"I don't have to do what you say," the boy sneered.

Xander picked him up by his armpits, holding him up at eye view. "Do you know who I am?"

"A *special* one," he sneered.

Xander grinned. "I'm the God Protector of Humanity, Lothos. Get on your shiny space broom and fly off. Before I feed you to something. You aren't a kid and I'm not going to put up with this shit this week." The 'kid' struggled but Xander walked him off. "Going for the spores," he told Tony when he ran into him. He shook him until he changed back. "He's not a kid. He's a space problem." He walked him outside then called two other Gods to help him. "Lothos."

The gods stared at the being. "We can send him home, Alexander. It may cause another rip."

Phil appeared, staring at them. "We have others who are trapped in another realm. Can we send him there?"

"Would I really want to unleash this mind fucking little bitch on them?" Xander asked.

"Yes. If he's theirs." Xander and Phil shared a look. Then Xander felt it up. "Hmm. One over from where they're trapped. Only one left. Guys, can we do that and use it to bring her home?" He let them see the plan Phil had come up with.

"We can try," they decided. Loki and Ares showed up together to help. They sent the being off and used the excess energy to call that one being back. She appeared, mid bubble gum bubble blowing, staring at them.

Ares tested her. "She's wholly here."

"Welcome back, Captain Danvers," Phil said.

She stared at him then smiled. "I remember you. I'm home? Fully home? The last place simulated home but had nice hamburgers."

"Fully home," Phil agreed. "We just had a menace show up and used his sending home to summon you back."

"Aww, thanks." She looked at the others. "Hi."

Ares smirked a tiny bit. "Good, your people could use the backup, Xander." He got an eye roll for it but he and Loki had agreed they needed to fix that problem if it was an option. The other Gods got thanked by Xander and Phil then left.

Xander looked at her. "Need anything like medical?"

"Nah, I'm good." She blew another bubble, staring at him. "Who're you?"

He grinned. "The God Protector of Humanity." She popped the bubble to stare at him. He nodded. "Technically all heros are under my mate," he said with a wave at Phil. "So you're safe and we need to make sure you're not going to die from the transfer."

"No, I'm good. When did that happen? Did Nick know that?" she asked Phil.

"It happened after the other Gods decided we needed to be married off during a banquet," he said. She snorted. "Seriously." Xander nodded to back that up. "As for Nick Fury, he's presently a ferret. He had plans that would've destroyed some people and weaken humanity's protection. He's presently with my kids being a protective pet."

She spit out the gum, staring at him. "When did that happen?"

"Few years ago," Xander said. "We're almost at 2020 by the way."

"That sucks. I missed years. I need to call...." Phil held out his phone, already ringing. She walked off. "I'm back," she said. "They finally managed to get me from that other realm." She listened to her friend complain and rant and nearly cry. "No, I wasn't back in space. I was in a whole other realm. We have gods?" She listened. "Huh. Yeah, I'm here. Um...." She looked back. "I have the feeling we need to do something."

"I need to get that spored metal off the planet but that's not an immediate, gotta do it today thing. I've been trying to contact some beings up there but they're being jackasses."

"Yeah, I know them," she said dryly. "Let me...."

Phil nodded. "We'll be over here, Captain. We understand needing to talk to her." They sat down in the yard on the benches. "What was that being?"

"Stupid little psychotic mind screwing alien menace that takes more joy in confusing us than anything else. Every time he shows up he tries to start a war among us and destroy humanity's abilities and progress forward."

Phil nodded. "Could it have been the reason Callia had a vision?"

"Probably. He set off one in me the last time." He leaned against his spouse's side. "Did Callia really drive to San Fran by herself?"

"Yup. Stole the car."

"Wow, she's a teenager." Phil snickered quietly. "Well, we'll figure it out with him. Tony can handle a teenager. Liz and Chris will be one soon too." Phil nodded, patting him on the hand. "We need some alone time."

"Things have been busy but I'm off all next week."

"Then let's hope it's a quiet week." He took a kiss. Then he grinned at him. "I miss you snoring on me."

Phil elbowed him gently. "I don't snore, Xander." Xander just leaned better.

Carol came back, handing back the phone. "This metal?"

"It has sentient spores," Xander said. "It's been merged with another metal that has an energy source." She grimaced. "Some of those spores have been made into certain crowns on other planets because they can act as an advisor to the one wearing it."

"Oh, that stuff. I've heard rumors but it sounded weird."

"It is," Phil agreed. He looked over as Tony came out. "Callia all right?"

"Fine now. That being?"

"Space fucker," Xander said. "Totally tries to take out humanity's progress and start wars. It appears here every few centuries. Its name is Lothos or so it told us once. Ares totally used it as a soccer ball once when it tried to destroy his war."

Tony groaned, shaking his head. "Okay then. Gone?"

"Sent off," Xander said. "It's immortal."

"Pity." He looked at the new woman. He knew who she was thanks to her file. "Captain."

"You're...."

"Tony Stark." He held out a hand. "This is my compound."

She nodded and shook it. "Thank you for letting them rescue me to here."

"Welcome. The more the merrier sometimes. It means my kids won't be trying to take my suit and go fight."

"Chris hasn't done it recently," Phil said. "Though he was planning on redesigning something. He keeps censoring a thought about a suit named Rescue?"

"I designed a suit in case Pepper needed protected," Tony said quietly.

"Well, Chris has updated it," Xander quipped with a grin.

"I'll go nag him tomorrow." He looked at her. "We have some guest suites you can stay in tonight. That way you can rest, resettle yourself, find out that tv shows have died for reality tv....all that stuff. I'll have Dawn bring you something to wear tomorrow."

"I'm good as long as I can do wash."

Tony smirked a tiny bit. "The band you're wearing sucks, Danvers. At least get a better t-shirt." He walked off. "Call out for me when you're ready to head inside. I'll get you set into a room."

"Thanks." She frowned, looking at Phil. "Related to Howard?" she asked quietly.

"His son."

"Oh!" She nodded once.

"Howard's dead and still an ass. Tony's an ass of a different type but he's good at what he does," Xander told her. "He's got some rough edges but I can count on him when I need help."

She nodded. "That's always good. Anything else I should know?"

"Howard had a plot that pulled some teenagers in spandex hero suits over. One of the ones pulled is Nor-Var," Xander said. "He's with the group in New York." She sighed. "He's okay. "

"That sucks."

"Yup, but they're only training now," Xander said with a smile. "Because I don't let them do much unless it's a huge emergency."

"Good!" She sighed. "This is weirder than last time."

"This time you're expecting things," Phil agreed. "Last time you didn't have any expectations. We'll figure the rest out tomorrow, Captain." He stood up. "Go rest. It'll be a confusing day again tomorrow and I'm fairly certain your family is going to be yelling."

"Probably, yup." She walked off. Tony met her inside and took her to a room to rest. Or call her family back since there was a phone in there.

***

Dawn showed up the next morning with a small plastic bag of clothes. She knocked and handed them over. "Here, so you can change, Captain. I'm Dawn, Tony and Pepper's head PA. There's jeans, plain t-shirts, and one pair of dressier pants in case you need them. Also, I stopped to get some normal shampoo and soap for you." She handed that bag over. "With some lotion because it's been dry out here recently." She smiled. "Let me know if I can do anything else."

"Are you all right?"

"I have eleven month old triplets, two girls and a boy."

"Oooooh, yeah that would wear you out."

Dawn smiled. "A lot. Let me know if you need anything. I'll be at my desk in a few minutes. Tony guessed at your sizes but we're about the same size it looks like so it should fit well enough until we can get you your own." She smiled. "Breakfast is being served for another two hours in the caf." She pointed. "We've already alerted them that you're here so just show up and eat." She patted her on the arm. "Watch out for the kids. They might show up to ask you things about space." She left her to shower, change, and go eat. Then hide from the kids.

Carol smiled, going in to shower and change. The clothes weren't tight but they were a bit snug. She could handle that for a while. The dress pants were plain black but looked stretchy and a bit comfortable. So she could handle that.

***

Callia came back to the containment center that night. "Okay, now that super yucky space idiots who want to take over my mind to make me destroy everyone are gone," she said dryly in greeting as she rolled in. Janet laughed. Callia grinned at her. "Sometimes the world is just against smart, pretty, genius women. Then we gotta kick some booty." Chris ran in. "Hey, no running! This is containment and you can smack into something and break them. Then we'd have to lock you up too."

"Sorry." Chris grinned and waved. "Who're you two?"

"This is Dr. Hank Pym," Callia said with a wave at him. "This is his wife, Janet VanDyne. She was in a hero suit way back when."

"Wow," Chris said. "That's pretty cool." He grinned at Dr. Pym. "Are you an engineer?"

He nodded. "I mostly am, mostly for biological and biomechanical matters. You?"

Chris grinned. "I love fast things." He looked at his sister. "Did you tell Dad I was tinkering with his suit plans for Mom?"

"Yup, when he asked. Got him off my butt. Sorry but brag, little brother. You're a Stark, act like one."

"Point." He waved at them. "Nice to meet you two. Maybe we can talk when you're outside and able to get fresh air. It's kinda stinky in here thanks to that metal." He looked in that containment chamber then sighed. "That stuff is smoking again." He ran off again. "Dad! The spore metal is smoking again!"

Callia sighed. "There's one between us but that's because Mommy Pepper went to the genius sperm bank and Liz is a bit evil. She hates science though." She shrugged. "Our youngest sib is fashionable. I have no idea why but she *so* is." Hank laughed.

Janet grinned. "There's nothing wrong with that."

"She cares more about her clothes than anything. Not school work, not dinner, not anything is more important than her clothes. But at least she has the not-twins from the Bartons to help her with that because Maeve can't match very well. I'm starting to think she's color blind. And she likes orange. It's a gross, yucky color that looks bad on us. I just really don't understand her at all."

"Some day you may need to dress up."

"I do plenty when I have to, but not all the time. I spent years running around in leotards and something shorts-like over them."

"What happened?" Hank asked, pointing at the walker.

She looked then at him. "Someone who hated that I'm smarter than he'll ever be got jealous that I'm a genius. So he got a bad guy to shoot me in the back." She grimaced. "Thankfully JARVIS beheaded him for me before he killed me." She shrugged. "I'm not in the chair anymore." Carol walked in frowning. "Here to look at the stupid space metal?" She nodded. Callia pointed. "It's in there, smoking like a pot head."

Carol looked then grimaced. "That's going to need to be contained better."

"Auntie Dawn tried magic but it absorbed it. That's when we found out it's alive."

"Ooooh," Carol said, grimacing again. "That's going to be a pain."

"Yup. That's why it's in there," Callia quipped with a grin for her. "I haven't met you yet. I'm Callia Stark, eldest child and chip off the engineering block." She held out a hand.

"Carol Danvers." She shook it. "Should you be in here?"

"I came to chat with my esteemed colleagues. The more geniuses I meet, the smarter I become by proxy as I figure out how they do things. We all do wacky things differently and it makes me better to figure out their wacky ways instead of my own." Hank burst out laughing but nodded. She grinned at him then at Carol. "So why the interest in the spores of doom in there?"

"Your father wanted me to hand it to someone who could handle it."

"Hmm. Yeah, I'd rather it be destroyed. To be honest, I don't trust anyone who's not family around that. Chris feels the same way about it. Liz, she's sure some day she'll have to hand it to someone and then use it to blow them up because they hurt us geniuses in the family. But then again, she's kinda into evil."

Carol shook her head quickly. "I nearly got run over by your little sister earlier."

"Was she in a tutu? Because that's Maeve and she's just fashionable. Liz is between me and Chris."

"Yeah, she was. She was happily babbling at the floating trio."

"Auntie Dawn's youngest. Some goddesses decided she had to have them so mystically knocked her up." Callia shook her head quickly. "So glad I didn't get that visit. The bitching wouldn't have ended yet."

"You're too young," Carol said.

"Yeah but I've got those womanly problems that means it can happen if I'm that dumb. Frankly, Dad said to learn to love my hand first then bring in a boyfriend. That way they can't trick me, trap me, and I know what's going on."

Carol blinked a few times. "That's blunt but reasonable at your age. You're what, fourteen?"

She grinned. "Six weeks from sixteen. The walker makes me look younger."

Carol patted her on the shoulder. "Wait as long as you can and find someone decent instead of any dick in the club."

"Yeah, I don't need that. And lab sex sounds interesting but then people can walk in on you all the time. Chris has *such* bad timing and wanted me to hack Playboy for him and Philip. Auntie Dawn was *so* not amused." She shook her head quickly. "That fit went on for days."

Carol smiled. "That's being a mom."

"Yeah, and she's a great one. Just...the terrors are wearing her out again." She looked at Hank. "See, we do wacky, wonderful, weird things that drive you nuts. Because that stupid spore is sucking at magic. Dad, the spore's trying to suck in magic," she bellowed.

Tony stomped in a few minutes later. "Why are you in here?"

"Talking to my future colleagues." She waved a hand. "Shouldn't I get to know more geniuses?"

"Yes, but I want you away from the spores, daughter. And aren't you grounded?"

"It's this or I have to go stop two geeks who're trying to match Warren's girlfriends," she said dryly. "Do you want me to go disgust them by being a girl?"

He winced. "No. I'll....have Dawn stop them." He sent her a text message but Callia took it to add to it about who was doing it. He took it back to read that and sent it. He winced and rubbed his forehead. "So damn bad."

She patted him on the arm. "I warned Jonathan. He went on a swearing fit in a closet. Patty was not happy and got a bit worried about why he was swearing about Warren this time. When I told her, she wanted to go club them on the head before they got something to work." She looked at the spore metal chunk then at him. "Wasn't that bigger?"

He looked then walked her off. "Let's go stop them now, daughter."

"Sure, let me take off the overshirt so they're freaked by boobs." She did that and walked into their lab first. Yup, the spore metal was in there. She could feel the tingles from it testing her. "Guys, it's come to the attention of all of us that you're using the stuff that's in quarantine because it's alive and tends to hurt people." They stared at her. "Yes, I'm a female genius, people. The boobs are real." They stared at them and one whimpered.

The female robot came over to nag her about having her breasts so prominent so Callia shot her taser into it to shut her down. "There, that's better. Dad?" He came in to gather their things and put them into a better quarantine cell with the rest of the metal in a safer one that was farther away from everyone. He ordered a guard to sit outside that doorway and that no one was to touch it until they sent it off.

Callia strolled off to stop the other ones using that metal for things. Though she did pause to grab Liz to help her. She deserved a treat and threatening bad geeks always made Liz's day.

Tony came back to look at the couple. "Sorry if she's bothersome."

"She's delightful, Tony," Janet said, smiling at him. "She's a beautiful young woman who is quite the future of the Stark name."

Tony smiled. "Thanks. She and Chris are both great kids." He left, going to find his spawn and where she was lurking now.

***

Callia looked at the geeks the next day. "Sorry I had to call this meeting, people, but we've gotta have a talk. It's come to our attention that some people have been stealing quarantined stuff from the containment chamber to experiment and use it for things."

"Callia, why are you doing this meeting instead of your father?" one of the geeks asked.

She smiled. "Because I had to stop someone using that stupid spore and energy metal mix powering a cloaking device from sneaking into Maeve's room last night. Did you want to face down Dad or Stepmom, or even Auntie Dawn, over that?" The geeks as a group shook their heads. "Exactly. That's why I called this meeting. Because that metal is actually sentient." A few groaned. "The spores in it that got it quarantined are ancient, sentient, and soaking up information from us. Also, it can eat magic. We found that out when Auntie Dawn put it into the meteorite storage area. Right after Warren Meers tried to use it to bomb the New York lab building."

"We thought it was only in there because the energy metal was weird and a bit dangerous," one of the chemists said.

"Nope. That chunk was merged with the spore metal to try to stabilize each other. So that spore is feeding off the energy metal and gaining more energy and information as it goes on. JARVIS has said that it tried to communicate with him a few times." One geek winced. "As of this point, we know that some's still missing. The original chunk was about four pounds. There's only about two pounds left and we've only found about a pound being used.

"So if you have it, put it back! Before you force Dad and Auntie Dawn to defeat it. If you wanted to try things with that energy metal, get some of the unspored stuff. It's not that expensive or hard to find. Auntie Dawn can get her hands on about ten pounds for under five hundred this week if you ask her nicely. Though, that stuff is still a bit dangerous." She looked around. "If you start it burning it won't go out. There's little tiny clippings, like toenail clippings, that have been burning for over a decade at Uncle Xander's temple.

"Warren was putting a torch to the main chunk and it took it over a year to finish burning off." One of the geeks slumped. "And if you have it, put it back today please! Dad's trying to get it sent into space." That geek nodded. "If your lab has it we need to scan for those spores because they're just as dangerous. If some of those spores get near those of us with magical skills, it could try to absorb us. Frankly, I don't want to start an intergalactic war because I had to protect myself from an ancient sentient spore."

"Can we get some that's not mixed with the spore stuff?" one of the shield design people asked.

She nodded. "Yeah, it's easy to get hold of. Ask Auntie Dawn. Just, if you have it, tell us so we can scan your labs and put it back today please." The ones that did nodded. "Thanks. That stuff's scary dangerous and I'm starting to wonder if that's why Auntie Dawn has been so tired suddenly." One of them hopped up to run to his lab. "Thought it might be." She looked around. "Next point. I've done upgrades on the building security system since Dad grounded me for being helpful again.

"The interior lasers can now be deactivated by anyone who is above a level ten. So most lab firsts and seconds can disarm them or turn them off if necessary. There is a general override in case of emergency but I know a few of you worried about Maeve getting mad at the non-matching clothes and burning them on you. She's only allowed to turn them on in moments of self defense. I linked that into JARVIS and a few other indicators that would override all that." They all nodded as a group. She grinned. "I'm going to tinker with the ones on the gates later today if anyone wanted to help me. Chris?"

"Sure, I love lasers," he called without looking up from his comic book.

"Thanks. Third point, this weekend we are running the annual car checkup clinic in the west parking lot." She pointed. "That way you can have us look at any funny noises or have us suggest things that can be upgraded. We'll also have someone here from the local officers who can and will check car seats. After that guy rammed through the gate and hit half the parking lot, the officers who came to arrest people noted that a lot of the car seats weren't properly installed so they demanded. Fourth thing, please quit giving Maeve clothing ideas, people!" Chris snickered but nodded. "Today she wanted tie dyed stuff and Mommy Pepper nearly stroked out. Especially since Maeve had found tied dyed Doc Marten boots."

Chris looked up and around. "Mom nearly stroked out by not commenting on the hideous stuff. Please suggest they wear normal people things. Unlike Callia and her leotards, Maeve can't do that." That got a few nods. "And don't tell her how to break into closets either please. She broke into mine and color coded the whole thing. I still can't find anything and it's been a month."

"I found two of your shirts in my closet," Callia told him. "I had to pull everything out and rehang everything to figure out what was wrong. Oh, yeah, we have a vet tech showing up weekly now in case anyone's pets need medical attention for routine things. She's looking over some of the medical ideas I've had but she's also given out yearly shots to all my pets and Loki kitty too. Tsarina is not happy so she hid."

"That's actually really helpful," Jonathan agreed. "There's lots of lab pets and experimental pets. That would make sure they stayed healthy." Callia grinned at him. "Any other commands?"

"Yup. Dad said report week was moved back by a week this next time. So you have *three* weeks to get in bi-yearly reports. We want to be proud and make sure none of you are trying to blow us up like a few others have done." She smiled. "That's all I have so go back to being the world's greatest geeks, people." They left, a few pausing to hug her.

Tony stood up from his corner seat. "You do that a lot better than I do, spawn o'mine." He cuddled her again. "Nice work. Let me pull out the scanner." He walked off happier because it meant that things would get better around the office.

***

Callia walked the faulty robot that her geeks had made into her lab design classroom. She put it up front before looking at the professor. "Some of the Stark geeks built her. They were trying to replicate what Warren Meers did with his girlfriends." She grimaced. "One's still up by the insane genius home by Boston and the other two mostly live in the New York lab." She went to her usual seat. "I confiscated it before the geeks could get back to her and turn her back on. I had to stun her with a taser the other night to get her to reset and turn her off.

"I've removed most of the electrical system because they were using classified and quarantined metals to power her. So if someone wants to come up with a new battery pack...." She waved a hand while grinning at a few of the people who wanted to study power flows in the class. "She's only half as good as Warren's girlfriends he built for himself. They're pretty neat. One taught me nuclear physics when we were all grounded due to nanite infections."

The professor looked at her. "Callia, you're not supposed to be in here for another hour."

"I know but this is relevant to this class instead of mine. Mine has a whole lot of people I'd like to never realize they can build realistic robots, Professor Dunwitty."

"Good point," he said sarcastically. "All right. Do we have schematics on her?" Callia tossed him a USB drive so he plugged it in and put it on the projector so they could all look at them. He stared at them. "How on earth...."

Callia grinned. "Look at the other file. The password is the one you use for your email. That's the classified version." He got into that one, not projecting it. He let out a moan that made a few of the geeks shift uncomfortably. "That's the earlier version. The later girlfriends are *much* better. That one got jealous of the new ones so bioengineered the flu to wreck the New York labs."

Professor Dunwitty looked at her. "How on earth?"

"Warren built that one in high school. He graduated with my mom. A lot of people couldn't tell she was mechanical. To this day." She smirked a tiny bit. "He's in the insane genius home."

"I can see why. Building your own girlfriend should automatically put you in there." He went back to the one he could show the others. "Let's go over this. It's an interesting construct. We can fix up a plug for this example so we can talk to her and test her." They came forward to go over things. Callia sat in her usual seat and did some math homework she needed to do.

The SHIELD agent on campus stomped in. "This is...."

"Not made by Warren," Callia interrupted. "That was our current geeks building their own version to compete with what Warren did. The prof has a the building notes for the original girlfriend but won't be passing those out." She smiled at him. "Dad said it was okay if I shared. Robotics could move forward."

The SHIELD agent winced but called that in. "Fine. The higher ups want her with a GPS unit before you turn her on so we can stop her if she does something please." The professor nodded that was fine with him. "Thank you. Please make sure she does not get out of your handling." He went back to his car to make a full report. It was bad that someone was trying to be Warren Meers.

Callia grinned at the class. "Warren's later girlfriends were copies of my Aunt Natasha and my mother. Auntie Dawn couldn't tell for over an hour." That got a few more moans. They could gladly learn from this example. And turn in anyone who tried to build their own girlfriends. There were a few on campus who might like that idea.

***

Callia was watching her sister being worked over by her aunt for self defense classes. She knew how Liz was going to be about growing into a big girl. This was going to be so bad. She strolled off to the office, walking into her mother's office. She checked the phone when Pepper stared at her. "You busy?"

"No. Is it a huge thing or a girl talk?"

"No, it's not me. You need to have a girl talk with Liz. Your precious first born daughter is bleeding today. She's getting boobs too." Pepper stared in horrified awe. "Yeah. Um, and you realize she thinks vamping to distract is a good idea?"

"No, I didn't. We'll definitely talk about that. Are you sure she's started a cycle?"

"She's got blood on her butt and she's working out with Aunt Natasha."

"Then that's a good thing."

"Plus, she's getting a bit bouncy. She's clearly not going to be built like you are, Mom."

Pepper sucked in a breath then nodded. "Yeah, we'll talk about all that."

She grinned. "Can you talk to Chris about it too? Before I get yelled at again for him asking me to hack Playboy pictures for him?"

"Gladly!" She stared at her. "Philip?"

"He likes museums. And I'm hoping his mom talked to him and he shares with Chris." She rolled off. "Going back to the gym to wait on my turn."

"I'm coming with you." Pepper grabbed her phone to bring with her. Natasha glanced over when they came in, but kept working Liz out so she understood how to get out of various grab attempts. Pepper sat down to stare at her first born, second daughter. Yup, she was clearly having a period. And she had breasts. Hell! Pepper smiled and clapped when they were done. "Nice job, Liz. Want to spend some girl time?"

"Do you need to shop, Mom?" she asked, wiping the gross sweat off.

"Liz, you're bleeding through," Callia said patiently.

"Oh. Eww. That stuff." She grimaced, looking at her mom. Who looked shocked. "Mom, just because I don't like science doesn't mean I don't know how to research through google. I looked up a lot of stuff on periods when I started them a few months ago."

"Dear, we'll buy you anything you want to control that," Pepper reminded her. "Even the reusable pads or those cup things."

"Those look really gross," Liz complained.

"About the same as tampons," Callia quipped. "I tried it but I'm a bit too young for it I think. It felt like it was too big." She stretched with Natasha's help. "Also, you need a bra." She looked back. "It helps with balance. Believe me, it helps with balance. My whole posture changed when they made me start wearing one."

Liz grimaced. "I'll never have the rack you have."

"Feel blessed," Natasha quipped. "Smaller ones are easier to manage and live with."

Liz nodded. "I should, but I still find them confusing."

"That's one reason for girl talk time," Pepper said, smiling at her. "Go shower and clean up. We'll go talk and maybe shop. Dawn can handle my call in a few hours." Liz nodded, going to do that. Pepper looked at her elder daughter. "You tried a cup?"

"Yeah. It felt a bit too big and was uncomfortable. So I'm staying with tampons mostly. With a backup reusable panty liner for times when I know I can't get to a bathroom easily."

"That's reasonable. We can talk about that later." She walked over to kiss her on the head. "We can girl talk later." She strolled off to make that conference call early while Liz showered. It'd take her a good forty-five minutes to shower and change clothes. It usually did.

Natasha looked at Callia, who was shaking her head. "Dad's going to freak out and so will Stepmom."

Natasha nodded. "Yes, they will because they're men." Callia smiled. "We can send Dawn to tell them like we did when you started to develop." Callia giggled but finished stretching and came over for her self defense lesson of the week.

***

Dawn got the message from Natasha and looked at Pepper. "Should I be a messenger of doom?" Pepper nodded. "I can do that." She went to find Tony and Steve, who were playing Mario Brothers in the living room. She listened for Liz, who was still in the shower. So she stepped in front of the tv, making Tony pause the game. "I'm once again the messenger of puberty."

Tony frowned. "Chris is getting night erections?"

"No, the boys learned from me that using a condom for those things means that you don't have to clean it up. They both consider it nicer than doing laundry themselves." She stared at him then grinned. "How old is Liz?"

Tony winced. Steve groaned. "Already?" Steve demanded.

"Yeah. Apparently. She did her own girl talk with google but Pepper's taking her out tonight for that." Both guys nodded. "So can you guys talk with Chris about not getting grossed out like most guys by unused tampons?"

"Yeah, we can have that talk," Tony said. "There's no reason for guys to flinch from protection products. I've bought some for Pepper in the past." Dawn grinned and left them to talk. "That means Maeve's going to be hitting the possible range in a few years."

"Don't remind me my daughter's eight, please?" he begged.

"All parents like to imagine their kids as the babies they used to carry around and have to change," Tony said, patting him on the shoulder. "I still have that feeling about Callia. Her boobs used to creep me out. We'll have a few weird days and then realize Liz is almost twelve." Steve winced again. "Chris is almost eleven." He sighed. "God, we have teenagers." Steve and he cuddled for a few minutes. Liz came out. "Hey." She paused to stare at them. He waved her over to give her a hug.

"Have a good time with Pep. We love you even though you're nearly a teenager. We'll negotiate your allowance and chores in a few weeks." He kissed her on the temple. "Give some thought about you coming out into society in a few years too. You'll need to apply to the debutante group in two years and need to do some stuff for the application." He kissed her on the temple again. "Remember, guys your age are shitty and older guys who flirt with you are shit who needs to be hurt for trying to flirt with your underage butt."

"Did Mom tell you?" she demanded.

"She sends your aunt to tell us that stuff. She did when Callia first got breasts and armpit hair." Liz grimaced. "So you're not the first. There'll be awkward things just we'll handle you grow up. Chris is going to be hopeless to handle because I remember what sort of idiot boy I was at his age." She laughed. "Go, have fun with your mom. If you need to ask us questions you can do that later." He looked her over. "Might want to go clean up though, Liz."

"I'm out,"she pouted.

"Go steal from your sister's bathroom." He pointed. "And change pants. Those didn't match anyway." She ran off to do that, coming out in better clothes. "Nice." Liz smirked but ran out to go pounce her mother.

Steve looked at Tony. "That was only a tiny bit awkward."

"Yeah, it is during the talks too. Thankfully she's got women in her life." They fist bumped and went back to the game until Chris showed up again. He was napping in his lab.

***
Part 2 by Voracity2
Jane and her assistant Darcy Lewis showed up to help with the baby and portal problem, and to hopefully get Dr. Pym out of containment. One of the guards frowned at Darcy. "Miss Lewis, they sent you back?"

Darcy tipped her head but smiled. "I don't think I've been here before."

The guard summoned someone. Chris came jogging out with another guard. "Darcy!" Chris crowed, pouncing her to hug. He grinned at Jane. "We had a Darcy from another realm for about three months while Auntie Dawn was pregnant with the triplets. She was a kick ass helper for everyone like Auntie Dawn is." He grinned up at her. "We need more helpers like you." He let her go. "Welcome to Stark Industries." He waved a hand. "Are you here to help with the weird space metal, the baby in the portal problem, or Dr. Pym's younger self being an idiot problem?"

"Mostly the baby problem," Jane said. "I'm Dr. Jane Foster."

Chris shook her hand. "Chris Stark. Heir to the fun Stark stuff." He got them signed in and took them down to a room first. Auntie Dawn had said to make any guests comfortable before letting them work. "Here you go. A nice suite. Has a small kitchen, Miss Darcy, but it's a nice little one. Dad made sure. Ask JARVIS if you need stuff and once you drop everything I'll bring you up to Dad's lab, where he's once again yelling at the younger Dr. Pym."

Darcy patted him on the shoulder. "You're a good boy, Chris. Thank you."

"You're welcome." He pulled out his phone to tinker with something while they dropped their stuff. Then he led them up to the lab, not looking up from his phone. Someone took it from him. "Hey! I was working on a circuit board, Jonathan!" He took it back.

"Never ignore women," Jonathan said with a grin for the ladies. "They get mad and yell at you."

"I've done it many times," Jane said with a smile. "Dr. Jane Foster."

He shook her hand. "Jonathan, of the roomba army fame," he said with a smirk. "Hey, Darcy."

"I was really good here?" she asked, shaking his hand.

"We all thought you were like a non-pregnant version of Dawn. You did great helping all us weird people with our ideas."

"I was taking them to Dad's lab."

"He's in the caf right now. The younger Dr. Pym tried to grab something and got the lab put into quarantine." Chris groaned but nodded, leading them that way. "Have fun, guys." He sent Tony a text message to let him know he had visitors.

Tony looked at his phone then up. "Dr. Foster, Miss Lewis. Why...."

"Portal problem," Natasha said from her table and lunch without the children. "Plus helping stabilize Dr. Pym."

"Oh! That, yeah. Sorry, brain fog from the idiot trying to gas my lab when I was yelling at him. Which did you want to see first? The baby's cute, but purple. The original Dr. Pym is in containment six with his wife." He rubbed his forehead.

"Dr. Shivs to the caf," Chris called. "Before I have to let Aunt Dawn fuss over Dad and teach Maeve and Liz how." A few people laughed but the medical team stomped in and walked Tony off before he could complain. Chris smiled and waved at them. "If you get sick, I have to become the male head of the family," he called after him. "And we're on our way to the conference in the Middle East next week. I'll sell Liz into marriage."

"Do not remind me I know how to beat children," Natasha said dryly. "You will not enjoy it when you are put to real work, Christopher, and then your aunt will help me." She ate a bite of her sandwich, staring at him.

He grinned at her. "You're an aunt-in-law, Auntie Natasha. That would be child abuse."

"Your mother would cover it up," she said between bites.

He huffed but rolled his eyes. "I'm going to tell the idiot press people that you're thinking about having another child so they treat you like they do Auntie Dawn." He walked off. "Let's start with the baby since it's cute and you're women so cute is a necessity in your life daily." He grinned. "That's why so many of you watch those pet videos on youtube."

Jane snickered quietly but Darcy nodded. "Yeah, it can be." They walked into the infirmary and Chris found the baby's files to hand to Dr. Foster. Chris looked over at his father then at the doctors. "Do I have to become the patriarch of the family already?"

"No," Pepper said, staring at him. "And Steve would have it first, Christopher."

"Only if you guys finally married." He smirked at her. "You haven't made us wear fancy, ugly clothes and I haven't seen a pretty dress with jewelry yet, Mom. Until then, he's a great stepmom and therefore can't be patriarch." He grinned at her. "By their rules I had to look up for that report."

Pepper glared at her son. "I'm going to let Natasha beat you for me."

"I'm going to tell the press she wants another kid," he shot back with an evil smirk.

Callia looked over from where she was having her back checked. "Liz, you've changed!" she quipped. "You're a boy now!"

"Hey!" Chris complained. "I'm not as evil as Liz is! I don't like knives or surgery shows!"

Callia smirked at him. "Yes you are. Getting Aunt Natasha press attention is evil, Chris." She grinned. "Maybe you really are a Stark daughter after all?"

"Nope. Still got boy parts!" He grinned. "Not trans at all, even with all the pretty dresses I've worn." He snapped and walked off. "Let me know when you need more stuff, Dr. Foster. I've got to plan how to get my sister safely put into a school far away from us so she doesn't have to pout about being compared to me again."

"No," Pepper called. "I've already talked to that teacher, Christopher Darren Oliver Stark. Leave it alone!"

"Yes, Mom," he sighed from the hallway.

"Hell, *I* had a talk with that teacher when we were picking up Liz after school and my classes the other day," Callia told her mother. "And reminded her that each of us were our own kid. Chris doesn't compare to me, Liz was definitely a Potts since she was only yours, and the bitch teacher was an evil slut who was sleeping with her boyfriend on top of the assignments she needed to grade. Then I handed over the one with stuff on it that Liz had been grossed out about." They shared a look. "I nearly called in Auntie Dawn, Mom."

"No, she's too big for that problem, Callia. Call Gloria first. Suing is nicer to her than siccing Dawn on her." She smiled. "Welcome to Stark Industries, Dr. Foster and Miss Lewis. The baby's over there," she said with a point. "The portal's above the stripped bed there in the center of the room, and her biological parents are in their room resting again. Being here is sucking at their energies."

"It's probably the space rock," Callia complained lightly. She looked back at the doctor. "Can I transition down to a cane?"

"Do you think you can?" he asked patiently. "The last time you tried you said you got too tired after a few steps."

"I do," she agreed. "But sometimes.... Maybe I'll put a compressed one in my walker somehow or attach it to the side." He nodded. "We need the paperwork for the physical therapist too."

"I've got it started. We need to do the scans." She sighed but nodded, being helped into the room with the CT.

Pepper smiled. "It's a weird day for us."

"They happen in science," Darcy quipped. "Jane summoned two elves last month." Jane hit her on the arm. "Lord of the Rings elves, not Nine Realms elves." Jane bopped her again. "They weren't amused at all." A third bop on the arm from Jane. Darcy walked over, smiling and cooing at the fussy baby. "Hi, pumpkin. Are you fussy? Do you need nummies, changed, or just held?"

"We're trying not to taint the baby with our essences," one of the nurses said. She handed Darcy a smock and gloves to put on so she could pick up the baby to cuddle it. It quit fussing and fell asleep on her. The nurse smiled. "You're good."

"Thanks. It's all vicarious since I'll probably never have kids." She sat down to rock the baby for a bit. It'd help it stay calmer and happier. The mother came in scowling so Darcy smiled and waved. "I was solving some mild fussing for cuddling. Want the baby back?"

"Please." Darcy got up and let her sit in the rocking chair then handed over the baby carefully. The mother sat there and slowly rocked, relaxing. "I do not think we have this sort of chair at home," she said quietly to her child. "But we'll see if we can make one." The baby shifted and sucked her thumb so that was great. They were both calmer now. Darcy took off the smock and gloves, pulling out Jane's equipment to test the portal. "We worry that the baby will be harmed by bringing her home."

Jane nodded. "I'd hate to see that and we need to make sure it can't be reopened. With how the person opened it the first time and then the woman who stole her from you did it again, we need to make sure it can't happen a third time." She moved to scan the portal and the baby/mother combo to make notes about what she saw. She looked at Stark. "Do we still have her equipment up?"

"She's locked out of the building and the lab pending the local FBI branch arresting her," Pepper said. "We explained what happened when she went to complain we had taken her child from her." She smirked a tiny bit. "They're arguing about kidnaping charges."

Darcy nodded. "Sounds like it to me but they have to deal with the cross-realm jurisdiction. Do they have police over there?" she asked the mother, who shook her head. "Hmm. Well, they'll figure out if she's going to jail here or over there I'm sure." The mother smiled. "You look like you haven't eaten in days."

"I do not tolerate the local food very well," she said quietly.

Jane looked over then at the portal. "It's partially open. Can we call someone to send you things?"

"Many hate me because of my choice of spouse," she said with a grimace. "I would not trust most."

"Is it the manner of cooking, the food itself, the taste, or is it just upsetting your system?" Darcy asked. "We can try stuff that's more pure and less chemicals to see if that'll help. You won't do the baby any good if you die."

"True. I have tried. Mostly they just upset my stomach."

Callia came out of the CT room tucking in her shirt. "We can check to see what herbology has growing, and let you have stuff raw so you can prepare it yourself or just have salads if you want. That's not a huge problem. A lot of the pregnant women around here did that because it helped them. I can get Andrew's soup recipe too. It should be good and soothing for you."

She walked off, tapping her earpiece to call Andrew on the way. "It's me. The sorceress needs some more pure food, Drew. Can I bum that soup recipe for her? I'm on my way to herbology for her." She smiled. "Thanks, dear." She hung up and rolled down there to talk to the biology team. "Guys, that lady from the realm with the baby, she can't tolerate California food. Can we get some totally pure stuff so she can cook? And stuff for soup maybe?"

They nodded, taking her around to pick things. Mostly grown in water instead of in the soil. It was less chemicaled from fertilizer. Callia took it back to their suite, with a pause to get that recipe and a few pots from the kitchen. And some spring water too. She smiled at the half-demon the sorceress was mated to. "Hey, I brought some food things so one of you can cook for yourselves." He let her in. She put down the vegetables and explained what each one was. Then the recipe. "This is a soup that a lot of the women around here got when they were pregnant. It helped with upset stomachs from the morning sickness." The guy smiled.

"Also." She opened the fridge and pointed. "This is a charcoal filter for water. It takes out the gross stuff they put in city water so it's more pure. And the big jug is spring water that's been filtered for germs and stuff. I know most magical sorts can cook somewhat, potions depends on it, so one of you should be able to at least cut things up and put them into a pan to heat to where you want it or make a salad. Right?" She smiled hopefully.

"We can, yes. There's many magical people around here?"

"No, but I am and the coven taught me a lot about teas, distilling, making cookies, and baking vegetables." She grinned. "A whole lot of older ladies helped teach me magic and cooking stuff."

"We had no idea that magic was that available."

"It's not totally a flood in this area but it's not too weak. Auntie Dawn and I both have a good tap into it when we need to use it. I can send Xander an email to see if he can figure out if you logging into the local magic will hurt you. You both look really exhausted and that can't be good for you or the baby."

"No, it's not." He smiled. "Thank you, Callia."

She smiled. "I learned how to fuss at people from my Aunt Dawn. She's better at it than most everyone, even fussy older grandmother witches." She rolled out. "Let us know if you need more stuff. We're kinda used to weird things. Your girlfriend is in the infirmary rocking the baby so she stays asleep." He nodded, going to check on them. Callia went to make notes for Pepper and then went back to her tinkering.

The half-demon walked into the room and stared at his girlfriend and their child. He looked at the nurse. "Go ahead and roll the baby's crib down there," she said quietly. "Bring the baby back in a few hours to check on her."

"I do not want to hurt her."

Darcy looked at him. "I don't think they want to keep the baby here."

"Oh!"

Tony shook his head from the bed he was in. "No, the baby's going home with you once she's stabilized and we have the determination of who's going to arrest the idiot wench. We have plenty of kids and I'd never stand up for a kidnaper." He stared at him. "If it were my kid, I would've already solved the wench's issues by destroying her. You're much nicer than I am." He smirked a tiny bit. "We can send the rocking chair down with you too since they both like it."

The half-demon nodded, picking up his girlfriend to carry her and the baby to their room. He came back for the crib and the chair then he settled in to try that soup recipe. It looked soothing for them. They had everything but the salt. Which he asked himself about so the AI had some sent up. He thanked it and took the salt from the guard. It was a good soup, a bit salty but good for them.

***

Chris found a weird thing that night, down by containment. "What're you?" he asked, looking at it. It felt magicy and tingly so he didn't touch it. He frowned. "JARVIS, is Auntie Dawn still here?"

"Yes, she's in the parking lot."

"This portal spot is magical."

"I'll have her brought down, Christopher. Do not touch it."

"I'm not." He stepped back, looking around. "Tell Dad to stay wherever he is. I can sense Mom over there."

"I can do that as well."

Dawn came jogging up the hallway. "What thing?" Chris pointed. She looked then sighed. "Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck." Chris was wincing at that outburst. "It's another realm portal but I think it's just visual. Nothing's tried to come through?"

"No, not yet," Chris said.

"Okay. That's good." She tested it and nodded once. "That's going to suck. JARVIS, make your maker stay wherever he is, far away from here. It's important." She looked at the portal that just finished opening. "Hi there." She looked at the young girl on the other side then at the boy behind herself. "Go get your sister." He nodded, running off. "Hi. Is there an adult there? We need to talk about how this portal came to be, kiddo."

"Morgan," a woman complained. She came into view. "What's that?"

"It's a viewing portal, Pepper. You're in a hallway in Stark Industries here." She saw Pepper go 'shit' without letting it out. "Yeah. Um...." She looked at Morgan then at the two kids. She waved them over. Callia came over first. She was oldest and most used to weird things. Then Chris came over. That Pepper's eyes went wide. "Yeah. I've had *him* not come near here because I can feel things."

"Oh, dear." She looked at her daughter then at the other woman. "Who're you?"

"Your PA here." She smiled. "Head fussing bitch of SI. These are Callia, and Chris, and Liz is running up the hallway." She waved her over.

Liz stared over. "Wow. Hi." She smiled. The girl gave a shy smile as she waved back. "I'm Liz, this is Callia, and this is Chris."

"In this world they'd be like your cousins, dear," Dawn said. Pepper winced. "Can we talk for a few minutes?"

"Morgan, go tell Stephen we might need him?" She nodded, running off. "They look really familiar."

"Well, you did give birth to us," Chris said with a nod. "Morgan's cute, and obviously less weird than either of my sisters." Pepper cracked a smile. Their Pepper came up the hallway frowning. "Mom, we have a viewing only portal. Not like the one that opened because of the idiot bitch who stole the kid."

"Language in front of others, son. Even if that was a polite way of talking about her." She stepped in front of the portal, taking in that Pepper's all black outfit. "Oh, dear."

"Oh, yeah. We're ...the funeral's later," she said quietly.

"We'll do what we can to close it," Dawn promised. "Without anything like a hanging picture if we can."

She nodded. "It's just a really bad time."

"That's why she had the great monster stay in his lab," their Pepper said quietly. Morgan was coming back with others. She waved. "It's a portal to our realm."

Dawn laid a hand on it. "Your world needs a few energy sinks into the world crystal." She summoned a few books and a goddess of magic who had written the books. "Can we just put an anchor or a drain to help them, Lady Morgana?"

She tested it and nodded. "There's three options but an anchor would be for the best before more of these open." She looked at it then at Pepper. "At least this isn't as bad as the Xander convention he has." She looked at the sorcerer, then nodded once. "You must put an anchor into the world crystal before you have thousands of these, Sorcerer Supreme."

"I know very little of that," he admitted.

"That's a limit to sorcery instead of witchcraft," Callia said. "Witches feel the magic like it's in their blood as tingly stuff or going over our hands as we work like it's invisible water. Sorcery doesn't have that sort of connection to the natural or unnatural energies. Mages would sometimes."

Dawn nodded. "I can't.... Oh, I'm not on that realm. I'm off world." She grimaced. "Okay. Um....Solastra. The me there is on Solastra and we have a natural gift to soak up energy."

The sorcerer frowned and looked at someone else. "Solastra?"

"Other side of the galaxy," the blonde woman said.

"Captain," Dawn said with a nod. "There's a gift that's much like a lesser version of a stone. We hold it." She winced but nodded. "You need to help him create an anchor into the world crystal. Which can take weeks. If not months." Goddess Morgana nodded at that. "The long way will be steadier though."

"Until then can we close this one?" Stephen demanded. "It's not a good time."

"Hi, Callia Stark," Callia said quietly. He winced but flinched back with a nod. "We're trying. Give us a few."

Dawn hissed at Pepper, who nodded that'd be fine. She hissed in Callia and Liz's ear, then Chris's, getting shrugs from all them. "Okay, there's one thing we can to do shrink this one fast, but it won't close. We have cross realm mailboxes thanks to our Xander and his convention system. Xander!" she called quietly. She got Phil. "We need to turn this portal into a mailbox system so Morgan can talk to her *cousins* here."

He looked then nodded once after reading what was going on. "We can do that. Let me talk to Xander." He disappeared.

"Yours survived?" that Pepper asked.

"When Th...that big purple turd showed up here, he was summoned here and the stones were all mostly depowered by it," Pepper said quietly. "We drove him off but it killed a few gods. Nearly killed Xander too. He had a year before he could get a physical form again." That Pepper winced. "We've seen other realms where he showed up and was worse."

Callia nodded. "I got pulled to one."

"I summoned a few of the stones," Dawn said dryly, making Stephen flinch and stare at her. She grinned and wiggled her fingers. She found herself in a book and held it up to the portal. "The me there isn't as strong as I am." Stephen said something vulgar in Latin. Dawn grinned. "Exactly." She closed the book and handed them to the goddess. "Thank thee for the lending, Lady Morgana, and the help."

"It's no problem, Dawn. What of the other one?"

"We've got to get them home first. Their baby could be hurt and we need to find out how to cushion it," Chris said.

"I would like to look at that one. Perhaps we can work on that." Chris led her off. "You have good manners, young man."

He grinned at her. "Auntie Dawn and Mom do try a lot. So does Stepmom Steve." Morgana smiled and patted him on the arm.

Pepper looked over at Xander as he appeared with two slim devices, one a glass tube with an opening and one a wooden drawer and holder. "Hey, Morgan, we're going to let you talk to your cousins in this realm, sweetheart. That way you have other Starks to talk about Stark things with when you want. Would that be okay?"

"Stark things?" she asked.

Callia smiled at her. "We're the genius engineering people here." She winked at her. "We've all done weird things and we're kinda cousins. We'd love to talk to you when you want to talk about Stark things or building things or even just need to talk. Liz is really great at that."

"I..." She looked up at her mom, who nodded. She looked at them. "I might like that."

Liz beamed at her. "You're a great Stark, Morgan. Just like Tony only a girl so you're better. Girls are always better." Morgan smiled and nodded. Callia took their side's glass box to charge while Xander got the portal split and into their wooden box. They sent through a note for her and she sent back one so it worked. "You write us if you need to talk. Ours is glass so even if we're super busy with school stuff we'll notice a note came in. You just let us know, Morgan." She pouted. "If you were closer, we'd hug you." Morgan sniffled but nodded, hugging Pepper. "You have a great, cool, understanding mom too." She winked and carefully carried off their box to hang in her sister's lab.

"You'll do wonderful things," Callia told her. "Because even regular things done by a Stark are great." She winked at her too. "You write us when you need to talk, Morgan." She rolled herself off thinking about how bad it could be if her father had died already.

Pepper nodded. "They're all very empathic kids," she said with a small, sad smile. "And we don't mind if Morgan wants to write to them. That way she has kids who understand her. There's plenty of days I don't understand Chris and Callia myself." That Pepper smiled. "How hard is it to make that anchor, Dawn?"

"Not that hard. Large crystal, anchoring runes, metal holder, small ritual to link them. Then protecting it forever from anyone being able to use it."

"I have ways to do that," Stephen agreed. He saw that Tony and his eyes widened.

"No," Dawn ordered, glaring at him. "Not yet." He nodded and went the other way. She sighed. "You're going to get a lot more of these and they might be more shocking." That got a nod. She smiled at Morgan. "You're cute, smart, and the perfect daughter of your daddy." She smiled again. "You call if you need us. The box is in Callia's lab so we can all check on it. We're kinda nosy and break in on the kids all the time before they build more weird things."

"I'm just glad neither one built their own friends like Warren did," Pepper complained. That Pepper snickered. "Seriously. Couldn't tell it was so good." That got a nod. She smiled at Morgan. "It'll be okay."

"Daddy's gone," she said quietly.

"According to some ancient traditions, as long as someone knows about them, they're never gone. Even if they're not physically there. Besides, your dad's probably floating around you pouting that you're sad. He's just a ghost now. We have a ghost of Howard so it's not so bad." Morgan relaxed and nodded, going to talk to the others.

She looked at Pepper. "Really, we do. We had to banish Howard to the Bahamas. He had plots." That Pepper smiled. "And the same writing is up to you as well. Not like I can't answer things. I have whole hours not taken up by beating my kids into more normal people." That Pepper smiled and touched the portal. This one touched her side. Xander ended it there. It was now in the post boxes.

Dawn looked at her. "It could've been a lot worse," she said quietly.

"Yeah." They walked off to talk to the kids. They had to be a bit freaked out by the knowledge that the other Tony had died. Being a hero was a dangerous career and life choice.

Dawn went to talk to Tony, who had seen it on the cameras. "Morgan was cute but about three," she said. "The kids have a post system so they can talk."

"I like that idea. She could probably use some comfort. Does she know...."

"No. We told her they're cousins. Chris told that Pepper."

"That'll work for years." He looked at her. "I might sneak a note now and then too." She patted him on the arm. "The baby?"

"I'm hoping we can protect the baby on the way home."

"Good. It'll be better for that family to be home. And the Pyms too."

"I'm working on how we can get him out of there, boss. So is Jane Foster."

"That's fine."

"Do we want to talk to her about signing on?"

"I.... Huh." He frowned. "Well...no idea," he admitted.

"Okay. Think about it."

"You just want to steal Darcy," he quipped with a smirk.

"You bet!" She strolled off. "We were heading home." She went to let Clint drive them home.

Tony relaxed and then wrote out a long note for that Pepper. He picked up one from Chris and Liz. And Callia was staring at the box while trying to write one. So they finished it together and sent it one envelope. He sent a USB stick drive over too. He had taped letters for his kids if something had happened. She could edit them if she needed to.

***

Pepper heard the quiet ding and looked at the small box with a drawer, pulling it out. The envelope was easily taken and the USB stick fell on top of it. She smiled, taking them to put aside for now. It was a good time later to look at those. When she did, she finally got to cry about things. Yeah, she'd be okay and she could talk to that Pepper if she needed to feel like her Tony was around again. She could edit those videos too. Morgan would appreciate that.

***

Jane came up with an idea for the baby and Dawn came to help it go through. Jane looked at the nursing staff and the parents. "All right. If we put the baby into stasis...."

"Suspended animation," Darcy cleared up at the confused look. "We basically stop time for her for a few seconds."

"Yup, that. We can bring her back across the portal and she'll just need a few days of acclimation to get used to the energy over there. She still reads a lot like her natural realm. So slightly tainted to over here but we can guard her natural energies."

"Would that harm her?" the mother demanded. "I don't want her killed."

"It won't kill her," Darcy said. "It'll.... Dawn?"

Dawn frowned. "It's like freezing her for a moment but she's not cold and not dead. It's like a fairytale sleep only she's going to wake up about two minutes after you get over there."

"I've heard of such but I know not anyone who can undo it," the boyfriend said.

"We can put a stop on it," Dawn assured him. "Here, let me do you. It'll push the spell back by about a day." She walked forward and froze the boyfriend for a few seconds then let it up. "Like that."

He frowned. "That was the weirdest thing." Dawn smiled and nodded. "That's ...it won't hurt her. It didn't me," he told her. She sighed but they planned on how to do it and what they needed to bring with them. They'd bring some charged crystals over to help wean the baby off this realm's energies. Dawn had bought the baby a cute outfit to go home in, and a blanket to protect her as she was walked across.

Jane got the portal set the next morning while Dawn and Diana did the spell together. The boyfriend walked across, accepted the baby, then helped the mother across. Dawn ended the spell and the baby let out a yawn then fussed some until she found her thumb. The mother smiled and accepted the package of shrunken things for the baby. Including that same rocking chair. They walked off together. Then Jane got the portal shut with a small snap of displaced air.

Dawn sighed, looking at the others. "This has been a weird month," she said. Jane smiled and nodded. "Any idea on Dr. Pym? His younger self got sent back last night but he's still energy shedding."

"He'd have to have a stabilizing force," Jane said. "I'm not sure how to build that. I'm going to talk to Tony tonight."

"He's in the lab with Chris. Being frustrated." The ladies smiled and left together. "Hey, Darcy, if you ever need to leave Jane, come back here please?" She grinned. "I could an assistant. I'm losing one of mine next week."

"If I need a job that's not being on Jane's butt, I'll consider that, Dawn. Thanks." She smiled and left to tell that to Jane. Who pouted but agreed it'd be a great job for Darcy.

Dawn laid down on a bed, letting out a sigh. "So, two out of three huge incidences are done with. If there's a third that means Avengers have to handle it, I'm going to destroy somewhere on purpose." The nurse got her something to drink and let her fall asleep there. She sent up a note to Pepper's office that Dawn was asleep but the baby was back home.

Maybe now things would calm down.

***

Carol gathered up the locked safe of weird metal to look over. "Not too big or too bulky. Thanks, kids."

"Welcome," Chris said with a wave. "We hate that stuff. Especially since it tried to take over my sister and aunt because they have magic. It's also dangerous." He looked behind him then sighed in pleasure. "Thankfully nothing took that hint." Carol smiled at him for that thought. "Weird things happen around here." He shrugged as he walked off. "Have fun, come back soon? We like talking to you. You're weird in different ways."

She laughed but nodded, going to change so she could take that metal off. It needed to be dropped into a star. No one wanted that to be in any sort of hands because it would probably be misused. Or cause them problems they'd blame on Stark. Then Carol really had to get to Louisiana to talk to her best friend and niece. But duty before fun and all that heroic bullshit she hated to believe in.

Chris went to talk to Dr. Pym, who was still in his chamber. His wife was out. "Maybe we can link you to the hellmouth or something. At least that'd be more interesting than in here."

"Don't you dare," Phil Coulson's voice called.

"Yes, Uncle Phil," he sighed. "It was a hypothetical."

"We're going to find an anchor tonight, Chris. Quit stressing and go eat a cookie."

Chris grinned up. "Thanks!" He ran off to do that. He was kind enough to bring back a few cookies for the grown ups too. He smirked a tiny bit. "It could be a lot worse. You could be a ghost instead."

Pym ate one of the cookies then nodded once. "I'm not sure if her gear would help or not. Go get Hope to talk about it, Chris?" He nodded, running off to talk to her. She was down in the guest quarters for a bit with Scott.

Scott opened the door, grinning at the grinning madly kid. "What's up, Chris?"

"Dr. Pym ate a cookie and said that someone named Ghost might have a cure to him being in the tube. To ask Miss Hope about it."

Scott looked at Hope, who got up and followed the boys back to the containment center. "Ghost's gear?"

"It might stabilize my form," he said. "I'm not sure though."

"We can look at it." She pulled up her notes on it and nodded. Chris got a virtual screen to where his father was making hamburgers on the grill. "Stark, we may have an idea. One of our problems had some phase shifting gear and it might help."

"Great!" He shifted to look after flipping another burger. She showed him the files on Ghost's escapades and gear. He frowned. "The phase generator may help but he's not shedding energy that way. Though we might send him out and bring him back to see if he's stabilized." He leaned closer. "That other thing on her might be more pertinent.

"Nice job with that too, VanDyne." Hope smirked at him. "It's never been an area I was interested in but that's pretty work." He looked over and flipped the hamburgers again then put cheese on it. "Would you suggest moving him out and back?" he asked as he cheesed.

"It might work," Hank Pym agreed. Chris let him have a tablet to do the math on, getting a smile back for that. "You're going to do great things, Chris."

"Maybe when I'm out of my pretty girls phase. I've got a whole lot to figure out about pretty girls and it's better to do that when you're younger instead of being over forty. Then they only want your wallet and name but not you cuddling."

"This is coming from the same kid that used to explain that boys were mean because he has a penis," Tony joked, smirking at his son. "I take it you finally quit finding girls icky?"

"Um....unfortunately?" he guessed.

"It's a part of puberty we all get, kiddo. It means a few more talks and stuff and some confusing times coming. Just like Callia had thanks to her breasts."

"I'm just glad I don't have them," Chris complained. "Bras itch."

Tony nodded. "Especially the pretty ones."

Janet VanDyne looked at Chris. "Did you wear one to find that out?"

"Um, yeah. Liz convinced Philip and me that we had to be girls to fit in. I do a *fantastic* makeup job. I can rock slutty heiress clothes better than my sister too." He grinned. "Bras still suck."

"Women wouldn't wear them if men didn't complain," Hope said. "Better than corsets but still annoying things we wear for guys."

Chris grinned up at her. "I don't care if my girlfriends don't wear bras. Heiress clothes mean that you can't wear one anyway." He shrugged but smirked. "Titties gotta be titties even when they're in man-traps."

Hope burst out giggling but Scott hugged him. "I need to teach my daughter that, Chris. Thanks." He walked off calling her.

Janet patted Chris on the shoulder. "Sometimes you appreciate the effort and sometimes you don't need it, Chris. Sometimes we wear them for special occasions." He hugged her and she smiled at him. "You're a good boy." He beamed and nodded then left them to talk phase science because he had not a clue about that sort of science. It didn't have machines, he didn't understand it.

Tony shook his head. "Loki got them a magazine for transvestites a few years back. They can pass very well. Him and Philip both. I keep seeing his future wedding dress being a huge, puffy, glittering thing."

"If I get married I'm doing it in a bikini on a beach somewhere quiet," Callia called.

"That'll keep press people down," Tony quipped back. Tony looked around where he was. "Just don't get a sex tape online, daughter."

"Ewww, gross," she complained. "Dicks are a useless thing unless you're using it to destroy an idiot man, Dad."

"Good!" He beamed and nodded. "You keep thinking that, daughter!"

Hope started to snicker, looking at her father. "I knew you weren't going to be that wild, Hope," he said. "I just hoped you'd never find a guy to date so I didn't have to think about you having relations." He went back to the math. "We'd have to recalibrate Ghost's generator to take me out of phase and back to see if I can quit shedding energy. I'm not sure if it'll work though."

"We can always try," Hope reminded him. "If not, it probably won't hurt, would it?"

"No, at the worst it'd be ineffective but not harmful."

"Then we'll work on that once someone can find it," Tony decided.

"SHIELD took it," Hope said.

"Coulson, we need the gear that Ghost had to try to help Pym," Tony yelled.

"Tomorrow," got called back.

"Thanks." He grinned but shrugged slightly. "We'll see what he can find."

"Thank you, Tony," Janet said.

He grinned. "Not a problem, Dr. Janet," Callia quipped. "I'm learning a lot from you guys while working on problems." She leaned into view. "It's gotten me out of an english paper too." Tony swatted her but she just grinned and winked at them. "One of your interns wanted to take me on a date. I said I'm not old enough but I think that turned him on."

"William?" Hope guessed. Callia nodded. "I have the feeling you'd have to tase him, kiddo."

"Me too but I prefer lasers." She winked and got out of view.

"I made great kids," Tony decided. "And if he touches you I get to kill him after you burn him, daughter."

"Yup, if Mommy Pepper doesn't get there first."

"Point." Hope and Janet snickered at that agreement.

Dr. Pym just shook his head. This Stark was a lot different from the old one he used to know and hate. This Stark he might just stand. Maybe.

***

Liz got out of the car so she could walk over to someone. "Hey, Cassie." She grinned. "I'm kidnaping you to your dad. He went on a total brain fart earlier about you being in danger because of the HYDRA idiots who're at your school. So let's go."

"You're Liz Potts," she said, looking confused.

"Yeah!" She beamed at her. "Usually they only recognize my sister Callia and sometimes Chris." She nodded. "Let's head before the icky HYDRA sorts try to attack."

"We have to save the other kids." She looked around. "Oh, dear." There was a strike team like in the movies. "Mrs. Jenkins?" she called and pointed. The teacher screamed in horror.

"Guys, evacuate the area. Shooters!" Liz yelled. "Stark Security team?" she bellowed and pointed. They rushed over to help protect the kids. One of them got Liz and Cassie out of the way but the HYDRA guys were fleeing because Bucky had just shown up from the following car. He got three of them down and ready for arrest but a few more escaped. Liz looked around. "Uncle Bucky?" she shouted with a point, making Cassie duck and head behind a tree.

Bucky spotted the problem sniper and got them down too. "Car, Liz. You know that."

"Yes, Uncle Bucky." She ran that way with Cassie, dragging her along, with one of the guards going with them. Liz sighed once they were inside the car, leaning back. "Damn. Sometimes I hate those sorts more than others." She got them a bottle of water from the mini fridge and handed Cassie one. "We're safe in here and I have the keys." She held them up with a grin.

"Why did they attack here?"

"Girlfriend, you got tagged." Liz stared at her. "They want your Uncle Hank's work."

"I know nothing about that."

"Yeah but a hostage can lead to a hand over demand."

"Point." She sipped her water, watching the other kids be gathered. "I need to let the teacher know. And my mom. She's going to freak out."

"Use my phone," Liz said, digging it out of her pocket to hand over. "That way they can't trace yours. Call your dad too." She nodded, relaxing to sip her water and call her mother. She started out with an 'I'm okay', which made her mother shriek, and went on to tell her why it had happened. That got a bit more screaming but mostly about her dad. Liz took the phone. "Hey, it's Liz Potts. She's safe. We made sure no one could get her to try to make her father hand over information.

"And she was under that much stress before because they were looking her way to see if he'd build something." She took a sip of water. "No, we heard rumors that they were going to show up today so I showed up with my bodyguard sort of guy that takes me to school to kidnap her to her father's side. Then HYDRA showed up." The mother complained some more. "No, she's fine. We're in the bulletproof car. I'm going to tell her teacher in a minute. She's all right. Yup, going to Malibu. Thanks, her mom." She hung up and shook her head. "Wow."

"Moms can be that way. Wouldn't your mom scream?"

"Once we made it home. Callia got a lot of those for going into Summers woman mode." She grinned. "She does it very well." She looked. "Let me go tell your teacher I'm stealing you."

"I should."

"You stay. It's safer. No one's going to bother me because they don't want an Avenger in their grillz." She got out and jogged over to the school bus. "Hey." She smiled a bit. "Are you Cassie's teacher?" She nodded slowly. "I'm glad we heard rumors that they might come for her to get her dad. I showed up to bring her to her father." The teacher looked confused. "I'm Liz Potts, Pepper's daughter." She smiled slightly.

"I...her mother wouldn't appreciate that." Liz pulled out her phone to re-call Cassie's mom so they could talk like grown up.

Bucky stomped over. "You're still to be in a safe location."

"She needed to tell her teacher we're bringing her with us. They know not to shoot me, Uncle Bucky. They'd hate to have Mom in their face. Or Dad."

"Point," he admitted. "Minor bit of tactical rule breaking there, Liz." He stared at her. "You have extra escape classes this weekend."

"Please." She grinned. "Before I get the mimbos that want to flirt with my sister."

"She's getting extra then too. Teenage boys are assholes." Liz smiled and took her phone back from the teacher. "Are we cleared to bring Cassie to her father?"

"Yes. Her mother is most upset."

"I'm upset HYDRA still exists," Liz said with a grimace. "Someone really needs to release a nundu in their camp." Bucky looked confused. "It's a mythical creature that breathes diseases." She smirked a tiny bit. "It'd serve them right."

"Don't turn into your older sister, Liz. She drives us nuts when she goes into Summers woman mode."

"Nah, I'm not that sort of woman. I turn into a Stark." She grinned at the teacher. "Is she okay?"

"She's fine, Miss Potts. Thank you for the help."

"I would've just shown up and taken her but then I saw the super yucky moron parade." She shrugged. "Glad I could help." She walked off with Bucky.

Bucky nodded at the teacher. "It should be safe to continue. The last few agents are on the run. Go back to enjoying the park. Local law enforcement is guarding it too." He pointed at the ones who had responded so she could talk to them herself. The teacher relaxed and nodded, letting them leave together. He looked at Liz. "That was dumb."

"No it wasn't. I was going to show up and be impressive then sneak her off."

"Not a bad plan," he admitted. "Go back to the compound with her. You can use more normal girl time." She nodded, jogging back to her car so they could head off. Bucky looked up. "And she's the easy one," he sighed. The guard with him laughed. Bucky nodded. "Yeah. She's almost a teenager. Soon it'll be dates and college boys."

"Could be worse. Her mom used to model. She could turn into a traveling socialite sort."

Bucky looked at him. "Then I'd be stapling one of you to her." He got into the car so they could follow the teens. The kids were driving him nuts this week. He still had the tiniest one, the one without any sense, just like her father, to go.

***

Liz walked into the Malibu center, finding her father waiting. "I did not turn into Callia, Dad."

He stared at her. "Are you certain?"

"I yelled, I got out of the way, I didn't take on or shoot a single blessed HYDRA member to get her to safety, I didn't drive myself, and I brought help." She smiled. "I turned into a Potts instead of a Summers." Tony snorted but looked amused. "Is her dad still pacing?"

"In the gym." He pointed. "Building five, Avengers gym, ladies. Welcome to Stark International, Miss Lang." He shook her hand and let his second daughter lead her there. Tony went to calm down Pepper. "She's right, she didn't turn into a Summers woman, she turned into your style of handling things, Pep." He kissed her on the forehead then left her to angst over her daughter's first kidnaping of someone.

Pepper huffed but she'd talk to Liz later. All Potts women had sense. Liz needed to be reminded of that.

***

Cassie was let into the gym and found a lot more kids. "Are you adopting, Dad?"

Scott beamed and hugged her. "Nope. It's apparently a free day."

"We got kicked out," Chris and Philip said together. "We were ahead of where the substitute teacher was."

Philip nodded with a grin. "She thought we should be back by four years. She was kinda an idiot because she yelled at us for being smart. Thankfully I told Mommy Natasha instead of Mommy Dawn." Chris nodded quickly at that. He looked at his buddy then at the new girl. "I'm Philip Summers. Who're you?" he asked with a smile. His mommy said his smile was pretty.

"I'm Cassie Lang. This is my dad." She shook their hands.

"I'm Chris Stark," he said with a wink and a grin. "Are you into science too?"

"Not totally, no."

"That's okay. Neither's Liz. We're used to girls who do other things." He looked at Scott then at Philip. "We need to go sort out the closet and hand the whiny ones play clothes."

"They'll look great in that new plum dress you bought that was too small," Philip agreed. "Thanks, Mr. Lang. Have fun with your daughter." The boys ran off.

"They wear dresses?" Cassie said. Then she shrugged. "I've seen weirder than that." Her father grinned, hugging her again. "We totally had a problem, Dad."

"With Liz snatching you?"

"With the HYDRA guys that Liz got there before they could snatch me instead." He scowled. She nodded. "Liz thought they might use me to get you to hand over stuff or build stuff."

"I'd ask Barton to help me beat them all," he assured her, cuddling her. "Or maybe one of his scary wives."

She giggled. "Maybe Miss Hope?"

"Probably. She'd probably lead the way and tell me I'm being slow."

Clint leaned in. "Did the grounded twins come this way?"

"The boys went to clean their closets to give the younger girls their cast off dresses."

"Good! I'm tired of their style of dresses. They look like they're in the fifties." He looked at Cassie then at him. "She okay?"

"Liz went to kidnap her right before HYDRA got there."

Clint leaned in more, staring at him. "Excuse me?" Cassie looked at him and nodded. "Huh. We'll have to remind them to be scared of us. Let me talk to someone."

"Tooooo late," floated up the halls. "They think we're weak; they're stupid," a male voice said. "Sucks to be them."

Clint looked. "Let me know what you're doing, Jonathan. So we can pick them up or add in."

"Of course. I can't do alpha male as well as you do, Clint." He skipped off.

Clint shuddered then nodded once. "Yeah, we'll see how HYDRA does with evil. Maybe their wives can divert their attention." He walked off to talk to the geek wives. Before Dawn had to clean up a mess.

Scott looked at his daughter, who shrugged back. "Those two geeks wanted to be evil overlords." She patted him on the shoulder. He cuddled her again. He needed more daughter cuddles to make sure she was all right. Her mom had said some boy wanted to date her so she needed protected.

***

Liz walked into the cafeteria that night. "People, the only evil allowed here is me and possibly my baby sister. She's too young to think it's more than fun. So no evil plots or plans without me running it please." She grinned. "Some day I'm going to that evil genius high school track to make sure I have all the training I need but for now, the only evil here is me. Give me ideas and I'll gladly stretch my evil wings." She strolled off again.

Andrew and Jonathan shared a look, Andrew moaning a tiny bit. Their wives nodded. "She's going to do so great with that," Jonathan said. "Even better than we did."

"She'll have fun doing it," Andrew agreed then ate a bite of dinner. "Those poor boys in her future." Their wives giggled but nodded. They'd have to give Liz some ideas when they tested the baby Potts for evil ideas.

"At least she'll be a humane overlord," Jonathan noted. The others nodded because Dawn had done good teaching the kids ethics.

***

Liz met with her mentor that night. "Auntie Natasha, can you please tell me what I'm missing with my current plan? I know I'm missing something but not what."

"Of course. What are you plotting?" She held out a hand so Liz handed over the spiral notebook. "Nice security with your handwriting being so poor." She flipped through it slowly, reading it all. She looked up at the young woman. "What if they resist?"

"Page sixty something?" Liz suggested. Natasha went back to that. She also nodded slowly. "I know I'm missing something but not what."

"You're missing that it would cause problems with whoever this was planned for." She stared at her. "It would make your father scream most likely."

"He could hire so we could make sure they're reasonably ethical. I'm sure whatever geeks they have would like being ethical." She tipped her head to the side and smiled slightly. "We can totally remake that problem so it's helpful and good. It might even get used by some of Callia's challengers."

"Were you contemplating HYDRA?" she asked.

"No, those icky science morons."

"AIM?" she demanded.

Liz smiled and nodded. "They had plans to kidnap Chris and make him work for them. I'm the only one that gets to torture Chris. Plus he'd never be able to destroy them himself so I've got to do it before they get to use him. Dad would really hate that."

"I can mention that to your father."

"I've got the names of three young geniuses who'd do great running it as an alternative to whatever my sister thinks up." She pulled them up on her phone. "I was looking them over for Callia. She was wondering if they'd like to join her later think tank." She showed her aunt. "Would that work?"

"I...." Natasha reread it, considering it as a plan. "Many contingencies are covered but not all."

"What am I missing? Can you help?" She beamed and bounced a bit. "I don't get mentors like they get from the geeks. I could use a great mentor to help me with my planning."

"It's not a bad start," Natasha admitted. "There's a few points you didn't consider. We'll go over this after your escape lessons this weekend." Liz squealed and hugged her, taking her phone and notebook back to bound off. Natasha thought about warning someone but...she wasn't sure if the child could do it or not. She'd have to watch over her shoulder.

Perhaps she could someday take Joyce's place at the head of SHIELD. Though she would have to check Dawn's own plans for those sort to make sure Liz's wouldn't be bothered. Dawn didn't need to take out AIM or HYDRA. It'd give her a bad reputation among the business sorts.

***

Callia had the Pym Particle and phase devices in her lab to look over. Her father had to run off to save San Diego with his group of besties. Chris had sighed that it wasn't very much for him since it wasn't really a machine sort of machine, and it definitely didn't go fast like he liked to tinker with, so she had it to try to arrange it so they could finish fixing the old Dr. Pym. He'd probably like to be out of that tube. She had a thought and did the math on a virtual screen, frowning at it as she modified it. She took that up to the containment chamber, ducking her head when she realized she had interrupted the older couple. "Sorry."

"It's all right," Janet said patiently. "He's done it before and so did Hope, Callia." Callia came in and put up her math so they could see it. "Hmm. Just sending you out of phase won't fully help."

"We could *probably* warp it but that'll mean magic getting into your tech. Which may be dangerous."

Hank Pym grimaced. "That's a bit weird."

"Yeah but magic makes all things smoother," she said with a slight grin. "It's the lube for a lot of physics if you know what you're looking for. Grandpa Bruce gets *so* frustrated with that."

He nodded. "I can see why. I never considered magic by any form." He stared at it. "You dropped an integer." She looked and sighed but redid it. He nodded that was correct. "So any idea?"

"I'm thinking we'd have to do it on Asgard or somewhere magically active that way, and possibly with magic instead of your particles. I'm not sure if we can do that down here and Auntie Dawn's asleep by now thanks to the triplets being little jackholes all day." He scowled. So did Janet. "You didn't get to see them having a color fight about one's outfit. Changed it back and forth until they all ended up crying with magic overuse headaches and still hating the shirt. Like that scene in _Cinderella_ with the fairy godmothers only with cranky toddlers.

Finally Chris stopped it and changed it back to the natural color, ending all the dyes in it, and that made them scream more until Philip told them off for being spoiled little kids. So they snuck out, creating a huge problem with security, and went to hug Mom, who was in New York. They found Liz at least, and she got them calmed down, but they went home to complain a lot and Philip's hiding from them because they were cranky little jackholes all day too."

"You live a weird life, Callia," Janet said patiently.

She nodded. "I'm kinda glad I didn't have that sort of problem when I was little. I used my magic to climb bookcases to get books on animals." She shrugged but grinned. "I'll talk with Auntie Dawn and Auntie Tara tomorrow to see if what I think it'll take will. Then we'll have Dad help when he gets back from whatever's trying to eat San Diego." They nodded. She smiled. "Let me go get dinner. You guys go back to cuddling things. They're important when you're married." She strolled off with her walker squeaking in the quiet halls.

Janet looked at Hank. "If that's true, it's probably why you had all those early wobbles in your attempts." He nodded. "Hopefully you'll be out soon."

"I hope so too. It'd be nice to take a real shower instead of the tiny micro shower in here."

"At least they thought of that. Most people wouldn't."

He nodded. "Tony did make these comfortable." He sat down again. Their teasing mood had been broken by the interruption but they had been together for many years before Janet had gotten stuck. It was an easy transition into talking for them.

***

Chris was watching the news when Callia strolled in. "Dad's injured," he said in greeting.

She sat down, staring at the news feed. "What the hell is that?"

"Something that'll probably take more firepower." The kids shared a look. "JARVIS, can you send Dad the thing on his workbench?" he called.

"No. He said to leave that there, children. It's too powerful and would cause other damage."

Callia considered it. "C'mon," she said. Chris came with her to her lab, getting into something she had been working on. Chris grinned, taking it and the spare suit for their mother that they weren't supposed to know about. JARVIS tried to lock him out so he went to the other suit, the one he had been playing around with to show his father his ideas. It needed a power source but he could mange that. Kinda. His sister's power cube was handily available for his stealing and use.

"Your father would be quite upset," JARVIS noted patiently.

"Not if he's dead." He finally finished and locked in the new ideas he had. Callia brought down her new UAV things for him to take with him too. That'd help a lot. Chris got into the suit, locking it around him since the suit put-on system wouldn't work for him. Then he flew out and down the coast.

Callia waved. "Be safer and smarter than usual!" she yelled after him. "Before Mom gets you next time!" She went back to her lab to tinker something into being. Her paternal unit would probably need it. Yup, the news showed they yelled at Chris but he helped with the UAV's and a few other options he had.

They were down to half the alien menace but more were trying to come in. Janet came stomping in. "Miss Hope's suit is in there," she said with a point. "It's in the repair unit because she had a lot of small rips." Janet smiled, looking it over before putting it on with a few grunts. Callia got her something. "Tasers help?"

"Yes, dear. Thank you." She took the wrist tasers like Natasha used to put on and zipped up the suit with a wince. It was a bit tight. She put on a helmet and left to head down there to help.

Callia looked at her options then sighed and considered it. She told Andrew that Chris had went to help her father. He stomped off to get their battle robots to help too. Callia got her brace frame for her own special suit but it didn't fit right. She didn't have time to add two inches for her latest growth spurt.

So she'd have to do something...wackier than usual. She had a brace for long standing needed times. She had something that could pass as her aunt's battle outfit without the chainmail. Though she did bum it for a bit. Together, she looked hot but dangerous. She sent herself down there via the beaming satellite and appeared then pulled magic up to blast a few of the aliens.

"Grounded!" her father yelled. "So damn grounded!"

"Yup, if we all survive and so does the city," she quipped back. She looked at the portal, moving to help Tara with it. It shut, cutting off new aliens. The old ones were going nuts.

"Put up a shield so they can't escape," Tara said quietly. Callia nodded and did that. That shoved the aliens back into the line of fire. Then Callia set off her add-ons to Chris's suit. The aliens mostly got exploded. The few left were destroyed by the Hulk, who was not happy that they squished instead of broke. Callia looked at Tara, who shrugged back. "Sometimes you gotta step in and help a tiny bit."

She looked over. "Chris, get to medical," she shouted. "I saw that limp!" He flew off quickly to get out of the way of nagging. She sighed and looked around, then pointed. "There's the guy that opened the portal." Tara looked, grimacing. Dawn showed up and took that one out with an arrow to the neck. The spell whipped around until she, Tara, and Callia froze it and absorbed it. Then all three witches sighed in pleasure.

"So damn grounded," Dawn yelled, glaring at Callia. "Next time, wake me the fuck up, niece!"

"I thought someone tried," she quipped back then waved a hand and hit the beaming satellite's remote to send her home. The radar in the lab was showing that Chris was only a few miles away. Callia went to medical, it was standard procedure after a fight, and got cleared to go hide. Chris got his leg bandaged, and a few bruises creamed with stuff to make them quit hurting so much.

The siblings shared a look and used the beaming satellite to go to the house in North Dakota. They could get lost there for a few days until their parents calmed down. Callia even hid the remote for the satellite so no one could find her using it and bring them home for a few days.

Tony Stark looked around the battle then at his people. "Thanks, Dawn."

"Welcome. If someone had told us I would've been here sooner." She stared at the downed sorcerer then shook her head. Tara had magic nullifying cuffs to use on him so that was handy. Dawn went to check on the others. Hulk was pouting. She patted him on the arm, getting a pouty look. "Do you want to help yell at the kids?"

Hulk shook his head. "Hulk hides behind you while Joyce yells."

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Dawn said, smiling at him. "Go home, Stepdad. Get calm, get treated, tell Mom." He nodded, heading for the jet to go home. "Clean up teams, bosses?"

"Coming," Steve called back. "SHIELD is in route to clean up their messes." He looked around then at Tony. "Do you want first screaming or second?"

"We were down," Dawn said as she walked over. She waved a hand. "Even heros that aren't Avengers were here, Steve. You guys didn't call in reinforcements so we had to show up on our own. The kids decided it was that necessary. Though they do need to be reminded of their ages and Chris needs to fix his damn suit since it looked like a pile of scrap."

She took a deep breath. Then she turned and hit the portal trying to open, destroying it. "No thank you. Had enough stupid today already!" She looked at Tony and Steve again, who were both shaking their heads. "If you had called me earlier...."

"You were exhausted," Tony reminded her.

"I know that." She smirked at him. "Sometimes you gotta do it anyway." She walked off. "Dr. Janet, lets get you back for medical checks. The docs can be mean if you try to avoid them." She nodded, walking over. "You look good in your daughter's suit. Most women can't fit into their daughter's clothes but you do it well."

"It's a bit tight."

"Yeah but older women have different bodies than younger ones. Pregnancy did it to all of us," she quipped. "I gained an ass that makes Clint happy and then breast fed Philip to get bigger boobs. My chainmail had to be adjusted. Which sucks since my niece fit into it pretty well." They went back together talking about remaking her old suit to fit her now.

Tony shook his head, looking around. "Let's hit the medics, people. Those who aren't ours and need it, we can bring you there and let you hide from the Malibu facility if you want." Most of the hurried off to join them to get away from the press and agents showing up. Steve followed on the way to the quinn jet. Tony flew off talking to his AI and Pepper about the kids and them being in a lot of trouble. When Tony finally made it out of his suit, he found Liz waiting on him. "What's up, Liz?" He hugged her.

"My stupid siblings that jumped in like Summers women are hiding at one of the other houses. I'm pretty sure they're in some woods." She grinned. "Maeve is so damn fussy. She called her besties at Auntie Dawn's house to wake her up for the battle. I grounded her for that since Mom was still in New York." Tony gave her an extra squeeze for that. "Are the bad aliens coming back, Dad?"

"Not if they're smart." She grinned and skipped off to do her homework. That wouldn't get her into any sort of trouble. Someone would look at what she had been doing if she got in trouble. Her mother might not like her ideas on taking out bad people. Pepper liked to negotiate, not take over.

Tony went down to medical to get his checks. "Steve, your daughter's grounded for waking up Dawn." Dawn snorted and flicked a hand in the air. "Liz grounded her for it. The older two are somewhere, probably with woods."

"North Dakota?" Dawn guessed. Tony nodded. "Well, they probably won't get into trouble for a few hours. There's supplies in case they want to eat. They might think they'll be safe in a few days." She grinned. "Then I get to yell, right?"

"After us. Parents first," Tony quipped. "Because I'm about to beat my children."

"Did you know Chris had his own suit?" Janet asked from where she was getting her wrist wrapped up. It was a tiny sprain.

"After we got back from the realm merge I designed one to get each of the kids to safety. He wasn't supposed to use it for that. I think he's been tinkering." He grimaced. "I love my kids but I didn't want them to turn into me."

"I think we all want that for our children," Janet said, staring at her daughter when she stomped in. "I'm fine, Hope."

"Mom," she said patiently. "You should've had us called."

"I was doing this since before you were born," Janet shot back patiently. "And you're not really fit for full field battles."

Hope scowled. "I could've done it, Mom. My suit's still got holes. It could've gotten you hurt again!" she insisted quietly.

"Dear, I'm fine. It was my choice."

"I'm going to tell Dad."

"He saw me stomp off and complained," she admitted. "If he could've gotten free he would've taken Scott's suit." She stared at her. "I'm fine. Callia even came up with a way to get Hank out of that tube." Tony stared at her. "She thinks it'll take a bit of magic to lube it."

"That's interesting," Tony said. "When I grab her I'll have her show me so we can work on it." He looked over at Dawn. "My daughter fit your chainmail better than you do."

"I noticed," she shot back, smirking at him. "I've lost all the baby weight but the usual breast expansion did happen, boss. I was going to take it up there to have them mend it for me anyway."

He nodded. "Not what I'm concerned about, Dawn."

"Yeah, boss, your daughter's stacked," she said with a grin. "But you knew that before."

Janet was snickering. "She did look much older than fifteen." Hope nodded she agreed. "Where did the chainmail come from, Dawn?"

"The dwarves made it for me when Xander asked before the battle in Sunnydale." She grinned. "I just grew too much breast after the triplets to fit into it easily. The rest of the outfit she wore today is like a throwback to my original outfit of a long sleeved unitard only she had leather."

Tony shook his head. "I'm going to beat them both."

"She probably couldn't fit into her suit," Dawn said. Tony scowled. "She's hitting her last growth spurt a bit early."

"Wonderful!" he snarled. "Just what I needed to think about," he complained.

"Sorry, Tony, but your eldest is fifteen. Nearly sixteen." Tony scowled. Dawn grinned back. "We can't stop time that way. Though one of the labs is looking into age retarding nanites for some reason."

"What?" Tony demanded. "Since when?"

"Since Pepper was angsting about a wrinkle so they thought it might be really good for the company's pocketbook. They were going to sell it to the hollywood types that worry about that too."

"Hell no," he muttered. He shook his head and rubbed it. "Have they handed in reports?"

"Yeah. Lab 14."

He got up and went to look at those reports. He really had to talk to his geeks.

Dawn grinned at the others. "Sometimes geeks have ideas." She got up to hug Jonathan and Andrew. "You guys are good at that too." She strolled off. "I'm going home to ground my triplets for their magic abuse earlier."

"I can come help," Tara called, following her. "It might take a full coven to out stubborn your triplets."

Dawn nodded. "I think so too." They shared a smile. The triplets were about as stubborn as Philip was. It'd probably take Clint getting into them to make them behave.

Janet shook her head. "I'm really glad you didn't grow up with magic like that," she said with a smile for her daughter. Hope smirked back but helped her mother off the table so they could go talk. She needed to yell at her mother.

Steve looked over from his bed, shaking his head. "I'm kinda glad Maeve doesn't have magic either." A few in there laughed. "If you spot the other two first, let us know so we can yell at them please." He got up. "Let me go shower and get a meal." He walked off shaking his head but plotting how to yell at his two children. Bucky ran into him in the hallway. "The scientific two are in deep shit."

Bucky nodded. "The youngest is a problem and Liz has plans she's started to put out."

"Plans?"

"She's going to take over somewhere, Steve."

"Aw." He grimaced. "I'll talk to her."

"She went to Natasha but I'm not so sure she won't take out a bad group."

"She probably could. She is just as strong as Pepper is."

Bucky nodded. "And as wacky as her aunt."

"Could be," Steve agreed. "I'll talk to her after a sandwich and a shower."

"Food's on the counter. Shower's all yours." Steve patted him on the arm before heading for the food first.

***

Tony looked at his geeks the next morning. "I feel like Callia right now but apparently I've missed some stuff. We're not the evil in the universe, people."

"Does that mean Liz would have to take us over if we do become the great evil ones?" one of the geeks quipped. Tony shook his head with a sigh but that geek pulled up Liz's announcement in the caf to show him. "She'll do great, Tony."

"We've discovered my darling daughter had plans of taking out AIM. And nearly managed it. We made her hand it to Natasha." A few geeks laughed. "Seriously! She got them about halfway down and was going to suggest a few geeks that wouldn't join Callia's later thinktank take it over." A few of them moaned. "The kids are getting scary."

"I take it you saw the Times?" Jonathan asked. Andrew winced. Tony stared at him until Jonathan pulled up their online website and that article was right on top. It had a picture of Callia from the battle and the headline 'Iron Lady yet still disabled and being a teenage heroic role model.' Tony sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. "Where are they?"

"North Dakota thinking I can't pull them back by the satellite without the remote." He took it to read, then handed it back and kicked the wall before looking at people again. "Anyway, we'll get back to the kids in a bit when I can beat their asses." A few laughed. "People, apparently you're not truthfully reporting on weekly reports.

"I found out we've got four or five projects that I don't have a thing on the reality of it. While I don't mind our nanite team working, the subset that was working on anti-aging nanites....I'm to clear all those sort of projects before you start it, people." They huffed but nodded.

"Andrew, please go over Callia's math with Dr. Pym? She's thinking it may take magic." He nodded at that, looking pleased. "Otherwise, I need to be updated this week on everyone's *real* projects. We don't need another situation like the guys that were going to split the atoms in an old arc reactor."

"Or the one that was working with the goo clones so they could stage a takeover event," Jonathan quipped. "Those were not fun."

"Or those," Tony agreed. "So everyone has to update me this week. By Saturday, and please don't wait until the last minute. Liz has her first riding lessons Saturday afternoon. If I don't get updated I'm going to lock you out of your labs until I hear from you." That got a few pouty looks. "I don't want to encourage the kids to have to save us all, people. Or Dawn." That got a lot of nods. Dawn would be mean to them if she had to save them. She had yelled at them in the past when she had saved them.

"It's blue!" a tiny voice shouted.

Tony sighed and looked out there. "Stop it!" he shouted. "Quit magicing things! Quit arguing! Go back to the daycare before I make sure none of you get cookies today and they all know to blame you three!" The trio ran off crying. "Thank you!" He looked at them. "Help Dawn with that please. The triplets are going to end up harming themselves."

Jonathan grinned and waved a hand. "Loki showed up to talk to them about how they were doing chaos magic. He's a hamster in our lab, boss." Tony burst out laughing. "Dawn's promised to get him changed back today."

"I needed that," he said. "I'd buy them cookies for that but it'd encourage them to do it again." Jonathan grinned at him. "Wow. I've got to tell Clint."

"He apologized for them."

Tony nodded. "Great. Okay, go gather things, sign up for an updating talk spot today please. Don't make the kids save us please, people." They nodded, trailing out to work on their reports. Tony probably wouldn't get any that day but tomorrow he'd get a ton of people ready to talk to him. The rest would probably be Friday and Saturday.

Tony went to check on the hamster of Loki. It just huffed when he saw it. "I'll talk with the triplets about not doing that. You need anything?" The hamster shook his head. "I'll tell Dawn too." He walked off texting Dawn. He almost felt sorry for the God of Mischief. Kinda. Almost.

Dawn walked into the lab that night, staring at the hamster. She sighed and undid the spell, making Loki reappear next to the cage. "I'm sorry. They're horrible and I'm trying to teach them better but they're young."

"They're strong," he said patiently.

Dawn nodded. "And stubborn. Tara and I both had a talk with them about their clothing issues. Any idea on how to stop that?"

"Limiting band. I'll ask Freyr for one." He disappeared.

Dawn went to talk to her triplets in the daycare about bad magical ideas. Turning people into hamsters wasn't a good idea. Even Callia had learned that. She spotted a copy of the Times and stared then groaned and took it out of the trash to save for Callia to complain about.

***

Callia and Chris got beamed home, with their remote for the satellite, though Steve walked past and confiscated it before they could grab it again. Tony smirked at his children. "You're both so very, very much in trouble," he said, sounding amused. "Even your grandfather is hiding so he doesn't have to hear Joyce yell."

"Had to happen. We can't let you die yet, Dad," Chris said then shrugged and tried to walk off. Unfortunately Callia had installed her freezing beam in the security system so he got caught there. Callia winced but sat down. She got frozen too. Then Tony got up and let Joyce yell first. They'd never remember what he needed to yell at them about if she went second.

Bruce finally walked in and gently pulled Joyce from the room to calm her down. Dawn nicely had a cup of tea waiting on them for Joyce's sore throat. Tony's usual coffee mug had some honey tea waiting on him too. Tony took it to sip while he went to yell at his own children for being smartass Starks.

At the end, Dawn walked in and put two newspapers in front of the kids. "Something else to consider before you do something so stupid again, kids. Not until you're an adult, or if you have to so you're protected." She stared at Chris. "He's found your suit. He's disabled it and wanted to talk about your updates." Chris moaned but went to handle that. She looked at Callia. Who was staring at her picture. "Yeah. And social media is going nuts that you haven't been online."

"I was ignoring it," she admitted, looking up at her aunt. "I...I don't want to be that girl."

Dawn leaned down some. "Then quit doing things that make you that girl." She smirked. "And don't steal my chainmail again, Callia. Talk to someone so you can get your own made when you've finished growing." She straightened up. "Go gather stuff because your father called for a mass updating as people were doing things he didn't know about."

Callia groaned but walked off, finding her walker waiting on her in the hallway. That let her take off the brace and relax finally. She had a ton of stuff to gather to show her father. Who'd probably pout a bit but she'd handle that she guessed.

Dawn strolled off, going to check on her triplets of misery in the daycare. They were pouting at the limiting bracelets they were wearing but it was a relief to everyone. Clint was in there helping the daycare workers with his pouty young ones, and the rest of the kids loved him too. Dawn let him handle it after getting a kiss and going to do her checking rounds.

Clint grinned at the triplets. "Your mom's happy today, guys. You should color her a picture." They settled in to color, stealing crayons from each other. Those three loved to fight with each other for some reason. Shamira and Alexina were doing daycare, thankfully, so they weren't egging the triplets on. Philip was back in class today, thankfully. Clint decided he'd talk to the older three about not being heroic later that night. He needed to make sure Philip didn't want to follow Chris' lead and the older two didn't even think about it.

Liz walked in pouting, giving her uncle a hug. "Dad got really mad that I was taking out that bad, yucky science group."

Clint tipped her chin up. "That's because that's an adult job. You're turning into your sister."

"Eww." Clint grinned and nodded. "Fine." She sat down to help the triplets color. She also got them extra crayons so they had more choices and could just pick up a new one when theirs got stolen by their sibling. She had one last idea on how to get the super yucky science geeks down and she could think about that while she colored. Maybe she'd make sure her favorite aunt didn't have that much work to do. Auntie Natasha worked too hard sometimes.

Clint saw the plotting but he'd let Natasha handle it. She was Liz's mentor. She could handle the plotting. He looked at his kids then shook his head. Thankfully his kids weren't Starks so they wouldn't start plotting until they were teenagers.

***

Callia rolled out to the gate and sat on her walker's seat, staring at the reporters. "People, I don't want to be heroic but Chris and I are both going to be damned if we let our fathers die. So yes, we did jump in against all common sense and training. No, we're not going to make it a hobby. And I'm not going to turn into Dad by any means. I may be his female clone but I'm a lot more like my Aunt Dawn." A few pouted. "Don't get your hopes us for more than wacky, wonderful ideas from my think tank, people."

She stood up. "And I'm not a fashion icon either. I really hate clothes and I'm still mostly in leotards and shorts most of the time. I'm not the glamorous one that my mother or aunt is. I hope I never have to because each time I dress up that way I feel like I'm being a bimbo and I hate that."

She strolled off. "Back away from the gate please. You're blocking the delivery trucks and I need what's on one of them for lunch." They backed off and sent that film in. Callia was not going to be a Stark in the news if she could help it.

They'd have to see about Chris. Or Liz and Maeve.

Chris walked out a few minutes later to stare at them. "I'm not Dad. I'm not going to become Dad. I'm not Iron Lad or whatever they called me. Someday I might wear the suit but I'm not Dad, people. Leave off it before you piss us off and we start to run from you or buy an island to hide on or something."

"Are you going to head to college early?" a reporter called. "Most of your family did."

Chris looked at her. "No, I'm enjoying being a boy for a while. Why would I want to hurry that on? It looks even more boring than school does." He strolled off. "Go away please, people. Liz is looking for a new evil target. Don't make me suggest she take over a paper."

Liz leaned out of the main building with a grin and a wave. "I talked Mom into helping me buy stock in an internet news source so I can use them when I take over more yucky idiots who'd make you become a hero, Chris." She smirked at him. "Before Daddy Steve has a heart attack thanks to you." She smirked at the reporters. "Don't worry, some day I'll take over all the news outlets too." She disappeared. "I've got to help Mira and Lexi sort their closet because Maeve has weird ideas about fuschia."

"Of course she does. Mommy Steve taught her about Barbie," Chris quipped as he walked inside. "Eww, what is that?" he complained. "Lasers on, destroy the thingy!" A laser went off and the slime creature vaporized. "Thanks, JARVIS."

"Welcome, young sir," the AI said.

The reporters shared a look. They might really have to worry about Liz going evil and her siblings having to fight her. It was almost Shakespearian. Or Asgardian.

***

Hank Pym finally got free, after three attempts. He walked out of the containment tube, stretching up with a groan of pleasure.

"Hold it," Dawn said. "You've still got a tiny leaking spot." She moved closer. "I'm going to have to look. It's here on your side, Dr. Pym. I need to see if it's an injury or can be cured." She and Janet VanDyne both looked. "That's a melanoma," Dawn said quietly.

"Cancer would be counted as wrong cells so they'd probably not be fixed right," Callia said from her seat on the side. "Is it one of the ones you can remove and would that fix it, Auntie?"

"It would, I think. Let's start with removing it. That's the only spot you're leaking energy from so let's see if we can remove that?" she asked him.

"I'm not against that idea," he agreed. He let them take him to the infirmary. The docs came over. "They think they found one last energy leak from some wrong looking cells."

"Looks like skin cancer, Doctor Pigali." She showed her.

"That is a melanoma, yup." She got some local and what she'd need to remove it. "Let's get you sitting, Dr. Pym. Then we'll do your just in case exam. That way we make sure you're not sick from all that traveling. It can wear you out." He smiled slightly. She got the bit of skin cancer, and a bit around it, out then sewed the small hole up. "Dawn?"

She tested and nodded. "That stopped it." He relaxed and smiled. "If you get another one, we'd have to see if you go back to leaking but each time you use your Pym Particles it should stabilize easily enough." She smiled at him. "I'll leave you with your wife, sir, and tell your daughter since she's outside in the lunch garden while Scott talks to his daughter about dad stuff." She left them alone.

Callia waved with a grin. "I'll quit being a third wheel. I'm sure you want to snog or something that I don't really understand why people do yet." She strolled off.

Janet did kiss him, making him smile. "Some day she's going to be a brighter star than her father is," she said quietly. "You all right?"

"I'm fine, Janet." Scott walked in to spontaneously hug him then walked off talking on his phone. He smirked a tiny bit at her. He noticed Chris lurking in the doorway. "It's all right, we're both okay."

"Good." He grinned. "That way I can do big scientist chatting with people beyond Dad's tinkering group." He beamed. "Your wife's really smart, Dr. Pym." He ran off.

He looked at her. "Well, he's not wrong." She poked him but looked pleased. "And I can definitely see why the current generations aren't like Howard. Thankfully they won't be ruined by him." She hugged him again.

Tony leaned in. "I've sent a smug letter to my father that you're better than he ever was because your kid's a genius but normal. I'm told the ghost of Howard threw a fit." He smirked a tiny bit. "I also told Chris he can't just show up to pick your brain about things. Or Callia. Or even Liz, who might like to learn more strategy stuff. She seems to have a slight crush on Hope." He waved. "Have fun, people, and be safer please. The world needs more people who have sense. Before the triplets take it over." He walked off.

Hank looked at his wife. "That might be a horrible future."

"It might," she agreed. "But they'd probably want to solve humanity's bigger problems because they'd consider them icky."

"Could be." He hugged her. "We need to go on vacation."

"Take a second honeymoon," Doctor Pigali called from her office. They smiled and went to gather things so they could go home. Hope came in to help them gather things. Scott hung up and came in to do his own helping. Hope looked at him but he smirked back. So apparently the kid was okay for the moment.

"You are not allowed to become the evil triplet overlords of magic," Clint called up the hallway. "Put the damn bracelets back on before I sell all your clothes and toys!" The triplets burst out crying and ran to get Mommy hugs but they did put back on the bracelets. Hopefully they could seal them on until they had some sense. Doc shook her head with a sigh. So damn weird sometimes.

The End.
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