the avengers facility

"I'm a genius, and geniuses are never wrong. Well, unless their first name is Anthony."

Avengers Facility - January 9th, 2016

"You want me to initiate a paternity test?"

Dark brown eyes widened on a smooth, surprised face. Helen Cho's gaze flitted almost warily between Stark and Christa, and the girl could practically see the woman's brain whirring inside that head of hers.

Christa stood up a little straighter and folded her arms across her chest, not looking at Stark.

"Yes, I do," she and Stark said at the same time. They both glanced at each other out of the corners of their eyes, both unconsciously, both nervously, both wondering if the other was doing the same but not wanting to show any weakness. She could see his arms folded like hers in that look, and they both lowered them. And then, after that split second of movement, they both turned to look back at Doctor Cho.

Behind them and barely unheard by both, Clint muttered under his breath, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Everyone had seen this ever-so-brief and ever-so-subtle exchange between man and girl. Helen Cho's eyes wavered for a moment on both of them before she cleared her throat and stood up a little taller, seeming to pull herself together in that moment.

"Right this way." With that, she turned around, dark hair now seen in an elaborate bun at the back of her head, white lab coat barely moving as she began to walk.

The group had arrived on the private jet just minutes previously. The sky had been clear, only a few clouds dotting the blue during the bright January afternoon. And the Avengers Facility had been quite the sight.

Huge, metallic, professional, set amidst a field of green grass as bright as the sky. Glass and metal walls and an enormously obvious letter "A" adorning the top, the place looked like a dream to Christa. She could practically smell the technological advancements being made here. As she had stepped beside Clint into the facility, her head had tilted back to look at everything, soaking it all in like a towel on Michael Phelps. She almost forgot her predicament, the whole reason she was here in the first place.

And she wondered, almost unconsciously, why she hadn't felt this way in Stark Tower.

She supposed that was the nerves.

So now Christa was here. In the middle of a laboratory in the Avengers Facility in Upstate New York, the doctor named Helen Cho before her, Pepper Potts and the Avengers Tony Stark and Clint Barton beside her. The room was shorter than the opening hall to the facility had been, and instead of the sunlight coming in from the outside she thought she saw man-made lights, perhaps mixed in with faintly blue glow around her. Around her were scientists, white lab coats adorning their figures, working their way through what looked like fantastical things she'd only dreamed about.

"Nanotechnology for surgeries," she had commented on one of the coated figures, who was looking through a microscope in front of an expensive-looking computer, as she stopped and took a brief glance at a notebook open on the man's desk. "Nice."

The man looked up from the microscope. He gave a small smile. "Only doing my job."

Christa paused in her walking, looking at the notes more closely. "This is really fascinating. Why haven't they talked about this stuff more on the news?"

The man chuckled slightly. "There's so much to talk about, and this is mostly theory, anyway."

Christa tilted her head. "What are you trying to do?"

The man sat up in his seat a little bit, as though excited to share what he was working on. Christa could see some passion in his eyes as he spoke. "I'm trying looking at it through a molecular level--trying to see how the negative and positive ions can be used to magnetize the reactant types of metals. My colleagues--" he gestured towards those at desks nearby his own "--think I'm crazy, but I'm figuring it out."

Christa felt a smile creep up her face. "That sounds like it could work. I mean, I've never worked with nanotechnology before--it's not like they offer it at the high school I go to--" --or rather, went to, at this point, she thought with a bit of sadness (being sad? For leaving that place? Wow. And she thought she was done being surprised at what the world threw at her.) "--but from my sadly limited knowledge of tech and biology, that sounds like it could work."

The man nodded slightly, glancing from his paper for a brief moment before looking back at her. The slight reluctance he had seemed to have when first talking to the girl seemed to have melted away. "Thank you."

Christa gave a grin she hadn't felt come in a while. "No problem." She began walking away to catch up with the rest of the group, who had, at this point, found Dr. Cho.

She began talking to them, and them to her, and now they were walking into the woman's private lab. It sort of reminded Christa of a doctor's office, which made her think of the hospital her mother had died at and she herself had landed in after her house exploded, which left her with a raw, gaping maw of sadness in her stomach, which she swiftly tried to toss aside. This was not the time to feel sad.

"It's been quite a while, Tony, Clint," Dr. Cho said as she gathered up her materials--two syringes, antiseptic solution, cotton, etc..

Stark rubbed the back of his neck in a way that appeared nervous (who could blame him, with his situation?), saying, "Yeah... obviously Ultron happened... I don't even know what happened between now and then...." He suddenly began staring off into space as though rethinking his entire life.

Everyone looked at the man for a moment, but then concluded simultaneously that nobody was going to get a functional conversation from him anytime soon. Pepper, who stood beside him, rubbed his shoulder and whispered something into his ear. He just nodded and whispered something to her unheard by anyone else.

Dr. Cho merely glanced up briefly, still gathering her materials. "Clint?"

Clint looked over at the woman. "Oh, oh yeah. Been... shooting lots of arrows...."

Christa narrowed her eyes at him slightly. Did not everybody in affiliated with the Avengers know that the man lived on a farm? With three kids and a wife?

Dr. Cho tilted her head, wiping down the syringes. "I thought you were retired."

"Oh, I am. I just... like shooting arrows," the man said.

Christa's eyes narrowed more. "You're forgetting the bit where that explosion happened, I nearly died, and you started fostering me."

Clint snapped his fingers at the girl as though confirming her words. "That definitely did happen."

"And it was your birthday," Christa added.

"Are you just gonna tell my whole life story for me?" Clint asked.

Christa rolled her eyes. "You weren't telling the woman."

"I've got a cover to keep!"

"What cover? Everyone knows who you are!"

Dr. Cho's vision glanced between the two of them as though she was trying to speak but couldn't, and finally said (nearly shouting), "I'm ready to take your blood samples, if you want to stop arguing!"

Christa and Clint turned to her, as though suddenly realizing they weren't the only two in the room.

"Thank you." Dr. Cho looked like she was trying to compose herself, and pulled back a strand of hair as she set one of the syringes down. "Now, if you two could just sit down here, please...."

Christa and Stark both sat down on a bench in the room. Stark awkwardly scooted away from the girl when noticing how close together they were. Christa raised an eyebrow at him.

"I don't want my blood to be contaminated by yours," he said defensively as Dr. Cho gestured for him to hold out his arm, and she started looking for a vein.

"My blood is half yours," Christa pointed out snarkily.

Stark opened his mouth as though about to retaliate, but then Dr. Cho stuck the needle into his arm and he closed his mouth and eyes, as though trying to ignore the pain.

"Funny. I would've thought you'd built up a tolerance for pain by now, Stark," Christa commented. "What with all your Avenging."

"Christa," Pepper said with a patronizing voice.

Christa shrugged. "Just saying."

Blood filled up the syringe and Dr. Cho removed it before taking the second syringe and preparing to place it into Christa's arm. The needle found its way into her, and despite its sting she stared right into Stark's eyes, not moving her expression at all, as though daring him to say something. Somehow, he didn't break the eye contact.

As the needle was removed (not the pain that had started faintly coursing through Christa's arm at its implant, though it was faint and quickly dying down)and the spot wiped down and cotton placed on it, Christa gave the man a triumphant look.

"Guess I got my tolerance for pain from my mom, then."

"Hey." Stark pointed an accusing finger at her. "You don't know I'm your father."

"Yet," Christa corrected. "I don't know you're my father yet. And technically, despite the fact that I don't want it, I do believe you're my father."

Stark tilted his head dramatically. "Kid, you gotta give me a break."

"I'm a genius, and geniuses are never wrong." Christa considered for a moment. "Well, unless their first name is Anthony."

Clint gave a small snicker in the background.

"Hey, Anthony is a very prestigious name," Stark defended. But it was weak, and he barely sounded like he believed it himself. "And at least I wasn't born with the name Clinton," he added.

Clint glared. "That was my grandfather's name."

"And Anthony was Tony's! There! Problem solved!" Pepper exclaimed with exasperation.

"Wait, your grandfather was named Anthony?" Clint asked.

Stark rolled his eyes. "That's what Pepper just said, Birdbrain!"

Clint started walking over to Stark. "Oh, no you--"

Christa did not want to be a part of this ridiculous argument. And it was like a civil war was about to break loose, and because these people had insane skills she did not want to get in the middle of, she started to back away into the shadows, quiet as Clint Barton when he was trying to sneak up on people. Along with this, who knew when the paternity test results (which she knew would be positive) would come in? She hadn't even bothered to ask. Also, she was beginning to become incredibly curious about the Avengers Facility. Was Black Widow here? Was Thor here? Scarlet Witch? Captain America?

Ooh... if they were... this would be fun.

Christa slipped past the scientists working in the lab connected to Dr. Cho's private laboratory, and her heart glowed a little to see all the science around her. Ah, science. It was what she wanted to do when she was older.

Wow, thinking about the future right now? When her present was so uncertain? How prepared of her.

She snorted at her own thoughts.

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, Christa saw something flashing. A small tablet beside some scientist. An idea came to her mind.

"Hey, um... Dr. Brown?" she asked, noticing the label on the woman's lab coat. "Could I get a map of this place?"

The woman looked up from her computer and pulled down her glasses, seemingly taken aback. "Excuse me?"

"Tony Stark gave me permission to take a look around the place," Christa lied easily. "I won't disturb any of the Avengers, I promise. Besides," she said with a twinkle in her eye only a very clever snake could hold, "I don't want to stumble in on anything important on accident, now, do I?"

The obviously suspicious woman considered her for a moment, and then began printing up a paper from a printer nearby. She took the paper out and handed the still warm leaf to Christa.

"I'm only giving this to you because I saw you with several trusted people earlier," she said.

Christa gave her a smile that showed her success. "Thank you," she said, knowing it would make the woman even the slightest bit ticked off.

The woman merely turned back to her computer screen, glasses back on. "Just being nice, ma'am." The words were scathing in a passive-aggressive sort of way.

Christa grinned and moved on in her little "adventure."

Finally, the girl reached the door she had passed through to get into the room in the first place. She gave a small grin as she opened it and slipped, unnoticed by anyone, outside.

At last, she was free.

Christa started walking down the empty hallway, eyes and ears on alert for anything that could get her caught by one of the adults who actually knew her. As she went, she drank in the smooth, high tech building around her. The metallic walls, the glass walls, the elevators and everything that just screamed technology.

As Christa reached a fancy-looking door, she glanced down at the paper before her. It wasn't hard for her to figure out where she was. "Aha. Tony Stark's personal technology room." She grinned. The thought of I gotta show Angus this place suddenly came to her head. She whipped out her phone, going to the camera before flipping to the video option. Screen on the door, her thumb pressed on the "play" button, preparing to send the video the the boy.

"Look, Ang," she said, a voice softer than she might have used simply in case people happened to pass by. "I am currently in the Avengers Facility. I just escaped some smartass arguing Avengers. And now I'm here, in front of Tony Stark's personal technology room." Wow, she was starting to sound a tiny bit like a fan girl. Better fix that.

Christa stepped closer to the door, attention focused mostly on it and her phone but ears open (as much as they could be with the extremely muffled noises they managed to process) for anyone potentially around a corner. Her hand reached out to the door but she paused.

There were probably hidden cameras just about everywhere in the facility. And she didn't want to take them down and set any alarms off. She wasn't looking for ultimate chaos; she was just curious.

"Okay, maybe we'll see this later..." the girl muttered to the camera. Christa stopped the recording and looked down at the map again, enthusiasm dampened slightly at the fact that she may not be able to bypass everything she wanted to to see everything she wanted to.

Then she thought to herself, Ah, what the hell? and proceeded to start the recording again and go back to the door.

The problem was... it did have a doorknob. However, when Christa tried to get in, the smooth metallic knob wouldn't let her. Then she noticed what appeared to be a tablet beside the door.

"Looks like we're gonna have to hack our way into this place," she muttered.

The girl's fingers tapped the surface of the tablet, which lit up to show a screen that had what looked like quite a bit of code on it.

"What the..." Christa muttered. Her eyes narrowed as she scrutinized the code.

"Okay... okay.... You got this." She cracked her knuckles. "Ang, we're doing some more hacking here."

No one would be able to figure out what she was doing unless they were a technological genius. But because she was, Christa managed to crack the code, and the door in front of her slid smoothly open.

"Yes," she muttered, pulling her hand down into a fist in triumph. She slipped into the room, eyes now more focused on her phone than anything else, and stopped the video. She went to send it to Angus, not noticing the world around her.

"And... send."

And then the door shut behind her, the room around her went dark, and at the exact same time, Christa heard a yell and the sound of something blasting right at her.