Chapter 1

Parker watches the seconds tick down to midnight on her bedside clock, chewing her lip. In less than a minute, she'll be thirteen years old, considered in the eyes of many prospective parents too old to bother with adopting. Still, she can't help but hold out just a little sliver of hope that someone will open her door within the next fifteen seconds with adoption papers signed, even though it's well past visiting hours and hardly anyone in the children's home is awake to even accept the papers.

Swallowing, she watches as the numbers on the clock slide to midnight, the clock letting out a soft beep. Her roommate, a fifteen-year-old girl named Ella, leans over the edge of the top bunk to give her a small, sympathetic smile.

"Welcome to the reject club, Park." Parker manages a weak smile back as Ella rolls back out of sight to go to sleep, feeling her stomach twist with dejection. It had been a long shot to hope that she would be adopted before her thirteenth birthday, especially with the freak incidents that follow her to each home she goes to, but it still stings all the same.

She rolls over in bed to squint at the floor-length mirror against the wall in the darkness. She's fairly average-looking, she admits, with long dark hair in curly ringlets and brown eyes that look more like gold if the light hits them just right. Not pretty, by any means, but certainly adoptable. She stamps down the instinctive thought that pops into her mind at that.

Then why didn't anybody want me?

It's a long, sleepless night for her after that.

She gets a visit from Phil the next morning before she has to go to school, which she's not surprised by; Phil stops by once a month, but always makes a point to give her a small present for her birthday, and had done so for as long as she can remember. She's still not quite sure she buys that he's actually her case worker, especially when she's met at least two other people that claim to be her case worker, but it's kind of him to think of her and that's what matters.

She had considered asking him to adopt her plenty of times, but the tightness around his eyes whenever he mentions his job and the amount of work he has to do leaves her hesitant to ask. The refusal, she reasons to herself, and the pain it would cause would not be worth plucking up the courage to ask.

"Happy birthday," Phil says as he passes over a wrapped box, which Parker unwraps instantly to find a lovely silver chain inside. It's only costume jewelry, but she loves it all the same.

"Thank you," she says with a warm smile, briefly slipping her arms around him as he wraps his arm around her shoulders to squeeze them gently.

"Want a ride to school? I brought Lola." Parker grins; she adores Phil's shiny red convertible.

"Sure, I'd love a ride." She slips the necklace on and clasps it quickly before grabbing her packed schoolbag. "You look tired," she adds, noticing the dark circles around Phil's eyes.

"It's been a long week at work," he answers dryly, but doesn't elaborate. Parker's used to that, so she doesn't push him. On their way out the door, his phone chirps and he frowns as he glances at it. "Stark again," he mutters to himself and shoves his phone into his pocket.

"Stark?" Parker echoes curiously. "As in Tony Stark? You know him?" She hadn't seen the news herself, but plenty of other kids at her school had been talking about the bright red and gold suit they had seen soaring through the air a few weeks ago, and Tony Stark had just admitted in a press conference the previous week that he was in fact the man in that suit. Iron Man, he had called himself, which sounds kind of cheesy, in Parker's opinion. Not that she'll ever say it to Mr. Stark's face.

"We've met," Phil answers simply, opening Lola's passenger door so that Parker can climb in. "And he's been giving me a lot more paperwork to fill out lately."

"You ever think maybe you ought to change careers if your job's stressing you out so much?" Parker suggests dryly as she buckles her seatbelt, earning a chuckle from Phil as he gets into the driver's seat.

"It's fine. I'm good at what I do. But I appreciate the sentiment." He ruffles her hair affectionately as he starts Lola's engine and begins to drive the familiar route to Parker's school. She watches the waves of the Pacific Ocean roll by as they drive along the beach, glad not for the first time that she lives in California now so she can always see the ocean no matter where she is.

She hadn't started out in California, though; according to Phil, she had been born in New Mexico and then been rapidly transferred from orphanage to orphanage since, passing through four different states and ten different schools. He doesn't outright say it, but she's positive that she's only been transferred so many times because of the incidents.

"No incidents lately?" Phil asks, as if he had read her mind.

"No, I've been okay," she says truthfully. She's done her best to keep her outbursts at bay, which is good, because people tend to freak out when they see water curling around her wrist like a snake or little flames lighting her fingertips, and people freaking out means yet another location transfer. She's sure that it adds more paperwork for Phil to fill out, too.

Phil relaxes at her answer, nodding in approval. "Okay, good. You've had to move enough this year already." Parker nods in agreement; she can do without having to re-establish herself at a new school for the third time this year.

"Speaking of Tony Stark, I applied to that program I told you about last time you visited," she tells him, returning to her earlier train of thought. "The innovative project one. If I get picked as a winner, I can work at Stark Industries this summer as an intern."

Phil hums in consideration. "What did you apply with?"

"An app to view veins in the arm through a phone camera," Parker responds. "I'm still working on the code, but in theory, the app should be able to map out the veins so you can see them clearly without needing to be medically trained."

"Sounds useful," Phil agrees. "I can't tell you how many times I've had to get my blood drawn and they keep missing the vein."

"Exactly." Parker grins, relieved that someone else understands why it's important. She had tried to explain it to Ella, but Ella had told her not to bother, she wouldn't be able to follow it. "I could use some machine-learning algorithms to add features like detecting the ideal venipuncture point, but I don't know anything about training AIs."

"And now you've lost me," Phil says dryly as they pull up at the curb to her middle school. He grins at her sour expression. "Don't take it personally, Park, I'm just not as smart as you."

Parker flushes slightly, feeling a little better about him brushing her explanation off. "I'm not that smart. I mean, I Googled practically everything for this project."

"Yeah, but you still put it into practice and thought about it yourself. That's what makes you smart." Phil nudges her shoulder gently. "Go on, before you're late. I'll check in on you next week once summer break starts."

"Okay. Thanks for the ride." Parker climbs out of the car.

"Have a good birthday," Phil says sincerely as she shuts the door behind herself.

"I will. Thanks." She waves until he disappears around the corner, adjusting her backpack on her shoulder and exhaling quietly as she turns to climb the steps to her middle school. She's bound to hear the results from the Stark program any day now, but with how little she knows about half the concepts in her application paper, she doubts she'll be picked.

Parker's sitting in her least-favorite class, English, and it's almost time for the final bell to ring when the announcement comes over the speaker for her to report to the principal's office. She's not surprised when everyone in the class "oohs" as she gets up and grabs her bag to head out; she doesn't have any friends, especially since she prefers to keep to herself. It saves her the trouble whenever she has to move to a new school.

She wonders what she's done as she heads down the hallway; she's positive that she hasn't had an incident, even a subconscious one (and really, she hadn't even known she had caused an earthquake that one time). She hopes that she doesn't have to transfer schools yet again; she's tired of having to catch up to her new class each time.

She knocks before peeking into the principal's office. "Uh, hi, I'm Parker. You called for me?" She can't remember the principal's name, but a quick glance at the nameplate on his desk informs her that his name is Jonathan Layton.

"Come in, Parker, come in," Mr. Layton says, ushering her to an empty seat. He sounds far more jovial than his thin, unpleasant appearance suggests, and she wonders what the occasion is until she notices that the seat beside the one Mr. Layton had offered her is occupied.

The stranger is wearing sunglasses indoors - really? What kind of self-absorbed jerk wears sunglasses indoors? Parker thinks briefly - and has a neatly-trimmed goatee, and Parker can vaguely see a dim circle of light shining through the dress shirt he's wearing. It takes her a moment before it clicks into place whom she's looking at.

"Oh. Hi, Mr. Stark. Did you see my project application?" she blurts out before she can stop herself.

"Actually, that's what I'm here for," Stark says and, to her relief, slides off his sunglasses to look at her properly. She shuffles a little self-consciously under the scrutiny. "Your paper's easily the best out of the lot," he says after a moment and she has to stop herself from sagging in relief.

"Really? You mean it?"

"Well, that's what my PA said, anyway," Stark admits, shrugging casually. "She didn't understand some of the more technical aspects, so I took a peek at it. Machine-learning, that's ambitious for a...ten-year-old?" He squints at her and she bristles a little, feeling heat rise in her palms and clenching them to keep her temper at bay. She certainly doesn't need an incident in front of both her principal and Tony Stark.

"Thirteen, actually," she says instead of reacting. She thinks about whether to add that it's her birthday, but she doubts Stark cares.

"Thirteen, okay." Stark nods consideringly. "I can work with that. Now I pride myself on being the best when it comes to building AIs and training machine-learning algorithms, so working on your project's going to be refreshing, especially since we just got out of the weapons game. Then again, you probably saw that on the news already. You're gonna love meeting JARVIS, much less the bots in the lab downstairs. In case it's not obvious, you've got the job. When can you start?" He says all of this at three times the speed any normal person would take to say it and Parker vaguely wonders if he's got some kind of superpower like she does.

"Um." Stark doesn't look impressed by her speechlessness.

"Ah, school doesn't end until Friday," Mr. Layton reminds them and for a second, Parker starts, having forgotten about him.

"Yeah, I can't start until school's over for the summer," she answers apologetically and Stark simply waves it off.

"Sure, sure, so you can start Monday." He holds his hand out. "You got a phone?" Parker scrambles to grab the small flip phone Phil had given her the previous year and Stark takes it, snorting a little as he flips it open and examines the keypad. "Oh, boy. You can't even text efficiently on this thing." Still, he types in his number and sends himself a quick text before passing her phone back to her. "I'll send you the address to show up to on Monday."

"Thank you," she blurts out, feeling her eyes sting as the weight of the situation finally sinks in. "I can't tell you how much this-"

"Ah, no, no, we're not doing this." Stark gets to his feet quickly, sliding his sunglasses on again and, if Parker reads his expression right, looking rather alarmed. "Just show up on Monday. Bring whatever code you've got." The bell rings to signal the end of the day as he slips out of the office and heads down the hall, his hands shoved in his pockets.

Mr. Layton just stares after Stark, looking somewhat awed at the reality that someone so famous had been in his office and Parker quietly slips out unnoticed, feeling disappointed that she hadn't gotten to ask Stark about the glowing circle in his chest.

Her phone chirps as she gets onto the school bus and she peeks at the text to see that it's an address. The contact name is just "Tony :)" and she wrinkles her nose in bewilderment at the smiley face. Stark is definitely weird, far more than she had anticipated. Then again, she hadn't anticipated ever meeting him in person even if she had won the summer internship.

On that note, why had he come to offer her the job himself? He has a PA, and she's sure he has countless other employees to come meet her.

She's distracted by her phone chirping again and looks down to see another text from Stark.

Need a ride on Monday?

She hesitates before typing out a response, carefully taking her time to avoid making any spelling mistakes.

Yes, please.

Stark's answer is almost immediate and Parker envies him for his smartphone.

I'll send a car at 9 AM. Driver's name is Happy.

Parker wonders what kind of name Happy is before noticing a more obvious problem; she hadn't put her address on her application.

Wait, how do you know where I live?

Stark's instant response unnerves her.

:)

I caved. I promised myself I wouldn't write another OC fic, and I caved. I have so many plans for this one, though. And hopefully I'll get around to writing it a lot this summer while I'm teaching a course for my university and working on the first chapter of my Avatar: The Last Airbender fic's sequel.

Normally, I wouldn't call this a crossover-fic, but I'm kind of taking the concept of the Avatar and applying it to this story, which is why Parker is exhibiting powers like manipulating the elements (not that other benders really exist in this world). I'll try to flesh it out as best as I can so people who haven't seen A:TLA can still follow this story.

If it's not obvious, this takes place right after Iron Man ends and it's going to start featuring all of the Avengers soon, since I'm going to try and follow the canon MCU timeline as much as possible.

(Also the vein app project Parker talks about is actually a project I worked on, so I'm really proud of that.)

Hope you enjoy it, and please leave a review on how you think this is going so far! I'm experimenting with a kind of new style of writing, so I hope this reads okay!