Fictober 4/31 -- “How would that even work?”

This isn’t necessarily where I wanted to go but it was too funny for me to stop. What can I say. Love that funny shit.

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Tony cast around wildly for something to say. He was good with kids. They were great, and didn’t notice how weird he was. When Fury said they’d found Phil’s niece, and that they would be taking custody of her, he’d imagined someone small, someone who needed taking care of.

Charlotte Weber was twenty-eight years old and more mature than he’d been at that age. He still wasn’t sure about Fury’s reasoning that she was safer if she didn’t know that Agent Coulson was dead, but he didn’t know enough about Charlotte to flagrantly go against him. He could sit on it until he’d parsed out the situation with her. He could be patient. Even if he had no idea how to talk to her.

“So, mutant, huh?” he finally asked, and then closed his eyes and sighed. “Oh my god.” He resisted the urge to cover his face. He should have just asked her to punch him.

“Yeah,” Charlotte said simply, focused on watching the floors change on the elevator as they went down to the ground floor. “I turn into cats.”

Tony swiveled to look at her, stunned, but she looked just as unperturbed as she had since Natasha and Clint had escorted her in. It took him a moment to realize his jaw was hanging open, but he shut it quickly, staring. Finally, he asked, “How would that even work? Like, you split apart, or—”

“What? Ew,” Charlotte said, wrinkling her nose, as she finally turned to look at him. “No, I just turn into one cat.” She paused, then continued, “I mean, I can turn into any cat. Any species. Any breed.”

“So you’re telling me, I could ask you to turn into a lion or a domestic shorthair, and you could do it?” Tony asked, raising his eyebrows skeptically.

Charlotte raised one back, crossing her arms over her chest. “I could. I’d have to be naked, though, and most people don’t like that.”

Tony opened his mouth to tell her that he’d seen more naked people in one year than she had probably seen in her whole life, but then his eyes caught hers, held—Phil’s eyes. She was Phil’s niece. They were supposed to be taking care of her. He opened his mouth to tell her he was sorry, that he was being too pushy, he got like that so just tell him to shut up—

“I don’t care, really. I found out I was a mutant in second grade in the middle of dodgeball,” Charlotte continued with a blasé shrug, turning to look back at the digital floor counter. “My friends kept asking me to change for them and it never occurred to any of us that maybe I shouldn’t be taking my clothes off on the walk home from school.”

“So you… were accepted?” Tony asked carefully. “For being a mutant.”

Charlotte shrugged again, squinting as the numbers began to slow. “My parents are super involved in the community. I think a lot of people were too scared to offend them that by the time it really registered that Charlotte Weber’s a mutant, I had already had to have the fire department called on me to get pulled down naked from a tree three times.”

“Oh my god,” Tony said.

The doors opened, and Charlotte promptly began out. Tony took a step after her and had the pleasure of watching her ping-pong off Thor and Steve’s chests before falling ass over teakettle with a startled squawk.

“What did we say about you two standing so close together,” Tony scolded, reaching down to offer Charlotte a hand.

Steve looked like he wanted to die. Thor just sighed, hanging his head, and answered, “Not to.”

“Am I bleeding?” Charlotte asked as Tony tugged her to her feet, free hand pressed to her nose. She examined her palm when she pulled it back, then covered it again, staring up at Steve and Thor in confusion. “What the fuck? Are you made out of cement? Ow,” she added. She squinted at them for a moment longer, then let out a shout, pointing at Steve. “Captain America!”

“Another fan,” Steve managed weakly.

“I broke my face on Captain America’s chest,” Charlotte breathed, and then covered his nose again. “Ow. I think I really hurt my nose.”

Tony offered her his arm, suddenly feeling much better about talking to her. “I’ll take you to the infirmary and they can check your nose. Is your entire family Captain America fans? I thought it was just Phil,” he added gleefully, because Steve was making a wounded noise behind them.

“Huh? Yeah, we have a picture of my grandpa with him during the war,” Charlotte answered, checking her palm again.

Tony pulled a wad of tissues from his pocket to hand them to her. “You don’t say?”

“Yeah, he was in Patton’s army or whatever and Captain America had to go talk to Patton about someth—HEY,” she added, swinging around. “Was Patton a dick to you, too?”

Steve blinked at her, frowning. “Yeah? Patton was a dick to everyone, including me.”

“I feel like we’ve all aged fifty years by Charlotte saying she has a picture of her grandpa with Captain America,” Tony complained.

“You can call me Lottie,” Charlotte said. “And it’s not my fault you’re all old.”

Tony gaped down at her. She didn’t seem like the type to be willfully mean. “You’re almost thirty.”

“And you’re almost—” Lottie began, raising her eyebrows at him.

Tony cleared his throat loudly and began dragging her down the hall. “Let’s get you to the infirmary to check your nose, shall we?”