Because He Loves Me

Chapter 9: Testing Kassidy

Steve had gone upstairs earlier than the others, but no one stopped him. Slowly each Avenger made their way to the rooms Pepper showed them. They continued to single out until only Black Widow remained. 

"So Kassidy," said Natasha. "You're an Avenger? Tony's daughter?" 

"Um...I'm Tony's daughter. But I'm not sure....uh...dad?" Kassidy asked, suddenly uncomfortable. 

"No, no, she isn't an Avenger." Tony said. 

"You seem like the Avenger type. What's your resume, kid?" Nat asked. At Tony's approving nod, Kassidy began her list. 

"Well....I can use a gun, and knives...I have a black belt in karate....I can ride a motorcycle, but I'm not sure that's necessary, I can plan, sort of...I know how to use the lab and stuff....and I'm pretty good at sneaking around I guess." Kassidy said, trying not to come of as a bragger. Nat laughed. 

"So you have basically all the skills I have?" Nat asked with a smile. Kassidy shook her head. 

"You're way better, you trained, you're-" Kassidy let herself be cut off by Tony. 

"She can spy, but I don't want her to, she's safer here." Tony said. Peter glared at his father. 

"You don't care about my safety? Cause you seemed perfectly willing to let me be an Avenger." Peter said. 

"Do you want me to take your suit and web shooters? Cause I can do that to keep my baby safe..." Tony said, pulling Peter closer in a mock protection. Peter weaseled his way away from  his grasp. 

"No, that's not what I want, I-" 

"I know, it was a joke." Tony said. "Go to bed, underoos." Peter glared at him again, but Tony softly smacked the back of Peter's head, which was both a "good night" and "go to bed right now or else". 

"You too, princess." Tony told Kassidy. She shot him an annoyed look - Kassidy hated being called 'princess'. She skipped stairs, trying to catch up with Peter, who had taken the elevator. 

"Tony, she has the makings of an Avenger. She could spy, she's small, she's young, no one will suspect a little girl." Nat said. 

"Exactly. She's small. She's really young, I'm not going to endanger her." Tony said. 

"Is this because of what Cap said earlier? Because he was wrong, it was out of line-" Nat said. 

"I don't care what Cap said. It's over, forget that. I don't want to put my little girl in danger, it's already nerve racking that Peter is."  Tony told her. 

"You keep Peter safe, though." Nat said. 

"How so?" Tony asked.

"You put a tracker in Peter's suit." 

"Yeah, and he hacked it and almost got killed. Imagine what his smart little sister will do." Tony said. 

"You can make the code more advanced. Kassidy doesn't know coding like Peter does." Nat said. 

"You calling my daughter dumb?" Tony asked. 

"You know I'm not, Tony. Don't try to avoid this. If Kassidy and Peter become a team, they'll be unstoppable." Nat told Tony. 

"Yeah, I won't be able to stop them either." Tony said. 

"They will listen to their dad." Nat said. 

"No, Nat! That's the problem." Tony exclaimed. "They barely listen to me now, what makes you think they will when they want to save the world?" Nat sighed. 

"Let her take the same test I did. I'll fly her to Russia in the jet, she'll take the course with the same instructors I did, if she passes she becomes an Avenger?" Nat asked. 

"I want her to have a family when she's older." Tony said. 

"If she passes, she will have demonstrated she is unlikely to die." Nat said. 

"No. I mean if she passes I don't want her to be....sterilized." Tony said. Nat was silent for a minute, then; 

"I won't let them." Nat said. 

"What if she dies in the course?" Tony asked. 

"She won't. They won't send her to any stage she isn't prepared for." Nat replied. 

"How long is it?" Tony asked, seeing no way out. 

"It took six years for me, but since she has a little pre-training I can give her the placement test tomorrow. It won't be longer than six months, if it even gets to that. My final test only took two weeks, so her's shouldn't last more than a month." Nat said. 

"Okay." Tony said. 

"Thank you Tony, I won't make her do anything she doesn't want to do." Nat promised. 

"You better not." Tony snapped. Nat smirked and headed for her own room. Now Tony could only hope that Kassidy didn't want to go through with it. 

The next day

When Kassidy went downstairs the next day, she was surprised to find so many people down there, before remembers last nights events. After Peter and Tony had left, everyone in the lounge had tried to ignore the fact that they could still hear Peter crying, but almost everyone had found it adorable how Tony had soothed the little boy. 

"Hi." Nat said, popping up behind Kassidy. Before she could stop herself, Kassidy whirled around and grabbed Nat's wrist, flipping her onto the floor. 

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry, I didn't realize who you were!" Kassidy said. Nat laughed. 

"Reflexes. Yours are very effective." Nat said, then groaned and held her side. "I'm fine." she said to Kassidy's concerned look. "Actually, there was something I wanted to talk to you about." Nat said. And once she and Kassidy were comfortably seated in the sitting room, Nat told her about the tests in Russia. Kassidy didn't seem surprised at the offer, and she didn't ask many questions. Nat offered the pretest, and Kassidy accepted without missing a beat. 

Nat and Kassidy went to Tony's test room, where he tried out the new features of his suit. In case of a malfunction, the floor and walls were padded, as was the ceiling. On one wall there was a mirror, but that was behind it's own layer of glass, which Kassidy thought wouldn't be very effective if Tony did crash into it. With the padded room, Nat was able to test Kassidy in self dense. Nat also used unloaded gun prototypes and covered knifes, and it was even alarming how good Kassidy was at her defense. Nat then gave her a lot of survival situations and Kassidy solved them without missing a beat. Throughout the next hour, Nat told everyone to attack Kassidy at random, anyway they wanted. Tony specified no loaded or real weapons, but it wouldn't matter since Kassidy was so talented. The only person who managed to trick Kassidy was Pepper, who asked Kassidy to help make lunch, only to stab at her with a plastic knife. Peter decided to use the training as a free shot at his little sister, but every time Kassidy saw him out of the corner of her eye and Peter always found himself in a wrist lock or on the floor. 

"He never learns, does he?" Tony mused with Pepper as Peter stared at his sister from the ground for the third time that hour. Kassidy passed the obstacle course with flying marks, probably because Kassidy did courses more dangerous than that simply for fun. At lunch, Kassidy finally got a break. Tony ran up to Nat. 

"How did she do?" Tony asked. 

"Well so far she's excelled weapons, self dense, war plan, strategy and obstacles." Nat replied. 

"So far?" Tony asked nervously. 

"The last one is physical pain of others, which is basically where I tell her where nerves and soft spots are, but I think she knows most of that already." Nat said. 

"And then?"

"Then I send the results to Russia and teach Kassidy a little Russian while we wait for the test day." said Nat. Tony nodded. "I'll stay with her in Russia." Nat said, turning to leave. 

"Y-you don't know if she'll be accepted!" Tony called after her.