America's Prism

Chapter 18

Meanwhile, Natasha was quickly picking up on Steve's discomfort at being alone with her. He tried to play it off but he was a bad liar and she was a human polygraph.

She stayed with Nora in the floor not twenty minutes after Prism left. She made an excuse to leave and bid the father and daughter goodbye for the night.

Steve scooped Nora into his arms, she looked so small but her eyes showed an old soul.

He asked FRIDAY to play a 40s mix over the den speaker. "Now this is what I'm talking about." He smiled down at the blonde baby who clapped her hands while his slowly rocked side to side with her to the gentle song that played.

He danced with her until she fell asleep in his arms, making him decide to lay on his back and put her on his chest with hand protectively on her back and nap. A light blue forcefield covered them as Nora's love manifested even in her sleep.

This was how Prism found them when she returned home feeling hopeful now that Strange had some baselines and things to study.

She smiled and gestured to the surveillance camera to take pictures of them- a system she had come up with for Friday.

Friday would zip the photos into a file only Prism had access to and make the album available on her StarkPad.

She smiled and curled up on the love seat beside them, reaching out with one arm to loosely lace her fingers with Steve's. The blue forcefield opened for her then engulfed her form as well.

Friday took a couple more photos.

--

A week or so later, Nora was sitting up and crawling. Two weeks later she was walking and starting to talk. By three weeks old her infant form had grown to be about the size of a four year old.

Despite her body size, she was as strong as a fifteen year old, and learning to be gentle.

Now that she was more solid, Steve felt much better about playing with her. He loved to play tag around the training room with her, and toss her around in ways that would give most mothers a heart attack.

Nora would giggle while her dad threw her straight up as high as he could and caught her everytime, her trust never wavered.

Sometimes when she got too happy, things would fly across the room as her short blonde hair glistened with pastels like her mothers did.

Steve had gotten pretty good at disenchanting the objects and calming her down after, explaining that she needs to be careful.

Prism loved to use her magic to play with Nora. Helping her fly around the den with little purple wings, making her toys bend and act things out for her like a living cartoon while she used her own voice to speak for them.

Steve compared it to puppetry but with magic strings. Nora absolutely loved and enjoyed the fables her mother told her- ending each one with a life lesson and a discussion. Nora couldn't articulate very well yet but she understood at about an eight year old level.

Once a week Prism would put on a full magic puppet show in the den. She'd even gotten Thor to have Loki tutor her in illusion casting to help with the quality of her shows. Each one was recorded by FRIDAY with the files being put in a folder available to Priz, Nora's profile and naturally, Steve.

He even stayed for a few, initially to fix any flawed illusion spells she cast but eventually because he felt drawn to the domestic environment. He got to feel like part of a real family again- Uncle Loki.

Nora had decided she liked him and that was enough to get the other Avengers to accept him a bit more. When he could, he'd amuse her with little spells like his mother had done for him. She loved the mini fireworks show.