Nephilim

9

May 30, 1970

The hospital room was quiet, the day old baby lay sleeping quietly in his new mother's arms. Or soon to be mother's arms, depending on is the young woman had signed the papers yet or not. Maria had really hoped she would, not even due to her selfish need for children, but because the woman's boyfriend had just been shipped out for war. The poor girl was barely nineteen and already had a son.

The idea of taking this little baby home was exciting, of course it was; she had been wanting kids for four years. After trying for two years they had found out that Howard was unable to produce children. The next to years were spent hoping someone would pick their file and they'd get to bring home a baby.

This woman, young girl really, had seemed saddened to give her son up, so Maria had tried to let her know that it wouldn't offend them if she wanted to keep him. As much as she wanted children, she could never tear an unwilling mother away from her baby.

"Can I..." Mary, the young girl, raises her quiet voice loud enough to catch Maria's attention, "Can I hold him one last time?"

Maria smiles quietly, handing the baby to the blonde girl, who stares at her child in awe and sadness, "Of course Sweetheart. You can still change your mind, not sign the papers."

"No. I already signed the papers. He needs a good life and I can't give him that. His father might not even... It's better this way. He'll have two parents that love him and can take care of him like he needs. What are you guys going to name him?"

"Anthony. Anthony Edward." Howard speaks from next to her, her eyes watering as she hands the baby back to its legal mother.

"Anthony Edward Stark... What a beautiful name for a beautiful baby boy."

Jack's P.O.V.-Present Day

"So Ryder is one of these... Shadow hurters?" I ask, leaning against the doorway of the kitchen at Avengers tower. Kirstin and Avery were sitting on the counters, eating chips, often switching the bags between them.

"Shadowhunters, Jack. Yep, his parents are the blonde guy, Jace, and the redhead, he said her name was Clary. The dark haired guy, Alec, and Magnus Bane are his uncles, so are the brown haired guy, and the black haired girl. Simon and Isabelle Lovelace. They want me to join them or something. Ithuriel, the angel, was talking about stopping Lucifer and his disciples. Jace was talking about telling the Clave I exist, meaning that what they need from me probably has something to do with this Clave."

"Oh." Was the only reply Kirstin got.

#

I watch from the elevator as Kirstin fiddles with two weird bracelet-like items, carrying three cold sodas with me. Her necklaces dangle in front of her as she hunches over the desk, talking to FRIDAY. "Can you pull up the schematics FRI? Open it up, I want to see the inside. Something is making them lodge, not letting 'em re-coil in the secondary form, and we need to know what." A gray-blue image of weird shapes appear in the air in front of the desk, a picture next to the one she's focusing on is in front of her resembles the thick piece of metal in her hand. Must be making a new weapon. Or maybe a watch.

Either of these options where possible, she was working with Tony to make new products for his company and she was working to make new super secret Iron Man weapons. The weapons themselves weren't a secret, they'll tell us anything we could want to know about how they work. They won't, however, tell us why they are making so many new weapons. Hence the super-secret part of the super secret Iron Man weapons.

Nearly everytime he came down here this early since he started staying here, (a year and a half ago. Sam and Dean figured Tony would be a better teacher to catch me up on everything I need to know about the world I've been living in for the past two years and sent me here) they'd both be down here right now, working on some sort of project, Kirstin's usually a weapon, Tony usually the new kid he was working with; Spider-Man. The streak seemed to be broken today, though, because Kirstin was down here by herself, talking to an invisible robot. Stepping out of the elevator quickly, the doors shutting smoothly behind me, I move over to the desk, setting the sodas down and examining the picture. "The piece of metal seems to be stopping it from coming back in."