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MARIAN JONES WAS RUNNING.
Her feet hit the pavement louder than they ever had and the bundle in her arms squirmed in discomfort. She was going to die, she knew she was going to die. These... monsters didn't see the fault in death. They had killed her friendly neighbors, they had killed Agnes and now, they were coming for her and her baby.
They had somehow found out. God, how did they find out? She hadn't told anyone about her powers, not a soul. The wind was blowing faster but it was still awfully hot and humid. Too much so.
They were close.
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Tony Stark was happy. It wasn't a frequent experience for him, being happy. I didn't see much of it over the years I lived with him but sometimes, every once in a while, there would be a day where he felt genuinely, properly, extremely happy.
That day, Rhodey and Pepper were sitting on his couch tipping wine glasses into their mouths. They were laughing about god knows what, slapping their knees and getting beet red. Tony had his legs bent over the top of the couch and his head hanging down, struggling to get words out because he was laughing so hard. He knew he got attached too easily but these people, these people, seemed to be always there. They were his anchors to this cold detached world and another one was about to arrive.
There was a frantic knock on the door. Five deep echoes followed by a shrill scream. Rhodey jumped out of his seat. It was something about the scream that sparked at instinct of sorts.
Tony and Pepper stayed behind. They were itching to get up but they were frozen in place with widened eyes. Rhodey opened the door carefully, eyeing the room in search of a makeshift potential weapon in the case of an attack.
The door creaked open to reveal, nothing. The source of the scream was nowhere in sight. There was, however, a small green bundle that sat atop one of the bushes that decorated the front porch. At first, it seemed like an item of sorts. It was so, so small and so, so still. It wasn't until the bundle started squirming, that Rhodey became alarmed.
"Tony?" Rhodey called over shakily, taking a few steps forward in curiosity. Tony steadily rose to his feet and inched towards the door, taking note of the squirming bundle on the bush. As Rhodey called the authorities, Tony carefully made his way way towards it.
It was a baby. A bouncing baby boy with a full head of curls and a happy smile. The baby giggled and reached out his arm. Tony, stunned and not knowing what to do, reached his arm out too and the little baby gripped his pinky with all the might in his little baby hands.
There was something in those hands, though. a small note, a little larger than a post-it. He slowly wiggled the note out from the baby's hand and opened it up. It was a messily written note, probably scrawled on the nearest sheet of paper found but it was something. It was certainly something. It read:
Dominic Alistair. July 8th 2001. Take care of him for me. - Marian Jones
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IF YOU'RE GETTING THE NOTIFICATION FOR THIS AGAIN, THIS IS A DIFFERENT VERSION OF CHAPTER 4 SO PLEASE READ IT
- my dumbass brain thought of a new subplot for this book at 3 in the morning so i had to edit chapter 4 a bit for it to make any sense at all so if you've read the previous version please read this one as well but if you just read this version, that's fine as well, good luck!
