Loki - The Infinity Prophecy

You're beyond the barriers we impose.

Pepper felt her breast tighten in a silent pain, observing now the unconscious body of the one she had as her own daughter, she was sat at a safe distance from the bed in which the younger was lied down and silent tears slipped through her face. For the first time since she started to live together with the trickster god, she desired him to be with the young Stark. She somehow didn't want to believe, before, something so obvious now: Linna is completely dependent of the Asgard Prince. The girl probably would never admit it for anyone, but he made each part of her to need Loki to keep her sanity. Maybe this has been the way she found to survive along the years she was a prisoner, but now, free, Ms. Stark imagined that it would permanently change. Lin really seemed to have improved, she already didn't recall that much the fragile and broken girl who showed up at her home the day they met.

All the evolution she presented until now was nothing more than a well-masked lie. This was unquestionable for anyone who wanted to see that very same day, and Pepper would have stopped whoever tried to hurt the pride of the god weeks ago if she only knew these would be the consequences...

All started with the advice given by the warrior Dora Milaje who was entrusted to watch closely the genius without her noticing. They were informed by her that a crisis had begun and that peter should urgently go where the girl was, he was the closest thing to a help in moments like these. However, when they found her, realized that it was something worse than what they were used to. Lin was suffocating and her body tried desperately force a transformation that would save her. She emanated that powerful aura again, although not as precisely as before; her eyes were golden and she seemed extremely scared with the world around her. Every single sound harrowed her more and made her aggressive against those trying to get closer. Parker couldn't stay by her side for a long time, his spider-sense was so alert and got him so restless that he ended up knocking out the gentle healer who was also trying to help when he asked the boy if he was feeling bad.

Being Peter away, no one really had any chance to bring her back to normal besides little Morgan, but they wouldn't risk exposing her to such a danger. They decided, then, that the best would be to wait and to avoid her to move away from there so that no civil ended up hurt; but time didn't seem to relieve at all the agony the woman showed. They didn't get close, she squirmed as a hurt animal and apparently suffered more with the proximity of anyone.

It was Shuri who managed to stop the seizures, the transformation attempts and the panic attack; an efficient device not tested yet, after certain hardness, was implanted in Stark's bone marrow and almost immediately she fell unconscious on the floor, controlling the breath gradually. Her body didn't take much time to normalize and she got a serene expression, the same she conserved until now.

As the hours passed by, the preoccupation with the possibility of the younger's health to have been damaged with the experiment increased for her lack of recuperation, but after a simple exam, it was clear she was only dragged to a deep sleep and was out of risk.

Pepper controlled hardly her impulse to cuddle her hair. She wanted to take care of the daughter of the man she loved. She wanted to be the mother who was taken away from her. She wanted to believe that someday she would be a regular girl not being tormented by her awful past. Maybe carrying the feeling of guilt that weighed in her heart was easier if she didn't remind her so much of his traits, playboy and philanthropist. The red-haired constantly felt she had failed Tony and that she was failing his image again. Lin was an unknown for her, but every time she looked at her, she had the sensation of knowing her since ever, wanted to hold her and comfort her, but it was hard to admit to herself that the younger didn't see her like this, that she would let her touch her for not hurting her, but feeling extremely uncomfortable.

She would do anything for her to get better, even with her problems and flaws, she wouldn't be deprived of the love of her family if she accepted to be part of it. She was not alone, has never been and Pepper needed urgently to make her see that. Loki wasn't the only one to offer off his hand and she was absolutely sure that if she truly accepted the support she was offering, she would never be put apart again, she wouldn't live in the shadows of a constant possible betrayal and she wouldn't need to submit herself to insane situations for this was her "friend's" will. On the lap of the older woman lied what possibly was the greatest Tony Stark's secret, the only proof he knew about the existence of a daughter he could never know, a protected compartment where he exposed himself not as the great Iron Man, but as a fragile and broken human being, there inside were hundreds of letters possibly written in the worst moments of the genius, just as gifts and advices he could never give, all of them addressed to one person and only: little Linna. All of that began with a suggestion that looked like kind of stupid, they said the billionaire that the pain could be diminished if he transmitted to the paper everything he wanted to say to his daughter and it only stopped when he in fact could raise a new family and assure himself that his other little girl was safe by his side. The red-haired didn't work for the prodigy at the time, but she knew how self-destructive he became after he knew about the supposedly child's death. She never dared to ask him how desperate he was to try even the most fool ideas, however it somehow worked. The wound scarred along the years and Tony wouldn't blame himself for her death anymore, nonetheless, he never abandoned the habit of writing for his late daughter. Inside of what looked like a box was a piece of Tony Stark's heart.