Leap Of Faith

|Chapter 9| Identified Enigma

"Sir?" came the voice of FRIDAY over the intercom.

Tony, who had been adjusting the propulsion settings on his Iron Man suit, immediately looked up and asked, "Yes?"

"I have found a match. Shall I print out the results?"

"Yes!" As soon as Tony said that, the printer in the corner of the shop started printing out the paper. Tony rushed over, and immediately started thumbing through the files.

"Sir?" The AI called out.

"Yeah?"

"It may be important to note that Miss Foster's," he checked the file to see that her last name was indeed Foster, "File was just re entered into the database."

Tony bit his lip. There was nothing incredibly odd about her file, save for the fact that she had skipped multiple grades, but that was peculiar. "FRIDAY? You said re-entered. When was this file originally created, and when was it removed?"

"The file was created on Miss Foster's birthday back in 2000. It was removed sometime in 2012, a few days after she went missing, and the day after her family moved away, seemingly without her."

"Do you know who removed it?" Tony asked, pressing the button for the elevator.

"No I do not. I will look into it."

"Has she been spotted at all since 2012?" Tony inquired, stepping into the elevator. He pressed the button for the common room he and the Avengers shared.

"She was spotted once around 2013-2014 ish in Florence, Italy. She was seen near the Dromo, along with four others who bear striking resemblances to some of the," FRIDAY paused, "Prisoners we had recently. She was also spotted in a small Café the day she was captured."

"Anything else interesting?"

"She suffered from chronic headaches starting from when she was 5 years old."

Tony winced. As someone who got headaches and migraines every so often, that sounded like no fun to him. Tony walked out of the elevator, and saw Nat and Steve and the dining room table, chatting over drinks. He set the file down on the table. "We got a name." He declared.

Nat grabbed the file and started thumbing through it. When she was done, she silently passed it over to Steve, who read through and set it back down on the table. "She doesn't seem ridiculously out of the ordinary" Nat remarked.

"I dunno, skipping that many grades seems pretty out of the ordinary." Steve countered.

"So she's a child genius. There's plenty of those in the world." Nat shot back.

"It's strange though," Tony cut in. "There definitely feels like we're missing something..." Tony trailed off. "I wonder if she's Asgardian? It would explain Thor's reaction to her."

"But Thor could've told us that. It's not like we don't know what an Asgardian is." Steve said, picking up the file again. He seemed to notice something, as he squinted at the paper and his brow furrowed.

"What is it?" Tony asked.

"It's just that it says her mom tried for a baby multiple times, to no avail. But then she went to some unnamed," he emphasised unnamed, seemingly trying to prove a point, "Doctor and suddenly everything was fine. She even had her second daughter with no problems."

"Probably just injected something into the mom. It's not that hard." Tony said with a shrug of his shoulders.

Nat snached back the paper. "It's just that if she tried for a baby multiple times to no avail, she was probably infertile. So how'd this doctor fix that?" They sat in silence for a few moments, before Nats head snapped up from her reading and she called out to the ceiling.

"FRIDAY? Can two parents with green eyes have a kid with brown eyes?" She asked.

"No they cannot." The AI replied.

"What the fuck." Nat whispered, her face pale, and her eyes wide.

"What?" The two men asked.

"Both of Sophie's parents have green eyes. She has brown eyes. That's scientifically impossible."

"Adoption...?" Steve ventured.

"That's what I was thinking, but Sophie's mom gave birth to her. No adoption here." Nat said, looking more and more bewildered.

"Did the mom cheat?" Tony asked, crossing his arms in thought.

"It's a possibility, but it's highly unlikely. There's absolutely no evidence to support whether or not she cheated, but I have a feeling she didn't." Nat said, absentmindedly running her hands through her hair.

"So we don't think the mom cheated, but there's evidence to suggest she did. But why would she cheat. We've all read the file. It seems like her parents' marriage was a happy one." Steve said.

"FRIDAY, can you get Emma and William Foster's files for us?" Nat asked.

"I will try."

The next few minutes were spent in a tense silence, broken by the occasional flipping of pages, or a sigh from one of the three superheroes. The silence was broken when FRIDAY spoke again.

"Unfortunately, I am unable to locate their files."

"What do you mean?" Tony asked. Was she broken?

"Their files do not seem to exi- wait. Please hold for a moment."

They waited in a tense silence, until FRIDAY spoke again. "Their file's seem to have been heavily altered. Their names were changed, jobs changed, even their date and place of birth was changed."

"Could they have just changed their name, maybe wanting to start over?" Steve asked.

"That does not seem to be the reason for the change, but I can not locate any reason for it." The AI replied, and she sounded somewhat frustrated. How could an AI feel frustrated? Well the Vision was technically an AI, and he definitely loved Wanda...

The three exchanged glances, and they seemed to agree on something. It was Tony who voiced their agreement to FRIDAY.

"FRIDAY, call all Avengers within five hours of the tower or the compound over. Please print out copies of Mr. And Mrs. Foster's files, along with Sophie's . One for everyone please. Contact Fury as well, he'll definitely want to see this."

"Right away sir."