AzureFeather

Posting a single chapter a day early, cause I'm almost certainly not gonna get another done this week with my pulsing headache and sleep change, and I do not want to forget about this chapter tomorrow... More in bottom Author comment.

Jasmine tried not to paw at where her left arm used to be as she walked towards the kitchen, following after Pepper. Or maybe she should call her Mom? Mother? The adoption process wasn't finished yet so she wasn't technically the child of the Starks yet, but from what she overheard it's apparently set in stone.

She wasn't quite sure what to think of it- the adoption- or rather, there was too much to think about it. Pepper was nice, her... 'aura' being warm, kind, and cozy- even if it had random bursts of other feelings. Tony felt more... confused and awkward than anything else. Though there was an undercurrent of what Jasmine can only describe as solid metal through her aura sense. Or maybe emotion sense? She was still getting a hold on her quickly blooming power. It wasn't like magic that responded to her whims and will, but a more passive thing, like normal sight or sense of touch....

Jasmine shook her head. The pain medication they are giving her makes her annoyingly unfocused, her thoughts sliding around willy nilly. "Are you ok, dear?" Jasmine blinked at Pepper's voice, abruptly stopping as she realized she was about to run into the woman, her head craning upward to look at the gently smiling redhead. Not as red as her birth mother, more blonde in color... Jasmine blinked, refocusing and nodding. 'Adults are too tall.' Jasmine thought idly.

Pepper smiled at the girl, gently reaching down and lightly grabbing the girl's remaining hand- moving slowly to not bring out any trauma her new daughter may have from her previous... situation. Gently she pulled the girl along, ignoring how the girl's eyes seemed to partially lose focus as she fell back into her thoughts. Hopefully she can stop giving the girl morphine soon. It wouldn't do for her daughter to get addicted to it. 

It's only been a few days since Jasmine woke up in the hospital- which was two days after her surgery. Last night was the first night she spent in the Stark mansion, under the careful observation of a couple nurses, Natasha, and Pepper herself to make sure her shoulder graft doesn't reopen and that there are no unnoticed issues. The lawyers Pepper gave calls to have been working fast. Hopefully by the end of the week she and Tony will have legal custody of the girl. A week after that and hopefully the fuckers in Jasmine's previous home will be behind bars. Pepper's eyes flashed cruelly at the thought. 

"Morning, Hon, kiddo." Pepper snapped out of her thoughts at Tony's greeting, smiling at the sight of her husband who was sitting with a casual air at the table- though she could easily notice the small quirks that belied his awkwardness. The man didn't really know how to take her pregnancy, and he certainly doesn't know how to take their new daughter. 'At least he's doing his best.' She thought in amusement. 'Even if his best looks like a blind man's blundering.' 

Jasmine to her side nodded in greeting, her hand loosely clasped in Pepper's. From her height she could see the top of something on the table. Tony's aura was filled with nervousness and awkwardness, with underpins of hope and resolve. The feel of steel everpresent far underneath. "Come here, kiddo." Tony staltingly gestured, "I've got something for you."

"More like, we've got something for you." The blonde woman sitting across from Tony countered, a permanent smile on her lips growing as she stood up and walked around the table before kneeling and opening her arms. "Come give aunty Octavia a hug sweetie~" Dr. Octavia sang, Jasmine involuntarily smiling as the woman's sincerity, kindness, excitement and ever present mischief swept over her. 

Pepper let the girl walk over and get scooped up by Octavia, who briefly shot Tony a smug grin from over Jasmine's shoulder. Both Stark's just rolled their eyes at the Doctor's antics. 

"So!" Octavia began, carefully adjusting Jasmine in her arms so the small girl could sit comfortably. "The graft of your shoulder is pretty much set by now. So you don't have to worry about tearing it open and bleeding out- "Octavia!"- unless you grind against it really hard." She cheerfully spoke while bouncing the girl a bit, dutifully ignoring the strangled shout of her friend to the small smile of Jasmine. "So, me and Tony got a bit of a thing worked up. Having one arm is annoying, so~♫!" She grandly turned so Jasmine could see the top of the table, sweeping her arm out, "Ta da~" 

On the table sat a small, white colored arm with four radial extended pads at the shoulder joint. Jasmine blinked in curiosity. 'This is a replacement arm? How does it work?' 

"A latest and custom made Stark prosthetic- made personally by the famous Tony Stark himself!" Octavia proclaimed, gesturing to the man of the hour who had an amused grin on his face, giving a small comical bow from his chair. 'His nervousness went down.' Jasmine noted. "It's got a full range of motion, nice durability, a few gimmicks Pepper doesn't and shouldn't know about- "What!?"- a small arc reactor that frankly shouldn't be on an arm- "Tony!?"- giving it nigh infinite battery life, and best of all~!" Octavia grinned and shifted, allowing Jasmine to directly take in a small case of... dye? "You can color it yourself!" 

Jasmine blinked. She can color it? Freely? Yells and beatings played in the back of her mind, the old feeling of her arm snapping reaching the surface. Jasmine shuddered as tears welled up. 'No one's gonna beat me for drawing?' 

Octavia quickly gestured with her eyes to Pepper, who instantly dropped her annoyed expression that demanded answers and quickly stepped up to and joined Octavia in giving the girl a huge hug as some tears and sniffles escaped. Octavia started humming gently, rocking back and forth as Pepper quietly whispered reassurances. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted Tony clenching his fist as he looked over, face blank but Octavia knew the man well enough to know he wanted to help comfort the girl but didn't know how. 'Play boy he might have been, father he has yet to be.' Octavia mused, quickly turning back to the distraught girl as she provided as much comfort as possible to her god-daughter.

>>> Time skip (Couple months later)

"So how's she doing?" Tatalia asked while peeling oranges for the obviously pregnant Pepper beside her. The laughter and arguments of the three children faintly heard from the next room over. 'At least she seems alot more expressive now.' She mused to herself, handing a few slices on a plate to her friend.

Pepper moaned in relief as she ate a slice of orange, Carefully moving around her slowly bulging stomach. "Yes. Her and Tony are also getting along more naturally after her little 'magic' reveal. Tony is still trying to find a source of information on magic. He's already gotten his hands on a few books that he and Jasmine poured over." Pepper snickered, remembering the sight of her daughter and husband squabbling over the specifics and mechanics of magic. It was quickly apparent that Jasmine was ridiculously smart. The only shackle currently on the girl was simply her lack of built up knowledge and experience, something Tony had been working to mitigate. 

The initial burst of awkwardness when Jasmine fearfully revealed her magical capabilities- which he mistook for psychics at first- was quickly washed away when Jasmine asked if it was possible to combine it with his tech. The two had poured over fantasy literature, old fables, and books Tony acquired through various means- a couple even courtesy of raided Ten Rings bases. His grumbles of the magic community being too tight-lipped were now a common grievance before bed, much to Pepper's exasperation.

Tatalia shook her head at that, her long dark hair swaying. She'd seen the girl's telekinesis and some minor cantrips Jasmine made herself based off of the fairy tales and stories she read with Pepper and Tony. Still, magic was a bit much for the middle aged woman. "I'll stay with my perfectly mundane engineering, thank you very much." She said dryly. Despite long having known about the existence of 'supernatural' things due to working with the Starks, she'd much prefer to stick with what she knew. 

Pepper shrugged. "Your loss." Her daughter's 'feel well' cantrip was nothing but a blessing in Pepper's professional opinion. Having all the aches die down and her emotions stabilize was a gift from the heavens, as far as she was concerned. Though Pepper made a note not to rely too heavily on Jasmine. She didn't want her daughter being dependent on her praise and whims after all. 

A particularly loud crash reached the two women, and they paused for a second, relaxing when the laughter and yelling of the girls picked up again. 

"And the girl's physical condition?" Tatalia asked. 

"Better. Alot better." Pepper answered, nomming another orange slice. "Octavia says she likely has hidden sequelae that may cause her pain later, but she threw her hands up saying she had no idea if it would be of consequence with magic involved." 

Tatalia snickered. "At least something stumps that woman." 

Pepper snorted, "You're just mad she can accurately tell when you've been over indulging in sweets again."

"I don't know how she does it!" Tatalia growled, "Leave me and my poor sweets alone!" 

"She's your doctor."

"They're my sweets!"

Pepper shook her head and gave a placating gesture. "Right. Right. Anyway." The red head slid back to their original topic, "Jasmine's also been having light workouts with Natasha." She smiled and snickered, "The girl is too cute. I think she's set Natasha as a physical role model." 

The older woman barked a laugh, "Good luck to her! The way Nat moves comes from years of practice. At least the girl's starting early!"

"Not to mention having an interest in her own physical condition from an early age will likely pay dividends later on." Pepper added, eating another orange slice.

Tatalia nodded, nibbling on a slice herself, "Right? Now if only I could get my girls interested in exercise." 

"Maybe you should lead by example?" Pepper mused in jest. Tatalia gasped in fake hurt, stabbing a half eaten slice of orange in the redheads direction, "Et tu, brutus!? First Octavia, and now you!?" The portly woman jiggled in frustration, "It's big bones I tell you, big bones!" 

"Sure, sure." Pepper smiled, "But I don't think big bones determine the size of your chest and stomach." 

Tatalia groaned, her head tilting back in defeat, "Mercy, mercy. I get enough of this from Octavia in my check ups. The woman is sharper with words than carbide adamant tooling." She grumbled. 

"It's for your own good." Pepper snarked, "Less time drawing engineering prints, more time jogging!" 

Tatalia gasped, "But those prints are for the job, boss lady!" 

"Not when you draw them off hours." The redhead dryly replied. "Take a break and take care of yourself Tatalia, jeez. Don't want your girls copying you, do you?" 

The woman covered her face with an arm and groaned. "What I'd do for Natasha's ability to eat however much she wants without getting fat..." 

Pepper nodded in sympathy at that. Truly, the amount of cake the professional bodyguard was able to put away in a sitting was just ridiculous. The fact she could repeat it without consequences even more so. 

"You do realize the constant exercise the woman does is probably partially the reason she can do it right?" Pepper asked, casually finishing off an orange slice.

Tatalia lifted her arm up and gave her old friend a glare, "Shush you. I'm being melodramatic over an obviously unfair constitution." She paused for a moment, "Do you think magic will give Jasmine a similar effect?"

Pepper shrugged. "We barely know anything about magic as is. If it does I wouldn't be surprised, however."

"Oh, why must the universe be so unfair." Tatalia griped. 

"Mother!" "Mom!" Riri and Leona stumbled into the room, out of breath, quickly running around the table to hide behind Pepper and Tatalia. 

"Get back here!" Jasmine roared, long black hair flairing to the sides with agitation as she ran into the room after the two older girls, starting a chase around the table as the two older girls laughed and panted in glee. 

"Woah, woah. Sweeties, enough enough!" Tatalia grabbed Riri by the back of her shirt, narrowly missing Leona as Pepper scooped up Jasmine in passing, who proceeded to wriggle, then pout as she glared at Riri, Leona escaping the room with cackling laughter. 

An attempted questioning to get the circumstances out of the two remaining girls, with babbling cries of 'they cheated', 'it was funny', and 'meanie'. Left the two older women wryly exhausted, letting the two girls go find and hunt down Leona together with a warning to keep their playing tame.

After the two girls scampered off Tatalia and Pepper gave each other a look, then burst into laughter.

>>> Small time skip

Jasmine collapsed on the ground with a huff of torid air. All her muscles were sore. She was pretty sure her prosthetic was sore somehow. Natasha laughed at the girl's exhaustion. "Good job today. Come on, let me help you to the showers." The redhead quickly scooped up the exhausted girl, to her mild protests. Jasmine sighed in the woman's firm arms, slight envy on her mind. 

Natasha noticed the girl's pout and smirked, "Don't worry. Keep training and one day you'll also reach this level of fitness." Jasmine nodded- though in truth it was up in the air. Natasha was enhanced by a weak super soldier serum created by the red room, and was a genius ki manipulator. Her bet was Jasmine's magic may enhance her body somehow, considering how it seemingly reacted more and more to the girl's whims and thoughts as time passed. Natasha was looking forward to the girl's growth. 

A short walk later and Natasha gently set Jasmine on her feet, the small girl barely coming up to the tall woman's thighs. "Alright, let's take a shower and then have dinner, okay?" Natasha said and ruffled the girls hair. A short while later and the both of them were drying off, Natasha using the blow dryer stark made for Pepper on Jasmine's hair while humming, the small girl nearly nodding off, prosthetic set to the side.

Natasha smiled gently as she finished going through the girl's black hair, giving Jasmine a small shake to wake her up, "Don't fall asleep now. We still need to eat dinner." 

"Un." Jasmine sleepily responded, slowly hopping off the chair. Natasha blinked in mild amusement as suddenly the prosthetic, a good two meters to the side, whirled through the air and attached itself to the girl's bare shoulder mid-stretch. Jasmine shook herself, seemingly not even realizing what she did as Natasha grabbed her and Jasmines clothes from the cubby, shaking her head as she did so. 'The girl's magic is getting more and more instinctive, acting merely as a limb.' Natasha mused, tossing the Jasmine her shirt, pants, and undies while slipping her own on over her skin. 'I don't think wizards, or however they're called, are supposed to be able to do this.' The bodyguard had some experience fighting magic users; i.e the 'priests' of the Ten Rings. And they all needed tools and incantations to do anything of note with magic- using rings the width of an open hand as focuses. 

Even the Mandarin supposedly needed his ten fancy rings to do anything of note. Jasmine on the other hand... Natasha snorted in amusement as she watched the girl's hair seemingly sway side to side with no wind, like the tail of a cat. Pepper already had some adorable videos of the girl where her hair moved with her emotions. Both women looked forward to lightly teasing the girl about the adorable habit.

'Habits aside, it's good the girl is learning to be herself.' Natasha's warm smile went unnoticed as she followed the younger girl out of the showers. 'It took me years to learn how to do so, and even now I sometimes wonder if my personality is merely another act...' A forlorn smile graced the ex-assassin's lips. She knew far better than to dwell on such anxieties, but regardless they occasionally pop up. Natasha's mind started wandering as she followed behind Jasmine, absently swirling the ki through her flesh out of habit as she remininced on her confused first few years after breaking apart the red room with her own two hands. 'I've come a long way.'

"There you are sweetie!" Pepper's voice broke Natasha from her thoughts. "Come give me a hug~" Pepper cooed from her chair, her abdomen swollen in pregnancy. Jasmine smiled and jogged up to her mother, wrapping her arms as much as she could around the woman as her weaved side to side in contentment, causing a grin to grow on Pepper's, Natasha's, and the nearby Tony's faces. None of the adults said anything of course, letting the adorable habit be unmolested. "Alright, up into the chair kiddo and lets eat dinner before you get to bed." Tony spoke after the hug went on for a minute, getting a mild glare from Pepper in response as Jasmine nodded and hopped up into her chair, Natasha smoothly sliding into the last spot causing Tony to jerk in mild surprise.

She chuckled internally at that, giving the super hero a smirk. Tony rolled his eyes at her and they began dinner, Pepper peppering Jasmine with small questions and Tony providing snark, with Natasha chiming in on the girl's progress with physical training with a dose of encouragement. Soon the conversation was derailed as Tony and Jasmine got into a theoretical discussion, causing Natasha and Pepper to shake their heads in exasperation, sharing mildly tired looks with each other. 

"But it'd be an incredible wealth of knowledge and experiences!" Jasmine pointed out, "It just needs a good back end storage and processor with an easily usable front end navigation system."

Tony hummed, "I see what you mean kiddo, but I still run a business. How would we profit off of it if it is free?"

"It's not all free! People would have to pay for their own pages and addresses! Though the index and library function..." Jasmine hesitated, "The collected information? Or maybe promotion of sites? People pay for adverts right?" She thought for a second, then looked over to Pepper for help, who smiled slightly. 

"It may be a good idea Tony. If for nothing else but the sheer quantity of data and information we'd collect and have access to- though it may have a massive cultural impact if we combine it with your handheld and personal computer idea. The two together will become extremely profitable and world changing, at least."

Tony groaned and rubbed his forehead, looking at the ceiling for a few seconds. He looked back at Jasmine, her eyes sparkling with expectation. "Haa.... Fine." "Yes!" "But you have to put in the work for the front end okay? I'll help with the backend and serv-" "Thank you! Thank you!" "oof!" "It'll be great, I promise!" 

Jasmine bolted from where she hug tackled Tony and ran off from the kitchen as Pepper lightly covered her mouth, stifling laughter. Natasha had a grin on her face, "Reaaaallly shouldn't have let her have unobstructed access to the Starknet." The woman quipped, and a wry smile spread across Tony's mouth before he grinned at the exit the girl left through. 

"And what, stifle her innovation?" Tony chuckled. "Her idea does have merit, though the consequences..." He frowned, briefly trying to predict the results of Jasmine's ideas for a commercial, potentially world-spanning infonet. The man sighed, "I have no idea what will come of this. If it goes as she hopes, great, but such a change?" Tony shook his head.

Pepper shrugged. "I think her idea would happen eventually anyway. It's not that hard of a leap; we already have a company wide infonet. And we're far from the only people who have one, even if ours is more advanced. The leap to make it easier to use for a wide audience and unrestrict the contents isn't too far away. Her idea of 'pages' isn't too far a leap either- just take what companies already have and give people the tools to recreate them, then have them pay for server space." The woman tapped her finger on the table and tilted her head, "Frankly, the most bizzare is the dynamic index feature- though even that isn't too extreme. We already use a sortable index for our company infonet."

"Yeah yeah." Tony sighed and slid a hand through his hair, leaning back in his chair. "We may have to change the wording of the functions though. Not exactly commercially sellable to a wide audience as stands. Though, her company name is a decent one." He smiled at that, causing Pepper to shake her head.

"Hopefully it doesn't fuffle to many feathers." She glared accusingly at Tony, "It has your brand of arrogance as well." 

Natasha and Tony barked a laugh at that. "What can I say, I am an excellent influence!" Tony shrugged his shoulders with a grin. Natasha snorted, "An infectious one, sure."

Pepper sighed, leaning back as she fondly looked at the door where her excited daughter ran off, probably furthering her idea into a presentable state. Jasmine and Tony would likely be working on the hardware for a while, and Pepper would help get the business portion up and ready. Though, it may take a few years for the girl's idea to hit the market and take off. 

"Babel, huh..." Pepper muttered, Tony and Natasha quieting slightly, the former smirking while the latter just mused lightly, swirling her cup "The forum of the world, where all human knowledge and discussions collect, where anyone can interact and talk, share knowledge, and interact regardless of origin- the penultimate bridge of humanity."

Pepper went quiet. Tony raised his glass "It's a hell of a dream, no?" 

AzureFeather

Okay, so that's the chapter. I am tired as hell, and it's only gonna get worse this weekend (When this chapter releases) due to having to change my sleep schedule again for work. So if there's no second chapter, that's why. Hopefully the end of this chapter (And its entirety) isn't too bad or feels like filler.

Onto more interesting things, yes. Jasmine is inventing (kinda) the world wide web, using Tony's existing plans to go into the personal computer industry as a leaping board. Babel itself is gonna be somewhat like a combination of Google, Youtube, and Wikipedia, This is mostly born of Jasmine's desire to have and know what others know- shoring up her lack of experience with sheer quantity collected from others. Of course, not everything goes exactly to plan, (throw a bunch of humans into a melting pot and they are going to start fighting) but this will go over 'relatively' well in universe. About as well as our own internet went anyway, with the added benefit of a couple good-natured geniuses at the helm.

A thing to note: It's around 1987-1988 at this point. The internet does exist in some form, but nothing like the web we know today. Companies got a few linked nodes they can share info between, but we're in the age of loading floppy's and discs into computers still for programs. The world wide web is nothing more than a futuristic concept the few who hear about it are more often than not laughing at the absurdity of. Stark is stupidly advanced by the years standards, at least in terms of electronics (Hence why his weaponry was so highly prized and dangerous). 

Next chapter should have a brief timeskip (a few years) and a flash over to Britain and the magic side of things.

In World Detail Explanation - 

Jasmine's instinctive and constant magic is not normal, as you'd expect. As I've stated previously Jasmine's brand of eidetic memory has severe consequences to her psyche, such as massively increasing her willpower just to cope with the overlapping emotions of every memory she spontaneously thinks of, not even to mention what is casually playing in the background of her mind at all times. 

What I didn't bring up is how this affects Intent- since her memories spontaneously surge to the forefront at all times, and she constantly experiences emotions, her intent is stupidly strong to not become a jibbering, mad mess. She can focus through the storm of her own mind- she simply has to. But this does mean that whatever she wants and wills, she wants and wills alot more strongly than normal- this doesn't really affect her day to day life, since this is literally the minimum requirement for her to be able to function somewhat normally, but for magic that doesn't care?

Yeah, a passing desire of Jasmines can spontaneously cause her magic to manifest. The only reason this didn't happen more commonly before? Abuse, frankly. Every surge of magic resulted in a severe beating and lashing by the Dursleys, resulting in Jasmine containing her magic bit by bit and growing her self control somewhat unconsciously. Now that she's in a healthier environment where her spontaneous magic doesn't result in her getting yelled at and beaten? It's starting to become apparent, and is becoming more and more natural for Jasmine to use. And oh boy does she have alot to use. 

At this point she's somewhat brute-forcing cantrips by sheer Will and Intent alone, and the more she does so (and uses magic in general) the more she's building up her own personal History. Combine that with having her newfound self-confidence boosting her Belief and you've got a mage that is already terrifying to think about only limited by her age, and will most certainly not need any focus whatsoever to cast spells.

Jasmine is a terrifyingly powerful child, and is only going to grow even more so as she gets older.