Speed Shift: A Pietro Maximoff x Reader

Something More Important

. . .

The year was 2000. Tony Stark stood outside the US Embassy in France holding an umbrella to shield him from the pouring rain as he waited for Pepper to arrive. 

He stared at the raindrops as they hit the puddle in front of him. He was incredibly bored.

A sudden commotion made him look up.

"Voleuse! Get back here!"

Two police officers chased after a hooded child as the child ran away as best they could. The child slipped in the puddle in front of Tony, landing in it and scraping her knee.

As the girl started to cry Tony looked back at the officers. "What's going on here?" he asked.

"This little girl… this little demon! Has been stealing from vendors and markets for weeks now." the tallest of them answered.

Tony raised an eyebrow at the term the man had just used to describe the girl. He crouched down and spoke to the kid instead.

"You alright, kid?"

"I'm fine!" the girl answered defiantly, only looking up for an instant to glare at him. And an instant is all it took for Tony to notice how the girls eyes shone in the dark, like two dim, yellow streetlights.

"Can you show me what you stole?"

The girl lowered her head further, tears streaming down her face, and took out an apple from the pocket of her hoodie.

Tony picked up the fruit and showed it to the officers with a look of disbelief. "An apple?" He stood up to face them directly, but made sure his umbrella covered both him and the girl. "You chased a kid, down the streets, at night, for an apple?" When the guards didn't answer, Tony continued, "What is this, Aladdin? Gonna chop her hand off too?" he finished sarcastically.

"The girl will be sent back to her country, back to her orphanage." said the shortest officer.

At those words the kid started to shiver violently, crying hysterically as her tears dripped into the puddle below.

"Nein!" she said, "No, please… Not there! ...not again…" her accent mixed with her incessant sobs made it hard for her words to be completely understood. But Tony caught the gist of them.

Tony looked down at the girl. She looked like a trapped little fish in a puddle. Helpless.

Just like he felt when he lost his parents.

At that moment Pepper arrived, eyeing the situation wearily, "Um, what's going on?"

Tony's face lit up when an idea came into his mind. He looked back at the officers, "But if the kid was adopted. You'd just need to take her back to her parents. Right?"

The tallest of the officers gaped at Tony in shock. Struggling to regain himself, he answered, "Well, yes but… Who would ever adopt this creature?"

Tony quickly addressed Pepper, not taking his eyes off the officer as he spoke, "How fast can we officialize an adoption?"

Pepper was stunned. This was over the top, even for Tony.

The girl was stunned too and she raised her head a bit, "Was…?" she whispered.

Pepper shook herself out of her stupor and answered, "If we start right now and have a bit of luck on our side," she shook her head in small motions while she finished calculating. Things got done a lot faster when you had the amount of money and power Tony Stark had. "Maybe a few hours." she concluded.