little piece of heaven (tony stark's daughter)

2

rosie's p.o.v

"we don't want you to fight, not directly" saturn explains, her hands motioning out her words, another nervous habit.

jupiter is sat on my lap, his tiny fists full of my curls. i can't help but think about how tiny he was when i first met him, now he's one and walks and talks about his day.

mars, venus, and saturn are sat around me, we're all gathered on my bedroom floor in an unofficial kind of meeting.

mars nods in agreement "mom had to go fight, you know that, and we've been looking after jupes".

"but.." venus continues on "it's gotten to the point where they need us, and we can't leave jupiter on his own for obvious reasons".

we fall into an awkward silence in which no one is sure what to say, or who's going to be the one to ask me "we need you to look after him" saturn finally tells me "no one should be able to get to you guys here, but if they do you'll be on your own and you'll have to defend him too".

silence shrouds us again and i force myself to take a deep breath "i'll do it, but not for mom, for jupiter".

i don't think my words shock my siblings, it's not secret that my supposed mom has hardly been in my life at all. i was all alone when i needed her most, she let me believe i didn't even have a mom for eight years. pepper is more of my mom than anyone. 

so that's how i end up staying here, just me and jupiter. it was fun at first, having a whole castle to myself, but after a few days a hollow building with a one year old becomes tiring. babies need feeding, playing with, reading to. jupes likes to be sung to sleep and cuddled and he wants colour in pictures with me. it's nice to be wanted, but i'm eleven, i'm not ready to be responsible for a small life-form. i'm exhausted.

i haven't really been sleeping because i'm terrified that someone is going to break into the tower whilst i do and get jupiter. because of this, i sit up with a heavy head and sore muscles, my younger brother stirring in my arms.

we have a rough kind of routine in the mornings, formed over the past six days, so i carry it out without even really putting too much thought into it. into the kitchen, mash a banana, put jupes in his high-chair and give it to him. i drink coffee whilst he eats, and then once he's done we do bath-time and get him dressed. today we've opted for a cute little monkey tracksuit. once he's washed and dressed i wash and dress myself before heading to one of the communal rooms and giving him some crayons.

i'm not going to lie, i'm homesick. i want my dad and pepper and neo and rhodey, but there isn't much i can do about it. i have to stay here until my siblings come back and they can look after jupiter. 

my wings sense the danger before i do, shielding myself and my baby brother without command. the sound of footsteps on the marble flooring outside makes my heart drop to my stomach and i drop down off of the armchair i was sat in, crawling across the floor to jupiter who's completely oblivious to the imminent danger we're probably in. come on roo, breathe. protect jupiter before yourself.

i wrap my arms around him, carefully but firmly hugging him close to my chest and folding my wings around us both. my bow is on the coffee table and i wince at the slight noise it makes when i beckon it to my hand. "jupes" i whisper "you need to be really quiet right now". his brows furrow in an unsure pause and i gulp, the last thing i need right now is for him to cry "it's a game, whoever can be quiet for the longest wins" i offer and a cheeky grin forms on his chubby cheeks, revealing his few teeth. breathing a sigh of relief, i stand up fully, keeping one wing folded around jupiter and the other relaxes and falls back to it's natural position. the footsteps are drawing closer and so we don't have long to get out of here. despite not having seen the mysterious character, my powers are telling me to run.

there's only one door, and it's currently blocked by the intruder, so we only really have one option and that's the window. on close inspection i realise that it doesn't open, and my stomach twists a little more. my powers are going crazy, letting me know i only have a few moments and so i raise the hand with my bow in and violently smash it against the glass. of course it shatters into a million pieces, and the door behind me flies open. with a grunt of distress i do the only thing i can, launch both me and my brother through the new gap in the wall. having realised that this isn't just a game anymore, the baby lets out a small cry, but there's no time to stop and comfort him as a beam of energy narrowly misses my head, resembling that produced by the tesseract last year. i fly us through the air to the courtyard and land on the stone circle where we usually teleport to and from, concentrating all of my energy and letting the light carry us away.