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"Pepper sent a video a little bit ago, Aurora was playing with some of her toys

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"Pepper sent a video a little bit ago, Aurora was playing with some of her toys. She looked adorable,"

"She's always adorable," Audelia shot back with a grin, placing her phone between her shoulder and ear as she looked up, seeing Tony stalk out of the lab room for just a second as Bruce continued his work across the room. "It just feels weird, Nate. Neither of us have left her side since she was born."

"Besides when Tony steals her," the pair laughed together, knowing from experience that Tony did like to steal their daughter away quite a bit. "I swear, sometimes he thinks Rora is his own daughter, not ours."

"You gotta remember that Howard wasn't the most...involved father," Deli tried to choose her words carefully, not wanting to sound harsh toward the man she considered a second father. She got to witness, though, up close the pain that his absentee parenting methods had caused Tony. "He's trying to show her the love he never got. Makes sense to me. It's actually quite nice seeing how much he loves her."

"Honestly, I like seeing him with Rora. It's nice seeing this other side of him for once,"

The pair fell into silence as Audelia took a moment to focus on the screens before her, running through JARVIS' diagnostics as she waited for the download of SHIELD files to finish off.

"So, you're actually staying in New York in case something happens?"

"I've been kind of secretly preparing the hospital in case something happens," Nathan explained from his side of the phone, Deli hearing rustling on the other end. "I made sure that Stephen Strange is on call because if this is as bad as you're making it seem like it can get, we're going to need all hands on deck. If he's here I'll probably mobilize the mobile team and head out with them into the city."

"Hopefully we can find this cube and keep the situation from getting that far," Audelia muttered under her breath, biting into her bottom lip as she switched her screen over to the current tracking of the cube.

"Just keep working at it. You've assembled an entire team of superheroes, you guys will be able to get this under control. I've got to get back to work, I'll keep you updated on Aurora and Pepper,"

"Please do. Be careful, I'll keep you updated, too,"

The call ended as Deli through her phone down on the counter, sighing as she thought it all through. Loki was here, and he was dangerous, and the weapon he wants is somewhere out there in the hands of the people who he had under his control. Audelia didn't just have herself to worry about, she had a fiance and a daughter to worry about. She had this new team to worry about, Tony...so much threatened everything she cared about and it scared her to death.

But that's why she became Imperial, right? To protect those she loved...to protect Tony.

"I've read a lot of Nathan's research online, about the brain and the connections between the different parts," Bruce spoke up from the other-side of the room, tapping his pen against the desk before focusing on the screen in front of him once more. "He's a brilliant man."

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