Sarah's POV
We finally left Jace's after supper. Things were starting to wind down and everyone had started to go home. Also, I wanted time to talk to my parents. It was already almost 8 and they generally went to bed between 9 and 10 pm.
"Mom, Dad. We're back!" I hollered as we came in the front door. I kicked off my shoes and looked around. The lights were on, so I knew they were home already. I found them in the living room; dad was watching TV and mom sitting next to him, leafing through a photo album. They looked up when we came in and dad switched off the TV.
"I got a phone call today from someone I hadn't talked to in a very long time." My mom, said slowly. "It's been a little over six years, in fact."
"Who was it, Mom?"
"Mr. Tony Stark."
I nodded. "I found an old picture when I was at his house on Thursday night. He's part of the team I work with at the Triskelion."
"He said you'd learned about Project Genesis and probably had some questions for us. Is that right?"
I looked at Steve, who had turned to leave the room again. I caught his arm and met his eyes. "Stay?"
"Are you sure?" he asked and I nodded. He took my hand and led me to the love seat across from the couch, sitting down next to me. I tucked my feet under me and twined my fingers with his.
"Yes, I told Tony that I wanted to talk to you first before I did anything else. Were you really not going to tell me until I turned 21?"
"We couldn't," my dad said, nodding. "It was the only detail Mr. Stark insisted on as part of the agreement when we adopted you. He never signed away his rights to you, Sarah; he technically only loaned you to us until you were an adult. It's going to sound cliché, but it really was for your own safety."
"How did you become a part of the project, Mom? Was Dad part of it, too?"
"Your father was a junior professor at NYU when we first met and got married. I had finished nursing school top in my class and was recruited by Shield to be a part of their medical teams. We were spread out in small groups over the tri-state area to treat Agents that were injured in the line of duty. The primary doctor I worked under, John Hopkins, was well known to Howard Stark, so when Howard asked him to join this project, Doctor Hopkins insisted that I be allowed to join as well. He said I had a calming way with patients, which would be beneficial, considering the emotional nature of this project." My mom took a deep breath before continuing the story.
"Genesis was, without a doubt, one of the most challenging things I have ever done. I sat in on a panel that screened the applicants we got for the project. The parameters were quite specific: they had to be healthy, married, no prior children, unable to conceive but healthy. They ranged in age from 22-28. Once they were accepted for the project, we had to begin tracking their fertility cycles to know when would be the optimal time for implantation.
I didn't have anything to do with the science part of the experiment - it was need to know only. I would then prep the subjects for implantation and do everything possible to make them comfortable. Then came the waiting. We had 3 subjects a month and one control, so I saw them weekly along with the OBGYN on the project. At first, I was optimistic because over a third of the subjects became pregnant. Then the difficulties would start...
By the end of the first trimester, half of the subjects would miscarry. The other half made it through varying stages of the second trimester; however, the fetus' developed faster than the average fetus. They were very strong and sometimes did a lot of damage to the host mother. Broken bones, damaged organs, hemorrhaging, detached placenta, anything that could possibly go wrong – we dealt with it all, doing our best to keep the mothers alive when we couldn't save the babies.
Eventually, despite our efforts and putting the mothers on bed rest early, the baby would often be born extremely prematurely, always stillborn. I would console them as best I could. The ones who wanted to try again were later implanted with normal embryos and most of them had successful pregnancies and went on to have natural children.
In the summer of 1993, the scientists informed us that the project would be put on hold unless they acquired more genetic material from the male line they had been working with. Mr. Stark visited the lab in person and talked to a lot of us, trying to determine whether it was feasible to continue or not, I suppose. In reality, he had to donate enough sperm so that we could finish the experiment by the end of '93, which was our end date based on the eggs we had available.
Finally, there was one subject who, against all odds, managed to carry into the third trimester. The baby was pretty well behaved and hadn't caused the host much damage other than some bruising and cracked ribs. We were hopeful that this baby would make it long enough to be born normally. That all changed when we received word that the host and her husband had been involved in a particularly bad car accident.
Doctor Hopkins, the OBGYN and I rushed to the hospital they were taken to and took over the operating room. We performed the emergency C-section right away because she insisted we save you. I think she knew she wasn't going to make it. She had lost too much blood and was in pretty bad shape. I showed you to her and she smiled, passing away moments later. When we later took stock of her condition, there was no possible explanation for how she had managed to hold on long enough for you to be born; but the fact that she kept her heart was beating that long was a miracle."
My mom handed me an old photograph that I had never seen. A very young Tony Stark in hospital scrubs was holding a tiny crying baby. His expression was amazement tinged with terror. "Mr. Stark got there and was scrubbed in not long after the doctor pulled you free. I brought a camera with me to the hospital, you see. It only seemed fitting that he be the first one to hold you, after all. He placed you in a warmer so we could check you over. At 28 weeks, you were still under developed and fighting to live. We took you back to the lab by Stark's private ambulance to keep you in the NICU we had there. I stayed with you until you were finally strong enough to leave the NICU."
My mom handed my another picture I had never seen. I had heard that I was tiny when I was born, but I hadn't ever known how early I had been born. This one showed my mom in her nurse's outfit next to an incubator. My eyes were covered with gauze and I was pretty tiny.
"By then," my mom continued, "I had become attached to you, so after talking it over with your father, I asked Mr. Stark if we could adopt you. We had been married for 5 years by then and I still had not conceived. After investigating us thoroughly, Mr. Stark agreed to the adoption. It was provisional, meaning that at age 21, our rights to you dissolved and you were to be returned to him. He set up accounts for your care and worked with Shield so that I would be able to stay home with you full time until you started school."
"Didn't he want me?" I asked.
"Of course he did, Sarah!" My mom said fervently. "He didn't think he would be able to keep you safe, though. He had just taken on running Stark Industries a couple of months earlier and was the target of multiple assassination attempts. There was also the fact that we didn't know how you were going to develop. The embryos were all treated with a serum before implantation that was supposed to make them faster and stronger than regular humans. As a Stark, it was expected that you would be a genius. You were supposed to be able to recover from injuries at a phenomenal rate.
Mr. Stark didn't want you scrutinized by the press in case someone ever realized you were enhanced. Given how quickly you grew as a child, there was no way it wouldn't have been noticed. We still don't know your full potential. It is entirely possible that you will age at a very slow rate now that you have reached your full growth.
"In addition to your value as Mr. Stark's sole heir," my dad said, looking at Steve, "there are people who would do anything they could to get their hands on you for your blood alone. I'm sure Steve, who was given a similar serum, is aware of how dangerous that could be in the wrong hands."
Steve nodded, "That is very true. Johan Schmidt, the Red Skull, was one of them. He used an early version of Dr. Erskine's formula on himself with disastrous results."
"We moved a lot when you were younger to avoid interested individuals. You probably don't remember much until we moved to South Dakota." I shook my head, confused. I had always thought that I had been born there, but it would seem that wasn't the case. "You fit in well there, having learned to blend in by then, and it seemed as if we had shaken the men that had been on your trail, so we settled there for several years until you needed further education. We knew you were still too young to officially join Shield, so we picked Princeton; it was close enough that you could commute and Agent Gregg could supervise your training. I lost touch with Mr. Stark when we moved here, beyond informing him of your current location. We still had some time left while you were ours, so we tried to give you an ordinary American childhood, at least as much as we could with your abilities. When you left to go to DC to work at the Triskelion, we knew it would only be a matter of time before you would run into Mr. Stark."
"Met him my first real day there. So who is my biological mother?"
"We don't know. A name was never used in any of the paperwork I saw. I never heard any of the staff mention anyone, either."
"So do I still get to call you Mom and Dad?"
"Of course, Sarah. You will always be our daughter, too." My mom had tears in her eyes and my dad was holding her hand.
"Are you okay with me getting to know Tony? I understand why things are this way, but I feel like I should give him a chance to be a part of my life, too. Not just in the background where he's apparently always been."
My parents both nodded, finding it hard to speak at the moment.
"I think he'd like that, Sarah," said Steve. "He's missed out on so much already. You didn't see him on the jet back home. He was pretty cut up about it all."
"So is that really why you and Dad have had Shield clearances? Not because of my age when I joined?"
"We have both been with Shield the whole time," said Dad. "It was necessary to keep you safe. There has always been a Shield agent stationed within a block of our house and at your schools."
"That explains so much, now that I think of it. Why else would my babysitters always be so old? Everyone else got teenagers as their babysitters and I always had at least a college student. So Sam? Was he Shield?"
"No. He was vetted by Shield, but he's just a family friend."
"So who else knows who I really am?"
"Other than us, Mr. Stark, and Kevin, just Director Fury. He would have been told when he became the director. I'm not aware of anyone else."
I looked at Steve, raising an eyebrow. "Steve, do think Maria knows?"
"Hard saying. She is Fury's right hand, so it's possible. You'd have to ask him when we get back." He brushed his thumb over my knuckles lightly.
"Is this something that we are keeping under wraps until I turn 21?" My parents nodded.
"We weren't planning on making any sort of announcement," my mom said, looking up at Dad. "Mr. Stark was going to talk to his lawyers to make sure you're protected from any fallout over this, but he still thinks it would be best to wait until you are of age to appoint you as his successor."
I shook my head. "I don't want to run his company, Mom. I didn't know I was his daughter until the other day. I need to find him a wife ASAP. I want to be an Agent, not a CEO. Besides, Pepper pretty much runs the company anyway."
"You find out you have a second dad two days ago and you're already trying for another mother?" asked Steve, confused by my logic.
"That sounds so much worse when you say it that way, but sure. I could use some siblings, well half siblings I guess they would be."
"Sarah!" my mom said, scolding me.
"What Mom? I'm 18, it's not like I'm going to get any otherwise - and Jace and Chloe don't count."
"They might as well for as often as they're here." Mom said with a smile. "You've never heard you and Jace get into it."
I grinned at her as a thought struck me. "Can you adopt him too and make it official? I don't think his little brothers would mind. They've already got plans for his room for when he leaves for Ops."
Mom and Dad just laughed at the thought of another teenager in the house. I got up off the couch, pulling Steve up too.
"I'm going to get ready for bed." I leaned down to hug my parents. "Night, Mom, Dad."
"Night, honey."
"See you in the morning, sweetie."