AU Milliways: 2012 Captain

[therighttime]

The sun is shining, the grass is green, the lake is a gorgeous glittering blue...

And Steph is in the bar, curled up in a chair with a sketch book and a mug of coffee.

Increased energy aside, not everything changes when you grew up a sick, skinny kid in the city.

Comments

[missnicegirl]

"I love school," she says enthusiastically. "Even though I'm probably going to be learning everything at a high school level before I'm in third grade. I'm friends with everyone in my class and they're all really great, and of course my teacher is the best. My teacher is my adoptive mom," she explains.

[therighttime]

Steph's eyebrows fly up, surprised. "What's that like? Being around her at home and at school, that's okay?"

Steph loved her mother - adored her mother - but it was easier to get through the day when Sarah Rogers didn't know exactly what school was like for her daughter.

[missnicegirl]

"Sure it is! I mean, she was my teacher first," she says. "She adopted me because Mom and Dad had to run away from the FBI and they didn't really want to take me with them and I didn't really want to go and I asked Jenny and she wanted to keep me."

[therighttime]

"...you've lived a whole lot in six years, haven't you?"

[missnicegirl]

"I guess so."

[therighttime]

"Jenny sounds really swell. You two are lucky to have each other."

[missnicegirl]

"I know." She smiles. "I love her. She's the best."

[therighttime]

Steph grins back. "So you're going to high school soon, huh? You might like talking to Tony, he graduated college at seventeen. You'd probably understand more of what he talks about than I do."

[missnicegirl]

"Well, I'm not sure if I'll go to high school that soon," she says consideringly. "If I'm going to be skipping ahead that fast, I might as well wait until I'm done all the high school material too and then go straight to college."

[therighttime]

"You mean you're doing high school work right now?"

[missnicegirl]

"Yep! Mostly in math. I get ahead in math faster than I get ahead in anything else."

[therighttime]

Yeah, she would definitely get a kick out of talking to Tony. Now Steph just has to figure out if that's a good idea, or if Tony even gets near children voluntarily.

"Yeah? I was never very good at math in school but I use it a lot now. That'll come in handy for you."

Even if she doesn't spend most of her days calculating the trajectory of a spinning disk through the air.

[missnicegirl]

"I know! Plus it's fun. I love math," she enthuses.

[therighttime]

"What do you think you'll do when you're grown up? Do you want to teach math?"

[missnicegirl]

"Maybe," she says contemplatively. "I'll probably do a lot of things. I used to think I wasn't going to be a superhero even though I have powers, but now I think it'll be too hard not to be, because there are all these problems it's so much easier to solve with magic."