Fic: She Plays the Violin
Title: She Plays the Violin
Fandom: The Avengers (AU:MCU)
Characters: Antonia “Toni” Stark, Anthea “Annie” Stark
Summary: Annie wants to play the violin; Toni helps her out
Notes: Two of my OC’s from two different AU’s coming together. Somehow Toni ended up in Annie’s universe. I don’t plan on doing anything more with this idea, but here you go anyway.
Annie comes into the kitchen and announces “I want to learn to play the violin, Aunt Nia!” And Toni says “Okay, kidlet,” because that’s all she can think to say, and she gets to work. She uses the credit card Tony gave her to order a violin. It’s not a Stradivarius, because not even Toni would give a Stradivarius to a five year old, but it’s a lovely ¼ size violin that will last her at least through first grade and then she’ll need a ½ or maybe even a ¾… Toni half hopes to be back in her universe by then, but is enough of a realist to know she might not (probably won’t) be.
So, she orders the violin (along with extras of every supply imaginable because, hey, this is the Avengers Mansion and it’s not ‘if’ something breaks, it’s ‘when’) and now has to wait with an impatient five-year-old until it arrives. Toni decides to start with YouTube. She shows Annie a few videos on basic violin techniques and how to read music, as well as a collection of pop songs performed on the violin and she is smiling when she sees how excited Annie is.
Annie is the biological child of Anthony Stark and Steven Rogers and it still manages to surprise Toni when the kid is able to start playing the violin straight out of the box. This makes things considerably easier on Toni. Things get even easier when Annie displays that she can play by ear; she hears the song once and instantly plays it back. Toni uses this knowledge to teach her “Iron Man” and “Star-Spangled Man”, which she calls “Daddy’s song” and “Pop’s song”, respectively. The rest of the Avengers get songs as well:
Thor: “Thunder”, AC/DC (Toni thought it would be harder to replicate on violin; she was wrong)
Clint: “Indian Outlaw”, Tim McGraw (This gets Toni a stern look and a lecture and all she can say is “Shut up, Tim McGraw is awesome!”)
Coulson: “Secret Agent Man”, Johnny Rivers (Not even Coulson himself argues with this one)
Bruce: “Weird Science”, Oingo Boingo (It was that or “She Blinded Me with Science” and Toni stands by her decision)
Natasha: “American Woman”, The Who (Another stern look, another lecture, but no one seems to disagree that this song is perfect).
Toni has recently started valuing her life: Nick Fury doesn’t get a song.
After Annie masters those pieces (it takes maybe a week), she looks very expectantly at Toni.
“What’s up, kidlet?” Toni asks. Everyone has a different pet name for the kid; To Steve she’s sweetheart, munchkin or kiddo to Tony, Clint calls her short stack or just shorty, Bruce uses little one, Thor calls her something in Asgardian that only he can pronounce but everyone knows he’s talking to Annie, and Natasha calls her dorogoĭ, which Toni discovered is Russian for ‘darling’. Coulson calls her Anne and Fury uses kid. God forbid someone tries using someone else’s name, because Annie will call them on it and inform them that only such-and-so can call her that.
“What’s your song, Aunt Nia?” Toni became ‘Nia’ out of necessity; one Tony(Toni) Stark was hard enough to deal with and it was Tony’s universe so he got first dibs. “Everyone has a song but you!” Toni smiles, shakes her head.
“Aunt Nia can’t let you listen to her song, kidlet,” she replied. “Your Pop wouldn’t appreciate it.” Annie smiles and nods and wanders off and Toni takes the opportunity to grab her StarkPlayer and hide on the roof.
Her song is Redlight King’s “Bullet in My Hand”. She’s playing it now, loud enough that she can’t hear footsteps coming up behind her but whoever it is can probably hear the song clearly.
I came out of the darkness
With a bullet in my hand
I got one more shot at livin'
I'm lucky that I can
Cause I got a little roughed up
Yeah I really got fucked up
No one here knows what happened to her in Afghanistan.
No one here ever will.