Prologue: How it began

Note: This story will only be around three to four chapters + the prologue (if I don't get some new spontaneous ideas...). So enjoy! ^^

The first memory Tony had was someone – a man – grabbing him hard and dark eyes looking down at him with hate and disgust.

The second was a woman laying him onto a hard pillow, throwing a light blanket over him carelessly and leaving without any words.

All of his early memories consisted of dark hateful eyes and two voices talking – hatred lacing their words – "Why did we have to give birth to such a child?" The woman once asked her husband.

Only a few – such sacred few – memories had another feeling to them, one that Tony couldn't pinpoint but compared to the others, they made him feel warm and save. Time passed, Tony's understanding grew in frightening speed, this helped him realise that the hatred and disgust of the man – Howard – and the woman – Maria – that was directed at him only grew and intensified once he could barely walk.

When the two adults were drunk, they would scream at him and throw things at him so fast that Tony couldn't dodge them with the age of only one.

Jarvis, the butler, was the only person who behaved differently towards him in the whole house: treating his wounds gently, hugging him when something wet leaked out of his eyes and ran down his cheek (Jarvis once told him that they were called 'tears').

Tony, despite his clearly brilliant mind, couldn't comprehend this behaviour – why would the butler do that when his creators ('parents' according to Jarvis) didn't want anything to do with him?

Another three years passed in this pattern, until Tony's fourth birthday where Jarvis came running into his small cold room and scooped him up. Tony sensing the tension in the butler, prepared for the worst and didn't ask the questions that were swirling around his mind – Howard and Maria didn't like him to talk without permission and even though Jarvis had once said that Tony could ask him everything, he preferred to find the answers himself. But Tony didn't even have to ask because Jarvis hurriedly and quietly explained to Tony while he tried to sneak through the mansion with Tony still in his arms. "I heard Master Stark saying that he wants to give you away to a place where they will be even worse than here. So I will get you out of here before its too late young Master Tony!" The words as harsh as they would sound for a normal four year old, were just another reason why Tony felt this strange warm and fuzzy feeling inside in Jarvis' company. Despite Tony's young age the man understood that his charge was anything but normal (even without his parents input) and so he treated Tony like someone older but his words still held a certain kind of warmth to them.

They had almost reached the door that leaded out of the house when suddenly Howard stepped out of another room, blocking the path to their goal. Howard's voice was as cold as ice when he spoke: "What do you think you are doing with him,Jarvis?"

The butler didn't answer, he couldn't, he was practically frozen to the spot, only reinforcing his hold on his charge and looking fearfully at his employer.

"You will hand him over right now Jarvis or you will face the consequences." Tony realised that Jarvis' 'consequences' wouldn't just consist of a pay cut and struggled out of the butler's hold. Landing on the ground with a small thud, he slowly walked towards Howard giving Jarvis one last (apologetic) look. Howard grabbed Tony's arm in a death grip and pulled him out of the house where a car was just driving onto the grounds but not before he gave his butler one last cold stare.

Two men stepped out of the car and the older Stark greeted them with a polite for-the-press-smile before pushing Tony towards them. "Make sure we never see him again and I hope you will hold on to our agreement of never mentioning my or my wife's part in your experiments."

The younger of the two men grabbed Tony and injected him with something. The last words he heard before darkness overtook him were spoken in a strangely accented voice: "Of course Mr Stark and thank you. I am sure that he will help us to coming closer towards our goal…"

The next time Tony opened his eyes; he was in what one of Howard's books (which he hadn't been allowed to even touch but did anyway when the older man and his wife weren't home) had called a plane. Small handcuffs were binding him to a pipe over his head. He was still trying to analyse his surroundings when suddenly the younger of the two man that had taken him away from the mansion (from Jarvis!), crouched in front of him. He met the man's emotionless stare with one of his own.

"Doctor, the boy is already awake!" The man said in what Tony recognized as Russian, and didn't turn away from Tony. The older man appeared in Tony's line of vision, grey steaks were running through his black hair and cold grey eyes studied him like an interesting specimen (which he was to them).

"Interesting, the anaesthetic should have held till we reach our destination… Well it doesn't really matter." The grey-eyed Doctor said back in Russian (it seemed that they thought he couldn't understand them just because he was four, first mistake) and his next words were directed at Tony in English. "You get one warning boy: you are now our property and if you try to escape we will just collect you and punish you for your misbehaviour. Do you understand?"

Tony nodded in understanding and received a slap in the face. "You will answer verbally!" The younger man demanded with in a heavily accented English.

Tony pushed down the urge to hold his cheek, which was stinging, it had made Howard and Maria only more furious when he showed such weakness and he was sure that wasn't different with these men and so he let his face slip into an emotionless mask as he answered steadily. "Yes sir, I understand."

A smile graced the grey-eyed man's face. "Good. Now, since you are already awake we can already give you your designation. From today on you won't answer to the name of Anthony Edward Stark anymore but to AES04, understood?" "Yes sir." "Good. You can call me Dr Turgenev by the way. We will land any minute now and you will stay at Dmitry's side." He indicated the younger man and Tony responded dutifully with a "Yes sir." as it seemed to be expected of him.

A few minutes later they landed just as Dr Turgenev had said and Tony could only make out a militaristic looking landing base before Dmitry pushed him into a car. They rode the way in silence, Tony – now handcuff-free – stared out of the window looking at the fast passing scenery that he thought could be the last time he would see anything of the outside (from what he concluded from Jarvis' description of the place he was going to).

After some time the car drove into a hangar from where Dmitry and Dr Turgenev brought him to an underground lab where other children from two to fifteen years were doing different things: some were tested by doctors, others were training and again others were fighting against each other under the supervision of a guard and scientists.

"Look closely AES04, these are your 'classmates'. We will test you and determine how fit you are for our purpose and assign you accordingly." Dr Turgenev said as Tony stopped at one window were a redheaded three year old was strapped to a table and scientists poked here with needles and other things. Despite the treatment the little girl wasn't screaming and only one tear escaped her seemingly total control. Tony could only stare, shocked, before Dmitry pulled him along to continue their way.

Ten steps later they entered a lab where a boy, maybe ten years old, was patiently sitting and letting the doctors take a blood sample. Dr Turgenev smiled his fake smile at the boy and said in Russian: "Ah, LK05! Just the boy I was looking for." A small sliver of surprised came over his face before it vanished as fast as it came. "How can I be of assistance Dr Turgenev?" LK05 asked politely.

"We have a new addition" he waved at Tony and LK05's gaze shifted for two seconds to Tony before he refocused on Dr Turgenev again "His name is AES04. I want you to instruct him on how things work around here and to teach him Russian. He is American." "Of course Dr Turgenev." LK05 replied dutifully.

"Good, then please wait outside while AES04 is being tested." "Yes sir." And LK05 moved out of the room together with Dmitry, leaving Tony with Dr Turgenev and the other doctors. "Well then AES04, let's see what you can do…"

They tested Tony in various things; fitness, IQ (which was incredibly high for a child his age but it didn't surprise Tony who had been told by Jarvis that he was smarter than other children his age) and so on. Tony was pretty sure that they tested him for a few hours at least till they finally released him out of the lab to meet LK05. He was now wearing a grey shirt, grey trousers and sneakers that seemed to be standard clothing for the children at the facility. LK05 turned to him when he stepped out of the test room; a ghost of a smile on his lips when he looked Tony over who looked ready to keel over on the spot so tired was he. "Welcome to the Red Room, AES." Tony startled at the short form of his new name, frowned and asked: "Why do you do that?"

LK05 looked slightly puzzled by the question for a moment before he understood what Tony meant. "You mean the shortening of your designation?" Tony nodded. "Well, it's kind of tiring to call everyone with their complete designation and since I don't know your name, your real name, I will just make the best of your new one. At least yours resembles a name on a way, not like mine." He leaned closer to Tony and whispered into the smaller boys ear: "My real name is Leonid but you can only call me that when no adult can hear you. Понял?*" Tony nodded and LK– no Leonid, stared at him strangely. "Can you understand Russian already?" Tony hesitated and then nodded. Leonid looked impressed once Tony got the courage to look up from the ground. "Oh wow. And you are only four and an American at that!"

After their little conversation, Leonid gave Tony a small tour, explaining him the rules for the Red Room and its purpose. "They are trying to create superhumans of all kinds. I am sure you saw the little redheaded girl on your way to the testing room, didn't you?" A small nod and Leonid continued. "She and a few other girls are part of the 'Black Widow' project where they try to great the perfect spy and assassin… Her designation is NR03 by the way. I myself am part of a project where they try to combine humans with technology: the 'Blue Knives' project… the rate of success isn't very high up to now…" He gave Tony a sad look. "You will be part of that too, once you are older. But till then you will probably trained as well as educated in various areas like everyone else."

Once Leonid had shown Tony everything he could in this moment, they made their way to the mixed sleeping 'dorms' for a lack of a better term and introduced Tony to the other children that were already there. "Everyone this is AES04, he is new and American so be nice." Everyone ignored them mostly except for the little girl Tony had seen earlier and whom Leonid had called NR03. She came towards them and studied Tony before holding out her hand, which Tony took after a moment of hesitation. "Nice too meet you AES04. I'm NR03…" She hesitated and looked at Leonid who nodded to her encouragingly. "You can call me Natasha…" She whispered finally. Tony blinked in surprise and then offered his own name, also whispering so that only Leonid and Natasha could hear him. "Tony. Nice to meet you too."

And so Tony found the first hold in this new place in form of Leonid and Natasha that would hold many hurdles and much pain…

*Понял? = Understood?