Freezing rain whipped against the glass-and-steel cliffs of Malibu, turning the night into a howling void. Water droplets stung like tiny needles, biting into six-year-old Scarlet’s bare arms. Shivering violently, she huddled closer to the massive double doors of the Stark estate, trying to find shelter from the brutal gale. Cold stone seeped through her thin, soaked denim jeans. Soggy paper clung to her small, numb fingers, turning her skin blue. Holding the birth certificate felt like clutching a lifeline, even if the ink was already running into illegible blue smears under the relentless downpour. "Just stay on the porch," the social worker had muttered before driving away, her taillights disappearing into the dark deluge. Abandoned. Discarded like a broken toy on a billionaire's doorstep without a second thought. Her chest ached with a hollow, physical pressure that made her gasp for air. Memories of her mother’s pale, lifeless face in the sterile hospital room flashed behind her eyelids, accompanied by the flatline of the heart monitor. "He's your father, Scarlet," her mother had whispered with her final, rattling breath. "He has to take you in. He is the only one left." Doubt clawed at her throat, making it hard to breathe in the damp air. Rich men didn't want broken packages left on their doorsteps in the middle of the night. Rich men didn't care about a child they never knew existed, let alone a mistake from a forgotten past. But Scarlet knew exactly who lived behind these towering glass walls. She wasn't an ordinary six-year-old child crying in the dark. Buried beneath her youthful, shivering face was the mind of an adult woman who had lived an entire life in another world. Memories of her past life were a chaotic jumble of screens, comic books, and movie theaters. Waking up in this tiny, fragile body had been a shock, but realizing where she was had brought a deeper, colder dread. This was the Marvel universe, a place where gods descended from the heavens and cosmic tyrants snapped half of existence away with a single gesture. To make matters worse, she had realized early on that her own biology was a terrifying anomaly. Accidentally crushing a solid steel spoon at age three had been her first clue. Lifting a heavy wooden dresser with one hand at age four had been her second, forcing her to hide her strength in absolute terror. Somehow, she possessed the devastating, god-like powers of a Kryptonian. Yet, without proper solar radiation to stabilize her alien biology, those powers felt like a ticking time bomb ticking away inside her ribs. Teeth chattering, she raised a tiny, trembling fist and slammed it against the door. Knocking on the heavy wood took every ounce of her remaining strength. Silence answered her, heavy and mocking over the roar of the crashing waves below the cliffside. Panic began to rise, hot and suffocating despite the freezing storm. Inside her chest, something strange pulsed with a violent heat. An unnatural warmth had been growing under her skin for weeks, but tonight, under the stress of abandonment, it felt like a furnace igniting. Desperately, she slammed her fist against the door again, leaving bloody smudges on the polished wood. "Please!" she sobbed, her voice swallowed by the howling wind. Light suddenly flooded the porch, casting long, stark shadows across the wet stone. Clicking locks echoed like gunshots in the quiet night. Slowly, the massive door swung inward, revealing a warm, golden foyer. Standing in the entryway was a man who looked like he had just crawled out of a high-tech workshop. Smelling of expensive scotch, burnt copper, and solder, Tony Stark stared down at her. Dark hair fell messily over his forehead, sticking to his temples. A smudge of black grease ran across his jawline, and his eyes were bloodshot, blinking against the damp air with deep irritation. "What the hell is this?" Tony muttered, looking past her into the darkness of the driveway. His gaze dropped to the shivering, soaking-wet child on his threshold. Sneering, he crossed his arms, his mouth twisting into an expression of pure annoyance. "Look, kid, if this is a trick by the paparazzi, tell them I'm not buying," he said, his voice dripping with condescension. "Go back to your mom. Or your agent. Whoever is paying you to freeze out here for a headline." "She's dead," Scarlet choked out, holding up the soggy, ruined piece of paper. Rainwater dripped from her nose, mixing with her tears. Her hands shook so violently the birth certificate threatened to tear in half. Tony didn't reach for the paper. Instead, he glanced at his left wrist, checking a gleaming, silver Rolex with an impatient sigh. "Right. Terrific. Look, I don't do charity at three in the morning. Call Pepper in the morning. She handles the sob stories." He began to swing the heavy door shut, his face devoid of sympathy. Rejection sliced through Scarlet's mind, sharp, cold, and utterly lethal. He was going to leave her out here to freeze to death in the dark. Terror, raw and primal, gripped her soul as the gap of light narrowed. "No!" she screamed, the fear of being discarded like trash triggering something deep within her. Deep within her skull, something snapped. A wave of intense heat surged from her chest straight to her eyes. Vision blurred, turning a blinding, molten gold that scorched her retinas. Before she could comprehend what was happening, two thin beams of pure, golden light erupted from her pupils. Tony froze, his eyes widening in sudden, absolute shock. A high-pitched hiss cut through the sound of the rain as the golden beams struck the silver Rolex on his wrist with pinpoint accuracy. Metal bubbled and hissed instantly. The luxury watch liquefied, dripping onto the hardwood floor in a molten pool of silver. Tony yelped, leaping backward and shaking his arm frantically to fling off the scorching remnants of the band. "What the living hell!" he yelled, his heart hammering against his ribs. Red skin showed where the hot metal had grazed his arm. His eyes darted from his bare, smoking wrist to the little girl standing in front of him. Scarlet gasped, horror replacing her anger as her vision returned to normal. Her eyes burned like they were filled with hot sand. She had done this. She was a monster, and she had just attacked the only person who could save her. He would hate her now. He would call the military, or worse, dump her in the ocean to drown. Desperation flared, stronger than the strange heat in her blood, driving her to her knees. "I'm sorry!" she cried, lunging forward to grab the hem of his expensive trousers. Her knuckles turned stark white as she gripped the fabric, anchoring herself to him. "Please, don't throw me away! I can be good! I'll do anything!" Clenching her eyelids shut, she fought with every fiber of her being to push the golden light back down. She forced the burning energy deep into her stomach, locking it away. Her chest heaved as she sobbed, burying her face against his leg. "Please," she whispered, her voice cracking with pure exhaustion. "Don't leave me out here. I have nowhere else to go." Wind howled through the open doorway, spraying cold mist over them both. Tony slowly looked down at his ruined wrist, his jaw clenched so hard the muscles jumped. The skin was blistered, but his mind wasn't on the pain. No human weapon could do that. No child should have lasers shooting from her eyes, melting titanium alloys in seconds. He stared at the tiny girl clutching his leg as if her entire life depended on it. "Who are you?" he asked, his voice shaking with a rare, unscripted fear. His hands hovered over her wet, shivering shoulders, unsure of whether to push her away or pull her in. The girl didn't look up, only squeezed his leg tighter. "Scarlet," she whimpered into his trousers. "My name is Scarlet. Mom said... she said you were my dad. She told me to find you." Tony's breath hitched in his throat. He reached down, his fingers brushing against the soggy paper she had dropped on the floor. Peeling it off the wet wood, he held it up to the light of the entryway. Birth certificate. Mother: Mary Fitzpatrick. Father: Tony Stark. Dates matched a forgotten, drug-fueled weekend in a penthouse in Las Vegas years ago. He closed his eyes, a sudden wave of guilt washing over him. He had always known his self-destructive lifestyle would catch up to him, but he never expected a child. "Mary," he whispered, the name tasting like ash on his tongue. He looked back down at the child. Her golden eyes were gone, replaced by a deep, terrifyingly intense blue that stared up at him with absolute vulnerability. She was shaking, her lips blue from the cold. Her tiny body was vibrating, not just from the chill, but from some internal force he couldn't begin to understand. His mind, usually a hyper-advanced computer, was completely blank. "Look at me," Tony commanded softly. Scarlet slowly raised her head, her cheeks streaked with rain and tears. Her eyes were wide with a desperate, crushing need for approval, pleading for her life. "Can you do that again?" he asked, pointing to his bare, blistered wrist. Scarlet shrank back, her knuckles turning even whiter as she shook her head frantically. "No! I'm sorry! I won't do it again! I promise!" she cried, her voice cracking. "Please don't be mad!" "Hey, hey, quiet down," Tony said, his voice dropping to a low, urgent murmur. "I'm not going to hurt you. I just need to know what you are." "I'm just Scarlet," she pleaded, tears spilling over her lashes. "Please don't put me in a box. Don't send me away." Her words struck a chord deep inside him, bypassing his usual armor of sarcasm. He knew what it felt like to be viewed as a project rather than a person. Howard Stark had spent his entire life doing exactly that to his own son. Looking at the shivering child, Tony felt a strange, terrifying tug of responsibility. He couldn't leave her out here. If the press found her, or worse, if the government found out what she could do, she would be locked in a lab forever. "Fine," Tony grunted, his voice regaining some of its usual gravelly edge. "Inside. Now. Before the neighbors think I'm running a mutant sweatshop." Her wet clothes soaked through his shirt immediately as he picked her up. She was impossibly heavy for her size, dense like a piece of solid iron. He gritted his teeth, lifting her with a grunt and carrying her over the threshold. As Tony reluctantly pulls her inside, Scarlet's vision suddenly fills with a blinding, neon-blue interface: the Supergirl System initializes, displaying a warning that her cells are absorbing solar radiation at a rate that will combust her heart in thirty days.

Chapter 1: A Doorstep in Malibu