23 | harlem

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23 | HARLEM

Seven months later

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Seven months later...
"Its a girl!" The doctor finally announced after a stressful twenty hours of labor. Tony was in complete shock. He had been standing by Indra's side for twenty hours and saw the bad and the ugly. He didn't know if he would have made it another hour, and that was because he wasn't trying to push a child out of his uterus.

Indra was completely drained. There had been so many painful complications with this child that Indra was considering to just give up. Fortunately, she didn't. But, she should've expected a challenge due to all of the things the baby had already put her through during the pregnancy. "We're done?!" Indra sighed out in relief and squeezed Tony's hand.

"You're done, Mrs. Stark. What would you like to name her?" The doctor held the child up to allow Indra to get a peek of her. The baby was absolutely perfect. Her skin was the color of a soft caramel and she had a full head of thick chocolate hair.

"Harlem Stark." Indra and Tony spoke in unison.

* * *

Five years later...
"Okay, Harley, are you ready?" Indra was preparing to quiz her daughter. Being the child of two geniuses, of course Harlem was going to end up a genius as well. That day was supposed to be Harley's first day of kindergarten, but instead, Indra was going to convince the school board to move up her child to older grade levels.

"Always, mommy. Even Toby knows this." Harlem scoffed the same way Tony did when someone asked him a stupid question. Toby was, what Indra presumed, to be Harlem's imaginary friend. She always talked about him and to him as if he were very real. Although it was unusual of someone with her level of intelligence to have imaginary friends, Indra didn't mind it because it was promoting her creativity and working her brain cells.

"Paraguay." Indra shot a country at her and waited for her to respond with the capital of that country.

"Asunción."
"Yemen."
"Sana'a."

The material was far too easy for Harlem, so Indra went ahead and wanted to step it up a notch. "How about I give you a capital and you give me the country? Baghdad."

"Iraq." Harlem shrugged off the question as if it were the easiest thing asked to her.

Suddenly, Tony walked into the kitchen and overhead the two talking. "You're really quizzing her over countries? That's elementary. Harley, what type of machine is a seesaw and how do you calculate its actual mechanical advantage?" Tony jumped into the testing.

"It's a simple machine, a first class lever. Y—you find the resistance force and divide it by the effort force." Harlem has the brain of a forty year old with a PhD, but her speech still sounded that of a five year old, which was completely normal. Her words would sometimes stumble over each other and her tongue would get tied while it tried to pronounce complex words her father taught her like thermonuclear-dynamics.

"I want her to get into the fifth grade not the fiftieth grade, Tony." Indra snickered at Tony's exaggerated expectation for his daughter.

"Well then you better get going, you're already running late." Tony informed as he looked at the clock on the oven.

Indra glimpsed at the clock and jumped up. "Oh shit— I mean, shoot! Grab your bag, Harley." Indra hurried over to the counter to grab her car keys.

"Already have it on, mommy." Harley mentioned as she turned around to flaunt her new backpack.

"Okay, um.. one last capital and we will go. What country is Funky Town the capital of?" Indra smiled as she watched Harlem's face distort in confusion.

Harlem began giggling madly once she realized what her mother had done. "Mommy! That's Uncle Steve's joke!"

* * *

"No." The director of the school board shook his head in disapproval.

Indra was at a loss for words. She had such confidence that Harlem was going to get into the fifth grade. "No? She very well exceeded all of the requirements needed to get her into the fifth grade." Indra argued for her daughters right. She didn't want Harley to sit in a classroom with other kids with an incomparable level of intellect while learning her ABC's. Harley was already reading Harry Potter, she was well beyond reading Dr. Seuss.

Harley sat on her mother's side, with her arms crossed and a death glare crossing her face (which she had learned how to do with Natasha). "I am denying Harlem's entry to the fifth grade because I am approving her entry to the eighth grade, Mrs. Stark." The director smiled at Indra, glad to see her irritated expression turn into a jubilant one.

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