Muse FAQ
This FAQ has been compiled by the mun for starspangledcap. She combed through all the crazy RPs, IM conversations, and emails and made Sally Stark-Rogers make sense. I, the mun for Sally, am pleased with and grateful for her efforts. Thanks again, Steve!
The Lives and Times of Sally Stark-Rogers-Stetins
Sally Stark-Rogers-Stetins is a character created for the theatrical_muse prompt and RP community. She is the daughter of Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, a crack idea brought to vibrant life. Her PB is Michelle Trachtenberg.
Both Universes:
Sally Stark-Rogers was born Stephanie Lane “Sally” Stetins in New York City, New York, to mother Antonia Marie “Toni” Stetins. Her father was never in the picture, and her mother was an alcoholic who was nonetheless completely devoted to her daughter. When Sally was two years old, the apartment building in which the Stetins family lived was attacked by Kang the Conqueror during a battle with a group of Avengers, including Captain America, Iron Man, and the Scarlet Witch. Almost every inhabitant of the apartment building was killed.
UNIVERSE SPLIT
Original 616 Universe:
Sally and her mother were both killed by falling debris in their apartment. Captain America found Sally’s dead body, and it affected him deeply, as the deaths of children always did. Steve always remembered that day clearly, though it remained only a vague memory for the other Avengers. It was emblematic of every time Steve had ever failed to save someone.
House of TM:
Though Toni Stetins was killed by debris while attempting to protect her daughter during the battle, Sally Stetins was rescued by Captain America before a beam could fall on her, too. He passed the small child off to Iron Man, flying by outside a window, and she managed to survive the day. However, unbeknownst to anyone, the radioactive gas that Kang had released over the course of the battle affected Sally’s physiology (in a way it would not affect full-grown adults), and would manifest as superpowers later in her life.
Steve and Tony took the child back to Avengers Mansion to keep her safe while they searched for family to take her in. However, they could find no family, nor could they even find out anything about the girl, besides her mother’s name on the apartment lease and the name “Sally” sewn into the shirt she was wearing. At just two years old and traumatized to boot, Sally wasn’t capable of giving them any more information.
Tony wanted to give Sally to Social Services, to find her an adoptive family. But Steve had grown attached to her, and was afraid that, without the Avengers’ protection, Kang might come back to finish what he’d started. He didn’t have a lot of faith in the system. Therefore, the Avengers decided to unofficially adopt her (which they could get away with because, well, they’re the Avengers). But soon enough it became clear who Sally’s new parents really were - Captain America and Iron Man, who were doing the bulk of the child-rearing (and growing closer by the day).
By the time Sally is three, Steve and Tony have gotten together as a couple. (After watching Tony tucking Sally in one night, Steve finally gets hit with the clue bat and makes out with him in the hallway, which leads to other things. They’d already been functionally married for a year, raising a child together and spending all their time together, so it really isn’t much of a change.) By the time Sally is four, Steve and Tony have come out about their relationship to the public. They officially adopt her, legally changing her name to Sally Stark-Rogers, and begin a campaign to legalize same-sex marriage. Throughout her life, she calls Steve “Dad” or “Daddy,” and Tony is always “Tony.”
Around this time, Steve and Tony donate sperm to Wanda Maximoff, and she gives birth to the twins, Tommy and Billy (Steve and Tony’s sons, respectively). Wanda and her longterm-girlfriend (and future wife), Jean Grey, have been living at Avengers Mansion for awhile; though other Avengers come and go, the four of them exist as almost a family unto themselves, and Wanda and Jean are nearly mothers to Sally, just as Steve and Tony are nearly fathers to Tommy and Billy. Tommy and Billy are essentially Sally’s younger brothers. She’s also close to her little cousin, Katie, daughter of Lorna Dane and Alex Summers (Lorna, as Wanda’s sister, is like an aunt to Sally). She plays with her when Lorna and Alex visit for holidays, giving the adults a much-needed break. Sally, like her fathers, has no living biological relatives, but she has more non-biological aunts, uncles, and cousins than she knows what to do with.
At age 6, Sally gets a puppy, named Warpup after her favorite aunt, Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, a.k.a. Warbird. Carol is also the one to convince Steve and Tony to let Sally have the dog. Tony is not terribly fond of said puppy, but Steve is. Sally may also have two pet guinea pigs named Wanda and Emma, though I’m not sure if that actually ever made the canon, or if it just remained a joke.
Even more importantly, when Sally is 6, the Supreme Court finally declares prohibitions against same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional. Steve proposes to Tony that day, and they’re married in a big ceremony soon after, on April 1st. They offer Sally the position of flower girl, but she decides it’s silly to be the flower girl in her own parents’ wedding, and tells them to ask her friend Bea Howlett, instead. Also in this year, Tony officially quits drinking. He had never hit rock bottom as an alcoholic, as he had in 616, but Steve had recognized the warning signs of addiction from his own experiences with his father, and Tony had kicked the habit for Steve’s sake. At Steve’s assistance, Tony attends AA meetings, and when Sally gets older, she is part of Alateen.
Given her traumatic childhood, and her fathers’ dangerous jobs, Sally has a few abandonment fears. To try to soothe them, Steve and Tony make sure to check in with her after every battle, no matter how tired they are, and the family plays a board game. Scrabble is one of their favorites (Steve always loses). They also sing lullabies to her. Their favorite lullaby, and Sally’s favorite song, is “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” Sally vividly remembers them singing it to her after the Mansion was attacked during her 8th birthday party.
At 12, Sally is kidnapped by Madame Hydra, who tries to claim (obviously erroneously) that she is Sally’s mother. She’s rescued, but Madame Hydra’s meddling awakens the dormant powers in her system that she gained from the encounter with Kang ten years earlier. Her powers include a light healing factor and telekinesis, and she shows signs of developing telepathy, though that power is never fully brought to light in the House of TM. At some point, before she has control of her powers, she accidentally levitates Warpup around the kitchen, traumatizing the poor dog. Tony builds it a suit of armor to help it feel grounded.
After Rhodey finds other job prospects, Tony and Steve hire Piotr Rasputin to be their head of security. Though his job is a big one, he also does double-duty as a personal bodyguard for the family, particularly Sally and sometimes the twins.
For the most part, Sally is a normal teenage girl, though one raised in extreme privilege under less-than-average circumstances. Sally has an interest in ballet and modern dance, and her fathers also make her take ballroom dancing lessons - Steve because it was traditional, Tony for more practical, social reasons. Her best friends include Val Richards, daughter of family friends Reed and Sue Richards (who are divorced - Sue lives under the sea with Namor), and Beatrice Howlett, daughter of next door neighbors Neena and Logan Howlett (Domino and Wolverine). Bea is a bit of a wild child, the one who comes up with ill-conceived ideas, and Sally is sometimes tempted to follow, but usually fairly obedient to her parents’ wishes. (Val is also a complete goody two-shoes, so Bea gets outvoted most of the time.) On one particular occasion - Sally’s 14th birthday - the girls attempt to sneak out to a party, but when Tony catches them Val blabs the whole thing. Tony promises not to tell Steve if Sally promises not to do it again (though Steve eventually finds out, from Bea).
Sally is headstrong, outspoken, slightly theatrical, compassionate, and completely brilliant. When she’s young, she’s taught by a private tutor; in her later years, she attends the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning part-time so she can have more interaction with other powered teens. She has an interest in science and engineering (she even dropped an art class to make room for an extra computer lab session), but Steve still feels that Tony is too pushy about wanting her to go to MIT. He wants Sally to be able to make her own choices, even if that means she won’t follow in Tony’s footsteps. (The fact that he’d like her to follow in his own footsteps is something Steve denies, but is obviously there.)
When Sally starts to have interest in being a superhero, Steve and Tony realize that there’s no way they’d be able to stop her. So Steve trains her in four different forms of martial arts (just as he trained her to swim when she was little), and Tony builds her a suit, and by the time she’s 16 she’s joined a newly-formed Young Avengers team as Liberty Belle (a name chosen to honor both of her fathers - the Liberty Bell, after all, is made of cast iron). Other members of the team include Val Richards, Cassie Lang, Billy, Tommy, and Hulkling. The team is set to debut officially around the time of Steve and Tony’s 10th anniversary, when Sally is 16.
Around this same time, Sally develops a crush on one of her Xavier’s classmates, telekinetic Julian Keller, a.k.a. Hellion. Hellion is, well, a hellion, and Steve and Tony don’t exactly approve, but they don’t want to chase him away. They are upset, however, when, the night before her SATs, Sally sneaks out of the house in her armor to meet Julian on a church rooftop and the two of them stop a crime in progress that involves a car chase. After dropping the criminal off at the jail, Sally and Julian kiss for the first time, and though Sally has liked him for a year, she secretly worries that Julian likes the armor more than he likes her. Steve and Tony punish her for going out in her armor without permission or even telling anyone, something that is standard protocol even for adult Avengers. Her computer privileges are suspended for a week - something Tony can easily enforce - and she isn’t allowed to use her armor outside of the training room until she regains her fathers’ trust. The family manages to make it through the ordeal, however, and are happy and together in time for Steve and Tony’s 10th anniversary party, when, after Sally dances with both of her fathers, the world falls apart.
It has been noted by many, including impartial reporters, that, despite the fact that Sally is adopted, she strongly resembles both of her parents, in looks and personality. Could it be that Wanda’s meddling actually made her their biological child, from the base material of that dead child in the apartment? Anything is possible.
616 Universe, Now
Sally and her mother were killed in the Kang attack, just as Steve originally witnessed. But Wanda was able to retroactively resurrect them with her magic, and in this new, slightly tweaked version of 616 reality they were able to walk out of the ruined building after the Avengers had already checked their apartment. Therefore, Steve still correctly remembered Sally’s death, but Sally and her mother were able to survive, anyway.
Realizing that she’d been given a new lease on life, Toni Stetins quit drinking and moved her daughter, who she sometimes called “Second Chance Sal,” to Wayzata, Minnesota. She became more involved in the Unitarian church and joined AA, and Sally grew up in Al-Anon and Alateen. (Her recent membership in aamuses is an extension of this.) Her mother struggled to stay sober and dated a string of loser boyfriends, but she worked hard to support and care for her daughter. As a registered nurse, she has never made very much money, but the family makes enough to get by. During high school, Sally helps to contribute to the family income with her after-school and summer job as a clerk at the Hot Topic in the local mall. Her manager is a woman named Pansy, and one of her coworkers is a guy named Mike who calls himself Radon.
By the time Sally is 16 years old, life is going fairly well for the Stetins family. Toni Stetins has finally met a decent guy (through Sally), a man named Steve from church who is a veteran and is part of the local AA Harley club. (Later, he airbrushes a picture of War Machine onto his bike.) Toni and Sally are still extremely close - Sally feels comfortable telling her mom everything, and they often sit together when Toni is home, watching TV, eating frozen yogurt, and talking.
Sally, meanwhile, is doing extraordinarily well at Wayzata High School, having skipped a grade early on in her educational career. She gets great grades (though she’s a little weak in Spanish), and is also active in the drama club and Model Congress. But, even more importantly, she’s an extremely dedicated activist, constantly involved in organizing rallies and putting up fliers and sending letters to Congress. Her causes are largely human rights and environmental issues, and she has frequently participated in Earth Day, National Coming Out Day, and the Task Force. She co-heads the gay-straight alliance at her school, the Wayzata Wings, as well as her school’s chapter of Amnesty International, and she’s been known to excoriate Stark Industries for its complicity in the environmental devastation in Central America caused by cattle farms. She even held a sit-in during her sophomore year to protest the removal of The Handmaid's Tale from the school library.
Perhaps her most unique work is her advocacy for young superheroes. She once helped run a website for Julie Power, and she moderated a teen-hero newsgroup. When the Registration Act came about, she fought against it fiercely, seeing it as comparable it to the demands to track homosexuals during the 80s AIDS crisis. Captain America was her hero, and she was absolutely devastated when he died. Much as she doesn’t like to admit it, a lot of her interest in young superheroes sprang from her own hidden desire to be one, too, but she gave up that dream long ago, and has instead focused her attention on helping such heroes to survive their careers without breaking down. More recently, she’s begun to think in broader terms, and wants to work to get the rights of underage superheroes recognized as a problem equivalent to that of the child soldiers of the Congo. She hopes to make people aware that they are not weapons to be used, but teenagers to be educated and supported in a valid career choice. All of this has led her to an interest in international politics more generally, though she is still an engineer at heart.
In high school, Sally has a reasonably active social life. Her best friend, Emil Khalidi, who is gay and fairly flamboyant, often visits her at work to keep her company on slow nights. He also sometimes takes advantage of her for her car and license, but in an endearing way - and he’s just as willing to spend time studying with Sally as he is to drag her to a gay club to party. Sally also has a friend named Madison, whose parents recently divorced and who attends a tennis camp, and she has another friend named Mike. When she’s not being an activist, she likes spending time at the mall and going to clubs with friends.
When Layla Miller tells Captain America, shortly after the collapse of the House of TM, that Sally is alive, he travels to Wayzata to visit her at work, under his assumed identity of Wilson Buchanan. Steve is glad that she’s alive, though mindful of the differences between the other world’s Sally and this one: even on the surface, Sally Stetins’ hair is dyed darker (and was, in her last yearbook photo, streaked with purple), and she has a tiny scar on her chin that she hadn’t had in the House of TM. But the two have a pleasant conversation, and Steve is reassured that she is, indeed, alive, happy, and safe in this world. He even gets to meet Emil, and talk to Sally about her mother and her future plans. He sees her working on scholarship applications for early college admissions, and, discovering that she dreams of going to MIT, Steve encourages her to apply for the Maria Stark Foundation scholarship, which he is sure he can coerce Tony into giving her.
Unfortunately, Steve, still mourning the loss of the other world and his relationship with is daughter, is obviously a wreck during this meeting, and over the course of the conversation he must claim to be an Iraq vet named who has recently returned home in the wake of the death of his daughter, “Sarah,” of whom Sally “reminds him.” Sally is very sympathetic, and even goes so far as to invite Steve to an International Worker’s Day potluck at her church. But Steve declines, knowing he can’t get too involved, and leaves only with a Captain America t-shirt Sally gives him, her e-mail address scribbled on the collar. They exchange e-mails a few times, but Steve knows it isn’t healthy, and the contact drops off.
Soon after, Tony does, indeed, give Sally the scholarship - though not, he claims, because of nepotism. She was simply the most qualified candidate. At the reception dinner, Sally launches into a scathing speech, criticizing Tony’s actions during the superhuman civil war and the Superhuman Registration Act in general, essentially calling him a warmonger. The rant makes YouTube and all the papers, but, perversely, it makes Tony sure, for the first time, that Sally really is his daughter. He meets with Steve, and the two finally start a romantic relationship in this world, immediately making plans to see their child and reunite their family, if only for an afternoon.
That fall, Sally starts her freshman year at MIT, having skipped her senior year of high school. One day early in the semester, Tony Stark shows up and takes her to an undisclosed Boston location (stealing her cell phone on the way, for security reasons), reveals to her that Captain America is alive, and introduces her to him. Luckily for Steve, Sally doesn’t recognize him from their earlier Hot Topic meeting. Tony explains that they’ve come to her because they’ve discovered that she has powers, and they want to make sure she has the supervision and training she needs in those powers. Sally won’t believe them at first - about her powers, or about their motives - but she finds it hard to say anything against, or disbelieve, Captain America (which is, of course, Tony’s expressed explanation for allowing her to meet him - to give Sally a reason to trust Tony, who she hates). The family has a nice lunch, and then Tony returns Sally to her campus, where her friends, including a girl named Melanie, had become a bit worried.
That summer, Sally, now 17, takes an internship in New York City with Stark Industries, despite her continued misgivings about Tony-about his politics, and about his continued insistence on buying her things (a new phone, a computer, etc.) and giving her special opportunities and attention. In the internship program, she meets Sally Blevins, formerly Skids of the Morlocks, New Mutants, and Brotherhood, and the two become fast friends, bonding over cookies, their acquaintances with Jean Grey, their respect for Pepper Potts, and their mutual distrust of Tony Stark’s inexplicable interest in their activities. Sally feels unsafe at the boarding house in the East Village where she’s rooming for the summer, so when the other Sally offers to let her stay at her house in the Bronx with her aunt and uncle instead, Sally jumps at the chance. She’s excited to befriend someone who knows so many of the heroes she’s been reading about her whole life (in reputable newspapers and tabloids, though she claims she doesn’t believe what the tabloids say). Sally is sometimes overwhelmed by the wealth and fame of the people in Sally Blevins’ circle, many of whom she only knows by their code names, and the friendship takes some adjustment. When she goes with the other Sally on a mini-vacation on Bruce Wayne’s yacht, for instance, she’s totally blown away. But she does have a great conversation with Lorna Dane, whose work with nanotech she’s very interested in, and generally has a great time.
At the internship, Sally does quite well, working closely with Pepper Potts while learning all she can about the business environment and planning for her future at MIT and beyond. Her duties include having to re-write a pitch she’s witnessed and trying to get Pepper to approve it, and writing a proposal of her own. She also makes a friend, through her participation in aamuses, named Blair Waldorf, the wealthy daughter of a fashion designer, and she’s tentatively considered asking out Julian Keller, a classmate at MIT and a known mutant. (Some things just don’t change.)
Sally is a fan of music that ranges from Gershwin to Fall Out Boy (this has carried over from Wanda’s world), and her idols include Katharine Hepburn and Kat Farrell. In addition to Gershwin, she’s a moderately big fan of musicals, particularly Sondheim and RENT, though she isn’t a fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber beyond Jesus Christ Superstar and Phantom of the Opera. She loves origami, for the combination of order and creativity, and even teaches it to Lorna’s daughter, Katie (her “cousin,” though she doesn’t know that) on the boat trip. She is confident and sure of her abilities, and gets angry when she feels that things are being handed to her on a platter. She wants to work for her achievements. It’s a trait she’s always had, even in the old world, where she once auditioned for an honors dance program under a fake name to get in on her own merits, and wanted to turn it down when she found out the program had recognized her anyway. She thrives on praise, because she knows she’s good, and the compliments only make her reach higher.
Sally is also extremely direct - and that’s often problematic. Unlike the other world, where here telekinesis manifested first and her telepathy was just beginning to emerge, it’s her telepathy that’s come to the fore here, and only recently at that. (She also has a modest healing factor, though she’s never really noticed before - she simply thought she was lucky to recover so quickly from a broken collarbone at age 8.) As a result, Sally’s natural tendency to be honest about what she observes about people has been enhanced by her ability to unconsciously find out more about people than they’re letting on, and it sometimes gets her in trouble (though many appreciate her honesty). She rarely tries to actively use her telepathy, though she has done some training, at Steve and Tony’s behest, with Jean Grey, a woman who still remembers her from the other world, even though she doesn’t like to think about that world often.
Sally claims that she doesn’t have time for other people’s problems, but in reality, she can’t help helping people out - listening to them talk and offering her blunt, but helpful, advice. It’s a trait she shares with more than one of her fathers, fathers who are coming very close to the day when they’ll finally tell her the truth. The other Sally, Lorna Dane, Henry Hellrung, Sam Wilson, Jean Grey, Wanda Maximoff, Layla Miller, and other displaced denizens of the House of TM - including Katie, Bea Howlett, and Franklin Richards - already know, and it’s only a matter of time until everything comes to a head.
The Lives and Times of Sally Stark-Rogers-Stetins
Sally Stark-Rogers-Stetins is a character created for the theatrical_muse prompt and RP community. She is the daughter of Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, a crack idea brought to vibrant life. Her PB is Michelle Trachtenberg.
Both Universes:
Sally Stark-Rogers was born Stephanie Lane “Sally” Stetins in New York City, New York, to mother Antonia Marie “Toni” Stetins. Her father was never in the picture, and her mother was an alcoholic who was nonetheless completely devoted to her daughter. When Sally was two years old, the apartment building in which the Stetins family lived was attacked by Kang the Conqueror during a battle with a group of Avengers, including Captain America, Iron Man, and the Scarlet Witch. Almost every inhabitant of the apartment building was killed.
UNIVERSE SPLIT
Original 616 Universe:
Sally and her mother were both killed by falling debris in their apartment. Captain America found Sally’s dead body, and it affected him deeply, as the deaths of children always did. Steve always remembered that day clearly, though it remained only a vague memory for the other Avengers. It was emblematic of every time Steve had ever failed to save someone.
House of TM:
Though Toni Stetins was killed by debris while attempting to protect her daughter during the battle, Sally Stetins was rescued by Captain America before a beam could fall on her, too. He passed the small child off to Iron Man, flying by outside a window, and she managed to survive the day. However, unbeknownst to anyone, the radioactive gas that Kang had released over the course of the battle affected Sally’s physiology (in a way it would not affect full-grown adults), and would manifest as superpowers later in her life.
Steve and Tony took the child back to Avengers Mansion to keep her safe while they searched for family to take her in. However, they could find no family, nor could they even find out anything about the girl, besides her mother’s name on the apartment lease and the name “Sally” sewn into the shirt she was wearing. At just two years old and traumatized to boot, Sally wasn’t capable of giving them any more information.
Tony wanted to give Sally to Social Services, to find her an adoptive family. But Steve had grown attached to her, and was afraid that, without the Avengers’ protection, Kang might come back to finish what he’d started. He didn’t have a lot of faith in the system. Therefore, the Avengers decided to unofficially adopt her (which they could get away with because, well, they’re the Avengers). But soon enough it became clear who Sally’s new parents really were - Captain America and Iron Man, who were doing the bulk of the child-rearing (and growing closer by the day).
By the time Sally is three, Steve and Tony have gotten together as a couple. (After watching Tony tucking Sally in one night, Steve finally gets hit with the clue bat and makes out with him in the hallway, which leads to other things. They’d already been functionally married for a year, raising a child together and spending all their time together, so it really isn’t much of a change.) By the time Sally is four, Steve and Tony have come out about their relationship to the public. They officially adopt her, legally changing her name to Sally Stark-Rogers, and begin a campaign to legalize same-sex marriage. Throughout her life, she calls Steve “Dad” or “Daddy,” and Tony is always “Tony.”
Around this time, Steve and Tony donate sperm to Wanda Maximoff, and she gives birth to the twins, Tommy and Billy (Steve and Tony’s sons, respectively). Wanda and her longterm-girlfriend (and future wife), Jean Grey, have been living at Avengers Mansion for awhile; though other Avengers come and go, the four of them exist as almost a family unto themselves, and Wanda and Jean are nearly mothers to Sally, just as Steve and Tony are nearly fathers to Tommy and Billy. Tommy and Billy are essentially Sally’s younger brothers. She’s also close to her little cousin, Katie, daughter of Lorna Dane and Alex Summers (Lorna, as Wanda’s sister, is like an aunt to Sally). She plays with her when Lorna and Alex visit for holidays, giving the adults a much-needed break. Sally, like her fathers, has no living biological relatives, but she has more non-biological aunts, uncles, and cousins than she knows what to do with.
At age 6, Sally gets a puppy, named Warpup after her favorite aunt, Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, a.k.a. Warbird. Carol is also the one to convince Steve and Tony to let Sally have the dog. Tony is not terribly fond of said puppy, but Steve is. Sally may also have two pet guinea pigs named Wanda and Emma, though I’m not sure if that actually ever made the canon, or if it just remained a joke.
Even more importantly, when Sally is 6, the Supreme Court finally declares prohibitions against same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional. Steve proposes to Tony that day, and they’re married in a big ceremony soon after, on April 1st. They offer Sally the position of flower girl, but she decides it’s silly to be the flower girl in her own parents’ wedding, and tells them to ask her friend Bea Howlett, instead. Also in this year, Tony officially quits drinking. He had never hit rock bottom as an alcoholic, as he had in 616, but Steve had recognized the warning signs of addiction from his own experiences with his father, and Tony had kicked the habit for Steve’s sake. At Steve’s assistance, Tony attends AA meetings, and when Sally gets older, she is part of Alateen.
Given her traumatic childhood, and her fathers’ dangerous jobs, Sally has a few abandonment fears. To try to soothe them, Steve and Tony make sure to check in with her after every battle, no matter how tired they are, and the family plays a board game. Scrabble is one of their favorites (Steve always loses). They also sing lullabies to her. Their favorite lullaby, and Sally’s favorite song, is “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” Sally vividly remembers them singing it to her after the Mansion was attacked during her 8th birthday party.
At 12, Sally is kidnapped by Madame Hydra, who tries to claim (obviously erroneously) that she is Sally’s mother. She’s rescued, but Madame Hydra’s meddling awakens the dormant powers in her system that she gained from the encounter with Kang ten years earlier. Her powers include a light healing factor and telekinesis, and she shows signs of developing telepathy, though that power is never fully brought to light in the House of TM. At some point, before she has control of her powers, she accidentally levitates Warpup around the kitchen, traumatizing the poor dog. Tony builds it a suit of armor to help it feel grounded.
After Rhodey finds other job prospects, Tony and Steve hire Piotr Rasputin to be their head of security. Though his job is a big one, he also does double-duty as a personal bodyguard for the family, particularly Sally and sometimes the twins.
For the most part, Sally is a normal teenage girl, though one raised in extreme privilege under less-than-average circumstances. Sally has an interest in ballet and modern dance, and her fathers also make her take ballroom dancing lessons - Steve because it was traditional, Tony for more practical, social reasons. Her best friends include Val Richards, daughter of family friends Reed and Sue Richards (who are divorced - Sue lives under the sea with Namor), and Beatrice Howlett, daughter of next door neighbors Neena and Logan Howlett (Domino and Wolverine). Bea is a bit of a wild child, the one who comes up with ill-conceived ideas, and Sally is sometimes tempted to follow, but usually fairly obedient to her parents’ wishes. (Val is also a complete goody two-shoes, so Bea gets outvoted most of the time.) On one particular occasion - Sally’s 14th birthday - the girls attempt to sneak out to a party, but when Tony catches them Val blabs the whole thing. Tony promises not to tell Steve if Sally promises not to do it again (though Steve eventually finds out, from Bea).
Sally is headstrong, outspoken, slightly theatrical, compassionate, and completely brilliant. When she’s young, she’s taught by a private tutor; in her later years, she attends the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning part-time so she can have more interaction with other powered teens. She has an interest in science and engineering (she even dropped an art class to make room for an extra computer lab session), but Steve still feels that Tony is too pushy about wanting her to go to MIT. He wants Sally to be able to make her own choices, even if that means she won’t follow in Tony’s footsteps. (The fact that he’d like her to follow in his own footsteps is something Steve denies, but is obviously there.)
When Sally starts to have interest in being a superhero, Steve and Tony realize that there’s no way they’d be able to stop her. So Steve trains her in four different forms of martial arts (just as he trained her to swim when she was little), and Tony builds her a suit, and by the time she’s 16 she’s joined a newly-formed Young Avengers team as Liberty Belle (a name chosen to honor both of her fathers - the Liberty Bell, after all, is made of cast iron). Other members of the team include Val Richards, Cassie Lang, Billy, Tommy, and Hulkling. The team is set to debut officially around the time of Steve and Tony’s 10th anniversary, when Sally is 16.
Around this same time, Sally develops a crush on one of her Xavier’s classmates, telekinetic Julian Keller, a.k.a. Hellion. Hellion is, well, a hellion, and Steve and Tony don’t exactly approve, but they don’t want to chase him away. They are upset, however, when, the night before her SATs, Sally sneaks out of the house in her armor to meet Julian on a church rooftop and the two of them stop a crime in progress that involves a car chase. After dropping the criminal off at the jail, Sally and Julian kiss for the first time, and though Sally has liked him for a year, she secretly worries that Julian likes the armor more than he likes her. Steve and Tony punish her for going out in her armor without permission or even telling anyone, something that is standard protocol even for adult Avengers. Her computer privileges are suspended for a week - something Tony can easily enforce - and she isn’t allowed to use her armor outside of the training room until she regains her fathers’ trust. The family manages to make it through the ordeal, however, and are happy and together in time for Steve and Tony’s 10th anniversary party, when, after Sally dances with both of her fathers, the world falls apart.
It has been noted by many, including impartial reporters, that, despite the fact that Sally is adopted, she strongly resembles both of her parents, in looks and personality. Could it be that Wanda’s meddling actually made her their biological child, from the base material of that dead child in the apartment? Anything is possible.
616 Universe, Now
Sally and her mother were killed in the Kang attack, just as Steve originally witnessed. But Wanda was able to retroactively resurrect them with her magic, and in this new, slightly tweaked version of 616 reality they were able to walk out of the ruined building after the Avengers had already checked their apartment. Therefore, Steve still correctly remembered Sally’s death, but Sally and her mother were able to survive, anyway.
Realizing that she’d been given a new lease on life, Toni Stetins quit drinking and moved her daughter, who she sometimes called “Second Chance Sal,” to Wayzata, Minnesota. She became more involved in the Unitarian church and joined AA, and Sally grew up in Al-Anon and Alateen. (Her recent membership in aamuses is an extension of this.) Her mother struggled to stay sober and dated a string of loser boyfriends, but she worked hard to support and care for her daughter. As a registered nurse, she has never made very much money, but the family makes enough to get by. During high school, Sally helps to contribute to the family income with her after-school and summer job as a clerk at the Hot Topic in the local mall. Her manager is a woman named Pansy, and one of her coworkers is a guy named Mike who calls himself Radon.
By the time Sally is 16 years old, life is going fairly well for the Stetins family. Toni Stetins has finally met a decent guy (through Sally), a man named Steve from church who is a veteran and is part of the local AA Harley club. (Later, he airbrushes a picture of War Machine onto his bike.) Toni and Sally are still extremely close - Sally feels comfortable telling her mom everything, and they often sit together when Toni is home, watching TV, eating frozen yogurt, and talking.
Sally, meanwhile, is doing extraordinarily well at Wayzata High School, having skipped a grade early on in her educational career. She gets great grades (though she’s a little weak in Spanish), and is also active in the drama club and Model Congress. But, even more importantly, she’s an extremely dedicated activist, constantly involved in organizing rallies and putting up fliers and sending letters to Congress. Her causes are largely human rights and environmental issues, and she has frequently participated in Earth Day, National Coming Out Day, and the Task Force. She co-heads the gay-straight alliance at her school, the Wayzata Wings, as well as her school’s chapter of Amnesty International, and she’s been known to excoriate Stark Industries for its complicity in the environmental devastation in Central America caused by cattle farms. She even held a sit-in during her sophomore year to protest the removal of The Handmaid's Tale from the school library.
Perhaps her most unique work is her advocacy for young superheroes. She once helped run a website for Julie Power, and she moderated a teen-hero newsgroup. When the Registration Act came about, she fought against it fiercely, seeing it as comparable it to the demands to track homosexuals during the 80s AIDS crisis. Captain America was her hero, and she was absolutely devastated when he died. Much as she doesn’t like to admit it, a lot of her interest in young superheroes sprang from her own hidden desire to be one, too, but she gave up that dream long ago, and has instead focused her attention on helping such heroes to survive their careers without breaking down. More recently, she’s begun to think in broader terms, and wants to work to get the rights of underage superheroes recognized as a problem equivalent to that of the child soldiers of the Congo. She hopes to make people aware that they are not weapons to be used, but teenagers to be educated and supported in a valid career choice. All of this has led her to an interest in international politics more generally, though she is still an engineer at heart.
In high school, Sally has a reasonably active social life. Her best friend, Emil Khalidi, who is gay and fairly flamboyant, often visits her at work to keep her company on slow nights. He also sometimes takes advantage of her for her car and license, but in an endearing way - and he’s just as willing to spend time studying with Sally as he is to drag her to a gay club to party. Sally also has a friend named Madison, whose parents recently divorced and who attends a tennis camp, and she has another friend named Mike. When she’s not being an activist, she likes spending time at the mall and going to clubs with friends.
When Layla Miller tells Captain America, shortly after the collapse of the House of TM, that Sally is alive, he travels to Wayzata to visit her at work, under his assumed identity of Wilson Buchanan. Steve is glad that she’s alive, though mindful of the differences between the other world’s Sally and this one: even on the surface, Sally Stetins’ hair is dyed darker (and was, in her last yearbook photo, streaked with purple), and she has a tiny scar on her chin that she hadn’t had in the House of TM. But the two have a pleasant conversation, and Steve is reassured that she is, indeed, alive, happy, and safe in this world. He even gets to meet Emil, and talk to Sally about her mother and her future plans. He sees her working on scholarship applications for early college admissions, and, discovering that she dreams of going to MIT, Steve encourages her to apply for the Maria Stark Foundation scholarship, which he is sure he can coerce Tony into giving her.
Unfortunately, Steve, still mourning the loss of the other world and his relationship with is daughter, is obviously a wreck during this meeting, and over the course of the conversation he must claim to be an Iraq vet named who has recently returned home in the wake of the death of his daughter, “Sarah,” of whom Sally “reminds him.” Sally is very sympathetic, and even goes so far as to invite Steve to an International Worker’s Day potluck at her church. But Steve declines, knowing he can’t get too involved, and leaves only with a Captain America t-shirt Sally gives him, her e-mail address scribbled on the collar. They exchange e-mails a few times, but Steve knows it isn’t healthy, and the contact drops off.
Soon after, Tony does, indeed, give Sally the scholarship - though not, he claims, because of nepotism. She was simply the most qualified candidate. At the reception dinner, Sally launches into a scathing speech, criticizing Tony’s actions during the superhuman civil war and the Superhuman Registration Act in general, essentially calling him a warmonger. The rant makes YouTube and all the papers, but, perversely, it makes Tony sure, for the first time, that Sally really is his daughter. He meets with Steve, and the two finally start a romantic relationship in this world, immediately making plans to see their child and reunite their family, if only for an afternoon.
That fall, Sally starts her freshman year at MIT, having skipped her senior year of high school. One day early in the semester, Tony Stark shows up and takes her to an undisclosed Boston location (stealing her cell phone on the way, for security reasons), reveals to her that Captain America is alive, and introduces her to him. Luckily for Steve, Sally doesn’t recognize him from their earlier Hot Topic meeting. Tony explains that they’ve come to her because they’ve discovered that she has powers, and they want to make sure she has the supervision and training she needs in those powers. Sally won’t believe them at first - about her powers, or about their motives - but she finds it hard to say anything against, or disbelieve, Captain America (which is, of course, Tony’s expressed explanation for allowing her to meet him - to give Sally a reason to trust Tony, who she hates). The family has a nice lunch, and then Tony returns Sally to her campus, where her friends, including a girl named Melanie, had become a bit worried.
That summer, Sally, now 17, takes an internship in New York City with Stark Industries, despite her continued misgivings about Tony-about his politics, and about his continued insistence on buying her things (a new phone, a computer, etc.) and giving her special opportunities and attention. In the internship program, she meets Sally Blevins, formerly Skids of the Morlocks, New Mutants, and Brotherhood, and the two become fast friends, bonding over cookies, their acquaintances with Jean Grey, their respect for Pepper Potts, and their mutual distrust of Tony Stark’s inexplicable interest in their activities. Sally feels unsafe at the boarding house in the East Village where she’s rooming for the summer, so when the other Sally offers to let her stay at her house in the Bronx with her aunt and uncle instead, Sally jumps at the chance. She’s excited to befriend someone who knows so many of the heroes she’s been reading about her whole life (in reputable newspapers and tabloids, though she claims she doesn’t believe what the tabloids say). Sally is sometimes overwhelmed by the wealth and fame of the people in Sally Blevins’ circle, many of whom she only knows by their code names, and the friendship takes some adjustment. When she goes with the other Sally on a mini-vacation on Bruce Wayne’s yacht, for instance, she’s totally blown away. But she does have a great conversation with Lorna Dane, whose work with nanotech she’s very interested in, and generally has a great time.
At the internship, Sally does quite well, working closely with Pepper Potts while learning all she can about the business environment and planning for her future at MIT and beyond. Her duties include having to re-write a pitch she’s witnessed and trying to get Pepper to approve it, and writing a proposal of her own. She also makes a friend, through her participation in aamuses, named Blair Waldorf, the wealthy daughter of a fashion designer, and she’s tentatively considered asking out Julian Keller, a classmate at MIT and a known mutant. (Some things just don’t change.)
Sally is a fan of music that ranges from Gershwin to Fall Out Boy (this has carried over from Wanda’s world), and her idols include Katharine Hepburn and Kat Farrell. In addition to Gershwin, she’s a moderately big fan of musicals, particularly Sondheim and RENT, though she isn’t a fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber beyond Jesus Christ Superstar and Phantom of the Opera. She loves origami, for the combination of order and creativity, and even teaches it to Lorna’s daughter, Katie (her “cousin,” though she doesn’t know that) on the boat trip. She is confident and sure of her abilities, and gets angry when she feels that things are being handed to her on a platter. She wants to work for her achievements. It’s a trait she’s always had, even in the old world, where she once auditioned for an honors dance program under a fake name to get in on her own merits, and wanted to turn it down when she found out the program had recognized her anyway. She thrives on praise, because she knows she’s good, and the compliments only make her reach higher.
Sally is also extremely direct - and that’s often problematic. Unlike the other world, where here telekinesis manifested first and her telepathy was just beginning to emerge, it’s her telepathy that’s come to the fore here, and only recently at that. (She also has a modest healing factor, though she’s never really noticed before - she simply thought she was lucky to recover so quickly from a broken collarbone at age 8.) As a result, Sally’s natural tendency to be honest about what she observes about people has been enhanced by her ability to unconsciously find out more about people than they’re letting on, and it sometimes gets her in trouble (though many appreciate her honesty). She rarely tries to actively use her telepathy, though she has done some training, at Steve and Tony’s behest, with Jean Grey, a woman who still remembers her from the other world, even though she doesn’t like to think about that world often.
Sally claims that she doesn’t have time for other people’s problems, but in reality, she can’t help helping people out - listening to them talk and offering her blunt, but helpful, advice. It’s a trait she shares with more than one of her fathers, fathers who are coming very close to the day when they’ll finally tell her the truth. The other Sally, Lorna Dane, Henry Hellrung, Sam Wilson, Jean Grey, Wanda Maximoff, Layla Miller, and other displaced denizens of the House of TM - including Katie, Bea Howlett, and Franklin Richards - already know, and it’s only a matter of time until everything comes to a head.