SELENA "LENA" STARK

ACT I.Two years after the death of Howard and Maria Stark, Stark Industries announced it would be working together with Wayne Enterprises. The announcement was made by newly appointed CEO, Tony Stark, Howard’s late son. Their project was one Tony had found buried away in Howard’s old files; Test Tube Babies, an experiment the deceased never got around to doing. It was said to be impossible but Tony was going to prove otherwise.Being partners in the project, Tony and Bruce decided to be the donors. Twelve systems were set up in the Stark laboratories in Manhattan, each tube created with an artificial womb. Each carried the donated sperm, spliced DNA, and eggs taken from anonymous volunteers. The first eleven systems lasted a month before they failed, and the last one was expected to fail shortly after. To everyone’s surprise, the remaining system didn’t fail; the infant carrying three different genes was still alive. Months followed, and the system remained stronger than ever, the infant growing in the artificial womb.Nine months after the experiment began, Tony and Bruce were called back to the lab. The results were in, the infant had outgrown the artificial womb. Upon arrival, the billionaires were greeted by one of the scientists of the project, in their arms was the small infant, wrapped in a pink blanket.“Mister Stark, Mister Wayne...it’s a girl. And she’s very healthy.”At the start of the project, the two agreed that the child who survived would be put up for adoption, but neither of them could find it in themselves to let this baby be sent off to live with a random family. Despite neither of them being father material at the time, this girl was their flesh and blood, she carried their spliced DNA, and they couldn’t give her up. The adoption plan was scrapped and a birth certificate was printed out, with their names and hers.Selena Mariana Stark-Wayne. Born July 15th, 1995.There was no custody battle; both men settled upon a good custody agreement. Selena, lovingly coined "Lena" by Stark, lived with Tony for most of her life in Malibu, with frequent visits across the country to stay with Bruce every other weekend.Lena was very loved by the public. A bright-eyed child who was friendly, full of light, and very smart for her age. While many loved her, others assumed her to follow in her fathers' footsteps, waiting for her to grow up into a wild child. Something both billionaires were hellbent on preventing.As a young kid, she loved the spotlight; she soaked up the admiration and love, but that changed as she got older. Lena grew to hate the pedestal that people put her on. She hated that people had expectations they wanted her to live up to. The flashing lights hurt her eyes and the crowds of people made her anxious to the point where a few breakdowns occurred from being overcrowded.She may have been a Stark, and a Wayne, but she learned from a young age that being in the spotlight wasn't always positive.ACT II.
While Tony was away in Afghanistan, Lena was sent to Gotham to be looked after until he returned. She had been to Gotham plenty of times in her life; it was part of the custody agreement that she spends every other weekend there.When she was younger, she would’ve looked forward to staying with Bruce, but over the years, the relationship between her and Bruce became strained. He had become distant as she grew older, to the point where young Lena would wonder if he regretted becoming a father, regretting having her in his life.Alfred always assured her this wasn’t the case, but she never believed him.On the first night of her stay, Lena had snuck out for a walk, as she didn’t feel like being holed up in a mansion with a man she no longer considered her father. She'd done it plenty of times and knew she had been out far later than she meant and, instead of calling Alfred to pick her up and getting herself in trouble for sneaking out, she decided to walk back. It wasn’t the smartest decision she’s made, but she was a kid, and she didn’t want to risk worrying Alfred or Bruce getting angry.While walking along the barely lit roads, she was grabbed by an unknown assailant and dragged away. No one was around to see or save the girl as she was pulled into the shadows.She tried to scream for help, but her attacker covered her mouth with a cloth and the world faded to black.At twelve years old, Lena Stark had fallen into the grasp of the Clown Prince of Crime. The daughter of Tony Stark, a man who seemed to have everything. Was it money that Joker wanted? Is that why he kidnapped the young heiress when she was in town?No, he did not kidnap her for money. Obadiah Stane had offered him a large sum to kidnap and kill her, and the clown turned his nose up at it. He didn’t want money; he wanted chaos. He wanted the world in flames; he wanted to break things. Obadiah Stane wanted the Starks dead, but Joker wanted to see them break. But was that the real reason he captured Lena Stark?Lena was his prisoner for months. Joker's torture methods varied from leaving her chained up in a dark room for days, alone with nothing and no one to scream for, to forcing her to witness heinous acts he committed daily, like torturing and killing random people his men had kidnapped. Sometimes, he'd even use an old electro-shock therapy contraption that had been left behind in the funhouse they were holed up in.Joker wanted to take away Stark’s daughter and twist her into something only he could control. He wanted to flaunt to the world that not even billionaires and their families are safe from people like him. Would Stark break then? Should he survive the Ten Rings, would he feel like he had lost everything when he hears what his daughter has become?The torture proceeded until it finally broke the girl. After months of endless pain and suffering, her fragile, innocent mind had fractured.In an attempt to protect the now thirteen-year-old, the broken mind created an identity. This identity, Joker thought, was his puppet, so he called her Harley. Named after his previous Harley that vanished mysteriously.The clown made her believe that he was her protector. That he was her guardian, and no one would harm her as long as he was around, so she did everything for him. Like a vicious, loyal dog, she would attack when commanded.The streets of Gotham became more dangerous now, and she was becoming just as feared as him. The clown princess of crime, she was called. The amount of damage someone could do at such a young age was horrifying.Lena had been missing for over a year and a half before someone discovered what had happened to her. The one who discovered the girl’s true identity was not only Batman, Gotham’s Dark Knight, but Captain America, Steve Rogers.The man out of time, recently unfrozen a few years earlier. He had been around the Starks briefly before they both went missing, and when Tony was found, but Lena wasn’t, Steve took it upon himself to find her. Steve sought the help of the Dark Knight, and together, the two searched all of Gotham, until they stumbled across clues that led them to discover Harley’s true identity.Once they learned who she was, they set out to get her back, but Lena wasn’t herself anymore, and she was not going to leave the Joker willingly. At least that’s what many believed. During the time of Harley’s control, Joker’s attitude toward her had changed; he became less “caring” and more violent, more so when he learned that she never truly trusted him. When he learned that her true intention for the bloodshed was to protect Lena, that Harley's true reason for existing was to shield Lena, his violence turned from verbal to physical.He no longer took his anger out on his men; he took it out on her. He was no longer the "protective, parental figure" he claimed to be before, often slamming her into walls or locking her up in a small, dark room until she was crying and screaming for his forgiveness.When their whereabouts were discovered, Joker decided that his fun was over. He had succeeded in his plans; he had broken the Stark girl, and now it was time for one last hurrah. He was going to destroy both Harley and Lena. He had nearly succeeded in doing so, after spending what seemed like hours torturing her over and over.The last thing he did before leaving her for dead was taking his knife and carving up her back. Then he vanished into the night, with no sign of him anywhere when Captain America, Batman, and the GCPD finally showed up.They found Lena Stark on the ground in the broken-down funhouse. Bruised and bleeding, she was barely hanging on by a thread. Her face and body were littered with cuts and bruises, but the most noticeable damage left behind? The cut on her back was shaped like a jagged J.A reminder that if she survived, she would always belong to him.ACT III ( trigger warning: thoughts and attempts of suicide. please proceed with caution ! ).The girl was escorted to Gotham General Hospital. Due to the amount of blood loss and damage she suffered, no one was sure she was going to make it, especially after the scare they got on their way to the hospital. She had grown unstable in the ambulance, and to everyone’s horror, her heart had stopped. This only lasted for a split second before her heart began beating again, and at an abnormally fast rate too. Shortly after, they made it to the hospital, where they escorted her to urgent care.After having her back stitched up, she was monitored for a few days to ensure that they wouldn’t have another moment like in the ambulance. Once they were assured she was stable, she was taken to the Gotham City courthouse, where a judge decided her fate. Many thought she would be sent to prison, despite the girl’s young age, but they were shocked to learn that the Judge decided to send her to a psych ward. A Doctor had stepped forward and claimed that the teenager showed signs of Dissociative Identity Disorder. With this, they were able to claim that her actions were not her own, that Lena was not dangerous, and that she was a victim.The Doctor's name was Alexandra Chase. Being an expert on this kind of situation, she knew what type of care both Lena and Harley needed. Harley wasn’t terrifyingly obsessed with the Joker; she was just as scared of him as Lena was and cared deeply for the girl, so much so that she refused to give up control of her body until she knew Lena was safe.The ever-patient Doctor Chase helped both Lena and Harley, until the latter felt that she’d done enough damage and decided to let the girl be in control. The Doctor didn't see Harley after that, now left with a confused, broken teenage girl who had spots in her memory.TW: SUICIDE ATTEMPT (Not in-depth detail but still a warning. Ends after the word “handled”)
Despite Harley's absence and the dark spots in her memory, Lena still suffered. She could remember the torture from before Harley; she remembered the things she was made to watch and the pain she endured before everything went dark. She couldn't remember what Harley had done while in control, but she knew that something bad had happened, that lingering fear that she had done terrible things. Due to this, Lena suffered from constant nightmares and small episodes, to the point where she refused to sleep, and the staff was often forced to sedate her, making her rest. As the months dragged on, Lena was reaching her breaking point. There were moments when she wanted nothing more than to die. The pain she constantly suffered through was too much, and there had been several times when she’d been tempted to hang herself with her bedsheets or overdose on her sleeping pills. At one point, the staff found the girl trying to do the latter, and the situation was handled. She had to be monitored when taking her medication from now on.
TW: End of Suicide Attempt.The only possible upside was that in her time at the ward, she and her doctor had discovered something interesting about Lena. Something was triggered inside her, and a few rather…interesting abilities came forward.During a fit brought on by a traumatic memory, Lena had managed to break every fragile piece of furniture in Doctor Chase’s office without touching them, and she only knew it was Lena because when it happened, a strange shimmery gold-yellow aura enveloped her hands. Another ability was that she seemed to gain regenerative healing abilities, as most of the scars, minus the one on her back, faded away as if they never even existed.ACT IV.On January 17th, 2012, nearly two years after Lena’s admission to the psych ward, Doctor Chase finally deemed Lena stable, and she was released back to Tony. The now seventeen-year-old had never been more desperate to get back to her father. She hoped that once she was back with him, everything that happened would be forgotten, that things would go back to normal.She was wrong. The moment she arrived in Manhattan with Tony, Lena wanted to disappear. Everything Harley had done, everything Lena had endured, was plastered all over the news, filling the dark gaps in her memory. Tony had done what he could to try and erase things, but the damage had already been done; Lena had heard about the violence caused by her hands.And the public? Well, they expected Lena to bounce right back. They expected the girl to smile for the camera, put on a cheery attitude, and act like nothing was wrong. They didn’t know the horrific details of her kidnapping. They didn’t know the pain that she’d been through. Being tortured to the point where your mind breaks and forms another identity, you don’t bounce back easily.Every media outlet had something to say about her; every news station covered the story. The world had something to say about what she went through. Every slander and insult that she saw in the media; in her mind, everything was true. Every accusation, Lena deserved it all. It might not have been truly her, but it was her hands that committed those heinous acts.The first two months back were not easy for either Stark, both still suffering from the traumatic events of what they went through.Lena couldn’t sleep because every time she closed her eyes, he was there. She could see his face, hearing that awful smile, that gut-curling grin. There would be flashes of things she couldn't remember, always ending with her hands covered in blood before she'd wake up screaming. These dreams would ruin any chance of a full night’s rest, Lena often trying to stay up for days just to avoid them. Eventually, Tony had to have her sedated so she could get a full night's rest.When she was finally able to sleep on her own, that was all she did. Slept all day, or just lay in bed, until Tony or Rhodey came to make her get out of bed and eat. All she did was lie in bed, alone with her thoughts. This went on for a while, before Tony put his foot down. He wasn’t going to let his daughter waste away; he wasn’t going to stand to see her suffer any longer. Nothing he did was helping her heal; she needed professional help that didn’t come from a court order. He may not be good at doing anything for himself, but he would do everything he could for his kid.After plenty of coaxing on Tony’s side, Lena started seeing a therapist, one assigned to her by S.H.I.E.L.D., because Tony trusted them not to leak information for money.The therapist, highly trained to deal with traumatized, enhanced individuals, had been patient and understanding with Lena, especially when she refused to say anything for the first few sessions.When Lena finally felt the courage to speak, everything came pouring out. Everything she experienced, every nightmare, every thought she had, was spilled out to the woman. She left out some gruesome details that only her father knew about, but it felt like a weight lifted from her shoulders.It made life more bearable for the girl; she could focus on other things. Like the strange, magical abilities she gained. Tony and Bruce Banner had run tests to determine what caused it, and if that was all she could do. They’ve also been teaching her how to control it. After many tests, the diagnostic shocked them: Lena's DNA showed traces of Dark Fey ancestry.

A race considered to be nothing but fairytales. Now her strange, continuously forming abilities made sense.Fury showed interested the young Stark's rapidly growing abilities, and saw potential in her. Lena was putting the training, learning to control and wield her powers, wanting to do some good in her life after all the hurt that had been caused. By 2015, before Ultron, Lena was made a full-fledged Avenger, much to Tony's hesitance (Nat called him a mother hen with how much he worried over Lena). Due to her fey-like abilities and being the daughter of Iron Man, she was dubbed the Arcfey by the public, the title becoming her official Avenger name.As of 2027, Lena remains one of the original Avengers, alongside those who survived. She was a survivor of the Blip and both fights against Thanos. Lena continues to be an active Avenger, alongside being a philanthropist and a CEO-in-training for Stark Industries both under Tony and Pepper's guidance.