chapter 2
She knew this was supposed to be an interview but from where she sat, it felt more like an interrogation.
She wasn’t in trouble. She wasn’t in trouble. She wasn’t in trouble.
Will sat to her right, leaning back in a padded chair with one ankle resting across his knee. He gave her a little wink when she looked over at him and the normal part of her wanted to flip him the bird in response. But today was not a normal day, and she definitely didn’t feel normal anymore.
Maybe it was the way things were set up that made her uneasy. For starters, she sat at the head of an obscenely long table, one that was shiny enough for her reflection to stare pallidly back at her and remind her of the stitches across her face. Neither Will or Pepper sat at the table beside her and it made her feel even more on display, like a lobotomized frog being readied for dissection.
However, it was who sat at the table that made her most uncomfortable of all.
Tony Stark had placed himself not in a chair but on the table itself, casually sipping a mug of coffee like he was chatting with a friend and not someone who had their life shot out from under them mere weeks ago. She didn’t know if his informality was supposed to put her at ease or be a reflection of the fact that he truly was as arrogant as he looked on TV.
“Kid?”
She jerked her gaze to his face. “Hmm?”
Mr. Stark raised an eyebrow, moving his glasses to sit on top of his head. “Worried we lost you there for a second.”
“Sorry. I’m… distracted.”
He offered her a smile. “Completely understandable, considering what you’ve been through.”
What she’d been through. She wished people would stop saying that.
“Speaking of which, let’s start by having you walk us through the events of that morning.”
Something in her mouth dried at his words, turning her tongue to sand. “...Events?”
“Yeah. You mentioned in the police report that there you were supposed to attend a staff meeting that afternoon?”
Meeting. She had a meeting.
Fuck, she was going to be late. Again. Fucking fuck.
11:56. Four minutes, four minutes, four minutes.
Stairs or Elevator?
Stairs.
God, it was hot, why did it always have to be this hot?
Don’t trip, don’t trip, don’t trip, don’t trip-
Wait. Someone was screaming. Too many people were screaming.
Popping. Like balloons.
Balloon after balloon after balloon after balloon after
A man from the floor below was yelling at her to hide. His shirt was red. Not from dye.
Hide, hide, everyone’s running, falling, screaming.
Storage closet. Ten feet away. There’s a lock.
Run.
Five seconds. Four, three, two, one-
She slammed the door shut behind her. Pushed at the lock, fingers shaking.
Her legs went numb- too much, too much, too much
Back of the closet, huddled in the corner. She wanted to go home.
Will, Jake- she’d never get to say goodbye-
She let out a breath through her nose. “Yeah… I was running late. But it..it didn’t matter...”
Tony let her silence settle, taking another languid sip of coffee before prodding, “Why?”
“Because…” The word felt thick in her mouth. “There were gunshots.”
Hours. Hours and hours and hours of popping.
Probably only minutes but she couldn’t tell.
Memories swam in her mind, covering her current reality like a fog. “And I hid… until the windows.”
There were footsteps, heavy footsteps. Outside the door. Too close, too close-
Go away. Please go away.
A shadow. Black shoes.
Go away go away go away
Whoever it was shook the door handle. Once, twice.
Go away
They shook it again
Go away
And again
GO AWAY GO AWAY JUMP OUT THE FUCKING WINDOW ASSHOLES GET OUT GO AWAY
Silence.
Then glass. Shattering.
She crawled to the door. Peaked through the crack.
A figure in black walked through the jagged shards of the front windows.
What the fuck?
All of them. People with guns. Her coworkers. Everyone.
Piling through the window.
Falling down down down down-
Her supervisor. Michelle. Fire red hair walking calmly to the building’s edge.
Stop her, go STOP HER
She left the closet. Somehow.
Ran to Michelle. Hands around her arm, pulling her back inside.
She leaned against what was left of the window.
Come on come on, don’t fall, don’t fall
Her shoulder popped out of its socket. Michelle slipped. Something tore through her cheek.
Then her hands were empty.
Fire red hair. Pummeling towards the sidewalk. Bodies following in her wake.
No.
NO.
Vomit surged up her throat at the memory. She launched out of her seat, bile pooling in her mouth, and managed to kneel beside a potted fern before her stomach emptied. Footsteps shuffled behind her; she felt a hand on her back, the other sweeping some hair out of her face as another wave of nausea crashed. Her stitches throbbed with every clench of her stomach and some irrational part of her thought it might split her face in two.
“Jesus, is she alright?” Tony Stark’s voice floated over from the table, presumably where he still sat drinking his goddamn coffee.
Pepper sighed. “Tony-”
“Does she look alright to you?” Will snapped, his hand still rubbing circles on her back. “She’s vomiting into a plant for Christ’s sake.”
“Yeah, I can see that. We’ll get her some water and-”
“Do what, Tony? Make her keep reliving what she went through? You already know what happened.”
Uh… since when were her uncle and Tony Stark on a fucking first name basis?
Behind her, Will huffed. “You know what- I changed my mind. This was a bad idea, I’m taking her home.”
An exasperated sigh. “We agreed, Will. There’s been an attempt on her life.”
Her hands gripped the edge of the ceramic pot. It hadn’t been just an attempt on her life; it’d been an attempt on the entire building’s life. And they succeeded because everyone she worked with was dead.
Fuck.
Nausea slammed her stomach like a freight train, hunching her body over the soiled dirt.
“Obviously she’s still recovering from it.” She felt Will’s hand run over her hair once, smoothing it back from the sweat pooling at her crown. “She needs time.”
Steps crossed the floor over to where they were, steady and purposeful. “She doesn’t have time. She needs to know exactly what she’s up against, and the only way she’ll know is if we tell her.”
“How about we tell her when she’s not throwing up, Tony.”
“Well, maybe if we hadn’t waited until she was twenty three years old, this could’ve been avoided.”
“God, you’re such an ass-”
“Please-” Kit gasped, gulping a few deep breaths. “Can both of you just… just shut up?”
Thankfully, the room fell quiet and she felt some of her nausea dissipate. Which would've been good if it weren’t for the fact that cold spikes of dread were now impaling her body because what in the actual fuck did she just walk into.
From everything she’d heard in the past few minutes, she definitely wasn’t there for an interview. Lie number one. She also hadn’t been fucking aware that Will and Tony Stark knew each other on some level. Lie number two.
How many fucking lies are there?
She lifted her head towards Will, his worried eyes meeting hers, and said, “Tell me what’s going on.”
The crease between his eyebrows deepened. “We need to get you home.”
“I don’t want to go home.” Fear disguised as anger coated her voice as she leveled her gaze at him. “I want to know what the hell is going on here.”
A pause.
Will looked to Tony.
Tony looked down. Sighed once.
Then, raising his eyes to her, he said, “Unfortunately, kid... you're not who you think you are.”