chapter 3
She wasn’t sure what the appropriate response to that statement was.
Judging from the looks of everyone in the room, it definitely wasn’t crazed laughter.
And that only made her laugh harder.
“Ohhkay, asshole,” She said between laughs, “what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Tony didn’t respond and she thought if this was the first time he’d been rendered speechless.
When still no explanation came, she raised an amused brow. “You can’t come at me with some shitty YA novel line and expect me to roll with it.”
“Katherine. Language.” Will withered a look her way, arms crossed.
A scoff ripped up her throat. “Come on, how could he know anything about me? I just met him.”
Will opened his mouth to speak, but seemed to think better of it as he closed it. It was another few moments before he started again. “Well… that’s not exactly true.”
Now it was her turn to fall silent. She, out of all the people in the world, had met Tony Stark more than once. At least twice, according to this new information but who knows how many times it was in actuality? Not to mention the fact that she didn’t remember any of it.
The nausea started to swirl again. “I... I don’t understand. I don’t remember-”
“Kid…” Tony sighed, reeling Kit’s gaze to him. “I knew your mom.”
Everything halted for a moment.
Her mother.
Her dead mother.
Grace Cassidy had been a difficult topic for most of Kit’s life, due to the fact that she knew the woman for all of five years. She was passed onto Will just before her fifth birthday and he became her life. It felt jarring to her at that time even though she couldn't understand the situation. She once had a mother; then she didn't. And it never quite clicked in her mind. Sure, she knew after a couple years that her mom wasn’t coming back but the feeling of her lingered. Sometimes she thought she could hear a hum from the kitchen, or that she felt a wisp through the ends of her hair, but it was always her imagination. Misty fragments of a child’s memory.
Kit felt her face grow hot. “How did you know her?”
Will shifted in the corner of her eye, clearing his throat. “I don’t think we should go about it like this-”
“No.” She snapped at Will but kept her gaze to Tony. “He’s telling me now.”
Tony stared back at her in silence and it only made her heart pump faster, rattling her ribcage.
“We had… a relationship.”
Kit frowned. “And?”
“Jesus...” He sighed, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. “This isn’t the time for you to hear this.”
She wanted to scream. Forced herself to swallow instead.
“Just tell me.”
He kept his eyes to the floor. “It resulted in you.”
Everything reeled to a halt, almost as if the universe had pressed pause on a TV remote.
There she stood. Tony across from her, Will beside her, Pepper somewhere by the conference table.
Somehow she was also not there. Retreating into the recesses of her mind while she tried to process what just happened.
No. No way.
No fucking way.
The rubber band of shock snapped away into a million different emotions; confusion, hurt, anger, betrayal. Her body couldn't seem to decide between screaming or crying or running away, and instead stood silent. All she could process was the fact that her life, at least in part, was a lie. Every single person in that room had lied to her up until this moment and she wondered maybe if she stayed still enough, the room would fade away and take her with it.
Kit swallowed, dryness scratching her throat. “Please tell me there’s nothing else..”
Tony glanced over to Will and then Pepper before turning back to her. He seemed almost exhausted as he stared and it sparked a flush of anger in her gut. Was this all too hard for him? Pretending she didn't exist for the past twenty three years and then dropping a huge bomb on her after the worst event of her life? Poor fucking Tony Stark; she’d help him all the way to a fist in the face.
A face that was now opening its mouth to say, “We can talk about this another time.”
Ha. How convenient.
“Apparently you’ve had at least eighteen years to tell me the truth. Time’s up.”
“Honey..” Will had made his way to her side at some point during their conversation and rested his hand gently on her shoulder. “You don’t have to do this now. It’s your choice.”
She barked a laugh. “My choice? What part of any of this was my choice? You lied to get me here!”
“And you lied, both of you!” Her head snapped to Tony and Pepper, voice pointed.
Anger simmered hot under the surface of her skin and she blew a puff of air through her nose. “So. What we’re not going to do is keep lying to me. I’m over it; its over.”
In fact, it was so over that five seconds into all of them staring mutely at her, she decided to get the heck out of that conference room. Turned on her heel and marched right out through that stupid glass door and towards the stupidly shiny elevator. Her reflection mocked her with it’s clown red face, only further accentuating the crater plowing through it. She felt tears threaten her lower lash line but thankfully the elevator doors opened before they fell. As soon as she was inside, her hand slapped to the ‘close’ button and pushed rapidly until the doors finally shut.
{I knew I shouldn't have brought her here. Imagine if I’d sent her alone, fucking hell-}
She placed her hands over her ears, not unlike a child. If she could hear Will through all that metal, she didn't want to imagine what he sounded like to Tony and Pepper. Though, he didn't necessarily sound like he was yelling-
The doors opened abruptly and without knowing where she landed or why, she hurried into the room before her.
And slammed immediately into a brick wall.
A brick wall that somehow possessed the ability to grunt.
“Fuck- I mean, sorry..” She said, stepping around the boulder between her and whatever this room was. If only to protect what was left of her dignity, she kept her head down and scattered away before anything else could be said.
{Who the hell is that?}
It was a deep, husky voice that uttered the sentence and for a moment she paused. There was no reason for him to say something like that out loud. But she had heard him, so he must have spoken it. It was like he had snuck up beside her and whispered into her ear, his voice clear and unmuffled by any other sound.
Kit whipped herself around, heart racing in uncertainty and she almost expected him to be standing right in front of her.
But… he was gone. Almost like a ghost.
Instead, Will came rushing in through a side door, face red from exertion.
She felt the foreign urge to run as soon as she saw him. He was the person she usually ran to in times of trouble and yet all she wanted to do was sprint away. She was about to do just that when the look on his face made her pause.
This was the first time Kit had seen Will afraid. The expression made him look years younger, as if he was the child in the scenario and not the adult who raised her. It put a pit of ice in her stomach and cemented her feet in place, allowing him to walk over to where she stood. When he reached her, he stayed a few paces away. She assumed it was because he wanted to give her space and while she was grateful for it, somehow it still felt wrong. They were both so… out of place. And the worst part was she didn’t know how to fix it. Will didn’t seem like he knew how to either.
He was the first to speak, sadness and regret pooling in his eyes.
“I think it’s time I told you the truth about your mom.”