Chapter 10
Chapter 9
He stares at the closed door in a stunned stupor, listening to the sound of Pepper’s retreating footsteps. He doesn’t know much about Maria Stark – she was never famous like her husband, stayed in the shadows her whole life. But her death, her death he remembers rather well. There was a TV special about the Starks that he had stumbled upon a few years back: “A Curse upon the House of Starks” it was called, if he remembers correctly. The narrator talked about the tragic circumstances in the deaths of both Howard and Maria Stark, the violent nature of them. Howard perishing in an explosion that destroyed the family mansion; his wife Maria dying in a fiery crash several years prior. He remembers the narrator wondering darkly if the Fates have somehow been turned against this family, if they had hung a curse upon the Stark bloodline, and if the younger Stark would fall victim to that family curse as well, if he would suffer the same spectacularly violent, fiery end as his parents.
He never thought about it before, never questioned the official story: Howard Stark’s latest experiment going wrong, Maria Stark falling asleep behind the wheel….
But the Fates had nothing to do with it, did they. Sta- Tony’s convinced that his father’s death had been orchestrated by someone from the White House. And Maria… if he understood what Pepper was implying, Maria may have been killed by Howard himself.
Which is… impossible. Ridiculous even. More ridiculous than Tony’s wild insinuations that Obie and Justin were the ones behind Howard’s death. Howard Stark was a visionary. An engineering legend. A weapons icon.
A man like that – an abuser? A murderer? How is that even possible?
“Howard didn’… didn’ hit me so much when Obie was there. It… nice… t’was nice…”
He sucks in a sharp breath as Tony’s pain-slurred words flicker across his memory, unbidden. Casts a glance at the unconscious man’s face, his stomach churning with nausea and dread. He thought he’d misheard him then. He hoped he’d misheard him. Because it was too ugly, too horrifying to process. Because it was the Starks. Because…
Oh dear god…
“Mr. President?”
The door opens with a soft squeak, and one of the teens from earlier slips inside. Shifts awkwardly on the doorstep, looking everywhere but at James.
“Your…uh… your room is ready and… uhm… Miss Potts said to tell you that we’ll be having dinner in twenty minutes, if…uh…,” he risks a glance at James, shifts it almost instantly toward Tony before dropping it back down to the floor, “if you’re hungry.”
His stomach rumbles at the thought of food, loud enough that the teen shoots him another awkward glance. “I suppose that answers that question,” he jokes and frowns in confusion as the teen looks away again. “Something wrong?”
The teen fidgets.
“Kid?”
“I’m sorry about before,” the boy blurts out suddenly and he’s looking right at James now, eyes wide, cheeks flushed with… shame? “Pulling the gun on you,” he elaborates at James’s deepening frown. “Harley and I… it’s our job to protect this place when Mr. Stark isn’t here. He said so himself. And then when you showed up, I…. But Miss Potts explained… she told us that you came here like us and Mr. Stark, he…”
“Kid…” He holds up his hand to forestall the rest of the verbal assault, rubs his throbbing temples. “You’re kinda starting to give me a headache. No offense.”
“Sorry.” The teen bites his lip, stares down at his feet again.
“Look,” James heaves out a sigh, pushes himself to stand, casting one last look at the man on the bed. “I think we got off on the wrong foot here.” Slowly, he crosses the room, coming to a stop in front of the boy. “How about we try again, huh? Hi, I’m James.” He holds out his hand expectantly and smiles when the kid returns the gesture after a moment’s hesitation.
“Peter. Parker. Peter Parker.”
“Good to meet you, Peter Parker.” He squeezes the boy’s hand lightly before letting go. Nods approvingly. “Nice job earlier, by the way. Impressive. I think Mr. Stark would be proud.”
The teen, if possible, blushes even more at the praise, his face and neck growing pink, and James barely manages to suppress a snort as he claps the boy on the shoulder before following him out the door to his new room.
***
Twenty minutes later he makes his way down the hall that Peter had indicated to him earlier and finds himself inside a light and spacious dining room that almost rivals the one at the White House. There’s a long country style oak table in its center, set for ten. Everyone’s plates are full, but no one has started eating yet. Waiting for him, James realizes, even as all the attention in the room turns toward him.
“I’m glad you could make it,” Pepper rises to greet him, gesturing to the empty chair beside her. Smiles as he sits down cautiously beside her, trying to take in all the curious faces, some already familiar, some not. “Why don’t we all go around and introduce ourselves?” she proposes, nodding at the quiet murmur of approval from the others at the table. “I believe you already know Peter,” she motions to his teenage guide who grins widely back at her. “He and his aunt are one of our oldest residents.”
“His aunt?”
“Me, Mr. President,” comes the quiet, amused response, and, oh, James wants to facepalm himself now. Because, of course, of course. Parker. The kid said his last name was Parker. How did he not make the connection?
“How did you…?” he gestures inarticulately at their surroundings, struggling to make sense of it all. Because he can’t understand why a woman with a cushy government position would abandon it all like that, disappear off the face of the earth. Because he keeps remembering the dark look that flashed in Stark’s eyes when he had asked him about the reasons for May’s departure. Because he knows he’s missing something important here.
May presses her lips together, flicking a quick gaze at Pepper as if for reassurance. Raises her hand to push a strand of hair behind her ear. “Senator Hammer began making sexual advances toward me after about a year of me working for him,” she says finally, determined and furiously blunt.
And, no, that wasn’t at all what James was prepared to hear. This was… this is… His mind flashes back to Justin, to the leering look in the man’s eyes that he had glimpsed more than once when the senator would stare after a female colleague. Oh no…
“I repeatedly told him to stop, filed several complaints with the HR, but nothing ever came of that. And then one day we were working late, and he called me to his office and locked the door. He knew I had just filed for permanent guardianship of Peter the week before, and he told me that if I screamed, he’d contact his buddy at the Child Protective Services and have Peter taken away from me.…”
Beside her Peter makes a choked off sound of anger, the boy’s hands curling into fists, and she smiles at him, small and watery. Reaches out to cover his fisted hand with her own.
“It’s alright,” she says. “I’m alright. You know he didn’t get far.”
“Still wish I was old enough back then to break his stupid face,” Peter grumbles unhappily.
And, yeah, James can understand the sentiment. Can feel his own fists itch with the useless desire to punch the lewd bastard.
May’s smile grows a bit brighter at that and she raises her other hand to ruffle the teen’s hair. “As much as I appreciate the sentiment, sweetheart,” she murmurs, her eyes warm, “I’m afraid Tony got there first.” She turns her attention back to James, her expression turning serious once more. “Tony lost his job because of that incident, got an assault charge on his record, and for that I am truly sorry. But I’m not sorry for what he did.” Her hand tightens around Peter’s. “We are safe here. Happy. I can never be sorry for that.”
“I… I understand,” James manages, his throat uncomfortably dry. But the thing is, he doesn’t understand. Any of it. He worked with Justin. Rubbed elbows with the man almost on a daily basis. He never knew… how did he not know? He shakes his head, feeling irrationally angry with himself. Stupid, he thinks. Naïve and stupid.
“Laura?” Pepper addresses a short slender brunette sitting on the other side of James, breaking the awkward silence that settles at the table following May’s story. “Would you like to go next?”
The woman shrugs her assent, gives him a small, hesitant smile. She has a plump-cheeked bright-eyed toddler bouncing excitedly on her lap, small, chubby fingers reaching hungrily for the plate. “Well, I’m Laura,” she begins, smiling indulgently at the toddler even as she gently guides the little hands away. “And this little troublemaker is Nathaniel.” She nods at the two children sitting next to her. “That’s Cooper and Lila. We’ve been living here at the Foundation for about…,” she looks back at Pepper for verification, “two years now?”
“That’s right,” Pepper inclines her head in agreement before turning to address James. “Laura’s ex-husband is a former CIA operative whose cover got burned during a mission with a Russian double-agent. He has since disappeared. There are speculations that he had switched sides and went on the run with that Russian woman.” She gives Laura an apologetic look, her mouth pinching unhappily. “Either way, Laura and the kids were left out in the open as potential targets to anyone whose path he ever crossed.”
“Jesus…” James can’t help the exclamation that escapes him as he stares with mounting horror at the three little kids at the table. How could someone endanger their own children like this? Why?
“Clint was never good about thinking things through,” Laura dismisses with a shrug, her smile just a tad too strained. “Luckily for us, Tony got to us first.”
And, yes, James thinks, lucky indeed. He can’t even imagine what would have happened to this little family if Tony hadn’t intervened. He’s seen enough reports about families of compromised agents where the subjects were not quite so fortunate. Some of those gave him nightmares for weeks after. For a husband, a father to willingly…
He shakes his head, grits his teeth against a wave of anger against a man he doesn’t even know. “How did… how did Tony find you?”
“The Shield.” It’s Pepper who responds.
“The… what now?”
“The Shield. It’s an AI program that Tony and Jarvis, Tony’s… guardian, have created,” she clarifies, her lips twitching in amusement at his open-mouthed confusion. “It monitors police and military channels, reports from CPS and other government agencies according to the parameters that Tony set up, sends him alerts whenever something falls within those parameters and…,” she shrugs, “then Tony goes to investigate.”
James blinks. Blinks again. “You’re telling me that Tony Stark… former Special Agent Tony Stark… created an artificial intelligence program?”
Pepper’s laugh, lighthearted and contagious, resonates across the room. “Surprised you again, didn’t he. Told you he’s good at that.”
“Tony graduated from MIT at 17,” another kid chimes in, gruff. It’s the other teen from his welcoming committee: an unruly mop of curly hair falling over his ears and sharp blue eyes drilling holes in James from across the table. “What, you thought he’s just a dumb jock like all the other boneheads you call secret service agents?” The kid scoffs, rolls his eyes with obvious disdain, bumping shoulders with a little girl sitting beside him, who giggles in delight. “Please, the guy’s a genius. And Pete and I, we’re following right in his footsteps, ain’t we, Pete.” He winks conspiratorially at Peter, who has the decency to duck his head and blush. “I’m Harley, by the way. The hacker.” And there’s a wickedly mischievous glint in the teen’s eyes that has James shaking his head in wary bemusement.
The kid’s trouble.
“Harley here,” Pepper cuts in with an indulgently disapproving tilt of her head, “got on the police radar at 10 years old for somehow hacking into the local mayor’s home computer and projecting….” She pauses, lips pursed, as if she’s searching for the right word. Grins at Harley, her eyes sparkling with mirth. “…compromising pictures from the mayor’s birthday party onto the wall of the City Hall.”
The bark of disbelieving laughter bursts out unbidden. “You’re serious?”
“The town’s water tower got busted,” Harley shrugs, unconcerned. “The whole town was without clean water for weeks and that asshole wouldn’t do anything. So I had to give him some… incentive.”
“Right.” Pepper’s smile dims a bit. “Unfortunately, the mayor wasn’t quite as amused as the rest of the townsfolk. And when he found out that Harley and his sister had been living without proper parental supervision…”
“Our dad split when I was 5 and our mom spent more time looking for another Mr. Right than she did at home with us,” Harley clarifies with another shrug and James cringes at the forced carelessness of it.
“The mayor’s lawyers argued parental neglect,” Pepper continues, confirming what James is already thinking. “Child Services got involved, the mother walked away and the kids got placed into a group home. Spent months there by the time Tony managed to push the adoption paperwork through and bring them both out here.”
“And next year I’m going to MIT,” Harley concludes with a cocky one-sided grin, shoveling more potatoes onto his plate. Bristles at Pepper’s chidingly raised eyebrow. “What? Tony said so.”
Somehow James doesn’t doubt him.
He shakes his head, stares numbly at his still empty plate. All these people, all these potential tragedies averted. They all could have become just another statistic, another tragic loss. But here they are – happy and thriving and safe. A patchwork family, broken but somehow perfect. And it’s all because of Tony. He tries to reconcile that with the image of the annoyingly self-assured, abrasive asshole he met in his office all those weeks ago, the guy he’s been so irritated with only a few hours prior.
He feels like such a jerk.
“A lot to take in, isn’t it,” Pepper asks him quietly over the clinking of silverware and the low din of resumed conversations. Smiles knowingly when all he manages is a silent nod. “You should eat,” she tells him. “I’m going to go check on Tony after dinner. I’m sure you’ll want to join me.”
And, yeah, yes, he will. But first… “Were you also… Did Tony… What did he do for you?” He flusters as her smile falls, her lips thinning out. Backtracks awkwardly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to assume. I…”
She waves off his apology, reaches to unbutton the right-hand sleeve of her shirt. “My ex-boyfriend, Aldrich, had a very… fiery temper,” she murmurs, slowly pushing up the white fabric. There’s a long thin burn scar that runs along her forearm, marring the smooth skin. “He did this after I tried to leave him the first time. Told me he’d burn me alive if I tried again.” She drops the sleeve, lets it fall back over the damaged skin. Waits in silence as James stares back at her in open-mouthed horror, words he was about to say stuck painfully to the back of his throat. “I had just graduated college. I was still so young… naïve. Didn’t really know what to do, where to go.” She smiles again, a bitter twisted little thing. “I couldn’t sleep that night, I was so scared. So I called Tony. Sobbed to him over the phone.” She pulls at the edge of the sleeve again, fiddles with the button there, threading it back through the loop. “He came over that same night. Drove… god knows from where.” She shakes her head, her expression turning wistful. “He came inside, told me to go wait in the car…”
James watches her expectantly as she falls silent all of a sudden, lost in the memory. “And?” he prompts gently, curious despite himself.
She blinks as if coming out of a trance. Looks up at him, her eyes hard once more. “And I did,” she says simply, holding his gaze as if daring him to question her further. “Tony came back out a few minutes later. He got in and we drove off. That’s all.”
James knows better than to ask anything else.