To All Those Brave and Lovely

Regret

It's her fault.

She knows it is, even as she argues with him, even as she screams back at him and hurls words at his feet just for the purpose of hurting him.  It's the first time they've fought, the first time that she really had to face the full force of his anger, the first time she knows that she's done something bad and has to pay for it.  "Oh come on!"  She throws her bag into the chair, knowing that she stinks of cigarette smoke and the vodka slushy that someone spilled on her and that it wouldn't help her case.  "Like you've never done something crazy before!"

Tony opens his mouth, closes it again, and then shakes his phone in her direction.  "I'm not the one we're discussing.  I did stupid things, I admit that, but I'm also the first to admit that it was wrong."

"Then it was wrong!  Sorry!  Can we move on now?"

Nora hadn't really had to taste this side of being Tony's kid before.  The one that would take away her phone, and say she's grounded, and change the Netflix passcode without telling her.  The one who would tell her he wasn't allowed to see Peter.  "No, we can't move on!  I told you that you weren't allowed to go, and you went!  You went, knowing that you would get caught!"

"Ah, but I would get caught after the concert."  She had known that there was no way to make it out of the house undetected, but she also knew that there was no way that Tony could make it back from his meeting in time to stop her.  "I still don't get why you said no.  Everyone else's parents were fine."

"I don't need to give you an explanation!" He threw his hand up and the light exploded.  There had been a repulsor tucked under his sleeve that he forgot was there.  "You're my child!"

"Well, you're not my dad!"  She is not sure why she is saying it, when she had been so happy with officially being his daughter, when she was so grateful for everything he's done for her.  But there wasn't any denying that it'd been a hard year for her, so when she got the chance to be a kid, she was going to take it.  It had been a really good night, too, so to come home to this was a little awful.  "You can act like it, but we both know the truth.  You aren't him, not really!"

He closed his eyes, rocked back on his heels like he was absorbing the blow her words dealt.  "You don't have to like it.  That's another part of parenting, we aren't your friends."  He waved a hand at her.  "Just go to your room, okay?"

He shows up at her bedroom door the next day.  She hadn't come up for breakfast, and he was worried about her.  

"I brought you food."  Nora could smell the pancakes from the moment he walked in, and even with her back turned, she can tell when he sets them down on her bedside table.  "Came to say I'm sorry.  Would be nice if you would say it back?"

She didn't.  And she didn't know why.  That moment would come back to her, later, when she kept silent for no other reason than to spite him.  

"The last time I let you go to something, you disappeared for two weeks and almost came back in a casket.  That's why I said no.  And if that's unfair to you, I'm sorry.  But that doesn't change the fact that you broke the rules.  So, you're still grounded."  He rapped his knuckles on the door frame.  "that's about it.  Don't think about trying to leave, FRIDAY has the doors locked."

The door shuts behind him.  And even though she knows she should say sorry, Nora doesn't say a word.

She does, however, get to go to a fundraising gala three days later.

It was for some charity she'd never heard of, raising money to help some country she never even knew existed.  Nora had gotten pretty like she was supposed to, doing her hair and make up nd putting on a very expensive dress.  It makes her sad, because the whole ordeal of getting dressed up made her think of Evangeline, so by the time she's forced to walk arm in arm with Tony, she's in a bad mood.