Don't You Worry Child

Silver Lining

Chapter Summary: The revelations just keep coming as four Avengers show up to discuss HYDRA's newfound relationship with S.H.I.E.L.D.

Soundtrack: Silver Lining by Kacey Musgraves

As they drove home from Audrey's apartment, Tony still felt confused by the situation he'd been placed in. He had a daughter, a daughter who was beautiful and healthy and perfect in every way he could see. He turned around to see her staring out of the window with her chin resting on the palm of her hand, looking at the trees and houses as they passed them by at what seemed like lightning speed 'She looks sad,' he thought to himself before correcting the thought 'Of course she's sad, her mother just died,' He turned to face the road as Pepper drove through the streets of Los Angeles. He wanted to make Samantha happy, to see a smile on her face, to see her eyes light up with glee at something, anything and yet he had no idea how he would make that happen.

Numbers started to fly around Tony's head: 17, the number of years since the night he'd last seen Audrey, the number of years since she'd broken his heart; 10, the number of years he'd known Pepper; 9, the number of years since Pepper had started to heal the wounds Audrey had inflicted upon him and 16, Samantha's age and that age meant 16 birthdays, 16 Christmases all of which he'd forgotten and that made him feel guilty, probably just as guilty as she felt about her mother's death – he had based that on the conversation they'd had the previous night. He thought about his break up with Audrey and how he could have stopped her from leaving that night, how he could have – should have – been there for both Audrey and Samantha.

Eventually, his mind drifted off to what he should have been thinking about: The conversation he'd not long finished with Steve Rogers. The young/old man was a fugitive, along with Natasha Romanov and somehow it was all linked to Project Insight and Nick Fury's death. He had the idea that Rogers wasn't happy about Project Insight and Tony wasn't either if he was being honest with himself, he'd thought it stupid to keep a track of ordinary people just in case they turned out to be terrorists. It broke every law that the United States based itself on. He hadn't wanted to work on the project at all but he'd learnt a while ago not to argue with Fury or anything the one-eyed man wanted him to do. He didn't necessarily like it, like he'd said in New York before he knew about the whole thing with Loki Tony Stark didn't like to be handed things, but if it involved anything Nick Fury wanted he did it, not because he particularly liked the guy or because they were friends but because the man was director of an agency that very few people knew about and he did allow him to keep his Iron Man suits. Now that Fury was gone, Tony was unsure as to where he stood on those.

"What's up?" Pepper asked as she turned left at a junction, breaking Tony free from his thoughts.

"Nothing, just thinking," he replied, telling his girlfriend a half-lie, he had been thinking but it wasn't about nothing.

"That's dangerous, last time you thought like that you made me a CEO, what are you thinking about?" she queried, a slightly humorous sound to her voice.

"It's nothing, I'll tell you about it later,"

"It doesn't seem like nothing," the strawberry blonde pried.

"I said we'll talk about it later," he snapped just loudly enough to make Samantha turn her head away from the window.

"Okay," Pepper said with a shrug, she sounded slightly offended but neither person seemed to care.

"Hey do you mind if we stop off at Burger King? I'm starving and a good old-fashioned American cheeseburger sounds heavenly at the moment," Samantha piped up after five minutes of considerable silence.

"Oh my god you two are so alike," Pepper said with a slight giggle.

"What do you mean?" Samantha asked curiously.