teen spirit|| peter parker [1]

nine

I dig my paper straw around the thick pink sludge collecting in the bottom of my glass, the end turning soggy and wet and making it impossible to drink any of my strawberry shake. The cherry has sunken to the bottom of the glass and looks sad and dejected; I stab it forcefully. Dad doesn't react.

He takes a bite from his cheeseburger, before reaching for the fries on my plate.

"Hey!" I slap his hand away, "You've got your own. In fact, you've hardly even touched yours."

He manages to slip a fry into his mouth regardless, raising his eyebrows in that typically arrogant Stark manner. "I could say the same for you. What's up? Is it cold? You used to love coming here. Too old to be seen in public with your old man?"

I roll my eyes, "It's fine, Dad."

He carries on eating without saying anything, and I think I am quite honestly the only person on earth who could cause Tony Stark to fall into silence. It feels wrong.

Everything feels wrong. The vibrant vermillion tiles of the 50s style diner decor swirls together in a disgusting chaos of colour. The pictures of Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn seem to be staring down at me with an intense glare. The familiar tune of an old Elvis song playing from the jukebox suddenly sounds menacing and sinister.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to snap. It's great, Dad. Thank you for bringing me here, it's just like when I first moved in with you and Pepper." I instantly cringe as her name parts my lips, and I almost reach out into the air in attempt to grasp hold of it again and shove it back into my mouth, as if I hadn't said anything at all. 

I feel his energy falter slightly, though he quickly recovers and acts as if nothing has happened- that I hadn't just brought up the woman who he has been pining over for the past few months.

"Seems like you could do with a little familiarity with all of the changes that are coming up," he says as he places his burger down onto his plate and gulps down his glass bottle of Diet Coke through a swirly straw. He grimaces as a Billie Holiday song echoes throughout the empty diner; it seems as though going for burgers at 11:45pm on a Monday night is an exclusive event for Starks only. "Here," he tosses me a quarter, "change the song."

I slide from the booth and over to the jukebox, flicking through the classic selection of Motown tunes and rock n' roll hits.

"Rescue me- Fontella Bass. 1965," Dad says to me as I walk back over to our table beside the window and the opening of the song begins to fill up the empty seats, as well as the sound of several waitresses and waiters on roller skates sighing to themselves as they scrub the floors and scrape gum from underneath the tables. Though the man at the cash register, who I expect is only a few years older than myself, glances over at us several times anxiously and tries to smooth his hair down.

"Correct," I reply, before sinking my teeth into my grilled cheese sandwich. My eyes scan across the walls lined with photographs of several celebrities from the 50s and 60s, reminiscing in the memories of Dad pointing out the framed photo of Howard Stark mounted on the back wall- "Your grandfather."

I always thought that it was a little strange for there to be a photograph of a Stark amongst Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, considering they were most definitely not working within the same industry. I suspect the owner just added the picture to the collection because they had noticed how frequently Dad and I had visited in the early days of me living with him. Maybe Tony thought that if it were a public setting then it would be easier to get to know each other. Maybe he had hoped the comforting background music of The Chordettes would have given us something to talk about or break up the awkward silences. He'd talk and talk, attempting to spark up some sort of conversation, though I didn't cooperate. I couldn't open my mouth; too terrified that if I did, then the horrors would never stop and I'd be back screaming in Killian's lab.