Shadowplay | Tony Stark

TWO - FIRST AID

Tony was staring at Mila with a wide-eyed gaze that hinted towards anger, despite him not having the grounds to be angry at her in the slightest.

He opened his mouth to speak, however the young woman silenced him by spitting her words out first.

"Stay there," she said in a hushed tone, pointing a finger at him before quickly walking through the house and ascending the staircase, leaving Tony alone.

She was gone for around five minutes though to Tony, it felt like years. He stayed wrapped in the blanket hovering by the window, squinting through the darkness to try and catch sight of any more police cars that might be heading over the hill towards the house.

He listened silently, hearing the softness of a child's cries and Mila's muffled voice from through the floorboards above his head, waiting until the crying had subsided and the house fell quiet again.

When Mila finally appeared at the foot of the stairs, she grabbed the baseball bat from beside the refrigerator and walked hastily towards Tony, making him back up with one hand innocently outstretched and fear glazed over his eyes.

"Woah, woah," he said, stumbling over his own feet as he backed up against the wall with a small thud, "Calm down, I'm sorry I woke the kid, I'm sorry."

"If he wakes up again," Mila said with narrowed eyes and the bat raised in an iron grip, "I will actually use this to hurt you. He barely sleeps as it is."

"That makes two of us," Tony mumbled, letting out a sigh as she put the baseball bat back down by the coat stand next to the front door.

He shuffled away from the wall he'd been cornered into and returned his attention to watching the road for cars while Mila cleaned up the empty coffee cups in the kitchen, an awkward silence thickening the cold air.

Tony wasn't sure what to say or do. He didn't know if Mila was going to let him stay or if she was still going to throw him to the wolves, clear now why she had such deep hesitations about accepting to help him when there was a child in the home.

He began to feel bad for imposing on the young mother, realising how much added stress he'd have piled onto what was probably already a hellish point in her life raising a child in what he assumed was a single-parent household.

That being said, the house had felt like a home from the minute he'd stepped through the door. As Tony began to take more notice of his surroundings, he caught sight of paintings hung up to dry in the kitchen and children's books littering the bookshelves amongst Hemingway and Austen.

The sound of snow crunching beneath tyres and a flash of headlights through open curtains made Tony's heart begin to race. He quickly ducked past the window and cut through into the kitchen, swallowing nervously.

"There's a car outside, a cop car. Y-you don't have to let me stay but please just tell whoever it is that you haven't seen me, alright? I'm literally begging you, Mila, please."

She turned on her heels and peered around the kitchen door, watching as a dark figure stepped out of the drivers side of the car and slammed the door closed.

Drawing in a breath, she simply nodded, "Stay," she said.

"I'm not a dog you know, you don't have to-"

"Do you want me to turn you in, Mr Stark?"

Mila stared at him over her shoulder with her knuckles around the kitchen door handle, one brow raised as she watched the confidence melt away from Tony's face, apology scrawling itself across his eyes as he looked down, saying nothing.