Chemical Poison . Howard Stark

Chapter 52

"When did you get cut?", Howard asks.

Looking over her shoulder, she frowns at him. He, in all his naked glory, is standing at the slightly ajar door to the bathroom. Anneliese, dressed only in her underwear, has her fingers busy buttoning the military green blouse that she had unwillingly selected for her stay in Italy. If anyone had asked what her opinion of the colour was, she'd say with absolute certainty that it clashed horribly with her skin.

She pauses. Deliberating her next move carefully. She's avoided him asking by not letting him see the cut. It was a much harder task than she had anticipated, especially when Howard claimed he could only sleep if his hands were touching her flesh.

"Do you mind?", she says.

He leans against the doorframe in only his boxer shorts. It's a lovely sight, Anneliese muses as she drinks him in. His golden tan skin and his thick dark Italian curls spiralling down his chest to meet his boxers. She's entranced; forgetting herself as her hands hover over the next button, eyes crawling up his chest to his face.

In any other scenario, his eyes would be gold and on fire; the look she assumes Icarus had when he thought he reached the sun. His eyebrow would be cocked up and his tongue would be rolling against his cheek before he would nod his head towards the bed with a promise of being late to work. He had a strange habit of suddenly deciding to get out of bed when she was changing.

But, instead, she got his knitted eyebrows drowned in worry.

Sighing, Anneliese continued to button up her blouse. She ignored the way Howard tilted his head as she leaned over to grab a pair of tights, knowing her ass was on full display.

"Seriously Howard," Anneliese mutters, "Can you give me a bit of privacy?"

He doesn't move an inch as she slowly pulls the tights over her hips. The fabric snags at the new stitches she got done later the same evening she got cut and she lets out a soft hiss.

Howard was next to her in a second.

"Ana," Howard says softly; his eyes trained on her healing wound.

It was more of a question than anything, really.

Pushing him away from her, she continued pulling the tights until they were fully up. The scar is predominantly covered by the sheer tights but Howard can still see it, still staring at it. Huffing in annoyance, Anneliese grabs the pencil skirt in a similar military green and makes quick work of unzipping and zipping it up again.

"I knocked into one of the laboratory benches with too much force," Anneliese lies as she flattens out the wrinkles in her blouse. "I've been telling you for months to fix the corners in laboratory 3B."

Glancing up at him, she realises that he's still staring at her waist questionably.

"Aren't those tables in the laboratory taller—hold up. You use a stepping—the bench is certainly not that—"

"We are going to be late for our flight," Anneliese interrupts. Her fingers slowly begin to pull out the hair rollers just as Howard shakes his head and walks into the bedroom without a second glance.

She knows she should feel guilt for lying, especially after demanding nothing but the truth from him. Somewhere inside she knows that guilt lurks, but for now, she holds nothing of the sort.

It was for the greater good.

Anneliese decides not to inform her father of her trip. She was certain he would argue against it, like every other decision she's made over the past two years. He'd call her foolish and possibly even threaten disownment again. It was worth more pain and suffering than what it was worth. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.