Broken Lullaby ▷ Tony Stark | ✓

36 - RELUCTANT ACCEPTANCE

BIRDIE WAS, UNDERSTANDABLY, LOSING HER MIND.

Her day had started off rather well, she woke up right as her alarm went off, and Remy hadn't put up any of a fight as she forced him out of bed and to get ready. The traffic was horrendous per usual, but it wasn't overly atrocious, so she wasn't in too bad of a mood and, most importantly, she wasn't late for work. She made it in just in time to be handed off a new case from one of their retiring colleagues, and while it would have upset most to have a new work load, the fact that she had been given the case by one of the most esteemed attorney's in Manhattan had her floored.

So she got to work on her various cases and was surprised to find—after she had gone to a quick meeting that was basically just to clarify that she was, indeed, taking on the case that had been two years in the making—a large coffee and takeout food bag on her desk. Her first thought was that it was from Jayne, just being nice or a congratulations on the case, but found that it wasn't from her, nor was it from anyone else in her firm.

Instead, she had been informed that a man had dropped it off. It wasn't Tony Stark, but a man working for Tony Stark, which still meant it was from Tony Stark, and Birdie was getting really tired of everyone constantly mentioning the fact that she knew Tony to her. But they were defense attorneys, so it wasn't as if they had jobs or generally more important things to do, obviously.

"Are you in a relationship with Tony Stark?" one of her co-workers who had never once actually spoken to her asked, peering into the room, and one look at her withering gaze had him retreating immediately.

But besides the constant badgering about Tony, her day had been going pretty well. 

So she didn't think anything of it when she went to go pick up Remy from school. She had really been making an effort to go into the school to pick him up, and pick him up relatively on time, rather than forcing him to wait until it was near dark before he could go home.

Of course, it actually was near dark at this point, but there were some children still outside, so it wasn't as if she was doing too terribly about it.

She often wondered why she had gotten rid of Stacey all that time ago, though she figured it must have had something to do with Tony being much more prevalent and aware; which was truly saying something, as Remy once told her a story of how Tony had just walked away without him one day, figuring that he'd walk alongside him.

He clearly did not have much parenting skills, though he seemed to be making an effort, especially over the past few weeks.

Though he wasn't Remy's parent by any means, so it wasn't as if she had to expect anything from him at all. All she had to expect was that one day he was going to get tired and leave, no matter what he had promised.

But she tried not to think about that at the moment, as she was in a rather good mood and had been for a while, so she simply climbed out of her car and made her way to the school in search of her son, glad to find that there weren't any of the parents around to look at her.

As time had progressed, she began to notice that the same mothers she had seen giving her strange looks had not yet stopped, and she had to wonder why they still felt the need to isolate themselves and place judgement upon parents who were all trying their best. She vaguely toyed with the idea that it was because she was divorced, but she could never imagine any mother being so cruel as to believe that, yet she, unfortunately, had been around enough people to know that there were certain women in the world who, by no fault of their own, believed that women still needed to be housewives and get permission by the men in their family to be allowed to do things. 

She was once asked who was taking care of her now that her husband was gone, and when she mentioned that it was simply her and her then ten-year-old son at home, that person immediately assumed her son was taking care of her and making all the rules.