Midnight Racer-Tony Stark's Daughter

eleven

"Stop the car."

SCREECH.

"Dallas wha' tha hell was that?" Griffin freaks.

She doesn't listen and opens the car door and lets herself out. The buildings are spinning, her head hurts and words are repeating in her brain.

"Oh no...no...no." Dallas mutters to herself, she bends over and puts her hands on her knees to stable herself. She's close to falling over.

Before:

"You're just being a dumb selfish kid again."

"Can't you for once in your life appreciate what you got?"

A throw outside and a locked door and little ol' Dallas was stuck outside in the dark with nothing but the clothes on her back.

"I-I'm sorry ma'am it won't happen again." Dallas trembled before her foster parent the next morning, looking at her through her wet lashes and breaking face.

Miss pouted, "Fine. Whatever. Get back in here."

Dallas shuffled back into the tiny one story house with speed, doing her best to right her clumsiness and not trip all over the carpet. Miss didn't like it when she messed up the house, even if it wasn't her she always got blamed so she did her absolute best to not mess anything up.

The woman was leading her back to her shared room faster than Dallas could keep up with and the inevitable happened. She bumped into a corner table, where the big round vase sat on top of, and it wobbled and fell on the floor shattering to pieces.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry, Miss." Dallas bent over to pick up the broken pieces, she was trembling already and her small hands were wobbling and all over the place.

The shards nicked her palms and they bled. There were two messes now, the broken vase and now Dallas' wounded hands.

"Oh give me those! Look what you've done now, you've gone and made two messes. Now Alex has'ta fix ya." Miss grumbled like a pig, through her nose.

They had gone deeper than she remembered, it wasn't the tears pouring down her cheeks, not the broken vase scattered all over the floor, nor her unsteady hands burning in sensation, because they scarred over eventually. Dallas had only been worried about being too selfish.

Dallas never forgot that house, she couldn't and she has the scars to remember it vividly.

She was being stupid. She was being a selfish kid. That woman, Pepper was I don't know trying to help her, and what did she do? She ran right into the car and drove away. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid dumb selfish kid.

"Are you alrigh' Dal?" Griffin asks, his eyes come into view first from the awkward angle.

It wasn't selfish if she didn't want to give him up was it. It can't be, she knows for sure that she'd lose Griffin to foster care or to the world if she went with...a guardian. A real one. That'd mean giving up everything she does too.

She can't remember why she freaked out as she did. It felt like so much information was entering her brain. Meeting a new person, and having them get straight into business. Her father—Tony Stark not even being there. Now that was selfish of her, she interrupted Pepper while she was talking. Now she's never gonna know what she had to say.

Griffin has his hands on top of hers now, he's crouching down. Don't cry, it's dumb. Her eyes close.

"I made a mistake Griff." Dallas whispers.