Resilience | ✔

Chapter Six

Marley had fantasized about meeting her father many times.

She often pictured him rescuing her from a foster family. Sometimes she tracked him down and he was delighted at her revelation. Sometimes he was a cop who came to the rescue when she was shot (typically by some privileged and angry white man). Sometimes she rescued him from being shot (also by an privileged and angry white man). That one was a favorite of hers.

Never had she pictured this: her father (Tony Stark) straight up fainting upon finding out he had a daughter, leaving her flabbergasted and helpless and pretty close to breaking down.

"Mr. Stark?" She approached him cautiously, kneeling down beside him. Should she touch him? Were there smelling salts nearby? No—she should just get Steve and butt out.

"Friday?" she said cautiously, wondering if the disembodied voice would respond to her.

"Yes, Ms. Vankowsky," came that woman's voice. Was it—she—an AI? She couldn't be—AIs were dangerous. An extremely intelligent computer program, then. And apparently she had catalogued Marley's name. Always listening, like Big Brother from that George Orwell novel.

"Get someone in here right now, please," Marley said. "Tell them it's urgent?"

"Will do."

Marley carefully, gently touched her father's arm. "Mr. Sta—Tony?"

He startled awake, bolting up so fast he nearly headbutted her. The movement was so abrupt that she almost punched him in turn. "Are you okay?" she blurted.

He scrambled up, crashing into the table, and stumbled away from her. For lack of better idea, she followed, lunging to catch him as he lurched to a different table and almost ate shit.

"No—get—" He thrust a hand out between them, like he was trying to shoot her, the movement making her halt instantly. "I don't want you near me right now, okay? Give me some space." He gasped a distressed breath in, the noise a kick to her chest, and continued his haphazard path away from her. Several objects crashed to the floor in his wake, metal shearing, glass shattering. She didn't move.

He was having an anxiety attack, wasn't he? Great. Marley's first hour knowing him and she'd already managed to make him yell at her, faint, and have an anxiety attack. What would she do now, give him a head injury?

She knew how to deal with anxiety attacks, had researched tricks for fending them off (luckily they tended to be short, unlike panic attacks), but he didn't want her help right now. She needed help—

As if on cue, a redheaded woman burst in, eyes falling on her and then Tony, who was now several yards away from her and still staggering on, a path of destruction behind him. "What the hell is going on?"

"He passed out and now he's having an anxiety attack," Marley said as the woman (who might have been Black Widow??) started across the room to her teammate. Tony shot a surprised glance her way, chest heaving.

"An anxiety attack?" the woman repeated, like he'd never heard of them.

Marley nodded. I don't want you near me right now, okay? Words spoken in a terrified rush that rang with truth and echoed countless sentences that had been said to her before. Nobody wanted her. Plain and simple. She was a burden, a curse.

She looked at Black Widow, reassuring hands on Tony's shoulders, speaking in a low voice. She looked at Tony, eyes wild, fighting frantically for air, skin pale.

She was fucked up and she fucked everything up.

"I think I should leave," she said tightly, quietly, and they heard her anyway, but she walked out before they could try to stop her. She stood in the hall outside the lab for a moment, staring at the three directions. Left, straight, right. She'd come from the hall that went straight, and the one to her left ran along the lab.