Resilience | ✔

Chapter Fourteen

           

i'll kill you

Marley stared at the anon in her inbox. It wasn't her Official Tony Stark's Daughter Tumblr, which she'd set up a few hours ago. No, this was her LGBT+ blog. Bi-Bi Closet. As in, bye-bye, closet. She thought it was pretty funny.

i'll kill you

She'd gotten hate before. Normally it was a couple times a week, people screaming in her inbox about how gays were going to hell and she shouldn't be rubbing all the homosexuality in straight peoples' faces, yada yada yada. Sometimes she replied to it. Sometimes she didn't. The thing was, it was regular. Like people intentionally sought out LGBT+ blogs solely to spam them with hate. On a regular basis, she got 20 messages in a week, half of them people asking for advice, the other half anon hate.

But it had been ages since she'd checked her inbox.

And this was the only message in it.

And it felt different. It was different. It was the first real death threat she'd gotten. She'd had people telling her to kill herself, people telling her she deserved to die—every insult under the sun about death. Except someone actually saying they would kill her.

And now this.

She bit her lip, hard. She couldn't take her eyes off those three simple words. No caps, no period. There was something inherently ominous about it. She had a gut feeling she couldn't shake.

It felt like a real threat.

She reminded herself to breathe.

She had to tell Tony. He'd find some way to trace the IP address or something and track the person down and put them in jail for threatening a minor or something. He'd fix it; he'd make it go away.

But she couldn't tell him. Because telling him would mean coming out. It said it right in the description of the blog: Maya | 15 | bisexual | here to answer any/all questions about the LGBT+ community, coming out, and chocolate.

She'd only been his official daughter for—two days, three counting today. Sure, they were closer after the whole press conference thing yesterday, but she didn't know his views on any of it and didn't know anyone else's views and for crying out loud, it was his third day being a father. She didn't need to put another layer of stress on his shoulders by coming out.

So telling someone was out of the question.

But what was she supposed to do?

i'll kill you

Three light knocks sounded on her door, and Wanda poked her head in. "Marley, Tony wants you for—"

She stopped.

Too late, Marley realized she was probably broadcasting distress and i'll kill you all over the place. She tried to reel it in, but how the hell was she supposed to do that? Fuck. She met Wanda's gaze across the room.

And screenshotted the message and deleted it, X-ing out the tab a split second later, slamming the laptop closed. "Wants me for what?" she said, frantically slamming up walls and singing a One Direction song in her head as loudly as she could to hide any other thoughts she was having.

It must have worked, because Wanda winced a little. "Training. Marley—"

"I'll be right there." Her stuff had arrived yesterday. She had some exercise clothes in here somewhere, though so far she'd only opened the box with her laptop in it. She smiled brightly, hopping to her feet. "Close the door, please?"

Wanda squinted suspiciously, but withdrew her head and shut the door. Marley continued to sing the One Direction song, grabbing the serrated knife from her nightstand to open some boxes. Wanda was probably standing right outside trying to listen in. She moved onto some boppin' eighties tunes.

A few minutes later, drained from having to keep her mind from wandering, dressed in the first exercise clothes she'd seen, she exited her room.

"A death threat?" Wanda hissed instantly.

"It's fine," Marley said. "I'm just surprised it hasn't happened before, okay?"

"Yes, but it's a death threat," Wanda said.

"All it says is 'I'll kill you,'" Marley said. "It's not 'I'll kill you because I know where you live, Marley Roe Van—Stark, rather.' It's fine. It's just some pissed off teen boy who got rejected by a gay girl and needs to take it out on someone."

Wanda wore a deep frown.

"Really," and Marley forced down any apprehension or fear, yanking together a façade of calm until she felt it settle over her mind, "it's okay. I swear."

Wanda's frown didn't lessen, but she said heavily, "Okay."

"Just—please don't tell Tony," Marley said.

The corner of Wanda's mouth twitched. "I won't."

And so they headed to the training room.

A/N: Sorry about the late update . . . again . . . you'll be hearing this excuse from me a lot, I suspect, but I'm figuring out school stuff and Thursday just slipped away from me. Thank you for your patience!! :)