In order to rise from the ashes, the phoenix first must burn.
Elliott Stark was not important. In a lineage of geniuses and billionaires, she was known only as the illegitimate daughter of the most successful Stark; no more than a footnote...
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kunar province, afg. feb 4, 2010
As he clicked through the photos on his daughter's camera, Tony gave his daughter an exaggerated look of annoyance. "So, let me get this straight, I tell him to keep a close eye on you, and instead he lets you run around a military base photographing strangers?" The man sighed, shaking his head.
Resisting the urge to smile, Elliott nodded. "Yup."
"Pepper is a much better babysitter."
"If you're going to insist on having someone watch over me," the teenager groaned, taking her photographs back from her father and organizing the stack and stuffing it in her pocket. "can we at least find a better word for them than babysitter?"
"Caretaker."
"I'm fifteen, not ninety-three."
"Nanny."
"That's not better."
"Guardian," the father shrugged.
His daughter smirked. "Technically, you're supposed to be my guardian."
"Babysitter, then."
"Not doing it" Elliott repeated, crossing her arms and slouching. "Nope."
Tony ignored her, taking a sip of the drink in his hand. "Pepper is a much better babysitter."
"Pepper is just too smitten by you to risk me getting into trouble," Elliott corrected, rolling her eyes. "I swear, can you guys just get married or something already. You're only delaying the inevitable, and I don't think I can watch you guys make those goo-goo eyes one more time without hurling."
"You are still on that, huh?" the billionaire asked with a quiet laugh, shaking his head at nothing.
The fifteen-year-old shrugged, taking back her camera. "You're still single." She turned and relaxed in her seat, staring out at the desert all around them.
Then everything got quiet. Too quiet. The kind of awkward silence around strangers that makes one want to crawl out of their own skin, or fiddle mercilessly with some item to take their minds off the pure agony of the quiet.
