NINA WAS A PRETTY CRIER. Ever since she was a child, the girl had trained herself to not look hideous whenever she was crying; no weird facial contortions, a red, swollen nose, puffy red eyes - no, she looked like a gorgeous, sad puppy crying.
Now, she didn't train herself to cry prettily just for fun; at a young age, she learned that pretty-crying may have an evolutionary advantage since it could arguably make the person you're crying feel more sympathetic and, as a result, more likely to remedy the situation or give you what you want.
Nina may be the most scheming girl in New York, but her hard facade can be broken, too. And when she cries, she does it with poise and grace and that's worthy of a crown.
But crying was pathetic. No matter how pretty she looked, crying was still pathetic; so she forced herself to suck it up the moment she jumps in the car, smiling softly as she grabs the sandwich intended for her.
"You good?" Happy questions from the front seat, eyebrows furrowed together in concern.
"Yup. You know how mental breakdowns go." The girl shrugged nonchalantly, pretending like the issue wasn't as big as it was. "I just need to go the compound and talk to Vision."
The ride upstate is spent in silence. Every so often, Nina would peek at the rearview mirror only to see Happy blinking desperately in an attempt to stay awake - it was only 8 pm, but it looks like he's had a busy day.
It bubbles up the slightest guilt in her chest - which led her to her glowing eyes, hushed whisper; and soon enough, Happy was as energetic as ever.
New York traffic was a bitch. When they finally arrive at the compound, Happy turns around to see that Nina's head is dipped as if she was about to pray, but silence reigns; with half-lidded eyes, she stares at the carpet unseeingly.
"Kid?" The man questions carefully, tapping the door in an awkward way of telling Nina that they arrived at the destination.
"What time is it?" Nina questions in confusion, rubbing her eyes (yet again, smashing her mascara) as she examined the building; the lights were on and it was still full of life, with people bustling around and walking towards different directions.
"A little past nine." Happy responds with a shrug, walking past the girl as she makes her steps from the parking lot to the compound.
"Why are there still guys here?"
"Stark Industries never sleeps. These people are working the night shift." Happy tells her with an almost proud smile on his face.
"Better tell Tony to overpay them, then. I couldn't imagine working my ass off at 4 am." Nina jokes, pushing all the problems in the back of her mind as she skips over towards the main entrance.
Once she enters the huge doors, the first thing that comes into her mind is to go up to Tony's presence and explain that her crying on the phone an hour prior was nothing; recounting on the memory made her cringe. Tony has literally never seen her cry, ever, and Nina made sure of that so that the man wouldn't think that she's a pathetic little girl, but she blew a whole year's record in three minutes.
Seven months ago, she would just mind control him like she usually did, but Tony engineered a chip and stuck it in his brain so that he'd be immune to the effects of her powers - it was all rooted in weird science things that she didn't have the mental capacity to understand. At one point, he told her that he even considered getting Peter the said chip, but he quickly realized that creating a multi-million chip for a boy who rarely interacted with her would just be a huge waste of money.
At least that made Nina a little less tense.
Once the elevator doors stopped at his floor, Nina, who had assumed that Tony was also at the compound and not at his fancy penthouse in Manhattan, knocked on the door twice before shouting it's Nina!
The doors open with a woosh, and the calm voice of FRIDAY wishing her a good evening fills her ears.
Nina walks forward aimlessly, only halting when she notices Pepper, Tony's fiancé, sitting on a couch with her legs crossed elegantly.
Although she had never admitted it out loud, she respected the hell out of Pepper Potts. Mostly because she got to deal with Tony Stark on a daily basis and not lose her mind (which was big enough as itself) but mostly because of her work as Stark Industries's CEO. Especially when she found out that the intellicrops for Earth Day a few years back were actually her doing.
During summer, she's spent a lot of time in the compound, and that meant occasionally passing by Pepper too. Despite her being a busy woman, there were days that Pepper explained the structure of Stark Industries and how she ran it to Nina; and needless to say, it got Nina interested.
"Hi, Pepper," Nina greeted with a soft smile.
"Jesus, kid. You look terrible."
Nina furrows her eyebrows, turning around to look at one of the nearby mirrors to see if Tony was fucking with her.
He was right; she looked terrible. Her mascara was smudged and there were tear marks in her cheeks that ran from top to bottom. Her eyes were puffy - which reminded her to de-puff her whole face in the morning so she wouldn't look like she's been stung by bees.
"I'll be leaving," Pepper mumbled, holding her paperwork close to her arms. "Don't be a stranger, Nima. I haven't seen you in a bit. You can always pass by my office - I know you were interested in the company's organizational structure and I can always talk to you about it especially now that I'm not busy."
"You're into business?" Tony questions, humming to himself as he watches Pepper leave. "Interesting..."
"I actually wanted to be a lawyer," Nina shifts the conversation, adding the light undertones of humor so Tony wouldn't assume too much from her earlier mental breakdown at the phone. "But then I realized that I'm too lazy for Law School and business piqued my interest. Besides, you're my legal guardian and you can just hand over Stark Industries to me when you die or something."
"One, that's not how that works." Although the idea of Nina working in Stark Industries intrigued him, especially with his observation of her leadership skills intrigued him, he decided that that was something to deal with later. She was only sixteen, after all. "Two, wanna tell me why you called me, crying, begging for Happy to come to pick you up."
"I wasn't begging."
"Nina," he warns, an I'm-not-playing-around look on his face.
"It's nothing. Just a tiny teeny mental breakdown - you know how those go," Nina waves a dismissive hand, plopping on the couch casually. "Need to talk to my personal therapist and I'm good."
"You got a personal therapist? Good for you."
"I was talking about Vision, but yeah."
Tony sighs, throwing all his files away - this was way more important than whatever shit he had to sign. "I told you, Vision isn't a trained therapist. You can't do that."
"Yes, but he sounds like an old comforting grandfather and he never snitches. Plus, Vision is free. And I hate therapists. Therapy isn't real. It's a scam. Vision is a super cool superhuman robot who—"
"You're rambling. There's definitely something going on that you aren't telling me about." Tony interrupted her, "Also, Vision isn't here right now. He's... visiting someone."
Nina feels her heart drop into her chest. "Visiting who?"
The man shrugs. "A friend."
"A human friend or a robot friend?" When she sees the look of disbelief on Tony's face, she lets out a scoff. "Don't look at me like that. I don't know how science works."
"A human friend," Tony clarifies, watching closely to examine the girl and her movements. Now, he wasn't the most observant, but he noticed the little things; the way that she was continually biting the inside of her cheek, the way she was playing with her nails, the way that she was picking on her lips. Nina was always poised and confident, but this girl in front of him wasn't that - in fact, she was a nervous wreck.
"Nina, tell me what's going on," he continues, "There's something wrong."
"There's nothing wrong. I'm leaving now." Nina shook her head, fully set on walking out of the room and going back home now that she knew that Vision wasn't there. If she thinks about what happens, then that aching in her chest will come back again, which would send her into another panic attack, which would—
"FRIDAY, lock the doors."
"What?" Nina stuttered, running over towards the doors in a desperate attempt to open them. Sometimes, she hates the fact that she's known to be such a technological grandma (who studies in a tech school for fucks sake) and Tony took advantage of that whenever he could.
"You're not getting anything out of me, Tony," Nina grumbled, pounding on the door. "Let me go!"
"And I'm the second most stubborn and hardheaded person in this building, so we're both staying here until you tell me what's going on." With that, Tony tiredly massages his temples, eyes not meeting Nina's, "I'm a bit... concerned, kid." His voice was soft, barely a whisper and Nina almost didn't hear it.
There was only stillness and quiet. The long strands of hair fell in Nina's eyes, her gaze unwavering from the floor as her shoulders went up and down in the slightest from her breathing. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it.
Tony waited patiently, refusing to move a muscle even though minutes passed by of the girl just staring at the ground even though his whole body was screaming at him to get out of the room and take a nap. He's never heard Nina like that before; never, and the more he thought of it, the more his nerves increased.
After what had felt like an eternity, Nina's shoulders slouched; she sank to the sofa once again and wrapped her arms her his knees, pulling her legs to her chest. It made her feel pathetic - it really did - giving up this easily underneath the eyes of Tony Stark, the man she once hated, but she needed an outside opinion.
"Two people broke in my apartment today."
Tony furrowed his eyebrows, hands slipping in his pocket to grab his phone. There were cameras installed outside of the apartment, so he must've seen—
"They aren't in the cameras. You wouldn't see them there. They have powers." Nina took in a deep breath - how the fuck was she going to explain this? There's a man and a woman who claim to be my parents coming to my home to see me and even though the logical part of my brain is telling me that it's not real the emotional side of my brain is telling me that it is?
"Powers?" Tony's mouth was agape at the revelation before his thumbs are rubbing his temples once again to stop the brewing headache. "Jesus, how many of you are out there? Seriously. It's like everywhere I go there's some person with—"
"They're my parents."
For a moment, Tony is frozen. He stares at Nina like a statue, until he finally shakes his head. "No. That can't be. You don't have parents. There's no record of—"
"They're apparently off the grid or something," Nina pointed out with a loud, tired sigh. "Now I know I shouldn't be taking them seriously since there are a lot of people out there who want my head on a stick... but, I dunno. I couldn't admit it in front of them but... I felt... different? Weird?"
"Are you... are you sure?" Tony queries with a concerned look.
"I'm not sure. But there was an instant connection; immediate ease in their company and there's only a handful of people who I've experienced with that and it confused me." Those people namely Tony - yet even with him, it took several months for her to achieve that. "And I'm not blind; I look so much like the woman. And the man..."
"What about him?"
"Remember the tape from last year? The one I asked if it was possibly a video edit?" Tony nods, remembering how Nina asked him to explain the mystery behind the video of her choking to death. (He couldn't explain it.)
"He... he did it. I saw his eyes and he showed me. It's the exact same shade of gold, Tony. And there's a bunch of whole other shit that I don't want to get into right now—" at this point, Nina was suddenly having trouble breathing, feeling suffocated, panicky and her vision was beginning to close in as the next words come out of her mouth. "But fuck, if this is real, why didn't they save me sooner?"
At this moment, Nina couldn't remember ever feeling such rage before. She wanted to punch something, punch someone - the fire in her chest growing more and more as she thought of how much pain she could've saved herself from. Illiana tortured her all her life and she could've missed on that decade of torture - but no.
"I'm shit with words but I really need to get this out of my chest and it's killing me," Her teeth gritted together, jaw working silently as she tried (she failed) to keep the tears from filling her eyes. Pathetic. Pathetic. Pathetic. "I just don't understand why it took them so long. They're apparently these superhuman people so finding me should've been easy. I could've had a better life because if I gave you a full-fledged review on what Illiana did to me, you'd shit your pants."
Tony looked shocked at her sentence - the man has seen her angry on any number of occasions but normally when she bursts into his office she doesn't do it in tears.
"I know I'm not a good person sometimes, but I don't think... I don't think I deserve this, Tony." Nina mumbled quietly, this only seemed to unnerve Tony further, since her usual behavior tended towards yelling, barging, and occasionally smashing. "I thought I was okay but it turns out I'm not. I'm not okay. I'm not fine."
"Hey, kid. I need you to listen to me, okay? I'm not going to tell you shit about how your trauma made you stronger - because you were a kid, and the only thing that should've been making you stronger was vegetables and milk," he says, joking in an attempt to calm down the pain in her chest. "For a long, long time this is going to feel horribly raw and painful, and I'm telling you right now that it's okay to cry. In fact, you can cry to me. I don't care how many snotty tears you put on on my shoulders - it's okay. But I need to let you know that you are the most badass and one of the smartest, strong willed people I know and you are getting through this like a champ because I know you."
Nina sniffles softly, wiping her eyes.
"I've seen you get through extremely challenging times in the past. I told you, I know everything about you. And I believe in you." Tony took in a deep breath, "And whatever decision you make, I'm right here behind you to support you."
I'm here to support you. That's her breaking point. With the softest whimper, Nina walked up from the couch she sat on and engulfed Tony in a hug.
Nina never held on for dear life like she was doing right now. It was scary, now that he thought about it, but it didn't matter. Tony was here. Tony was with her and she never knew how she craved a hug from him so much, but here she was, comforted by the same presence she had hated with all her guts more than year ago.
"God that was way too serious and I hate saying shit like that." Tony pats her shoulders awkwardly, untangling himself from her grip after a few seconds. "Okay, um, I'm done giving you my amazing advice so let's never talk about this conversation again because I'm not good at emotional shit."
Nina wipes her eyes with her sleeve, jumping back on the sofa. "I'm not good with emotional shit too."
...
Distraction. Distraction is good. Distraction is fine. Distraction is great.
But her whole plan had backfired on her; what Nina didn't expect for was her distraction to become another distraction.
She came back to school the next day with the full intent of ignoring her newfound revelations about her parents (and she will continue to ignore it until she's ready) so her brain desperately tried to latch onto something that would distract her.
It was supposed to be Matty. It really was.
But as she grabbed her daily bagel and iced coffee from the boy, Peter Parker had passed by the hallway, wearing a black shirt - a plain black shirt that fit his body perfectly, his hair not styled, therefore showing off his natural curls more, and to top it all off, he met her eyes in the hallway before first period.
Never could Nina have expected for a fucking shirt to make her act like this.
During the whole day, there was only one thing repeating in her mind again and again and again. Peter. Peter. Peter. Maybe it was because she had her period right after her talk with Tony and her hormones were all over the place, but Peter was clouding her mind and it was driving her insane.
Every so often, butterflies in her stomach would drop all the way down, giving her a weird - but good sensation in her abdomen. And somehow, the fact that Peter was there, in the same building as her, made her feel even weirder.
She was going feral over Peter Parker just because he wore a fitted black shirt. At the end of the day, Nina decided that she had officially lost her mind.
(It was better than thinking of Druig and Nikaia, but still. She had a boyfriend.)
So, in her hormone lidded mind, Nina decided to skip on patrol day and have Peter do the work all by himself since - one, she deserved a break, two, the sudden twinges of pain in her abdomen was killing her, and three, she invited Matty over to her apartment to watch Mean Girls. He bought her a bunch of junk food and chocolates, so that was definitely a huge plus.
Which led to now.
Nina gasped softly, her hands clutching tightly in the his shirt, and she heard herself moan as Matt's teeth nipped at her lower lip; heat curled in her abdomen in response as sparks of pleasure tripped down her spine.
Her hands softly tugged on his curls, and if she imagine hard enough, she could almost picture Peter- no. The girl tried to shake the thought from her mind, but it was already there.
To make matters worse, when she returned the nip she'd received earlier, Matty made a noise deep in his throat that sounded so much like him; it reminded her too much of that night in the alley when she kicked his ass and somehow, it made her stomach twist (in a good way) even more.
When Matty slowed the kiss and left Nina's mouth, reacquainting himself with the girl's jawline, her face, her neck, her collarbone, everything inch of skin he could reach, the pleasure was clouding her judgement.
Nina tugged on his curls. Peter. She listened to the soft noises Matty was letting out. Peter. Peter. Peter.
Nina whines a little into his mouth, hands trembling with the struggle to hold him without shaking, "Peter."
And that moment, that single, fleeting moment, is when Nina realizes that she is truly and utterly fucked.
...
NOTES:
i have most of the chapters mapped out already :)
anyways half of this chapter is nina having a mental breakdown and the other half is just her being horny