WARNING: MENTIONS OF RAPE
º º º
IT WAS AN INTERESTING SIGHT, REMY AND BIRDIE WORKING ALONGSIDE EACH OTHER.
Birdie was focused on the case she had gotten, still familiarizing herself with the victims, some of whom had just recently returned back to the country and were surprised to find that the man they had been working with for two years had retired and dumped their case onto a woman who had gotten it not too long before, but long enough to be more familiar.
Remy was focused on his projects, his hero report having been rough drafted and essentially cast to the side as his classes placed more emphasis on the other projects that they had to do. It was great for him with his shorter attention span, jumping between all the projects, though he wished the content didn't trigger such harsh memories.
But whatever the specific reasoning for the two to be working, it was interesting to see the parallels in their habits and reactions. When the two were upset, they tended to make faces at what they were working on, some more comical than others. They both had a snack on their left hand side and a drink on their left, and even if they were thoroughly engrossed in their work to the point where stopping would ruin their trains of thought and natural flows, they would force themselves out of it to take a drink or take a piece of their food. Whenever they were stuck, they would put their heads in their hands and mumble to themselves until they figured it out, or they would slip down in their seats, gazes trained towards the ceiling with their right hands covering their mouths.
It was both mesmerizing and comical, and Tony could watch it all day.
"Don't you have work of your own?" Birdie asked, when Tony laughed at how they had both paused at the same time to make the same sound of frustration.
He shook his head. "Rhodey got sick of me following him around, so he forced me down here, and Pepper's the CEO of my company, so there's less I have to worry about there."
Remy looked up. "Why don't you let me meet him, it would be so much fun."
Tony snapped his fingers and pointed to him. "That's exactly why. I let you meet Happy and Vision because they don't try to make my life difficult. If you and Rhodey met, you would never respect me ever again."
Remy snorted. "Like I respect you now."
"Remy," Birdie chastised, frowning loudly at him, and he sighed heavily, mouthing an apology towards Tony, rolling his eyes.
Reminding himself that he was supposed to be a responsible adult figure in the boy's life, Tony said, "Don't roll your eyes, that's rude."
Remy looked like Tony had killed BUDDY.
He sighed, shaking his head. "Don't look at me like that, kid, I'm trying to be responsible and a good influence, I'm sorry."
Remy huffed and puffed, scrunching up his face into the expression he had been giving his work whenever it upset him, and Tony felt strangely intimidated, glancing over towards Birdie who shook her head at him, as if reminding him to stay strong.
Remy rounded on her, narrowing his eyes. "I found him first, mom."
She looked like she was gauging her response, before deciding to just give in, pointing out, "Actually, I found him before you were conceived."
Tony choked, coughing as Remy gaped at his mother, clearly not expecting that answer. Wordlessly, the boy gathered his things and marched out of the dining room towards the hallway, the sound of his door opening and closing following a few moments later.
Tony turned towards Birdie who had just gone back to her work, raising his eyebrow and her, trying to catch her attention.
Without looking up at him, she said, "It sounded like a good response at the time. Inappropriate, I know, but it was the truth, and he's been thinking about his conception non-stop for the past year now."
Tony cleared his throat uncomfortably. "You know, I didn't want to say anything, because I knew you didn't want to, but I've been thinking about it too—"
"So have I, though recently, there's been more on my mind," Birdie sighed, looking up from her work, "And I'm not just talking about my job. But I know he's going to ask me about it soon, so I'm just familiarizing him and myself with the topic."
Tony sighed and walked over to her. "I'm going to hug you now."
She gave him a polite smile. "Are you really?"
He shrugged, awkwardly wrapping his arms around her shoulders, needing to reach down since he was still standing and she wasn't.
She patted his arm, pulling away. "Thank you."
He nodded. "You're welcome."
With that, she went back to her work, and he went back to watching her.
In his room, while his mom worked and Tony watched her, Remy was staring at his DNA test project. The purpose of the project was less about the actual connections, but more about what DNA was and how great it was that they now had this technology to test and understand it, to at least some extent.
Remy took a deep breath, looking over towards BUDDY. "Do I want to know?"
BUDDY shrugged. "You had gone to him initially to find out."
Remy puffed up his cheeks, blowing out air, before nodding finally to himself. "You're right. Okay."
º º º
"Mom, I wanna test Tony's DNA."
Birdie took a deep breath, glad that her back was turned towards Remy at that instance. Tony had just left, which rarely ever happened anymore, and she was cleaning up after dinner.
"I thought we talked about this, Remy, we're testing mine," she said, though she already knew she wouldn't win this argument.
As expected, Remy clearly planned on stomping foot, but paused, not wanting her to say no solely due to his bad attitude. "But I want to know if he's actually my dad. You know, my biological dad."
Birdie bit her tongue, sighing. "Why do you need to know?"
"Because it's a big enough deal that Mark left, so I wanna know!" Remy cried, "And I've let it go for months, Mom, but I wanna know now. It's been over a year since Mark left, I think I can know now. Don't you want to know?"
Birdie already knew. But she wasn't ready to tell him yet. Not yet.
"Please, Mom," he begged, "I wanna know."
"You know there's more to being to your father than what's in your genes," she said, already relenting, and Remy knew it.
He fought back his joyful smile, trying to prove that he was serious. "I know. But I want to know."
She sighed, trying to give him a smile back. "I know. But don't get your hopes up."
Remy walked away, claiming that he never did, but she knew better. He always got his hopes up, but he knew how to hide the pain when he was crushed.
She liked to think he got it from her.
º º º
Nicky sat across from Birdie, his hands clasped in front of him, taking in everything she had said. When she finally finished, slumping against her seat, he nodded for a few moments, clearly thinking.
"Are you sure you want to go through with this?" he asked, "Because I am willing to help you if you think you've had enough time to process and heal, though I do think that there are certain things we haven't fully covered yet."
She sniffed, wiping at her eyes. "Like what? How I need to be in control every two seconds and how it's so hard for me to remember to let Remy do what he wants and needs to, because I don't want to be that person in his life that makes him feel like he's not in control, even though I think maybe I'm being too lax with him, do we need to talk about that?"
The younger man splayed out his palms. "I mean, you brought it up, not me."
She sighed, running her hands through her hair, then rubbing her eyes. "I mean...look, we know what happened to me when I was young, I've always known, but now you know, and you said it yourself, it's probably one of the reasons why it's so hard for me to be flexible or be okay with not knowing things, you know."
Nicky licked his lips and nodded. "For someone who had to go through that torment for years, you're...I'm incredibly floored by how you've been able to move past it, though I'm so glad you're getting help."
She gave a short laugh. "Okay."
Nicky shook his head. "Look, I was just saying. Go on, please finish, is there any other reason you can think of?"
She leaned back, raising her hands before letting them drop down into her lap. "I worked nearly non-stop after The Incident. We all did, shifts weren't really a concept for any of us, it was just trying to make sure everyone was okay. No one was okay."
She sniffed, laughing mirthlessly as she began to cry again. "No one was okay. Treshelle had been there, she can tell you, it was awful. You could taste the blood, it was everywhere, and I couldn't do anything about it. I just had to stand there and watch people die. My co-worker Rosie was in the room when her best friend died, she's taking care of her goddaughter now, but she had to see that, I don't know how she's still going on, I broke watching strangers die."
Nicky scoffed. "No one would blame you, no one should have to go through that, The Incident was a terrible thing."
She ran her hands through her hair, shaking her head. "Tell that to all the people who died, I'm still living," she scoffed, "I just couldn't take it, I couldn't take being so helpless, I had to get out of there."
"So you chose to become a defense attorney," Nicky finished.
She nodded. "Jayne helped me get into her law firm, but I was just so set on becoming an attorney, because at least then I had all the control when it came to me doing all I could to make sure I got justice, you know?"
Nicky nodded. "I get it. Though I have to wonder if you trying to avoid something that needed addressing was the best option."
She threw up her arms. "Well, I'm here now. And we've been talking about it, about my entire life, we've figured out more than I ever thought we would, so I think I've told you everything we need to work on."
He shrugged, nodding. "I think that's true, we've even found out why you're afraid of your son, we just need to work on them until you get better."
She nodded. "Yes. So can I just get this out there before things get more complicated?"
Nicky licked his lips. "Are you sure you're ready?"
She shrugged. "Only one way to find out."
º º º
Tony didn't expect to be called into Nicky's office on the request of Birdie. He also didn't expect to be led into an entirely different room that had much more seats than Nicky's usual office. He wasn't sure he liked the change all that much.
He found Birdie sitting next to Nicky's seat, facing a row of seats that were already occupied by Birdie's parents, Jayne and Brad, and Wilma and Treshelle. Basically everyone in Birdie's life. It was shocking to see that he was included into the mix.
He stood in the doorway for a moment. "Uh..."
"Come in," Nicky said, motioning towards the available seat, "You're the last person, we've been waiting for."
Tony took his seat warily, unable to stop himself from saying, "I feel like I'm joining a cult, anyone else?"
Nicky gave him a look that clearly told him that now was not the time to make a joke, but also told him that he understood why and wasn't going to attack him for it. How Nicky was able to do that, Tony didn't know, but he appreciated it, even though it made him pretty uncomfortable at times.
Birdie gave him a small smile, and he immediately grew worried at her pained expression, trying to catch her attention again, but by then, she was already staring at her hands, taking deep breaths, clearly letting Nicky lead the introduction.
"Thank you for being here," Nicky began, as if he wasn't at least near a decade younger than the youngest of the people sitting across from him, "Birdie and I talked about this for a few days, and after some deep contemplation, we decided that it was probably best that she talk about this to all of you now."
Turning towards Birdie's father, he added, "Please hear her out. She's your daughter, and considering herself as a whole, I don't think she would lie."
Birdie's father shifted in his seat, frowning in confusion and looking over at his daughter who still continued to stare at her hands. From what Tony could see, the only people who truly knew why they were there were Birdie, Nicky, and Wilma.
Nicky turned towards Birdie, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. "You ready?"
She took a deep breath and sat up straight, rolling her shoulders. "Yeah." After taking another deep breath, she began. "It started when I was six, the second time when you made me and Wilma sleep over at his house."
º º º
Everyone was shaking by the end of Birdie's talk, cheeks stained with tears, her parents wracked with heavy sobs, all but Wilma needing to be restrained before they did something drastic, either to themselves, the room, or to the person they all wanted to hunt down.
Birdie, to their biggest surprise, had been numb the entire way through. After countless times talking it through with Nicky, going over what she wanted to say, she had only come close to crying three times, those times being when she remembered something and had the expected, visceral reaction. But other than that, she had been calm and collected the entire time; perks of needing to be eloquently spoken for a career, it seemed.
Nicky had been a great help in guiding the conversation, needing to defend Wilma when her parents had rounded on her, screaming and demanding answers that the woman couldn't give.
"She was a kid then too," Nicky argued, "She didn't know what to do, it's hard to know what to do in easy situations, let alone something like this. Birdie doesn't blame her, neither should you."
He had nearly gotten punched in the face for that by Birdie's father, the man screaming at him, telling him that he did not have any right to tell him how to feel, freely sobbing and shaking with disgust and guilt over what his brother had done.
"Don't turn your hate on the people you need to hold close," Nicky had said softly, and that had been enough to diffuse the pain.
Jayne hadn't known how to react. Maybe it was because, deep down, she already knew, so she just let the tears fall and her body shake, but she hadn't had the deep reaction to attack, despite what everyone had expected, she had been about as numb as Wilma; not uncaring, but numb.
Tony was a third in terms of reactions, following close to Birdie's mother, who had screamed and demanded that they go out and look for her brother-in-law, for the man who had hurt her daughter for her entire life. It had been a reaction similar to her husband's, but she had been restrained easier.
Tony had wanted to go out, to hurt someone, do something, wanted to punch a hole in the wall like Birdie's father had, wanted to do something, avenge her in some way, but he didn't know how, he didn't quite know who, and Birdie had told him to stop.
With her parents, she hadn't said anything, but with him, she had told him not to. Because she couldn't tell her parents how to react, because she had hid this secret from them for nearly half a century. With Tony, and he knew it, there wasn't much leverage for him to be upset, besides the fact that anyone would be beyond disgusted by what she had told them, by what had been done to her.
"There's no statute of limitations for rape," Jayne reminded her, when there was finally a full silence.
Birdie nodded. "I know."
Jayne took a shaky breath. "I will pay for you to get the best lawyer in this entire goddamn country, he's going to get put away."
Birdie barely reacted. She just shrugged and smiled, and it broke everyone to see the numb reaction, if it could even be called a reaction. It was painful to see her now, in this light, knowing what they did.
She took a deep breath, sighing. "Please don't walk on eggshells around me, you didn't before and everything was fine, you don't need to now."
"Birdie..." her mother whispered.
"Seriously," she said, raising her head, "I'm not brushing this aside, but I don't want to have to be reminded of it every two seconds because you look at me different or talk to me different, I don't want to be reminded. I just want to know that you're aware and you understand and that you don't hate me."
"How could we hate you?" her father demanded, and she turned towards him to glare.
"When we were watching the news, you laughed at a woman who claimed that she had been raped, saying that we already knew she was crazy. I work with victims who've been warped into believing that it was their fault, or that it was other girls' faults and that they didn't act the way they did, so they shouldn't have been hurt. I'm surrounded by all these things that told me it was my fault, you included, and you think I wouldn't internalize anything?"
She was shaking now, laughing with a bitterness that had goosebumps prickling on Tony's arms. "Fuck that."
Her father opened his mouth to apologize, but she held up a hand. "I don't want your apology, it won't do anything! I just want you to know."
With that, the conversation was done.
No one knew what to say, and no one was sure if they even wanted to say anything, all of them too worried by how Birdie would react, which was the last thing she wanted, yet she appreciated it nonetheless. It showed that they cared, but, at least after some time, she wanted things to go back to a relative normal.
The past couldn't be taken back, but there was a relative place where they could go back to.
Birdie didn't want to go back to the past, she wanted to focus on the future. She wanted her present, the one she had made for herself, the one that wasn't defined by all the things that had happened to her, yet she felt like that was all she was. Just someone defined by all these things that had been done to her, that had been out of her control, controlled by everything she wanted to run from, had been pushed away from or towards, nothing had been her own.
She was tired of being controlled. Now, she was taking her life back. And it started with letting go.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
This chapter is all about Birdie trying to find a balance between control and letting things go where they need to, and this is the "unknown event" that had occurred. I hadn't wanted it to be explicitly addressed, but I knew most people wouldn't catch the subtlety, so that's why we had to show the aftermath of her explaining her years of abuse.
I hope I portrayed her okay, I know that each survivor is different, each person reacts differently, but I hope I wasn't blatantly off and didn't offend anyone with the portrayal of any of these characters' reactions.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!