"Alright so we got the chips, the...energy drinks god I've missed you guys–uhm...ah right! Griff wanted these ridiculously gross donuts, shouldn't even be called that you're a disgrace to them is what you are—yeah that's right donut phoney, I'm talking to you. Annnnd lastly we need the—"
"Excuse me, Miss is there something I can help you with?" A man in a green shirt and black apron asks, his clammy hands fidgeting with his sleeves where he sweats.
Dallas frowns, "I think I'm all good here." She looks at everything gathered in her arms, Rockstars, Cheetos, Doritos, the disgrace to human kind so called 'donuts', the—
"Oh actually...there is one thing!" She quips, she'd almost forgotten.
The mans face turns into a forced smile, his hair begs to breathe and cries losing its battle to stay cool. "Anything specific?"
She uses the goofy kind of smile that she has when she's carefree and generally happy with how the day has been going so far, no ones bothered her, she's in a new city, has met a new friend, acquaintance? Griffin says that's all Jay is, but Dallas argued with him that once you jump a building with a guy they're your friend. The positives come in happy waves, filling her with pure happiness.
"Where do you keep your candy at?"
Dallas followed the man and managed a box of Nerds and Sour Patch Kids on top of the junk bundle in her arms, and while she's checking out she hears commotion outside. Leaning back she can't see anything, but she hands the cashier her money and takes her items.
"Keep the change. Thank you!"
There was a short cut down this alleyway she thought she remembered, it would in theory save her approximately 5 minutes of walking back to the car. She takes it because those 5 very useful minutes she gains back will be spent eating and drinking the new snacks she just got. They were much easier to take back with them being bagged and all.
In between buildings there wasn't any people, she figures that New York residents stay inside all day, with a day job or something. There hasn't been another kid since Jay that she's seen out either. Back in Malibu it was highly possible that you'd see a abandoned or runaway kid just chilling and hanging about the streets. Less people means more time to yourself, she figures.
The puddles on the concrete where it had been broken in bits and caved in to allow the water to form were seeping into the now very known holes in her sneakers. She would need to buy new socks as well as shoes soon. They squashed and squished each step she took, an annoying sound that was quick to hop on nerves. A upcoming puddle ripples with waves and Dallas pauses her walk, she looks up looking for the cause.
A robot (similar to the Iron Man ones) had flown down, its mask passive and one hand raised in a passive I'm not going to hurt you, it still freaked Dallas out enough for her to step back in caution. The robot only moved forward, landing and standing a few inches taller than her.
"I am here to help." It keeps repeating.
Dallas eyes it, "Okay...?"
These things are usually out patrolling in the night, she saw them doing it last night, there hasn't been one seen in the daylight and if Jay was telling the truth they only come if there is danger and the city needs to evacuate. She also wasn't too sure on why else it would be there to help her.
"I'm just going to—" she tries walking around it, it only reaches and grabs her wrist instead, the eye slits turn blue and something scans her face.
"Facial recognition: confirmed match." The robot says, it releases her arm then and steps away, back a few steps.
A compartment on the wrist piece opens up and a piece of paper comes out, the robot hands it out to her. It's no bigger than a business card. What the hell did it mean by confirmed match.
"Oh, no thank you I'm good bud." She says and tries to leave again but this bot is persistent and blocks every move she tries to get around it.
Dallas groans. This thing isn't going to let her go until she takes that dumb piece of paper. If she had ice cream, it'd be all melted to mush by now! It was taking up her precious junk food eating time, and putting a damper on the positive energy she possessed. She rips the paper out of its hand? and reads it.
cafe on 20th st. 3:00
-VP
whomst the fuck-
"What is all this?" She demands.
"I am here to help."
"Why did you give me this?" She tried again.
"Please remain calm."
"Oh now you're just going down a BS list. Do you even have any other programming?" Dallas taps the faceplate of the robot, it forcefully pulls her hands away from it and drops them.
It pauses for a moment, she's wonders if she's going to be getting a real answer now, "Please remain calm."
"This is useless. Thanks for wasting my time!" Dallas salutes and finally shoves past it, shoving the slip of paper in her pocket and ventures back on her way to the beaten up car she still had to work on.
Her shoes still squashed, and her mood was compromised but she made it back to her car, Griffin is leaning up against it drinking from a water bottle, his neck moving as he gulped the water. His t-shirt really wasn't too clean anymore, he had sweat stains and ones from water dripping from the bottle. His hair a dirty blonde mess.
She walks up silent and goes up to the car, opens the back seat and dumps the two bags inside. As she's bending over to get her drink her side tightens and Dallas groans. That guy hit the car real good last night. She is just glad she didn't end up hitting the side of a building like the racer did. Dallas grabs her drink, gets out of the car, shuts the door and leans up against it.
"Hey. So I changed the oil, made sure it was all good on water while ya were out, oh golly are those Sour Patch Kids?" Griffin comes over with an open smile, peering into the backseat childishly.
Dallas feels a involuntary smirk overtake her, she opens the door for him, "Knock yourself out."
"Yes yes yes." He chants and dives into the back going straight for the candy, he's out a second later opening the bag. Dallas shuts the car door.
"I'm workin' on that dent it's got on the door, but it's lookin' better than last night." He says in between stuffing his face and chewing the item from inside.
She walks over to it and he's right. The dent looked way worse last night, almost ready to cave in to the driver. She's lucky it didn't go any further, but she doesn't regret doing it. It was new, and next time she knows to watch more carefully. The nasty dent is almost gone now, it still has damage and the pain is cracked but it's nothing a little paint can't fix.
"Jay around?" She asks.
Griffin stills, frowning. "Been inside his apartment all day long, it's almos' two now."
"Oh, hey can you do me a favor?" She asks.
"Yeah whatd'ya need?" He lifts the bag to empty the rest of the sugar into his mouth, his hair glistens with sweat and clings to his neck in the sun.
"Well, I got this thing earlier–like ten minutes ago actually." Dallas pulls out the note she received, and hands it out to him. He takes it and blinks with confusion, re-reading and re-reading it over and over again.
"Who gave you this?" He looks it over, looking to see if there's anything on the back but she checked, there isn't.
"One of the Legion Bots, it was pretty useless. Scanned my face though." She looks to her feet, kicking small pebbles about.
"Scanned your face? Dal, maybe it's time for us to leave." Griffin says, he's looking around them like a timid child who'd just stolen a cookie or taken a bigger portion for dinner than allowed.
"Leave?"
"Well, yeah. This could be a trap for them CPS ladies to come 'n grab us again." He says.
She didn't think of that.
"Why don't we go, I'll wait inside because it was addressed to me I guess. If it is what you think it is, I'll just say I have to use the bathroom. I'm sure there's an alley you can wait in, and we can just leave." Dallas decides.
She knows they'll never be allowed any choices if they get snatched up again. Dallas just needs more time to figure out what she wants, a new home with terrible people and whining children is not what she needs. They've been good here for a few days, but if they need to. Dallas is willing to leave for their freedom, even if it'll cost her that missing piece of her life.
She gets in the passenger seat and shuts the door. The phone is charging in the cup holder, Dallas punches into the gps the cafe on 20th street, sure enough it isn't fake so she hits start route and waits for Griffin to get in the drivers seat.
He gets in and backs out of the parking spot, the soft jazz is turned on and they talk back and forth about nothing special really. The place comes up rather fast for only being 20 minutes away. Rather soon, a cafe comes into view. With the coffee cup on the window and everything.
The car pauses across the street, it takes her a second to look at the driver.
"Looks like there's a alley 'round back, I'll be there if we needa getaway." Griffin momentarily smirks sadly at her, his eyes fluttering to her and then downcast while he starts up the car again.
He drops her off at the front, and drives off to the alley to wait for her to be done.
She stuffs her hands into the pockets of her hoodie, looking at the building like it'll give her a future but for real she had no clue as to who gave her the paper and why Legion Bots were scanning for her face. Dallas had put some cash in her ratty old wallet, so she was set, she didn't like coffee too well and was annoyed she wasn't drinking her rockstar at the moment.
But still, Dallas Knight walked into the coffee shop, the bell above the door rang twice to announce her arrival, there was a few people here and there which indicated it was not a busy place and that was good for her. Whoever this VP person was, they would be coming in four minutes and easier to recognize since they had a specific time set to meet.
So Dallas walked up to the counter, ordered a frappe with extra whip cream, and took a seat near the window. Sipping her drink, and tapping her finger nails timidly against the surface of the round table above her legs. Her foot taps against the floor rhythmically, it's three o'clock now and no one has walked in.
Maybe they're just late. Her brain rattles around, confusing her why she's making up excuses for someone she didn't even know. Benefit of the doubt she guessed, and if a Legion Bot has been looking for her then it must be someone related to Tony Stark.
As the minutes pass Dallas begins to overthink, she first goes with the what if it is Tony Stark himself but then retracts back to the paper where clearly it has typed VP and those are definitely not Tony Stark's initials. It could be a criminal, those Legion robots didn't seem too hard to get around. But they were strong and defensive so that ruled out the assumption.
Her thoughts led her well into four o'clock, the drink once cold in her hand is empty and dull, useless just like this dumb meeting was. She didn't even know why she came, thinking that someone might know who she is, Dallas decides now that she doesn't want that. She doesn't need that missing piece, she's been doing just fine on her own with out it—
The bell on the door rings, Dallas is dropping her empty cup into the trash when she hears it. Instinctively she looks to the door, her body moving towards the sound, she sees a dirty blonde haired woman walk inside. She wears business clothing, similar to that of a social worker.
Shes so close to bolting out the back, but the woman turns to her and smiles sweetly and walks over like she found her prey, and unluckily for Dallas she was that prey.
"Hello, Dallas it's very nice to meet you again."
Dallas freezes, her body goes numb and she feels herself shaking hands with the woman but it's like everything is in slow motion. She kind of recognizes the woman, it must've been weeks ago but those eyes that had once been crying over a broken helmet were now crinkled at the edges in a welcoming smile.
"Oh, you probably don't remember me it was a while ago when we first saw each other. I'm Virginia—"
"—but most people call you Pepper." Dallas finishes for her. It might've been rude to cut her off while talking but if it bothered her she didn't show it.
"Let's sit and chat a bit, why don't we?" Pepper smiles, already going for a seat furthest from the windows.
"Oh, okay..." Dallas follows her like a lost puppy and sits across from her.
She breaks the silence first, "So...you're VP?"
Dallas puts the slip of paper on the desk and slides it over to Pepper. The woman takes it and grins, then slides it back over, placing her recently done fingernails on the table.
"VP are my initials. There just really wasn't any other way to locate you, it was faster with Tony's robot group." She explains. Dallas didn't really like the way Pepper said Tony's name, even for barely knowing the woman officially for a few seconds she could tell that there was something between the two. How she sighed when she said his name, no person does that to anyone unless they have something against them. It was just, odd.
"I don't think you were looking for me to give me back my jacket were you?" Dallas shrinks into her chair.
Pepper breathes, "No I wasn't. I'm here to help Tony, he's been looking for you for a long time."
"I know that." Dallas blurts. Pepper frowns.
"I mean, I just not too long ago figured it out. After that stalker kept following me around, he basically told us what's what."
"Was he a PI?" Pepper sighs.
"Yeah, a real bad one at that." Dallas answers.
"I always knew that new guy wasn't very, discreet. But we're extremely glad to have found you. We just need to do some paper work and—"
"—What are you talking about?" Dallas cuts her off. Heart speeding up.
"Tony would like to re-officiate the legal guardian papers, and be a bigger part in your life—"
"—Then where is he?" Dallas cuts her off again, this woman's fakeness is wearing off easily.
"He's out on business, he'll be—"
"—Isn't this important business?"
"Well of course it is but if you'd just—"
"—But...? Isn't this a big whoopie! The lost Stark returns pazaz. But he cant make time for it, huh?" Dallas scoffs, this was stupid, she didn't even know the man but she's read all about him online. She knows from that that he's arrogant, a playboy, and reckless. She was dumb to think that someone like that would even want to be in her messed up life.
Hey, maybe she was taking this way too far. This woman had come out of her way to meet with her, an hour and a half late, it seems that Dallas wasn't even a priority. Why would she be anyway? She didn't know these people, and frankly she didn't want to.
It was a disappointment. She didn't expect to be embraced and welcomed by a father, cherished until she couldn't take it anymore. But she expected...something. Anything really. But, she got his girlfriend instead. If he was out on important business, who was to say it would never happen again.
Dallas doesn't want to chance being left behind again. In recent times she's the one who does the leaving so in the end she doesn't get herself hurt. This conflicting feeling she has, it's like all her emotions are crowding into one giant mess and taking over her body.
"I'm sorry, that was not like me." She apologizes.
"That's okay, you have every right to feel how you do. I know if this had been sprung on me, I'd be a little crazy too." Pepper tried to sympathize.
"No, um, I'm sorry I just can't do this." Dallas stands up, her chair screeches across the floor and she moves for the backdoor.
Pepper is calling her name but Dallas is already out the door, Griffin opens the passenger for her and they zoom off just as Pepper gets outside.
Pepper Potts watches in defeat as Tony's Daughter is driven out of the alley and onto the busy New York streets. She couldn't even catch a license plate. This all went horribly wrong. She was a people person, but she must've scared the kid and made her feel unwanted because if she'd have let her finish she would've heard her say.
"But he'll be here in a few minutes."
Tony's repulsers are heard and he lands next to Pepper, stepping out of his armor in a nice suit and his hair done correctly. He looks hopeful, already sneaking a peak in the coffee shop nervously.
"Is she in there, Pep?" Tony fidgets nervously.
"Tony I'm so sorry, she ran off before I could tell her you were coming." Pepper sighs.
Tony's face falls and he gets back in his suit and flies off, clearly upset.