Sorry I was gone for so long! I missed Victoria Stark☺️
"Victoria! You need to control it, it's because you're panicking! Your telekinesis is going haywire!" Tony yelled to me from the doorway.
I tried taking a deep breath, but it wouldn't work, as soon as I tried to make it stop more things would start flying across the hall.
"I can't!" I cried.
I heard Tony sigh over the commotion and then felt something touch my knees. I looked up to see Tony kneeling in front of me with his hands on my knees, with his face close to mine, looking me dead in the eyes.
"Victoria, I want you to focus on me, okay? You're panicking and the chemicals in your brain are going out of whack. Your powers are acting up as a result. The only way you can control them is to calm down. You need to lower your heart rate." Tony spoke calmly to me.
"I don't know how." I said and another flower pot went flying over Tony's head, making him duck.
"I'm here, I'm going to help you. I'm not going anywhere." He reassured me and I could already feel myself begin to feel less tense. "I want you to breath with me, okay? Four in," he breathed and I copied him. "Seven out. Good."
We did this a couple more times until I could finally breath at a normal rate and open my eyes without everything flying across the hall.
"Oh my God I destroyed everything." I said, making Tony chuckle softly.
"S'alright, I was thinking of redoing this hallway anyways."
"Just this one?"
Tony tried to help me up but I felt as if all of my energy was drained from my body and my legs were made of jello. He picked me up and I tiredly laid my head on his shoulder, allowing my limbs to go limp in his grip. He told everyone that he was going to take me out of there for the day to try and help me regain some sense of calm, and to try and figure out how my panic episode connects to my telekinesis.
I was happy when we finally arrived home. Tony carried me down to his workshop and dragged a small couch close to his desk for me to lay on. I watch him silently as he worked.
"Wake up, daddy's home." He said as the screens came to life.
He swiped through a few screens, tapping quickly back and forth and mumbling to himself. This part of him amazed me, that he could use all of these machines and technology without missing a beat.
"Here, look at me." He broke me from my thoughts with a bright flash to the face.
I squinted. "Ouch, what was that for?"
"Its an x-radiation machine I can use to see through your head into your brain and, if everything goes as planned..." he pulled a moving photo of my brain up on the screen. "—See what part of your brain is in contact with your telekinesis."
"Woah..." I sat up and stared at the photo.
Tony used his hands to rotate and zoom in on parts of the image. He began taking going deeper into the photo layer by layer until a bright blue spot showed up.
"There." He pressed his finger to it. "Highlight that."
He moved his hands quickly and the blue spot exploded and surrounded us in a dome of floating blue speckles.
"What are these things?" I asked.
"In simple terms, over-stimulated neurons that you inherited from Jotunheim. I did some searching actually, the chances that you inherited even the tiniest amount of these neurons was one out of fourteen million six hundred and five." He looked at me. "Your brain is replicating these neurons, and I don't know why or how."
"Is that why everything started flying around today?"
"Well that's what I need to figure out." He shrunk the neurons back down and brought up the x-ray of my brain again. "Your brain is producing these neurons at a very fast rate and the original location of them is... here." He pointed to where the glowing blue light was. "Jarvis what is this part of the brain called?"
"That, sir, would be the amygdala. Each person has two on either side of their brain and they are responsible for emotions, survival instincts, and memory."
"Your telekinesis is located in the same part of your brain as one of your amygdalae. The neurons are replicating so quickly that they are coming in contact with the amygdala. When you had that episode this afternoon, the neurons took over and that's why everything started moving and breaking involuntarily." Tony spoke, not fully to me, but to himself mostly.
"So... what are we gonna do? I can't just break everything around me every time I panic."
He let out a breath and turned to me, leaning his elbows on his knees. "Victoria, have you ever had an episode like that before?"
I thought and shook my head. "No, not that I can remember."
"Weird..." he looked back at the screens with his eyebrows furrowed, scrolling through more slides. "Jarvis, calculate norepinephrine levels to serotonin levels."
There were a few beeps and things moved around on the screens. "Serotonin levels are currently averaging at 45%, norepinephrine levels are at an alarming 89%."
"Alarming?" I asked nervously.
"The two should be balanced." Tony said. "The stress of everything going on recently must've been the cause of your brain producing way too much norepinephrine. That's what caused the anxiety."
He looked frustrated. "What's wrong?"
He pressed his finger to his temple. "I'm the one that gave this to you. I have anxiety."
"You have anxiety?" I asked, shocked. He nodded embarrassingly. "But, you're Tony Stark! You're not supposed to be afraid of anything!"
He chuckled. "I'm not afraid, per-say. But things stress me out easily. Something you will unfortunately have to deal with as well, it seems."
"How do you deal with it?"
"I used to use an inhaler, years ago, starting when I was... about your age actually. I'll inquire about that now." He pulled out his phone.
"Dad, it's 9:30. Doctors' offices are closed."
"I know people."