to mull things over and to see glasses shatter

"Yeah, I... I'm fine. Don't know if that's what you asked, but I'm fine."

Barton Homestead - January 7th, 2016

STARK, ANTHONY EDWARD

STARK, ANTHONY EDWARD

STARK, ANTHONY EDWARD--

Her mind was spinning. Her world was out of order, entirely out of whack, absolutely and undeniably unsteady, unpredictable, and incalculable, and Christa Amory was not used to it being this way in the least.

She stared at the screen in front of her, her eyes wider than the horizon lining the ocean at dawn, the light and words from the device before her reflecting from the brown that lay within them.

FILE ON: BLOOD > GENETICS > RELATIONS WITH PATIENTS IN DATABASE

POSSIBLE GENETIC RELATIONS FOUND:

• AMORY, ESTHER LILITH

• STARK, ANTHONY EDWARD

Christa's eyes wouldn't leave the screen. She realized after several seconds when they started stinging and watering, the liquid making the screen before her slightly blurred, that she hadn't blinked in all that time since the click that changed everything.

She had never expected this.

Her mind was buzzing and her world was turning upside down, and she could have sworn that the ringing was starting to come back in her ears.

She tried to register what was on the screen in front of her, but....

STARK, ANTHONY EDWARD

....She couldn't.

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime but might only have been seconds, Christa saw something in the reflection of her phone screen (set strategically on the desk for just this type of dilemma) showing movement outside the door to the office.

Shit. Shit shit shit shi--

She swung around in her chair and stood up at the exact same moment Laura entered the room. Her eyes must have looked wild because Laura's expression turned to that of concern the moment she came in.

"Christa?" she seemed to be saying. She was saying something else too, probably asking what was wrong, but obviously Christa couldn't hear her so she didn't know.

She just shook her head. She wasn't quite sure at this point.

About anything.

She wasn't even sure how reliable the words on the screen could be, and that was nearly as frightening as the prospect that they were true.

Christa gave her head a quick shake. She reached for it, about to clutch it, as it started to throb with pain with the movement, but then pulled her hand back down. She looked into Laura's soft brown eyes.

She cleared her throat and stood up a little straighter. "Yeah, I... I'm fine. Don't know if that's what you asked, but I'm fine."

Laura tilted her head slightly. "Christa--" she seemed to be saying again.

"What did you come in here for, anyway? To tell me that the cake was saved?" The air still smelled burnt, but the more she could do to distract from her more-than-momentary disorientation, the better.

Laura gave a sort of half-smile. She seemed about to say something, but stopped herself. She pulled out the pad of paper and wrote:

Unfortunately, we couldn't salvage it.

Christa gave a slight smirk that felt fake. "Well, Clint doesn't like cake anyways, right? I hear he eats arrows for breakfast."

Laura's smile grew a little, and she gave a small chuckle. A pad of paper, in her hands one moment and Christa's the next, said:

Come, would you? We're trying to figure out something else for him. Also, dinner's almost ready.

"Give me a minute. I've got something I need to... ah... finish up."

Laura put a gentle, loose hand on Christa's shoulder. Her touch was warm despite the limited contact. She gave her a small smile before leaving the room.

Christa watched the woman go, and let out a huge, long breath of air. She knew it was probably largely because of her current... circumstances... but the woman was so kind to her.

And her emotions were all kind of out of whack because she had just found out she was freaking super closely related to Tony Stark.

She zipped back into the chair and went back to staring at the screen. What to do, what to do.... She had to get rid of the tab so she didn't look suspicious in any way or form, but all that work.... She gave another sigh. She would just have to take a picture of it, she supposed; she wasn't getting rid of this information just like that.

The removal of her phone from a back pocket, a press of the button, and the information was hers to keep.

Quickly (as possible--this computer kind of sucked) getting rid of her open tab, she shut down the computer, twirled around in and out of her seat (it was quite fun, actually), and exited the now dimming room, sunset visible through the window that was the only source of light now.

As she started walking, she stopped in her tracks. Her phone had vibrated again. She rolled her eyes--it was Angus (did he need to text her again?)--and opened up to her conversation with him.

Nerd

Hey, how're things?

Hey, you feeling better?

Am I annoying you?

Christa felt a slight pang. She should have been communicating with him more these past few days, but with everything going on... she'd been more focused on adjusting to the farm life that was the Bartons'.

Christa

I'm feeling fine, you incessant worrier. I should be asking you how you're doing

She really should be.

It was within seconds that he responded.

Nerd

Nah... I haven't gone through what you have. But what's up?

Christa

Well, it's a certain Clint Barton's birthday.

Nerd

Do Avengers have that sort of thing?

Christa

They had to have been born sometime, I suppose. Whether they were just bred on a superhero farm or not

Nerd

Oh yeah, what's it like there at the Bartons'?

I mean I know you told me before but... you know

Christa

Very farmy

There was a longer pause this time between texts.

Nerd

Listen, I gotta go. Have fun, okay?

Christa gave a small smile.

Christa

If eating burnt cake counts as fun, then sure. Bye

Nerd

Bye :)

Should she tell him about her... findings... later?

Yeah... she probably should.

She still had absolutely no idea what she wanted to do.

| | |

"You don't think it was an attack on you, then?" It was a confirming question coming from a certain Natasha Romanoff, aimed towards a particular Clint Barton. They'd been sitting at the kitchen table for the last few minutes, and Laura had opened up a discussion on the issue of the bombing. The kids had been sent on a mission to search for some sort of treat in the pantry while dinner finished cooling on the counter. The room smelled strongly of pepperoni pizza.

Clint turned now to look Natasha right in the eyes. Giving a shake of the head, he said, "No, I don't." He sat up a little straighter. "Look at the facts. For one, that bomb hit a house across the street from me--don't you think the bombers would have been a little bit more careful when trying to kill an Avenger? For another, I didn't even know I was gonna be on that street until... I don't know, twenty minutes before we arrived there. How could a bomber know where I would be that fast?"

"I mean, it's possible--" Natasha put in.

"--but unlikely," Clint finished her sentence.

"Another thing to be considered...." Natasha was the one who spoke, and she paused after a moment, as if debating how to phrase the words properly. "....What if it wasn't an accident that it was Christa's house that was bombed? Her mom died two days before, right? What if she was involved with something... bad, and--"

"--the only thing protecting her was her mom?" Clint looked down at the table, then to his wife.

"Could it be likely?" Laura asked.

Her husband paused. He rubbed a hand on his chin. "I... don't know. I don't want it to be." He let out a long, exhausted sigh and rubbed his hands through his hair and over the rest of his head. "If it could just be... I don't know... just enemies of me trying to constantly murder me... that would be great...." He looked straight ahead of him, not at either of the people beside him. Then he turned back to them. "I don't want that girl to be cursed with the same sh*t as me."

Laura rubbed his back. Suddenly, the sounds of crying could be heard through a monitor on a nearby counter. "Nate's woken up. Let's talk about this later; we need to eat dinner, anyway." She stood up and left the room.

The moment she had gone, Clint looked over at Natasha. "Do you think she'll notice if I steal one of those slices of pizza before she comes back?"

"I think she'll kill you if you eat anything before us." She looked him dead in the eye. "And so will I."

| | |

So the family ate three wonderful homemade pizzas together--courtesy of Laura, of course. The result of the dessert had been solved by Christa, who found a box of Oreos stashed deep in the crevices of the pantry. When asked how she had found them, all she responded was that she had a particularly good sense of smell--especially when it came to Oreos. All was fun and games as they ravenously stuffed the pizza into their mouths (Clint's pepperoni pizza, his favorite meal ever, was gone in what was only minutes), but when Cooper offered to get milk to dunk the Oreos into (apparently that was a thing in the Barton house), something odd happened.

He'd stood up and was reaching into the cupboard when through Christa's vision flashed something....

--Natasha teasing Clint about how many glasses he could hold--

....It was odd--she felt like she was there but at the same time not there, able to feel what was happening but briefly, quickly and then slowly, an odd sensation running through her body, her mind clear and sharp at the same time....

--seven glasses in Clint's arms--

...it was almost as if there was a filter on her brain and her eyes....

--a crash, glass shattering on the table, baby Nathaniel's tiny face scrunching up as though about to cry--

Christa let out the tiniest of yelps. Lila, who sat next to her, looked at her, concerned. "Are you okay?" she seemed to be saying.

Christa gave a slight nod of the head, feeling faintly dizzy. "I'm fine." As she looked around, she saw no broken glass. She only saw Cooper standing up and walking towards the fridge, Clint standing up beside him--as though absolutely no time had passed, or seconds. And those flashes had felt like longer--a minute--maybe only seconds, actually--it was hard to tell.

Words formed on Natasha's lips. Christa didn't take much notice in them, but it looked like she was... teasing Clint... about something....

Clint was gathering up more glasses in his arms than he could carry....

The crash of the glass sent shocking vibrations through Christa's chest and she let out an even louder yelp.

As the people in front of her started rushing to clean up the glass, a strong feeling of "Did I just see the future?" coursed through her.

What the hell?

| | |

In the strongest sense of the word, weird was the only way to describe Christa's life right now. Her mother had just died, her house had just been blown up, she'd gone completely dead, and now she lived with an Avenger. Also--Tony Stark might be a particularly close relative of hers, and something had just happened to prove that she might be able to see the future.

That was what had just happened, right?

It was late at night, and Christa had been tossing and turning in her bed, trying to figure out how the hell she was supposed to figure everything in her life out. With everything that had happened to her... all the mysterious things her mother had said about her father... how was she supposed to not make the assumption she did? And how was she supposed to digest this on her own? Confirm her suspicions? Anything?

She finally sat up, stretched out her back, pulled out her phone, and started texting Angus.

Christa

You're good at solving problems, right?

It was surprisingly quickly that Angus responded.

Nerd

I suppose... what's up?

Along with explaining to him what exactly the doctor had said to her that day concerning the blood, she sent him the picture she had taken on the screen of the computer she had used to hack the database of the hospital that liked to keep important secrets from her.

Christa

This

There was a pause of several seconds before Angus next responded.

Nerd

Christa... oh, gosh... you know what this might mean, right?

Duh.

And it was the first time Christa finally, completely, and utterly admitted it to herself.

Christa

Yeah...

Tony Stark might be my dad.