a shit-ton of emotions and a trip to new york

"Um, hello? My name is Christa Amory. I want to speak to Tony Stark, please. I have reason to believe that he is my father."

Barton Homestead - January 8th, 2016

Thump. Thud. Creak.

That was the sound Christa's feet made as she stepped down the faintly rickety staircase. She herself couldn't hear it, but she could feel the vibrations coming through from her feet quite strongly. She could have made less of an impact, of course, but she was quite exhausted and her body felt heavy, gravity seemingly having increased on her tremendously over the seven hours she was asleep for.

Finally she reached the bottom, and then she reached the kitchen, and she was relieved upon turning the corner into it that she didn't see anybody at first. She rubbed her head, her hair the definition of bedhead, which had been hurting quite a bit since the previous night. She wasn't quite sure why. It wasn't like she had had any champagne (as best as she'd tried to sneak some, Clint, Natasha, and Laura's combined noses were able to sniff trouble out before the trouble was even considered, so her alcoholic plans had thus been thwarted). She hadn't known herself to have headaches like this before.

She really hoped this wasn't going to become permanent, like her mom's chronic migraines. Though she hadn't had any before herself, her mom's groaning and occasional skipping of work showed they couldn't exactly be fun.

"Where the hell is the good stuff?! Do they not buy any decent sustenance?!" Christa exclaimed. She'd opened the fridge and the cupboards and nothing had looked very appealing. She turned around very quickly, and her head started spinning a little. She winced. "Ow."

Then, finally, Christa noticed that she wasn't alone in the room.

"Oh. Hi."

"Hi." That's what she assumed Laura had said. Oh, yeah, it was Laura sitting at the kitchen table, her fingers wrapped around a mug of coffee. Christa could smell it very strongly from over here at the fridge. She wondered how she could have missed her in here, but then she realized that the woman's white robe blended in with the bright white light that shone through the windows of the place. It came in streaks, the sun not completely up in the sky yet, still rising. The colors from the outside were pinks and reds and blues and greens that nearly took Christa's breath away as she took a moment to stare out the windows on the farm outside.

There was a pause.

"You didn't by any chance hear my recent outburst, did you?" Christa asked tentatively. She was mainly worried for her pride's sake.

Laura's gaze turned over to the side as she gave a slight, tight-lipped smile, nodding slightly. Then she nodded back to Christa, still nodding. "Yeah," Christa thought she said. "I did."

Christa let out a long, weird puff of air. Holding up her hands in partial defeat, she asked, "Do you have anything good to eat?" Suddenly, a pang of pain hit her head. She winced and gave the tiniest exclamation of pain, rubbing her temple.

Laura beckoned for the girl to come over to the table. Christa did so slightly grudgingly, the pain in her head ebbing away slightly but still there.

I'm going to get you some food that will help with that, came a note from Laura, and before Christa could do anything about it, she had stood up and started grabbing different things out of the fridge and putting them in a blue plastic bowl. Within a minute, she had finished her work and set the bowl down in front of Christa, spoon inside as well.

Banana and yogurt. Perfect for headaches.

Christa looked at her. "Uh... thanks?" She took a look at the bowl. Hmm. Wouldn't hurt to try. She took a bite. It wasn't bad.

Laura gave a small smile. For a few minutes, the two of them sat there, neither of them saying a word. Laura sipped her coffee and Christa ate the yogurt. It was actually really good, and though she was hard put to believe in these types of "natural" remedies, she thought her headache just might be alleviating.

She was surprised at how natural it felt to sit here with Laura. She'd only known the woman for a week, and it was a little hard for Christa to get close to people, but with her... it was like Laura was a second mom to her now. Maybe. Or maybe at this point more like a decently close aunt, who knew?

After a little while, Christa saw out of the corner of her eye Laura pick up one of the pads of paper that had become littered throughout the house, write something down on it, and then pass it to the girl.

Christa, are you okay?

Christa tensed up. She wasn't expecting to be interrogated, especially not this early in the morning.

Also... had it been that obvious?

Christa shrugged. "Chipper as a woodpecker."

Laura raised an eyebrow.

Yeah... Christa would never say that.

She tried to give a smile, but it was comically fake.

Pen in hand, paper to Christa.

Christa... I know what it's like to lose a parent.

Just hit the nail on the head, didn't she?

At Christa's frozen expression, Laura quickly added:

I lost both of mine when I was twelve.

Christa kept looking at the paper, not saying a word.

If there's anyone you want to talk to... ever... I'm here.

Vibrations coming through the air. The sounds of a baby crying through a monitor, perhaps?

Laura's head turned to the device, and she sighed. A quick note--

Nathaniel's awake.

As the woman started heading out of the kitchen, Christa suddenly exclaimed, "Wait!"

Laura turned around, head tilted slightly, a question on her face.

"I... I can go get him." Christa wasn't quite sure what she was saying. She'd barely learned how to handle a baby just days ago, and she was offering to go and calm him down and give him his bottle? What was this? "You... go get yourself some breakfast."

Laura's eyebrows raised a little in pleasant surprise, but also asking, "Are you sure?" Yeah, Christa was just really good at reading people, she supposed.

She stepped forward, passing by Laura, grabbing a bottle of cold milk from the fridge, and went up to the baby's room.

Christa couldn't hear the baby crying, but somehow she could... feel the vibrations of his sobs through the air--the ground... odd. She knew the senses could be powerful, but not this powerful....

Looking down at the six-month-old, his tiny pink face scrunched up, Christa suddenly felt a rush of what might have been fear go through her. Oh shit. Damnit, why had she offered to do this? Comfort a little baby? Ha, that was not her forte.

"Shh... shh...." She carefully lifted the baby up from his crib. Dang, he was kind of heavy. But his skin was so soft. His hair, a large patch of dark brown fuzz that was starting to come in need of a haircut, was like a feather. Christa gently tried to stick the bottle of milk into his mouth, but he pushed her hand away, tears starting to pour from his eyes much more fiercely than should be normal.

Panic started coursing through her. "It's okay... just... you need--food--" She rubbed against the infant's cheek with her thumb in an attempt to calm him, when suddenly, an overwhelming feeling of fear and pain shocked her system. She stumbled backwards, causing Nathaniel to cry a little harder.

"Aw, shit aw shit aw shit--"

But that pain--what was that pain from?

She tried to rub his cheek again. It took a moment, but suddenly the same extremely painful, fearful feeling coursed through her once more.

"Nathaniel...."

Footsteps could be felt through the floor. Christa turned around and saw Laura come into the room. The woman's eyes didn't hold anger or anything like that, but Christa was still panicking and she had no idea where this pain or fear was coming from. It had just appeared out of nowhere when she had touched the baby's face.

"He's--he's not taking the bottle." Christa was surprised at how shaky her voice felt. She started handing the baby over to Laura.

Laura took the baby in her arms and started rocking him gently. Christa handed her the bottle, and when she tried putting it in the infant's mouth, he protested. An expression of concern crossed the mother's face.

"And... I think... something's... wrong." Christa's eyes met Laura's, brown on brown. Laura looked at her intently. "He's in pain. And he's scared." Somehow, she knew that. Whatever she had just felt course through her, he was feeling too. "In lots of pain and really scared."

Laura nodded. She looked as though she was about to say something, but stopped. She started walking out of the room, and Christa followed her.

Oh, gosh. Oh damn oh damn oh damn... had she done this? The logical part of her brain said no but the other part said yes. She'd never dealt with anything like this before. How was she supposed to handle something like this? She wasn't good with people. Or at least, little kids. Maybe people her age. Maybe adults.

Oh, damnit--how did parents do this?

| | |

As it turned out, something really wrong had been going on with Nathaniel. Fortunately, the doctors had taken care of it, and he was going to be okay. Turns out he had been in a lot of pain, like Christa had... sensed. Was that it?

Maybe.

At this point, she wasn't so sure.

Later in the day, in the evening when everything had been sorted out and baby Nathan was asleep and safe, the family was in the living room together. Christa and Laura sat together on the couch, while Clint, Cooper, and Lila were on the floor several feet away, playing with LEGOs. Coffee was in both Laura and Christa's hands, its warmth and its scent washing over the house like a blanket in the middle of a snowstorm.

As she watched the kids and Clint together, Christa thought back to her own dad. Who was he? Okay, that was a stupidass question to ask. But... was he her dad? And should she go find out?

She knew the answer was yes, but... did she want to?

"Everything about you is like your dad...."  

Techno-wiz. Sarcasm dripping from every word. Cocky. Confident.

Maybe that was true....

Christa turned to Laura, a set expression on her face. "Laura...."

But no. She couldn't tell her. She couldn't say anything, because if she said anything she felt like she might cry. And her ego couldn't handle that.

A gentle hand touched her own, Laura's hand, but she brushed it away and unconsciously turned on her phone, checking the time without remembering it, turning her phone back off and dropping it on the couch beside her.

You keep checking that. What's going on?

That was a new note from Laura, written down with the loving hand of someone who just wanted to understand her. But what if Christa didn't want to be understood?

She just shook her head.

A pause.

Another note:

That day, in the office--what were you doing?

Christa stared at it for several hard, long seconds. Then she took the paper, rolled it up into a furious ball, and tossed it backwards.

Laura's eyebrow raised.

Christa, I'm not going to ask again. Whatever it is, please tell me.

Christa stared ahead of her, not seeing, folded her arms in front of her, stubbornly avoiding the question. Should she leave the room? Yeah, probably. Would Laura follow after her? Yeah, probably.

So in those moments, she stayed.

But if Laura followed her, would Christa care?

No. No, she would sure as heck try not to.

She stood up, about to exit the room, when Laura quickly shoved a new ball of paper into her hand. She paused and stared at it, and her heart stopped for a moment.

You hacked into the hospital database, didn't you? You were looking for whatever's wrong with your blood. And you found something you didn't like, did you?

A moment standing there, unnoticed by Clint and Cooper and Lila but definitely noticed by Laura, and then she turned around slowly and walked back to Laura.

The woman's head tilted, and Christa was surprised to see that her expression was not angry, merely sad. Disappointed.

What did you find, Christa?

No sweeties, no honeys, just plain, hard Christa.

To be called her own name was what did it.

She took a deep breath.

Do not cry. Let no emotions show.

She didn't cry. Unfortunately for her, she might have let some emotions show.

But she didn't use her words to describe what she had found, oh no. She merely showed Laura the picture.

The woman's eyes widened. Shock was evident on her face. Her eyes darted back and forth between the screen and Christa, and she seemed to be trying to hold back saying something loud. She fixed her face, made it slightly more steady. A quickly written note--

You think he's your dad. What do you wanna do about this?  

Christa stared at the phone.

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

POSSIBLE GENETIC RELATIONS FOUND:

• AMORY, ESTHER LILITH

• STARK, ANTHONY EDWARD

"I don't know."

| | |

So let's get this straight--you hacked into the hospital's database to figure out something you thought was suspicious about  your blood--on my computer--only to discover that Tony Stark is your dad?

"That's about the gist of it, yeah."

Clint gave Christa an incredulous look.

Kid, what am I gonna do with you?

She didn't need the note to know what he had meant with the look.

"Well, apparently nothing for much longer, because as soon as I have a word with Mr. Abandons-His-Child-Without-A-Word, he's gonna be the one who has the legal obligation to take me in."

Christa leaned on the table at which Clint, Laura beside him, sat, an expression of "we're doing this whether you like it or not" on her face.

Clint stared off into space for several seconds, then stared at Christa for several seconds, and then turned back to staring into space for several more seconds. Finally he wrote Christa another note.

You're... sure about this?

"I didn't know my dad for fifteen years. I don't even know if he's my dad! Hell yeah I wanna know!"

Clint rubbed his temple. Poor guy--Christa was probably the first teenager he had to deal with like this.

Laura put a hand on his. She'd already said that Christa could go to the certain Stark she wanted to, but she and Clint worked as a team--it was up to him, too.

After a few moments, the man lifted his head up. He wrote another note, which Christa read over his shoulder.

Fine. But just so you know--if you get into any crazy business--I'm retired.

A smile (perhaps not so much on the genuine side) broke out over Christa's face. "Great! Let's get in the car."

Clint looked at her with disbelief. Right now? It's five in the morning and the kids and I stayed up late.

That was true. After the reveal Christa had given to the woman, Laura had quickly and quietly promised that she would let Christa figure out what to do with her new information in her own time, and Clint, Cooper, Lila, and Christa had started playing several board games. Christa won all of them. Except for the luck ones, but those didn't count in her book; luck didn't buy you success--high intelligence did. And that was what she had.

Maybe it was a little unfair for the thirteen and eight-year-old, but what could she say? Christa didn't like to lose.

Christa looked him in the eyes. Her expression turned into the puppy-dog-eyes look. She had been too anxious to get this figured out to even notice the time. It wasn't something she paid much attention too, anyway.

Finally, he gave in. All right, all right, I'll take you there. But let me eat something first, please.

Christa grinned. Then she reached over and gave him a hug. "Thank you."

Clint tensed up for a split second at the touch, but then relaxed and hugged her back. He couldn't say anything that she could hear, but she knew what he would have wanted to say anyway.

| | |

So later that day, everything was settled.

A quick visit to the hospital to say goodbye to Angus.

You're leaving? So soon? I barely just started being able to eat real food, he'd joked.

"You'll be able to do that just fine without me. And if not, that would be absolutely terrible," she'd responded, almost jokingly, kind of sarcastically.

They'd spoken, a little more easily than before, and Christa wasn't quite sure why. Maybe it was to make up for the fact that she was leaving to visit the man she'd never known but shared her blood, and she had no idea how long she was going to be there without coming back to Angus.

And then, because the time on the plane ticket deemed it so, Christa had to leave.

A plane trip to New York (since Tony Stark lived several states away). Tickets surprisingly available for them to leave in just a matter of hours after the initial information reveal to Clint. A sad farewell between Cooper, Lila, Laura, Nathaniel, and Christa and Clint. The kids and woman didn't know when they would next see Christa.

Can we visit you in New York? Lila had asked via a messily written note.

Christa read the note, and then she looked up into those soft, puppy-like brown eyes. A small smile crossed her face. "Yeah, you can visit me in New York, Lil Arrow." A nickname affectionately given to her a few days ago, during which Lila showed her how Clint had started teaching her how to use his favorite weapon (a kid-friendly version, of course).

Lila rushed towards her and wrapped her small arms around Christa's waist.

And then they had to say goodbye.

And the rest... it was so fast--the drive to the airport, Christa's first ever trip on a plane, the drive to Stark tower--

And she wasn't sure she was ready. But she had to be.

Because holy shit, she was about to meet the man that might be her dad.

| | |

Sunset. Deep breaths. Smooth metal. And huge doors to walk through.

"Um, hello? My name is Christa Amory. I want to speak to Tony Stark, please. I have reason to believe that he is my father."

Yeah, the woman was right to look shocked and for her only response to be a gaping mouth, eyes wider than dinner plates.

At the woman's silence, Christa asked, "What, do you want me to say 'bonjour' or something?"

The pleasant-looking woman had been the one to great them. Dirty-blonde hair and sky-blue eyes, she had been slightly surprised when Clint walked into the building with a brown-haired teenage girl in tow. The building no other than the Avengers Tower in New York, of course.

All Christa would be able to say about it at this point, despite her many areas in mechanical expertise, was that it was huge.

"I'm... Jackie Anderson. Pepper Potts's assistant. I will get you to Mr. Stark immediately," the woman said.

Clint translated it for Christa via notepad.

"Great!" It was a sarcastic great on Christa's part. "Let's go."

And they started walking.

"So she's deaf? How old is she? Where is her mother? Where did you find this girl?" she asked, walking in front of Christa and beside Clint, her formerly forced pleasant and smiling expression upon meeting the girl now turned to one of shock, surprise, confusion... etc. She had tried to hide it in a business-woman sort of persona immediately, but Christa didn't find it hard to read people and she could tell the woman was not exactly expecting visitors of this type.

"Yes, fifteen, dead, and her house blew up," Clint responded.

"And you... what? Saved her from the ruins?"

"Um, pretty much, yeah."

They walked, Jackie Anderson's heels click-clacking against the smooth metal floor of the Avengers Tower, Clint walking quite quietly beside her (his training came naturally to him even in his retired state), Christa stepping along behind them, head held high with determination she'd never quite encountered before. And somehow... she didn't feel as nervous as she might have thought she would be upon being told that this would happen to her. Well, if this had been told to her in the past, she would have told whoever had given her the information to go a mental institution. But now....

Okay.

The door.

Now her heart was pounding.

The door was opening....

Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump--

Was that a dark brown beard she saw?

Was this what it felt like to have a heart attack?

Stepping inside--stepping--stepping--

"Mr. Stark, there's someone here to see you," said Jackie.

"Who the hell is it?"

"Well, sir, she seems to think she's your daughter."

"Christ."

"Actually, it's Christa."