stark, peter parker

i. cheers to unemployment

"he does miss you when you are not here." maria stark told her son. "and, frankly, you're going to miss us, because this is the last time we're all going to be together. you know what's about to happen. say something. if you don't, you'll regret it."

howard stark walked back into the room, and tony stark turned to him. "i love you, dad. and i know you did the best you could." he said before his mother kissed him on the cheek, leaning back to reveal modern-day tony stark standing in the background with his younger self before him. the screen paused, leaving the present tony standing alone in a memory.

"that's how i wish it happened." present tony spoke. "binary augmented retro-framing, or b.a.r.f. god, i gotta work on that acronym." he muttered. "an extremely costly method of hijacking the hippocampus to... clear traumatic memories. huh." tony blew on a candle in the scene around him, watching as everything around him dissolved.

"it doesn't change the fact that they never made it to the airport, or all the things i did to avoid processing my grief, but..." tony trailed off as he removed his glasses. "plus, 611 million dollars for my little therapeutic experiment? no one in the right mind would've ever funded it. help me out," tony said to the audience before him, "what's the mit mission statement? 'to generate, disseminate, and preserve knowledge. and work with others to bring it to bear on the world's great challenges.'" the students joined in his mantra, their voices monotone.

"well, you are the others. and, as quiet as it's kept, the challenges facing you are the greatest mankind's ever known. plus, most of you are broke."

dakota stark chuckled in the audience, watching as the crowd reacted to her father. it was undeniable that dakota, or kodie, as happy hogan had first nicknamed her, was similar to her father. the two starks shared the same cocky and sarcastic sense of humor, the same intelligence, and the same recklessness. kodie would be lying if she said she didn't look up to her father. he was her role model, and she was the reason he tried to do better, to be better. for her.

she was now standing in the very back of the room, and was really only there because she had to be. finishing his speech, tony claimed that he was funding all of the students' projects, to which they cheered and applauded him.

it was hard not to notice tony's small moment of silence. dakota turned to look at the screen behind her with his notes on it, feeling a pain in her heart as she saw what it was that made him falter. pepper potts. tony and his girlfriend, pepper (whom dakota loved deeply), had taken a break. it tore kodie apart-- she had cried for days after the woman left their previously shared home, and she had yet to come back. 

since dakota didn't have a mother figure, nor did anyone know who her mother was, she had always looked up to pepper. losing her was just another blow to her heart. after the events of sokovia, kodie was left broken and defeated for a while. she had befriended pietro maximoff, only for him to die shortly after their meeting. however, it had blossomed a friendship between her and his sister, wanda, the other teen avenger. she supposed it was better to focus on the positive things than the negatives. which would be easier to do if she didn't feel like she was at a current low. 

once her father's speech had finished, kodie got up from her position leaning against the wall and went out a side door in order to meet tony backstage. she met her father, who gave her a nod in greeting. physical affection was rare between the two, and they rarely even spoke affection verbally. they knew that they were the only thing keeping the other going, and things like that often don't need to be said aloud.

the father and daughter stood quietly, waiting for the doors of the elevator in front of them to open. the silence only deepened when they noticed that a woman was standing there, seemingly also waiting on the elevator.