Beautiful Chaos

{part three | chapter three}

It had been a month. Wanda was still sleeping on an air mattress in Lilith's room. She was plagued by nightmares about Pietro and the incident in Lagos. And though Lilith's nights were still restless due to dreams that were occupied by Loki, she did her best to bring the younger girl some comfort when the nightmares became too much. 

Though she was exhausted from another night of barely any sleep, Lilith hadn't been able to sit still throughout the whole presentation. Thankfully it wouldn't be much longer. She listened from stage right as her father, grandmother, and grandfather spoke. 

"Be nice, Dear, he's been studying abroad."

"Really? Which broad? What's her name?"

"Anna," Lilith smiled slightly at the sound of her mother's name, her father had always said it with so much admiration in his voice. She pulled her focus back to the presentation.

"I love you Dad, and I know you did the best you could," The holograms moved about the stage as if they were real. The young version of Tony froze in place as his parents walked away. The real Tony appeared in a holographic doorway and began his speech.

"That's how I wished it happened. Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing. Or... BARF. God I need to work on that acronym. An extremely costly method of hijacking the hippocampus to... clear traumatic memories." He leaned over to blow out a holographic candle and the scene shimmered and faded away. He looked at Lilith with a bittersweet smile, "It doesn't change the fact that they never made it to the air port, or the fact that they never met the lovely Anna or their granddaughter... or all the things I did to avoid processing my grief but... Plus six-hundred-eleven-million dollars for my little therapeutic experiment? No one in the right mind would have funded it." 

He looked at Lilith with a bittersweet smile, before turning back to the auditorium full of students, "Help me out, what's the MIT mission statement?"

"Dad!" Lilith called, rushing him away from the backstage when his speech was over. She pulled him into a tight hug, "You did great. Sorry about the teleprompter. They said they didn't know Pepper cancelled until last minute and didn't have time to fix it."

"Thanks Lee Lee. And don't worry about the teleprompter. Wanna grab some cheese burgers on the way home?"

"Um, yes. I'm offended you even have to ask." They made their way down the hall and towards the elevators. A woman was standing there, already waiting. 

"That was nice, what you did for those young people," she said.

"They deserve it. Plus it helps my conscience."

"They say there's a correlation between generosity and guilt. But if you've got the money... break as many eggs as you like. Right?" Tony smiled at the woman but Lilith felt as though something was off about her. She reached out and pressed the elevator button, staring deliberately at the woman as she did so. 

"You going up?"

"I'm right where I want to be," She dug her hand into her purse and Lilith whipped a pocket knife out of her jeans and held it inches from the woman's throat. The woman looked at her in shock as she pulled out a piece of paper, a photo.

"Lilith!"

"Sorry, just a precaution." The young woman put her blade back in her pocket.

"I work for the State Department. Human Resources. I know it's boring... but it enabled me to raise a son. I'm very proud of what he grew up to be," She shoved the photo at Tony, "His name was Charlie Spencer. You murdered him. In Sokovia. Not that it matters in the least to you. You think you fight for us. You just fight for yourself." The two Starks stared at the photo, too shocked to say anything right away.