❝Are my screams loud enough for you to hear me?❞
↪Tony Stark is known to be many things, but only few people know that being a father is one of those, and sometimes he seems to forget it too.
Being the daughter of a genius, billionaire, playboy and...
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Tony was sitting in a car in his workshop looking at holograms.
"Query complete sir" Jarvis informed him "Anton Vanko was a Soviet physicist who defected to the United States in 1963" Tony looked up at the screen "However, he was accused of espionage and was deported in 1967. His son, Ivan, who is also a physicist, was convicted of selling Soviet-era weapons grade plutonium to Pakistan, and served 15 years in Kopeisk prison. No further records exist"
Rhodey opened the door and walked in.
"Tony, you gotta get upstairs and get on top of this situation right now. Listen. I've been on the phone with the National Guard all day, trying to talk them out of rolling tanks up the PCH, knocking down your front door and taking these" he said, pointing at the wall of suits "They're gonna take your suits, Tony, okay? They're sick of the games"
Tony didn't take his eyes off the screen.
"You said nobody else would possess this technology for 20 years. Well, guess what? Somebody else had it yesterday. It's not theoretical anymore" Rhodey walked over to the car and turned his friend "Are you listening to me?" Tony's eyes slightly rolled back to place "Are you okay?"
"Let's go" Tony said, getting out the car.
"Hey, man" Tony collapsed on the ground "Hey, hey! You all right?"
"Yeah, I should get to my desk" Tony said while Rhodey supported him "See that cigar box?"
"Yeah"
"It's palladium"
Rhodey opened the box to see all of his chip-like squares lined up. Tony pulled out his core and held it up towards him.
"Is that supposed to be smoking?" Rhodey asked concerned.
"If you must know, it's neutron damage. It's from the reactor wall"
"You had this in your body?" Rhodey asked as he scooped the aging palladium out of the reactor "And how about the high-tech crossword puzzle on your neck?"
"Road rash. Thank you" Tony said as he replaced the Reactor and started drinking the green liquid.
"Do Carina and Pepper know?"
"No, and they don't have to know" Tony shook his head.
"Don't you think they have a right to know?"
"I don't think Carina cares about my health" Tony rolled his eyes.
"Can you blame her?" Rhodey mumbled.
"Look, I know I've been a bad father and I still will. Every time I ask her forgiveness, I only make it worse because I always say the wrong thing without even realizing it"
"Sometimes you have to take small steps to achieve a result" Rhodey explained "Call her, tell her you want to talk to her and if you don't want to talk to me or Pepper about your problem at least tell your daughter, I'm sure she will help you. You wanna do this whole lone gunslinger act and it's unnecessary. You don't have to do this alone"
"You know, I wish I could believe that. I really do. But you've gotta trust me. Contrary to popular belief, I know exactly what I'm doing"
"Whatever you want, but call her"
✴···✴···✴
Carina was finishing her hair when the phone started ringing. Without looking at who was calling her, she answered.
"Pronto?" (Hello?)
No one answered on the other end of the phone, though she could hear whoever called her breathing. Carina pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at who had called her.
Tony Stark
At that moment, she wanted so much to bang her head against the wall. Why does she have the bad habit of answering the phone without looking at whose calling her? The girl took a deep breath before placing the phone back to her ear.
"We may not have spoken in years, but I still have your number in my phone book, Tony"
"I thought you would never answer me" he said clearing his throat.
"Yeah well, I didn't check who was calling me" she said truthfully "But I answered you by now, so what do I owe your call to? Do you have any more insults for me?"
"I'm sorry for what I told you the other day... and I'm sorry for everything I've said and done to you during these nineteen years. You don't deserve everything I put you through" he sighed.
"You know, when you were kidnapped by those terrorists last year they kidnapped you, I wasn't worried or scared at all about what could happen to you" Carina said "Pepper and Uncle Rhodey on the other hand were desperate. When she came out of your office, Pepper would start crying thinking I didn't hear her and Rhodey thought I didn't see her red eyes when she came to me to see how I was"
"Carina I--"
"Let me finish please" she cut him off "Every time they came to me, I saw how they were studying each other, how they were looking for some sign that could tell them that I was interested to know about the situation you might be in at that moment, but they found nothing. I should have felt sad, dejected, hopeless because even if you were gone from my life altogether I would end up alone in the world, but I didn't feel any of that"
Tony sighed knowing that this whole situation was all his fault.
"That's how I realized why I didn't feel anything when they kidnapped you, that's how I realized that actually I've always been alone in the world, sure, I had pepper sometimes, but she couldn't give me the affection that my real parents could give me"
"When you came back you apologized to me, and you seemed really seeking my forgiveness, but then everything went back to the way it was before, I don't exist for you, and you don't exist for me. After Obadiah kidnapped me, you didn't even come to visit me in the hospital"
"I was there" Tony said surprising her "I stood in the hallway the whole time waiting for you to wake up and when you did I left. I knew you didn't want to see me"
"You don't know me, Tony. How did you know that you weren't the first person I wanted to see at that moment?" This time it was he who was surprised "Why didn't you come looking for me afterwards?"
"I was afraid" he said truthfully "Every time I try to take one step towards you, I actually take a hundred steps back"
"Maybe it's a sign of destiny, that nothing can fix things between us" she shrugged.
"I thought as a math and a physicist you didn't believe in fate"
"Sometimes there are things that not even mathematics and physics can explain"
"Maybe because they haven't tried all the variables"
"And you, Tony, have you tried all the variables?"
"I did it"
"Is that why you called me? To say goodbye?" From the silence that fell on the other end of the phone after that question, Carina suspected she was right.
"I don't know what you are talking about"
"Please, Tony" Carina rolled her eyes "The palladium in your chest is poisoning you, we both knew this was going to happen"
"You're right" he sighed.
"Well, let me tell you something, sometimes us mathematicians to find answers to questions never studied before we have to create new formulas ourselves, and you know what's funny? Sometimes the variables we need are right under our eyes"
