The Golden Daughter✓Tony Stark

12: Revenge.

"…This is my first time. We designed this to come off, so…Hey. I really should be able to…" I heard dad say as I head down to the lab. I could see the silhouette of a figure and I'm guessing it's Pepper.

"Please, try not to move, sir." JARVIS asks as the mechanical hand pull at the suit.

"What's going on here?" Pepper asks and dad turns to her and there was an awkward silence for a few seconds.

"Let's face it. This is not the worst thing you've caught me doing." Dad replies.

"Are those bullet holes?" Pepper asks and I facepalm. This is going to be a long day.

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"You're going to ask her?" I ask dad as we tinkered with some part of the suit to make it easy to come off.

"Yeah. It would look less suspicious. If you go, he might suspect something." Dad replies.

Pepper enters through the lift.

"Hey. You busy? You mind if I send you on an errand?" He asks and she nods. "I need you to go to my office. You're going to hack into the mainframe and you're going to retrieve all the recent shipping manifests. This is a lock chip. This'll get you in. It's probably under Executive Files. If not, they put it on a ghost drive, in which case you need to look for the lowest numeric heading." Dad says, moving to one of the computer screens after he hands Pepper the drive.

"And what do you plan to do with this information if I bring it back here?" Pepper asks with a straight face.

"Same drill. They've been dealing under the table, and I'm going to stop them. I'm going to find my weapons and destroy them." Dad replies.

"Tony," Pepper starts with a soft sigh. "you know that I would help you with anything, but I cannot help you if you're going to start all of this again."

"There is nothing except this. There's no art opening. There is no benefit. There is nothing to sign. There is the next mission and nothing else." Dad explains

"Is that so? Well, then, I quit." She says, throwing the drive back on the desk and started to walk out.

"Pepper-" I start but dad cuts me off.

"You stood by my side all these years while I reaped the benefits of destruction. And now that I'm trying to protect the people that I put in harm's way, you're going to walk out?" Dad asks and she paused for a second before turning around.

"You're going to kill yourself, Tony. I'm not going to be a part of it." She replies, her voice cracking a bit.

"I shouldn't be alive," dad starts taking a seat, "unless it was for a reason. I'm not crazy, Pepper. I just finally know what I have to do. And I know in my heart that it's right." Dad says and there was a tense silence. Pepper's eyes flickered to me and I nodded at her.

She lets out a sigh before picking up the drive. "You're all I have, too, you know, both of you." She says before walking out the door and I see a faint smile on dad's face.

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The phone ringing makes me go downstairs. It's been ringing for quite awhile now.

"Dad? Have you picked up the phone?" I call out to dad as I head downstairs.

I didn't hear a reply and I sighed. He must be blasting his music again in the lab.

I walk into the living room to see dad laying on the couch, very pale and his veins popping out of his neck.
"Dad? Dad?! A -are you okay? Is it the arc reactor? I'm going to call for help, just-" I hear a sharp sound behind my ears and I suddenly lose control of my body.

This is not possible. We destroyed all the prototype.

I feel myself being lifted onto the couch beside dad and my eyes meet the blue ones of someone I grew up looking up to.

"There's so many applications for causing short-term paralysis." Obadiah started. "When I ordered the hit on you, I worried that I was killing one of my golden geese. But, you see, it was just fate that you survived that." He pulls out a device from somewhere and placed it over dad's arc reactor. "You had one last golden egg to give." He said as he ripped it out, blood pours out of dad's ear.

"Do you really think that just because you have an idea, it belongs to you? Your father, he helped give us the atomic bomb. Now, what kind of world would it be today if he was as selfish as you?" He continues as he rips out the wire completely, dad gasps. I tried to scream but I couldn't. Tears fall out of my eyes and I've never felt so helpless in my entire life. He takes a seat beside dad, holding the arc reactor in his hand, not caring that life was slowly draining out of his body.

"Oh, it's beautiful. Tony, this is your Ninth Symphony. What a masterpiece. Look at that. This is your legacy. A new generation of weapons with this at its heart. Weapons that will help steer the world back on course, put the balance of power in our hands. The right hands. I wish you could've seen my prototype. It's not as…well, not as conservative as yours. Too bad you had to involve Pepper in this. I would have preferred that she lived." He stands up after putting the reactor in a suitcase. I was relieved. There was another arc reactor somewhere in the lab. I'd seen it the other day before we left for the gala. If he could just leave, I could find a way to get down there and-

"And you. I sorta owe a debt to a friend- or acquittance, who finds your life very valuable, so you're coming with me." He says as he picks me up and throws me over his shoulder like a rag doll. He put me down outside, beside his car and hits something against back of my head, making me fall to the ground, black spots clouding my vision.

He pulls me into the car and zooms off. That's the last thing I remember before falling into darkness.

A/N:
Next update: Friday.