After a very tense car ride and a reluctant stop at Doctor Doir's for her grazed knees, Jayden sat at the kitchen table with both guardians glowering at her on the other side. She firmly kept her eyes on the wooden surface, failing to ignore their crossed arms and taut expressions.
Tony was the first to break the ice, leaning forward to catch her eye. "What were you thinking?!"
"I wasn't," she practically snapped, refusing to lift her head from her downward glare.
"No, no, you don't get to do that. When I ask you a question, I expect you to answer it plain and simple. What was going through your head? Do you have any idea how stupid it was to run off like that?"
She only shrugged and focused on picking at the tiny marks on the table.
"Eyes up. You look at me when I'm talking!" he sharply commanded, hitting the table with his palm.
The blunt noise caused her to flinch, and her eyes jerked to him, her hands automatically settling into fists beside her legs. Her demeanour must have been telling as he paused, his eyes darting across her expression before a swift ripple of regret passed across his face. Pepper, who silently watched, touched his arm appeasingly.
"Tony, breathe," she said. "Jayden, at lunchtime, we had a call from your school. They told us you were seen running through the grounds before you vanished. They had no idea where you were. For a moment, we almost thought Hydra might've gotten to you again."
She frowned, guilt twisting in her stomach. Through her panic, self-deprecation, and then the confused thrill of seeing Bucky, she didn't stop to think of what her disappearance would look like.
"While your principal and the head of security combed through the camera footage, I had JARVIS ping your watch to get your location and how did you respond to that, Jayden?" Tony harshly questioned, making her cringe. "You, with your bright and brilliant mind, decided to turn the thing off. I had to hack into my own software to force it back on and give off a location, which took time I didn't know I had!"
"That sounds like a failed design," she couldn't help but mutter.
"None of that snark. I'm sorry that when I made the thing, I forgot a crucial element: your stupidity."
Pepper cleared her throat, attempting to break the hard line where the two glared at one another. "What happened? Mr. Cartor sent us the footage of you climbing the wall. Why did you do it?"
She crossed her arms, sinking into her chair. "Doesn't matter."
"Of course it matters," she replied. "You've never done anything of the sort before."
"And not to mention this," Tony scoffed, tapping her sketchbook that, until now, had been left forgotten at the edge of the table. He slid it into the middle and opened the drawing of the homeless man rummaging through trash next to the dead Marcel. "You need to talk to us."
"There's nothing to talk about."
"The hell there isn't! Everyone has noticed something is off, even your teacher, who had her attention diverted by thirty other kids."
She pressed her lips together, her fingernails digging into her palms. "So?"
"So? Is that all you've got?" he asked incredulously. "We want to help, but you need to meet us halfway. What's going on?"
"I thought it would be obvious," she retorted. "I was in Hydra for weeks, not some summer camp."
"Before us, you spent seven years with them. What's the difference?"
Jayden exhaled through her nose and repeatedly drummed her fingers against the table. "Because Terries almost broke me!"
"You're-"
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Unforeseen¹
FanfictionJYD2641 had enough. In her seven years, she's only ever known the cruel hands of her doctors, who were determined to make her the next Winter Soldier. All she'd ever known was death, pain, and fear. Instead of a parent's loving embrace, she had the...
