After a very tense-filled car ride and an inelegant visit to Doctor Doirs to fix 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 taunt expressions as they sternly regarded her.
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! This is not how this goes. 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. Even if she tried to explain, he wouldn't understand. He couldn't even accept her decision to hold her abilities at arm's length, why should she explain this?
"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 expressions before a swift ripple of regret passed through his face. Pepper, who was silently watching the scene, 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 school grounds before you vanished. They had no idea where you were. For a moment, we thought Hydra might've gotten to you again. What else were we supposed to think?"
She frowned, guilt twisting 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? Tell me what you did," Tony harshly questioned, making her cringe. "You, with your bright and brilliant mind, decided to turn the damn 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 sternly. "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 slumped on a chair. "You need to talk to us."
"There's nothing to talk about," she brushed off after her eyes lingered on the drawing.
"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 to say?" he asked incredulously. "We want to help, but you need to meet us halfway here. Tell us what's going on, right now, right here."
YOU ARE READING
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...
