War

Chapter 1

Janis' POV

   "Stark, you need to control your daughter." I hear Rogers yell as I stood around the corner. He was pissed and frankly, I didn't understand why.

"Control her how? Janis seems pretty under control to me." My father told him, standing up for me. I could feel Steve's frustration from where I was. My back was to the wall beside the entrance to the lab. The main perk of being 5-foot-nothin' is being able to follow someone and them not even notice.

"She never takes anything seriously. She's worse than you when it comes to subjects that aren't a laughing matter." Oh, now I get it. Steve was telling the team that HYDRA was rising again and that they needed to create a plan of attack. He tried to shoo me out of the room because "it didn't concern me" so I just casually told him that if he worried less about me and more about that bloodthirsty friend of his then we wouldn't be in this mess. I will admit that I do tend to joke around and throw out sarcastic comments here and there but I have my reasons. Steve just didn't appreciate my humor as much as Tony did, but that was probably because Tony understood why I used humor as a way to lighten my own mood about a subject. Perhaps I was a bit harsh this time.

"Look, if you have a problem with the way she handles things then you should talk to her about it." Tony told him in his classic happy-go-lucky tone. He knew Steve would never approach me about an issue he has with me.

"You are her father, not her friend. Show her some discipline for once." Steve spat. If there's one thing that Tony didn't like, it was someone questioning his ability to take care of me. It's been that way since the accident. Even in hiding, I could almost hear the muscles in his face turn to stone.

"What would you know about being a father? I may not be the best at it but I've been trying my damn hardest for the last few years." I could hear the tone of the lab shift. "Nothing was the same after the accident... not even me. Do you know what it's like to sit there next to your dying flesh and blood after she was attacked in broad daylight, knowing that now there's nothing you can do to help her because the damage was already done? Even though she fully recovered, she still has the scars to prove that she fought like hell to get out of that hospital." Tony's once defensive and protective tone began to soften. "Yeah, she jokes around but that's only to cover up the fact that the thought of anything bad happening again upsets her more than anyone else here. If Janis wants to crack a joke then she can crack a damn joke." Tony stated, with a low but still stern voice. Nobody knew more about the situation than Tony. Sometimes I think he knows more than me and wasn't even there. All the therapy sessions and police interviews, yet nobody knows the full story but myself and him. A sense of stillness and awkward quietness blanketed the atmosphere. I heard approaching steps growing louder the closer they became. Steve passed by, catching a slight glimpse at me obviously listening in on the conversation about me. His eyes were less stern than they were when he entered the lab. I could almost read a bit of remorse in his eyes but at his pace, I couldn't study it. 

    I went walking around the building, passing the doors to everyone's sleeping quarters that I had decorated at one point with stickers I found at the store (which, to no surprise, annoyed Rogers.) Uncle Bruce, Uncle Sammy, Auntie Nat, Uncle Rhodey, My wife Wanda (I call her that to try and get under Vision's skin... he's unbreakable, I swear), Uncle Clint, Uncle Thor, and Steve (who still doesn't deserve a title... after all, he isn't even a real Captain, let alone someone I would think of as my family) Then there was my room, where the only thing on the door was a "No Trespassing" sign. Overall, my room is the coolest if I do say so myself. I went in and shut the door behind me to get away from the full house for a second. My room was clad in everything I loved. I'm a huge World War II buff, so I had a bunch of memorabilia. Though I could never see myself enlisting, I was a considerable military know-it-all as well. When I was in high school, I took JROTC and a bunch of history classes. I had a large B-17 replica hanging from the ceiling, some old clippings from Howard's stash that Tony kept for some reason over my dresser, a large bookshelf full of aviation books and Holocaust novels like "Night" and "The Diary of Ann Frank". On another wall, I had a bunch of framed accomplishments such as my Microsoft Office certifications, my high school diploma (I graduated with high honors and Salutatorian my junior year), a bunch of awards I got in young inventors contests, and my JROTC awards. Then there's a full body mirror on the last wall with Uncle James' dog tags hanging from it and a four-piece photo booth reel of myself and Uncle Bruce tapped to the right upper corner. There were also a few posters of my favorite bands and artists like Heart, Janis Joplin (my namesake, thanks mom), Fleetwood Mac, and Led Zeppelin.