𝐁𝐀𝐃 𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐍 𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆━︎━︎T. Stark ✓︎

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐍𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
❝︎Trauma Doesn't Define Me❞︎

IT FELT LIKE THEY'D RUN TESTS ALL DAY AND ELOISE STILL HADN'T AWOKE. Tony was starting to panic again. He hated seeing his girlfriend in this state. He wished he could stop all of the pain, take away all of the damage. He just wanted to fix it but he didn't know how. It was completely out of his hands and it was driving him insane. He just wanted her to be okay, and even though she was trying to act like she was, he knew that she wasn't. He wanted to kill every single HYDRA agent that ever laid a hand on her. Tony was forced to stay away from the lab. Bruce and Rosalynn claimed he was hovering too much and they needed their space in order to work and so Steve had taken the liberty to pull him as far from the lab as he could get him.

Tony sat there staring blankly at the wall. The coffee Steve had made him was sitting there getting cold. He felt like he was going to be sick, all of this worrying was driving him insane and he wished there was something he could do to get his mind off of it but he couldn't. He'd tried that before and it hadn't worked. He would die a hundred times over it meant that he could take it all back, save her from all of the pain. His eyes moved from the wall when he heard footsteps heading his way. He looked up and was surprised when Avery appeared in the room.

Avery looked at Tony with a small frown. Her mother had told her what had happened, Avery figured she could find Tony worrying himself to death somewhere around the facility. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

"Why's that?" Tony mumbled. His harshness didn't phase her. She understood why he was angry. She was angry herself.

Avery sighed, making her way over to him. Tony followed her with his eyes and she silently asked if she could sit beside of him and he nodded. Avery took a seat, turning her body to face him. "Tony, it's okay to be angry, and sad, and worried, but it's not okay for you to sit here and wonder how things could've gone differently. Wondering if there was something you could've done to stop this from happening. Whether any of us want to admit it or not, this was going to happen to her whether or not we wanted it to. Eloise has been hunted by HYDRA her entire life, she's glad she survived as long as she did without them getting their hands on her.

"All we know is they were after her for her parents work, something not even Eloise knows about, and from what she's told me, HYDRA doesn't know about it either because they couldn't crack it open. Eloise is not okay, we all know that she's not. No one is ever okay after being taken by HYDRA. I mean just look at me for fucks sake, I'm a total screwed up mess." Avery gestured towards herself with a scoff. "You've just got to be there to help her through the scars and the nightmares, through the anger and the trauma. You cannot fix her Tony because she isn't broken, she's damaged and traumatized and there is nothing you can do to fix it. So stop sitting here wasting your time, wondering what you could have changed, and instead focus on what you can do now."

Avery looked at Tony, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Tony, you are the person that she loves and cares about the most. All she really wants is for you to be there for her and to not treat her any differently. She doesn't want you to look at her like she's some fragile picture frame that's going to shatter at any given moment. She just wants you to love her, to tell her it's going to be okay, to protect her from the horrors that are going to haunt her nightmares and every waking breath."

Tony watched the teenager as she spoke, watching as she relived the horrors of her own trauma through her eyes. Avery had been through so much, it was a wonder how she was still living, how she still managed to laugh and smile. "How do you do it?" Tony carefully asked her, his voice a soft whisper. "How do you go through so much pain and just go on living knowing what you've went through?"

"Because, Tony, my trauma doesn't define me." Avery answered him easily. "And neither does Eloise's. Talk to her about it, but don't make it the only source of topic. She just wants to feel normal again, even if she knows she's not."

"I'm so sorry no one was there for you." Tony's heart seemed to shatter in his chest at the realization. "I'm sorry no one helped you realize that you are not your powers."

Avery smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "What can I say? You live and learn." She let out another sigh. "Besides, it's not like I didn't have people. I had my parents. I was only six so I didn't really have friends at the time." She let out a small chuckle. "They just. . . because I was so young, they were so scared. I was so little and had such big power. They didn't know how to handle it. They wanted to keep me safe, but they wanted to make sure no one else got hurt in the process. Why do you think I wanted to go to a public school so badly? It was my only chance at normalcy that I had."

"Is this why you asked to stay with me?" Tony quizzed.

"That and going back and forth from school and home was such a long distance. We literally live in the middle of nowhere. Plus, I'd rather stay with you than have to live here in the Avengers compound with agents constantly surrounding me. At least at your house I can sit on a couch and watch television without Fury knocking on my door asking about a mission." Avery rolled her eyes. "Honestly, it's exhausting sometimes. Being an Avenger is hard, I don't know how you do it every day."

Tony smiled at her, watching as she leaned back into the couch with a huff. "We literally save people's lives every day. What could be more exciting than that?"

"Reading a book."

Tony rolled his eyes at her and Avery chuckled. "You're doing alright kid. Just wait till you graduate. Then it becomes your entire life."

"Already half way there." Avery mumbled before standing up. She looked at Tony, giving him a sincere look. "Just remember what I said, Tony, and you'll be alright."

"Thanks, kid." Avery nodded to him before turning on her heel and walking away, leaving Tony to sit there and think about everything she said.