If Souls Return (Then Tell Them I Say Hi) - Tony Stark's Daughter in Gotham

Chapter 7: Denial Is My Superpower

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has been joining me on this journey so far! This story has been a lot of fun for me to write and we're just getting started. Please let me know what you think of this chapter's revelations.

Trigger warning: This chapter contains a character having a panic attack. Please take care of yourselves and skip over if you need to.

Harley kept probing Amberly with questions about her time in Gotham. She would try and distract him with talk of things that they missed back home or his opinion about the vigilantes in Gotham, but everything fell flat.

"I've met some of them, while they were jumping across the buildings at night. They stopped to talk until they got called away."

Harley's face grew sour at her story. "What were you doing out that late? It's dangerous."

That quickly made her shut up. She didn't want to concern Harley any more than he already was. Instead, the pair resorted to spending afternoons together trying to work out the design of the object that had sent them to an alternate reality.

It gave them some semblance of normalcy, but nothing could be that simple. Amberly noticed how Harley was different, quieter even. With Tony and Peter, he was always interrupting and adding in his ideas when he thought they were thinking too narrowly. Amberly used to admire that about him. Now Harley was only focused on recreating the device that had sent them to Gotham. He wasn't even willing to broach any other explanations for what might have happened.

"What if it was magic?" If the villain was connected to Dr. Strange, dark magic wasn't out of the question.

Harley scribbled out something on the page. "No, it's science related, has to be. You saw that medallion too. I'm wondering if the reason Dr. Strange went to Tony for help in the first place was because whatever this guy was doing was out of his scope and Tony could provide his expertise."

Amberly didn't want to fight with him, so she begrudgingly accepted the argument. After all, they would need to be united in this if they were going to work out the problem.

While she was glad to have Harley back in her life, there was a distance between them, and she knew it was her fault. He cared about her wellbeing and Amberly wouldn't tell him what her life had been like up until they reunited.

That same pang of guilt hit when Duke and Tim began to joke about how they'd first met Amberly.

"Our dad almost hit her with his car while she was crossing the street," Duke described loudly.

"It was all Damian's fault. He wouldn't stop yelling and distracting Bruce." Tim held his head in his hands. He feigned annoyance but was laughing along as well. "You wouldn't believe it though. Amber jumped on the hood of the car with like crazy instincts. I thought she had eyes in the back of her head or something at first."

"What?" Harley raised his eyebrows in shock. He stared at Amberly blinking. "Please tell me that's not true," he begged.

"At least I didn't get hit?" She failed at trying to be comforting.

The boys laughed some more, but Amberly had a hard time joining in with them with Harley looking so concerned. He heard her stomach growl next to him and pushed his food over to her.

"Oh, I don't." She'd already finished her lunch and didn't have anything else to eat.

"Just take it if you're hungry, okay? I'd do the same for Peter." A look flashed across his face when he said that and immediately Harley closed off.