Changes | Marvel

SIX. New York

I sit backstage of the Stark Expo, wishing that I was anywhere but here. My chest was hurting and all I wanted to do was sleep, what I've wanted to do ever since Tony found out that we were being poisoned. By the thing that's keeping us alive. It was quite painful, tiring and making me want to cry every minute of the day, but we're working on fixing it. Pepper and I were waiting for Tony to make his grand entrance. We had to fly all the way to New York for it and I have to admit, I'm quite happy to see the amount of people here at the expo. When the girls on stage (Tony asked to hire them) started dancing, Tony flew in from the roof and landed on the stage with the crowd going wild, the suit disappearing into the floor beneath him as each piece gets carried off.

"It's good to be back!" He calls out, making the thousands of people in the crowd cheer and scream. Boy, were they excited.

"You missed me?" He asks. Some guy in the audience asks him to blow something up and I look over to Rhodey. Hasn't he done enough of that in the past couple of months?

"I missed you guys too. Blow something up? I already did that." The crowd laughs. "I'm not saying that the world is enjoying its longest period of interrupted peace in years because of me." He winks in my direction and I look up to see Pepper slightly blushing. "I'm not saying that from the ashes of captivity, never has a greater phoenix metaphor been personified in human history. I'm not saying that Uncle Sam can kick back on a lawn chair, sipping on an iced tea because I haven't come across anyone whose man enough to go toe-to-toe with me on my best day." He goes on and on, his ego as big as America at this point.

"I love you Tony!" I hear a woman shout, making my brother laugh a little bit.

"Please, it's not about me. It's not about you. It's not even about us. It's about legacy. It's about what we choose to leave behind for future generations." I hear Tony begin to grow serious, speaking to crowd on a more personal level. "And that's why for the next year and for the first time since 1974, the best and brightest men and women of nations and corporations the world over will pool their resources, share their collective vision, to leave behind a brighter future. It's not about us." My brother goes on, his voice getting louder with each sentence. "Therefore, what I'm saying, if I'm saying anything, is welcome back to the Stark Expo." The crowd goes wild again, the screen coming down from the roof ready to show a video of my father – Howard Stark. Pepper looks down at her phone and realises that she had a call coming through, placing her hand on my shoulder before walking off, talking away to the person on the other side.

"Stay here," She tells me before leaving entirely, I nod to show my agreement.

"And now, making a special guest appearance from the great beyond to tell you what it's all about, please welcome my father, Howard." The crowd roars with cheers and clapping, looking up to watch the video. Tony comes backstage and pulls out a familiar device from him suit pocket, placing his thumb on the reader that took a small drop of blood and determined the blood toxicity. I frown at his reading on 47%, almost 5% higher than the day before meaning it was progressing quickly. Earlier today I had scanned in at 29%, showing me that it was probably the use of the suit of my age that was preventing mine from being so high so quickly.

"So, how did I do?" He asks finally, putting it away and trying to ignore the giant elephant in the room.

"You did alright." I tell him, picking at my nails and sighing. These days I was just getting sick and tired of this mess, I just wanted everything to go back to normal.

"Hm, I always do, but thanks for the input. Ready to go kid?" I take his hand, so I wasn't separated from him, walking down the multiple hallways that fans crowded around to try and get glimpse of the all famous 'Iron Man'. Instead of smiling at anyone, I could only think about our health in the previous few weeks that was becoming the reason why I was fighting with Tony so much. I wanted him to stop losing the suit and take it more seriously, he wanted to feed into the crowd's excitement over his 'super suit' and was treating this situation like it could be healed overnight. Together, we walk to the exit where Happy waits for us in his black suit and dark sunglasses that weren't necessary considering it was night time. I was wearing a flowy dress, in a pale-yellow colour with a white satin ribbon tied around my waist. I loved it, but tonight I couldn't enjoy wearing it.