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part one epilogue
BACK AT THE new Avengers facilities, Elena was tending to Tony's wounds.
Tony was strangely quiet, which made Elena uneasy. He'd just come back from his fight with Steve, and he was in pretty bad shape.
As her hands returned to their normal peach color, Elena sighed. "Are you going to tell me what happened, or am I going to have to make a prediction?"
Tony glanced at her; she had a large bruise on her cheek, which was unusual for Elena, since she rarely ever received a blow hard enough to leave a bruise.
"Bucky killed my parents," He finally said, and Elena put her hand on his shoulder. "And Steve knew about it. And he still defended him."
"I'm sorry," Was all she could say. What else could she? She knew loss and pain, but right now, she had no other words of comfort to offer.
Tony stood abruptly. "It's not your fault, Ellie, and you know it."
"I know," She said lamely. As Tony reached for some water, Elena took a seat at the bar. "I was thinking... maybe, now that I'm retired, and I'm only 15, that I could go to school?"
Tony choked on his water. "What?" He spat, coughing violently.
Elena shrugged. "I don't know, I figured that maybe that's what I need, you know? To be a normal teenage girl for once."
Tony wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. "But Elena, you're not a normal teenager." As he walked past her, he scowled. "And you can never pretend to be one, either."
Elena recoiled, feeling as though he'd slapped her. Tony knew her, he knew that all she'd ever wanted to be was to live a normal life, and while he'd never addressed the topic directly, he'd never shut her down like this.
"And why not?" Elena shot back furiously. "Do you just expect me to sit around this god-forsaken building like one of your experiments? Like I'm just some thing you can play around with when it becomes useful to you? Because I don't want that life anymore, Tony!"
Tony whirled around on her. "You're here because you're dangerous, Elena!" He shouted at her, and Elena stopped in her tracks. He'd finally spoken the words that everyone was thinking, that Elena had been whispering to herself in her nightmares, that everyone knew, but hadn't said aloud. She felt herself shrink, her arms wrapping around her midsection, as if it was the only thing keeping her from falling apart.
"Then maybe I should leave," She muttered, her tears dripping down her face like a leaky faucet, and her feet taking shaky steps backwards. She could see the regret on Tony's face, but she didn't care. Not anymore.
"Elena," Tony reached for her, but she flinched away from his touch.
"Don't touch me!" She screamed, and he cowered back.
Tony seemed to give up, nodding. "I'll arrange for an apartment," He said, and that was that.
Two months later, Elena had her own apartment, ironically in the same building as Peter Parker. Her landlord, Ms. Ellen Hexner, was a hired nanny that would be acting as her mother. Tony enrolled her at Midtown High, so she would be going to the same school as her spider-friend.
Everything seemed okay for Elena, she would be living the life she'd always wanted, and she'd be spending it with the one person she felt somewhat normal around.
