Illegitimate Prodigy

Promise?

It wasn't long after Annabelle and her father had their apologetic embrace, that he led her into the facility. It was completely aligned with windows so it seemed as if there was no privacy to be had. The building was empty which begged the question what exactly the guards outside were protecting. This was the Avengers facility after all... did they really need protecting?

Approaching a closed off hallway, she noticed the walls were painted a dark red, almost like the color of rust. A large painting hung high up, and Annabelle's eyes immediately met it. A peppered haired gentleman with a mustache, wearing a suit stood behind a brunette woman in a chair. Her hair also had random locks of grey but she still showed some youth to her. Belle's eyes fluttered at the picture, and she felt her father's hand meet between her shoulder blades. The couple looked so familiar but she couldn't trace as to why... or why it was hanging up on the Avengers facility. It was when her gaze met the third person in the picture. His hair was longer— almost styled more wildly because it was probably the eighties. His cheek bones were rosy, and a small smirk pulled at the right corner of his lips. The stare looking back at her matched her own. It was her father. Momentarily, it took her breath away when she realized it was a family portrait from before Annabelle was even born.

"You were right," she muttered, glancing at her father standing quietly next to her.

"Hmm?" His lips pressed together, his eyebrows raising in curiosity.

"I do look like your mother." A small smile creeped across her features. "I wish I could have met her." Her father didn't respond. There was a look in his eyes that she couldn't decipher. Her eyebrows furrowed adjusting her body completely towards him, and her hand lifting to meet his chest pocket. "Dad?" She spoke softly.

He snapped out of it and with a shake of his head, he gestured down the hallway. "Let me show you where your room is." The young Stark didn't question him, and began moving back down the hallway. They came to a doorway, and she noticed there was a plate on the wall that said "Annabelle Stark". Was she living at a military base?

Peeking around the corner, she saw all the furniture from her bedroom that was at the tower. Her father obviously moved all of her things quickly to ensure she wouldn't be going back to the city for anything. At the foot of the bed laid multiple boxes. Her eyes narrowed because none of them looked like anything she had packed.

"Those are boxes from your grandfather's storage. Pepper said it looked like mostly photographs— and other more sentimental things you should look through." He cleared his throat, with a soft breath following. "I gotta go, Belle. I'll be back tonight. Vision is a few doors down— if you immediately need anything— otherwise you can call me." His hand rested against the door frame and the Iron Prodigy turned around to face him. They both stared—a stare that she had never truly seen before coming from him.

"Promise you'll be back?" The words seemed to struggle escaping her throat. After the attack on the tower the night before, she was unsure what her father had planned— and hoped that if he was to put himself into any danger— that he would return safely. Annabelle took a few short steps forward, before wrapping her arms around her father again. "Promise?" She choked, her face shoved into the crook of his shoulder.

Tony let out a very heavy sigh, his hands wrapping around his daughter. "I promise, sweetheart."

(Shorter Chapter, sorry team."