Don't You Worry Child

I Miss You

Chapter Summary: It turns out that going through Audrey's things may not be as easy as originally thought for Samantha or Tony.

Soundtrack: I Miss You by Kacey Musgraves

The next morning, Tony, Pepper and Samantha went round to Audrey and Samantha's apartment. Tony found himself shocked by how bare it all was. Everything was beige and black, he'd expected hints of both colours, he'd expected a rainbow of blues and greens, the walls were lined with bookshelves filled with both classics and contemporary novels, he saw the small TV in the corner of the room and the cabinet it sat on was loaded with DVDs of TV series, such as Bewitched – the main character, he guessed, was whom Samantha had been named after – and films.

He watched as his daughter immediately grabbed a box and began to fill it with books from the living room bookshelf. She grabbed copies of Jane Eyre, The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill A Mockingbird and carefully placed them in the box while corny Mills & Boon romance books were left alone, not even straightened from their now slanted position on the shelves.

"Samantha? What do you want to do with the books you're leaving on the shelves?" Pepper asked as gently as possible.

"Throw 'em," was the reply as the young brunette danced across to the cabinet containing the DVDs, placing Gone With the Wind, Breakfast at Tiffanys, Guys and Dolls and Forrest Gump (along with a few others) into the box.

Soon enough, the living room was finished with and after the announcement that any kitchen appliances should be put into storage, Samantha walked down the darkened hallway and into her mother's bedroom.

Samantha had been in her mother's bedroom for an hour and Tony began to worry. He walked the same pathway down the hallway and turned into the room only to see his daughter clutching onto one of her mother's crisp white blouses as though her life depended on it. She held it close to her face "You okay?" he asked sitting down beside her.

Silent tears were her only response.

"Do you know how I reacted to my parents' death?" he asked and watched as she shook her head, the tears continuing to flow from her eyes. "I was sixteen and I had just gotten back from a date with your mom. I got a phone call from a number I didn't recognise. I picked it up and the guy on the other end said he worked at a hospital in Malibu. He said he was calling because my parents had been in a car accident and that my dad had died at the scene and mom was in surgery. I sat by the phone for another hour before I got the phone call that said my mom had died during surgery. I hung up, ran down to the nearest liquor store and bought the oldest bottle of scotch they had. I don't know how I got home that night but I remember waking up the next morning on my couch, the scotch bottle empty and your mom stood in the kitchen making breakfast. She was the only person who really tried to help me,"

"What happened between the two of you?"

"What exactly did your mom tell you?" Tony asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

"She said that you were a good man but she thought that you weren't as well suited to each other as you'd both once thought," was the young brunette's explanation.

"After I found out that I'd inherited Stark Industries, I was flying back and forth between Malibu and Boston a lot. Anyway one day I flew back into Boston and I had this big night planned, dinner at this amazing restaurant and I was going to ask her to marry me and I did do that but she turned me down, she said she couldn't trust me to be faithful, like she had this sort of premonition that I'd find someone more well-suited to me," he explained gently.

"She always had a song in her head, she always used to sing this song from the 60s when you were upset or frustrated," he said absentmindedly.

"It was Hey Jude by The Beatles wasn't it? She always liked the bit that went Na, Na, Na, Na the best," Samantha finished before wiping away a few stray tears "I... I just... I don't know whether I can pack up her room you know? I mean this this place it's practically her in a room, the pictures are ones she took, the clothes are ones that she bought, the bed is the same one that she used to let me sleep in with her when I was little and had a nightmare. D-did you feel like this when your parents died?"

"Sort of, I mean I had an idea as to what I wanted to keep, that made it easier, I suppose, but it was still difficult. People had started to move stuff but I decided to clean their room out. I didn't want the movers to see some of the stuff in there," he explained before making a suggestion "If you want, we could leave your mom's room for now, you know until your more... I don't know... more well-prepared to deal with it?"

"You wouldn't mind coming back another day?"

"Of course not, now how about you go and grab the things you want from your room and we can sort out the rest later,"

Tony followed Samantha across the hallway into her room; he noticed the posters of AC/DC, Johnny Cash, Guns 'N' Roses, Miranda Lambert, U2 and Carrie Underwood then he couldn't help but realize how dark the room was, shades of purple covering the walls and an ink black covered the carpet. He watched from the doorway as she danced across the room, pulling out clothes and shoving them in a box.

He didn't become aware of Pepper's whereabouts until he heard her whisper "How's she doing?"

"Better... I think," he replied after a few moments, his voice low so as not to disturb Samantha's concentration on the task. Just then his celphone rang and he left the room to answer it. He looked at the caller ID and, noticing it was Steve Rogers, answered it "Capsicle, this better be good," Tony said in his usual snarky, sarcastic tone.

"I can't tell you much over the phone but I'm assuming you know what's been going on at S.H.I.E.L.D?" was the cryptic reply.

"Yeah, you and Nat are practically fugitives, Hill's disappeared off the face of the earth, Fury's dead and some old guy took over, I do keep a track of things going on at the companies I design tech for. Why?"

"Like I said, I can't really explain over the phone but there are a couple of things you should know regarding Project Insight. Mind if I borrow a jet to get over to you?"

"Sure just don't crash it or anything," Tony joked but heard no laughter in response "And don't play any Mahjong while you fly it," he joked again, but once again laughter was not there.

"You might want to get Banner and Barton in on this,"

"Capsicle, their both in your area, you get them,"

"Fine,"