Chapter 18: A Match

3.5K 104 63
                                    

Tony's P.O.V.

  There's never been a time in my life where I've been more anxious or scared. Not during my first press conference, no during my first real fight, and not even when I had that stupid piece of shrapnel pulled out of my chest. I've also never hated technology more.

  "How much longer will this damn analysis take," I asked again to the annoyance of everybody around me.

  "A minute or two more, Mr. Stark," the woman running the computer in front of me said.

  A minute or two later- it truly felt like a day- the progress bar on the screen hit 100% percent the analysis answers popped up. I leaned forward onto the desk and anxiously scanned the mass of words and numbers on the screen looking only for one thing. It took a little while to get to the bottom of all the science things that I couldn't' care less about at the moment. There was the answer.

  Paternal match.

  My heart sank into my stomach and I wanted to throw it up out of my body.

Your P.O.V.

  I carefully put the book back on the shelf, turned off the lights, and slipped out of the room. I was finally in an okay mood and I didn't feel like I was running from a crumbling cliff. But when I walked into the dining room it looked like my father felt otherwise.

  He was sitting hunched at the breakfast bar and looked absolutely sick to his stomach. A laptop was open in front of him but he wasn't looking at the screen.

  "Dad?" I asked as I approached, "Are you okay?"

  He appeared to snap out of a daze and he quickly slammed the laptop shut. 

  "Okay, you are not okay," I concluded. I slipped onto the stool beside him and watched him expectantly.

  "So..? Care to share?" I asked again.

  "Just some- um- unexpected test results," he said, his usual arrogant confidence stripped from him. I nodded, encouraging him to elaborate.

  "It-it's something concerning... Void," he said hesitantly.

  "Go on," I said, interest very peaked.

  "...And you," he said quietly with a cringe at the end.

  I had to stop for a second. "Don't stop there! You just told me that I'm connected to Void somehow," I pressed him as gently as I could but I was getting nervous

  "So, we took your DNA samples and analyzed them," he started, "Then we compared them to Richard Lang's DNA-" my dad took a deep breath-" and it was a Paternal match." When I didn't say anything, he continued carefully. "We have reason to believe because of circumstantial evidence that Richard is-is Void."

  I suddenly felt as sick as my dad had looked minutes ago and I understood why.

  "But it could just be Void throwing us off his trail because you know where we found it, so it could all be just coincidence," my dad added quickly, taking my hands in his and trying to find my eyes. He knew I didn't believe in coincidence or chance. 

  My mind collapsed in on its self as pieces clicked into place. That was why he asked for specifically me at the hospital in Baltimore. That must be why he was targeting my dad and whoever sided with him. 

  Did he want me back? Was that other girl Elizabeth my sister? Why now?

  I felt myself getting off the chair in a mindless search for anything; Peter. He was there, only a few feet away as if he'd been waiting. I caught a quick glance at his face as I tumbled into his arms. He looked unhappy, obviously about the current revolution, but I knew him. He would shove those feelings down until I was okay and he'd deal with them later. I would have liked to be there for him, but at the moment I wasn't really in thinking or helping mindset.

  In a matter of seconds, I'd become the whole reason anyone was getting hurt. I was the reason Peter spent some time in the hospital. I was the reason my house had been taken over. I was the reason people in Baltimore were suffering. I was the cause of all of this.

  "It'll be okay, (Y/N)," Peter murmured into my hair, squeezing me close to him. I shook my head.

  "Hey, it's not your fault," he whispered as if he read my mind, "you can't help  that your biological father suddenly has a problem that is related to you somehow."

  "But he wants me, so-" I started to say, my face still buried in his shoulder.

  "You are not turning yourself into some psycho," Peter cut in, instinctively tightening his grip on me.

  "But I can't be the reason you, or my dad or anyone else, gets hurt again," I shook my head again, lifting it to look at Peter.

  "If you did end up being an idiot and giving yourself to him I would tear apart every building from Baltimore to Queens to find you," Peter said quietly but with so much conviction in his words that it chased any lingering doubt surrounding my feelings for him.

  "Thank you," I breathed, managing to smile just a little.

  Peter returned my half-hearted smile with a whole-hearted one. He squeezed my hand as he released me from his embrace. Neither of us wanted to be anywhere away from the other, but no one was supposed to know about us until I found a way to tell my dad, so we parted and I went back to sit by my dad. He had a suspicious look on his face and if it had been any other day I would have been drilled by questions. I guess that was the only plus of this scenario, I didn't have to come clean quite yet.

  "Okay," I said, taking a deep breath to calm the nausea in my stomach, "what's next?"


----------

  Just a quick P.S.A, I start a job today so I don't know how that will affect how often I update as most of my shifts will be over the time I typical write. So sorry in advance if that does happen. Thank you for almost 10k reads and all the support!

~Nat

  

Starkly in Love- A Spiderman x ReaderWhere stories live. Discover now