|| LONGING || EDITTING

|| Chapter Three ||

Darkness enveloped Arizona as she was stood backstage, unlike her guardian who was on the stage. Her arms folded with her weight on one foot, the emerald green eyes shined with interest and her flaming hair was curled almost to perfection. On stage, there was the illusion of a beautiful room, a piano in the centre of the room, a small couch beside it and a fireplace in front of it. The room was small but cosy, a body laid under a blanket on the couch, a Santa hat on top of his head. A woman who wore pearls and white, smartly - dressed, clothes with her hair in a low bun and out of her face was sat on the stool in front of the piano, her fingers pressing down on the keys creating a relaxing melody as she sang softly.

The woman's tone was gentle and relaxing, so much it had Arizona closing her doe - eyes and softly swaying side-by-side before it was abruptly cut off as a man in a dark grey suit and bright red tie walked in. His back was straight and white hair on top of his head, a white moustache above his upper lip. The woman - known as Maria Stark - had stopped singing but continued to play the piano in content as she spoke, "Wake up, Dear, and say goodbye to your Father,"

Maria spoke to her son, Tony Stark, who was the body on the couch, Howard looked down to his son as said young man slowly staggered up, Santa hat still on his head with the unfamiliar look of having no facial hair and a face without his usual ageing wrinkles, "Who's the homeless person on the couch?" Tony's father asked rhetorically as Tony sent him a fake chuckle.

"This is why I love coming home for Christmas... right before you leave town," Tony remarked as Maria sighed to her husband.

"Be nice, dear, he's been studying abroad..."

Howard didn't even give his wife a look, just stared right at his son, locking eyes with him and Tony awaited to hear the snarky comment, "Really, which broad? What's her name?"

"Candice," Tony answered before Howard ripped off the Santa hat from Tony's head, Arizona intrigued and somewhat, amused at the sight of a younger version of Tony.

"Do me a favour? Try not to burn the house down before Monday,"

Tony, walking over to the doorway, leaned against it with a single roll of the eyes, retorting back with: "Oh, okay, so it's Monday. That is good to know. I will plan my toga party accordingly. Where you going?"

Maria smiled to herself softly, "You Father's flying us to the Bahamas for a little getaway,"

Howard nodded as he adjusted the cuff on his sleeve, "We might have to make a quick stop?"

Tony was quick to interject, "At the Pentagon. Right?"

He slightly bent down to look at his Mother, speaking in a sarcastic tone, "Don't worry, you're gonna love the holiday menu at the commissary,"

"You know, they say sarcasm is a metric for potential. If that's true, you'll be a great man someday." Howard explained pointing to his son before glancing at his wife, "I'll get the bags."

Said man left before Tony gave his Mother a look that only seemed to express shame and disappointment as Maria sighed, "He does miss you when you are not here. And frankly, you're going to miss us..." The woman stood up, putting her purse strap around her shoulder, "Because this is the last time we're all going to be together. You know what's about to happen -" Howard walked back in, bags in hand, "- say something. If you don't, you'll regret it..."

It was obvious that wasn't what Maria actually said at the time, because none of the Stark's knew what was going to happen in 1991, Tony had clearly modified Maria's words, Arizona aware of the regret Tony held over that day before he never got to see his parents alive again. Tony gave his Mother one more look before looking at his Father, "I love you, Dad. And I know you did the best you could." Maria gently pressed her lips to Tony's cheek and as she leaned back.

The real Tony Stark was standing in the background, face down to the ground as he focused solely on the slightly altered memory, a solemn expression on his face with his hands clasped together in respect. Howard and Maria left the room leaving both the younger and older version of Tony alone, that is before the original version of Tony spoke to the crowd, "That's how I wished it happened." Said man looked up at the crowd he stood in front of, "Binary Augmented Retro - Framing, or B.A.R.F. God, I gotta work on that acronym. An extremely costly method of hijacking the hippo-campus to... clear traumatic memories. Huh."

He blew out the candle and everything began to pixelate then dissolve to prove it was all just a hologram, "It doesn't change the fact that they never made it to the airport... or all the things I did to avoid processing my grief, but -" He paused to remove his glasses, slightly raising them for the crowd to see, "Plus, 611 million dollars for my little therapeutic experiment? No one in the right mind would've ever funded it."

"Help me out, what's the M.I.T mission statement?" Tony started before the crowd and himself started to answer the question, "'To generate, disseminate... and preserve knowledge. And work with others... to bring it to bear on the world's great challenges.'" The crowd silenced before Tony continued talking, "Well, you are the others. And, quite as it's kept... the challenges facing you are the greatest mankind's ever known. Plus, most of you are broke," The crowd hummed with laughter until Tony spoke again, "Oh, sorry. Rather, you were. As of this moment... every student has been made an equal recipient of the Inaugural September Foundation Grant. As in... all of your projects have just been approved and funded."

In a split second, the crowd broke out into applause and cheered to the billionaire on the stage as Tony yelled over the cheering, "No strings, no taxes... just reframe the future! Starting now." The teleprompter that Tony had been reading from was above the audience and had read for Tony to say 'Now I would like to introduce the head of the foundation: Pepper Potts.' Tony stared at his girlfriends' name and gulped, sadness seeping in.

Arizona tensed, seeing they hadn't removed Pepper's name from the teleprompter. Her eyes flickered to Tony knowing he missed Pepper terribly, just like she did. Tony and Pepper had been raising Arizona for the past two years and slowly, they became her own little family. But after Sokovia -- after Ultron... Pepper decided to take a break from everything 'Avengers' related which just so happen to include Tony and Arizona. It offended Arizona that Pepper didn't even drop by, or leave a message every once in a while, it was as if the blonde had fallen off the face of the Earth, "Go break some eggs!" Tony called to the audience before exiting the stage, Arizona instantly by his side.

"Are you okay?"

"Always..."