Broken • Iron Man's Daughter [ 2 ]

8

The car ride was silent as the two Starks did anything but look at each other. The argument before the whole bombing of their house and the words Maya had yelled at him still hung in the air making Tony feel as if he were suffocating from the pressure of it all.

He wanted to apologize, to make up for everything that he had been doing lately, but he found that no words could come out. He didn't even know what the right words were.

"So," Maya finally said and Tony almost let out a sigh of relief at the fact that she could still talk to him. She looked to him and Tony glanced at her before looking to the road. "Are we going to talk about this whole panic attack thing?"

Tony glanced at her before firing back with his own question, "Are we going to talk about the whole you not sleeping thing?"

Maya frowned and looked away. "Are we going to talk about the whole you avoiding me and Pepper thing?" Maya shot back.

Tony went silent, his grip on the wheel tightening slightly. "How about we not talk about any of that yet?" Tony asked. Maya let out a small sigh of relief. "That sounds good to me," she admitted.

Another silence fell upon the two and Maya glance down at the file that was sitting in her lap. "So, what exactly does this all say?" Maya asked as she opened the file.

Tony glanced at the file and looked back up. "Oh, that's the file on the disappearance of Chad Davis. Lot of boring stuff in there really, but you already know the gist of it from Harley," he explained.

Maya nodded as she flipped through, her eyes scanning over the giant letters that spelled out MIA. She went to put it aside, but it slipped from her hand and fell to the floor of the car. The girl frowned and leaned down to pick it up, but paused at the sight of the flipped over piece of paper.

A small chuckle left her lips as she picked up the paper. "Hey, have you ever noticed how MIA spelled backwards spells AIM?" Maya asked as she stared at the letters that now spelled out AIM.

Tony stilled slightly before asking, "What?" "The paper," Maya said as she held it up so he could see, "it spells out AIM instead of MIA when backwards." Tony's eyes widened at that and the girl gave him a confused look.

"What?" Maya asked. "Call Rhodey," Tony told her. "What? Why?" she asked. "Kid, please don't ask questions. I'll explain it later. Right now I just need you to call Rhodey for me," her father said.

Maya hesitantly nodded before going to grab Tony's phone. "Yeah, okay," she said as she unlocked the phone and went to call Rhodey. She was calling him within a matter of seconds and held the phone up to her ear as she looked out the window, already bored.

It took a few rings, but Rhodey finally answered the phone. "Hello?" Rhodey asked. "Hey, Rhodey!" Maya exclaimed. "Maya? Wait, what? Where have you been? Pepper's worried sick about you," the man said.

"Yeah, no time for questions. Dad kind of needs to speak to you," Maya exclaimed. "Tony's okay too?" Rhodey asked. Maya glanced at her father who signaled for her to put it on speaker. The girl nodded and did as he said.

"I just put you on speaker so he can talk to you himself," Maya said as she sat back in her seat. "Hello?" Rhodey said. "You ever have a chick straddling you and you look up and suddenly she's glowing from the inside out, kind of a bright orange?" Tony asked.