Illegitimate Prodigy

Not Just a Coincidence

Annabelle's eyes were blank. It appeared as if her mind went into a daze--a fight or flight mode to remember what was truth and what was a lie throughout her entire existence. Pepper wanted Tony to tell his daughter the truth. That Annabelle's mother may have been honest in the fact that he was her father, but she severely downplayed how much Tony truly knew about her. The Tin Man was aware of her breaking her arm after being knocked off a fence by a horse's head when it turned to greet her. Her first and only dog she ever owned, Sammy, was put down when she was fourteen, and how completely devastated she was from it. Ryan, her first boyfriend, who turned out to be a complete narcissist (takes one to know one.), whom left her in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York, because she wouldn't go 'that far.' with him. Tony watched closely her entire life and she was regrettably told that he wanted nothing to do with her.

"Belle?" His voice was low. "Are you--"

"You were the man." She whispered, her glazed over brown hues behind her glasses widening. He narrowed his gaze. The man?

"When I was five, mom started taking me to Dr. Collins," her fingertips on each hand met the sides of her coffee cup, tapping nervously. "The psychiatrist.. Mom always called it neurofeedback--to target certain areas of my brain." Tony's chin dropped, lifting his hand to run it through his hair. Neurofeedback was therapy generally used with ADD, ADHD or panic attacks. Lighting up parts of your brain, and measuring brain waves. In this case, Dr. Collins was a military psychiatrist, who helped his patients erase memories of combat to prevent PTSD. They were doing much more than just neurofeedback with his daughter. Annabelle obviously knew what the traditional neurofeedback was having probably studied it in school. "It was therapy to bury you in my memories, but.." she shook her head, her eyes still stuck on the countertop directly in front of him. Her voice became slightly cracked. "It never truly obliterated you, though. Not really. You were the man in my dreams. The man outside my dance recital. The man that stood at the end of my bed when I was sleeping." Her right hand lifted to ruffle her hair on the side of her head. "All this time it never occurred to me that my mind was retreating back to real memories--not just dreams or from seeing you on TV."

A shiver traveled down Tony's spine, because everything Annabelle was saying was rather eerie, and rid him speechless. It was unsettling to think that she truly remembered him, but only in dreams or hallucinations of him. Of course, if what happened to Buck Barnes--being completely brain washed by Hydra, and killing Howard and Maria(and many others.)--really anything wasn't unbelievable.

It was shocking that Belle wasn't more upset, but Tony was convinced that her brain was on overload. She didn't know how to react. Sad, yes. Angry, of course. He wasn't able to read any of those emotions on her features. She brought the coffee up to her lips, and sipped it. Her stare still wide. "Excuse me." She said softly, standing up from the stool, cup in hand and pacing out of the kitchen very robotically. Tony didn't utter a word--he wasn't going to push it. He hoped she understood it. Tony had plenty of anger toward Lizzie and Obadiah, but he didn't want Annabelle to think he put all the blame on them. Well, at least Lizzie. Tony had part in his separation from his daughter.

Shoving himself out from underneath the counter, he walked around to top off his now cold coffee, and proceeded to dump the rest left in the pot down the drain. He assumed his daughter wouldn't be making an appearance to grab more. Pacing out the opposite direction from where he came, he went through the living room area of the Avengers facility, through a side doorway and down some winder stairs. At the bottom was an elevator, that only went down. "Off to tinker, sir?" Friday spoke almost sarcastically.

"Ahh, just need to do some further research on our friend Whitney."

"I believe she goes by Madam Masque. However, it appears no one truly knows where she is."

Entering the elevator, he pressed the down arrow and immediately brought his hand up to rub his jaw line. "Check the robberies shortly after the attack on New York at the facilities holding Chitauri," the elevator dropped quickly, opening up into a high tech bullet proof glass door, that immediately opened for Tony. "It was suspected that it wasn't just Toomes that was trying to steal that tech, but Whitney as well," he mumbled to himself.

"There was an ambush on the Chitauri facility in Maryland 4 months after the attack," A map of the United States popped up directly in front of him. "The robbery was only partly successful, but there was CCTV footage of Whitney inside the facility, as well as leaving in a chopper. However it looks like someone had the same idea. It's suspected that your friend, the Vulture, was also making an attempt to steal tech, and fell into Ms.Frost's crosshairs." Stark brought the cup of coffee to his lips. Tony was always interested to figure out how Adrian Toomes even found out about the most vulnerable details of his life. How he knew how to target Annabelle, and ended up killing her grandfather while trying to find her. Unless he hacked into any of Stark's main frames, which was highly unlikely, Toomes had to of met someone that knew Tony personally. Information that even Pepper didn't know about until he announced he was attending a woman's funeral that happened to be the mother of his long lost child.

Whitney was insatiable during the time they spent together, but he didn't know then that she was also really good at using people's intimate details of their lives to manipulate them. Especially if it meant getting what she wanted. With her clones, she was impossible to track. She's even went as far as to kill herself publicly, but then pop up again in other part of the world. After their 4 month get away, Tony informed Whitney he must get back to his family--his daughter, and she became very angry. If anyone loathed Annabelle, as innocent as she might be in all of this, it was Whitney.

"Do you think she's involved in the recent attacks on your facilities, sir?" Friday as curiously.

Tony swallowed dryly, nibbling as his bottom lip almost nervously. " I don't think. I know."