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Chapter 21: battle begins

I am absolutely silent as I sit listening right behind Tony and Pepper. The court meeting is long, and confusing, and i'll admit rather boring. Bit I listen intently and try to comprehend what they are talking about. I get the basic jist, my mom insists that she has custody rights, the judge asks the Starks about their home, how long i've been with them, their jobs, the proceedings of the adoption. It's all very formal and polite, mainly establishing grounds for having the case at all, and getting all the info they need to continue. Right now there is a man talking, who Tony introduced me to earlier, his names Buzz, Tony told me that he represents me and my wishes in the court, so I should talk to him and tell him what I want and why I want it. I had a pretty long conversation with him before the court assembled, It was super weird talking to a complete stranger and telling him all about my life. I zone out for a while, thinking about what my mom's house must look like. I feel like it must be a dingy, smelly, falling apart place. But then again she is so good at scamming, maybe she has a really nice house, with a huge kitchen, and a balcony, and a pool. Of course she could have the grandest house on the block and still not beat Tony, he's got a whole floor dedicated to games. A loud sound of wood hitting wood causes me to come back to the present.

"This meeting is adjourned, we will reconvene tomorrow morning." The judge states. I stand as Tony and pepper do and walk with them along with a bunch of other people out of the room. Tony talks with a man I have come to recognize as his lawyer and several other people including, attorneys, Pepper, and other important seeming people, pop in and out of the conversation.

"Wait what just happened?" I asks as we walk, unable to remember the last few minutes outside of my own head. Before anyone can answer me, Happy walks up hurriedly asking,

"Sir, will you be addressing the press?"

"Might as well, i've got nothing to hide." He answers without stopping,

"Just wait till we're in the car," Pepper whispers to me, "Stay close, and if anyone asks you questions, don't answer, let Tony handle it." Happy steps ahead of us and pushes open the doors of the courthouse, exposing us to the flashes of cameras and shouts of reporters eager for a statement from Tony Stark.

"Mister stark, how long have you been planning this addoption?"

"Mister Stark, why are you struggling to gain custody?"

"Mister Stark, why have you kept this a secret from the public?" These are only a few of the questions I manage to pick out of the crowd of voices bombarding us.

"This is all a relatively recent development, and if I thought it was important for the public to know, than I would have told them sooner." He addresses them, answering as many questions as possible with one statement. I stay close between Tony, Pepper, and Happy, as we push our way through the crowd and finally close the doors of the car, shutting out the noise and spasm of camera flashes.

"Okay, so now what happened." I ask again as we pull away from the courthouse.

"Cutting out all the legal terms that no one understands, they just asked everyone a lot of questions, now we all got to go home and think about what we've learned, then tomorrow starts the arguing part." Tony explains.

"Thank you, i was getting tired of hearing all those fancy words. But how's it looking for us? I didn't really get a whole lot of what happened."

"Well, based on her current living conditions, and her extended absence, our lawyer tells us that we have a pretty good chance." Pepper fills in the blanks in my mind. I nod silently in response, tired from the amount of information to be processed. Back at home I ride with The two of them to different stark industries floors where they get off to check up on today's work. Then I ride alone up to their floor. If it we're a weekend I would have gone to find Peter and talk to him about the day, but as it is I sit down, pull out my computer and check his instagram. I have an account but don't post anything since i don't have a phone to take pictures with. I look and see a picture of Peter and his friend Ned, proudly holding a finished lego millennium falcon, and a girl who I think is called Michelle is photobombing in the background. I leave a comment saying,

I think you have a photobomber there :) I wait a minute and his reply pops up.

Yeah, she somehow manages to be everywhere, all the time. How did your day go btw?  I know he's talking about the court session, and not wanting to discuss it on social media, I simply reply with

I'll e-mail you. True to my word I switch over to my e-mail tab and compose a quick message explaining my day. He is quick to reply and we talk back and forth for the good portion of an hour before he says he's gotta go. I'm about to reply telling him goodnight, when suddenly all the lights in the room go off and I am in complete darkness aside from my computer screen. As fast as I can I type my reply

Wait don't go, the power just went out! I wait, hoping he hasn't left yet.

You know i'm not really there, right? he types back

Yeah, but i'm now alone in the dark, and you are the only other person I can talk to to keep me from freaking out, sooo.... It's a few minutes before he replies and I start to think that he walked away.

Are Tony and Pepper nearby?'

'No, they are down stares.'

'Well where are you?'

'on their floor, no one else is here'

'why don't you go to another floor and see if the lights are on there?'

'what? Go in the dark elevator by myself!?'

'oh yeah, elevators don't work without power anyway, sorry.'

'So what do I do?!?!'

'Wait it out I guess, I don't see any other option.' I read the message and sit there, trying to think of a response, when a creaking door sound comes from the other end of the room. I start to breath heavily, I don't dare look behind me,

'I JUST HEARD A DOOR OPENING PETER I'M SCARED!'

'Are you sure there's no one else there with you?'

'OF COURSE I'M SURE, HOW IS SOMEONE UP HERE?' I'm panicking and trying to stay as still as possible, listening to shuffling sounds, like a person rummaging through drawers. 'WHAT IF IT'S A ROBBER? WHAT DO I DO?' suddenly a light shines from behind me and a voice sounds,

"Kennedy, are you still here?" I let out a sigh of relief as I recognize the voice as Pepper's. I turn around and see her standing with a flashlight in hand, scanning the room.

"Yeah, i'm still here." I tell her, more than a little relieved that she's here. She walks over and hands me a flashlight of my own before sitting down beside me.

"Why didn't you say something when you heard me come in?" She asks while i fiddle with the flashlight to turn it on.

"I thought you were a robber or something! How did you even get up here anyway?"

"There's an emergency staircase through that door, I thought you knew that." She informed me.

"Um no, I had no clue, but that's good to know, Peter and I we're trying to figure out what I should do, and knowing there were stairs would have been helpful."

"Wait, Peter, is he here?"

"Oh, no, I was just emailing, him. Speaking of, I kinda left him hanging." I look back at my computer screen and see 5 new messages from Peter.

'Just sit tight, i'm sure the wind just blew the door open.' 

'Ken is everything okay, do you hear any more noises?' 

'Kennedy where are you?' '

Are you okay?!' '

KENNEDY'  I read the messages out loud to Pepper, and start typing a response to set him at ease, but I pause when i hear the sound of a window screeching open in the next room, and the sound of padding feet. My heart beats quickly again, and Pepper must have heard it to, because at the same time we both shine our lights toward the source of the noise. And standing in front of us, is a man dressed in red and blue spandex. My jaw goes slack and I drop my flashlight, Spiderman! I can't believe it, spider man just showed up right in front of me!

"Uh, hey, my uh spider senses were tingling, I thought there was something wrong over here, so I came to check it out." He explains, he seems a bit shaken at the sight of us. I try to say words, but all that comes out is jumbled parts of sentences.

"No I think we're alright, it must have been the power outage that you we're sensing." Pepper says for me, her voice sounds as if she's amused at the whole situation.

"Uh, alright, my bad, I guess i'll just... go."

"Goodbye Spider-Man!" I manage to get out as he retreats out the window again. Once he's gone I turn to Pepper. "I just met Spider-Man!" She just nods, with a grin on her face. "Isn't he an avenger? Why haven't I seen him here before?" I ask, all excitement.

"Well I think he usually patrols queens, so he's just not around here that much. Why are you so excited about this, I thought Captain America was your favorite hero?"

"He is, but, there's just something about spiderman, I mean, he's the only hero I know of who has a secret identity, I guess I'm just intrigued by the mystery of him." I explain, probably with a silly grin on my face. "Oh! Do you know his secret identity?" I ask with anticipation, sitting up straight.

"Maybe I do, but even if I did I wouldn't tell you." I slump back down into the couch.

"Come on, why not?" I whine.

"Because it's not my secret to give." She says resolutely, smiling as if pleased with her tantalizing secret. I sit pouting with my arms crossed for a minute, but I soon get bored of being grumpy and ask,

"So why'd the power go out anyway?"

"I don't know, some kind of malfunction on the science floor. Tony is down there now trying to figure it out and get the power back on." After that the conversation slowly moves on to other topics. We Talk about movies, pop culture, hobbies, we play a board game although its a little hard in the dark. Somehow we start talking about learning to drive, and that leads to a conversation about my life on my own, at some point Pepper starts telling me about how she got the job at Stark Industries, and how she never thought she would end up married to Tony Stark himself. I have a lot of fun despite the power being out, and Pepper and I learn a lot about each other. I'm actually kinda glad this happened, it gave me the opportunity to get to know pepper a little better, I haven't done a whole lot of just hanging out with her. As we are discussing reasons why we would or wouldn't dye our hair, the lights in the room turn back on.

"Yay!" I shout throwing a fist in the air, "Let there be light!" I turn off my flashlight and hand it back to Pepper

"I'm glad they got it back on so quickly." she says, standing up and going to a wall charger to plug in her phone. The elevator door opens and Tony comes in to greet us.

"Hey guys, did you do okay up here in the dark?" He asks us as soon as he steps out of the elevator.

"No, I was terrified! I thought Pepper was a burglar!"

"But she met Spiderman so that made up for it." Pepper says with a hinting voice as she walks into the kitchen.

"Really?" He says, raising an eyebrow as if there is some sort of inside joke between them. "What was he doing here." He leans over the back of the couch where I sit.

"He said he thought someone was in trouble up here, but Tony will you tell me his secret identity?" I plead, trying to make my face look as sweet and innocent as possible.

"Now why would I do that, the guy has a secret identity for a reason."

"But you do know what it is right?" I ask hopefully.

"Of course I do, you don't think i'd let some random person onto the avengers without finding out who he is do you? Oh, Pepper we have a bit of a problem." He changes the subject, and I resign myself for the moment.

"What kind of problem?" She asks worried.

"Nothing big, it's just that we accidentally knocked out all the power in a 5 mile radius."

"What?" She says in an unamused voice, "How? What even happened?" Tony rubs a hand over the back of his neck.

"Well i've had everyone in the science department working on that new compact power source, there was a little trouble trying to safely contain that much power in such a small container and we had put the project down until we could run a few more tests. Someone took the liberty of testing the prototype without permission, and long story short that guy just got fired."

"So, are there any damages to pay, caused by the blackout?"

"I sent happy to figure that out, but in the meantime, i'm starving, let's eat something."

"Well, I didn't make anything because of, well the power being out. So whadda you say we go get chinese food?" Pepper asks the two of us as she stands up off the couch.

"I second the motion." I state standing up after her and staring to look for my shoes.

"I third the motion, motion carried." Tony pretends to slam down a judge's mallet. I laugh at him and slide my shoes on, and the three of us head off to dinner. Content to be in each other's company, and the events of the past few weeks momentarily forgotten.