Briana Stark

I'm heading down to the workshop when I see mom's strawberry-blonde hair and I instantly hid at the bottom of the staircase, pushing my ear to the wall to eavesdrop.

"Hey," Dad's voice is low and sincere. "You busy? You mind if I send you on an errand? I need you to go to my office. You're going to hack into the mainframe and you're going to retrieve all the recent shipping manifests. This is a lock chip. This'll get you in. It's probably under Executive Files. If not, they put it on a ghost drive, in which case you need to look for the lowest numeric heading."

Did I miss something?

"And what do you plan to do with this information if I bring it back here?" Mom asks seriously.

"Same drill. They've been dealing under the table, and I'm going to stop them. I'm going to find my weapons and destroy them," Dad's voice is so calm and it scares me.

No, no. Again, really? I don't want another repeat of what happened in Afghanistan. He almost died. Hell, we almost died. But then again, that's the hero gig, isn't it?

"Tony, you know that I would help you with anything and raising our kid, but I cannot help you if you're going to start all of this again." Mom says.

"There is nothing expect this. There's no art opening. There is no benefit. There is nothing to sign. There is the next mission and nothing else." Dad says.

"Is that so?" Mom says. "Well, then, I quit."

My heart breaks. I hear her toss something hard onto a table before her heels click toward the door. No, this isn't happening. You guys promised. You both promised to be there.

"You stood by my side all these years while I reaped the benefits of destruction. And now that I'm trying to protect the people that I put in harm's way, our daughter, you, and you're going to walk out?"

"You're going to kill yourself, Tony," Mom says with honestly and fear in her voice. "I'm not going to be a part of it."

I hear his voice nearly tremble when he says, "I shouldn't be alive," his voice grows gruff and emotional, "unless it was for a reason. I'm not crazy, Pepper. I just finally know what I have to do. And I know in my heart that it's right."

I hear mom's heels slowly click back into the room before she says quietly, "You and Briana are all I have too, you know."

I quickly run up the stairs again and into my room so mom and dad won't know that I was eavesdropping. I jump back into my bed and pretended to be asleep and soon I hear the sound of mom's heels walking in as she kisses my forehead then I hear her softly walk out, closing the door behind her. After a while of just lying in bed, I finally got up and went down the stairs to get myself some water.

I'm about to walk into the kitchen when a sudden an arm wraps around my body, restraining me. I immediately start to panic and try to twist around to get away from whoever's holding me. I start to scream, praying that dad hears me. But my screaming gets cut off by a high-pitched ring. I jerked in response and then I go very still. My eyes look down at my arms to see my skin going deathly pale and the veins on his flesh become visible, the veins on my face and neck rise on my skin. A familiar face appears in front of me then.

Obie.

"Don't worry, kid." Ugh, that stupid nickname again. "It'll only last fifteen minutes and then you won't be around any longer."

I won't be around any longer? I won't be around any longer!? What the hella is going on!? I mean, I always knew that Obie was crazy and that I never liked him, and my suspicion on him only grew because of the weapons deal but I didn't think he'll go this far.

"I'll be honest, kid. I know you never liked me and you were always on to me, but I didn't think that I'll have to do this to you, kid. My plan for you was to just take the company from you when your time came. Stark Industries may be your blood, kid, but it's not your ability." Obie says.

Wanna bet? I'll fight you right now for that company, Obie.

"But now, unfortunately after I'm done with you, you won't be around much anymore..." Obie's voice trailed off as I sudden feel wires being pulled out of me and this sudden shot of pain hits my body everywhere then everything goes black.

•••

I felt a shock bring me out of it.

My eyes fluttered open, adjusting to the sight of them being open once again. I felt mom pull me into her arms as I look around, mom had a few people with her and I recognize one of them as the agent she was talking to when me and dad first came back home, I think she say that his name was Agent Coulson.

There's a low groaning as we continue to walk along and the chains beside us begin to shake. Their pace slows and they carefully turn towards the noise. Wires hang and zap from the ceiling and empty space is below it. Chains continue to jingle and I bury my face halfway into mom's shirt. Suddenly white glowing eyes shoot open and I hear a loud, almost whining noise as the eyes begin to go higher and higher above us.

"Take him out!" I hear Agent Coulson yell.

Bullets fly and metal clashes with metal. I hear the suit behind us crashing around, destroying everything in his path. Light explodes around us and mom rushes us outside of the reactor building.

"Pepper!" I hear a familiar voice yell from mom's earpiece.

"Tony!" She exclaims in relief. "Tony, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Dad starts to answer, "Where's Briana? Is she okay?"

"Daddy!" I say loud enough for him to hear me.

"Briana!" His voice sounds terrified and thrilled at the same time. "What happened!? Is everything okay!?"

Mom keeps her arms wrapped around me, "The reactor in her chest was gone, Tony. We- we had to restart her heart and find where Obie hid her reactor."

I don't hear dad or his breathing and for a minute, I thought it was because I couldn't hear him. Then I hear dad speaks but his voice holds rage and hatred, "I'm going to kill him."

"Tony, there are agents inside." Mom says.

"I'm on my way! Just get out of there right now," His voice is muffled by a loud and strange rumbling behind us.

The ground pushes up and big metal hands erupt from inside. The hands easily throw away a large piece of concrete to reveal the terrifying suit with the terrifying man inside of it.

"Briana! Pepper!" I hear dad yelling.

The suit shakes the ground when it stands to its feet before us and a deep, low voice asks, "Where do you think you're going?"

I buried my face halfway into mom's shirt, her arms tighten around me.

The suit's arm rises and a gun lifts from the metal, "Your services are no longer required."

Suddenly a loud voice yells, "Stane!"

Mom and I whirl around and the suit looks up to see dad, armored in red and gold, flying towards us. The suit begins shooting at dad and stumble back when dad smashes his suit into Obie's. They both go flying through the hole in the ground, disappearing from our view. I hear loud crashing from far away. A bright blip then lit up the dark sky, my head looks as dad and Obie reached for the sky.

After a few long minutes, mom's earpiece was sounding with dad's voice. "Tony! Oh my god, are you okay?" I look at mom, "Wait, you want us to use the arc reactor?" Mom pauses again.

I stayed close to mom as we hurried back inside and found the main console. Mom hit one last button, her voice sounding loudly. "Okay, we're clear Tony. Get off the roof."

Suddenly, the sound of gunfire snapped my attention. Glass then falls and I look down and pin my arms closer to my body, so it wouldn't touch my skin. When the falling glass cleared, Dad was hanging by a beam above us.

"Peps, time to push the button!" Dad screams.

Mom shakes her head, "You'll die!"

I felt my eyes widen in fear, I know that dad would die for what was in his heart but I don't care if he died. I can't lose him, I can't lose my father.

"Push it!"

"Daddy!" I cried.

When mom's palm hit the red button and the room exploded in blue light. The arc reactor started powering up excessively behind us. I took a quick glance at dad before mom rushes us back outside again. When the building went up in flames, the explosion rocking the ground, tears pricked my eyes as I buried my face in mom's shirt, my cries for dad echoed in the night.

Despite mom telling me to stay put, I made sure that she wasn't looking and quickly walked towards the burning building. I didn't care that the whole building could collapse at any given second, I was about to walk in and before I could step my foot into the burning building, a figure stepped out of the burning building, his head mask removed.

"Now, remember I told you to always listen to your beautiful mother." Dad breathed out, a tiny smile on his face.

"Daddy!" I said in relief, throwing my arms around his body.

He won, and he made it out alive.

•••

Uncle Rhodey finishes up, "And now, Mr Stark has prepared a statement. He will not be taking any questions. Thank you."

Dad goes up onto the stage and hold up the cards, "Been a while since I was in front of you. I figure I'll stick to the cards this time, there's been speculation that I was involved in the events that occurred on the freeway and the rooftop."

An annoying voice interrupts, "I'm sorry, Mr Stark." I quietly gag when I notice that it was Christine Everhart speaking, "But do you honestly expect us to believe that that was a bodyguard in a suit that conveniently appeared, despite the fact that you,"

Dad interrupts her back, squinting a bit and shaking his head to the side a little. "I know that it's confusing. It is one thing to question the official story and another thing entirely to make wild accusations, or insinuate that I'm, uh, a superhero."

"I never say you were a superhero." Christine replies sassily.

I roll my eyes at her.

"Well, good, because that would be outlandish and uh," he looks down at his cards, "fantastic."

He struggles a little, "I'm just not the hero type. Clearly. With this laundry list of character defects, all the mistakes I've made, largely public,"

Uncle Rhodey whispers something to dad about getting back on track.

"Yeah, yeah, okay." Dad holds up the cards, "The truth is," He pauses.

His eyes slowly roll up to the audience of reporters and he's deep in thought. He drops the cards onto the podium.

"I am Iron Man."

The reporters go up into an uproar as he gives a small, almost unseen smirk.

•••

I hummed softly as I walk into the house, following close behind dad. "Welcome home, sir," I hear Jarvis' voice die out from where I'm standing.

"C.A.S.S?" I called out.

No reply. I follow after dad as I stand with him into the living room.

"Who are you?" Dad says, making sure he has a protectively arm around me.

"Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD." The man says.

"Oh," Dad responds like he understands.

"I'm here to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative."

Iron Man belongs to Marvel

Briana belongs to me