Fragments of Decay

1. Is This A Cutscene?

2018

Alice smiles sheepishly up at her dad as he enters the small room she's being held in. He's got his 'no-nonsense' look on and, somewhat surprisingly, does not look happy to see her.

"C'mon, kid," he says, nodding towards the open door. "We're going home." Alice doesn't argue, she doesn't really bother pleading her case anymore, not like she used to the first few times she got caught. This is their routine now. She gets arrested, he gets her out, he gives her the talk and they'll both pretend she's learned her lesson, despite knowing fully well that they'll find themselves doing this exact dance over again in a matter of months.
She hops into the passenger seat of one of her dads least flashy cars and buckles her seatbelt as he turns the keys.

"We can't keep doing this." He says, not looking at her in favour of paying attention to the traffic around them. She makes a noise of agreement in the back of her throat, keeps her gaze firmly out the window. "Want to try telling me what's been going on with you?"

She turns her head and finds him, as she expected, still not looking back at her. "Teenage rebellion. You were much worse when you were my age." It's her standard answer and he will get sick of it sooner than later. For now he just hums softly.

"I had a reason," he says, straying away from the script she's been rehearsing in her head. "So if you're going to keep using that excuse, I'm gonna need to hear yours." She turns back towards the window again, resting her head against the cool glass. She counts three cars passing them before answering.

"My mom abandoned me. How's that for a reason?" Her dad makes that noise again, a little sound somewhere between a sigh and a tsk. The noise that means he's starting to get annoyed, not quite there, but getting close. It means she's towing the line, pushing buttons she's smart enough to stay away from. It means she should really back down now.

His hand taps against the steering wheel and he takes a deep breath. Seemingly trying to gather his thoughts before giving her an answer.
"Your mom loved you, Alice. She was devastated about having to leave you."

Just for the sake of pushing more buttons, she mutters the last part underneath her breath along with him. "If she loved me so much she wouldn't have," she states then, stubborn and quiet, not entirely sure if she really wants him to hear. She can almost predict his answer. Sometimes parents have to do hard things. She even starts saying it, even quieter, muffled in the sleeve of her sweater.

"If you had to choose between giving your daughter up, or keeping her and leading her into certain death, what would you do?" He asks instead, eyes firmly stuck to the road, so packed with New York traffic it really wouldn't matter if he started designing his next suit right there and then.

The answer throws her off. He hadn't ever disclosed more about her mom than how much she had supposedly loved her and how devastated she had been to have to leave her. She'd never even seen a picture, gotten a letter, a text, nothing. There had been nothing but complete radio silence from her mom's side for thirteen whole years.

When she was younger she'd tried to contact her. There are some drawings she'd made when she was still really little, telling her her mom had blonde hair and brown eyes. All those drawings picture her mom as a superhero, usually flying in the air above the smaller figure labelled 'Alice'. She doesn't know whether that's true, had always assumed it wasn't because obviously superheroes were only found in comic books. Then her dad had come back from Afghanistan with a permanent sad-ish look in his eyes she'd never managed to decipher, building these suits and fighting aliens and she'd been forced to rethink her original evaluation.

She used to ask Santa Claus to get her one last Christmas with her mom, writing in her best handwriting with her favourite crayons. She hadn't ever asked - hadn't ever wanted - for anything else. As a kid she'd missed the sad look that would fall over her dad and miss Pepper's faces. As a teenager she doesn't understand why she kept trying. Every Christmas and every birthday the only thing on her list would be her mom and every time she'd wake up to piles of gifts, none of them even vaguely human shaped. Isn't the definition of insanity to keep trying the same thing yet expect a different result?

She had learned to mask her disappointment, to play with the toys and act like she wasn't pretending to have someone other than just her daddy to play with her. She'd learned to pretend like it hadn't hurt something fierce, to be surrounded by love yet all alone.

Somewhere during her preteens her desperation for her mothers attention had turned into desperation for anyone's attention. Nevermind the fact she had her dads without ever even having to ask for it. Nevermind the fact she could do just about anything and have the whole world watching. She hadn't wanted her dad to come bail her out, she'd wanted her mom to.
Insanity, truly.

Her dad was still waiting for an answer, she realizes with a start. He's finally torn his gaze away from the back of the car in front of them. "What?" She stammers out, choking on the syllable, as if the word physically got stuck in her throat.

He lowers his gaze, clenches his jaw and abruptly looks back at the road. "Want some ice-cream?" She stares back at him. "What?" She repeats, slightly louder this time.

"Ice-cream," he asks, stubbornly staring down the dog in the car in front of them. "Do you want some?" She physically shakes her head, trying to clear her mind. "Uh- sure?"

They stay quiet as her dad turns the car, changes the GPS to the nearest ice-cream shop. Alice busies herself by staring out the window, counting all the red cars she sees, trying to make sentences out of the letters on their licence plates. She does everything she can to avoid looking in her dad's direction and vaguely she feels as though he's doing the same.

"I'll go grab us some seats." She mutters the second the car door has closed behind her. Her dad just nods at her, offering a hesitant smile. She keeps her head low as she stalks over to the row of seats furthest away from the door, allowing her hair to fall in a curtain in front of her face.

She unceremoniously drops down into one of the booths, pulling her knees up against her chest the way she knows Pepper would scold her for. With her head resting on top of her folded arms she watches the back of her dad's faded AC/DC shirt get closer and closer to the front of the line.

Despite her keeping a close eye on him from the second she sat down he still managed to startle her when he drops a cup filled with ice cold heaven in front of. "Two scoops of chocolate for my favourite teen delinquent," he grins at her while sitting down.

She's halfway through her ice-cream by the time she finally manages to speak up. "What did you mean, earlier?" Her dad looks up from his own cup, raising a single eyebrow at her. "Y'know, what you said- about- about my mom."

Luckily he takes mercy on her, putting his cup down with an air of finality and fully meeting her eyes for the first time that day. "I'm not lying when I say your mom loved you, Alice."

She wants to interrupt, to tell him she's old enough to know the truth. That she doesn't need him to sugarcoat it for her any more. She keeps quiet instead. Takes another bite of her ice-cream and waits for him to continue.

"Your mom worked a very dangerous job," she can tell he's picking his words carefully, thinking them over a few times before actually talking. "It took over her whole life and one day while the two of you were at home together something happened. She realised she couldn't keep you safe anymore, so she brought you to me."

Alice can tell that he's not telling the full truth, if not fully lying then at least withholding some important parts. "Something happened-" she echoes, breaking eye contact. She considers saying more, continuing but eventually decides against it, she'll figure it out eventually. He's given her more than he thinks he has. She spent enough time with Natasha as her babysitter to have learned to read between the lines. She'll get there.

"So something happened and she just decided to abandon her daughter? I mean- I haven't even gotten a damn christmas card in thirteen whole years."

Her dad gets that look in his eyes again, something sad, almost grief. He knew her mom too, she realises, he must miss her as well. He shakes his head and the look is gone, replaced with one of determination.

"Let's go home," he says, "I want to show you something."