Parasite *•.¸♡ 𝙏𝙤𝙣𝙮 𝙎𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙠'𝙨 𝘿𝙖𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙚𝙧 ♡¸.•*

The Truth Slips

Tony looks up from his menu and sees that Arianna is examining both him and Pepper. He lets it slide, but wonders why she's looking at them like she's trying to figure something out. When Ariana catches him watching her examine them, her face flushes red as she shoots him a quick forced smile before looking down at her menu and hiding her face with her curly brown hair.

Stark smirks and turns to the waiter that had just asked them for their order. They all take turns and he leaves taking their menus with an excited skip away from getting to meet the Tony Stark (his friends are going to flip out!).

A silence falls over the tables and they are left to listen to the soft piano music and murmurs of people having conversations below. Ariana looks at her hands that are fidgeting in her lap. Tony clears his throat before asking, "so, uh Ari... got any fun stories?" Fun stories? Nice one, he scolds himself.

"Fun stories? Like about my past or..?" she questions with a confused face.

"Yeah, like before you came here, what was your life like?" He explains. She suppresses a giggle as she thinks of the shambles her life was in before she came there. I don't think that's a story that should be shared, Mr Stark. That was what she would have said with a chuckle, but instead, she settles for: "oh, nothing special. It was pretty boring."

Stark frowns. Why does she never answer my questions directly? Why doesn't she tell me anything? This is why I don't try to talk to her. She never actually tells any stories or goes off on tangents or goes off on some topic. She's more of a listener than a talker.

She notices his frown and she curses at herself. What did I do wrong this time? Pepper notices both of their expressions change and interjects, placing a gentle hand on Ariana's arm -which tenses with the contact- turning to face her, "I think he means that he wants you to share about your past."

Her breathing feels like it comes to a halt. Why does he want to know? Does he know something? Did he figure out anything? I hope not. Hesitantly, she asks, "why?"

"I just want to get to know you better," he shrugs.

"Telling people things about your past can help build bonds," Pepper offers.

She takes a deep breath. Good. He's not hinting at anything that happened to me. But what does he want to know? What should I share? "Uh, what do you want to know?" Ariana asks.

"One of your favourite memories," he states blankly.

"Okay," she pauses. "Well, I guess I liked the time when Maurice took me to the ice cream parlour down the street and we walked around a nice park. That was a good day."

"Who is Maurice?" Pepper asks.

"Oh, Maurice was one of the people that adopted me before the foster system got a hold of me. He was a great... person," she explains. Thinking about him again makes her feel as though someone plunged a dagger into her chest and it's being slowly twisted.

Noticing her sadness, Tony asks, "alright. Do you remember anything about your birth parents?"

Pepper whips her head to look at him with a 'what the hell!?' look on her face. This tells Ariana that they had read the police report. She sighs deeply. "I suppose you found the police reports," she sadly guesses.

Pepper looks at her with pity, "yes."

"Okay, do you really want to hear what I remember or should I sugar-coat it?" Ariana asks looking at the pair. She doesn't want to ruin the evening, but she also doesn't want them to get angry at her for not telling them enough.

"There's no need to sugar-coat it," Tony says blankly crossing his arms. He thinks he already knows what it's going to be about. He's glad he read through part of the report so he isn't going to accidentally let any emotions slip. *ᶜᵒᵘᵍʰ* ᶠᵒʳᵉˢʰᵃᵈᵒʷⁱⁿᵍ *ᶜᵒᵘᵍʰ*  ⁱʳᵒⁿʸ *ᶜᵒᵘᵍʰ*     ᴵ ᵃᵐ ˢᵒ ˢᵒʳʳʸ ᵖˡᵉᵃˢᵉ ᵉˣᶜᵘˢᵉ ᵐʸ ᶜᵒᵘᵍʰⁱⁿᵍ.

"Well I remember that he had just come home, mom and I didn't know where he went and we were really scared that something happened to him. My mom started yelling at him because he smelled like alcohol and cigarettes. This made my dad really angry. I had seen him angry before, but that rage was nothing compared to what it was that night. Instead of simply landing a slap or a few punches or knocking her out, he stomped over to the kitchen counter and took out one of the knives. My mom was scared and tried to usher me out of the room. I didn't get too far because I turned to hear my mother scream, and I-" she pauses taking a breath. "I saw the blood drip out of her chest as he kept on stabbing her."

Looking up she sees Pepper on the verge of tears, and is that...? Emotion???? From the great Tony Stark?!? She adds, "I screamed for my mama and he turned to me, blood splattered on his face, and pointed the knife at me saying 'one more sound and your next'" She laughs at the last part.

Tony slightly lets his face fall to one of disbelief. How the hell can she be laughing at a time like this? She just fucking told me about how she got threatened by her own father and she's.. laughing??

"Little did I know that I should have just made more noise," she adds with a smile, shaking her head. Pepper's heart feels like it breaks when she realises what she meant by that. "Obviously as you saw, my father hired someone to help him set it up as a break-in; had me lie for them and everything. After that, as you also saw, he began abusing me and stuff," she shrugs, her face devoid of emotion.

With this revelation Pepper gasps and puts a hand over her mouth as Tony stands up, knocking over his chair with a sudden movement, angrily questioning, "he what?"          *ᶜᵒᵘᵍʰ* ᵗᵒˡᵈ ʸᵃ *ᶜᵒᵘᵍʰ*

Flinching at the sound of the chair harshly colliding the ground, Ariana is shocked by his reaction. He didn't know about that part? Had he not read the whole report? Damnit. I could have gone without talking about it and he would have been none the wiser!