Leah Stark - The Unknown Child

3.12.0

The day after the parade was relaxing. Peter came over to the tower, along with Ned and MJ. We decided to just chill, watching movies for the majority of the day, showing each other memes the rest of the time. Eventually, we got onto the topic of the media coverage of Pride and mine and Spiderman's appearance. Just by seeing the look of suspicion on MJ's face, I could tell she was the only one in the room who didn't know about Peter's alter ego.
"So, Pete, Spiderman's also trans." MJ said, obviously trying to size him up. "How'd you fell about that?"
"I mean, it's pretty cool that he's also trans and saves the world and stuff, but other than that, Mr Starks still my favourite hero!"
"Bro, he's still my dad. And you've seen him after he thought that coffee would reverse the effects of NiQuil. He disassociated for like nine hours and built a new AI that's whole function was allowing Dum-E to communicate and that got shut off pretty quickly when he found the stupid inventions subreddit."
"Some may argue that was a fate worse than Ultron succeeding."
"Accurate description."
"Anyway," MJ said, clearly trying to lead us back onto the conversation we where having earlier, "Leah, you got a girlfriend?"
"Yeah, but I don't really know where we are at the moment. We haven't talked since I got back and her parents aren't that supportive of it so she hasn't told them about us, so you know."
"It'll probably be fine." Ned said, smiling. "Just look at it this way, you two are dating because you love each other, so obviously things are just at a little rough patch, and the best way to get over it is for you to call her first."
"Wow." Peter said. "Ned the relationship guru. What an icon right there."
"Yeah," I said to Ned. "I should probably call her later, ask her what's up."
MJ laughed. "Yeah, you should probably do that."
    We finished the film and the trio left as it was getting late and they had things to do the next day. I led them out and went back up to the penthouse.
    I walked up to me room and grabbed my phone from the side and began flicking through my contacts to find Lilith's name.
    My thumb hovered over her contact. I was nervous. Was she mad at me for what I did and how I left? Did I do something wrong? I couldn't have, could I?
     I called her.
     The phone rang. Once. Twice. Four times.
"Sorry, the person you want to talk to is currently unavailable. If you wish to leave a message, press 1 on the keyboard. If you wish to talk to them, please call at a later time."
       I hung up before texting her, 'Hi Lilith. I don't know if I did anything wrong, but can you call me when you get this? I miss you.'
       An error message popped up - your message couldn't be delivered. I was frustrated.  Did she block me? What did I do?
       I opened my laptop, attempting to distract myself. She was probably busy or in an area with no signal with her family. It was probably something simple. The simple answers were always the right ones.
       I the tab to twitter and saw the tweets I'd been tagged in, mainly to do with being at pride with Spider-Man and my dad. It was cool, watching people freak out over that kind of thing.
      Obviously, there were some negative tweets, people saying that a woman can't run a company without a man by their side and how it's wrong. All I could think was how those people obviously had too much free time.
     Then it clicked. Lilith's parents. They were homophobic. I'd been round their house with Lilith to hang out before I went for my treatment. They probably figured it out.
      They made Lilith block me.
      "Shit." I muttered under my breath, shutting my laptop and running down to the lab to find dad.
"Dad!" I yelled into the lab.
He looked up from his work, the glint of worry evident in his eyes. "What? What's wrong?"
"I made a mistake. A big mistake."
He sighed. "Come over here kiddo. Let's talk about it." He stabilised whatever he was working on before sitting down, tapping a stool opposite him.
I sat down. "Now, what's wrong?" Dad asked me, calmly.
"Okay, so you know we went to Pride yesterday, and I said I bought you because Lilith couldn't go because of her parents, and you said it was for the best because we would attract media attention."
"Yes, where's this going kid?"
"Obviously our pictures got taken of me and you at the festival, and obviously it's kinda being covered on all news outlets."
"Okay? I'm sti- oooooohhhhh. Yep, I see where you're coming from now. She's not answering your calls and your texts aren't going through."
I nodded sadly, almost on the verge of tears.
"Oh kiddo, come here." He said, opening his arms. I quickly to refuge in them, tears beginning to leak from my eyes. "It's gonna be okay. I mean, she's still interning here and if she doesn't turn up for a week, we have a policy of sending someone to check on them. I can send you and Happy to check on her. Okay? And I'll make sure that Friday notifies you if she turns up in the tower, Okay kiddo?"
I nodded. "Can we just watch a film with Pepper and order Chinese or something?"
"Sure Leah."

I hated writing this so much.
It hits way to close to home for me and I hate that, but you know, stuff happens.

Anyway, you guys are actually amazing! 20k reads is so cool, honestly thank you guys and gals so much! You're all so cool and I probably wouldn't have tried to finish this book if you guys didn't like actively start commenting and voting. I honestly have to thank you guys for being so supportive of the book! You rock!

CJ
x