Trapped in the Shadows

Chapter 15 - Graduation

I finished applying my makeup with my shaking hand, slipping on the dress that I was going to wear underneath my robes. It was a plain white off the shoulder a-line dress that would hopefully keep me cool beneath the hot robes. As the time for graduation loomed closer, I started to become more and more nervous, not for the future, but for my speech. As valedictorian, I was forced to give on of the speeches during the ceremony and it was stressing me out.

"You know, you're supposed to be excited before your graduation," I heard Steve comment, causing me to realize that he was leaning in my doorway.

"I should have known that you would sense that something was up, mom," I replied sarcastically, getting up from my seat so that I could face him.

"Want to tell me what's on your mind?"

"I-it's really nothing," I sighed, knowing Steve would at least provide some assurance. "It's just this speech I have to give at graduation."

"I hate to break it to you, but as the daughter of Tony Stark, you're going to have to do a lot of public speaking in your future."

I rolled my eyes, "yeah, I've figured that out for myself, thanks. It's not having to give a speech that is making me nervous, it's the speech itself. Steve, I'm supposed to stand in front of the school and talk about how much we have all grown together and how we will create a better future, but I just met these people at the beginning of the school year. I am not qualified to spew lies about how close our class is, the only people I really know is Ned, MJ, and Peter."

"(Y/N), I have proofread your speech and it is incredibly well crafted. You may not know each person in your class, but you acknowledge that while still emphasizing that they are all capable of going forth and do great things in the future. Everyone is going to love it, I promise. Besides, I'm sure most of the audience will be focusing on the fact that you're actually (Y/N) Stark."

I smiled at him, "thanks, Steve, but I don't think that people are still starstruck by me. I kinda caused the school to get blown up."

"You're still on that, huh?" He asked, his face falling slightly. He walked over to my bed and sat down, patting the spot next to him to invite me to join him. "Listen, (Y/N), these things are going to happen to you now that the world knows who you are. You may not be able to prevent them from happening, but you can do whatever to protect bystanders. What you did at your school was incredible, you did not let one person die. I know your father is incredibly proud of how you handled yourself, as are we all. You're always going to run into people who believe that superheroes cause more trouble than we help prevent. But you just have to learn to live with that because when the world needs saving those same people will be looking to you to help them."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right," I muttered, playing with the folds of my dress.

He wrapped his arm around my shoulders, "you can worry about that later, now you need to finish getting ready for your graduation, Tony wants to do pictures in ten minutes. Just remember that during your speech we will all be in the audience cheering you on. So go out there and kill it."

"I will certainly try. Thank you, Steve," I replied as he left my room.

I finished fixing my hair before placing my cap on top and checking to make sure the tassel was on the correct side. Before leaving my room, I grabbed my printed speech and robes then ran down the hallway to meet up with the Avengers. Tony insisted that we take pictures before going to the hall in which the graduation was taking place, so I had to suffer through that before we left.

There was already a large crowd of students there when we arrived, hanging outside and taking pictures before the ceremony began. I noticed MJ on the outskirts of the crowd so I bid my family farewell as I ran over to join her. A few minutes later Ned and Peter had joined us and we took some group pictures as we chatted nervously about the upcoming ceremony and what that would mean for us in the future.

It didn't take long for me to be stolen away to take pictures with random classmates, who probably just wanted the internet to think that we were friends. I continued taking pictures until we were told to line up so that we were ready to enter the building to begin the ceremony. As valedictorian, I headed the line, which meant I was far away from all of my friends.

I tried to control my breathing as I led the class into the ceremony hall, taking my seat on stage and waiting as the rest of my class filed in to sit down. I easily found where all of the Avengers were sitting and flashed them a small smile, feeling comforted by their presence here. I tried to focus on all of the speeches that came before mine, but I found my mind drifting.

However, I managed to bring myself back to earth by the time I was introduced for my speech. I took my place at the lectern, trying to keep myself from shaking. I made eye contact with Peter in the audience before beginning and he gave me a little thumbs up that I couldn't help but smile at. After taking a deep breath, I began my speech and attempted to keep my voice from wavering. However I somehow managed to gain confidence as I went along, my voice getting stronger and my fear subsiding.

At the end of the ceremony, I took a few more pictures with my friends and our diplomas. May and Tony made sure that Peter and I had plenty of pictures together, to the point where we were borderline annoyed by the two of them. However Peter was still thrilled that Tony actually accepted him as his daughter's boyfriend.

Our friend group went back to compound together along with their families for a small celebration and it was nice to have everyone over. I hadn't had the chance before to invite MJ or Ned's families over, but now that everyone knew who I was I was finally able to do it.

"I'm so proud of you, (Y/N)," Tony spoke as he gave me a hug and kissed my forehead. "And Pete and I have something to give you."

"Oh is this the secretive present that you've been working on?" I smiled, relieved that I would finally get to find out what he and Peter had been planning.

"Well, I have to admit that it didn't take much work at all. We were thinking of actually creating something for you, but then we realized that we already had the perfect gift just waiting to be yours," Tony explained before opening the door to the room. "Hey, Dum-E, do you want to come out?"

Tony's robot rolled into the room with a large bow on top, making my eyes widen. "You're joking, I get Dum-E?"

"I know how attached you became growing up with him and I'm sure you can use more help in your lab now that you will have more time to spend inventing things with your graduation from school. So as of today, he's all yours."

"Thank you so much, dad!" I cried out, flinging my arms around his neck. "And Peter, how did you ever convince him to let go?"

"It actually wasn't all that difficult, we both just thought that Dum-E would mean more to you than anything that we could create," Peter replied nervously, glancing at Tony.

"Well you were right. Thank you so much," I smiled, kissing his cheek.

-

(A/N): So fun fact I almost had to write a speech for my graduation but I was just barely beaten out of salutatorian (much to my great relief) so there was no way in hell I was going to write your graduation speech in this chapter! I apologize that this is more of a filler chapter, but I promise more exciting things will happen soon!