I Can't Make You Love Me || Peter Parker x OC

Chapter 34: Game Plan

⚠️Content Warning⚠️

Conversations involving mildly controversial topics. Heavy themes of domestic issues/abuse. Mild swearing and vulgar language. Ian Malcolm being a certified asshole: Part 7

Anneliesa's perspective

Three days of waiting--72 hours of nervous agony, non-stop pestering from my parents, and an overnight stay in the hospital, has lead us to the last place on Earth I would ever expect myself to come back to again.

The sleek black car moved silently across the bridge, the people within it just as soundless. We were told to dress formally, and all three of us emerged from our rooms dressed for a funeral. My father's typical attire, a three-piece suit and expensive shoes, was as macabre as it always was, and my mother's usual blouse and dress pants seemed to be shrouded in darkness.

In a way, this could be a funeral. This was the death of a time when we could feel safe, even in our own home.

Every time I looked up from where I sat in the back of the car, it was weird to see a face other than that of my parent's personal driver. Tony, the one that had roped us into this in the first place, was adamant that he take care of everything relating to our travel and safety after the security breach that I created. So that's how we ended up in one of Stark's Audies with Happy Hogan behind the wheel. My father, who has had no choice but to start talking to me again, sat shotgun next to Happy, leaving my mother and I in the back seats.

As we passed by lights and cars, and everything that you could fathom in a city as large as New York City, the tinted and strengthened widows dulled the beauty that surrounded us. The bridge was less than a mile behind us, a visual marker of our arrival to the island of Manhattan.

Apparently there was an old SHIELD office in downtown Manhattan that they were able to keep off the radar a few years ago. Director fury had tried to get us all the way out to Washington D.C., or so says my dad, but Tony wanted us to stay as tightly under wraps and accessible to them as possible. Taking a private jet branded with our name was not the most inconspicuous way to get around, so we went with the next best and safest option. 30 minutes in a nice, air conditioned car beats out a stuffy plane any day, even if the destination is less than pleasant. The details of what awaited us when we got there were blurry, but it did not take a genius to put two and two together. There was a security breach at the Malcolm residence, a technology hack at Stark Industries, and now both of their little golden children were in dagger, and had possibly just made a new child.

So yeah, to anyone who didn't know what was really going on here, that one outlier being me, the stakes seemed pretty damn high. I guess in a way they really were. Pregnancy and childbirth is no easy feat, not for anyone involved. But I knew the risks going into this, and from where I stood, a lifetime of unconditional love and attention from the people I care for most is well-worth any hypothetical risks.

Every time the car turned, so did we. It dodged around other cars and anything that came it's way. After the first few streets, I stopped trying to keep track of where we were and what was going on. At some point soon after, the car did come to a stop, parked in between two buildings that looked as run-down as the streets that skirted around them. It's no wonder that this place was never discovered, it's disgusting.

"This is the place?" My father grunted from the front seat.

"Sure is. Tony and Fury are inside, and Hill's at the door to take you back there. I wouldn't keep them waiting." Happy replied coolly.

Unamused, my father threw his door open, stepping a polished shoe and a trouser-clad leg out of the car before standing fully and slamming it back shut it with just as much force. It made my mother flinch, and a new variety of silence befell the car. From opposing sides of the vehicle, we could all see my fathers lips moving as he yelled at us to "move our asses" and "get this over with", but were luckily spared the pain of having to hear it as well.