Lies || Tony Starks Daughter

Chapter Thirty-One

"Wait, whoa, no." Tony puts his hands in the air. "I love you, and all, but I can't do that."

"Why not? It's the best solution." Jessica states while placing her hands on her hips. "I love him, dad." 

"You don't know him." Tony rolls his eyes. 

"Tony." Bruce coughs under his breath. The billionaire turns to his best friend, they had had a talk while searching for Jess about Tony being so overprotective. Bruce had mentioned that he needed to let go because Jessica was technically an adult now, not that she hadn't been before. After everything she had been through, Jessica was more grown up than any teenager should be. 

"I just....we just got you back." Tony's voice breaks slightly. He was angry with himself for saying all those things to his daughter, he was angry that he let the government get in the way of their relationship, and he was angry that all they've been doing is fighting since she woke up. "I...I was going to make it up to you and then we'd go watch a movie or something, then you'd catch me up and tell me more about yourself. You do realize that we haven't done that as often as we should, right?"

"I'll come back." Jess states while smiling at her dad. "There's no way I'm letting you forget about me even in the slightest. You're my dad and I love you. There's no replacing or forgetting that."

"Do you have to go?" Tony demands.

"We won't leave right away." She assures him. "Peter and I talked, we're going to stay on earth for a few weeks so he can catch up. He's even more behind that Rogers." 

"I take offense to that." Steve states while putting his hand in the air. "Seriously, I'm not that behind." 

"Oh yeah? You can't turn your computer on without getting a million viruses and sending my money to a Nigerien prince." Tony fires back without a second beat. "I've had to baby proof all of your electronics." 

"That's not fair." Steve points his finger towards Tony. "I thought we were going to keep that a secret." 

"Yeah, I decided not to." Tony chuckles but it soon dies as the situation gets back to him. He really had to let his daughter go fight monsters in space. What if he never saw her again? What if she didn't want to come back? What if he missed more milestones in her life? Her wedding? Her first child? 

"Stop freaking out." Jessica orders while placing a hand on her father's arm. "You aren't missing anything, even if I have to drag your ass to space myself." 

"Promise?" Tony genuinely questions. "I can't miss anymore, Jessica. I've missed too much because of your mom and you just...disappearing."

"I promise that you won't miss anything." She assures him. "Cross my heart." 

With that, Tony pulls her into his arms for a hug. He didn't want to cry in front of the team but when he hears the sniffles coming from Jess, the tears just seem to start flowing down his cheeks with no end in sight. 

Tony knew that she wasn't leaving yet, the message was lodged in his brain, yet something inside of him knew that a piece of her was already gone. Jessica loved this man and, even though Tony did not understand it, he had to let it happen. Her happiness was the most important thing to him and Tony knew that he couldn't stand in the way of that any longer. 

Eventually, they step away from one another with red eyes and wet cheeks yet they both wore smiles. It was sad to think that Jessica was leaving and as she hugged the girls, she knew they were trying to hold in their tears too. Everyone knew that she wasn't leaving for a while but just the impending thought made them pull her into a hug and not want to let go but they had to, because the next person would be waiting to hug her. 

"Hey." Jess sniffs after hugging Clint last. "We need to let them out of the Hulk lock down thing." 

"You're never going to learn the name of it, are you?" Tony laughs. 

"No, I'm not." She smiles back at him. "Because it's just another thing that's no match for how badass I am." 

"That is something I would like to see." Bruce speaks up. "How did you get out of there? Even Thor couldn't when we first met and I've made many improvements to it." 

"Maybe I'm just a ninja." Jess shrugs. "Or more powerful than we all think." 

"That would be too scary to think about." Tony shakes his head. "But fine, I guess we can let them up. As long as the raccoon doesn't build anything with my stuff." 

"Yeah, I can't make a promise for that one." 

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Come to a close soon, fam. 

I feel that it's a good place to end without dragging the book on and on to a point where the chapters are just fillers that make no sense. Maybe a part two will come in the future but we'll see lol

-Author Out