Despite the initial start to her day, Lu had calmed down by the time she had found talks she was interested in and Daniel, the good uncle he was, endured every single one of them. She didn't think he could in any way interest himself in studies on thermonuclear weapons, or the rise of artificial intelligence and the theory of mind but he pushed through, trying to keep his yawns to himself and Lu loved him for it, even when he mockingly whispered "God, I wish I could swap places with Mona right about now.".

When her mother had died, the worst fear she had had had truly been her ending up alone. Despite the fact that she knew she had close family nearby, her brain started spinning stories of her going into the system and ending up with foster family after foster family. Sometimes she thought it would have been better for her mother to get sick gradually, so all details concerning her living arrangements would have been discussed already by the time her mother would have died. But then, she thought, she was glad that she didn't have to watch her suffer. She was able to spend every day until that bad one with her, no worries on her mind.

But then it had happened and she had ended up with Daniel and Tanya, a familiar environment, all its members, routines, smells not differing too much from her own home. It made life just a little bit easier, even though there was a vital part missing.

She had been an incredible woman, her mother. A medical engineer, smart as a whip, kind, and everything Lucia would ever really aspire to be.

Shaking herself out of her thoughts, Lu noticed the last talk coming to an end. She had seen about seven or eight talks that day and if Daniel next to her was already fighting sleep without really paying attention to any of them, really, she was spent.

Tugging on his shirt, she tried to get his attention when the talk had ended. "Ready to leave?"

"Jesus, yes," he muttered with a laugh and grabbed Lu's bag for her. "Come on."

The masses of people piling out of the room and her exhaustion made her move slowly. It had finally been enough on that day. She just wanted to go home, take a shower and fall asleep for at least the next ten hours.

However, the farther outside they moved, the denser the crowd got. They were probably waiting for someone, the amount of celebrities running around the convention wasn't little. Most of them were either engineers themselves or politicians campaigning for clean energy. They hadn't seen Schwarzenegger though, so Lu craned her neck to get a better view, just when someone bumped into her again, pushing her further outside of the convention center and onto the street, Daniel still trying to stay beside her.

She got pushed far enough outside where she could see an opening to escape the stampede behind her. Nodding to Daniel to show him the way, Lu wrestled through the people but was abruptly stopped when a hand came up against her chest, pushing her away with more strength than would have been needed for a girl her size. It caught her off guard, making her lose her balance and fall right onto the floor. But there were no people around her then. Lu realized the mistake she had made one second too late, as her eyes stayed glued to the blue carpet lining the sidewalk.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"My job, sir."

"Your job is to manhandle?"

"She was trespassing, sir."

"Get out of my way. You need a hand?" The man's hand appeared in her vision, slightly waving as if to get her attention. She couldn't bring herself to look up. That voice, she had definitely recognized it and it made her freeze up, the familiar nausea returning, tenfold. But she needed to get up, she couldn't sit on the carpet with Tony Stark waving his hand in front of her face without looking like a complete fool.

Taking in a shaky breath, she took his hand, let herself be pulled up and her breath stopped the minute she looked up, and funnily enough, so did his. Both gaped at each other, confused or afraid until he shook his hand loose, as if she had burned him. Looking her face over and over, his hand went up to his ear before he mumbled, "Recalibrate," before turning his attention back on her, raising his voice slightly to ask for her name. When she didn't respond, he grabbed her arm, asking again.

Her name. The question was easy enough but the panic rising inside of her made her hair stand on end. Her palms were already sweaty and she knew what would happen, if she even so much as tried to open her mouth. His hand tightened around her arm and his jaw clenched tightly, his expression immediately changing from startled to something more forceful. "Your name."

Feeling a hand on her shoulder, Lu's head whipped around to catch Daniel's deer-in-headlights expression and her stomach dropped. She had never even budged and answered his questions about her name, but Daniel had caught his attention then, so Lu pulled her arm out of his grip with all of her might and felt her feet hit the pavement before she even knew what exactly she was doing, letting them carry her away from the scene. She didn't really care where she went as long as it was far, far away from… him.

In the end, Lu found herself retching over the all too familiar trash can again, holding back her hair with shaky fingers and alternating between slight sobs and dry-heaving for longer than she would have liked.

When the nausea finally wore off, she let herself rest on the bench, exhaustion pulling on every inch of her body. This was worse than anything she could have ever anticipated. At least it was dark outside by now, so she wasn't easily spotted in the park.
But she could have given less of a damn about the way she had embarrassed herself. What was nagging her was Tony's reaction. Whatever it had meant, it wasn't good.

When she finally saw Daniel through her blurry vision walk up to her, his expression was grim and unnerved.

"What happened?" she asked, trying to stop from sniffling.

Daniel sank down next to her, and his hand found its familiar spot on her back. Oh god.