The smell of smoke still lingered in the air when Mary rushes into the top floor of Stark Towers. It makes her breath harder as she rushes room to room. She rushes to her room first, tossing clothing into a white and blue duffle bag at random. Skirts,
t-shirts, underwear it didn't really matter to her in her panicked haze that seemed to make the universe spin around her. She's not even sure she packed socs. She tosses in pink Nikes and her mother's necklace in a flickering moment of clarity and throws her cell phone down against the bed.
Next she hits the living room. She pulls a painting off the wall of a lighthouse leading ships to safety in rocking darkness that she never really liked anyways and throws it gently onto the sofa. She starts punching familiar numbers into the safe that Tony thinks she doesn't know even though she figured the combination out when she was nine during her Jamie Bond faze. She pulls out three wads of cash fatter than any doctor recommend portion of steak, strapped together with rubber bands and throws them into the duffle; covering them with a sweater.
Placing the painting back against the nail she spies the photographs resting in frames along the mantel still strung in gold and silver garland. There's one in particular that makes her swallow the painful lump in her dry throat. It's Tony and her, a handful of years ago at the science fair. Their faces are smeared with soot from an experiment gone wrong, but their matching Stark grins were wide and enthusiastic. Tony had one arm slung around her bony, prepubescent shoulders giving the camera a thumbs up while she holds up her smoldering experiment. Most of the frames were filled with their pictures. Small, happy moments when Pepper thought to pull out her camera and snap away excitedly.
"Miss. Stark are you alright? I'm detecting a rapid increase in your heart rate." JARVIS finally addressed his young mistress.
"I'm fine JARVIS." Mary swallowed again and pushed the photo down into her bag along with a picture of Aunt Peggy years ago one Fourth of July picnic and snapshot of Pepper buried deep in a stack of paperwork. Just like Mary would always picture her. "Are you planning a trip somewhere?"
"You could say that." She spat with a tremble in her tone as she fumbled to zip up her bag. "Is Mr. Stark aware of this?" The AI asks suspiciously. Mary freezes for a moment then finally zanks the zipper across firmly. "Miss. Stark are you sure that you are in the best condition to travel at the moment. According to my readings you have an elevated heart rate, a drastically off pH balance, and an increasingly low blood pressure."
"I'll be fine JARVIS! I just-, I just need to get out of here! I need, I need some space. I need to think."
She rakes her fingers through her hair shakily.
"Miss. Stark I really cannot approve of this."
"Then don't."
She throws her duffel over her shoulder and hurries for her shoes when she glimpse a mirror. Her head whips back painfully in a double take. No. No, dear God no. Limply her bag fell to the floor as a wave of numbness and shock trickle through Mary. Carefully, like she might scare off the reflection, she tip toes to the frame and gingerly presses her shaking fingertips against the glass.
This was not her. She was not the girl trapped behind the glass and staring back at her with a matching expression of terror. This girl had white blonde hair that ran straight, and grey eyes like liquid silver that bore into her; her skin was almost translucently pale. There was no more tan, no more honey highlights, no more chocolate eyes. This was another girl. It had to be.
"What's happening to me." She whispered through the empty room.
"The metallic levels in your blood seem to be at deadly levels Miss. Stark. And yet your vital signs, aside from your increased heart rate, all read as normal." There was a pause and a moment of hesitation in the AI's voice before he added, "I can't seem to explain it."
Mary's brown-, silver eyes flickered to the staircase leading down into one of the labs. The walls had smoke damage above the trail of soot and footprints that tracked themselves through her happy home, her winter wonderland. It still smelled like smoke. She had a pretty good idea what happened. "What should I tell miss? He shall likely be worried."
Mary looked back into the mirror, then down at her bag. She looked over at her wonderland of Christmas cheer then down the stairs where her own little horror shop resided. Her eyes hardened like two slivers of steel, jaw setting painfully. The anger and bitterness filled up her ora and rolled off her in waves.
"Tell him he got rid of his burden."
The smell of smoke chases her out of Stark towers.
