Chapter 10

This was the first time he and Raven willingly came together. He cleared out on of his labs, as promised and filled with art supplies. Sketch books, art markers and pens, brushes and paints, canvases and a desktop computer equipped to make digital edits. He had desks for sketching, easels for painting and drawers for storing them. Another computer for cleaning up music tracks, along with a separate space for the two instruments she loved. The last time he did something like this he was in his element. Harley had liked the same the things as him, giving him a workshop was a no brainer. Raven's art studio was new territory. He had no clue what she needed as an artist, and asking her wouldn't be nearly as fun as surprising her. There was so many things he hadn't known were factors, like the equipment. He devoured the knowledge like his life depended on it. This was his chance to win her over.

"Oh my god." Pepper came upstairs first, and found him setting up another desktop in the art room. "Tony, what have you been doing?"

"I know, I know. It's a little rough looking. But I've got nearly everything I can think of for Raven. She's got drawing and painting supplies over there and the recording room corner over here." He rubbed his hands anxiously together. "Think she'll like it?"

Pepper laughed, "You threw the piano in there too? I thought we were going to just have the keyboard for starters?" She gestured to the small grand piano in the connected room. "You know she's going to make that face when she realizes you gave up two labs."

"I'll live," he dismissed. "But look! I made sure the piano guys got here the second I dropped Raven off at therapy. And since she and Dr. Manson are so cozy, she doesn't even mind her driving her back. She's going to be completely blown away."

"Other than the fact you told her about the room already."

"Seeing is believing Pep."

Her smiled glowed with fondness. "I don't I've seen you this excited for a project that didn't involve metal or science." She surveyed the room. "I just hope you aren't going overboard. She doesn't like going all out, like you."

"Aw c'mon Pep," he whined. "Don't jinx me! She'll love it," he insisted with a twinge of fear. "Won't she?"

He was staking a lot in this art studio. It was the first thing Raven wanted, something so simple by his standards. Just like Vivian, he thought distantly. The women he used to mess around with always tried to get something out of him. With his wealth it was an expense he could manage. Vivian never wanted anything from him, not really. There was no love between them not like him and Pepper, rather a pleasant understanding. He was struggling to remember her hoping to figure out Raven in the process. They weren't together long but without Vivian there would be no Raven. He couldn't ignore the past.

If only she gave him something to go on. Raven was a world class safe, nothing got in or out. All he needed was a crack into her complex, private thoughts. He wanted nothing more to make her happy after all she went through. She deserved no less. He kept thinking about himself at her age, his life was a dream compared to her. He was a year older than her when Barnes killed his parents, Obadiah raised him while systemically back-stabbing him and his company. He then became Iron Man and slowly pieced himself a better image. Her story saw tragedy and swerved off the tracks, then over a cliff. Maybe a little TLC was all she needed to open up.

There was a soft, awed gasp behind them. "What the hell?" Raven found them upstairs in the budding art room. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph."

Her exclamation brought a huge grin across Tony's face. She spun around on her bare feet utterly blown away, and he was just setting up. "Well, what do you think? It isn't finished, but not bad for some ground work."

Tony had studied the furniture and paintings she ordered for her room and expanded on it. She liked the classics, but nothing too overreaching. Klimt, Van Gogh, Monet but not Picasso. Raven had a thing for paintings with stories, soothing landscapes and pretty things. He had a table of every medium he knew she loved. Drawing, painting, composing, editing and yes, even origami. Since she loved music, he made sure the sound system in here was nothing short of perfection. With a discreet stereo in the art room. He read that artists liked listening to music when working.

There was nothing lacking in this room. It was her own private art store. All the types and sizes of paper she could want. Pencil lead and colored, pastels, chalk, charcoal. Paints, oil and water, big and small. Every brush he could find. Canvases, easels, sketchbooks, composition sheets and books. He covered everything he could think of, and it looked like he did good. Raven was speechless, spinning on her heels. The overall décor was rustic youth, just like Raven.

"This is mine?" Raven had to remind herself to breathe. Then she saw the piano, her jaw dropped. "You didn't," she said to Tony, "you absolutely did not."

He was loving this, for the first time in weeks, Raven was acting like a kid. No adult composure, older than her years silence. She was a stunned teenager getting a sweet sixteen present. Tony's smile threatened to split his face.

"Not bad for a late birthday present." If Raven's jaw could have fallen to the floor, it certainly tried. "Yup, happy birthday kiddo. You get not one, but two art rooms."

It wasn't supposed to be a birthday present but the idea popped into his head and he rolled with it. It was genius, if he thought so himself. The kid spent her birthday being tortured. The last thing on her mind was no one remembering her birthday. Which gave the surprise a pièce de résistance. Bonus points for him all across the board. Raven went straight to the piano and Pepper wrapped her arms around him showering him on silent kisses. Mentioning her birthday was brilliant.

He never heard her play. Honestly he had no expectations of greatness. It was moving enough to see her marveling over the pristine grand piano. Hovering her fingers above the keys, playing a ghost tune. Was she afraid to play? Confidence tottering he observed as she circled the piano, panic replacing awe. Oh no, had he gone too far? Raven was dealing with PTSD, maybe the piano pushed it. Pepper read his thoughts and clutched his shoulders, pressing against his back waiting for the shoe to drop.

Instead she sat down and began playing Chopin's Nocturne No.19. Effortlessly without any sheet music to guide her. Her eyes closed and her fingers took over. Dancing over the keys, the only moving appendages on her entire body. They couldn't even see if she was breathing. She just played, slack and frozen from the elbows up. With a controlled passion concert performers achieved over years of practice. The music consumed and possessed her as its soft lull grew and grew. Her hands knew the piano intimately, as if they were old friends. Every key was right where it should be, how hard to press and how long. It was bare before her.

"Woah." Tony let out a breath he held hostage when she finished. "She's a maestro," he whispered to Pepper.

"I didn't see that coming," she agreed. "A little renaissance woman in the making."

Raven turned around, back to reality and embarrassed at the intimate thing they saw. With eyes to the floor and cheeks burning she muttered, "It's funny how you never forget some things." Half turned away from the piano she reached back, longingly caressing the keys. As if she could play for days.

Pepper stepped from behind Tony. "You play beautifully. When did you learn to play like that?"

Raven could not take a positive compliment. She adorably spluttered at the praise. "I've been playing since I was three. I always had a knack for it… My mum loved to listen to me play. Her boyfriend used to call me little Mozart." Her smiled lost its warmth. "He always got the composers mixed up." She stared back at the piano. "I got to play at a church once. Nearly pissed myself when mum took me to the front. It was a few months before she died, everyone thought it was darling until I started playing. The whole congregation went silent. I swore I'd done something wrong until I saw them, my parents smiling at me. So proud, because I had been trying to bow out of it earlier. My mum's boyfriend had scooped me up in his arms, gave me this big kiss. He gave the best hugs," she explained, "they're always warm. His hands were still warm the day he tried to drown me in the bathtub." She exhaled as if ridding herself of an unbearable weight. "Haven't thought about him in years. I don't even know if he's still alive."

Any conversation with her came with a sad story. Raven was full of them. It dampened his mood a little, but he wouldn't retreat like last time. With his last ounce of courage he stepped up to her arms outstretched. She read his mind and guffawed.

"C'mon," he challenged. "I give awesome hugs." She snorted, not biting at all. "What's the matter? Chicken?"

Defenses cracked she stood up, sizing him up like she was going to throttle him. Only to awkwardly shuffle into his reach, expecting it to be a trap. He never expected her to feel so fragile. How did she take all those beatings over the years? But Tony was struggling from another realization. The girl in his arms was his daughter, and this was the first time he held her. They never got to have this, the tender first meeting where he marveled at this little bean coming into the world. He practically missed her whole life. Not just the usual bit, first steps, words and precious toddler years. She almost died several times. He almost didn't get to know her, to have this moment.

He was about to choke up a when Raven pulled away. She gave him a genuine smile. "Dad hugs aren't supposed to be weird," she critiqued.

"Oh you got jokes?" He accused, no harm done. "I gotta practice! In fact, I wanna do over." He enveloped her in another hug. This time not afraid to really hold her, being as bold to thread his fingers through the hair above the nape of her neck. Pepper wrestled with her laughter beside them, although her eyes cheered Tony on.

"Better," Raven graded. She shimmied discreetly, overwhelmed at the physical contact. "You might even develop a formula for the perfect hug."

He clicked his tongue, secretly doing a happy dance at their banter. "Smart ass." He messed her hair.

"Oi!" She squeaked. "Yes, I know my hair looks a mess, thank you from reminding me." She huffed like a petulant kitten while smoothening the disaster he made. "For god's sake."

"You seriously need a haircut." With her eyes off him his face shined like the sun. He helped pull her disobedient hair behind her ear.

That touch was pushing it. "I don't do that," she told him, freeing her hair. "Old habit."

"Why?" He wondering. Other than the scar, there was nothing wrong.

She gave him a look, weighing the pros and cons of telling him. "Don't laugh," she warned. "I used to have huge, freaking ears when was little. So I never got in the habit of tucking my hair behind my ear."

Tony's lips twitched, the thought just made want to gush. She had huge ears as a kid. He tried to picture a smaller, poutier Raven with her freckled face and large ears. It was one of those distinguishing childhood traits; big ears, excessive pimples, terrible haircuts and braces. If she gave him enough data he would construct a little Raven of his own. To get over all those years he missed.

"You said you wouldn't laugh!" Shouted Raven, featuring her trademark scowl.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Let me see those dumbo ears." She took offense like an angry hen but let him proceed. He lifted the sides of her hair. "Well, as someone who didn't see your huge ears growing up I can tell you, there are a respectable size now."

Her mouth twisted into a self conscious frown. She already knew there was no need to hide her ears yet a small part of her still thought they were deformed somehow. "Still don't like tucking my hair behind them." And with that she pulled her hair back, done with sharing. Tony never stopped smiling as he went back to work.

In the corner of his eye as Raven went to her room, he saw her caressing where his hand had been on her neck. The precise spots where his fingers rested. How long had it been since someone held her? Someone had to have raised her, for a period of time. Did they hold her, tuck her in at night, tell her stories? Or were they cruel and neglectful? It would explain why touching was a restricted access thing. Tony thought back to his childhood, how he was sent to boarding school at the earliest age possible. Howard was a touchy subject but it was nothing like Raven's life. Kidnapped to destroy a man who got her into this mess. The fact she didn't hate him at all blew him away. If he was her he'd hate him. Raven was mature in a way he had yet to learn. He admired her for that, it took more than intelligence coming to terms with what she lived through. Before Raven vanished out of sight, he caught something else. She gathering all her ear in a messy ponytail, turning this way and that. Studying her ears in a reflection. He was so going to steal some of Pepper's hair bands and leave them around the penthouse.

Sorry for the wait guys! I really loved writing this chapter. I'm going to try and have alternating chapters in Raven's, Tony's and general POV.

As always let me know what you think, what I should have done and what you would like to see. Every piece of critique makes the next chapter better, and helps me round out the story.