So...yeah, let's just say that the past two years have not been anyone's best friend, and leave it at that. Shall we get going?

The Unassuming Rose

12th April, 20XX

Beep-beep…beep-beep….beep-be-thump!

"Ok, fine, I'm up." I grumped softly, my outstretched hand still resting on the now silent alarm clock. The rest of my body was hidden underneath a huge pile of fabric that was my bed sheets and two very worn, near flimsy, comforters that did very little to combat the cold that lingered in my room. It was the cold that made me reluctant to get up out of my bed. There wasn't a force out there in the universe that could make me get out of my only just gotten warm bed, and into the world outside.

It was only by sheer force of a repetitive habit that I did, regardless of my personal feelings.

I pulled my hand away from the clock as I slowly rolled my body out of my bed, landing with an ungraceful thud (eliciting a short grunt on my part) that did a slightly better job of pulling into a more awakened state than what my alarm clock did. Staggering up onto my feet, I stumbled into my bathroom for a shower. After pulling off my pajamas and stepping under the spray, I was cannon-balled into full consciousness with an indignant shriek when I belatedly found out that there was no hot water, meaning the tank had broken….again...for the 10th time this month.

Rushing to get out from the colder-than-my-bedroom spray of water, I quickly cleaned myself, and vigorously rubbed myself dry with the fluffiest towel I had afterwards. From the bedroom window, I could hear the rumblings of early morning New York traffic, as well as the occasional yell from people on the street. Once my blood began circulating properly, I grabbed clean clothes and undergarments from various drawers; my clothing consisting of a pair of faded blue jeans, thick socks and my faithful comfortable pair of hiking boots. I rummaged around in my wardrobe for anything warm and comfortable, finally locating my two favorite shirts: a long sleeved black Henley shirt with thumb-holes cut into the end of the sleeves, and a short sleeved dark grey plaid button-down shirt over the top.

Once I was finally dressed, my gurgling stomach directed me into the kitchen from some breakfast when the thought hit me. If the hot water tank was broken again, then there was an extremely high chance of power being out in most of the building as well…and on cue, there goes the old woman two floors above me loudly complaining about it, which confirmed my suspicions. As I listened to the growing discontent of the building tenants, I reflected, not for the first time, on the state of my apartment...although, I guess the proper the proper term would be 'rat-hole of a shoe-box'.

My apartment was very small, with the kitchen and tiny living room practically the same area, and the doors and walls were as close to being paper-thin as possible. It really doesn't help matters that the building itself was considerably smaller than its neighbors, meaning that the sun didn't find us until sunset. It's a wonder that anyone survives the colder seasons.

Pulling myself out of my thoughts, I moved to find something I could scrounge up for breakfast when I heard the tone of a Disney song playing from oddly somewhere in the depths of my crappy two-seater couch. Why I always left it on the couch, I have no idea, but it would probably help to find the darn thing before whoever was calling hung up on me. Pulling it out from between the cushions, I looked at the screen and grimaced at the caller ID.

'Well, it's not like I can avoid him, even if I wanted to.' I told myself, and then took a deep breath before accepting the call and pressing the device against my ear. "Good morning, Tony." I greeted softly.

"And a lovely good morning to you, too, sis!" My brother greeted in an overly cheerful way, "Careful for some breakfast at our usual place?" Ah, one of my brother's usual ploy to get me out of the apartment, if ever I recognized it. And under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have a problem with being in the general public...the key word here being 'normal', and under my own terms. The hiccup in my brother's attempts to make me socialize with him is that...well, when your big brother is Anthony Edward Stark, CEO of Stark Industries, genius inventor and the superhero Iron Man? It sort of puts a dampener on a lot of things, like trying to keep myself out of everyone's sight.

The urge to say 'no' was temptingly huge, and I was so very close to saying it out loud, but the inner voice that serves as my shoulder angel/devil/general kicked of backsides reminded me that there's no power in the building, and since I don't know how long it's been out for, it was a safe bet that any food in my fridge was off...which led me to confirm that I had absolutely zero chance of getting out of this latest brother-sister get together.

'Ex-fecking-actly.' My inner voice agreed firmly.

"Sure, I'll meet you there in half an hour." I surrendered.

"OK, then. Ta-ta, little sister of mine!" He teased playfully before he hung up.

Grimacing at how he can sound so perky in the morning, I ducked into my bedroom to retrieve my collapsible bike and helmet, and my backpack from beside the couch to toss in my usual necessities before walking out of the front door and locked up. Though I had to wonder if it really made any difference, since the front door was just as thin as my bedroom door, but I guess it was just something I did regardless.

For all the good it would do.

It didn't take as long as I first thought to get there, and it took even less time for me to find myself sitting opposite my brother in our usual booth. I tried to focus on anything besides the occasional person stopping to gawk through the window, and the occasional glance from those inside. Well the people outside weren't gawking at me so much, but at my brother. Either Tony seemed not to notice all of the lookie-loo's, or he was doing a really good job of ignoring them all. In an effort to follow to his lead, and distract myself from the uncomfortable chills running over my skin, I turned my thoughts onto the diner we were in.

A quaint, decent sized building situated near the business area of New York, the interior reminded me of the 50's rockabilly times. The staff here are always cheerful (they don't even bat an eyelash when there's a bad guy nearby!) and they always had time to chat with their customers a little, or even lend an ear to someone who needs it. They also have the best breakfast menu in all of New York...just saying, is all.

Now, normally one would think that a place like this would be a big tempting target for any bad guy in the area, especially when Tony Stark more than often finds an excuse to come here, but there is a little known secret that only certain people are privy to (whether Tony knows is up for debate, but I'd say he didn't have a clue). The secret being that this place is an all-time favorite after-hours hang-out for SHIELD agents, and believe me: SHIELD isn't something one takes on lightly and expect to live afterwards with all their limbs intact.

One might be asking how Tony Stark's little sister would even know about SHIELD, or even how the agents always come here. Well, there's a pretty simple yet incredibly mind-boggling answer for that: I was one of the very extremely rare close acquaintances of Director Nick Fury, and one or two of his top notch agents, too.

Well...I say 'close acquaintance', but I'm more like someone he can tolerate for long periods of time, and be kind enough to pull me out of danger...and then keep a very close eye on me because of the aforementioned danger being the very extremely, horribly terribly worse sort. A good example of that 'pulling me out of danger' sort of help was two-and-a-half years ago, when things turned a really terrifying shade of scary 'nope' pretty darn quick.

I quickly pulled myself away from that particular thought just as a waitress came over with our orders of breakfast. After placing the plates in front of us, sparing a friendly wink at Tony and a kind smile to me, she disappeared to let us eat in relative peace. The pancakes here were Tony's weakness, if I had to judge from the way he darn near inhaled them. I slowly ate mine, while trying not to gag at him. To be honest though, I haven't had much of an appetite lately, something that gave those who knew me a reason to worry, since they all knew I had a very healthy appetite for food...'had' being the key word.

Halfway through our meal, Tony struck up a conversation about some of the projects he's been working on lately, and somethings for Stark Industries. But what he was really excited to talk about was his work as Iron Man, and possible suit variations he might make in the future. Sometimes I offered up my two-cents, but mostly I just hummed out a little tone as I picked through my meal. It really didn't make me feel any better when I could feel Tony's silent dismay-and from others-at how little I was actually eating. I felt bad enough that I worried others about my food intake, but staring at me with said worry doesn't really help me to eat more. It just adds a concrete slab of uncomfortable guilt onto my already twisted stomach.

As if Fate herself was feeling sorry for me today, Tony then received a call and after listening to it, needed to leave immediately-something about a robot and Chicago? After paying for our meals, he pressed a gentle boop to the tip of my nose before disappearing out through the doors. I waited a few minutes to make sure he was really gone before deciding to make my own exit, but stopped myself when I felt a pair of eyes boring into me. When I found the owner of those piercing eyes, I nearly winced when I saw the SHIELD agent sitting behind a menu two tables over. I cowed under the stern expression of 'sit down and eat', and did just that.

When I had eaten enough to moderately appease the agent, he decided to come over and join me. The tall man easily slid into the vacant seat, with a familiar twinkle of cheekiness in his blue eyes. "So, Mini Stark, how's life treating ya today?" Clint asked, affectionately addressing me by the nickname he more-or-less bestowed onto me.

'Bestowed, or foisted?' My inner voice asked teasingly, which I pointedly ignored.

Clint Barton, or otherwise known as Hawkeye, is my best friend (so he loudly proclaims), in addition to being one of SHIELD's top agents. He was also one of the people Fury sent to rescue me from...that incident those short years ago. Regardless of foisting a nickname onto me, or even seeing me at my worst, Clint is a genuinely nice guy to have around. He always makes it his missions to make me smile, and to be the cushion I need in case I have a bad day...though the latter is becoming a rarity lately, largely because of his job getting busier than of me getting better.

We spent a few minutes talking about little things, but I know that what he really wanted to talk about was soon coming up. "So, how's the shoe-box?" He finally asked, getting right to the point even as he stole a bite of my pancakes.

"The same as the last time you asked, more or less." I answered softly, wrapping my hands around the comforting warmth of my tea mug. "The hot water service is out of order...again." When I braved a look upwards, I winced at the unimpressed expression on Clint's face. He, like everyone else who know me, was never happy about me living all by myself in a crappy apartment, in a shady part of New York, since everything about that place screamed 'rob or kidnap me with no problems!' as Clint described it.

If Tony ever heard that, he'd totally agree...*sigh* and I guess it speaks volumes when Nick Fury would agree, too.

"So why aren't you busy packing boxes?" Clint slowly drawled out, "Or asking a very eager and willing somebody to help you pick out a better apartment?" Ugh, not this conversation again.

"I've told you before, Clint, I don't want to be a burden on anyone more than I have been," I replied with a trace of an edge, "Everyone has gone above and beyond enough." That, plus the fact that I was completely scared of giving someone with bad intentions the means to get to Tony. I may not be known to the general public, but I'm 99% sure that all the dark web channels to the various super-villain groups know that I exist, and that alone is more terrifying that I cared to admit.

Clint must have seen something express itself on my face, betraying what I was really thinking, and reached out to lightly place his hand on top of mine, his face looking at me in an all too familiar way-that he sadly understood what I really meant...but still wished that I'd stop over-analyzing everything for the umpteenth time.

Believe me, my inner voice has pointed that out numerous times before.

'And yet you don't listen to me.' It griped back.

Since nothing was going to change (yet again), Clint just talked to me about other less sensitive topics while I continued to eat. Once I had cleaned off my plate, he then announced that he needed to head to somewhere. After promising to catch up with each other soon, we left to go our separate ways-him to wherever he was needed, and me...to head back home.

I chose to walk for a while instead of ride, so I took the scenic route home. Along the way, I paused by an electronic store. Inside the store were a group of children were gathered around one of the large display TV's watching a movie with rapture. A brief glance told me that they were watching Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty.

Despite being 19 years old, I never really grew out of fairy tales, and thus felt a pull towards the movie.

Cliché as it is, I often (and foolishly) wished that my life was more like Aurora's: a group of good fairies looking out for me, animal friends that cared about how I was coping, and loving parents that never gave up hope on me. But mostly...buried deep down, I wanted a Prince Phillip of my own, or even just a regular guy that looked at me with such love and honesty, to dance with me even when there was no music...and the really important thing I wanted-no, that I needed was for him to treat me right, to never make me feel worthless...to love me just as I am.

Barely holding back a noise of disdain, I pulled my head out of the clouds, got on my bike an started pedaling for home. 'Face it, you have nothing in common with a Disney princess, except a name and a stupid dream.' I reprimanded myself, while trying not to let a tear fall.

Yeah, that was me in a nutshell. I am Briar Rose Stark, the not-very-well-known little sister of Tony Stark, broken and beaten...and hopelessly wishing that a prince will come and make my world seem just that little bit better.

Have I done it? Have I finally posted a chapter without a spelling mistake? Yay for me!

Please, I have such little joy in my life. Let me have this one?