Pride
Margaret Stark groaned loudly and tried to stretch her arms over her head as she pulled back her covers to get out of bed. She felt tired and sore all over. Yes, she often worked long hours and didn't get enough sleep, but a week with a toddler was a special kind of exhausting. She felt a new kind of appreciation for her own mum having five kids… and Katie with her twins.
She cast a careful look inside the cot next to her bed. Junior was breathing calmly, his mouth wide open and his left hand buried in his curly, black hair.
She felt a sudden glimmer of hope. If Junior was still sleeping, she might be able to grab a quick shower all by herself!
Content that Morgaine, her A.I., would alert her, if something changed, Margaret scurried out of bed and almost ran into her en-suite.
A shower all by herself! Without Junior sitting in the shower with her, potentially slipping on the wet floor and breaking his little neck! It was the most glorious thing that had ever happened to her.
She gave herself 10 minutes of bliss, not only washing her hair, but finding time to condition it, before she slid into her bathrobe and walked back into her bedroom.
Junior was awake now, sitting upright in his cot and watching her intently. Apparently he hadn't felt the need for crying yet.
"Morning, Süßer, all awake?"
Junior looked a little skeptical, before he raised his arms towards her and said "Up, Aunty Em, poopoo."
Of course. Well, now that she was clean, it was only fair to make sure her nephew was too.
Half an hour later, Margaret was still in her bathrobe, watching Junior eat his morning porridge and puree, while she did the same, when Morgaine interrupted her.
"Miss Stark, Mr Yinsen is here to see you."
"What?", Margaret sighed. She had the week off, damn it. But of course that was the danger, if you lived at work.
She had known Yinsen for far too long to be ashamed of the toys strewn around or her relative state of undress.
"Let him in.", she therefore decided and didn't bother to get up. He'd find his way into the living area and Junior had stopped eating, his eyes carefully scanning the door.
"Finish your breakfast, Süßer.", she told him calmly, but Junior ignored her, his eyes still glued to the door. Yinsen walked in with his normal quiet and careful step.
"Good morning, Mr Stark, Miss Stark.", he smiled at them, standing at a respectful distance. Margaret assumed that was due to the suspicious look Junior was giving him. As if he was telling Yinsen to back off. Now.
"Morning, Yinsen.", she replied and took another spoon of breakfast, "May I offer you a cup of coffee?"
"Thank you, but no. I am sorry to disturb you this early. Especially since you have the day off, but… have you looked at the news this morning?"
"Morgaine gave me the basics. Like every morning."
"Ah, but no gossip, I assume?"
"No. I specifically told her not to. I don't much care for gossip.", Margaret told him gloomily, not much caring for where this discussion was going. Or why it was Yinsen exactly, who came to talk to her. He was the head of R&D at SI's headquarter. Gossip about a member of the Stark Family wasn't anywhere near his responsibility. "Junior, your breakfast.", she reminded the two-year old, who was still looking at Yinsen with what Mama liked to call the Starkian Death Glare. Yes, he had certainly inherited that. Along with the stubbornness that came with that.
"How bad is it?", Margaret resigned herself to her fate and got up to put away her dishes, pouring herself another cup of coffee.
"Apparently there is a… tell-all about an affair with your brother. In the Daily Mail."
Margaret groaned. No need to ask which brother this was all about.
"Why is this such big news?", she asked, "SI doesn't normally comment on private matters like this."
Yinsen looked just as confused. "I haven't read it, either. Apparently the PR department tried to call you, realized you were off. Then tried to call your assistant. Who is also off. They tried calling your father, who is…"
"Off.", Margaret continued at his hesitation.
"Exactly. And since Morgaine didn't let them through, they hoped I might have the clearance. I apologize for interrupting your time with young James, but Gloria seemed adamant."
Gloria was SI's head of the PR Department and normally the only member of that office that Margaret ever dealt with. She was more than capable to make every suitable decision. So why would she call her in?
"All right. I'll get dressed. Junior, breakfast?"
The only response she got was him pushing his bowl away from him, while still staring at Yinsen.
"Fine, we'll see what's wrong and then have another go. Maybe brunch. We'll be back in a minute.", she added for Yinsen's sake, knowing full well, it would take more than a minute to get the both of them ready to leave the apartment.
"Please, have a seat.", she gesticulated towards the couch and pulled Junior out of his highchair, putting him down to walk by himself. He cast one last glance towards Yinsen and then ran into the bedroom. He pretty much ran everywhere lately. Running was THE thing right now.
"Careful, please.", she called after him, but he ignored her.
When Margaret reached her walk-in closet, Junior was already happily pulling out t-shirts from his part of the closet. Looking at them skeptically and then discarding them on the floor.
"Junior! Stop making a mess. You will have to clean that up.", she told him sternly.
"No."
"Oh yes, you will."
Stark Death-Glare met Stark Death-Glare.
Carefully Junior reached into the pile of shirts and pulled out a bright orange one. With CC and a flying Quaffel on it. Margaret was pretty sure it had been a present by Uncle Ron.
"You want to wear this one?"
"Yes. Junior wear this."
"Good. Then put the others away."
And he did. Of course he couldn't fold them, but he did his best to stuff them back onto the shelf they had come from, which was good enough for Margaret, who got dressed in one of her usual pantsuits. Work was work after all.
Letting a toddler choose his own clothing meant he was dressed in his orange shirt and lime green pants, but Margaret didn't care, as she slipped on a pair of shoes and took junior's hand to walk back into the living area.
Yinsen was patiently sitting on her couch, his phone in hand and brow creased.
For a second Margaret considered asking him, if something was wrong, but Yinsen headed his own department and if something was important enough to be her problem, he'd tell her. Remember to delegate, her Dad had always told her.
She nodded at him and they made their way to her private elevator.
"Everyone is waiting in your office.", Yinsen informed her and she nodded gratefully. In her office there'd at least be toys for Junior. If she took him to the department instead, he'd either cry and not let go of her at all… or run around like a hippogriff on speed.
Everyone apparently meant Gloria and five of her team, sitting on the group of couches she kept in one corner of her office.
"Margaret!", Gloria was the first to spot them, when they left the elevator. The others were apparently deep in conversation, huddled over their tablets, "I am so sorry, but I thought you might want to get on top of this."
"Good morning.", Margaret replied, bowing down towards Junior, "Hey Buddy, wanna go sit at your table and draw for a bit?"
He contemplated her offer for a moment with the whole room waiting for his response. Then he nodded gravely and vanished into his play area behind her desk.
"Mind if I join you?", Yinsen asked him carefully. Junior looked from him to his aunt, then back.
"Junior draw.", he declared.
"Yes, can I sit and watch?"
Junior didn't answer him, but Yinsen seemed to take that as permission and Margaret joined her PR team on one of the couches.
"So?", she asked, "What is this all about?"
"This morning, there was a pretty big article on James'... ah… love life.", Gloria noted.
"That's not new. He's 21 and has three kids by two women. And the only relationship that ever lasted longer than a weekend was one of these women. So why does it matter?"
"The model who did the interview is male.", Gloria told her.
Margaret blinked. Okay. She had never known Jimmy to be with guys before, but then again, she'd never made a point of knowing who he slept with, either.
"Aaaaand…", she urged Gloria to continue.
"We might have to put out a press release. Or a denial. Or…", a young guy she didn't know answered instead.
"Why?", she interrupted him bluntly, annoyed that this was somehow important enough to interrupt her free morning, "SI doesn't respond to anything related to private business. And this is private."
"We know.", Gloria tried again, "But with the deals we are currently working on… some of the possible countries for SI's next plant aren't exactly… liberal."
Margaret felt her face turn red.
"I hope. I really, really hope that you did NOT call me down here to discuss my brother's love life."
"This could potentially damage SI's…", the guy started again, but Margaret wouldn't let him finish this time, either. She knew it was rude and snobby, but being the boss here had to be good for something, at least.
"So you are trying to tell me that you are afraid we'll lose support for our bids, because my brother apparently had sex with a guy? You are trying to tell me that people, who apparently didn't give a FUCK when he had a new FEMALE companion every damn weekend could suddenly care?!"
"Well, bluntly put, yes.", Gloria replied and Margaret wasn't sure, if she wanted to storm off or scream for five minutes straight.
A young woman, Bella, Margaret thought, said quietly: "We know it sucks. We know it's not fair, but we operate all around the world. And we have plants all around it, too. In a lot of different political situations."
This, sadly, was true and one of the things that kept bothering Margaret. Her first instinct was to just not deal with oppressive and intolerant governments, but at the same time, she was responsible for a lot of people. A lot of people that depended on her making the right decisions to keep the company healthy and them employed. And she also didn't believe that stopping to help the people in those countries by not bringing jobs and clean energy, was the solution, either.
"We are not making apologies for something no one should apologize for.", she declared and angrily stared Gloria down, when she opened her mouth to speak, "And we are sure as hell not apologizing for my brother. He's a grown man and can have consensual sex with whoever he likes.", there was a new kind of anger burning inside her now. Jimmy was her little brother. She loved him to bits. They had all had a couple of horrible, difficult years and if Jimmy felt this was how he wanted to cope with that, who was she to judge? She was still taking her pills every day, after all.
"Margaret, SI has always tried to stay as apolitical as possible.", Gloria reminded her and Margaret snorted loudly.
"This is not a political matter. At all. This is a human one."
Her gaze wandered towards the big calendar on the wall opposite her desk. It was filled with family pictures. June. It was an old picture. Her Mum was laying in bed, newborn Lily in her arms and the older four kids happily sitting around her, staring at their new little sister or waving at the camera.
"There is one thing we will do.", she declared, "And I can't believe, we haven't done this before. Change the banner on our website. Rainbow flag, please. Make it big. And have it say 'Happy Pride'. If someone doesn't want to work with us after that, I don't care."
For a second Margaret thought Gloria might protest, but instead she smiled a little and nodded instead: "We'll do that."
She took her team and left, leaving Margaret to reach for her phone and call Jimmy. Just to make sure he was all right. He didn't pick up and she assumed he was still asleep.
"Thank you for looking after Junior for a bit.", she told Yinsen, as she walked over to the two of them. Junior was happily colouring both the paper and the desk underneath it in dark blue.
"Not a problem.", Yinsen assured her, "Are you okay?"
"Yes. Yes. I'll just… I think Junior and I'll go for a walk. We can have some melon, right Buddy? He loves those."
"Aunty Em say fuck.", Junior told her proudly and grinned his toothy smile.
Well, fuck indeed. Jimmy would NOT be happy about Junior learning that word.
I everyone!
First things first: I am sorry this is taking so long! There is a lot of work going into the timeline and strugturing the different story threats and I swear I am not making this up (I really do promise), but one of the cats peed on my notes. There was no way of selvaging that. If anyone had a tomcat pee on things before, I am sure you understand.
On a better note: Today is our lovely Fel's birthday and it is a really big one! Do you guys play Wizards Unite? Fel and I are enjoying it a lot. I wanted to share our codes with you, in case anyone wants to add two German Potterheads to their friends, but I can't find her code. This (894735880355) is mine. I'll add hers next time :)
If you guys want to add each other, you can review your number or send it to me. I'll put them into the next AN or you search the reviews ;)
Extra long AN over and have a great day. Hope to read you soon!