When I wake the next morning, my legs burn where I'd been struck with the thick leather strip repeatedly the previous evening. Once I examine them, I find a few had bled where the buckle had nicked me and that most had bruised. I pull my pants up and grit my teeth as I take those familiar stiff first steps of a morning-after beating; If I keep moving the pain becomes something I get used to and don't focus on so much.
It could be worse-it can always be worse.
As I make my bed, one of the younger girls in the foster-home (whose name I can't remember) comes running into the room we shared with the other girls in the house.
"Come quick-someone's looking for you." She tells me excitedly. I stand up straight and look blankly at her in a moment of disbelief. Once I recover, I slowly follow the girl to the stairs, having to strain to hear the voices at the front door over my noisily thumping heart.
"There ain't no one here by that name" the foster lady tells whoever is at the door "And if you're looking for your kid-you ought to try social services, just like every other sad slob that comes around here looking for the baby they lost in a crack deal."
"No, I know she's here-I traced her here" A familiar male voice insists. I feel my jaw drop, then quickly snap it shut before someone sees. What was he doing here!?
"And who the hell are you-her lawyer?" The woman scoffs-honestly learning the names of my foster-parents was no good. They came and went too quickly for such an acquaintance to matter. Once I left I never saw their faces again; what use was putting names to all the people in my past? Then again...here was a man I thought I'd be putting behind me. His voice was so prominent I'm certain who it is, even though I'm standing at the top of the stairs where I can't see him. I'd practically stalked this man for the last three months. I'd watched him in the news, read about him in papers and magazines and books. I knew everything that the media could tell me about him, about Stark Industries, Arc Reactor technology and, of course, Iron Man. As I walk slowly down the stairs and into the view of the two adults at the front door my eyes fall on the man whose building I'd run out of in New York less than twenty-four hours ago- a familiar face; one I never thought I could bear to look at again.
"Tell you what, I'm going to get my lawyer and he's going to ream you if you don't-" But Tony Stark's words fall short when he sees me standing at the bottom of the stairs watching him in a wide-eyed state.
"Do you know this man?" The foster-woman asks me dangerously. Snapping out of my incredulous element, I automatically shake my head 'no' in fear of punishment. If she found out I'd hopped the train and went all the way to New York to bother the man at his workplace I can't imagine what she'd do. She nods her head in satisfaction as I keep my eyes fixed to the floor. I feel guilty for lying when she gives Mr. Stark a good earful of insults but I do steal a look quick enough to see the billionaire's bewildered face before she slams the door in it.
"God Damn lunatic" The foster-woman growls, shaking her head. She then looks at all of the curious kids who have gathered at the scene and irritably barks "Get your sorry asses to school and go learn something!"
Like vermin, we scramble for our things and out the door to school…not that many of us went, though I often walked the younger kids regardless if I stayed or not. Fosters often lived in the darker parts of Boston, I'd been raised here anyhow so the gangs and violence and danger were nothing new to me. But some of these kids came from the suburbs with no sense of street smarts in them at all. I pitied them; I feared for them. So every day I walked with them to school, whether I stayed or not.
I walk rather slow today, the pain in my legs worsened by a frigid morning in late winter. I stick close to the herd of kids, keeping my eyes peeled for any sort of dangerous situation. I'd been jumped by drug addicts for non-existent lunch money before, threatened by older kids who thought they had something to prove with violence. Several in my group were in kindergarten-I'd hate to see how one took a beating over two dollars they didn't have. We're nearly there when I notice an uncharacteristically expensive car pull up to the curb not far ahead. Wearily, I put myself between the little ones and the car, but continue to walk with my eyes forward until I see the driver exit the vehicle and I stop in my tracks.
My flock of sheep stop too, looking to their shepherd questioningly as Mr. Stark comes around to the passengers side of the car and opens the door. Looking at me with his sunglass-covered eyes, he says "Get in"
I look at the kids, knowing school is only another block away; I can see the chain-linked fence from here. I know they're cold, dressed in their uselessly thin jackets and snow-soaked sneakers. I myself can't feel my toes or fingers or the tip of my nose. I turn to the oldest boy and instruct him to continue on and assure them that I'll see them at school. When they do, I look back to Mr. Stark as he insists "C'mon it's freezing."
Trying not to show reluctance or fear, I get in and he shuts the door. The heat is running, Judas Priest's "Pain and Pleasure" playing quietly from the speakers as he ducks into the drivers seat and closes his door. I swallow hard when he doesn't say anything right away-regretting having gotten in. Wasn't this the number one thing you weren't supposed to do when some strange person you hardly knew told you to get in their car?
After a good moment Mr. Stark says the word "Mute" aloud. Rob Halford's voice cut's off-Glenn Tipton's guitar stops short. Another agonizing silence proceeds the awkward happenings so I speak up "That's a good album." gesturing casually to the dash.
Mr. Stark turns his head to me, then glances at the stereo with a nod of agreement "Kinda before your time though."
"Everything good was before my time." I scoff "You had Metallica, Sabbath and AC/DC-I got Justin Bieber and One Direction."
He let's out a laugh and I allow myself a smile.
"So why'd you lie?" He questions after a moment.
I inhale slowly, chewing the corner of my thumbnail nervously for a second; I couldn't tell him I was scared of a whooping. He'd think I was a coward.
"To the woman…why'd you say you didn't know me?" He elaborates, thinking I didn't understand the question.
I shrug "I dunno." I mumble, focusing my eyes on two guys outside standing in an alleyway. They were scoping out the car-never a good sign of things to come in this neighborhood.
I can feel Mr. Starks eyes on me still as he asks "Then why'd you run?"
"What?" I frown, turning to him now.
"Yesterday-my security said you ran out of the building without stopping." He clarifies, pulling off his sunglasses "I told you to stay put. Why'd you run?"
"I-" I stammer, embarrassed by my lack of spine yesterday. I reach for the door handle "I have to go to school"
As I grab the door handle the car locks and I feel my stomach drop; whose wouldn't? The sound of a door locking when you are trying to leave is never something a person wants to hear.
"Hey, you came to me, remember?" He reminds me. I look carefully at Mr. Stark as he demands to know "Why would you come all the way to New York if you were just going to run off like that?"
"Because…I just needed to know…" I manage to utter past the distress I was trying to hide.
"Know what?" He asks urgently.
"That you…if you..." I try, but I can't say the words "father" or "dad"; these words were foreign and unknown to me. They held a heavy weight which my tongue could not lift. I look at him in the eyes while trying the door handle once more; it's useless. He stares at me and I say with all the authority I have in me "I'm late to school"
But the door doesn't unlock, and he doesn't stop looking at me.
"I ran a test…that's what the finger prick was for. You're…I'm…" He stammers, but falls short with the weight of his own heavy words, and decides on different ones after a long pause "Our DNA matches up perfectly"
My body stiffens, as if trying to keep itself from shaking with the shock of the confirmation I'd searched for all this time. It was true-it was all true. All the lies my mother told me, the secret she'd kept...
"Oh" I manage to squeak after some time. No matter how long I sat there, it wasn't registering...it wouldn't go through or sink in deep enough. I wasn't alone-I had a blood relative:Tony Stark. Famous multi-billionaire genius. Owner of the most advance technological company in the world-and the most advanced piece of equipment ever invented. He was my...
I scrunch my face up- that word.
"So I figured...if you want to, I could you know...send you to a nicer school, give you some money." He starts, then adds reluctantly. "I'm not...I can't be a..."
I blink hard and stare forward out the front windshield in disbelief at what he was saying-then again, I should have known he'd write me off. I should have known a billionaire bachelor wouldn't want some girl around-some kid messing with his life. Why would he? What was in it for him?
I had no right to expect anything from him, I should be grateful he even came here at all. Still... his offer felt like a cheat. I felt owed something more...an apology or an excuse for why he left my mother. Something other than a check...something more personal. It felt undignified, it made me feel dirty-easily tossed aside.
But Mr. Stark was a business man and to him I was just that: business.
"No." I say quietly.
"No?" He frowns, looking at me like I'm stupid.
"No" I repeat, anger replacing my prior nerves. "No, I don't want your money-that isn't why I came to find you"
"Then what do you want?" He asks, for a genius he was certainly oblivious.
I look him over, deciding that this whole adventure was of mute point "Nothing you can give me"
I find the unlock button next to my shoulder and press it. Before he can say more, I get out of the car and clench my teeth as a cold wind cuts through my inadequately thin jacket and my torn up jeans. I walk hurriedly onto the blacktop of the elementary school without looking back to Mr. Stark's car even though he is yelling at me. I see my teacher open the door for class and head straight through. As I'm hanging up my coat I realize something that twists my stomach into a tight knot.
I'd left my school bag in the passenger's side of Tony Stark's Audi.
All day I worried what would happen when I returned to the house that afternoon without my backpack. Surely my fosters would be angry, the smallest things made these ones angry. It didn't help that the man was a drunk. Every time he whipped me with his belt I could smell the sickly sweet smell of whiskey. It wasn't uncommon; a lot of the foster-men drank. When they beat on you, the stink of it burned in your nose as you lay bleeding wherever he left you-too scared to move yourself from the cold wood of the floor. The smell made you sick after awhile, it made you hate alcohol...it made you hate men and especially drunk men. It made you hate the weak women who took it all the same next to you-or even worse the ones who stood beside him.
The smell was extra worse later that night. There was no belt; only a fist. The woman stood in the doorway watching his knuckles connect with my face. Her arms were crossed and her face smug, having wanting to see me punished since Mr. Stark showed up on the steps this morning. It makes me angry, it makes me hate them and all the same makes me hopeless.
He hadn't wanted me. He'd wanted to send me away-give me money and be done with it. I would never have a home or a family. This was it for me- this was my fate. And so I surrender to the blows, taking them as they come while I hang limp by my tightly gripped forearm. I let the sting remind me that I was alone- that I could only depend on myself and that no one, not even the man whose blood spilled from my flesh and onto the floor...one cared about me.
The bruises marked me in more ways than one. At school they sent up flags next to my name and signaled for phone calls to be made. By nightfall there were police officers at the foster-home, making kids pack their things in black plastic bags. I packed what little clothing I had, and the copies of books I'd managed to keep hold of all these years, but that was all that I had without my backpack. I remember that my copy of Frankenstein was inside-as well as the things I'd deemed too precious to risk leaving unattended in the shared quarters. I feel a bit of my heart breaking at the revelation; the book had been my mother's...and now it was gone.
At the police station, I wait in the hall with the plastic bag at my feet until Sam shows up. I knew Sam's name because he was the person I depended on to take me to and from each new foster-home. He was a young man and in this circus ring of hell, he was the only one whose name I needed to remember. He was the one to get a hold of when the going got tough and it was time to move on.
He comes in and has a few words with the police officers before coming over to where I sat. He crouches down and sighs when he sees my black eye. Without a word, he pats my knee and takes my bag, but puts a guiding hand on my back as he leads the way to his car. I sit in the back while he drives. That's when he tells me I'll have to go to a group home while he finds a suitable placement for me. I nod, chewing my thumbnail mindlessly while he talks. Only when he says "You know...I had a man call my office yesterday claiming to be a relative of yours."
My head snaps up at that. He continues "Says you came and met with him in New York a few days before...guy sounded like a complete nutcase. You know anything about that?"
I stare at him-wanting to blurt out my secret to somebody. If anyone was to know, it was Sam...
But Mr. Stark didn't want me- it didn't matter who knew. He didn't want me, and so I say nothing.
"Ollie?"
"Hm?" I ask.
"You haven't been to New York have you?" He asks with a laugh, but it's a serious inquiry all the same.
"C'mon Sam, how would I get to New York?" I joke, but I try to sound serious as well.
"Oh, I don't doubt your resourcefulness." Sam ponders thoughtfully "And he described you pretty well..."
"Sam-" I start weakly after a brief silence, ready to burst out and tell him everything that had torn at me these past few months, but he pulls up to the dark brick building. He parks the car and gets out, leaving me with my secrets; leaving them to claw at my insides. We don't talk as he leads the way into the building to the front desk. I watch him as he talks to the secretary, wanting to tell him about Tony Stark- tell him he'd offered to send me to school. Maybe I had a chance in life with a proper education-maybe no one would beat me there.
"Sam-"
He bends down to my level and puts his hands on my shoulders. "Alright Ollie, I'll come check on you in a few days, hopefully by then I'll find you a good home"
"I'll never have a home Sam" I tell him without thinking, thus deciding telling him of my recent adventures is no use. I was an orphan, and always would be.