Panic Behind the Looking Glass

Hello all my fabulous readers of Panic's series and any of my other stories, this is a small little piece written in Panic's Universe during the 9 months Pepper was pregnant during the summer. Panic faces some old demons and a similar one with just a different face and target. June 16 is the official once year anniversary of "A Girl Named Panic" which was originally posted to and not on Quotev but that's why this was written as a thank you for all the support and loving Panic as much as me because you're the reason her stories still in production. One last thing, I'm planning on writing a one-shot type thing every year for Panic's anniversary so if there's anything you'd like to see in the future of one-shots anniversary stories, comment below and tell me!

What is the purpose of life in the long run? It seems that no one in the world has a single real conclusion backed up by actual facts, even I in all my 'infinite' wisdom can't figure it out. Not a soul knows and from time to time, like now, while I'm sitting in a nearly empty library, waiting for this 8th grader who need tutoring, which I agreed to do, not just for my credit required but also because I wanted to help, it creeps up on me.

I'm the girl who has it all, or so the world around me seems to think. Panic Elyza Stark, daughter of the great and wonderful Tony Stark AKA Iron Man, the genius inventor that managed to make a suit out of scrap metal in a cave in Afghanistan. That's his legacy, what he'll be remembered for long after he's gone, and what about me?

What will people remember about me after I'm gone? Nothing, because I haven't done anything worth remembering besides interrupting Dad's nearly perfect life after her managed to pull himself together, create so many problems with my troubled past, and cause chaos in the world around me but I've done nothing to help the world around me, all I've been in a nuisance from the start.

Shaking my head, I sigh loudly, receive a glare and a loud "Sssh!" from the librarian sitting behind behind the counter with a book resting in her lap as she pretends to be paying attention to what's going on around her. Lately I've been doubting my worth, especially after Pepper revealed she was pregnant and I don't understand these irrational feelings, I knew it would happen sooner or later, I just thought it'd be much later.

"Ahem!" I hear a girl clear her voice, glancing up from my hands resting on the tabletop I watch as the girl dressed in a black and white v-neck shirt with black leather jacket pulled over, ripped up skinny jeans with a metal chain hooked to the belt loops, and long straight dark brown hair like chocolate sit down in the chair beside me, her dark eye makeup a testament to how little interest she has in science or mathematics.

I honestly don't blame her, if I didn't inherit my fathers intellect and interest in these subjects, I would be just as dumbfounded and have an intense disdain for these fields as well, maybe more so.

"It's nice to meet you Samantha, I'm Panic," I say, smiling as I hold out a hand for her to shake.

She rolls her dark makeup ringed eyes, completely ignoring my outstretched hand, and scowls at me as if I was the one intruding on her free time. "First of all, it's Sam, second, duh! Everyone knows who you are princess, daddy's little rich girl," she pouts her cherry red lip at me, mockingly. "Did Daddy cut you off from his cash so you have to do this."

Biting the inside on my mouth, I hold in a sigh of frustration, this girl's gonna drive me off the deep end and it won't be good when she does. "No, school mandated to graduate. Besides, I figured it'd be nice to help you out with your school work."

"Ooh, much make you feel like such a humanitarian now that you've helped the less fortunate," she laughs sarcastically, leaning back in her chair, legs crossed on the table top while only the two back legs of her chair remain on the floor, bouncing back and forth with her forever-shifting legs.

Keeping my cool, I try to act normally. "What's your favorite subject in school, obviously not math because who actually does?"

Sam just glares harder at me, like she's trying to figure out some sinister motive for my asking. Like I couldn't really have any interest in knowing what her favorite subject in school. "What's it to you? Nosy much Rich Girl?"

"Bitchy much?" I retort, and she glances over, dark ringed eyes widening in surprised. "Look, you don't want to be here, I get it, but I'm here because I need to be to graduate so lets just get this over with."

"Whatever..." she mumbles, but her eyes tell a different story, green eyes distant, far off, thinking of a less happy place but I chide myself, it's probably nothing but I can't help but give into the whims of the voice in my head saying what if it's not?

"You okay?" I find myself asking, but Sam stiffens like she didn't expect me, the daughter of Tony Stark, to notice the look and immediately, I can practically see her throw up a mental wall to block the world out.

She nods. "It's nothing."

No, no it's not. My brain chimes in protest but I don't know her well enough to assume anything and pressing the issue would seem odd so I leave it at that, pulling out a math textbook as Sam scoots closer to look down at it.

. . . .

Sam's really separated from herself, I can see it in the way she speaks, walks, talks, and portrays herself to the outside world. She's suffering, that much I'm sure but other than that, I'm in the dark. Anytime I ask about it, she lies or shrugs it off as being tired, not that I believe a word of that but who am I to say that she's a liar?

After all, I've lied a lot in my life too so what makes me the bearer of good morals, never lie, that's the biggest lie of them all. Everybody lies, no one just wants to admit that though, so Sam can keep her secrets, her private life. Unless by any chance I've found a clue to figured out what has her so damaged inside.

Until then I'll hate myself as I am forced to watch her suffer in an endless silence, pretending that I don't see what she thinks I can't. If I was the selfish rich girl she thinks I am, then maybe she'd be right about me not understanding. However, that's not the case but I can tell one thing for sure, she's not quite as badly broken as I am, she's still fighting, she can still be saved...

But how do you help someone who doesn't want your help and won't tell you what's wrong?

. . . .

"This is so stupid," Sam moans, leaning back in the chair at the library, it's been a week since I first met her and honestly, I want to strangle her. All she does is whine and complain about having to do it rather then learning it and getting it over with once she has the chance. If there was ever a time I wish some loud explosion would happen that would cause me to be deaf, it would be right now.

"What, you attitude? You're right, it is," I sigh under my breath, looking up from the test book and papers strewn out across the tabletop. Turning tired eyes to her, I watch as she glares daggers at me, obviously hearing what I'd said.

"Ha! Ha!" she mock laughs, scowling. "Apparently Rich Girls a comedian, how about you get Daddy to buy you your very own comedy club, you could put on shows for the world to see your pretend hilarity, have you dad pay them to laugh and clap while inside they really want to take a bullet to the back of the head," she flashes a crimson smile as she pantomimes shooting herself, gun in mouth.

"Burn, too bad you can't think up a cleaver one-liner, but what could be louder than your raccoon eyes, those neon pant may as well be an SOS written in the damp sand on a remote island, and by the way, you have a chain around your belt loops, if you really want to kill yourself, go ahead," I respond, knowing the last bit would make her widen her eyes in surprise— not that I meant that last bit in any serious context.

Grinning as she looks through wide eyes, I laugh. "I was kidding by the way. Proving that 'rich girl' as you've seem to dub me, isn't as nice as you seem to think. Plus, you don't know anything about me. Here you sit on your high horse saying that I'm some snobby bitch when you don't know anything about my life before. How about a trues? You don't make unwarranted snipes at me and I won't do the same to you."

"Fine," she replies, dropping her feet from the table, pulling the homework she tossed across the table back towards her.

. . . .

A month has come and passed since I began to tutor Sam so to celebrate how exponentially her grades have went up, I told her that I'd take her out to eat whatever she likes, that it doesn't matter to me. She choose an all you can eat pizza place down near the center of New York City, not that I minded but the paparazzi would be buzzing around like flies.

Somehow during out time together, we've managed to get over her constant beratement of me, which I never understood why she did it to begin with, but it doesn't matter anymore. It's in the past, and as much as I wish I could say the same about my uneasy feelings about her private life, I can't because she absolutely avoids the topic all together now.

I've learned what things to avoid mentioning and when to tell what is pressing on the verge of reveal or the edge of withdrawing into herself, it's scary how much like me Sam really is. I don't know if she sees similarities in me that I see in her, but if she has, Sam's certainly good at hiding it.

"I swear, this place is like a heaven. So many pizza varieties to choose from, pepperoni, sausage, three cheese. How can you not just want to go out and eat restaurant food all the time. If I were you, Stark would be bankrupt."

Laughing, I grin. "Who says that isn't my goal, maybe this is my master plan to make him poor."

She points at me, smirking, as she nods her head slowly. "That, that's a pretty cleaver plan. Nice way to disguise your evil plan, no one would suspect a thing, taking the poor, innocent girl out to eat everyday until she's thirty."

"Thirty, by then you; l certainly have a problem if you've been eating fast food for at least twenty or more, don't think a doctor would give you a clean bill of heath."

Sam reaches up, wiping sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand, before pulling it back and looking at her now soaked hand. "Jeez's, why's it so hot in here, it like a freakin' sauna."

Sitting up, she starts pulling the black leather jacket off her shoulders, letting it fall over the back of the metal chair and my eyes instantly fall to arms where my blood turns to ice, my eyes transfixed on that spot. Following my gaze, her eyes find the dark blackish purple bruise decorating her arm, it looks like a hand print and suddenly I can't breath as my throat constricts, my blood pounding behind my ears.

Sam reaches for her jacket to cover back up but stops when my hand launches forward, lightly grabbing her wrist. She freezes instantly, like she expected something worse, like I used to do. Then she seems to realize what she's doing and relaxes her muscles, slowly she pulls her arm back, then gives a nervous and unconvincing chuckle. "I'm such a klutz. Tripped over my own feet like a giraffe, nothing to worry about."

Shooting her a look, I respond. "Yeah, I believe that like I believe Star Wars was based on actual events or like I believe an astronaut can walk on the sun, which is absolutely never in a million years ever would I believe it or it be even remotely possible."

Getting up from the table, she storms from the restaurant, me hot on her heels.

"Sam. Sam, talk to me! Please..." I hear the pleading in my tone, it nearly brings me to tears with how pained I'm feeling but I manage to keep it together, just as Sam whips around to face me, eyes blazing.

"Why should I!?" she nearly shouts, her body literally shaking from what I assume is the weight of her emotions. "You said it before, I don't know anything about you but the same is true for me. How would a snobby little rich girl, privileged with the fancy like, expensive cars, and all you could ever want is accessible, available by batting your eyelashes and begging Daddy to buy it for you!"

I narrow my eyes as she rants on.

"Reality must be such a bitch huh? That the world isn't all rainbows and unicorns, there's no savior coming, not a white light at the end of the dark tunnel enveloping my world and that's something people lie you don't get. How could you possible even think you have even an idea of what I go through. You know nothing, so butt out of my business and stop pretending that you care!"

Still I say nothing, letting her vent. She doesn't know me, not a single thing about my life and Sam assumes I'm some prissy rich girl whose had a life of luxuries, not seeing me for the girl with tar in her heart and scars everywhere else from having to piece myself together after my step-father broke me into a million piece over and over again. See sees the girl from the newsreels, lovely Panic Elyza Stark. The girl who has it all, the fame, the brains, the money, and the looks.

Not Panic, the girl who grew up poor in an abusive home, who lived on the streets until she was fifteen. Not the girl who has to learn how to be the daughter of someone so recognizable, who didn't know how to be a father. That's when realizations dawn that this, what Sam thinks I am, is what the rest of the world sees, the girl who got lucky that her mother got pregnant by Tony Stark, not for the broken, damaged girl I am.

"What's the act for? Your spotless image as the daughter of genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist Tony Stark, Iron Man I mean, the superhero known around the world. You're not as notable as he is, you'll never live up to his expectations and I think you know it, so to prove your worth, you're trying to help the damaged girl who lives in what most would consider hell, what is hell."

She starts walking away when I finally speak for the first time since her rant started.

"You're wrong," she stops, glancing over her shoulder to look at me. "And I'll prove it."

. . . .

As soon as the elevator doors to the tower open on the living room floor, as soon as I spot Dad in the kitchen with Pepper relaxing back on the couch, laughing at something he said. Pepper must feel my emotions radiating because he enhanced senses due to pregnancy, she's been a lot more mothering lately, it's nice but also a bit suffocating, because as soon as I step into the room, she glances over at me.

"Hey Panic, something's wrong?" she asks, about to get up and make her way to me but I wave her down.

I shake my head. "Nothing's wrong, I need you to do something for me though."

Blinking her green eyes a few times, she nods rapidly like an eager puppy just happy to have something to do. Dad's been keeping her on house arrest, saying that stress is bad for the baby and that she should relax so now anytime she's asked to do anything work related, she's all ears. Dad turns to to see me, tipping back a glass of scotch and taking a drink.

"Anything, what do you need?"

Biting back a smirk, I already know how she and Dad will react as soon as I tell them. "I need you to call for a press conference."

Dad chokes on his drink, spitting the dark liquid back into the circular glass and Pepper looks at me, eyes as wide as half-dollar pieces. They stand stationary, eyes wide, expressions as if I pulled out a dead fish and smacked them across the face with it.

Pepper finally manages to spit out a word. "A press conference, why!?"

Instead of answer, I evade the question. "If it's not to much trouble, try to make it as soon as possible like tomorrow maybe? Oh, be sure they have it under my name, Panic Stark. Thanks."

I start up the stairs, leaving Dad and Pepper stunned by my request. They too will be surprised by what I have brewing around my mind, in fact, I already have a model design in my head that needs to be transferred to a blueprint. Pulling out my cell phone, I call up a pair of contractors to get prices on what I'm starting, figuring out that what I want is in my price range.

Grinning wildly, I let the feelings of excitement wash over me, knowing what I'm doing will have a positive impact on the world.

. . . .

"What do you want!" she hisses, her voice a low whisper.

"Is this a bad time?" I ask, fear shooting through my heart like a lightning rod ripping right through my heart. The last thing I want is for something bad to happen to her because of me. I'm trying to help her, even if she doesn't realize that yet. Pepper just came up to tell me that she got the press conference all set up, and after trying and failing to get me to spill my plan, she'd left me alone.

"It's always a bad time, so just tell me what you want and get it over with so I can hang up," she whispers back and I notice the quake of fear the slices through each of her words.

"Tomorrow evening, 8:35 at the theater we always pass by when going to the library, you say I don't understand what it's like. Well, you're wrong and I want to prove it. Go to the theater and let me tell you how much I really do understand," I say, tension rising as I wait for a few moments of suspended silence for her response, but finally she does.

"Alright. Goodbye Panic."

The line goes dead...

. . . .

"A realization has dawned upon me as of late," I say, looking out among the crowd of people and paparazzi who've come to see me, as a kaleidoscope of camera's flash brightly, stinging my eyes. "One that seems to given the world the wrong idea about who I really am. Now that it has come to my attention, I have decided to speak publicly about it, disproving speculations people have concluded about me."

Near the back of the theater, I can see Dad, Pepper, Steve, and the other Avengers, all in disguises from ugly out of date clothes to beanies and tilted hats but I keep my eyes scanning across the room so I'm not focusing on a single spot. Sam stands near the front of the stage where I'd planned, dressed in a dark blue dress that falls past her knees, a black leather jacket pulled over, dark chocolate hair falling down her back in straight strands.

She looks up at me through her dark eye makeup, eyes narrowed as she watches me cross the stage, my long black dress dragging across the floor in the back as I continue my speech prepared in the early hours of this morning.

"Who am I? That's why we're here, everyone in the media has pegged me, attached a label on me without the facts and I have never rebutted the assumptions aimed at who I really am. A snotty little rich girl who has it all, doesn't know the hardships that life places upon the less fortunate, but here I am to day to stand before you all to give my side of the story."

My gaze falls to Sam, waving her up to me, she reluctantly makes her way towards the security guards standing by the stage, they lift her up with ease, placing her on the stage. A news camera pans to get her in the shot as she slowly edges towards me, smiling down at her in reassurance.

"May I introduce Samantha," I pause as the chatter roars loudly before slowly dying when I don't react. "I'm tutoring her for a school credit needed to graduate and while I may not know much about her, she opened my eyes to the reality of what the world thinks I am. Some bratty child who got lucky, and that's not quite accurate so along with the rest of you, I shall be proving her assumptions wrong as well."

Keeping myself calm, I step away from Sam. "I grew up poor, in the bad neighborhood of New York City. My mother, Vanessa Wallace, didn't have anybody, she never told my father, he didn't know. Not because he was selfish and didn't want to help, but because my mother felt it'd be better if I didn't grow up in the limelight and that he would be better off not knowing."

"She had no one, her mother, my Grandmother Valerie, was very old-fashioned. Didn't think it was right to have me in the first place, what with being the product of a drunken one night stand and all," even without looking over, I can feel Dad cringe a bit. "She told my mother that I'd ruin her life and that she'd ruined mine by going through with her pregnancy."

Camera's flash again like rapid flickering of an old movie projector but I press on.

"We never saw her again, never visited my grandmother after that day. When I was three, my mother got married, to someone I'd never even knew she was dating, a man named Ian Powell. He knew who my father was before even I did, he told me at their wedding, told me that... I was nothing, that I didn't matter, that I would never matter. That my father wouldn't want me if he knew about me, and that it was all because my life was a mistake."

Sam looks at me, eyes wide, stunned. Dad and Pepper look at me, I can feel their eyes burning holes through me as the other watch in awe at my honestly, that I'm not hiding details.

"After that day, my life became a nightmare. The man she married was a monster who was good at playing face, he was an alcoholic, he was an angry drunk, not the nice giggly giddy sort. By the time I was seven, I could cover bruises with makeup so that no one would know. There's so many scars that haunt my mirror, that only I see because no one else knows where to look. Sam, come here."

She does as I ask, leaning over, I flip my high ponytail over my left shoulder and pull down the collar of my dress. As she looks down, the news camera on stage pans so the whole theater can see on the jumbo screen behind me. A long jagged gash across my neck and extends all the way to my shoulder blade, not that the collar is pulled down so far.

"This was an incident where my step-father smashed a glass beer bottle over my neck, a large shard got embedded in my skin. He got the 'brilliant' idea to grab the glass like a handle and using all his might," I wince, remembering and feeling the pain all over again. "Wrenched the glass down my neck, through my shoulder, and to my shoulder blade. I had to go to the emergency room and get about thirty stitches. I was nine then."

Straightening back up, I lift the hem of the dress, showing my legs. All the dark spots and deep scars from knives, glass, and cigarette burns.

"The dark spots are from my step-father digging his freshly smoke cigarettes into my skin, the cuts are from various items, ranging from glass, to steak knives, to scissors, and pencils. And he used to play poker, with a conman, thugs, and other dangerous individuals, keep in mind that my mother worked two jobs, a waitress by day and a bartender at night, so he made me the servant who served the beer and brought them food.

"So many things could have happened to me then, sure it wasn't pleasant when I worse a skimpy maid outfit to serve them, wearing red stiletto heels, when the men, about thirty or forty, would spank me. However, I was never force to do anything of any sexual activity for which I am grateful. Being beaten, broken, told I was worthless, it's understandable that I grew up with a lot of self-worth issues."

Taking a deep breath, I press on. "At ten, I though I'd killed my mother by setting the apartment on fire, I was making dinner for her and though I may have left the stove on with a dish towel to close to the burner, only took me about sixteen years to realize that he killed her, my mother, he set the fire with us both inside. I remember seeing the apartment engulfed in flames, a firefighter pulled me out but before that I saw her."

"Her leg on the bed, on fire and everything in my world spun out of focus. For the first time in my life, I was alone. There was no one for me to turn to, I'd never met my father, I didn't want to live with my step-father, so I lived on the street, in an alley actually. Five years, I survived five years like that, stealing what I could but only from places that could survive it and only what I needed to survive the night."

"As the story obviously goes, I ended up meeting my father who turned out to be a different person than the news reels headline, but my step-father found me, about a year ago. I realized that even after six years, he still terrified me, intimidated me, made me afraid like the little girl I was who couldn't defend herself, it took so many people in my new life to break me out of all the delusions he instilled into me, in fact, I still suffer from them."

"I still worry about my worth, am still afraid of Tony changing his mind, of being weak, of never doing anything worth remembering, afraid to let people get close because if they break me this time I may no be able to put myself back together again. I'm seventeen now and I can stand up for myself and maybe the right thing to do is stand up for the people who feel like they can't."

Turning to Sam, I start towards her. "You said that there's no way a snobby little rich girl like me could understand what you're going through; the reality is, I understand a lot better than you realize. So what is my point for all this? Obviously there's a reason for me to call for a conference, well, I'm glad to annou—"

A door behind the stage slams open, the curtains are thrown open and there stands a man with dark blue eyes, glazes over by some substance, he sways on his feet. He's a big man, about a whole head taller than me, nearly as big as a doorway, mostly fat instead of muscle. Then I feel it, fear.

Sam's eyes a wide, fear deep within them bursting forth and I watch as she edges back slowly, the man must be her father. He must be on drugs, he smells terrible, even from where I'm standing. She's paralyzed, unable to move, to think, but while I feel the same sort of fear wash over me, imagining Ian standing there instead, laughing at me, taunting me, telling me I'm worthless but I feel anger boiling in my veins.

"There you are..." the man slurs his words. "I get home from work to find you up and gone like you just done vanished, turn of the television and guess who I see on the TV guide, you princess," he practically spits the word, like it's a curse on his tongue.

"D-D-Daddy, n-n-not here, not n-now with all t-these people," Sam stutters over her words as he dad tips back, letting out a deep belly chortle. His eyes slide to me, narrowing.

"Something you need to get through that thick head of yours Sammy is that she," he motions a thumb at me. "Isn't gonna be a savior to you, this—this is a publicity stunt, isn't that right Ms. Stark. Trying to save the day like you're something special, like an ignorant girl like you change the world, she doesn't care what happens to you once the camera's go out, not like I do."

He starts towards Sam, who stumbles back. "P-p-please s-stay back."

Her father sneers at her request and just continues towards her, his pace quickening until he catches her arm and yanks her forward, she hollers out as the security tries to get towards the stage. The crowd is shouting, total chaos at this point as he starts to drag Sam, by force, towards the back door, muttering how she's gonna wish she was dead when they got home.

Sam's wincing as she cries out. "Ow! Ow! P-please, let me go. Please, please, please Daddy, l-let me go..."

Suddenly, I kick the back of her dad's calf, sending him flying forward and smacking his face against the stage floor, and pull Sam toward me and situate her behind me, putting myself between her and her father, he tilts his head to the side as Sam wraps her arms around my waist from behind, head by my waist as she cowers in fear.

"She told you to let her go, you should really respect her boundaries," I say, my voice strangely calm.

His nose is bleeding when he pushes up on his feet, glaring at me, hatred in his eyes. "And she's my daughter, you have no say in what I can and cannot do."

Shaking my head sadly, I pout my lip. "Sadly, you're right," he laughs. "But they do."

He turns just as the two cops called by someone in the audience reach him. "Daniel Morgan, you're under arrest for domestic violence, and after this incident, child abuse."

Just as he's put in handcuff, another person enters, a woman with short brown hair that matches that of Sam.

"Mommy?" Sam asks, hesitantly.

"I'm so sorry baby," she says, holding her arms open for her daughter who leaves my side and pulls her mother into a hug. Her body shuttering as she lets her sobs fall free. Her mother apologizes over and over again and again in low whispers. Still the crowd just watches.

"That is why I am proud to announce that I will be opening the Panic Stark Domestic Trauma Foundation, for people like me, for boy, girls, men, women, mothers and daughters, fathers and daughters, whoever else it i,s this foundation will be there to help anyone who's suffered abuse in any form from domestic attacks to complete strangers, to anyone who needs help. That is why we're here today, to help those who can't help themselves and those who just need support."

I look out towards the audience but not at them but at Dad and Pepper looking at me like I'm someone else, someone better...

. . . .

"Panic," I stop by the balcony and turn around to face him when I hear Dad's voice. He looks tired, it's almost midnight, the moon shines brightly overhead, coating the world in a luminous blue glimmer.

"Yeah..." I hear the words leave my mouth but they don't register any grounds to reality. I glance down at the buzzing traffic, mind still focused on the press conference that I just got done with. How many people are out there, like me. Alone with no one to turn too. Will this foundation even help, or is it just a waste of time and effort, not to mention the money Dad's give me as an allowance which, until now, has ended up in savings.

"Hey, look at me," I do as told. "When I first met you, you surprised me, even before I knew you were my daughter. Funniest thing is, it's been three years and you still manage to take me by surprise," he pulls me forward, wrapping his arms around me into a hug. Reluctantly I hug back.

He pulls back, catches my face in his hands, and leans down. Kissing my forehead before stepping back and ruffling my hair with his hand. "I'm so proud of the woman you've become, the world is your mantle and I can't wait to see what you do with it."

Dad starts away but I speak before he crosses back into the tower.

"I love you Dad..."

I can hear the smile on his lips. "I know. I love you too, more than you'll ever know."