Work Text:
“Mooooom i’m boreeeeeed,” she stretched out the last syllable for ten whole seconds in an attempt to annoy Mom into taking her away from the most boring adult party ever. Her whining had never worked on her Mom before, and it didn’t look like it was about to start now, since Mom just patted her head and continued her conversation.
Sharon fumed. She thought adult parties were supposed to be fun! Jimmy Grover told her so. He said that his older brother had super fun parties where loud music, grown up drinks, and dancing happened. Though she guessed that his brother was technically 19, but that was practically an adult anyway. Jimmy Grover was a damn liar, (her new babysitter, Tony, was teaching her lotsa fun words).
She was brought out of her thoughts when the old lady Mom was talking to bent down to her height. She smelled weird and there was some old person gunk on the corner of her lip. She didn’t hide behind Mom because no amount of weird smells and old person gunk would bring her down! Though, she did cling onto her skirt a little. To show that she was there for her Mom who had to deal with the old lady, obviously.
“Well, look at you! You’re so cute I could just gobble you up! Why, I looked just like you when I was your age!”
Sharon felt her mom put her hand on her shoulder, a reminder to behave, or no desserts for a week. Sharon thought this was horrendously unfair, but apparently, ‘your Aunt Peggy really needs you to behave, darling,’ so despite her stomach clenching in discomfort, she forced a polite smile on her face.
Old lady daw’ed and her hand went to pinch her cheek.
Time slowed down as the gross, veiny hand moved towards her face like it was stuck in the golden syrup Sharon drowned her waffles in at breakfast. Her nails were long and yellow and Sharon was reminded of the wicked stepmother in Snow White. That was it, that’s why she was so creepy, she was going to poison Sharon!
Before she knew it, she had screamed as loud as she could and raced into another room, sliding underneath a table.
That was close. That was very close. Sharon knew in her gut, that if the old lady had touched her skin, she’d be in an eternal sleep-or worse!
She leaned against one of the table legs and let out a breath. Her heart was still hammering. She hoped her Mom was okay, she was an adult, so probably, but evil stepmothers, especially ones as old as the old lady, could do anything. At least if the old lady tried to put an evil spell on sharon, she would be well hidden underneath the table cloth.
She took an extra deep breath and decided to wait until it was safe to come out.
She had sat there for so long, trying to be as quiet and still like how Aunt Peggy was in her spy stories, that she had nearly screamed when the table cloth suddenly flipped up. The tired stare of the lady who had found her made Sharon falter.
“And just what do you think you’re doing there?” Her voice was as cold as her face, and Sharon couldn’t help but think of the witch from narnia.
“Uh... I’m playing hide and seek!”
“With who? I’m sure you’re the only child here.”
“Oh.” She mumbled guilty, ashamed at being being caught out with a lie so quickly. What would Aunt Peggy say?
The lady sighed “Just get out from under there, and apologise.”
Sharon followed the woman's instructions, but she must’ve been mumbling because the lady said, “speak up! This isn't the place to be a child.” Then she turned her head away and murmured quietly to herself, like she didn’t want sharon to hear her. “you’re almost worse than Anthony.”
Any shame Sharon might’ve felt at being told off by someone she didn't even know, was immediately lost in the hope that she might know someone from the party who weren’t her parents. Tony had complained to her lots of times how his parents always called him Anthony, even when he asked them not to. Thinking about it now, Sharon was pretty sure that mom had told her that they were going to the Stark’s, but she was watching Sesame street when mom told her, so it would be totally unfair to expect her to remember.
“Oh! Is Tony here? Your son?”
The lady stared at her, as if she was considering not answering. Sharon crossed her fingers and toes.“...Yes, of course he is, this is a Stark event after all.”
She grinned. She would get to see Tony! It’s been forever since he last babysat her. “Where is he?” She asked and cringed when she realised that she was using what her teacher would call her ‘outside voice.’ She was always really bad at using her inside voice. The lady agreed, judging the way she winced and massaged her forehead.
“Oh, I don't know, probably with his Father. Just go find your Mother and stay quiet, alright? I have a headache.” She walked off before she could reply and Sharon humphed like her dad did when someone was rude.
Still, she had something to do now! She would find Tony, and she would finally have someone to play with. She didn’t have any of her toys but she was great at Let’s Pretend.
Though finding Tony may be easier said than done, she thought, watching all the adults stand around the room having boring conversations with each other, not a teenager in sight. She started to wander through the crowd. Maybe she would run into him talking to his Dad. She wondered what Tony’s Dad was like. So far, she was imagining a taller Tony with a moustache, maybe he was even more of a know-it-all than Tony, since he had lived for longer and knew more.
Though Tony's Mom was kinda mean, but that might have just been her headache. Maybe they were like those sitcoms on TV. The wife with an important job was harsh and serious, and the dad was nice and jolly with a big tummy and slapped peoples shoulders when he found something funny.
She hoped Tony’s Dad was like that. Having two mean parents just wasn't fair.
She opened a door that was closed, and walked into a room that was practically empty, aside from a few adults quietly murmuring among themselves on a sofa facing away from a staircase. They didn’t see her, and she grinned to herself. She was totally on a super-cool spy mission right now. There was a little sign hanging from a single string connecting the railings that Sharon, after sneaking up to it and mouthing the words out to herself, deduced it said ‘Do Not Enter’.
Well, she looked everywhere for Tony except for here, so obviously she must break the rules for her awesome spy mission.
Feeling brave after finally getting somewhere with her search for her cousin, she made sure the adults in the room weren't looking, and snuck underneath the sign and into the forbidden section of the mansion.
After a whole ten minutes of searching, Sharon was no closer to finding Tony than she was before. Honestly! Was Tony trying to avoid her? At that thought, Sharon’s body went cold. That would explain why it was so hard to find him, but Tony wouldn’t deliberately avoid her, would he?
It wasn't like he thought that she was annoying and not fun to play with, like what Annie told her in the playground, or that she was a know-it-all and selfish like the teachers she heard talking about her during lunch break said. But it was so hard to find him, it was like playing hide and seek! Did Tony secretly hate her?
Her tummy tightened up at that thought, and she rushed, opening doors and looking through them. Tony didn’t hate her, he was just busy! She knew it, she just had to find him and then everything would be alright.
After thoroughly searching the different rooms, making extra sure he wasn't there by checking under the bed or in the cupboard, she went out in the hallway again and stopped when she heard noises coming from behind a door.
She crept closer, and pressed her ear against the door like how the spies did in the movies. At first all she could register was a male voice, snapping and sounding angry, kind of like when Dad was talking on the phone with some annoying coworkers. It was too deep to be Tony, was he being yelled at? Oh, maybe he got in trouble! That was obviously why he wasn’t downstairs playing with Sharon as he would've done if he wasn't in trouble.
She waited, but the sounds didn’t magically form into words like she hoped. She knew that she would get into trouble if she was caught eavesdropping, but she so desperately wanted to know if Tony was avoiding her or not. She would only get in trouble if she was caught, right?
Carefully, she slowly opened the door just wide enough so that she could peek through. Luckily, the door was well oiled, and didn’t make a sound. Tony was sitting on a bed, and sharon repressed an urge to squeal upon seeing him, until she noticed how he looked.
He was looking down at the floor like he wanted to sink in it. His hands sitting folded on his lap, which wasn't right, Tony's hands should be moving, fidgeting, creating, not looking as lifeless as they did now.
Sharon almost, almost opened the door, almost went into the room to ask why was Tony so sad, to see if she could comfort him, but then a man stepped into view, and Sharon tuned back into what he was saying.
“-God, Tony, can’t you do anything right? Sometimes I think everything would be better if you were never born!”
Tony curled up on himself even more at that. Sharon thought he might be shaking. There was a beat of silence, where the man was waiting for a response. Tony stayed quiet.
The man scoffed, “figures. No food tomorrow, and since apparently you can't keep your mouth shut, I hear one sound out of you and that’s a day in the closet,” Tony didn’t respond, didn’t do anything but look down at the floor.
Sharon moved out of the way just in time for the man- Tony’s Father to slam the door open and storm away. He didn’t even notice her.
She looked back through the door that was left ajar, and saw-
Tony. crying.
Just quiet sniffles, hand pressed hard against his face, like he could hold back his tears through sheer force of will, and Sharon’s mind blanked. She had never seen Tony cry, had kinda thought he was too tough for it, like the time she accidentally dropped a glass of water on the floor and it smashed into a million little pieces and Tony had came into the kitchen to see what was wrong and stepped on the mess. He didn’t even yell, just made sure Sharon stayed away from the glass and cleaned it up himself, all the while blood was dripping from his foot. He made sure that Sharon knew he wasn’t mad at her, like he always did when sharon got hurt or did something wrong.
Tony comforted sharon, that was how it worked. She didn’t even know where to begin with something like this. A part of her felt guilty for witnessing this, seeing Tony cry felt like something forbidden, and it made her think that she would prefer to go back to her mom and apologise to the evil stepmother than to see Tony cry.
Another part of her knew she wouldn’t do that. Tony was her friend, her cousin, technically. Her family. And Aunt Peggy always said to never leave behind family.
She slowly opened the door and crept in. Busy with frantically trying to make himself stop crying, he didn’t notice Sharon until she had jumped on the bed beside him.
“Wha- Sharon? What’re you doing here?”
“Mom said we had to go to the party to be polite. I don't actually want to be here.”
Tony snorted. He didn’t seem to be crying as hard as he was before, though he was still shaking. She counted that as a win.
“You and I both, kid.”
She leaned her head on Tony’s shoulder -even though his shoulder was bony and not all that comfortable- and strained to think of what to say. How was Tony so good at this?
“Why was he mad at you?” She asked, and instantly regretted it when Tony stiffened up more. “Sorry, I-”
“It was my fault. I said something I shouldn't have said to the wrong person, and Dad told me off because of that. I deserve it.”
She scrunched up her nose. “That’s stupid.” She got into trouble loads of times, will be in trouble for screaming at the old lady, but her parents never forbid her from talking, or told her that they wished she was never born, or threatened anything that Tony's Father just did.
“What? No it isn’t. I did something wrong and I got punished, that’s how it works. I’m sure your parents do the same thing when you get in trouble.”
“No they don’t. Not like your parents. When I get in trouble they just ground me.”
Tony was looking more and more uncomfortable as the conversation went on, “What does that even mean? What the hell is grounding?” His voice was steadily getting louder, and Sharon didn’t know what to say.
“It’s-it’s just- grounding is just when I’m not allowed to watch tv for like a week. Or sometimes when I really messed up I'm put in my room for a few hours, but it’s okay because I got lots of toys.” She didn’t mention that she had played with them all and got seriously bored of them after 15 minutes. It might be counteractive to her point.
Tony, who was nodding sagely as she talked, froze all of a sudden. He even stopped shaking.
She waited, even though she hated waiting. It felt like it was important that she did. Tony pulled in a big breath of air and sagged with it as he exhaled, as if someone had cut his puppet strings.
“Your parents don’t hurt you? What about the other kids at your school?”
She shook her head, “same as me, mostly. Teachers say that if someone hurts you, you should tell somebody about it.”
He laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound. “Figures. I thought it was normal, I thought that everyone treated their kids like this, but if other parents aren’t doing it, then they must do it because of me.” He said miserably, burying his face in his hands. She leaned in to hear him mumble, “What the hell did I do wrong?”
She squirmed uncomfortably, she had no idea what to say here. She had never been in a position where she had to comfort someone like this before. She thought about what her teachers said, about telling somebody when someone was hurting you. They never actually specified what they meant by ‘talking to somebody,’ but maybe she just didn’t understand because there was no-one hurting her, so maybe it would make Tony feel better.
“Well… you can always talk to me about it if you want.”
This didn’t get the desired result of Tony instantly perking up as she hoped, but he did look up and smile sadly.
“Yeah,” he sighed, ”and I guess I got Rhodey too.”
Rhodey was Tony's friend who sometimes came over to play with them. She nodded. Rhodey was always a good person to talk to, she knew.
Tony sat for a few minutes, trying to calm himself down, he told her. Before too long, he stood up and swung out a hand for her to take.
“So,” he said, “what’s this I hear about you screaming at an old lady? I heard some people talking about it before Dad wanted to talk to me.”
Sharon scowled and took his hand. “It wasn’t my fault, she was an evil stepmother,” she tilted her head and added, “and she was gonna touch me with her gross, veiny hands.”
“Fuck yeah, stick it to the old people,”
A thought came across her mind and she waited until they were out of Tony’s room until she asked, “Tony, what does fuck mean?”
“Oh, it’s- wait, are you supposed to swear around kids?”