~The Same Day~

After getting off the phone with Andi, Melissa and Peter walked to the local coffee shop. They got their coffee and sat down in Peter and Andi’s usual booth. Melissa tapped her fingers against the side of her coffee cup anxiously. 

“You okay Liss?”

Melissa snapped out of her thoughts and looked up at him. “Yeah… Just anxious about the whole John thing”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine” He put his hand reassuringly on her arm. “Why don’t we call Christine Everhart?”

Nodding, Melissa pulled the business card out of her pocket and typed the number into her phone. She had taken the card from Andi’s room before they left since they planned to call Christine from the coffee shop so that Tony or Harley didn’t hear them. She took a deep breath and clicked the call button, putting it on speaker so Peter could hear. 

Melissa messed with her straw nervously as the phone rang. 

“Hello?” A woman's voice answered. 

“Hi, is this Christine Everhart?” Melissa asked.

“Yes, who am I speaking with?”

Melissa bit her lip. “This is Andrea Stark, I-”

She heard Christine gasp. “Andrea, yes, thank you so much for calling! I assume you’re calling about the interview?”

“Yes, I decided that I finally wanted to talk…”

“That’s great! I’m free today if that’s fine with you?”

Melissa’s eyes widened and she looked at Peter, who looked equally as surprised. Peter nodded, signifying for her to accept it. “Uh yes, that’s fine”

“Great! How about at four?”

“That sounds good.”

Christine gave her the address of where to meet her and she and Melissa hung up and once they did, Melissa looked at Peter with wide eyes. “Why did you have me accept it?! I’m so not ready for this!”

“The quicker we get answers from Christine, the quicker we can get your dad to California and get your parents back together.” He said. “We’re on a deadline, we need to hurry this up”

Melissa nodded. He was right, they needed to do this as quickly as possible, otherwise their plan might not work. “You’re right… We should start planning what I’m supposed to ask her…”

“We should, but we also should start planning our halloween costumes” 

Melissa looked at him confused. “Halloween costumes? Shouldn’t we be focusing more on getting my parents back together?”

“Yes, and we are, but Andi and I always do matching Halloween costumes, and they’re always cool looking. We have never missed a year, Halloween is in six days and if Andi isn’t back then you and I will have to dress up. If we don’t, Mr. Stark, Harley and the other Avengers will think it’s suspicious” 

Melissa raised an eyebrow at him. “They’ll think us not dressing up for Halloween is suspicious?”

Peter nodded. “Yes. Andi has been passionate about Halloween since we were little. If she suddenly doesn’t dress up, they’ll think somethings wrong”

Sighing, Melissa nodded. “Alright then, so we’ll talk about my interview with Christine while we shop for costumes. Is it really six days until Halloween?” Peter nodded and Melissa sighed again. “I’m going to be seventeen in six days…” Melissa sat back in her seat. She had been so preoccupied about their plan that she had forgotten about her birthday… But Melissa couldn’t think about that now, she needed to prepare for her interview with Christine. “So what do you and Andi do for Halloween?”

Peter smiled. “Not much, but I’ll tell you on the way to the mall. We need to get to the mall to get stuff to make our costumes”

Melissa raised an eyebrow. “Make?”

“Yeah, Andi and I make our costumes every year”

“Andi doesn’t seem like the type to make costumes,” Melissa said, grabbing her coffee. She and Peter walked to the mall and Peter told her about what they did for Halloween. According to Peter, they would get up early and celebrate Andi’s birthday, even though Andi didn’t usually want to celebrate it, they would do cake and presents and then most of the time they would go out and do some sort of activity before getting ready for Halloween. When they were younger, Andi and Peter would go trick or treating after they got back, but when they got older they were able to start going to the Halloween parties Tony would throw.

At the mall, Peter took Melissa to the place where he and Andi would always get the stuff to make their costumes every year. He and Andi hadn’t come up with any costume ideas before she had left, so he and Melissa would have to, and it had to be a costume that Andi would wear.

As they shopped and thought about their costumes, Peter instructed Melissa on what and what not to say to Christine. Melissa had asked if she could bring someone to the interview, but Christine said she would prefer if it was just the two of them, so unfortunately Peter couldn’t be there to stop Melissa from saying something she wasn’t supposed to, in case Christine asked a question they didn’t prepare for. Peter ended up coming up with another idea that they hoped would help. 

Almost two hours passed and the two teens had come up with their halloween costumes and bought most of the stuff they needed for it. Melissa was surprised that Andi would do a matching halloween costume, since she didn’t seem like the type to do those, but Peter said that it was his aunt’s idea when they were little and they just never stopped. 

Since it was just about to be the time that Melissa needed to meet up with Christine, they paid for their stuff and started walking to the meeting place. They got to a little cafe that was a little bit different from the coffee shop they had been at earlier, it didn’t have booths like the coffee shop did, instead it had couches. 

When they got there, Peter took a small, spider looking thing out of his bookbag. “This is Droney, my drone-”

“No shit Sherlock” Melissa said, playfully rolling her eyes. 

Peter rolled his eyes and continued. “I’m going to have him chill out near you and Christine and I’ll be able to see and hear everything. If you’re having trouble knowing whether or not you can answer a question, run your finger around the rim of the glass. Droney has a little light right here-” He pointed to the light. “I’ll be controlling it, if it turns green, you can answer it, if it turns red, then avoid the question. I can’t be in the cafe in case Christine recognizes me from when she would ask Andi about the interview while she was with me. I’ll be across the street in the library, watching through Droney on my phone, okay?”

Taking a deep breath, Melissa nodded. “Yeah…”

They went their separate ways and Melissa went into the cafe, she glanced around until she saw Christine waving at her. She got a coffee and went over and sat down on the couch next to her. “Hi…” She glanced up and saw Droney chilling in the corner of the room and she hoped Peter would be able to hear them okay.

“Hi Andrea,” Christine shook Melissa’s hand. “Thank you for agreeing to this interview”

Melissa shrugged. “It’s so problem, and I prefer Andi”

Christine nodded, pulling out a notepad and a pen. “Noted. You don’t mind if I write down your answers do you?”

“No, not at all.” She said, shaking her head. “I was, uh, wondering if I could ask you a few questions before we begin? Completely off the record…”

Christine seemed a little surprised, but nodded. “Of course”

Melissa took a deep breath. “You knew my father, right?”

She looked down at her coffee, avoiding eye contact with Melissa. “Yeah… A little bit…”

“I was wondering, since you knew my father and wrote a lot about him for Vanity Fair, if you knew why my parents broke up…?”

Christine’s eyes widened slightly and her body stiffened. “Uh… I don’t know, sorry. I tried to find out for VF, but it was kept so secret that even I couldn’t find out”

Nodding, Melissa took a sip of her coffee. She could tell Christine was hiding something, something more than what they already knew, but she knew that Christine probably wouldn’t tell her anything else. “Do you know anything about what happened? Anything at all?”

Christine shook her head, still avoiding eye contact. “Nothing. Now let's get to our interview, what’s it like being the daughter of Tony Stark?”

Melissa thought back to what Andi had told her about being Tony’s daughter. “It’s alright. It’s not as cool as you’d think it would be. We just chill around, eat take out, sometimes I’ll help him in the lab… But other than that it's as if he was just a normal person…”

Christine wrote down everything she said while nodding. “Do you think you’ll become an Avenger in the future?”

Melissa froze. What was she supposed to say? Did Andi want to become an Avenger? She never said anything to her about it, but then again they didn’t really talk much about anything other than their parents and the plan. She glanced up at Droney, hoping Peter knew what to do. Droney’s light turned red. ‘Avoid the question’ She heard Peter’s voice say in her head. “Who knows…” She shrugged. 

Confused, Christie nodded slowly and wrote down her answer. The interview went on for around an hour until Christine decided that she had enough for the magazine. After Christine left, Melissa sighed in relief and laid back onto the couch. She had so much anxiety this entire interview, but thankfully she only had to avoid three questions in total, the others were easy to answer. 

A few minutes later Peter sat down next to Melissa. “You okay?”

Melissa sighed again. “I’ve been better. Can we go home now?”

Peter nodded and helped her up. They went back to the house and Melissa collapsed onto the couch. “This interview took so much out of me…”

“What interview?” Harley asked, walking down the stairs. 

Melissa looked at Peter with wide eyes and Peter looked just as nervous. "Nothing Harley, go away"

Harley crossed his arms. "Why are you two always being so secretive?"

"We're not," Melissa said, sitting up. 

"Then why were you guys talking about an interview?"

"A job interview." Melissa said, shrugging. "I've been trying to get a job, especially since I'm pretty sure my Dad is going to cut me off sometime soon" 

Harley seemed to accept that answer, he shrugged and went into the kitchen. Melissa looked over at Peter, who was smiling at her. "That was such an Andi thing to say" He said quietly, since Harley was still in the kitchen.

"You think?"

He nodded. "Absolutely"

Smiling, she laid back onto the couch. "What are we supposed to do now? Christine didn't tell us anything that would help us… We can't call Andi with no information whatsoever…"

Peter sat down next to her. "I don't know…" He ran a hand through his hair, thinking of anything they could do. Suddenly he sat up, an idea coming to him. "Christine has this assistant that absolutely hates her, but she’s too scared of her to leave. I've seen her with Christine when she would keep asking Andi about the interview. She might know something about what happened…"

Melissa sat up. “Do you know where we can find her?” 

“I think so… But she might be too scared of her to talk to us…”

“Should we bribe her?” Melissa asked, half joking. “Or maybe just have Harley flirt with her”

Peter laughed. “You’re acting a lot like Andi. But we actually may need to bribe her…”

“I was joking about bribing her. Do we even have money for that?” Melissa asked, raising an eyebrow at him. 

“Do you know who your father is?”

Melissa’s eyes widened. “You’re telling me to steal from Dad? I can’t do that!”

Peter shrugged. “Andi does it all the time. Plus it’s for the plan to get your parents back together… He won’t notice the money missing, and if we do we’ll just blame Harley”

Melissa thought about it and Peter was right. She didn’t like the thought of stealing from Tony, especially since she just met him, but if this would be the only way they could get information from Christine’s assistant… Then they needed to do it… They needed to know what happened… “Alright, fine…”

Peter and Melissa snuck into Tony’s office and Melissa went over to his desk while Peter kept watch at the door. Tony wasn’t home yet, but he would be soon and he usually went straight to his office to check up on stuff for Stark Industries before going down to the lab. Melissa found the money just as they heard the front door open. Peter motioned for Melissa to hurry and they rushed out of the office just as Tony walked up the stairs, he looked at them confused and crossed his arms. 

“What were you two doing in my office?”

Melissa panicked on what to say, what wouldn’t make him think that she was lying? What would Andi say? “We were setting up a prank, have fun!” She grabbed Peter’s arm, pulling him upstairs and into Andi’s room before Tony could say anything. She shut the door and leaned against it, sighing in relief when he didn’t knock. “Do you think he bought it?”

Peter nodded, laying down on Andi’s bed. “Yeah probably. It’s such an Andi thing and I’m pretty sure she has pranked him in his office. So nice work”

“Thanks,” Melissa said, laying down next to him. “That stressed me out way too much”

“How much did you end up grabbing?” 

Melissa pulled the money out of her pocket. “Like five hundred”

“That’s perfect. Do you want to go see the assistant before we have to call Andi tonight?” Peter asked. 

“Yeah, I don’t want to call her without any news” Melissa got up and shoved the money into her purse. The two of them left and went to the Vanity Fair headquarters. Peter had only been there once before, when Andi went down there to tell Christine to stop bugging her, that’s when Peter saw her assistant and how Christine treated her horribly. 

Peter went to the front desk and asked for Christine’s assistant, who unfortunately he didn’t know the name of. The receptionist didn’t want to allow him to see the assistant, for security reasons, but when he told her that Andrea Stark had something else to tell Christine and thought it would be best to tell her assistant, the receptionist relented. Everyone there knew about Andrea Stark and everyone wanted an interview with her, they all wanted an inside scoop on the Stark family and they thought that Andi was rebellious enough to give it. They all knew Christine wanted an interview the most and was the only one to actually get one.

The teens were taken to a room to wait for Christine’s assistant, and after not even five minutes, she arrived. “Hello, I’m Aaliyah. I heard you wanted to speak with me about my boss and her interview with you?”

Melissa tapped her fingers on the table they were sitting at. “Uh… Not exactly…” She took a deep breath. “I actually wanted to talk to you about your boss and her ‘relationship’ with my dad”

Aaliyah’s eyes widened. “I uh… I can’t talk about my boss’ private life…”

“Please… I know she had something to do with my parents breaking up, I need to know what happened?” Melissa pulled two hundred out of the five hundred dollars out of her pocket. “I’ll pay you… Here’s two hundred… I know you don’t like her, I promise she won’t find out that we talked. We’ll tell her that there was just something that I forgot to mention to her…”

Aaliyah looked like she wanted to talk, but she was too afraid of Christine. Melissa pulled another two hundred out of her pocket. 

“Four hundred?” She asked hopefully.

“I can’t… I’m sorry…”

Peter sat up, leaning on the table. “Five hundred… Please, she really needs to know what happened. Her family was ripped apart and she just wants the answers that her father won’t give to her…”

Aaliyah looked like she was debating with herself, like half of her wanted to talk to them and the other half didn’t. “Alright, I’ll talk. But only for a few minutes, Miss Everhart will be back soon…”

“That’s all the time I need,” Melissa said, handing her the money. “What do you know about Christine’s ‘relationship’ with my father?”

Sighing, Aaliayh sat down across from them. “Christine slept with your father, back before him and your mother got together, but in typical Tony Stark fashion back then, it was just a one night stand. Christine was upset, because she really liked him.” She looked down at her hands. “After you were born, she was angry that Mr. Stark chose your mother over her. She was drunk one night here at work and came up with a plan… The next morning I didn’t think she’d follow through with the plan, let alone remember it, but she did…”

“What was the plan?” Melissa asked, leaning forwards. Both her and Peter were intrigued in this story and not just because it was what they’ve been trying to find out.

“They were at a party and even though your father didn’t drink as much after you were born, she managed to convince him to drink with her. She got him drunk… And then drugged him… And then she slept with him… He fought, because he was with your mother, but she didn’t take no for an answer… He was drugged enough that he didn’t even remember her after he left…”

Her father was drugged…? He didn’t willingly cheat on her mother… He probably didn’t even know what was happening… “Why did she do that? Did she want to break my parents up?”

Aaliyah shook her head, not making eye contact with her. “Sort of… That wasn’t the main reason for her plan though…” She trailed off, almost like she didn’t want to tell them. 

“Aaliyah… What was her motive…”

Aaliyah looked up at them for the first time since she started telling them the story. “She wanted to get pregnant… She thought it would break up your parents and make your father be with her instead…”

Melissa’s eyes widened. Christine wanted to get pregnant… That’s why she wouldn’t answer her questions at the cafe… 

“Did she… Get pregnant…?” Peter asked.

Aaliyah shook her head. “I don’t believe so… If she did, you’d think she’d have been trying to get with your father, but she didn’t. Or she’d be going after him for child support”

Melissa was relieved. It would have made everything so much harder if there was another kid involved in this… She also didn’t know if she could handle finding out if she had another long lost sibling… She sat back in her chair and thought about all the new information they got. Christine wanted to get pregnant to ruin her parents' relationship and have her father as her own… “If she wanted to get pregnant so badly then why didn’t she keep trying to sleep with Dad, especially after he and my mother broke up…”

“She wanted to, but I talked her out of it and she was happy enough knowing that she ruined their relationship” 

Melissa nodded. It made sense that Christine wouldn’t try again after ruining their relationship, especially if she didn’t want to get caught. Aaliyah excused herself for a minute and went into another room, coming back with a tape. “This is the security footage from the party. It shows my boss drugging your father and then taking him up to a room to sleep with him. I thought maybe you’d need it if you were going to get your parents back together, which I assume is your reason for this”

Taking the tape, Melissa shoved it into her purse and nodded. “Thank you so much for everything…”

“No problem. You should go before my boss gets back”

Aaliyah showed the two of them out and they decided to take a cab home. As they drove home, Melissa thought about everything, but mainly how her parents would react to this new information… Would this make her mother more keen to forgive her father? 

When they got home, it was around seven and Melissa was worn out from the day they had. She went up to Andi’s room to take a quick nap before dinner, mainly because she was so tired and partly because she was starting to get a headache. Peter came up to wake her up for dinner and then afterwards, they went up to Andi’s room to talk about Halloween and the rest of the plan. They couldn’t make any official plans without Andi, but they were planning on calling her after school tomorrow, since Andi would still be asleep when they got up for school due to time zones. 

That night, Melissa laid in bed, thinking about their plan. She knew her mother better than anyone else, but even Melissa wasn’t sure how her mother would react to the new information… She wanted to think that her mother would be relieved to know that her father didn’t willingly cheat on her, but her mother still had all that hurt that she’s had for sixteen years, that all wouldn’t just go away overnight… Melissa hoped that this would help bring her parents back together, she didn’t know what she'd do if it didn’t…