─truth unveiled

all along I believed,

I would find you.

She had a passed out girl on the backseat of her car who could wake up at any time and try something. She doubted it though, but the possibility was still there. So she tried to drive as fast as she could without exceeding the speed limit, of course, she couldn't afford to get pulled over. Not with Arabella in the car.

In any other situation, Rhodey would've been the first one she would reach out to. This time, however, instead of ringing her dad she called Tony. It was his daughter, she had to. She impatiently drummed her fingers against the wheel as the ringing continued. Just as the phone rang for the third time, he picked up.

"Hey, Jo." Tony's voice came through the speakers of the car. "What's up?"

To say the seventeen-year-old was nervous was an understatement. She had no idea how to drop a bomb like that to the man she considered an uncle. She couldn't just go on and tell him; "Hey, your daughter, who you thought was dead, is alive and blacked out in my backseat!". She huffed and looked at the younger girl through the rear mirror.

"Hello. Earth to Josephine,"

She shakily let out a breath, stopping the car when the traffic light turned red. "Sorry," She mumbled. "Alright, uh, this is—this is going to sound crazy, okay? Just... This is serious, okay? I—I'm not lying―"

"Wow, wow! You're scaring me, kid." Tony interrupted her stuttering.

"Sorry, I just don't know how to tell you this." The light turned green and she pressed her foot over the accelerator.

"Just spill it out," She nodded, even though she knew he couldn't see her.

"I'm in D.C. right now and, uh, I think you already know what happened to Fury―"

"Wait, what happened to him?" Josephine frowned. He didn't know? How could he not? News travel fast, especially toward the genius. Unless S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't want to share such information. She frowned, hoping Steve could find out what was going on.

"He got shot, and, uh, he—he didn't make it." Her voice lowered at the end and her eyes began to burn. She blinked rapidly. She was driving, she couldn't cry.

There was silence for a few seconds before Tony spoke again, his voice filled with sorrow. "When?"

"Midnight. I was there with Cap, they shot him from another building. We chased them but they were fast—"

"They?"

"Yes, they. A man and a girl." The nervousness came back when she mentioned her. "The man got away but we, uh, we got the girl. She got injured so we couldn't proceed with the interrogation." She paused and sighed. She had to tell him. "When she was in surgery, the doctors took a blood sample. And, uh, she... they—they found out..." Goddamn it, Josephine! Get it together. "They found—Her DNA, Tony. She's—she's Bella." The name fell off her lips as a mere whisper, as if she was afraid to mention her.

The other end of the line went dead, he didn't hang up, he just stayed silent. Josephine couldn't see his reaction but she could hear his shaky breaths. Her palms were sweating against the leather-covered wheel. "T-Tony?"

"Where is she?" His voice came out strangled.

"In the backseat, passed out. I'm driving out of D.C. right now. Cap got her out of the Triskelion. S.H.I.E.L.D. can't get to her—"

"Pull over somewhere safe, I'll come to get you." Right after, the line went dead.

staying like that for a solid minute. Shock and hurt written on his face. His mind thinking about one thing. Could it be her? His breaths came out rigged and his hands began to shake a little. Could it really be her? His heart was racing, so was his mind. His mouth was slightly opened, eyes were wide open darting from left to right.

He somehow knew it. He knew she was the girl he encountered two years ago in Oslo. It had to be her. He had searched for her, he looked on every existing source yet he found nothing. But he could feel it, deep down in his heart, he knew she couldn't be dead. An overwhelming wave of nausea came over him, making him swallow harshly.

"Sir, I suggest you sit down." JARVIS, his A.I., told him. "I believe you're having an anxiety attack." Tony shook his head furiously. He couldn't sit down and wait till his little episode ended. No, he needed to get to Josephine. He needed to see her with his own eyes. He needed to know if it was true. He needed to know if she was alive; if she was okay. If it was really her.

"Track Jo's location," Tony urged the A.I. walking to where his suit was. "We're going wherever she is." He took a deep breath and suited up, flying out of the roof of the Avengers Tower.

on the outskirts of the city, where almost everything was trees. She had gotten out of the car and was leaning on it, staring at the girl who had yet to wake up. Tony saw the car from above the sky.His heart was beating wildly against his chest, and without thinking twice he lowered and landed in front of Josephine's light grey car. He got out of the suit and for the hundredth time that day, he let out a shaky breath. His eyes landed on the seemingly sleeping figure at the backseat. He couldn't see her face though because Jo's car had the windows darkly tinted. But her small silhouette was enough to paralyze him. The air caught in his throat and his hands began to tremble again. His eyes moved from the car's window to Jo. And if eyes could talk, his would be screaming.

Josephine didn't speak, she couldn't. All she did was open the backseat of her car.

Tony gulped and took a small step backward.

He couldn't believe what he was seeing, or rather who. Half of her knotted hair was hanging from the seat, the other was buried behind her back. The bangs covering her forehead looked messy. Both of her cheeks were bruised and her soft-looking lower lip was busted. The black metal collar looked tight against her neck and Tony wondered why she had it and what did it do. His eyes then traveled to her side, which had stopped bleeding, but it still looked bad. Her left hand was placed over her torso while her right hand was resting next to her body. Her all-black suit looked dirty and it had been torn at some parts, especially her right side.

She looked older, tougher, yet he still could see his eight-year-old daughter. She hadn't changed much. The same small nose that resembled his was still there. Her hair looked a little bit straighter but it was the same shade of brown. Her face remained the same. And even though she had her eyes closed, Tony knew they were still blue. He couldn't help but picture the last time he had seen her, a day before the accident. His chest painfully ached at the memory that, even though had happened over four years ago, felt like a fresh wound on his heart.

Finally, he took his eyes off the girl and looked at Josephine as if asking for answers. He couldn't speak, the words caught on his throat. Josephine knew what he wanted to hear, so without hearing his questions she decided to speak.

"She was at the roof with the man who shot Fury, they were—or are—I don't know, partners." She took a second to inspect his features, hoping she would catch whatever reaction he had. But his sight once again was in the girl even though his body was facing Jo. "We, uh, we fought and Steve's shield hit her side. But, um, she—she phased through it right before it fully hit her."

Tony abruptly turned to look at the seventeen-year-old. "She phased? How?"

"I don't know, Tony. She—Her body just turned like intangible. Like it turned to air, she seemed transparent." She tried her best to explain but honestly, it was ridiculous. How could she even explain that a girl turned to air? She shook her head and continued. "Right after that, the man left. Jumped off the roof and left her there. S.H.I.E.L.D. arrived almost immediately and took her off to the same hospital as Fury, to, uh, treat her wound. They ran some tests and, uh, they told us well, you know,"

Tony stiffly nodded. They told them she was his, apparently not dead, daughter. "Who's 'us'? You and Rogers?"

"Yeah, and Nat." She pushed a strand of her behind her ear. "This morning, agents were transferring somewhere else. Cap got her though and ran away from the Triskelion with her. I, uh, I tracked them and went after them to help. He was planning on getting her to you but I told him I would do it and then, that, uh, that thing on her neck kind of activated and knocked her out."

"That's it?" Tony narrowed his eyes at the raven-haired girl, who nodded in response.

"Yeah, we don't really know much about her. Besides the fact that she worked with the man. She's like a ghost story or something of those sorts."

The older man pursed his lips and sighed. "Alright, I'm taking you two to somewhere safe." Before they took off though, Arabella weakly sat up, startling him and Josephine.

"Steve?" He was all she could think of since he was the last person she remembered seeing before passing out. Her eyes were still trying to focus on the two figures outside the vehicle, but her head was still spinning.

Tony moved forward and crouched over the car, his eyes wide and mouth opened in disbelief. It was her voice. Oh, how he'd missed that voice.

"Belles?"

—love, lili