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avengerofiron · 4 years

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calls of guilty || self para

summary: there’s been a lot of times in tony’s life when he’s been advised to stop talking. these are two of those times. trigger warnings: child abuse, homophobia/biphobia, drugs, alcoholism, manipulative family relationships everywhere, cancer, death, grief

December 16, 1987

Edwin and Ana Jarvis were in the Maldives this Christmas. It was the first year in Tony’s considerable memory that they wouldn’t be there for the roast dinner — the year before Tony was born, three months before Maria said she was pregnant, was the last time they found themselves on a beach sipping margaritas as the world celebrated. That was eighteen years ago.

They deserved a holiday, Maria said. They deserved a break, deserved to go to a place with only the two of them, no responsibilities (her eyes flickered to Tony on the other side of the dining room table), no headaches (she didn’t dare to look at Howard, instead focused on the half eaten steak on her plate).

Jarvis gave Tony his present early. There was another one coming on Christmas Day, he said, because Howard wouldn’t have allowed Tony to open the gifts before the 25th of the month, and even at that only with his express permission. The butler wanted to see the look on Tony’s face, though, when he opened something. He said that was the best part of Christmas. Tony held himself back from asking why he would leave, if Tony was the glittering star on top of the tree.

He wasn’t a child anymore. He was seventeen, and expected to act like it.

The gift was brought out of the leather carry case as Tony rolled up to the Stark mansion, back from boarding school on holiday leave. He would’ve preferred to stay on campus — Tiberius was, along with some of the other boys that Tony didn’t find entirely grim to listen to, but Howard wanted them to have family time. Wife’s orders, he joked to the headmaster over the phone. Tony knew it before Mr. Barker told him. Howard made the same joke all the time.

It was a notebook. Leather bound, a buckle on the front like a belt. The pages were thick, yellowing around the corners. It was, for all intents and purposes, meant to look extremely old, even if Tony had been handed it with the barcode label still attached to the back. This was the kind of book we used in the war, Jarvis said, and Tony looked at him with a raised eyebrow. Your father always liked to write his ideas.

If Howard liked to write, it stood to reason Tony would too. Tony thanked Jarvis for the gift, held onto the older man so tightly he must’ve bruised a few ribs, and made the resolution never to look at the notebook again.

It was a good distraction tonight, though. As he picked through his food, appetite rarely there when he was away from the hustle and bustle of the school dining hall, Tony was sketching down schematics, eraser shavings from his pencil leaving a light dusting over the dark mahogany. His parents were talking at opposite ends of the table long enough for entertaining, that rarely saw parties when Tony was home.

Home.

“Howard, please.”

His mother’s voice was far away, light and lilting in the conscious way she performed as she swept through galas and charity balls. Tony erased the last formula, eyebrows furrowing as he tried out another.

“No, Maria, it’s ridiculous. All this money spent on sending him to that school, and it turns him into a goddamn mute.”

“Howard.”

“It’s true. Am I not allowed to say the truth now? Come on, speak.”

A few moments passed before Tony realised the underwater conversation halted. He looked up from his notebook and half eaten dinner to find two pairs of brown eyes looking back at him. No one could ever decide who Tony’s came from. Obie maintained it depended on the light.

He wished Obie was here now. His godfather had a unique way of diffusing the tension, of following Tony out after all was said and done and reassuring him that no matter how dramatically he left, someone would always come out after.

“He’ll speak when he wants to,” Maria said, as Tony met Howard’s hard gaze. “Won’t you, Anthony?”

His focus flickered back to his mother. “It’s Tony.”

Howard’s fork clattered off the plate. Tony didn’t startle, though he wanted to. Howard’s voice was still perfectly clear, his expression impassive. If he thought Tony was jumpy, he would get offended. Tony wasn’t trying to offend.

He still managed to regardless.

“Your mother gave you life,” Howard said. “She can call you whatever she damn well pleases.”

“He’s fine,” Maria interjected. “He doesn’t like the formality of Anthony, do you-”

“You coddle him.”

“Excuse me?”

“This is his problem. At that school, everyone bends over backwards, don’t they?”

Tony didn’t reply. Sometimes, Howard asked questions he didn’t want answers to. Maria never quite got that memo.

“I wouldn’t say they-”

“He’s never needed to work for anything in his life. He’s soft. I told you military school would turn him into something.”

“He already is something. He’s a Stark.”

“Banking off my good name, you mean.”

“Our good name.”

“Did you build the company, Maria? Stick to your pet projects, would you, and let me raise our son to be-”

Tony went back to his notebook. The dorm room he shared with Rhodes was too hot in summer, too cold in winter. They’d tried calling estates, to no avail. Even the Stark name his parents were bragging about didn’t swing for much, not when it was a seventeen year old kid and his slightly older roommate putting in the complaint, having no idea how exactly to complain. Tony had taken to pulling apart the air con and heating units himself. He fixed the issue, but now he wanted to make it better. He wanted their room to be the best. He wanted to leave his initials etched into the side of the radiator, so whoever occupied the dorm when he graduated would say boy, this T.S. guy really is something, look at what he left us, look at how he planned …

“For God’s sake!” The words came suddenly, and Howard’s fist was against the table. The maids glanced at each other on the other side of the room, and made the executive decision to duck out of the room. Maria was staring at him, wide eyed.

Tony jumped.

Howard’s attention was solely on him. “Will you speak?”

Tony set his pencil down, slowly. He looked down at the eraser shavings over the wood, and slowly began brushing it off onto the ground. He didn’t need to see Howard’s jaw clenching. “What would you like me to discuss, Howard?”

The plate rattled on the table. The cutlery dropped to the ground, and Maria’s hand went to Howard’s arm. He was up out of his seat now, and Tony’s heart picked up speed in his chest.

Tony lifted his own fork, stabbing a piece of the steak. “A little overdone,” Tony commented, chewing slowly, “don’t you think?”

“You little shit.”

“Howard.”

“This is what that Stone boy is putting in your head, isn’t it? Attitude.”

“He’s putting plenty in me,” Tony replied, evenly, “but the attitude is all my own.”

Maria’s head whipped around to look at her son, then. “Anthony.”

“Tony,” he corrected.

“Don’t talk back to your mother,” Howard said, and he was seething now. This was a new record. “And keep your perversions from the table.”

“You jealous?”

Howard actually spluttered at that. He wasn’t sitting down, but he wasn’t moving, either. Tony would have to push a little harder. “I have everything I need.”

“Oh I’m sure you do,” Tony replied, leaning over the table to take the glass of wine from its place beside Howard’s plate. It was overfilled, but it was never the flavor Howard drank for. He kicked back in his chair, taking a long gulp before adding, “With the maid.”

“Tony.”

“You are an ungrateful, spiteful-”

“And the nanny,” Tony mused, swirling the wine around the glass. It was a wonder, what with the slight tremor in his hands, the red liquid didn’t spill over and splash onto his new jeans. “That one from Brazil, Mom, you remember her? You used to go to yoga together. Then you went to the showers, and Dad decided to give her the good old Stark welcome-”

Maria opened her mouth, and closed it again. Howard was grinding his teeth so hard now that Tony could feel the shudder up his back.

“Oh! My therapist, back in the day. I always wondered, you know, what happened to her. Then I found out Dad fucked-”

That was it. That was enough, the moment of impact. Within an instant, the glass in Tony’s hand crashed to the ground, his shoes stained in red. He was pulled from his chair, and Howard’s arm was pressed against his chest, Tony’s back against the wall.

He could see everything, here. The vein popping out on the side of his father’s head, the sweat appearing on his upper lip just at the sides of his moustache, the clench in his jaw, the high color creeping up his neck. Tony’s feet were on the ground but only barely, his heart was flying so fast in his chest that he knew Howard had to be able to feel it against his strong arm, and all he could think was keep going. Keep going, let it happen, let it be over.

It always ended with a bang. It always ended with a crack, or a sudden moment of impact, a second of splintering pain and then the room would be empty and it would be over. The build up was always the worst. He expected this, coming home. He expected it every single time, and he was right. There wasn’t an equation out there with the reliability Howard Stark showed in his reactions.

Maria was crying, now. Tony can hear her screaming, vacantly, in the same distant way as he always heard his mother yelling. Howard. Howard, please. Put him down. He didn’t mean it, he’s just a-

The phone rang in the kitchen. Immediately, air rushed into Tony’s lungs again, and he was dropped to the ground. Howard cast one more sharp glance in his direction before making his way towards the other room.

“Carter,” his voice echoed through, jovial and friendly. “You’re interrupting our family dinner.”

The rest of the conversation was blocked out as Howard hooked his foot around the door, pulling it closed behind him.

With that barrier in place, Maria crossed the dining room, by Tony’s side in an instant. He was shaking. He noticed that, first. He was shaking so hard he couldn’t stop, and his teeth were chattering, and all he wanted was that brief, sharp moment. He was still waiting for it, even now. He didn’t know what it would be, and it was easier to deal with a bruise he could see. It was the waiting, the anticipation, that was the worst.

He was on the ground. His mother’s hands were in his hair, on the side of his face, running down as she pressed kisses that would leave lipstick stains over his cheeks and forehead. “Oh bambino,” she whispered, her voice desperate and thready, a shadow of her former mask. “Tua mamma ha te. Your mom has you, you’re okay.”

He’s crying. He doesn’t feel it, but he is. There is salt on his lips, and he can feel his mother’s hands getting wet.

“You used to be best friends, il mio cuore,” Maria whispered, her mouth going to the top of Tony’s head, her words muffled by his thick curls — those, at least, he inherited from her. All the good parts of him, all the parts that were worth it, came from her. “What happened, my darling?”

“He got to know me?” Tony offered, and Maria huffed a laugh, wet and thick and nothing like her normal. “Hey, Mom. It’s okay.”

She shifted, and instinctively, Tony moved until they were both leaning against the wall, his mother curling into his shoulder, head on his chest, his hands going to stroke through her hair, instead. “I’m okay. Nothing happened,” Tony said.

“He misses you when you’re gone, you know. He misses you more than you could ever know.”

Tony didn’t doubt that. He knew what went through Howard’s mind at that moment, in that second before the impact hit, before the meteor tore apart what they’d built. He knew how that power sat on his shoulders.

“You can be so difficult, Tony.”

A wave of something foreign goes through him. “I wasn’t-”

“He’s just trying to relate to you, to talk to you. Why don’t you try?”

He did try. He tried all the time. He came to his office with toy planes when he was six years old, and had them thrown onto the ground because they’d been invented before. He came to him in the kitchen and told him he kissed a boy, and spent the week in gym class trying to hide the hand shaped bruise on his wrist.

“He is so busy, and he’s so tired, Anthony. He misses you when you’re gone.”

You said that. She kept saying that. Tony’s hand didn’t still in her hair.

“I can’t stay here, Mom,” Tony whispered.

She moved, then, pushed herself up and looked him in the eye with sudden, devastating clarity. “You can’t leave me,” she said. Her hands went to his face, and he felt like he couldn’t breathe as she turned his head to face her properly. “Please. Just … just apologise, and it’ll be alright. He’s a reasonable man.”

Reasonable.

“You have no idea how much he does for you, Anthony. How much he protects you.”

“I know he does,” Tony said, because he was still shaking, now, and the last thing he wanted was for his mother to pull back from him, to be left sitting on the hardwood floor alone until Jarvis came to scrape him up — it would be three weeks of waiting for that, this time. “I’ll apologise, okay? I shouldn’t have … I was a dick.”

“Language,” Maria said, and there was a hint of teasing to her voice that made Tony huff a humorless laugh. “You’re my amazing boy, you know that?” She leaned in, pressing a long, lingering kiss to his cheek. Tony’s hand went to settle over hers as she did. “You are so good, Anthony. You are the best boy I’ve ever met.”

They lapsed into a moment of silence, and then Tony disentangled himself from his mother, feeling like he was coming off a high and living in anticipation of one all at the same time. This wasn’t the end. It wouldn’t be, ever. He moved over to the table, picking up his notebook that had splatters of wine across the pages.

“Do you want to show me what you’re working on?” Maria asked. Tony didn’t turn to the sound of her voice. He shook his head.

“Not tonight,” he replied. He knew she wouldn’t ask again. She was always so busy.

Maria moved up beside him, her hand going to squeeze his shoulder. He flinched, but she didn’t notice. She never did. “Just …” She took a long, deep breath. “Just promise me you’ll learn when to say quiet, Anthony.”

Tony looked down at the schematics, then up at his mother. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Staying quiet meant living in the in between. Speaking up, speaking out … that meant having one hand on the wheel of a car destined to go over the edge of the cliff.

His mother was better at silence. She didn’t talk to him for the three weeks he spent in the mansion, not after that night.

(The next morning, he called Ty and cancelled their plans to meet for coffee. He had the flu, he said — and Ty said he didn’t care, that he’d look just as good as he always did, frustrating bastard that you are. Tony laughed, then, but he remained firm. Apologies weren’t meant to end with purple splotches Ray Bans couldn’t cover. Tony figured he must be really bad at them, because this happened every time.)

April 4, 2020

Ultron hadn’t murdered him. Small blessings Tony supposed as he glanced down at the interface of his smart watch, the floors of Stark Tower (Avengers Tower, legally speaking, even if the ‘A’ was more of a kick in the teeth than a comfort at this point) whirring past as the elevator moved. The good Secretary had been avoiding his calls. Tony expected it was down to the little show he put on for Christine Everhart, a woman who always knew just how to get under his skin and make him say what he was really thinking. It was an uncanny ability, endlessly irritating, but he had to admit that something in his chest had lifted the second those words left his lips on the air.

After all, it was one thing to say the truth when it was just Steve standing in front of him, or when he was divulging his movements and intelligence shifting to Sharon or Jessica. It was another to bring the world in on those secrets, the things that Tony managed to hide with a sarcastic disposition and a cavalier demeanour. Oh, what the world didn’t know about him.

They knew a lot more now.

It was better, he mused to himself as he stepped out of the elevator, the heels of his leather shoes clacking on the polished concrete as he walked towards the conference hall. It was better to get it all out in the open like that, better to poke the bear and let the battle commence. It was better to burn his company to the ground in 2009 and rebuild from the ashes than try to cling to what had always been his father’s legacy and not his own, allowing the blood to continue to run. Really, Tony was doing what he always did. Mass impact, minimal casualties (or at least, minimal timespan for the casualties. The greatest damage was done immediately after the fact, and from what he could see, as had been the truth when he was a child, the only damage done was to his own fine self).

“General,” Tony said, breezing into the conference room with his hands neatly tucked into the pockets of his open suit jacket. The General was alone. Usually he came accompanied by several lackeys, even if one of them seemed to do nothing but pass over pages and keep his pencil sharpened. “Oh,” he commented, eyes drifting over the table before returning to the rapidly ageing man before him, “I guess I’m getting a real dressing down today. Should I prepare a nice hot bubble bath to salve the wounds of my fractured ego?”

The moustache became even straighter as the lips underneath it tightened. A miniscule twitch, barely enough for poker players to pick up on, but Tony knew how to get under people’s skin. It was why he and Christine got on so swimmingly.

“Sit down, Stark.”

Tony sniffed. “I’ve sat all day,” he replied. “Board meetings are killer for the old knees. I’d prefer to stand.”

“Just because you prefer something,” Ross began, reaching for the cup of coffee sitting on the table, “doesn’t mean that’s what has to happen, Stark.”

“Really? See, I grew up an only child, and private school didn’t exactly get me in the habit of not getting what-”

“The interview was sloppy.”

Tony looked back out at the skyline. “I don’t think it was my worst.”

“It was far from your best. You’re not just representing your own interests now. You’re representing ours.”

“Funny,” Tony commented, shifting his weight. “You say ‘ours’ like that’s supposed to endear me to this little teamworking endeavour. It doesn’t really.”

“Fury was of the opinion that you’d changed, that the Avengers made you a team player,” Ross continued. “I told him old dogs couldn’t learn new tricks.”

“Hm,” Tony murmured. “Harsh. I thought the dye was working wonders on the grey. You see, the Avengers taught me a little something about teamwork, i.e. you can’t be in a team if you don’t tell that team what’s going down.”

Ross didn’t speak for a long moment. Tony didn’t take his eyes off the cityscape in front of him. There was a vigilante - someone in black, perhaps with hints of green - fighting a ninja on a rooftop. Good for him.

“Ultron came to visit,” Tony said. “You can imagine my surprise when my lunch plans were interrupted by a genocidal robot I had a personal hand in killing.”

“And creating.”

“Because all of my creations are something I am proud of, undoubtedly.”

“You still put him in the universe, Stark.”

“Not alone.”

“Is this accountability?”

“I think you’ll find it’s the very definition,” Tony replied. “Ultron was my idea. I didn’t execute him alone. His programming was altered by something that we can’t hope to understand, and that’s why he belonged buried under the rubble of the country he dropped from the sky.”

“Everything has a purpose,” Ross continued, “and he wasn’t my idea.”

Tony turned, then, to meet Ross’s eye. The man didn’t squirm in his seat, but he never had before. Iron will, that’s what they said. Starks were made of iron too. Tony could rise to the challenge.

“Sorry if I doubt that.”

Ross shrugged, then. An honest to God, hand on heart, shrug. Interesting. “Believe what you want,” he said, “but Ultron’s presence doesn’t follow through on my views for the Accords.”

“Because you want your finger in every pie?” Tony offered, and Ross’s eyes moved up to meet his gaze.

Slowly, the older man stood up from his seat. Tony didn’t falter, didn’t move from the spot he was standing. Suddenly, he wished he’d brought a drink, just to hold in his hand. Things always went better when he had some whiskey and ice rocking around in glass, when the sound could soothe him, when he could appear entirely at ease, when he had something in his hand that could get him there.

“Let’s make one thing clear,” Ross said, voice low. “I’m in charge here, Stark. You’re the face of this thing because while you were flying around in a flashy metal suit, I was serving in the military. I was changing this country before you were born. If you ever put the reputation of this Panel in jeopardy again, there will be consequences.”

Tony tilted his head, pretending to ponder this over. “Huh,” he said, before inclining his head towards Ross. “I thought I was the one dealing out the consequences, hm? Or do my figures not match up?”

“They match up to the letter, which you know. Barely enough won’t be good enough, soon. Not to mention your other … indiscretions.”

Indiscretions was hardly a word that shocked Tony at this point, but he stopped then. There was something in Ross’s gaze that made his blood go cold, and suddenly he thought of blond hair and bright blue eyes that were nothing like the steel going through him now, and a shield and information passed regularly with a kiss pressed to his forehead.

“You operate that armor under the influence,” Ross continued, barely loud enough to be heard, “whether that’s an undisclosed medical condition or you taking matters into your own hands-” Ross’s attention flickered over Tony’s shoulder to the empty whiskey cabinet. “And you’re not only endangering yourself. You’re endangering the lives of civilians, of fellow enforcers, of United States soldiers. I won’t stand for that.”

Ross’s hand came down on Tony’s shoulder. He didn’t jump. He knew better than to give a reaction, even if he could feel his heart in his throat, growing larger.

“Keep yourself useful, Stark,” Ross whispered, “or you can find yourself on the other side very quickly. Your choice.”

Of course, choices were so rarely as simple as they sounded. Choices were so rarely choices, even to someone like Tony.

Perhaps especially to someone like Tony.

#solo

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makistar2018 · 5 years

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It's a Love Story: The History of Taylor Swift's Fiercely Tight Bond With Her Parents

by NATALIE FINN Aug. 13, 2019

Taylor Swift has gotten a ton of musical mileage out of the romantic relationships that have come and gone in her life, but those guys haven't been the truly essential players in her journey to the top of the pop star pyramid.

Instead, it's Scott and Andrea Swift, Taylor's parents, who have championed their daughter since day one, believing in her so much that they left their palatial house in Reading, Penn., for Nashville, where a determined 14-year-old Taylor felt she had to be to make her dream a reality.

Talking to CMT, she said her parents weren't just indulging her for the sake of being supportive. "My parents actually believed it," she said.

Before her Reputation Tour touched down in Philadelphia last year, she took a few friends to visit her childhood home, a Christmas tree farm in Wyomissing, where the new owners were apparently happy to let the famous former resident in to take a look at her old room.

"I went to the house I grew up in. I got emotional when I went into my bedroom, and there's another little girl's things in there," Swift told the sold-out crowd one night at Lincoln Financial Field. "It's not my family farm anymore. We sold it when we went to Nashville. I've been thinking about how cool it is to be back where I started writing songs."

She told CMT that, back in the day, her parents never pushed her, but "I would not leave them alone."

Taylor was barely out of grade school when Andrea Swift (née Gardner Finlay) first took her to Nashville to drop off the CDs she had made of her singing karaoke with record labels, having seen in documentaries about Shania Twain and LeAnn Rimes that Music City, U.S.A., was where she needed to be.

"My mom waited in the car with my little brother while I knocked on doors up and down Music Row," Swift recalled to Entertainment Weekly in 2008. "I would say, 'Hi, I'm Taylor. I'm 11; I want a record deal. Call me."'

Well, the world wasn't ready for it just yet.

"She came back from that trip to Nashville and realized she needed to be different, and part of that would be to learn the guitar," Andrea told EW. "Now, at 12, she saw a 12-string guitar and thought it was the coolest thing. And of course we immediately said, 'Oh no, absolutely not, your fingers are too small—not till you're much older will you be able to play the 12-string guitar.'

"Well, that was all it took. Don't ever say never or can't do to Taylor. She started playing it four hours a day—six on the weekends. She would get calluses on her fingers and they would crack and bleed, and we would tape them up and she'd just keep on playing. That's all she played, till a couple of years later, which was the first time she ever picked up a six-string guitar. And when she did, it was like, 'wow, this is really easy!'"

Swift performed in venues all over Pennsylvania, wherever she could get a gig, and wrote her little heart out. She went back to Nashville at 13 and got a development deal at RCA Records, which she declined to re-up after a year, wanting to record only songs that she had a hand in writing. At 14 she became the youngest person in the roster at Sony/ATV Publishing.

So, the whole family—Scott, Andrea, Taylor and her brother, Austin Swift—eventually relocated to Hendersonville, about 20 miles outside Nashville, in 2003. But they didn't explicitly put it that way at the time.

"I knew I was the reason they were moving," Taylor later told Self. "But they tried to put no pressure on me. They were like, 'Well, we need a change of scenery anyway,' and 'I love how friendly the people in Tennessee are.'"

"I never wanted to make that move about her 'making it,"' Andrea explained to EW. "Because what a horrible thing if it hadn't happened, for her to carry that kind of guilt or pressure around. And we moved far enough outside Nashville to where she didn't have to be going to school with producers' kids and label presidents' kids and be reminded constantly that she was struggling to make it. We've always told her that this is not about putting food on our table or making our dreams come true.

"There would always be an escape hatch into normal life if she decided this wasn't something she had to pursue. And of course that's like saying to her, 'If you want to stop breathing, that's cool.'"

Swift ended up fatefully signing with Big Machine Records, run by Scott Borchetta, who had just left Universal Music Group to start his own label.

"They only had 10 employees at the record label to start out with, so when they were releasing my first single, my mom and I came in to help stuff the CD singles into envelopes to send to radio," Taylor recalled to EW. "We sat out on the floor and did it because there wasn't furniture at the label yet."

Meanwhile, Scott and Andrea—formerly a marketing manager at an advertising agency—had already set up Taylor's website and MySpace page (with Taylor writing her bio, updates and responses to fans herself, of course).

"The mom and dad both have great marketing minds," Rick Barker, Swift's manager at the time, told EW. "I don't want to say fake it until you make it, but when you looked at her stuff, it was very professional even before she got her deal."

Andrea said that her daughter relished the recognition, the selfie requests and the otherwise positive attention from fans of her music, "but she never in her life ever said, 'I want to be famous' or 'I want to be rich' or 'I want to be a star.' Those words absolutely never came out of her mouth. If they had, I would have said, 'Honey, maybe you're doing it kind of for the wrong reasons.'

"For her, the happiest I ever see her is just after she's written a killer song. As a parent, I felt really good about that. If that's where she draws happiness from, she'll have that the rest of her life. She's not always gonna have the awards, or the attention, or the celebrity, but she will always have the ability to write a song."

Swift has credited her mother for instilling in her the importance of maintaining her independence, financial and otherwise, saying, "She raised me to be logical and practical. I was brought up with such a strong woman in my life and I think that had a lot to do with me not wanting to do anything halfway."

Andrea's mother, Marjorie Finlay, was a professional opera singer and a magnetic presence in every room—a quality Taylor shared with her grandma, Scott Swift once said. "The two of them had some sort of magic where they could walk into a room and remember everyone's name," he said. "Taylor has the same grace and physique of Andrea's mother."

Taylor described her dad, meanwhile, as "just a big teddy bear who tells me everything I do is perfect." That being said, she added, "business-wise, he's brilliant."

Once Taylor's career started to take off, Scott, who had relocated his business to Nashville, stayed in town with Austin while Andrea accompanied their daughter on tour, helping her finish high school on the road.

"She was always singing music when she was 3, 5, 6, 7 years old," Scott, an investment banker with Merill Lynch who ran The Swift Group under the company's umbrella, told the University of Delaware's UDaily in 2009. "It's Taylor doing what she likes to do." (When she was quite little, Taylor recalled, she would tell people she was going to be a financial advisor, even though she didn't know what that meant.)

"We had a kid that was really passionate about it," he said. Getting that first deal at 13 "was the confirmation that maybe she wasn't crazy, because her writing is why she got it."

Swift was 16 when her self-titled debut album came out in October 2006. Less than a year later, she opened for Brad Paisley at the Allentown Fair, a big-ticket gig in her home state.

While "Tim McGraw," her first-ever single, eventually drew the most attention, her second single, "Teardrops on My Guitar," was her first top-15 single (peaking at 13) and the next, "Our Song," became her biggest hit on country radio to date, her first No. 1 on the Hot Country Songs chart.

Scott Swift hasn't had to do much lately when it comes to Taylor's ridiculously successful career, but he helped out where he could early on (not including the unconfirmed reports that he advised Harry Styles to not rush things when he and Taylor started dating). He told UDaily that he helped arrange Taylor's prime-time gig singing the national anthem during Game 3 of the 2008 World Series, a home game for the Philadelphia Phillies (who went on to beat the Tampa Bay Rays in five games). Scott went to college with the Phillies' facilities manager.

"The reason she sang the anthem is because two University of Delaware alumni kept in touch over the years," Scott told the paper. But as time went on, Taylor's reputation preceded her. "I've heard from a lot of great alumni, and I'm convinced they live in every city, because whenever Taylor's rolling into wherever she is, we'll hear from them," her dad said. "It's really powerful."

Scott and Andrea are hardly the unsung heroes of Taylor's life, though—quite the opposite, in fact.

You'd have been forgiven for assuming that "The Best Day," off of 2008's Fearless, centers on the father-daughter bond (going by the line "I have an excellent father / His strength is making me stronger"), but it's really a sweeping ode to Andrea, the one who waited in the car while tween Taylor knocked on doors.

"'The Best Day' is a song that I wrote without telling my mom," Swift shared in 2011. "I wrote it in the summertime, and I recorded it secretly, too. I had this idea that I wanted to play it for her for Christmas. So, when I got the track I synced up all of these home videos from when I was a little kid to go along with the song like a music video, and played it for her on Christmas Eve and she was crying her eyes out."

She eventually had to stop playing it live because Andrea was always dissolving into tears backstage.

Taylor continued, "Remembering all the times that we had when she was my only friend when I was 13 and I couldn't understand why my friends were being so mean to me. She would just take me on these adventures and we would drive around and go to towns we'd never seen before.

"Those adventures and those days of just running away from my problems—you're not supposed to run away from your problems, but when you're 13 and your friends won't talk to you and they move when you sit down at the lunch table, and your mom lets you run from those problems, I think it's a good thing... My mom was my escape in a lot of ways."

Andrea recalled the days when Taylor's friends seemed to be turning on her, telling Elle Girl she'd have to "pick [Taylor] up off the floor," she was hurting so badly.

When she was 21 she bought her parents a $1.4 million house in Nashville, around the same time she bought her first house in Los Angeles.

By 2011, the Taylor road show ran like a well-oiled machine, in no small part because of Andrea's watchful eye.

"Well, you know, she's just been doing this for so long that, to me, this is just like soccer practice," Swift's mom shrugged to the New Yorker in a 2011 profile.

After which Scott quipped, "I'm not taking her money, if that's what you're saying."

The writer noted that at least either her mom or dad was at every show that she attended, but Taylor said that they were "staying home more" than they used to.

Through the years, Andrea has become a familiar face to everyone who follows Taylor's career, from the Swifties to the paparazzi, but neither mother nor daughter has made a habit of sharing too much personal information about their family—and they, unlike some celebrities' parents, Andrea and Scott haven't been clamoring to share the spotlight.

So it was only under the greatest of emotional strains that Swift shared in 2015 that Andrea was battling cancer.

"Usually when things happen to me, I process them and then write music about how I feel, and you hear it much later," Swift wrote on Tumblr. "This is something my family and I thought you should know about now." She explained how she had encouraged her mom to go to the doctor, "just to ease some worries of mine. She agreed, and went in to get checked. There were no red flags and she felt perfectly fine, but she did it just to get me and my brother off her case about it. The results came in, and I'm saddened to tell you that my mom has been diagnosed with cancer."

Part of the message was to explain why Andrea wouldn't be at as many shows as usual, so enmeshed she was in the Taylor tour fabric.

"I'd like to keep the details of her condition and treatment plans private, but she wanted you to know," Swift explained. "She wanted you to know because your parents may be too busy juggling everything they've got going on to go to the doctor, and maybe you reminding them to go get checked for cancer could possibly lead to an early diagnosis and an easier battle."

A little over a week later, Andrea introduced her daughter at the Academy of Country Music Awards, where Taylor was one of seven being honored with the Milestone Award.

"I've watched this milestone artist from the time she was a tangled-hair little girl...Full of imagination and creativity until right now when she prepares for her next world tour," Mama Swift said. Tears starting to build, she concluded, "I'm a very proud mom."

The whole family gathered a month later to cheer Austin's graduation from Notre Dame.

On Mother's Day in 2015, Taylor personally responded to a message from a fan who had lost her own mom and was understandably having a rough day. The singer wrote back on Tumblr, "I love you so much and can't imagine what you must be feeling today. You've lived through my worst fear. I'm so sorry you can't spend today with her. It's not fair, and there's no reason why you should feel okay about it. No one should ever expect you to feel normal today."

Andrea sightings did become less frequent, but when she was spotted (having dinner with Taylor and Tom Hiddleston in L.A. in the summer of 2016, for instance), she looked like her usual self. And in 2017 she was by Taylor's side in Colorado when her daughter's dueling lawsuits with a D.J. she had accused of groping her went to trial.

Andrea testified that Taylor had told her right away that the D.J.—who sued Swift for $3 million after he was fired over the incident, after which she countersued, alleging sexual assault—had grabbed her butt while they were taking a photo during a meet-and-greet in 2013.

Explaining why they didn't immediately report him to police, Andrea said, "I did not want her to have to live through the endless memes and GIFs and anything else that tabloid media or trolls would be able to come up with...making her relive this awful moment over and over again."

"I was upset to the point where I wanted to vomit and cry at the same time," she added. "We felt it was imperative to let his employers know what happened."

The jury decided in Swift's favor, awarding her the symbolic $1 in damages she had asked for.

Andrea successfully completed treatment, but Swift revealed in March in her "30 Things I Learned Before Turning 30" essay for Elle that the cancer had returned. And, she shared for the first time that her dad had battled cancer as well.

"Both of my parents have had cancer, and my mom is now fighting her battle with it again," she wrote. "It's taught me that there are real problems and then there's everything else. My mom's cancer is a real problem. I used to be so anxious about daily ups and downs. I give all of my worry, stress, and prayers to real problems now."

Still, the now almost 30-year-old artist—winner of 10 Grammys, seller of millions of albums—won't go into too much detail when it comes to her parents' personal lives.

"There was a relapse that happened," Swift told Vogue for its 2019 September issue when asked about her mom's health. "It's something that my family is going through."

And that's a whole other kind of love story.

E! News

#taylor swift #scott swift #Andrea Swift #swift family #2019.08.13

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cutegirlmayra · 7 years

Note

Hello! I absolutely adore your writing and with each story you post brings me motivation/inspiration! So thank you for that :") Also! I was wondering if you could write a Boom fic where Amy somehow leaves her diary/journal at Meh Burger, a villager takes it for slam poetry uses, and publicly and embarrassingly reveal Amy's crush on Sonic (while the team is there) to the village during a slam poetry competition? Sorry if this is asking for a lot, feel free to take as much time as you need! ❤

(x) permission given by Artists, please support them as well!

I had to look up ‘Slam Poetry’, and honestly, I just hope I do it justice cause like- Dang! lol, here goes nothing! (And that, precious anon, is why I write, so thank you :’) )

Prompt:

Amy wrote and angrily scribbled and stretched out her hand from the strain upon the paper she wrote on.

So dark and deeply pressed were her words upon those writings that she had to flex and massage her hand before going back at it again.

Just venting, she said to herself.

Finally, she sighed, writing something sweet and lightly, dipping her hand into her cheek and grinning with a blush before closing the diary.

She took a bite of her Meh Burger before seeing the Walrus lady’s baby wander after a ball into the street.

She freak out, pressing her hands to her cheeks and raced out, saving the baby by summoning her hammer and catching it up by swinging it gently to lift it up to the flat tip of her hammer and racing away from the one mobile that suddenly zoomed through the streets.

“Hey! Watch it, you crazy kids!” The swindler himself was parking at zooming speeds into Meh Burger with his two bear sidekicks, before Dave the Intern with his messy broom came over to them.

“Hey, we don’t have parking here.” He complained in his usual manner.

“Keep the change.” T.W Barker pulled out some money and let it fall into Dave’s hands, walking by him as the bears growled threateningly in his face and walked on after him.

“Hhhheeyyyy…. This isn’t even real money! It’s monopoly paper!” he held the money out for them but they were already gone, sitting at the table before he placed the newspaper down.

“Now, my good men. There must be something we can think of to get some decent suckers to cough up some greens around here…” He placed the paper down but it rolled over and revealed Amy’s journal.

Without looking, Barker reached for the ‘paper’ but ended up grabbing the book.

“Hmm? What’s this then?” he opened the diary, and his eyes went big with excitement. “Great scotts! A new novel!?”

“RARRRRR.” The bear pointed to a poster of a Grand Slam poetry competition.

“Heheheh… Even better!” The reward looked ‘grand’ enough.

He slammed the book closed and snapped as if applauding. “Alright boys… let’s get us some trouble!”

The bears and Barker went back to the car, not bothering to order as they slammed the doors and rammed into a tree, backing up even farther to roll over the tree and then drive off; such was the sturdy, brute build of their car they drove in.

Amy came back, waving the family off before freaking out. “Where’s my diary, where’s my diary, where, where, where!?!” she looked under the table, flipped it, and then pulled at her hair as she clenched her teeth into a frown and chattered them profusely.

Later, the turtle introduced the poets, and the bears were boo’d off stage.

“No, no, no!!! This won’t do!” Barker scolded them, “What good is the words if you can’t properly pronounce them!? We’ll have to hire a cheap-sake to read these awful lines…” he scratched his chin, before snapping his fingers, “I’ve got it!”

The little, cute pink girl in overalls began to make her way upstage with her hand-written poetry, before the bears surrounded her and Barker put an arm over her shoulder, “Hey, kid! How would you like to sign a bullet-proof contract and win this shindig without so much as thinking about it!”

“Really, mister?” she looked at the paper and started signing, as Barker looked up to his performing bears and snickered.

She walked onto the stage, as the Sonic team were sitting down in the audience.

Tails had some popcorn as Knuckles tried to reach over, but he slapped his hand away.

“Amy, quit stressing! I’m sure Dave will return the book as soon as he finds it.” Sonic tried to lean back and comfort her, but his words only made her stress more as she bit her nails.

“What if he reads it!? What if he threw it in the trash!? At least it’s safe in the trash… oh! But what if I never get it back!? My whole LIFE is in that da-I mean, book!” She shook him before withdrawing to her seat and bringing her legs up, hugging them and rocking in her chair, at- what she thought to be- maximum anxiety.

“Ehem.” Beth cleared her throat and began reading the book.

Why do colors mean so much?

What’s in a color?

For when I look at your blue, there is no such sorrow.

Amy’s head suddenly shot up.

“Oh, this is gonna be good.” Sticks smiled, having folded her arms before now being up on her chair and wagging her tail. “OWWHHHH-HOO!” she howled, liking the first words. “I think this is about aliens. What a smart girl. Everyone knows Aliens aren’t green. Pfft.” she sat back down, but on the edge of her seat.

But then again, there is a underlying anger.

Why is it that when you lay in your hammock,

I’m forced into a panic.

You rest peacefully, dream quietly.

I’m tossing and turning at a future that may never be.

Do you like me?

Is it possible?

All day you fight badniks

But don’t even know I’m calling out your name, Sonic!

Amy’s mouth dropped.

Sonic and the team suddenly fidgeted as everyone in the audience gasped and looked back at Sonic.

They suddenly turned back around to Beth and started snapping.

Amy’s eyes shrunk as she sweated and trembled in her chair, not able to speak.

Why does love’s possibilities haunt me so?

To tell you true would mean denying.

Playing, tortuous sayings.

Why can’t you just accept I like you?

Is dating that much of a scare to you?

To you.

What am I to you?

A never-ending friendship, though I feel so close to you.

Envious of you.

You with eyes for no one, but a heart to show for none.

At least I see a heart that’s pink as roses.

The meaning of my name’s purposes.

Amy felt like she was withering inside, before jumping up and quickly dashing to try and get backstage.

“Ah!” She was blocked off with her hands in front of her by the bears who gripped her from jumping on stage.

“What is this!?” Amy tried to fight them off, but they held her in air.

Barker laughed, stepping out from the shadows and facing her as an obstacle before the stage light…

“So… this journal’s yours, eh?” he smirked, before snapping his fingers.

“Bravo! I dare say, Bravo, Amy Rose! In a couple of seconds, your deepest, darkest fears are going to be realized in front of all the world!” he spread his arms out.

“No!” Amy cried out.

Beth continued,

I hate that you’re love is adventure.

But love that she cares for no man.

I hate that I surrender.

But love that I’m giving you a tender hand.

Love shouldn’t be so restrained.

Take it without a second thought.

Don’t leave me in this rain.

I think you may mock.

I think everyone would talk.

Shut up!

I don’t need any opinions!

Girls should love without someone calling it an obsession!

Yeah, I get withdrawals.

I feel them when you refuse to stay

or say goodnight and hello at every day.

Okay?

Shut up!

I won’t say a word cause I want the sensation.

I want to be around it on every occasion.

The entire team’s mouths were dropped and absolutely motionless.

Tails’s face broke a moment to scrutinize the facts of how a little girl could be writing this.

People were throwing up snaps left and right to agree with her, but he wondered… he looked carefully at the book, then to the side stage where he saw a tail slightly sticking out.

“…Barker?” he then saw to the other side of the same area of the stage the bears being whacked into the bushes, before rushing back to try and contend again.

“Something’s not right…” Tails figured.

“Yeah, I’m starting to think this girl’s in love with Sonic!” Knuckles accused, before Sonic raised a hand and slapped himself out of it.

“What is it, Tails?” he fully ignored and denied the situation happening around him…

“Look!” Tails jumped up, “Amy!”

Amy was now seen fighting off the bears as they advanced on her.

“I’ll get you for this, Barker!”

“HAHAH! I’ve already won-!”

BANG!

He suddenly twitched and fell over.

Sticks had already crawled through the crowd’s chairs from below, and took out her boomerang to knock out Barker.

“Boy, I was so wrong about that girl.” she started, looking back to Amy. “She doesn’t know the first thing about Aliens! Or how to properly read for that manner…”

“Sticks! That book, it’s-!” Amy could barely get a word out before Tails flew in with Knuckles and Sonic, taking out the bears.

“We don’t know what’s going on, but it’s better than listening to this!” Sonic took out one of the bears, and looked back to Amy.

“Quick! Do what you gotta do!”

“Sonic…” her eyes bent back. For the first time, she was grateful for his obliviousness.

He winked.

And then she was afraid he may know again.

He continued back to wrestling the bears, as Barker started waking up but was crushed back to the ground by Amy’s foot.

She raced onto the stage, “Wait!”

She took the book…

“….Umm…”

The crowd coughed, growing silent.

“Miss Amy?” Beth stated, before looking to the mic, and then her.

Amy started to fidget, before flipping through the diary and taking a shaky breath.

….-Regardless of these rantful longings.

I’ll still be following.

Calling out to you.

It’s not wrong to have the feeling that I do.

Sonic suddenly stopped from arm-choking out the bear and let Knuckles take over, looking off to the stage a second.

He kept his face in a tight line, not letting any emotion show through.

He clenched his fists.

I don’t care if it’s shyness.

If you’re simply just clueless.

I don’t know why i love the color blue so much…

Maybe because it’s just….

She looked directly to Sonic.

You.

She turned back to the audience and pulled Beth closer.

“Love doesn’t need to make sense to everybody.” She smiled, and turned to the audience. “Just because you don’t get it… doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

Suddenly, the crowd rose up snapping.

Tails and Knuckles chased off Barker and his bears, before turning back to smile up at Amy.

When they met up back with her, Tails asked- “Did you ever find that diary you were looking for?”

Amy sucked in a breath, and hid the book.

“O-Oh um…”

The four teammates smiled.

“Seems to still be lost… huh, Amy?” Sticks winked.

“Aww… I thought the book was her’s-OFFPH!” Knuckles was rammed in the elbow by Tails.

“Well, wherever the book is…” Sonic walked forward towards Amy, making her nervous before he put an arm around her shoulders and turned back to the team.

“Whatever’s in it is still in your heart. So you can just write it again somewhere else… privately… this time around.” he looked back to her and smiled.

For a second, she stared at if wondering if he knew…

She didn’t ask.

Later that night, Sonic offered to walk her home.

She had almost forgotten the book was still hiding behind her.

She forgot to check for it when she had to go upstairs a moment to return something of his.

He opened the drawer she had placed it in and just held it in his hands a moment.

He stared down at it…

“…You don’t care… but you do care…. huh?” he made a strange expression… before tossing the book in up and down in his hands as weighing it.

He sighed out a nervous breath and put the book back, lingering a moment before closing it when he heard her coming back down.

“Here you go! Thanks for letting me borrow it.”

“Thanks for embarr-I MEAN- returning it.” he looked a bit nervous, “Um, I better head out, see ya!” he waved and departed.

Getting home on his hammock, he scanned around his home before picking at the floor.

He took a panel of wood off and lifted up some cloth, unwrapping to reveal a journal titled, “SECRETS.”

He opened it and laid back down on his hammock, letting it sway as he pulled out a pen and started writing something.

The words simply stated-

DON’T. BE. SHY.

He closed it and sighed, looking up and letting a leg drape over the side of his swinging bed.

“I hate poetry.” he finally stated, tossing the book back into it’s whole as pages flopped around and tore in the process.

#sonic boom #sonamy #sonicxamy #sonic prompt #sonamy prompt #sonamy boom #boom!sonamy #sonic boom prompt

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