Kendis resented that she had to do this but her silence wouldn’t solve anything—it never did. Especially since people have connected Kendis Black to Lady Blackmere.

She had been surprised Obadiah Stane didn’t leak it the moment she told him back at the Apogee Awards ceremony. Kendis had seen how that man looked at her, and they were more comfortable when he simply eyed them as a piece of meat.

Now, the few times Kendis and Obadiah had bumped into each other, the way he watched her changed. He now eyed her like a pawn on a chessboard.

It sickeningly reminded her of how, in hindsight, Dumbledore and ministry officials had treated her as a kid. This type of avarice further stripped Kendis of her humanity.

But she didn’t tell Tony; she didn’t want to widen that gap between the last remaining piece of his family. Kendis knew the pain of losing a godfather all too well, and she would do anything to save Tony from that pain.

Sirius.

Her title and inheritance always brought up feelings of resentment and loss. She didn’t want anything to do with the money, and Kendis certainly didn’t want the title.

Kendis saw it as blood money.

Sirius and countless others had been sacrificed to build the Black family fortune. It was a silent truth in England that nobles had built their wealth on the back of slaves and imperialism.

The Black family fortune was no different, except the slaves were house elves instead of people kidnapped and sold as chattel to the highest bidder.

But Sirius had entrusted the Black family legacy to Kendis, and she wouldn’t deny his last wish. But she would put the galleons to good use.

Kendis had already done her best to release the house elves that served the Blackmere estate, but house elf magic was more complicated than both Hermione and her initially realized. House elves would suffer and die without a master.

Winky died only a few months after Dobby. The toll of being without a proper master all that time had been too much for her to bear, and losing Dobby had been the final straw.

Now, Kendis did her best to manage her inheritance from afar and to make sure to use the money and power she gained to make the Wixen community a better and just place.

But now, the internet has decided to play amateur sleuths. Kendis was forced to deal with the barely healed scar of Sirius’s tragic life and death, along with the burden and responsibility of managing the inheritance Sirius had left her.

Once again, on yet another Wednesday afternoon, back in the lobby of Enchanted Engines, Tony and Kendis sat down on the sofa. Instead of taking her nap, Alke was beside her, her large black head sitting in Kendis’s lap as she whined at her in obvious concern.

Alke was very perceptive, and she could always pick up on the emotions of the people around her. Especially when it came to Kendis.

Tony threw her a worried look. “You okay, Glinda?”

“I’m fine,” Kendis sighed as she set her phone against her coffee mug. They should really think about getting a tripod. Kendis could conjure one, but that would mean admitting that this is going to be her life now: explaining herself to strangers on the internet.

Tony cupped her chin and raised her head to meet his worried eyes. “What is it, Tesorino?”

“All of this talk about inheritance…” Kendis felt her heart clench. “It just brings up old hurts, that’s all.”

Tony kissed her on the forehead, and she leaned into him. “You don’t have to do this. We can have Sam give a statement—”

It was so tempting to do that, but Kendis wouldn’t be able to respect herself if she didn’t face this challenge head-on. Besides, that whole thing with Chester Coil taught her the hard way that running away from your problems only causes more harm than good.

Kendis was a Gryffindor, and she would scrap together her courage to talk about this even though it would upset her.

“No,” Kendis shook her head and squared her shoulders in determination. “Let’s do this.”

Tony opened his mouth to protest, and Kendis pushed the live button before she could think better of it.

“I am going to get right to the point.” Kendis crossed her arms and glared at the camera. “I want to clear up the speculation over my past.”

“Wait so… you’re actually nobility?? Like REAL nobility??”

“NO WAY this is real; this has to be a PR stunt.”

“Are there estates, land, staff?? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?”

Kendis blinked as she tried to read the chat. It was going so fast that she could only catch a few questions.

Kendis turned to Tony, and they exchanged a look. He lifted an eyebrow, clearly asking her if she still wanted to do this. Kendis bit her lip and nodded.

Tony picked up a tablet from the table and held it up to the screen.

The headline on the screen said in big black letters, “SHOCK ROYAL TWIST!” TONY STARK’S “MECHANIC GIRLFRIEND” MAY ACTUALLY BE A LADY—AND HOLLYWOOD IS SPIRALING.”

Tony squinted at the screen and shook his head.

“First of all, ‘mechanic girlfriend’ is so reductive,” Tony scoffed. “I personally prefer ‘mechanic with excellent taste in billionaires.’”

Kendis pinched the bridge of their nose. “Don’t encourage them.”

Chat explodes immediately:

IS THAT THE ARTICLE??

TONY READ IT OUT LOUD. I DARE YOU!

WAIT, IS SHE ACTUALLY ROYAL??

Tony hums and idly scrolls through the article. She bit back a smile because Kendis knew that he was only playing it up for the crowd to redirect their attention to him to protect her.

Tony threw her another questioning look, and in response, she let out a put-upon sigh.

“Okay, according to this, you’re secretly aristocracy,” Tony said nonchalantly. “Anything to say about that?”

Kendis looked at the camera, trying not to focus on the chat that was scrolling so fast that it was a blur.

“I am Kendis Black, mechanic.” Kendis gestured to the photos of motorbikes on the wall behind her.

She took a deep breath and then finally pushed the words out of her mouth: “But I am also Kendis James Black, Lady of Blackmere.”

OH MY GOD

SHE SAID IT LIKE IT WAS NOTHING??

TONY STARK IS DATING A LADY??

SHE FIXES BIKES AND HAS A TITLE???

“I would like to formally announce that I am, once again, underqualified for my own life,” Tony sighed as he slowly turned to face the camera.

Kendis shot him a glare and then rolled her eyes. “No, this doesn’t mean I will become Lady Stark. Even if I do marry this prat someday, I will be keeping my last name.”

“Ouch,” Tony clutched his heart. “And does that mean you are thinking about marriage?” He wagged his eyebrows.

He took her hand just out of frame and caressed her engagement ring with his fingers.

“You should be so lucky,” Kendis snorted, but she couldn’t quite repress the small smile.

DOES THIS MEAN THAT TONY IS GOING TO BE A LORD?

Tony’s eyes went wide, and she subtly shook her head. She didn’t want to unpack all the implications of Tony already being the unofficial Lord Stark. The man was going to be insufferable about this with a million Game of Thrones memes at the ready.

THEY ARE FLIRTING DURING A ROYAL REVELATION.

THIS IS INSANE!

SHE JUST DROPPED ‘I AM A LADY’ LIKE IT’S OIL CHANGE INFO.

Tony leaned back, clearly processing everything. It surprised Kendis that this was only occurring to him now. She knew that the peerage and Buckingham were going to go completely mental once they made their marriage public.

Kendis already knew that Princess Beatrice would text them screenshots of the most ridiculous articles. While Prince Henry would text her passive-aggressive comments, like she hadn’t caught him checking Alex Clairemont-Diaz’s ass while complaining about him like a fucking hypocrite at a global conference in Amsterdam last year.

But it wasn’t the muggle reaction that she was truly worried about. Kendis had been the Wixen’s community’s primary disappointment since she and Ginny broke up after the war. And the remaining pureblood families would go absolutely mad that the last of the Potter bloodline and the current head of one of the oldest families from the sacred twenty-eight married a Muggle.

Her old housemate and her current publicist, Parvati Patel, were catching hell on the other side of the pond about the revelation of her relationship with Tony Stark.

Tony coughed, breaking Kendis out of her thoughts. She shook her head and threw him a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry, what were you just saying?”

Tony playfully nudged her and then turned back to the camera. “So just to summarize for the audience: I met a motorcycle mechanic who is also technically nobility, and she’s still the most grounded person in this room.”

Kendis snorted, “That part is accurate.”

“Although I will say,” Tony shot her a thoughtful look. “This does explain why you act like you’ve been personally unimpressed by billionaires since day one.”

Kendis nodded because it was one of the few advantages to growing up the way she did. Her biggest school rival was Draco Malfoy, who was the stereotypical spoiled rich white kid.

Not to mention all the times she had gone up against his father, Lucius. It taught her a valuable lesson: that having money didn’t make you better or smarter; it just made it easier to sweep your mistakes under the rug.

She has royal energy, confirmed.

Tony got outclassy’d by accident.

“Be honest, is this one of Tony’s jokes??”

Kendis took a deep breath because it was time to address the big fat elephant in the room. She took the tablet out of Tony’s hand and scrolled to the statement The Palace made a few days ago.

It was the reason why Kendis decided to do this live stream in the first place.

Tony squeezed her hand, and she took a deep breath and turned back to the camera.

“The revelation of my title has brought up questions about how I inherited it since neither of my parents were nobles.” This was a lie. Despite their exclusion from the list of the sacred twenty-eight, the Potter family was older than the Malfoys. They were Wixen nobility in their own right, but she couldn’t delve into that on this livestream for obvious reasons.

Kendis took a deep breath. “I inherited the title when he died when I was fifteen, and I have officially held it since I was nineteen.”

“YOU WERE FIFTEEN??”

“Wait—so you’ve held the title since you were a minor??”

So this wasn’t even recent news for you; you’ve lived with this for YEARS??

Kendis took a deep breath. “There were many reasons why I didn’t immediately inherit the role until I was much older. One of those reasons was that my godfather, Sirius Black, was stripped of his title and inheritance when he was found guilty of the murders of 13 people in 1982.”

“Sirius Black—yes, that Sirius Black—was my godfather and the previous Lord Black.”

“SIRIUS BLACK IS HER GODFATHER?? HELLO???”

“THIRTEEN PEOPLE?? I need to sit down.”

“WHY IS THIS BEING SAID SO CALMLY?”

Tony ran his hand up and down her back in an obvious show of comfort and solidarity. Kendis was so grateful that he was here with her, keeping her grounded instead of letting her go down that familiar downward spiral of grief and impotent rage in the presence of millions of viewers.

“Sirius Black was my parents’ dear friend, and when my parents were murdered when I was a year old, he had a mental break.” Kendis felt her heart clench in her chest at the anguish her godfather had to go through. “People used his mental breakdown to frame him for 13 murders he did not commit.”

Kendis took a deep breath and then another. Let me be clear here: no evidence ever showed that my godfather was responsible for what happened that day.

For thirteen years, my godfather sat in prison being demonized when he was clearly innocent. Then he spent the rest of his life on the run just because he had one moment of weakness.”

Kendis took a deep breath as all of her memories of her godfather flooded through her mind. Sirius was not perfect, far from it. She hated that he had been unrepentant about his past as Snape’s bully. She hated that he would revert to the teenager he had once been when he was in Snape’s presence.

But Snape’s hands were far from clean.

The older she grew, the more she saw the shades of gray. Most people were just imperfect beings stumbling through life.

But despite his flaws, that didn’t mean that Kendis didn’t miss Sirius every day. Occasionally, she would take out the pieces of the two-way mirror from her trunk and fervently wish she could see his face one last time.

Kendis often wondered what Sirius would have to say about this whole situation with Tony. Would he hate Tony, or would he see a kindred spirit in him?

Sirius wasn’t the first person she lost, but it hurt like it.

“For years, he was treated like a monster. His name was shorthand for betrayal, murder, and madness. People who never met him built their entire careers repeating lies about him.

And when the truth came out, some people wanted to move on quietly and neatly.”

“I have zero interest in being neat.” Kendis gave the camera a sharp smile. “Sirius deserved better than that. My godfather was stubborn, brilliant, reckless, and outrageously funny. He fought for justice for my parents until the very end—and he is desperately missed.”

Kendis’ eyes stung with unshed tears, but she refused to cry. Refuse to perform her grief for strangers.

“Oh, this got devastating FAST.”

‘My parents were murdered when I was one.’ EXCUSE ME???”

“Tony rubbing her back so she can keep going… yeah he knows exactly what this costs her.”

“He looks like he’d fight every person in chat one by one.”

Kendis took another deep breath and showed the tablet screen to the camera. She highlighted Buckingham Palace’s statement.

“Buckingham Palace did what most institutions tend to do—they acknowledged the error once it became impossible to ignore.”

She gave the statement a light tap on the screen.

“But I will not let them conflate a pardon years after my godfather’s death with it being a token of generosity.” Kendis tapped the statement lightly. “This is Buckingham Palace doing what they do best—covering their ass under a veneer of polite civility.”

The silence after that landed hard. Tony squeezed her hand again, and she closed her eyes as she took in the gravity of her words.

Kendis might be throwing Queen Mary under the bus, but she hoped her fellow half-bloods and muggleborns who were watching this got the double meaning.

The pardon was both the ministry and the Queen’s attempt to slap a band-aid on a festering wound. Kendis had kept her peace because she was still chasing the acceptance of the magical world.

Today, Kendis would smile as she watched the entire institution burn to the ground.

“OH MY GOD, she just called out Buckingham Palace TO THEIR FACE.”

“Tony’s face in the background is giving ‘I support women’s rights and women’s wrongs.’”

“That wasn’t criticism. That was an autopsy.”

A mechanic has put the monarchy on notice in a livestream.

Kendis took a deep breath as she did her best to get a handle on her emotions. She vehemently wished she could stim right now, but Kendis still wasn’t open about her autism. As much as Kendis loved Tony, it was so hard to shove herself back in the cupboard she fought tooth and nail to escape.

“Sirius should have had mornings in Blackmere, reckless rides on his ancient Bonneville Triumph he loved so much. He deserved bad tea in the library, arguments about football, and the chance to become an annoying old man.”

“So here is my response to the Palace statement,” Kendis continued, staring hard into the camera. “Thank you for acknowledging the truth. I only wish you’d found the courage sooner.”

Kendis took another deep breath, and Tony pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“Proud of you,” Tony whispered in her ear. She frantically blinked against her tears.

“Thank you,” Kendis quietly returned.

Tony coughed, and she looked up to meet his eyes that were obviously full of love and pride for her. “Do you want tea or vengeance?”

Kendis answered immediately, “Tea first.” God, she needed a good cuppa and maybe some time in a dark room after this.

Tony nodded in approval. ”Smart! You need to be fueled for a good revenge plot.”

The chat explodes again.

MARRY THEM NOW

TEA OR VENGEANCE IS INSANE.

I LOVE THEM!

“I know people came here for gossip today.” Kendis shook her head. “But sometimes, you get history instead.”

Tony clapped his hands and looked at the camera. “Okay, internet! You wanted answers, and you got your answers.”

“Somehow I regret everything and nothing,” Kendis said, with a watery laugh.

Tony took her hand and brought it up to her lips, and Kendis tucked her head into his shoulder. With one last jaunty wave, Tony ended the live stream.

“You okay, mia amata?”

“No,” Kendis sighed as she allowed herself to find comfort in her husband’s embrace. “But one day, maybe I will be.”