🖤EMERGE🖤

Chapter 6

Dad burst into the room, his armor clanging heavily against the wrecked metal floor. His eyes were wild as they searched the chaos-finding me slumped by the wall, blood still staining my torn clothes.

"Alex!" His voice cracked, pure parental panic lacing the word. He rushed to me, dropping to his knees and pulling me up carefully, scanning my body for wounds.

I blinked up at him, dazed, my mind spiraling between reality and the haze Loki left behind. "Where... where did he go?" I rasped.

"Alex, what happened? Are you hurt?" he asked urgently, his hands trembling as they gripped my arms. "Where is he?!" 

"He escaped," I murmured numbly, my head swimming. My gaze dropped to the glistening red smears on the floor.

Dad followed my eyes, his face paling. "Is this your blood?"

I gave a shallow nod, my throat closing. "Lo...Loki-he stabbed me. Right through my stomach and then-" I shook my head in disbelief. "He healed me. I don't know why..."

 Dad's face twisted from horror to fury in an instant. "You went after him alone?! What the hell's the matter with you?!" His voice boomed through the shredded lab, raw and broken.

"What's the matter with you?!" I screamed back, my voice cracks under the weight of everything inside me. He grabbed my arm, yanking me closer.

"You went after him alone!" he snarled again, voice shaking.

I ripped my arm away, anger flaring hotter than the pain in my gut. "Get off of me! I was trying to help Phil! Your psychotic business partner got in the way!"

"You need help! You're fifteen!" he roared, his hands gesturing wildly. "You shouldn't even be here!"

Tears burned my eyes as I shoved him back. "Can you stop?! He was like a dad to me!" I screamed, the words cutting out of me like broken glass. "A dad who actually gave a damn! Who wanted to spend time with me! Who actually cared about me!"

"That's not fair!" Tony shouted, voice raw. "That's not fair at all! I have killed myself working my ass off to give you a better life-and you're saying I don't care? That I don't want you?"

My heart pounded so loudly I barely heard myself shout back, "Then why don't you ever talk to me?! Why don't you even look at me unless it's convenient?! You promised things! You always promised!" My fists were clenched so tightly my nails dug into my palms. "But it was always work! Always Pepper! Always anything but me!"

He shoved my arm away, harder than he meant to-making me stumble against the wall. "Don'y you dare take to me like that! I am your father!" he roared.

"Some father you are!" I fired back without thinking.

And then he said it. The words that shattered everything. "Do you think I wanted a daughter like you?! One that talks back, one that's reckless, one that's just like her junkie mother?!" His face twisted with a rage I'd never seen before. "Don't even try to deny it!"

My breath hitched violently. "W-What are you talking about?" My voice was barely a whisper, shaking violently. "That was mom. Not me. I'm not her."

He scoffed, cruel and dismissive. "Really? 'Cause you sure as hell sound like her right now!"

The world seemed to tilt around me, spinning out of control. Tears blurred my vision as I shook my head.