"Now I see. The demon is me."
Lisa May Stark is so much more than the child she used to be when she and her father were kidnapped in Afghanistan five years ago. She's Iron Man's daughter, she's the Red Raven, she's, well, you know who she is...
all these voices in my head get loud i wish that i could shut them out i'm sorry that i let you down let you down ───nf
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raft prison, undisclosed location june 11, 2016
"Dad?"
His brown hair was tousled and his equally brown eyes squinted at me as I stood in the golden light of the hallway in his doorway. His forehead was glistening with sweat and his expression was struggling against the haggard feelings I knew were lingering from only a few moments before. Sucking in a sharp breath, he groaned a little and then unsteadily reached a hand out to grab onto his watch. I knew it was late, or, well, early, I supposed. He dropped his wristwatch back down and he rolled onto his side to see me better.
"Smalls? Wha-what's up?"
My eyes stared at him sadly, but I couldn't seem to voice my thoughts so I just gave a wimpy shrug and rubbed my thumb against his doorframe. He groaned again, forcing himself to sit up and push the sheets of off his bare chest. He brought his calloused hands to his face and covered his eyes, releasing a heavy and rasping breath. I bit down onto my bottom lip and shuffled over to the side of his bed. Dad's shirt that off of my shoulders twisted around my stomach as I climbed onto his mattress and crawled over to get next to him.
He kept the curtains open in his room that night, allowing us to see how the full moon reflected off of the dark ocean and then bounced against the window glass. I hadn't seen the moon in three months and the thought made my eyes sting with tears. Both of our heads of hair were still wet from the showers we had taken, once again being the first time in three months. Nothing felt real yet. It all felt like a dream, like we were really were still stuck in that cave with Yinsen, Raza, and all the rest.
After all, how could so much change in only forty-eight hours hours?
I sat on my knees and rested my head against his shoulder, whispering, "You scared me... You were yelling."
He did that a lot on our first nights after we were rescued from Afghanistan and even into the nights after we started making the suit. He didn't like to talk about the yelling that followed his nightmares and I never told anyone. It wasn't important to mention if he didn't want me to. But I knew our days in the Afghani cave haunted him, maybe even more than they did me.
He nodded quickly, not looking up from his hands, "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you, Smalls."
"Are you okay?"
"Mmhm. Yeah." He answered a little quickly to be believable and nodded again before he tore his face from his hands to look down at me, "Are you?"
