Through Her Eyes

Chapter 14

When I woke up, the first thing I saw was the clock on the wall telling me it was 11 a.m. I'd gotten a few hours sleep so I gathered before I'd fallen asleep, it was about 8 a.m.

I yawned and went to stretch but stopped instantly as I felt pain shoot up my spine. As I lowered my arms down, I noticed something. In the same moment Dad entered the room.

"Please tell me you didn't sign my arm cast while I was asleep!" I tried to look serious but really I thought it was hilarious.

Dad faked an innocent look before he took a seat beside my bed. "Maybe I did..."

I shook my head but grinned. "So...what happened after you left?"

Instantly Dad looked down, avoiding my eyes.

"Come on Dad,"

He looked back up to me and sighed. "Pepper called me, saying she was at Stark Industries. Stane had made his own suit and that's why he stole my Arc Reactor, to power it. I flew over there and...well, battled him,"

I looked at him confusingly. "What do you mean battled?"

"Well...he knocked us onto the freeway..."

I sat there for over half an hour as Dad began explaining last night from the time he left me to how he'd almost incinerated himself in the plant's Arc Reactor. My eyes were wide and my jaw dropped as I listened to how he'd risked his life to stop Obadiah. I felt a twinge of sympathy as he talked about Obadiah's death but that quickly vanished as I remembered everything he'd put us through. I couldn't say he deserved to die but he'd done some horrible things from trying to kill me and Dad to risking those poor people's lives on the freeway.

"So...he got...incinerated in the Arc Reactor?" I asked wearily.

Dad nodded his head solemnly. I couldn't begin to understand or imagine how he felt. Obadiah had been not only his friend, but his father's friend.

A silence descended in the room. I couldn't stand it, I needed him to talk.

"But...Pepper said you were in a hospital gown?"

Dad looked up to me and laughed nervously. "Oh, that...I was kinda...knocked unconscious by the blast the Arc Reactor caused. It was kinda lucky that I was because it gave the Mark I Arc Reactor time to recharge and recover from the fight. If I hadn't been unconscious, I'd probably be dead,"

I tried to ignore that last comment. I didn't want to think about how close Dad had come to death...again.

"So...Pepper took you to the hospital and that's why you were in a gown?"

"Yes. Pepper insisted on the hospital but as soon as I was awake, I was outta that stupid gown."

I laughed. I know how he felt. The hospital gowns are awful.

"What are you going to tell the media?" He'd (obviously) been seen on the freeway last night and was no doubt splashed across the front pages this morning.

Dad shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. "I have a media conference to explain last night in an hour," He said, glancing down at his watch. "That Coulson guy said he'd prepared something for me. Apparently the "Iron Man" was my bodyguard or something along those lines,"

"A bodyguard? Are people going to believe that?"

Yet again Dad simply shrugged his shoulders.

"Iron Man...hmm...has a nice ring to it. Though technically you should be called Gold Titanium Alloy Man but I don't think that's as catchy,"

We laughed, me a little less enthusiastically as it hurt too much.

"Speaking of the media, what did you tell them about my hospitalization?" I was curious to know what the world had been told.