Hey, what upppp. I know I suck, I just haven't been able to actually write for a while, I have been having really personal stuff such as really bad anxiety. I have been working my ass off this year which has left me with zero energy whatsoever to write. It has been really difficult since writing was one of the things that helped me a lot. I will try to update in the next few weeks before I enter my second year of Law School.
If you are still reading my stories, thank you 3 I really love you guys and sorry if this sucks a bit.
btw if you want to imagine Lindsay and Tony please see this picture of Sarah Jessica Parker and RDJ when they were young because for me it's couple goals.
And it was the truth, it came sooner than any of them thought it would be.
Sophia woke-up, wearing an oversized white shirt and her pajama pants, a light entering the window in front of her bed, it was barely 6:00 a.m. But it wasn't the light that woke her up, it was a gagging sound that increased as the seconds passed.
And as Sophia, woke completely and ease her mind into the real world, she realized where did the gagging noises were coming from and her heart stopped as her caramel brown eyes tried to search for her phone alarmed -fear drawn all over her face-.
She stood up from her bed as fast as she could, she found her phone under some dirty clothes and dialed 911. She went out of her room and ran towards her mother's bed, but as she opened her door her heart completely stopped by the fear.
"Mom?" Sophia's weak voice rose, and Lindsay turned around to gaze at her daughter.
Her mother was on the floor, next to her bed, the sheets had fallen from bed with her and they were stained with this dark red that was the only color that Sophia could see. Her mother had blood all over her mouth and tears were falling down her cheeks.
"911, what's your emergency?"
…
The ambulance came faster than Sophia thought it would arrive as she tried with everything she could to impede her mother from coughing any more blood. Therefore, when the paramedics arrived they found themselves with a scene that would mark Sophia forever: Sophia in the floor, equally stained by blood, all over her pajama and even some in her cheeks as she held her mother in her arms with a trashcan near them, with a tissue as she cleaned her mother's mouth and brushed her mother's hair with her other hand –tears falling from her eyes as she assured her that she was going to be okay.
"You can sleep, you know that?" Lindsay muttered, her eyes fluttered as she woke up.
A few days had passed, but Sophia hadn't been able to close her eyes, she was too afraid and the bare thought of her mom slipping away as she was sleep made tears pool in her eyes. Hence, she had been basically living on coffee the last few days, but it was getting a toll on her now.
"I can't" Sophia replied as she raised her head from the bed and stretched from the chair she was in.
Lindsay made a despondent expression as she swallowed hard, Sophia knew it was because Lindsay had tried to conceal her sickness but for the past year she hadn't been able to do so, and it frustrated her. Sophia loathed the fact that her own mother would push her away as soon as she could. It frustrated her and even more when Sophia realized that she, herself, would usually do that as well.
When Sophia was still at school, she usually got in trouble for speaking her mind without any filter but as well because she didn't get along well with others. Mainly, it was because they couldn't understand her, some even made fun of her because she was way too brilliant, and as time passed she learned how to push people away, just like her mother did.
But her thoughts were shaken when a doctor came into the room. He looked old and experience, he had kind eyes but such a deadpan expression that made Sophia wondered what he was going to say next. She knew the doctor faces, she knew how they acted when they told you bad news, she had experience but this, this was different, and it scared her.
"May I talk to you, Mrs. Hansen?" The doctor announced as his gaze focused on Lindsay but then fell on Sophia. "Alone."
Sophia felt rage all over her body, why alone?
"I'm not five, I can stay." Sophia splatted as she glared at the doctor who raised his eyebrows at the girl with a displeased shrug.
Lindsay turned around and sighed as she saw Sophia's behavior.
"Can you get me some water please?" Lindsay muttered as she placed her right hand over Sophia's. "Please?"
Sophia gazed at her mother in surprise that she would actually follow the doctor's instruction and it made her blood boiled.
"Why can't I stay with you mom?" Sophia asked with frustration as she passed one hand through her blonde locks.
"Sophie, please." Her mother asked once again but this time, with a dark expression all over her face.
Sophia sighed as she stood up as fast as she could from the chair on the side of her bed and walked towards the entrance as she scowled. But before she could get through the door, her mother talked again.
"Darling, before you go can you pass me my phone?" Lindsay asked weakly as she pointed at her purse on the chair next to the TV.
Sophia walked over and took the phone to her mother but not before she glared at the doctor. People didn't understand that she knew, she wasn't a child, she hadn't been one for a long time and yet they still saw her as one.
"I'm not stupid you know?" Sophia splatted as her eyes lingered with the doctors and she saw horror in his eyes.
"Sophia Stark!" Lindsay growled, and Sophia walked away with a smirk painted on her face.
…
Sophia didn't figure out what the doctor told her mother, but she knew it wasn't good because the nurses that would usually give her the chemotherapy, started giving her morphine. Just morphine.
On the other hand, Lindsay began to talk about every single thought she had. She would tell Sophie to appreciate everything she had been given, not in material things, but her intelligence and her good heart, that she couldn't have asked for a better daughter. She would ask Sophie to sleep with her, and she would sing to her or tell stories, they would fall asleep together on the hospital bed, each time Sophia woke up terrified that her mother was gone. Her mother would tell her old stories about her youth and how she learned things, she began to give her lessons on everything –on boys, on girls, on bosses.
Three days later Sophia understood why.
Sophia was slipping away to a dream when she heard a knock on the door, it made her jump. She cursed to herself because she wasn't supposed to fall asleep. She turned around and checked her mother, Lindsay was sleeping safe and sound, breathing with the cannula. It was odd, her mother was sick, but she looked beautiful anyway.
Sophie smiled as she tried to hop quietly out of bed, she put on a blue sweater her mother had on the chair and she walked with her pajamas towards the door. She was used to seeing the doctors like this, she couldn't care less that she looked good or bad but what it mattered if that they tried to save her mother.
But when Sophia opened the door, she didn't find no doctor. She found someone she had been dreaming about since she could remember, someone who always appeared in her dreams, someone who inspired her and someone she loved without even knowing.
It was Tony Stark.
It was her father, standing in front of her.
Tony gazed at her with a blinking expression on his face, he arched a sly brow as his caramel brown eyes linked with Sophie's that had the exact same color.
He was just like Sophie had pictured him, like how her mother had told her he looked. She believed he was taller, but Sophie knew that when she got older they might be the same height. He rocked back and forth on his heels while wearing a dark blue suit with a yellow pocket square that had 'T. Stark' on it. He had that signature dark brown hair and beard that seemed so sleek and perfect. His expression blithe, as he always looked on the interviews after the battle but with Sophie always catch a glimpse of something more in his caramel eyes, something that not anyone could ooze, certain intelligence and confidence, just something more that no one else had.
Except for her, because her mother always told her so.
Sophia wasn't sure how long she lasted looking at the man standing in front of her, she was analyzing every bit of him, trying to know how he was and see his mannerism, trying to detect any characteristic she had to imagine he had. But, it was enough for Tony to talk with misunderstanding in his voice.
"So, is this Lindsay Hansen's room?" Tony asked with his forehead puckered, his voice a bit lower than how he talked on the interviews after a battle.
Sophie snapped of her trance as she realized what this meant. She felt her heart clenching and she found it more difficult to swallow every second as she quietly turned around and gazed at her mother that was waking up.
And Sophia felt anger, not because Tony was there, but because her mother was going to die soon –really soon- and she didn't bother to tell her. She felt like the arrival of her father was the arrival of her mother's death. Tears pooled in her eyes and it got a little bit harder to breathe, and she felt how her blood began to boil.
"Did she call you?" Sophie grumbled as she turned around to see the same blinking expression on Tony's face.
"Uhm, she indeed called me, kid." Tony answer hear as he tried cruised the door frame beside Sophie. "Can you… move, please?" He asked waving his fingers to the right so he could pass.
So she gave a step in front of Tony, as their gazes lingered again with that same familiar color –but this time, Tony seemed more careful, a little bit curious, he was analyzing her and she could see it, he knew there was something more.
"Did she tell you why she called you?" Sophie grumbled.
"Okay, I don't have time for this" Tony said as he took out of his pocket some orange glasses and place them on his face. "She called me, are you going to let me pass little missy?" He asked annoyance lingered in his voice as he rolled his eyes.
Sophia didn't move.
She was just as stubborn as he was.
"Sophia, let him pass." Lindsay's voice traveled from the bed, and both Tony's and Sophia's face turned around towards the bed.
Sophia sighed as she gave a step back, Tony smirked as he watched the child glaring at him and then rolling her caramel eyes. He gave slow steps towards the bed, somehow there was something that Sophie detected, she could feel it too, it was fear.
Tony slowly took off his glasses as Lindsay turned around and gave him a sincere smile. She looked weak, skeletal even and Sophia could detect in his eyes that the last time they saw each other, her mother looked way different.
"Hello Tony" Her mother whispered as she gazed linked to the man in front of her.
He swallowed hard as his eyes traveled the room and then Lindsay, back and forth, not being able to focus on her, Sophia knew he was avoiding it, just like sometimes she did.
"Haven't seen you in a while Lindsay" Tony replied as he finally took a spot on the right side of Lindsay's bed. "You look great, you know that?"
Lindsay chuckled while Sophia's caramel eyes opened like plates. How could he say that?
"I know, the doctors can't stop hitting on me" Lindsay explained as she rolled her eyes and then giggled.
Tony's laugh accompanied hers and it was a good moment, Sophia smile as she saw her mother's eyes light up a bit.
"So, you are a hero now." Lindsay continue when their laughs died. "Lots of things have changed in this last 10 years."
Tony smirked as he turned around and carefully watched Sophia, their caramel eyes linked together, the same sparkle of intelligence lingered in their eyes as they somehow tried to figure the other out. Somewhere between the exchange, Sophia knew that Tony had perceived something. Quickly, Tony turned around to see Lindsay, his eyebrows knitted together, and fear lingered in his eyes.
Lindsay's expression changed as well as her eyes gazed at her daughter for a second but quickly returned to Tony's.
"Her hair looks like yours" Tony mumbled as he examined his ex-girlfriend for a second if they could even say they were ex-something. Lindsay breathe deeply as she tried to make herself more comfortable in the hospital bed and Sophie felt her cheeks burning at the thought of the man refusing to acknowledge her as his daughter. "But her eyes…"
Sophia's eyes traveled to her mother, in an urge for her to hold her. She felt like she was going to vomit as she saw Tony's eyes moving at a fairly fast way, just like his mind was doing it.
"Tony…"
Sophia walked rather faster towards the left side hospital bed, not doing such a good job of keeping the billionaire at ease, as he felt the room was becoming smaller and smaller.
"Tony, breathe" Lindsay spoke once again as she held Sophie's hand tighter every time.
"I-I- It's the heart" Tony managed to let out in a breath as he began to lean clumsily into a wall, trying to find a place to seat. He was pale as a ghost and Sophia sore he was shaking.
"Tony, you are having a panic attack" Lindsay said calmly as she gazed at the father of her child. "There's nothing to be afraid of, just breathe"
Sophia gazed back at her father who had fallen onto the floor and was leaning his back against the wall as he held on to his chest, to his arc reactor. It wasn't something new to her, it had happened to her mother a couple of times at the beginning of her sickness. She gazed back at her mother, her eyes worried for the man on the floor that was failing to breathe.
And something inside of her snapped, it was as she had seen Tony for the first time. She had always watched the interviews and the posters and the man in action, and in her mind, there was nothing he couldn't do. He was powerful, he had a thick skin, he was invincible. But at this moment, Sophie could see him as what he really was… a human being, with fears and dreams.
Sophia quickly let go of her mother's hand as she walked past the bed and sat down next to Tony on the floor, he jumped a bit at the sight of her and she tried to be more careful.
"Sophie…" Lindsay began but her voice died down as Sophia placed her hand over Tony's.
She tried to be as careful as she could, it's what she usually did with her mother, just be there for her. Tony felt goosebumps appearing in his arms, but as he gazed at Sophia's caramel eyes, he felt like his throat was opening again, he could breathe. Sophie watched him just as carefully, she could see scars on his face and the bags under his eyes- although light- indicated he was tired or at least sleep deprived, but she could see her eyes on his and suddenly a wave of calm washed over her. His eyes, the man sitting beside her felt like home.
….
"It's good that you are in a hospital, you know?" Lindsay giggled as she watched Tony fixing his blazer as a nurse got out of the room.
Sophie was standing on the couch behind Tony, smiling. She felt somehow comforted by what just had happened. Tony, with the help of Sophie, had managed to breathe once again, the panic attack had passed. It was like the tension in the room had dissipated and she had managed to connect with him. Tony kept Sophie's hand until he felt normal again, they didn't unlatch their hands until Lindsay wanted to make sure Tony was perfect, so she sent Sophie for a nurse.
"I'm okay thanks to the kid" Tony smirked as he gazed at Sophie, she smiled back at him.
"She has some experience" Lindsay whispered as she joined Tony's look at Sophie.
Sophie felt complete somehow as she watched both of her parents for the first time, just being proud of her and she swore her heart was going to explode. Not even in her wildest dream, she thought that it could happen, at least not before her mother got this sick. It was a bittersweet moment that made her choke a bit. She placed her long wavy hair behind her ear as she smiled at them.
"What do you want to be when you grow up, kid?" Tony spoke as he rocked back and forth on his heels as he walked towards her.
"I want to help people" Sophie whispered while her eyes never left Tony. She was trying to figure him out, he already knew hence the panic attack, but it just felt like he wasn't ready to say it out loud. "Like my dad…"
Tony smirked and gazed at Lindsay. Lindsay smiled back, and she took a deep breath.
"She's great, just like her father," Lindsay said, and Sophie could feel the strike of terror running down her spine as she quickly looked up to Tony.
This was it.
Tony covered his eyes with one hand as his breathing increased a bit and Sophie swore her heart stopped. Was he disappointed? She felt the tears pooling in her eyes as her throat began to close. He doesn't want me, she thought.
It felt like an eternity had passed.
Suddenly, a giggle left Tony's lips as his shoulders began shaking. Sophie glanced at her mother who was looking as concerned as she was. Tony uncovered his eyes as he revealed he had some tears in his eyes.
"I… I have a kid" Tony whispered as he continued to chuckle, he glanced at Lindsay who had tears in her eyes too.
He turned around and glanced at Sophie, she swore that in all the interviews she had seen of Tony, she had never seen his eyes light up like this. He kneeled before Sophie as he smiled at her, tears dangerously close to spilling on his cheek.
"Hi dad" Sophie let out in a chuckle along with a few tears, as she threw herself at Tony for a hug.
This, the feeling of being complete and love by her father was the happiest moment in her life.
…
Sophia slept safe and sound on the couch next to her mother's bed in the hospital. Now that Tony had come, she felt like she could take a little nap before going back to her insomnia while her mother was in the hospital.
Tony watched her from the other side of Lindsay's bed and smiled. He felt like the happiest man in the world and nobody could tell him otherwise. It had been about two weeks he had been talking with Pepper about kids, especially since they had their upcoming wedding. He had just felt like his dreams might come true and they were, just not it the way he expected it. She had the same hair as her mother, long wavy blonde hair that framed her face perfectly, but he couldn't deny how her eyes were the same as his.
"And those are the custody papers, you need to sign them, so she can go with you as soon as you leave this hospital" Lindsay spoke, waking up Tony from his thoughts as she handed him a folder with a bunch of papers.
As he took a hold of the folder he gazed at Lindsay whose eyes were fixed on Sophia. He felt his heart tight in his chest as he watched her. She had dark bags under her eyes, her skin was pale and colorless, even a little bit grey, her hair was dry. She seemed like a hundred years had hit her in no time. She was tired, and you could see it on her lifeless blue eyes.
And most of all, you could see the sadness.
"I will take care of her" Tony whispered as he placed his hand above Lindsay's and she turned around. Tears dripping from her eyes. "She's mine too, she is the most valuable thing I have."
Lindsay nodded as a sob escaped her mouth and she began to shake.
Tony took a stronger grip on her hand as he tried to be better and comforting her, not that Tony was too sensitive, but it was something he could do.
"You can't let anything bad happen to her," Lindsay said between quiet sobs. "She's my little angel, nothing can happen to her. You have to protect her Tony"
And it hit him. Being Iron Man, it had too many risks and if any of his enemies knew about Sophie it would put her on an enormous danger.
"I promise, I'll protect her," Tony said as his eyes focused on the blonde child, his daughter.
He was her father and it was all that mattered.
