[survivor, the hard way]↣ p. parker | t.s. daughter

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

[A/N: if you're still reading at this point you're a trooper fr ngl i'm so sorry this update has taken literal months for no reason. i was having a hard time figuring out where i was taking this story and then even when i started to figure it out, i was having a really hard time writing anything decent enough.

anyway. enjoy this chapter, you literally never know when the next one will be up at this point]

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Dad helped me back to my room in the compound. I had no energy for anything, so I simply laid down and pulled the covers over myself. Dad sat on the edge of the bed and put his hand on my leg. I put the comforter over my head.

"I didn't mean to kill him," I said.

"I know. You couldn't control yourself. You didn't know what you were doing."

"Does that make it okay?" My question hung in the air between us. My dad was probably looking at me, full of sadness. I imagined him shrugging his shoulders.

"I don't know, kid."

He was surprised when I pulled the blanket off of my face and sat up. I adjusted the best that I could, all the way until I was burying my face into his chest.

When I was little, all I wanted was to hide in my dad's chest. All I wanted was to feel safe. Now, the same feelings swam inside me.

I pulled away after a moment, though, because feeling safe was a mistake. Feeling safe meant I would relax, and that meant I would get hurt. Dad looked at me with a sad expression. I turned away.

"Your mom called."

"Mom called?" I repeated skeptically.

I hadn't heard anything from my mom in years. She left me when I was three. Dropped me and took off. I never looked for her. She didn't want me. That was her choice.

"Months ago, when you first went missing. It was all over the news. She saw it and called me, asking for the real truth about it."

"What did you tell her?" I asked.

"I told her that you were gone, and that we had no idea where you were but we suspected that HYDRA had you. I told her we were doing everything to bring you home." Dad looked at the wall in front of him, away from me.

"What did she say?"

"She said she wishes she never left you with me," Dad said. I pressed my lips together. "That you would have been safer with her. Your mother is a lot of things, Ari, but wrong isn't usually one of them."

"She doesn't get to say that shit, Dad! She left!"

"Ari-"

"She didn't come to the med-bay when I got back."

"I told her not to. She would have, but I didn't think you would have reacted well."

"She left me like I was nothing! She carried on with her life like she wasn't the only person in the world that I knew."

"It wasn't fair to you. And honestly, kid, I wasn't super fair to you either."

I closed my eyes and fixed my sight on my lap.

"You showed up here one day and I- I wasn't ready. So I hid. And then hiding became easier. And then I stopped feeling bad. Happy, Cap, Nat, they're the ones that took care of you. They raised you. And I owe you an apology for that."

"Dad, don't-"

"No. I was awful. You were my kid. It took a cancer diagnosis for me to wake up and realize that. I'm sorry I wasn't there."