Night Mistress

Chapter 10

It was early the next morning. I hadn't gotten much sleep last night. It could have been running from my nightmares. I just...wasn't tired. Maybe things were catching up with me. Was this some late term shock?

So when I stopped lying down, my first stop was to the bathroom.

JARVIS was thankfully silent.

When I showered, I had to remind myself about shampoo and conditioner. Brushing my hair was a pain. Then using the body wash. Finally I could shave. I brushed my teeth. It was the cleanest I'd been on the outside in ages.

But when I caught my reflection in the foggy mirror, I wasn't sure what I saw. Behind the fog was my younger self, my much shorter self. Wiping away the fog, there was a tired twenty year old.

She had heavy bags under her old amber eyes. Her shoulders seemed to sag with the weight of the world. Her black hair hung limply in thick uneven strands, she needed a haircut. She had scars on her body, some jagged and some clean. Her newer ones were pink, standing out against her tan skin.

Seeing my reflection, I felt all ninety-six of my years.

My hand went down to my stomach. You couldn't tell I had been shot there.

-BANG!

girl screaming

shots firing

girl screaming going deeper

fire

men screaming-

The memories were coming in rough flashes. Shaking my head and some hard blinking brought me back to LA.

How had I done it? How had three months gone by without losing my sanity? I've been in worse situations that lasted a day, and I was in therapy for months! Yet here I stood, after surviving three months in a cave, worrying about my uneven hair.

Putting this off until later felt like a better decision. I walked out of the bathroom, drying myself off with one of the fluffy towels.

After getting dressed in some comfy pajamas, I went downstairs to get some breakfast.

I found Tony making coffee. He looked like he'd gotten as much sleep as I did. He wore an oil stained gray tank top, and dark baggy jeans. He was staring lost at the coffee machine, shoulders sagging as my own did in the mirror.

"Good morning, Miss Stark." JARVIS spoke from overhead.

The Stark patriarch snapped up to attention. He turned to face me, I gave him a tired wave.

"Morning." I noted.

He nodded his head at me. "Yeah, it is." The coffee machine pinged. He pulled his coffee out of it. "Get any sleep?" He asked. He went to the fridge, pulling out the coffee creamer.

"Why, do I look like I got any?"

"No. Then again, neither do I. Want a mug?" He asked.

"I don't drink coffee." I answered. Since we were both hungry, I started on cooking breakfast. Pepper must have gone shopping before we came back in. I pulled out some eggs, then stuff for pancakes. "I prefer cocoa. It should be in the other drawer." 'Hopefully Pepper bought me the kind with marshmallows and in the big metal tin.'

Dad gave me a look. "Huh. Didn't know that."

"You let me try it when I was eight. It sucked. I never touched the stuff again." I admitted. I pulled out a frying pan, spraying it with stick-off. Turning the stove in high, I cracked about four eggs down.