I thought I knew my purpose: the genius billionaire who changed the world. It wasn't until I met my four month old daughter that everything I thought I understood was questioned. I didn't know it was possible to love someone so much, and that love b...
It's been 3 months since the attack, though it still haunts my every waking moment. I've developed little fears, such as having my door closed at night. School went online for the rest of the semester, and I finished the rest of my school work pretty quickly. I worked on it at night a lot because I couldn't seem to sleep anyways. Sleep is rare these days.
All of the students who went to Stonewall Academy were required to attend at least 3 counselling sessions all provided by the school. I was diagnosed with PTSD my first session. It seemed that my only escape, was returning to Malibu for the summer.
My dad invited Sarah to come with us for the summer. We were all on the private plane. I felt myself dozing in and out of sleep. Sarah sat directly across from me and was watching out the window. My dad and Pepper were a few seats away from us talking, and behind us Happy was fast asleep with noise canceling headphones.
"Alice, are you okay?" Sarah asked, pulling me out of my haze. My dad glanced over at me for a moment then returned to his conversation with Pepper.
"Yeah, I'm okay." I told her, shifting in my seat. I pulled my blanket back up over me until it covered me up to my shoulders. I didn't realize how cold I was. I freed one of my hands, allowing my fist to rub my tired eyes.
Sarah, like everyone else, was very concerned when they found out about the attack. Everyone's treated me different since that day, acting like I'm a ticking time bomb. They might even be right.
My dad glanced back over at me, and I silently communicated to him that everything was okay.
I glanced out my window as soon as I felt us really begin to descend. The sky was bright orange from the descending sun. I got super excited when I recognized the palm trees, and soon enough the airport we typically land at. As soon as the plane stopped, we all got up and gathered our things.
I walked over to Happy with my blanket wrapped around me and lightly kicked his leg. He snorted and shot awake. He pulled off his noise canceling headphones and gave me an irritated look.
"We're here." I told him, then walked away.
The air outside was warm and had the most perfect breeze to even things out. I relaxed deeply, breathing in the fresh air.
Happy drove all of us back to the mansion even though he was half asleep. My dad and Pepper sat in the middle seat of the SUV, and Sarah and I both sat in the very back cramped with all of our stuff.
As soon as we pulled up to the mansion and stopped, I didn't even wait for my dad to lower the middle seat. Instead, I just escaped straight over the middle row of seats. Sarah followed, just as excited as I was.
I was almost surprised that it looked the same after being blown up. Originally my dad was just going to tear the whole thing down, but I begged him not to. As much as I love New York, this has been and always will be my real home.
"You live here?" Sarah asked from behind me. I turned to see her shocked expression and laughed.
"Come on! Let's go!" I yelled.
I raced through the front door and immediately noticed that it smelled different. Minor things looked different, though overall it was the same house. The hole I put in the wall with a broom handle when I was 7 was repaired.
I lead her up to my bedroom with all of our stuff. The furniture was the same, though everything was new. My room was part of the Mansion that was destroyed. Somehow through all the wreckage though, my nationals trophy survived and was waiting for me on my desk.
For the next hour I proceeded to give her a tour of the entire mansion. And then, we went swimming in our pool for hours until we were exhausted. My dad and Pepper both sat in the hottub while we swam.
A few days later, Sarah was playing holographic tennis with an AI opponent where you get to choose how they act. Sarah didn't know that, so I intentionally made the AI a sore loser with no filter. Sarah was pretty confused, but I got a pretty good laugh out of that. While she continued to play tennis, I sat against the wall sketching a new project I'd been working on.
Sarah ran back and forth playing against her AI opponent, a fake crowd cheering in the background. When she was done, she dropped her tennis racket and ran over to join me. She was breathing heavy from the exercise, and slid down the wall to sit next to me.
"What are you working on?" Sarah asked, looking over my shoulder at the sketch pad.
Displayed on my sketch pad, was a concept sketch of a potential suit for myself. Sarah recognized what it was before I even had a chance to explain.
"Alice. There is no way on planet earth that your father will ever let you be a superhero." She stated. I dropped my pencil on my lap and turned to look at her.
"I know." I replied, pulling my knees and sketch pad closer to my chest. "I just feel like I should be doing something more. Vision told me that I have these powers for a reason. Shouldn't I use them to be helping others?"
Sarah looked away for a moment as she thought. Her tight curly black hair was pulled back into a big ponytail. She was sweaty, though her breathing began to slow to a normal rate.
"I see what you're saying, if I had your powers I'd probably do the same thing." She admitted. Then she turned to me with a huge grin.
"I'm in, let's do this."
In the mansion was an underground basketball court that nobody ever really uses. So over the course of the next few weeks, we used the basketball court to begin working on my suit. Getting the materials for it and not drawing attention to ourselves was challenging. But the basketball court came in handy when we started throwing knives and what not at the suit to ensure it was strong enough.
It was surprisingly tricky getting the armor to be flexible enough I could fight in it, and also be protective. It took a lot of trial and error with different materials but finally, we got it.
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"You look like a medieval assassin." Sarah said as I posed in front of the mirror in my bedroom.
"I do!" I laughed. Sarah jumped up off my bed, and made her way over to me to check for anything we may have missed in putting it all together.
"So, do you have a name in mind?" She asked, fumbling with one of my sleeves. I pulled the mask down.
"I didn't even think about that." I admitted, staring at myself in the mirror.
"Well, we'd better think of one before the public picks one for you!" We both laughed.
Later that day Sarah and I were swimming in the pool again like we do almost daily. I was starting to get some pretty weird tan lines since I wore a different swimsuit each time. After I nearly drowned in this pool when I was 5, my dad put me in swimming lessons and I kept up on it. I highly enjoyed passing Sarah over and over in the pool.
Sarah and I both suggested different name ideas though none of them sounded good. In fact, some of them were pretty awful.
"Alice, I've got another name idea!" She yelled across the pool. I swam over to her, meeting her at the edge of the deep end.
"Let's hear it!" I told her, pushing my hair out of my face.
"What do you think of Blue Raven?"
I thought on it for several minutes, then I gave a smile to my best friend.
