Born of Iron | Comic Book - Art

Issue #1

Soft humming filled the nursery. Tony's chest swelled with pride and love as he looked at the little girl swaddled in pink cotton in his arms. He couldn't keep the smile off his face as he looked down at his daughter. The only girl he'd ever loved, the only person he didn't want to leave. His off-key humming had somehow lulled her to sleep, her tiny fist curling, then uncurling as she rested in his arms.

"Antonia." he whispered her name softly, his smile widening as the name formed itself in the air. "You're the only thing that's good." he told the little girl, who did nothing but readjust her head in the crook of his elbow.

He got a year of happiness with the little girl. One year of learning to walk and being called "pops". He got one year of changing diapers, and buying tutu's. But that wasn't all his year with Antonia brought him. It was also a year of getting blackout drunk at parties, and arms deals in Iran. It was a year of one night stands and forgetting his own name. And though the good parts were really good, his daughter's mother didn't want that for Antonia. She didn't want her daughter to live exposed to the public, or surrounded by weapons of mass destruction. So leaving  behind only a letter she took the little girl on a plane and she left.

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Antonia watched her mother press the record button on the camera with a wide smile.

"C'mon honey! Sing for uncle Tony!" Antonia had never ever met uncle Tony, but he sent her really cool toys on her birthday every year, and that was enough to coax a melody (sort of) from the stubborn girl.

"Twinkle twinkle!" she yelled with a giggle. "Little- star." she held up her chubby fingers to hold up a star to the lens. "How I won-der what you are! Up above the world so high!" she stood up on her toes and reached her fingers up as high as she could to mimic the height of a star. "Like a die-mond in the sky! Twinkle twinkle, little star. How I wonder what you are." her mother clapped for her when she finished, coaxing a smile from the little girl.

"That was so great sweetie he's gonna love-!"

That's where the video ended. A frame of little seven-year-old Antonia showing off her three missing teeth, the pink bows holding her curly hair in pigtails were a light breeze away from unraveling completely. Her eyes were the most noticeable. They glimmered excitedly as she watched her mother praise her performance, her smile nearly making them close, and a tiny dimple next to her left eye that only made an appearance when she was really happy.

Tony had tears in his eyes when he re-watched the video on her eighteenth birthday. Watching his little girl grow up from an ocean away was something he never thought he would have to experience. He wanted to be with her now, take her anywhere she wanted to in New York, or Seoul, London, anywhere. He just wanted to be able to see her grow up, like he was supposed to. Like any other father was allowed to. Not that he didn't have a relationship with the girl. It was just very weak. He would send her presents with little notes on her birthday and Christmas. He sent her a car this year to replace the shitty one she had bought on three years of summer jobs when she was fifteen. But he hadn't seen her in seventeen years and it killed him. Mariana always got mad when he sent Antonia gifts like that, often telling him to stop contacting her. But she always forgot about that by the time her next birthday rolled around. She didn't mean it, either. Because at the start of every school year he always received a school picture with a note from Antonia written on the back. It was always little things. She often talked about how the dog he'd sent her was doing, or one time how upset she was that her mother was marrying some guy named James. But even though they wouldn't mean much to anyone else, Tony treasured them more than anything else. He had just received her senior picture.  On the back she expressed her desire to visit him in New York and go to Broadway with him and Princess (her Labrador). She had grown so much since that video. She wore her hair loose now, instead of in pigtails, and she had pink braces covering her teeth as she beamed at the camera. He could see traces of himself in the teenager. The way her lips turned up, ever so slightly slanted to the left, the shade of her eyes, and the way they looked like they were withholding secrets that no matter what you tried, you would never discover. He could see himself in the way she stood, the way she spoke, everything. After all, was her father.