Remembered
Chapter One: A Certain Loss of Control
I'm not telling you this to make you think I was right in what I did. I was a coward. Am.
Luke was too heavy for me, draped in my aching arms, his long legs folded under, knees brushing the floor. His auburn hair, tousled fashionably dripped red onto my hands. Blood smudged down his neck and onto my shoes. My new shoes. The shoes he bought me.
What had he called his hairstyle? The Joe. I choked out a strangled laugh that turned into a wet sob. I hated the sight of blood. I was going to be sick. I forced myself to concentrate on his breath that tickled the inside of my wrist. He was alive. We were alive. We would get out of this.
Yeah right. I wasn't a superhero. I wasn't any kind of hero. I wasn't brave. I couldn't even face being alone in the dark. I was twenty-two years old and still slept with a string of Christmas lights on.
At least I can admit my spinelessness.
The room spun again, and I almost dropped him and myself. My teeth were clattering and the sound almost drowned out the noises of a night gone horribly wrong. Screams of women in silk dresses, shouts of men in black tie trying to herd the crowd, the clacking of heels on marble, champaign flutes hitting the floor, all of this was like white noise. I could taste panic, mine and everyone else's. It seeped into my skin and seeped right back out to slither up the walls, and then hung, dripping like acid.
I didn't have a flight or fight response. I had a freeze response. Any sign of danger and I was a deer in the headlights. It's always been that way.
Anyway I couldn't leave Luke here, unconscious with the tall, dark and immensely intimidating stranger. I was in a foreign country and he was my only contact. I had no where to go, and no idea how to get there. I was in meltdown mode; Luke was the only thing keeping me upright. I had to…do something with him. If not protect him or save him, at least die with him.
This tiny flicker of hope was a part of me that rarely saw the light of day. It was the part that didn't have panic attacks in line at the grocery store because of a failed relationship. It was the tiny part of me that should have taken over at that point and whispered "you can," and "you will live," and "you have a choice."
The old man wasn't moving. I was sure he was already dead. A moment ago I saw the dark-haired stranger stroll up to Luke, hit him in the head like it was tennis, then flip Luke's grandfather onto a table-like statue of a bull with two heads and shove something into the old man's head, through his eyeball.
Where the hell were the damn police?!
A gentle slither of a touch at the small of my back shot adrenaline down my legs. I let out a small breathless bawl as Luke slipped from my hands. I grappled with his limp arms, trying to haul him up again.
The man called Loki snickered at my feeble attempts. His hand slid from the small of my back to my side, anchoring himself closer. He leaned into my face. I almost lost control of my bladder. My stomach clenched at the touch of his long, inappropriately placed fingers.
He had changed, I realized. His formal wear and scarf were gone. In place was a costume one would see at a nerd convention. His cane had grown into a walking stick, and glowed with that eerie blue light. He had a helmet with horns. Golden horns, and an emerald cape.
"You have grown weak, Gersemi, in the company of these vermin."
He kept calling me that. Gersemi. Come on. Do I look like a Gersemi?
"You have the wrong person." I said, my voice wavering as the fingers moved up to my ribs. My back burned as I still held onto Luke's arms, trying to keep him off the ground. As if that would save him.
Please please please.
"Do I?" He smiled broadly. His hands turned from silk to iron, and shoved me.
I toppled over easily, landing on Luke. I knew I shouldn't have worn such high heels.
"I do not make mistakes; my purpose is glorious. Perhaps you know not, or remember not, Gersemi, but I would know this face anywhere." He knelt and his fingers moved to my chin. I had to look away from his eyes. My face burned.
"Please." I did not dare look up from his shoes. "I'm not even from here."
"Oh, I know, child." Then he straightened watching the crowd leave. "Make haste," he said, with a grand wave of his arm, "our distraction escapes."
He plucked Luke's wrist from the floor and began to drag him nonchalantly in the direction of the fleeing crowd.
I scrambled to my feet, ankles turning.
I had use the full extent of my long legs to keep up. I heaved and failed, trying my best to bear my friend's weight as he was dragged. Limbs got in the way and I stumbled around. In the end, I grabbed Luke's other arm so at least his face didn't graze across the ground, and jogged in the damned heels to stay in line with Loki.
The air chilled as we passed through the entrance and bumped along, down a wide red carpet, to the street mad with chaos. The partygoers were like cattle, stampeding in any direction to get away from the danger.
Sirens bled into the night air, hope of rescue from the evil man. Finally.
Loki dropped his hold on Luke and strode forward. He pointed his long, evil-looking stick at the cop car. I watched without understanding as some kind of blue magic stopped the car, flipping it over. For a moment I really was a deer in the headlights, as the upside down car screeched towards me. Then it ground to a halt, feet from where I stood trembling.
"Kneel before me" he spoke clearly at the people. They scattered, ignoring his command. Then more magic; he was in four places at once.
"I said, kneel!" A flash of light reigned in the stampede, a square of crackling blue energy, like lightning without sound. The people ground to a halt, seeing that they were trapped.
"KNEEL!"
They slowly and collectively sunk to their knees. I couldn't move. There was silence, except my ragged breathing and my ringing ears.
"Is not this simpler?" he mused, stepping forward with raised arms.
"Is this not your natural state?" He moved into the midst of kneeling people.
"It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scrabble for power. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."
Dumbstruck people in the most humble of positions gawked at his tall and terrible form. His speech faltered in my ears as my heart pounded louder and louder.
"Gersemi," he said, suddenly turning towards me. Gersemi.
"Show these poor humans what happens to those that would call themselves…hero." He spat out the word like bad meat.
I stood, gulping air like I didn't know what it was.
His gaze disdainfully took in all my weaknesses, pausing to bore into my own widened eyes. I knew, suddenly, that I would have to obey and maybe he would let me go, or live. Or at least not hurt anyone else.
I turned to the faces in the crowd, relieved for a nanosecond to not be looking at him. The expressions of the people ranged from terror to something that turned my life inside out. Disbelief? Doubt? Dislike? No, it was much stronger.
A tall, older gentleman's face said it all: hatred.
My face flushed with shame. I got it then. They hated me.
The stranger had instantly and successfully turned me into the monster. They thought I was with him, on his side. I was the traitor.
I tried to shake my head, to open my mouth to deny their silent accusation, but all the parts of my body I needed had shut down and drifted away somewhere into the dark night to hang with the stars in safety.
I stood there dumbly, which was quickly becoming my normal state of being. I was so alone.
Even if he let me go now, these people would never let me live.
My whole being began to reverberated with the desire and need to survive. Something animalistic told me to do anything to live.
He brushed his way back through the crowed. The closer he got, the heaver my heart crashed against its cage of ribs. He was grinning, reveling in my hopelessness.
He had me cornered into the darkest place I had ever been.
"Kill him," he ordered me in a voice strangely pleasant voice that broke over me like a wave and then washed over the crowd. A woman began a heart-torn wail.
People stood and began pushing. He whirled around, slamming his staff into the cement again. Another electric flash and they were quieter, but not silent.
Loki turned back around, and impatiently closed the distance between us.
"Kill him," the man hissed an inch from me, his breath blowing the hair off my face, our noses almost touching. "Or I shall burn this frail plant in liquid fire and leave you alive, alone in darkness so deep the sun could never hope to reach you. Then I will take Asgard, your mother and father, and torture every man woman and child who has heard your name, in the most intimate ways."
A strange noise, a rhythmic wheezing, which I vacantly realized was my own breath. Not now. Not a panic attack. I could feel it in my stomach.
I knew I was going to do what ever he said.
"You need only put your will to it," he answered my unspoken and even unthought of question, pushing his staff against my palm. His other hand swept openly in an invitation. The gesture pointed to Luke. My head was light, from my irregular breathing. Adrenaline spiked.
No. I couldn't kill Luke.
The smooth material of the staff warmed to my touch and fit perfectly into the curve of my fingers. The warmth spread into my wrist and shoulder, climbing my throat. I couldn't, wouldn't ever let it go.
"KILL HIM."
I was sobbing. The world swam.
My mind bowed towards the unthinkable.
My hand burnt, coiled around the weapon. It vibrated blissfully, jolting me up to my shoulders. Blue magic.
"Welcome back, Gersemi," he whispered in my ear.
His mouth made the shapes that should have produced words. My ears were ringing. He turned to face his hostages and descended again into them. My mind scrambled the sounds like a badly tuned radio.
Out of all five or six of my senses, the feeling of my hand on fire was the only message that relayed itself to my brain. There was a whole world around me, and it spun madly, wildly, so that I could not see or hear or smell. It was like I was on a amusement park ride, plastered to my seat by the centrifugal force.
I don't know how much time passed, devastated by my own doings. Why didn't I just kill myself? This was way worse than death.
The world got louder and louder, surfacing. There were real sounds then, bits and pieces that I could make out if I just could catch them. The sounds fluttered about, just out of reach.
This was a nightmare. Yes. That's all. I was sleeping. I had been drunk and this was a really really bad nightmare. This could not really be happening. The world shifted around, just like a dream. I couldn't see individuals, just flashes of color in the dark night.
"Staff!"
"Staff!"
Yes. The staff. It was still burning my hand. But I liked it.
"Down!" I focused on that one and tried my best to follow it to the source.
It was another man in costume, a blue body suit with stars and stripes. Just another part of my nightmare. His body language was threatening, I noticed languidly. He stood with his feet apart, knees bent, one leg back, his arm cocked ready to throw a disk. A huge curved disk. Like a trashcan lid. I giggled.
"This is your last chance," he called to me. "Drop. Your. Weapon."
My eyes found the stranger. He sat on the street corner, and he was laughing at me. Or with me? What did he say his name was? Loki?
My legs buckled from under me, sending me sprawling to the red carpet, below. The wind knocked out of me, and the staff was ripped from my grip.
I woke from my dream to realize the nightmare was reality.
Pain.
There was so much pain. And emptiness.
I wanted to die.
I was on my back, empty, next to Luke. I killed him. He looked relieved it was over for us, peaceful, kind of. Just last night. He had fallen asleep next to me, on his bed while I read my magazine. I could almost hear his breath now, lulling me to sleep.
More fire, a fiercer grinding fire pain wracked me from my leg.
I found it in me to care about the pain. My leg was twisted horribly to a wrong side, obviously broken. Blackness overcame me, drowned me along with nausea and a direct sense of knowing life was over.
I don't ask your forgiveness, because I don't deserve it.
The smooth cadence of humming was what I noticed first, a slight vibration under me, under the rough sheets and a flaccid pillow. Ugh. This bed was horrible. And cold.
What a nightmare. I shivered at the memory of it. It hung over me like a cloud.
I did have a good amount of nightmares, but that one was so real. It was too real. And too long. I knew I would have a hard time shaking off the terror. Today was going to suck.
I would need a lot of coffee. And a few more minutes of sleep.
Without bothering to open my eyes I reached for the covers, flailing my hands blindly further and further down my bed until it brushed something hard, knobby. Metal.
The situation was getting harder to ignore and my sleep-fogged brain was trying to alert me mildly about the unfamiliarity of it all. What bed was I in? I couldn't remember what Luke's guest bed felt like.
Just five more minutes. Then I would get up and see if Luke was awake. Only two more days of my long weekend. I wondered what he had in store for us today. Was it the ballet?
I pulled on my legs to the side and up, as if to tuck them to my chest for warmth. A jolt of electric pain shot through me, the epicenter my left leg.
Waves of hurt washed over me and left me gasping for breath. I sat up awkwardly and found myself face to face with a black and silver contraption encasing my leg like an Iron Man boot. Iron Man nearly brought a thought back, but it was fleeting. The boot ran from my thigh all the way down to my toes.
Sitting up intensified the pain to the point of panic.
Worse, I could not move it. I scrabbled at the boot trying to slip it off, looking for a seam, a clasp, a crack, anything to show me where to pry. I cried out at my own jolting movements but the fear of not being able to walk, to bend it, to dance on it, was top priority. The boot and my leg didn't budge.
"Stop!" I screamed as a heavy metal door opposite the unfamiliar bed swung inwards. I did not stop.
They didn't understand, who ever they were. They didn't dance.
"Stop! You will hurt yourself. I will get you something for the pain. Just-" A lady with brunette hair tightly clasped behind her head wore a dark grey jump suit and combat boots. She pulled at my wrists. She was surprisingly strong for a weirdly dress nurse, but I was maxed out on adrenaline and fought her like a beast.
My leg! My mind riffled through the last events, or tried to. I came up with fuzzy images of Germany and Luke. We had toured the city. Went out to that bar. I must have drank so much to not even remember what happened to my leg.
A pounding headache supported that theory.
Germany's hospitals were scary. They kind of looked like the inside of a spaceship all industrial and bland. Hospitals in America were usually very bright and sterile and cheery. Not that I had been there too often.
I either began to cry then, or noticed I was crying. I was all alone in a foreign country with the worst hang-over of my life. And my leg.
What would my mother say? Had she been informed? Was she coming to get me? Where was Luke? How would I tell the dance company? Was my understudy going to take all of my parts?
I imagined myself hobbling over to the director: "Sorry I took time off, to go to Germany, and like and got absolutely hammered and broke my leg.
"Mam? Need some help?" a male voice asked from the doorway. The doctor? He wasn't in scrubs.
"No! Stay back. She is dangerous." The nurse barked into my face, finally pinning one hand to the bed. I worked on her white knuckled fingers then.
Dangerous? I wish.
"No disrespect, miss, but she is a ninety pound girl." I instantly hated him. I was one hundred ten, thank you very much.
The man entered the small room and nearly filled it with his bulk. In one movement he had me pinned to the bed. My arms stuck between my chest and his one hand, and my good leg under his other hand. I glared through my tears into his face.
"Again," he said to the woman, who had been knocked out of the way, "no disrespect intended."
The weight of his trap made it hard to breathe and fanned the flames of my fury.
How dare he!
A complete stranger pining me to a bed in nothing but a hospital gown. My face burnt with anger, tears rolled down the sides of my face, dripping into my ears. Words were all I had left.
"I am an American citizen!" I blurted out with the last of the air in my compressed lungs.
"So am I." He smiled back at me. Then he saw me suffocating. "Oh!" The man let up on the pressure, "Sorry." His face showed genuine concern.
Disgusting.
"Is that better?"
No. Better would be getting off of me and giving me my leg and clothes back and sending me home. I watched his eyes widen as he took in my hostility.
"Where's Luke?" I demanded, sucking wind.
"Who?"
"My friend. I am here visiting him."
The nurse and the man exchanged a look I couldn't decipher. It was patronizing.
"Where am I!"
"Not to be disclosed, Miss Eisen. That information is confidential." The lady said, smoothing her hair with her palms and giving the man an annoyed look.
I wasn't in a hospital? "You have to tell me! It's the law!" Or at least I hoped it was. At least American law. Maybe?
"We operate above the law, Ms. Eisen." She said. That scared me.
"Where am I?" I asked again.
"You are in custody of S.H.I.E.L.D." the man conceded.
"Captain!" the lady barked. He glanced at her.
"What is S.H.I.E.L.D?" I asked, afraid to hear the answer.
"Not need to know information," she replied sharply, glaring at the man.
So I was their prisoner. I took in tiny mouthfuls of air. I couldn't deal with this. I. could. not. deal.
"You have her, Captain?" she asked.
"Uh," he looked at my pathetic form, "yeah." She rolled her eyes, turned and left us.
"My stepfather can pay." I said. "Anything. He's Walter Eisen. I'm sure you've heard of him."
"I have, actually." He looked kind of excited about that. "Howard Stark-"
"He's loaded. He'll pay any ransom."
"Ransom?"
"Money. To let me go."
"I," he faltered, "don't think we can let you go. I'm sorry." He looked back towards the open door.
"Why!" I tried to struggle underneath Beefcake, but the brute was just too big. I tried words again.
"My name is Siri Eisen, I don't have any siblings, I live in Aspen, I dance Ballet and Modern and I have a dog and his name is Pogo, and please don't hurt me! I just want to go home! I swear I'll do anything! Just let me call my stepdad." He looked a bit panicked then, not sure what to do with my tirade.
"I'm twenty one!" I added for good measure.
"No, twenty two " I trailed off remembering my recent birthday.
"It's nice to meet you, Siri. I'm Steve. We aren't going to hurt you. At least we aren't planning on it. Well, I don't think we are. You aren't a friendly, are you?"
My vision blurred through more tears. My heart felt like it dropped through my ribcage and melted into the mattress under me. I wallowed in self-pity.
"No, don't cry. I am sure we will sort it all out and let you go home," he let my leg go and patted my shoulder.
"Uh, Lady?" Steve Meatloaf called to the open door way, looking for help from the lady that left.
I didn't struggle, and more pressure let up. The weight on the bed shifted. Beefcake picked up my wrist gingerly and put my hand into his. It was warm and reminded me shallowly, that I was still cold. And getting colder. He sat near my pillow. I was exhausted.
"Look. I know it all seems bad, now, but I am sure Director Fury will let you go home."
"When?" I said through my tears.
"Captain! You are supposed to be restraining the prisoner, not comforting her!" Steve jumped to his feet, dropping my hand.
"Apologies, Mam, but I should have a word with Director Fury or… "
"I have a name, Captain. Agent Findar." She fingered the name tag clipped to her breast pocket. "And Directory Fury has enough to deal with right now," she strode into the room and snatched up my arm.
"Agent Findar, I don't think this prisoner is being held fairly. There might have been a fair amount of manipulation-"
"That is not something you decide, Mr. America. That is entirely up to S.H.I.E.L.D. And you even witnessed her in action. You saw the dead boy. You even were the one to-"
"Captain," he corrected her sharply. "Captain America."
Oh my god. I was being held hostage by lunatics.
Again.
My dream slowly resurfaced. Dark images seeped into me. Of a party. Of an old dead man draped over a statue of a bull. Of blood and Luke and a staff and another old man hating me and a stranger with a wicked smile.
No.
I was going crazy. This wasn't happening. I shook my head
Steve took one more look at me. I was beginning to have a full meltdown, now. There goes my heart, my chest. I watched him watch my panic attack bloom.
A muscle in his jaw clenched. He turned and had to duck under the doorway to leave my room.
A prick brought my focus to my arm. A syringe jutted out of my vein at an angle. Her thumb pushed a cold liquid into me that made it very hard to think or feel. It was nice.
I began to breathe normally again, my chest slowly rising and lowering. I relaxed into the rough sheet underneath.
She door locked.
The pain of my leg, the chill of a hospital gown with no sheet to cover me, and the panic of not being able to dance on my leg seeped out of me crookedly. It left room for the misery of knowing what I'd done.
If it wasn't a dream.
If I wasn't crazy.
If I killed a person.
Luke.
I used the staff to steal his life. All because I was afraid of dying myself. I was a coward. A cripple. A prisoner.
Please note that this is the second time I have re-worked this story. Changes are (in my opinion) subtle but necessary. 2/4/14
Welcome all to the revamped version of Siri's story! There were just a few things that were bugging me. I also think the order of chapters was not lending a hand to a good story. Also not having chapter names was seriously driving me crazy. So if you are new to the story, hi!
And if you are rereading, hi again! I am sorry if you subscribed and then found it gone. Hopefully it wasn't too hard to find me again. There is some added and important information in this first chapter. So re-reading will be mandatory. Well as mandatory as fanfiction ever could be. So basically I am at your mercy.
I don't own anything, obviously. I've surrendered my writing to the vast internet. Thank God, for Joss Whedon and Marvel, though.
Love to you all,
Coy