AN: So this is the sequel to Trubel in Rhinebeck, as well as the second installement of the series Trubel as an Avenger (sorta). Please enjoy, as well as keeping in mind that this story was originally written and takes place in February 2015.
"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness." –Joseph Conrad
One of the first things Trubel noticed about New York City was the sheer number of wesen. Since moving into Avengers Tower almost a month ago, Trubel had been going out to explore New York once every few days, and most days she came back with new information for her wesen journal.
In her time in and out of mental hospitals after her abilities came in, Trubel was used to keeping a journal, but since Portland and Nick, Trubel had begun to fill a new journal with information about wesen that she learned from Nick, Monroe, Rosalee, and the wesen population of New York. Her drawings in red and blue and black ink found themselves being copied into her new journal, or new ones simply being made, and the images bore a special place next to the names of the wesen at the tops of the pages. Trubel took pride in her journal, but also took pride that it had been a month and none of the Avengers knew about Trubel being a Grimm (save for Thor, who seemed to sense something off in her).
Trubel felt sort of bad for not telling the Avengers that she was a Grimm, and she'd had a few discussions with Nick about telling them, but he'd told her to wait. If there was a wesen-related problem that somehow dragged the Avengers into their world, then Trubel could tell them. If no world-ending situations happened that involved wesen, then who would be the wiser among the others?
Sometimes there were times where Trubel almost told the Avengers about being a Grimm, despite what she knew Nick would say. She'd occasionally come back to Avengers Tower sporting impressive bruises and cuts and once even a near-dislocated shoulder from scuffles with more vicious wesen. Luckily for Trubel, and maybe for the annual crime rate around here, New York's wesen population was mostly made up of either benign or more submissive and fearful wesen. There also had to be at least one more Grimm in the greater New York area, because most of the benign wesen she met seemed rather indifferent towards Trubel when she saw them. Then again, a lot of people in New York were people who worked in big, important companies and were the kind of people who spent more time focusing on their cell phones then on people who saw them woge mid-step in the middle of the sidewalk.
Since making the decision to stay at Avengers Tower, Trubel had taken Natasha up on her offer to train together. Every morning Natasha would get JARVIS to wake Trubel up at 6am, and the two would go down to the gym to do some warm-ups. At seven they came back up to the communal floor of the Tower to eat breakfast with Steve, Sam, Bruce, Tony, Kate, and sometimes Pepper. At seven thirty Nat would bring Trubel back downstairs, and they'd do agility exercises and hand-to-hand training, until Clint wandered down at nine thirty. Trubel would spar with Clint most days; though sometimes Nat would teach her new sparring techniques and let Trubel perfect them on her. (Lately, Trubel had been getting good at winning against Clint at sparring, though he'd begun to sneak off after supper some days to practice alone.) Sparring lasted until lunch time, when Nat, Trubel, and Clint would go back upstairs for lunch, once again in the communal kitchen (Trubel ate all her meals up there unless she went out). This time it was only Kate, Sam, Nat, Clint, and Trubel. Tony and Bruce stayed in the lab at lunch, Pepper was at Stark Industries working, and Steve was on his floor digging up anything he could find on that friend of his he was looking for. The group upstairs usually left Bruce and Tony to their own devices, because they knew they'd be fine, but usually Nat or Kate went to bring Steve something to eat. Nat always swore that without them, Steve would starve.
After lunch, Nat would usually drag Trubel back downstairs and make her work though the obstacle course a couple of times, never letting anything stay the same twice, but sometimes Nat would leave Trubel to do whatever, and these were the days Trubel went out. When they finished with the obstacle course, it was usually around the time to go upstairs and help to make supper.
The dynamic going in Avengers Tower about meals was that whoever woke up first would make breakfast, and the same deal went for lunch; whoever got hungry first made lunch. Everyone helped out at supper time, though, so it was fair for everyone and nobody complained about someone not doing anything. Most of the Avengers were decent enough cooks, so there'd usually be three or four different choices for supper, but since Trubel wasn't the best of chefs, she usually helped out Kate or Nat and Clint.
After supper, there was usually some sort of team movie or game or something. One day, Tony had convinced everyone to play Truth or Dare, and it had been a very enlightening game.
"Alright, settle down, guys." Clint said. "Trubel, your turn. Truth or dare?"
"Truth." Trubel said. The game was in its third round, and so far, Bruce had downed three vodka/whiskey mixed shots; Tony made a lip-sync video to All About That Bass; Clint had made an Impossible Shot; Natasha had done her funniest impression of some guy named Loki who all the Avengers seemed to hate; Kate had revealed that she was a die-hard fandom geek; Sam had done a really impressive JARVIS imitation until the AI threatened to shut down; Steve had been forced to do a rendition of his old USO routine; and Trubel had avoided invasive questions by taking dare both her previous goes and ended up having to do the Macarena and then taking a shot of that whisky/vodka stuff too.
"What's your favourite Disney movie?" Clint asked, because the guy was ridiculous and maybe a tiny bit drunk.
"I've never seen any Disney movies," Trubel told him, and Tony made a show of gasping like one of those idiots in soap operas.
"No! Say it ain't so!" Tony exclaimed, clutching at his chest in mock faint, before cutting from his act of horrible reactions and getting his usual smirk right back. "Seriously, everyone's seen Disney movies. You've had to have seen at least one."
"Nope. Never seen a Disney movie." Trubel replied.
"Seriously? C'mon, Muppets, Mary Poppins, Lion King. Anything?" Trubel shook her head again.
Since then, Tony had been finding every single Disney movie he could get his hands on and giving them to Trubel. So far, she'd only seen Mulan, Peter Pan, and the 2010 version of Alice in Wonderland, but she still had about a dozen more to watch, including Frozen, Wreck-It Ralph, and some weird looking movie called The Emperor's New Groove. Tony was still on her case about watching them, but Trubel reminded him over supper that Nat was training her almost every day, and one look from Nat had silenced Tony. He still handed her a couple more DVDs, but he didn't nag her so much about not watching them as fast as he wanted her to. Trubel made a point to practice her bitch-faces, just to see if she could scare Tony as much as Nat.
About a month and a half after Trubel arrived at Avengers Tower, there came a world-ending fight. A guy with a sort of lion-like head was wreaking havoc all over the city, and one look at him led Trubel to believe he may be wesen. Lowen, most likely. The guy was definitely insane, though, and had somehow managed to hire a couple dozen guys to do his dirty work. At first, the Avengers were adamant that Trubel and Kate stay behind unless they were absolutely needed, but after Tony got an approximate head-count and the henchguys ended up being stronger than they looked, the girls were called in.
Kate joined Clint up high on top of a building somewhere, and Trubel originally started out fighting next to Natasha, but ended up getting separated by some of Lowen-dude's henchmen, and it turned out these guys were wesen too, mostly Lowen or Klaustreich. Trubel had started out trying to stun or knock-out the guys, but they all kept getting up, and out came the machete from beneath her jacket (Trubel was the only person among the Avengers who didn't have a cool superhero name or a costume). She cut at least two heads off, but mostly slashed at arms and legs and eventually even hit one guy in the back of the head with the handle of her machete.
By the time the fight was over, nearly fifteen men lay dead, dying, or unconscious around Trubel, and she wandered away into a back alley to puke. Once she was done throwing up, Trubel wiped at her mouth with the sleeve of her jacket and began making her way back to Avengers Tower.
When Trubel eventually arrived back at the Tower, she ignore JARVIS telling her the others were wondering where she was and instead locked herself into her bedroom, instructing JARVIS to leave her floor and make sure no one could reach her until she told him it was alright. When she was sure she was safe, she called Nick.
Nick picked up at the third ring, which was weird considering it was about 2 in the afternoon in Portland. He still answered the phone the way he always did, with a deep and firm "Burkhardt," but Trubel said she could call back later if he was at work, maybe call Monroe instead. She hadn't talked to Monroe or Rosalee in a while. Nick assured Trubel that it was alright, though; he actually had the day off because he'd just finished a big wesen case the day before. Trubel sighed, and gathered her courage.
"I helped the Avengers out with a fight today." She said, and half expected Nick to start mother-henning her.
"That's... Okay." Nick said, and Trubel knew how much self restraint it took for him to only mutter those two words. "What was today's threat?" This time, he couldn't hide the worry in his voice.
"Lowen, I think, but he didn't woge. He was already in wesen-form when the Avengers got there, and he was insane. I think he may have been sick or something." Trubel said, managing to keep her composure.
"He was probably under Umkippen, then. Was he impossibly murderous, even for a wesen?" Nick asked.
"Definitely. He had henchmen, too, though. Most of them were wesen."
"How many did you take out?" Of course he knew she'd take them out. It was Nick. He hadn't known her that long, but he still knew her.
"Fifteen, I think, but only three or four were dead." Trubel was having a hard time keeping the nausea out of her voice, and to keep her mind off of it, she began to scribble the word 'Umkippen' into her journal, guessing how to spell it but making a point to call Monroe and Rosalee later to get more information about it.
"Trubel, are you listening to me?" Nick asked. Only then had Trubel realized she's zoned out.
"Oh, uh, yeah, just thinking." Trubel replied, trying to be nonchalant.
"Well, are you okay?" Nick asked. Trubel closed her eyes and leaned her head against the head board of her bed.
"Yes. No. I don't know, to be honest." She admitted. She heard Nick sigh.
"I wish I could tell you it gets easier, but it never really does." Nick paused for a second. "Hey, did I ever tell you about the time Monroe and I destroyed a solid gold egg?"
Trubel stayed on the phone with Nick for nearly an hour after he finished his story about the Seltenvogel and the Klaustreich. When she hung up, she realized it was getting close to 6:30, so she went into the kitchen on her floor (and it was still really weird to think she had her own floor in the Tower).
She hadn't really used it since she'd decided to stay for good, but it had been stocked with non-perishables like pasta, rice, and cereal. She also had a couple of pots and pans, and while Trubel's cooking skills were notoriously bad, she could at least boil water to make pasta. So, out came a box of Kraft Dinner, and Trubel ate about half of it before her thoughts wandered back to earlier that day, and away with her appetite.
Trubel stayed on her floor for four days before she finally came out.
She spent those four days trying not to think about the men she killed or nearly killed, trying to sleep, waking up sweating and screaming from nightmares of not only the men from the other day, but also from many other days in many other towns, and trying not to burn her pasta or rice too badly. She hadn't eaten much, but she made a mental note to start stocking her fridge a bit better if the Avengers didn't actually kick her on the curb for what she did.
In between trying to eat and trying to sleep, she called Monroe and Rosalee at the Spice Shop a couple of times, and managed to get quite a bit of information about Umkippen from them. Rosalee even gave Trubel a recipe for an Umkippen cure to put in her journal. Trubel also spoke with Nick again, but those were the limitations of her interactions.
Since she never actually told JARVIS to come back, he only came back online in her floor the next day, but Trubel dismissed him again, this time being more specific about the others staying out, and the AI was to remain offline, until she explicitly allowed JARVIS back and the doors opened. (She would never admit it, but it reminded her a tiny bit of Frozen. No one ever mentioned it, if they even noticed it.)
When Trubel finally left her floor after four days, it was because she was tired of only eating pasta and rice, and because she was almost out of food anyway. She went upstairs to the Tower's common floor when she was sure no one was there, but when the elevator doors opened, Trubel almost stayed in the elevator and went back to her own floor, because someone was in the kitchen listening to music.
The lyrics of the song currently playing were flowing clearly and loud enough to be discernable, but it still took a moment for Trubel to realize what song was playing.
'Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree
I traveled the world
And the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something'
Of course. Of freaking course. Because at least one of these idiots had to have known that song.
Gathering her courage, Trubel took a step forward, and then another, and then another, until finally, she stood in the doorway of the kitchen, and wow, this was totally not what Trubel expected. In the Avengers' communal kitchen, at nearly three in the afternoon, was Steve Rogers, looking tired as he poured himself a cup of coffee, and listening to the freaking Eurythmics.
Trubel tried sneaking away, but Steve heard her and turned around. He gave a soft smile when he saw her.
"Hey. Finally decided to come out?" He asked, sounding partly teasing and partly relieved. "We were getting worried that we'd never see you again. JARVIS told us that you gave him the boot."
Trubel remained silent for a minute, scratching at the back of her neck. When she gathered up enough courage to speak, the only thing she could think to say was "sorry".
Steve seemed to sense that he wasn't going to get anywhere if the conversation continued on the current path, so he dropped it, moving out of the way when Trubel made for the fridge, even though by now she'd mostly lost her appetite. It remained quiet, Trubel sitting at the table poking at some leftover takeout someone or other had gotten since the whole Lowen thing.
"So, Eurythmics..." Trubel trailed off, trying to make the atmosphere less awkward. She didn't know if it worked, but it seemed to when Steve chuckled a bit, still feeling a bit awkward.
"Yeah. Pepper suggested it to me, and I've gotta admit, I kinda like it." Steve told Trubel. Trubel grimaced.
"I didn't used to mind it, but a friend of mine, Nick, is a detective, and he told me about this one time where he solved a case because of this song." She told him.
"How does someone solve a police case with a song?" Steve asked. He looked so confused it almost made Trubel laugh.
"Well, he and his partner Hank were at some mailman's house, because Nick was one hundred percent sure that this was their guy. Obviously they couldn't find these workboots that had made prints at a murder scene and an abduction scene, so they were gonna leave. Except right as they were leaving, Hank told Nick that he'd noticed the guy humming Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics, and that song had been playing on the murder vitim's iPod when she died, so they went back. The guy didn't live to see justice, but they did find the little girl he'd kidnapped in a secret compartment in his basement, so yeah. Case solved because of a song." Trubel explained. She tried to keep out as many gory details as she could, because she honestly couldn't handle thinking about stuff like that, but she managed to tell the story well enough for it to still make sense. Trubel would only realize later that she'd mentioned Nick and Hank by name, though.
Steve, for the most part, seemed to find the story somewhat amusing, trying to keep from chuckling.
"Wow. I've gotta say, never would have imagined that. If Buck-" Steve cut himself off. "Never mind. Tell your friend good job from Captain America."
Trubel could tell that all semblance of conversation were gone for good. Without even finishing her food, she silently stalked off back to her floor, finally allowing JARVIS back before grabbing her jacket and heading out. Trubel needed to clear her head, now.
Trubel wandered around the streets until she found a Target, and decided to go inside. She let herself explore the store at random, until she reached the pharmaceuticals isle and remembered she needed some shampoo.
The only other person in the isle was an older woman who had curly hair worthy of River Song (Tony's fault for showing her that episode), a long scar on her cheek, and she had a young child with her who couldn't have been more than a year old. When Trubel entered the isle, the woman looked at her, but said nothing, instead turning back to what she was doing.
Trubel took her time choosing a shampoo, debating between saving money with the 2-in-1 Shampoo and Conditioner or buying a better brand of shampoo that cost two bucks more. She was about to make a decision when someone cleared their throat behind Trubel. She turned around and was suddenly face-to-face with a young Mauzhertz woman, not much older than Trubel herself. The Mauzhertz shrunk back.
"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I didn't know..." She trailed off. Trubel held her hands up in what was meant to be a peaceful gesture, but the girl shrunk back even more. The woman with the baby came closer.
"Is everything okay here?" She asked. Like when she first met Nat, Trubel was surprised by how deep the woman's voice was. The Mauzhertz was characteristically startled by the woman's sudden appearance behind her.
"I just- two Grimms?" The Mauzhertz woman was visibly shaking now, and Trubel took a moment to spare a glance at the other woman before looking back at the Mauzhertz. Trubel was about to say something to her when she took off running. Looking in the other direction led Trubel to seeing that the woman with the baby had also left. Sighing, she grabbed the closest shampoo on the shelf and left to go pay for it.
Upon returning back to Avengers Tower, Trubel headed up to her room to put away her stuff. After buying her shampoo, she ended up a couple bucks left over, so she ended up buying a can of hot chocolate mix and stopped at a Chinese food place to order some take-out. This time, however, she didn't tell JARVIS to lock down her room like before. Honestly, because of this, she shouldn't have been surprised when Natasha knocked on the wall next to the entryway to Trubel's kitchen. It still made the twenty-one year old jump a bit.
"Hey," Nat said, "Steve told me he saw you earlier, and JARVIS let us know you weren't under lockdown anymore. Thought I'd stop by." Trubel nodded a bit.
"Okay then." She said simply.
Natasha seemed to sense that something was still off with Trubel. "Theresa." She said. In the month and a half since she'd been at the Tower, Natasha only called Trubel 'Theresa' if she was annoyed or whatever she was saying was Important, with a capitol I.
"All those people, Nat. I know they were bad guys, or at least not entirely good, but still. I killed at least four of them. Maybe more. Injured all of them, pretty badly too." Trubel said, before Natasha had a chance to speak again. She had to admit, it felt pretty good saying it to someone other than Nick, because Trubel had cleverly avoided mentioning the event to Monroe and Rosalee directly. She knew Nick would have told them, and probably Juliette too, but no one brought it up, luckily. Until now, Trubel wasn't sure she'd have been able to bring it up, especially not over the phone. Telling Nat had definitely boosted her confidence, especially since she had a barely-there fear of Nat. She was the Black Widow, after all. Her reputation was everywhere.
"You're not the only one." Natasha said. "I killed some of them too. So did Clint, Tony, Bruce, Steve. Even Kate killed a couple. This was your first fight, though. It's normal to feel bad, but just remember, you can talk to us if you need to." The redhead told Trubel. She knew it was a lecture, and she should feel annoyed for being treated like a child, but she wasn't. For once, the lecture was actually helping Trubel to feel better.
"I don't think they were completely human either." Natasha said, interrupting Trubel's train of thought. "There were kind of similar to Bruce, in a way, I think. They didn't look human, and they seemed to be able to take more hits than most, but once they were down they changed from looking like animals to actually looking like people."
Trubel shuddered involuntarily. Despite the fact that she felt a bit better than she had in the last few days, she still didn't think she was ready to face all the Avengers at once, let alone tell them that what they saw wasn't some sort of Hulk-like state caused by experimentation on humans, but a naturally occurring race of humans known as Wesen; more specifically, Lowen. She'd been antsy and restless about telling the Avengers before, but now she couldn't bare the thought of trying to explain being a Grimm to them, despite the fact that they'd all seen Wesen Gone Wild firsthand. Even though they all seemed to be taking it much better than most, she was still pretty sure that Hulk-Like Experimentations was more believable than I'm-A-Grimm-I-See-This-Shit-All-The-Time-And-I've-Killed-Some-Of-Them-Before.
Natasha had seemed to notice Trubel shuddering, because obviously Natasha noticed everything, but she seemed to have taken it the wrong way.
"I know, Trubel." Natasha said, rubbing Trubel's back softly. They'd moved over to the couch in Trubel's living room by now. Trubel knew that Nat wasn't the type of woman to get all sympathetic and comforting and willing to talk about feelings, but sometimes she was good at being there for others when they needed it, like Trubel did now. "I for one can personally say that I've seen many instances of people being used like that. There are many organizations out there that will do anything to take over the world. These guys must have been working for one of those organizations."
Trubel couldn't help but burst out crying. Natasha simply kept doing what she could to comfort Trubel, without even knowing that she was crying for a very different reason than Natasha would expect.
About a week later found Trubel incredibly panicked. The night before, she'd been meant to call Nick, but he hadn't answered his cell, and upon trying both Monroe and Rosalee's house, as well as the Spice Shop, there were also no answers. Juliette also wasn't home, and as a last resort, she'd attempted to call Hank, but no matter who she tried she couldn't get any responses.
That morning, when Trubel had gone down to the gym three hours later than usual and about a dozen times more tired than she was used to, no one said anything. The look in her eyes was one of worry, yes, but there was some sort of emotion there that no one could identify that made Trubel look like she would bite someone's head off, and everyone stayed away.
Since the incident with the Lowen and the Avengers, Trubel had begun training on her own, usually trying to familiarise herself with some of the weapons Nick had given her from his arsenal in the trailer. No one ever asked where the weapons came from, because in the gym Tony had so many different work-out machines and target faces and so-forth that no one would have been surprised if the studded baseball bat Trubel totted with her that morning was something Tony had gotten when he built the gym. Instead, they just shrugged it off and went back to what they were doing.
Currently in the gym were Natasha, Clint, Kate, and Sam. Natasha was doing her usual endurance training, Clint and Kate were doing their archery practice, as they did quite often, almost daily; and Sam was doing some weight training.
Trubel had asked Pepper if she could get some tomatoes to put into a tennis ball launcher so she could practice with the Kanabo. Pepper hadn't seemed too off put by her request, but Trubel could tell that she was forcing herself not to ask. Luckily, she hadn't, and now Trubel was setting up a tennis ball launcher to throw tomatoes at her in Tony Stark's gym. Sorta.
Trubel was really clumsy with the Kanabo, seeing as it was the first time she had used it, and eventually Trubel dropped the Kanabo and pulled her machete out of her jacket. She still kept it there, despite the fact that Nick had tried to get her to stop, and she'd been trying twice as hard not to leave it in her jacket now that she'd left Portland, but old habits, as the saying went, die hard.
The rest of the day was a bit of a blur for Trubel, but finally it was nine o'clock, and she scampered off to her room, into the voluntary lockdown that came with calls to Portland, and when Nick actually answered the phone, she couldn't keep the relief out of her voice.
"Burkhardt."
"Nick! Oh my god, finally! I-I tried calling you last night, but you weren't answering! No one was answering, do you know how worried I was?!" Trubel all but screamed into the phone. Nick chuckled, and she heard a male voice say something in the background, but she didn't quite catch it.
"Trubel. I'm sorry no one was able to get to the phone yesterday, but we were kind of busy. If anything, we probably should have called you, because we could have used your help last night." Nick said. There was a tone in his voice that seemed as if he was trying to make humour to hide something important, but Trubel wasn't biting.
"Nick, what happened?" Trubel asked, slowly. She had a horrible feeling about this.
"Nothing happened." Nick said, and this time, it was clear he didn't want to tell her something.
"Nick. What. Happened. Last. Night." Trubel all but growled into the phone. She guessed she was probably on speaker phone when all the background noise stopped.
"Monroe got kidnapped by the Wesenrein." Nick admitted after a moment. It sparked another bout of panic as Trubel tried to process the fact Nick had just delivered.
"WHAT?!" She was glad that she'd had JARVIS soundproof her room, or else she might just have been heard all the way up from the Avengers' common floor nearly a dozen levels up in the Tower. This was not something she cared to have to explain to the Avengers. "Is he okay? Where is he?" Trubel asked. She knew that clear worry now laced her voice just like Nick's had earlier been laced with a sort of innocent deception, but she honestly just wanted to know if her friend was okay.
"Trubel, calm down!" She heard Rosalee's voice, quickly followed by Monroe's own remark of,
"I'm fine! I'm alright!"
Trubel sucked in a deep breath. She was glad to hear that Monroe was fine, and she decided to take Rosalee's advice and calm herself.
"Do you guys want me to fly out to Portland?" She finally asked. In the background, she could make out a female voice going,
"What?!"
And Monroe's voice saying, "No, no, no, don't do that!"
Nick finally replied. "Don't worry about it, Trubel. Monroe and Rosalee are both fine, and Hank and I are going to see them off at the airport tomorrow." Nick told Trubel. While it didn't relax her much, it did help her feel a tiny bit better.
"You're sure you guys don't need me to go over there?" Trubel asked. She didn't have any more cash on her, but she's sure if she asked nicely enough Pepper might pay her flight. Or get Tony to do it.
"We'll be fine, Trubel. Just stay in New York, and try not to get into too much trouble." Nick said. Trubel couldn't hold back her laugh at that.
"No promises, Nick, seeing as I'm named for it." She chuckled. With that, goodbyes were exchanged, as well as a promise to call Trubel from now on if they needed her help.
That night, Trubel slept better than she had in weeks.