A/N: This is my first Avengers fanfic, and I've been seized by my muse. I basically have the first four chapters of this story done but I wanted to wait to see if there is any interest. That means review! I have exams coming up, so updating may be a bit sporadic, but once those are updates should be pretty regular. Enjoy!

oOo

Timor mortis morte pejor.

The fear of death is worse than death.

-Robert Burton

oOo

There was a common misconception among her friends that Chelsea couldn't die. After all, they had seen her wake after a bullet in her chest, after being crushed by an SUV, after falling of a building. It may take a minute for her to recover, sure, but she hadn't died yet.

They were wrong.

The problem wasn't that Chelsea couldn't die. No; in fact, at the time of this story she had died seventeen times. The problem was that she didn't stay dead.

The thing people seemed to forget about was that the only way to find if you're immortal is to die.

She had been thirteen when it happened. Swimming in the lake behind her house, she had foolishly dived off the dock. She didn't hit her head- the water was too deep for that. No, she coasted along the sandy, mushy bottom, oblivious to the debris that littered the lake. She kicked off, prepared to surface. A searing pain tore through her calf. She screamed, bubbles exploding from her mouth. Panicked, she kicked desperately for the surface, only for the wire sunk into her leg to hold her back. Chelsea struggled to free herself, but she was in pain and drowning and her thoughts were hazy and red. Within a minute from becoming ensnared she was unconscious. Within three, she was dead.

She woke up in a coffin. She didn't immediately recognize it was a coffin, of course, but that knowledge came soon enough. She was in a small, dark place. The walls were silken. She couldn't lift her arms above her head or very far in front of her. Vaguely, she remembered the lake, and terror seized her. She was in a coffin. She was supposed to be dead.

But she was buried alive.

She screamed, and it rebounded off the walls and deafened her. She struck the box in front of her and scratched the lining and kicked and elbowed until she was bruised all over and she could taste blood on her fingertips. Eventually, she tired herself out. Taking stock, she wriggled as much as she could, hoping desperately for anything that could help her. Her hair was down, and a barrette was cutting into her scalp. She was wearing a chain with a small pendant, and a ring was on her left hand. She was wearing a push-up bra, uncomfortable and itchy. Her favorite dress, the cotton flowered one, was on her, and she could feel strappy shoes that she didn't recognize on her feet. Other than that, the coffin was empty. She could see nothing. She was dimly aware that her breaths seemed loud and ragged in the small space.

Chelsea died once again in the coffin, this time due to the lack of oxygen. This time was worse, though. It wasn't a restful sleep like before, but a kind of paralysis in which no stimuli reached her but she was painfully aware. She lay, caked in her own body, seeing and hearing and feeling nothing, both hoping desperately to wake but dreading the terror of the coffin.

Drearily, slowly, she was aware of the pain in her neck where her head was supported awkwardly by the pillow and the burning itch of the bra on her back. She was alive.

The blackness seemed to mock her. It occurred to her that maybe she was dead after all, and this was her special kind of hell. Praying didn't seem to help.

On the third day (not that Chelsea was aware of time), she felt her small world shift. The coffin moved, jerked, and then vibrations coursed through it and light streamed in. She clenched her eyes tightly, but blindly reached out. Hands grabbed hers and an arm wrapped around her waist and helped her stand. She was sobbing now, relief making her shake, sinking to the ground and yanking off those stupid sandals and stretching. She tried to open her eyes, but found that the sun made spots in her vision and her head swam. Someone placed a pair of sunglasses gently on her nose, and she opened her eyes cautiously. A man stood before her. He smiled and stuck a palm out for her to shake.

"Chelsea Summers. We have a lot of talking to do."