Title: Pointe
Rating: T
Summary: She's not a dancer.
After the mission had been over she had left the jet and just ran. Told JARVIS to shut up and leave her alone, feeling slight comfort at how he disobeyed her and continued to inform her that her vitals were not in their usual measurements, should he call SHEILD medical care, because JARVIS has no body and therefore is the only one who would do that.
But the thought dissolves like red mist as she goes tearing through her empty room, pulling her moving boxes to pieces and throwing things everywhere, before she pulls out the shoes.
The European-pink, BLOCH, size six pointe ballet slippers, with ribbons still encased underneath the layers of plastic that had been shoved back into the box after she ripped the clear wrapping off, and just stares.
The shoes are new-smelling. The box doesn't bend. The silk is completely unsullied by studio floor stains.
And the toe is perfect.
She can remember running her finger over the peeling satin shell of a pointe shoe toe after only a few days of use, the smell, sound of her slamming her shoes in doors to break them in.
She knows how to sew on ribbons. She knows her positions and pas de deux. She remembers every step. A faint thought calls up vivid memories of her preforming on the stage; bright lights almost blinding her and barely able to feel her feet, spotting, spotting, for pirouettes, hair and makeup backstage. Coming offstage after a standing ovation to cry about the broken toenail that hurt like a stab wound. Seeing the other dancers with her in class, the mirrors, the barres, the sprung floor—
But she wasn't a dancer.
She never had been.
She remembers the first classes, three at the time, wasn't she? Or were those just Red Room 'suggestions', like her entire 'dancing career'?
Did she ever love to dance? She looks at the shoes, the dangerous, ribbon-free, unbroken-in pointes, and can't say. Suddenly they're on her feet, she doesn't know how. Classical music plays in her head.
She knows how to do the step, but her body has never done this before. She only remembers. She piqué turns into an arabesque. Pas de bouree turn, into a grand jete. She has enough false memories that she knows her dancing is horrible. But she knows it all. Ten fouettes. The steps are like a part of her she never had.
One, two—she stumbles and realizes why she's turning easily—the large empty space in her room, like all the floors in the tower, is made of polished, slippery wood.
But unlike the studio, underneath this floor is concrete.
She realizes the implications about the same time she realizes she's going down. This floor is not sprung, she thinks blankly before the pain.
Crunch.
More pain burns through her ankle like wildfire.
JARVIS has probably warned the others because they're coming through the door amid shouts of confusion.
They find her staring up at them, wearing ballet slippers and clutching a really, really broken ankle. She has a soft look on her face.
They take her to a dance specialist, because no one wants to give up on the dream that maybe it was real.
He tells her she'll never dance again.