A/N. I'm back! ... er, for now. No promises about updating every day but I'm gonna try to write as often as I can! PROMISE. Anyway, here's chapter 7 (we're only on chapter SEVEN? ... damn) and I hope you like it :)
Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Except Tania. And Graham. And other OCs. But that's not the point. The point is I am not making money of this. So go enjoy the story! ;D
CHAPTER VII
Justine was marginally impressed. This human's living quarters were considerably larger than the others she had seen. Everything was sleek and shiny and reminded her just a little bit of Asgard.
Just a little.
She wandered around the mansion, disabling any security protocols that tried to attack her or give away her presence. There were more of them than she had expected but that was no matter. No one was a match for her. Still, she wished she knew where the man was in this house-it was rather large. She had been walking around for several minutes already, which was nothing in the life of a god but still annoying.
She readjusted the cloak she wore around her shoulders and grinned maliciously as she remembered from whom she had stolen it.
Once Ross was taken care of, Justine returned to the bar for her revenge on that mewling quim of a bartender. As she entered the dismal building once again, her sharp blue eyes spotted the man (or perhaps a boy, no older than twenty-one) hugging a girl of equal age to his chest. He pressed a chaste kiss to her head before they pulled away and she entered the kitchen.
Justine smirked. She easily sneaked past the bartender and pushed open the doors to the back, where his lover had gone. She entered a fairly small room that was once white but now was dulled to a sort of yellow/brown mix. This entire structure was clearly falling apart, and yet, these humans came to enjoy it. She almost snorted. She'd never understand mortals.
Behind a fairly large pile of junk and boxes and metal parts stood the woman from before, changing clothes (probably into the customary uniform of the wenches here). Justine stalked forward and shoved the boxes away with her left hand before using her right to grab the girl in a choke hold.
The girl's eyes went wide but she never got the chance to scream. Justine lifted her off the ground and closed her hand into a fist, crushing the mortal's neck until bones cracked and protruded from her throat. She tossed the body aside. It landed on top of the dirty clothes she had entered in.
Justine watched as her blood stained a purple cloth into a beautiful crimson colour. She had always been a fan of red, although green was more suited to her tastes. She knelt down and fingered the fabric. Soft. Almost... rich. She pulled it out from under the carcass and watched the blood drip down the folds.
It really was a beautiful colour... and the fabric was surprisingly royal-for a human. It would be a waste to throw away this token of her kill. She dragged her fingernail along the edge and watched as the blood stained the entire cloak at once-with a little help from her magic. Yes, now it was fit for a king. She tied the string around her neck and left, not bothering to wait until the bartender returned to find his lover dead in the kitchen. He deserved it.
Justine turned a corner and was met with a gun to her forehead. She chuckled. "Do you really think that is going to stop me?" The arm that held the gun was attached to a man with coiffed chestnut hair that flopped in front of his dull brown eyes and wore a boring grey business suit. But none of that mattered to Justine. What mattered to her was the fact that he had a gun pressed against her temple, and he was not shaking in fear or hesitancy. What mattered to her was the elaborate security measures he had put in place to keep his secrets. What mattered to her was the evil look in his eye, the one that spelled hatred. Justine had done her research. She knew who this hatred was directed towards.
The man put more force into the pressure on her head. It hurt this mortal form, but Justine could not care less. She had dealt with pain before. The man spoke. "How did you get in here?" His voice was low and gravelly, and she could feel the spit in her ear.
She raised a delicate eyebrow. "If you agree to come with me, I shall tell you all you need to know."
"Come with you? What kind of crazy, psychotic bitch are you?"
She narrowed her eyes. "You should watch your tongue, mortal. There are a thousand ways I could kill you right now. But I think you could be of use to me. So I am giving you another chance."
"Another chance to what? Fuck you? How about, 'never gonna happen'."
Justine chuckled once more. "No. To join me. We have similar goals, Ezekiel son of Obadiah. I believe, together, with a few select others, we shall accomplish them. Do you or do you not wish to destroy Tony Stark?"
The gun lowered. With practiced ease, Ezekiel unloaded the weapon and tossed it to the floor. "You sneak into my highly secure mansion, don't cower when there's a gun to your head, and then offer me a job? ... I'm impressed. A little disbelieving, but impressed. You've got my attention." He crossed his arms.
Justine smirked. Just one more.
"When was the last time we were intimate?"
The question caught Tania completely off guard, and she almost fell off the bed. "I-uh-what?"
Steve sat on the other side, shirtless and wearing pyjama bottoms, staring at her sadly. But she mistook it for pity. He didn't notice. "I don't even think we've really kissed in weeks."
She reached over and turned the lamp on, resting on her elbows above the pillow. "Of course we have!"
He looked at her disbelievingly. "Name one time."
"I don't mark down on my calendar every time we kiss, you know," she remarked sarcastically.
He rolled his eyes. "Try."
She thought back. "This morning. You kissed me good morning."
"That was a peck."
"So it doesn't count?"
"Not really."
She sighed. "I don't know, Steve. Why are you asking me?" She plopped back down on the bed, bouncing the mattress slightly.
"April. That's the last time I remember us getting... intimate."
She blinked in surprise. "April?! It can't have been that long-"
"It has though!" He turned so that he sat cross-legged to her left, facing her. "You keep pushing me away, and soon you'll probably want your own room again."
"Okay, wait, slow down." She sat up, pushing the sheet down her torso to reveal a white camisole with the straps falling down her shoulders. "You're just automatically assuming it's me?"
"I'm not assuming."
She felt a twinge in her heart. "I'm not trying to ruin this relationship if that's what you're insinuating. And I thought you loved me for more than just sex." Of course, she knew he did. They'd been dating each other for almost a whole year and they loved each other more than anything-more than sex. He still wasn't entirely comfortable using the word in front of her or in public. Of course she knew that. So she hated herself for saying the opposite. But she couldn't exactly take it back.
He groaned and ran both hands down his face. "I do! And it's not the... the sex I'm complaining about; it's the distance you're putting between us. It's like you've driven a wedge in the middle of our relationship so that we can't interact as much as we used to. You're pushing me away-everyone away-and we're all sick of it!"
She moved her legs to sit on them and glared, feeling anger spark near her sternum. Soon that spark would turn into a flame and then spread like wildfire, and she'd be powerless to stop it. "I'm not pushing you away!"
Denial. Denial, denial, denial. Why couldn't she just admit it? "Tania, you refuse to talk to anyone-"
"I talk to you guys!"
"-and we've been trying to coerce you into talking-"
"What do you mean coerce?"
"-but you just don't!"
"Well excuse me if I want to have a shred of privacy in this glorified monument of your success!" She threw up her arms as if to gesture to the Tower; but then she remembered she wasn't there. Her hands hovered awkwardly. "Or... you know what I mean," she mumbled.
"This isn't privacy!" He was yelling now. "This is secrecy! We try to talk to you about it, about your nightmares and your flashbacks and don't you dare deny it-"
She closed her mouth.
"-but you shut us all out, and you threw the key to an undisclosed location! Where is it, Tania?! Where is it?" He was panting a little, and she could see the hurt written plainly all over his face and body. It reflected what she felt inside.
Her stomach churned, and she leaned back without thinking. Her throat closed up, and she couldn't speak. Tears welled in her eyes, and she just wanted to escape. To leave. To run. She didn't want to deal with it anymore. She wished it would all go away. She wished she could make it stop. But she couldn't. She refused to take that road.
She wasn't there yet.
"I don't know!" She screamed, scrambling to get off the bed, to put as much distance between them as she could. Water leaked from her eyes and trailed down her cheeks like a broken pipe. And that was what she was: broken. "I don't know where it is or what I did with it, but it's gone! I can't find it and you can't find it and I don't know what to do!" She backed into the wall harshly. "Just leave me alone! You can't fix me, and talking about it will only hurt more! YOU CAN'T FIX ME!"
She had once said that she would follow logic rather than feelings. She had lied. And now she knew what it was like to be at the mercy of her emotions and the pain. She knew logically that talking about it should help but she couldn't convince herself that Steve could bring her back from the precipice. She lacked faith. She always had. But that was something she desperately needed only she herself could create it.
But she didn't.
She just wanted it all to stop. For it to go away and never return. But that wasn't likely-she knew that, and yet she was pleading for it to stop. The others... she knew they lived with this too. That the past haunted their memories and their dreams and their everyday lives, but they were all handling it so well. She was just crumbling in front of them like a house made of straw while theirs were all made of bricks.
She wasn't stupid. She knew she had to get better somehow, but she hadn't figured it out yet. Alcohol was stupid. Drugs were even worse. Suicide was unthinkable. Violence was out of the question. Drawing didn't work. Talking was too painful.
... so what else was there?
She'd been asking herself that for months and the answer was that there wasn't anything else out there. She would just have to deal; live and forget and maybe one day realize that the flashbacks and the nightmares weren't so bad. But it was taking so goddamn long...
But she was trying. She was honest to God trying to forget but how could she do that when reminders popped up every second of every day? It was impossible, and she was slowly losing hope.
She hadn't realized she'd been pressing her fists against her temples like a trash compactor. She hadn't realized she'd slid down and landed harshly on her bum. She hadn't realized she was sobbing like a baby.
But she noticed that Steve was gone.
A/N. IT WILL GET BETTER I PROMISE! ... eventually.
