Hello my wonderful readers. This sadly is the last chapter of Touch. First off, I want to say a million thank yous to all of the wonderful readers who commented, favorited, subscribed, and simply enjoyed the first installment. Truly, this was a lot of fun to write, and really helped me to improve my writing. You all mean the world to me and provided the inspiration and drive to finish this story. Secondly, there will be a sequel, but I am taking a little time off to give myself a break and to plot out the sequel. If you could all tell me who your favorite Avenger is, I would be super appreciative, and yes, it WILL affect the sequel! (hint hint). I love you ALL and I hope you like the last chapter :)
Lucy fell to her knees and placed her palms on the ground. Her mind was racing as a million different thoughts bombarded her senses. A very familiar one overcame her, and soon, she found herself vomiting. The acid burned her throat and left a bitter aftertaste in her mouth.
She felt a wave of emotions crash over her and force her to the ground, cheek against the dirt. She tried hard to breath, but found it impossible. She struggled against herself as she clawed the ground, kicking loose dirt up. She felt an overwhelming burning in her chest, as though she had swallowed a flame.
She tried to process everything that had just happened to her in a few hours time. Will…no Loki was like her, special, but not in the same way. He planned to take over New York City in some mysterious way, and then use his power to enslave the human race.
Do I know how to pick them, Lucy thought to herself.
She was in some unknown forest in America…was she in America? Oh God, what if he had taken her to some far off country where no one speaks English? Panic burned her throat again, and she felt the familiar taste of throw up coat her mouth again. Her stomach protested with muscle aches from the violent purging.
Pull it together Luce. You won't make it anywhere if you lay here in your own throw up, Lucy commanded herself.
Gradually, she sat up, her legs folded under her. She had to think logically if she wanted to stop him. Letting her emotions get the best of her would only result in her lying on the ground with no sight, no hearing, and absolutely no ability to do anything productive.
She knew she had to stop Loki. She loved him, loved him more than anything in this world, or the other worlds she just recently discovered the existence of. He had held her tenderly throughout the longest nights of her life. He had filled the empty side of her bed, the empty part of her heart in a mere month or so. She had craved every touch, every kiss, every mere mutter that escaped his lips. He was unearthly, but Lucy always knew that, somewhere deep inside her. She knew that from the first dream she ever had of him, lying in the fresh snow like some sort of prince. Lucy couldn't imagine her life without Loki, even if most of it had been a lie.
No, she knew what she felt. She had to believe he loved her, or else all of this would be for nothing.
She knew she had to stop him. Lucy was fully aware that she might lose him, just like she had lost her parents, just like she had lost Max. But she could not watch Loki destroy the lives of innocents, just like hers had been. No one deserved that pain, not even the foulest human to ever step foot on Earth. Yes, it was a messy place to live, but the Earth was her home.
"Okay Luce, let's think of a plan," she told herself. "I'm in the middle of nowhere, presumably miles away from any form of civilization. My cell phone is nowhere to be found, and I'm wearing socks, fantastic," she muttered to herself.
Nothing good would come from standing aimlessly outside. She walked back into the cabin and ransacked the cupboards, the couch, the counters, and her bed for anything she could use. The entire shack was completely empty, except for a few cobwebs.
"Looking for something?"
Lucy felt her skin crawl. She turned to find a man, frightening not only in height, but appearance stand before her. He was clad in all black, a long black trench over him. His most peculiar characteristic was the eye patch slung across his face.
The recognizable feeling of dread filled Lucy. She grabbed her only weapon, a chair, and held it in front of her. She felt ringlets of sweat form on her hands, cold and clammy.
"I would really appreciate it if the next person who mysteriously shows up behind me would give me a warning call before scaring the shit out of me," Lucy yelled tensely.
Was this guy working for Loki? Was he going to make sure she didn't try to escape? He looked pretty menacing with his all black ensemble and the captain black beard eye patch.
"Did Loki send you here to babysit me? Because I'm not staying for long," Lucy threatened, even though she wasn't so sure she could back it up. She had one last ditch effort, if it came to that.
Well, it only happened once, but she was sure she could conjure it again. It was right after the accident, when her power began to develop. She had gotten worked up over something irrelevant. The stress of the death of her parents along with daily frustrations added up, and she snapped. She wasn't sure how it happened, but she emitted some sort of energy that blasted a hole right through her bedroom wall. She woke up in a haze and didn't remember much, but she felt exhausted after. It was like all her energy pooled right in her chest and exploded through her. She still didn't completely understand, but it had only happened once. After that, she tried to keep herself in check.
Truthfully, she had been terrified.
"I don't plan to stand around either, Lucy. I'm not here for Loki, in fact quite the opposite," the man said, walking closer. Lucy raised the chair a little higher.
The room grew tense. Lucy clenched her teeth, ready to spring if something happened. She couldn't explain the edge she felt, ready to do anything necessary to stay alive. This was something entirely new to her. She was terrified as always, but there was a bit of desperation surging through her now. She didn't want to die today, not like this.
"Then why are you here?" Lucy asked, her forearms starting to ache from holding the chair. She felt her body begin to shake, her muscles burning from staying so perfectly tensed for so long.
"I'm here to save your ass, now put down the chair," he ordered her.
Lucy wasn't sure what made her believe him, but she placed all four legs firmly on the floor. She didn't notice her heart was beating so fast, or the fact that her lungs burned for oxygen.
"Sit down, and let's talk a little," the man said as he grabbed a chair that Lucy hadn't even noticed, sitting in the corner. Carefully, Lucy sat down and folded her hands, clamping her fingers tight to stop them from shaking with fear.
"My name is Nick Fury, and I believe we have a common enemy-"
"Loki is not my enemy," Lucy interrupted with a surge of bravery.
Although he had imprisoned her, shackled her to some cottage in the middle of nowhere, Loki was not her enemy. She loved him, and she would be the one to stop his insanity, remind him that the only thing he needed was her, and vice versa.
"Well whatever the bastard is, we want to know what he's told you," Nick Fury said in a very commanding voice.
"Nothing you don't already know," Lucy responded in a combative tone.
She couldn't really explain it, but she felt a surge of power resting light on her shoulders. Her entire body felt light, feathery, and she began to breathe rhythmically. Despite the chaos, she felt quite relaxed.
"Lucy, just answer," she heard a chirpish voice tell her. Lucy spun around to find Roxie in a power stance: hands firmly on her hips, feet shoulder width apart, clad in a navy body suit.
The room took a dizzying tilt as reality began to sink in. Lucy felt stuck between two worlds; her seemingly normal life with Roxie and Steve and her gallery while her power and the love of her life tugged and pulled until the two met in a terrible harmony. Lucy flinched at the thought of both being one in the same – to escape to reality only to find fantasy. She wanted to cry, she wanted to scream, but most of all, she wanted it all to end.
"Roxie? Why are you here and what are you wearing?" Lucy sputtered out. "What the hell is going on here?" Lucy screamed, demanding a simple answer to the most confusing conundrum she had yet to face.
"Agent Barathen, you were told to hold perimeter-"
"Well the perimeter is holding well on its own here, but it seems to be collapsing elsewhere. We need to get moving."
Lucy was shocked by the maturity in Roxie's tone. This wasn't the Roxie Lucy had grown up with. It was not the same Roxie that collapsed on Lucy's couch every Saturday morning with a killer hangover.
Lucy became aware of a very disturbing fact; her life was one giant lie.
Her best friend was not her best friend. The love of her life was a deranged alien. The list went on much longer, but Lucy found she no longer cared about the specifics.
"No! I'm not going anywhere until someone tells me what the hell is going on!" Lucy exploded. Roxie sighed and placed on hand firmly on Lucy's shoulder.
"Listen Luce, Loki is out to destroy everything we know. Our job," she said, pointing to herself and Nick Fury, "As SHIELD agents is to stop him."
"He's in control of a cosmic cube called the Tesseract. With the Tesseract he has planned to open up our world to the othersworlds that surround us, take the Earth as his, and reign for the rest of eternity."
"What will you do with him?" Lucy asked tersely, her teeth clenched together as firmly as possible.
"That is not up to us," Nick Fury said as he glanced at a piece of technology Lucy had never seen before.
"You won't kill him," Lucy said with authority. She felt a magnificent build up in her chest, her fingers burning with a pain she had yet to experience. Her warm brown eyes radiated with a hate that unnerved even Nick Fury. "I'll make sure you won't lay a finger-"
Lucy felt a prick right in her neck. A cool sensation tingled in her veins and she felt a numbness consume her. Her legs collapsed right from under her. Lucy's hands tingled until they lost all sensation. She found it hard to think, hard to breath, hard to do much of anything except get carried into an assault van.
"Well then, I guess it works quite well that you wish to get so involved. We'll be needing your participation very soon, Lucy."
A dull ring filled her ears. It wasn't like the usual ring that muted the outside world after she used her power…it was different.
She was forced into the back of a freezing van and into an uncomfortable metal chair built into the inside of the car. She rested her back against the hard metal and let her body slump, unable to fight the sedative they had injected her with.
Across from her sat Roxie. She kept her eyes on Lucy like she was some sort of criminal, cold and attentive. It gave Lucy the shivers to see her best friend turn into some drone.
"How long?" Lucy asked, her voice gruff. "How long have you been part of this organization?" Lucy asked, anger coming to a simmer.
"Since as long as I can remember," Roxie admitted, shrugging her shoulders a bit. Lucy laughed a sharp, sarcastic chuckle.
"So our entire friendship was a lie? Some plot, some stupid investigation." Lucy said in defeat. She hung her head and kept her eyes on her folded hands. It was just another defeat, another loss. It didn't really matter anymore.
"It had to be done, Lucy. You were in mortal danger for a significant part of your life," Roxie said, monotone and robotic. Lucy missed her usual energetic and sporadic bursts.
"Danger? What kind of danger could I get into? I'm no one," Lucy said with a bitter sigh. Truthfully, she was glad she was no one.
"You think the car crash your family perished in was an accident?" Roxie asked, a narcissistic tone in her voice. Lucy's ears perked up. She lifted her head and looked at Roxie; all five foot six, crossed armed, stern eyes of her, and shivered. Lucy tried to find reason, but she found she was unable to open her mouth.
Of course it had been an accident. Why would her parents have a hit on them? They were two typical citizens taking their two kids to a family party. They led normal, predictable, middle class lives. They groaned when they saw the bills in the mail, complained about the traffic in New York, badmouthed slippery politicians…ordinary things.
"I met your parents when I was very young. They were good people and even better agents," Roxie told her. The statement had been made to be comforting, but her voice sounded more like the buzz of a blender – harsh, unnerving, unwanted.
At first, Lucy didn't digest what Roxie said – just a string of unrelated words. But the meaning sunk in moments later and hit Lucy like a freight train, right in the pit of her stomach.
"Agents?" Lucy whispered, her brows knit in confusion. She tried to conjure enough moisture in her mouth to swallow the lump in her throat but found it to be impossible. Her palms began to sweat with confusion.
"You were meant for SHIELD, Lucy. Both you and Max were, its been in your destiny since your first breath. And now, you're fulfilling it-"
"And what if I don't want to 'fulfill my destiny'? What if I just want to be normal?" Lucy interjected, fighting the haze that had set in her bones.
"You have never been normal, Lucy. You're the only one who can bring Loki to justice now. You have power over him, as well as power over all of us," Roxie told her, a certainty in her words that Lucy wasn't so sure about.
"And what if I don't? What if I protect him, or join him, or hell, run away with him? I do love him," Lucy proposed, trying to fight with the only arsenal she had – wit.
"Because I know you Lucy. You're the hero type, always have been. So selfless it almost makes me sick. I could predict what you would do in any given situation," Roxie concluded, sure of her deduction.
Lucy chuckled bitterly. She shook her head, a hint of a grimace resting heavy on her lips.
"Wish I could say the same about you," Lucy muttered.
Lucy was jolted awake by the sound of destruction. She could smell the haunting odor of carnage, her nostrils trained to shudder at the smallest sniff.
She wasn't ready for what she saw when she was shoved from the van. The monstrous skyscrapers she used to crane her neck to see were tumbling all around her, burning with a defeated ferocity. Hundreds of men, women, and children darted, trying to find cover from the bullets and fire raining down from the sky like snow. Parts of the street were ripped and torn from the ground. Bodies were strewn like meaningless flyers for a live band at the nearest bar. Whole cars were left to sit ripped apart like scrap metal in a junk yard. The smell of burning flesh, of melted rubber, of death.
It was all too familiar to Lucy.
Lucy looked up at the sky, littered with silver bullets with odd, robotic things mounted on top. Clouds were replaced with billowing black smoke, burning Lucy's lungs as well as her dark, wide eyes. She didn't want to do this anymore; be the hero. She wanted to go home.
And then the reality hit her – she was home.
Lucy glanced back at Roxie, who gave her an assertive nod. Lucy patted her bullet proof vest as if it would vanish at any moment. Her entire life, Lucy had been filled with emotion until she thought she would burst, quite literally. Every action had a range of emotional reaction. She found herself unable to get close to a person, both figuratively and literally, before having to carry their emotions on her back like a boulder.
But as she walked, yes walked, into the pit of destruction, she felt emotionless, numb, and dead.
She walked with a heavy step, just as she imagined John Wayne would walk as he faced death in the form of a game of Russian roulette. She didn't really see a point in running anyway. She had run most of her life, and where had it gotten her? No, this time she would walk. She would trot along until something got in her way, and then she would die. It was as simple as that.
Lucy figured that if she could feel that she would probably be terrified of dying. But what did she have to live for anyway? Her best friend? Her brother? Her one and only love?
She held back a snort at her newfound pessimism that found a home where her heart used to be; all nestled warm and cozy right in her chest, fit perfectly like the puzzle piece she had been looking for all these years.
Lucy didn't flinch at the barrage of gunfire that aimed to mow her down. She only flinched when the rubble from a nearby building fell inches from her. She barely felt a twinge of guilt as people begged for attention. This was all just a dream now, and she would treat it as such. Soon, it would all be over.
A sharp, burning pain hit the back of her leg in a sudden burst. Lucy stumbled to the ground as sweat began to form on her forehead. She groaned at the burning sensation and bit her lip, trying not to scream. She looked down to find blood dripping and what looked to be some sort of hole torn open in her calf. With a shaking hand, Lucy applied pressure to the wound and let her fingers burn with an electric twinge. The pain flooded from her, and she stood once again. The wound wasn't healed, but it no longer hurt.
Her fingers kept buzzing with power as she continued to walk where her instincts told her. She felt the familiar dread of Loki she felt the first few times she had encountered him. Her mouth filled with a familiar sour taste and her head continued to pound. Her leg began to drag behind her, but with no sensation of pain, Lucy didn't really notice.
It was all a dream. It would be over soon.
Waves of fire beat down behind her, the heat swallowing her whole. She ignored that too, but felt a bit disgusted as sweat rolled down her back in thick ringlets. An especially strong burst of her sent her to the ground as bells ringed in her ears. It didn't hit her until her face collided with broken pavement that it had actually been an explosion. The weight of broken rock and rubble hit her hard and trapped her. She began to feel the sharp, jagged rock jutting into her skin. The pain was unbearable.
It became very dark for a while. For several moments, Lucy was caught between the deep sleep and utter ache and consciousness.
Get up She told herself over and over until the words sounded funny in her head. Like a blur of sounds with no meaning. A horn blowing in her mind.
She started to feel panic as she tried to dig her way out. She started grabbing pieces of rock, clawing and kicking. Her fingers began to hurt and bleed all over the place, but she kept wriggling. It felt like hours that she was digging and she began to find it hard to breath.
She felt her strength multiply as a beam of light forced its way into the rubble. Lucy fought harder until she made an opening big enough to fit her shoulders through. She forced herself out, cutting open her arms and legs on the way out. She stumbled to the ground and was attacked by cries of pain from the others around her.
She had seen this all before, in her dreams. And just like before, she heard Loki call out.
"Lucy darling."
Slowly, Lucy turned to find Loki dressed in his outlandish garb. If she hadn't just been buried under what looked to be part of the empire state building, maybe she would've laughed.
"Will," Lucy murmured instinctively. She clamped her lips together as she remembered it wasn't Will that stood in front of her. No, it was someone much different.
"We both know that is not my true identity, little bird. Now please tell me how you ended up here," Loki whispered as he walked closer with each step.
"I hitched a ride with an old friend," Lucy said with a smile. She liked this oddly witty side of her.
He looked absolutely terrible. His flawless skin was cut up and bruised. His normally perfect jet black hair was in a state of disarray. His face was grim and determined, reminiscent of her mother's when she would stare out the window for hours. He had an air of self important around him and reeked of, well, anger, hatred, evil.
Lucy's heart ached with sadness. She wanted to badly to hold him, kiss him, love him. But she knew that those days were gone, never to return.
"Come Lucy, it's time to go home now. This is no place for my queen," Loki smirked. He placed a hand on Lucy's back and gave a bit of a shove. But Lucy kept her feet planted on the ground as though they had been nailed there.
"And where exactly is home?" She asked, tears burning her eyes. She could never quite understand what it was about Loki that sent her into an emotional battle. Just moments ago she was ready to die, and now she wanted nothing more than to live.
"Home is with me," Loki told her, swooping down, close to her face. "Home is us."
Lucy wanted so badly to believe it. That they could go along on their merry way and she could turn a blind eye to the destruction of New York City. If she wasn't the hero type, if she wasn't so selfless it almost made Roxie sick, she would've.
But her destiny had been written before her first breath.
"I can't go with you," Lucy said, defeated. "You have to end this Loki."
Loki looked at her, his eyes filled with absolute hatred. Lucy felt the influx of pure abhorrence and disgust flow into her like a river. He was filled with it, bursting at the seams.
It terrified her.
"It saddens me greatly to do this Lucy, but I see no other viable option," Loki said, with some fake sympathy slapped on his face. He lifted his scepter and pressed the sharp edge to Lucy's chest, stabbing her.
She felt nothing at all. Not a single thought went through her head as pure energy enveloped them both. Simultaneously, both Loki and Lucy were launched in separate directions. Her back smacked into something hard and she slumped to the ground. Her hands tingled with static and she began to lose her sight. Her ears filled with a high pitched screaming, and she felt nothing.
She closed her eyes and waited for something to happen. She waited for the sensation to pass.
As Lucy lay dying, Tony Stark plummeted from space. Bruce Banner tried to keep his sanity. Steve Rogers and Thor Odinson threw everything they could at the enemy. Clint Barton kept a watchful eye over the crumbling city. Natasha Romanoff fought desperately to find a way to end it all.
And Loki stood up and walked calmly away from the carnage. He truly appreciated the burst of power from Lucy, who hadn't even noticed she had made such a charitable donation. Her last breath, her last words, her everything.
Lucy remained still, her chest no longer rising, her eyes unblinking. Blood stopped rushing through her veins and her heart stopped quivering.
She was dead.
She was dead for a long time. Lucy was aware of it as she was stuck in darkness, as lies she used to categorize as memories flashed through her mind in montage. She liked the darkness, she had to admit. Not a single sound buzzed through her ears. Not a single ache racked her bones.
She felt calm, she felt at peace.
She was medically dead for about ten minutes, but in that dark place, it felt like a thousand eternities. For the first hundred, she decided she was supposed to be here. It was her time to die, and that was…okay. In the dark place, she didn't have to face every lie, every assumption she had falsely lived under for so long. She didn't have to feel the heartache of lost love. She didn't have to mourn her brother, who was also in the dark place.
But after a while, the silence unnerved her. She grew wary that even her heart was silenced. She wanted to leave, but found she didn't know how.
It was all a dream. It was over now.
But it wasn't really, not for good. Because when the fiery Russian spy finally got her hands on the scepter and closed the hole in the sky, Lucy was given her second chance.
See, her and the Tesseract weren't all that different. Vessels of power. And when one vessel went out, and the other was threatened, one went fleeing for safety. A vacancy had been made, room was to be spared.
It wasn't instant. The Tesseract searched for viable options for quite some time. The two odds didn't meet each other until Lucy was found dead by the distraught Steve Rogers. She was lifted from the ground, limp and cut up like a raw piece of meat. Steve felt quite unnerved as he big, glassy brown eyes looked up at him, her mouth agape.
He had known her. She had been a lovely girl. He thought he would've probably liked her if he had gotten to know her better. And now she was nothing but decaying flesh.
Steve Rogers wasn't sure where he was taking her, but he carried her all the way to the ends of New York, where he found Agent Barathen. He didn't want to leave her to die like the rest. He wanted to see her dressed and buried, like every good soldier deserved. He didn't know she was waiting for resurrection.
She was hooked up to thousands of machines. They didn't know how long she had been dead. Perhaps mere seconds had passed and she could be revived with modern technology. Steve had seen weirder things before. His life was filled with bizarre occurrences.
The pain hit her hard, right in the chest like a beam of lightning. She woke up to a dozen men and women standing around her, electric shocks hitting her right in the chest. She grabbed an arm tightly and screamed in pain, blooding and bruised. Flashes of light burned her retinas, sounds bombarded her and hurt her ears as well as her head. The air tasted salty and burned her lungs. She imagined this is what new born babies felt when they left their dark place.
The doctors called it a miracle, but it was no miracle.
It was fate.
End Book 1