A/N: Hi, guys! *glows happily* I'm pretty pleased with this one, at least for the most part. I was able to take my time with it, but also, it's shorter than I wanted. *frown* The whole discussion took longer than I expected, so I wasn't able to tack on extra scenes. (Because I had another thing to design and start writing last night and I am satisfied with my 5k average.) Oh, well. Hope you like it!
Thank you to bookishangel, Im a guest, Yuki F. Karasu, jy24, Nightgray, RMXStudio, rinashi15, Shadow Spears, Chibi y Hina, slacker, kickassdani, Katherine Sanderson, karina001, MsMusicLover, InsanityOwl, catzrool, Shadow-X1999, reviewreader, and guest for reviewing!
Title: Cosmic Composite
Author: liketolaugh
Rating: T
Pairings: Tony/Pepper, Natasha/Steve
Genre: Family/Adventure
Warnings: AU, !spoilers for Winter Soldier onward, spoilers for Agents of SHIELD!
Summary: The exorcists reincarnate into Marvel's next generation. No one can figure out how. Still, it's nice to have a family. (Also includes Agents of SHIELD. AU starting one year before CA2. Major divergence begins after Age of Ultron.)
Disclaimer: I only wish I owned D. Gray-man, and the Avengers are but a dream that is not my own.
Lavi: Not present
Kanda: Not present
Lenalee: Almost 3
Allen: Not present
"I see it! I see it!"
Lenalee, who'd spent the last ten minutes squinting intently at the sky, suddenly burst into motion, jumping up and down and pointing at a dot in the sky.
"Mommy, they'we hewe, they'we hewe!"
Melinda offered Lenalee a tense smile. "Yes, they are," she agreed. "Now that they're close enough to see, they should be landing in the next five minutes."
Lenalee beamed, still clinging onto her hand. Coulson chuckled softly, hands in his pockets as he waited patiently.
"It's interesting," he said conversationally, making Melinda raise an eyebrow at him. He smiled faintly. "Ten years ago, I never would have even believed in aliens. Now I'm waiting on a reincarnated soldier who fought in a secret war over a hundred years ago."
Against her will, Melinda felt her lips curl into a smile of her own. "This definitely isn't where I expected my life to go when I joined SHIELD."
As promised, the Quinjet landed within a few minutes, and Lenalee squirmed impatiently in place, wide eyes on the door.
Mack came down first, some strain in the corners of his eyes, raising a hand in silent greeting. Melinda supposed that the conversation had been almost as much of a strain on him as the one with Lenalee had been on her. She nodded in return, and Coulson quirked his eyebrows expectantly.
A few seconds later, Mack was followed by a teenage boy with close-cropped hair and a slightly anxious expression. As soon as Lenalee saw him, she let out a happy squeal and released Melinda's hand to tear across the blacktop. "Mawie!"
Melinda had just enough time to see surprise and then relief flash across Noise's face before he dropped to his knees and caught Lenalee in a tight hug, which she returned fullheartedly.
"He was pretty excited to see your girl," Mack called out to Melinda, rolling his eyes at his little brother. "After he got over the surprise of being caught out, that is."
"Sowwy," Lenalee mumbled guiltily to Noise. "Didn' mean ta give you 'way."
Noise chuckled, releasing Lenalee so he could lean back and give her a warm smile. "That's fine, Lenalee. Really, I should have told my family a long time ago."
"You bet your ass you should have," Mack snapped crabbily, and Noise gave him an apologetic look. Mack looked monumentally dissatisfied, but had apparently already said his fill, because he moved on. "May, Coulson, this is Noise - fifteen years old, reincarnated exorcist." Glancing at Lenalee, he added, "He's my younger brother."
Noise offered them a friendly smile and stood up, chuckling softly at Lenalee's sound of protest.
"Formerly Noise Marie," he added, holding out his hand to Coulson first. "Most people called me Marie, so if you hear someone using that name, they're talking about me."
"Good to meet you, Noise," Coulson replied with a small smile, shaking his hand. He nodded to Melinda, who was carefully surveying Noise, arms crossed. "This is Melinda May; she's Lenalee's mother."
"Pleased to meet you, ma'am," Noise told her, shaking her hand as well. Melinda noted the suddenly intent expression on his face, which gave her the distinct impression that she was being critically evaluated. Noise seemed almost… suspicious.
She was distracted by Lenalee's sudden squeak. Melinda looked down to see Lenalee staring up at Noise with wide eyes, and when he noticed her looking away, Noise followed her gaze, confused.
"Mawie…" Lenalee whispered, voice hushed with something like awe. "Youw eyes…"
The confusion stayed in Noise's eyes for a few moments more before it cleared away and his smile softened.
"I know," he said quietly. Melinda's mouth tightened as irritation flashed through her; it was clear that she'd missed quite a bit of subtext. "I can't believe it myself some days." He smiled again. "For my part, it's nice to see you walking again, Lenalee."
Lenalee beamed and bobbed her head happily, and Mack cleared his throat loudly, trying not to let his disturbance show on his face. Melinda, completely in agreement, was studying her daughter with a small frown and a cold heart.
There was a lot Lenalee wasn't telling her. She'd known that from the start, and it had only become more obvious as time passed.
Still, it was more than just 'unsettling' to realize that Lenalee had received at least one permanently debilitating injury, and hadn't thought that it was worth mentioning.
Noise offered his brother a guilty smile. "I know, Al, I know. I'll tell you everything, alright? Just give me a minute."
Mack snorted. "Fine. Not like it'll make a lot of difference, after fifteen years."
Noise gave Mack a grateful look, then returned his gaze to Lenalee. Lenalee, in turn, gave Melinda an anxious look. Melinda returned it with a long-suffering one that failed to hide her worry, but then nodded, turning to talk to Coulson in low tones. After a few moments and a long, lingering look, Mack joined in, leaving Noise and Lenalee to their conversation.
When Lenalee looked back at him, Noise's expression was intense, almost urgent.
"Are you okay?" he asked her seriously.
She smiled at him, brown eyes melancholy. "Yeah," she said softly. "Mommy's weally nice, an' evewyone hewe…" She trailed off.
"That's good," Noise said, visibly relieved. He laughed a little, sounding disbelieving and shaken. "I can't believe it. It was starting to think I'd never see any of you again."
"We'we hewe," Lenalee promised him earnestly, reaching to clasp her tiny hand around two of his fingers. "We'we okay."
Noise chuckled dryly. "Or something like it. What happened, Lenalee? By the time they found us, they'd already…" He stopped at Lenalee's flinch and grimaced in apology.
"I don' know," she said miserably. "Dey foun' me 'way fwom home. I couldn' wun - dey slit my thwoat, bu'..." She swallowed, close to tears, Noise's worried eyes fixed on her. "I- dey said- call usdangewous."
Noise nodded solemnly. "That's what they said to me and Miranda, too," he said regretfully. He hesitated noticeably, swallowed, and then asked, "Lenalee… Miranda, have you…?"
Lenalee shook her head. "No. Sowwy, Mawie."
Noise deflated. "No, that's okay. I expected that, really." He smiled at her wearily. "And call me Noise. Everyone does, now."
"'Kay, Noise." A moment of hesitation, and then, "Wha' happen t'you an' Miwanda?"
Noise grimaced, lifting one hand just so he could drop his forehead into it, closing his eyes against the memory. "They found us at a friend's house… Dustin's. You remember? I was fixing his roof." Lenalee nodded. "They trapped us in one of their circles, stabbed us both in the heart. They killed Dustin, too."
"Oh," Lenalee said in a small voice.
Noise opened his eyes again and smiled at her. "It's okay," he repeated. "It was a long time ago."
Lenalee nodded, but she looked a lot less certain than Noise did. Noise's expression softened and he reached forward to brush his fingers briefly through her hair.
"I sowwy, Noise," she said again, tears filling her eyes. "You'd gotten hew a wing."
Noise's head dipped slightly, and he nodded solemnly, letting his hand rest on her head. "I never got to propose to her," he said quietly. "But she knew I was going to. I told her right before we died."
Lenalee smiled tearfully. "So if she's out there…"
"She knows," Noise finished with a small smile. "I'm glad."
"She wait," Lenalee promised him, dislodging his hand with a shake of her head. "She wait fo you."
"I hope so," Noise sighed. "It's been fifteen years, and I still can't even imagine looking at another girl."
Lenalee giggled softly, and then another Quinjet came. Noise looked up, faintly startled, and then glanced quizzically at Lenalee, who'd hopped to her feet, startled and almost guilty, like she'd been caught slacking.
"Is that one of us?" Noise asked, startled. Lenalee could understand; she'd had a hard time believing it, too, when Link came, and it hadn't even been nearly as long for her.
Lenalee nodded. "Genewal Nyne," she explained. "Link's 'wound, too, bu' he not comin' t'day." At Noise's suddenly apprehensive look, she smiled sadly and shook her head. "Dey executed him. Not his fault."
"I see," Noise sighed, straightening up. He gave Lenalee a small smile. "Well, let's go greet the General."
She smiled and nodded, and together, they trotted over to rejoin the adults. Melinda looked down at Lenalee expectantly, and Lenalee gave her a bright smile. Melinda nodded back with a small smile of her own, and then the jet was landing.
Melinda, now that Lenalee had returned from her talk with her old friend, was watching her daughter carefully again. She seemed happy with whatever they'd talked about, though she'd looked sad a few times during the conversation.
Now, though, unlike when waiting for Noise, she was standing almost at attention, which tallied with what she'd mentioned about Klaud's position. Melinda wondered how old Klaud had been when she'd gained it; she was nineteen now, not much older than Noise.
On the other hand, while Melinda could sometimes see the shadows of past experiences in Lenalee's behavior, and Noise had a calm certainty about him that was found in no ordinary fifteen year old, it was Klaud who exhibited the signs most clearly. She held her head high, and while she was talking amiably enough with Simmons, with a small smile on her face, there was steel in her gaze, something forged in hardship and battle. She looked like a much older woman.
Melinda didn't doubt for a moment that Klaud had been a general.
At that moment, Klaud looked over at them and nodded curtly, smile turning into a thoughtful frown. As she drew nearer, Melinda could see the same marks on her wrists that Lenalee, Link, and, she confirmed with a glance, Noise all bore.
Simmons waved at them, looking a little tired, but eyes bright. "Hello," she called out breathlessly. "Is that… is that Noise?"
"I am," Noise said politely, taking Simmons' greeting in stride. "Who are you?"
"Oh!" Simmons blushed, slightly embarrassed. "I'm Simmons, Jemma Simmons. I'd Klaud's older sister." She gave Klaud a worried sideways glance. "Um, am I still your older sister?"
Klaud chuckled softly. "I'd say so," she said fondly, and then looked Noise critically up and down. She nodded firmly. "You seem to be doing well, Noise. Good to see you again."
"Good to see you too, General," Noise returned. He glanced at Mack. "Al? Is something wrong?"
Mack was frowning at Klaud - possibly he'd noticed the same thing Melinda had. After a while, he finally said, "If you'd acted like she did, I would've noticed something was up a long time ago."
Klaud raised her eyebrows, and Noise and Lenalee both laughed.
"No one act like Genewal Nyne," Lenalee said wisely, reaching up to grab Melinda's hand again. "That why Cwoss like hew."
"That man," Klaud muttered, distaste clear in her voice, and an amused look flashed across Melinda's face. She wondered, briefly, who this 'Cross' was, but then Klaud looked at Lenalee and then at her.
"Are you Lenalee's mother?" she asked her, direct and businesslike. Melinda nodded.
"I am."
Klaud smiled briefly. "Good. She needs one." She looked down and smirked at Lenalee's indignant noise. "Don't deny it, Lenalee. God knows Jerry and Komui tried their best, but with everything that happened…" Her eyes flickered up. "Well. That's what you wanted with us, isn't it?"
It took Melinda a moment to figure out to what she was referring, and Coulson got it before she did.
"Yes, actually. If you don't mind getting into it now."
Lenalee twisted to look at Coulson, making a small sound of confusion. All traces of levity vanished from Melinda's expression, leaving only a grim frown. Noise frowned, too, not quite there yet.
Mack scowled. "I still think this isn't the best time to be getting into it," he muttered.
"Duly noted," Coulson demured. Melinda's mouth tightened. "Lenalee, I apologize for not mentioning this sooner." Melinda felt Lenalee's hand tighten in hers. "Part of the reason I asked you two-" He nodded to Noise, who was gaining a look of suspicious comprehension, and Klaud, grim-faced and resigned. "-to be here at the same time was to ask you about something Lenalee brought up the other day."
"I thought so," Klaud sighed, crossing her arms and shaking her head. Simmons, who hadn't been informed, rounded on Coulson, wide-eyed and faintly alarmed.
"Sir?"
"She mentioned the war, didn't she?" Klaud asked without acknowledging her sister's question, disapproval in the lines of her face. Coulson nodded once.
"Yes, she did. And as you can imagine…" His face grew a little grimmer. "We have a few questions."
The effect on the three former exorcists was profound. Lenalee inhaled sharply, ducking her head to hide her expression. Noise's easy smile dropped away, and a shadow entered his eyes. The corners of Klaud's eyes tightened, but she nodded.
"Business as usual," she said, with a slightly colder smile. "SHIELD just can't leave well enough alone."
Coulson inclined his head slightly, and Melinda knew him well enough to know that his next words were completely genuine. "I apologize. I know the memories are…" His gaze flicked to Lenalee. "Less than fond."
Noise shrugged, offering a slightly forced smile. "There were good times," he told them. "But we won't be talking about those much."
Mack's gaze focused on him, studying him with that same, slightly worried frown, and he shook his head. "Don't expect so."
"Lenalee?" Melinda prodded in a low voice; Lenalee still hadn't lifted her head, but she had a death grip on Melinda's hand.
"Don' wanna talk 'bout it," Lenalee croaked, sounding one step from tears.
Melinda sobered instantly. "I know, baby girl. I'm sorry." The questions still burned and swirled in her mind, pressing and screaming and boiling in panic.
Melinda would prefer to respect Lenalee's boundaries, and with her slightly older mindset, it was even more important. Unfortunately, in this case, she was pretty sure that what Lenalee wanted was not what was best for her. (Melinda had certainly made similar mistakes enough times.)
Melinda clung to the hope that if Lenalee talked about it, she would be able to help her daughter through it. Whatever it turned out to be.
Without a second thought, Melinda bent down to scoop Lenalee into the air, and Lenalee buried her face in Melinda's shoulder, sniffling quietly. When she glanced up, Noise was looking at her with a solemn expression, but then he looked away again.
"If you all don't mind, let's head inside now," Coulson offered, a little more seriously. Klaud scoffed quietly, but she, too, nodded, and with Melinda tucking Lenalee a little closer, they headed in.
Noise dropped back beside her, giving Lenalee a visibly concerned look. Lenalee turned her head and gave him a weak smile. Noise smiled back, but his next words were to Melinda.
"You really care about her, don't you?"
Lenalee blinked, then blushed brightly and hid her face away. Melinda frowned and considered feeling offended.
"Of course I do," she said, stiffer than she originally intended. "She is my daughter."
"I didn't mean anything by it," he said hastily, with an apologetic smile. "I'm just glad, is all. She had her brother before, and he loved her more than life itself, but the way things were, he couldn't really take care of her. And I think you will."
She frowned at him for a long moment, but he never broke his gaze. After a while, she looked to the front again. "I will."
She felt Lenalee's fist tighten in her shirt, and tightened her own grip a little in response. Of course I will.
Noise was distracted once they entered the Playground, looking around with interest. He jogged forward to reach Mack and pestered him until the older man rolled his eyes and started to point out each room as they passed. Simmons, much more eagerly, was doing the same thing for Klaud.
Melinda was left at the back of the group, carrying Lenalee, who still looked discontented enough not to go on her own. "You can do this, baby girl," she said quietly. "You're stronger than your demons."
Lenalee looked up at her and smiled softly. "Okay," she said, matching her mother's tone.
Simmons broke off before they reached the meeting room with a wave to Klaud and a nod to the rest, accompanied by a brighter smile than she'd sported in months. Mack followed after checking in with Noise, who waved him off with an amused, fond smile.
Melinda, on the other hand, accompanied them the rest of the way to the room Coulson had arranged for earlier, and only when they were inside did she set Lenalee down on the edge of the table. She crouched slightly so that her eyes were level with Lenalee's and gave her a serious look. Lenalee tilted her head slightly and gave her a serious look back, though it was a little more comical on her face.
"I'll have to leave you here," Melinda told her quietly, and Lenalee turned a little more solemn. "It will be just Phil and your friends here, understand? If anyone else comes in-" She shot Coulson a sharp look, and he raised his hands in surrender. "-then you don't have to talk. I'll be watching everything from another room, and you can stop anytime you want, but we need you to keep going for as long as you can. Okay?"
Lenalee had grown steadily more uncertain the longer she talked, and she was looking at her feet now, which dangled off the edge of the table. "Okay."
"Thank you, baby girl," Melinda said tiredly, pressing a brief kiss to her forehead before she left.
That left Coulson, Noise, and Klaud with Lenalee in the room. It was well-lit, with a very visible camera in the corner, probably more set at other angles, and a smooth table at the center, which they were all seated around. There was a chair for Lenalee on one side, but she turned around and decided to remain on the tabletop instead, not liking the idea of a height disadvantage right now - bad enough that she was a fraction of her friends' size.
Coulson cleared his throat; that distracted the three exorcists, Lenalee gazing at the closed door pensively, and Noise staring thoughtfully at her, while Klaud studied both of them, frowning.
"Alright then," he said lightly, setting a recorder down the same way he had when he first spoke to Lenalee about her past. She eyed it for a moment, looked up to see Klaud giving it a sharp look, and then looked back at Coulson, who looked more serious than she had perhaps ever seen him. "Let's get started."
Klaud inclined her head slightly in agreement, and Noise shifted a little nearer to Lenalee, visibly concerned but with the same beyond-his-years seriousness. Lenalee drew her legs to her chest and set her chin on her knees, looking weary and unsettled.
Coulson leaned forward, forcing himself to relax, treating this with the same seriousness the exorcists were giving it. "Lenalee mentioned a war. Who were you fighting for, and who against?"
All three looked at each other, having a silent discussion with their eyes. Finally, Klaud took the lead.
"A man called the Millennium Earl," she said at last, voice crisp and businesslike, but not quite able to hide the dislike and disgust in her eyes. "He was the head of a family called the Clan of Noah, who in turn directed an army of creatures known as akuma."
"Akuma?" Coulson questioned. "So you weren't fighting humans."
"Not most of the time," Lenalee said softly, but that was apparently all she had to say about that; Noise took over for her.
"There were fourteen Noah in the world. They weren't human in the ordinary sense of the word; here, they would've been called metahumans." Noise wasn't sad or scared, like Lenalee, or resentful, like Klaud, but resigned and weary. "They had…" He grimaced. "A lot of abilities, but the most important one here is that they were very difficult to kill and, once they were killed, for a long time, they would just reincarnate in the body of a different human." At Coulson's sharp look, he tacked on, "It's different from how we do it. Do you really want the whole story?"
Coulson considered. "Is it still a possibility?" All three of them shook their heads. "Then it can wait. What are akuma?"
"Weapons of massacew," Lenalee offered without looking at any of them. And then, when this clearly wasn't enough, "Akuma awe weapons made by the Eawl ou' of a soul an' a machine." She shrugged. "Allen could tell you mowe."
"When someone died, the Earl would come to them as they mourned and offer to bring the dead man back," Noise expanded, gaze fixed on Coulson's suddenly startled one. "The mourner would call for their loved one, and the Earl would bring their soul into a machine, and then order them to attack the mourner and take their skin." He hesitated, swallowed, and continued. Coulson was suddenly pale, but didn't break his gaze. "The result was a creature that could blend in perfectly with humans, but transform in an instant into a 'weapon of massacre'."
"The thing about akuma," Klaud picked up, when Coulson seemed unprepared to prompt them further, "was that they could only be destroyed by the substance called Innocence."
Coulson's mouth was dry, but he still managed to speak. "The same thing Lenalee suggested let you reincarnate."
Klaud nodded. "It seems likely. Now, there were only a hundred and nine pieces of Innocence in our world. Here, it depends on how many of us reincarnated."
Coulson looked up sharply. "You make it sound like they're different places."
Now it was Klaud's turn to look surprised; Noise did as well. "Didn't Lenalee tell you?"
Coulson looked at Lenalee, but the little girl looked just as confused, tilting her head at the two older exorcists.
"What?" Lenalee asked plaintively.
Klaud was frowning. "We're probably in a different world altogether. Actually, we almost certainly are." At Lenalee's blank look, she continued, "Japan was never destroyed, Lenalee."
Lenalee's eyes went wide, and she looked to Coulson for confirmation. At his slow nod, she seemed to wait to process that for a moment, and then a bright smile crossed her face.
Coulson did not feel like smiling.
"Are you telling me," he said slowly, almost forgetting himself in the cold in his chest, "that your war got so bad that an entire country was obliterated?"
"The Eawl want t'use it as a base," Lenalee explained.
Taking pity on Coulson, Noise said, "Akuma come in four levels which get exponentially more powerful; they gain levels by-"
"Killing," Coulson guessed with a sigh. Noise smiled.
"Now you're getting it," he chuckled, humorless and dry.
"I don't think I'll be adding your world to my list of vacation spots," Coulson told him.
"That's a shame." Noise's dry smile softened a little. "Going against the Noah and the akuma was the Black Order; of the Order, only the exorcists could fight, and there weren't that many of us."
Coulson frowned. "A hundred and nine?" That didn't sound like very many.
A soft, slightly hysterical giggle escaped Lenalee's chest and she closed her eyes, pressing her forehead to her knees.
"Fourteen at the end of the war," Klaud corrected, casting Lenalee a sharp, if sympathetic, look. "In the twenty-one years I spent at the Order, we never had more than twenty-five at any given time."
Coulson flinched visibly.
Noise looked sympathetic to his plight. Coulson felt his sympathy was misdirected. "Because of the shortage of exorcists, the Order did pretty much anything in their power to keep them." A shadow passed behind his eyes. "That included some… pretty extreme things that we probably shouldn't get into right now."
Wait. Coulson should have a problem with that. Before he could find his voice, Noise barrelled along and distracted him.
"In more normal circumstances, they were recruited as soon as they were found, usually soon after activation. I was nineteen years old when I was found by the Order; my family was killed in the akuma attack that helped me activate." Despite having shown a lot of unbridled affection for Mack earlier, there was still a shadow of grief in his eyes for the family he'd once had.
"How many akuma were there in the world?" Coulson asked, and tried not to wonder how old Lenalee, who'd been nineteen when she died, had been when she was recruited.
Noise shrugged. "Thousands. Tens, hundreds of thousands, maybe, and more were made every day. After all, people are always dying, and when people die, that's more people at risk for a visit from the Earl."
"Make no mistake, Director," Klaud interrupted, before Coulson could react to that. "Like your war with HYDRA, this was a war for the world. Unlike it, the Earl's only goal was to exterminate all of humanity."
Coulson had to close his eyes for a moment. "God," he whispered hoarsely.
The exorcists seemed to find that funny for some reason.
When he opened his eyes again, he asked, "Age range?" It was about as much as he could bring himself to say.
For the first time, Klaud grimaced, looking as guilty and haunted as Lenalee ever had. It was gone a second later. "Until Lenalee came, I believe the youngest I'd ever known was sixteen." Coulson just looked at her, and Klaud took a deep breath. But Lenalee spoke first.
"Six," she whispered, almost too quiet to hear. Coulson stopped breathing. "I was an exowcist fo fiwteen yeaws. Dey foun' me when akuma killed mos' of my family, and dey kept me thewe." She took a deep shuddering breath and let it out with a shaky smile and too-bright eyes. "I twied to wun and dey… dey set a watch on me."
Her voice heightened in pitch with each word, but she wasn't crying. Tears were falling unchecked from her eyes, but she wasn't crying. She was laughing. In fact, she was laughing so hard she could barely speak, without ever lifting her head from her knees.
"I was so scawed, who's scawed of level one akuma? I was stupid." She reached up, fisting tiny fingers in her hair, eyes squeezed shut and shaking, and not just from the laughter. "You can' wun fwom the Owdew. An' you shouldn', eithew, 'cause we had t'save the wowld. They say so. We had to save the wowld 'cause we the only ones tha' could. An' we had to, no mattew what. No mattew how many times- How many fweinds-"
Laughing turned into crying, hysterical tears that filled the room and bounced accusingly off the walls, taking Coulson's breath away. Noise looked startled and guilty, and from what little she let slip, Coulson gathered that Klaud felt the same. God knows he did.
Too soon. Far too soon.
Coulson wasn't necessarily very good at comforting people, especially not children, but even with him not exactly being the first choice to look after Lenalee, he'd taken the job a few times; every one of the senior agents had, though Simmons had only ever done it with Fitz. Because of that, all of them had learned how to calm her from a nightmare.
Coulson figured this qualified.
He stood up quickly, accidentally knocking the recorder onto the ground. He didn't bother picking it up before hurrying over to Lenalee, who'd given up on words now in favor of crying with increasing volume. Noise made a false start forward, but made way for Coulson when he noticed him coming; Klaud didn't even try, only looking away to hide her expression.
"It's okay, you're okay, I've got you," he promised the little girl, scooping her up to where she could cling to his shirt, soaking it with tears. "I've got you, I'm not letting go, just breathe, Lenalee, you're okay. You're okay."
He continued saying this, and things to this effect, until Lenalee started to quiet. Wails turned to sobs, sobs to whimpers, and then whimpers to sniffles. Noise and Klaud kept quiet and away, both equally uncomfortable, and Coulson felt pretty unsteady himself.
He wondered how Melinda was doing.
"You okay now?" he asked when he deemed her calm enough.
Lenalee sniffled and didn't look up. "Sowwy," she whispered. Color was spreading across her face, and she wasn't looking at her friends, clearly ashamed.
"Don't be," Coulson said instantly, and he glanced up at the two of them. "If you want, we can continue this when I get back, or at a later date…"
Noise closed his eyes and shuddered a little, grimacing, and Klaud said tiredly, not looking at Coulson or Lenalee, "Another time would… probably be for the best." She smiled bitterly. "I need to talk to my sister, anyway."
Noise nodded in agreement, and Coulson smiled tensely.
"Then I'll take Lenalee to her mother." Who was probably having a bit of a panic attack herself right now. "I assume I'll see both of you around?"
"Count on it," Noise promised, raising his voice slightly, as if to make sure Lenalee heard him. She looked over and gave him a weak smile, and he returned it with a softer, comforting one. Klaud just shrugged.
"Sowwy," Lenalee repeated once they were out, leaning her head against his shoulder. He sighed.
"Don't be, Lee-Lee, I shouldn't have pushed." So it was a damn shame that it was his job to push. Why had he agreed to this, again?
She 'mm'ed, and her head lolled. When he glanced down, he saw her blinking up at him sleepily, face still traced with tear tracks and eyes still swollen and red. "Did I scawe Mommy?"
"Probably," Coulson admitted honestly, speeding up a little. "But don't worry. Your mother's strong, and she'd rather know this than not know it."
"Oh," Lenalee murmured, eyes falling shut. "Okay."
Within moments, she'd fallen asleep in his arms, and he sighed again, feeling a weight on his shoulders that was much greater than Lenalee's.
In the room, eyes wide with badly repressed panic and hands visibly shaking, Melinda was seated in a chair, tense as a live wire. As soon as the door opened, Melinda was up and halfway across the room, and Coulson gave up Lenalee without a fight.
Melinda's grip was tight but gentle, clutching Lenalee to herself like a lifeline, eyes shut tight against her own emotions, even as they shuddered along every line of her body. Coulson watched solemnly, feeling older than he had in years.
When she finally spoke, it was to choke out, "I don't know if I can do this."
"It'll be hard," Coulson said quietly. "But I know you can."
"Phil- Coulson-" She opened her eyes to glare at him. The panic hadn't vanished. "She needs someone who, who…" Who was better with emotions, who didn't have so many problems of her own, who wasn't an agent for a technically illegal organization- just for a start.
"She needs you," Coulson corrected.
"...I'll put her to bed." Melinda turned away abruptly, movement jerky and uncharacteristically uncoordinated. Lenalee didn't even stir. "We'll… we'll talk about this. Later."
"You and me?" Coulson wondered dubiously. "Or you and Lenalee?"
"...Both."
Fair enough.
"That bad?" Mack asked as soon as Noise slunk into the room, and Noise gave him a weary grin.
"That bad," he confirmed, sitting down heavily on the couch beside his brother. The smile vanished, and he looked away and admitted, hand rising to the back of his neck, "Lenalee broke down; we had to stop early." A small frown twisted his lips. Eyes averted, he didn't notice Mack's sharp gaze on him. "I've never seen her like that."
"She's just a toddler," Mack pointed out, tone neutral.
Noise's hand fell away, and he smiled wryly. "She is, isn't she?" He shook his head with a small laugh. Without being asked, he admitted, "I haven't thought about any of this stuff in years. It was harder than I thought it'd be." He flashed his brother a slightly pained grin. "Thought I'd gotten over it."
Mack gave Noise a slightly nasty glare. "Yeah, well maybe if you'd shared earlier, you wouldn't have spent fifteen years bottling up all sorts of bullshit, and then I wouldn't have to sound like a goddamned SHIELD counselor."
"Yes, okay, okay, I get it," Noise laughed, grinning at Mack, who didn't let up. "I'm sorry."
"Damn straight," Mack grumbled, but eventually he sighed and slapped Noise on the shoulder, squeezing it gently. "Don't do it again, you hear?"
Noise gave his brother a small, affectionate smile. "I hear," he agreed, faintly amused.
"Good!" Mack removed his hand and set it on his knee, leaning forward slightly, intent. Noise frowned. "Now, what's this about your eyes?"
Noise made a face and complained, "You're really going to make me do this more?" Surprise and a hint of guilt flashed across Mack's face, which Noise didn't notice before he smiled ruefully and gestured to his eyes. "It's not that important anymore; my eyes were permanently damaged in a fight some ten, eleven years before I died. I was blind for the rest of my life, but it was healed with the rest of my injuries when I reincarnated." With a playful smirk, he held up one of his hands in a peace sign and added, "I got my fingers back, too."
Mack stared at him, and then covered his face with a groan. "Great. You're just gonna be heaps of trouble, aren't you?"
Noise shrugged and offered his brother a grin. "Sorry."
"Yeah, sure," Mack muttered. "Sorry, my ass."
"Oh!" Simmons stood up straight as soon as Klaud entered the lab, eyes lighting right up. They turned concerned, though, as soon as she took in Klaud's tired demeanor. "Oh, dear, what happened?"
Fitz was elsewhere at the moment, so it was just the two of them in the lab when Simmons tugged Klaud over to a chair and sat her down in it, then pulled another over so she could place herself in front of her (younger?) sister.
Klaud sighed and leaned back slightly, fixing her eyes on the ceiling. "It was a hard conversation, that's all. Don't worry about it, Jemma."
"Oh…" Simmons smiled bashfully. "You know I always worry."
Klaud shook with a short, quiet laugh. "Yes, that's true." She stretched and returned her gaze to Simmons, soft and fond. After studying her sister for a few moments, she finally admitted, gaze sliding away in a rare moment of vulnerability, "I'm disappointed in myself. It should have occurred to me to keep Director Coulson away from the memories that would be most harsh for Lenalee."
Simmons inhaled sharply, and Klaud was abruptly reminded that Jemma had known the little girl since she was a baby, at least this time around. "Oh, no, what happened?"
Klaud smiled bitterly. "What do you think? She had a breakdown." Simmons' eyes widened and she half-rose, but Klaud raised a hand to stop her. "No, no, she's fine now, stay here. Coulson took her to Agent May. Besides." She raised an eyebrow. "She wouldn't welcome your company, would she?"
Simmons' eyes widened slightly, travelling to Klaud's. "How…?"
"Most of the upper administration of the Order had it out for the exorcists," Klaud explained, allowing a grim look to line her features, Simmons' eyes fixed on hers. "Lenalee, I believe, came to associate most humans with those sorts of people, and the ones you would call 'metahumans' as friends."
Simmons blew out a short, dizzy breath. "...Oh."
Klaud's smile softened slightly. "Don't worry. She'll get used to you." She reached out and tugged gently at Simmons' hair, making her squeak in protest. "You're a very lovable person, Jemma. Just be yourself around her and you'll be fine."
Simmons stared at her for a long moment, and then she smiled, relieved of cares she'd barely realized she had. "Thank you, Klaud."
"Anytime."
When Lenalee woke up, it was dark outside. The glow of a screen lit the room with dim light, and she rolled over to see Melinda working intently with a laptop, the blue glow casting her features in harsh light.
Her mouth felt dry and her face sticky, her eyes sore. "Mommy?"
Melinda looked up sharply at the call. On meeting her eyes, she quickly set the laptop aside and, half a second later, was heading toward her briskly before she crouched beside the toddler's bed, eyes intent. "Yes, baby girl?"
Lenalee squinted slightly and reached up to rub at her eyes, pushing herself up. "What-" She stopped as her memory rushed back, reminding her what had transpired in the meeting room, and instead of finished, she reached forward.
Melinda took the signal for what it was and picked her up, carrying her back to the bed, where she sat with her back to the headboard and Lenalee in her lap. "Are you better now?" she asked. Lenalee couldn't read all of the emotion in her eyes, but a lot of it was worry, which made Lenalee's chest twinge guiltily.
She nodded. "Yeah," she said in a small voice.
"Are you okay with talking about it?" Melinda asked her, serious again.
Lenalee flinched a little, and then bit her lip as she thought about it.
It had hurt to talk about it, but… it was more acknowledgement than she'd willingly given a lot of those events for the past two years. And it had felt awful.
But, now, it felt a little better than it had before she'd talked about it.
She held up her hand with her thumb and her forefinger just a millimeter apart, and a small, affectionate smile flashed across Melinda's face.
"Alright, we'll just talk a little, then," she agreed readily enough, smoothing Lenalee's hair down. "Do you want to talk, or do you want me to ask questions."
Lenalee gazed at her for a moment, uncertain and worried, and finally, glanced down to the bedsheets. "Imma talk," she decided, crossing her arms against her chest in a blatantly insecure gesture.
Melinda gave a small hum of understanding and waited patiently, and after a few moments, Lenalee started, still not looking at Melinda but leaning her head against her.
"The Owdew foun' me when I was six, and dey took me 'way den. Dey gave me some twaining and den dey stawted sendin' me on missions, 'cause dere wewen' many exowcists. I was scawed an' I didn' wanna, and I stawting twyin' t'wun, but it didn' wowk, dey didn' let me." She shrugged, with more defeat in her demeanor now than naked fear. "'Ventually it go' so bad dey tied me down." Melinda's arms tightened, and Melinda inhaled sharply. Lenalee still didn't look at her. "Den my bwothew came.
"Komui looked fo me fwom the time dey took me to the time he foun' me, twee yeaws. He 'came chief of the Owdew den an' it got bettew, but I nevew fowgot." She looked up at Melinda anxiously, seeing her tight expression, carefully controlled. "Akuma awe scawy; a lot of people die fighting dem. I tought I'd be one-a dem fo a long time, but…" She managed a small smirk. "I was too fast."
Melinda managed a smile for her, which reassured Lenalee even with how forced it looked; she could still see the fear and the worry in Melinda's eyes. "Of course you were, little bug. It would take more than that-" She poked Lenalee in the stomach. "To take a strong girl like you down."
"Mm-hm!" Lenalee agreed, perking up a little. "Noting catch me!"
Melinda smirked, but it fell quickly. "I do have one question for you. Your legs? Noise mentioned that last he saw you, you couldn't walk."
Lenalee's smile faltered, and she deflated again, frowning.
Bastard, she thought spitefully, thinking of long hair and a gleaming white leer.
Outwardly, she shrugged. "Bad fight," she dismissed, feeling tiredness swamp over her all over again. "One of the Noah, Shewyl, he an' I fought - thewe was bad blood, see-" -Lavi's blood, in fact- "and we both came off bad. It huwt to walk, after that, an' my legs wewen't stwong." She caught Melinda's worried look and flashed her a confident smirk, trying to ease it. "But he came off wowse."
"Did he, now," Melinda murmured, studying her with a frown Lenalee didn't like. Her smirk vanished and she ducked her head - for a moment, she'd forgotten she was two years old, that that kind of history was strange even for someone her real age.
She'd forgotten that she really didn't want her mother to know what she'd done to Sheryl.
Thankfully, though, Melinda left it alone. "It's late, baby girl, you should go to sleep. But don't forget, you can always talk to me, okay?"
She nodded quickly. "'Kay!" she chirped, squirming off Melinda's lap to hurry back to her bed. She rolled into it, and despite her earlier nap, exhaustion claimed her almost instantly, while Melinda rose to shut the computer and put it away, plunging the room into darkness.
Lenalee's last thought before she went to sleep was that she was glad to have a Mommy that could handle anything.
Melinda, on the other hand… As soon as she was sure that Lenalee was asleep, she sat down on the bed, buried her face in her hands, and cried, silent and frustrated.
Why does Lenalee always get the heavy chapters? *rueful smile* As further update, SHIELD and Tony/Pepper are now about equal in terms of knowledge, but they don't know about all the same things. For instance, Tony and Pepper don't know much about the abilities of the akuma or what the Order did to Lenalee, but SHIELD doesn't know anything about the Bookmen. Additionally, Noise and Klaud are both here, and they are both terribly difficult. *scowl* Next up is a streak of the boys that should be a few chapters long, because damn, they'll be busy. As for the scene where Melinda talks about this with Lenalee, I'll write it another time and either put it in You Are My Universe (more likely) or insert it here. Thanks for reading, and please review!
A note about Marie: Normally I would never dream of removing a character's canon disability; it's cruel to a group that's already underrepresented. However, for the sake of consistency, I decided that I wouldn't randomly leave in a disability I knew came from an injury, when all other scars, injuries, and non-canon disabilities were removed. I do apologize, though.
Edited 2/19/16 because I decided that it just wasn't cutting it.
