Well, I hope this influx of updates helps with the fact that it took me for freaking ever to update at all. I love all of you guys for even reading this far and putting up with me. I honestly wanted to give up, but now I'm just gonna charge through the rest of this tonight, so I can finally put this fic to bed. It's been long enough :)

Also, the horizontal lines are meant to be pauses in the narrative. I liked them better than the 'OoOoO' thing I used to do. Feels more professional.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Algor Mortis

Click.

I gasped, so sure that the last thing I'd ever see would be a flash of light, that when nothing happened, I couldn't believe it. Was this a joke?

"What?" Mayor Waters looked around, equally surprised. Apparently, she didn't expect this to happen either. The woman brought up the gun a few inches to examine it, just enough that it wasn't aimed at my head anymore. "I-it didn't work?"

A shudder coursed through my body as I started to hyperventilate. My eyes burned, not from the drugs, but from the tears suddenly streaming down my face. I couldn't quite feel myself crying, but the warmth across my cheeks solidified this thought. I couldn't believe it, how goddamn lucky I was. How extraordinarily lucky...

"Very good, Madam Mayor," came a smooth voice from behind me. It echoed off the walls, like a demon at playtime. It was strangely familiar, yet I couldn't place where I heard it last. "You can go now. There's a yacht waiting for you outside."

"Oh, thank God," Mayor Waters dropped the gun like it was a hot coal and practically ran out of the room, making for the exit somewhere behind the chair. I wanted to look around, to see this new person, who had apparently been watching this entire time. My head was still lying on my shoulder, back slumped in the seat.

There came the clicking of a woman's heels as the voyeur approached, coming around the chair so I could finally get a good look at her. Blinking heavily, I could make out a deep maroon pantsuit, so clean and sharp, along with the long black curls and manicured fingers of a prosperous business executive. The woman bent down, face turned away from me, as she went to pick up the discarded gun.

The red-suited woman clucked her tongue, cleaning a smudge off the side of the gun with a corner of her white blouse. "I hate it when people misuse my personal affects. This was a gift from my father, you know. He told me it was for protection, to safeguard our family. I got it on my eighteenth birthday, only three days before he was killed."

She was too tall and too close for me to see her face from my frame of view. The woman turned on her heel and walked away a few steps, laughing lightly. She was withdrawing something from her pocket, small gold things. "I had six bullets, and I put each of them in the men who betrayed my father."

"One." she filled the chambers.

"By." she snap the cylinder back.

"One." Chk-chk. The gun cocked.

I just stared, almost in wonder at this utterly bizarre turn of events. My mind was too slow to catch up to what was going on. If the Mayor's betrayal had me confused, then this was right out of left field.

"I don't consider myself a violent woman," the woman continued, as if this were a regular conversation held over tea and crumpets and not, say, one held over a gun. "But I am a pragmatic one, and I don't take kindly to threats. Maybe you're wondering what just happened, why you're not dead. Maybe you're too high to even understand what's going on right now, but from your conversation with the Mayor, I take it you're lucid enough. I guess superhero metabolism has its perks."

The big words were leaving me confused, but I managed to keep up in the end. Part of me wanted so badly to drift, to sleep, to pretend this was some awful hallucination – like I got a dose of acid. Really bad acid.

"Oh, I can't tell you how much I want you dead right now," The woman laughed, twirling the gun around her finger as she went back to face me. She just shook her head, long black hair swishing back and forth. "But I didn't come this far just to off you in one go. I had to make sure all the pieces were in place. The Mayor, for instance – I had to know she was up for the job, that she could do what it takes. Not everyone has the strength to kill another human being, but I'm glad to see that she can."

"More tests," I whispered, experiencing a bit of déjà vu. The same thing that had happened to me, something similar for Mayor Waters – only I never killed, or tried to kill, anyone. "Just like me."

"Aren't you a smart one," the woman gave a coy smile. She walked over, heels click-clicking until she was so close all I could see were the buttons on her suit. I felt something on my head, pushing it around. The woman continued, "Ever since the day you first saved my life, I always wondered what you looked like. Who you were. Just who, exactly, is the mysterious Falcon, who barely speaks to us lowly common folk, and stands high above the rest of the city, so proud of her wings?"

No, no, no! I panicked, I tried to move, to do anything to stop this from happening. But there had been no change in my paralysis, absolutely nothing I could do to prevent the woman – what was her name? – from seeing my face.

I didn't think there could be anything worse than dying. Until now.

Her hand, resting on top of my helmet, slid down until her nails hooked underneath, scratching my chin. I tried to pull away, but it only emerged as a small shudder. The woman pulled off the helmet, bending my neck back to do so and in one swift move —

Whoosh.

Cold, musky air met my face. Flyaway hair was sent free, the rest tumbling over my face and shoulders as my head fell forward. My thoughts danced around in my head, frantic and bouncing. No, no, no...bad dream, this is all a bad dream...

"There you are," she cooed, all sweet smiles, yet there was a chilling lightness to the woman's voice. "Let's see that pretty little face of yours, birdie."

I felt a hand under my chin, the skin soft and the touch caressing as it tilted her head back up, so she could finally look into the eyes of Oriole Kane oh my god not her not her anyone but her —

The woman smiled, face hidden in shadow from the light above. "Hm, you're younger than I imagined. Youth is wasted on the dumb, I suppose."

Kane dropped her hand and my head tilted to the side, neck still bent back. The only thing I could see was the ceiling, the small square of light in the corner where I had dropped in, blinding me. The sunlight, just barely getting warm, fell upon my face, like a cruel tease of freedom. So close, yet so far away.

My breathing was laborious – alongside my inner panic, the drugs were forcing me into a false sense of security. Staying up, staying awake and alert was taking its toll.

"I must admit, I'm rather disappointed I don't recognize your face," Kane said with a forlorn sigh, as if this were my fault. "I was hoping for a scandal, a minor celebrity and their bizarre turn in lifestyle choices; a rich debonair heiress to a Fortune 500 company, turned to vigilantism from a dark event in her past; it'd be on the news for weeks, if this got out. But, as they say, what happens on the ship, stays on the ship."

"You don't...remember me?" I was too delirious to feel much surprise, although a part of me was insulted. After all these lengths to protect my identity, after even working under this woman for almost a month, met her face-to-face and had conversations with her...Oriole Kane had absolutely no recollection of me? "I was...an intern...at your company..."

"Well, you're going to have to be a little bit more specific than that," the executive chuckled with a shrug of her shoulders. "I have a lot of interns, faces who come and go every other week. I'm a busy woman; I don't have time to keep track of them all. If you gave me your name, I suppose that might ring a bell."

"Sorry, all you're...going to get..." I wasn't stupid, I wasn't going to risk my family and friends, on top of having my identity compromised. I supposed I was lucky, that Oriole Kane didn't remember well enough herself.

"Oh, well," Kane didn't seem particularly devastated by this news, which also made me a little mad. She didn't care? All this effort, all this time, and she wasn't even going to bother? "It doesn't matter anyway. I'd know the name of anybody worth knowing. You're just a silly little girl. A Nobody."

Nobody.

A faint smirk pulled at my lips. "For someone who hates...the White Rose...you talk just like 'em."

Crack!

My head snapped to the side when the butt of the pistol flew across my temple. The pain was dulled by the drugs, but I could still feel the blood starting to pour down over my eye, down my cheek. Like a bad migraine, the ache spread across my face and I vaguely wondered if Kane had broken something with the strike.

But the simple fact I managed to break the woman's smooth façade made me choke out in laughter, in spite of the pain. "Oh wow...the mighty Kane...finally slips up."

That small triumph started to fade when I saw Kane's grimace, but I kept up with my irreverence, knowing that it would only irritate Kane further. I didn't think I'd take much joy in irking my enemies, but I found herself pleasantly surprised. Guess Spider-Man had it right all along.

"Don't push your luck, girl," Kane snapped, her brow drawn down and marring the perfect skin of her face. For a woman obsessed with PR, anger didn't do her appearance any favors. She waved the gun in my general direction, saying, "I was considering giving you a quick end, a small mercy before you burned in hell. But now...I don't think so."

"Hell's preferable to you." I muttered, earning a sneer from Kane.

"Hmph. I gave you a choice, once," Kane said, her voice dangerously soft. She grabbed my chin, forced it around so we could look eye to eye. "To repay the favor. I created you, Falcon. If it hadn't been for me, you'd be nothing. If you had joined me, the people would love you. They would cheer for you. I would have provided you all the tools you needed to crack down on the White Rose. We would have understood each other. Who knows, we might have even become... family."

There was a faint tinge of longing in the woman's voice. Her eyes glazed over for a second, as though she were not really looking at me at all, but gazing into a dream. Then her gaze hardened and she said, "All I wanted was a little respect. You owe me that."

"Respect is earned." I rasped. I could hear the Doc's voice echoing in the back of her mind. To me, it felt like he was actually there, that firm tone he took whenever he was about to lecture; I hated them, and yet right now that was all I wanted; I'd listen to a thousand lectures if it meant I didn't have to be here right now. It was getting harder to differentiate between fantasy and reality. But I knew what the Doc would say, nonetheless. "No one... is entitled to it."

"You're one to judge," Kane's grip tightened on my face, her nails digging into my skin. I couldn't tell if Kane was doing it on purpose. She seemed beside herself in rage. "You and your arrogance, thinking you're superior to the rest of us, just because you think you fight on the side of justice, of truth. But you are the one who lies, the one who hides her face. You're indecisive, you pick and choose who you fight – what does that make you, Falcon? Who do you think you are?"

I didn't know what to say. I couldn't say my name. I couldn't even say my alias – because Kane had given me that name. It didn't even really belong to me, it hadn't been my idea. So I remained silent rather than humiliate myself further.

"That's what I thought," Kane said with a smile, understanding exactly what was going on in my head. "You have no identity of your own, but you just can't stand the idea that anyone can choose for you. Is it really that bad? You don't have to worry about the responsibility that you heroes care so much about."

"Just kill me already," I mumbled, trying to jerk my chin out of Kane's grip, but only managed to slump further in my seat. I was getting tired of this conversation; I didn't want to continue on this line of thought. It hurt too much to think about, and I couldn't face it. I didn't want to. "Get it over with."

"And like all heroes, you cannot comprehend the truth when your morals are questioned," Kane finished with a look of self-satisfaction, drawing back and letting go of my face. She had the gun aimed away, was now fiddling with something on her wrist. "You'd rather hide, because that's easier. So typical. There's nothing left for you now. It's my time to go anyways, but I'll leave you with this."

She pressed something into my palm. My head was angled just right to be able to see what it was: a gold watch. It was probably worth more than the entire apartment building I used to live in.

Kane tapped the face of the watch. "In ten minutes, this entire ship is going to go up in flames. Well, an explosion, really. I'll be long gone by then, but I just wanted to give you the pleasure of knowing exactly when you're going to die, and knowing that there is nothing you can do to stop it."

I stared at the watch. The time ticking down. I didn't know so much time had passed already. The drug would take several more hours to wear off...

"Good night, Falcon," Kane said, disappearing from my line of sight as she walked away. Her voice echoed off the walls. "It was a pleasure doing business with you."

The hollow clicking of heels. The clang of a door shutting. A lock. Then nothing.

I was alone. And I was going to die.

Panic rose in my throat, but no matter how hard she tried, I couldn't move. I tried to think that there had to be weakness in this plan, that Kane must have forgotten something in the process of setting this up...

...but I was incapacitated. I was stuck on a ship that was going to blow up in ten — no, nine — minutes, and there was no way I could recover fast enough to get out of here.

My metabolism wasn't that fast...was it?

I tried to think, squeezed my eyes shut to force myself to concentrate, to think through the hallucinogen flowing through my system. There had to be a way to speed up the process. Exercise always made me hungry, but that required muscle movement. Burning calories. Increased heart rate.

Heart rate.

An idea struck me, the proverbial lightbulb. It was a faint one, and I almost lost it the moment I came upon the epiphany. But I held onto the idea for all I was worth, refused to let my mind succumb to Rosebud.

How do you increase heart rate?For the life of me, I couldn't remember. Then there was the Doc's voice, loud and clear as though he was right beside her.

"I try to keep an even blood pressure," he repeated from an earlier conversation, cleaning the lenses of his glasses with his purple shirt. "I keep calm. Because when I get angry...well, bad things happen."

Anger.

I need anger.

So I thought of the most recent experience of this – Kane and Waters. The burning in my chest, rising like magma up the throat of a volcano. But it wasn't strong enough; the magma was stopped by the solid cap of the volcano. There was not enough pressure to break free.

I started taking deep breaths, in quick succession. I remembered a girl in seventh grade, who passed out after hyperventilating when she got a really bad test grade. I couldn't remember how heart rate correlated with metabolism — in fact, I wasn't even sure there was one — but it was the only thing I had at the moment, and I was willing to try anything that might save my life.

I was certainly panicked enough that the hyperventilating would have come naturally, but it took effort to make my muscles move.

Less than a minute later (seven minutes left) I felt a twitch in my toes, my fingertips. Yes, it's working!

But did I have enough time to get moving again, to leave before the ship blew up?

Second by agonizing second, I was slowly able to get myself moving again. First, it was my left foot. Then, the thumb on my right hand. A bit later, I could move my neck, just enough to look around more.

My chest ached and I was feeling dizzy – either from the hyperventilating or the drugs, I couldn't be sure – but I didn't stop my internal onslaught. Slowly but surely, I was regaining control of my body.

Finally, I managed to clench my whole fist around the watch in my hand, covering the remaining time left (four minutes) which felt like it was passing too slow and too fast at the same time. The pain of my little exercise was increasing and more and more — I wished it would be over soon, and it stretched out the time...yet, I was acutely aware of how little of it I had left, the panic setting in my mind, making it drift every couple seconds, and I had little jolts every time I looked at the watch and saw that there was even less time than before.

Move, move, move! My shoulders came back into commission. I didn't wait for the rest of my torso to come into play – breathing was getting easier, just a little bit – before I pushed on my feet, now working, and toppled the chair over, myself with it.

There was a tremendous crash, amplified by the large, empty room with its metal walls. For a second, the breath was knocked out of me and I seized, realizing that I had lost my gusto. But that just put me get back into it with more force than ever.

With heavy, tired arms, I managed to push herself up. Although I now had control of my limbs, my muscles were still trembling and sluggish. The Rosebud still had its grip on me, no matter how hard I breathed. But it was enough. Just barely enough.

My fine motor controls were shot to hell. I could barely keep the grip on the watch, couldn't maneuver it to see the time. Then, my powers, my radar – all out of the question. Right now, I hadn't felt so normal – so weak, so pathetic, what a failure – in my entire life. Had I been some regular human stuck in this situation, how likely was it I'd be able to make it out of here?

I knew the answer, but didn't dwell on it. I just thanked the Universe that for whatever abilities I had gained by the Gray Matter, at least some of the physical attributes hadn't been negated by the Rosebud.

Getting to my feet, I swayed. My sense of balance had been knocked askew as well. I took one step forward and almost collapsed. I caught the fallen chair for balance before pushing myself up again.

Come on, you can do this. I could barely think past my own breathing, the determination to leave this place alive. I managed a glance at the watch (almost puked from the nausea of movement). I had less than two minutes left.

Oh, god. I stared at the long hallway towards the only door in the room. I couldn't leave from the way I came – I was in no state to fly. But I didn't know if I had the strength, the willpower, to make it all the way to the stairs, to climb the stairs...

But step by step, I forced herself forward. I remembered, at the last second, to fetch my helmet, and I clutched it to my belly as I moved, hoping that it would help hold back the nausea and pain. It was soothing, somewhat, but each jerk of a footstep left my mind reeling.

When I finally made it to the door, thirty seconds later – too long, too long! – I tried the door handle. Only to find it locked.

What...No, no, no! I gasped, whimpered, jiggling the handle for all I was worth. I had forgotten Kane locked the way behind her, just in case.

No, this can't be happening! I have to get out! Please! Let me out!

"No!" I cried, slamming my fist into the metal door. Tears streamed down my face as I leaned against it, too weak to keep myself up for so long. So close, I was so close... it was right there, I could feel it.

I could feel it.

I could feel it.

I swallowed, looking up in surprise. I could feel the metal, the zig-zag of the steps beyond, as if they were an extension of myself. It was an image in my mind, both real and not, almost as though I could touch it, despite the fact that there was a door in my way. I could feel that too, all of it, the tensile of the metal, its rigidity, its hollowness...

No way...

My radar was back.

It wasn't very strong, like everything else. Each movement I made threatened it, flickering with anything too rough. But I could feel the mechanism of the lock, the tiny gears and springs and latches...

I concentrated, hard. Hard enough to double the headache in my head, to aggravate the blow Kane had given me. It took everything just to lift that tiny latch, to activate the tiny machine within the door, to make it click and swing open. My weight still on the door, I collapsed to the other side, knees banging against the stairs. My head was pounding from the effort – lock-picking had never been this hard. I almost vomited, but I hadn't had a meal in a while.

My radar was gone. Blinked out. The effort to free myself had spent whatever psychic energy I managed to accumulate and suddenly I felt empty, alone again. My mind trapped inside itself, nowhere to go, nothing to touch.

But I didn't care. I could see sunlight about her, streaming warm against my face, the cool river wind blowing my hair away, freshening the skin covered in sweat.

And with a huge heave, I stepped up.

I was on my hands and knees when I finally climbed over the last set of steps and onto the open deck of the ship. I didn't have the strength to go up the stairs on my two legs alone, and had to crawl the rest of it up on all fours. It was sad, pathetic, in a way, but I had little concern for my pride now...I was almost there.

I was almost free.

One last glance at the watch. Oh, god, not even a whole minute. Less than thirty seconds!

This ship was going to blow.

The time it took to get from the stairs to the railing seemed took an excruciatingly long time. I knew that I had spent too much time on the stairs, that opening the door had wasted precious seconds that could have been spent finding another safe way off the ship.

Fifteen...

What other safe way? I knew it was crazy. I had no choice but to choose the steps. There hadn't been another way out. Even if there had, it was too late now. I had to keep going. I needed a way off.

But how?I didn't have the time to find a lifeboat, to find a raft or a vest or an inflatable ring to take with me. Just my helmet.

It was all I needed, in the end.

Fourteen...

My feet dragged behind me, as if some part of my mind didn't want to leave the ship. I could feel herself slowing down, my energy finally depleted, all gone. But I couldn't stop, not now, not when I was so close...

Thirteen...

Breathe in, breath out. Breathe in, Breath out.

Twelve...

Twenty feet away. Why did it feel like a mile?

Eleven...

Black clouds in the distance, billowing up from the downtown skyscrapers.

Ten...

I almost made the mistake of pausing, I was so surprised at the sight of the ruined city skyline, cold wind in my hair. But I kept going, forcing not to think about whatever disaster lay ahead of me. I'll cross that bridge when I'd get there.

If I got there.

Nine...

Screaming. I could hear screaming.

Eight...

How clever of Kane, to incapacitate me and then take the city by storm. Surely she'd need someone else to accomplish this, but who? Goblin?

No, that wouldn't make sense. Harry was with Gwen and Peter. He wouldn't act out. He was safe. They were all safe.

Right?

Seven...

Was Harry all right? I couldn't see Oscorp tower, completely enveloped by the massive cloud of black smoke. Whatever happened, she hoped Spider-Man was there to help.

Six...

Ten feet away – almost there! Almost there, almost there, you can do it, almost there!

Five...

Toe tripping, falling, knee catching. Pain.

Four...

No no no, can't fall, can't fall, get up get up get up –!

Three...

Pushing up, surging, panting, crying – running – get there get there get there!

Two...

Metal bars against hands, legs bending, pushing, leaping, head on one side then the other and suddenly –

One...

Empty air.

Freezing water.

Ball of fire.

Zero.

I landed in the river, an uncontrolled fall into the too-cold water. The snow had since melted, but this wasn't the season for swimming. People could still get hypothermia, going in this early. In the back of my mind, I felt like a real jerk to those Pumpkinheads.

But it was the only option.

My back hit the surface first. I was looking up, just in time to see a piercing white flash, watch as the metal grew bright, cracked, tore itself apart.

I was already underneath before the flames could touch me.

The water rippled and bounced from the shockwave, and for a few seconds I felt warm as the explosion almost boiled the first few feet of the river. But it was gone in the next instant and the cold returned, making my skin tingle and numb.
Bubbles floated above my head. I was still holding onto my helmet, but didn't think to let it go so I could swim for the surface. No, this was much nicer. I was so comfortable. The water, so soft, caressing, like a blanket. Cooled the heat on my face, in my mind, made it easy to let it go.

More bubbles fled my lips.

What was I thinking...if I didn't die by fire, I'd drown instead.

It didn't bother me very much.

I just closed my eyes, and let the darkness swallow me whole.