Chapter 52: Dream Sequence
Thor walked down the corridor as if he was on a mission, in search for any remaining crooks, anything out of the ordinary. He was searching for Ava and the twins, but so far there was-
A light haze suddenly fell upon Thor's mind only for a brief second. Steve's voice echoed inside his eardrum. "Thor, status?" Steve demanded on the earpiece.
Thor pushed right through the Witch's magic and shoved one of Ulysses' men down on the ground, knocking him unconscious. "The girl tried to warp my mind," he said. "I take special care of it. I doubt a human can keep it at bay. Fortunately, I am mighty…"
He said, but as he walked forward with his head held high and chin up, he suddenly found himself back…home?
His world was strangely familiar. It felt like Asguard…but it was different and indescribable to Thor as he looked around his surroundings. Firelight danced along the brick walls, women and men danced among the music and the laughter that echoed in Thor's ears.
~*A*~
Steve hit his shield against the mercenary's neck. He picked him up and tossed him over to the side, unconscious. Steve was about to try for Thor again, but Pietro suddenly speed and shoved Steve across the room, watching him fall on his back at the hard impact of Pietro's super speed-like powers.
Wanda came up from behind the metal staircase and shot a red energy flare using her powers against Steve while he was down.
Steve winced at the hard impact wrecking through his body, as he tried to stand. Wanda ran up the stairs to use her powers against the Black Widow, and went in search for more members of the Avengers. Pietro followed her in quick haste.
"This is going very well," Ultron said.
Meanwhile Clint was still in his spot, shooting arrow after arrow at anything that tried to come near him. He was tearing down the last of Ulysses' men inside the ship.
And with a final snap of his arrow against his bow, he pulled, released, and it landed on a crook that killed the rest of his men with one of his trick arrows for the finishing touch of a force and fire.
When all was quiet, Clint lowered his bow, but listened as a sound of footsteps pierced his ears.
Female. Ava or Wanda, and they were both under the influence of evil, or they were acting on their own accordance. Either way, they had to be stopped.
Clint took out an arrow in one swift movement and he shoved the arrow to her forehead, the ends of the arrow sprouting out like a flower as its legs attached to her skin. Blue electricity formed within the arrow, and it knocked Wanda a little out of sync.
"I've done the whole mind-control thing, I'm not a fan," Clint said. He was about to take the arrow out of her forehead until Pietro zoomed over and kicked him in the stomach, knocking Clint through a window and down to the main level below them. Pietro took Wanda in his arms and sped away from him.
He looked up at Pietro and Pietro looked down at him before he took off in a speedy motion.
"Yeah, you better run," Clint grunted, trying not to let the pain he felt from the glass shards onto the floor get to him. He rolled over onto his hands and knees and let out a sigh. He turned to his earpiece, "Who's ever standing, we gotta move! Guys?" Clint asked.
~*A*~
Steve had managed to get himself up, but his helmet fell to the floor. He was awake, but walking into a dream.
~*A*~
Natasha heard Clint through her earpiece, and started to turn back down the stairs as she slowly descended downward, but he world suddenly changed and faded into something she hadn't seen in a very long time…
The metal railing turned into a wooden railing that felt so familiar against her gloved hand, and she walked slowly down to the floor and into a room where she saw ballerinas twirling on their feet.
Everything seemed quiet and hazy, and only a slither of music could be heard from the ballerina room.
"Again," a man said.
"You'll break them," Natasha said. Her eyes filled with worry as she watched through the door.
Madame B stood behind her, an old woman with grey hair that was wrapped up in a tight bun. She looked hard and stiff, like a teacher who was hard on discipline.
"Only the breakable ones," Madame B said. "You are made of metal. We'll celebrate after the graduation ceremony," she said.
A young Natasha looked up in fear as she lay there speechless on the medical table inside a medical room that was dark and scary. She was dressed in white gowns ready to be sterilized.
The image spluttered into the ballerina room again.
"What if I fail?" Natasha asked, watching the nightmare happen right before her own eyes.
The younger Natasha with long red hair aimed her gun at the training session. With each gun she shot, she never missed.
Another image dissolved to the same room, but this time a man was whimpering in a chair with his hands tied behind his back with a bag over his head.
"You'll never fail," Madame B said.
The younger Natasha aimed her gun, tightening her grip. She tried to ignore the whimpers that belonged to him, and pulled the trigger…
A shot of bubbly popped open, and the world spun around back to the 1940's. Young women and men from the war in uniform twirled and danced in a ballroom that was so festive with lights of red and white all across the room.
Music of the forties swirled around Steve Rogers as he stood inside the middle of the floor, watching everyone have a good time, but him. He walked around, glancing his curious surroundings that were familiar to him, and a photographer flashed a bright light in his eyes. Steve ducked, holding his hands to block the bright lights from the flash and turned to walk in another direction.
He looked over his shoulder, hearing laughter, and watching someone dab some spilled red wine on his shirt. Men and women swung around in grand dresses that flared about until he saw a man struggle within a group of guys trying to get out of a fight for a brief second as if he was in the war, but then it turned back to dancing. Steve walked around as he looked at his surroundings.
A woman accidentally bumped into him as she spun around to face him with a smile on her face.
Steve frowned at the smile on her face and looked into her hazel eyes. The face was so familiar, oval shaped, happy, and full of laughter. Young, not old looking, not tired like he was. She twirled around back into her man's arms. Steve looked over at the man, but the man's back was turned to him as they swung danced into the music.
He frowned, stopping in the middle of the ballroom. Everything was so unfamiliar to him, loud and noisy. The war was over? Steve didn't think that was right. He furrowed his brow at the thought. There was always a war. How can people just be so happy and celebrating when there was always a war going on?
"Are you ready for our dance?" A familiar voice whispered in his ear. A chill swept down his spine, and Steve whirled around to face her. His heart clenched at the very thought of her being here. Peggy? He thought. He was speechless.
Steve looked behind him as a young woman twirled up and over a man's shoulders…
Dancers from Asguard curled their hands in the air just as Thor turned around, listening to the background noise, wondering how he got here.
A man covered in a black cloak walked forward and Thor sought him out, but it disappeared just as quickly as Thor turned to look for him.
"Is it him?" The voice of Heimdall echoed in Thor's ears. "Is that the first son of Odin?"
"Heimdall, you're eyes," Thor said with concern in his voice.
Heimdall reached for the back of Thor's head and held his head within his hands. "Oh, they see everything."
Thor looked into his white clouded eyes, unable to help but worry.
"They see you leading us to hell," Heimdall said. Thor glanced around his surroundings as fire exploded from the cast iron bowls. "Wake up!" Heimdall's hands gripped tightly onto Thor's shoulders, shaking Thor out of his nightmare, but nearly choking him in the process.
The haze flew over into the 1940's dream, as Steve seemed to be stuck in his own little nightmare of his own.
"The war's over Steve," Peggy said. Steve turned to look over his shoulder. "We can go home! Imagine it."
As Steve tried to imagine it, everyone suddenly disappeared. He stood alone in the quiet and empty ballroom, and he could see the image of Peggy and himself dancing, and smiling as he twirled her around in his arms. A hopeful smile appeared on Steve's face.
"I can still save you!" Thor said as Thor tried to hold a possessed-like Heimdall off of him.
"We are all dead! Can you not see it?" Heimdall asked.
Thor shoved Heimdall off of him and a bright, hot flame exploded in Thor's dream. Masked demons appeared from the alcoves of Thor's home and watched lightning erupt from the palms of his hands.
Thor looked at them, furrowing his brows slightly as panic gripped his heart.
"You will destroy us, Odin's son," Heimdall said as Thor's lightning shattered all around him in brightness. "See where your power leads…" Heimdall said as Thor's lightning overtook him, he saw an image of a face with eyes penetrate his mind.
The image quickly dissolved into the training session of Natasha Romanoff, who was lost in a chokehold with one of Madame B's agents. Natasha was trying to get out of it, but failing. Out of breath, she lowered her body, just to catch it. "Sloppy," Madame B said. "Pretending to fail. The ceremony is necessary, for you to take your place in the world," Madame B said.
Images of the past spiraled inside her mind. "I have no place in the world," she said.
"Exactly," Madame B said.
A hand shoved over Natasha's face and she suddenly found herself pushed down on the medical table as the medical table zoomed down the hospital hallway passing two girls with no mouths down to the sterilizer room…
~*A*~
Wanda winced as she sat, trying to catch herself. She ran a hand over her head as Pietro tried to help his sister.
"What can I do?" Pietro asked.
"It hurts," Wanda said, cringing, as she lowered her head to relieve the headache that swelled within her no thanks to Clint's arrow trick and the fact her powers were running haywire at the moment for using too much.
"I'm gunna kill him," Pietro said. "I'll be right…"
"No, I'm alright…" Wanda said breathlessly, as she calmed herself down. She reached out to stop her brother. "I want…to finish the plan," she sighed. "I want the big one."
She looked up across the field over to the quinjet only to be faced with a gun in her face. "Yeah, I don't think so, sister," Zoe said. "Stand down. Where's Ava?"
Wanda looked up at Zoe with a smile on her face. "Who?" she asked.
Zoe cocked her gun, and pointed it at Pietro. "I'll shoot him, if you don't tell me where she is."
Wanda shared a curious look with Pietro and smiled. "It's funny that we're both twins," she said. "Isn't it, Pietro? And what's even more hilarious is that Ava doesn't like you very much, and yet Pietro and I love each other."
"Sometimes a little too much," Zoe said, eyeing the two of them. "You're not getting the Big One. You'll have to go through me."
"Alright then," Pietro said, taking the challenge.
Reacting quickly, Zoe moved her finger to pull the trigger, but she suddenly felt her arms pull up into the air as Pietro tried to pry the gun away from her fingers. Pietro had moved so fast, she could hardly blink or think to protect herself. She accidentally pulled the trigger and a loud gunshot rang through the air when Pietro's hand curled around the gun and her own hand.
"No," Zoe said, as Pietro pulled her into his chest in a dance-like motion, and shoved her down on the ground to Wanda's feet. Zoe was about to get up, but Wanda shot her red energy flare towards Zoe's temple to keep her down.
Zoe tried to get up, but the sound of a roar made her shiver, and she looked up to see a huge green…
Her world suddenly changed before her like she was getting lost in a real dream…a dream she knew, this nightmare foiling inside her head, making everything realistic in her world disappear. She was no longer standing on the edge of the African Coastline.
She was standing inside her parent's penthouse in New York City.
"I'm home!" Zoe called out as she walked inside her parents' penthouse. She half expected to see her mom making dinner, but her Mom was nowhere to be found.
And the house was eerily quiet.
She tightened her books against her chest. "Dad?" she asked. "Mom?"
She shrugged, figuring they went out together somewhere in the city and just walked upstairs into her room. She placed her books on her desk that rested beside her bed, tossed her bag onto the floor, and sighed heavenly, thinking about the callback she'd received for a play at her school. It was an amazing feeling that was rushing toward her. She grinned and took her shoes and her jacket off that revealed a fun girly spaghetti strap top, a nice forest green color. She was feeling hungry and thirsty, so she went downstairs to grab something quick.
"Don't go into the kitchen," Zoe said with a fearful look on her face. She was there, but she couldn't help her younger self.
She was half asleep, half awake.
She pulled the fridge open, and poked her head inside in search for something good. When she couldn't decide, she pulled her head out of the fridge and was met with her father's face suddenly inches away from her.
She jumped, startled by his presence.
"Dad," she said. "Hi…"
But then all of a sudden, he grabbed her and choked her. "Ava…" he whispered.
Confused and scared, Zoe let him choke her and drag her into the living room where he pushed her down onto the floor. He looked at her with bloodshot eyes, veins showing sings of red and purple like he was crazy. Zoe was scared to death, and wasn't sure what to do but to try to protect herself from her father's sudden attack on her, but she didn't want to hurt him back. How could she? He was her father.
He pulled out a knife and Zoe screamed, "No, please! Don't do this! Not again!" she pleaded.
But he stabbed her in the abdomen, and she screamed out in agony, sliding down further into the floor. Her father scooted her body underneath him and he stabbed her again. Another scream left her lips as the hot blade stung inside her body.
~*A*~
"Natasha, I could really use a lullaby right now." Tony's voice pierced into Natasha's ears, as she looked onward in Clint's arms as Clint checked for any vital signs of injury.
"Yeah, that's not going to happen anytime soon," Clint replied to Tony, as he gently picked up Natasha's arm and strung it over his shoulder, on his way down the stairs to find the others. "The whole team is down. We got no back up here."
~*A*~
The scene changed quickly to where Loki had Zoe held against the cell door, locked inside. "And only just trying? You and I, we're the same. No parent's sentiment given to us. You have no real ability…" Loki's twisted words whispered in her ear. She shivered.
"You can't stop me…you're only human," Loki's words haunted in her ears. "You and I, we're the same."
The memory faded and Zoe appeared in her parent's sleek and modern penthouse once more, blood dripped from her fingertips.
She was silent, lips pursed together, and hovered over her dead father's body with a weapon in her hands, that was a sparkling amethyst rock display she'd grabbed from the glass table beside the couch.
She dropped the rock onto the floor and it landed with a loud thud in her ears that didn't faze her as the numbness she felt in her heart and soul overtook her, and squeezed the colorful and hopeful future she once had out of her. Now everything was black and uncertain as she stared at her father's body, dead on the floor. She swallowed hard.
Zoe stood there, shivering, and shaking with blood on her hands. Her father's blood. She tried to find the strength to walk again. She had to fix this.
She sniffed, and ran upstairs the moment she found the strength to walk again, and ran to the bathroom. She scrubbed and scrubbed off her father's blood into the rushing water from the facet, and turned it off. She pulled her towel and dried her hands away, sniffling in her tears. She tossed the towel into the trash without even realizing it and ran inside her bedroom. She started to pack her things, until a thought occurred to her. She walked over to her inn-table and took out a pamphlet from her drawer. It was Coney Island with a colorful circus of red, orange, and yellow colors painted on the inside. "Come see the amazing Hawkeye and Trick Shot!"
An idea came to her and she smiled. The tears started to fade. She could run away with the circus, and no one would be the wiser. That was the plan…she would fake her father's death and she would run…running was the plan.
"You and I, we're the same!" Loki's voice suddenly roared in her ears with every biting horror it spread in her system, and Zoe looked up from her spot inside the cell, and saw the hot iron burning orange and red with a Hydra symbol on it.
"Don't, please, don't do this," Zoe whimpered.
Zoe looked at it with wide eyes and saw Strucker's face emerge into view. The poker stick was about to close in on her neck until…
Zoe jerked awake in Steve's arms and cried out in fear. "Zoe…shh, it's okay," Steve said, brushing her hair gently. "It's okay. It's just me."
Zoe nodded, and breathed deeply as she could to regain back her senses. It was weird, like she traveled back in time or something, but Loki's words stung her heart so hard, she couldn't talk. The bitter memories that had suddenly came up to her like vomit, swirled within her brainpan. Everything she thought she left behind in the dust exploded in her and she was lost yet once again.
She was inaudible. But when Clint came to view, she was grateful for his existence. She loved Steve and the Avengers, but it was nice to have another human with her when she didn't feel so outnumbered by the superheroes around her. She was beginning to wonder if the humans really were going to be extinct. She blinked at a horrible and terrible thought that raced through her mind. She wondered if that's what Strucker was trying to do all along.
"Is she alright?" Clint asked tentatively, holding Natasha in his arms who also looked like she'd had an even tougher time with the Witch's powers.
Thor was right behind him with a somber look on his face, no longer feeling like the All Mighty God himself, just Thor.
"She'll be okay, right?" Steve asked.
Zoe wanted to answer, heck even nod, but she just couldn't and only clung onto him tighter, not wanting to be alone right now. Steve sighed and looked around their quiet surroundings.
"I'm calling in Veronica," Tony said over their ear-comm's. "Just get everyone in the quinjet. I'll get Banner."
Clint and Steve looked at each other at Tony's demanding tone. Steve took Zoe in his arms while Clint held Natasha in his and the four of them went inside along with Thor trailing slowly in after them.
