In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated

Chapter 2: You Made Me a Monster

Finn stared down at his own chest as a blue smoke-like substance poured into his body. When the smoke charged up his neck and into his face, his eyes turned completely black and changing his face into something out of a nightmare. They faded into a that same eerie blue, as if the smoke had pooled in his irises. His body relaxed along with his hand on my arm, and he gazed trustingly into the stranger's eyes.

I watched this metamorphosis in complete shock, unable to believe what I was witnessing. Maybe this was a nightmare brought on by jetlag and too much alcohol. Nothing else could explain this bizarre turn of events. That or I had completely lost my mind. I waved my hand in front of Finn's face, but Finn's blank expression followed the stranger as if he couldn't see me.

"What..." I squeaked in horror, unable to form a full question.

"Now," the stranger said, pulling his cane away from Finn and checked his watch. "I don't have time to explain, tight schedule, you see." The stranger cocked his head in my direction. Finn, like a puppet, grabbed my arm again, this time with iron fingers. I yelped at the pinch, and the stranger, having taken a step, turned back to Finn.

"Bruise her and I will kill you," he said casually.

The fingers loosened a bit, but not enough for me to pull my arm out. Still, Finn avoided my eyes. The stranger turned back towards the party downstairs and Finn followed, pulling me along with unyielding strength.

I didn't have the presence of mind to fight. I didn't even know why I wanted to fight it. There was nothing about this situation that I could grasp.

"What do you...what are you...wh...what is going...what where..."

"Not to fret. Simply a little harmless mind control. He's fine. See?"

I studied Finn as he robotically dragged me by the arm. "What do you mean, mind control?"

The stranger stopped again, impatient as if I was a toddler asking too many obvious questions. "Gersemi, I will explain everything to you in due time. Right now I have three agents waiting upstairs for the biometric key to the iridium I need to stabilize the Tesseract so that I can build a portal to bring the Chitauri to Earth."

I blinked. I wasn't the one who'd lost my mind. He was. He was a lunatic.

I let out a scream that lasted one second before Finn's other hand slapped over my mouth. I fought then, pulling as hard as I could while terrified, drunk, tired, and in high heels, hitting and kicking anything Within reach until I felt a new, colder hand on my other arm. The stranger's eyes flashed dangerously, and I went limp, scared of what he'd do to me. He leaned in close until I could smell his cologne.

"I realize this must be awfully confusing for you, but this is your one and only warning. I don't care who you are. I am Loki, and you will not compromise this mission. Do you understand me?" I nodded. Finn's hand slid off my mouth clumsily.

When we descend the white marble staircase, it was at a leisurely pace. I prepared myself to scream again for help as soon as we were in the crowd of people. No one looked at us until a security guard, standing on the outskirts of the party, turned and clocked the three of us approaching from behind. I opened my mouth and filled my lungs, but before I could make a sound, before the guard even had a chance, Loki flipped his cane over and swung it like a baseball bat into the guard's head.

The loud thunk of cane on skull got everyone's attention. The music stopped. People screamed and ran out of Loki's way, retreating to the corners of the room. Loki grabbed one older gentleman and threw him down onto the flat back of the statue of a two-headed bull. He brandished a strange tool and while holding the old man down with his cane, Loki stabbed the tool straight into the old man's face.

"Finn! Please!" I begged. The cacophony of screams inside a marble room drowned out my words. Finn was an empty shell, watching the scene as if bored. He ignored me and switch to a two-handed hold as I struggled like mad to break free and join the fleeing people.

When Loki finished with the old man, he turned back to me with that shark-like smile. I thought I would lose control of my bladder. Instead, I started crying. Tears flooded my vision as I felt Loki's cold hand take me from Finn and pull me straight out the door into the humid night. I heard the screams of women, the clacking of expensive shoes, and champagne flutes bursting against the floor as his victims scattered into the streets of Stuttgart. Then I heard sirens, the hope of rescue before I felt a jerk on my arm and heard the ear-splitting screech of a car crash. The sirens fell silent just as Loki stopped dragging me forward. I wiped my face furiously to clear my vision.

He had changed clothes. Loki's formal wear was gone, and in its place was a costume. He had a helmet with golden horns, and an emerald cape. And his cane had grown longer. What was he? Some evil magician? It was nonsense. None of that existed. This couldn't be real.

"Kneel before me." I heard him say. I sobbed, sure he was about to execute me, make an example of me. I forced my shaking knees to bend.

"Not you, idiot." Loki half-whispered, yanking me upright again. He frowned in disgust and I flushed with shame at the look.

He raised his cane. It had changed shape and size, and was now as tall as Loki and ended in a wicked curve. A flash of blue lighting struck out of the tip and formed into into a square of crackling blue energy that surrounded the crowd.

Loki stood at each corner. "I said, kneel!"

My mind couldn't wrap around it. He was in four places at once, trapping the stampede of bewildered and frightened people. And mind control. All with the wave of a stick. A word ran through my mind. An impossible word: magic.

"KNEEL!"

His captive audience slowly and collectively sank to their knees, quieting into submission, leaving only the four Lokis standing, as well as me, shaking so hard I'd probably fall over if he let go. One Loki strode forward into the crowd with a smile, the one holding my arm pulling me along with him.

"Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state?" He moved into the midst of kneeling people.

"It's the unspoken truth of humanity that you crave subjugation." Loki picked our way through the crowd. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught several looks of disgust thrown in my direction.

"The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."

A man stood up. He was old and proud like a tree. His eyes looked straight at Loki, fearlessly awaiting his fate.

"Not to men like you."

"There are no men like me," said Loki.

"There are always men like you."

Loki turned towards me with that wicked smile. "Gersemi," he said. "Now is the time for you to remember who you are."

I shook my head, taking huge gulping breaths.

"Show these people what become of heroes," he said in a much louder voice as he held his staff out to me. When I didn't take it, he plucked my hand with his own strong fingers and pressed the staff into my palm.

It was warm to the touch and it fit perfectly on my hand. Heat traveled up my arm and into my chest. I felt a calm settle over me like a blanket and strength rise up inside my chest. My breathing slowed. Fear, panic and confusion left me.

I looked to Loki in wonder.

"Kill him," he said, pointing to the old brave man.

I looked to the man, then to Loki, then to his staff in my hand. He wanted me to what?

When I didn't answer him, Loki closed the distance between us. "Kill him," he hissed, his breath blowing the hair off my face, our noses almost touching. "Or I shall burn this frail plant in liquid fire and leave you alive, alone in darkness so deep the sun could never hope to reach you."

"No," I whispered.

"Kill him," Loki said, "or I will execute that boil of a being." His eyes darted to Finn, who was still standing vacantly, staring out of icy blue eyes. Loki waved him forward and Finn came obediently allowing Loki to wrap a hand around his throat. My friend gasped in pain but didn't move to protect himself.

"Choose."

"Please!" I begged him through tears. "I can't."

He smiled in return and Finn began to convulse, his eyes wide.

"Last chance," Loki said.

My mind bowed towards the unthinkable and my hand vibrated, jolting me up to my shoulders. Blue magic shot out of the staff towards the old brave man.

Before I could draw a breath, or blink, something barreled into me, knocking me to the ground. I clutched the staff. It felt hot against my palm. The world swam around me and I floundered on the edge of consciousness. I circled the drain for a moment and then I fell down a rabbit hole.

Stage lights flooded my eyes and classical music boomed in my ears. I was dancing ballet in front of a silent dark crowd. My muscles strained through the choreography, sweat dripped down my shoulder blades. The tempo was relentless and my lungs burned for oxygen. I prepared desperately for the ending of the piece: 25 fouetté turns. Plié and turn and turn and turn and turn...

I slammed into another dimension as I felt the staff being ripped away from me. No longer dancing, I was lying on a cool hard asphalt in a shot dress and high heels.

Without the staff, the fear and panic and confusion returned along with something new and demanding: pain, I pushed my palms against the rough ground and with a huge effort lifted my head to see the epicenter of my agony. My left leg bent at a sickening angle from the knee. Bone and blood.

I screamed. And screamed. And when my breath gave out, my ears rang. I shook so hard that the clattering of my teeth drowned out most of the commotion around.

I was broken. I was broken. I was broken.

I looked around through blurry eyes for help. There, just a couple feet away the staff waited for me. I clambered through the misery to get my hand back on it. As soon as I had it again, I was comforted, numbed. I could still feel, physically that my leg was in pain, broken, but the devastation was gone.

I sat cradling the staff. It had changed shape again, and was now just two feet long. The blue light on the tip pulsed slightly, a perfect replica of the larger one with which I had just used to shoot someone. No don't think about that now.

"DROP IT!" Someone bellowed at me. Another man in a costume. He wore a blue bodysuit with a star on his chest and the letter A on his forehead. He stood with his feet apart, knees bent, one leg back, his arm cocked ready to throw a large disk - no, a shield - at me.

I did not want to let go of the staff. I knew the pain would return, and I would lose my mind again to fear.

I looked for Finn and Loki, but couldn't find them. I saw Iron Man. As in the actual self-proclaimed superhero, Tony Stark. He stood, poised to shoot at me.

"Wait," I said, raising my hands and the staff in surrender. My heart pounded as I fought myself to do what they said.

"DROP IT NOW." The man with the star on his chest.

I set the staff down. I knew what was coming, but knowing didn't help. The pain slammed into me. I wanted to die. I wanted to cut off my leg. It was a grinding fire that wracked me. My chest heaved and sweat broke over my whole body, simultaneously chilling me to the bone and making me feel too hot.

I was only dimly aware of voices around me. Help me help me help me, I chanted, as if it would ward off my suffering. Or kill me. I heard myself groaning like animal. I couldn't stop the sound from coming. I did not pass out. I was carried. I was strapped down. I was terrified. It would not end.

Time passed and I began to see faces. The man in the blue suit had taken his mask off. He had light hair, different from Loki in every way. He and Iron Man, with his mask retracted just enough to see his furrowed face, stood over me arguing.

I turned my head and saw Loki sitting nearby, strapped down like I was. He was watching me with an unreadable expression.

"For God's sake, dope her!" I heard a woman say. And then finally, mercifully, I closed my eyes to the world.

I've kept one secret my entire life. I carried it around with me like a secret good-luck charm, sometimes bringing it out to examine it for details and significance. The secret was a lie, and the lie I told myself and anyone who asked, including my mother, was that I didn't remember anything from before being adopted. In truth, there was one, maybe two memories. I knew, without a doubt, that they were from before.

I was on my tippy toes and my nose just brushed the top of the cool, smooth marble counter. I reached my arm, fingers extended, stretching as far as I could, for the pretty bottles. They were lined up against the mirror, like tiny towers all different shapes, colors, and sizes, a pastel city street. The liquid-filled bottles were made of glass and cut like giant hollow diamonds. Light refracted and cast rainbows on the pure gold countertop. It glinted off corners and played along the designs cut into the glass bottles.

I knew Mama uses the bottles to smell nice. I have watched her take the little tops off, press her fingers to the rim and turn it over, dab her finger on her neck and wrists. I wanted them, but I couldn't reach. I was too little. I wanted the sea-green one with the vines, so I pulled out a drawer, a bottom one, and climbed up. I could almost reach one green one.

She found me where I was not supposed to be. She bent and picked me up. I was almost too big for this. She let me smell the bottle with the vines. Her soft hands brushed my hair off my face and she kissed my cheeks. She leaned in to tickle me with her eyelashes. I laughed and so did she.

My mother was not my mother. This memory-mother looked like me, same nose and mouth, only beautiful. She had long blonde hair and blue eyes that matched mine. She was confident and powerful, and sometimes, at my weakest moments, I pretended that she was there with me, holding me with strong arms and soft hands.

It was quiet for a long time before I realized I was awake. I heard an intermittent beep, like some very slow, very subtle alarm trying to wake me. I felt a slight vibration, so slight that it was more a hum or a purr. It was cold. I shivered, clutching at a thin blanket and pulling my legs to tuck them up tight for warmth.

A jolt of electric pain shot up from my leg. I gasped and tried to sit up, but found I couldn't make my body do what I wanted. Wide straps across my chest and arms and legs tied me to a narrow bed. I struggled against them wildly for a moment then froze, looking around at an unfamiliar room.

The beeping intensified, mirroring my galloping heart.

"Hello," I called out through a dry mouth. "Anyone?"

An IV snaked from the crook of my right arm. Hospital.

I don't know how long I was alone and panicking before a door swung inward and a man with dark curly hair, glasses, and a purple button-down shirt stepped in. He looked surprised to see me, or at least see me awake.

"Where am I?" I demanded before he could leave me here alone.

"You are in the custody of S.H.I.E.L.D." The man showed me his hands, palms outward as if he wanted to hold me down without alarming me, or like I was some wild animal he was trying to tame. "I'm not really supposed to be here m. I just came for—Calm down, okay? Stop moving! You'll hurt yourself. I will get you something for the pain. Just—"

"I am an American citizen!"

"Hey, me too, okay? Here..." He leaned to switch off the beeping monitor and then began rummaging through drawers.

"I have money!"

"I'm afraid that won't work here." He found what he was looking for: a syringe. "For the pain," he said and injected something into my IV port. "Just take a few breaths." Then he muttered to himself. "You can handle it."

I either began to cry then or noticed I was crying. "I have money. My family will pay..."

"We're not that sort of people, okay? We're the good guys."

"Then let me go!" I struggled wildly against the restraints. They rattled loudly but it was all noise. I couldn't get out.

"Okay! If you just calm down, I will take them off."

I stilled immediately. He watched me warily.

"Don't get me in trouble for this." He undid the straps, starting with my wrists. I pushed myself up awkwardly, feeling the fuzzy effects of whatever he'd given me.

"What is S.H.I.E.L.D? And why am I in custody? Where is Loki?"

Something was wrong with my leg. It felt heavy and stiff. I ripped the lightweight blanket off my body and found myself face to face with a black and silver contraption encasing my left leg like a giant boot, a metal boot that ran from my thigh all the way down over my foot. I scrabbled at the boot trying to slip it off, looking for a seam, a clasp, a crack, anything to show me where to pry. I cried out at my own jolting movements but the fear of not being able to walk, to bend it, to dance on it was more than I could comprehend.

"My leg," I groaned. I felt sick.

"Hold on! Stop!"

I struggled as the doctor grabbed my arms.

"What did you do to me?"

"Need some help?" a voice asked from the doorway.

"Yeah, sure thanks. Just hold her so I can—"

The hands changed and soon straps bit into me again, disallowing any movement. I glared at the newcomer, then recognized him. It was the man with the star on his chest. He was in costume still, without his mask. His face brought vivid memories of the nightmare I had just lived through. The screams. The shark smile. The way my leg looked, twisted.

I was spinning out of control. It was a familiar feeling. It was like falling backward.

"I'm gonna throw up."

"It's the pain meds," the doctor scrambled for a pan. I felt the chest and wrist straps loosened and I sat up again.

Nausea passed without incident. I realized that the man with the star on his chest had a heavy arm around my shoulders. He was holding me. Not holding me down, but holding me like he was comforting me. He had the pan in one hand, ready to catch whatever came out of my mouth.

I pushed him and the bedpan away.

"Better?" he said.

I looked shame-faced at the doctor, who looked like he was trying not to look in my direction while I threatened to lose my lunch. He stood tensely focusing on a holographic computer display suspended in midair next to an old-fashioned monitor.

"Who are you?" I whispered hoarsely to them both.

"Steve. Rodgers," the man in costume said.

I wrapped my own arms around myself, shivering. "Why do you have me in custody?"

Steve Rogers shared a look with the doctor. "That depends," he said.

"Depends on what?"

"What you were doing with Loki."

He picked the blanket up off the floor, handing it back to me. I realized I was in a flimsy hospital gown, my one good leg bare almost to my underwear. I flushed, taking the blanket, and covered myself up to my chin.

Steve turned and looked away pointedly. Despite my confusion and fear I couldn't help but notice just how impossibly good-looking he was. It was like he wasn't real. He was young, maybe a few years older than me, tall and built like a body-builder. He had a noticeably attractive face, now furrowed and turned away from me. The only odd thing about him was the skin-tight costume.

As I sat there, clutching the blanket, I suddenly felt extremely mixed up inside. The last time I'd seen this man, he was threatening to take me out with his shield. He had a look of anger and determination on his face, aimed directly at me. He was ready to hurt me. Or worse. Now he was comforting me and voluntarily catching my vomit? And what was with the dorky costume?

"I wasn't doing anything with Loki," I said. "He was forcing me. He...he...he had the wrong person. He kept calling me by someone's name and he forced me to take the staff and I...Finn was... he made me choose between them–"

"Start from the beginning," said Steve, folding his arms across his chest.

"I was just there with Finn, at the party. We were upstairs and that guy, Loki, came out of nowhere, started calling me a weird name, said something about a tesseract."

Steve's arms unfolded, and his eyes darkened as he took a step towards me. "Tesseract?"

"Yeah, and Ridium or something. He stabbed an old man and forced me to choose between Finn and that other old guy,"

"Who's Finn?"

"My friend. Did you see him? He—" my eyes filled again."Loki did something to him and his eyes turned blue. He was like...like empty or something. Like he erased Finn's mind."

Another look passed between the two men.

"Did Loki touch you with the scepter?" the doctor asked.

I shook my head, thinking about what it felt like to hold the staff, how it calmed and strengthened me, took away all the pain.

"What were you doing with the scepter?" Steve said as if reading my mind.

"I told you, Loki made me choose, and Finn was dying."

The doctor interjected, "Cap, she's lying."

"What?! No I'm not!" I felt the panic rise into my throat like acid.

Steve eyed me and strode around my bed to stand next to the doctor. Together they studied the holographic display.

"What am I looking at, Banner?"

"The results of a DNA test. She's not human."