In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated

Chapter 4: Artifact

"What exactly do you want me to do?"

Romanoff uncrossed her arms and shrugged, just a hint of eagerness on her face. "Just show me how to use the scepter."

"And then I can go home?"

Her lips pursed as if in disappointment. She wanted me to be someone else, I realized. Everyone wanted me to be someone else. And I was just me, an ordinary person. I was no hero. All I wanted was to get out of this mess in one piece.

"It's a little more complicated than that," she said. "I'm not exactly in charge of those kinds of decisions."

"Director Fury is," I said. It all came back to this mysterious man who was detaining me, convinced I was evil but was too busy to actually talk to me himself. I felt a flare of anger towards him.

"If he wants me to show you how to use Loki's weapon. I want answers."

This seemed to surprise her. "What kind of answers?"

"I want to know why they are saying I'm not human. And I want to know what exactly Loki is telling you guys about me. And why Coulson was asking about my family. And what is Director Fury planning to do with me. When he will let me go."

"Seems reasonable," she said after a moment of consideration. "Give me a minute."

As she left the room, I felt a real ray of hope for the first time since this all started. Finally, I had a little bit of control of what was happening. I had a bargaining chip.

The next time the door opened Steve Rodgers walked in. I felt myself withdrawing at the sight of him, resentment stirring in my gut. He didn't seem to notice and gave me a friendly smile.

"They look good on you." He gestured to the sweatshirt and pants he'd let me borrow. I looked down at myself in disbelief. They drowned me. He was just trying to put me off my guard.

"What are you supposed to be?" The words, filled with bitterness and sarcasm, spilled out of my mouth before I could even get a chance to think about what I was saying.

He looked down at the silver star on his chest, the red and white stripes across his middle, and then looked up at me as if surprised I didn't already recognize him from the costume.

"Captain America," he said with the tiniest hint of a shy smile.

This took me aback. I'd seen Walter's collection of Captain America stuff: cards, comics, action figures. I didn't know much about the character, but I did know he was fictional. There wasn't really a superhero soldier that helped defeat Nazis. That was just an urban legdend.

But why would a grown man dress up in costume? And, as far as I had seen, everyone else wasn't laughing at him. I stared at him. He was a huge person, tall and extremely muscled. If anyone looked like a superhero, Steve Rodgers would be the guy.

"Like..." I said eloquently. "for real?"

His smile grew and he chuckled, looking almost embarrassed. "The one and only."

'Wait wait wait. You..." If I was going to believe this guy was the real Captain America, then I had to believe he was..."You're like a hundred years old."

His smile fell, and I felt a little bad for my lack of tack. "Sort of," he conceded.

"You have to meet Walter. He is seriously your biggest fan. You're his, well, his hero. But how are you alive? You look so young," I babbled.

Steve winked at me. He actually winked at me. I hadn't been winked at by someone under the age of seventy my entire life. I blushed and hated myself for it.

"Hope I'm not interrupting something special," Romanoff said. I hadn't even noticed her come in. "But we have a tight timeline. Fury gave the ok. So are we good? Romanoff asked me. I tore my eyes away from Rodgers and nodded without really comprehending her words.

"Great. Can you stand?" She asked.

"Uh," I said, distracted as she slipped the IV needle out of my arm before I could even feel it. "Where are we going?"

"To get the staff," Romanoff said like I was stupid, staunching the bleed with a bandage.

"Now?"

In response, she helped maneuver me so that one of my legs was dangling off the edge of the bed, while the other one, the metal one, was jutted straight out. Steve's sweatpants covered my legs but sagged around my waist even with the drawstring cinched tightly. I gingerly tipped my weight forward to test my balance on the metal leg and felt the hot wash of blood rush through the injury to my knee.

I recoiled. "Nope nope nope." My whole leg throbbed.

"Do you mind?" Steve said. I realized he was offering to carry me. I looked to Romanoff who already had a hand on the doorknob. She raised her eyebrows at me impatiently when I hesitated.

"Alright," I said, already regretting it, already feeling weirdly ashamed I had to be carried like a child and embarrassed to know that the real Captain America was holding me. Walter would have a hernia when I got home.

He slid a hand under my knees and around my back and lifted me like I weighed as much as an inflatable carrot. I avoided looking at his face and tried not to think about how ridiculous I looked or how weird it was that he was really really old but looked close to my age.

Romanoff held the door for us as he stuck my stiff leg through the doorway and made a three-point turn into a narrow industrial-looking hallway. The space was so tight that he had to sidestep all the way to the end. The awkward journey reminded me of unpleasant things, and I began to think about what it felt like to see my leg twisted, bone jutting out sickeningly. The real Captain America, who was now carrying me so carefully, had been the one to do that, to put me through the most pain I'd ever felt in my life. I didn't know whether to hate him for that or be grateful he was helping me now, or be star-struck by his nearness.

We stopped at an elevator and Romanoff flashed a badge and pushed the button. My spirits kept lifting as the elevator ascended. I wasn't sure where they were taking me, but anywhere was better than that tiny hospital room. Down another hall, more impressive and much wider than the level below, we marched. We encountered a few people, dressed in grey and black long-sleeved jumpsuits. We got a few curious glances, but no one stopped us.

A wall embedded with large windows looked into another room filled with more holographic screens. We rounded the corner to find the open doorway to a laboratory. The lab overlooked a large indoor hangar filled with jets. The hangar had big windows, too, and I realize that the far end was not just another wall, but a huge windshield. It was black because it was night out. I peered closer and saw actual stars. We were above ground and very high up. We were flying. It took a moment for me to reorient to the fact that we weren't in a big underground bunker, but a gigantic flying thing. It had to be...enormous.

Banner and Tony Stark stopped what they were doing and looked up.

"Wide load, coming through," Stark said. "Mr. Rogers, are you even licensed to drive?"

I felt Steve tense.

"It might be a beautiful day in the neighborhood, but you should keep the kids out of my lab," Stark continued. touching the corner of his screen. Data swept across the room and disappeared from sight.

"Your lab?" Steve said. I felt his voice rumble through his chest.

"Fine. I can share it with Bruce. Not you. And definitely not her."

Banner eyed me curiously behind his thin wire glasses. "What's she doing here?" He didn't say it unkindly, but I knew he didn't trust me.

"She knows how to work the scepter," Romanoff said. That's when I noticed it glowing on a table at the far end of the room. They had it on display like a prized sword.

"And?" Banner said, unsurprised that I could wield alien technology.

"And she can show us how to use it."

"You're telling me you're going to give it back to her?" Stark said.

"We don't know what or who she is. She could be dangerous," Banner agreed.

"She's a 90-pound girl," Steve said defensively pulling me closer to his chest.

I was one hundred ten, thank you very much, and a woman. Not a kid or a girl.

He seemed to notice my reaction to his statement and started to say, "I didn't mean—"

"What does Thor think?" Banner cut across him. "I mean he is Loki's brother."

"He tried the scepter. It didn't work for him," Romanoff said.

"What does he think about the girl-" Banner stopped himself, glancing at me. "About Siri. I mean. Let's get him to weigh in on this."

"Finding out Loki's plan is our top priority. Thor's trying to get some information out of him now," Steve said.

"This isn't up for debate," Romanoff said, picking up the scepter. "Fury's orders."

Stark looked pissed off. "Fine, but not in my lab."

Steve's body heat had finally warmed me up by the time he maneuvered us through another tight doorway into a cavernous room that could comfortably fit two houses inside. Iron Man stood to the side, hand lifted, ready to strike me down at the first sign of treachery. Romanoff was the only other person who had made the trip down three levels with us. She'd carried the staff and seemed completely unaffected by its power.

I felt nervous suddenly. I didn't want to hurt anyone again. I didn't even know for sure if I could still make it work. Still, the memory of how it made me feel was fresh in my mind.

"Put me down."

He hesitated, glancing at my leg.

"Trust me."

Slowly, Steve lowered me and blood rushed, hot and painful down my bad leg. I clutched at his arm with one hand, balancing on my good foot, my bad propped like a kickstand on a bicycle.

I took up the staff from Romanoff. It was heavy and familiar in my fingers. The pain in my leg instantly lessened and balancing on my right became as easy as if I had two good legs. My head cleared. Warmth ran up to my shoulder as if I had plunged it into a hot bath. All of my anxiety melted off like snow. I felt sure that as long as I held it, I would never have another panic attack. I felt a world full of endless possibilities open up before me.

"Siri?"

Steve was watching me closely. I had been quietly holding it for too long.

"Yes," I whispered in answer to my own question. Yes, it would work for me.

I found a line of target dummies at the far end of the room, ten of them, and without batting an eye, pointed the staff and destroyed them all in an instant. They burst into ten puffs of ashes that floated lazily to the ground like tiny black feathers.

"Hot damn," Stark hooted, his hands lowering.

"How?" Romanoff held her hand back out for the staff.

I felt a fierce need to keep it for myself. My desire to be trusted overrode the need. I handed it back reluctantly. The power slipped away like a knife from my gut. I clutched Steve's arm tightly, pain and weariness nearly knocking me down.

She motioned for a new set of dummies, and new ones sprang from trapdoors under the floor. She pointed the staff at them. Nothing happened.

She looked at me. "Now what?"

"Just think," I snapped at her through the fire in my leg.

"Think what?" She narrowed her eyes at my tone.

"Just picture what you want to happen." I tried to sound more respectful.

"Okay, I'm picturing."

Still nothing.

"Let me try." Steve took the staff, and Romanoff kept me on my foot.

Nothing.

Stark tried as well with the same results. He shrugged "Must have some sort of biometric reading. Whatever you are is the key. I'd like to run more tests—"

"Loki is our priority now," Steve interjected.

"After," Stark said with emphasis, "we deal with the supervillain."

I eyed the staff in his hand, aching to touch it again. He noticed and tossed it to me.

"I gotta get back to the lab," he said. "She's in charge." He said pointing at me. Apparently, I had won his trust. Just by blowing up some stuff.

I breathed evenly while holding it and remembered that it could change size and shape. I willed it to shrink and shrink it did, all the way down to the size of a pen. Steve and Romanoff leaned in for a look. I turned it over in my hand. It was the miniature version, a tiny blue light shone out the size of a key fob. The weight of it was disproportionately heavy, as if the mass stayed the same, even if the surface area shrunk.

Steve looked kind of impressed with me, while Romanoff still seemed skeptical.

"Anything else you want me to try?" I asked, desperate to win her over completely.

"I think I've seen en—whoa hold on...what are you..."

Blue wisps of light bled out of the tiny staff's head, surrounding first my hand, and then my arm.

"I'm not doing it," I protested. The blue light grew and swam around me like liquid electricity. Icy air burned my lungs and deep blackness engulfed me. A voice like metal on metal filled my mind. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw a porous rock wall, lit dimly by blue starlight. A billion billion stars shone in the very direction, even below me.

A voice growled. "What is this?"

Fear gripped me like a fist. A figure, tall, broad and hooded, strode towards me. Something was very wrong about him. My skin began to crawl.

"How did you come by that?" It asked of me, getting nearer and nearer. My heart hammered. I could see a mouth with no lips, teeth like a shark's stained with blood.

It stood before me. "Who are you?"

I couldn't breathe or move, trapped in my own body, a deer in the headlights. It reached out with a six-fingered hand.

"Where is Loki?" His skin was cold and somehow and sharp feeling as he placed impossibly large fingers directly over my face, suffocating me and blinding me.

"I am not finished with him."

I felt the tiny pen-sized staff ripped from my grasp. I collapsed. Warmth seeped back into me, even as the darkness seemed to swallow me. Then slowly my world stopped spinning, the darkness receded. A jagged hole was left, a hole made by temporary comfort, security and power the staff gave me. I was helpless. Weak, cowardly. Insignificant. I was a speck of dirt under the fingernails of humanity.

I was crying and sprawled on the ground, all dignity gone. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't form the words to describe what had happened. The fear still gripped me like an iron fist. I couldn't get a hold of myself.

I felt Steve pick me up and this time I put my arms around his neck and held on as if he was solid enough to keep me from ever seeing that again. The terror of what I had just seen faded as he walked, but shame flooded me in its place.

I cried. I cried because Loki smiled while he choked Finn. I cried because I was a murderer. I cried because I wasn't a human being. I cried from embarrassment because no matter how hard I tried to control myself I continued to break down. I cried because I couldn't stop crying and because I couldn't stop living. I cried for home and for my mother and the stupid chickens. I cried in the elevator, while Steve tried to talk to me, down the hall, around all the corners. I cried because he wouldn't shut up and leave me alone. And then I cried because he left me alone in my tiny prison with my tiny bed.