Infinity War: SHOTS

Note: Please don't kill me when you read this. You don't care that I asked you not to, do you? Thought as much. Alright. At least make it quick.

Am I out of luck?

Am I waiting to break?

When I keep saying I'm looking for a way to escape

…

I'm sorry for everything, oh, everything I've done

From the second I was born it seems I've had a loaded gun

And then I shot, shot, shot a hole through everything I loved

Oh, I shot, shot, shot a hole through every single thing that I loved

Shots, by Imagine Dragons

Emma was screaming, screaming even worse than she'd done at HYDRA. Pain wracked her limbs and made her jolt in agony.

Ebony Maw stood over her, using his telekinetic ability to orchestrate the groups of glowing pearly spikes that were piercing her all over her body, sticking out like ugly glowing maggots that were growing through her, eating her up with pain until she was nothing at all, just a shadow.

The pain was almost unbearable, carried by treacherous nerves all over her body, unstoppable and constant, throbbing, almost alive as it curled through her, around her, inside her like a malignant tumour.

Ebony Maw smiled, twisting his thin lips into a cruel sneer.

Emma swore at him out of the corner of her mouth, then a spike dug in below her jaw, and Emma could feel the point pushing her tongue up, on the edge of piercing it.

She could barely talk through the pain and the spike in her mouth, she didn't have enough energy left to scream now, nothing.

Emma felt the man approaching before she saw him, but she knew who it was anyway.

It was Thanos.

"How are we today, little one?" The Titan moved his hand and the pearly spikes vanished. Ebony Maw stood back, looking disappointed.

"But Master, don't let me stop hurting her now, it was just getting fun," he whined, sounding like a small child deprived of a favourite toy.

Thanos glared at him, and he backed down immediately, scuttling hurriedly off into a corner.

"Emma," Thanos said, "How do you feel?" He waved his hand again and the many cuts and scrapes on Emma's body healed.

Thanos took hold of her metal arm and Emma flinched but didn't pull away from him. "Fine, Father. I'm... I'm fine."

"Still having nightmares?"

Emma nodded, staying silent this time.

"Don't worry, they'll stop in time, little one."

Emma shook her head. "Father... Father, my nightmares are about you. Not always, but sometimes I see you."

Thanos smiled, looking at the girl like she was a dog that had just performed a clever trick. "Good girl! Call me father, that's it. I'm your father now, aren't I? I'll always be here for you, my girl."

"Yes, Father. I know you'll always be there for me. But... but my dreams... I keep seeing things that can't possibly have happened..." Her voice trailed off, and she sank to the floor, sitting cross-legged with her face in her hands.

Thanos walked to his throne and sat down, looking at the red-haired girl.

"What do you dream about, Emma?"

Emma took a deep breath. "A man that looks like a robot. I see him first, most of the time. He always speaks, he always looks concerned for me, but I can never hear what he is saying. Sometimes there is a man with a metal arm like mine. He has long dark hair and his eyes are full of sadness. He looks at me with concern, like the android man, and he's holding something out to me that I can never reach; there is a gun in his other hand, not pointing at me, but I know that he will shoot me if he has to." Emma paused, looked at Thanos, and continued.

"Then I see people screaming and running, all people, small children, teenagers and adults, running from... I can't remember. Then I see a man in a red-and-gold metal suit being slowly crushed into the ground." Emma half-smiled, for some reason the image was satisfying.

"The metal around him is so hot it is almost liquid, and it is liquid now, beautiful and mirroring the sky. The sky is blue, too blue. Everything is pin-sharp, every colour too bright, a stab at my eyes. I can hear the man's screams as his skin burns and blisters under the molten metal. I see his hand, red and burnt, clawing up from the metal, but it flounders for a second then it is covered by the flowing liquid metal. I know that he is dying, and I feel happy. I can't remember exactly, but I think that he has been... unkind to me in the past. I am not sure how, and I can't remember his name either."

Emma tried yet again to remember, but came up empty, as she always did. The dream floated in front of her eyes again, and she continued talking:

"I see another man, dressed in blue and with blonde hair. Something shiny and circular is embedded in his side and he is bleeding onto the ground; there is blood trickling from the wound and congealing on the metal object's surface. The man's face is covered in scratches and dried blood as well, and he is a pitiful sight. The man with the metal arm reaches out to him, and the blonde man shakes his head, like saying 'You can't save me.'" Emma rubbed her eye, like she might be crying. She was not sure why, but felt an overwhelming sense of combined guilt, shame, and terrible grief.

"He's covering the wound with his hand, then pulls the shining circle out of his ribs, sending a gush of blood over the ground, and the man's jaw tightens in pain, but he does not scream. He says something that I can't hear to the long-haired man and he stands up and walks away, leaving the blonde man to die on the ground with no one to comfort him. I look closer, and the blood looks – it looks too red against the grey concrete he is lying on." Here Emma paused again.

"Keep talking, little one," Thanos prompted.

"And sometimes I see a young man, a little older than me. He has pale blonde hair and dark eyes and he is running so fast he's a silver-blue blur, but I can still see him. He is like a light, he stands out the most against something dark that I can't penetrate, but he's running away from me and I want him to come back but I can't catch up, I've got no chance. I... I am not what I feel about him, and I cannot remember his name, only his face. He has no significance to me other than that." Emma wasn't sure if she was lying or not.

Faltering a little, she finished: "Th-Then I see blood. Blood and darkness, darkness inside, behind the eyes. I see you. You snap your fingers. And I feel... I feel scared. Then there is nothing, and I am terrified."

Thanos patted her arm, looking a little worried, and said, almost absently: "Don't worry, little one. It was only a dream, and dreams are not reality. They do not exist, so do not try to remember names or faces or anything like that. They might hurt you in your dreams as well, so don't think about them, Emma. I do not want to cause you pain. Remember when I found you?"

"I was dying. I was alone. Nobody came for me until you found me." Emma said the words like she'd learnt them off by heart.

"Well, you'd been there a long time before I found you and you were unconscious for most of that time, so you might remember some things that haven't actually happened. And when you got here, we reminded you of what you might have forgotten. Do you remember, Emma? Do you understand?"

"Yes, Father."

"Good girl," Thanos repeated. "Proxima would like to see you."

Emma's face went as pale as death at the mention of Proxima Midnight's name, and she looked as though she were struggling not to scream again.

"Father, please, don't make me go to her."

For the first time, Thanos looked truly concerned. "Does she make you feel uncomfortable?"

"Uncomfortable?" Emma nearly screamed the word. "She - she – she's been coming to me in the night, Father. Please, please, I don't want to say, but please believe me, Father! Please believe me!"

Thanos looked absolutely livid for a second, then said: "She will be punished, my dear. There will be no doubt about that."

"Father... Don't hurt her too badly, so she can heal. Please. I don't want that to be my fault as well. But... I've been thinking. Father, can I ask you something?"

"Of course, Emma."

"Are you sure that I'm your daughter?"

Thanos looked at Emma for a moment. Then he pulled a photograph from his pocket and showed it to her. It was a girl and Thanos. The girl looked like a much younger Emma, about six or maybe seven years old. Older Emma looked at the photograph and smiled.

Thanos checked that the girl recognised the faces, even though the photograph was completely false. He'd altered the girl's memories as soon as they carried her near-inert body to his ship. He wanted Emma to be happy with who and where she was; his intentions were completely honourable.

He had then trained Emma a little, let her fight against each member of his much more powerful and well-trained Black Order, and had let them torture her every time she lost, which was most of the time.

As a result, Emma was completely loyal to her 'father' and would do anything he told her to.

She also did not remember any of the events in Sokovia except her imprisonment at HYDRA, nor did she remember the Avengers in any way except when they appeared in her nightmares, and even then she was convinced that they were nothing more than dreams.

Thanos had begun altering the girl's memories the moment she was safe, in this order: first, the all-important 'revelation' that Thanos was in fact her 'father', which had taken some complicated mind-tinkering. Then, in order to obscure the suspicious way Emma had been found and saved by him, Thanos had fabricated a memory of an attack on the Sokovian HYDRA base and Emma being left outside, unconscious and bleeding from the head.

In the altered memory, hours later, Emma had flickered briefly into consciousness, but everything was a blur, which easily covered up her meeting and subsequent conversation with Vision. There was another period of unconsciousness, this time artificially induced, during which Thanos had messed around with her memories, then Emma had woken up, fully healed and utterly compliant to Thanos's wishes.

"Father?"

Thanos looked at her, slipping the photograph back into his pocket. "Emma. Must you ask so many questions?" The rebuke in voice was barely there, but Emma hunched her shoulders as though preparing for a blow or beating.

"I'm sorry, Father."

Suddenly a voice broke the silence that was growing between them:

"Father? What is this you have found? Another escaped Terran brat who you've brainwashed again? You know she'll probably die within a week; Terrans don't like this sort of thing."
A tall, green-skinned young woman was walking towards them, standing tall, her long dark red hair rippling down her back. Two long swords were slung over her shoulders in two harness-type scabbards, and she looked down at Emma with disdain.

Thanos laughed. "Gamora, why do this every time we meet? You know Emma, you have seen her before."

"Getting tortured by Maw, possibly. Why do you collect children, Father? Why must you collect those to which you have no right?"

Emma looked up at Gamora and spoke in the same learnt-off-by-heart voice as before. "He is my father. He will always be there for me."

"That's what I thought as well. Well, girl? Do you have any reaction to anything?" She glared at Thanos. "No, of course not, because you've tinkered around with her memories," Gamora spat. She turned and walked out of the room.

"Father?"

"Don't worry about what she said, Emma. I would never do that to you."

"I know you wouldn't. You're my father."

Thanos looked at the girl – she was sixteen, maybe seventeen by now – Thanos made no effort to count birthdays – but she was still so childlike and oddly innocent in the way she spoke. He would have to fix that.

Thanos sighed resignedly. "Maw," he called, "come here. You can have the girl back now."

Ebony Maw scuttled out of the shadows, pearly spikes materialising around his hands, shivering in excitement and anticipation. Emma looked up at him, and the scars on her back seemed to ache in unison.

"Emma, my girl," Thanos said. "You do what I tell you. I am your father. Let him do this. It is his reward for being so patient, for having to wait so long for you."

Emma nodded, and Thanos sat back on his throne. "Begin." he said. "Emma, you may scream."

The first spike entered her neck, then another slashed at her leg, and a cluster of spikes began to tear at her right arm, digging deep bleeding gashes, and scratch uselessly at her metal left one. Emma obligingly screamed, even though she would have done so anyway.

"Good girl," Thanos muttered. He was playing with the Infinity Gauntlet on his left hand, all the holes to hold the Stones empty for the moment.

"Gamora!" Emma screamed, looking towards the door that the green-skinned woman had walked through. "Gamora, come back, please come back -"

"She won't come back, child," Ebony Maw whispered. He dug the spikes in deeper and deeper, and Emma screamed again and again until the sound was raw and choked with sobs.

"Gamora won't come and save you." he hissed in her ear. "She'll never value you when there is herself to be saved. And Proxima won't either. You know when she comes and sees you in the night? What she says? It's not true. She doesn't love you. Who would love you?"

The next time Emma saw another human being – well, at least human-shaped being, her father did not count – was a long time later, when the black-haired man had come onto the ship with the other man (he'd been addressed as Thor – where had she heard the name before? - Emma couldn't remember) in tow.

The second man had an eyepatch and roughly cut hair. He looked uncomfortable in his surroundings, and Emma couldn't help thinking that he would look better against the background of a stormy, lightning-strewn sky. She dismissed the thought as silly and childish.

Emma was hiding on a small balcony-like-thing, all half-broken and corroded railings splayed open and hanging precariously over the drop. Her leg was wrapped around a railing, the other hooked over a protruding spar of metal, and she was sitting, perfectly relaxed, looking down at the scene.

The second man - Thor - was buried in a mass of scrap metal by Ebony Maw and was helpless, utterly helpless.

The black-haired man – he was addressed as Loki – walked towards Thanos, and offered something – a glowing blue cube – an Infinity Stone? - to him, holding it out but keeping a tight grip on it.

Loki then made a speech, along the lines of "Almighty Thanos... blah, blah, blah," Emma couldn't be bothered with listening to all of it. Speeches didn't matter. What did were actions, and especially these.

Loki was shorter than Thanos, which gave her father an advantage of being able to reach down, but also, depending on how fast Loki reacted, gave the human an advantage. Wait – he wasn't human, was he? Emma knew an Asgardian when she saw one.

Emma saw the knife hidden behind his back and thought: What an idiot. Loki took a step forward.

"I promise you my undying fidelity."

Then his arm came up, knife exposed, almost touching Thanos's throat. Blue light immediately began to flicker around his arm, freezing it in place.
Thanos chuckled softly. "Undying. You should choose your words more carefully."

Emma knew what Thanos was going to do. She could almost see it. She stood up, perfectly balanced, like a knife.

So, tensing her limbs in preparation to jump, Emma did the only thing that came naturally. She knew how she was going to get down there, pinpointing things – a metal spar here, another broken bit of balcony there, and a couple of backflips should do – no time to plan it all.

Emma launched herself off the balcony, flipped a few times, swinging from all the different points she'd pinpointed until she was exactly over the figure of Thanos as he reached for Loki's throat -

She got in the way.

Next chapter will be uploaded as soon as possible! Please review! Katie Trillion xx