Author's Note:
Not all the chapters will be so long, it's just where it made sense to cut these two. So happy to be able to post again!
Enjoy!
Ellie stirs. The blankets are warm. They're pulled up all the way over her head, but she doesn't care. She's never been more comfortable. And sleeping in is her favorite hobby. There's an annoying sound, though. It's muted through the blankets but it just keeps going. The alarm clock?
Ugh, turn it off. Where's Maedlyn, is she there? Why isn't she turning it off?
Ellie moves again and something feels wrong. Everything is…
She frowns. Everything is wet.
Her eyes shoot open and it's pitch black. She's immersed in some kind of fluid, she can't breathe. She starts tearing at the blankets, at… whatever the fuck is smothering her. Her fingers finally push through and she tears it open.
She bursts through and is almost blinded by the light. She spits out a mouthful of fluid and sputters, sucking in gasps of air. The piercing sound is much louder now, coming in pulses.
The goo, the… the stuff is all over her. What the fuck is happening?!
Her last memories drift back to the surface.
Do me a favor? Tell me what Terrigen smells like. I've always wondered.
Ellie shudders, clasping her hands over her eyes. Her wet skin is cold on exposure to the air. What did these people do to her?
She freezes. Something's wrong. Her palms cover her eyes, but she can still see. She touches her eyelids, confirming that they're closed. But she can make out the tiles of the floor of the room.
Then she sees there's someone else in the room. She opens her eyes and snaps to her.
A red haired woman in a sleek bodysuit is standing at the entrance to the room holding a gun and looking at her.
"No," Ellie sputters. "No, stay the fuck back! Don't fucking touch me!"
"Hey," says the woman. She was in a crouch, as if ready for a fight, but now she stands up naturally. She holsters her gun and holds up a hand as if to calm her. "Hey, it's okay. I know this is abrupt. I'm sorry. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not one of these people. Okay?"
The piercing sound keeps coming in time with a flashing orange light on the wall. Ellie's practically crying. She's making little wheezing sounds from her mouth. That's when she notices.
The lower half of her body is still immersed in… in… a horror like something out of a sci-fi movie. A green and purple cocoon-type thing. It's revolting. She looks around and notices there are others laying on tables around her. Tears run down her face.
"What did you do to me?!" she shrieks.
The woman swiftly walks over to her, hands upraised. "Hey, look at me. You don't have to be afraid." When she nears, Ellie pulls back, but the woman gently puts her hands on her shoulders to steady her, and Ellie lets her. "Hey, listen. Look at me. In the eyes. That's right. I told you, I'm not one of these people. I broke in here. Now—look me in the eye. That's right. First thing's first. You're okay."
Ellie just stares back, tears mingling with the wetness on her face.
"I'm sorry for what happened to you," says the woman. "But you are okay. I know it feels strange, but this is natural. Or pretty close, anyway. You'll be okay as long as you're with me."
Ellie's looking at the woman but she can still see the table behind her.
"You may be experiencing some unusual things. But you're healthy. You're okay." The woman leans in. "Do you believe me?"
Ellie's lip is trembling. The woman smells like leather and gun smoke. It makes her think of Tommy. Ellie nods.
"Okay," says the woman. "I'm getting out of here. I can bring you with me. I recommend you come, because they will not treat you well here."
Ellie pants.
"Do you want to get out of here with me?" the woman asks.
Desperate, afraid, Ellie feels a pulse in her chest. The decision is automatic. She nods eagerly.
"Okay, climb out of there. I'll help you."
Ellie's about to do just that when she realizes for the first time that she's completely naked. She makes a loud sound and covers her chest.
"It's okay, it's nothing I haven't seen before. Here, climb out, and I'll get you something to wear. Time is short. We have to be quick about this, okay?"
Reluctantly, Ellie takes her hand and with a little effort, she's able to stand up and jump down off the table, her fluid-covered feet make a splatting sound on the floor. She covers herself as best she can. She feels cold, and exposed.
Somehow unfazed, the woman moves quickly to some cabinets on the wall, rifling through them expertly. She pulls out some plain white garments and a towel.
"Here," she says, "clean yourself up and dress quickly, we need to move."
Ellie takes what she's offered, staring down at it.
"I said we don't have much time." The woman's voice vibrates with command, like Maria's.
Ellie does what she says.
As she's finishing buttoning the simple white coat, Ellie notices the woman sizing her up, a thoughtful frown on her face. "Do you know who I am?" the woman asks.
Ellie looks askance at her. How the hell would she know that? She shakes her head.
The woman's eyes flit to the side for a second in rapid thought. She shakes her head. "It doesn't matter, just finish up."
Ellie's relieved to be mostly dry again. She drags the towel through her matted, clumped hair a few more times, eager to get as much of that stuff off of her as she can. Once she's done, she looks down at her hands and realizes she can see through them, too.
Her heart rate accelerates as she feels like she's losing her mind again.
"Hey," says the woman, seizing her attention, "I know you're experiencing some weird stuff right now, but that's normal. I need you to stay with me, okay? Here," the woman taps Ellie's forehead, and then her chest. "And here. As long as you're with me, you'll be safe. I will do my best to protect you, and believe me, I'm good at it. Just stay close, okay? We're getting out of this hellhole."
The woman exudes competence. It may be wrong to trust her, but it feels better than anything else. Ellie nods again. Then she sees something in the cabinet the woman rooted through. Her eyes go wide. "My pack!" She runs over and quickly dons it. Her bow is missing, she notes absently.
The woman beckons her curtly. "Got a name?"
"Ellie," she says, securing the straps.
"I'm Natasha. Let's go."
With that she just turns, draws her gun again, and goes for the door. She's not screwing around.
As long as you're with me, you'll be safe.
Ellie follows.
They walk into a hallway Ellie doesn't recognize, but it's clearly the same facility. The woman seems to know where she's going and doesn't stop. They reach a T intersection and the woman stops, looking around both corners. But Ellie can already tell there's no one there. The woman gestures for her to follow and she does.
"The roof is close, we just need to get there."
They walk through another automatic door. There are ascending stairs to the left and another door in front of them. On the other side of it, someone is approaching them. It's that guy, with the skull mask. Tony.
"It's him…" Ellie mutters, pointing.
"What?" Natasha half turns.
The doors in front of them open and they see each other.
"Oh, goody," he says, smiling. The empty, soulless eye sockets gaze back mockingly.
"Taskmaster," Natasha snarls. "Can we just skip to the part where you fall down?"
"Where who falls down? Anyway, the middle is the best part."
There's a tense pause.
They draw at the same time but Natasha fires first and, incredibly, shoots the gun out of the man's hand.
He grunts in pain but immediately charges her. She shoots him two more times in the chest but he doesn't even slow down and slaps the gun from her hand. He throws some nasty punches but she stops them professionally with precise blocks. He punches her in the gut and she lets him, her body scarcely moving from the blow. She slugs him in the jaw.
He grabs her arm with his right and her shoulder with his left, locking her arm. He nimbly tries to kick her in the face, but she just dips back out of the way, then kicks him in the face.
He's briefly stunned and she drops and tries to leg sweep him, but he jumps over it. He tries to tackle her but she drops to her back and uses her legs to throw him over her.
Ellie has backed up several feet. It's all happening so fast that it's not until this moment that she's questioned if she should do something. He tumbles inelegantly, landing almost at Ellie's feet. As he's getting up, he half turns to her, and she cocks back her arm and hits him in the jaw as hard as she possibly can.
He stumbles a step or so. "It's you!"
"Yeah it is, creep!"
Natasha is charging him and he gets ready to block a kick, but that's not what she does. She jumps so high that her legs go over his shoulders, so she's sitting on his collarbone. She clutches his head with her thighs, tips backward and swings his entire body over hers, slamming him into the ground so hard he bounces.
"Fuck!" says Ellie involuntarily.
Natasha's still sitting on him. Clearly in pain, he growls and tries clumsily to grapple her, but she uses her left arm to pin his forehead down at an angle, and her other to send a straight sharply into his jaw. His head jerks, and he goes limp.
"Asshole," she says under her breath.
"Holy shit, you fucked him up!" says Ellie.
Natasha looks disapprovingly at her for a second and then laughs against her will. "Eyes up, Ellie, we still need to get out of here."
"Right," says Ellie, feeling chided.
The woman climbs off the man and starts ascending the stairs, and Ellie follows suit.
The door at the top opens and there's blinding sunlight and the loud roar of some kind of engine. Ellie covers her eyes with her hand to protect from the light —even though she can see through it—but when she realizes what she's seeing she drops her hand and her jaw falls open.
A massive vehicle is floating fifteen feet off the ground in front of them. It's not a helicopter, it's like one of those old fighter jets they used to have, but bigger. It has a cargo bay that's open in the back and there are people inside it. A young looking girl beckons to them eagerly.
"Come on! Get in!" Then she notices Ellie and her eyes linger on her.
"Kamala!" Natasha hails her as she gets close to the jet. "Her first!"
What happens next almost breaks Ellie's brain. In response to Natasha's command, the girl reaches out and her arm stretches like it was made of rubber. Her hand grows until it's bigger than Ellie's torso and wraps around her. Gently, she picks Ellie up and lifts her all the way into the jet, setting her down easily.
Ellie just stands there, straight as an arrow and stupefied. The girl, Kamala, pays her no mind and does the same for Natasha.
That's when Ellie notices the… man sharing the jet with them. He's bright green and appears to weigh somewhere around two thousand pounds. It's all muscle.
He's got a surly kind of look on his face. He returns her look, seeming bored. He snorts.
Suddenly, Ellie is feeling dizzy.
Natasha puts her hand on Ellie's lower back to steady her and brings her other hand up to a handhold above her. "Keep hold of that. Firm hold. That's right. Tony?" She depresses a device in her ear as she says the name.
"Go on without me," comes a voice over the intercom, "I'm keeping them busy. I'll be right behind you."
Another voice follows it, in an accent Ellie has never heard.
"Team, AIM's ground to air defenses remain inoperable, but the window is narrowing. I recommend immediate extraction."
"Punch it, Steve," says Natasha.
The cargo door behind them closes, darkening the hold and greatly dampening the roar of the engines.
"Hold on tight," says Steve, the blonde man at the helm.
The gigantic man grunts.
The roar rises to a blare and Ellie is almost hurled into the back door by an immense and sudden force. Natasha helps by grabbing her other hand and having it join the first on the hand hold, to which Ellie clings desperately.
"Approaching AIM perimeter," says the accented voice. "Perimeter cleared. Extraction successful."
The engines continue to roar, but the extreme force is levelling off, until Ellie is able to put both feet flat on the ground again.
"Here," says Natasha gently, "that was a lot, I know. Sit down, you can buckle up, it's more comfortable."
With some difficulty, she manages to sit in the seat Natasha is gesturing to. The young girl is sitting across from her, and Natasha sits next to her.
"Hi," says the girl. "I'm Kamala."
"Hi," says Ellie, her voice dry. "I'm Ellie."
"Expect to meet the Avengers today?" the girl asks her.
Ellie blinks. It occurs to her that the voice on the radio back in that lab had mentioned the Avengers. But it means nothing to her.
It doesn't seem to be the response Kamala expected. She frowns in confusion.
"Kamala," says Natasha, "let's wait until we get back to the Chimera."
Kamala glances at her, concerned, but nods and doesn't say anything else.
"The Chimera?" Ellie asks.
"It's like our base," says Natasha. "Don't worry, you'll see. Just take it easy for now. Mind your breathing."
Ellie nods. She was forgetting to breathe. She sucks a couple deep breaths into her lungs. She can feel her hands shaking and she realizes she must look fucked up. She looks at her lap.
The flight—Ellie can only assume they are flying, but she's scared to look out the front window—goes on for some time. After ten minutes or so, her breathing a little more level, Ellie starts glancing around the cabin curiously. Then, slowly… she realizes she doesn't have to.
For the first time, she's realizing she's not really 'seeing' through things. She's… sensing them. She can look at the huge green man without moving her eyes at all.
What's more, they all have a kind of… glow. Are they always like that, or is it just her? The other guy, that creep Tony—which she notes it's not the same Tony Natasha was talking to, he had a different voice—creepy Tony had a glow, too. But he hadn't when she first saw him. She didn't like his glow.
These people, though, they're different.
The green man has a furious, green emanation coming off of him. It's powerful. Natasha's is much fainter. Ellie can't really put a color to it, it keeps changing. The girl in front of her, hers is big and bright, like sunlight. It's beautiful. Steve's is similar.
Ellie has her own glow, too. It's different colors. It's not as pretty as theirs.
Natasha is expertly cleaning her gun, almost absent mindedly. Her movements are precise and well-practiced.
Ellie happens to catch Kamala's eye. She points at Natasha. "She won't let me have a gun."
Kamala is much younger than the rest of them. Maybe seventeen or so. She's fresh-faced with brown skin and shoulder length dark hair. Her eyes are big and brown and open. Looking into them, Ellie knows down to her heart that she can trust her.
Natasha shoots Kamala a look. "You don't need a gun."
"It'd be cool, though," says Kamala.
"The purpose of guns is not to be cool."
"I know…" says Kamala. "But, like, I could use a really big gun, like super big. Imagine—" She raises her hands again, and they grow to huge size, a foot across. She bares her teeth and pantomimes shooting a humongous weapon. She makes big shooting and explosion sounds. Her hands go back down to normal size. "It'd be awesome," she says to Ellie.
Natasha is giving her a long look. She snaps the chamber of the gun shut, completing her routine. "You definitely don't need a gun."
"Maybe we could get you a shield," says Steve.
Kamala positively gasps. She looks at Natasha.
Natasha chuckles. "Don't look at me like I make all the decisions. And we're not exactly flush on vibranium."
It takes some wind out of Kamala's sails. "Yeah… It could be just like a steel shield though, I'm strong, I could hold it. They'd be like, 'Ms. Marvel, inspired by one of her heroes, is taking up her own shield to fight for justice!'"
Ellie doesn't know who Ms. Marvel is, why the shield is important, or who exactly it is that is narrating her life.
Natasha just has a little smile.
The green man is looking sideways at Kamala, with an unabashed, dubious expression. He tosses his huge hand as if to say 'what are you talking about?'
"No shield," he says in a deep and rumbling voice. "You shield."
Kamala giggles.
The green man scoffs. "No gun. You gun."
She looks at Ellie. "It's kind of true." She makes a halted punching gesture, punctuating it with a "Pow!"
"Kamala fight like Hulk," the green man continues. He turns away, sticking his lips out like that settled things. "Best way."
Kamala giggles again.
It's quiet for a while after that. She'd been avoiding it, kind of, like not looking down when you're really high up, but she's becoming aware of the fact that she can sense what's outside the jet's hull. Which is, of course, nothing. She can't see the ground though. She can only see so far, she realizes. Or sense, whatever. Every once in a while scraps of cloud fly by, though.
Cloud. Ellie's moving through clouds. She's not thinking about it too much.
"Home on the approach, crew," says Steve from the front.
Now Ellie does look through the windshield, and what she sees she can't believe.
At first it's small, but it gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and bigger. It's kind of like a cruise ship. A long vessel entirely made of metal. There are four great discs on the corners, holding rotors that apparently keep the thing aloft. The thing must be hundreds of feet long. Ellie can't imagine how much it weighs. Countless tons, probably. It's bigger than any aircraft she's ever heard of or imagined.
It's a fortress, she realizes. A fortress floating in the sky.
They're flying straight at it and for a second Ellie's scared they're going to smash into the side.
"Easy," says Natasha, taking Ellie's hand. "It's alright. Look at me if you're afraid. I told you you'd be safe with me."
Kamala's looking at her again. "Yeah, it was pretty freaky for me the first few times."
But Ellie does look out the windshield again, almost compelled. She sees a huge hatch open up on the side of the ship. They've slowed down considerably, and now they drift into what Ellie realizes is functionally a hangar. There are other jets like this one and all kinds of vehicles inside.
They're just drifting through the air now, and they gently touch down.
"Deft hand, Cap," says Natasha.
"Thank you," he says honestly. "I've been practicing." He flips some switches on the console and the jet powers down. The others start getting up, so Ellie follows suit.
The cargo door opens again, forming a ramp they can walk down. Natasha gestures, so Ellie walks down it to the hangar floor.
Ellie notices a light in the distance in the sky through the hangar doors. There's the roar of a rocket or something. Her eyes go wide. "What the hell is that!?"
Kamala laughs, then looks like she feels bad when she sees Ellie's face. "It's okay, it's just Tony."
"Huh?"
The roar grows loud and the missile flies into the hangar. It slows down, and as it gets close, Ellie realizes it's not a missile. It's a robot. It's similar to the ones she saw before. It has thrusters on its hands and feet, and it glides slowly down until it's standing in front of them.
Then there's a mechanical sound, the face plate pops forward and retracts over the top of the head, revealing that it's not in fact a robot, but a man wearing a robotic suit. "Hey," he says casually to all of them. His eyes linger on Ellie. "What's up?"
Ellie just stares.
He cocks an eyebrow and looks at Natasha as if to say what's up with her?
Natasha shakes her head subtly but Ellie notices.
And if that wasn't enough, one last impossible thing happens before her eyes. A man in medieval looking armor with a cape and a battle hammer comes floating in through the hanger doors of his own volition. His cape flutters regally in the wind. But the thing that really catches Ellie's eyes is his glow. It's immense, brilliant and blinding. It's insanely strong. It's like a god is floating in front of her.
He touches down lightly and tosses the hammer once, catching it casually. He's a powerful looking Scandinavian man, tall and muscular, with shoulder length golden hair.
Tony looks at him. "Beat you."
The brilliant man frowns. "You never said it was a race." His voice is deep and sonorous, with another accent she's never heard. "What's more, you know the Captain frowns on us competing during operations."
Tony makes a face as if to say 'Eh.'
"Alright, boys," says Natasha, "let's get Ellie inside. She's having a hell of a day. Are you hungry?" she asks her.
She's starving.
Ellie's eating a tuna sandwich with lots of veggies and mustard and mayonnaise on it. It's on super soft white bread. It's one of the best things she's ever eaten. They also gave her a little plastic bag of potato 'chips.' She's seen a million like it, but these aren't old and rotten, they're salty and utterly delicious.
She's in a conference room of sorts onboard the Chimera, which is what they call the flying fortress. There's a huge window behind her, offering an impossible vista of a cloudscape, and the surface of the Earth, far, far below.
Ellie's mind is stretched to the limit, but inside herself there's a little bubble where she feels safe and sane. It's in the seat she's sitting in, the tuna sandwich in her hands, and Natasha's comforting presence, across the table. She's letting the rest of it dwell outside her awareness for now. So she automatically decided to sit with her back to the window.
Natasha's the only other one in the room. She's currently using some sort of translucent tablet with all kinds of data and things on it. She flips back and forth between maps and charts and paragraphs of text.
"I feel kinda bad eating in front of you," says Ellie.
Natasha looks up and smiles. Natasha's got a different vibe from the others. She's more guarded, like it's more of an act. But when she smiles, it still feels good.
"No need for that, Ellie."
"Do you want some of these—you said they're chips?"
She smiles ruefully. "I have a pretty strict diet."
"These are so unbelievably good."
She chuckles. "They are, but I'll warn you, they're not very healthy."
"I'll take it."
"You know, I've heard sometimes people put the chips in the sandwich."
Ellie's eyebrows shoot up. She lifts one of the slices of bread and puts a chip down. She takes another bite. Her teeth crunch the chip, and the saltiness multiplies the flavor of everything else. She makes such a sound of enjoyment that Natasha laughs.
Eventually, unfortunately, Ellie finishes the food. She feels like she could eat a lot more, but she's too embarrassed to ask for it.
"Satisfied?" Natasha asks, looking up from the tablet.
Ellie nods.
Natasha narrows her eyes. "You're not being honest, are you?"
Natasha is pretty sharp, Ellie decides. She shakes her head.
Natasha smiles. "How about this; let's talk, and if you're still hungry afterwards, we'll get you more. We've got lots of food."
Ellie wonders if by 'talk,' she means 'interrogate.' "Okay."
Natasha takes a breath. She turns the tablet off and puts it down. She rests her forearms on the table and clasps her hands. "All of this seems pretty strange to you, doesn't it, Ellie?"
Feeling small again, Ellie searches about with her eyes. She doesn't want to admit how she's really feeling. She's trying to keep her mind confined to this chair, this table, and Nat. So she just nods.
"Well, it would be strange for anyone, what we do here isn't commonplace by any means. But when I ask you that here and now, I mean," Natasha slides the tablet to the side, leaning into her elbows on the table, looking Ellie directly in the eyes, "all of this seems really, really strange to you, doesn't it?"
Natasha's eyes are sky blue and brimming with intelligence. Ellie can't penetrate them. It's probably pretty hard to hide things from her.
Ellie nods.
"I've been putting a few things together," she continues. "Forgive me for going slow. I suspect I know a lot of things you don't, and it's very important to me not to overwhelm you. So I'm thinking carefully about what to say."
"Okay," says Ellie. She likes Natasha.
Natasha bites her lip, thinking. "Can I ask where you're from?"
Ellie thinks. She decides. "Boston, I guess."
"Mm," says Natasha. "In that case, what if I asked you for your story? Would you be comfortable telling me that?"
Ellie thinks again. "Am I a prisoner?"
Natasha immediately shakes her head. "No. But I don't think it would be a good idea to let you go just yet, either."
"What if I tell you about something I did that was bad?" Ellie asks. Her face is as level as she can make it. Her features are slackening as the conversation goes on.
Natasha doesn't respond right away. There's something behind her eyes. Some weight. She looks down for a moment. "Ellie, you don't know who I am, but know this. You don't have to fear judgment from me. I'd be amazed if you'd done half the things that I have. And if what I suspect is remotely true, you don't have to fear any kind of punishment, either."
Ellie likes Natasha more and more. And now she decides she can trust her.
"Okay."
She tells her. She's hesitant at first, but once she gets going, she can't stop.
Boston. Marlene. Riley. Joel. Bill. Pittsburgh. Colorado. David. St. Mary's. Jackson.
…Abby. Dina. Seattle. All of Seattle. The farm. Santa Barbara. The year of wandering.
Coming home, to Jackson. Maedlyn and Maria and Clint. Eddie. Grand Junction and Portland, and then Catalina. And Abby, again. Sacramento. The doctors. Terrence, and the cure. Burley… and then finally Jackson.
And what happened when she went to look at the lights with Abby. And after that, in that horrible place, with that creep.
Natasha listens with extreme patience and unerring attention. Her eyes turn away a few times, at certain details, but always return swiftly to Ellie.
For her part, Ellie gesticulates, talking animatedly at times, morosely, at others. She doesn't cry. She laughs once or twice. It takes a long time. She's not sure, maybe more than an hour. Once she's finished, she cups her hands in her lap, rubbing one palm with the other thumb, staring at the wood grain of the table.
"And that's it," she finishes. She isn't hungry anymore.
Natasha takes another deep breath, and releases it. "You have my total confidence, Ellie," says Natasha. "I won't tell anyone anything without your permission. There are things I want to share, though, especially with Steve. But we can get to that later."
Ellie nods. "I trust you."
"I know. Thank you. You're doing a very good job. Now I just need to think about how to draw this to a closed circle." Natasha leans back, frowning. She seems to be thinking hard about what to say. Eventually, she leans forward again.
"The facility where I found you is run by an organization named AIM. Advanced Idea Mechanics. They're a hegemony of scientific and corporate—" She stops herself. "Of very smart and very powerful people. They employ a lot of clever people, but they also do some very bad things, as you are unfortunately aware."
Feeling a little wave of anger, Ellie nods.
"They discovered a compound called Tachyon, which they've been using to—" She screws up her lips, stopping herself again. "I'm sorry, there is a lot you don't know and I'm trying not to overwhelm you."
"I remember."
"They do a lot of things that we're trying to stop, but that facility, we went through lengths to track down, because we suspected they were using an isomer of tachyon to do… something. And now that we've been there, and with the data we've gathered…"
Natasha hesitates. Ellie's eyes are locked on her. She's been waiting a long time now for the other foot to drop, and she can tell from Natasha's eyes that she understands.
Natasha continues. "We now suspect that they've been using this new Tachyon in attempts to travel to and from, capital letters, Other Places."
Ellie's breathing stops for a second. Her heart rate is accelerating.
"We found a few things," Natasha continues, "but what's important right now, for you, is that the principle machine that you saw at that site—that big tower?—it was being used to, I suppose you would say 'trawl,' one of these Other Places. AIM is ravenous for data. They were collecting samples of things for testing—plants, rocks, animals—anything they could get their hands on, and I suspect—"
"They trawled me?" says Ellie.
Natasha presses her lips together. "I suspect so."
A rumbling is growing inside Ellie. A pressure. She starts shaking her head over and over. "That's not fair."
Natasha holds out a hand as if to calm her. She shakes her head. "No, it's not."
"I didn't ask for that."
"No, you didn't. But that's not how AIM operates—"
"That's not fair," Ellie says louder, standing up.
"I know, Ellie, you're right—"
"I want to go home!" Ellie screams with all her strength, slamming her fists into the table. Then, the dam breaks and she begins sobbing uncontrollably. Her face screws up until the muscles cry out in pain. She keeps seeing Maedlyn waving goodbye from the rooftop.
Seconds later, she can feel Natasha's arms around her, pulling her head into her shoulder.
Hours later, Ellie is in a tiny unit they had to spare with sparse décor including a metal table, chair, a couple cabinets and a bunk bed. It's dark outside the window by the bed. The sky is full of stars and big white clouds float by in the moonlight.
Ellie's reclined in the bed against the pillow, playing with the chain of the locket with her mother's picture. She was immensely relieved to find it in her pack.
After she'd finally pulled herself together earlier, she'd apologized to Natasha for her outburst. Natasha said she'd had no reason to apologize, every reason to scream, and to call her Nat from then on.
At that point she'd wanted to press Nat with questions about this… Place. But Nat had said they needed to go slow and she should get some rest. Ellie hadn't let up until Nat answered her question about the infection. Cordyceps.
"No," Nat had said, eyes carrying subtle but still hurtful pity, "no, we don't have anything like that here, Ellie."
Nat had set her up in this room, and said it was all hers for now. She hadn't felt much desire to leave since then. At one point, the guy who was wearing the robot suit came by, wearing plain clothes, but with an odd light glowing in his chest. Tony. He'd told her they were trying to figure out how to help her, maybe even get her back home, but it was easier said than done. For now, they'd be very busy for a while, but he gave her some books to keep her busy if she got bored. 'From his personal collection.' She'd looked at a couple and started a Western that seemed promising, but her mind was too restless and she'd put it down.
She can't stop thinking about the last thing Maedlyn had said to her.
Be back soon!
There's a knock at the door, and Ellie starts. But it's a welcome distraction.
Ellie's pleased to see it's Kamala, through the door. "Come in," she calls.
The door opens and Kamala walks in.
"Hey," she says.
"Hey," says Ellie.
"Can I sit?"
"Go ahead."
Kamala sits on a crate opposite the bed. "How you feeling?"
Ellie takes a breath. "Out of my depth."
"We're on your side. We're gonna figure things out. Well, I can't speak for everyone, but generally, that's what the Avengers do."
Ellie looks at her. "I take it you guys are pretty well known. With the flying fortress and all that."
Kamala smiles big. "Yeah. Oh my gosh, I was so in love with the Avengers as a kid. I idolized them." She's looking off into the distance and shaking her head. "I never dreamed I'd be one of them."
Ellie looks back at her. Smiling is a bit beyond her right now, but Kamala's presence is still welcome. "I guess if I had to come to this place, I'm lucky I fell in with you guys."
Kamala nods. "Nat filled me in. On your story."
Ellie was looking at her locket, now she freezes. She turns and props herself on her elbow. "What? What did she tell you?"
"Um…" Kamala is taken aback by her reaction. "Not that much, just what she said I needed to know. That things are very different where you come from." Kamala looks a little sheepish. "A lot harder than here."
That's putting it pretty lightly, from what little she's seen. But that's not what she wanted to know. "What did she tell you about me?"
Kamala is confused at that. "Um… just that you're really tough. That you kind of had to be. She told me—" Kamala giggles. "She said she was protecting you from Taskmaster, but when you had a chance you didn't hesitate to deck him."
"Yeah, I fucking did. That guy was a creep." Ellie relaxes, satisfied Kamala doesn't know what she's capable of. "Sorry, am I not supposed to swear around here? I kinda got that impression."
"Um," says Kamala, "well, Cap frowns upon it. He's very, um, upstanding."
"Cap?"
"Oh," says Kamala, "that's Steve. It's short for Captain America."
Ellie's brows climb. "That's quite a name. Does everyone have a name like that?"
"Well, I mean, not everyone, but the Avengers do. Some inhumans do. And some jerks, like Tony Masters do."
"The creep with the skull mask?"
"Yep, that's him."
"Taskmaster, huh? What a d-bag. What's your special name, then?"
"Oh," Kamala smiles, "it's Ms. Marvel."
"Ah, that's why you said that earlier."
"Yeah. Sorry, back there I had no idea what… your story was."
"Not your fault."
Kamala looks sad for a second. "Hey, I was hoping I'd get a chance to talk to you."
Ellie looks over. "About what? And I hope you're not gonna say my world, cause…" She just shakes her head.
"No, um… specifically… We're the only two inhumans on the ship."
"Inhu—" They keep saying that word. "Are you calling me inhuman?"
"No, no, it's not like that! It's what we call ourselves. Well, at first it's what the jerks at AIM called us, to make us feel like there was something wrong with us. But now we say it with pride. It just means you've gone through terrigenesis."
Ellie's features slacken. She's pretty sure she knows what Kamala's talking about, but she's managed to go all day without thinking back to those horrible moments when she woke up.
"I know, I know," Kamala holds out her hands as if to shake away the feeling, "you've had a really long day," she inclines her head, "like really long, but I thought we should talk about that because, you know, we talk, on like inhuman boards, we talk about how hard it is when someone has to go through it alone."
Ellie's just laying there with a hand on her forehead. She sighs. She doesn't want to talk about it, but somehow she knows Kamala is right. She should tell someone. She gets up and swings her feet over the side of the bed, sitting like Kamala.
"Okay, first of all, what's an 'inhuman board?'"
"Oh, I meant like a forum. Like on the internet." She pauses. "Do you guys have the internet?"
Ellie stares back blankly. She shakes her head.
"Oh," says Kamala, like that settles it. But then she doesn't say anything. She's staring off into the corner of the room. "Okay." She continues to sit there. "Sorry, I'm just trying to wrap my head around that." She sits for a couple seconds longer and brings her hands to the sides of her head. "I'm sorry, that's really blowing my mind." She shakes her head. "Nevermind, we can talk about that later. Natasha said to go slow."
Ellie stares. A lot there, apparently. "Okay. Then my next question is what is… terrigene…"
"Terrigenesis."
"That, yeah."
"Okay, so Terrigen vapor is made from water and Terrigen crystals. Long story, lots of science, goes beyond our understanding, too. The point is, when a human being breathes Terrigen vapor, their bodies become encased in a kind of cocoon or chrysalis, some people say."
"Yeah, it was incredibly gross."
Kamala waves that away. "I know, I know, we all went through it. Puberty was kind of gross too, but what are you gonna do? It's natural."
"Terrigenesis doesn't sound natural."
"Okay, it's not exactly natural, but the way it interacts with our genes actually parallels natural patterns. In fact, it doesn't change your genes, some people say it 'awakens' them. What happens to you during Terrigenesis depends on your genes in ways we don't fully understand yet. Some people come out of it with special powers, some people come out like they were before, and..." Her face, which has been animated as soon as they started talking about inhumans, or whatever, falls now. "Some people don't make it."
Ellie's eyes are wide. "Are you serious? I could have died?"
"I mean, it's not so common, but—"
"What would have even been the point if I died?" Ellie is appalled. She balls her fists. "I can't believe that scumbag did that to me!"
"Oh, you're right," says Kamala, "it's totally immoral to do that to someone without their permission. Taskmaster is a—" She looks over her shoulder then whispers, "bastard."
It's faintly amusing that Kamala felt she had to whisper that, but Ellie is still shocked at that revelation. She scoffs.
"But, Ellie, that's not the point. You made it, okay? And that brings us to the really fun part!" Kamala is so excited her voice modulates and she bounces in her seat. "Did you get any cool powers?"
Ellie is pressing her fingers into her temple and forehead, tangling with the fear and rage of realizing she might have been killed. It doesn't feel right to talk to Kamala about that, though. She takes a deep breath and releases as much as she can. She looks up at Kamala and considers her question, blinking slowly with fatigue. "I wouldn't call them powers. It feels like someone messed with my head."
"Sometimes it takes a lot of getting used to."
Ellie scrunches her cheek. Now and then, crew members on the ship walk by her room, and she can see them almost as well as if there were no wall. It doesn't matter if her eyes are closed or if she's facing the other way. Right now there are two women chatting by the entrance to the wide corridor leaving the lodging area. Ellie's trying to figure out how not to pay attention. How she's going to sleep. That was hard enough the way she used to be. Now… And with Maedlyn so far away…
Ellie's face screws up and she presses her palm into it.
"Oh," says Kamala, standing, "Ellie?"
"Nothing," says Ellie. She can't break down in front of someone she just met. She feels bad enough about earlier with Nat. "It's nothing. Just having a pretty bad day." She decides to change the subject. "What about your powers? They seem awesome."
Kamala hesitates for a second but she lets her change the subject. She sits back down and smiles. "Yeah? Well, in the beginning it was definitely rough."
"Yeah?"
"Oh yeah. This was early on in the whole inhuman story. I was one of the first. No one understood it at the time. I couldn't really control it. Sometimes I'd lose control and it felt like I was falling apart. One time I remember I was just a bundle of limbs on the ground. It took me like five minutes to put myself back together. I was really scared…" Her eyes go far away for a second.
"Man," says Ellie, "that sounds scary. I'm sorry."
But Kamala smiles again. "It's okay. My dad helped me through it. He's so good… I remember one time he was like, 'ohh, my bendy beta.' 'Beta' is a term of endearment in Urdu. I was like 'dad, stop teasing meee!' Now I'm almost nostalgic for those days.
"But I learned to control it over time. I remember the first time I reached across the room and grabbed a glass of milk. I was like 'Dad! Dad! Dad!' He was 'you reached all that way?' He got excited with me, oh… But it took a long time to get like I am now."
Ellie listens with earnest interest and sympathy. Hearing her talk about her dad hurts, but she doesn't blame her or say anything.
"It's got to feel different, right?" asks Kamala. "It doesn't sound like everything's the same."
"It's definitely not." Ellie thinks. She doesn't want to share the part about their… glow. "It's like…" How does she even say it? "It's like I can see in every direction at the same time." She rubs an eye with a palm and drops it back in her lap. "And through walls."
Kamala stares in fascination.
"When you knocked I knew it was you."
"Ellie, that sounds like a cool power to me!"
"I mean… It's something. But it's like, overload, Kamala. I don't know how I'm going to go to sleep."
"Oh. That does make sense… Yeah, I've heard that people with mental powers can have an extra challenging adjustment."
"Mental powers? I don't know if I'd…" Ellie frowns. Is that wrong, though? "And they definitely don't go away?"
Kamala shakes her head. Then she kind of screws up her lips. "In fact… you have no way of knowing this, and I know you didn't mean it like this, but that's what AIM claims they're trying to do." She does air quotes. "'Cure' the inhuman condition." She gets sad, then. "But all they've really done is hurt a lot of people that would have been better off just accepting who they'd become."
There's a wrongness to that that Ellie has no interest in questioning. She lets herself fall backward onto the bed. "So this is my life now."
Kamala giggles. "Afraid so. Hey, look at it like this." Kamala gets up and falls onto the bed next to Ellie. "It starts off weird for everyone, but sooner or later, if they can accept the changes, everyone eventually figures out how to make their powers work for them. For their happiness."
Ellie turns her head and looks at Kamala. She's just a foot away or so. She's so good. It's so obvious, bubbling up right through her eyes. "Have you?"
Kamala frowns at that, thinking. She starts nodding. "Yeah. Yeah, I'd say so. I'm an Avenger!" she laughs. "And I fight for what I believe in. We don't always win… But we've been able to do a lot. It feels good. And every day, I wake up, and I'm ready to keep fighting."
Ellie frowns slightly. "And it's not exhausting?"
Kamala shakes her head. "Nope. Cause I believe in it. It's my purpose."
Her purpose… that gives Ellie a lot to think about.
"Hey," says Kamala, propping up on her elbow. "The first night is generally considered a pretty big deal." She bites her lip. "So I have a big brother, Aamir. Even though he's older, he's prone to nightmares, and sometimes he comes to my room and I let him sleep next to me. And sometimes, sometimes," she offers extra emphasis and Ellie smiles, "I have a nightmare, and he lets me sleep next to him." She gives Ellie a sympathetic look. "Want me to sleep in the top bunk?"
It's sweet, and a bit childlike. Ellie giggles lightly. She turns away, a little embarrassed. She feels a wave of fear. Of all the painful things she's feeling inside. She's scared. She's scared to be alone, so far from everyone she cares about. She turns back to Kamala and she nods earnestly.
"Okay," says Kamala, smacking the bedspread with her free hand. "I'm gonna go get my Captain Marvel pajamas, and we're gonna swap stories till we pass out."
Ellie laughs. "Sounds good to me."
Two hours later, the room is dark and Ellie's laying on her back. She peeks through the curtains. Seems like the night sky is never dark this high up, with all the clouds blanketed with moonlight like snowfields under the naked moon. There's a thunderstorm somewhere below them. Ellie can hear the thunder. It doesn't bother her. She likes it.
Kamala snores quietly from the top bunk. She must have worn herself out today, she went out like a light. Ellie's tired, too. She might just make it to oblivion.
Kamala's glow dimmed somewhat when she went to sleep, but it's still as pure and bright as sunshine.
Ellie closes her eyes, and everything else falls away. It's just Kamala and her glow, front and center. You'd think the brightness would be distracting, and make it harder to sleep, but it doesn't. It's comforting.
She basks in it. For the night, it's like her own little sun.