Is this the real life, is this just fantasy..
A dream... No. A nightmare... It was a nightmare. That's what Alice was stuck in. Though it felt more like a memory as she felt her conscious mind stand up from a familiar bed and make its way over towards the living room of her old house, a home long gone but never forgotten, left behind by the family that was torn apart by a single organization.
She walked into the small living room. It was exactly like she remembered, soft warm rays of sunshine peeking out from the three open windows, the smell of freshly brewed coffee coming from the kitchen, and the sound of the soft ivory keys on the piano.
Playing the instrument was a barely nine-year-old Danielle, her cheeks still pale and her dark hair still only reaching to her shoulders. She looked surreal, unaged and untouched by the corruption of assassins, agents, soldiers, doctors, or evil of any kind. Just, Danielle Roźalia. Her daughter.
Sitting on the sofa beside her was Jack. Sixteen at the time, he had his legs pulled up to fit on the small cushion as he played on his phone with both earphones in. His dark hair askew signifying he had probably just woken up (as if his sweat pants didn't give it away already).
Then, there was Henrik, her husband, standing in the kitchen with piles of papers sitting in front of him on the counter. Working. He was always working. Too busy to listen to his daughter play Bohemian Rhapsody on the piano. Too busy to ask his son to play catch outside. Too busy to tell his wife 'good morning' each day. She should have seen the sign. The signs that told her he had another life, a life that would lead her beloved children into an abyss– a life far worse than any Hell.
Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality...
Alice concentrated not on Henrik, but on the way Danielle's fingers skimmed across the keys of the piano with ease and grace. Her music would always calm Alice down. Not because of the sound, but because of the beauty and passion Danielle always put into her music.
Jack calmed her down as well, but in a different sense of the word. Jack had to grow up fairly early, much before ever being kidnapped. He had to play the father to Danielle while Henrik was busy being a doctor. Jack drove Danielle to recitals, took her to school, taught her to play baseball, showed her how to read music, named all the stars for her. Jack took the weight of the world off Alice's shoulder by easing the stress she had about Danielle never having a father. She didn't have a full father, but she had a brother that loved her very much and that was enough.
As the sound of Danielle's playing sped up, the sound dialed down and faded into the background as Alice closed her eyes. But when she opened them, the room was empty. Jack was gone, Henrik had vanished, and Danielle had disappeared. The echoes of the piano playing still ringing in Alice's ears as she looked around the room. That was it. The room.
It was the same living room she had been in earlier with her family, only the sunlight outside didn't cast a warm fuzzy feeling, it cast a dark shadow throughout the room making it cold and hollow. The smell of coffee was replaced by the smell of dust and rotting wood and there was no sound in this empty home.
Alice approached the piano, remembering where this memory was coming from, what memory this was. She slowly placed both hands at the top of the piano and placed her palms down. She closed her eyes and tried to remember Danielle's music playing, begging it to return. But when she accepted it was gone, she opened her eyes and saw the blood pooling from the palms of her hands.
This was the day she had returned to the old house in Zilina to beg for forgiveness after the Silencer's first official assassination. She had come to the house immediately after to ask for forgiveness from the ghost of her family, their presence still lingering in the living room.
"Please," she sobbed to no one. "I'm sorry... I did it for you. I did it for you!"
Then, after the screaming, after the begging, after the sobbing... she woke up. Back to reality. A reality where her husband was dead and had been the cause of her children's absence. The cause of the inhumane amount of blood on Alice's hands. The cause of the death of her old family and the birth of Assignment 204. An assignment the Silencer would complete if it meant the safety of her children was secured.
Steve Rogers would die.
Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see...
Danielle had slept soundly that Friday night after the soccer team win. She'd spent the rest of that evening celebrating with all her friends, teammates, and family. She got to hang out with the Decathlon Team, she got to congratulate all the girls on the Soccer Team, and even got to catch up with Sharon briefly before she had to leave. It was all around just a fantastic night for a Danielle, the perfect spirit-lifter she had really needed these past few months.
On Saturday morning, her phone had been blown up with dozens of texts from the soccer girls, Liz, Cindy, Sally, and Betty all asking about the Valentine's Day Dance. She had already told Liz she didn't want to go, but the Soccer win just made her want to attend the dance anyway. Finally, she subsided and allowed Liz to drag her along. But first, she needed to get dressed.
Thankfully, her Mom had been prepared and sewed her up a dress which she'd hung up in her own closet along with a note stating she had gone to the store and there was some medicines on the kitchen counter to help with the headache Danielle had told her she had gotten that morning. Danielle collected he medicine and poured herself a glass of water before heading back upstairs to her room with the short, red dress. But before changing, Danielle sat at her vanity, curled her hair, and did her make up while listening to the Bleachers.
After a couple of minutes, she opened the medicine packet and dropped in the two dissolving tablets and waited for the bubbles to stop to drink the liquid. She immediately began to feel better and moved to change into the dress.
It fit nicely and had cute ruffled sleeves on it. There was a bit of glitter that clung to the bottom that reached just past her knees and matched the cute red heels Danielle had already borrowed from Liz. After changing, Danielle searched for the correct shade of lipstick to coat her lips with and once she finished her make-up, putting on her purse, and curling her hair, Danielle stood back to admire her work in the mirror.
She smiled at how nice she looked, but didn't dwell on it too much. It was in that moment that she realized the house felt empty... missing something almost. But what?
Right, her mom. She was supposed to be back from the store by then. It had been hours...
Danielle took the initiative then to exit her room and begin searching the house. "Mom?" She called out as she walked downstairs. "Mom?" No response. "Mom?" She continued to ask aimlessly as she wandered the downstairs hallway until she stumbled upon the door leading to the basement was open and leaking front it light. She hadn't even known there was a light in the basement. "Mom?" She called down the hall. No response.
Danielle thought about just going back to her room and waiting for her mom to come back from wherever she she was, but curiosity overtook the young enhanced as she took the steps leading down to the basement room.
The moment Danielle entered the basement room, her eyes traveled to what looked like a large board full of photos, papers, notes, documents, folders, schedules, maps. Each looking more familiar than the last as she took another step closer to get a better look. Once she had taken that step towards the wall of photos, she'd wished she hadn't. There was no going back.
What was on the wall weren't just any images, they were pictures of the Avengers team. She saw Steve, Natasha, Sam, Rhodey, Wanda, Vision, Jack, and a couple of herself. She recognized them and when they were taken– a few of them taken of her at school with Peter on the bleachers, long before her mom had ever been revealed to be alive again. She'd been watching her?
Danielle moved on from the images and on to what looked like a schedule tacked to Steve's images. In fact, he had a lot of notes and documents shrouding the pictures of him. More than any of the other team members. Danielle took the schedule off the thumbtack and read over it. She recognized the times and labels as his daily routine. Her mom had Steve's daily routine tacked to one of many of his photos in her basement... What was going on? Danielle needed answers. Was her mom stalking Steve? Why? Why would she also be stalking her and Jack before she even came back to the Compound?
The teenage girl willed herself to keep searching through the many papers on the desk beside the cork board of images. A large Manila folder with the words 'Assignment 204' bolted and stamped onto the cover. In the top right corner of the folder was the name 'Steven Grant Rogers a.k.a Captain America'.
I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy
Danielle's heart was hammering in her chest. Why was this here? What was 'Assignment 204'? What was her mother doing collecting information on Steve? Why was any of this here? What was going on?
Her hands were shaking as she turned the folder page and opened it. Her eyes widened and her heart dropped as she read the perfect handwriting written on the first page: 'Assignment 204 assigned to the Silencer by Crossbones. Goal, eliminate target. Target, Steve Rogers. Timeline, extended/ASAP. Payment, the safety of Danielle and Jackson Harper'.
Oh my God...
Danielle dropped the folder back onto the desk, her hands immediately flying to the purse hanging around her shoulders. She pulled out the small flip phone Natasha had given her for emergency purposes only. There was only one number inside to dial and she hit the call button faster than the speed of light. It rang... and rang...
Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.
Danielle's eyes continued to stare at all the pictures in front of her. On one of them was a map of what looked to be the blueprints of a building, the image it was tacked to was the warehouse Danielle recognized as the one she was taken to when she had been kidnapped. Shivers ran down her spine. No... It couldn't have been... Could it...?
Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.
No. No. No! NO! Her mom couldn't have been the one who hired those kidnappers. She shot the man who had done those things to her. She had saved her. Her mom was the good guy, she couldn't have done this. This was all just a set up. There had to be an explanation, there had to be! Her mother would never do this!
Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.
The phone continued to ring and just when Danielle thought this couldn't get any worse, her eyes caught a glimpse of what looked like a picture taken from the perspective of a sniper with the red dot pointed at Steve's head from far away. Oh my God... This was real.
"You have reached the voicemail box of-"
Danielle hit the end call button and rushed to the basement door only to find it had closed on itself and locked itself shut. She jiggled the knob. Nothing. She pushed against the door hard. Nothing. Just as Danielle was pulling back to use her powers, her vision began to blue and nausea hit her head on like a freight train. What was... what was going on? How did she all of a sudden get sick, she had just taken... Medicine... The medicine... No...
Because I'm easy come, easy go...
The teen's knees gave out from under her before letting her collapse onto the cold floor of the basement room. The emergency phone fell from her grasp and landed open just a few inches from her face where it began to ring. Someone was calling.
Using what seemed like the last of her strength, Danielle reached out and pressed the accept button.
"Danielle?" She let out a sigh of relief. It was Steve. "Danielle, where are you?"
"Steve..." she moaned in pain as her stomach began to feel like a million razor blades were bouncing around inside her. She imagined them doing a ritualistic dance, the end result being her death. She'd be panicked if it weren't for the dark haze coating the back of her eyes.
"Danielle, I need you to tell me where you are. You're in danger," he exclaimed.
NO! You're in danger! She wanted to scream, but each word at the tip of her tongue somehow managed to get stuck in her throat. Finally, she mustered up the word, "Warehouse..."
"Alright, we're on our way. Just stay with me, okay?"
But she couldn't. She felt darkness pulling at her eyelids and closing them, slowly creeping it's way into her eyesight and mind until she was completely consumed by the it.
"Danielle? Danielle?!"
Little high,
"We lost her," Natasha remarked, closing the phone after Danielle became unresponsive on the other line.
Steve groaned, his nerves in a jumbled bunch as he made his way across the space in the jet to the cockpit where Sam sat behind the pilot's seat. "How far out are we from that warehouse?"
"Couple of minutes," he answered.
"Step on it, please," Steve all but begged, desperation clear in his voice. This was his fault that Danielle was in danger with Alice. He allowed her to go in the first place. He should have fought for her. Even if she hadn't wanted it at the time, he should have never let Alice get to him like that, tricked him into believing the best thing for Danielle was for her to leave. Dammit!
While Steve suffocated himself in his own self-destruction, Jack was throwing his own pity party at the end of the jet cabin. He'd stopped pacing a few minutes ago, his legs beginning to ache from the movement, so he finally decided to take a seat and impatiently tapped his foot up and down like a rabbit.
A million thoughts were rushing through his mind and he tried his best to filter out the ones about his mother. She was the least of his worries right now, his biggest concern was whether or not his sister was safe. She didn't sound too good on the phone and Jack was hoping Alice hadn't done anything. It wasn't just because his sister's safety was top priority, but also because he didn't need another reason to have to hurt his own mother.
Little low...
Alice didn't want to hurt her children any more than she already was. She knew Danielle was already locked in the basement with arsenic flowing through her blood system. It was enough of the poison to keep her sedated and unable to use her powers until she finished her mission. She had no wish to fight Danielle, nor Jack. That was one of the reasons why she had brought another syringe of sedatives, for when Jack would arrive with the rest of the Avengers at the warehouse she was a block away from.
She'd been planning this for months. Ever since the images of sniper's red dot on the foreheads of her children were set in front of her, her mind was set and her plan was in play. Though, she didn't plan for the final result of what killing Steve Rogers would be, she had planned for the anger from the rest of the team, the country of America, the world possibly, but she never planned for her children having such a close relationship to the Captain. That was something she had to improvise around. And improvise she did.
Snatching her daughter from Jack wasn't something Alice took pride in. She wished a million times that her son, her biggest supporter since he was born, could know what she was planning. Could know why she was doing what she had to do. It wasn't to hurt him, it was to help him. It was to rebuild that home with Danielle playing the piano in the morning, Jack playing on his phone with his earbuds plugged in while sitting on the couch, the smell of dust and freshly made coffee. An undisturbed dream that plagued the assassin's mind so much she would do anything to protect it, to protect her babies.
Anyway the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me... To me...
If there was one thing Alice always remembered, it was her first kill. The first time she'd ever killed a human being. It had been a year and a half after her initial 'kidnapping' by Rumlow. That's where it really all started, her kidnapping.
It had been a regular day, Alice had just finished dropping off the kids and was on her way back to her house when she noticed the black SUV that had been tailing her since the gas station she'd stopped at that morning. Ever since the Battle of New York with aliens and Demi-gods, metal men, assassins, green monsters, and super soldiers (a world Alice never thought in a million years that she'd be involved with), she'd been cautious, more skeptical of her surroundings.
To make sure she was safe, she texted two trusted friends she's now forgotten the names to and called Henrik. Alice should have realized something was wrong when it went straight to voice mail... It never went straight to voice mail.
As her car was nearing the destination of her house, Alice began to make detours through her neighborhood to try and shake the SUV tailing her, but it did no such thing, this car was really following her. But why?
Alice gave up trying to avoid this car and finally just pulled into her house parking lot, her phone pressed to her ear, still trying to call Henrik as she exited the vehicle and speed walked to the front entrance. She counted her steps to the front porch until an enormous man stood in the middle of the path to the front door. Oh, god...
Mama, just killed a man. Put a gun against his head...
She had been trained to the core by the Winter Soldier along side another enhanced individual.
Alice was beaten, punched, kicked, bruised, bashed, and broken to a pulp. There were days where she wanted to quit. There were days she wanted to escape. There were days where she wanted to die. And there were days she wanted to kill everyone in the training facility. But what got her through each and every time was the not so subtle reminder Rumlow gave her by dangling the safety of Jack and Danielle in her face.
"Remember, if you don't get the job done, my men have no problem with pumping your kids up with lead..." he would sneer. "I doubt any child, enhanced or not, could withstand a bullet to the skull." He would taunt her day after day. And after each assassination, he'd tell her, "Wow, Alice... If only your kids were here to see all the great work you've accomplished." As if it were something to be proud of.
Pulled my trigger, now he's dead...
Now, here she was, setting up base camp inside of one of the many empty rooms in the abandoned building a few blocks from where the warehouse Danielle had been tortured in was.
Danielle... Oh, she would be so disappointed in her mother. She probably loathed the woman. Alice didn't blame her, she loathed herself too. And Jack... A boy who grew up with his mother as his role model now had to watch as she tore apart his team, ripped away his sister, and murdered his friend...
Mama, life had just begun. But now I've gone and thrown it all away...
Jack had been the most cautious when his supposedly dead mother resurfaced that night at the Compound when she attacked and took down half the agents, Sam, Rhodey, and Natasha (which appalled Jack because no one took that woman down).
What was he supposed to think? That the woman who taught him how to fish, play guitar, read sheet music, and tuck him in every night just suddenly became an assassin after being dead to him for nearly four years? He thought that it was all some crazy dream. That the chick he had seen trapped in Steve's arms when he ran around that corner to stop whoever had attacked the Compound was his mom?
No. He couldn't believe it.
Unlike Dani, he lost hope. She always believed that maybe their mom was possibly out there, they hadn't ever seen her die after all. But Jack... Jack couldn't stomach the fact that their mom was alive and well. Because if he did, then it would mean his mother was out in the world, away from her children. It would mean that all those restless nights he spent at Strucker's base in Sokovia crying out for her, she could've possibly heard him. It would mean that if she was alive, she never came back to save her kids from that dark and desolate place. It would mean that she abandoned them, left them for a fate far worse than death. So, no. This woman was not, and could not be his mother.
And then... she was.
She sang Dani to sleep, she stayed up late watching rated R movies with Jack, she read sheet music with them, cooked pancakes, quoted funny movie moments, French-braided Dani's hair, and talked about their powers. This woman was undoubtedly his mother.
But then... something changed.
Now, here he was, sitting in the Quinjet tightening the straps on his pitch black fingerless gloves with electric yellow lining on them. His hair was askew as it hung just above his pale face. If someone were to look hard enough, they'd see the small war raging behind his hazel eyes, going back and forth about what he had to do and what he refused to do. He had to keep Danielle safe and avenge her for all that their mother had done, but he refused to lay a finger on Alice, no matter what. But would it be the other way around for him? That's what he was worried about.
"Hey," Jack snapped his head up to see Natasha standing by the back hatch of the jet, pressing the button letting down the ramp. "We're here."
Jack felt the uneasiness in his body triple at the thought of being moments away from facing against his mother. Was he ready? Not in the slightest. Then again, who would ever be prepared to face off against their assassin mom who kidnapped their sister? No one.
Mama, ooh. Didn't mean to make you cry...
Alice watched as the Quinjet landed on the building a few rooftops away. She zoomed the targeting system on her sniper rifle in to get a closer look at the figures exiting the plane and walking out onto the roof of the warehouse. The first to step off was the pilot, Sam Wilson, in his full gear – wings and all. Colonel Rhodes, a.k.a War Machine, stepped off the plane beside him. The two air borne men, bounded off to seperate parts of the buildings just as the man of the hour came into view: Steve Rogers.
This was it, Alice thought.
She began to wonder if she could just fire the bullet resting in the chamber of her sniper right now. She had the perfect shot of the blonde super soldier's head, all she had to do was pull the trigger... That's all she had to do... But, she didn't. She moved her index finger from the trigger and continued to simply monitor and analyze. She was glad she did as well because as soon as she settled on not killing Steve, Jack walked out onto the roof with Wanda Maximoff, Vision, and Natasha Romanoff in tow. They brought the entire team. Thankfully, she had time to spare and games to play.
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow. Carry on, carry on as if nothing really matters...
Alice stepped away from the sniper to pop open the black briefcase beside her, inside was a heavy duty laptop. With a few clicks on the screen, she was able to hack into the intercoms of the Avengers a few blocks away.
"Sam, Rhodey, split up and check the surrounding buildings within a block's radius," Steve commanded through the comms. "Nat, take Wanda to the South side of the building and work your way down. Jack you're coming with me to scout the North side. And Vis, stay and search the main building. Remember, our main goal is to find Danielle first. If you find Alisson, apprehend – do not fire."
Alice wasn't sure how to feel about all this. Not only did he order the team not to kill her despite all she's done and what she was going to do (not that anyone but herself knew what that was), but he put finding the enemy second on his to-do list and put Danielle as top priority. That's why they were there, wasn't it? They didn't care about apprehending Alice all that much, she could wait. What they cared about was the safety of Danielle.
Well... so did she. And she wasn't letting anything stop her from keeping Rumlow away from Danielle and Jack... anything. Even if it meant they would hate her for the rest of their lives or if it meant she would have to sacrifice something bigger, she needed to save them.
Too late, my time has come...
Jack anxiously walked through the North side of the building alongside Steve. They were both in uniform and highly alert as they searched through the abandoned multi-story warehouse.
Jack caught himself nervously biting his nails every so often as they trekked down the dark halls, the power had probably been cut off since the first incident involving Danielle here, but he wasn't afraid of the dark. He was afraid of what he would find. His sister dead with his mother standing above her corpse with blood on her hands? No, she wouldn't do that... Then again, he didn't know her anymore... not really. The woman he knew as his mother was now a stranger, a dangerous one too.
"Harper," Steve's voice broke him from his dreadful thoughts. "She's going to be fine," the super soldier assured him as they continued to walk. Though, it was kind of hard to believe him when he was holding his shield up, ready to attack. The thought of his mother at the other end of that attack made Jack's skin crawl.
Sent shivers down my spine, body's aching all the time.
Alice slowly crept through the dark hallways, illuminated only by the moonlight shining down through the broken windows. But the light was slowly dimming as storm clouds began to blow in from the Atlantic, covering the sky above them in a thick, rumbling, chaotic blanket. The wind began to pick up as the lightning bolts began to light up the sky. With each gut-wrenching clap of thunder, Alice advanced into the building more and more.
She had a certain kind of goggles that allowed her to detect heat signatures within the building: 5 inside, and 2 outside. The fliers could probably be able to detect her heat signature inside. Thankfully, she was wearing her old Silencer suit that kept her body cool and was able to keep her undetected by thermal-radar. She hated the black, slightly puffy suit. It smelt of death and smoke and still had a few bloodstains from all the previous victims she was forced to kill up-close. But it felt fitting to wear it tonight, the last night she'd ever have to wear it, as sort of a momento – a final farewell – to that old life.
Goodbye, everybody. I've got to go. Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth...
Danielle awoke with a cough.
A hoarse cough that made her lungs, throat, and head hurt. She groaned in pain as she slowly began to pull herself onto her knees, her hands navigating their way to the nearby door knob to latch onto. She used the door knob to pull herself onto her feet. Her knees were still wobbly and her eyesight was still partially impaired. Other than that, she had a headache, every inch of her skin felt as though it were on fire, and it felt as though someone had sent small shards of glass through her veins. Technically, someone had: her mother.
Her mother...
Steve...
Steve!
Danielle needed to get to Steve, she needed to get to the team, she had to stop her mom from killing him. But how? The basement door was locked and her body was too weak to use her powers to try and open it or teleport anywhere.
But she had to. She had to find some way to break free and warn Steve, Jack, Wanda, anyone! Danielle pounded on the door and began screaming at the top of her lungs, "HELP ME!" Hoping, praying that the nice old lady next door heard her or that the young neighborhood boys who played baseball in the lot beside her house would happen upon her. "LET ME OUT! PLEASE!" She begged.
She cried, pleaded, prayed, and begged for anyone to come release her, but no one came. Her hope was fading and her chest was beginning to hurt again as she broke into a fit of coughs. Danielle coughed and coughed while slowly sliding down the door back onto the ground where she stayed, convulsing in pain as her body was set aflame.
Mama, ooh. I don't wanna die...
She was going to die, Danielle accepted that.
But if she died, no one would stop her mother from carrying out her plan. She needed to save Steve, she needed to warn the Team, she needed to tell Jack.
Danielle couldn't die now, she couldn't let down the people counting on her to pull herself off the ground and break down that door. She was Danielle Harper for Christ's sake, if she could lift a meteor headed for Earth, stand beside the Avengers in stopping a homicidal robot, survive a torture session from a maniac, help win Academic Decathlon Regionals, and assist in scoring the winning goal for her first soccer game, Danielle Harper could sure as hell break down this stupid basement door and save Steve.
"Come on," she grunted under her breath as she slowly staggered to her feet, the pain in her stomach, head and chest burning in protest, but she kept going until she was standing straight up.
"Come on..." Danielle raised her hands, closed her eyes, and concentrated.
"Come on." For Steve.
"Come on." For Jack.
"Come on." For Wanda.
"Come on." For her mom.
"Come on!" For herself.
Danielle's eyes snapped open and she drew her arms back before throwing them forward with an invisible force behind it. She felt her powers kick in and slam against the door knocking it inwards and against the opposite wall. She was free.
Danielle hunched over slightly, still in pain, but quickly pulled herself together before limping up the basement stairs and stumbled her way out of her house. She had no clue how she was going to get to that warehouse, but she had a clue of who to call to get her there.
The teenager stumbled her way to the kitchen where the landline phone sat on the counter. She clutched her abdomen with one hand and grabbed hold of the phone with the other as she dialed. It rang a few times before someone finally answered, "Who is this and what do you want?"
"Tony?" Danielle's strained voice replied.
"Who's this?" The billionaire on the other line sounded slightly more concerned than when he had answered.
"D-Danielle," she stammered.
"Kid? What's going on?"
"Steve... They're in trouble," she tried to explain.
"What do you mean? Where are you?"
"Rhode Island," she answered. "The house. I need you to come help me stop her."
"Who?"
"My Mom," Danielle's voice broke as she added, "she's planning to kill Steve."
There was silence on the other end before the sound of metal and clanging played in the background of the receiver. "On my way. Stay where you are, I'll come get you," Tony finally replied before the call ended.
Danielle dropped the phone and fell onto the stool beside the kitchen counter where she stayed, groaning and moaning in pain. What had she done? What had she allowed to happen? What was she going to do? So many questions, not enough answers.
I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all.
Alice snuck her way to the North side of the building, following behind Jack and Steve as they walked a few yards in front of her, unaware of her presence. She noticed Jack always nervously biting his nails, checking each room for any signs of life. It dawned on her that he was probably looking for her and his sister. She hated seeing him so nervous, scared, and anxious. But he wouldn't be for long.
The Silencer hid behind a pillar as she put her black mask on, it covered the entirety of her face and wrapped around her entire head. This was it.
I see a little silhouetto of a man,
She darted across the open space where Steve and Jack were walking and noticed that Steve had taken the lead. Alice took the shot she had and snuck up behind Jack.
Alice quickly pulled out the syringe from inside the pocket on her side and plunged it into her son's neck. He opened his mouth to release a hiss of pain when she quickly used her free hand to muffle the sound. As she pressed her thumb into the back of the syringe, unloading the sedative into his bloodstream, his eyes began to close and his body became limp.
Alice pulled the needle from his neck and silently dragged Jack's unconscious body to the side behind another pillar. She snapped her head up to be sure Steve wasn't aware of anything – he kept walking. Oh, this was too easy... Then why did it feel so wrong?
No!
She wouldn't go there. She had a mission. She's come this far, she wasn't backing down now.
Scaramouche! Scaramouche! Will you do the Fandango?
Alice slowly crept away from Jack's knocked out body and hid behind a pillar on the opposite end of the dark hall, the only sound was Steve's feet walking at a steady pace down the hall and the constant update coming from the fliers in the air outside the building.
Time to cut them out, she thought to herself as she knelt down the pillar and pulled her wrist up to her face. She began to dial up a few buttons on the keypad attached to her suit and turned a singular knob. The voices going into Steve's comm were cut off as was his microphone. He was isolated, the perfect target.
Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightening me!
Just when she knocked out the intercoms, she watched the soldier slowly take out his ear piece. "Hey, Jack, did your earpiece go out-" The blonde slowly turned around to see that Statix was missing from behind him where he had been moments ago. "Jack?" Nothing. "Jack?" He pressed on, still no response.
Something was wrong, he felt it in his chest.
Every inch of him was telling him to run, but he planted himself like a tree and slowly began to walk towards where he sensed the danger. Ironically, that was towards the pillar Alice was hidden behind.
(Galileo) Galileo, (Galileo) Galileo, Galileo Figaro!
Alice listened closely to the sound of Steve's footsteps growing closer and closer until they were right behind her.
Show time.
One, two, three. Jump!
Silencer jumped out from her hiding spot and immediately hooked her legs around the Captain's right shoulder, throwing her body weight down, pulling him with her until his face hit the ground with her knee on his cheek.
The soldier, caught off guard, grabbed her hips and threw her off and across the hall. She easily recomposed herself from the toss and slid the rest of the way down in a defensive position. Steve quickly jumped back onto his feet and looked her in the eye for the first time, the mask disguising any form of expression from her face but he could tell she was glaring holes into his blue eyes. "Alice," he said in a soft tone, dropping his shield from his arm and holding his hands up as a sign of submission. "don't do this."
Alice responded by launching herself from the ground and into his abdomen, both of them falling through the a door into a stairwell and down the stairs. Once they hit the bottom at a breaking point, they jumped to their feet and began their deadly dance.
Magnifico-o-o-o-o!
Danielle was slouching at her front porch when the familiar gold and red metal suit landed in her front lawn a few yards away.
She'd sobered up some from the effects of the Arsenic, but for the most part, she was still slightly out of whack.
Tony stepped forward in the suit and watched in confusion as the young girl stumbled down from her porch and nearly tripped as she walked down the porch steps towards him. He bounded forward just in time to catch her. "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" He exclaimed as the metal helmet came off to reveal his face s he could get a further inspection of Danielle. "What happened to you?"
Danielle looked up at him with half-lidded eyes and a sweaty, pale face. "Doesn't matter," she replied hoarsely. "The team's in trouble. We need to go."
"Wait, hold on," Tony protested as the teenage girl in his arms struggled to stand on her own two feet (well, she was wearing heels and a dress for some reason – was he sure she wasn't drunk again?). "FRIDAY, read vitals."
"I'm fine," Danielle insisted.
"She seems to have low levels of Arsenic in her system, Boss," Tony's built in AI explained.
"She poisoned you?" Tony demanded as he stepped out from his Iron Man suit and quickly moved to set the kid down on the porch steps.
"It doesn't matter, Tony!" She cried out. "We need to stop her!"
"Hey, don't worry. I've already got flocks of agents headed over to get the team some back up," he explained.
Danielle shook her head fiercely. "It won't be enough. Tony, she won't stop, I know her," she exclaimed, her eyes boring into his. "You have to take me to her, please."
Tony didn't respond for a moment, thinking it over. If Cap and the team were really in that much trouble, would he really risk it by dragging Danielle into the danger zone? God, not only would Cap kill him, Jack would probably beat him to it and fry the billionaire's brains out.
"Boss," FRIDAY's voice cut into his train of thought. "Incoming call from Agent Maria Hill; she says the team isn't responding on intercoms."
Tony's eyes widened. Not because they were cut off – anyone with a brain trying to ambush someone would first cut off their communications – but because they weren't turning back on with Jack's power. Meaning, something had happened to electricity-controlling kid... something bad.
"Tony," Danielle looked up at him again with her beady eyes. "Please."
Oh, he was so dead for this. "Come on," Tony replied before helping her to her feet. He let go of her for a moment to get back into his suit. Once inside, he walked over to the teenage girl, wrapped her up in a tight grip, and launched himself into the air, Danielle releasing a small yelp as they flew through the sky.
I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me.
Natasha and Wanda had just finished scouting out the entire south side of the building when Nat called through comms, "Secure on our end." No response. "Cap?" Again, nothing. "Rogers?" Silence.
The redhead grew concerned by the sudden radio silence. Something was definitely wrong.
"Harper?" Nat tried again. "Statix, come in." Still nothing.
The former assassin exchanged worried glances with Wanda before they ran their way up the nearby stairs and through the halls to get to the north side of the building. Once inside, both women began searching for any sign of Steve or Jack.
"Jack?" Wanda called out into the empty hallways. "Where could they have gone?" She asked Natasha.
"I'm not sure," she replied truthfully, keeping her cool and calculated expression on as her eyes darted back and forth throughout the hall. Steve and Jack could have been missing, but that didn't mean the threat was.
Wanda had been scanning the room when she happened upon what looked like a boot sticking out from behind a pillar. As she moved closer, she realized the boot was attached to a slumped over body and that that body happened to be her brother. "Jack!" She cried out before dashing over, Natasha on her tail, watching over her back to make sure they weren't ambushed while attending to the kid.
He's just a poor boy from a poor family, spare him his life from this monstrosity...
Wanda knelt down beside Jack and held his face up with her hands. "Jack?" She felt his forehead and pulled back with a gasp. "He's freezing," she explained.
Natasha pulled Wanda back and took her place beside the unconscious kid. She placed two fingers under his neck to feel for a pulse. "He's alive," she announced, receiving a sigh of relief from Wanda. "We need to get him out of here – it's not safe."
"Vis?" Wanda called through her comms.
"They're probably all down," Natasha told her as she slung Jack's arm over her shoulder and lifted him up off the ground with ease. "Can you get him back to the Quinjet?"
Wanda nodded, catching Jack up in her red mist using her powers to hold him off the floor. "What about you?" She asked the Black Widow.
"Rogers is still in here somewhere. I need to find him before-"
"Nat," Wanda cut her off and looked pointedly at something lying in the middle of the hallway a few yards away.
Natasha followed her gaze and slowly crept forward. The closer she got, the better she could see that the object in the hallway was Captain America's signature shield. If he didn't have it with him, where was he?
Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?
Alice threw a hard kick on to the Captain's chest, knocking him back slightly.
Steve caught himself before he hit the wall behind him.
But it wasn't long before she ran over to launch another assault.
Bismillah! No, we will not let you go! (Let him go!)
She moved in sideways to try and get him with a roundhouse kick, only to have the soldier grab a hold of her leg and spin it around. She spun with it and landed on the floor with a thud.
Steve took the opportunity to jump on top of her and pin her to the ground. He ripped off the black mask she hid under and shouted, "Stand down!"
Bismillah! No, we will not let you go! (Let him go!)
Alice glowered at him before sucker punching him in the face. She caught him off guard and wrapped herself around his body like a koala before rolling the pair down the second set of stairs to their left.
Once they both hit the bottom, she jumped to her feet, finally released from under him. He had hit the floor on all fours and was beginning to stagger to his feet when Alice threw a hard kick to his head.
Bismillah! No, we will not let you go! (Let him go!)
Steve grunted in pain and held himself against the stair railing for support after the blow to the head.
Alice wasted no time to try and kick him again. Steve rolled out of the way and swung his leg underneath her in a sweeping motion, knocking her back down to his level on the floor.
Will not let you go! (Let me go!)
The soldier saw the open opportunity again and quickly bounded over to wrap his arm around her neck from behind. He pulled the two of them to their feet, but she kept punching while he choked her out.
"Stop... fighting me!" The Captain ordered in a strained voice as he tried to keep the woman at bay.
Never let you go! (Never, never, never, never let me go-oh-oh-oh-oh)
Alice felt her eyesight begin to blur and her breathing began to falter.
No! She was not going to let him win!
Alice shifted her body and used her legs to slowly climb up the wall, using Steve's grip on her to lean on as she launched herself off the wall, over his shoulder, out of his choking grip, and spun around just in time it get an open shot to knee his crotch.
He collapsed onto his knees with a grunt. Alice stood over him with a menacing glare. "You're gonna have to make me, Captain," she spat.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no!
Steve, hunched over on the floor writhing in pain, realized something in that moment: Alisson Harper could have chosen every way to kill him, from sniping him from far away, stabbing him in the skull with the knife tucked in her pocket, poisoning him, knocking him out then dropping a grenade by him, and even just getting the gun from her holster and shooting him point blank right now.
But instead, she chose to fight him because she wanted him to fight back. She didn't want this anymore than he did. She could be saved.
Steve slowly lifted his head to meet her eyes. "Alice, you have to stop," Steve tried to persuade her. "For Jack and Dani."
"Don't you get it?" She asked, slightly out of breath. "I'm doing this for them." Steve opened his mouth to ask what she meant only to have Alice punch him hard in the jaw. She winced slightly from the pain and clutched her knuckles momentarily as she paced in front of him. "No," she shook her head as she tore the small dagger from her thigh holster. "you wouldn't get it."
Alice closed her eyes for a brief moment, saying goodbye to any second thoughts she had, before drawing the dagger back. Just as she brought it back down with a feral growl, the super soldier grabbed her wrist and twisted it, willing her to drop the dagger. Once she was unarmed, Steve used his free arm and pushed her off of him and down the third set of stairs in the stairwell.
Mama mia, mama mia (Mama mia, let me go!)
Steve watched Alice fall relentlessly down the stairwell until she hit the bottom with a groan. The Captain staggered to his feet and slowly made his way down to the injured woman at the foot of the steps.
Alice winced as she tried to turn herself over onto her side. It felt as though she could feel every bruise that the fall had left on her skin. It wasn't the first time she'd fallen down a stairwell, but this was the first time she'd been launched down stairs by a super soldier. She was starting to think she should've taken that shot with her rifle a while back.
Steve finally reached where Alice was and watched her struggle to even move a little bit. Of course her first move was reaching for the second dagger in her pocket, but the second she pulled it out, Steve used his fast reflexes to pin her wrist to the wall behind her using his foot. "Drop it," he growled.
Beelzebub has the Devil put aside for me,
Alice glared holes through him before finally dropping the weapon. Steve removed his foot only to have her sit up onto her knees and pull her gun from behind her back. She held it up to his face, but Steve hit it away and threw a left hook to her jaw, knocking her back down to the floor again.
She was hunched over, her face bruised, bloodied, and inches from one of the stairs. Steve could tell she was already plotting her next move, but he was ready for another attack.
"Stand down – final warning," Steve told her in what the rest of the team called the 'Captain Voice'. "I don't want to have to hurt you."
For me...
Alice's jaw and her fists clenched as anger boiled deep within her chest like a raging fire slowly being fueled by Steve's every word trying to get her to surrender. Surrender from her mission. Surrender from her kids. Surrender to him? Him?!
No... There was only one thing she was going to do, and that was kill him. She let her husband stand in the way of protecting her kids, then HYDRA, Rumlow, and now Steve. No more.
No longer would people keep her from her mission.
No longer would people stop her from saving her kids.
No longer would someone control her!
"That's the thing, Captain..." Alice said in a barely audible tone as she slowly turned her head to stare at him from over her shoulder. "I can do this all day..."
For me!
Steve was taken aback by her words, but before he could react any further, Alice jumped to her feet and kicked him in the chest, sending him a few feet back.
It was in that moment that Steve saw the most feral side of any person he'd ever seen as Alice charged. She jumped halfway towards him and kicked him in the chest with both her legs, falling onto her back as he was launched through a nearby door.
Steve fell into the cool open air of what seemed to be the outside of the building. Inside, Alice jumped back up onto her feet and stalked outside with a deadly glare fixated on Steve, she was locked onto her target and there was no stopping her.
So you think you can stone me and spit in my eyes?
The Captain rolled back onto his feet just as she threw a series of punches and kicks. He matched each one with a block or dodge, but she grew more and more erratic as she backed him up further and further onto what seemed to be a roof on the side of the warehouse beside the staircase they just came from.
Steve and Alice were in a heated battle when thunder clapped from above and the sky began to pour down on them. The rain didn't stop Alice from ducking down from one of Steve's punches and swipe her leg underneath him. His legs along with a splash of water went flying up then back down onto the wet ground.
So you think you could love me and leave me to die?
The soldier was about to sit up from the ground when Alice jumped onto him, repeatedly punching him in the face. Her knuckles began to bleed with each blow due to how insanely strong his skull was, but she didn't care. Every ounce of pain in her body became numbed by the rush of adrenaline rushing through her veins.
She punched and punched and punched, her wet hair dangling in her face as the rain came down on them. She watched as Steve's face became more and more swollen with each blow to the face.
The super soldier had been taken off guard by how fast she'd gone from being hunched on the floor in pain into suddenly going completely berserk. It wasn't until he'd been punched in the face for the eighth time by her did he realize that she wasn't going to stop. He quickly grabbed both her wrists and held them out of the way so he could headbutt her.
She yelped and fell off of the soldier onto her back beside him. Her eyesight was blurred for a moment and her head began to pound like a drum beating in her ears. Who the hell gave him such a strong head?
Oh, baby. Can't do this to me, baby.
Tony flew for a good twenty minutes through the pouring rain with Danielle in his arms.
It wasn't long before he arrived at the team's coordinates Maria Hill had sent him during the flight. Tony landed the suit on the roof of the South side of the building where the Quinjet was. Just outside was Natasha, Vision, Rhodey, and Sam.
Danielle let go of Tony a few seconds after landing and nearly landed on her face from her lack of balance.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Sam quickly caught her by the arms and held her up.
"Tony, what the hell happened to her?" Rhodey asked from inside his War Machine suit.
"Her crazy mother poisoned her with arsenic," Tony replied nonchalantly.
"What?!" Wanda exclaimed as she stepped out from the jet, getting herself soaking wet from the rain to walk over and take Danielle from Sam. "Dani? Are you alright?"
Danielle couldn't find the strength to talk and merely nodded. "J-Jack?" She stammered.
"He's inside," Natasha answered.
"Where's Cap?" Tony asked, concern coating his voice.
"Captain Rogers has gone missing somewhere in the building after the intercoms shut down," Vision explained.
"Why?" Natasha followed up with a question. "What's going on? Why're you here, Stark?"
"Turns out Miss Harper's here," Tony responded.
"For what?" Rhodey asked.
"Steve," Danielle answered in a weak voice.
All the Avengers exchanged a silent look of mixed emotions – anger, concern, worry, shock, disbelief. But they all mutually agreed on one thing: they needed to find Steve, and fast.
Just gotta get out, just gotta get right of here.
On the opposite side of the building hidden behind a portion of the south side of the warehouse, was the Silencer and Captain America fighting on the roof in the pouring rain still.
With each blow one committed, the other responded with a block. It was an endless cycle of both infamously well trained persons fighting back and forth. One moment, Steve had the upper hand with Alice pinned to the ground and another, Alice would have Steve in a headlock with her legs.
The Captain was beginning to notice that the Silencer was starting to lose momentum in her attacks meaning she was becoming more and more exhausted with each passing moment. So during one of the many headlocks Steve was stuck in, he grabbed the back of Alice's vest and tossed her off of him.
Alice rolled for a few seconds and landed on one knee, hunched over with her soaking wet locks dangling in her face creating a dark cloak covering her true form. And here was the unveiling...
Steve slowly rose from the ground and watched the unmoving woman a few yards away. "Alice...?" He called out to her.
Alice slowly moved her hand towards the small of her back where she took hold of a small object and slowly stood to her feet.
"Alice?" Steve's voice grew louder, more concerned for what she planned on doing next.
The Silencer suddenly turned around to face Steve, he was confused by what he saw. She had fears pouring down her face and held up a small black object in her hand. He didn't understand what was going on until she popped the cap off the little object to reveal a button. A detonator.
Nothing really matters, anyone can see...
"Alice-!"
"I've rigged this entire side of the building to blow," she explained in a cool, casual voice as if blowing herself up to kill him was an everyday thing. "I press this button, you have no chance of escaping."
Steve, wide-eyed, held his hands up. "Alice, put the detonator down."
"I can't!" She sobbed, not caring whether or not he saw that this was her last resort and how much she was struggling with going through with this.
"Yes, you can," he assured her as he took small steps forward. "Think of Jack. Think of Dani. What will happen to them if you die?"
"They'll finally be safe!" She exclaimed. "They'll be safe, for once in their life, if I die and if you die."
What did this have to do with him?
"Why are you doing this?" Steve finally asked. Alice shook her head, her tears mixing in with the rain still falling from above. "Alice, why are you doing this?" He repeated.
"Because if I don't Brock Rumlow will put a bullet in both of their heads!" She finally broke – no. She didn't break, the words broke out of her, the truth had broken out of her. But she didn't break. If she had, she would have given up a long time ago. But finally the truth had been revealed and it was like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders only to have an even bigger one hanging just above it, ready to fall on her the moment she pushed that button. "What does it matter if you know? We'll both die anyways."
Steve clenched his jaw. Rumlow. He knew him, Nat, and Sam should've gone looking for that bastard after he went missing from the hospital in D.C. Now because they hadn't, Rumlow had tormented and manipulated Alice into carrying out this attack. "No, Alice, no one has to die," Steve explained. "We can protect Jack and Dani, you know we can."
"You wanna know the reason I paid those men to kidnap Danielle in the first place?" She asked, avoiding Steve's gaze as she spoke. "It was a test. A test to see if she really was safe with you people." Steve winced at the bitter memory of Danielle's kidnapping and when they'd fine to rescue her only to find her on the floor in a pool of her own blood. And now knowing it was his fault... "So, congratulations, you brought this on yourself."
"Alice, please," Steve tried again. He couldn't let her go through with this. Not just to save his skin, but to save hers and Dani's and Jack's. "Rumlow won't ever lay a hand on Jack and Dani, I promise you."
"You can't promise me that!"
"I can!" He snapped back. "Because they may not be mine, but I care for them just the same. Yes, we may have let those kidnappers take Danielle, but the moment I realized she wasn't safe with me, I let her go with you. It tore Jack apart, it broke Wanda's heart, it hurt me to see her go, but for her safety, I set aside what I wanted. I will do it again, Alice, you just have to trust me."
Alice was crying, bawling her eyes out. She didn't want to die, she didn't want to kill Steve. She'd come this far and now she couldn't do it. Why couldn't she do it? The same reason why she didn't shoot him with her sniper the moment he stepped off the jet, or the reason why she didn't automatically kill him in any way she could've and instead let him fight her until she was exhausted: because she wanted to give him a chance. She wanted to give him the chance to tell her what she wanted to hear, that he'd take care of her kids, that he'd help protect them. And he did.
"Put down the detonator," Steve said softly, a few feet from her now.
Alisson Harper slowly, but gently, set the detonator down and let it fall from her grasp onto the ground.
Steve let out a sigh of relief and began to walk towards her when a single shot rang out.
Nothing really matters...
Tony, Sam, Rhodey, and Vision had been flying through the airspace above the building, searching for any movement when Sam caught sight of Alice and Steve standing on the roof of a smaller part of the building hidden behind the south side of the main warehouse.
"I found them," the pilot declared over the new intercom system Tony had fixed for them. "South side of the building."
Danielle let out a sigh of relief as Wanda and Natasha led the slowly recovering teen down the jet ramp towards the roof of the buildings. As she walked, Danielle couldn't help but imagine what she would come to find. Steve dead at her mother's feet? Her mom dead at Steve's feet? What would Danielle do? Hurt her mom? Hurt Steve?
Sadly, the few moments it took to reach the roof didn't give her much time to answer any of those questions. But with a single shot echoing through the building complex all through the night, Danielle felt her world tumbling down to ruins.
A million panicked thoughts shot through Danielle's brain at the same time. Her Mom shot and killed Steve. Steve was dead. She'd killed him.
"NO!"
Danielle dashed forward to try and get a clear view of where her mom and Steve were, but she was yanked back by Natasha and pulled under the redhead who was using herself as a shield. The former assassin was close enough to where Danielle could hear the jumbled voices through the intercoms over the loud ringing in her ears.
"Shots fired! Shots fired!"
"From which building?!"
"Possibly a few blocks away!"
"Romanoff, get Harper and Maximoff to the jet, stat!"
"On it," Natasha replied before leading the two enhanced girls back to the jet in a mad rush to get under some cover.
Danielle felt numb, she was starting to have trouble breathing. "Steve..." she mumbled. "He's... He's-"
"Danielle," Natasha interrupted her from her thoughts. "I need you to calm down. You're shaking the plane."
Danielle shook her head, unable to comprehend any of the words coming from the redhead's mouth. What was happening? Was any of this real? Was this a terrible nightmare she was going to wake up from? This was a sick dream, right? Or maybe half of this was a dream and she was really still lying unconscious on the basement floor. Please let this be a nightmare, she prayed, please, please, please. He couldn't be dead. Her Mom couldn't have killed him. No. She'd gone through enough. Hadn't she gone through enough already?!
The shaking in the jet continued as Danielle's panic attack was beginning to worsen.
"Danielle! Dani!"
First her dad, then her mom, her friends in Sokovia, Pietro, her mother coming back, the warehouse incident. Hadn't she gone through enough?! Hadn't she paid life's sick and twisted price for happiness?! All the scars that were barely visible on her skin, the other personality threatening to break out from her mind, the internal scars from the hundreds of experiments that were done on her, the wounds on her heart from the many losses she'd faced, the Arsenic running through her veins from her mother's poison, the blood on her hands from all the people Eris had killed, and now Steve?! WHAT MORE DID THE UNIVERSE WANT FROM HER?!
"Danielle!"
What did she do to deserve this?! What could she do to be rid of the curse that was her life?! Put a bullet in her head, kill more people? Completely let go and allow her powers to consumer her?! What was the point to living and trying to be happy if it was all watched away?! What was the point-
A sudden jolt of pain through Danielle's body sent her convulsing slightly before she collapsed onto the ground. Wanda and Natasha, who had been trying to get Danielle to calm down, looked over the unconscious girl's shoulder to see her brother beginning to sit up, his finger held up from when he'd electrocuted her. "Who the hell brought her here?"
Natasha and Wanda stared at Jack with wide eyes. What were they supposed to say? How were they supposed to deliver the news that Steve hadn't died like Danielle had believed, but someone else had instead?
Nothing really matters to me...
The singular shot echoing through the air.
One second, Steve was walking towards Alice to take her in his arms to comfort her after she'd just surrendered her life's mission to keep her kid's safe, and all it took was one shot. One singular shot from thin air that went slicing through the rain to strike precisely through Alisson Harper's skull.
"No!" Steve cried out just as her eyes flew back into her head and her body began to fall forward. The super soldier caught her before he fell and flipped her onto her back so he could get a better look at where she had been shot.
There had to be a way to save her, there was no way she could be dead. Not like this. Not again. Those kids had gone through enough and he had just gotten through to her. He was able to see their happy ending through the reflection of the puddle the detonator she had dropped lied in, but now all he saw was the way the rain droplets still falling from the sky bounced off her face instead of sticking to it, like it knew she was gone and there was no way to save her.
"No, no, no, no, no..." Steve repeated to himself as he lowered her body down to the ground.
He had to make sure. The soldier lifted to fingers to take her pulse... Nothing. She was dead.
Anyway the wind blows.
A/N: In the great words of Tony Stark – "...I'm sorry." -2k15. This took me a while and I never could have done it without theamazingspoiderman. Shout out to her and all her awesomeness. Go check out her stuff because her writing is just amazing. THANK YOU BRITISH TWIN!
Also, Chapter Song is Bohemian Rhapsody (if you couldn't tell already) ENJOY!
Reviews:
fairyblue1132: Yeah, my first year of college is kicking my ass, but I still manage to update for you guys! Good luck with your story as well, maybe I'll go check it out sometime.
RedDragon395: I'M SORRY! ...no I'm not.
PondLake: I couldn't find help, so I bring you this chapter! And thank you for your patience. :)
Incorrect Quote of the Chapter:
Danielle: How was your day?
Jack: Beautiful woman asked me how I'm doing today and I couldn't decide whether to say 'I'm good' or 'I'm okay', so of course I freaked out and said 'I'm gay'.
Danielle: •-•
