The weeks that had followed were much of the same.
Sharon used her government agent card to convince my employer that I had been critically harmed in The Battle of New York and that I would be stuck in a hospital in New York for at least another month.
She then insisted that I temporarily move into her apartment, which simply meant that she didn't trust me to be on my own, but neither of us cared to voice that.
Her concern was proven when she would every so often break protocol to inform me of Clint Barton's improvements.
After the fifth night in a row of being awakened by my screams, she even broke and told me that Loki was in prison back on Asgard.
She stuck by my side every moment that she wasn't at work. When she was gone I'd just sit inside, usually staring out a window.
I had tried to go running a few times but was only left with my skin crawling and the feeling that I was being watched around every corner.
To say I couldn't exactly cope would have been an understatement.
I couldn't turn on the TV, I couldn't meet anyone's eyes in public, I couldn't even face Sharon half the time. In fact, with Sharon it was the hardest. She was the one who knew. What I did, who I was now. It made me sick to see myself through her eyes.
She tried once to tell me that many of her friends have done awful things and it hasn't defined them, but I had quietly asked her if any of them had killed 200,000 people, and she hadn't brought it up again.
The days passed and I grew desperate.
For what? I haven't the slightest idea.
To my credit, I made it an entire two weeks before doing something drastic.
Basically, Sharon left the room to use the bathroom and I grabbed her keys.
There had been no plan involved, but as soon as my foot touched the gas, I knew the destination.
While I admit I'm not entirely sure, I don't think I was heading there to jump off. Although that would have been terribly poetic.
I think I was going there for answers.
But life had a different path for me to take, and it forced me to take it, literally.
A road on my route had been closed off due to a large gathering in the city. A candlelight vigil to be more specific.
A candlelight vigil for the victims of the Battle of New York.
I could see the crowd ahead, thick with hundreds of people, and parked the car.
I am many things. But not a coward.
I moved through the crowd slowly, taking in the distraught and solemn faces around me. The air was quiet leaving the speaker's voice to disperse clearly across the square. He was talking about strength in the face of adversity as I drew closer to the platform.
I began weaving faster and faster through the bodies surrounding me. I could finally see a way out and I was going to take it. Let the crowd determine my fate.
But just as I reached for the first rung on the steps, a hand darted out and grasped my wrist.
A familiar face pulled me back a mere few feet so we were once again buried in the crowd.
"Agent Romanoff?" I was mainly confused. "Why are you here?"
Her eyes weren't cold per say, but simply unreadable.
"For the same reason you are I'd imagine," she replied.
I wasn't sure what to say but she had yet to let go of my wrist.
She nodded her head toward the platform. "Interesting tactic."
I shrugged, "Go big or go home, right?"
She quirked an eyebrow. "In my experience, I've found subtleness can be far more impactful."
"When you want the outcome to be in your favor perhaps," I shot back.
Her head tilted, and she stared at me for far too long. And then, without warning, she was pulling me in for what any outsider would have seen as a hug, but what felt a whole lot more like a forceful inverted chokehold of which I had no chance escaping.
She placed her mouth next to my ear and was lowly speaking before I was even able to react.
"You trusted the wrong person. Your instinct was ridiculously, insanely off. You may not have physically harmed a single person, you may have even helped a few, but you are partly responsible for an innumerable number of deaths. You took away my best friend's chance at redemption so now he is forced to feel the same way you are. You screwed up royally and your life will never be the way it was before. You will never be the same. So what are you going to do about it? You're going to walk up on that stage in front of these people who are grieving and in pain and tell them what? That you did this? What will that change? You can't fix what you did. You'll never be able to. So you need to pick yourself up off the ground and go about the rest of your life attempting to reach the unattainable goal of making up for your sins and not letting those people die in vain. But you can't do that if you allow yourself to remain in this slump of self-hatred and pity."
She pulled back then, staring me straight in the eyes. "You need to figure out what it is you need to move on with your life." she stated calmly before turning and disappearing into the crowd.
You know those moments when you look back and can tell the exact moment your life pivoted to an entirely different direction?
Well that was mine.
...
"I need to see Loki."
It was the first thing out of my mouth when the door swung open to reveal a rather attractive brunette rocking a lumberjack look.
"Well I won't say you've come to the wrong place," he looked more amused than anything.
Nothing was more surprising than when he simply stepped aside and gestured for me to enter.
"Welcome to Avenger's Tower!" He grinned.
Nevertheless, I stepped inside as he called out, "Jarvis is Thor around?"
A kind voice came as though from the ceiling. "Thor is currently attending to matters on Asgard."
Lumberjack was eyeing me intensely as he replied, "Jarvis send word for him to return."
"Are you certain that is necessary?" The kind voice responded. "He gave instruction not to be disturbed."
"It's necessary Jarvis," Agent Romanoff came striding into the room, giving the brunette a nod that clearly said 'I've got this.'
"I was wondering when you were going to get here," she turned her full attention to me as he stepped out of the room without a backward glance.
"So what, you just let anyone walk in here?" I ignored her implication that she had predicted my intentions.
"Oh Clint is pretty aware of who you are," she tilted her head slightly, waiting to see if I would catch up.
Little did she know his name was in my dreams nearly every other night.
My reaction was instantaneous. But her intuition was quicker.
Somehow she was standing in front of me again before I had even completed my turn, effectively cutting off the path to where my guilt had walked away.
"If he had wanted an apology then he would have revealed who he was," her eyes were somber. "Not everyone holds you as responsible as you hold yourself. Trust me."
I got the feeling that she was quite often five steps ahead of each person she encountered.
"Agent Romanoff…" I started, but suddenly the room was shaking and then over the instant it began.
I was still recovering from what I could only describe as a bright flash of earthquake, when none other than Tony Stark came stepping quickly into the room.
"Um what the hell is Thor doing back?" he was spattering. "He specifically said he would need some time, and I swear to god if he is bringing us another issue…"
He stopped mid-sentence upon seeing me.
"Violet Williams," he was clearly sizing me up. "No one mentioned you were so hot... in a sleepless PTSD sort of way."
Romanoff rolled her eyes but wore a soft smile, clearly used to his shenanigans.
"Yeah I guess some people prefer to hide their PTSD with cocky confidence," I shrugged.
It was meant as a harmless quip but when he physically took a step back causing a split second of genuine confusion to slide across Romanoff's face, I realized I had yet again stumbled into something I had no business sticking my nose in.
"That Captain America," I rambled on without a second thought. "All over the news soaking in all this praise when the guy has to be suffering from trauma, ya know?"
It was basically nonsense, the pair knew even better than I that the Captain was likely the humblest human alive, and no one was fooled by my attempt at backtracking, but they moved on all the same.
"Right, well better not keep Thor waiting," Romanoff ushered me toward another set of doors and threw Stark a wink which I'm fairly sure was entirely for his benefit.
"See ya around sleepless," Stark smirked, clinging to the lame nickname in an attempt at recovery.
As soon as the elevator door closed behind us, the redhead turned to me.
"How'd you know?" she demanded.
"I didn't," I had sighed, and the ride up was silent after that.
...
Thor had taken one look at me, stalked across the room, and grabbed my shoulders in his hands.
"I don't know whether to thank you for saving my brother's life or hate you for allowing him to create such a legacy for himself," he murmured, looking deep into my eyes.
"I'll settle for whatever emotion makes you want to let me see him," I was nothing if not a woman grasping for dear life to a single mission.
He scoffed and looked at Romanoff instead, "Humans cannot just be brought to Asgard."
She did not seem deterred in the slightest.
"Have you made any progress?" she asked calmly.
He paused and then shook his head, frowning slightly and sighed.
"Loki will perish before he reveals anything," he admitted.
"How far is Odin willing to go?"
His silence was all she needed to continue.
"Why do you think it is that Williams here was the only person to come face to face with your brother without him making even a single attempt on her life?"
She was asking questions in a way that were leading Thor to the conclusion she desired, and I was in awe.
"She took an arrow for him," he determined, voicing my thoughts exactly.
"Does the god of mischief, the great trickster, the orchestrator of mass genocide, really seem like the type of being who would experience gratitude toward what he views as an ant?" she questioned.
And suddenly the god of thunder's attention was entirely on me, staring into my eyes as though the answers laid within.
But Agent Romanoff was not yet finished.
"He stabbed his own brother Thor," she stated. "And one could argue that Williams walked away in even better shape than before her interaction, what with him stabilizing her wound."
"Why would he do that?" it was as though he was asking himself.
"Thor," she paused and her voice said it was time to bring her point home. "In all your years together, has Loki ever been one to allow someone to walk away?"
It must have been a gamble because she couldn't possibly have known for sure that he had never, in 1,500 years, been merciful toward a perceived enemy.
But Thor's face was saying it all, and I had to wonder if a super serum or weaponized suit really had anything at all on the Black Widow.
"You think she can get him to talk?" Thor murmured and hope entered his voice.
"I think she's the best shot you've got."
I know now that Natasha had seen a way to bring something out in me while simultaneously furthering The Avengers' goals. And she had then gone about convincing two people who would have never considered such a plan that we conceived the intention ourselves.
Which is basically how I came face to face with Loki for the third time.
