Twelve Years Ago…
"Juliet," a woman's voice rang out, "This is Periwinkle. She'll be training with you from now on."
The five-year-old ginger looked up to see a girl her age standing in front of her, wringing her hands and trying and failing to look confident. Her mousy brown hair hung in her face, obscuring the left side, but Jules could very well see the periwinkle eye on the right.
"Isn't periwinkle a colour?" she asked. The girl cocked an eyebrow indignantly.
"Isn't Juliet a desperate suicidal teenager?" Periwinkle mumbled, just loud enough for Juliet to hear. She was shocked for a moment; she had thought the other girl was just an orphan S.H.I.E.L.D. had pulled off the street.
"Periwinkle is genetically engineered to be superior in both intellect and physicality, just like you, Juliet. Her DNA was even altered through the same serum," Juliet's trainer said before patting her shoulder awkwardly. Juliet figured she hadn't originally been hired to deal with children. "I'm sure you'll get along."
Her trainer walked away, along with Periwinkle's trainer, most likely off to discuss the next stage of their development. Juliet continued to stare at her new accomplice, and her new accomplice stared right back, as if determined to prove a point. They kept up their staring match for a good amount of time, about six minutes and thirty-two seconds being precise.
"So," Juliet said, breaking the silence, "you're a freak." The girl nodded.
"Just like you."
Juliet assessed the situation. Periwinkle was obviously timid, possibly due to the fact she hadn't been exposed to many people. However, she wasn't afraid to retaliate if angered. She was fiery beneath all the hand-wringing and hiding behind her hair. Juliet quirked a smile. She decided she liked this Periwinkle kid.
Seven years later…
Jules huffed as she leaned back against the barricade protecting her from the giant killer robot programmed to mow down everyone and everything in its path. Its gears and mechanisms could be heard with every turn it took, every step it advanced. The course, designed by Howard Stark in 1947, look more like the trenches built in world war one, the spaces where the robot tromped no-man's land. It was hardly a place anyone would expect twelve-year-olds to run about every day. She took a series of deep breaths in an attempt to slow her racing heart.
"Man," she said to herself quietly, "this course is a bi-"
Peri vaulted over the wall and landed next to Jules in a heap of pre-teen and weapons.
"I do hope you weren't about to curse, my dear Jules," she said by way of greeting, "it would be so very inappropriate as a young lady of your stature to curse."
"Shut up, Peri."
Peri smirked, sitting up and loading a gun with quick, sharp movements. That was the thing about Peri- what she lacked in grace, she made up for in pizzazz.
"You know I'm kidding, Jules. You just wouldn't be you if you didn't curse." She put down the gun and folded her hands in her lap, turning to look at Jules with something like amusement in her periwinkle eyes.
"Um, Peri, I don't know if you've forgotten, but there's kind of a giant robot preparing to kill us, and you're putting down your gun like there's not even a need to protect ourselves-" Jules stopped talking as she noticed a new sound. The robot's gears were moving slower, its steps becoming fewer, and a noise like a plunger being removed from a sink. "Peri… What did you do?"
Her friend's smirk grew, and Peri bean to lightly chuckle as she held up some sort of metal piece for Jules to see. The robot's signature creaking gears died out completely, and Peri laughed harder.
"Peri, did you just dismantle that robot?" Jules hissed. Peri nodded and started to snort, letting Jules know that she was now laughing as hard as she could. Jules scoffed, rolled her eyes, and climbed out from their hole. Her anger boiled up, and she could still hear Peri snorting as she exited the course.
Dinnertime found the two girls in the corridor leading to the mess hall, bickering about what had happened earlier.
"I don't understand why you're angry with me Jules, we've been stuck on that course for weeks, if I hadn't snuck up on that freaking robot and removed its CPU, we'd probably be in there right now, avoiding it at all costs and we wouldn't be able to move on to the next unit of the program-"
"Yeah, and I'm glad for that part, Peri, but the fact remains you did not follow protocol."
"We're not going to be able to follow protocol all the time, Jules! You seem to think that our enemies are just going to sit there politely and agree to a do-over merely because we didn't stick 100 percent to the rulebook-"
"You're supposed to send a message to your partner! It's standard protocol! It's your duty to tell your teammate the game plan so they don't have a heart attack-"
"You are such a hypocrite! You hardly ever send messages to me when you deviate from the plan, you just expect me to roll with it, and I do, because I trust you!"
"It's not about that, okay?!"
"Then what is about, Jules?!"
"WE'RE TWELVE, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!" she yelled, tugging at her red curls. "We're not supposed to know how to do any of these things! We're supposed to sit up all night braiding our hair and doing each other's nails and giggling about our favourite boy bands, not taking apart homicidal robots and firing AK-47's!"
Peri gave her a moment, allowed her to breathe before she walked over to where Jules had sunk to the floor and placed her head between her knees. She took Jules' hand softly and held it for a while. She waited until Jules had her head in the upright position to speak again.
"Actually, we had M-16's today," she said jokingly. She got a small laugh from Jules, and half a smile. Peri gave her a sad smile in return. She put her arm around Jules' shoulders and let the ginger rest her head on her shoulder while she cried quietly.
"I know," she started, "I know it's not fair, Jules, and I know it's not okay. I know the only thing you want is to be normal, to worry about normal things and have a shot at a normal life. You don't want to die in battle, and neither do I. We both want to be a silly, twelve year old girl with silly, childish fantasies. But honestly, the idea of being normal for us is the probably the silliest, most childish fantasy we'll ever have. We've been out in the field with our supervisors and seen things that have caused scars that won't ever fade. But the thing is, Jules, some scars aren't always permanent, and some scars are, but if we keep the right people around us, if we make them our family, then those scars won't be so catastrophic, even if it's just for a little bit."
Jules' small smile grew ever so slightly, and her grip on Peri's hand grew tighter.
"Peri?" she asked.
"Yeah?"
"Promise me something?"
"Yeah."
"Will you be my family?" Peri looked down at her friend in surprise. That was the last thing she expected to come out of Jules' mouth. She smiled, and answered with complete honesty.
"Of course. I'll always be your family. Even when we're both dead and gone, I'll be your family." Jules smiled fully, feeling truly safe for the first time in her life.
Three years of relative peace passed for the girls, heavily interspersed with bitter tirades against S.H.I.E.L.D. and misogynists, but it didn't really matter to them for a long time. They had each other, they were each other's family, and as long as they were both there the lack of normal and sexist jerks could be dealt with.
That is, of course, until Peri was forced to get a MRI. The doctors observing each child in the program had noticed some oddities about Peri, like her constant headaches, and her occasional difficulty walking. To Jules and Peri, these little titbits were just something to laugh at. Jules teased Peri about her fantastic ability to run into inanimate objects, thinking to herself it was just one of those things that made Peri, well, Peri. And Peri had always joked about the headaches, saying that life itself gave her a headache, idiots gave her headaches, and her extreme allergy to waking up at the crack of dawn gave her headaches. It was nothing to be concerned about.
The doctors thought otherwise.
The results came wrapped up in a very official looking envelope, as if whatever was inside was something to do with social security or the DMV or taxes.
Stage one brain cancer.
The biggest slap in the face Jules had ever received.
For a long time, Jules refused to let Peri out of her sight. She was convinced any breath Peri took could be her last. Despite her massive intellect, it took seven months and eight days for anyone to convince her Peri wasn't going to die. They explained to her the four stages of cancer, and said since Peri was only stage one, there was a much higher chance of her survival. Due to Jules' natural pessimism, this wasn't enough. A doctor was called in to fully discuss with her Peri's case. It was a benign tumour, which meant it wasn't actually cancerous. Apparently some genius thought it would be a good idea to tell Jules it was cancer, "just to make things easier for her to understand."
Pigs, she thought, I'm a genetically altered secret agent with a PhD in psychology. It's condescending to judge my intelligence by my age.
Nevertheless, she felt secure. Peri wasn't going anywhere any time soon.
Of course, that didn't stop S.H.I.E.L.D. The second she was diagnosed, Peri was retired. Something about being unfit for the field. They could have given her a desk job, or just kept her where she was because technically she was still healthy. But no. They dumped her in some apartment in southern California with the backstory that she was an emancipated kid from a troubled background.
Jules threw a fit, demanding Peri be brought back into action or Jules would quit.
Neither road was travelled. Instead, S.H.I.E.L.D. dumped Jules in the same apartment as Peri, with the story she was an emancipated trust fund baby that got sick of her parents ignoring her.
Both girls were rather angry at S.H.I.E.L.D. for a time, but they couldn't stay angry when they realized S.H. .D. had pretty much given them retirement benefits that a lot of World War vets were probably ready to kill for.
When they were sixteen, the tumour became malignant. When Jules asked for a definition, all she got from the doctor was: "Bad. Very bad."
They went through a parade of nameless and faceless doctors soon forgotten when they didn't give Jules the answer she wanted: she wanted a cure, not something to buy time. It wasn't until they reached Doctor Perris, the twenty-second doctor Jules had dragged Peri to, that Peri said anything.
They were storming out after they had gotten the same answer but yet again. Well, Jules was storming. Peri was limping, hugging the wall for support.
"There's got to be someone," Jules muttered, almost like a holy chant, "someone."
"Jules…" Peri wheezed.
Jules looked back at her, sitting on the ground, exhausted from everything that had happened to her. Not just the cancer, Jules thought. The serum, the lack of normality, and the fact she only had one friend, the fact that one friend kept trying to get a miracle when the best she could get was a glimpse of salvation. She had dark circles under her eyes, and her long brown hair was flopping into her face even more than usual. The I-Am-Thinking-About-Great-Philosophy-Right-Now look she'd always had in her eyes was gone.
"I'm tired, Jules," she said. Jules looked at her sadly and nodded.
"I know," she whispered, before helping Peri up and carrying half her weight back to Doctor Perris' office.
S.H.I.E.L.D. paid all the medical bills, which was the silver lining on the dark cloud. Through steady chemotherapy sessions, Peri's condition stabled. Her hair was completely gone in a matter of days, although somehow (Jules assumed it was the serum), Peri almost had a pixie-cut sort of hair-do by the time she turned seventeen. Jules came home one day from a trip to the grocery store, expecting to see Peri curled up on the couch with a book and a cat she picked up off the street. Jules always told her to put them back or take them to the shelter, and she did. Peri had a bit of an odd fixation with cats. Jules was actually considering getting her one. She hadn't got one that day, but she did have a special surprise for Peri.
But that day, Jules came home to find an empty couch. She set the bags down before going on the search for Periwinkle. She instantly turned for Peri's room, and then hers, but she wasn't in one of those, either. She began to panic as she checked the bathroom. She even went so far as to look in the closet. No Peri. By this point Jules was hyperventilating. She ran into the kitchen, hoping Peri was in the pantry, and spotted a note on the fridge. She breathed a sigh of relief and read it carefully.
"Jules,
I'm going up to the roof.
-Peri"
Jules should have known by the shortness and lack of affection something was wrong. But she was too relieved to think that Peri was anything but tranquil at the moment. She trotted up to the roof, wondering what she should make for dinner, wondering if Peri would want to watch a movie after she had cleaned the kitchen (she always cleaned the kitchen, and everywhere else; she insisted that Jules did too much, and this was her way of saying thank-you).
The sharp sound of knives flying through the air and sticking in a wall greeted Jules when she reached the roof. For the first time, Jules got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that something was wrong, but she ignored it, reasoning that knife-throwing had been one of Peri's favourite subjects during their time as agents. It wasn't until she saw the look on Peri's face she knew something was wrong.
Usually, when throwing things, Peri had a look of total and utter boredom. Right now, however, it was a look of intense concentration. She threw the knives with vehement passion, as if she were trying to cleave the wall in two. Jules watched for three minutes and twelve seconds. She knew it was best to avoid interrupting Peri when she held sharp objects. She stopped, just for a moment.
"Why do you idolize him so much?" she said, punctuated with a particularly vicious thrust.
"Who?"
"Him," Peri spit out the word like poison, sending the knife she held in a direction Jules assumed she was meant to look. And look she did.
"Hey! That's my poster! It's special edition from the attack on New York!"
"How can you think he's a hero?! It was his stupid serum that ours was modelled after! He's almost directly responsible for the theft of our childhood!"
"Captain America wasn't the one who designed our serum! He was still in the ice when we were born!"
"THAT. DOESN'T. MAKE. HIM. ANY. LESS. GUILTY!" Each word was emphasized with a knife to the Captain's head. It would have been impressive, if it weren't Jules' favourite poster. "HE'S THE ONE THAT STARTED THIS WHOLE MESS! IF IT WASN'T FOR HIM, WE'D BE REGULAR TEENAGERS COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW OUR PARENTS GROUNDED US! WE WOULDN'T KNOW FOURTEEN LANGUAGES OR HOW TO HACK INTO NASA! WE'D BE PERFECTLY SAFE AND I WOULDN'T HAVE THIS GODFORSAKEN DISEASE!" Luckily, she had run out of knives at the end of her first sentence. She slumped to the ground and curled up in a ball, trying to breathe around the tears. Jules stood frozen in shock. She gaped at her, her mouth hanging open like a fish. Her voice cracked when she finally spoke.
"Peri… What are you talking about?" her voice came out in more of a whisper than the calm, steady tone she had hoped for. Peri sniffed.
"Doctor Perris called while you were out. He said he had some new information that might affect the treatment process… He said…" Peri squeezed her eyes shut and took three deep breaths, "he said it was very likely that my cancer is caused by the serum I was introduced to as a foetus. He called Fury, got a hold of him somehow, and Fury told him that I was actually given a different serum than the other kids in the program. No one noticed the mistake until it as fully integrated into my system. They didn't care, though, because it was almost exactly like the serum everyone else had received. I've always known we were experiments, but I had no idea I was just a failed test result." She buried her head in her arms atop her knees, trying to breathe.
"Peri…" Jules whispered, coming over and sitting next to her, putting her arm around her shoulders, just like Peri had done for her when they were twelve. She sat there with her family crying into her shirt, wishing she could say something to make her feel better. But she couldn't. She had known her for twelve years, and she couldn't comfort her. It made Jules feel pathetic. Useless. Unnecessary. So she did the first thing that came to her mind. She sang. It was out of tune, and the words were made up on the fly, but it made Jules feel like she was doing something, and Peri's sobs were becoming less explosive.
"Don't let go,
Hold on for me,
I need you here,
And you need me too.
You're close now,
Close to the edge,
Slipping and
Sliding along.
Just try to
Remember me,
'Cause you're not alone.
I'll be here
To help heal the wounds,
To help you forget all your scars."
She couldn't think of much else, so she resorted to humming.
Finally, after forty-three minutes and fourteen seconds, Peri stopped crying. She sniffed, but didn't move. For the first time in a long time, she felt safe.
Later that night, Jules revealed her surprise to Peri.
"It's hair dye!" she shouted, "Surprise! I figured, since you managed to live to the age of seventeen, and that's more than you expected to do even when we were agents, we should celebrate! We made it! Ha! Take that, fate! We lived through every single emotional break-down you've thrown at us! We are invincible!"
Peri smiled. Jules was trying painfully hard to make her feel better. She looked down at the dye in her hands. #0034, Periwinkle Dreams, the box read.
She dyed her hair that night, and the next day she went out and bought thirty boxes worth of #0034.
She hasn't been seen without it in her hair since.
Obviously, I don't own any of the characters in this story except for Peri and Jules... Well… Okay, I only own Peri. I don't own anything I make a reference to in any chapter. Also I started writing this before I saw Thor 2 so this story DOES NOT follow the Thor 2 timeline AT ALL. But hey, moving on. I'm not a professional writer, but I'd very much like to be a novelist one day. If you could kindly give me some tips and pointers on how to improve, I'd be much obliged. Have a great day, and thank you for taking the time out of your life to read my manuscript!