Note #1: So... VERY long time, no post. SO, so sorry. Here, takes a long chap.
Note #2: Each flash back (the lengthy italics) is a different life. They're in order from history as much as possible. And I'm not even doing a flashback for EACH life. :l
WARNINGS: angst galore, insanity, denial, severe injustice to history, indirect(?) and/or past mentionings of suicide
Chapter 4: "I've got one friend laying across from me, I did not choose him, he did not choose me" ~ Hospital Beds, Florence + the Machine
Hela was pretty sure they weren't cleared for this. But, hell, Thor and Stark were Avengers, so she guessed that let them get by with a lot.
She literally had no preparation for meeting her supposed father. The holding cell he was in – exactly identical to hers – was in the next freaking room. So Tony Stark walked a little ahead of them, flashing an ID and arguing with stubborn, suspicious guards when it was necessary. Thor walked next to her like he was either there for her comfort or protection. Probably both, judging from the looks of loathing they got from the guards.
Maybe it was a good thing it was such a short trip, she thought to herself.
They had even more guards for Loki it seemed, and when they finally reached the last checkpoint, the very last one separating her from the man that had all her answers, the guards put up more resistance. Hel tuned out of the argument as Thor put a hand on her shoulder, saying something along the lines of, "She is with us…" and peered past the glass of the cell to totally not stare at the Number One Most Wanted Criminal on SHIELD's radar.
Loki sat as still as a statue, eyes closed and elbows on his knees, fingers steeped since he really couldn't do anything else as he was wearing the same high tech handcuffs she had been earlier. She suddenly felt her mouth go very dry and her mind go blank.
"…Kid?" Someone said.
The teen blinked. "Hmm?"
Stark had his hands in his pockets, searching her face for something. "Look, those guards are only going to go as far as the hallway," he jerked his head towards the doors they had come through, "and they'll only stay out there as long as they don't think anything is going on. I don't think they're going to give you very much time, so you might want to get everything out of the way pretty quick."
"Are you ready for this, Hela?" Thor asked with deep, concerned blue eyes. Briefly she wondered how he could care so much about her when he barely knew her.
She ran a hand through her hair. "As ready as I'll ever be. Are you going to stay out here?"
Stark nodded, "We're going to make sure nothing happens, too."
"He wouldn't hurt me."
"You may believe that, but I prefer to be on the safe side when it comes to Loki."
Then he was entering a code in the keypad, and the doors were opening.
As soon as Hel walked into the room, Loki's eyes opened.
It was cold in the room, and it got even colder when she walked in. It wasn't that different from the cold of Helheim, though, so it didn't bother her much. What did bother her was the intensity the trickster was watching her with now.
His cell was furnished just the same as hers had been so she slowly dragged the fold-up chair closer to him but still a safe distance away with no small amount of uncertainty. And he just…watched. Seated with her legs crossed and hands in her lap, she said frowning, "Hello."
And he finally smiled, small but tired. "Hello, Hel." But made no move to say anything else.
Hela sighed and fidgeted. She hated awkward silences. "Um… So. Thor told me that-" She looked away. "Well. Are you my father?" Wow, that was hard.
It was Loki's turned to sigh. "He told you, did he?" A pause. "And if I were your father, dear Hela, what precisely would you think of that?" His voice had gone quiet.
Unconsciously she fiddled with the bracelet while thinking over her response. Looking back up, "I guess that would depend on you, I guess."
Now that she was closer to him, she could see the differences she hadn't seen earlier. He didn't look sick, like he had when he had attacked Earth, but he still had weary shadows under his eyes. "I'm not sure I understand."
A new surge of nervousness burst in her stomach at what she was about to say, worried at how he would react. But at the same time a tiny amount of hope bloomed with it. "Well, you know, I- I'd really like it if you were my father because- well, I don't have one right now, so it'd be really nice. But you can't- you can't kill people. You can't be a…bad guy anymore. I don't want you to be fighting the Avengers. That'd… That'd really suck."
Hel: eloquent not be thy name.
A hard, almost guarded look had settled look on his face. "I have not killed someone intentionally in a very long time. And never make the mistake of assuming I have ever killed for fun."
Her hands flew up. "I'm not saying that! When I came here, to find you, I, um, brought my best friend with me, and he was pretty reluctant because of, you know, who you were. But one of my biggest arguments was that you hadn't killed anyone since Manhattan, that it was mostly just pranks."
Loki's expression softens slightly at that. "I was looking for you and your brothers while biding time. That has been my main intent for coming to Midgard this entire time."
There's so many different reactions she has to those two sentences (Brothers? Holy shit, I have brothers. – Why'd you just now come to Earth? Which raises the even more important question of how I'm only a teenager… - Then why launch such a large attack on Earth if all you're doing now is pranks?) but she can't voice that all in one question, so she continues with her earlier point, "Look, just… What I'm saying- You can't be on the wrong side of the law anymore. You can't be my dad if you're being chased by SHIELD."
Hel pauses. "When I first came in, they treated me like a criminal. I had handcuffs like yours. They put me in a cell like this one. They interrogated me. I didn't get why at first. And…now I do. It's because I'm your daughter."
Loki looks away. "I am truly sorry for that. Things were never meant to turn out like this." Sad, tired green eyes met blue again, and he said, "Do you know what happens if I surrender to these people, Hel? Do you?"
Admittedly, she hadn't thought that far.
"They will try to punish me for the lives taken and the damage caused and the vengeful anger that drives this SHIELD. On Asgard, I should be put to death, but as I am still nobility and I have crimes to be paid for here, Odin will honor his treaty with this realm and punish me in a way that leaves me still capable of serving out punishment on this planet."
Hela had closed her eyes by now, swallowing. The thought of having the man that was apparently her father put to death, just as she had found him, was one of the many inequities of her life.
So, she wouldn't let it happen. Simple as that.
Clear blue eyes opened. "I'm not going to let that happen."
A bittersweet smile spread across his face. "I'm afraid it is beyond your power. The only way to prevent it from happening is to keep fighting, unfortunately. But my true mission above everything is to reunite you and your brothers. Once I have succeeded, this can end and we can live where no one will bother us, I swear."
Her mouth set in a hard line. "So in other words you're going to keep running."
His expression turned to one of confusion and the beginnings of annoyance. "I did not say that."
"But you did," Hel said flatly. "Instead of trying to find a solution to your problem, you're running. You're going to do the same thing you've been doing, the same unsuccessful thing you've been doing. Do you know how much easier it would be to find my- your other kids if you had SHIELD's help?"
An emerald fire had lit in Loki's eyes. "I do not want the help of these puny mortals who thought they could harness the power of gods. Also, these people are a mere annoyance. They are not my 'problem'. My problem is that my children were taken from me and scattered across an alien realm. If I am looking for a solution to anything, it is that."
Well, there was a story there to be told. But not for now. "Okay, look, I get that, I do. But there are loopholes in everything. Everything. Surely there's something that could get you out of being thrown in prison, either here or on, uh, Asgard?"
"If there is, which I sincerely doubt, it has not been used in a very long time."
Hel wanted to tear her hair out. "Fuck it, you are such a pessimist. My God."
And then the oddest thing happened. The trickster smiled, sad and reminiscent. "You are so very much like your mother. You have her eyes."
"Um," was the teen's response.
Well, if he wanted to shut her up, that was one way to do it.
Not waiting for her fried brain to restart, Loki shifted, sitting up a little straighter, looking a little more eager and a live than he had a few moments before. "Do you want to remember?"
"Huh?" She again replied eloquently.
His brow furrowed. "You do not honestly believe you are the current age of the mortal body you have."
"Um. Well. No, I don't, I guess. I mean, I'm still processing the fact that I'm not…you know…"
"A weak mortal?"
"First of all," Hel snapped sharply, "they're not 'weak mortals'. They're humans. They're not pretty or perfect or kind or eco-friendly, but I've lived with them my entire life. Most of them are asses, but some of them aren't that bad. Second, I might as well be mortal because I'm not that powerful. All I've done is bust windows and glasses when I get angry and quite frankly, its scary. Third, what the hell do you mean 'remember'?"
"Hela, I was alerted to your presence here in the Avengers Tower by the extreme amount of pure power you released. Hence the reason I rushed so quickly. It…frightened me to think that something could have made you set off such a power discharge while in such close vicinity of Avengers Tower. You are very mistaken of your potential if you think you are not powerful." Loki sighed, but somehow made it seem elegant in a way that could only come with a lifetime of noble raising. "As for your past lives-"
"Woah, one freaking second, hold the damn phone, past lives, as in past tense and plural?"
"Let me finish," he cut her off. "It was centuries ago when you and your brothers were taken from me. You were too young to remember, but I suspect that Jormungandr has the barest of memories and Fenrir definitely will remember. As they were too old to forget, Odin would not forcefully work magic on them to wipe their memories of their life on Asgard. He placed Fenrir in the forests of Midgard and Jormungandr in the oceans. But he took a small mercy on you. He made you mortal and placed you in the care of mortals. By day, you were human. At night you were in the hall of Elivdnir, guiding souls to their resting place so that the natural order of things would continue and people would continue to die. When you awoke you were mortal again."
Hel blinked, because, when he put it like that, it sounded…simple, insane, about right. "Okay, well, if this happened centuries ago, what about when I died? At the end of my 'mortal life'? Was I, like, reincarnated?"
"Yes," he said in all seriousness.
She stared. "You're freaking kidding me."
"I do not see why I would 'kid' about this."
Her hands threaded themselves through her hair as she leaned forward. "That's-"
He narrowed his eyes, daring her to say it.
"Okay, well, it sounds insane, okay?"
Loki grinned a crooked smile and said somewhat sympathetically, "I am the God of Chaos, my dear. Do you really think a small thing such as reincarnation would phase me?"
It was Hel's turn to narrow her eyes. Now she knew he was just messing with her. "Well, around here, reincarnation is a big thing. Like, it doesn't happen. So, if I've apparently been reincarnated several times since- When?"
"1600's in human years, I believe."
"Jesus. Anyways, why don't I…remember any of that? Surely there'd be something. A flash, a muscle memory, from a past life."
His eyes had darkened slightly. "As I said before, Odin repressed your memories. The Allfather's will has lasted even through all these centuries. Which leads me back to my earlier question. Would you like to remember?"
Yes. No. Jury's still out.
"Eh… You only live once, I guess? Wait, that doesn't apply here-"
But Loki was already was reaching for her head, hands glowing a muted green in the cuffs. "I will not lie, this shall hurt."
She didn't really have time to back out before the barest touch of skin brushed her forehead and the room plunged into darkness.
He was right, it did hurt.
But then Hel was too swept up in everything else to register the pain, and soon that Hel became no more.
Hel comes home to their little cottage bruised, cut, and bloody.
Her mother cries when she thinks Hel isn't looking as she cleans her cuts and listens to Hel's story of how the boys threw rocks at her on her way home from the well. She looks at her mother's golden hair, and thinks of how the boys had called her a creature of the shadows, unnatural, the very thing that laid at the bottom of the well.
She looks at her mother's golden hair, and wonders if they're right.
When her father is out in the village trying to hunt the boys down, Hel asks her mother where she came from.
That day, she's no longer Hel's mother. That day, she becomes the woman who took Hel in one cold winter night as a baby.
Her wrists strain against the rough rope bound around her wrists. The wooden pole behind her back is hard and makes the position a thousand times more uncomfortable.
The smell of oil hits Hel's nose hard and her stomach roils. Not for the first time, her panic makes all thoughts scatter.
The oil-slick kindling and branches she's standing on shift under her feet. Hate filled eyes stare up at her.
All these people gathered here today to watch her die. People she had called her friends.
On the words of a man who had been making advances on her for months now.
The very man holding the torch at the front of the crowd right now.
Somehow Hel doubted he'd want to court her very much if he saw her legs beneath her skirt.
"Witch," they'd said, "witch, so close to our children! Burn her! Burn her!"
As if she'd dare hurt the children she taught in the town's one room school house.
The man who had tried to court her and Hel had turned down, Richard, stared up at her with some odd combination of remorse and satisfaction. "Do you deny that the accusations that you are a witch, woman?"
Some cold anger settled Hel's bones and she raised her head. "I do."
"Very well," he said flatly.
With a great toss, he threw the torch on the oil-slicked kindling pile at her feet. She barely had time to instinctively jerk backwards against the pole she was tied to as it caught and spread.
Hel screams as her skirt catches fire and she discovers what the smell of burning flesh smells like.
Hel watches as a woman is hanged for being a witch in the town square of their little town.
She gets sick before the woman is fully dead and hurries from the crowd, trying to draw as little attention as possible. Chills make the hair on the back of her neck stand up in the cool, crisp morning air.
America, they say. Land of the free. The irony brings a small smile to Hela's face as she's leaning over by the well, throwing up the contents of her stomach.
"Helena, do try this one on, will you?"
That's not Hel's name. She knows.
"Yes, Mother." She takes the green velvet lined hat that would match with the dress she was trying on and balances the small thing precariously on her head, not bothering to check in the mirror. Really, she could care less what she wore for her honeymoon.
Her mother tuts. "Your fiancée will be here tomorrow, Helena. If you don't straighten up your act, he won't want to marry you! No one likes a moody bride."
"I don't want to marry him."
"Honey, it doesn't matter if you want to or not," her mother says lightly, brushing a hand over Hel's shoulder before turning to another rack of hats. "He owns a good portion of land on the Mississippi and runs a mill. Money like that can pay the taxes on our land."
"So what is in this for me, Mother? Nothing but a title? A name?"
"Helena, don't over think it," Mother says flatly. "Things could be much worse. Look forward to the children you'll have one day, the grandchildren, why don't you? Try not to be so negative. You have so much to look forward to."
Hel thought about it, and honestly didn't see what there was to look forward to. A boring, loveless high society life alone in a giant, cold manor raising who knows how many children by herself? No.
So when hours later her body was found hanging from the ceiling in her bedroom, perhaps the only one unsurprised was her mother.
She has episodes. Episodes of fire, scorching, burning, consuming fire, and they locked her up.
Locked her up with the crazies, the sick people, and now she's in a straitjacket. Like a sick person.
They said she was sick. That she had to get better. The only way to do that was to go through with the treatment.
Hel didn't like the treatment. The doctors poked and prodded her like a science project more than a patient and muttered rude things about her legs, not caring to hide it because they thought that just because she was sick that she was deaf, too.
-no! She wasn't sick! Sick people were crazy, and she-
The nurses here were terrible. Most of them treated her and the other patients like trash. A few of them were kind, some indifferent. Hel would take indifferent over hostile.
It's not just the nurses, though.
The other patients, they're the ones that really bother her. Some have episodes like her, hallucinations, others have disorders, a lot were depressed.
-depression was bad, she wasn't depressed, depression was black, gray, blue, like her eyes, her legs, no, she wasn't depressed, they were-
But that's not what bothers her about the patients.
When Hel looks out her little tiny window into the frozen field and shivers in the filthy contraption restraining her arms, she can hear the others screaming as they suffer episodes like her own, visions like her own.
-hers are real, hers are calling her, hers aren't crazy, they're not visions, they're part of-
And as she counts the different shades of black, gray, and blue in the field, surrounded by chaos and cold, it somehow feels almost right in this little world. That's what bothers her.
They were going to die. She could feel it.
Hateful men with guns shouted in German outside the boxcar, in which she and several other people from her town had been stuffed like livestock. It was sickening. The air here was sickening.
The door slides open to let gray daylight pour in and her townspeople fell out to the ground. The hateful men in uniforms began forcefully pulling people out while her mother pulled her up into her arms and jumped from the train. Looking back inside, Hel could see some people were not getting up. They weren't moving at all, a deadlier stillness than sleep.
The men with guns began separating the men and women, and Hel watched silently as they went through the two groups, silently studying each man or woman with a scrutinizing gaze until they barked an order for them to go to another group by a giant bottomless pit, separate and bigger than the rest.
Her mother grasped her hand tightly without a word, so that meant she couldn't talk either. But then she felt a tickle in her throat and wished more than anything that she could clear her throat to get rid of it.
The men were making there way down the line of women to her and her mother. Many women had already been taken. Her mother's grip was so tight.
All of a sudden Hel wheezed and coughed, finally relieving the tickle in her throat.
Heads turned towards her. Her mother's grip was bruising.
Then one of the men was grabbing her by her arm and tearing her from her mother, tossing her towards the group of men and women by the pit as she cried. One of the men caught her – the baker her mother had bought pastries from on special days – and shushed her, lifting her up like the father Hel had the barest of memories of. He ran a hand through her hair, whispering that it would be alright over the screams of her mother begging the men with guns.
Hel cried, fists twisted in his wool jacket, and looked down into the pit.
It wasn't bottomless. Pale, white faces stared back at her with blank dead eyes.
She stopped crying.
Look at that, they said, a white girl at a negro's funeral.
Well, they can screw themselves, Hel thinks. She lays a rose on top of the coffin, taking a moment, before retreating to the back of the crowd.
Her long black floor-length cotton dress rustles around her, and she hates it more than anything, especially now in the summer at her best friend's funeral with the family staring at her like they have the right to judge.
Tamara was the only kind soul Hel had ever met, and now she's gone because of a hate crime.
If the police weren't so damned prejudiced, she thinks as she watches the coffin be lowered, maybe they would investigate further.
But in the sixties its just a black girl that got hit on her way home. It'd be a different story if it was a white girl, but that's just how the world works, she guesses.
Hel screams. Out loud. In the here and now. It takes her a moment to distinguish that little fact, from the past and present.
Another moment to feel cool hands gripping her face.
And the last moment is spent blacking out.
Despite popular belief, Bobby isn't stupid.
"What did you do?"
So sometimes he wishes people wouldn't treat him like it. It takes a lot to get his point across those few times he does care what people think.
Now is one of those times, when all the adults shoot him a glare or sharp look but otherwise ignore him.
Effing douchebags in stupid uniforms- "Uh, hello? That's my best friend in there screaming and you obviously brought me here for a reason-"
"Just shut up, okay kid?" One of them says, hand on his gun and glancing nervously at the doors to the infirmary.
Bobby mutters darkly in his seat and shifts his bandaged hands, wincing at the ache in the frost bite burns. The only female of the four agents that had escorted him here from his interrogation room shot him a sympathetic glance.
There's so much commotion and a lot of shouting from behind the infirmary and the fact that he can't hear Hel doing any of it worries. And he knows she's in there. He'd heard the screams.
Yeah, he's pretty pissed at SHIELD. But he's more scared now.
The infirmary doors suddenly slide open to reveal Tony Stark and Bobby kinda freezes for a moment because, hello, Ironman?
It gets even weirder when the billionaire points at him and say, "You're Bobby, right?"
"Um."
"Good, get in there." A thumb jerks over his shoulder to the doors.
Bobby's already up and moving by the time he's finished speaking.
One of the agents grabs his arms, effectively stopping him. "Is that really a good idea?"
Bobby opens his mouth to snap something back but Stark beats him to it. "It's my idea, so of course it is."
"We were ordered to bring him here-"
"So he could go right in there and do a better job at handling the situation than any of you could. Now let. Him. Go."
Needless to say, the agent does. "We were only ordered to bring him with us, not let him see the other prisoner."
Bobby's already through the door when the inventor says, "Guess what? I don't care."
Inside, there's even more agents standing around with weapons and he just really wants to say, 'Really?' But there's a more important mission that calls his attention so he searches the crowded room for Hel.
All he can see is hospital beds pushed up against one wall, each separated with curtains and surrounded by hospital machines and whatnot. A few of them are filled with what he guesses are wounded agents of SHIELD, even the most beaten up of all of them awake and alert because of the noise and crowd.
Speaking of-
There's one bed that's farthest from any wounded agent surrounded by a mass of white doctor coats and nurse uniforms mixed with the dark of SHIELD` uniforms who all looked on the verge of a breakdown.
Well, that's a pretty good bet.
He's not two feet away from pushing himself in the middle of all of them when a doctor suddenly turns to him, frazzled and pale. "Are you Bobby?" the man asks in a odd accent.
"Yeah?"
"Good." The teen is suddenly being pushed into the thick of the crowd as the foreign doctor yells for everyone to step back.
When he sees Hel for the first time in what feels like days, Bobby suddenly wishes he hadn't been right.
They had what had to at least six blankets piled on top of her, and despite the sweat on her brow he can feel cold radiating from her. Her eyelids are closed but beneath that her eyes are whipping around wildly, caught in dream or nightmare. She looks paler than normal and he can't even see the rise of her chest as she breathes. Her lips are tinged blue.
Hel looks dead. And it's the scariest thing he's ever seen.
For the first time in her life, Hela dreams.
Actual dreams, not Helheim, which, according to everyone that knew what the heck was going on, was an actual place.
Dreams are weird, she immediately decides.
In Elivdnir, everything felt real. Like when she was awake. This… This felt just weird.
There wasn't a moment she opened her eyes to see the actual dream, but rather she didn't see anything one moment and then saw everything in the next.
At first glance, it was brightly lit. But then she actually focused on what she was seeing, and it took any breath she had in the dream away.
There was a glowing, endless field of prairie grass. No, glowing wasn't the right word. But she could see the golden field as clear as though the sun was shining right down on it.
Which it wasn't, as she discovered by looking up.
Above her was millions, billions of stars, some of them falling across the midnight blue sky and leaving a trail. There was too many moons to be Earth's night sky and she could see what looked like Jupiter big and bright in the sky.
Yeah, this definitely was not Earth's sky.
Hel didn't feel like she was in control of her actions as she turned without thought to see a figure on the horizon. The light from the field was too bright to make them out, so she starting walking.
It took forever yet no time at all to get there.
Bobby was smiling at her, carefree and happy in a way she hadn't seen since his father had had his accident and started drinking. It was a nice smile, she decided as he laid down in the prairie grass, putting his hand in hers and pulling her down with him.
It was then that Hela realized that the grass was gold and the light coming off it was the radiance of the metallic grass.
Together they split the grass with their bodies and laid on their backs to gaze up at the stars. She couldn't hear anything, but Hel could see everything. And it was the most beautiful thing she'd seen.
It was like every clear night they'd climbed up on the roof of Bobby's house, sat watching the stars and talked about the future, politics, religion, global warming, and everything else to kingdom come.
Dreams really weren't that bad, Hel decided.
When she started to wake up, it was slow and dark.
Hel wasn't in the field anymore, instead emerging from the depths of sleep surrounded in darkness and the far off memory of the dream slipped further and further away. It was slow and harder to open her eyes than her normal sleep.
And when she did, she was mildly disgusted.
She was in a hospital bed, covered in blankets upon blankets and- Had they changed her clothes for a hospital gown? Seriously? A TV was in the corner, off, and the only noise was the beeping of machines and snoring.
Which was the source of her disgust.
Bobby had his head laid on his arms, which just happened to be laying on her arm, and he was drooling.
"Gross," she muttered and tugged her arm out – Hello, nerves in her arm, long time no feel – and rubbed the drool in his shaggy blonde hair.
Her head felt sore and full. Literally too full. A flash of images rushed forward uncalled and Hel sucked in a breath at the sheer amount and feeling behind them. With a wince she pressed a hand to her temple and glared at the IV tugging at her arm.
"Heeeellllllll?"
Bobby was sitting up, blinking blearily and having trouble rubbing his eyes because of-
Oh.
"My God, did I do that?" Without waiting for an answer she reached for his bandaged hands and tried in vain to sit up in the hospital bed to get a better look.
After waiting her slide around in the sheets and struggle under the blankets for a few moments, he asked tonelessly, "Having trouble there?"
"Screw you, jerk, I was worried about you."
Trying to hide a smile, he managed to punch the button with his knuckle and raise the back of the bed some. "You weren't the only one, okay?"
"But your hands-"
"You're in a hospital bed, H. Don't argue with me."
She just glared back at him with no real heat, knowing that he was right and hating it.
If he saw her weak glare, he didn't acknowledge it. Looking away, Bobby tried to run a bandaged hand through his hair before remembering that it was still mummified. Sighing, he said, "Hel… You looked…"
"Dead?" She only half-joked, thinking wryly of Loki's words and the things she'd seen.
He finally met her eyes, and the fire in them scared her. He was angry. Actually angry. Cool, chilled, roll-with-it Bobby was mad.
"Bobby?"
"You're damn lucky I have self-restraint, you know that?" The teen fidgeted more nervously.
"Are you okay?"
"No, I'm not. I should be asking you that. You're an idiot when you want to be."
"Thanks."
"Welcome, stupid." His light blonde head flopped down on the bed, half smashing his face against her leg. "My hands hurt."
Hel's hand found its way to his hair and tangled her fingers in it. "I can call a nurse for painkillers…"
He grunted.
Guilt twinged again and she punched the nurse button on the remote by her bed. This was how big talks more or less went between them. A few words between them was an entire book of things that only they could decipher, and it usually ended in one of them half-heartedly calling the other something out of affection more than irritation. It was their language, one they'd perfected through the years.
And she couldn't think of anyone who she'd rather have to share it with.
A comfortable silence reined, broken by the beeping of machines and-
Wait.
"Bobby," she whispered, "do you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"That…rustling? It almost sounds like really faint whis-"
"Hel, all I hear is the machines and us whispering. Which, why are we whispering?"
The teen is silent for a moment. It's gone now. Her eyes close and she's glad Bobby has his face buried in the blankets of her bed.
With a sigh, she says, "Bobby, a lot of things are going to change."
A muffled snort. "No, really?"
"Promise you're going to stay with me, no matter what. I don't want to be alone in this." Ever.
There isn't any hesitation. "I promise, H."
Then there's the tentative knock on the door and a scared-looking nurse walks in, shattering the moment's sacredness.
From what the foreign doctors (who won't tell her their names) tell her, Hel went into some sort of magical-hypothermia-induced coma for a day and a half with no lasting effects, which in no way should have been possible.
At least, that was the less technical version. Bobby said all the extra words they had added was just fluff to cover up the fact that they didn't know what was going on. She silently agreed with him.
But that didn't matter, really.
Hela didn't like hospitals, so as soon as she was out it was a relief. But that was all back ground noise to her; what really mattered was the unfinished conversation she'd been having with Loki.
Which was now top priority more than ever because she was hearing things.
All. The. Time.
Whispers could be heard faintly at times, and like they were full volume conversations at other times.
It made her paranoid, the constant chatter, and already her eye had started twitching from the stress. Flashes of another life showed a small blank room, a small square window, a dreary gray and white snow-covered field (hundreds, hundreds of grays, blues), and the constricting tightening on her chest that made her hug her arms to her chest. Muscle memory, she thought with a small smile.
Now, leaving her hospital room with Bobby at her side, she sighs. She's not sure what to do, and Loki hadn't helped much.
There's SHIELD guards still leading them (still armed) around. They hadn't said where they were being lead, just that she was all cleared and to get ready to go.
She hoped it was back to Loki.
(But she really doubted that.)
Bobby's walking so close to her that his bandaged hands are brushing hers. "Where are we going?"
Always willing to speak up.
No answer.
Hel's mouth twitches. She knows that's only further incentive for him to bug them.
Her best friend leans over and whispers loudly, "Tough crowd."
"No talking," one of them says flatly.
Bobby shuts up for about ten seconds before saying, "Are we there yet?"
One of the guards behind them sighs and Hel smiles a little.
The door slams behind them and Bobby is grinning like an idiot. "I think they liked me."
She can't help but fully smile now, ducking her head to hide stare at the ground. "Whatever, idiot."
He doesn't reply, and it's that combined with his sudden stillness that makes her look up. He's not smiling anymore.
She turns, and she suddenly doesn't feel too much like smiling either.
Six Avengers and one Director staring at you was intimidating. Hel already didn't like being examined. Now she was being picked apart by seven adults.
The teen shuddered in her chair.
Bobby was quiet next to her at their end of the rectangular table, sitting back and slouching down. His bad posture made her lean forward in her own seat.
The Avengers all had different positions but the same blank, hard look. By now Hel just assumed it was normal for the guy with the eye patch.
At the very end of the table across from them, the Director suddenly leaned forward. "Alright, Hel, I'm just going to cut to the chase: what did Loki do to you when you spoke with him?"
She frowns. Wonder what they'd do if she pleaded the fifth.
"Sir," Hawkeye starts, but he's cut off with a look.
"We're waiting, Miss Hel."
Her hands come together on the table. She's suddenly a little irritated, and just what she's been through the past who-knows-how-many hours is enough to make her feel entitled to take it out on SHIELD. She'd came expecting help, not handcuffs and a cell. "I'm not entirely sure I want to tell you."
Everyone in the room shifts subtly, and Bobby whispers, "Hel-"
"Not unless I get some answers, too."
The Director leans forward, placing clasped hands on the table. "I don't think you understand the severity of the situation. You are not in a position to be demanding answers."
"Because I'm Loki's daughter, right?" Hel says flatly.
From the corner of her eye, Bobby sits up bolt right staring at her incredulously. "Um, what-?"
"Her eyes," Black Widow suddenly says, "Check her eyes."
Hela turns to give the red-haired woman she'd only seen on the news an offended look. "My eyes?"
Disregarding her question at all the agent Hawkeye turns to Director, his face devoid of anything. "We need to be absolutely sure she's not under Loki's control, sir."
"What do you think I'm doing, Agent Barton?" Was the curt reply.
Black Widow broke in, saying, "The only way to be sure is her eyes. They'll be blue."
"My eyes are already blue-" Hel snaps.
"A different type of blue," the female agent finishes coldly, turning to meet the teen's gaze.
The rest of the occupants of the room follow her example, turning to stare at Hel with mixed expressions of wariness, suspicion, and guardedness.
But it wasn't the multiple pairs of eyes suddenly scrutinizing her that made her suddenly feel small and empty.
It was the fact that Bobby of all people was participating in that unbearable gaze. That struck her worse than any physical blow.
Her hands come to rest flat on the table to keep them from trembling, and with a startling realization she felt how angry she was.
This- This fear of something that she was not was getting old. It was poisoning her only friend against her. She was tired of people simultaneously not believing her and yet painting her out to be something wicked and dark.
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes. "Fine. Check my damn eyes. If that will make you believe, do it."
Things…did not go well after that.
Not because of either party not cooperating, but because they simply did. Not. Listen to her.
She answered all their reasonable questions with reasonable with reasonable answers. They answered what they claimed was within their limits of her questions with half-decent answers.
But as soon as she had ceased her questioning they had started talking amongst themselves, completely forgetting the teenagers in the room.
She leaned back in her chair, surveying the scene with a grudging acceptance that came with years of being brushed off. The disturbing attention of every adult in the room now gone, it allowed things to rise to the forefront of her mind, disturbing things.
Such as, oh, her best friend staring at her like she was a freak.
That soft rustling in the corner of her mind grew a little louder and she released an unsteady breath. It was…annoying.
Hel wanted to say something to Bobby, but she didn't know what. Maybe it was just that she was too angry to actually willingly turn and start a conversation. Okay, so yeah, she felt a little betrayed.
But she was pretty sure she was entitled-
"Hel?"
The teen visibly flinched, the familiar voice breaking into her thoughts with as much grace as a train wreck. Not even turning, she replied shortly, "What?"
"Are you okay?"
She sighed, because that was so typical Bobby that it hurt and was a safe zone that she wanted to run towards all at once. "No."
"Oh," he said flatly. "Um… Would you believe me if I said it was going to be alright?"
Hela blinked and turned to look at him. Her best friend looked tired and worn down, a look that distinctly did not go with Bobby. He clumsily brushed a bandaged hand through his hair and that sent a pang of guilt through her.
Why was she mad at him? He had been right along through this mess with her. Hel would probably be freaked out if it was the other way around. He didn't deserve her anger.
She pushed away her anger and smiled a little. "No, I wouldn't believe you, but thanks anyways."
He snorted, mouth quirking up a little. "Thought that counts, huh?"
The adults didn't talk much longer after that, seemingly having come to a decision while Hel was distracted. They didn't tell them anything, other than that Hel and Bobby would be staying in an actual room now.
Which was where she was now.
It was a dull, lifeless standard room that wasn't any bigger than her bedroom at her foster parents home. Bobby was next door. They weren't allowed to visit each other; the teen knew because she'd already tried and was stopped by distrustful SHIELD agents with really, really big guns. She had a feeling that there was a security camera somewhere in the room, part of the reason she didn't change into the outfit an agent had given her until she was in the bathroom.
As dull and bland as the room was, Hela found herself practically falling in the bed as soon as she had dressed into something she hadn't been wearing for days. Despite sleeping for who-knew-how-long in that hospital bed, she was bone tired mentally and physically. Her head hurt and the whispers were so low they were almost nonexistent, and they lulled her to sleep.
She was disappointed almost to wake up in the cold halls of Helheim.
Sitting up right in her throne, she blinked once, twice, then three times to tell if she was imagining things.
The hall of Elivdnir was empty. Not a soul in sight.
"Hela."
Well, almost.
Sitting on the bottom step of throne was Loki, looking tired and worn.
With a healthy dose of caution, she crept down to the bottom step and sat a considerable distance from the man who said he was her father. Even sitting farther away than necessary allowed her to see just how exhausted the god was.
"Are you afraid of me?" he asked wearily, as if not expecting a good answer.
"I don't know," she answered truthfully. "When you mind-whammied me it screwed with my head."
"I…am truly sorry for that."
"How do I know you're not lying to me?" And she wasn't just talking about him being apologetic for screwing with her mind.
A shadow of a smile crossed his face. "My dear daughter, I will never lie to you. And as the God of Lies and master of word-weaving, that means something."
She's not quite sure why, but she believed him.
"What's gonna happen now?"
He didn't presume to not know what she was talking about. "They are taking me back to Asgard late tomorrow."
"What? So soon?"
He smiled bitterly. "Odin is probably worried that I will escape human confines again. And as I said before, I have punishment to serve out in both realms. The sooner I finish my sentence on the Asgard, the quicker I can return to be punished here."
Hel's fingers twist in her dress. She can't remember feeling so helpless and voiceless.
"...I…I can't just let this happen."
"Neither can I," he says. "Despite Odin's belief in the safeguards on the prison on Asgard, they are not as foolproof as he would like to believe. It will not be long before I am back on Midgard."
She glares at him. "No. No. No escaping, got it? Escaping will just prove their point, that you're bad, and you're not. If we're going to do this, we're doing this the right way."
Loki laughs, an honest and open thing that echoes through the empty halls of Elivdnir.
The teen stares at him, not sure if she should feel downright offended or worried by the sudden laughing.
The trickster smiles at the starry ceiling, which had been clear of clouds ever since Loki had attacked Earth. "You're optimism is refreshing, daughter. It has been a long while since I have met someone with your outlook."
Yeah, Hel is offended. "Okay, screw you," she says. "If there's one thing I'm not, it's an optimist, but you and your pessimistic qualities make me look like it. I'm just trying to help you. Here you are laughing at me."
Loki is still smiling a little, and she would be lying to herself if she said she completely regretted that she was the reason that he was at all.
NEXT CHAPTER: Shit definitely happens. Hel gets lost. There's a godly family reunion. All on Asgard. Loki's probably the only one not surprised. Also, I'm introducing a minor character from Norse legend that I'm pretty sure isn't mentioned in the comics. So. That'll be fun.
Edit: I just really quick looked it up, and I was wrong; the minor character I wanted to introduce WAS in the comics, but its was a VERY long time ago, and it's like a completely different person than what I'm seeing. So I'm gonna go ahead with it...