*Trigger warning* Severe burns are graphically described in the first section of this chapter. You can skip it by scrolling to the first break and will still be able to follow what's going on.
"You don't have to do this."
"Yeah, I do."
"I'm just going to say it one more time," Natasha insisted. "I think this is a really bad idea."
Ignoring her warning, Reagan's hand shot across the cool metal table between them and she stubbornly snatched up the pile of folders Nat had carried into the room just moments earlier. She'd been at SHIELD for a few weeks now, working tirelessly to try and gain a better control of her newfound powers. In those weeks she worked herself into exhaustion, to the point that the people monitoring her actually had to keep a constant track of her vitals and intermittently step in when it was time to take a break.
The people of SHIELD who were not directly involved with the team supervising her avoided her like the plague, it was very common knowledge that this young woman could burst into flame at any given moment with control over it. She was a liability. A ticking time bomb. No, worse, she was a landmine - primed to decimate everything around her with just the gentlest prod. She had no problem with being avoided - the fewer people that were around her, the lower the chances of her hurting anyone. There was an unexpected exception to the rule, of course, in the form of Natasha Romanov (and by extension, Clint Barton) who was strangely protective of SHIELD's new pyromancer. A withering glare from the redhead was more than enough to silence any whispers in Reagan's immediate or even extended vicinity.
Not that the whispers mattered much - a few rumours were nothing compared to the real trauma she had endured. Reagan had been a shell of herself in those first few weeks after SHIELD had found her in Norway. She couldn't sleep. She barely ate. She functioned as if in a trance, just going through the motions. Being led. Being told what to do. Obeying orders.
She'd let them run every test imaginable. Blood test after blood test. Every scan they had access to. Biopsies. Physical assessments. Even a lumbar puncture. She'd let them poke and prod and experiment. She'd followed every instruction, every request to the letter. Not once did she protest.
She'd had only one request in return - a request which had been knocked back time and time again.
The psych she was being forced to see three times a week advised strongly against it.
Nick Fury refused to even entertain the idea.
Natasha had been extremely vocal about how against it she was.
But ultimately, when Reagan had refused to drop the subject it had been Natasha who had stolen the files for her.
Reagan pulled those very files closer towards her now but didn't move to open them. Her hands were trembling and her throat was seizing almost painfully, attempting to hold back an onslaught of emotion. She needed to see. She needed to. But now, with that information sitting in front of her, resting just beneath her fingertips, even taking a glance inside seemed next to impossible.
Natasha studied her. It was obvious at that moment she wanted to chide her, but instead loosed a sigh and softened just a little - as much as Natasha Romanov ever allowed herself to soften.
"Reagan... torturing yourself by looking at any of this isn't going to-"
Her sentence was cut short as Reagan let out a bitter laugh.
Torturing herself. She'd been doing more than enough of that. Ever since she'd been cleared for release from the med-wing she'd spent her days doing whatever it was that the SHIELD scientists had asked over her to learn to control her new powers. Her nights, she'd spent them learning about burns.
Radiation burns from exposure to things such as ultraviolet rays or gamma rays. Chemical burns from acids or alkali. Electrical burns caused by live wires.
And then, of course, her burns - thermal burns. Burns caused by heat sources that raised the temperature of the tissues in the body resulting in cell death. She'd learned that in some instances her burns had caused the liquid inside of cells to boil until the cell walls exploded. The more merciful option, though still agonising. But in others - the worse ones - her burns had caused the protein inside the cells to cook like an egg on a pan so that they could no longer metabolise or exchange oxygen, leaving those cells to die slowly. Excruciatingly. Her burns had caused unexplainable pain. Her burns had been inescapable agony until some nerve endings had been burned away and there was no pain left to feel.
She'd held her palm over the heat of a lit stovetop when she'd read about that, promising herself she wouldn't move. If she had to scream so be it. If her hand blackened and charred and curled into a useless mess of ruined flesh, so be it. She'd suffer what those people had suffered.
But the flames did not bite her. They didn't sear her flesh or peel away her skin. Rather, the fire had lapped against her, almost lovingly. She loathed the feeling. Loathed that it felt... good.
She shuddered at the very thought of it.
"Reagan," Nat said once more, stirring her from the thought. "You don't have to do this."
Reagan tried to look at her but she couldn't quite bring herself to tear her eyes from the closed files before her. They seemed to stare back at her, daring her to have to audacity to walk away from them. To bury her head in the sand. To forget. To pretend she wasn't a monster.
"You don't have to stay," Reagan murmured at last. It was going to be ugly. They both knew it.
Natasha sighed slowly in defeat and settled back in her chair. She shook her head a little.
"If you're really going through with it, then you're not doing it on your own."
Reagan ducked her chin, wishing she had it in her to be thankful.
Slowly, after what felt like an eternity Reagan took up the first file and forced herself to look inside.
Patient name: Fredrik Johannsen
Age: 48
Diagnosis: 3rd-degree burns affecting right limb, chest and upper back. Approx. 35% of the total body surface area affected. Burns are full thickness, affecting all layers of the epidermis. Skin grafting required. Right limb mobility compromised.
There were images. Awful images. Weeping, charred flesh, a mottled combination of white and black and violent red. Blisters of horrifying sizes. Cracked, peeling, ruined skin. All a stark contrast to the clinical blue hospital draw sheets her victim lay upon.
She opened the next file.
Patient name: Amalie Haug
Age: 25
Diagnosis: 3rd-degree burns affecting the torso and lower limbs. 46% of the body surface area is affected. Infection present. Oxacillin administered intravenously. Skin grafting required. Patient currently being kept in a medically-induced vegetative state.
She reached for the next.
Patient name: Jonah Berg
Age: 19
Diagnosis: 2nd and 3rd-degree burns affecting both upper limbs, neck and face. Loss of phalanges 1-5 on right hand and 4-5 on left hand. Reconstructive rhinoplasty required. Patient currently being kept in a medically-induced vegetative state.
Patient name: Goran Opstaad
Age: 67
Diagnosis: Severe smoke inhalation and extensive damage to vocal cords. Tracheotomy required.
Patient name: Hildi Brecke
Age: 34
Diagnosis: 3rd-degree burns affecting the trunk and lower limbs. Approx. 72% of the total body surface area affected. Burns are full thickness, affecting all layers of the epidermis. Skin grafting required.
Patient name: Svana Brecke
Age: 6-
A sob broke from her then - a deep, retched, broken sound. She drew her knees up to her chest, curling into herself as her sobs came in waves. She wrapped her arms around her legs, cradling herself as her tears fell, still staring at the open folders - the pictures of her ruin.
"I'm sorry," she whimpered. "I'm so sorry."
Against her will, her lungs desperately drew in fresh gulps of air and she cursed every breath.
Because she didn't want to ever be able to breathe in again. She wanted it all to just go dark. She wanted-
Natasha stood and rounded the table to Reagan's side. She closed the folders and pushed them out of arm's reach before turning to lean against the table, folding her arms
"No-" Reagan tried to protest, reaching for the files once more even as fresh tears slipped down her face.
Natasha blocked her.
"That's enough of today," Natasha said. Her tone was firm but not unkind. "Take some time to calm down and if you still feel like you're not done, I'll let you look again tomorrow."
Reagan wanted to protest but she knew with Nat it would be useless. There'd be no talking her round. So she remained quiet, wiping her nose miserably with the sleeve of her sweater
"SHIELD is covering all medical expenses and loss of property. It's going to be a long road to recovery but they're all going to pull through. There was one man they were worried about for a while, but his condition has stabilized. The doctors say they're all going to make it. They're all going to live, Reagan. That's not nothing."
Reagan nodded wordlessly, as she stared down at her hands, too ashamed to meet the other woman's eye.
"They should have killed me," Reagan murmured at last.
"Stop that. It wasn't your fault."
"Of course, it was my fault."
"Reagan, look at me," Natasha said firmly, and watery, reluctant eyes obeyed. "I know what it feels like to hurt people. I know what it's like to carry that weight. You need to find a way to make your peace with it. It will never be okay that it happened, but you can move forward. Use it to make you stronger. You can't let it break you."
Reagan dropped her gaze. She only nodded because words would only fail her.
To find herself alone in a room somewhere within a palace of the Gods, a million lightyears away from Earth, reflecting back upon memories of SHIELD and burned flesh and wretched screams - it all felt like it had happened a lifetime ago to another version of herself. Like a glimpse into an alternate dimension.
She wished it had been.
She wished every day that she hadn't hurt those people. That she could have made it stop.
They'd tried at SHIELD - they all had - to figure out a way for her to kill the flames, to overpower them.
They'd all been sorely disappointed to discover that she just wasn't strong enough. She knew that. Even if no one ever said it to her face.
Smother them.
Tame them.
Suppress them.
Never once had she tried admitting that they were a part of her - welcoming them home.
Because at first, she'd resented her powers. Loathed them.
Over time she'd come to accept their permanence. She learned not to unleash them to her full capability. Learned how to keep them buried within her. Muzzled.
But she never viewed them as a part of her. They were something that happened to her. They became her weapon. Hers to wield.
But they weren't... her.
But if she could accept them... Let them be... See herself as fire and fire as herself...
She'd felt it in that moment in the sparring field - that Loki could be right.
And for a moment, she'd felt hope.
Oh, how she hated hope.
Hope meant a chance at losing hope.
And she was so, so very sick of losing hope.
Reagan sat on the floor alone in her chambers staring into a burning fireplace with her knees hugged close to her chest. She hadn't eaten. Hadn't slept. She just couldn't bring herself to do anything other than stare into the flames, unblinking. She wasn't sure how long she'd been there, watching the flames dance. She'd lit the flames hours ago, and let time slip away as she watched them burn.
As she gazed into the flames, Reagan forced herself to breathe in long, steadying breaths, trying to convince herself that it would be okay either way. If Loki was wrong, then nothing changed. But if he was right...
Distant memories of screams, of pleas, of terror all around her clawed their way into her mind once again. She closed her eyes, at last, fighting against the images.
She'd spent years - years - so afraid of herself, of letting herself lose control, of hurting anyone else.
If what Loki said was true...
She could barely allow herself to even consider what that might mean.
All she had to do was stop fighting it. All she had to do was call her fire home. To accept it.
At long last, after what had seemed like an eternity, Reagan stretched out a trembling hand into the flames. She allowed them to lick against her skin, flickering this way and that. The flames danced around her hand and caressed her gently. They recognised her. Greeted her.
And then she called them to her.
Reagan stopped breathing entirely as she watched the flames bent to her will. They licked their way up her fingers, around her wrist, slithering up her forearm. She felt the way they embraced her - knew her intimately - before slowly sinking graciously into her flesh, becoming one with her. Her skin glowed with the vibrant light fire as it sunk into her and settled deep within her very veins.
She managed to suck in a short, shuddering breath as she watched the flames die away - a faint glow beneath her skin fading slowly to nothingness. As tears began to cloud her vision, her gaze drifted slowly towards the now empty fireplace and then back to her hand once again.
Slowly, she brought her hand closer to her face to inspect it, hardly allowing herself to believe it was real.
Finally, Reagan allowed herself to breathe again. And that breath turned into a broken sob. She buried her face in her hands and cried.
Loki sensed her behind him before he actually saw her. He spun towards her, guarded. He had turned their last interaction over in his mind obsessively since the moment she had forced her shields into place, desperate to understand how he'd miss stepped on such a monumental scale. He couldn't comprehend what he might have done.
There had been tension between them already; he was all too aware of that. Fandral's recent warning had hung heavily between them even as he'd sensed the way Reagan had been trying so hard to resist it.
But something he'd done - or said - had been the final straw. The breaking point. And she'd pushed away from him with alarming force.
She hadn't done that in so long. Loki hadn't been prepared for the way it stung.
This mortal who resented him, fought him, showed up constantly unannounced, mistrusted him, consumed his time, his energy, his thoughts - who was she to be enraged by anything he may have said when all he was doing was trying to help her? He probably should have realised it was inevitable, that his rage would come, blooming ugly and deep rooted in his chest.
And so, when she appeared there in his cell - when she first came striding towards him - on instinct, he opened his mouth to say something scathing.
But before he even had time to form a sentence, her arms were wrapped tight around his torso and she had buried her face in the curve of his neck.
It was jarring.
Loki froze, his arms suspended in midair, unable to register exactly what she was doing for a few moments.
His brow furrowed as felt her press herself closer to him. She fisted her hands almost desperately into the back of his shirt. As though he were the thing that might disappear at any moment. If she was at all aware of Loki's confusion, it didn't seem to phase her. She gave no indication that she was going to pull away from him any time soon. In fact, as she held onto him and gave a small, watery sniff, she pulled herself just a little closer still.
"Thank you," she finally managed to whisper as a tear spilled down her cheek.
Loki craned his neck to the side a little to try and see her face but it was resolutely buried against him, hidden from view. Part of him wanted to take hold of her shoulders and pull her away so that he could look at her - look her in the eye and understand. But it seemed impossible that she would let go in that moment, and forcing her to do so was the last thing he wanted to do.
She was trembling against him and Loki, still unsure, slowly - tentatively - prodded at the barrier she still held in place between, asking for permission. Under the gentlest pressure, she allowed the shields to fall away and Loki felt it instantly.
It was like a tidal wave.
Overwhelming emotion crashed over him.
A dam, locked in place for years, had been broken and all that repressed fear and anger and anguish was finally able to flow through her. She could unleash it, and feel it, without it having to consume her.
Everything she'd hidden from.
She could let it out.
It didn't undo the damage she'd caused. It didn't fix it. It didn't make her victims whole again. And she could still never give back to them what she'd unwillingly taken from them that day.
But she never had to worry about it happening again.
Because he'd fixed it. He'd given her the answer. He'd shown her how. And yes, she had a long road ahead of her, it was a skill that would need to be honed. But finally - finally - she'd had the way to do it.
He'd shown her how.
Loki had done that for her.
She could stop that thought from repeating over and over again.
Thank you... Thank you... Thank you...
Another tear slipped down her face and she continued to cling to him.
Slowly, hesitantly, as if he wasn't even sure if it were something he was allowed to do, he circled his arms around her smaller frame and held her close to him.
Her breathing hitched with emotion in response and he squeezed her reassuringly.
Gently he settled his cheek against her temple.
"It's alright," he murmured into her hair. "Don't worry... it's alright..."
A small sob broke from her then, followed by another, and before long Reagan had broken down completely, her tears falling freely as Loki held her. It was a long time before she was able to calm herself again, but all the while Loki held her firm, and let her cry against him, as he whispered soft words of comfort to her.
When at last her tears slowed, Reagan pulled away, somewhat reluctantly, and though Loki let her go, he remained close. She wiped her tears from her face, composing herself, trying to find her words - to offer up an explanation. She supposed she ought to be embarrassed, letting him see her like that, but she was still far too relieved - far too grateful - to find in her.
She opened her mouth to speak but as her eyes met his and she stilled.
Loki gazed down at her wordlessly, pained understanding written on his features.
Her eyebrows drew together as she stared up at him, everything either of them could ever say passing between them in that silent moment.
And that was all she needed.
He understood. She'd let him feel it - see it - the ugly truth of her. And he understood.
Loki inclined his head gently.
And as her face crumbled again, it was Loki who reached for her first and drew her in close and promised her that she was safe as her arms found their way back around his waist. He held her.