Question: how would you honestly feel/react if some stranger walked up to you and told you that you were just a figment of imagination based off of a comic book that eventually turned into a saga which revolved around billions viewing your trials for their entertainment?
This is my pet peeve. There are some who can pull this off well, and there are most who just blow it out of proportions. I just cringe every time I read a story where a SI/OC comes in and blows the canon character's minds from being told that their entire lives was just fabricated and whose sole purpose was for entertainment. I just don't understand why anyone would go around telling people that, it would honestly make the canon characters feel suddenly self-conscious and just outright violated that their privacy was being viewed for all to see. Their struggles, their hurt, their intimacy, all of it just exposed for everyone to inspect like it was some live stream pornography that they never consented to.
Yeah, those stories just leave me feeling just, "No. Shut up. Stop talking. No." because holy shit, why do you even know these things that I've never even talked about those closest to me. Wouldn't that rub anybody the wrong way? So yeah, Self-Inserts and Original Characters are good and all, but I absolutely hate when the character just blabbers out how they know absolutely every little thing about the person. If this is considered offensive, sorry, but I can't really change how I feel about how a story is written. I just don't like SI/OC's who dangle a character's life like it's a diary that they're reading aloud for everyone to hear and know.
(There are a few exceptions because some authors deliver it in vague ways by saying things like claims of being prophets/seers of the future. Or, in the case of fics from the anime or book category, the SI/OC would say they know the stories from a book they've read that is like a fairy-tale of the fandom's entire plot. Now those fics turn out to be real great!)
If anyone's looking for that in this story, sorry, you won't find that in here. My character is going to keep her trap shut because there is absolutely no way in hell she's going to explain to a traumatized Bucky Barnes how his hellish life in HYDRA was served as a plot point to progress the story of the MCU'verse.
Disclaimer: MCU belongs to Disney and Marvel Studios/Comics, I only claim ownership over my Original Character(s) and a little bit of the plot!
Warning: Language, Violence, Adult Content, possible Triggers (there will be heads-up for these things), and whatever comes to mind.
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ᴀʟᴏɴɢ ᴄᴀᴍᴇ ᴀ sρïdєя-ωσмαη
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And just when I thought things couldn't get any worse than they already were.
Long after the flames had went out as the plane ducked under the choppy sea, I was lying flat on my belly while using a single paddle (that had been attached to the life raft) and started my long trek westwards. It wasn't going to be easy, being armed only with a duffel bag, a USB, a few emergency snacks, and only a certain amount of time under the cover of darkness to shield me, but I went ahead with it.
Air Traffic Control would undoubtedly be notified that one of their planes was down, and the skies and seas would soon be littered with boats and helicopters with search lights and rescue teams from the Coast Guard that went to search for the remains of the airplane.
I could just see it in my head: inside a home, where there was a family waking up in the morning, turning on the telly, and watching the story unfold as a hovering helicopter made a live coverage of the fallen airplane. I could see a little boy's face grow still with sickening realization that his parents won't be coming home for him.
I angrily slapped the surface of the lapping water, jerking away from the edge and letting out another frustrated sob.
Richard "Rick" Parker and his wife, Mary, were agents that were probably in the midst of exposing that organization before everything went to hell for them. Not only that, they were probably agents that worked with—I bit my lip, God I didn't even want to think about that other place, either. One organization after another, they were all the same to me (was it really no wonder why one of them couldn't tell the difference between a snake and an eagle?), but one of them was mostly working closely with a certain group that would come to be one day.
Still, of all the planes I had to hitch a ride on, it had to be that one.
Life really knew how to fuck around with me.
Wincing at the painful tugging where the bullet had entered me, I was surprised I wasn't completely left immobilized. It was said that women had a high tolerance for pain (because of childbirth), but I thought a bullet to the gut was overdoing it a little.
'Or maybe it was the healing factor doing its work,' I thought as I stared down at my wet and clingy clothes.
Crawling along walls, ceilings, and other surfaces, superhuman strength, fast reflexes, semi-precognitive senses, and producing silk-like substance that was strong enough to carry my weight—the first time I found out I had powers was a few days after, or maybe, the days before my escape. Like I said before, it was out of luck and opportunity that I had even escaped from that hell hole.
Returning to my belly to paddle along, I was counting on my strength and endurance to keep me going until I was truly out of breath and strength.
My stamina, thankfully, had quite a lot to offer.
I had a long ways ahead of me.
And much work to do, too.
After hours of brutal paddling, opportunity once again knocked on my shoddy doorstep in the form of a cargo ship heading west.
I was miles away from it, and I knew it would be long gone if I continued with my snail pace with the life raft, so it left me in a bit of a pickle of whether or not to abandon ship and make for the swim.
Daylight was just right behind me, clouds turning a bright pink with the sun threatening to illuminate everything. Again, wouldn't take long for the Coast Guard to gather their shit together and search the downed plane, and I needed to get to mainland as soon as possible. I looked at the dark ocean water, still thinking about that old shark film that would scare me and my mum witless from just the possibility of something unseen coming to eat you when you couldn't even run away fast enough (much less swim).
I looked down at my wound, pulling the shirt and sweater up to reveal scabbed skin that looked like it had taken weeks of proper healing rather than some recent gunshot wound. The bullet had been spat out nearly an hour ago, and all the internal aching I felt from my muscles trying to stitch themselves back together whilst pushing out the foreign object was just unreal. As soon as the damn thing got spat out, it became easier to heal.
These newfound powers were just useful as they were frightening.
Seeing the cargo ship grow farther, my mind was made up. I gathered the duffel bag, pushed the USB into some place I hoped was water proof, and then proceeded to stab the air out of the inflated life raft. I could not leave a lot of evidence behind, hopefully the thing will sink to the bottom if heavy enough with water to drag it under. Giving the murky water a hesitant look, a small prayer of safety, I leapt out as far as I could before diving into the ocean. Ignoring the tingling fear and paranoia of sharks lurking about, I focused on making it a race to see if my hand could touch the side of the giant ship.
I was tired and weary, but I pretended that I was in my high school back in California, putting more laps in the wide pool. My eyes were closed, my hands were stroking through the water with my palms flat to propel me forward with my legs kicking behind.
My brother was making faces underwater, mocking me with a wide grin as he gained the upper hand to swim ahead, forcing me to try harder. Some bitch, a girl who had been torturing me since the first week of attending the new public school, was on my other side. Her snide smiles and upturned nose did nothing but fan the flames, making me grit my teeth and kicking extra harder to stay ahead of her perfect-looking face that I so badly wanted to knock the pearly whites out of.
More and more images of people in my life came diving into the bright pool with me, making me work faster and harder to reach to the other side of the long pool, my hands swinging widely with my fingers reaching out to touch—
I could hear it, like deep and steady beats that sent pulses underwater. It grew louder as I kept going, the vibrations beginning to go deeper in my skin and just resonate with the entire skeletal frame.
Propellers of the cargo ship.
I looked, blinking away the salty water and looking how far I had come after diving in.
The ship was a couple of football fields away from me. All that swimming for who knew how long and I was just close enough if I swam another couple of minutes. I huffed, feeling the fatigue and heaviness from the swim and the weight of my duffel bag, but I was almost there. I was close enough to make it, I knew.
I dove back in, eyes closed and fingers still reaching out to feel metal.
My head peeked over the rail of the ship, eyes looking for any signs of watchful cameras that kept track of the going ons of the area. I spotted a few people scattered about, some of them strolling about with steaming mugs of coffee to prepare themselves of an early start of work as they were only a couple hours away from mainland.
Ducking my head to avoid being spotted by a passing man, I rose out from behind the rail and climbed over it. I was soaked wet, but the puddle wouldn't raise my suspicion given as I had driven out most of the ocean water by hanging off the side of the cargo ship for the past ten minutes after reaching the side. Climbing my way up, around the circular windows, and carefully wringing out my clothes, I carefully tread around the area to find an unoccupied spot where I could lay low.
A heart attack nearly transpired when, while walking behind a couple of cargo containers, a duo of hard hat-wearing men stepped around the corner. I sprang up, barely avoiding being spotted by the oblivious men. A giggle threatened to come out when I realized I had just played out a Hollywood trick: the camera is trained on the central character of the story, and just when the audience thinks the person will be caught when the image swerves to reveal approaching nameless grunts, the camera quickly returns to the spot where the main character was last scene, only to find them having disappeared in inhumane speed.
Watching the passing two workers finally disappear, I let out a sigh of relief before carefully ducking back down to the ground.
After a careful hour of scoping the area, I finally found a small hiding spot where it was dark and small enough that the burly workers wouldn't be interested in looking to find anything there. It was a dark space between two cargo containers with another container stacked up on both to provide shade and cover. It was a tight fit, but it was better than nothing. The sun was beginning to peek over the ocean, a dark reddish-orange ball of fire spreading beautiful color pastels upon the sky. Growing up in a country where it was mostly cloudy and always raining than brimming with sunshine, sunrises were few and far between of an event that me and my mum enjoyed watching.
Looking at the sunrise, I felt both at home and quite lonely.
It's been over six months and I still think that people were looking for me from the other side. My picture probably plastered on missing people boards where I would slowly fade in the background over time.
And wasn't that sad?
You always see, somewhere from the newspapers to the boards pinned on the walls of some establishment, pictures of young children, teens, or adults reported missing. Somewhere in your gut you feel bad about what happened to them, along with their families, but really, you just don't care because it's really none of your business. What were the chances of anyone coming across a missing person? Very slim.
I was gone, and I would be a person no one really cared about because I was not their problem. The world wouldn't stop for missing people, it would continue to move on, just like the people will look at my photo and think nothing of it other than it was a shame.
My pity parties were the worst.
Barely getting any sleep from constantly being on the look out for anyone about to spot me wedged between a couple of cargo containers, the day came and brightened the day as more people began to wake up and start the new fresh morning. I glared balefully at the crew as they munched on their crispy toasts and crunchy apples that served as their breakfast, and from staring at the find-looking apple one guy was eating made me think of the emergency snacks I had eaten; bloody horrible stuff that I would recommend no one would actually eat unless there was really no other options.
I jumped and let out a yelp when the horns of the ship gave out, covering my ears as the air blared before finally silencing. I winced at the ringing in my sensitive ears, the vibrations of everything was enough for me to know what was going on half the time, no need to pull out a fucking air horn.
Seagulls began to flock about from above, their constant shrieking giving signal that the vessel was close to land. With a careful peak around—especially with the danger of being exposed in broad daylight where there was no shadows to keep me safe—I climbed up on a cargo and looked towards where the ship was heading.
'Land-ho!'
A small sigh of relief escaped from my dry, chapped lips. I didn't know exactly where I was, but seeing the mainland coming closer and closer was enough to make me feel like a heavy weight had just been lifted off my back. I knew that the extension of the organization was vast and powerful, but I couldn't stop the feeling that I had just barely stumbled out of some dark, haunted forest that I had been clinging and suffocating me throughout the whole journey to get to the other side.
The whole downside to the entire thing was that I needed to make another swim.
The port would be full of people I couldn't really avoid, as I couldn't truly trust myself not to catch any attention. I was quite eye-catching, being a petite figure hauling a large duffel bag while trying to traverse through the area in a large hoodie sweater (in the middle of spring, might I add). There was also the possibility that I could be trespassing on property that they would apprehend me, or worse, call the authorities.
Better I wash up on the shores of the beaches where there would only be a few half-naked eyewitnesses that would brush off the entire thing being another bizarre story they would gossip back to their families, lovers, and coworkers.
Not too sorry to part from the cargo ship, I gathered the duffel bag, sneaked extra carefully towards the rail, then dived back into the salty water. From my resting, my tired body felt somewhat rejuvenated enough to make the swim much more faster to the beaches, but I had to be careful enough to first swim away from the cargo ship so no one would spot and report me (and probably mistake me for being a man overboard).
Sure enough, as I started to feel my legs touch the sand bed, I was getting some attention from the bikini-clad and swim trunk-wearing crowds.
I prayed that no one would pull out a phone to snap a picture of me.
Several children floating on a kid-sized inflatable raft watched on with humor and mirth, not really understanding but giggling at the scene anyway. I suppose I did paint a funny picture to the little ones.
"Do you know what state this is?" I asked, smiling up at them from beneath my hoodie, trying to appear as some silly person rather than a terrified young woman on the run from a insidious international organization.
"Yer in South Carolina," a little girl with twin pig-tails replied, her voice soft yet thick from the accent all southerners had.
I gave quick thanks to the girl and a small wave when they cheerfully bid me farewell before continuing on their water rafting attempts (didn't you need to go to a river to do that?) while I finally started to drag myself out of the beach.
Normally, when I would remove myself from the water (while wearing clothes, on a rare occurrence), the body would usually feel heavy. Nowadays, I still felt light despite the heavily soaked attire and duffel bag. I quickly left the scene of the beach, avoiding running into strangers that would stop to look at me in puzzlement.
What did I know so far? I had met the parents of a certain web-slinging yet-to-be superhero (and watched them die a horrible death with very little help from my part), I was being hunted down by a dangerous group hell-bent on world domination, and I was states away from where I needed to be.
"This is just fucking fabulous," I mumbled angrily to myself, looking north where the place spread miles and miles of buildings and bustling crowds of people that were ignorant of everything that was going on outside of their bubble.
One day, however, those bubbles were gonna pop and leave them all scatterbrained once I reached New York City.
With the familiar weight of worry, paranoia, and reluctance on finding myself in these positions I really wanted to stay out of, I started to make my way through the beach city. Stealing was wrong, but when you were desperate enough, you had to sometimes bite your cheek and just go through with it if it meant that it would help you in some small way.
With some careful maneuvers, and very dependable reflexes, I had pinched a few new clothes from people that were unaware, some coins and bills off cafe tables and off guard folks that were probably unsuspecting tourists. I accumulated enough to buy me night in some motel and a small lunch from a nearby fast food (I would try and steal more money tomorrow before I would begin the long trek upstate).
Hours later, when everything went dark and the night lights sprang on to cover the beach city in luminescent beauty, I was sitting on on the edge of a tub while scrubbing my clothes clean with the motel's soap. I had showered earlier on after eating, feeling refreshed and cleaned up from the lukewarm heat that cascaded down my body. It felt like forever since I last saw a bath, traveling with the stink of sea water that I worried that the bloody gulls would mistake my smell for fish and peck my eyes out for it.
I was covered by the bathroom towel, my hair was dripping wet, and I continued to clean my clothes thoroughly with a small hum my mother would sometimes play for me and my brother when she was busying herself with something.
God, my shoulders slumped and my hands paused from their work, could I ever catch a break?
"—at the sudden loss of communications, the officials of the ATC tried to make contact with Ocean Airlines plane, Oceanic Flight 0422, but there had still yet to be a response. That's when they knew that something went wrong."
A cold chill ran down my spine, goosebumps alit at the wake of the unpleasant sensation. I had left the telly on because I wanted to hear noise rather than silence, and I had even left it on some entertaining show with Steve Harvey's humorous voice bringing some small amount of cheer.
Breaking news, I suspected.
I put down the bar of soap in the tub, rose up from the edge, and made my way back into the room. With feet like lead, I made my way towards the single bed of the room where it was illuminated by the telly, and finally, my eyes rose to meet whatever image was on the screen.
They were interviewing officials on one panel while the other camera was zooming in on the Coast Guards. Ships of all sizes bulldozing their way through the waters, heading straight for the plane that was four hours away from mainland, a map popping up to replace the images to reveal how far and how long it would take for them to find the remains of the plane.
'What did you expect?' a voice sneered at me with contempt. 'Of course they would know what happens within 24 hours! You think you can outrun something so huge that you get big-headed enough to think you can pull it off? Think again! If a competent specialist wasn't able to outrun them for long, what makes you think you can do the same?'
Watching this, seeing this, hearing this, made me have second thoughts about this poor plan I only hatched up. Rick's dependence on me, his sure confidence that I would succeed what he could not began to wane and shrivel my insides, leaving nothing but the feeling I had felt when on the plane.
For Christ's sake, I was just a kid. I had barely graduated high school and was slowly integrating myself into college life before it was gone the moment I had stepped out of mine and my brother's shared apartment. I wasn't some super special person with unique skill sets, or incredibly intelligent to build things or outsmart someone to get myself out of sticky situations; I was a girl lost, scared out of my mind, and floundering on what to do next.
My legs feel like jelly as I sank down on to the poor mattress, the springs squeaking from the weight but I barely paid the noise any mind.
'No,' the voice continued. 'You can't run from them. And when they realize that you survived, they will hunt you to the ground, little rabbit.'
I felt faint in the head, like the room was too bright and I was going to fall over to my side and just—
"This just in ladies and gentlemen! Mr. Tony Stark, CEO of Stark Industries, has been located and is currently being hospitalized in Saudi Arabia! His return to the states is still undetermined..."
Tony Stark
Without meaning to, a scene played itself in my mind. The engineer held hostage was stomping down the underground tunnels of the terrorist base, arms waving the flames to set his captors ablaze, guns firing and failing to get a clear shot because the metal encasing his body was protecting him. He was a hulking figure, slow but going in a pace that allowed him to wave his flame throwers into halls and rooms to take out anyone who would think to make a sneak attack while destroying the place that held him captive.
When he reached the entrance, the place where it was the first time he had seen the light of day in months, there was a weak and limp figure lying on the floor that looked out of place amongst the men who had tortured and forced him to create more of his own destructive weapons.
An old man, a doctor, another prisoner, a new friend—
"Don't waste your life."
Tony's wake-up call.
It took a moment for me to realize that there were tears running freely down my cheeks.
"Tony Stark is saved." I said to myself.
Saying that name, his name, made everything that had been buzzing in my head slowly cement themselves down.
I wasn't super resourceful nor was I smart, I was in a very dangerous yet delicate situation where time was not on my side, and I only had a few options left. I was going to finish washing my clothes to hang them out the window and let them dry, I was going to keep the USB hidden and safe, I was going to prepare myself for the next day, and I was going to make my journey to New York.
I was one person against an organization that was beyond my caliber, and it was going to take everything to stay ahead of them, but I had to try because—
If I really was a rabbit that they intended to catch, then there was nothing a little creature like me could do to stop them.
... But first, they needed to catch me.
And everyone knew a rabbit could outrun a snake.
(theytriedtocageabrilliantmaninsideadarkcaveandinsteadtheycreatedabeastwhohadenoughofbeingcornered)