So it goes with saying that only things I own with any connection to MARVEL I bought on Ebay or Etsy. MARVEL COMICS & MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE are their own creatures and I have nothing to do with either of them aside from the fact I enjoy reading or watching them, and am grateful for the ability to play in their world. I claim nothing, and I receive nothing for this, expect the pleasure of putting something out into the world.
You can also find this story on ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN under the same title and pen name along with a place to post suggestions.
Don't forget to check out the Photobucket album listed on my profile page too.
DAY THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
0856 HOURS
SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER
LOCATION UNKNOWN
NORA
A mother! The first thing I break is the mirror, I break it more. It shimmers like falling stars as the shards recoil from their impact with the wall. I was a mother!
I always wanted to be a mother. I wanted it so much that I would subject myself to heartache willingly. I would watch them play in the parks, mothers, or fathers, and their giggling little children. I watched them because as much as it hurt that I knew I would most likely never have one of my own, just being near them was a joy in itself.
Occasionally I even got lucky, and had a tiny taste. A ball would roll my way, and for one brief second I could have a child smile at me, before they ran back to their games. It was enough.
I am a mother! I thought I was saddened by children because it was just a part of a woman's life that would always be out of my reach. I never realized it wasn't a concept my heart wanted to hold, but a person. Please god still let me be a mother!
I've been awake for three years, and they never told me! S.H.I.E.L.D said I was one of theirs until I fell into a coma January 2007, and even though there didn't seem to be any hope they still kept me on life support for the next two and a half years until the unexpected happened and I woke up empty and afraid.
That was my reality, and I never questioned it. That story, that lie. They lied to me. I don't remember all the details yet, but the fact that I remember Asgard doesn't matter. I could forgive them for never telling me that. I could see why they wouldn't. But this, Clint and Natasha, they are S.H.I.E.L.D, but I thought they were family too, and they knew the whole time!
Coulson and Sitwell, Fury and Hill, everyone I ever met in those walls, they must have all known. Fitz-Simmons, Ward and Garrett, 'Duncan' and his father. Steve.
Oh god Steve knew! He's the poster child of everything S.H.I.E.L.D stands for, if I wasn't human they wouldn't have let him within a mile of me without telling him that. He knew. That hurts the most because I... if the thought finishes I don't hear it because I'm screaming on every side. In my head, out my mouth, and under my skin!
I threw the pillow, I grabbed the blankets and yanked so hard the mattress came with them half way off the bed! I tore the map off the back of the wall, not paying any attention to the fact I left bloody streaks as I skinned my knuckles on the cement wall! I shattered two green glassed bankers lamps, denting the base of one as I swung it at the wall like a hammer so hard the vibrations made me drop it!
I found another mirror I hadn't seen in my search, hanging obviously in the open on a pillar! I put my blood on that too as I greeted my reflection with a fist!
I grabbed the chairs, one after another, breaking them on the ground, on the desk, against the exposed side of the bedframe, around the pillars! I didn't care! I just wanted there to be enough pain in my flesh to drown out the pain in my heart and to stop my thoughts!
I didn't want it, any of it, and that only made the pain worse! How could I not I want to remember her?! I have a daughter out there somewhere, I spent three years not even knowing I should be looking for her, I don't even remember her name! But knowing about her now hurts so much I just want to go back to not knowing, just to make the pain go away! I want to go back to before I wanted to kill those lying bastards for keeping that from me!
I do. They kept me in the dark about my baby. They might even have her, and be hurting her! I don't care if they didn't! They decided I didn't need to know, and held their tongue every time they saw me watch families with longing eyes!
I couldn't make my chaos loud enough, loud enough to drown out theirs! Even as I demolished the room around me with screaming sobs and cracking wood I could hear the sounds of fighting happening outside my door. I didn't even care enough to want to know what or who the fight was about. They let me forget my baby and even the blood coating the broken piece of a plate in my fist isn't going to distract me from making them pay for that as I watch the door crack open!
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
0857 HOURS
SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER
LOCATION UNKNOWN
CLINT
Seven fucking millimeters! Jesus Christ! My reflexes saw it before his eyes did, and by the time I caught the wrist that I knew right away was her's, she was seven milimeters away from stabbing a chuck of ceramic something into his right eye!
We were honestly both stuck on stunned for a second, him probably because a coin toss of fate almost had a beautiful little woman stab him in the face, and me because I know the beautiful woman who almost stabbed him in the face, or I thought I did once.
The face is right, so is the feel of her skin under mine, a knowledge I got in a way I never would have wanted, but the hate in those eyes, and the anger in those screams aren't from my little sister. It's like she has buried herself so deep I can't see her, if she is still in there at all!
But I don't have time to dig her out. So instead I apologize in my head, and squeeze so hard on her wrist I feel the bones pop as she cries out and the weapon clatters to the floor. I keep apologizing as I wrench her arm behind her back and between her shoulder blades, while my other hand covers her mouth to smother her screams as I drag her backward into the door.
By now the guy she just tried to murder has gotten over his shock and is only a few feet behind me, closing the door and barricading it with what he can, which is arguably not much. I saw this room before, when Loki let me in here to show her just what a hornet's nest she really was in, and if I didn't have a good enough grasp on the bastard's need for perfection I might almost blame this mess on him.
I can see a crack traveling down the middle of that desk, flowing out of a substantial dent! Its the kind of crack that looks like if it got hit one more time would just break in two. I can't quite believe Nora was strong enough to do this, I mean it's exactly why we put those drugs in her vitamins and painkillers. We knew she had the potential to be stronger than a human, maybe even too strong to contain alive, but it's only been a few days, it should take longer then that for the effects to wear off!
Then again Loki seemed pretty fixated on jumpstarting her. Into what I don't know, but I'd bet my reflexes he gave her something to hurry that process along, and whatever it is it clearly worked because I actually have to put in an effort to hold her! Its enough of a problem that I actually need to do something to calm her down, or I get the feeling she is going to make our escape a lot harder then I want to be. "I need a picture."
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
0900 HOURS
SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER
LOCATION UNKNOWN
DUNCAN
I'd been trying to jimmy the table, which was missing about a quarter of it right now, under the door handle to at least slow the next person through the door down. Then he asked me to take his picture, so I felt like the eye roll and sarcasm thrown back over my shoulder as I finish wedging it in place was pretty justified. "Sure, just let me get my camera phone out."
It's about as well received as I thought it would be. Turning back around completely I find him still wrestling to keep her free hand from pulling his way from her mouth, and frustration showing behind his gritted teeth. "Dammit, the last time she saw me 'I' almost killed her, I need to show her my eyes, so find me something!"
Biting my tongue I kick the leg of the table one more time, listening to the wood scrape against the dusty concrete as it wedges another centimeter under the door knob. His argument makes sense, but I get the feeling there's something else to it, because I can see her. The look in her eye, there is fear in there, but the level doesn't fit with 'I'm being held by the guy who cut me to pieces'. There is way too much murderous rage in those eyes.
Hell I might even think it's a little sexy, if she wasn't just aiming at everyone. I mean, when I left her she was upset, but that upset is on a completely different end of the spectrum then this one and I got no idea how she got here. I met a pretty girl in an elevator, and somehow I have to reconcile that woman with the one who just tried to lobotomize me with broken china! I got all of five seconds it takes me to open the tin and sacrifice the rest of my cigars to the floor to figure it out.
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
0901 HOURS
SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER
LOCATION UNKNOWN
CLINT
The first gleam of metal makes her struggling test my grip once again, and if we weren't racing a clock here I might even be impressed. She tried to do one of Nat's moves, where she kicks up so she can throw all her weight forward and flip her opponent over her shoulder! She tried, and failed. She may have some sort of adrenaline driven strength going on but she she still doesn't know what she is doing. That move works best when you have a grip on your opponent's neck, not when your opponent has you in a arm lock, and you have to actually get your feet off the ground, something that's pretty hard to do when the person you're fighting with has his leg curved around your lower one in a lock. Honestly she is lucky I compensated with that move or she might have dislocated part of her arm!
"Nora, Nora, stop!" My voice only makes me have to tighten my fingers into her cheeks as she tries to shake my hand off again, a guilty wince taking over my face is I feel the muffled whimper of pain echo into the inside of my hand. I'm so sorry. "Its me, look up Princess." Her breath hitches and I can feel her muscles release some of their tension with a shudder just at that word, and all I can think is thank god as I see the blurry image of her eyes taking in the blurry image of my un-fluorescent ones in the reflection of that cigar tin. "Its me, okay? It's really me Princess."
I thought I had her calm. Her weight rested on my wrists heavier as she just let her body go limp in my hold, making me adjust my hold of her shaking form to keep us from both dropping to a kneel on the floor. She was crying, I could feel the tears mixing with the sweat beneath the palm still clasped over her mouth, and rolling over the knuckles of the same hand as she whimpered a muffled version of my name between the sobs.
I thought she wasn't scared anymore because she saw that my eyes weren't lit up like a glowstick under a black light, that I wasn't the thing that hurt her, but when I told her 'it's okay baby girl, I got you' She bit me!
Her teeth didn't break skin despite the fact that I could hear the crunch of the fleshly base at my thumb over the did moving closer to our door, but the attack surprised me just enough that I actually jerked my hand away just long enough for her to what sounded way too much like a 'Low' out before I clamped my hand back down, crushing her lips into her teeth awkwardly out of necessity as I tighten the rest of my grip is well.
I earned that reaction, I know it. I don't know what's been going on between her and that son of a bitch, but I know I earned her fear and her mistrust, even if it wasn't really me. My body broke into her house, my voice taunted her, my hands choked her, stuck her, stabbed and bruised and beat her. My hands tried to kill her kitten!
That thing... I can still remember the taste of her blood and sweat on my tongue from when I licked it off her skin and it wanted more! I'd actually be mad if she wasn't smart enough to be scared of me! I'm supposed to be the good guy, her big brother, and all that thing behind the wheel wanted to do me to be was a rapist! I had to feel my own body enjoy having her unconscious and bloody under me! I really want to throw up.
And this idiot. "Dammit, don't let her scream, what is wrong with you!?" He has terrible timing. All I really want to do is beat the shit out of something to get this feeling out of my head, and the only thing saving his ass right now is the fact that she is in the room, and she can see. I'm not showing her that, not again!
"Right jacket pocket." I grit out some quick directions, trying not to hiss too much hostility in her ear as I focus on taking steady breaths. God bless Fury for hooking me up with a Mousehole. I'm supposed to be a level or two short of being qualified for this toy, but after Budapest I got one, 'just in case'. "Twist the base, don't aim it at your face and cut us a hole."
"You sure you don't want me to hold her." He asks after she takes advantage of what she hoped was a distraction when she felt me look over my shoulder as he pulled out the laser cutter and started kicking a clear spot on the floor. "Cut. The. Hole." This time I don't bother hiding the hostility, even though I can feel it make her shiver, and draw a slightly wider eyed scowl. Nora can't take being touched, and is much is I hate that this torture is necessary, I'm damn well not letting some stranger do it for me. At least I'm a familiar evil.
"Nora, I'm sorry" I return my attention completely to her once I hear the hiss of the device, and unique smell of heated concrete and rebar. "I don't know what's going on in that head of yours, but we don't got time to talk about this. He's gonna cut a hole, and we're gonna drop down a level." That got one hell of wet protest, but I shut down those feeling just as quick as they rise. She may think she has got a reason to fight me, but that's all his headgames. I need to remember that and do what I need to do for her.
"We're getting out of here. I'm gonna take you somewhere safe." Somewhere safe even from S.H.I.E.L.D, and the people who want to shot first and ask questions later, until I can figure out how get us home without being greeted by a semi automatic. "I swear, I'm gonna take care of you Princess." Screw my mission, I'm gonna do what I always knew I should have almost from the beginning. No matter how true our friendship turned out to be, it's built on a foundation of bullshit that I never liked. I'm done with that, that's what got her here, learning the truth from the wrong people, its past due that she hear it from her family.
"You can kill me later if you still want." Hell, I'll load the gun myself if she wants to shoot me for what I did to her, wouldn't blame her a damn bit. If I was a woman I'd empty a clip into someone who did what 'I' did. "But right now we gotta go." Now please, for the love of god Princess, stop crying and hold still!