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. (My apologies. I didn't realize FF removed the links. I have corrected the problem in what way I can, so for those who like the visual additions, feel free to check them out.)

DAY THREE

CHAPTER SEVENTY

THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012

1046 HOURS

RITCHEY WOODS NATURE PRESERVE

CARMEL INDIANA

NORA

It scared me. The feeling of something touching my cheek when nothing should. It wasn't just the light brush of something caught in the breeze passing over my skin, there was pressure behind it.

It tickled the side of my nose at first before the slight pressure grew and encountered resistance as it encountered the barrier of the fat of my cheek before I flung myself back in shock, seeing a green blur fill my vision before the tears distorting my vision fell away too, and revealed the sight of a fern growing.

It was happening so quickly it reminded me of a timelapse video you'd watch on Youtube. The stem rose an inch a second, and its leaves filled out, unfurling from its spiral like some kind of living creature.

That's what really caught my attention. This fern was growing out of a dead stump, and I mean dead. The wood was so rotten it was almost soft, and there was nothing there a second ago, until my tears were there. Oh my god... The thought all but confirmed when I realize that the biggest leaf still has a tear clinging before the droplet is absorbed into the green. The plant is growing out of my tears? THE PLANT IS GROWING OUT OF MY TEARS!

I went a little crazy for a second, I admit that, but I felt so much joy in that moment I didn't care about the laughter rolling out of me.

A plant was growing out of my tears! LIFE was growing out of my tears! Bits of scatters conversation start bombarding my memory. Loki said I had magick in me, he said 'my people' had magick. "The Vanir?", "Yes, the native inhabitants of realm called Vanaheim. The people whose magic and blood flow in you." He said we made marvelous things with 'our' magick. "A-A stone? The stone?", "A healing stone, made by the skilled hands of the Vanir healers."

I could save Clint! I couldn't carry him, I couldn't fight or shoot, I didn't know what the plan was, but I could save him! All I had to do was cry and I could save him!

I barely realized I had moved by the time I registered that I was ripping opening the rest of the velcro on his vest and tearing open the remains of his shirt. My first priority was finding out why he had coughed up blood. That wasn't from the wound in his side, it was too low to do anything to his lungs, and it certainly didn't have anything to do with his leg.

Once his shirt was off it only took me another second to tear off his sleeve, the threads snapping with less effort than I thought they would need, not that I gave that any time to think about. After that my next priority was wiping away the blood already on his chest. I was looking for a fresh source of blood, but I needed to figure out what was old blood first.

I didn't find anything that bled fresh on the front of his chest, the wound a few inches lower still being disregarded as a last resort, so I moved on to his back.

I barely wrapped my arm around him and braced his weight against my shoulder when my fingers found the problem.

It hit him right beyond the edge of where the vest ended over his shoulder blade. I could feel the heat from his irritated flesh and the tenderness of it as the blood pooled under his skin as much as it leaked elsewhere. The worst part though was the uneven end of the metal I felt sticking out a few centimeters from his shoulder blade. The bullet was stuck in his bone, poking, bruising and tearing at the soft flesh inside him this whole time and he didn't say anything!

I don't know who pulled that trigger, but if I find them I'm killing them myself. I swear. For now though I have bigger problems. I need to get that bullet out.

Shifting him around was hard, because I was tired and everything was slippery from the ground up, but I ended up with enough room to squeeze myself behind him, one arm wrapped around the front of him to keep his weight from falling against the forest floor because I was pretty sure letting him land on his chest was a bad idea, and the other is holding his knife in my hand.

I ended up cutting a lot of red lines into his skin, but I pressed with the effort because a few cuts were the least of sins. It took a while but there was enough of an edge left in the butt of that bullet that eventually I was able to pry enough of the bullet out with the edge of his knife that I was able to pull the rest out. And somehow, not that I was sure it mattered with all of the blood, I had the foresight to shove that bullet in his pocket, both for identification later, but also one less bit of evidence.

After that I moved him again. Part of me wanted to lay him on his back, to give the blood filling his chest somewhere go, but somehow I knew that doing that might allow it to seep into his other lung, and I still need access to the wound on his back to see if my tears really would heal him, so I rolled him on his side and let the otherwise still rotten trunk prove solid enough to hold him at a angle.

Then I sunk my teeth into my arm. I need tears, and he took a bullet to his back, so I need a lot of tears. It hurt, because my arms were already bruised, scraped, and filled with splinters, but I groaned past the pain and sunk my teeth even deeper into my own skin, reveling in the feeling of wet heat running out of my eyes as I blurrily watched them wash clean lines into his skin.

I almost broke out laughing again, when I saw some of the red lines I regretted so much start to turn pink with new skin. It was working! I wasn't crazy, my tears were actually healing him! I was never so glad that I might not be human as was I right in that second. You're gonna live, you're gonna be fine, you're gonna go home to your daughter Clint, just stay with me. "Please stay with me."

That joy is too short lived. It doesn't take me more then ten more teeth marks to realize as miraculous the fact I have healing tears may be, I also have to accept that they aren't healing him enough. All they've done despite the fact that I'm biting so hard I'm leaving blood imprints in my skin, is close those cuts and put a little ring of pink flesh around the torn up bullet hole.

I need do something more, I need something stronger, or all this pain I'm putting myself through will be for nothing. Come on, Nora, think! If your tears work, why do they work? A sentence Loki said repeats in my mind again, almost conveniently. He said "The people whose magic and blood flow in you."He mentioned both of those things in the sentence, he described them in the same way, as something that flowed in me, that was unique to my people.

There's really only one way I can think of that such a claim makes sense. Whatever 'magick' I have, its genetic. It literally flows in my blood. Holy crap, I think I have magick blood!

"You will not die on me, Nat is not here and you're not getting my permission so don't die!" I practically hiss in his ear. I'm sure can't hear me, but I don't care, I can save him, I can! I can probably heal the internal damage too. "Just don't be mad at me for this when you wake up, okay?" Nothing is stopping me, he has a little girl after all.