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 FIVE
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
1251 HOURS
OHIO STATE REFORMATORY
MANSFIELD OHIO, USA
CLINT
I think I'm on the set of the Shawshank Redemption, about 18 years too late to get Morgan Freeman's autograph.
I woke up to the feeling of a drainage tube being forced between my ribs. I was half amazed and confused at the possibility my brain still had the oxygen levels for consciousness at all, and half determined to beat the shit out the the people doing it, because that fucking hurt! But then they hit me with some kind of paralytic.
They either didn't have any anesthesia at that point since we seemed to be in the back of a moving van, or they were saving it for later. That meant I had a lovely few hours of awareness but couldn't do anything about it. So I looked, and I really wish I hadn't. Before one of them had the decency or general intelligence to close my unblinking eyes so they wouldn't dry out, I saw the tan skin of a very familiar feminine hand in the gap between two white curtains, covered in teeth marks and blood. NORA! Then there were latex fingertips on my eyelids.
After that I tried to learn anything I could with the other abilities I still had available to me, but there's not a whole lot you can learn from the smell of antiseptic and soap, and trying to track your travel path doesn't do much good if you missed the start.
Even when the vehicles stopped I couldn't tell much, and when they dropped me on what felt like a warped desk and stuck another needle in me I stopped being able to tell anything. Looks like they were saving the anesthesia after all.
But when I woke up, to an eye full of pillars and a ceiling of chipping paint I was pretty damn sure I knew where I was, even if it had been a lifetime ago. When mom left dad, one time out of too many, we ended up in Ohio for a while, with a prison guard we were never gonna call dad. When Barney got busted with a six pack mom's boyfriend gave us a tour of this place, to try and scare us straight. I remember this chapel.
But back then I wasn't chained to a fucking pillar, looking at my sister lying unconscious in white on the preacher's platform like some kind of horrible B movie sacrifice, and I sure as hell wasn't calling her name praying it was only sleep that had her so goddamned still. "Come on Nora, wake up Princess. Don't do this to me. Open your eyes Nora. Come on, give me something Princess, please..."
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
1252 HOURS
OHIO STATE REFORMATORY
MANSFIELD OHIO, USA
NORA
I could feel the acid in my throat burning as its path was blocked and made my lungs ache even more as my throat struggled not just to breath but to keep me from drowning in my own vomit, and then suddenly I could taste air again!
Duncan's hands and weight were all but off me, and I could breath! The first breath was so heavy the coughing made my vision fade in with black, but that only lasted about three breaths before I realized Duncan was moving again, and I couldn't let him touch me!
It was a tree branch that I grabbed, not that I realized that until after it was in my hand, and I swung the knobbed end of it right into the edge of his eye socket! I swung again, and again, and somehow in the process I wasn't just swinging. I ended up straddling him and I was slamming the end of it into his face.
I don't know how long I did that, but I know when I stopped. I hit something so hard my bloody hands just slid down to the base of the log, and I felt his skin against the side of my hands. His skin, sitting over top of still muscle and still bone. He's dead, he's dead, he's dead, he...
My head was swimming and I felt so heavy I just sat there on top of him, my hands still cupping the space the branch rolled out of and resting my forehead against his shoulder. He's dead, he's dead. And then I remembered we weren't alone. Clint. Liar. I have to get Clint. That was my last real conscious thought before I thought I smelled warm leather and metal.
'...Come...' He was carrying me. I couldn't see his face, there was blackness and chemicals in the way, but I didn't need to. I knew by touch, I knew him by feeling. He was safe. And we were cold.
'...On..' This isn't now. This is the past. This is a dream, again. I know that in the same disregarded way that you know water is wet and sunlight warm. I know these visions are broken.
My blood is freezing to a thick syrup at the open edges of my spine. I can even feel the pull of IV tubes tugging at my tissue as the storm grabs their tails. '..Nor...' I can feel his arm. His left arm is cradling my shoulders, and its so cold its burning my skin as his steps start to falter from the shivers and the thick snow.
"Don't look Doll."
Blue eyes... For a second my mind put a head of blonde curls and baby fat cheeks in my vision with those eyes, but that's not what's there after I blink. The blonde boy has changed to a brown haired man even though the eyes haven't changed a shade. '...wa...'
'...Up...' There's a bruise on his forehead, a cut old enough to be half healed on his cheek bone and the drying flakes of blood on the shell of his ear, but he is smirking at me with a soft chuckle. "Your touches don't hurt me, remember?" And make me realize my hand is actually reaching out in front of me, stopping an inch away from the skin of his left arm not covered by that tattered wool sleeve.
He takes a step in, his right hand coming up without hesitation as if my permission was already given. It's strange, because I think it is, even with his fingers twisting a curl in my hair I don't even want to consider telling him to stop or backing away. If anything I want to refuse its absence. '...Pri...es...' I feel frozen with warmth, like I'm standing on the edge of anticipation, but I have no idea why. "I knew you'd be a real Sheba once you had hair again."
The grass is dry between my toes, it's grey because it's turned to ashes. Everything is gray. Even the sky, even the sun. I'm on a road, and there are carts on either side of me, lying like they fell from the sky, but the road wouldn't let them touch it. Even the blood leaking out of the horse is grey. But I'm in color, why am only I in color?! I was never here. Why am I here?! '...'
'...Do...' "Íviðia" That word? That name? I know that name. It doesn't sound like a name, it sounds like a title. Why do I know that? Where did he go, and where is that voice? "Íviðia" it's a different voice. "Íviðia." Familiarity. "Íviðia." Reverence. "Íviðia." Frightened desperation. "Íviðia." A cacophony of screams. "I don't know what it means! Stop."
"Liar." It's silenced, with my voice. I'm standing behind myself, but... that's not me? 'I' have two lines of blood painted down my chin, by two of my own blood dipped fingers. '...Hi...''I'm' standing with that little blond boy's hand in mine as he looks up at me in happy curiousity. 'I'm' standing is blood is poured over my shoulders, on a platform of dead dogs!
There's no hesitation in my feet now, but there is no strength either. Instead of backing up my legs just buckle at the knees, sending me down into the burnt grey earth, the ashes of bombs and burnt flesh filling my lungs long enough that I don't realize the blood is flowing across the dirt until I can feel it brush my toes! '...to...'
'...m...' No, no it's red I can't let the red...! if he finds me! Not again, not again please no more! I'm scrambling like a crab over the grey corpses of people, horses and carts alike, I'm so terrified I can't even take the time to stand up, and I don't even know why. '...Ope...' It's only red, only a color. When have I ever been so scared of red?!
"Shhh" I can feel his warmth radiate out off him and reach me a second before the rest of him joins it. The solidness of his bare arms wrapping around my shoulders and pulling me gently against his chest into a hug, as he presses a kiss against the shell of my ear and starts to hum away my fear with a slow song. '...your...' His stubble tickles a little as his long brown hair sways into view for a second. Then he just leans back and rests his chin on my head as he joins me, the cold press of his metal chain and dog tags finding their way past the edge of my tank top and rest against my spine letting me know I'm safe. '...ey...'
'...Nor...' I dreamt this before. I dreamt of a cabin, in the woods, on a lake. I dreamt of a place so perfect it couldn't possibly be real, I just wished it was. The man was supposed to be the same. A collection of things, cobbled together in one unit. The details so random they would only be the same once. '...ome...' Just a fantasy. So why does his presence feel so real, so familiar, so near? I can feel it all the way down to the tingling hairs at the back of my neck. And why does the warmth of his left arm seem so wrong? '...'
'...ve...' "Who are you?" The questions asked with darkness in my vision as I let my eyes close, trusting darkness more than whatever colors this dream might show me next. "I don't know you?" '...m...'
'...som...ng...' Its the word "liar" breathed into my ear that makes my eyes snap open, but the sensation of dust coating my fingers is strange enough to stop me from turning to face him. '..Princess...' Starting from where I held his left hand over my heart I can see his skin float off his arm like powder in a breeze, revealing sharp lines and a metallic sheen as the cold sinks into my skin so much it starts to burn and the blood starts running down my arm! '...please..'
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
1256 HOURS
OHIO STATE REFORMATORY
MANSFIELD OHIO, USA
CLINT
I don't think I was ever so happy to see someone wake up freaking out, but I was beginning to lose my argument with myself on the whole 'she's just sleeping' thing. I pushed down that relief quickly because of the feral intensity I glimpsed in her eyes.
The way she sat up and put her back toward me, and I don't think she even noticed my presence in the room with her yet given the angle of her eyes. There's the fact too that she seems panicked by the state of her inner arm and her lips. Whatever she is thinking seems serious enough I'm worried her fingernails are going to start drawing blood if she keep looking for whatever it is she thinks is there.
"Nora?!"
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
1256 HOURS
OHIO STATE REFORMATORY
MANSFIELD OHIO, USA
NORA
I flinched so hard it seemed to put my realization a step behind my reaction time. But by the time my eyes landed on him as I turned around, my ears realized I knew that voice.
I'd been trying to get the blood off my arm and face, even though I couldn't see it anymore and it wasn't showing on my hands I could still feel all that redand then there was Clint's voice calling my name.
The ground had turned to dingy tile, and the trees had turned to chipping plaster and concrete pillars, and somehow Clint changed too.
His eyes aren't dull, they are bright with concern. His lips aren't rimmed with grey, they are moving. His words aren't wet gasps, they are clear with my name. His skin isn't clammy and white, its clean and pink and alive. Alive. Clint's alive. The nightmare is gone and the red is forgotten as my cheeks get wet and my chuckle fills the room. "Y-you came back."
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
1257 HOURS
OHIO STATE REFORMATORY
MANSFIELD OHIO, USA
CLINT
The laughter worries me, it makes me question the state her sanity ended up in my absence even if I know part of its relief. The shining tear lines and the glimpse of her smile before she smothers the rest of her chuckle behind her hand, those things tell me that, and I can't blame her for them.
She probably thought I died, hell I thought I died there for a second. Then there's the fact that we have clearly been recaptured, and god knows how that went down, or how scared she was through it all without me around to protect her.
Whatever trauma she went through still seems to have her distracted, and even with me repeating her name in warning she only notices the chain cuffed to her ankle when its slack runs out and stops her stand half way up.
There's confusion in her eyes at its presence a half a second before the meaning that comes with its existence sinks in, and the frightened despair with. "Nora, it's okay." I want to reassure her but I know I'm just making sounds and lies.
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
1258 HOURS
OHIO STATE REFORMATORY
MANSFIELD OHIO, USA
NORA
I'm chained to a sunken floor ring. I'm dressed in new clothes, a knee length and sleeveless white peasant dress. Clint's sitting on the floor, both his arms haven't moved from thee place around the pillar behind him, and in the absence of his shirt I can see purple bruises and the clear sight of a drainage tube sliding out of his chest and the spiky ends of stitch knots. We... no... this... "This wasn't supposed to happen!"
"Nora" I look back up at my name, only to hear the worst word next. "Princess" The one that says we are so screwed. "It's okay."
"No..." This time the chuckle is painful. "No its really not you idiot." In his silence says it hurts him too which just pisses me off.
God damn this stupid thing! I start tugging at it, getting even more upset by the fact they chained it so tight I can't get my fingers between it and the fucking sock they put there to keep it from chafing my skin. "This is not what's supposed to happen, this not why I fixed it, this is not why I did that! This is not! This is not!"
"Nora?! Nora stop." I can hear his own chains shift behind the pillar, Clint obviously concerned and trying to do something about the fact that I seem to be losing my mind, but his own metal links getting in the way. "Come on Princess you gotta stop."
It's only the pained sound of his groan from straining so hard that makes me stop bruising my fingertips against the steel. "I didn't... I didn't... not for this, I didn't do it for this."
"Nora" God I've never seen him look so sad. "You're breaking my heart and I can't come and hug you, so you gotta calm down on your own okay Princess." That stupid word why does he keep saying that stupid word?! But instead of telling him that I just sniffle and nod.
"Good girl. Now tell me what happened, what did you do?" I want to answer him, but instead all that comes out is a tiny shivering "mhn" because I can see the door moving beyond Clint, and a very familiar, and angry set of features comes into view. No, please no.
"Why she almost killed herself trying to preserve your worthless life. Hello Arnora."
NOTES FOR THE READERS:
Since I am assuming most of you know who the smirking brown haired man in her dream is, this shouldn't be a spoiler. SHEBA is slang from the 1920's-1930's for a sexually desirable woman, and since Bucky was growing up in those years it makes sense he would use slang for them.
If anyone is confused by the collection of italicized and broken words during the dream sequence, that is Nora's hearing Clint through her unconcious state.
Also apologies for anyone who checks the PHOTOBUCKET albums, but I am having internet issues, and have a difficult time posting the chapters is it is. When the internet gets fixed I will upload the pictures for the last few chapters.