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 EIGHTY SEVEN
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
1601 HOURS
OHIO STATE REFORMATORY
MANSFIELD OHIO, USA
LOKI
It took another 24 minutes before I felt the 'bird' on my chest start to stir, as I watched it preen its feathers. What should have been allowed several days to heal, I hastened. The healing stones still dripping through the IV into her bloodstream helped, but I also added the addition of Idunns apples. She may not have had the consciousness to eat them safely, but there were ways around that.
They inserted a feeding tube through her nose, a method I found disturbing but somewhat logical as she would not be able to puncture the tube with her teeth that way, and then it was a simple matter of turning the apples into a thin sauce and injecting it a syringe at a time into the feeding tube. A task I left to the doctor.
With the combined strength of Asgard's greatest medical accomplishments and a bit of Midgardian medicine we finished the ritual in a fraction of its recommended time. Now there is just one final test, which is more to ease the doubt in my mind than anything necessary.
Now that we are both beyond confident in her well being I let the doctor finish removing all the IV's in her skin, as well as the feeding tube, and release her from those restraints. She would still be unconscious until the drugs wore off, and there was no longer any danger in her being able to move.
Once that was done and I felt the excess that linged from the stones fade I took her hand in mine, turning it over so her palm was exposed to my sight. For a moment I found myself frowning at my reintroduction to those silver scars there. I had honestly forgotten about them in the face of my own priorities. Her magick wasn't strong enough to heal them then since it was still reemerging.
It makes quick work of the slash that forms in the fat of her palm now though. It makes quick work of a wound that's origin was carved into my palm. Her body's innate ability to heal itself is no longer able to recognize any difference between the two of us. It heals my injuries as if they were her own, it worked. I had all of her now. She was mine, I would never lose her again.
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
1602 HOURS
OHIO STATE REFORMATORY
MANSFIELD OHIO, USA
TERRANCE
There is something almost predatory in the grin that takes over his features, and the delighted chuckle that he lets out. I find a bit of relief that I don't seem to qualify as the 'prey' anymore.
He seemed quite annoyed by my presence earlier, even as I tried my best to perform my tasks as quietly as possible, making sure the medicine in the lines continued to flow without obstruction, and the bags were replaced quickly when they were drained.
Now though he looks quite pleased as he arranges her hair neatly back in place, and presses a kiss to her cheek, whispering what sounds like endearments in promises before he turns his attention back to me.
"I need to meet with Agent Barton for a moment before we leave." While we have been busy performing what I've concluded to be a very interesting form of surgery, Agent Barton has been prepping a team and packing the supplies into the trucks, however Loki will still need to 'cast an illusion' over the vehicles to make they're invisible to the satellites. That much is expected.
"While I am gone I want you to collect what women we have on staff. She is filthy, I want her cleaned up before you take her." That I expected too. The white dress she is in looks like it is a prop from Carrie movie, and she looks like the character herself, with the exception that her head isn't also covered in blood. I know enough of this man's character to know he wouldn't let her be presented to anyone like that. He will want her bathed, and dressed, and groomed to perfection before he lets the world lay eyes on her again.
"I'll choose her guards and have them ready for you." I wasn't expecting that. I knew Loki intended our group to divide, he and Barton taking most of the soldiers with them to Stuttgart while the remaining portion, and the scientists among us headed elsewhere. Dr. Selvig and his scientists, as well as the hackers to break into STARK tower, and my team, who were heading to a safe location, that would be far away from the fighting.
"Sir, I can protect her." He has been using me exclusively for my medical expertise ever since he brainwashed me with whatever technology is in that staff of his, but that was my primary skill set, not my only one. I was also a highly trained field operative, and I simply assumed he overlooked that. Until he offered me more of a sneer then a grin. "The guards are to protect her from you. Your interest has not gone unnoticed, but rest assured it will go unfulfilled."
"I am letting you take her simply to tend to her wounds if they appear, but if you touch her in any other way, we'll have them quarter you. Are we clear?" Part of me wants to offer up reassurances to that, to try and counter what is an accurate observation. I thought I was being subtle, but perhaps I'm more disconnected from my body then I thought, and those expressions showed. My self preservation instinct still seems to be strong, it silences me in the face of his threat. "yes sir."
After he left and I remembered my body needs to breath, I ran over the list of names I knew in my head. Since our original mission was working for an illegal army's dealer that contracted out to mercenaries, not all of the people that came with us to work for Loki were part of strike, but after a moment I recall the names of at least two women, and get them on the radio.
While I'm sure they thought their tasks were important, and they perhaps were not even very eager to drop them to take orders from someone else's group, but they also recognized we were all working for the same one now, and all it took was Loki's name to get them to help me carry her into the bathroom of the hospital wing and start washing the blood soaked woman.
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
1604 HOURS
OHIO STATE REFORMATORY
MANSFIELD OHIO, USA
SUBJECT: 103671
It was the gas again, it must have been since my chest hurt so much, and it felt so hard to move. I can't remember what I did this time to make them think they needed to use the nerve gas again. Did I kill another guard? Did I almost break free again? Those were the usual reasons why they threw me in that glass box and filled my lungs with nerve gas, letting me choke on it for a few minutes before pulling me out and injecting me with the antidote to keep me from actually dying.
They were dragging me out now, I could feel their hands on my skin. I could feel their skin on my skin. I could feel their skin on my skin?! Why would they let me feel their skin? Are these not HYDRA? Are these prisoners? I stopped caring when I felt water. They were going to drown me!
ÍVIÐIA
I was in a some sort of basin that felt like smooth stone, and there was a person putting me inside. My fingers knotted in their hair before they even realized I was awake. Basins have sides. Their skull made a resonating sound before their body recoiled from that force and slide unconsciously to the floor, their hands trailing directionless over my naked and bloody skin.
I don't know who they are but they made a mistake attacking me like this.
While one was busy regaining their senses and motor skills the other took their turn, and the contact made me realize I was fighting not men but women under these clothes. This one managed to grapple me, getting one arm around my neck and the other around my shoulder as she hauled me out of the tube, my back held against her chest and her height making me unable to get my feet back on the ground before the other shakily stood back up, fury and her blood face and an object in her hand.
SUBJECT: 103671
Gun! Gun! GUN!
Reaching down, my fingernails dig into their thigh, the small crescent cuts letting my magick sink inside as their leg crumbles, paralysis and pain taking over the limb making them fall and cry as their head bounces of the side on the way down, a fraction of a second before the tiles explode with dust clouds and the man in the room starts screaming not to shoot.
ÍVIÐIA
The fall didn't loose their hold enough and they tighten it again, this time twisting their legs around mine as I struggle to break free and get off the floor. They made another mistake. They left my other hand alone. The angle is awkward but my fingers feel their way to the soft flesh of their jaw, and my magick starts to rot it, exposing the blood in their jugular to the world like a fountain. I am no longer the thing they are desperately trying to hang on to.
SUBJECT: 103671
This time it's the floor that erupts in a small crater of dust. The bullet missing again but because the man is wrestling with the woman. For whatever reason he doesn't want to hurt me. They must want me whole for the next experiment! They will not get that! The sound of the gun is muffled this time, but clear all the same as the scientist's lab coat blooms in red and he falls away with a small scream.
ÍVIÐIA
It's already too late though. Before the woman can lift what is clearly a weapon again I slip into her guard and trap her upper arm beneath my armpit, and bring my free hand up to her throat. She is paralyzed before she can even consider her next move. Now it's his turn.
SUBJECT: 103671
The gun fell out of the woman's hands the second she lost control of her muscles. It hit the floor just like she did, but it bounced a little more. The design of this gun looks different than the one he shot me with, but if I counted right and the clip was full, there should still be at least four bullets in the gun, maybe more. We will find out.
I don't know where this place is, or why they left me alone with three people who weren't wearing the right kind of material to protect themselves from me, and I don't care. I don't even care about why they let me get a weapon.
This might be some manner of test, to see how much control of my mind or my powers I still have. Perhaps these people disappointed him, and he decided to make me their executioner. I hate that when it is their prisoners. Innocent people who have committed no crime but living, but if he wants me to kill this scientist, this thing in lab coat I will do it happily.
I give him a bullet in his hip for trying to stand up. I can hear the bone shatter beyond his yell, the tone changing from when it ripped through his flesh, to when those broken fragments hit the concrete and cracked more is he fell.
"Please..." He speaks English, not like the other scientists. He speaks the same language James did before they took him from me. "...You don't have to do this, I'm not you..." He doesn't finish. I put a hole in his outstretched hand and his shoulder too for that offense.
When he keeps speaking I put what I thought would be the last two bullets into his stomach, but when the chamber echoes three times my curiosity overcomes me. Somehow I know that I have to turn the safety on to eject the magazine. This knowledge feels unfamiliar because I can't recall where I learned it, but it feels right and proves true when the clip slides out and reveals I still have 11 more bullets. This gun is amazing. James would have loved a pistol like this.
I put a round in the woman's head, the one whose neck I melted, because I am tired of the sound of her gagging. It isn't because I'm merciful. These people are monsters, and they deserve to die like it. But the sound reminds me too much of how often the things they did to me had me make the same sound, and I don't want to remember that right now!
Kneeling down I put my hand on the man's throat next, I take away the man's ability to speak too. Let him choke on the absence of his own voice. It's a terrifying thing, I know. Then I show him why it's frightening when I stick my fingers in his skin and pull out a bullet that didn't go all the way through.
I thought the bullets were almost gone, and I planned to kill him with the last two, but since I have so many more left I don't think I will let him die that easily, and I heal what I did to his stomach is I pull my fingers out.
When he tries to hang onto my hand though I cripple that arm for his effort.
I don't remember where all this strength was coming from. I remember being weak and helpless, but everything is so jumbled in my head right now, even my dreams. Something called SHIELD. A brother named Clint, a sister named Natasha. So many pretty things. Friends. A kitten. I had a damn kitten in that dream!
I met Steve in that dream. That's how I know it's a dream. James told me about Steve. Small, skinny, sickly Steve Rogers. But in my dream I made him healthy. He was the epitome of human capacity. He was a construct of wishful thinking. It all was. I forgot every horrible thing in that dream, and even if 'Nora' felt sad because she couldn't remember, 'Nora' got to be happy, innocent and unharmed, and that was the best I could hope for.
But this man woke me up from that dream, and every second until someone comes and stops me he is going to pay for that mistake, and since they put me in a bathroom we are going to to start with the tub, and when I can't heal him anymore, I'm going to do the same to that woman next. These people are monsters, and I will prove to every single member of HYDRA that comes through that door that I am a monster too!