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 FOUR
CHAPTER NINETY NINE
FRIDAY, MAY 4TH 2012
0928 HOURS
CENTRAL PARK
W 72ND ST
DUNCAN AKA ALEXANDER
I needed a place to take her. Somewhere quiet, safe, and as secure as possible in this bullshit alien invasion. So I choose the zoo. Its not like I really wanted to, but I figured that in Central Park, that might be the place with the best doors. What made it sound even better was the fact that it wasn't very far, and she is bleeding.
I felt her trembling at first, I was holding her after all. I thought it was just fear or discomfort. She had an ESP pain link on her chest, and might have a homing beacon in her head after all. That's until I shifted her weight a little and the movement exposed an inch of skin she'd been hiding behind her arms. Her chest was smeared with blood. The mark was thrashing and bleeding!
She spared enough of her concentration to answer my 'what the hell?!' question, and then went right back to whatever she was doing even though I told her to stop. She said she was trying to shut him out. I told her to stop, that 'tattoo' was over her heart, she was only gonna make things worse!
She wouldn't stop though. She just kept saying 'I can't let him have me', so I made a decision. If outright ordering her to stop wasn't going to work, I'd try the subtler approach of distracting her. "So you remember stuff now right, you wanna talk about it?"
I could feel that piss her off, her muscles tensing up with anger at the question before I backpedaled a little. "The good stuff I mean, you remember that, right? Family, friends, the ice cream in the park sorta stuff." Then after a short pause I add. "You guys do have ice cream in Asgard, right?"
"More like granita with cream." She pants out softly on the end of a chuckle before losing the fight with another wince. "You're trying to distract me."
"Yeah..." The 'duh' in my tone is so implied it's almost audible. "and I'm gonna keep trying." Because I'm scared you're going to start bleeding from your ears or eyes next. "We're gonna share. I already started, so tell me about you. I'm out here risking my life, tell me about the woman I'm doing that for."
FRIDAY, MAY 4TH 2012
0931 HOURS
CENTRAL PARK
W 72ND ST
AR(NORA)
I burrowed my head farther into his shoulder, and I could feel it make him nervous. Part of me is glad it does. I'm letting him help me, I'm trusting him with that, but I still remember how it felt when he shot my... not my brother, I don't have one of those, when he shot Clint. When he attacked me. He deserves to be a little scared of me.
I also do it because the light is bothering my eyes. There's a hot stinging sensation settling behind my eyes, it almost feels like I brushed nettle. I'm really just stubbornly hopping it's only a migraine. "She's not important."
"Bullshit." That was predictable. I've heard it before. Being Nora, I was told all the time how incredible I was, that I didn't give up. How even though I wasn't one of S.H.I.E.L.D's best, I was still exceptional. I heard as Arnora too. How my gifts made me important, up until I really wanted something for myself. Then I was suddenly not important enough to be listened to, then I was suddenly a stupid, grieving girl.
FRIDAY, MAY 4TH 2012
0933 HOURS
CENTRAL PARK
W 72ND ST
DUNCAN AKA ALEXANDER
"I left that life behind." There's just... tired... in that tone. I brought up the subject hoping it would distract her, but also with a bit of selfish motivation. I'm genuinely curious about her life. I know way more then I'm going to let her find out about right now. Telling her HYDRA is still around, and I was one of their pet puppets is not going to keep her calm, and until we are out of the city, that's what I need.
But everything I know, it's all pretty terrible. It can't all be that way though, her whole life can't be a nightmare. There has to be something good there in her past. That girl in the elevator was sweet and innocent. That had to come from somewhere. I wanted to know about that girl, to know she was still in there. "I don't want to talk about it." But it only seems to be making her upset.
ah, god... "Fine." …I hate lies... " We'll talk about me." ...of omission.
FRIDAY, MAY 4TH 2012
0935 HOURS
CENTRAL PARK
W 72ND ST
AR(NORA)
"My mom, she had me in prison." he starts, a pause filling the sentence halfway, as if he was looking for the details. That immediately makes me suspicious, but I lose it when he continues. "Pierce scrubbed the records, so I don't even know what her name was. I know she was a junkie though, and she was involved in a robbery/homicide." He must have felt my head move a little, and seen the pity.
"I asked about her a lot as a kid." He offers me a smile, but it does nothing to hide the clench of his jaw or the bitterness in his tone "He wanted me to know how much my life was better without her."
"I'd like to think she cleaned up though, maybe found god, or the good parts of herself again." There's another huff of a laugh, and this one with a genuine smile. "I mean, I turned out a pretty decent person, when the calls were mine. That's gotta come from something in me. Her or my real father, one of had to be someone good."
"Why not both?" His step slows a little at that, I guess because he really wasn't expecting me to participate.
"Oh, good, now it's a conversation." His smile gets even bigger, but his eyes stay aimed forward because he is carrying us over a small hill right now. "Yeah, they both could be. I never really got to find out."
He offers me a glance before he offers me an explanation, tacked on the tail of a sigh. "'Dads' sitting on top of an intelligence organization, and he never liked the idea of me tracking them down. He'd shut down the hunt before I even got started." I remember meeting Alexander Pierce, back before I knew there was two of them, and it fits. I remember him being pragmatic like that. Doing his best to keep personal level feelings out of it.
"I've also been living with a camera in my head for almost six years. I didn't really have the right to bring some strangers into that."
FRIDAY, MAY 4TH 2012
0941 HOURS
CENTRAL PARK
W 72ND ST
DUNCAN AKA ALEXANDER
"It was France wasn't it?" she's quick. A combination I credit to her being smart and also having a good memory. "You said you almost lost your eye in France. It made no sense at the time, but...?"
"Yeah. I got knocked out in the crash, and when I woke up I had the worst case of dry eye and the words good morning Agent Pierce flashing across my retina. I've been living on their leash ever since."
There's silence, which I find curious, given the intensity of her expression. Inquisitive with a side of shame. "How'd you know it was a bomb?" she asks, leaving the section about me still having possession of a skull an amplified one.
"Other than them typing it out. Blowing up and receiving texts wasn't the only thing it could do. We're trained to handle pain, but there's not a lot you can do when they build a low voltage taser into your head."
FRIDAY, MAY 4TH 2012
0946 HOURS
CENTRAL PARK
W 72ND ST
AR(NORA)
He said six years. That means he had the implant already when he and his team came back from Dounreay, and I escorted them to see Councilman Pierce. That means every time he looked at me in that bunker, someone else could see me too. Could see us. Clint, me, Loki, Erik. Everything going on down there they knew about. 'They', some group without a name, some group that wasn't S.H.I.E.L.D. After all S.H.I.E.L.D would have no reason to sneak a spy into their own ranks. "Do they know, about me?
The pause is so much longer this time. "Yeah... They know all about you. But that's as much as I'm gonna say." He can see the 'you said you'd tell me everything' written on my eyes, but he barely lets it interrupt him. "But that's as much as I'm gonna say right now because trust me, that conversation is going to be so much worse then your ready for right now."
That argument dies, and kills the urge I might have for any more. It vanishes before it even drew much of a breath. The city stole my attention, and it stole Duncan's too. I imagine its commanding everyone's right now, because I can still hear the echo of it. Loki's army just roared.
FRIDAY, MAY 4TH 2012
0952 HOURS
CENTRAL PARK
W 72ND ST
AR(NORA)
I felt it after the roar, the sound bouncing off of skyscraper glass, and steel to makes its way to where we were. Something changed. I could still feel the discomfort in my head, but it was only the one I caused. The tight rubber band sensation in my head was gone, there was only the lingering memory of it, and that was fading quickly too. Something happened, something to do with the roar, and it was enough to make Loki stop looking for me.
I was so thrilled by that it had me terrified. I could feel it, a bad decision brushed against my conscious like a downy feather. He was going to do something horrible and I couldn't stop him.
Not even two minutes later, I knew what his decision was. Death swam in from space, more and more of those massive creatures and the army they carried flew in through the portal and blocked out the sun.
I learned why a minutes after that, when the empire state building spouted lightning. The lightning came from the tower, it didn't reach it. I missed the announcement about his arrival, but I didn't need it. Thor. He may not have had that relic when I still lived on Asgard, but I remember being Nora, and hearing about New Mexico. He used that weapon to stop the Destroyer from decimating that town, and no doubt the next and the next. They looked at him as 'hero' and an ally, or so he declared himself before he just left.
He was going to destroy everything, trying to save earth from this army. It didn't matter if he won. If he was here, he would break this down to its very root, lost in the 'rage of battle'. He wouldn't even need the support of the Einharjar to do it, not with that weapon in his hand. How stupid has Odin become to give a berserker like that such a tool of destruction. The only comfort I take is that I haven't seen a glimmer of golden armor, and that means there is NO army out there, carrying out his destruction for him.
Its crushed though by a different sort of knowledge. He may not have an army, but I have no doubt he is here with allies. If he was here it was no doubt for Loki, and I know S.H.I.E.L.D had the same goal. They would have sought him out once they recognized the bifrost opening on earth. They are here. Clint and Natasha, both of them agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, even though they might be fighting on opposing sides right now.
Steve most likely too, that bastard. Even if he wasn't on active duty before, he would be now. His desire to find his new path in life would be instantly eclipsed in the face of a conflict like this. Everyone always knew that. It broke her heart. I hate him for that too.
These people should mean nothing to me. Traitors, and liars, and I hate that I love them. Nora isn't me, and I'm not Nora. That's what I want to believe, and there is so much truth in that statement. And so much self deception. Nora was ready to die, she was ready to bleed to death for a man that spent three years lying to her, and I would do it too. All I want to do right now is find my brother and keep him safe.
FRIDAY, MAY 4TH 2012
0954 HOURS
CENTRAL PARK
W 72ND ST
LOKI
They brought down a leviathan, or, 'it' brought down a leviathan. The beast, basic as it is, seems to have exceeded my expectations. I knew it would be powerful, and that's why I tried to remove it from the game. I thought I succeeded in that, but it looks like I underestimated its attachment to its world. Even as simple minded as the creature is, it recognizes the invasion as a threat to its territory.
I would have to deal with that problem before I resumed my search for Arnora. Now that invasion started I wanted her at my side. I felt distress and ger spark across the bond when I opened it, and I knew that meant she was awake, if not in a conflict of her own. The texts on this ritual said that it was possible to locate each other with the link, but I think the scale is too small. I could feel her, but the best I could determine was that she was simply nearby.
FRIDAY, MAY 4TH 2012
1015 HOURS
CENTRAL PARK
W 72ND ST
RUMLOW
The army showing up should have been a huge inconvenience, but it actually helps. They provided better cover fire, as well as cover. No one was really batting an eye at a bunch of men in tactical gear anyways, but they all expected us to help them. The national guard's arrival cut down on us having to 'aggressively discourage' that, and let us get back to the real mission.
Though I do have to admit, watching the Soldier rip apart an alien with his bare hands was a thing of beauty.
I always knew that this bitch would be fun, but I imagined a different kind of enjoyment personally. Alien or not, she looks human enough to have the right parts. I mean, there has to be some reason so many of our best like her.
That thought takes a turn I wasn't expecting, and I turn my gaze to the soldier with a bit of a frown. He's using his flesh hand as leverage to pull his metal one out what's left of the alien's face. I hope it is not a problem. Last time they let him near her... there's a reason they were moving her on that boat in the first place.
FRIDAY, MAY 4TH 2012
1017 HOURS
CENTRAL PARK
W 72ND ST
AR(NORA)
We were going to go the zoo. We did go to the zoo, but it wasn't animals that we found there. That found us there. Everything went wrong at the zoo.
NOTES FOR THE READERS:
This was originally going to be two chapters, but I condensed it into one. That's why two sections are the same POV, despite being right next to each other.