Take a girl with a mysterious past out of the Bronx and thrust her into the world of the Avengers and bring her face to face with her fangirl crush Loki. After all they are just movie characters, right? They aren't real.
These are not my charact...
The alarm woke her from a magnificent dream, and she was highly offended by that. She laid back on her pillow and debated whether to hit the snooze button however the memory of Hassan threatening to fire her was motivation to get her out of bed. She also knew she needed to beat her roommate into the bathroom because Tiffany could spend over an hour in there. God knows what she was doing. She hated sharing a bathroom with other people, but this rooming house was all she could afford on her meager pay.
She staggered in just as Tiffany was coming out of her room. "Mickie! No!" the poor girl shouted as Mickie shut the bathroom door and locked it.
"Sorry sweetie, I'm gonna be late if I don't hop in here right now." She knew Tiffany was fuming but oh well, not her problem. She hopped in the shower and decided to rub Tiffany's face in it by taking the time to wash her mound of curly hair. She wiped the steam from the mirror and appraised her looks – not pretty, not ugly with her golden-brown skin and large hazel eyes. Seriously, who was she trying to impress working in a bodega serving up fifty cent coffees and loose cigarettes.
She trudged to Tiffany's door, gave a knock "I'm out babe!" and went back into her room. Throwing on a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt, she stared up at the poster that hung on the wall opposite her bed.
"Good morning, my love. I had the most wonderful dream about you, again. One day you will swoop in and carry me away from my life of drudgery, but until then, another day, another half a dollar." She kissed her fingers and touched them to the mouth of the man on the poster, grabbed her bag and headed out to the subway.
The 4-train rambled along crowded with the morning commuters. The car was swamped with the clashing smells of cologne, perfume, body odor and bleach. Not finding a seat, she held on to a strap; her ear buds blasting tunes. They weren't the name brand ones, so she had to pump up the volume in order to hear the music. When they arrived at her stop at Fordham Road and Jerome Avenue, she pushed her way to the exit barely squeezing through before the doors closed. Running up the stairs she had exactly 6 minutes to sprint two blocks before Hassan would fuss at her for being late.
Tossing a few coins at old Peter the Bum sitting out in front of the Stop 1 Mini Mart, she ran inside with 30 seconds to spare.
"Mickie! You're late!"
"How many times do I have to tell you Hassan? Your watch is fast! My iPhone says I am early."
"iPhones! Ha! Droids are better."
She took her place behind the counter, stuffing her bag in the cabinet beneath the register. "Not gonna have that conversation with you babe."
"Because you know your phone is inferior."
She rolled her eyes and sat back on the stool waiting for customers. Morning commute was wrapping up, so the foot traffic was dwindling.
"Cuppa coffee and a loosie" said an obviously underage girl at the counter.
"Let's see some ID girlie!" yelled Hassan.
"You're already selling loose cigarettes, which is ILLEGAL, so why do you need to see my ID" countered the girl.
"Get out of my store!" Hassan shooed the girl out the front entrance.
"She'll just get one of the gang members on the corner to come in and buy it for her, Hassan."
"Or she could be one of those plants, the government is always sending in here to catch me."
"They don't care about you Hassan. You don't do enough business to warrant their attention."
"You have a smart mouth. You will never get married." Hassan's standard response to Mickie.
"I'm counting on it."
The afternoon passed uneventfully. Mickie was on her phone looking at the latest POV's. She sighed, "Why don't men like you exist in real life?" she thought to herself. She closed her eyes and revisited her dream from the night before.
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She was startled from her daydream by someone slamming a bag on the counter. She looked up and saw a man all in black and wearing a ski mask. She was being robbed!
"Put the money in the bag or I'll take your head off!" He pointed a shotgun at her. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Hassan slipping to the back of the store with his cell phone out. No doubt preparing to call 9-1-1.
"Ok, ok, stop waving that thing around, I know the drill." She began stuffing the money in the bag. They had been robbed so often, she had gotten used to not putting all the money in the till but in the drawer underneath. The robbers would think she was giving them everything the store had but they were really giving only about half. Hassan loved his money but would prefer to not have his store shut down completely should things get messy.
"Here you go! Now take your money and go!"
Even though she couldn't see his face, she felt like the man was grinning at her. "See you on the other side." And he fired.
At first, Mickie went into shock, but as she glanced down at her shirt, she saw the pool of red starting to spread out across her chest. She staggered out from behind the counter and fell through the open doorway onto the street. Peter the bum, started jumping up and down screaming to get help. The world was starting to get blurry as she continued to lose more blood. She could hear customers and pedestrians gathering around her. She could hear Hassan screaming into his phone in a combination of Arabic and English begging the emergency dispatcher to hurry.
Her breathing was getting shorter and she could feel herself slipping away when the paramedics finally arrived. She could no longer see but she could just make out one of them shouting, "We're losing her! We gotta move!"
