I Kneel to No One

The Visitor

After everything that happened with Snape the Disturbingly Hot Alien, I was really hoping for a little bit of peace and quiet.

I should have known that was too much to ask.

She uses so many shampoos.

Anyway, that's not relevant. The point is, I was riding the bus home from school, staring down at my phone to avoid the gazes of the people around me. My long, frizzy hair was stuffed beneath my favorite pink hoodie, which, thankfully, had been washed since New York. I almost always wore it; it had become something of a comfort blanket for me.

The other comfort blanket I possessed was a taser. I had bought it almost the minute Loki and Thor left for Asgard, unwilling to be caught without a weapon again. Ever since, I'd carried it around in the front pocket of my hoodie, just in case I ever ran into trouble. And judging by the lecherous looks cast my way from a man standing at the front of the train, I may need it sooner than I thought.

As I stared at a piece of chewing gum stuck to the arm of my seat, the train screeched to a halt and the doors slid open. To my immense relief, the man I had seen staring at me left the subway with one final creepy glance in my direction. People poured in, and I stood up to offer my seat to a young, visibly pregnant person. Before they could sit down, however, an old man that looked like one of those natural mummies I'd seen on National Geographic plopped down in the seat.

I didn't know what to do. I couldn't exactly tell him to get up, but the pregnant person looked tired. I cast an awkward look at them, and they smiled reassuringly back at me.

I noticed a round pin on their backpack that read "SHE/HER." So that cleared things up a bit.

As the subway began to move again, I grabbed one of the stirrup-shaped loops of fabric dangling from the ceiling. The momentum of the train threw me forward, but I leaned back against the motion.

The pregnant woman grinned at me, but I avoided her eyes. I just stared down at my phone, scrolling through Instagram until finally, the train reached my stop. I lugged my overstuffed green backpack out those doors and hightailed it straight back to Cath's apartment.

I reached the entrance to Waterline Square Luxury Rentals and spun three times around the revolving glass doors, drawing some strange looks from passersby. I took the elevator to the third floor, doing my best to ignore the musty smell coming from the interior of the elevator, until finally a ding! sounded out. The doors slid open and I exited the elevator.

Now comes the hard part. Despite being a mechanical engineering major, I didn't have much of a head for numbers. I could never remember whether it was room 302 or 312.

Well, I decided to try my luck. I arbitrarily chose 302 since it was closer to the elevator, and knocked on the door with false confidence. To my relief, a familiar face answered the door.

"Ah, hallo, Elizabeth!" Bruno said, waving me inside.

As it turns out, the gala was not the last I would see of the kind-faced man Cath had shared her dances with. Apparently, Cath had given him her phone number, and they had gotten back in touch after the battle of New York.

Despite the language barrier, the two had really hit it off. Bruno, as he was called, was slowly becoming more fluent in English, and, painstakingly, Cath was learning German.

Cath appeared behind him, her pale hair spun up in a messy bun. Her eyes were crinkled at the edges in the way only a truly happy person's could be, and Bruno put his hand on her arm, staring at her with obvious adoration.

"Hey, Beth. I'm heading to the bookstore with Bruno. I'll be back around dinnertime, so try to entertain yourself until then. Okay? Okay. Bye!" she practically chanted as she rushed around me, straight out the door.