O U T O F T I M E
book 3 in the 'chaos series'
in which lusine returns to earth and is reunited with steve, but not everything is as it was when they said their farewells after the events of the battle of new york. with new companions in tow, ol...
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eighteen "open the doors" -
The next month, Lusine ventures on yet another mission. This time, however, it goes a lot more smoothly than the first. She is satisfied and this time, upon their return, leaves the facility arm in arm with Steve.
They walk along the street, choosing to soak up the evening air before it chills into night, and Lusine is thrilled to be simply at peace. To be secure enough to walk alongside a man of her affections and not worry about politics or power dynamics or the approval of her family, not that their opinions ever stopped her before.
"Oh, Steve!" She exclaims, breathless with a laugh. "I wish you could've seen the look on his face when I crushed the gun before his very eyes. He was left with a fist full of dust!" She leans into his side, soaking up the success. "It helps me. Every one of these missions helps me rebuild, you know?"
"I know," He replies, finally managing to get a word in through her excited rambling that has been filling the space between them for much of the walk. He is happy for her. Glad that she's finally found her feet on Earth and found a purpose that doesn't involve running herself into the ground. "Hopefully Director Fury will put you on more missions. You're a great help."
Her heart swells. "Thank you," She says. "That means a lot to me."
Considering how close the claws of death had come to ripping her away from life, her current condition is otherworldly.
If her mother could see her now, she wouldn't be sitting so comfortably upon that throne of hers.
The throne that does not belong to her.
"You're welcome," Steve says, holding the door to the apartment building open.
"Do you think I could do it?" She asks, taking his hand, their arms swinging slightly between them as they ascend the staircase, happy to be in one another's company on better terms once more. As engrossed in one another as always. Oblivious to the faults and flaws in the other, choosing only the parts they want to see. "Do you think I could be like you?"
"Like me?" Steve's expression curdles into a frown.
"Yes, like you. You know, righteous and good. Those people at Shield and a lot of the people of this planet admire you. They look up to you as a hero." Her fingers twitch in his hand. "I've always..." she shrugs her shoulders, "always been the villain."
"They saw you defend Earth too. You saved hundreds of lives and you'll continue to do that. You've changed." He gives her hand a comforting squeeze, but it hardly registers for she's all caught up in his words, tangled in his voice, wrapped up in its honesty.
He truly believes in her. That makes her heart burn bright, overcoming the lingering dark.
"You're not a villain," He tells her. "Start believing that."
He is pure and kind and honest. Everything Lusine has never been and never wanted to be. Not until she fell to Earth, shattered and losing herself. When she met him, he opened her eyes and made her realise that, truly, she didn't want to be just another hostile Volkov in a long line of vicious ancestors.
She wants to be good.
All she needed was a little push in the right direction and, while she's sure she's not half the woman he thinks she is, Lusine is certain that, with time, she'll become more of a controlled chaos rather than a blind wrath.
A Goddess of Chaos who knows when to extend a helping hand.
"I know," She says, voice quiet as the eve. "I'm not so sure that you understand my nature, but I am thankful for your faith. Without you, I don't know where I'd be." She hisses in a breath at the thought. "Well, I'd likely be dead, in all honesty."
Steve opens the front door and gently ushers her inside, eager to ensure that she is heard by no one else, but, once the door is shut behind them, responds, "Your nature? Lusine, you're a good woman. You're still willing to love and to trust even after everything you've been through. If that isn't a good nature, then I'm not sure what is."
Lusine shakes her head. "When my head is clear, I am good. I'm free from the pull of the void, but that isn't always the case. Sometimes I am yanked back in and held down. I'm still there but I'm just beneath the surface and all that I can see and feel and hear is fury.
"I am driven by my emotions. I draw power from chaos." She manages to bring herself to smile up at him as he looks at her, wanting to understand. "But I suppose I can't be all that bad at controlling myself if you trust me."
"No, and you need to stop doubting yourself," Steve says, taking her hips and pulling her towards him in a sudden move of confidence that takes her by enough of a surprise to snap her from her spiralling thoughts. "Now, what do you want for dinner?"
-
Olea, after finishing up a few bits and pieces her and Doctor Greer have been working on for a few weeks, finally begins her walk home.
Doctor Greer had offered to drive her, but she'd insisted on walking, claiming that the fresh air is good for her after a long day of work. After much of her working life being spent out in the open, working in a lab is a drastic change. One she's unsure she enjoys but is happy enough to go along with for the progress they're making.
Over the past four weeks, she's been working alongside Doctor Greer to infuse her healing magic into a number of medical supplies and testing which work best. So far, the bandages seem to work the best. When wrapped around a wounded agent, the magic is in constant direct contact with the skin and heals their injuries much quicker than they would regularly heal.
Before she'd left the lab this evening, they'd been working on infusing the magic into the surgical thread to bind the skin back together when stitched up.
For all the work she'd ever done on Remulan and Asgard combined, this gave her a higher sense of achievement. Flooded her with an ambition to keep on reaching for more and more. To keep trying. To test a new recipe even if it's more likely to fail than be the great success she wants it to be.
For the first time in her life, Olea has a purpose that is solely her own. Unshared with her half-sisters, unachieved by her mother, and entirely her own to hold in her hands, close to her heart, and smile about until her cheeks ache.
The night pulls in close with a promise of rain, but a little rain never did any harm. Especially not to one so attuned with nature. In fact, she often welcomes the lighter kind of downpour.
With that, it is not the beginning specks of rain that make her shiver.
Eyes amongst the trees stare into her back as she walks. Every step she takes, the ghost takes one too, following at a distance.
Every sense, trained to perfection by the drillings of two sisters and a pair of cousins determined to make a warrior of the little girl, is aware of its presence, tracking it as much as it tracks her.
Though the ghost is silent, she hears it as if it were breathing down her neck.
When she arrives home, unscathed but shaken, she takes one quick glance over her shoulder, catching the glint of darting metal beneath the cast of the moonlight and it's enough to send her hurrying inside.
