The quinjet landed like a giant bug. I clutched my phone to my ear, listening desperately to the ringing over and over again until voicemail picked up, yet again. After calling thirteen times, my mother would not answer her phone. Cold wind kicked up my skirts and hair. Steve held my hand as if I would blow off the rooftop and led us up the ramp inside the mouth of the aircraft.
I pushed down the screaming feeling that whatever Steve had heard on his phone had been about my mother. I refused to believe it. This sudden call from S.H.I.L.E.D. had to be unrelated. It had to be. Coincidence.
I heard the doors shut behind us and the jet took off without warning. If I hadn't been holding onto Steve's hand, I would have lost my balance. I glanced up from the screen of my phone.
It was all of them, The Avengers, the whole team except Thor, and they were dressed like they were ready for a fight. Bruce smiled tightly at me. Natasha was looking pointedly away.
"Hi Siri," Clint said lifting a hand.
"Hi," I said automatically. I locked my legs and the jet tilted.
"Why don't we sit down," Steve said.
"What's happening?" I asked, feeling my dread grow.
My phone rang, vibrating my hand.
"Mom?" I said, relieved.
"Hi Siri." She coughed.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Nothing," she said as if she hadn't been calling me over and over and then in turn ignoring my calls. Her tone hurt my feelings.
"Oh. Okay," I swallowed hard. "I was just returning your calls. Sorry I missed them. How are you? How is Walter?"
"Fine. Everything is fine. Walt is fine." Her voice sounded falsely breezy. Sarcastic even. A rushing roaring sound came through the phone. The jet listed to the side, and I stumbled into the wall, barely catching myself before I smacked my face into the metal.
"What's that noise?"
"I'm driving," she said. "The window is down."
"Isn't it freezing?" If it was cold in New York, it was freezing in Aspen Colorado.
"No."
I started to feel shaky. Images of that nightmarish astral projection played in my mind."Mom, are you taking care of yourself?"
"Sure, honey. Don't worry about me. Just forget that I called."
"What?"
"Nothing, Siri. I hope you have a great life."
She hung up. My heart began to pound in my stomach.
It was a small space. I knew everyone had heard my side of the conversation. Everyone was pointedly not looking in my direction.
"We have to go to Aspen," I said. My mother was not ok, and I was the only one that could talk her down off the ledge. I had always been able to calm her. I knew, beyond a doubt, that if I could just get to her, she would be ok. I would take care of her.
No one said anything. No one looked at me, except Steve, who patted the seat next to him.
"What did she say?" Steve asked.
"She needs help. I think she is in danger. How fast can we get to Aspen?"
"What exactly did she say?" he asked again.
"She said...she said..." I was too worked up to remember the actual words. "It doesn't matter. I need to go to Aspen. Tonight. Now. She needs me. I have to help her."
"Sit down, Siri," Steve said.
"I can't! She sounded like...like she was going to kill herself or something."
"That would make things easy," Tony Stark said glibly from the pilot's seat at the front of the quinjet.
I stared at Tony in horror. I couldn't have heard him correctly. Natasha punched his arm hard.
"Ow!" Tony winced. "Someone's got to tell her."
"Tell me what?" I could feel my heart in my throat. My head pounded the same rhythm. "Tell me what." I said much louder.
"Sit down, Siri," Steve said wrapping an arm around my body and pulling.
"Tell me what!" I actually yelled at Tony. I glared in turn at Banner, Clint, and Natasha, then Steve. This was beginning to feel familiar. This was just like when S.H.I.E.L.D. had first kept me prisoner on the helicarrier. My throat tightened. This could not be happening. Didn't they trust me? I was practically one of them. Why wasn't Steve on my side? I couldn't believe he would take S.H.I.E.L.D.'s side over mine.
"Siri, please. Sit down. I will explain." Steve's eyes mirrored my own pain.
I knew. I knew what he was going to say, and I was already reacting to it, panicking. Despite my demands, I did not want him to say it. To make it true. I wanted him to tell me something different. Tell me that this flight, these armed and dangerous people weren't assembled to hurt my mother.
"Please," I said. "Just take me to her."
"We're headed to Aspen," Tony said.
I closed my eyes, collapsing into the seat. They were going to kill my mother. Loki was right. S.H.E.I.L.D. was the enemy.
Steve knelt in front of me. "It's going to be alright."
"She's my mom," I said. "Please. You can't do this. I love her."
"She has taken Aspen," Steve said. "She has Walter hostage; we don't know if he is alive. At least fifteen people are dead."
I did not understand what he was saying.
"We can't let her go on killing innocent people," Steve said.
"Please." My voice was a whisper. "There's been some kind of misunderstanding. She couldn't have...she is my mother. I don't care what she's done. I love her."
"Siri," Steve said, "Listen to what you're saying. You don't care that she's killing people?"
"I need her," I begged.
"No, you don't." He shot right back in a tone that didn't leave room for argument. "You don't. Amora has made you think that you need her all your life. That's why it feels like this to lose her. She has made you completely dependant on her, like a drug. Why do you think you ran right back to her, even after learning that she put a knife in your heart? Try to think Siri. She has enchanted you. You're trapped under her spell."
I pressed my back into the metal behind me, wanting to slip between the molecules and fall through the air.
"She is all I have. If you take her away...If you kill her, I have nobody. If I am just a game piece, then that's all I'm worth."
"That's exactly what she wants you to think," Steve said. "And you are not alone. Not even close."
"Five minutes out," Tony said. "What's our plan, Cap?"
Natasha folded her arms. "We need you on our side, Siri."
Now everyone was looking at me, waiting for my answer, waiting for me to choose between my mother and Steve. Between her safety and the safety of strangers. Everything in me screamed that there was nothing more important than keeping her safe and alive. It was irrational, I could see that. But I couldn't change how I felt about her.
"Okay," I said. "I am on your side. But I want to talk to her first."
I made the mistake of looking at Natasha in the eye. I could see her reading my face, my body language. I could see her calculating the chances of me lying, of me turning on them in favor of my mother. I tried not to look guilty. I wasn't guilty. I wasn't planning on stabbing them in the back. I didn't want my mother to hurt anyone. I just didn't want her to get hurt either.
"It's too dangerous to send you in alone," Steve said, though he didn't look like he was going to really argue the point. He trusted me. He believed I had a chance of talking her into surrendering. I relaxed a little.
"I'll go with her," Tony cut through. "I'll fly her in and keep an eye out."
They had a quick discussion about the best way to help the people trapped in the city while staying on standby in case the situation escalated. Bruce volunteered to hide in close proximity to Tony and me, in case it turned into a fight. Steve reluctantly agreed to work with Natasha and Clint on the search and rescue while I tried negotiating. I could see he wasn't happy, but he could be anywhere in town in mere minutes, if not seconds, at his running speed.
"There's a suit for you in there," Tony said, handing the controls over to Clint. "It's a little cold for a dress." It took me a moment to realize he was talking to me. A suit? In a tiny bathroom off to the side, I found a locker with a black and grey jumpsuit and matching boots inside.
It was like an extremely durable unitard, just a tiny bit looser than skin tight. It was flexible and comfortable, and most importantly, weatherproof. I felt ridiculous putting the thing on like I was wearing a Halloween costume, but it wasn't sillier than wearing a shin-length '40s dress in the middle of winter in Colorado. I cringed at my appearance in the tiny bathroom mirror above the sink and scrubbed my ruined makeup off my face. I yanked all the bobby pins out of my hair, leaving them on a shelf in the closet with my dress and shoes. I pulled my hair back into a simple bun.
No one commented on my appearance, though Steve smiled as he held up a tiny flesh-colored device and tucked it into my ear.
"When we turn these on, all you have to do is speak, and everyone will hear you loud and clear." He said heading to the bathroom. I wondered how he actually fit in the tiny room. Captain America emerged moments later.
Turbulence rocked the jet as we descended low enough to spot the clusters of lights that marked the little towns nestled into the Roaring Fork Valley. At the end of the narrow valley, the crown jewel, Aspen was flickering and flaring with brilliant wildfires and with the red and blue lights from first responder vehicles. The low clouds pouring down over the mountain peaks reflected the lights from below, like silent lighting.
Clint flew us low over the town, talking all the while to someone not in the jet. He said "sir" at one point, which made me think it had to be Director Fury.
At this altitude, I could see the city was surrounded by forest fires, as well as multiple structural fires downtown. Through the chaos, it was clear that some of the streets were inexplicably flooding with water. I thought about trying to spot our apartment but quickly stopped myself. It was terrifying to see my hometown like that, and I felt shaky thinking about how all the people and places that I knew and cared about were probably in danger.
The first snowflakes hit the windshield like a swarm of angry bees, as we stopped to hover over a gaping hole that used to be the bridge into town that had collapsed into the ravine below. The bridge was the only way in and out of town in the winter, except for the road that passed directly underneath, which was now completely blocked with the rubble. Independence Pass was closed for winter, not even snowplows would be able to get through. Everyone inside Aspen was trapped.
"Do you see why we have to stop her now?" Steve asked me. I couldn't answer.
Iron Man set me down at the edge of the broken road, 100 or so feet from a woman in a sleeveless green gown. The blizzard ripped at her long blonde hair and partially blinded me. She held a man by the collar his jacket in one hand. When she saw us land she dropped him at her feet in the snow.
"Siri!" my mother's voice was shrill. She had to yell over the howling snowstorm.
I stepped out from behind Iron Man, but his metallic fingers caught my arm.
"Are you sure about this?" his metallic voice asked.
I nodded, and patted my zippered chest pocket, reassuring him.
Snow flew like bees between us as I closed the distance. I took my eyes off her to look at the man at her feet. It was Walter. She had rung him out like a dirty rag. I tore my eyes off the horror of Walter's limp body and fixed them on her face. I used her as a focus point, suppressing the scary sounds I could hear from just a few blocks away. I had to save her.
Tight pale skin stretched across the bones of her face so tight it looked like it would split. A spiderweb of cracks under her lower lashes caught my eye. But her eyes were soft as drank me in. She wrapped her arms around, fitting together the two puzzle pieces of mother and daughter.
"Mom," I murmured, shivering. I hadn't realized how much I missed her.
She pulled away to look at me. There were tears in her eyes and a manic grin on her face. I felt her tremble. Her hands smoothed my hair and she kissed my cheek softly and quickly as if she was tucking me into bed.
"We need to talk," she said.
My breath caught at these words. After all these years of keeping secrets, we could uncover them all and really begin to fix things. There was nothing more in the world that I wanted than to talk to my mother. Really talk.
"Ok."
As casually as picking lint off my clothes, she reached a finger to my ear and plucked out the comm device, threw it at Iron Man's feet. My face burned with embarrassment.
"It's so cold. Let's go inside." She took my hand as if she thought nothing finding the comms device in my ear. She turned towards a dark house on the side of the street. I looked back at Iron Man, standing like a statue, watching us. I knew he wouldn't like this. None of them would. They would want eyes on her and on me the entire time. But we needed privacy. I nodded at Iron Man once, letting him know the best I could that it would all be alright.
The windows were dark and the driveway was empty. No one home. The door was unlocked. We were breaking and entering, but if I could fix everything, it was the least these strangers could do to help the situation. It was probably a second or third home anyway—some rich tourists.
The warmth of the house invited us in as we shook ourselves free of snow and chill. Her arms were pale as she moved into the house as if she was completely at home. The house looked like it had been furnished by rich rednecks. Three vintage hunting guns were displayed in a glass case that doubled as a coffee table. The couch behind was not only leather but still had fur attached
The amount of dead wildlife peeking out from every corner and wall would make a taxidermist drool. A shaggy white goat posed on a rock with a full mountain lion crouched above on a higher rock, frozen in the act of the hunt. There was even an alligator draped over the fireplace mantel, it's tail tip pointing stiffly to a flock of ducks hanging from the ceiling by fishing wire. A shaggy bison head guarded the doorway to the next room.
Now that I was finally about to get the truth from her, I was nervous. Loki's story, the one he told me those months ago, made her seem...not exactly evil, but manipulative and mean. Fury's accounts of her were worse. In his mind, she was a monster.
I saw what she did to Walter. I fought an emotional retreat, willing myself to stay in the present, stay with her no matter what horrible things she had to confess. I would love her and I would save her. I willed warmth into her hand, physical proof of my support.
"Mom. Whatever you've done, I don't care. If you kidnapped me, then good. I don't care. I love you. I forgive you. We can work this out."
"What I did?" She mulled. "What I didn't wasn't wrong, Siri. I saved you."
"Save me...from what?"
"From your own family."
This was the ugly truth I'd been waiting for.
"You were a tiny, beautiful baby. Those soft cheeks, the most perfect shade of pink. Big bright eyes with long lashes. And you were happy. Of course, you were happy. You were spoiled with so many adult siblings and a maidservant. Something so lovely, so...sacred. There was hardly a soul that couldn't look at you and fall in love and want to take you away forever.
"You fit perfectly in my arms, your baby softness, melting into my chest. You used to nuzzle your face into my neck. I was your nurse, you see. I was responsible for feeding you and changing you and making sure you were well-rested. I was your mother even then. It might have been my job, but I loved it.
"I lived for the nights that you woke up crying. I would take you out onto the terrace and we would look at the stars until you fell asleep again. I witnessed your first steps and your first words. You were always mine.
"I saw the signs first, of course. When you were toddling through the halls or playing with the other children, your brother, the god of mischief would...lurk. You were clearly the favorite of the family, of the kingdom.
"Loki would be there while you played, sometimes interacting, sometimes just watching. It started innocently enough, an accidentally crushed tea set, a doll whose head seemed to fall off when you weren't looking. Little malicious tricks that left him laughing and you crying. The abuse continued until one night, at bath time, I turned to find you face down in the water.
"I reported the incident, nearly in hysterics, but I couldn't prove his guilt. When confronted, he blamed me. And whose word do you think they believed? I was charged with treason and was thrown into prison. I couldn't sleep from worry for you. No one was there to keep you alive. I do have a bit of magic, my mother sent me to study under a sorceress at a young age. I used it for the first time, against the crown, to break out of prison, steal you away and flee. I saved you. From your family's cruelty and stupidity."
"But...Loki..." I said. The memory he showed me was of a doting brother. Someone who loved me. My mother's story didn't match up with his in any way.
"You would trust a silver-tongued liar who tried his best to destroy Earth over your own mother?"
I knew better than to point out the amount of destruction she had caused. At this point I had a simple decision to make: believe my mother, or believe my brother. Both were volatile, both had an agenda.
Only one had a strong hold on my heart. I had an inexplicable connection to my mother and years of proof that she loved me. I had a lifetime of evidence from my Mother. I had one secret memory of Loki loving me as a baby. Loki had despised me. Over and over he had called me frail and feeble, with that look of disgust that made me feel so low. My mother made me feel like the center of her galaxy.
"You have always been my mom, and you always will be," I told her, wrapping myself around her again, feeling the comfort I needed.
"And you will always be mine."
Wind rushed around us as if the blizzard somehow rushed inside. It blew her hair into my face, blinding me. I started violently but she tightened her hold. I struggled to free myself as a sound roared in my ears.
And then it stopped.