The next Thursday my Father packed his bags again and he and his 'friends' left for what he said was going to be a few days. Once they were gone I guiltily celebrated by spending all night out as Morning Star helping people with the smallest of problems. The next day when I went patrolling Steve found me on a rooftop and we talked for a little bit, just watching the world go by beneath us. It was a pleasant sort of chaos, the kind that made you feel excited and not just scared. It was a bittersweet kind of freedom that only comes with the knowledge of impermanence.
I moved my stash of gear and my suit to a hiding spot a mile away from my house. I shoved it in a trash bag and hid it in a second-story vent of a highrise.
My Father and his friends returned from their exclusion late Sunday night, all of them looking bloody but cheerful. Something I didn't usually like to think about.
The next training day Dr. Cho gave me a full check-up supposedly to make sure everything had healed right, but she was more likely looking for anything that wasn't healed anymore, which felt slightly violating, but I tolerated it.
Throughout the whole training session, everyone treated me like a shard of glass, ragged and fragile.
During the now regular dinner, I had with the Avengers Tony brought up the topic of the two superpowered terrorists that seemed to be ravaging New York nowadays. "...This guy's got a sidekick too, another suped-up chick, who seems to be doing his less intensive work. The media's calling them the Harbingers of Death-."
"-Just so we're clear here," Natasha butted in, pointing her fork at me. "We've got this one covered, kid. So stay away from these guys, they are both incredibly dangerous."
I nodded, my throat too dry to speak. No problem, easy peasy. All I'll need to do is throw myself off the nearest high-rise and then I'll be free of those two for good.
"Hill mentioned something big's gonna happen between them and our resident kingpin over here." Tony adds. The breath in my lung froze.
Natasha threw her hands in the air. "Do you even know what classified means?!?"
"What?" Tony protests. "Kira's trustworthy."
My thoughts snagged on his last word. Trustworthy. Naive My Father's voice hissed, Naive and manipulative.
"...Kira?"
I snapped around, shoving a hand off my shoulder. "What?!"
Bucky took a step back. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, I was uh- lost in thought."
"See it was all irrelevant. She wasn't even listening." Tony appeased Natasha, who was eyeing me suspiciously. I resisted the urge to shrink under her gaze.
"Can I use the bathroom?" I ask, suddenly needing more space.
"Yeah, it's two doors down on the right," Clint gestured down the hallway.
The bathroom wasn't as isolated as I would have liked. I could still hear the team through the walls.
"It's normal for teenagers to do that, right?" Tony asked.
I leaned over the porcelain sink.
"Ask Barton, he's the only one with child experience."
Blood pounded in my ears.
"Wait-where'd he go?"
"Did Hill really say something about the Harbingers and Kingpin fighting?"
I squeezed my eyes shut and gritted my teeth. Breathe, just one breath.
"Yeah, she got some intel that the Harbingers are going to attack that guy during a deal and try to seize some kind of overseas mercenary group."
My knees collapsed, I gasped and I pulled myself into a corner holding my hands over my ears, until all I could hear was my own heartbeat erratic, complementing the pain in my lungs. In out in out in out. Breathe, breathe, tile, glass, water, knocking. Knocking?
My danger sense picks up the presence of a person behind the door.
"You okay?" Clint asked muffled through the door.
"Uh, yeah," I said, solidifying my voice and reaching over to flush the toilet. I quickly got up and washed my hands splashing some water on my face.
He was waiting for me when I got out. "Have you told your dad yet?"
I'd been avoiding this question for weeks now. "I-uh no."
"He is back right?"
"No, yes. I mean yes, but no."
He double blinked. "Yes, but no?"
"I mean yes, he got back but then something happened and he had to leave like two days later. I didn't get the chance."
Clint frowned. "He left again? already? How often does he do that?"
At least once a month. "This is the first time. Ever. It's never happened before. What a fluke." Totally not a miracle. I forced a squeaky chuckle.
"Okay." he agreed skeptically. "Just make sure you do tell him."
He got back the next Wednesday and I didn't tell him but I knew I should. I should tell him. Tell him the Avengers are going to ambush him and me. I could picture myself reporting to him, just like I had for years. Standing next to the table, hands behind my back, relaying the information without so much as a tremble in my lip. I could also see what would follow, the reward of my betrayal of both him and the Avengers. I could already see the blood on his blades, the dull wrath in his eye. He would kill me or the Avengers would kill me. How do you choose between two poisons? How do you seal your fate with death? If I didn't choose one would be chosen for me. So I just watched him guiltily as he prepared for what was to come next.
Friday my Father gave me a mission. To watch his back while he dealt with 'business' inside a funeral home. convenient.
I trailed his progress through the scope of a rifle as he went inside. So far everything was normal, no activity near the exits, no recurring faces- My danger sense ricocheted in my head. before I had time to think I had reacted, whipping my knife out and slicing something low behind me before I even realized who it was. Barnes. Bucky Barnes. Not now! Too soon!
He reacted quickly, grabbing my arm and twisting till the knife fell. I punched him with my other hand and just like that the ice broke and we were both thrown into combat mode both, taking and giving brutal hits. On this playing field, we were equals, equal strength, equal training. We threw each other to the ground wrestling for any kind of control, throwing any kind of strike we could.
"Cap, I could use some help," he grunted as I punched him in the face.
My father seemed to be having a hard time as well. "Kira, give me back up now!"
"Little preoccupied!" Jab, jab, block uppercut, twist, retreat, dodge, grapple.
I wrapped my legs around his neck, but he flipped sideways and the hard roof beneath us disappeared and we fell. My fingertips just brushed the ledge as I plummeted past it in free fall. I noted that the concrete at the bottom was just as soft as the concrete in my basement. Bucky was up a moment before I was, but his attention wasn't on me it was on my Father as he launched Steve into the side of a car. I winced I knew how much that hurt.
I backflipped out of the way of a repulsor blast, letting my danger sense guide me as I dodged the attacks of other avengers. They worked like one entity, using each other as leverage to follow up attacks. I vaguely recall being grazed by a few arrows snagging some others out of the air before my Father called for a retreat.
We split, taking different paths effectively splitting up the Avengers. I dodged down alleyways, my sixth sense alerting me to my three pursuers. One was rapidly falling behind, the second was on a motorcycle, and the third had to be one of the supersoldiers on foot. I estimated he was about twelve feet behind me, neither gaining nor falling behind. Luckily I knew these streets like my own scars. I slalomed through alleys, climbed fire escapes, ran through abandoned buildings, and took as many turns as absolutely possible, leaving my pursuers doubling back on themselves and thoroughly confused, that's when I took my favorite detour, an alley that T-eed into a lattice of routes, but I didn't take any of them, instead, I used my legs to launch me off the side of the building and backflipped over the wall separating it from the alley in front. I landed gently and waited until I heard Barnes on the other side.
"Damnit, left or right?"
A motorcycle pulled up and then Romanoff, "I'll take left, you take right." And then they were off, running in different directions.
Five minutes later I was in plain clothes mingling with a tour group. I switched my comm on and was only greeted with static, my Father must have disconnected so our frequency wouldn't be piggy-backed. I was briefly tempted to connect and say something incriminating, but I wasn't that willing to die, so instead, I followed the tour group until my sixth sense stopped ringing and I deemed it safe enough to make my way to the emergency rendezvous point.
It took me longer than it should have to get there, it took all my remaining energy to not just turn and run. I'd never done something like that before, never hesitated to fight the enemy, there was no way he didn't notice. But what if he isn't there? My feet halted, the thought was vile, what if he had gotten caught? What if he wasn't going to be at the rendezvous point at all? I would be free of him. But if he was caught then so was I, it would just be a matter of time until the Avengers pounced and I would be dead. I sighed that's what my life had become, a choice between two poisons, one sweet and one bitter.
I forced my feet onwards towards my imminent doom, at least this way I wasn't running away from it.
He was there, very alive and very pissed. He was staring out the second floor of a building still under construction. He didn't acknowledge me at first, opting to just stand there, fingering a bloody arrow with dark purple fletching.
"What were you doing?"
"He was quiet, my super-hearing didn't pick him up."
Now he turned around and everything about him was passive, too passive. "After that. What happened after that?"
"I uh-," A rubber ball lodged itself in my throat. "I couldn't decide what course would be best."
"So you chose to pose in the middle of a war zone?" The edge was now returning to his tone. I had to fight the urge to ask if it looked cool. "You chose to not fight back?!"
I hadn't chosen anything, not really. I'd chosen indecision. My danger sense slithered in my spine. I wanted to run, to turn and jump out the window, I could be down the street in seconds, but it would be pointless. He would catch me or at least one of his sleeper agents would. So instead I used the fear that told me to run and let it root me to the ground.
"A simple punch to the jackass beside you would've worked!" he flipped the arrow in his hands, the point landing on my chest. Now he was angry.
The world moved in slow motion as he picked me up and threw me to the ground. I could have stopped him, dodged, ran, anything but I didn't fight him, I was so done fighting him. He followed up with some of his favorite simple blunt trauma moves, kicking, shoving, slamming, nothing that would leave me useless, but all I could do was curl up and cover my head. Bones cracked, cuts bled, but I didn't feel it, somewhere along the line I went numb like I always did and all that was left was sight filled with blurry flourishes. It was easy to convince myself that this wasn't real, that I was dreaming and wouldn't have to wake up.
But I did though, hours after he left I woke, unsure If I'd ever fallen asleep.
There was an ache rooted in my bones and a light stain of blood on the fresh concrete. I just layed there letting my senses slowly recuperate and return to me one at a time. I was too used to this to feel anything, I'd known it was coming, it was simply the way of my life.
I'll need an excuse for this round of injuries. A way to play off my current state as an accident to annoyingly intuitive Avengers. It was a surprising thought, not one I'd ever thought of before and certainly one I could have predicted.
The lights outside said it was still night.
Somehow despite the pain, I was up and walking- more like stumbling- on my way to my suit hiding spot. It took me an hour to make it there and even longer to get it. Now I cursed the idea of hiding it up high, where I had to climb, but I did eventually manage to pull it out. Putting it on was no fun though and I swore I heard my ribs shift, though I didn't really need that for confirmation to know they were broken.
After putting the suit on I gave myself half an hour to rejuvenate and I felt better, better than I should have. It was something I like about the suit. It wasn't expensive or very practical, but it made me feel powerful, like even if I couldn't save myself then I could save others. Is that what cancer patients feel when they donate their body to science?
I took some of my less physically demanding routes into the city.
It didn't take me too long to know I had at least been photographed. I could see the glint of lights off of cameras held by groups of the nocturnal breed of people.
I spared a few minutes to stop two muggings, a little too happy to just taze them from the sidelines. Then with my mission complete I changed again, storing my suit in a more accessible place this time. During my walk home my injuries seemed to catch up with me and I started feeling some of the more specific pain as it honed in my overworked body.
Before I entered the house I checked my hearing and found my Father's sleeping breath pattern and I silently thanked whoever was dealing out my luck for finally sharing a bit.
By the time I had finished dressing my wounds, fractured wrist, broken ribs, concussion etcetera it was almost dawn. Just a few hours before I would need to be up again and ready for the weekend to follow.
On Sunday Clint texted.
Clint:
I saw you on the news last night. You looked a little worn out, are you okay?
Worn out, that was one way of putting it.
Kira:
Yeah, I'm fine, kinda misjudged a jump.
Clint:
You sure? I can have Cho check you out if you want.
Kira:
Thx, but I'm fine. Superhealing and all.
Clint:
K
But if you need smth let me (or at least someone) know
What I would really like is more options, or maybe fewer ones that ended with me maimed and dead. That would be super helpful. but my choices are my own to live with.
The weekend came and went like a hurricane, unpredictable and fast. My Father didn't give me too many more injuries, he wasn't interested in permanently decapitating me quite yet. Before I knew it it was Monday night and I still had visible injuries. Unfortunately, my Father was still home, so there was no way I could go out as Morning Star again without his knowing. Maybe the Avengers will let it pass, they're not that interested anyway.
AUTHORS NOTES
What could possibly go wrong now? Clearly everything is under control XD
Does anyone have a guess for whats about to happen?
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Thank you so much!