chapter xiii.
( avengers )
something's coming
something's on its way
into the darkness
we all must fight
into the darkness ─── the phantoms
shield helicarrier, over new york
may 4, 2012
"I want to talk to him," they are the first words to leave my mouth as soon as I walk into Fury's office.
His dark eye flicks up from his desk, but he doesn't say anything; he just stares at me with that nearly bored and unimpressed eye. I open my mouth to elaborate, but I don't even get the chance to start because suddenly a part of Fury's ceiling caves it and a huge chunk of metal crashes down onto the Fury's desk.
I shriek and jump a little, but Fury just blinks down at it as if it had a choice in falling on his desk or not. As I glance around, I see that his entire office is covered in fallen debris and the long lightbulbs are hanging from the ceiling. Part of the far left wall is actually gone and I can see blue sky on the other side of it. It's been an entire day since we won what everyone is calling 'The Battle of New York' and everyone is, as Dad said, "taking a day".
Except for me, tragically.
There are a few things I need to do before this can all be over. Ah, let's just take a sec to imagine how nice that will be. This whole aliens plummeting from the big blue sky, wanting to annihilate us thing will be nothing but a thing of the past, a far distant memory that I shall try my very best to repress. What fun!
"Listen, Fury, I got big big plans, okay?" I try to look tough and cool, puffing out my chest and lifting my chin, "I demand the right to speak to the homicidal alien man!"
This, surprisingly, fails and I slowly deflate, noticing the look he's giving me.
"I.E. Loki."
He blinks.
I clear my throat awkwardly, "Alrighty then, may I speak to Loki, good sir?"
He still doesn't answer.
"Please." I give the cheesiest smile my face can manage.
He's doing that thing again; that thing were his face is completely and utterly blank. It's terrifying, especially with the eye-patch and black leather. My cheesy smile begins to crumble as I heave a sigh and slide up to his desk. I know I must be rather bold to come up to him like this, but it's the only way to get what I want. Believe me, I've tried all the other ways.
"Fury, come on," my cheesy smile is hardly visible at all now and my eyes are pleading.
"Why would you want to do a thing like that, Miss Stark?" Fury sighs and leans back in his chair slightly, casually looking at me from over top of the metal chunk.
"You know why, Fury." I poke awkwardly at the side of his desk before seriousness creeps up onto my expression, "There are questions I have and he's the only one with the answers. If I don't get these answers, Fury," my voice is soft and shaky as I whisper, "my head is going to explode!"
He stares at me.
"Please," I beg, "I-I think the Tesseract is still in my head and I want, no, I need to get it out. Come on!"
"You know the last time I let you talk to that maniac, your father about attempted murder in the first degree."
"Which is why my father is never going to find out about this."
He contemplates this just as he contemplates me. His dark eye squints a bit and I try my best to look like the confident, unwavering Stark child I should be. Whatever he's looking for, apparently he finds it because he gives a curt nod and stands. I follow his broad shoulders down long hallways until I reach a containment cell that is much different than the one Loki was being held in earlier. Apparently, they've sort of lost faith in the whole glass prison cell thing. I mean, if they'd have watched Silence of the Lambs, then they'd know that the villains who are put into glass cells always get out. I mean, come on, Guys. I keep telling Dad and just about everyone that movies teach us very important life lessons. They don't really take me or my movie references seriously.
Uncultured swine... There I go again.
Fury suddenly stops outside a large metal door, guarded by just as large heavily-armed agents. He turns to me and then squints at me once more, as if double checking to make sure I'm still whatever it is he thinks I am. My nervousness fades away just for a moment as aggravation takes its place. I roll my eyes and put my hands on my hips, waiting for him to quit analyzing and to just let me into the cell.
He then nods slightly to the agents standing around, "You got any problems and you just hollar, they'll hear you."
I nod curtly, trying to not show any fear on my face.
"And don't get any stupid ideas, Kid."
"Stupid ideas?" My brows furrow as my voice takes on a confused tone, "Stupid ideas about what?"
"You kill him and we'll know. We have a monitor on him to make sure he remains breathing while in our custody."
My eyes widen in shock, "I wouldn't kill him, Fury!"
"Good," he walks by me, saying over his shoulder, "Don't get yourself hurt, Miss. Stark."
I smirk, playfully calling back, "Aww, Furry, is that concern I hear?"
"The world already almost lost one Stark this week." He responds dryly, "I'm not sure the tabloids could handle losing two."
"Wow. Real nice." I huff and roll my eyes before my gaze lands back on the looming prison door.
Pursing my lips, I swallow hard and then, without a second thought, swiftly open the prison door. As I step into the cold space, I allow myself to look around, not really ready to look at the other person in the cell just yet. The room is much darker than his other cell was, especially once the door closes behind me. The walls are covered in very thick metal and they seem to be dimly glowing with electricity. My brows furrow as I walk closer to one of the walls, studying the volts that sail a few inches above the metal's surface.
"I've been informed by your director-,"
I whirl around to face Loki as he sits in the corner with his hands tightly shackled to the floor. I knew he was being restrained, but this just makes me think he's being treated like some sort of animal. Then again, I wouldn't exactly trust him after all the crap he's pulled either. After all, he did try to enslave us all so I mean, it's kinda fair.
He continues as if not noticing my surprised reaction, "That if I do touch these walls, I will be shocked with numerous currents of some form of energy."
"Electricity." I quietly inform him, rubbing the toe of my boot on the floor but not taking my eyes off of the man.
He glances around before narrowing his eyes back on me, "And why has the little girl come to see me, hm? Does she not have other business and people to attend to?"
"Not currently. Saving the world kinda has a way of clearing your schedule." I laugh awkwardly before leveling my eyes with his, "But I have a feeling that you and I are not quite done with each other just yet. I have a feeling that we won't be for a while."
"Hmm." He hums in agreement.
We stare at each other for a long moment and my fear of him dissipates. Seeing him like this, with shackles on his thin wrists and scars that we never gave him on his pale face, it just makes me see who he really is. Loki is not some kind of monster, he's just a broken prince. I don't think he'd kill me. Nah. I have the weirdest feeling as if... as if we sort of... need each other?
He then hums on to state, "I tried to murder your entire race of humanity and yet you still come to me. Why?" he breathes out before he pulls his head back a little, "You've taken up quite the alliance with my brother it would seem."
"Seemingly." I dorkily nod a little, agreeing that my talking to him is actually clinically insane, "But your brother can't answer my questions, can he?"
A small, nearly amused smirk appears on his lips as he watches me sit down across from him. I keep a decent fifteen feet between us, but I don't want it to seem like I've come here to interrogate him. I need to get answers out of him and I don't believe going all Natasha Romanoff on his behind will help my case.
I just need to be, well, me.
"Do they still plague you?" A smirk still graces his smug features as he refers to my visions.
"You know that they do." I squint at him before the questions pour out of me, "What are they about? Why are they in my head when I'm not even near the Tesseract anymore? It's the Tesseract that makes them happen, right? What do they mean? It's all just fake, right? Or, or is it really the-the-," I struggle to even get the word, feeling ridiculous and insane for just thinking it, "the future?"
My hands clench into fists as he chuckles at me.
"Your visions, as you call them, are the future, Miss Stark." He tilts his head to the side a little and his voice nearly cracks, "As bleak as it may seem."
I stare at him in confusion as I question, "Why give them to me? What's so frickin' special about me, huh? I'm nothing to you! I'm just some stupid kid!"
"He doesn't seem to think so." He simply smirks, trying so hard to seem confident but his shaky breathing gives him away.
"So, it wasn't you who gave them to me." I whisper in realization before my teeth grit, "Who did, huh? Who's 'he'?"
He shakes his head, swallowing hard and clenching his pale fists. He's scared. Whoever this "he" is, Loki is scared of him. And if Loki is scared of him...
"Why are they still in my head?" I press, needing to get answers, "The-the visions, whose future is it? Is it mine?"
He shakes his head a little, "It is all of ours."
My brows furrow in thought and terror.
"And they frighten you, do they not?"
My eyes slowly look up to meet Loki's, "No."
He laughs again, "They do." He suddenly grows very serious, "As they should."
"Explain them to me."
"I can't. I don't know of them enough myself." His voice grows quieter as his eyes flick to the floor.
"You have them too," it's not a question.
He looks at me and then looks off to the side as he speaks, "Not anymore."
Not anymore? Then why am I still having them? I don't understand!
"There is so much that all of us do not know," his eyes adopt this distant look and I can't imagine that that's a good sign.
"Make them stop!" I angrily demand, "You made them come; you can make them stop! I don't want them!"
Loki practically snorts as he rolls his eyes again, "You will never be free from them, Miss. Stark. Not ever. You are tethered to it, to all of them. As far as he is concerned, you are nearly the same as the singularities now. You belong to him."
The man on the throne.
The monster on the throne.
My heart beats wildly in my chest before I question, "Who is 'he'?"
He sharply shakes his head, "I do not truly know and I do not wish to. And neither do you."
With a scowl on my face, I spit out, "I'm not afraid. Not of you and not of him."
He simply gives a humorless smile before I furiously stand and march over to the door.
My hand is just wrapping around the door handle when he speaks again, "If you have any sense of self-preservation, you will attempt to run as far as you might and disappear as best as you may. But know this," I turn to stare into his now green eyes as fear creeps up in my chest, "You cannot run from it. Destiny still arrives."
Visions swell up in my mind.
The man in the throne appears in my head.
His blue eyes terrifyingly peer into mine, "A survivor. Like me..."
Dust and blood. What seems like half a universe of it.
I quickly shake the thoughts away and then glare back at Loki as he watches me. He isn't wearing a smirk anymore, but it isn't a look of pity either. It's just this look of somewhat understanding. As if he understands the monster in my head. As if he's felt it himself. And what I've feared before is now confirmed. Loki and I, we are connected in something that he had no idea he was getting into and I never wanted to get into. As I am now "tethered" to these singularities, I am now tethered to him. I don't know what it means. And it's terrifying.
Destiny still arrives.
But I won't allow him to dictate my life. I won't allow him, the monster on the throne, or anyone or anything else to control me like some kind of puppet.
"Screw destiny!" I suddenly snap before yanking the door open and slamming it closed behind me.
I decide to push away all that he told me in the cell as I shove my hands in my pockets. I'll forget it. I have to forget it.
But why do I feel like I always forget the most important things? The things I should, no, need to remember. Howard and Grandma's faces come to mind as I trudge down the hallways of the helicarrier.
"Help my granddaughter a-and my wife. Please. Help," Howard's voice begs in my head and sends shivers up my spine.
I shake it off.
Maybe it's better to forget.
But I can't.
It won't let me.
I cry out when the visions throw my head back and consume my mind. My shoulder falls into the wall as I press my thrusters against my aching skull. The humming in the back of my brain grows louder and louder as the images flash with a ferocity that I've only experienced a few times. And all of those times were when I was near the Tesseract or the scepter. My eyes slowly and dreadfully open until I find myself staring at the closed door of the Tesseract Room. A lump grows in my throat and my thrusters rage in my palms. My feet carefully step me towards it and I'm hardly even thinking as I push my thruster against the lock and shoot the door unlocked. My feet stumble into the dark room only lit up by the glowing blue cube that is held in a glass case in the center of the room.
My breath catches in my throat as I inch towards it.
The visions grow more ferocious the nearer I walk, but I'm trying to understand. God, all I want is to understand. My body trembles as I come face-to-face with it and my head snaps to the side as visions flash in my mind.
Then I see darkness and I hear screaming, and then I realize that it's me. The screams erupt from my mouth as my hands cling onto the sides of the Tesseract and the ceiling opens up above my head. My face shoots back and I see the galaxy swimming above my eyes in flashes of brilliant color: pinks, purples, reds, blues, and black.
A reality, a future, my future.
Fire licks my wounds, healing me, consuming me.
I stand with my father, laughing, crying, bleeding, burning.
I sing, oh how I sing, "I had strings, but now I'm free."
And my songs turn to screams as I'm forced to the ground, watching as a boy in red and blue disappears into the flames.
"Death follows him like a shadow."
A monster reaches his hand out to me and he promises me power.... And I want it. Oh God yes, I want it. I reach for it. My hand stretches for it.
And then suddenly my body is smacking down hard onto the cold metal floor of the helicarrier.
I don't move for a long moment, trying to assess the damage done to my body. I blink hard a few times, trying to clear my muddled mind as I bang my fists to the floor to clear away the ringing in my ears. I stumble up onto my hands and knees, breathing heavily and gagging at the bile rising in my throat. My burning, aching eyes slowly lift a bright unnatural blue and my hands seem to almost glow as they support me.
And even though my world will keep turning, even though Loki will be sent far away and this may be well behind my father and me and this whole dang universe, I come to one conclusion:
if the future in my head is real,
if anything is even real anymore,
it's going to be the end of us.
And now you know. Loki and Lisa Stark are tethered to each other... I told you there was going to be a connection and this is it. Not only do they both have daddy-issues, but there's also the super important space connection. And then Thanos, she "belongs to him". This connection will last them all the way to Infinity War!!!! So... what do you think? I hope you loved it!
And then comes part two of the chapter as she walks down the hall and enters the Tesseract Room. Welcome to the tie-in into my collaboration with @Ariadoney! Lisa Stark... meet Olivia Rogers. Yes! So dang excited! Lisa's not going to remember whatever happened in my new branch off story for a long time so the story will continue as usual. I'll update you all when our first chapter of our collaboration is up! I hope I didn't confuse you because she's gone to a "New Universe", get it?
Now.... Tell me your thoughts! Well, for starters, Loki just blew Lisa's mind and then the Tesseract did too. Don't you just love their interaction? I loved it! And now we only have a few more chapters of this story, ahhhh! I might update twice tonight, we'll see!
Anyway, future quote:
"Because I had just created a villain, and I didn't even know it."
- Lisa Stark, Red Raven (Iron Man 3)
Sorry for the super long A/N...