I wake up, lights blinding my vision. My eyes adjust, and I see a white hospital room. I sit up, making myself woozy as blood rushes down from my head. That and the giant bruise I sure I have on my temple. I look up to see Natasha.
"Your awake." She says.
"Mhm." Is all I mutter.
"Coulson's dead."
I hault myself, then swallow," I know."
She stays silent for awhile, as if she's biting her tongue. She then speaks up," Clint's in his room unconscious. I knocked the Loki out of him."
Relief floods over my pain, even a little happiness. My best friend's back, probably his old self again, or at least as much of yourself you can be after you kick an alien out of your brain," That's great. That's better than great."
A moment passes.
"Why did you go after Loki alone?" She says quickly and with no emotion.
I sigh as pictures rush back to me. Coulson body, Ron, Loki. A new wave of pain takes me.
"I was one of the last people to talk to Coulson. He was almost gone," I whisper," I wanted revenge. I got caught up in the idea I could kill Loki. I could see his headstone. He needed to pay."
"Understandable. Still stupid." Nat reaches for a bandage on my right arm, slowly undoing it. She reveals a red L burned into my skin. Probably a scar now.
"Very stupid is my specialty." I mumble," Forget me, what happened?"
"Thor and Banner are gone. Fury's torn over Coulson's death but he won't show it. We lost a lot of agents. Rogers and Stark have made a unspoken peace accord for Coulson for now. They clean up crew has nice, long job."
I slightly smile, then groan, rewrapping my arm up. I feel the sting and grit my teeth.
"You need to keep a better grip on your knives." Natasha says. I nod, then get up. Nat steadies me as I wobble. A nurse gives me a sour frown, but I just glare. We walk out of the hospital wing, and my friend leads me towards the living quarters, probably where Clint is.
"What happened to you?" I ask.
She sighs," Banner went Hulk. Escaped with my life. Found Barton. Didn't you hear all that over your earpiece?"
"Broken in the fall."
"We'll, two engines failed. Rogers and Stark actually helped each other get one up. Thor engaged Banner. You can guess everything else."
I pass by my quarters and stop.
"Natasha, you go on."
She gives me this really weird look where she purses her lips and raises one eyebrow.
I sigh," You'd be the better one to talk to him. You'd understand."
Hurt flashes over her face, then it's gone in an instant. Before SHIELD, Natasha may have been a killer. But that was just a start of a whole big mess.
She was brainwashed by the Russians. They'd inject her with all kinds of serums, making her believe she was someone else. For a while she thought she was a ballerina and she performed in front of thousands. Another time, she was an Italian.
Natasha would know best what to say. She would understand. I wouldn't know where to start.
"Okay," she says," You go and heal up. I have a feeling you'll need to be in fighting shape again soon."
I go into my room as she walks away. I shut the door, than slump onto my bed. I close my eyes. Coulson. Ron. Loki. Blood. I open them, not wanting to see more.
My eyes travel to my mirror. A bandage covers my head. Another my arm. Another my shoulder. My eyes look......dead. No light left. Someone told me the eyes are the window to your soul. My soul is dead then. No light left.
But I'll be fine.
I'll be fine.
I will be fine.
But how can I be fine when I feel this many rampant emotions inside, crawling at me from the inside? How can I be fine with this seemingly string heart, being pulled away at the seams? How can this hole in me go away?
I waded into a war if monsters and magic. I'm not a warrior. I'm a silent murderer. A quiet killer. This hole has always been inside of me, it's just growing.
A footsteps come before a knock on my doorframe, slightly startling me. My attention to my surroundings isn't what it usually is, and I shame myself for it.
I look to see Rogers standing just outside, immediately wondering what he was doing. I offer a manufactured smile, "Hey."
He makes a sad attempt to reciprocate the action, "Hi."
With a brief pause, I pose my question, "What are you doing here?"
The man clears his throat, head turning to look along the halls, "Got lost. Couldn't find my room. Saw a relatively familiar face."
Uh huh.
Silence.
"How are you feeling?"
I press my lips together, shaking my head, "Okay, a bit tired."
Cap sighs before directing his focus to the ground and up again, "Heard about you run in with Loki. Your friend just got killed. I'm pretty sure you're not okay."
I swallow, the pit in my stomach becoming ten times wider, "Yeah, I'm so not good, I guess. It's been the long time since somebody I cared about has died. I'll get over it though."
More silence. I flick my eyes to the floor.
"Just one of those things where you wish it'd been different, you know?" My voice lowers, not comfortable discussing this. At the same time, I need to. It feels like everything will swallow me if I don't.
"I know."
I look back up at Captain Rogers, who in all honesty, understands this much better than I ever will. He lost an entire era. That's some trauma that'll take a lot out of one person.
My lips tremble," Does the pain go away?"
He goes silent, looking at the walls, his eyes far off somewhere. A different place, a different time. A different world.
"Please don't lie." I whisper," I don't want to hear you lie. I don't want to hear anymore lies."
He hesitates, then sighs," No. It always there. The first few weeks are hard, but you come to forget for awhile. But it's always there."
I search his eyes. He's telling the truth.
"How do you forget," I ask, my voice raising," This feels like it's never going to go away."
Rogers just stares at me," I don't know. I guess it's different for everyone."
My fists clench at the answer. How can this go away? How can this hole in my stomach go away? What about the ache in my heart? I look back at the mirror. How?
I hear Cap leave while I keep looking in the mirror. I wish he hadn't. I can't be alone right now. But I keep watching myself, a worn, soulless carcass. It's how I feel.
I look away from the mirror, not wanting to look at myself anymore. It hurts to look at my broken self.
After my mother's death, when I would never come out of the room SHIELD face me, just waste away and blame myself. Coulson would pop in now and then, just to talk about small things. I never thought much of it until I got older. Even then I didn't realize how comforting it was.
Now that'll never happen again.
I walk out of the room, tired of everything. I need to clear my head. I need work.
I head to the bridge, knowing Fury is there. I need something to do, to forget everything in.
I'm halfway through the door when I see Stark and Rogers at a table, Fury standing. I back away into a corner to listen to them, unseen.
"We're dead in the air up here," Fury says,"Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor. I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming."
A quiet moment passes. It's silent, and a lonely feeling seems to takeover the room.
"Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract," The director goes on,"I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier."
The Avengers. Supposed to be a whole lot of superheroes joined together to fight any and all evil. It was a crazy idea, but I enlisted for it. I was rejected. Clint and Natasha were not.
"There was an idea," Fury finally says,"Stark knows this, called THE AVENGERS INITIATIVE. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea, in heroes."
Hero.
I think over the word. My automatic definition for it is a person who fights to keep innocents alive. Coulson believed in them. He believed in great people who could become greater. He was a hero.
I hear a chair move. Stark walks past me, not acknowledging my existence. I'm perfectly fine with that, but something's off. Is joker playboy Tony Stark hurt? I know he knew Coulson, but not that well. I come to the conclusion he has feelings.
I decided not to go on with my plan to ask Fury for work. He's wounded now. We all are.
I start to walk away, turning into a hall when I see a figure. I peer across the corner, seeing Maria Hill just staring at the wall. She sees me, instantly her 'Deputy Director' look is back on, but her eyes tell all. They're watery, a little puffy.
"I just can't believe he's gone." She whispers, slowly and unsure of the words," Loki just......stabbed him. Just like that, he's dead in minutes."
I bite my lip, trying to forget about the hole in my gut," We don't realize how much we care until they're gone."
She shakes her head," But the thing is I did know. I knew how much he was to me. I knew how much pain it would cause me if he left."
I look Maria in the eye. She was abused by her father because her mother died giving birth to her. Her dad blamed her. She didn't feel wanted anywhere, so she joined the army, where SHIELD recruited her. She never had a family.
Or one way to put it, SHIELD was her family. And she lost a member.
"I'm sorry." I whisper.
"I don't want your pity!" She snaps, not loudly, just forcefully," I don't need it. I just need to fix this."
I breath in, then out," He's dead. End of story. You can't bring him back."
Maria puts her hands over her eyes, then sighs. She takes them off, no sign of water or puffiness, but a stern, like her mind is at work.
"I can fix this." She whispers, than walks past me. She's about to turn around the corner, but stops last minute.
"Thanks Sienna."
I give a puzzled look," For what?"
"The negativity."
And Hill's gone.
I'm confused. How can she fix this? Phil Coulson is gone. Nobody can fix death.
I feel weak, drained. Nobody can fix death. And he's gone.
I start to feel sick, a little delirious. I need to lie down.
I go to Loki old cell. I don't know what else to do. Look at where the was cage, gone now. I look down. Blood stains the floor. I sit down next to it, right next to where he died.
I miss him. I remember how whenever I felt like talking, I'd go to him. I need to talk.
"Hey Phil," I say to the air. I get greeted by silence. No response.
"It's lonely here," I go on," Everything's falling apart. Thor and Banner are gone. Loki's gone."
More silence.
"But Clint's back. You know Natasha is happy. You can see it in her eyes."
I imagine his response. It's obvious, he would say, everybody knows it but themselves.
I nod," Yeah. On the other hand, Fury sad. It's the first time I've seen him like that. He's empty. Cap's low to. Even Stark."
Even Stark? he asks.
"Even Stark," I laugh softly," You really do have an impact on people."
I really don't know how he would answer that. All I know is that he would smile.
For awhile, I just stay there, my knees to my chest sitting next to Phil Coulson.
<><>><>€<>><>><
Yes, she is sitting next to the spot where Phil Coulson died. Shock does very very weird things to people, and it's different with everybody.
I had to rewrite this chapter about three times before I got the right feel of it. Have you ever felt like there's to much of yourself in the chapter and not the actual character? I kept feeling like what I was typing wasn't Sienna. She was very hard to write in an emotional state.
Anyway, enough of me. How are you guys liking the story? Do you have any ideas for it? Changes? Let, me know. It could be a revolutionary turn to the story if I like the idea!
Love you all!