EVERMORE ─ marvel

XI. Unbreakable Bonds

One week later...

Chapter Eleven
Alex

"Why did you have me bring this stuff?" I ask my sister as I exit the Avengers base. She called me into her office about twenty minutes ago and asked me to get a blindfold, earmuffs, and then meet her outside. It was certainly an odd request and I'm pretty sure horror movies have started out this way, but I did as instructed.

"We're going to start training again, but instead of trying to train your eyes and ears to do more than they're able, we're going to train you to rely on your other senses."

Understanding dawns on me. "Bucky talked to you."

She nods. "He did. Are you up for it?"

I feel a smile spread on my lips. "Absolutely."

Her smile mirrors mine. "Alright, I'm going to start off easy. Your objective is to catch me only using your other senses. Remember, our animal instincts can pick up on things no human can, things that can be just as useful as seeing or hearing someone approach you. Smelling scents, picking up on chemicals, feeling shifts in the air around you, they're all valuable assets.

She gestures to the items in my hand. "Put them on." She orders me, speaking to me as my boss, not my sister. When she gets like this she means business, she conducts herself like any director would, and any attempts on my part to tease her or make jokes end badly, more badly than normal.

Doesn't stop me though. "You're lucky I had these at home."

"Please don't tell me why you do."

I give her a knowing grin. "Your tone insinuates that you know exactly why I do."

I put the earmuffs and blindfold on as she instructed, and as soon as they're secured on my head, I feel an unexpected rush of panic flood through me at the dark silence that greets me. I can't see or hear anything, which is obviously the point, but...I hate it. It reminds me of how I felt when that blast hit me from the Kree tank. In those hours I was in the hospital getting worked on by Livy, Shuri, and Analiese, I couldn't see or hear much. Sometimes at all. I thought it would always be that way, that I would never be able to see or hear ever again. I laid on that operating table thinking about how I'd never see Khari's face again, hear my daughter's laugh, see the home we've built together, or countless other little things I took for granted like the sound of the wind rustling the trees or the sunsets as they crest over the Jabariland mountains. Standing here out in the open like this, completely robbed of sound and sight, I feel that same fear I felt then. I want nothing more than to rip off the blindfold and earmuffs and say fuck it.

But I won't. I've been having such a hard time adjusting for nearly two years, and I'm done complaining about it. I'm ready to find a solution to it.

I take a few deep breaths in, trying to search for my sister's scent. It's not hard to find. Scents are strange, they change and alter over time due to different external factors, some big and some small. Sometimes scents are altered because of a lotion or perfume someone wears. Sometimes they're altered because of where someone lives. A lot of times though, a scent alters when it mingles with another. When Soroya and Bucky first got together, their scents intertwined so much that when I tried to track Soroya when she was taken by Analiese, I couldn't do it with Bucky so close by. His scent was too close to hers. After all these years, the two of them smell exactly alike. So did Livy and Stevie up until Zy and Lee were thrown into the mix.