The Jotun's Daughter

Chapter 21

"You and di Angelo are impossible," May snapped. Her voice sounded slightly slurred as the words made it through my brain. Groggy, I tried to lift my head, only to see my vision blur.

        "Yeah, that's probably not-" Fitz started.

        "-A good idea," Simmons finished. I moaned softly and let my head drop back. The bark beneath my head was scratchy and awkward to lay on.

        "You suffered from extreme blood loss, two broken ribs, other injuries, as well as fatigue and hunger. Anything strenuous-"

        "Isn't going to end well." May interrupted firmly. "Stay down," Her face appeared within my line of vision, looking down at me intensely. "That's an order."

"Don't touch that, you idiot! Do you want your soul ripped from your body?!" Nico's enraged voice sounded from my right.

        "I was trying to determine the building material used for it!" Jace defended, just as agitated, "Is it unlike anything on Asgard." When angry, his voice took on the same lilt as his fathers.

        "Trust me, if Styngian Iron was on Asgard, your people would be the last I would trust with it," The son of Hades snapped.

        "Boys!-" Coulson snapped, but the son of Thor wasn't done.

        "Where did you get it, anyway? Hell?" Just then, my painkillers kicked in, and I managed to push myself slowly to a sitting position on the fallen log. I met Jase's eyes with equal force.

        "Trust me, he's been there." I said steadily. Realization crept into his face as he understood what I had said. Nico glared at me, but ducked his head when I held his gaze evenly.

        "This is stupid," Mack spoke up. He nodded to something behind me. "Now that everyone's awake, what should we do with him?" I turned to the man pitifully tied up to the tree, and then to May. 

        "Who is he?" I asked quietly. She eyed the highly trained operative with a look I could only regard as disgust. Coulson opened his mouth to say something, and she shot him a glare, and shifted where she stood.

        "His name is Ward." She answered calmly. "He used to be involved in S.H.I.E.L.D. long ago, before you were born. He knew Sky," she added. "He became a traitor, worked for Hydra. Tried kill us several times-"

        "Don't they all," Mack commented under his breath.

        "-and he was in love with Sky." She said this with a clench of her jaw as she stared at Ward. "He came back to us many times, but after she learned that he had betrayed us, she wanted nothing to do with him. Finally, he dropped out of the picture."

        "But," Coulson spoke up. "Obviously his infatuation for her didn't." He was sitting on a nearby log, and he looked like a mummy. Stitches ran above his right eye, and he was wrapped neatly in cloth that wasn't doing a very good job of holding the blood in.

        "He needs medical attention," I nodded towards Coulson.

        "What do you propose we do?" Simmons asked hesitantly.

        "If you haven't noticed, we're in the middle of the Amazon," Fitz said in his usual straight-forward manner. I exhaled, and my chest light up like a bonfire. My teeth grit together at the pain, and I ducked my head, tears threatening the corners of my eyes.

        "Coulson's not the only one who needs attention," Jace said pointedly. I glared at him, but this time, I didn't even have the strength to hold his gaze. My torso hurt to much. 

        "Well," Coulson said after a beat, "I could call Stark." Nico's head shot up.

        "Tony Stark? You mean-Iron Man?" He looked at us with an odd expression on his face. 

        "What?" Coulson asked.

        "I just-I know someone who'd like to meet him." He said quietly. I blinked. I knew that Nico had friends, it just never really occurred to me to ask him about them. Jace interrupted my thoughts.

        "Call him." He said with a nod. A groan came from behind me, and I turned to Ward, who looked up at me and blinked. 

        "What are you?" He murmured. Then he seemed to remember our previous conversation. His eyes narrowed.

        "Sky trained you?" He ran his eyes over me, but I didn't flinch. Then he shook his head, laughing slightly.

        "There must be some mistake. Sky...she...." He took a heavy breath. "She didn't train people. She wasn't...that good."

        "You underestimate her." I cocked my head to the side. "Then again, you didn't live with her off and on for the first 18 years of your life." His eyes widened, and then he studied me again.

        "Sky adopted? What? Why-I thought she would never want kids after what happened to her...after she found out what she was. Her gift." He spoke like a mad-man. Dazed, a bit confused, and tired. 

"She wasn't human," he whispered with a silly grin. I turned to May, who simply said, "Truth serum. Five times the usual amount."

        "What are you talking about?" I asked Ward. He smirked. "Oh, you don't know? She was a killing machine, that one. So beautiful, so dangerous." He started humming a lullaby. It was an old song that mom had sang to me sometimes when she used to put me to sleep. Hearing it coming out of the mouth of a mad man unnerved me to the bone.

        "Snap out of it," Mack ordered. The humming stopped ubruptly, and Ward peered at him, and then laughed. The sound was strange in the dense forest, where the tension grew thick.

        "And you...you know what it's like. To have someone play with your head. So does....the litt'le techy o're there." His head bobbed towards Fitz, who glared at him. Then Ward turned to Nico.

        "I dunno who you are," His words were now slurring. Nico seethed, but I had a feeling that he wasn't mad at Ward.

        "Ward." That one word had barely made it out of my mouth when his head snapped towards me. He blinked a couple of times, and I could slowly see him fighting the serum, trying to keep his mouth shut. I knew what that was supposed to feel like. The serums had never really worked on me, no matter how much they gave me. Something in my blood, mom had told me.

        "Why would she adopt you?" He came back to the question. "You're nothin but ice an' stars." He spat. My face was dead-pan, I knew, but the words reminded me of what I had seen before I had passed out, and my mouth suddenly tasted of blood.

        "You don't speak for yourself." He grinned at me. "You're like Sky....She's got scars on her tongue from all the things she's never said."

        "I'm nothing like Sky," I replied. He tilted his head at me dramatically.

        "Are you so sure?" He sniffed. "A little girl, not from around here, walkin' around like she knows what she's doin'." He was becoming more awake now, I could see it. I stood, even though I nearly fainted from the pain of doing so.

        "I'm nothing like my mother, and for that, be grateful," I hissed.

        "I got Stark's signal. He's coming this way!" Coulson announced.

        "What about the Chitari?" Fitz questioned. May shook her head. "We'll do what we can," She replied. 

        "You know, I guess it makes sense now." Ward's voice appeared again. I looked back at him.        

"The little adopted girl adopts a girl to help her cope with the fact that she's a monster...." His voice dropped as the frost on the ground crept up the tree. 

        "What are you going to do, freeze me to death?" He asked quietly. This time, he was completely calm. I shook my head, and laughed at him, even though it hurt.

        "I'm not adopted." His eyes widened, and he couldn't hide his shock. I swallowed, and summoned my ice.