Coronation Of Flame (A Marvel Fanfic)

Chapter 2: Mission Tahiti

Hi again! So sorry this chapter took so long to post! This is because of these flashbacks that I'm going to release alongside the regular chapters, since I wanted to write the story chronologically because reasons.

Anyway, hopefully they should come a little more regularly, if the Internet holds up.

Have fun!

LittlePond

Chapter 2: Mission Tahiti

So after all that shenanigans with Jason and betrayal, there was only one thing that I could do. Only one thing my being ached to do. One thing that I felt magnetised, drawn, to do.

Train.

I am an assassin, what else am I supposed to do? Sit around for months and wallow in self pity? Hell no. There's no time for that, I have agents to kill, errands to run, people to see.

So it was hi ho, to the punching bag I go.

The punching bag had always been my favourite thing in the training room, apart from the foam dummies I could butcher with a sword. To me, the punching bag was essentially a body waiting for me to bruise and break. How could I resist?

And after a few days of letting Jason's betrayal sink in, my fists had been white knuckled and shaking for something to collide with for days. Besides, there weren't any worthy opponents around anymore. Without Jason, Appleshade, or the twins, the other agents were tumbleweed to me.

The feeling of skin against canvas is a nice one, the brush is soothing, and the thud is solid. The music is a melody I know well, one of the oldest. I've memorised it a thousand times over.

The beat of my heart, along with the crescendo of adrenaline was enough to block of the whispers and snickers of the agents around me, cramming in a little bit of training before dinner rolls round.

But I couldn't walk through the doors to the cafeteria and not see the image of Geeve and her thugs dragging Jason away, still and silent, no fight left in him as he knew what lay ahead.

He had seen it himself, and sometimes  he had taken apart of the goings on of HYDRA's jails.

I didn't know what to make of Jason right now. Who knew if his name was even Jason, for all I knew, he could've been a really convincing drag king.

I just couldn't wrap my head around the fact that I had made friends with, liked, trusted and loved (platonically) a S.H.I.E.L.D agent. The very people I despised the most. The species that I was hellbent on exterminating and clearing the way for HYDRA to replace.

The punching bag's chains whined from my punches' force.

I grinned a small, weak but determined grin and ignited the final fuse left in me, going at the innocent bag of cotton and canvas with all my confusion and anger. The bag's whimpers were the harmony to the melody of knuckles on material.

Any background noise from the youngsters around me silenced as my hits increased in both their intensity and volume. And with it, so did my internal monologue of questions.

How could I have been so stupid?

How could I have made friends with a S.H.I.E.L.D agent?

How could I have trusted him? Liked him? Tolerated him?

Why the hell am I so conflicted?

Why do I pity him and not want to kill him in the slowest, most painful way possible?

I might have vocalised these questions, or I might have started to grunt, or yell, or moan, but somehow, when the chains that held the punching bag aloft snapped, I fell to my knees, and made some sort of sound like a whimper. I'm not sure; the adrenaline was still silencing any sound other than my pulse or my breathing.