Dove and Dart (Under Extreme Editing)

Wait and What?

Dove:

I slipped into my new bed. Well not new, but kind of. I wasn't sure of all this stuff that I just now remembered. It was all strangely distant almost as if it was from a dream. I still wasn't used to the idea of living with the Avengers.

I closed my eyes thinking of the wonderful time we had just had getting to make our suits and hang out. I couldn't think up a better day to have. Finally everything seemed to be in order. I was the real me, Dylan was safe, and I was back to where I belonged with my old and new friends. What could go wrong?

Those were my thoughts as I drifted off into unconsciousness. My mind traveled off to a dream where all of the people I ever loved were sitting together in a living room talking. They were happy and so was I. It was a simple dream but it was perfect. It was the world as I wanted it to be. Sort of like the day I had just had.

The happiness was interrupted by a person in my dream. It was Chase. Ethan's brother. The one I had killed. He entered the room. Everyone else seemed to disappear. He approached me telling me that I was evil. He asked me why I had done it. I tried to explain to him that I had no choice. Another person entered this time a woman. I remembered her vaguely. She had been one of the people I had been assigned to take out. She was staring me down with angry eyes. A girl entered the room. She was a mutant who I had handed over to Weapon X for testing. She died on one of their tables. I wasn't surprised to see her though. She had been in a lot of my dreams lately. More and more people came. People who I had hurt or left for dead, even some that I had killed. All of them were asking me what I had done and why I had done it. None of them would listen to me. They began closing in on me coming for me. I was backed up into a corner with nowhere to go. I tried to pinching myself to wake myself up but it wasn't working. I had always heard that if you die in a dream you will wake up. So I let my guard down and let them come after me. They came at me and I could feel my body breaking, until I couldn't take it any longer.

I gasped awake grabbing the soft sheets around me. Beads of sweat were rolling down my face. My heart felt as it were going to pound out of my chest and my lungs hurt because I had been trying to put too much air in them. I sat up trying to encourage myself to calm down.

I jumped back startled. Josh was standing there looking at me.

"Oh," I said putting my hand on my chest to slow down my heart beat. "It's just you." I knew that he had been in there. I had asked him to stay in the room with me. I hadn't slept alone for two and a half years and I wasn't been comfortable in that big room all by myself.

He just stared at me not saying a word. I couldn't see his face because it was too dark in the room, but he seemed troubled at least.

"Josh are you okay?" There was no reply. I squinted my eyes to see through the dark. I didn't know why he wasn't talking. I just stood there looking at me. It was very unsettling. I thought maybe that he was sleepwalking or in this case sleep standing, but I wasn't sure.   

He started moving forward with eyes fixated on me. They were all I could see, his eyes piercing me.

"You know I was wondering when this day would come. I've been waiting so patiently."

"What are you talking about, Josh?" I grabbed the blankets around me.

"They told me that I had to wait. They kept telling me no, but now I have my order."

"Wait 'they'? Who are they?" I tried to penetrate his mind, there was a block there. It was almost as if a physical barrier had been put there like in Dylan. At this point I was about to leap out of the bed, but something stopped me. I knew that if I did he would just corner me. He was faster than me. If I could stall him by talking then maybe I would have enough time to signal someone. J.A.R.V.I.S. had been deactivated I would have to signal them mentally. I didn't know what his intentions were, but I knew they couldn't be good.