Coronation Of Flame (A Marvel Fanfic)

Chapter 18: Mission Report

YAY! The last chapter! (unless you count the epilogue cough cough) I'll be working on another book after this, so the next book called 'Crown of Fire' will be planned as I'm writing that, so it should be out soon, I'm not sure beyond that. See you around!

Enjoy,

LittlePond

Chapter 18: Mission Report

The room grew too small for my skin.

My skin grew too small for my being.

Garrett, the guns, the glare of the walls.

I had to get out. Now.

My hands, which must have been shaking, released the gun from my grasp. I had caused too much damage with it already.

The pommel, the magazine, the trigger, clattered on the ground.

My feet, my boots, my legs, raced away from the man they called Clairvoyant, and into a nearby hallway, empty for the time being. My heart beat too fast and loud for me to hear someone following.

I hit the wall back first and sunk to the floor, chest heaving with the effort of breathing, crying, keeping the tears away.

Fitz was right after all; I was a monster.

From my right, a paternal presence oozed into my periphery, and we both knew I didn't need contact to know he was there. He understood me now, more so than perhaps anyone. He didn't need to place a hand on my shoulder and squeeze the nerves that sent the message to kill, kill, kill.

"Kennedy? What's wrong?"

Coulson kneeled in front of me, seemingly unaware or uncaring of the monster in his wake.

"It's Aurelia," I squeezed out, my voice sounding like an ancestral spirit. I didn't want anyone here, I didn't want anyone to see me like this. Coulson shook his head as if fixing a silly mistake, "Right sorry. Aurelia, you need to calm down."

No kidding.

But the foundations of my entire life had just come crashing down. Whitehall, I man I trusted and loved, turned out to be the very demon I stalked, dressed in a sheep's grey pinstripe suit.

"How can I? I just found out that I've killed 108 people for an organisation that brainwashed me."

Coulson reached out, fingers outstretched as if reaching for a lost soul, "Aurelia-" The idea of Phil Coulson touching my infernal being was disgusting, and I scooted further into the wall, willing for it's pure walls to take me into their orphanage for angels.

"Don't touch me! I'm..." I looked down at my hands, still damp from holding the gun for too long, outstretched to shield myself from him, "I'm a monster."

"No, you're anything but a monster."

How could I be anything but? I killed too many in the name of their own beliefs, that I also believed in...what mind could think of a game that twisted?

Coulson remained insistent on attempting to touch me, and I let him brush a finger on my knee. "No, you don't get it. I've killed so many." My voice sounded too quiet, to be me. Everything about me seemed different, as if I had shed too many skins and my core was something I hadn't expected; mould and rot, decades old.

"And you did it for the right reasons," Coulson pressed with the same persistence as Garrett minutes before. "You were brainwashed, knew nothing else. No one can blame you."

His words were what I most wanted him to say, but they were also the words I dreaded the most.

I wanted him to scold me, threaten me and maim me, because that was what anyone would have done.