The Kind You Save

Chapter 2

Their footsteps drew slightly closer to me as I curled myself into a small sobbing figure on the pebbles, pulling off my boots and socks, gently letting my sore, blistered feet rest in the water.

"Please, don't come close. I don't want to hurt you." I said, barely above a whisper, though they seemed to hear as most of the footsteps had died down, one pair, however, remained to be pacing.

The stones seemed to shift a little as a weight was pressed down on them.

"You won't hurt me, Mykie. I'm immune to your poison." The voice was deep and gravelly, it sounded as though it were scratching the man's throat.

"I will. The serum didn't give me these, powers if you will." The wind blew a little colder down by the river, but the sun still beat down on us. I pulled my protective vest off my body and pushed about my shoulder blades a little, trying to massage the ache without letting it go. The mounds that followed each of the two aches along my back pushed up from under my skin, I knew the others could see them, it was difficult to miss in all honesty. A great deal of my upper back was scarred from hiding them all the time.

The bloke sitting next to me noticed my discomfort. He moved to be sitting directly behind me, laying his hands softly on my back.

I flinched away and leant forward rather quickly at the sudden, yet slow, contact.

"What are you doing?" I questioned him quietly, noticing the others coming and sitting near us, to take part I guess.

"You need to relax, and trust me, OK?" His warm, soft hand grasped my shoulder, encouraging me to lean back against him ever so slightly as he used his calloused hand to massaged one of my blades. He made reassuring "shush" sounds before he pressed something cold, metallic against my other blade.

Everyone was quiet besides the river, watching the ripples spread as the current flowed past us. The barely living fit so well next to the real, almost harmonious.

"The real?" Thor questioned me. He sat closest to me on my right. I shot him a quizzical look, quickly remembering he's a God, there are plenty of unexplainable things about him.

"Water. It's the only thing that's real-" I hissed as Bucky pushed a little too hard with his metal hand, he quickly released the pressure, returning to the pleasurable massage. "It exists without obscuring. Unlike us. We have to obscure as much as we can. If people see us, they automatically assume danger is near, right?"

Everyone nodded.

"I like the real because I'm hardly real. My beings are objects of fairy tales and Bible stories." I diverted my eyes from the team of heroes next to me, back to the river.

"So, what are you?" Bucky asked, continuing to push gently on the muscles in my back, tracing the bulging lines over either of my shoulder blades.

I pushed myself up slowly. "Fancy a swim?" I asked as I removed my leather trousers, revealing a pair of gym shorts underneath. "Sorry, needed to shed some weight to be able to show you." They each nodded in turn, Steve standing up too, Bucky following suit.

I hopped over rocks until I was in the middle of the river, out of reach of the team in order to avoid hitting any of them.

I pushed my arms over my head, stretching out my back before bringing them back to my sides, letting the tension cease with a heavy sigh and a small yelp of pain. Two main bones sprouted from my back, pushing out about 3 feet to my sides, cascading downwards, going from white to a soft blue to match my hair. I didn't dare to pull my eyes up from the water that wrapped around my ankles, though out of my peripheral vision I could see the rest of the Avengers rising to their feet.

"You're an-" I heard Natasha start, she sounded as though someone had just told her some aggravating news, which I hoped wasn't the case.

"Angel," Tony whispered excitedly, his metal uniform making an oddly large amount of noise for a single step forward.

I did look up this time, a sea of six staring, in confusion, fascination, or pure fear. Except for Bucky. He grinned like a child, as though seeing his favourite sight.