Arrows - Animo Sequel {Completed}

Chapter Fourteen: Juliet

Chapter Fourteen: Juliet

Barton's P.O.V.

Time passed by in silence. 

If anyone spoke, it was in a hushed voice and hardly discernable. No one bothered to ask for the statement or question to be repeated, leaving everything said unanswered. I don't know how long it was before the reporter showed up - if it was days, or only hours. I supposed the sky outside the windows could have been an indicator, but I had spent every moment since her death seated on the couch, staring at the wall. 

Numb. 

Natasha sat at my feet, knees up to her chest with her chin on her arms, unmoving. Sometimes she was so still I almost thought she'd died as well, but then she'd adjust her posture, pull herself into a tighter ball, and my mind would haze over again. She only lifted her head when Stark let the reporter into the main room, and remained seated.

After depositing Mo's body in what had been her bed, Thor disappeared to Asgard for a while. I assumed it was to inquire as to why Loki had been let out of his prison cell, but couldn't move my lips to form the words to ask. It wasn't important, anyway. Let Loki come back. Let him take over New York for real this time, let him invade my mind and control my body. God knew I wasn't using it for anything. In any case, Thor had reappeared a few hours later, seeming just as weary as he'd been before he left. Everything had changed, but nothing had changed at all.

"I can see Animo's sacrifice has affected all of you greatly," the reporter, a woman in her mid-forties, said, holding a notepad and a microphone. A man with a camera stood at her shoulder, filming us. This wouldn't be good for publicity, having the world see the Avengers in such a depressed state. But we were human - and one god - it wasn't our fault that we had feelings just like the rest of the world.

No one said anything for a moment. The reporter and cameraman waited awkwardly, also not saying anything, before Rogers took pity and said, "It has." Two words, and it was enough to spur the reporter to bombard us with a dozen more questions. 

Where was her body? What was our plan next? Were the aliens really gone forever? Had Loki actually shown up and saved the day? Rogers and Stark took turns answering, standing side by side with their arms folded across their chests and stern expressions on their faces, as though they were protective parents and the two strangers were pests bothering their depressed kids - i.e., the rest of us. If I didn't know any better I'd have said Banner was feeling worse off than the rest of us - than me. He hadn't moved from staring out the window since shortly after he de-Hulked. Stark had tried to talk to him once, only to be met with stony silence.

Stark and Rogers kept their answers brief, in any case. Yes, it Loki really did show up. There was no way to tell if the aliens would be permanently gone, but it seemed reasonable to believe. We didn't know what we were doing next, and Mo's body was still in our possession.

What they didn't know was that she was lying in her old bed, body stiff, eyes closed, just on the other side of the wall that the reporter and cameraman were standing in front of. The wall I hadn't taken my eyes off of since Thor laid her there and Natasha got her changed into something other than her bloody uniform. Banner had desperately tried to revive her, going so far as to remove the arrow and stitch up her stab wound, but nothing had happened. Thor had moved Mo upstairs to her bed, and Banner had moved to the window. And now here we were.

"Everyone's wondering if Animo is the same girl that went missing from Iowa a couple of years ago," the reporter went on, notepad still held aloft. 

Stark's tone was dry. "I believe that girl was found and returned home, wasn't she? Or am I mistaken?"

I could still remember the news broadcast that'd been done the morning after Mo arrived back home. How she'd seemed so happy to be back with her family. How that blond kid - Brendon - had swooped in and kissed her and stolen her right from under me. I sighed quietly, leaning back against the couch cushions. The cameraman turned the camera toward me, but I didn't spare him a glance. Mo wasn't mine. Mo was never mine. And yet...