heartless ; 𝐭. 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐤 , 𝟏

11 - changes

august 2016

Her eyelids were heavy when she finally managed to open them. Of course, it wasn't without effort that she pushed herself up onto her elbows and rubbed a hand over her face. Squinting at the sun that was at the peak of its setting, she felt a tug at the back of her head.

"Careful, Jacqueline, too much light will make your eyes revert to darkness."

A young girl held a hand over her face, shielding her eyes from the bright rays of the sun that washed over her humble home in her rural village. Picking up her thick skirts in her other hands and scurrying back to the quaint cottage in the middle of the field, she bit back a snarky retort. "Oui, Maman," she conceded.

She pressed a palm to her forehead, panic coursing through her every movement, through every vein and artery inside of her. What the fuck was that? She bolted up from the bed and yanked the curtains closed. Anything to keep from seeing the sun, and whatever it had just triggered in her mind.

But it wasn't as easy as blocking out the external triggers. She kept hearing the woman's voice in her head, warning that young girl about the dangers of the sun. It was a kind voice, though she was using it to admonish. A kind voice that was laced with familiarity.

And the way the young girl responded, with love in her heart and love in her words and respect oozing out of her movements, it was...unsettling, to say the least.

Not just because she was so unaccustomed to the myths of love, but because the words, the field, all of it was too detailed, too specific to have been false.

I know her, she thought dangerously as she wiped her clammy hands on her pants. I knew her.

"I didn't take you for someone who would take a mid-afternoon nap, Jack." Tony's voice jerked her from her thoughts and she winced as she heard the nickname. Ever the observant man, he knitted his eyebrows in confusion. "What?"

Shaking her head, she looked down at her hands—whose hands are these really?—and sighed. "Nothing, I'm just...I think I'll go for a walk down to the bookstore." Her words lacked the conviction that she needed, and she had none of the usual seductive lures in her tone.

"The bookstore? Jack, are you feeling okay?" Tony took a step into her room, his movement hesitant. He'd never walked into her room ever since she first moved into it.

She scowled. "I'm fine." Taking a step back and keeping her eyes on him, she felt the backs of her legs bump into one of the low tables that decorated the sides of the large bed. The room was much too small now. Tony was too close, she was suffocating in his presence, his cologne wafting into her nostrils.

Turning around to put any kind of distance between them, she looked down at the contents of the bedside table. It was completely empty save for the bottle of green cryo pills, the ones she was supposed to take every night when she went to sleep.

Her blood came to a hurtling stop. What in Hydra's name is happening to me? She fought to curse out loud and give away her every emotion to the man she needed to kill, but it was hard not to clench her hands into fists. The one thing she needed to do, the one thing she always craved, was the sweet release of thoughts when she went under the ice. Nothing to think about, nothing to keep her from fulfilling every mission given to her by her superiors.

She'd forgotten to take one of the pills. Now she was feeling the effects of it, however slow the process was.

"Uh, okay," Tony replied softly, putting on his usual charm, trying to convey to her the message that he knew she wasn't okay but he knew how it felt to be struggling and to want to be alone, so he wouldn't do anything. Just walk out and leave her be for as long as she needed.