Nightmare

Baby Shark

I turn around and teleport to the farthest hill I can see, but I drop the crutch when I end up--

Right in front of Loki.

I try to turn and run, but I don't get very far when--

He's extremely fast as he throws a silver-and green-hilted dagger that penetrates the cloth of my catsuit, through the flesh of my right leg--the one without the crutch. A stab of sharp agony shoots through it when it scrapes the bone, and another amount of pain as I trip over my left ankle. And considering I need the right leg to walk with the crutch, I can assume that since it's injured, I can't walk at all unless I have two crutches, which I don't.

Flipping the scepter in his hands, he nods to the two male guards to handcuff me. Haha, real smart. How the fuck am I supposed to come with you, even if unwillingly, if I can't walk a few damn steps to make it into the goddamn pickup truck? Are you gonna leave me here? Bitch, that's not going to work out for you very well because as soon as someone sees me and I ask them a single question, I can go home.

And then, I think with all my hate, fuck you. I mean, I say that to mean people every day, but whatever. I've never meant it more than now.

I hear a slightly amused voice in my head. You curse a lot for a lady.

What the fUCK--Is he--Are you reading my mind?

Yes, I am.

Of course he is. I'm so stupid to not have noticed this earlier. Whoever possesses the Mind Stone can see into other's minds.

No. No, get the fuck out of my head  right now, I think with all my anger.

I think not.

So I start blasting a song at full volume in my head. Baby shark, do do doo do doo do do do doo

I see Loki wince and glare at me. "Stop."

BABY SHARK, DO DO DOO DO DOO DO DO DO DOO DOO--

He glares harder.

So naturally, I start doing it out loud, using my voice imitation to mimic the raspiest, most off-tune voice I have ever heard. "BABY SHARK, DO DO DOO DO DOO DO DO DO DOO DOO!" I stop there because I forget what's next.

He gets so annoyed by the song that he nods to the guard that is next to me, the one who put on my handcuffs, to knock me out.

My last thoughts are that if they take off my mask while I'm out, this can turn into a battle where the good guys don't win. And that we can't afford.

I always knew this song would be my downfall.

(+)

I wake up in a dark room. Gray walls, gray ceiling, hard gray--You call this a bed?--gray bars--Bars?

The first thing I notice: my mask is still on. And I have a dagger in my leg. Yes, it's still there. What the heck.

All the secret agencies and organizations I've had to deal with--Hydra, AIM, ARMOR, Cadre K, SWORD--I know that if they leave you alone, it's not just them leaving you alone. It means they're planning something bigger.

I sit up and look around me. It's all dark and gray, the only bits of dull light coming in through the shafts between the bars. My crutch lays in the corner of this dim, lifeless room.

I pull the dagger out of my leg, and blood starts pouring out of the wound, creating a small pool of red  on this slab of metal I'm lying on.

I try to swing my legs over the side of the bed, wincing and deciding not to do so when a sarp stab of agony shoots up my right leg. Sighing, I flop back onto the metal--Let's call it a goddamn table, because that's all it really is.

A fucking metal table with a flat-ass pillow. I stare up at the ceiling above me, where four rectangular tiles meet, thinking of the old Earth. I wonder if anyone I knew is still alive. How my friends died.

How I left that world like a coward.

Yet I can't bring myself to call it home--not even when it's almost destroyed, I can't call it home, because I was hurt by so many people there.

But there were people who helped me, truly. And now they're gone.

I wonder how long I've been gone from home. Where Dad and Pepper are. I wonder if Fury told them everything, or if they think I'm dead, or worse.

"Hello. You're quite annoying, has anyone you that?" I hear a smooth voice; turn to see a tall figure standing outside the cell.

"I know. And I don't need people to tell me what I tell myself and take pride in every day," I retort. "Where am I?"

"And you really expect me to tell you that?" he chuckles evilly.

"Where am I?" I repeat, this time softly, imitating a voice I've not heard in years--Frigga's voice. 

Call me evil, call me manipulative--Maybe I am. But I have to get out of here, fast.

And I know it's cruel, and I'm a horrible person for it, but if I can't get Loki to tell me where I am by asking nicely, then sometimes you have to play a trick on the trickster himself.

Loki stops--I see him go bone-white--and he opens his mouth to tell me, until he remembers I'm not actually Frigga.

Maybe I'm the villain in this story.

I stand up, ignoring the pain in my leg. Then I try to teleport to the other side of these bars--but I can't, because when I try, a searing flame devours the skin from my back to my neck. That's what it feels like, at least.

And the magic or the flames or whatever you'd like to call it? They're not his. No, the flame is seeping out of my fingertips and wrapping itself around my body, burning till I scream, and scream, and--

I collapse on the floor of my cell, convulsing and writhing in agony as the tendrils of fire lick at my skin.. My blood starts to form a large pool around me on the floor now, same as the bed was at first, soaking my suit in warm liquid.

I crawl painstakingly across the floor and grab the dagger, which is lying in the pool of blood, but is halfway across the cell, about four feet away. That's how big the pool of blood has gotten. Shit.

Blood dripping from my chin, I don't look to see Loki's reaction when I attempt to cut my throat with shaking hands. Nor do I care. All I care about is ending this pain. And I should have ended it long ago.

Because it feels like every movement, every breath, now every second of my existence, of the rest of my life will be in this excruciating pain. Like it will never go away, ever.

So, no, I don't stop myself from arcing the knife in an almost-graceful, yet jagged motion and slicing the flesh of my throat.