The Villain

guilt

This was the end.

"The subject's heartbeat fastened. No action required."

Gone. That was it. He was...

'I will come back to you, Tess. I promise.'

And Tessa could only stand here and watch. She was done. With saying goodbye, with losing over and over again. Tired of searching for a purpose. Something worth fighting for.

Destiny ripped it from her either ways.

'You call it destiny, I call it chaos.’ Loki's voice echoed in her mind, and her hands turned into fists.

"The subject seems distressed."

The former soldier's neck hurt when she touched her tattoo instinctively. Still cold as ice.

He was gone. It was over. She was officially... free?

Free of purpose, free of being a soldier. Free of... everything really.

'Freedom is a good thing.', her former commander Adam used to say – he didn't know shit.

Tessa squared her shoulders, trying to get her breath under control. Sad frustration kept her in place. That stupid robot would probably kill her if she moved. Whatever.

"Please don't move. Mr. Stark will be here soon."

Great. Now she had to act all grateful and happy. Like he didn't just disappear right before her eyes. What about her eyes? Were they still blue? Nothing changed.

I should have done something. I could have saved him. I could have saved Ziva. I could have –

'Sweetheart, you know that that's not true...'

I failed you. I...

Footsteps ripped her out of her mind.

Her hands stayed fists and she couldn’t fake a simple smile, the new loss draining her too much.

"It's over.", Tony said, carefully approaching her.

Oh hell, yes. It was over. Everything was over. End of story. Why not just –

She swallowed, shaking her head lightly to get rid of her thoughts – as if that could ban them.

Tony looked at her, she stood there like a statue; beaten by life, changing weather, rain, snow and time. Beaten by a god himself.

The cold blue in her eyes a static, gruesome mirror of horrors survived and yet to come.

All that made it hard to ice his stare away from her, heavy guilt forcing him to stay, to look at her, to not leave her to herself, to not leave.

She was a gruesome reminder of his failure, and if he was being completely honest, Tony wanted to never see her again. A couple of years ago, he would have cut her out of his life, act like she didn’t exist, just like all the people his weapons killed didn’t exist for him. But he had changed.

Becoming Iron Man had changed him.

He walked up to her, not sure yet what to do, but Tessa took a different decision, taking a step away from him and the suit he had left to guard her.

She didn’t want him near her – and Tony couldn’t help but understand why. Sure, she acted friendly before – but after all Tony still believed himself partly responsible for how horribly she must feel now, magic inside her.

"Thor said, you will be fine again soon.", Tony supplied, not sure what else was there to say.

She didn't react, still looking at the place where Thor and Loki stood only minutes ago.