Chapter Text
Never before, in all her years, had she thought it possible to hate a living thing with the fury and passion she hated him with.
If given the time, Maleficent could fill a book with all of the crimes King Stefan had committed for which she hated him so dearly. On the top of the list would be him stealing her wings as she slept. She had trusted him, with her life no less. They had been in love, and those years had been the happiest of her life. But alas, they had been a lie.
Scratch the whole wing thing being on the top of her list, surely him making her fall in love was his worst crime. He had wickedly gained her trust over the years, merely for him to be rewarded with a king's position after capturing her wings, leaving her with the raw end of the deal.
So naturally, a plan of revenge was in order.
Some may label her 'dramatic' whereas others may say 'evil genius,' but above all else, Maleficent saw herself as a creature of love. Yearning to love and to be loved, that's all she ever really wanted.
Well, that, and power, if she's being honest.
So when she made the decision to curse King Stefan's first born daughter, admittedly power was the only goal ringing in her ears at the time. Her search for love, and all of its benefits and consequences, was put on hold to say the least.
So there she was, right after her beautifully dramatic entrance (which had taken weeks of planning, thank you very much. Green fire and trained crows did not come cheap).
"I must say," said Maleficent, "I really felt quite distressed not receiving an invitation."
"You're not welcome here," spat King Stefan. Who did he think he was?
Always willing to try plan B, Maleficent gave him one of her signature pouts and put on her glossiest puppy eyes. Even the slightest bit of remorse from the King would have had the potential to spare him and his family from what she was about to do next.
He was unmoved.
Maleficent giggled. "Oh dear," she continued, "What an awkward situation."
"And, you're not offended, your Excellency?" Queen What's-Her-Face dared to speak to her. Maleficent's patience was running out at an alarmingly fast rate.
"Why no your Majesty," cooed Maleficent. "And to show I bear no ill-will, I too, shall bestow a gift onto the child."
And the rest was history. It all came in a blur, more or less. Before Maleficent fully knew what she was saying, she was cursing the child to die on her sixteenth birthday. Death by spinning wheel: how anti-climatic.
Not one to let it show when she's in the wrong, Maleficent promptly left, in an exit even more expensive and dramatic than the entrance, cackling all the while as if all had gone according to plan. But in reality, she had never meant to wish death upon the poor child, she had initially planned for her well-being to be used as a bargaining chip. Her original curse went along the lines of 'Give me back my wings or else your daughter will have the plague for a year' or something along those lines.
But eh, it was too late now.
So Maleficent retreated, back into her forest, knowing good and well that the king would send armies of soldiers after her, if he hadn't already summoned them. Even though she possessed the magic to kill all of them, she wasn't in the mood to deal with them, however, and so she kept walking towards the other side of her forest. She had never wandered this far into her forest before, and as she gazed around at the beauty the scenery held, she wondered what had been stopping her.
Magnificent flowers of an unknown species littered the ground and even covered some of the trees around her. They were all different hues and seemed to be a source of light all their own. She was thankful for them, thankful for one light source on a night with no moon and few stars. She walked until she arrived at a clearing, which held a waterfall, and she had never seen a more splendid one. A feeling of tranquility washed over her, and her body was drawn to the water.
She came closer, and closer, until she finally reached it. She crouched down and immediately submerged her hands into the cool liquid, and felt as though the water cleansed not only her skin, but her soul. She had never felt water such as this before. Surely, she had stumbled across a fountain of youth. Excited by her discovery, she cupped some of the magic water into her hands, and brought it up to her lips.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Maleficent shot up and whipped her head around in search of the source of the voice. She had been sure she was alone.
"Who goes there?" She masterfully kept the tremble out of her voice. It would have been a rookie mistake to let the unidentified voice know that she was afraid. "State your name and purpose."
Her command was met by a snicker, and then the voice continued from a point behind her.
"You are an adorable creature, m'lady. Has anyone ever told you that?"
She turned around and headed in the direction of the voice, but stopped before she set foot back into the forest. She thought it unwise to retreat back into the place where the unknown threat was, when it obviously seemed uncomfortable coming out into the clearing.
"I'm going to give you until the count of three to reveal yourself. One..."
"Count all you want, that's never worked on me."
"Two..."
"You should know, I take orders from no one." The voice appeared in a different location each time it spoke.
"Thr-"
"Ok, ok." The voice was directly behind her now.
Maleficent spun around and came face to face with a man, who was mere inches away from her, bearing what appeared to be a golden horned helmet and donning a green robe. "Just as I suspected," he continued, staring unashamedly at her, "Absolutely gorgeous." His long, black hair went down to his shoulders, and his face was twisted into a cocky smile that she immediately hated. She hated it so much that she wanted to punch that grin right off his face.
And so she did.
One good swing and she connected her knuckle right into one of his sharp cheekbones. It felt good to get some of her anger out, to say the least.
"Ow!" yelled the weird, helmet guy, grabbing his cheek. "What was that for?"
"Stalking me, for one thing. Just be thankful I didn't do a lot worse." She put her hands on her hips defiantly.
"Well pardon me for saving your life, Miss!"
Maleficent furrowed her brow. "What?" Saving her life? At most, he was a potential threat to it.
"Yeah!" He pointed at the waterfall with the hand not grabbing his cheek. "That water is poisoned! You could have died!"
She folded her arms in disbelief and scoffed. "And how do you know? Hmm? Oh let me guess, you're the one who poisoned it." She rolled her eyes, this guy obviously had no idea what he was talking about.
Instead of defending himself, the long haired man instead looked down to the ground and muttered "Well, it was an accident."
Maleficent couldn't believe her ears. "You did poison it!" She punched him in the shoulder. Hard. "You imbecile! Do you know how many animals drink from here? How many plants absorb this water?" Although it probably didn't seem like it to King Stefan and the rest of her kingdom of enemies, she did truly care for her forest and the inhabitants inside of it.
"Ow! Stop hitting me! I'm going to fix my mistake, ok? Goodness gracious you hit hard."
After realizing there was no possible way that this big baby was any type of a threat, it became easier to speak with him. "And how do you plan to do that?" She crossed her arms again, awaiting an answer.
"If you would be so kind as to give me a moment," he said, taking a step back. "I would gladly retrieve my crystal from your pitiful body of water and then be on my way." He turned so swiftly that his robe made a satisfying swish behind him.
Thank goodness, thought Maleficent, I've found someone more dramatic than me.
She watched as the man reached into the pool of water, splashed around for a bit, and then revealed a blue, crystal-like cube. He then proceeded to withdraw a stick from under his robe and place the crystal into the opening of it. Maleficent thought the whole thing quite silly.
"Well," said the grown man who still played with crystals and sticks, "give this source of water at least 24 hours to cleanse itself, and it should be good as new."
"Wh-what is that?" Maleficent said, eyes transfixed on the crystal, suddenly aglow.
"Oh this silly old thing," the cocky smile was back, "Just my Chitauri Scepter, gifted to me by Thanos and the Other." He spun it in the air once, as if it were a baton. "Or were you referring to the Infinity Stone? It's not as awe worthy as you might think, as there are others similar to this one, scattered across the universe."
Maleficent closed her mouth. It had opened in awe towards the magic crystal, but she did not want to give this strange man the satisfaction of impressing her. "But, what is it? What does it do?"
"Well, it all has to do with the Tesseract. You see-" He paused when he saw Maleficent's perplexed expression. "But um, that's a story for another time. Basically, it's a weapon. It has the power to do many things, including mind control-"
"Mind control!"
"Yes, that is what I just said. Hey, where are you going?"
Maleficent quickly turned around and began to run away from the strange man with the hypnotic abilities. She had only recently gotten out of Stefan's hold, she couldn't risk another man putting a spell on her.
"Hey! Miss! Wait!"
She didn't stop running but she did turn her head to see the man chasing after her. "Stop following me!" she yelled. She was back in the forest now, in a part she had never been in before. To make matters worse, the rare, glowing flowers were no where to be seen. She was alone, in the dark, with an odd man in pursuit of her.
"Stop!" she heard him call from somewhere behind her. Thankfully, it sounded as though she had put some good distance in between them.
The second she thought her luck was beginning to change, she felt a sudden yank on her left foot. A piece of rope, seemingly coming from out of no where, sprang around her ankle and pulled her up until she was upside down, hanging from the branch of a tree. When she realized what had happened, she was more humiliated than alarmed. She was getting too old to be caught in such dinky human hunter traps.
And yet, there she was.
When the unfamiliar man finally caught up to her, he was laughing hysterically.
"Was this your doing?" yelled Maleficent. She had had enough of his tricks, accidental or otherwise.
The man abruptly stopped laughing. "What? No! This trap was clearly put together by a novice. I am offended that you think of me as an amateur." This guy apparently had no sense of personal space as he stood face-to-face with her again, even as she hung upside down and swayed side to side slightly.
"Well then how did you know that I shouldn't have been running over here?" Maleficent shot him the best glare she could muster, considering that the blood was rushing to her head.
"I came this way as I searched for my crystal," he explained, "You see, my bonehead brother, Thor, loves to play silly little games that annoy me to no end. One of his favorites being tossing my precious stone onto Midgard and laughing uncontrollably while I attempt to find it." He sighed. "Of course, I do have somewhat of an internal tracking system for things with a magic base, but even that only leads me so far."
Maleficent's face was now a brick red hue as the blood continued to rush to her head. Having nothing kind to say to this strange man, she said nothing at all.
"Oh! But where are my manners?" The man began to make his way around the other side of the tree. Not having him fully in her sight made Maleficent uncomfortable, needless to say. "Allow me to help you down!"
After several seconds of twisting and pulling at whatever sort of knots were keeping her suspended, he finally was able to untie them. Slowly, ever so slowly, he lowered her down. Maleficent, of course, landed on her face regardless, but she appreciated the courtesy of him making the process less painful.
Painful in the physical sense, rather. If he had wanted to make it completely painless then he would've spared her the details of the rant that he spewed all the while. She was hardly listening as he went on about his brother not really being his brother or something, and instead she thought ahead to her means of escape. Judging by how the guy basically chased her down to avoid her running into a trap (and how successful that was) she had evidence to assume that he wouldn't let her go very easily. He seemed like the "white knight" type that she tried so desperately to avoid, and so it was going to be difficult to convince him that she was not some princess that needed saving.
"So of course," he continued, "From then on he's always been daddy's favorite and he will never let me forget it!" He untied the last few knots around her ankle as he ranted."There, that should be the end of that."
Ankle now free, Maleficent scooted away from the man to put in some distance between them, and he shot her a perplexed look. It was as if the notion of her trying to get away from him, still a complete stranger in her eyes, completely baffled him.
How lucky he is, she thought, to not worry about the fears women constantly look out for.
Of course he wouldn't understand, being a man and whatnot. He rarely had to worry about the potential crimes strangers could commit against them, never had to mentally map out escape routes before engaging with the opposite gender.
Maleficent didn't consider herself weak in any sense of the word, but the memory of having her wings taken by a man she had trusted and being unable to do anything about it was a memory all too fresh in her mind. Just the very thought of Stefan's actions made the blood drain from her face.
"Miss? Are you alright?" He took a timid step closer, not wanting to frighten her any more than he probably already had. "You look quite pale. Did- did I do something to scare you?" His voice was gentler now, more gentle than it had been all night.
Maleficent didn't trust it.
"I am terribly sick. And- and I must be getting back to my home immediately." She turned around and began walking briskly, only to stop when she heard footsteps behind her. "Alone." She began walking once more, this time with no echoing footsteps.
In the morning she awoke with a dulled but present pain in her head, her left foot numb, and her ankle irritated. Exactly the proof she needed to prove to herself that she hadn't dreamed the events of last night.
Which is exactly what she didn't want.
She groaned.
How would she be able to go about her daily life knowing that there was a stalker in her midst? A stalker with, albeit, impeccable manners, but a stalker who is also a gentleman is still a stalker. With her luck, he probably followed her home.
Pure panic flooded her system. She probably hadn't been as careful as she should have been with the security of her house. She sprang out of bed and ran to the door, berating herself all the while for being so careless. Where were the 10-foot high thorn walls? Where were the guard wolves? Why hadn't she at least spread hemlock on her windows? Did she want to get kidnapped?
She opened the door, half expecting to see him standing on the other side.
What she found instead, she hadn't been expecting at all.