Chapter Text
I feel the familiar grip of the screwdriver in my hands, the uneven pressure of the tip as I carve and drag it across the thin film.
It’s no longer a tranquil beach view, it’s now tainted with betrayal, hurt and suffering.
“WARD IS HYDRA” it reads, as I give a final jab and shove the screwdriver into the corner, concealing the pain, the message, the sunset.
I jab the image over and over again, scraping the tip along the colours so it bleeds ache and hollowness.
Only I’m not carving the wall anymore, but instead the words and fake window fall and fade. I’m not carving a wall; I’m carving my arm.
Angry red lines snake all around my wrist up to my shoulder, betrayal, hollowness, suffering, hurt and pain leak from the cuts pooling to the floor and coating my jeans, making them feel warm and sticky.
I feel my betrayal with each new line, every cut, scrape and damage I have ever caused my team. I don’t even remember how I found a blade or even when I made the first slice, all I remember is the memory of him and that night.
The blade drops from my hand making a dink sound when it hits the concrete. I’m numb, my face stoic and body still. I simply just stare at the wall in front of me, whether hours or seconds have past I just stare at it, like I’m in a trance. It’s as though someone has stripped all emotion from me and left me bare, like I’m lying naked in the snow and death is ready to claim me.
An experience long forgotten and a memory long supressed rises to the surface in lieu of this feeling. It plays like a movie on the wall, I’m twelve, it’s January, I watch myself walk down the sidewalk, head down and fingers red. A thin coat and ratty hat is the only thing standing between me and frost bite. I hears footsteps behind me, and I know what’s coming, but this is a memory, and I’m powerless to stop it. My knees hit the sidewalk and my face is shoved into the snow, I hear laughing and taunts, from Mark and his gang of bullies, I should have taken a different route home. I should have known they would be waiting; I should have never made myself such easy prey for him, but there I was, face first in the snow while my backpack was torn to shreds and everything I had ever owned, and I meant everything, was scattered across the street.
As a foster kid you learned to travel light and with all your belongings because you never knew when you were going to be ripped from one placement and put in another that maybe didn’t have a toothbrush or pants your size. If you were sent back to St. Agnes, they sure as hell weren’t going to give you the right stuff either, so that’s how my underwear was being paraded around the street on some idiots head while my tears froze to my face and my lungs were crushed under another’s boot. I don’t even remember what I did to provoke Mark and his friends to make my life hell for 3 months, but simply just existing was a good enough reason for most people, and because of that, they left my lying in the snow nearly butt naked just because they could.
I had never felt so utterly alone in that moment, until it became a constant feeling that never went away and haunted me until the day, the day I became a Shield agent. After that, the feeling came and went, when I felt like I had no one but myself. But now, now I think this was the first time since that day in January I realized how really alone I was, as I stared at the wall, blood still dripping from my arm.
It seemed like the world was whipping by as I starred at the wall, noticing every detail, a crack here, a chip there. The world felt like it was speeding up while I faded away.
I felt empty. Like I had no purpose. At some point my arm was bandaged and my blade taken away. It might have happened just now or days ago. Time was lost to me.
Of course, Fitz would say, this wasn’t entirely possible, as time cannot be lost, but thinking of him and Simmons, and Mack and Yo-Yo made this thought too heavy to bare.
I couldn’t think of them, not here. Not when I’m in this hellhole.
The door abruptly slid open with two guards walking in, mirroring each other on the inside of the frame. Someone walked in behind them, he was dressed military style with an empty gun holster accompanying his black t-shirt. It was Ward who had strutted in behind them. I tried to stand and hold out my arm to quake the shit out of them, only to find myself tripping over myself and tumbling to the floor in a heap.
Laughing echoed around my head like an auditorium, my sliced arm burning and tearing open again.
I took a chance and glanced down, but I found no markings of my cuts. Posh leather boots so came to focus in my vision. Looking up I could see Ward’s bastard face smiling with so much pleasure it made me sick.
Crouching beside me he murmured something that my ears couldn’t quite make out. My head then started ringing, softly like bells at first, that grew louder and louder until it felt like my head was being fucking split open. The pain grew and suddenly I couldn’t think, every thought, noise and breathe felt like I was being ripped in two. Every fiber of my being, every cell was rattling me to my core. The sound crescendo and I held my head so tightly that it seemed like it would pop as easily as a pimple. I wanted to scream, to claw at my head, begging for the noise and pain to end. I longed for my empty feeling, of time escaping my grasp. God, I want this to FUCKING END! I clawed at my face and hair, pulling away chunks of blood and skin, hoping I could end this pain before it got worse, and when it seemed like my eyes would pop and my head explode, everything went eerily silent, and I was alone.
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I woke up to the cold darkness, drowning me in her heaviness. I could feel the searing pain of my scratches on my face and the running of blood, but somehow, I knew, that the moment my hand touched my face, there would be nothing there. Not a single scratch, scab or scar would be there, marking what had happened. Like my arm, it would be like nothing had ever happened, like I never wanted to die so badly I was ready to claw out my own brain.
“However impossible that might be” I could hear Jemma saying, “at most you would have damaged your eyes but, however irrational your brain might have been being, you would have stopped or passed out from that amount of pain”.
I chuckled at the thought, damn I missed her, I missed my family. I wanted them, as much as I didn’t want to admit to myself, hell, I needed them. I didn’t know where I was or how I got there, all I knew was I was awake, and cold, and utterly alone.
A small hiss caught my attention, pulling me from my living nightmare. I aimlessly crawled around looking for the source, only to have my body fail me and collapse. I felt paralyzed, I tried to claw my way towards the sound, but it was gone, and my hand hadn’t moved in the slightest.
Searing light entered the room blinding me, a single figured outlined in the doorway that grew bigger until one person became nine. Each armed with heavy gear, a baton and loaded guns. They moved in an effortless formation, not giving a second glance or batting an eye of acknowledgement of my presence. Every inch of my body was frozen only not from fear, I had no movement, not even a muscle twitched. I was left at the totally mercy of those who had just entered.