Paradigm Shift | By : AlexPhoenix Category: Marvel Verse Movies > Avengers, The Views: 4077 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1 |
Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Marvel/Thor/Avengers universes. The only thing I own is Alex, Ronan, and their actions/thoughts. This is all for fun; not monetary values. |
Chapter 6: An Unwelcome Conversation
I rummaged through my dresser drawers in search of some clothes for Loki to wear. I came up with a pair of old, black sweatpants and a gray t-shirt, both of which used to belong to a much less muscular Ronan. Stacking the shirt on top of the pants, I sped past Loki's still open door to place the bundle of fabric on the bathroom counter. I was too tired to hold back the unjustified emotions the man evoked in me, and would much rather deal with him when my brain wasn't fogged by exhaustion. Whose idea was it to go out into the desert in the middle of the night, again? Oh, that's right. Mine!
I slipped my fingers into my hair, ruffling the near-black strands as my booted feet clomped into the kitchen. Opening a cabinet to grab a glass, I yawned, my mouth stretching open wide enough that I probably looked like a hippo. Maybe being a hippo would be better than being a twenty-four year old bartender that worked at a dumpy pub. I really needed a new job. Or maybe a new life. Nah. The whole "new life" thing didn't work out well the last few times I'd tried it, so what would make it work another time? I filled the glass up with tap water as I considered the pros and cons of starting anew in Ireland, and drank the cool liquid down in four big gulps.
I stuck the glass upside down in the sink strainer, resigning myself to collapsing on my bed and slipping into a mini-coma. Being dead to the world for a few sweet hours sounded marvelous. I wouldn't have to worry about my brain digging itself further into the gutter than it already was. It was already in there pretty deep, and attractive men never helped anything. I wouldn't have to worry about Loki killing me, because in Dreamland I wouldn't give two shits about dying. And, I wouldn't have to worry about my poor baby and her divorced timing belt. I wouldn't have to worry about anything except for my sleep cycles.
Deplorably enough, my luck wasn't that great. My phone rang in the pocket of my jeans. Bif Naked's "Abandonment" blasted through the small speakers. I stopped dead in my tracks in the center of my living room. My numb fingers automatically dug into my pocket to wrap around the fragile chunk of plastic and microchips. I pulled it out, my thumb clicking the answer button without asking my brain for permission first. I’m entirely uncertain as to why I answered the phone. That song was assigned to a specific number for the sole purpose of me not picking up the phone when that number called. Again, I never claimed to be intelligent. I swallowed around a rock made up of fear and anger that had lodged itself in my throat, working myself up to speaking now that my body had defied my brain.
"Hi, Mom," I said into the receiver. My voice sounded so muted to my own ears that it was like someone on the other side of the window was talking.
A sweet soprano voice chirped through the other side of the phone. "Hi, honey! Oh, I can't tell you how much I've missed hearing your voice!"
I could tell her how much I didn't miss hearing hers. My mother's voice was so high that it could awaken dead dogs that were buried five miles away. I was pretty sure that she got attacked by random animals on a regular basis, simply because they were sick of having to hear the high pitched frequencies that spewed from her face hole.
"How are you?" she asked, her voice sweet enough to rot my teeth.
"How did you get this number?" I asked, coolly. I blatantly ignored her question. I blatantly ignored the fear that twisted my stomach into a braid. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I shoved the fear down into my toes, leaving only anger behind to govern my actions.
"That doesn't matter, dear. Your father and I miss you so much!" she replied.
"That's fascinating," I said. My tone was emotionless. Those two simple words were a barren wasteland, conveying everything she ever needed to know about my feelings for both her and my father. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, she only had enough intelligence to comprehend how to buy beer and lay on guilt trips, and anything beyond that was rocket science.
"I wouldn't say it's fascinating, but it is sad. Alexandria, you've been gone for so long. We're just lost without our baby girl," she said. Her voice was caught somewhere between a whine and forced heartache. She was losing her manipulative touch in my absence.
While she was laying on the miniature guilt trip, I was trying to not puke the contents of my stomach onto my carpet. She insisted on using my full first name, and I loathed it. I'd dumped the girly name of Alexandria, and the forced preppy persona that went with it, at the Florida/Alabama border when I was eighteen. My mother had always wanted a prissy little girl who would wear pink skirts, get her nails done, and be the pinnacle of lady-like behavior. I'd decided that that idea could get fucked up the ass with a rusty chainsaw and no lube. She'd hated it. I hadn't cared.
When I tuned back in to BitchTalk Radio, my mother said, "When are you coming home, Alexa?"
I gritted my teeth so hard that I was surprised they didn't chip under the pressure. If Alexandria was the tyrannical equivalent of Fidel Castro, then Alexa was the tyrannical equivalent of Hitler. At least Alexandria sounded regal and queen-like. Alexa was a preppy thirteen year old with a frothy pink dress and a superiority complex the size of Alaska. I swallowed the bile that had risen in my throat, turning to fiddle with the trinkets on the entertainment center in an attempt to give my mind something to think about other than how my stomach was violently lurching in my abdomen.
I dragged my right index finger over a miniature Gibson SG replica, and said "How about never? Does never work for you?"
Her frustrated huff blew through the line. "No," she said, her voice lowering the way only a vexed mother knew how, "it does not work for me."
"Too bad. 'Cause that's what's been workin' for me the past six years," I said wryly.
"Alexandria Marie, you co-"
"How did you get my number?" I asked, cutting off her irritatingly squeaky voice.
"I told you. It isn't important," she quickly replied. It was important, and she damn well knew it. When I'd hightailed it out of Florida, I'd told only three people how to contact me. These people were only allowed to call me if my parents were called home to be with their maker. A maker who went by the name of Satan the Dickbag. The only reason any of those three people would ever give over my information to my parents was if my parents had kidnapped and tortured them for the entire six years that I was gone. I'd told those three friends exactly how I would brutally destroy their very souls if they ever relinquished my information over to the enemy. Looked like I was going to have to learn to like prison orange.
I opened my mouth to ask her again. My dad's furious voice in the background forced my question out of existence.
"Tell her dumb ass to git home right fuckin' now, or I'm gon' kill 'er!" he growled in his thick, Southern drawl.
"Because that's gonna make me want to hop on the next plane to Sunshine State!" I said sarcastically, a bitter grin pulling my lips against my teeth.
"He means well, honey. We both do. You know that," my mom said, turning her Charm Dial up to a thousand and a half.
"I did not know that," I said, moving away from my entertainment center. My shark grin faded as I paced around the living room. I kept my eyes on the floor so I didn't bump my shin into the coffee table. "When did either of you start meaning well? Last year? The year before?"
"We've always meant well. Ever since you were a little girl, we've only wanted the best for you," she said. Her voice sounded cottony, like someone had shoved a pillow up each of her nostrils. She had turned on the crocodile tears. I really was going to puke.
"And, let me guess. The 'best for me' was beating me into submission? No, wait! The best for me must've been when Dad threw me into a wall and wailed on me until you were forced to take me to the emergency room," I said, dryly. My free hand absently rubbed itself over my ribcage. Once upon a time, my dad had physically assaulted me to the point that the doctors thought it was a miracle that I was even alive. My right lung had been punctured, seven ribs broken, both of my legs broken, my skull had been fractured, and my left arm had been broken in two different places. When the doctors asked what had happened, my father had claimed that a group of girls had attacked me in the sideyard of our house. In reality, he'd snapped at me because I'd told him that Freddie Mercury was better than Frank Sinatra.
"You know better than to make him mad, sweetie. Sometimes, I honestly think you like making him mad," my mother chided, her voice as sweet as fresh cotton candy. Any hint of sadness had been effectively replaced with patronization.
"Yeah. Because nothing says 'fun' like intentionally provoking your psycho father into using your spine as an ashtray," I replied sardonically. A bitter smile curved my lips up once again.
"You were a wayward child. You never did anything we asked of you," she huffed into the phone. "We had to force you into line somehow." She was damn lucky I couldn't reach through the phone and stab her in the eye with a fork.
"Oooh, no, no, no," I said, wiggling a finger in the air like she could see me. "I did everything you asked and more. You got pissed because I had opinions other than yours, and you couldn't handle that I was smarter than you. So, you and dad did exactly what shitty fuckin' parents do, and kicked my ass when I didn't agree with your idiocy."
"Alexandria Marie O'Connor! Do not use that kind of language!" she shouted. Her tone was one of motherly scolding. That was one, of many things, that she had no right to do to me.
"Dad uses those same words on a minute-by-minute basis and said he'd kill me, yet you tell me not to use a few cuss words? You are really fucked in the head. You know that, Ma?"
"How dare you?!" she screeched. I resisted the urge to pull the phone away from my ear and dump it in a sink full of water. Maybe that would make her voice more tolerable. Probably not, though. "How can you say those things to me?!"
"I dare because you're a stupid, hypocritical bitch and I hate you," I replied, bluntly.
Her voice rose about three octaves in an eardrum-rupturing, enraged panic. I was pretty sure that was what dolphins sounded like when they were being stabbed by hot pokers. It skated along my nerves, pooling in my fingers and toes in a fiery tingle that demanded physical action. I wiggled the appendages, trying to tune out her angry babbling before I did something I'd regret. Like hopping on a plane to Florida to silence her incessant squawking forever.
"How dare you say such a thing to me?! I am your mother! I deserve more respect than that, you little-"
"You aren't my mother," I said calmly. I was surprised at how smooth my voice was, despite the fact that anger bubbles were bursting my chest. My mother's trip to her high and mighty throne came to an abrupt halt.
"Y-yes, I am," she stuttered. I'd managed to take the wind out of her narrow-minded sails for once. Good.
"No, you're not. You are an incubator. You carried me for nine months and spat me out, and that is where your mothering ended. Grandma and Grandpa took care of me more than you or dad ever did. The only reason they couldn't get custody of me is because they both died in a car crash before they could call Child Protective Services on your retarded ass. Grandma and Grandpa knew that you weren't fit to raise me. You have such a horrible case of Stockholm syndrome that you think the sperm donor is King Midas, when really he's King Kong. Newsflash, bitch. Everything he touches doesn't turn to gold. It gets destroyed. Like your sanity, for example. That shit crumbled the first time he hit you."
"Shut up!" she yelled. I could almost picture her pale face turning bright red with anger, her full lips pulling back against nicotine-stained teeth, tears pooling in her brown eyes, and a shaky hand pushing back a shock of auburn hair. I grinned, relishing in the thought that she couldn't backhand me this time. For once in her measly life, she had to listen to me.
"You want to know when I am coming home, Mom?" I asked, pausing for a split second to hear her ragged breathing. "When both you and Dad are both dead and buried, that's when. Only when I am able to do the Cha Cha fucking Slide on your god damn graves is when I will ever return to that abysmal state. Don't ever contact me again, or I'll make sure I can act out my fantasy sooner rather than later."
I pulled the phone away from my ear and stabbed my thumb into the red phone icon on the keypad. My entire body thrummed with a deep-seated rage. Bubbles of pure hatred burst in my chest, sending ice water through my veins. Tendrils of blue-white malice wound themselves around the fibers of my muscles, demanding violent action to be taken against everything I touched. Loathing seeped out from the very center of my being to wrap around me in a cold, comforting embrace. It beckoned to me, tried to pull me down into the dark pit of fury that was seated in the middle of my broken soul.
The phone in my hand became like a block of lead: heavy and useless. My fingers turned it over in my palm, trying to decide what to do with the blue box of electronics. My anger couldn't permeate the hard plastic cover. My pain had no use for the device. My body decided to ferociously expel it from my grasp. I whirled around, hurling the cell phone at the wall near the hallway like I was a major league pitcher trying to break a world speed record. Adrenaline pumped through my veins, slowing the world down with crystalline vision. I stared at the carpet, time moving as if it were trying to free itself from a clear molasses, and waited for the crack to reverberate around the room as the phone shattered into a million tiny pieces of circuit boards and splintered plastic. The crack never came. I raised my head to find Loki standing tall in the hallway entrance. Time snapped back to its normal pace, leaving my head reeling from both the sudden drop in adrenaline and the man standing before me.
The gray shirt hugged his lean muscles perfectly, making my mood almost instantly lighten. The black sweatpants were slung low on his thin hips. His black hair was damp, his face was confused, and his long fingers were wrapped around my intact phone. His right arm was still extended out across the wall, where he'd apparently caught the device in midair. He pulled the conveyor of my problems closer to his face, examining it closely before flicking blue eyes up to me.
"You have quite an arm," he said, lowering the phone to his side.
He took a step toward me and my mouth started watering like my saliva glands had a direct line to Niagara Falls. For a split second in time, I completely forgot about my sadistic parents and my abuse-filled childhood. My brain locked on to studying Loki's body, wonderfully pushing the conversation with my mother to the back of my mind. Unlike Ronan, who piled on the bulk like a linebacker, Loki was covered in trim, lean muscle. He was thin, but by no means could he be considered frail. He was basically an Olympian swimmer without the pool or Olympian status.
He took another step toward me, and all of my old problems slammed back to the forefront of my brain, carrying a few new predicaments with them. A few locks of dark hair had broken out of my ponytail as I'd flung the phone at the wall. I smoothed them back with a hand that was still twitching to make holes in the plaster.
Forcing my best fake smile onto my face, I said, "And you're a good catch. Whatever you do, Loki, don't get a phone. They bring out the Randy Johnson in everyone."
He frowned at me, and I couldn't stop a genuine smile from curling my lips up. "He's a baseball pitcher. A damn good one, too."
"Does everyone on Earth idolize him in the same way that you do?" he asked, jiggling the phone once in his hand. He stood in front of me now, the phone suspended in the air in front of his abdomen. He stared down at me with a strange mixture of confusion, admiration, and loathing. The man obviously had no idea on how to pick one emotion and run with it.
"No," I said, slipping the phone out of his fingers. I raked my hand through my hair again and walked around my coffee table to plop down on my couch. The fluffed up cushions caught me without so much as a squeak of springs. I loved that couch. "Not unless they are smart enough to put the phone down before they Hulk smash it."
Loki's lips pulled away from his teeth in a sneer so miniscule that I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't been staring at his mouth. A nanosecond later, his face was back to its previous confusing jumble of feelings. Apparently, he didn't like the Hulk. Maybe he was more of an Iron Man lover. Or, he was the typical male and was in love with the Black Widow. That was the name of the female in the Avengers group, right?
Loki strolled around my coffee table to take a seat next to me on the midnight blue sofa. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together, glancing around his shoulder to look at me. I ignored the eyes that were trying to burrow into my brain in an attempt to steal my private thoughts. I set my phone on the coffee table in the hopes that I wouldn't flip the table in a blind rage within the next few minutes. I wasn't planning on flipping the table. I was actually planning on taking off my combat boots, but sometimes my plans didn't always work out the way I wanted them to. I leaned over to pull up my left pant leg, trying to mentally shake Loki's eyes off of my left temple.
"Why did you not put the phone down?" he asked.
"Because I'm not smart enough," I replied, untying the laces of my boot.
"And are you the only one stupid enough to threaten the voices on the other side of the phone?" he asked.
"Bitch, please," I scoffed, wrinkling my nose. I pulled off my boot and looked at him. He looked insulted that I'd called him a bitch. I was almost tempted to call him a bitch again, just to see what his handsome face would distort into, but decided against it. He'd agreed to not kill me in my sleep, but that didn't mean that he wouldn't change his mind. "Everyone makes a threat over the phone at some point in their life. Very few actually mean it, though."
He shook off the hurt feelings, settling on what I was telling him rather than what I had called him. "I suppose that means that you meant your threat?" he asked.
"Damn skippy, bitchcakes," I said, rolling up my right pant leg. I mentally winced. What was is with me insisting on calling him a bitch?
"Bitchcakes?" he asked, his voice taught with vexation. His accent made the word much sexier than I ever could have, even though he was obviously peeved at my poor choice in syllables.
I looked up from the task of tugging at the second set of bootlaces to flash him a nervously apologetic smile. "Delicious and nutritious," I joked.
"I highly doubt it," he frowned. My smile faded. I looked down at my boots, quickly pulling the laces loose.
"Yeah, well, what do you know?" I mumbled.
Loki shot up, and I almost threw a boot at him. I guess I knew which part of my "fight or flight" response was working tonight. Loki looked furious. His eyebrows were drawn down over blue orbs, which flashed promises of excruciating torment for my insubordination. His lips parted to unleash a rant of his collective knowledge. Maybe he didn't understand sarcasm after all.
"I know far more than you could ever hope to imagine, you dull mortal! I have seen things that you could never imagine, been to places that you do not know exist! I have held raw power in my hands! I am a g-"
"Jesus, Mary, and Jehosephine!" I shouted, shoving myself off of the couch. How in the world could what I said possibly send him into this incredibly unjustified tirade? How in the hell could one person be so full of themselves?
I hobbled over to him, my single combat boot making me walk like a peg-legged pirate. I probably didn't look all that intimidating to him in that instant, but I really didn't care. He had flipped a switch that he did not want in the ON position.
"Calm your tall ass down! I don't give a shit what you've seen. You ever yell at me like that again and you'll be seeing the back of a coroner's van. I'm letting you stay here out of the goodness of my mortal heart. Push me and I'll toss you out into the street so fast that your pretty little head will pop right off your shoulders." I jabbed a finger into his hard chest, shoving him back half an inch. I counted his thoroughly stunned expression, and his meager stumble, as a small victory.
My breathing was shallow, and my throat felt tight. My eyes weren't burning like there was lava in my tear ducts, which meant that I wasn't crying. Good. I hadn't cried since I'd left Florida, and even those had been tears of joy. I'd hate to have my anti-cry winning streak come to an end. I plopped back down on the couch, dragging my fingers through my hair again. I yanked off my boot, letting it slip from my fingers to drop to the floor with a muffled thud.
I did not need this stranger losing his shit when I was already about to lose mine. I didn't need my mother contacting me. I didn't need my past to roll over me like it was a tank and I was a worm. I didn't need the complication of deep emotions and soul shattering pain. I didn't need my new life to be completely ruined by my old life.
My throat tightened again, this time in an attempt to hold back tears. It felt like someone was stabbing a knife into my wind pipe. Pressure built in my tear ducts, begging for release. I could almost hear the rusted pipes calling out to my brain. They wanted to let go of six years of accumulated salt water, agony, and anger. I wouldn't let that happen. I always heard people say that crying was a sign of strength. I'd always felt it was a sign of weakness. It was something people could use against you time and time again. Like my parents had.
Out of my surprisingly clear peripheral vision, I saw Loki sink back down onto the sofa. "I apologize," he said, softly. "You have been very kind to me. Being cruel is no way to repay your generosity."
"You're lucky I didn't punch you in the nose," I said, staring at the books on my entertainment center. "But, I accept your apology."
Quite suddenly, my realized that my head was burning as if someone had wrapped it in a hot towel. I glanced over at Loki to find him staring intently at me.
"What?" I asked. I frowned and leaned away from him a little.
"What is an ashtray?" he asked. My body went painfully rigid. He'd been listening to my horrifically personal conversation with my mother. Or, I had been really loud. My lips were suddenly very dry. I licked them. It didn't help.
"It's uh...it's what people snuff out their cigarettes in. See, cigarettes are basically tobacco leaves wrapped in paper in the shape of a cylinder. People use fire to burn the leaves so they can smoke the cigarettes, and they use an ashtray to hold the ashes and snub out the burning leaves." I explained in way more detail than I had originally intended to, but he had only seem more confused when I'd talked about snuffing out cigs. Now, though, he gave a tiny nod of understanding.
"Your father, did he not burn your skin when he used your spine as an ashtray?" he asked. It was a seemingly innocent question, but it was still one I wasn't willing to answer. Especially when it was asked by a stranger, and I hadn't even told my best friend about my past Floridian life.
I scooped up my boots and stood up, trying my best to be polite as I nodded to the handsome jerk sitting on my couch. "Goodnight, Loki." I turned, making my way toward my room. Loki's voice called after me. I stopped in front of the hallway entrance with my back facing my living room and its sole occupant.
"I did not mean to offend you, but I did hear the conversation rather clearly. I simply want-"
"If you heard the conversation clearly then you can draw your own conclusions as to what was spoken about. I'm not going to talk about it with you, or anyone else. I'll see you in the morning. Sleep well, whenever sleep ends up finding you." I padded my way to the door of my room, calling one last command down the darkened hallway before I slipped into my sanctuary. "Don't burn my house down while I'm sleeping."
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