Blind

Kennedy’s eyelids fluttered apart slowly until she was staring up at the ceiling. This wasn’t her apartment and it sure as hell wasn’t the plane they had taken to Germany. Her wrists and ankles were strapped down to the table she was on. She gave a few experimental tugs at the restraints.

“Fuck,” she muttered, teeth grinding together.

For several long minutes she seriously debated about dislocating her thumb so that she could slide it free of the restraints. She was halfway to trying that when the sound of a door opening reached her ears. Her eyes shut and she feigned unconsciousness as she waited for whatever doctor it was to go away.

The area overhead darkened considerably, letting her know that someone was standing over her. Kennedy cursed whoever it was, wanting them to leave. Now. After a moment, she felt a pair of strong hands undoing the binding on her wrists. Idiot.

She didn’t move until both of her feet were free. Quickly she lashed out with her legs, different colored eyes opening at the same time. She didn’t expect to see Steve standing there. He just moved out of the way of her kick, letting her roll from the table as he did so.

Kennedy crumpled on the floor, her ribs smarting so much that she saw black spots for several long seconds. With one arm curled around her ribcage, she laid on the floor of the room and gasped in shallow breaths. Her right hand was curled into a fist and pressed firmly against the floor.

Breathing through her nose, she pressed her forehead against her arm and closed her eyes. The pain radiating across her torso was nauseating. For several long minutes she felt like she was going to vomit. She dry-heaved a few times in those minutes.

“Just relax, it’ll pass,” Steve murmured, his hand brushing her bicep.

“Don’t touch me!” Kennedy snarled, lashing out while simultaneously scrambling away from him.

She pressed herself back into a corner, watching him with distrust and hatred. Her arm remained wrapped protectively around herself while she eyed him. To his credit, he didn’t try to creep closer and just raised his hands in an “I-mean-no-harm” gesture. In fact, he took a few steps back.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said finally, “or hurt you.”

Kennedy ignored him as she tried to deal with the pain in her torso. Her ribs had been rewrapped, that much she could tell. Her hands had been as well. Her tongue was sore from where she’d bitten it but wasn’t swollen. Thankfully.

When she lost the overwhelming urge to vomit and was sure that she wouldn’t faint if she tried to stand, Kennedy slowly climbed to her feet. Even then, she wobbled unsteadily for a moment or two. But she didn’t crumple back to the floor, which was an accomplishment.

Though she wasn’t scared of Steve, Kennedy kept up the charade that she didn’t trust him. That she didn’t know what was going on, that she was beginning to panic. She wanted to see how it would play out. Considering her luck, it might even prove beneficial to her.

“Who are you? Where am I?” she hissed, eyeballing him warily.

Her eyes glanced around the room anxiously as she remained pressed into the corner, curled in on herself. When he shifted, she jumped and pressed further back. His hands rose slowly again, gesturing that he wasn’t going to hurt her while his blue eyes watched her. She made sure to keep her hair slightly covering her face.

“My name’s Steve, we’ve met before,” Steve explained as he kept his voice soothingly low. “You’re in the infirmary of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. You have some broken ribs.”

Her mind flashed back to the logo on Barton’s jacket as she leaned into her corner of the room.

“Do you know why you’re here?” he asked quietly.

Biting her lip, Kennedy stared at him for several moments before looking to the floor. She made her breathing shorten, made it become panicky as leaned against the wall. Her hands knotted in her hair, tugging on the dark strands as she gasped in air. The gasps irritated her ribs enough that tears began to well in her eyes.

“I didn’t….he said…” she gasped, trembling and dry-heaving as the crying and lungfuls of oxygen got the best of her.

Her arms were shaking, her head throbbing from how tightly she was pulling on her own hair. Kennedy dug her teeth into her lower lip as hard as she could until the skin split. The metallic taste of blood bubbled slowly into her mouth when she noticed Steve moving closer.

“Don’t touch me!” Kennedy shrieked at him.

She flung herself away from him, stumbling, and towards the door of the room. The heel of her balled fist struck the glass pane sharply, repeatedly, in a panicked attempt to get it open. Kennedy kicked at it, screaming for anyone to let her out.

“You’re going to hurt-” was all Steve got out as he wrapped a hand around her bicep to stop her.

The moment his hand closed around her arm, she turned and lashed out at him. Her hand caught his face, short nails raking across his skin. Temporarily distracted, he let go of her arm and she was across the room again, curled in on herself.

Kennedy shook all over, her arms wrapped around her drawn-up legs as she rocked ever so slightly. Her forehead was pressed to her knees and she muttered incomprehensible things under her breath. The act of gasping in breaths of air and muffled sobbing doubled with the pain radiating from her broken ribs was enough to cause her to double over and dry-heave several times.

Forcing herself back up into a sitting position, Kennedy’s head lolled back against the wall. Her mismatched eyes drifted shut as she swallowed, body slumped in exhaustion. She still trembled as her lip continued to bleed and her ribs continued to pulsate in pain.

She was aware of Steve lowering himself to sit on the wall as well though he was a few feet away from her. He didn’t try to move closer though Kennedy curled into herself as much as she could. A few hot tears continued to slip out from beneath her close eyelids as she slumped there against the wall.

“Can I ask why you did it?”

Her eyes opened, staring up at the steel grey of the ceiling. She licked droplets of blood from her lips while her teeth picked at the torn skin there. That pain was almost as sharp as the grating pain that came from her torso every time she drew in or exhaled a breath.

“He wasn’t controlling you. They said you were working for him willingly,” Steve continued when she didn’t answer.

“If that’s the truth, then why are you here?” Kennedy asked shakily, her voice rough. “Why am I here instead of being tortured?”

She could practically hear Steve hesitate before he answered her. “They wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Kennedy let out a short bark of a laugh, grimacing as it jolted her ribs. Her eyes squeezed shut, real tears of pain slipping out. Gritting her teeth together, she let her breath hiss out slowly like a deflating balloon.

“This isn’t NYPD where they read me some Miranda rights and then pretend they didn’t rough me up,” Kennedy gasped through clenched teeth. “I was conscious when you ordered someone to bring me here anyways.”

“Maybe if you’re honest-”

“Honest?” she snorted, eyes closing. “Honesty doesn’t mean shit in war. I give them what they want, they lock me up somewhere. I don’t, they lock me somewhere anyways.”

“Why aren’t you scared? Because according to you, either way this goes down, so do you.”

Licking her lips again, Kennedy slowly tilted her head so that she was looking at Steve. She gave him the deadest, most blank stare that she could. Her body trembled again and she winced as her ribs spasmed.

“Because I’m already dead,” Kennedy shrugged, her voice falling flat and emotionless.

“Loki can’t get to you,” Steve said, frowning slightly as he shifted a little closer. “He’s locked up.”

“For now.”

She rolled her head back to where it had been so that she was staring at the ceiling again. Swallowing, Kennedy closed her eyes slowly before opening them again.

“He said he would kill them; my parents, my sister. If I didn’t go along with him, if I didn’t work with him, he would kill them,” she murmured, discreetly applying pressure to her ribs to make her eyes water once more. “He said he’d make me watch, tie me up and force me to watch as he killed them. He would even let me ‘help’, let me put the bullet in their brains. And then he’d do the same to me.”

The sob that slipped out was easy enough to half-way fake. She just had to think about Freyja dying. Freyja had lied to her, betrayed her. But she was still Kennedy’s sister. Even if the pain was still fresh and Kennedy was angry with her, the years they had shared together were enough to make her still care about her sister.

She was well aware that Steve had moved closer to her. She didn’t react though until he gently reached out and rested his hand on her shoulder. Flinching away slightly, she turned a wary, red-eyed stare onto him.

“Sorry, sorry,” Steve murmured, lifting his hands. “If you tell the director the truth, he’ll listen to you.”

“He’s not going to care!” Kennedy cried, shaking her head. “I could tell you everything I know but it won’t do me any good! They won’t believe me!”

“You were trying to protect your family!” Steve argued.

With another shake of her head, Kennedy staggered to her feet on unsteady legs. She pushed herself away from the wall, arm curling around her ribcage. Her hand gripped the table that she had been lying on for balance.

“So you’re just going to run away from the truth?” he continued, grabbing her bicep and turning her around.

Kennedy struggled to loosen his grip to no avail. “After everything I’ve done, I deserve what’s coming!”

“You don’t deserve what they’re going to do to you! You don’t deserve what’s been done to you! Whatever you’ve done…” he shook his head, “you don’t deserve any of this.”

Biting her lip, Kennedy just shook her head. She looked to the ground and swallowed, another tremble racing along her body. Her bicep throbbed from how tightly he was gripping it.

“I deserve it. I still hurt innocent people,” she murmured softly, looking back up to his face. “There are kids who are never going to see their mom or their dad again. Someone’s child or parent is dead because of me. I deserve this.”

“No one deserves to be forced to do something against their will. And they don’t deserve those repercussions.”

A wry, bitter smile tugged at Kennedy’s lips briefly. “That’s the great American legal system at work, ain’t it great?”

Of course, she didn’t know if S.H.I.E.L.D. had to play by the American legal system rules or if they just did whatever they wanted. She had a feeling that it was the latter over the former. Organizations like this didn’t play by any rules but their own.

Licking more drops of blood from her lips, she reached up and shakily brushed her black from her face. Steve’s hand was still wrapped around her bicep, the grip bruising but not capable of breaking the bone. She didn’t think he even realized how tight he was holding her arm. Her hand was starting to go numb though.

“Steve…my arm,” Kennedy murmured, glancing up to his face.

He blinked, as if just realizing that he was gripping her arm. Steve unwound his fingers quickly, dropping his firm grip on her arm.

“Sorry…sorry,” he murmured as he ran a hand through his blonde hair. “I forgot.”

“It’s fine…I…I’m sure I’ll go through worse,” she shrugged, wincing once more at the white-hot pain that flashed across her ribs.

Steve looked back at her, his blue eyes watching her from beneath a furrowed brow. For a slight fear of looking guilty, Kennedy held his gaze for a few moments. Her chest rose slowly as she inhaled, unable to tear her gaze from his. After a moment longer, she stretched up and kissed him.

Surprisingly, he didn’t jerk away. He didn’t push his luck either, just kissed her back. They both pulled away quickly though. Kennedy turned away, stopping short as she saw Natasha standing in the doorway.

“Well…that was interesting.”

Fuck.