It Takes an Ocean Not to Break - Chapter Eight
Disclaimer: The BBC owns "Doctor Who" and all related characters; Marvel and Disney own "The Avengers" and all related characters; I own nothing.
Warnings: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Spoilers: "The Avengers" movie, "Doctor Who" seasons 3 and 4, "Torchwood" season 2
Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
The helicopter touched down on Stark Tower’s ruined roof. The monument to Stark’s ego was missing all the letters minus the A from his name on the side.
Standing just outside of the cockpit, Martha surveyed the damaged cityscape of Midtown Manhattan with a frown. Several buildings had chunks missing from the sides, and one or two had been almost leveled, a silent testimony to the battle that had taken place. Even from the air, she could see the bodies of the aliens and their leviathans littering the ground.
Martha hadn’t watched the battle on the Helicarrier; instead, she focused on helping the overtaxed medics onboard. It wasn’t until she heard the cheers that she packed up. With a first aid kit in hand, she made her way to the hanger, checking in on Coulson one last time before she left. He was still unconscious, but his color was looking better than it had been.
Careful to avoid the glass shattered around the landing pad, Martha watched the helicopter take off again, headed for the streets below to start cleaning up the mess. She’d join them to assist with the collection and disposal of alien bodies soon, but she had a promise to keep first. The team would be debriefed later, and another helicopter would take the prisoner and the Tesseract into SHIELD custody.
“Well, look who arrived late to the party. No shawarma for you,” Tony shouted to her, without explanation.
They were all there, beaten and battered-well, except the Hulk-but they were alive. Much like New York City, if she wanted to think metaphorically. Selvig was there, too, seated between Romanov and Clint, his head between his hands and the Tesseract at his feet.
“There’s shawarma?” she asked, walking towards the assembled group. Loki sat at the center, Thor’s hand on his shoulder and the Hulk standing behind him. Loki had managed to reset the smashed nose Martha had given him, but a new array of cuts decorated his pale face.
“There will be, once we make sure Loki’s secure,” Romanov answered, lounging on a destroyed sofa, Loki’s scepter balanced on her knees. “Got you a souvenir, by the way.”
“I can see that,” Martha said, eyeing the weapon as she set her first aid kit on the bar and extracted a pair of gloves. “Although I’m not sure what I’d do with it.” She didn’t really want it, either, but she wasn’t going to say that at this point. Romanov might be joking, after all; it was hard to tell with her.
“It would look nice mounted over a fireplace, all trophy-like,” Stark suggested. “Set it up as a monument to Coulson.”
“Monument?” Martha asked, looking at each of the Avengers.
“Because he died, Martha,” Steve answered quietly, breaking the awkward pause that followed Martha’s question. “You were there.” Everybody looked at her: Thor in confusion, Steve and Tony in pity, Romanov and Clint with shuttered expressions, and Loki in bored curiosity. It was difficult to tell what (or if) the Hulk was thinking.
“No, I’m pretty sure he’s alive,” Martha said slowly, frowning slightly. “Considering I saw him just before coming here. He’s unconscious, yeah, but definitely still alive.” Silence filled the room again, and Martha could feel her anger stirring. “Oh, please tell me Fury didn’t.”
“Oh, he did,” Stark said, his voice deadly quiet. “Of all the manipulative, underhanded...” It devolved from there, as he let loose a particularly inventive stream of swears, switching from English to French, with some added Urdu, for roughly five minutes. Even Romanov looked impressed by the time he wound down.
Martha shook her head and got to work. “All of you should spent the night in some kind of medical facility, you know. I’m not sure if any of you will actually listen, but I’d recommend it,” she told them as she started to clean a particularly nasty cut on Romanov’s arm. The agent glared at her, but didn’t argue. “I don’t have the capabilities to see if you have any internal injuries.”
“I’ll see to it,” Steve answered, sounding like he was doing his best to prevent an outburst similar to Stark’s.
“After this shawarma Tony Stark speaks of,” Thor objected.
“After shawarma,” Steve amended. Martha shook her head in resignation and bandaged the wound.
Clint was next, his arms and face covered in myriad of small cuts. Martha knelt in front of him, retrieving a pair of tweezers to extract the shards of glass embedded in his skin. He didn’t look at her or speak, even when she was tending to the cuts on his face. Just like back on the Helicarrier, after she had flinched away from him. Martha finished as quickly as she could before moving on to her next patient.
She thought she saw Clint’s eyes flicker towards her as she started peeling back the cloth from a stab wound to his abdomen, but he was staring stonily ahead when she glanced back at him. She didn’t know how she felt about that. The only thing she really felt other than relieved was numb.
“So, Dr. Jones, do I still rank so low on your list of monsters?” Loki asked when she finally reached him last of all.
Everybody tensed, and Thor’s hand tightened on Loki’s shoulder.
Martha smirked and kept her posture relaxed. “I’ve still defeated worse,” she told him coldly. “Now hold still. This might sting a little.”
~*~*~
Martha barely saw any members of the team in the next few days. Fury had placed her in charge of a task force assigned to autopsy and analyze the Chitauri debris, effectively delaying her inevitable resignation. She barely had enough time to breathe, let alone think between trying to set up a lab, figure out which scientists in SHIELD’s employ she could transfer on short notice, and hunting for a place to store the bodies in the interim.
In addition to that, she had to field frantic phone calls from her family and Torchwood Three. Martha had returned from scouting storage locations to find a series of messages from Gwen, culminating in a threat to fly to New York and sic Jack on SHIELD. Martha immediately returned that call.
Fury was a dead man.
Jane and Darcy stopped by separately on their way home from wherever they had been relocated to after Loki’s attack on the New Mexico base. Martha wasn’t present for the reunion between the scientist and the god, but according to Darcy (because Jane and Thor hadn’t resurfaced yet), it was “worthy of the most epic chick flick.” When Jane finally arrived to say hello hours later, Martha stared at the scarf covering the scientist’s neck with a raised eyebrow.
“Shut up,” Jane muttered, stealing a chair.
“So are the rumors I heard true?” Martha asked, turning her attention back to wrangling the permits she needed. “You’re moving here?”
“The Bifrost still isn’t fixed,” Jane answered, playing with a mug Martha had left out. “And Tony Stark said he’d give me the lab space I’d need, once he rebuilds the tower.” She brightened at the thought. “State of the art, access to all the latest technology, and not at all under SHIELD control.”
“You’re excited about that last bit, aren’t you?” Jane just grinned.
She left a short time later to finalize the relocation of some of her more delicate equipment from New Mexico, leaving Martha alone in her borrowed office. SHIELD’s New York base was still a mess, and she wanted peace and quiet while she sorted things out.
Later that day, after Martha finally was able to convince UNIT to trade lab space for access to the autopsies, her mobile rang.
“Hello?” she answered, filling in the relevant forms for Fury and cradling the phone against her shoulder.
“We’re sending Loki back tomorrow,” Steve told her, getting right to the point. “I thought you might want to be there for that.”
“Why?” Martha asked, putting down her pen and giving Steve her full attention.
“It could give you closure,” Steve suggested and Martha made a face. He knew her too well. “And if that fails, when was the last time you actually saw the sun?”
“Sunshine is overrated. It just leads to wrinkles and skin cancer. Trust me, I’m a doctor. I went to medical school to learn these things.”
“That’s what I thought.” He paused, before continuing, “Take a break for at least tomorrow afternoon and come with us. Then you can go back to your lab.”
“Fine, I’ll be there,” Martha sighed, giving in. She didn’t even need Steve in the room to see his puppy-dog eyes. “When and where?”
The next day, Martha walked through Central Park to the meeting location Steve had given her. She’d been digging through her closet, looking for something somewhat presentable to wear when she stumbled upon her old red leather jacket from her days with the Doctor. It was a bit silly, but wearing the jacket felt like donning armor, fortifying herself against what was to come, and she felt safer than she had in days.
Steve had offered to give her a ride, but she had refused. Her flat wasn’t that far from Central Park, and she could use the walk, although she wouldn’t admit it to anyone. Her nightmares had returned, worse than ever, combining the familiar images of the Master and the Toclafane and the defeated Earth with Loki and his Chitauri. Last night had been particularly awful, the Master standing over with a brainwashed Clint at his side. She needed the time to prepare herself to see Loki again.
Surprisingly, Stark was the first person there, leaning against a burgundy car that probably cost more than Martha would make in three years.
“Dr. Jones, so glad you could join us in our little farewell party for our godly friends and foes,” he greeted her. “It’s the final performance of our little superhero boy band, plus the token girls.”
“Were you planning on saying that around Agent Romanov?”
His mouth twitched. “I like all my body parts attached, thank you very much.”
The sound of motors drew their attention as a black van and car, each bearing the SHIELD logo, led by a motorcycle, approached them. “Speak of the devils, and they shall appear.”
Clint and Romanov emerged from the car, both dressed in casual clothes, although Clint was wearing sunglasses that hid his eyes. They stood together, across from where Martha was standing by Tony. Steve dismounted from his bike, exchanging a nod with the pair before coming to stand next to Martha.
“See, the sun’s not too bad,” he teased, smile widening at Martha’s mock-glare. He sobered, however, as the doors to the van opened. Selvig came out first, looking frailer than he had only two weeks before and clutching a cylindrical device to his chest. Banner followed him, looking ruffled but less burdened than he had aboard the Helicarrier. In his hand, he held the metal briefcase containing the Tesseract. Finally, Thor emerged, leading a bound and gagged Loki.
Martha stared steadily at Loki throughout the process of extracting the Tesseract and placing it into Selvig’s container. She wasn’t the only one. From across the semi-circle, she could see Clint focusing on Loki, smirking slightly when Romanov leaned up to whisper something into his ear. Loki glanced at Martha, holding her gaze for a moment before turning his attention back to his brother. Rage burned in his pale eyes, rage and cunning and calculation. He might have been defeated, but he wasn’t broken.
She had a feeling that he would be coming back to exact his revenge on them one day.
Finally, everything was set. Thor looked around the assembled humans and nodded gravely, both in acknowledgement and as a promise to return. As soon as Loki grasped the free handle on the container, Thor gave his a twist, and the bright blue energy of the Tesseract enveloped the brothers, shooting them upwards to the sky for a brief, glorious moment before they dissipated into the spring air.
Martha slipped away soon afterwards, as the Avengers began saying their goodbyes to each other, feeling even more like an intruder. Though she had been involved in the proceedings, she wasn’t a member of the team, and she needed some time to herself.
She wandered through Central Park with no real goal in mind. She found herself sitting at a bench overlooking the ground that had been home to the Hooverville over seventy years ago when she and the Doctor had visited. There was no sign of it now, of course: the lawn was now full of children laughing and people starting to recover from the events that had overtaken their city.
That was human nature, after all. Rebounding after setbacks and devastation, always finding something to look ahead to. Humans might be flawed, chaotic creatures, but in the end, they were always hopeful, always finding ways to begin anew when disaster struck. Martha smiled, taking in the scene before her.
It was over, or at least it was mostly over. Now all that was left was the rebuilding.
~*~*~
From the sanctity of the office she’d commandeered after moving into UNIT’s lab, Martha put her head in her hands and did her best to stave off a panic attack. Her chest tightened, and she could feel her hands becoming numb and her heart beating faster and faster and she swore she could hear the Toclafane coming for her. One deep breath, followed by another, she fought to assert control over her body. Slowly, far too slowly, the sound faded from her ears and her heartbeat returned to normal. Only the faint trembling in her hands remained, a sign of how her life was slowly starting to fall apart around her.
Just like the city, the Avengers and everyone around them were rebuilding. Coulson was recovering, though still on medical leave, and despite his best efforts wasn’t allowed to work yet. Martha continued to visit him every few days, just to reassure herself that he wasn’t dead like the rest of the team had thought. He hadn’t mentioned her calling him “Phil”, but Martha wasn’t naïve enough to think he’d forgotten.
The Avengers had scattered. Banner was “out in the wind,” Stark was throwing himself into the rebuilding effort, and Steve was doing his best to help by reaching out to those affected by the battle, especially children and veterans. Martha didn’t know what Romanov was doing. Clint and Selvig had meetings with psychologists to discuss what they had gone through.
As for Martha, she focused on her job more than ever, trying to ignore the fusion nightmares that weren’t going away and the sensation she was slowly being pulled apart.
It had started shortly after returning from Hazel’s funeral, when she began having flashbacks to the Year That Never Was that left her gasping for breath and wanting to curl up and hide for hours and clutch for a key that was tucked away in the knapsack under her bed. She tried avoiding the worst hit parts of Midtown; the destroyed buildings just gave her more fuel for her nightmares both sleeping and waking, but that didn’t help. Her past was starting to bleed into her present at an alarming rate, and she could feel herself slipping the more she tried to hold herself together.
People were starting to notice, no matter how hard she tried to hide it. Tish and her mum were calling close to every other day “just to talk.” Darcy and Jane kept trying to schedule girls’ nights to draw Martha out, but she kept finding excuses to postpone or cancel. One day, they would give up, but Martha doubted it would be soon. Steve just gave her an understanding look and dragged her out on long walks that lasted hours. She was sure the only reason Jack and the rest weren’t calling was because they were off in India tracking down something that Ianto had been vague about.
Meanwhile, Fury’s apparently infinite quest to prolong Martha’s stay continued: he assigned her to meet with Clint and Selvig to make sure there were no lasting damages from their experiences under Loki’s control.
“Dr. Jones?” a timid voice asked from the doorway, snapping her out of her thoughts. Her assistant stood there, notebook in hand. “Agent Barton is here for his check-up. He’s waiting in your lab. And you have an appointment with Agent Hill first thing tomorrow.”
Martha closed her eyes and nodded. She’d forgotten about that. “Thank you, Martina. I’ll be out of the office for the rest of the afternoon, then, if anybody is looking for me.”
Martina nodded and left, leaving Martha to gather her things. It hadn’t been a good day so far. In addition to her aborted panic attack moments ago, she’d been up half the night trying to avoid the inevitable nightmare. She didn’t know how much longer her luck would hold and her co-workers would start noticing what her friends already had.
Clint was sitting down when she entered her lab, drumming his fingers absently on his leg. He didn’t look up when Martha walked in, only pausing briefly to acknowledge her presence before resuming his tapping.
“Please stop that,” Martha said, somewhat sharper than intended. She could be imagining things, but she could swear she heard the Master’s distinctive “tap-tap tap-tap.”
He stopped, leaving an awkward silence only briefly interrupted by the sound of Martha’s typing as she pulled up the relevant reports on her computer.
“Have there been any negative side-effects since we last talked?” she asked, turning back to Clint.
“None,” he answered curtly. That’s how he’d been the past two visits to her, and in every run-in they’d had since the Helicarrier. Not that there were many of those. He seemed to be actively avoiding her as much as Martha was avoiding everybody. But the bitter reminder of how much things had changed in such a short time still hurt.
“That’s good,” she said. She turned the screen around, so that he could see the data displayed. “There’s nothing in the work that I’ve done on your blood to indicate that what Loki did to you left any changes on your body. Everything is the same as it was on your last physical.”
“So are we done then, Doc?” He was already slipping on his jacket, getting ready to leave.
It was the word “Doc” that brought her up short. He’d never called her that before, and it might have been that combined with the impersonal tone that made her stiffen. It reminded her too much of bright blue eyes, taunts, and drawn bows, which, coupled with the rest of her day, brought her closer to the brink than before.
“No, Agent Barton, we’re not done,” she replied, crossing her arms and emphasising his title.
“Really? Because I thought you just gave me a clean bill of health, which was the whole purpose of these little visits.”
“You don’t get to call me ‘Doc’. Ever.” she said, meeting his eyes and trying to keep the hurt and anger out of her voice. “I think you know why.”
“Whatever you say, Dr. Jones,” he answered with a shrug. “Is that all?”
His nonchalance just made Martha angrier. “Are you even listening to what I’m saying? Or are you so wrapped up in your own suffering and guilt to pay attention?”
Clint’s jaw tightened and he glared at her. “Maybe I’m just trying to put myself back together after Loki decided my brain made a good plaything for him,” he shot back. “Unless you forgot about that.”
“Do you honestly think I can forget what happened?” Martha asked quietly, matching his glare with one of her own. “Because I don’t. I see it every time I close my eyes, I see that bloody security feed from the base. I see Hazel’s name on the list of casualties. I see him threatening to do to my family what he did to you and Selvig. I don’t think I can ever forget, and it’s the only thing I want to do.”
“Do you think I can forget the fact that even as Loki was controlling me, a small part was locked up watching?” Clint countered, moving closer to Martha. “I remember everything that happened, Martha, right down to me aiming an arrow at you.”
Martha didn’t know what to say to that. She’d assumed that he remembered bits and pieces, but to have been trapped inside his own mind while Loki used him to further his plans... She couldn’t imagine what that must have been like for him.
Distantly, she could hear her head pounding, slowly coming together in the distinctive pattern that had gone from haunting her nightmares to dogging her daylight hours.
“We’re done now,” she said. “You can leave if you want.”
He paused before nodding curtly, taking in her face and looking a bit like he wanted to stay. But instead, he did what she asked and left, leaving her alone in the lab, doing her best to ignore the sound of drums mingling with Loki’s laughter and utterly failing.
~*~*~
It was only by the grace of God that Martha remembered she had an appointment with Agent Hill the next morning. She’d had a bad night and it took more willpower than it should have to drag herself to work that morning. Hill beat her there, however, and was already outside Martha’s lab when she walked up.
“So what is it you wanted to talk about?” Martha asked, unlocking the door. “You didn’t specify when you called to make the appointment.
Hill didn’t answer right away, instead glancing around the lab before focusing on Martha. “I actually came to talk about you,” she said quietly.
“Me?”
“Yes, you, Dr. Jones,” Hill replied, sitting on one of the stools and gesturing for Martha to sit. “I was talking to Agent Coulson the other day, just to see how he’s doing, and he mentioned that you seemed...‘scattered’ was the word he used. When he says something like that, I’ve learned to pay attention.”
“So you’re here to check in on me?” Martha asked, starting to feel irritated. “Thank you for the concern, but I’m fine. Really,” she added, after Hill gave her a disbelieving look.
“When was the last time you slept without having a nightmare?” Hill replied quietly. “Or the last time you were able to go to Midtown without a panic attack? You’ve been isolating yourself ever since the invasion, hoping that nobody will notice what’s going on. You’re not fine, Dr. Jones. We both know it.”
Hill paused, looking down at her hands before glancing back up at Martha. “I was in Manhattan a few blocks away when the towers fell,” she said, her tone shifting, becoming less professional and more personal. It was strange, almost surreal, and it threw Martha more than a little. “I was fine, for the most part, afterwards, just a few nightmares here and there. Nothing I couldn’t handle on my own. And then came one of my first missions for SHIELD. The details are still classified, but something triggered me, and I started flashing back to that day and having panic attacks. I tried to hide it as best I could, but eventually people started to notice. Finally, my mentor, Val, dragged me in to see a psychologist.
“I was diagnosed with PTSD, Dr. Jones,” Hill continued solemnly. “I argued with him, said that there was no way I could have it. It wasn’t until a week later that I went to see the psychologist again to hear what he had to say.” She took a deep breath before talking again, “I don’t know what you’ve gone through, Dr. Jones, and I’m not an expert on this, but I recognize the signs.”
It was the empathy in her voice that hit Martha the hardest as she tried to process what Hill was saying, and how close it hit home. Agent Hill didn’t do empathy. She was coolly efficient, always in control of the situation, and never one to back down. Her disagreements with Fury, though few and far between, were legendary. And yet, here she was, sitting in Martha’s lab, telling her something that she probably didn’t share with many people. Martha didn’t understand.
“Why?” she asked, slowly sitting down in her chair. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I’ve been there before. I’ve felt lost and scared and like everything was slipping away from me,” Hill explained. “I also remember feeling like it was the most terrifying thing in the world to admit what was happening to me and accept that I needed help.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Martha whispered, resisting the urge to cry. She wouldn’t, not in front of Hill, even if the other woman was just trying to help.
“Neither did I. But having somebody around who did helped.” Hill held out her hand, palm up. “It’s the first step that seems the hardest.”
Martha stared at the offered hand, trying to sort through her emotions. She was so used to handling things on her own, keeping her problems to herself was just second nature. But she felt so lost, so alone right now, trying to hold herself together and remain functional. She needed help. Sometimes you can’t make it on your own.
Hesitantly, she reached out and took Maria Hill’s hand and its implied offer of assistance.
Chapter Nine
Warnings: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Spoilers: "The Avengers" movie, "Doctor Who" seasons 3 and 4, "Torchwood" season 2
Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
The helicopter touched down on Stark Tower’s ruined roof. The monument to Stark’s ego was missing all the letters minus the A from his name on the side.
Standing just outside of the cockpit, Martha surveyed the damaged cityscape of Midtown Manhattan with a frown. Several buildings had chunks missing from the sides, and one or two had been almost leveled, a silent testimony to the battle that had taken place. Even from the air, she could see the bodies of the aliens and their leviathans littering the ground.
Martha hadn’t watched the battle on the Helicarrier; instead, she focused on helping the overtaxed medics onboard. It wasn’t until she heard the cheers that she packed up. With a first aid kit in hand, she made her way to the hanger, checking in on Coulson one last time before she left. He was still unconscious, but his color was looking better than it had been.
Careful to avoid the glass shattered around the landing pad, Martha watched the helicopter take off again, headed for the streets below to start cleaning up the mess. She’d join them to assist with the collection and disposal of alien bodies soon, but she had a promise to keep first. The team would be debriefed later, and another helicopter would take the prisoner and the Tesseract into SHIELD custody.
“Well, look who arrived late to the party. No shawarma for you,” Tony shouted to her, without explanation.
They were all there, beaten and battered-well, except the Hulk-but they were alive. Much like New York City, if she wanted to think metaphorically. Selvig was there, too, seated between Romanov and Clint, his head between his hands and the Tesseract at his feet.
“There’s shawarma?” she asked, walking towards the assembled group. Loki sat at the center, Thor’s hand on his shoulder and the Hulk standing behind him. Loki had managed to reset the smashed nose Martha had given him, but a new array of cuts decorated his pale face.
“There will be, once we make sure Loki’s secure,” Romanov answered, lounging on a destroyed sofa, Loki’s scepter balanced on her knees. “Got you a souvenir, by the way.”
“I can see that,” Martha said, eyeing the weapon as she set her first aid kit on the bar and extracted a pair of gloves. “Although I’m not sure what I’d do with it.” She didn’t really want it, either, but she wasn’t going to say that at this point. Romanov might be joking, after all; it was hard to tell with her.
“It would look nice mounted over a fireplace, all trophy-like,” Stark suggested. “Set it up as a monument to Coulson.”
“Monument?” Martha asked, looking at each of the Avengers.
“Because he died, Martha,” Steve answered quietly, breaking the awkward pause that followed Martha’s question. “You were there.” Everybody looked at her: Thor in confusion, Steve and Tony in pity, Romanov and Clint with shuttered expressions, and Loki in bored curiosity. It was difficult to tell what (or if) the Hulk was thinking.
“No, I’m pretty sure he’s alive,” Martha said slowly, frowning slightly. “Considering I saw him just before coming here. He’s unconscious, yeah, but definitely still alive.” Silence filled the room again, and Martha could feel her anger stirring. “Oh, please tell me Fury didn’t.”
“Oh, he did,” Stark said, his voice deadly quiet. “Of all the manipulative, underhanded...” It devolved from there, as he let loose a particularly inventive stream of swears, switching from English to French, with some added Urdu, for roughly five minutes. Even Romanov looked impressed by the time he wound down.
Martha shook her head and got to work. “All of you should spent the night in some kind of medical facility, you know. I’m not sure if any of you will actually listen, but I’d recommend it,” she told them as she started to clean a particularly nasty cut on Romanov’s arm. The agent glared at her, but didn’t argue. “I don’t have the capabilities to see if you have any internal injuries.”
“I’ll see to it,” Steve answered, sounding like he was doing his best to prevent an outburst similar to Stark’s.
“After this shawarma Tony Stark speaks of,” Thor objected.
“After shawarma,” Steve amended. Martha shook her head in resignation and bandaged the wound.
Clint was next, his arms and face covered in myriad of small cuts. Martha knelt in front of him, retrieving a pair of tweezers to extract the shards of glass embedded in his skin. He didn’t look at her or speak, even when she was tending to the cuts on his face. Just like back on the Helicarrier, after she had flinched away from him. Martha finished as quickly as she could before moving on to her next patient.
She thought she saw Clint’s eyes flicker towards her as she started peeling back the cloth from a stab wound to his abdomen, but he was staring stonily ahead when she glanced back at him. She didn’t know how she felt about that. The only thing she really felt other than relieved was numb.
“So, Dr. Jones, do I still rank so low on your list of monsters?” Loki asked when she finally reached him last of all.
Everybody tensed, and Thor’s hand tightened on Loki’s shoulder.
Martha smirked and kept her posture relaxed. “I’ve still defeated worse,” she told him coldly. “Now hold still. This might sting a little.”
~*~*~
Martha barely saw any members of the team in the next few days. Fury had placed her in charge of a task force assigned to autopsy and analyze the Chitauri debris, effectively delaying her inevitable resignation. She barely had enough time to breathe, let alone think between trying to set up a lab, figure out which scientists in SHIELD’s employ she could transfer on short notice, and hunting for a place to store the bodies in the interim.
In addition to that, she had to field frantic phone calls from her family and Torchwood Three. Martha had returned from scouting storage locations to find a series of messages from Gwen, culminating in a threat to fly to New York and sic Jack on SHIELD. Martha immediately returned that call.
Fury was a dead man.
Jane and Darcy stopped by separately on their way home from wherever they had been relocated to after Loki’s attack on the New Mexico base. Martha wasn’t present for the reunion between the scientist and the god, but according to Darcy (because Jane and Thor hadn’t resurfaced yet), it was “worthy of the most epic chick flick.” When Jane finally arrived to say hello hours later, Martha stared at the scarf covering the scientist’s neck with a raised eyebrow.
“Shut up,” Jane muttered, stealing a chair.
“So are the rumors I heard true?” Martha asked, turning her attention back to wrangling the permits she needed. “You’re moving here?”
“The Bifrost still isn’t fixed,” Jane answered, playing with a mug Martha had left out. “And Tony Stark said he’d give me the lab space I’d need, once he rebuilds the tower.” She brightened at the thought. “State of the art, access to all the latest technology, and not at all under SHIELD control.”
“You’re excited about that last bit, aren’t you?” Jane just grinned.
She left a short time later to finalize the relocation of some of her more delicate equipment from New Mexico, leaving Martha alone in her borrowed office. SHIELD’s New York base was still a mess, and she wanted peace and quiet while she sorted things out.
Later that day, after Martha finally was able to convince UNIT to trade lab space for access to the autopsies, her mobile rang.
“Hello?” she answered, filling in the relevant forms for Fury and cradling the phone against her shoulder.
“We’re sending Loki back tomorrow,” Steve told her, getting right to the point. “I thought you might want to be there for that.”
“Why?” Martha asked, putting down her pen and giving Steve her full attention.
“It could give you closure,” Steve suggested and Martha made a face. He knew her too well. “And if that fails, when was the last time you actually saw the sun?”
“Sunshine is overrated. It just leads to wrinkles and skin cancer. Trust me, I’m a doctor. I went to medical school to learn these things.”
“That’s what I thought.” He paused, before continuing, “Take a break for at least tomorrow afternoon and come with us. Then you can go back to your lab.”
“Fine, I’ll be there,” Martha sighed, giving in. She didn’t even need Steve in the room to see his puppy-dog eyes. “When and where?”
The next day, Martha walked through Central Park to the meeting location Steve had given her. She’d been digging through her closet, looking for something somewhat presentable to wear when she stumbled upon her old red leather jacket from her days with the Doctor. It was a bit silly, but wearing the jacket felt like donning armor, fortifying herself against what was to come, and she felt safer than she had in days.
Steve had offered to give her a ride, but she had refused. Her flat wasn’t that far from Central Park, and she could use the walk, although she wouldn’t admit it to anyone. Her nightmares had returned, worse than ever, combining the familiar images of the Master and the Toclafane and the defeated Earth with Loki and his Chitauri. Last night had been particularly awful, the Master standing over with a brainwashed Clint at his side. She needed the time to prepare herself to see Loki again.
Surprisingly, Stark was the first person there, leaning against a burgundy car that probably cost more than Martha would make in three years.
“Dr. Jones, so glad you could join us in our little farewell party for our godly friends and foes,” he greeted her. “It’s the final performance of our little superhero boy band, plus the token girls.”
“Were you planning on saying that around Agent Romanov?”
His mouth twitched. “I like all my body parts attached, thank you very much.”
The sound of motors drew their attention as a black van and car, each bearing the SHIELD logo, led by a motorcycle, approached them. “Speak of the devils, and they shall appear.”
Clint and Romanov emerged from the car, both dressed in casual clothes, although Clint was wearing sunglasses that hid his eyes. They stood together, across from where Martha was standing by Tony. Steve dismounted from his bike, exchanging a nod with the pair before coming to stand next to Martha.
“See, the sun’s not too bad,” he teased, smile widening at Martha’s mock-glare. He sobered, however, as the doors to the van opened. Selvig came out first, looking frailer than he had only two weeks before and clutching a cylindrical device to his chest. Banner followed him, looking ruffled but less burdened than he had aboard the Helicarrier. In his hand, he held the metal briefcase containing the Tesseract. Finally, Thor emerged, leading a bound and gagged Loki.
Martha stared steadily at Loki throughout the process of extracting the Tesseract and placing it into Selvig’s container. She wasn’t the only one. From across the semi-circle, she could see Clint focusing on Loki, smirking slightly when Romanov leaned up to whisper something into his ear. Loki glanced at Martha, holding her gaze for a moment before turning his attention back to his brother. Rage burned in his pale eyes, rage and cunning and calculation. He might have been defeated, but he wasn’t broken.
She had a feeling that he would be coming back to exact his revenge on them one day.
Finally, everything was set. Thor looked around the assembled humans and nodded gravely, both in acknowledgement and as a promise to return. As soon as Loki grasped the free handle on the container, Thor gave his a twist, and the bright blue energy of the Tesseract enveloped the brothers, shooting them upwards to the sky for a brief, glorious moment before they dissipated into the spring air.
Martha slipped away soon afterwards, as the Avengers began saying their goodbyes to each other, feeling even more like an intruder. Though she had been involved in the proceedings, she wasn’t a member of the team, and she needed some time to herself.
She wandered through Central Park with no real goal in mind. She found herself sitting at a bench overlooking the ground that had been home to the Hooverville over seventy years ago when she and the Doctor had visited. There was no sign of it now, of course: the lawn was now full of children laughing and people starting to recover from the events that had overtaken their city.
That was human nature, after all. Rebounding after setbacks and devastation, always finding something to look ahead to. Humans might be flawed, chaotic creatures, but in the end, they were always hopeful, always finding ways to begin anew when disaster struck. Martha smiled, taking in the scene before her.
It was over, or at least it was mostly over. Now all that was left was the rebuilding.
~*~*~
From the sanctity of the office she’d commandeered after moving into UNIT’s lab, Martha put her head in her hands and did her best to stave off a panic attack. Her chest tightened, and she could feel her hands becoming numb and her heart beating faster and faster and she swore she could hear the Toclafane coming for her. One deep breath, followed by another, she fought to assert control over her body. Slowly, far too slowly, the sound faded from her ears and her heartbeat returned to normal. Only the faint trembling in her hands remained, a sign of how her life was slowly starting to fall apart around her.
Just like the city, the Avengers and everyone around them were rebuilding. Coulson was recovering, though still on medical leave, and despite his best efforts wasn’t allowed to work yet. Martha continued to visit him every few days, just to reassure herself that he wasn’t dead like the rest of the team had thought. He hadn’t mentioned her calling him “Phil”, but Martha wasn’t naïve enough to think he’d forgotten.
The Avengers had scattered. Banner was “out in the wind,” Stark was throwing himself into the rebuilding effort, and Steve was doing his best to help by reaching out to those affected by the battle, especially children and veterans. Martha didn’t know what Romanov was doing. Clint and Selvig had meetings with psychologists to discuss what they had gone through.
As for Martha, she focused on her job more than ever, trying to ignore the fusion nightmares that weren’t going away and the sensation she was slowly being pulled apart.
It had started shortly after returning from Hazel’s funeral, when she began having flashbacks to the Year That Never Was that left her gasping for breath and wanting to curl up and hide for hours and clutch for a key that was tucked away in the knapsack under her bed. She tried avoiding the worst hit parts of Midtown; the destroyed buildings just gave her more fuel for her nightmares both sleeping and waking, but that didn’t help. Her past was starting to bleed into her present at an alarming rate, and she could feel herself slipping the more she tried to hold herself together.
People were starting to notice, no matter how hard she tried to hide it. Tish and her mum were calling close to every other day “just to talk.” Darcy and Jane kept trying to schedule girls’ nights to draw Martha out, but she kept finding excuses to postpone or cancel. One day, they would give up, but Martha doubted it would be soon. Steve just gave her an understanding look and dragged her out on long walks that lasted hours. She was sure the only reason Jack and the rest weren’t calling was because they were off in India tracking down something that Ianto had been vague about.
Meanwhile, Fury’s apparently infinite quest to prolong Martha’s stay continued: he assigned her to meet with Clint and Selvig to make sure there were no lasting damages from their experiences under Loki’s control.
“Dr. Jones?” a timid voice asked from the doorway, snapping her out of her thoughts. Her assistant stood there, notebook in hand. “Agent Barton is here for his check-up. He’s waiting in your lab. And you have an appointment with Agent Hill first thing tomorrow.”
Martha closed her eyes and nodded. She’d forgotten about that. “Thank you, Martina. I’ll be out of the office for the rest of the afternoon, then, if anybody is looking for me.”
Martina nodded and left, leaving Martha to gather her things. It hadn’t been a good day so far. In addition to her aborted panic attack moments ago, she’d been up half the night trying to avoid the inevitable nightmare. She didn’t know how much longer her luck would hold and her co-workers would start noticing what her friends already had.
Clint was sitting down when she entered her lab, drumming his fingers absently on his leg. He didn’t look up when Martha walked in, only pausing briefly to acknowledge her presence before resuming his tapping.
“Please stop that,” Martha said, somewhat sharper than intended. She could be imagining things, but she could swear she heard the Master’s distinctive “tap-tap tap-tap.”
He stopped, leaving an awkward silence only briefly interrupted by the sound of Martha’s typing as she pulled up the relevant reports on her computer.
“Have there been any negative side-effects since we last talked?” she asked, turning back to Clint.
“None,” he answered curtly. That’s how he’d been the past two visits to her, and in every run-in they’d had since the Helicarrier. Not that there were many of those. He seemed to be actively avoiding her as much as Martha was avoiding everybody. But the bitter reminder of how much things had changed in such a short time still hurt.
“That’s good,” she said. She turned the screen around, so that he could see the data displayed. “There’s nothing in the work that I’ve done on your blood to indicate that what Loki did to you left any changes on your body. Everything is the same as it was on your last physical.”
“So are we done then, Doc?” He was already slipping on his jacket, getting ready to leave.
It was the word “Doc” that brought her up short. He’d never called her that before, and it might have been that combined with the impersonal tone that made her stiffen. It reminded her too much of bright blue eyes, taunts, and drawn bows, which, coupled with the rest of her day, brought her closer to the brink than before.
“No, Agent Barton, we’re not done,” she replied, crossing her arms and emphasising his title.
“Really? Because I thought you just gave me a clean bill of health, which was the whole purpose of these little visits.”
“You don’t get to call me ‘Doc’. Ever.” she said, meeting his eyes and trying to keep the hurt and anger out of her voice. “I think you know why.”
“Whatever you say, Dr. Jones,” he answered with a shrug. “Is that all?”
His nonchalance just made Martha angrier. “Are you even listening to what I’m saying? Or are you so wrapped up in your own suffering and guilt to pay attention?”
Clint’s jaw tightened and he glared at her. “Maybe I’m just trying to put myself back together after Loki decided my brain made a good plaything for him,” he shot back. “Unless you forgot about that.”
“Do you honestly think I can forget what happened?” Martha asked quietly, matching his glare with one of her own. “Because I don’t. I see it every time I close my eyes, I see that bloody security feed from the base. I see Hazel’s name on the list of casualties. I see him threatening to do to my family what he did to you and Selvig. I don’t think I can ever forget, and it’s the only thing I want to do.”
“Do you think I can forget the fact that even as Loki was controlling me, a small part was locked up watching?” Clint countered, moving closer to Martha. “I remember everything that happened, Martha, right down to me aiming an arrow at you.”
Martha didn’t know what to say to that. She’d assumed that he remembered bits and pieces, but to have been trapped inside his own mind while Loki used him to further his plans... She couldn’t imagine what that must have been like for him.
Distantly, she could hear her head pounding, slowly coming together in the distinctive pattern that had gone from haunting her nightmares to dogging her daylight hours.
“We’re done now,” she said. “You can leave if you want.”
He paused before nodding curtly, taking in her face and looking a bit like he wanted to stay. But instead, he did what she asked and left, leaving her alone in the lab, doing her best to ignore the sound of drums mingling with Loki’s laughter and utterly failing.
~*~*~
It was only by the grace of God that Martha remembered she had an appointment with Agent Hill the next morning. She’d had a bad night and it took more willpower than it should have to drag herself to work that morning. Hill beat her there, however, and was already outside Martha’s lab when she walked up.
“So what is it you wanted to talk about?” Martha asked, unlocking the door. “You didn’t specify when you called to make the appointment.
Hill didn’t answer right away, instead glancing around the lab before focusing on Martha. “I actually came to talk about you,” she said quietly.
“Me?”
“Yes, you, Dr. Jones,” Hill replied, sitting on one of the stools and gesturing for Martha to sit. “I was talking to Agent Coulson the other day, just to see how he’s doing, and he mentioned that you seemed...‘scattered’ was the word he used. When he says something like that, I’ve learned to pay attention.”
“So you’re here to check in on me?” Martha asked, starting to feel irritated. “Thank you for the concern, but I’m fine. Really,” she added, after Hill gave her a disbelieving look.
“When was the last time you slept without having a nightmare?” Hill replied quietly. “Or the last time you were able to go to Midtown without a panic attack? You’ve been isolating yourself ever since the invasion, hoping that nobody will notice what’s going on. You’re not fine, Dr. Jones. We both know it.”
Hill paused, looking down at her hands before glancing back up at Martha. “I was in Manhattan a few blocks away when the towers fell,” she said, her tone shifting, becoming less professional and more personal. It was strange, almost surreal, and it threw Martha more than a little. “I was fine, for the most part, afterwards, just a few nightmares here and there. Nothing I couldn’t handle on my own. And then came one of my first missions for SHIELD. The details are still classified, but something triggered me, and I started flashing back to that day and having panic attacks. I tried to hide it as best I could, but eventually people started to notice. Finally, my mentor, Val, dragged me in to see a psychologist.
“I was diagnosed with PTSD, Dr. Jones,” Hill continued solemnly. “I argued with him, said that there was no way I could have it. It wasn’t until a week later that I went to see the psychologist again to hear what he had to say.” She took a deep breath before talking again, “I don’t know what you’ve gone through, Dr. Jones, and I’m not an expert on this, but I recognize the signs.”
It was the empathy in her voice that hit Martha the hardest as she tried to process what Hill was saying, and how close it hit home. Agent Hill didn’t do empathy. She was coolly efficient, always in control of the situation, and never one to back down. Her disagreements with Fury, though few and far between, were legendary. And yet, here she was, sitting in Martha’s lab, telling her something that she probably didn’t share with many people. Martha didn’t understand.
“Why?” she asked, slowly sitting down in her chair. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I’ve been there before. I’ve felt lost and scared and like everything was slipping away from me,” Hill explained. “I also remember feeling like it was the most terrifying thing in the world to admit what was happening to me and accept that I needed help.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Martha whispered, resisting the urge to cry. She wouldn’t, not in front of Hill, even if the other woman was just trying to help.
“Neither did I. But having somebody around who did helped.” Hill held out her hand, palm up. “It’s the first step that seems the hardest.”
Martha stared at the offered hand, trying to sort through her emotions. She was so used to handling things on her own, keeping her problems to herself was just second nature. But she felt so lost, so alone right now, trying to hold herself together and remain functional. She needed help. Sometimes you can’t make it on your own.
Hesitantly, she reached out and took Maria Hill’s hand and its implied offer of assistance.
Chapter Nine