บท 3: Moving forward
Clark was wrong; it had not been a good day.
He had been all over town, sometimes making liberal use of his speed to beat the traffic, visiting every single newspaper he could find. He began with a very selective list, trying his luck with newspapers he had dreamed of working at. Sooner, rather than later, he realized that maybe he would be more successful if he aimed a little lower.
Just thinking about it made his head hurt.
The Daily Bugle Building – Earlier that day
"Who are you again?" asked John Jonah Jameson, barely looking at him while he shuffled through the papers on his table, a lit cigar in his mouth.
"Clark Ke…"
"I don't care who you are!" he yelled, finally looking at him. "That was a rhetorical question. I don't know who you are, kid, and you have the gall to come here and waste my time by asking for money?! Do you think this is one of those charity things where we feed the poor and homeless?!
"Look, Mr. Jameson, I just…"
"No, you look!" he pointed at him with his cigar. "We have no place for a reporter. What I need is a photographer! Can you do that?"
"I can take pictures, yes," Clark answered, slowly; by that point he had already realized that whatever he could get here was a profit.
"Then you are worth something! Alleluia! Let me clue you in a little secret, kid: I'm surrounded by idiots.
Given he was yelling that, Clark didn't think it was such a closely guarded secret that he felt that way.
"People think these so called 'heroes' out there are protecting them," he continued. "They think that these Avengers give a crap about what's happening in the city. Well, I'm here to clarify to you that they don't! This whole shitstorm with the aliens and that maniac with the horns was their fault! They made all this theatre happen. And do you know why?"
Clark didn't, but he was sure Jameson would tell him.
"For fame!" he howled. "Just so they could be hailed as heroes! And then, when every one of those poor bastards turns into a starstruck fan, that's when they act!
"Act how?" he couldn't resist asking.
"They take power!" Jameson yelled. "They make themselves a symbol of everything that is right in the world, so that when someone disagrees, they are automatically wrong! They are a menace!
He slapped the table with both hands, his eyes shining with a maniac glow.
"But I've seen through their ruse! And I will unmask them!
Clark couldn't really speak right now, stunned into silence.
"I want pictures of the Avengers! That's what you can do, boy. Bring pictures of them showing their real colors and I will pay you.
The word "pay", for his eternal shame, shocked him into motion.
"How much?" he asked, before he could stop himself.
"50 bucks. 25 if they are not perfect. Now leave. Not all of us are unemployed."
That had been a one of a kind experience. And would remain just the one, if he had anything to say about that. He couldn't imagine the kind of selfless, patient and humble soul that would take for someone to endure that man on a daily basis.
He grabbed his burger from the plate and took a bite; at least the food was good. The place he was at wasn't bad at all. A little bar, good music, a few people drinking and laughing at the tables… Not a bad place at all to end the day and go home, because even if his body wasn't feeling it, his mind was tired from the long and unsuccessful day.
Well, maybe not all that unsuccessful.
The New York Bulletin Building – Earlier that day
"Look, Clark, we just can't hire anybody right now," said Mitchell Ellison, editor in chief at The New York Bulletin. "It's really not a matter of want but a matter of can't. I've read the articles you gave me and they are good. You have talent. But we are being forced to work with less and less people every day just to make ends meet."
He took his glasses off and sighed.
"The truth is, we are hanging on by our fingertips. Newspapers are dying. Everybody wants news immediately. They want to take their cellphones and read. And they want their news updated as fast as they happen. Nobody wants to buy a printed newspaper every morning just so half of what they read isn't relevant anymore by the end of the day. We are just… At the end of our days."
Clark could feel that the man really meant what he was saying. It wasn't just some excuse to turn him down.
"I understand, sir. About you not being able to hire me, I mean," Clark said, getting up. "But I disagree with you. What you do, what I want to do, is as relevant as ever. Maybe more than it ever was. Everybody wants fast news, that's true, and there are thousands of media vehicles ready to deliver them. But put those news to a test, and if you find that 1% of that is true, then you got lucky. What you do is bring true, real and proof based news every day and that is as important as it ever was."
He pushed the chair back to its place and smiled.
"It's a shame you don't have a place for me now, but I hope you will one day. It's been a pleasure, Mr. Ellison" he shook Ellison's hand and turned.
He heard Ellison sigh again.
"Clark, hold on," Clark looked at him again. "We can't hire you now, but I can buy stories from a freelancer," he pointed at Clark. "Bring me something worth reading, with all the proof to back it up, and I'll buy it from you."
He shrugged.
"It's not a perfect solution," Ellison added "but it's what I can do right now. The number I gave you, do you have it? If you find something of value give me a call, day or night, I don't really sleep much anyway."
It really was a pity that Mr. Ellison couldn't hire him, Clark thought, biting his burger again. From every person he met that day, he felt that Mr. Ellison was the one who believed in what his career represented the most. He had a little problem with his belief, that was true, but deep down Clark felt he knew what was important.
He was so distracted thinking about everything that happened that he only noticed someone was close when an enormous shadow came over him.
"Can I see some ID?" asked a deep voice.
Clark raised his eyes to see a huge man behind the balcony; and in a rare moment, he actually felt small. Tall, bald, dark skinned and built like a bull, the man talking to him was even bigger than he was, with muscles so massive that Clark wondered the amount of food and exercise it would take to get to that point.
"Sure, just a second," he finally said, digging through his pockets and fishing his ID. "Here."
The man looked at it for a moment and gave it back, before opening a bottle of beer and putting it besides his plate.
"I didn't…" Clark began, only to be interrupted.
"It's on the house. It looks like you need it," he said, raising his hand. "I'm Luke. I own the bar."
Clark quickly cleaned his hands on the napkin and shook the man's hand.
"Clark. And thanks, it's very nice of you." It wouldn't work, of course, since he was immune to alcohol, but it was the thought that counted.
"So, what's eating you?" Luke asked, wiping a few cups. "Girl problems?"
He chuckled.
"Need a girl for that." Luke smiled. "No, my problem is more… basic. I moved here today and I can't find a job. Nobody is hiring in this economy, apparently."
Luke nodded sagely.
"It's not easy for anybody. Where you're from?"
"Smallville."
His eyebrows rose a little bit.
"That a real town? Or you actually are from a small vi…"
"It's real," Clark answered; he waited a bit and added: "And pretty much, yes."
Luke snorted.
"How are you adapting?"
"Well, the apartment I'm renting is pretty much a dump, one of my neighbors is a drug addicted and I'm almost certain the other one is crazy, I don't have a job and my money won't last to the end of the month." Clark took a swig of the beer. "But, other than that… Other than that I like the city. I honestly didn't think I would like it that much. It's… alive. You know what I mean?"
"I do," Luke agreed. "It's like the city has life of its own and the people in it are just a part of it."
"Yeah," Clark finished his burger and drunk another sip. "I just hope I don't have to leave it so soon."
"What do you do anyway?" Luke asked.
"Journalist. Or at least I want to be one. No one is hiring though. I think I'm going to have to work by myself, at least for a while. Freelance. One of the editors said he would buy a story from me."
"Do you have a story?"
"Nope. And to be honest, I don't even know where to start looking for a good one. I mean, should I go for politics? Or something more down to earth, like the reconstruction of Hell's Kitchen? Or just wait for Tony Stark to make a bombastic revelation to the press again?"
Luke laughed in his deep voice and then looked at Clark.
"Pop used to say the only direction in life that matters is forward. You already know what you have to do. Now you just have to do it."
Clark considered what he said.
"That's a pretty simple way to look at things. Smart too."
"That's Pop for you," Luke chuckled. "Sometimes you just have to let another set of eyes look at the problem.
He finished the beer and picked his wallet to pay for his dinner.
"Thank you for the talk. And the beer. Next time I come back, introduce me to Pop, he sounds like someone I would like to meet."
Luke smiled.
"If I can drag him here someday, I will. Good night."
With that, he said his goodbyes and left the bar. The streets were much quieter now than they had been during the day, since there was no one around. The wind was chilly, but that didn't bother him, of course; not when he could withstand arctic winds without feeling cold. Luke's words were still in his mind and he realized now that the guy was right. He knew what he had to do, now was just a matter of finding out how to do it. He was basically halfway there.
Distracted by his thoughts, Clark was a bit surprised when a white van passed on his side, running a lot more than it should. He stopped and looked at it, until the van was at the end of the street.
That's when it drove on the sidewalk, right in front of a homeless man, and two masked men got out from the back and hit him in the head.
Boy, did they have bad timing.
It was an easy job. Get out of the van, beat some poor drunk or high bastard, throw him into the van and drive away. No fuss, no muss, just a quick grab and sell kind of deal. Of course, plans don't always go as advertised.
This was of one of those times.
Before anyone could realize what was going on, there was a dry THUD and one of the men was down. Nobody saw anything, nobody had any kind of signal as to what was going on; one of the masked men simply jerked his head to the side, as if something had hit him, and fell down.
Everyone stopped for a second, their brains trying to process what had happened. That was when a blur hit the second masked man, throwing him on his back and far away from the homeless person he was still trying to drag.
To his credit, even as scared as he was, the man had the good sense of pulling his gun and pointing it at the direction he had saw the moving shape; the act of taking his hand to his waist and grabbing the gun took about 2 seconds, but when he pointed it, there was nothing there anymore.
Instead, he felt something holding him from behind and, before he could even think, he was pulled and thrown at the side of the van. The impact was so strong that the van shook, staying on two wheels for a while, before falling back down; the masked man didn't see anything anymore.
The third man, the driver, saw all that happen from the inside of the car. He didn't really understand it, the adrenalin making all the details hazy, but that small part of his brain that had survived years of evolution was screaming one thing at him: run.
Without caring that his partners were unconscious on the street, the man turned the van and pressed the gas pedal as if his life depended on it. It wasn't exactly a fast car and it took a little time to gain speed, all the while the driver kept watching the thing that was attacking them in the mirror; it wasn't following.
Until it simply vanished; and appeared right in front of the van.
He didn't have the time or the ability to react. The van simply crashed against his pursuer. But instead of running over it, instead of throwing it to the side, the vehicle behaved as if it had hit a steel wall. The noise of metal bending against an immovable object thundered across the night.
It wasn't that bad of a crash. For all his despair, the van simply hadn't managed to gather that much speed. But it was enough to make him hit the wheel with his head and make him dizzy, probably break some ribs too. Groaning, he lift his eyes to look through the cracked windshield; the thing was there, completely unscratched, appearing to not have moved a single inch.
And then, he wasn't there anymore; and he felt a hand grab him from behind.
Before he could even scream, the thing lifted him with incredible force. He clashed against the ceiling, face first, and had to close his eyes when he was dragged against it, the metal burning against his forehead.
When he was in the middle of the van, it stopped; he remained there, in the air, facing the ceiling, while the creature held him with apparently no effort at all. The pressure was beginning to push the air from his lungs.
"Who are you?" the thing asked, his voice sounding disturbing normal.
"Shit, shit, shit…" he chanted, panicking.
The pressure became stronger and he had to turn his face to the side so his nose wouldn't break.
"If I have to ask again, I will begin to push," the thing said. "Then we will see what breaks first: the metal ceiling or you."
"Turk! Turk Barrett!" he yelled, before the thing decided to crush him again.
"Why were you kidnapping that man?" the thing asked.
He didn't answer for a while, having literally forgotten about that.
"For cash! Th-they pay us t-to bring people to them. It doesn't matter who, you just pick them up and take them there. Junkies, drunks, homeless people… People no one will miss!
"Who pays you?"
"Man, if I tell you they'll kill me!"
"I'd worry more about the present," the thing said, putting even more pressure on his back.
"I don't know who they are! I swear! Don't ask, don't tell, right? But I can tell you where they are."
"Where?"
"I-if I tell you, will you let me go?" he asked.
The excruciating pressure on his back was enough answer.
"My pocket! The address is in my pocket!"
He felt a hand take something from his pocket. And then, the thing let him go. He fell heavily on the ground and, before he could even think about moving, the thing crouched over him; its eyes were glowing red.
"Now listen to me and listen carefully," it said, the heat from its eyes making him sweat. "You are going to pick up your friends and drive to the nearest police station. And then you are going to surrender your illegal weapons and confess every single crime you did."
The thing approached even more.
"If you don't, if you make one turn on a street that isn't the way to the police station, I will catch up, fold this van like a can of tuna, and throw it all the way to the station. And I don't really care how badly the landing will be. You saw how fast I am. You saw how strong I am. Don't test me."
Looking at those red eyes, the last thing on his mind was disobey.
"I swear to god I'll go to the police! Just let me go, please!"
He didn't even notice when the thing left; he just felt, a few seconds later, the unconscious bodies of his friends crashing against the inside of the van and the doors closing.
He never willingly drove so fast to the police in his entire life.
If there was one thing Clark didn't like was people like those men, who would so willingly destroy someone's life just for their own gain, no matter how small. It was disgusting. And it made him question if those people were simply rotten to the core or if they were good once and somehow, for some reason, they became like that over time. He didn't know.
He sighed and looked at the piece of paper he had taken from the man, all the while hearing the sound of the van, to make sure it would really go to the police; he had made a promise to mister Turk Barrett, after all. So maybe he wouldn't really toss the van all the way to the police station, but he would definitely fold that thing around them and personally drop it at the police.
The paper had an address and a time written on it. It was the place where they would drop the kidnaped people and, from there, they would probably change locations. So the only option he had if he wanted to save those people was to go to that place before they were sent somewhere else.
Well, it looked like his night was far from over; and that he had, maybe, found a good story for publishing. Who would've thought?
Some nights, Jessica Jones had trouble sleeping. Or, it was more accurately to say, some nights Jessica Jones didn't have trouble sleeping. Peaceful dreaming was an ancient memory by this point and the mere act of closing her eyes brought forth things she rather not think about.
The booze helped. It dulled reality for a while, made it bearable, but it was just a short term solution. And, since she had a fast metabolism and a higher rate of healing, it was an even shorter term solution for her.
So when sleep refused to come, Jessica worked. She followed cheating spouses across town, taking pictures as proof, trying to at least for a moment make herself believe that some people were just as fucked up as she was.
On the nights she didn't have work, though, Jessica always ended up on one place: the fire escape right in front of Luke's Bar.
What began as a way to keep tabs on a man whose wife she was forced to murder, had quickly evolved into something else. Jessica didn't really have a word for it. Fact was, she realized that somehow that calmed her. Seeing his routine, serving drinks, talking with his clients, occasionally taking a woman to his apartment on the second floor of the bar…
She wasn't thrilled about what she was doing. She knew she was invading his privacy. The people she followed for her clients she could justify to herself, since she was hired and they were obviously doing nothing good. But Luke was just living his life. Following everyday routine. Moving on. He was just… a good man.
Maybe that was the reason she liked to watch him so much.
That night was pretty much like all the others she had watched him, at least in the beginning. Luke opened the bar, the clients arrived, he served the drinks and food… Nothing out of the ordinary. Until one person entered the bar; a person she knew, but had never saw there.
It took her a moment to realize she was looking at her new neighbor. The guy who had arrived that very day, together with the real estate agent.
It was a small surprise, but the guy needed a place to eat, she supposed. Nothing wrong with that. She saw him order a burger and sit there, quietly, for a while, apparently thinking very hard about something. Luke brought him a beer, they talked a bit, and he left. All very normal.
What wasn't normal was the van driving fast on the empty street, just as he got out.
What also wasn't normal were the men that got out of the van and tried to kidnap some guy.
And what was even less normal was the sight of her neighbor running so fast he basically disappeared on a blur, the sight of him knocking down the kidnapers and the sight of him stopping a moving vehicle just by standing in front of it.
For a moment there, Jessica thought she had drunk a bit too much. She didn't even notice her jaw dropping or the fact that her flask was upside down, the cheap liquor falling. It was only when she unconsciously let the flask drop that the sound snapped her back into action.
That was unbelievable. But it was real, she knew she wasn't drunk enough to imagine that. Her neighbor was apparently like her, except a little bit stronger and a little bit tougher, she forced herself to admit.
For one embarrassing moment, that Jessica made sure to suppress quickly and hard, she felt a pang of fear; the last time she saw someone like her, someone gifted, well… Saying that things hadn't really ended up well was like saying water was wet.
But this guy was different, she thought. Or at least he seemed to be. He didn't have to help that dude and yet he did, just like she would have done it once upon a time. Her curiosity was picked.
It was time to go back, just not to her apartment. As a good private investigator, Jessica would take this chance to learn a little more. Just in case her neighbor ended up being less like her and more like him.
And if she was being nosy, well… It wasn't like staying there, taking pictures of Luke, would change that.
Natasha arrived in New Mexico later than she would've liked. It took her more than calculated to put her pressing matters in order so she could finally go; she couldn't even talk to Clint before embarking. She hoped he wouldn't pout when he got her message. But knowing him he probably would.
Darcy Lewis was the one who answered the door and let her into the lab, wearing robes and slippers, her mess of a hair enough evidence that she was just out of bed; that and the irritated and tired look behind the glasses.
"Really? Couldn't you wait until tomorrow?" Darcy asked.
"I'm sorry," Natasha apologized. "I really am, but I'm sure you understand the need for me to move as quickly as I can."
"But why now? We already told you guys everything that happened. It's been months!"
They walked through the dark lab while talking, Natasha stepping with grace and speed, while following a sluggish Darcy, who apparently was having trouble with talking and moving at the same time.
"SHIELD has been looking for the ship all this time," she explained. "They considered following the man a waste of resources, given that he and the ship were probably together. It was a bad move."
"So now they got you in the case," Darcy stated. "Well, I don't know what else you want to hear, but sure, I guess we can tell it again."
Saying that, Darcy turned to the wall and turned on the lights; the form of Jane Foster appeared, sleeping on a chair, her head held by the white board full of equations in front of her.
Natasha raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, she's been doing that a lot," Darcy chirped. "Usually she has a half-eaten sandwich on her lap, but I guess today she wanted to look pretty for the guests."
And then, she clapped, really loud; Jane jerked awake, hitting her head on the board.
"Jane dear, Miss Widow is here."
"Wha-What?" Jane slurred, looking around. Natasha took pity on her and walked closer, pulling up a chair.
"Dr. Foster, I called today, remember?" she said, sitting down. "I wanted to ask a few questions about the alien ship."
Jane rubbed her eyes and nodded.
"I remember, sorry. I must have fallen asleep."
"Sleeping 10 minutes here and 15 minutes there isn't sleeping, Jane," Darcy protested, also sitting down. "You have to stop moping around. Thing are getting unsanitary already. There was a rat on your shoulders yesterday! I managed to toss him out with a broom, but it's only a matter of time until another one appears."
"A rat… That was Jerry!" Jane exclaimed, suddenly awake. "He was a lab rat! My lab rat!"
"Huh… Wow! I-I'm… Well, my bad," Darcy stuttered in apology. "But I'm sure he will be back! Lab rats are smart right? Like Brain, from the cartoon, remember? Pink not so much, but there's a 50-50 chance." She frowned, suddenly thinking about something. "What the hell were you doing with a lab rat, anyway? You are an astrophysicist."
Jane blushed a little bit.
"I was feeling lonely, he helped."
Natasha tapped her finger on the table; if she didn't interrupt, she noticed, she wouldn't leave tonight.
"Girls, please, the sooner we end this, the sooner you can go back to sleeping."
Both of them turned to Natasha, as if they had forgotten she was there.
"Yes, of course," Jane said, sitting straight. "What would you like to know?"
"Like I said on the phone, I read the report SHIELD made after interviewing you. But, since I'm actually trying to find this person now, I would like to make my own questions. So if you could tell me what happened, in detail, it might help."
Dr. Foster nodded as she collected her thoughts.
"Three and a half months ago I was contacted by the American army for a consultation about an object that they had found. Understandably, they couldn't tell me more over the phone, so they sent someone here to explain that the Canadians had found something under the ice on a place called Ellesmere Island. Something they suspected it was not of this planet."
Funny how normal it became after the Battle of New York to admit that something could be alien; people were often mocked, at best, if they dared to suggest such a thing before.
She nodded so Jane would continue.
"I tried to explain that this wasn't my field, that I wasn't an expert on anything alien but…"
"But no one is," concluded Natasha.
"Exactly. I at least talked to one so I guess that makes me kind of an expert," Jane chuckled.
"'Talked', huh?" interrupted Darcy, smiling. "Is this how you kids are calling it today? 'Talk'?"
Dr. Foster blushed hard.
"A-Anyway, I talked to SHIELD and they didn't mind if I took 1 month from my research to go to the expedition, so I agreed. The pay was good and I was curious as to what they had found."
No, SHIELD wouldn't mind at all, Natasha thought, since they wanted to know what that thing was too.
"We both got there a few days later," Jane continued "and they gave us some of the information they had about it. Apparently, the ice around the object was 20.000 years old. And it was emitting a signal, which was how they managed to find it in the first place."
"What kind of signal?"
"I don't know, but whatever it was, it stopped after it took off, I asked," Jane answered. "After that, we took our stuff to our tent and waited. We didn't really have anything to do there until they managed to take the object out of the ice."
"Which was completely boring," Darcy added. "Thus, why I suggested we take a look around. After those annoying soldiers were out of the way, anyway."
Jane nodded, guiltily.
"So, when night fell, we got out to take a closer look. You can't imagine how cold it was. If we died there they wouldn't find our bodies until spring, probably. It was a stupid idea, so we decided to go back. That was when we saw one of the guys who worked for Arctic Cargo, the same one who had taken our things out of the plane."
"How can you be so sure it was the same guy?" inquired Natasha.
"Trust me," answered Darcy "there was no forgetting a guy that hot. Even Jane agrees with me!"
Given how much she was blushing, that was probably true.
"It doesn't matter how hot he was or wasn't, the problem is that he was wearing a t-shirt! No coat, no gloves, just a t-shirt! And in that weather, his fingers would have fallen off the minute he got out of his tent."
Now that was interesting.
"We got curious, so we followed him…"
Ellesmere Island – Three and half months ago
Jane and Darcy tried to follow the man as quietly and quickly as they could, which proved to be harder than they thought on that snow and using that amount of clothes. On the upside, the howling wind made it difficult to hear, so the guy probably wouldn't listen to them.
He was clearly going down to the wall of ice where the ship was trapped so, when they lost sight of him, that's where they headed to. It wasn't easy, holding to the frozen rocks, trying not to fall to their deaths in the raging sea, but they managed.
The surprising thing was, the 20.000 year old wall of ice wasn't as impenetrable as they thought. There was a tunnel on it.
Both of them stopped to look at it, going as far as forgetting the cold and the height for a minute. Jane was stunned. There was simply no way that the Army had dug that tunnel in such a short amount of time, without some serious equipment to do it and on the side of a very high cliff.
"What the hell?!" exclaimed Darcy, conveying exactly what Jane was thinking. She touched the walls of the tunnel. "It looks like it was melted."
It did. But by what? A laser? What kind of laser could melt a wall of ice that thick? And with that kind of precision? And without making a sound? Jane's scientist mind was working overtime trying to make sense of this; Darcy, much more practical, simply walked towards the tunnel.
She felt like she was in the depths of the sea walking under all that ice. There was no wind there and the sound was muffled. The light of the flashlights glowed against the walls. It was like another world entirely. And that's when they saw it: the mystery object.
An alien ship, in all its glory.
Even Darcy stopped moving for a second, while they tried to take in the view. The ship was huge, encrusted into the ice, like it was a sculpted mountain of metal; beautiful and, at the same time, clearly not from Earth. In silence, they walked towards it, eyes wide, until they found an entrance.
The inside of the ship was maybe even more impressive. Surrounded by the alien metal, both of them followed the corridors, the weak lights doing little to stop them from looking around, trying to make sense of that weird environment. Until they crossed an open door and saw an odd floating robot.
The robot didn't move when they approached, just kept itself in air. They looked at each other, smiling, amazed by what they were seeing. Darcy fumbled with her thick clothes and managed to pick her cellphone, pointing at the funny looking robot.
"Say 'cheese'!" Darcy said, grinning.
Jane's own smile began to disappear when the robot seemed to open and started vibrating, like an angry wasp.
"Darcy, no!" she yelled, pushing her friend to the side, just at the moment the robot lashed a strange metal tentacle at her.
It missed Darcy, but hit Jane in the stomach, throwing her in the air, until she shocked against the wall. It hurt so much that she could barely breathe, but adrenalin was running through her veins as she tried to get away. Darcy ran to her, putting herself between her and the robot, that ridiculous taser on her hand.
And then he was there. The man they were following, the man who supposedly worked for Arctic Cargo. And even in pain as she was, panicked as she was, she couldn't keep herself from watching as he grabbed the robot, fighting against it as it struggled, his fingers sinking into the metal; and then he pulled it.
She could only hear as the metal was torn apart, the sound echoing on the narrow corridors. And then, when the robot still tried to move, the man picked it and crushed it, folding the metal as if it was paper.
He gave the robot a last look, probably assessing if it was still a threat, and then looked at them.
"Don't even think about it, pal!" Darcy warned him, shaking her taser, as if she could actually do anything.
The man simply raised his hands, a universal sign that he didn't want to fight, and started walking to them.
"It's alright," he said, his voice calm, as if he was trying to tame a horse. "It's alright. I'm not going to hurt you."
Jane was trying to keep herself from passing out and Darcy was shaking like a leaf, but neither of them did anything. He approached, hands still held up, and crouched over Jane, ignoring the taser right in front of him. He moved slowly, making sure he didn't startle them, and opened Jane's coat.
He sighed and looked at her.
"You are hemorrhaging internally," he said, giving her one look. "Now, if I don't cauterize this bleed…"
"How can…?"
"I can do things that other people can't," he answered and offered her his hand. "Now, hold my hand. This is gonna hurt."
He looked down and his eyes glowed red. Jane was still screaming when she passed out.
Natasha was silent as she digested the story they told her, trying to look pass all the amazing things and analyze the details. She looked at Jane.
"May I?" she asked.
Jane nodded, understanding, and lifted her shirt. There it was, the burned mark of the cauterized wound, proof of the story they just told her.
"He saved my life," said Jane, letting the shirt fall down. "But damn if that didn't hurt."
"Scared the crap out of me," added Darcy, sounding serious for once. "I really thought we were done for."
Jane just held Darcy's hand for a second, as if reassuring her.
"So what happened then?" asked Natasha, looking at Darcy.
"Well, it didn't take him long to finish up cauterizing the wound," she answered. "And then, he just looked at me, told me she was going to be fine, and picked me and Jane up before I could even say anything. And then he ran. Now, when I say he ran, I mean he ran! All I saw was a blur, and suddenly we were back to our tent and he was gone. It wasn't long until the tremor started and the ship flew off."
Natasha stayed in silence once again, contemplating everything she had learned, trying to form a clear picture of the man she was chasing. So far all she had were physical attributes: appearance, strength, speed, the ability to shoot energy from his eyes… But now, perhaps, she had just learned something new. She had learned that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't a bad guy at all.
He had no reason to save their lives. If he was an alien, which was pretty much confirmed, and stealing an alien ship from under the nose of two armies, why would he risk himself by leaving witnesses? Why would he save both women that had seen his face, that could give the army clues as to who he was? If he just left them there, Natasha doubted she would have enough clues to even start this investigation.
But he did save them. And that told Natasha that he had a conscience. Maybe that was something she could use.
Natasha got up from the chair.
"Thank you for your help," she said. "I believe you gave me something to go on."
With that, she said her goodbyes and turned to leave; but then she stopped again, as if remembering something, and looked at Jane.
"Jane." The girl looked at her. "I may not have known Thor for a long time, but I fought by his side. Even then, when his own brother was attacking Earth, he managed to tell us a little bit about you. So I can tell, with absolute certainty, that if he isn't here by your side it's because he can't be. He loves you. Never think otherwise."
Now, her good deed of the year done, Natasha left; she had an alien to find.
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