Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

Tony

This was going to be hard. Having to tell your daughter that she killed someone is something any parent should have to go through.

“We need to ask her what she remembers before we tell her anything. Then, we tell her.” Said Steve.

“I’ll do it.” I heard myself announce.

“Are you sure, Tony? I mean-”

“She’s my daughter, I should be the one tell her.” I told Steve.

“Alright, well what if she leaves? What do we do then?” asked Natasha.

“We let her handle it. Usually, if she leaves a conversation suddenly, she means that she needs to process what she’s been told.” I said.

“Okay, well I think we should go in now.” Said Steve.

We walked in, and Reuben was sitting at the end of the table with her knees pulled up to her chest, with the knuckles of her right hand pressed to her mouth. I decided to sit at the other end of the table, since I’m the one who’s going to be talking. Everyone found a seat, and I looked at Reuben.

“Reuben, what do you remember from that night we got you?”

“I remember almost dying, then that orb went inside of me and gave me enough strength to defeat Skull. Then ripping out the arch reactor from the armor and punching him is the face. I also remember that he killed James, and I brought him back to life.” she said.

“Is that it?” asked Steve.

“That’s it.”

Steve gave me a look and nodded at me, as if he was giving me reassurance. I took a deep breath and cleared my throat, and tried to say her name, but my voice cracked. I cleared my throat again.

“Reuben, Red Skull didn’t kill James.”

“No. No, no, no…” She started saying quietly to herself.

“Rue, you killed James.”

“What?” James said, shocked.

Reuben let out a small sob and covered her mouth and walked out. I looked down at the table to my hands, then looked to James.

“You don’t remember what happened?” I asked.

“I remembered that I died, but not that Reuben killed me!!” James said, raising his voice. He walked out angry to what I assumed was his room.

“I should go make sure he’s okay.” Kyle said, walking out after James.

“Well this went well.” Said Natasha.

“Yeah, we’ve got one kid sad and depressed and another kid angry.” said Clint.

“I don’t know if we should tell Reuben anything else. I don’t really know if she will be able to handle that in top of the fact that she killed one of her friends…” I said.

“If she wants to know the full truth, then we’ll tell her, but do it when

she thinks she’s ready, not when we think she’s ready. I don’t think that Reuben appreciates how many things that we’ve been keeping from her.” Said Steve.

James

“I’m not mad at Reuben. I can’t be mad at her. I’m mad at everyone who knew.” I say while sitting at the foot of my bed with my hands on the back of my head.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Dad made me promise. The thing is, I think they were considering you both. I think they wanted you and Reuben to have a good friendship, and if either one of you knew, that it might have affected it.” Said Kyle.

“I’m worried about Reuben. She’s been nothing but tears lately. She really hasn’t had that much time to be happy. I want to check on her, but I’m just worried that’ll make it even worse.”

“Yeah…”

“I think you should just sleep on this a give yourself time to process. I know you, and I know that you will be an idiot and make a hasty decision on something and regret it later.” Said Kyle.

“Yeah, okay. Can you just go and make sure that Reuben doesn’t do anything stupid as well?”

“Yeah, I can try.”

“Thanks.”

Reuben

When I finally woke up after what seemed like years of sleep, it was 6 AM. I got out of bed, and took my record off the turntable and put it back in safe storage. I couldn’t really remember much of last night. The only thing that is obvious to me is that I killed James. ME. I know it wasn’t really me, though. I mean, it was my body, but I wasn’t myself. I was being mind controlled by Modoc. I just can’t expect James to forgive me. I walked to my closet and found clothes that were damp sitting in front of it. I have no idea why they were like this, but I put them in my hamper, and went into my closet. I dug out a pair of my Hollister boot cut jeans and my Greenbow Fire Dept. shirt. I went into the bathroom and flick on the light. I turned on the shower and let it run for a bit out of habit waiting for the water to heat up like I would back home. I opened up the medicine cabinet and grabbed my toothbrush and paste. I brushed my teeth and swished around some mouthwash and got into the shower. After I felt at least a little better, I got out of the shower and put on my clothes. I ran a brush through my snowflake white hair and put it into a ponytail with my bangs in it. I went back into my armoire and grabbed a pair of socks that were black and put on my neon yellow and grey Nikes and went to the kitchen. Thankfully, no one was in there so I just made up some toast and a glass of orange juice. There’s my breakfast, I guess. By the time finished eating, it was 7. I went back into my room and went onto my computer to check my Facebook. Torie was on, so I figured I’d talk to her for a while. I left at 7:30 because I figured traffic was going to be a bit tight, and got to the station by 7:50. I hope they don’t mind me being early to work all the time, because it’s probably going to happen a lot. I pulled into the lot where we are supposed to park, and drove to the far corner. Just as I pulled in, the guys were just getting off shift. Mikey, one of the guys who were getting off shift, noticed it was me and decided to pay me a visit. He let out a whistle of what I assumed was impression.

“That is a nice ride. ‘66 Impala?”

“Ah, so you know your cars well. It’s a ‘67 with a 407 engine.”

“Damn, I bet she cost you a pretty penny.”

“Three hundred dollars. But she wasn’t like this from the start. Just a skeleton from a junk yard. In total it was about thirty five hundred.”

“It’s a shame how these beautiful cars are treated. It really is a nice looking car. I better let you go so you aren’t late.”

“Haha, thanks. I’ll see you later.”

I walked into the station, ignoring the bitter chilled air to find just about everyone I met the first time.

“Hey Reuben! Over here!” Called out Matthew.

I walked over and he glanced at my shirt.

“Nice shirt, but I think it’s time we give you one of our own.” He handed me a shirt that said New York Fire Department on it. I guess it was official that I’m on the department.

“I hope I don’t violate the dress code. The department I was on was a volunteer department, so we never really worked shifts.”

“Well, we don’t actually have a dress code. You just have to wear a department shirt, and then nothing else matters.  Really, when you’re wearing gear you have to wear breathable clothing.”

“Exactly. Okay, jeans and a fire shirt equals good enough. So, what are we doing now?”

“Washing the trucks, the guys just got back from a fire.” Said Luke.

“Right. Wash the trucks after every fire. That’s what we used to do down in Greenbow. Gotta look presentable.”

“Exactly.” Said Mathew.

Well, I can tell this most certainly shouldn’t be a very long shift. But on the other hand, the new guy is a black cloud, so fires left and right. That’s okay, anything to get my mind off last night.

Tony

I can’t imagine how Rue feels at this time. I told her that she killed someone that she lives with. And that wasn’t even half of it. She not only killed James, but took out the whole team. She went up against all of us and defeated each and every one. Rue is stronger than the whole team, which makes it a bittersweet situation. She is very good to have on our team and not against us, but what if something like that happens again? Except worse. If Reuben wanted to, she could kill the Avengers. She could probably take on Thanos, not that I would ever let that happen. God, she’s just a kid! She’s just a kid, and she’s gone through more than anyone should have to. She lost her mother, and I know how she feels. Except she still has me, and that isn’t going to change. She just needs something to make her feel like a normal kid again. Maybe if we went on a road trip, it would help her. I remember how she always loved going to Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. The last time we went, she was learning how to surf…. That’s it! We’ll go to Myrtle Beach and learn how to surf. Just like when she was a kid. Except we would have the team with us as well. We have learned from experience never to split up too far for too long. This should hopefully work out well, because Reuben doesn’t deserve to have this much stress or go through all of this alone.