Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge
Prompt Nine: The Story of Revenge
The leaves crunched under Fitz’ footsteps. He slowed his pace the closer he reached a particular tree, its fallen leaves the culprits behind Fitz’ noisy stride. His head was tucked into his neck, wind whipping at the sides of his face, stinging his eyes. He adjusted his hold on his coat, pinching at the middle to keep it closed.
Once up the small hill to the tree, Fitz lifted his chin up slightly. What he was staring at was something he never had wanted to imagine in all his years. There were fresh flowers on the ground, their petals flapping in the wind, and some being ripped off entirely. Their cheerful color did nothing to ease the abysmal setting.
Fitz read her name freshly engraved on the headstone.
Jemma Simmons
The past week had been surreal. Every passing moment wrapped up into a vortex of disbelief.
She was dead.
Rage and sadness burst in Fitz’ mind, each competing to be the top reactionary moment. Six feet below his feet laid the love of his life. Boxed up and pumped up with a nightmarish concoction of chemicals.
He hadn’t attended the funeral, just a few hours before. It was too hard for him to be there. He wanted to mourn Jemma alone, because he knew for the rest of his life that was how he would feel without her here. He didn’t want a slew of funeral attendees, shuffling their feet towards him, offering the same condolence over and over again. He wanted to grieve in his own way.
Flashbacks of memories poured in his mind. He remembered only the good, her smile, her laughter, and her relentless optimism. His mind tried to grasp that shred of light she had brought in so many years ago when they met. He thought of her and he thought of the taste of tea, the feeling of curled up on a couch sharing a blanket and watching television on a Saturday night. He thought of her unassailable intelligence.
He felt himself wanting to be in the ground next to her.
Fitz placed a hand on the top edge of the headstone. He kneeled, his face at level with her inscribed name. How those very words haunted him. He pressed his forehead to the cold stone, hoping it would absorb some of the immense pain. His nose flared, a surreptitious pinch at the bridge of his nose engaging tears. His heart rattled underneath his rib cage, he felt so guilty being alive, being able to feel, being able to hurt so deeply.
His crying strengthened until he could no longer contain it soundlessly. Large, whooping sobs, carried throughout the wind.
“Jemma, Jemma, Jemma….” he recurrently cried, the words choking up in his throat. As if saying her name would bring her back or reverse time. The futility frustrated him; he balled up his fist and slammed it upon the stone, gashing his hand open on a rough inscription.
He paid no attention to the blood seeping from his wound. Its pain hadn’t even registered; the emotional gravity had completely fogged in his mind. He was there when she died, she was right next to him, it could have been him, and in fact it should have been him. The guilt, the survivor’s guilt and the echoes of people telling him it wasn’t his fault thrashed inside his mind.
“I would do anything for you, to have you here,” he moaned, so encroached in despair he spoke in a wisp.
“Anything?”
At first Fitz thought he imagined the voice. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and the shivers rattled down his spine and arms. That was the voice of a ghost, or it was in my head.
He slid his head up from the headstone, looking for the voice. He could finally feel the wound on his hand as he unclenched his fist. Blood had dripped down the stone and pooled up at the bottom, drenching a bouquet of roses.
With his other hand he reached into his pocket and removed a handkerchief to wrap around the laceration. His crying had subdued into hiccups. The cold wind whipping about his face dried the tears and chafed the edges of his nose. He strung together a makeshift tourniquet, which lapped up the slower streaming blood. Then he looked up, and around, remembering he had heard a voice.
Her voice, incidentally. At first, he was the only one there. But he turned to look at the tree, standing just ahead to the left of the grave. The sight scared the hiccups right out of him.
There she was, Jemma, leaning against the tree. Only, she didn’t look fully there, she glowed, a whitish-blue. She was wearing the dress they had buried her in. A dramatic red and black ensemble, far too theatrical for her taste but akin to English funerals. The dress lay still to her body. It didn’t flap up in the wind. Her hair remained at her shoulders, it too sans reaction to the weather. Her arms were bare. She did not look cold.
Fitz’ knees someone found the strength before his mind, and he was standing on his two feet. He had moved just a bit around the grave without realizing, led by her sight rather then sense.
“J-J…” Fitz could not speak.
“Hello, Fitz,” the apparition responded, daintily.
Fitz rubbed his eyes with his uninjured hand. He thought he was seeing things. He has before.
“B-but you’re dead…” he stammered, realizing the specter was still there.
“Yes, Fitz, I am dead. But you said you would do anything to have me back, so I am here,” she replied.
His right leg shook, causing vibrations throughout his whole body. This had to be some kind of sick trick... some convoluted mind trick. The apparition stopped leaning on the tree, and closed the gap between her and Fitz. Her feet, clad in small heels, did not sink into the saturated dirt, or crunch on the leaves. She was right in front of him, but she also felt very much not there.
“You are dead, Jemma, you are dead. Please stop, please…” he whimpered, clenching his eyes shut.
“You said you would do anything to get me back. You have the opportunity to do anything. Don’t be afraid, Fitz, it’s okay, ask me what you would have to do,” she responded. Her voice felt like hers, but felt so distant. It was emotionless but commanding. Fitz waivered on her request, unsure if he should buy into this cruel joke someone was playing. His eyes remained shut. She couldn’t exist if he didn’t see her. Inside, his mind battled with itself. His direction to try and will her away fought with the pleasant memories. He didn’t want to loose the memories. He opened his eyes.
“What would I have to do?” he asked the apparition.
The specter smiled at him. She lifted a hand and settled it on his cheek. Fitz could sense it was there, but felt no warmth, no subtle pressure.
He was crying again.
“The corpses of a thousand evil men,” the specter responded.
“The…what?” Fitz thought he misheard.
The specter removed her hand from Fitz’ face.
“You must take the lives of a thousand evil men to bring me back. My life cannot be reclaimed without it, and you have one year to accomplish this. When you have succeeded, return here and you will find no grave. You will find that I never died, and no one will remember that I did. But, remember… a thousand evil men,” the specter explained.
The words did not soak in Fitz’ mind. The apparition of Jemma retreated backwards, towards the tree. Fitz watched. She blew a kiss before stepping backwards into the tree, dissolving upon her impact. Something shiny fell form where she had disappeared.
Still shocked at what he just saw, heard and experienced, Fitz took a moment before going over to the three. From where she had disappeared, lay a glimmering knife. Fitz picked it up by the handle, and observed the cold object.
On the cheek of the knife and inscription read, “To Fitz, Love Jemma.”
Gripping the handle in his wounded hand, Fitz absorbed the pain. Rage consumed him, and in his mind formed the plan for the next year. He would kill one thousand evil men, and he would kill the man responsible for her death with this very blade.
The first man on his list was Grant Ward.
He was the man who had brought this pain. Ward was responsible for Jemma’s death. It was his bullet that struck her. His bullet was the one that had the blood on it.
Marching away from the cemetery, Fitz got into his car, laying the knife on the passenger seat. He put the car into gear, and drove as fast as he could.
He laid low for most of the day, not answering calls and texts with pending messages about his whereabouts and if he was okay. At night, he ventured into his base, compiled an array of supplies, loaded up his car and was off again in the night.
He drove all night until coming to a highly secured compound, parking the car a little down the road to avoid being found. He loaded himself up; removing the coat he had worn to visit Jemma’s grave and exchanging his dress shoes for boots. He fitted his body with ammunition, a fire starter, and the most high-powered advanced tech he had ever created. He holstered the knife close to his chest.
Taking a large swig from a flask filled of whiskey; Fitz pocketed that too, and slammed the trunk of his car. He moved back into the front seat, turned the car around, and headed straight for the gates of the compound.
His foot was all the way on the pedal, when his car barreled through the front gates, setting the compound’s security into frenzy. He had taken down a few men in this move, and he could feel the numbers pop off in his head.
While the car spiraled to the building, Fitz jumped from the vehicle, hitting the ground in a roll. He was on his feet a second later, and with a device tucked into the palm of his wounded hand, he clicked off an exploding device on the car as it impacted the building, taking out a huge chunk of the structure.
He didn’t have time to gloat over the fire, he drew on his weapon, and without fear or sanity defended himself on the closing in grunts. He fought his way into the compound, taking down each assailant as if he had done it a thousand times before. He reached a heavily guarded room, and knew that was where he would find that coward, Grant Ward.
Taking down the guards as if possessed by Achilles, Fitz shot the lock off the door, and entered with the gun still drawn.
Ward was the only person in the room, leaning against a desk. A gun next to his hand. He seemed calm.
“I thought I would be seeing you soon,” he said, as if to make a joke about the circumstance.
Fitz said nothing, his finger itching to just pull the trigger already, but his seething anger telling him not to.
“Go ahead, do it. One time you said you wanted to be the hero so badly, but heroes never win, Fitz, look what happened to me,” Ward continued, still unconvinced Fitz could do it. Fitz knew this.
“Did I not just kill all of your men?” Fitz responded.
Fitz could see Ward’s fingers inch closer to the gun then curl around the handle. Just as Ward lifted it off the desk, Fitz gave in to his trigger finger, but landed a hit to the arm Ward had reached the gun with.
Ward recoiled, howling in pain, and dropped the gun.
Fitz bounded forward, sliding his gun back into its holster. He reached for the knife tucked safely at his heart, but came upon the flask first. He slowed his pace, drinking from the flask until he threw it at Ward’s feet before his arrival. Ward slid down the side of the desk to try and reach the gun he had fumbled.
Fitz was over him, kicking the gun out of Ward’s reach. He looked down at him. Fitz reached and slid the knife out from the holster on his chest. He brought the blade to his mouth and kissed it, never breaking his eye line with Ward.
In the next moment, it was over.
Ward was just another corpse to be counted. Fitz could not remember digging the knife in and out of him, but he knew he did it.
Before setting the building ablaze, Fitz counted the bodies. He etched the number into the handle of his gun. He would have to hit a few more Hydra bases. Lighting the building on fire made sure that the dead stayed dead.
Over the course of the next year, Fitz led a one-man team into the fractured Hydra bases over the world. He developed his tech to guide his stealth, as immediate rage no longer guided his actions as perfectly the day he raided Ward’s structure.
In 365 days, he found himself back to where this began.
He trudged through the gravestones, the memories returning with each marker he passed.
He headed to the hill with the tree atop it, his feet bounding the journey before his mind could process where he was going. He kept his head down, nervous with anticipation. Nervous because he had just killed a thousand evil men on the request of a ghost, and who knows if fulfilling such a prophecy would work.
His knees angled to climb the hill, and he found himself in the same spot as he was exactly a year ago. He took a moment to ready himself for the outcome.
Fitz lifted his head, just enough to see if there was Jemma’s gravestone. In front of him remained an empty patch of grass.
Thrill began to wash over. He slid the knife Jemma had bestowed upon him and chucked the blade into the soil. It still had Grant Ward’s dried blood on it.
He had killed a thousand evil men.
A crunching noise startled Fitz, who turned to look at the tree. Its branches were bare like it had been last year. And underneath their barren appendages, stood Jemma Simmons.
She was not like the last time he had seen her. She was not an eerie blue-white color. The wind caused the dramatic dress she was in to flap in the wind. Her hair splashed around her face. She smiled at him.
“You did it!” she called to him.
Fitz ran the rest of the way there, pulling off his own coat to drape around her exposed shoulders. He held her at arms length, to look at her, to feel her. His body was rocked with insurmountable joy, and the way she smiled and laughed back at him. Standing there she dipped into the ground, her heels digging in to the soft soil. She steadied herself using Fitz’ body.
Having both measured and taken in the sight of the other, that the other was real, the next immediate reaction was to kiss.
Fitz enveloped Jemma tightly in his arms, his chest heaving with each moment his lips pressed against hers. He could feel her body shake in the cold, but it was a few minutes before they untangled themselves.
“Let’s get you somewhere warm, you’re alive… my God, you’re alive!” Fitz crowed.
He wrapped his arm across her shoulders, anchoring his coat around her. They walked hip to hip outside of the cemetery.
Before reaching the gates, Jemma stopped. She turned to him, and for a moment Fitz thought she was about to deliver terrible news to him.
“When we leave this cemetery, we, too, will forget I ever died,” she announced.
She held onto his hand and kissed him again, hoping to remember just an ounce of how precious it was to be alive and it was to be with him.
“Ready?” he smirked.
She nodded. Holding hands, they exited the cemetery, and as they crossed through the gates, they were only left with a strange feeling that something peculiar had happened.