Chapter 2
Her Pappy was right.
She really should have looked for other less life-threatening ways to get out of St. Charles, Missouri. Two years after enrolling in the US Army, following the September 11 attacks, she was sent off to Afghanistan to fight Taliban insurgents. By twenty-five, she'd finally climbed up the ranks and made Corporal before a particularly bad ambush ended the lives of three of her men and landed her in a hospital.
Pappy was not happy that a bullet wound was what sent her home. Though the old man had been thrilled to have Malia lazing around the farm once more... even if a portion of it had been tainted by the deaths of her comrades and to a lesser extent the black mare she'd raised from foal to adulthood. He was less than thrilled when Malia informed him that she had no plans to retire just yet. Three more back-to-back tours later -that'd lasted, well three more years- Malia finally gave into her Pappy's pleas to take a break.
-And not a moment too soon in her Pappy's opinion. Tony Stark a notorious inventor, CEO, and one of the military's darlings for all of the weapons and other gear he'd made over the years to protect the United States armed forces, had gone missing after a weapons demonstration. It'd been about a week now that he'd gone missing and the search was getting really intense.-
Malia still dreamt of Peter, of her Mama's death... but her dreams now often starred the horrors she'd witnessed or been a part of in the Middle East. The simple country life she'd lived in Missouri was so... different, almost unreal compared to what she'd lived through in the last, god, eight years.
Everything was so slow, people were so, so... At least the people she'd grown up with no longer followed her around anymore and weaved gossip like a spider's elaborate web... Well, at least, the slanderous kind pertaining to the alien abduction of her twin brother.
Now it was just about her 'appalling' lack of love life.
That was something that she'd only come to believe in even stronger. The reality of aliens that is. She'd seen and heard some really weird shit over the years. Things that she probably- no definitely, should not have become privy to.
Her Pappy had long come to the conclusion that Peter's kidnappers had killed him in the eighties- probably not long after they'd taken him before discarding the body, her brother had an empty grave right next to their mother's in the cemetery. Malia hadn't really known what to believe sometimes when it came to Peter. She knew he'd been taken, the reason why had escaped her for years until... well until, SHIELD.
The shifty-ass secret organization had approached Malia after she'd been sent home shortly after becoming a Corporal. Her estranged father, the 'angel' man from the stars who had encaptured her Mama's heart and never come back after impregnating her, wasn't human.
Malia wasn't completely human.
She decided that Pappy did not need to know the details of her parentage. It had always been something that had caused her Pappy immense grief for years, she'd heard him cuss out at her sperm donor many times when her Mama was still alive and even more afterward. The old man didn't need to know that the man who'd broken his only daughter's heart, and was most likely behind the abduction of her brother, was a real fucking spaceman.
Malia would safeguard that secret and carry that burden to her grave.
She was out in the pastures, after mucking out the stables, watching Nox -the daughter of her black mare, Obsidion- with her new foal as they trotted around the fence. The sun was up high in the sky beaming down on her.
Pappy was in the town, at the local clinic getting his yearly check-up done. Malia had seen the two farmhands that helped her Pappy out head out to the fields an hour ago, the men probably wouldn't be back at the main house until after two-thirty, maybe three. One of the other mares, Luna, nickered gently as she approached Malia. Malia only sighed before indulgently giving the pregnant mare a carrot from the stash hidden in the large pockets of her overalls before rubbing the mare's snout.
Last night, she was plagued by visions of hot sand and crumbling buildings ravaged by war. Of course, the spacecraft that abducted her brother decided to make an appearance at the end... something that never failed to make Malia jerk awake. She'd thrown herself into work.
Gathering eggs from their small chicken coup, milking the two cows they owned before feeding them, making breakfast and cleaning up, brushing the hair of all seven of their horses and leading them out into their designated pasture, mucking out the stables... Her stomach grumbled hungrily. Malia only sighed, tipping the cowgirl hat off her head and letting it hang on the string so that she could gather any errant hairs into a low bun at the nape of her head before repositioning the hat on her head once more.
She felt like grilled cheese today... with some of the BBQ chips she'd spotted earlier in the pantry. Malia snickered as Nox's foal stumbled over his feet and fell down before turning around and heading for the main house. It only took her a few moments to get her lunch on the pan as she flipped the grilled cheese every few moments. Malia could hear Bobbie, her Pappy's border collie, barking on the back porch annoyingly before stopping. Her grandfather was probably back from his appointment now. She heard the back door creak open and uncharacteristically quiet footsteps approaching the kitchen from behind.
"What'd Dr. Phillips say?" she called without turning around before offering, "I'm making grilled cheese, Pappy. You want one?"
When he didn't respond, Malia felt dread run down her spine though she forced herself not to let her shoulders tense as she gripped the handle of the pan and flipped the grilled cheese with the other. "What'd you say Pappy, I'll make you a grilled cheese with that Canadian ham you like so much, hmm?" she repeated calmly before carefully peering through the shiny reflective exhaust she'd cleaned to perfection the day before.
That was not someone she recognized.
She tightened her hold on the pan firmly as she saw the man come closer and flung it at his masked face with all her might making the grilled cheese fly off somewhere in her peripheral vision. The hot pan clanged loudly against his hand. Adrenaline coursed through her body as the stranger ripped the pan out of her hand and threw it away.
His left arm was made out of fucking metal. Malia didn't allow her mind to dwell on that fact for too long as she ducked out of his other hand's reach when he went to grab her arm. She spun to the other side of the room where there were more pans hanging on the wall and began throwing them at him. One of the pans managed to cuff him on the mask, muzzle really, as she bolted out of the kitchen and ran into her Pappy's office.
Malia slammed the door behind her and quickly locked it as she heard the man's footsteps stomp loudly after her. She had barely gotten her Pappy's pistol out when the stranger kicked the door off its hinges and stepped into the room. Malia trained the pistol at the man's forehead unflinchingly.
"Who the fuck are you?" she hissed, when the man just stepped closer she turned the safety off and growled, "Not a step closer."
When it didn't look like he would listen to the command, as he ignored her warning and stomped further into the room, she fired... Only, the man had blocked the bullet from piercing his skull with the metal hand -fuck, no it was his entire arm- that had grabbed her first pan earlier.
Fuck.
Malia continued to unload the pistol at the man, only one of which actually seemed to pierce his body -the one she'd aimed at his thigh, though it didn't stop him at all- until she ran out. Malia didn't even have the chance to reload before the man was right there in her space and throwing his fist at her temple.