My World's On Fire, How About Yours?

Natalie.

So that's Maria's neighbor.

Maria doesn't want to admit it, but Natalie confuses her. She's so confident in herself, yet she seems to be clingy. Maria is half convinced that she's a teenager. All the traits are there: cocky, clingy, bad at jokes, Shrek. Maria really hopes she's not trapped with a teenager.

Once Maria collapses on the ground in sleep, her brain is visited by images of various Natalies. All of them definitely older than a teen; she's not her father.

The first one is a woman with black hair, crispy from a botched box dye job, and bangs that don't quite work with her face shape. But that one is based off the main Natalie that was in her life. Granted it was her high school enemy so she’s not exactly thrilled to see this Natalie.
Each version of what she images Natalie to be are strong with a smirk on their faces as they tell her a bad
joke. They flutter around her, whispering and laughing in her ears, and Maria lets herself become invested in what they're saying. Not all their jokes make sense, but Maria supposes they're good enough for dream people.

The Natalies slowly fade into different features. The hair gets shorter and get their faces change from smirks into grimaces and sparkling eyes disappear in worn, hollow eyes. They start looking more and more like her old team. Maria knows instantly where this one is going. And suddenly she's transported from a white room into a sandy desert, sandy desert that used to also be a white room. Her lungs are dry and her skin hasn't been the same in ages. Her throat has stopped working a while ago, only short hoarse words can vaguely be heard emerging when she tries to yell.

She's trying to yell for her team, but they're scattered. Her right ear is ringing and her left ear is completely deaf.

Maria manages to keep dodging bullets. She's not immune though, and a few pierce into her right shoulder and near her thigh. Her team. She needs to find her team. It was all a trap. It was her fault; she should have known better. She should've been better. She knew something was off and now here she is trying to find the remains of her team.

She sees Michels. He's buried under the thick cement roof that came down over them. Maria shakily makes her way over to him. Her whole body is trembling under beaten legs. Considering there was a bullet through her left leg, she's honestly surprised she can walk at all. The adrenaline is kicking in but it's still not enough to give her all the energy and strength she needs. Maria falls to the ground next to him. He's knocked out cold. Dead or alive, she needs to get him out of there. But where? Into the line of fire? There's no place that she can go that's safer than under that roof.

Some of the roof fell in a large heap instead of the usual crumble. The slab of roof is propped up above another large piece of concrete. It's not perfect, but the concrete will hold up against most of the bullets and it's close by.

Maria grabs Michels with one hand and tries to lift the pieces of the roof off him with her other. She exerts all her energy on pulling him out and she falls backwards in a daze. Once her vision returns slightly, Maria scoops up Michels under his arms and drags him to the makeshift safe place.

And for the next minutes she continues to do that. Maria searches for her team under the rubble and through the bullets.

She needs them all to be okay. If they die that's on her. She's the reason they were even here in the first place. She's the reason why they walked into a trap. If she hadn't used her gut and investigated what was happening, she never would’ve gotten herself taken. And then her team wouldn’t have been there to take her back. It's all her fault and she might've just killed her whole team. Killed her whole family.

It couldn't have been too long after before backup comes. Maria takes one look at her team before another bullet rips through her hip and she falls to the ground to join her brothers.

When Maria wakes up in the glass cell again, she presses her hand where the bullet just was. Her hand comes back clean, no blood, just a scar.

Suddenly a loud noise accompanies a slot in the walls opening. Out steps two of those green aliens. One carries a gun and the other electrodes. The two creatures flash from being aliens quickly into people, the people who took her, then back to the aliens again. She already knows what's going to happen. She's lived through this before. One asks her for information about a project she doesn't even know. Maria keeps silent. Frustrated, the one with the gun shoots her right at the scar where she has on her right leg. The bullet goes thoroughly in and out.

The other one walks over to her to put electrodes on her when the ceiling opens up and down comes Natalie. Or at least who Maria pictures Natalie will look like. This Natalie has long dark brown hair cascading in braids and silver glasses with her deep maroon painted lips pursed in determination.

"I'm here to recue you!" Natalie shouts after taking care of the two aliens.

"Don't come any closer!" Maria pleads, but it's too late. There's an explosion and the ceiling shatters on top of them. The gunfire doesn't even get to start; the explosion was enough to take out Maria this time. If only she were so lucky when it actually happened.

Maria wakes up again, hopefully for real this time.

Maria waits, ready for it to be another nightmare. Her panting and heartrate begin to slow once she finally accepts that she's actually awake this time.

Maria slowly gets up and walks gently over to the table. There's bread and water on it. Natalie was right. Natalie.

Maria knew that getting close to her would be a bad idea. She can vividly see Natalie's face in her mind: lifeless and bloody, and all because of her. No, Maria won't let another person die because of her. Sure, Maria will risk her life for this stranger, but she'll be damned before another person risks their life for her. And the only way to ensure that they both make it out alive if they remain colleagues, not friends. That's what Maria learned working at S.H.I.E.L.D. She's done her best work using that method, she is second in command for a reason after all. Well, was second in command.

It's been maybe a day and Maria's already too attached to this person.

Maybe it's because she gave her answers to some of her questions and she feels a sense of comfort in her. Whatever it is, Maria needs to tone that down. Natalie is just another coworker. Natalie is here as solely an ally and nothing else.

Maria finishes her food and begins to recheck all the sides and ceilings of the cell in case she missed something in her earlier assessment.

There's a knock on the wall: "Did they give you the luxury breakfast?"

This joking is not something she does with a coworker, what she would give a coworker in an update on her current status so instead of encouraging this banter, she taps back, "Bread and water. Rechecking the cell."

"You really don't need to waste your time, it's a lost cause," Natalie knocks back.

"I'll determine that after I recheck for myself."

"Don't make me say 'I told you so'"

"You won't get to if you never let me leave to go check. Sit still for a few minutes so I can finish."

"I've been sitting still for a year, Maria, you don't need to tell me how to."

"Then do it. Will check back in once the assessment is complete. Don't knock unless it's an emergency."

"We're stuck in a prison with no way, held captive by aliens. I think that calls for an emergency."

"I don't take you to be dense, so do as I say and quit it."

"I hear you loud and clear. This is the last you'll hear from me."

Maria doesn't respond back, hoping that Natalie has got the message to stay quiet and keep to herself.

Thankfully Natalie has ceased the excessive knocking and Maria is able to finish checking everything. Unfortunately, Maria comes up with no new discoveries: no trap doors or hidden buttons.

"Nothing new to report." Maria knocks to Natalie.

"Shocking," Natalie responds.

"Well what ideas do you have now?"

"I have the same ideas that I had last time you asked: none."

"You must have something in mind. It can be anything."

"I've told you everything I know."

"You have to be leaving out something. There's no way I can get as much knowledge as you in this place when I've been here days instead of years."

"I don't know what to tell you, it’s just a cell."

"Tell me anything helpful."

"Why is this feeling like an interrogation? I told you time and time again that I don’t know anything so stop asking." Wrong words. Those were not the right words Natalie should've used at all. All of the memories brought up last night flood Maria's mind. Her leg starts to hurt as if she were just shot and she grips it as she falls to her knees. Fuck Natalie; to believe Maria ever thought she had to stop herself from befriending this person. Fuck this damn Natalie for not triggering one nightmare a few hours ago but also this damn PTSD attack right now.

Maria knows that nothing is happening, she knows that in some part of her brain, but right now her body hurts everywhere, her raw skin from being burned by the aliens’ gun feels like it’s being ripped apart at the sudden impact of her knees on the ground. The pain makes Maria flinch and the rest of her body falls into the wall, luckily her left side is the one that hits the wall, last thing she needs is to completely rip open the blistering scabbing skin again.

"Maria? Was that supposed to be a knock or were you kicking the wall at me?" Why can’t Natalie just leave her alone? At this point Maria thinks she should get a refund on her nightmare considering there is no longer any part in Maria that considers Natalie a friend.

"You don't know shit about interrogations. I'm asking you valid questions and you're being hostile for no reason. You didn't tell me that they drug you to sleep until I was experiencing it so it's not like these accusations are coming out of nowhere! I am questioning you, not interrogating you. You're free to not respond at any damn time. And since you’re so adamant that you don’t know anything, why don't you just stop responding! Shut up! Go away!" Maria's body is beginning to shake, becoming rigid and spasm like. If she doesn't do something soon, she'll be in for a full blown panic attack. And those can get violent sometimes; she’ll rip open her whole right side for sure. Might even bang her head on something. Things aren’t looking good for her.

"Maria?" Natalie knocks back to her. Maria doesn't have enough control over her body to knock back to her to tell her to stop talking to her.

“Maria?” the knock calls out, and Maria barely has enough senses to hear it. Soon her body will begin to cut off everything except what it wants her to feel. Maria doesn’t answer back, she has better things to worry about than some person’s need for consistently pestering her, such as calming the fuck down.

Her heartbeat is in her ears, mixed with a faint buzzing sound; did the fluorescent lights illuminating the cell ever buzz? Is she imagining it? Whatever the answer is, she can hear it very clearly. The lights have to be making that sound, there’s no way that she entire hearing is blocked off by an active imagination.

Maria’s body is twitching and she can’t keep still, every instinct she has is to get the fuck out of here but there’s nowhere to go and her body feels like it’ll quit sometime soon.

A knock. She can hear a knock.

It almost sounds like her heart, but she supposes focusing on her heart is better than the buzzing sound.

So Maria listens to the knock.

It doesn’t seem to be random. There’s a pattern. Tap code. She knows this.

Natalie. Natalie is here with her. But she doesn’t like Natalie; this is all her fault. Maria should stop listening to the knocks, all they do is annoy her.

But Maria is not dumb. She may be stubborn to the point of being dumb but Maria has never jeopardized a life—hers or someone else’s—in being stubborn. Plus, it’s not like Natalie knows that she’s listening to her knocks. For all Natalie knows, she’s ignoring her.

Maria can work with that.

And so she listens in, trying to quell the growing buzzing that’s plaguing her mind.

“A lot of people cry when they cut onions. The important thing is to not create an emotional bond.”

Is she talking in code? Maria is confused. Her mind begins to wander from how bright everything is getting to what Natalie is trying to tell her.

“Is your dad a baker?” What does this have to do with anything?

“Cause you’ve got great buns.” Is this referring to the bread they had earlier? Is it a code to try and tell her that she’ll be sedated soon?

“Aren’t you tired? Because you’ve been running through my mind all day.” Wait Maria knows where that one is from. In middle school, Maria used to look up pickup lines to help her talk to girls. It didn’t go well. But she knows this one. Maria gives a snort at the memory.

She had such a crush on this one girl in her class in middle school. Her name was Kayla. Maria couldn’t even make eye contact with her. Damn it was pathetic. Her best friend at the time, James, told her that she should use pickup lines on her. He had been kidding at the time but Maria took it in all seriousness. And so she found the most god-awful pickup lines. A week later, after constant rehearsing, Maria bumped into Kayla on accident and used, “if you were a fruit you’d be a fineapple.” It did not go over well, Kayla was pissed and revolted that a girl was making advances on her. She went off on Maria which then attracted a crowd where Kayla kept yelling at her. And that was the day that Maria came out to her entire school. It was also the day she stopped talking to James. A start of a terrible middle school experience filled with yelling and fights and getting sent home which in turn lead to more fights and yelling, except these where fights that Maria didn’t win. Maria moved to a different district for high school.

And although pickup lines don’t have the greatest track record with her, Maria would rather think about middle school than anything that happened when she was deployed.

While she was taking down an impromptu trip down memory lane, her body stopped shaking. The buzzing sound is still there but much fainter. She can finally hear herself think.

She can hear the knocks clearly now.

“Are you an astronaut cause your ass is out of this world.”

It’s probably time that Maria responds to Natalie, because there’s no doubt in her mind that Natalie will keep going until Maria responds. Maybe Natalie isn’t so bad after all. Even without seeing Maria, she was able to sense what she needed and what was happening. That’s something that rarely happens. There’s a select few amount of people that understand Maria. And the number is much less for which people are willing to try and help her; Maria has a tendency to not take help very well.

“If you were a fruit, you’d be a fineapple.” Maria knocks back. No matter what Kayla said, that’s a classic pun and deserves to be heard.

“Some more creativity, please. Everyone already knows that one.” Natalie knocks back. Maria knows what she’s doing: Natalie is giving her an out. Natalie’s leaving it up to Maria to decide if she wants to talk about what happened. Maria knows that Natalie isn’t stupid. Natalie probably knew that Maria was trying to push her away and her panic attack probably helped her confirm what she thought. On the other side though, people don’t typically know what’s happening unless they’ve been through it themselves, which means Natalie might be in a position that could really help Maria.

And so instead of continuing the conversation down a path on sarcasm and jokes, Maria decides to knock on the door, “thank you.” It’s not much, but she’s trying to tell Natalie that she was right without out rightly telling her. Because maybe Natalie doesn’t want to talk about it.

But there are no immediate knocks back, until Maria hears, “You’ve already helped me. It’s my turn.” Maria lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. For some reason she really cares what Natalie thinks and for once in her life she actually does want to talk about this with someone.

The knocks go on, “I shouldn’t have pressed too hard. It’s just that I’ve been alone for years of my life, and I mean more than the year I’ve been in this cell. I didn’t want to lose someone. Plus, I needed to demonstrate that I am superior in all joke telling manners.” Just as Maria thought, Natalie is going through the same things she has. Although Natalie has been stuck in here longer than she has, Maria can see that she has found a better way of coping with it than her current plan of pushing people away.

Maria knocks back, “I’m not very good at the keeping people close thing. I’ve tried, it doesn’t usually end well.”

“It helps when you have people who force you into their lives. It seems like everyone knows better than me and it’s taken a while to finally accept that sometimes they really do.”

“I have a few people like that in my life, but so far I’ve been pretty good at keeping them out.”

“You really wouldn’t have liked the Decimation then, it practically forced people to be with others. Too much trauma to be on your own, and let me assure you that that really means something coming from me.”

“I just have a habit of being bad luck to be around. That and my less than great personality really hits me hard in the friends department.”

“Hold on there, if your personality is made off of sarcasm and bad jokes then I ask you kindly rethink that. Because that’s what makes up my personality and I’m not here to get slandered like that.”

“Maybe it works for you.”

“I think it works for you too.” Maria’s heart picks up a little. She hasn’t felt this way in a while. And even with the nightmares and the flashbacks and being held hostage by aliens, it’s probably the scariest thing she’s felt today. The only thing that’s scarier at this moment is the thought of not having Natalie here. It feels like such a whiplash from earlier. Maria honestly thinks the whole time will be constant whiplash of wanting Natalie so close and wanting her as far away from herself as possible. But right now Maria wishes there were no wall. Maria wishes she could see Natalie for herself. Maria wishes she could finally see what Natalie looks like and replace the image of her high school nightmare with Natalie: her Natalie. She wants to be that person that Natalie needs.

“Maria? Are you there?” Maria’s zoned out again, making as many silent promises as she can to Natalie.

“Always,” Maria taps back. This time she really means it.