Hero (Loki & Avengers)

Thirty-Four

"I don't get it." Tony says, shaking his head.

While Dylan sleeps we've been running tests on me to figure out what's going on with me, and so far we can't figure out what changed in me. My blood is the same as it used to be. But I know that when I died, something happened. It altered the very core of who I am.

"There is genuinely nothing different about your blood or your anatomy at all. You said you feel different?" He shakes his head and sits back in his seat. 

"I do. It's like my mind is always...clouded. Like I have no impulse control, and my emotions are dulled. Unless I'm angry, then all I feel is rage." I tell him, and then I figure I should reveal more truth. "There's more though. I don't know why but I don't need to eat anymore. I just don't ever eat or drink. And I never feel hot or cold, even in the winter I could stand outside in a shirt with no problem."

"You don't eat? That's impossible." He says.

I shrug, "I just don't think my stomach even works anymore."

What I say sparks an idea in him, "You mean like it shut down when you died."

I nod.

"Can you give me your hand?" He asks.

I nod again, holding out my hand for him to take. He flips it over and looks at my wrist, the silver veins like roots growing under my skin. He presses two fingers firmly against my wrist and holds them there. His eyes widen.

"Of course." He mutters.

"What is it?" I ask.

"You don't have a heartbeat." He says, and my stomach drops. "Your heart stopped beating."

I try to think back and see if I remember noticing my heartbeat at all, but I just never thought about it until now. Your heartbeat isn't something that's always on your mind, or even that you can usually feel.

"So I'm still dead?" I ask, my throat suddenly dry. Am I still in some halfway place between life and death? Is any of this real?

Tony sees the panic in my eyes and grabs my hand in his. "It's not like that. You came back to life, in a way, you're just not...human. You don't need a heartbeat or even food to survive anymore, you run on the substance in your veins."

I nod, feeling distraught over the loss of my humanity. Cassidy Martin really was hidden deep inside of me, lost along with all the other things that made me human before.

Tony runs a full scan of my brain, and he figures out what's been happening with my emotions.

"Before you died, your blood circulated through you, which meant the substance couldn't stay still long enough to coat your heart or your brain. Now that nothing inside of you is flowing, the substance has invaded the entirety of your body. It's interfering with your brain waves, and cutting off certain regions. This is why your emotions have been so all over the place, and why you can't control your erratic actions sometimes. It's not your fault, Cassidy." Tony tells me.

"What I do is my fault. Who else should get the blame if not me?" I ask him, feeling tears sting behind my eyes.

"All of us deserve a piece of the blame for this. You shouldn't have had to do what you did." He tells me the words I've been saying to myself all along, but coming from his mouth they don't sound as true.

"I'm sorry." I tell him.

"What? You don't have to be sorry." He replies.

"Yes, I do. This whole time I've been blaming all of you. Especially Loki. And I knew I was wrong, but it was like I couldn't stop myself from spiraling into dark thoughts. Like all I knew how to feel was hatred. My mind is polluted, Tony. I'm sick. I blamed Loki for my death when my rational mind knew it wasn't his fault. He really hurt me and he really messed up, so I took that seed and grew it into something dark and twisted. So how is that not my fault? I watered the seeds. I fed the hatred. I feel so utterly ashamed of how I've been behaving and the things I've done, whether I could control myself or not. Even right now it's like the real Cassidy is finally speaking through me but I can feel her getting buried again. I'm scraping for air, Tony! But I can't breathe." I spew out everything on my mind. It hurts to say it all.