Rikki Barnes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
girlwithout) wrote2014-08-30 07:31 pm
girlwithout) wrote2014-08-30 07:31 pm
Entry tags:
Hunger Strikes: Part One
She isn't a normal teen. Hasn't been for a while. But she's trying to fit in with normal teens again for the sake of having a friend in Anya. (It will be better than fitting in for John. It will.) But kids... what is it everyone says? Kids can be so cruel?
It hits her harder than she thought. And it's so stupid, just a couple of teenagers gossiping about her clothes. But Rikki barely slept last night, and she had to sneak into the school early so she could have an actual shower and is looking forward to whatever the food kitchen has on hand for dinner because she can't find Milliways anywhere, and it... It stings.
So when Bernard approaches her, instead of walking away like she should have, she agrees to help him out. He's just some guy with mobility issues, and when she reaches his place and sees exactly what he said there would be - a dirty kitchen he can't clean up on his own in exchange for some clothes and stuff - she relaxes. Lets her guard down. And it's... nice, to just have a job to do without complications. To forget about everything except the chore directly ahead of her.
Bernard gets her a soda when she's done and just chats, and it's so normal. He talks about kids these days ("you're not on 'em every second, they're off staring at the ceiling, all zoned out. That ADD or whatever.") and how much she reminds him of his daughter, Sophie ("suddenly I can't do a single thing right, and we don't talk, and she's out all night sometimes - she came to hate it here, to hate me. So now she's gone").
It's so, so normal. He smiles at her tiredly after that and says, "You're a good kid. Listening to me. Well, you done the work, now reap the reward." He pushes the basement door open, and there's that smell that's gotten into every building in the area.
"Down there?"
"I wanted to keep her room like it used to be... but I just couldn't take it. Had to pack it all up." He tells her to go on down alone, because his leg can't take the stairs, and she's secretly kind of glad because something about that image puts a lump in her throat. She can't help but imagine her room, the one with her grandparents and the one at Avengers Tower, and wonder what it looks like now. Did they keep it the same? Or is it all boxed up like Sophie's?
The door shuts, and her first thought is that something happened to Bernard. Maybe he fell, or someone broke into the house - it's not the safest neighborhood. She runs back up the stairs, but the handle won't turn and he doesn't answer when she calls out for him. And she's...
God.
She's an idiot. So stupid. Her backpack with the Nomad stuff is still in the kitchen, but there's a basement's worth of junk down here. There might be something to pick the lock with, or force the door open. Rikki heads down the stairs again, trying to remember what her SHIELD instructors told her about locked doors and improvising tools, but without air circulating through the door, the smell down here is awful. There must be dead rats or something, nothing else could reek like rotting. She turns a corner, a glinting on the floor catching her eye, and there's -
There's something dead.
It's not rats.
It hits her harder than she thought. And it's so stupid, just a couple of teenagers gossiping about her clothes. But Rikki barely slept last night, and she had to sneak into the school early so she could have an actual shower and is looking forward to whatever the food kitchen has on hand for dinner because she can't find Milliways anywhere, and it... It stings.
So when Bernard approaches her, instead of walking away like she should have, she agrees to help him out. He's just some guy with mobility issues, and when she reaches his place and sees exactly what he said there would be - a dirty kitchen he can't clean up on his own in exchange for some clothes and stuff - she relaxes. Lets her guard down. And it's... nice, to just have a job to do without complications. To forget about everything except the chore directly ahead of her.
Bernard gets her a soda when she's done and just chats, and it's so normal. He talks about kids these days ("you're not on 'em every second, they're off staring at the ceiling, all zoned out. That ADD or whatever.") and how much she reminds him of his daughter, Sophie ("suddenly I can't do a single thing right, and we don't talk, and she's out all night sometimes - she came to hate it here, to hate me. So now she's gone").
It's so, so normal. He smiles at her tiredly after that and says, "You're a good kid. Listening to me. Well, you done the work, now reap the reward." He pushes the basement door open, and there's that smell that's gotten into every building in the area.
"Down there?"
"I wanted to keep her room like it used to be... but I just couldn't take it. Had to pack it all up." He tells her to go on down alone, because his leg can't take the stairs, and she's secretly kind of glad because something about that image puts a lump in her throat. She can't help but imagine her room, the one with her grandparents and the one at Avengers Tower, and wonder what it looks like now. Did they keep it the same? Or is it all boxed up like Sophie's?
The door shuts, and her first thought is that something happened to Bernard. Maybe he fell, or someone broke into the house - it's not the safest neighborhood. She runs back up the stairs, but the handle won't turn and he doesn't answer when she calls out for him. And she's...
God.
She's an idiot. So stupid. Her backpack with the Nomad stuff is still in the kitchen, but there's a basement's worth of junk down here. There might be something to pick the lock with, or force the door open. Rikki heads down the stairs again, trying to remember what her SHIELD instructors told her about locked doors and improvising tools, but without air circulating through the door, the smell down here is awful. There must be dead rats or something, nothing else could reek like rotting. She turns a corner, a glinting on the floor catching her eye, and there's -
There's something dead.
It's not rats.