Archive of Our Own

It wasn’t some earth shattering event. It was just a random Tuesday in a hostage situation gone wrong. Her and a few other D-Tiers were robbing a bank together. She didn’t work with other villains often and she was reminded why at the bank. It all went wrong. No one listened to each other and it ended up becoming a hostage situation. She was chosen to be the negotiator with the police. And that went wrong too.

Maybe it’s because of the crime rate in town, maybe they just suck at their jobs, but the cops were extra jumpy that day and she ended up shot.

She bled out before anyone even thought to help her.

It was barely in the news: D-Tier dies in failed robbery. Just a footnote at the bottom of the screen while the anchors talked about more interesting things.

It took a few days for the police to contact her parents. They didn’t give her a funeral. Or a grave, just cremated and discarded like they always wanted. They told no one.

It took a month for Barnaby to find out what happened. First he had to determine she was actually missing and not off somewhere doing something chaotic. But once he did he started digging and eventually found her death certificate and the police report of the incident.

Barnaby told Ohio but that was it, they figured Morgan’s siblings knew and Alex didn’t care. They mourned together.

Morgan’s parents eventually told their other children, when they noticed they were looking for their sister.

When Alex came looking for Morgan, hoping to invite her to the wedding, he noticed the layer of dust in the apartment and figured she was off tomb raiding. He’d see her after his plan finished then. He left.

Many months later Alex showed up covered in blood ready to invite Morgan to the honeymoon. The layer of dust was much thicker and completely undisturbed.

That’s not right. Where was she? Something was wrong. Yeah she sometimes goes on really long trips but she usually has someone come by while she’s gone. Some snooping hero or sibling breaking in. It looks like the place has been abandoned. Completely untouched for months.

Maybe she left him a note, he should look around.

He found something in his room. There was a file on his bed, a note paper-clipped to the front.

For Alex—if he ever cares enough to come back. Barnaby

Alex felt the bad feeling grow as he opened the file. It quickly turned into a full on panic attack. The first paper in the file was a death certificate. Morgan’s death certificate.

This was signed only a few weeks after he left, how did he not know? She’s dead! She’s been dead for at least a year and he didn’t notice!

How did he not know? Why didn’t anyone say anything? Why wasn’t he the first one told? How did he not know?!

He kinda thought he’d just know if something like this happened. It was stupid and clearly wrong.

What happened?! How did she die? Who did this?

He looks at the file, under the certificate is a police report. He reads about the robbery gone wrong. He wants to destroy humanity. It was just so pointless. So unnecessary. It shouldn’t have happened like that. It shouldn’t have happened at all.

He’s going to fix it. He told her he’d drag her out of hell and he meant it. Even if he is a bit late. She doesn’t have a body anymore.

Well he’ll just make her a new one. A better one, indestructible and bullet proof. Because this is not happening again. It’s not like he’s changing her looks or anything, he’s just making it so she won’t ever die again. Perfectly reasonable.

Body made, now he just needs to grab her soul. Alright time for a trip to hell.

Morgan’s hell was being her brothers sidekick. She never ran away, she just stayed and endured the constant abuse. It broke her down and made her forget about the good parts of her life, just like torture in hell is meant to do. She forgot she was dead, she forgot she had a life before what she was currently experiencing.

When Alex showed up she didn’t immediately recognize him. Something felt off, he felt more well more real than the fake people around her. The fake Chad, the fake parents. The more she looked at him the easier it was to realize something was wrong with the whole situation.

Her parents were yelling and Chad was waving his metallic arms in her face. Why were his arms metallic? Oh yeah, Alexripped them off, where’s Alex? How did she forget Alex? Where is she? What’s going on? She remembers getting shot. Bleeding, shouting, pain and numbness and then darkness. She- wait did she die? Is this death?

Her eternal punishment is being a sidekick. Of fucking course.

She registers Alex again. He grabbed on to her shoulders. Shoulders? She’s dead right? Probably in hell. She doesn’t have actual shoulders right? She’s just a ghost or something.

Wait he’s talking to her. “I’m getting you out of here.” That’s nice.

Morgan woke up with a gasp, heaving in breaths of air. Alex stared at her.

“What the fuck just happened?” She managed eventually.

“I got you out of hell. I told you I would, I wasn’t joking.”

“How long was I…?” She didn’t finish. He looks ashamed.

“Over a year. I’m so sorry. I should have noticed sooner. It never should have happened in the first place.”

“Wait.” She said, “Did you not know I was dead until today?” She was dead for a over a year and he only just noticed? Ok, then he really doesn’t care. She’s just some amusing toy to him. Fuck. “Never mind. Thanks for bringing me back.” She slowly shuts down, somewhat crushed.

What did she expect? He already left before she died. He probably just found out by chance and brought her back because he wanted to keep his word. Or maybe one of her siblings asked him. It wasn’t out of any emotional ties. Clearly. She wants to leave.

God what is she supposed to do now? What do people do when they come back to life? How do they just resume their lives? Their jobs, their bank accounts, their homes, how have they not lost everything? She’s probably legally dead.

If she were ever to abandon “Morgan Sterling” and become someone new, now would be the time. No one knows she’s back yet.

“Morgan I’m so sorry! I was so caught up in my revenge scheme that when I came to visit you a few months ago, I just figured you were off on an adventure and I left. I should have made sure, I should have actually checked. When I couldn’t find you today I knew something had to have happened. I just wanted to take you on a trip to apologize for my plan taking longer than I expected and I find out you’ve been in hell the whole time! I’m the worst friend ever.”

She doesn’t trust this. It sounds like bullshit. He isn’t telling her something. This just further proves the he doesn’t care point. He doesn’t care enough to actually say what he’s thinking, she can’t trust his bullshit. She should be mad. She needs to get mad. Because if she starts crying now she doesn’t know if she could stop.

“I think I need to be alone right now.” She manages to say.

Alex didn’t know what to say, he felt like he was messing everything up. He didn’t want to let Morgan go but he also didn’t want to upset her. She had to be just as freaked out as he was.

He didn’t see whatever she was seeing in hell. To him, she was just standing in a crowd of souls hallucinating her eternal torture. She wasn’t in the worst part of hell so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but a year of hell is bad no matter what. Her eyes were so empty when he found her, it scared the crap out of him. It took forever for them to focus on him and it was even longer until she actually snapped out of the hallucination. She was still somewhat out of it when he got them out of there.

And then he just said everything in the worst way. He saw how hurt she looked when he said she was dead a year. He kept apologizing but she shut down, he’s not sure she was even listening. He fucked up. And now she’s hiding from him. But he’s so fucking paranoid now that he’s just waiting by her door just in case something happens and she needs him.

What would even happen? He made her indestructible! Fuck he still needs to tell her that. There’s a lot he still needs to tell her.

Hours later, Alex hears screaming in her bedroom and bursts in. Morgan is curled up on her bed with a haunted look on her face. He silently sits next to her and waits til her breathing calms down.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really. I want coffee. And to never sleep again.”

The door to the apartment bursts open and just before Alex snaps to kill the intruder, he hears a bark and remembers the meddling hero next door.

“Who’s in there? This apartment is empty, go squat somewhere else. There are probably still active traps here too, you don’t want to stay here anyways.” The hero called out.

“Barnaby?” Morgan called back. Alex heard a spectral bark and running before the hero and his dog appear in the doorway. He stands frozen as he takes in the scene before him, an alive Morgan with Alex.

“This is sick. You made a fake Morgan?”

“She’s not fake.”

“She’s been dead for a year. I have her ashes. That can’t actually be her.”

“I went and got her soul back myself. She just needed a new body. She’s still herself.”

“She is right here. Guys, what the fuck?” Morgan was annoyed. “Barnaby, you know dead doesn’t necessarily stay dead, you have a fucking ghost dog. Alex, new body?”

“Did I forget to mention that earlier?” Alex tried to laugh the question off. He doesn’t want to have that argument in front of dog boy.

“You did. Now, I’m making coffee. If there even is still any, the place has been abandoned for a year. It’s dusty as fuck. B, you better have emptied the fridge or you are cleaning that mess.” She got up.

That seemed to snap dog boy out of it. “Of course I got rid of the food. Just because I didn’t want to mess with your stuff doesn’t mean I was gonna let your food rot. I’d probably be able to smell it from my apartment.”

“Oh how noble,” Morgan rolled her eyes. She brushed past him to walk to the kitchen. She looked back at Alex. “Alex, come on. Coffee, now. And clean the place up, maybe stock the kitchen while you’re at it.”

Alex smiled, “Bossier than usual.” He complied anyways.

Coffee in hand, she deadpan stared and said, “Well you didn’t notice I was dead for a year. I’ve been in hell all year, excuse me for wanting better.”

That felt like a punch in the gut. “Alright, want to go on a vacation? Cancun, two weeks, right now, resort on the beach. I already have it booked. It was my apology gift for you before I found out. Now I clearly need something bigger but this is a start.”

She stared at him while sipping her drink, clearly considering his offer. “Fuck it. Alright.” She shrugged. She turned to the hero Alex forgot was still there. “You can tell people I’m back for me. See ya B.”

Alex grinned and snapped the two of them away. They were actually there on time given the early end to the wedding, his direct method of travel, and the few hours it’s been since he brought Morgan back.

Morgan wasn’t expecting a honeymoon suite. When she mentioned it, Alex told her his real reason he went hero and she was still annoyed. He should have just told her instead of keeping it a secret. She died thinking he didn’t care about their friendship. About her. She’s still on the fence on her belief.

She also couldn’t stop thinking about her dream from earlier. Being Chads sidekick wasn’t the only torture she got in hell. She remembered more when she slept. Towards the beginning she was able to figure out it was fake on her own a few times and each time she did it didn’t end well for her.

When she noticed, the hallucination would end, only to be replaced by rapid fire memories of every time she’s ever been hurt with the pain cranked up to eleven. She relived her death in excruciating detail and she relived it with fake additions just to make her feel worse.

Sometimes her friends and family were standing near her and she could shout as much as she wanted, none of them got her any help and she still bled out. They just watched her die.

The main hallucinations weren’t always about being Chad’s sidekick either. There were a lot about Alex. There were some where she was his sidekick, and he treated her like a human shield.

There were ones about him killing her. If he hadn’t felt “merciful” when he lost his memory. If he got bored of her, if she offended him, if her deathtraps made him too mad.

There were ones where they were dating, happy, and the next day he looked at her with blank eyes and said he never actually cared and that he was done. That he was ready to kill her and find something more interesting than her.

There were times when she was just being tortured. But the people doing it had the faces of her family, her friends. They’d smile at her as she begged them to stop. When they wore her parents faces, she was twelve again and in the basement, going through sidekick training and doing “interrogation resistance training” for the first time again. She’d be stuck in that memory but it was so much worse. When it was her siblings it felt like stabbing in the back. When it was her friends, she felt like they had betrayed her. When it was Alex, she wanted to die a second death. She’d feel worthless and broken, and like he’d ripped her heart out.

Honestly, being Chad’s sidekick was better than that. At least that just destroyed her self esteem. In that hallucination she’d never left, she never thought she was good enough. Living with her parents made her keep thinking that way. And she’d almost died for Chad several times. But she would never actually die because that was her hallucination. Her hell world. She’d be there until the powers at be moved her on to the next hallucination.

She didn’t feel like sleeping if it meant feeling all of that again.

It’s day three of the vacation and Morgan hasn’t slept at all. Alex is worried, especially since she won’t talk to him about it, but he doesn’t know how to fix it.

The worst part was her pretending things were normal. She was just stubbornly pretending nothing was wrong and it was killing him.

“Morgan please I want to help you!” This wasn’t the first and probably wouldn’t be the last time he asked her to let him help. She just wasn’t cooperating. But this must have been the final straw because she looked up and glared.

“I think you helped enough.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? I got you out of hell!” He probably shouldn’t have shouted back at her. He shouldn’t get angry at her.

“AFTER A YEAR! A fucking YEAR! Do you want to know what happened to me Alex? Because I remember now, I remember every goddamn second of it. I died thousands of times down there. I’d die, heal, get killed and repeat over and over and over and over and each time would hurt more than the last. There were literal days where something with your face was ripping me to pieces! Or atomizing me, or torturing, or punching or kicking or tearing—or just fucking ripping my heart out and eating it!” She yelled hysterically, tears starting to run down her cheeks. “There were times where I was in that bank bleeding out again and you were just standing there watching me, laughing as I die in front of you!”

Alex wanted to puke. He knew, logically, that hell was bad and she would have experienced bad things there, but hearing them and seeing that he was part of it, that was killing him. How is he supposed to fix that? He reached for her and she flinched. A part of him shriveled and died. She was scared of him. Of course she was, he was her torturer apparently.

“And the fucking fake worlds! Hallucinations, mind fuckery, mental hell, whatever. It felt so real! Realer than this.” She gestures at the whole room with disdain. “I’ll be honest, you aren’t the only one that I saw there. I got to relive my enhanced interrogation resistance training with my parents. You know what that is right? I didn’t, first time it happened. I was twelve. And in hell, it was that first lesson, the one where I was confused and scared and didn’t know why my parents were hurting me, over and over again.”

She looked at Alex, tears now a constant stream. He was crying too. He wanted to help her. He just didn’t know how. How the fuck does he fix this?

“Morgan…” He didn’t know what to say. “I would never actually hurt you. It wasn’t really me.”

“But you did hurt me. Not physically but still. I died thinking you hated me.” He winced. “I died thinking that maybe I was as worthless as everyone seemed to think I was. I died thinking you left me, that you thought I was too boring and you never wanted to see me again. I’m not even sure I was wrong about that.”

Her words felt like knives stabbing him but he ignored it to focus on the last sentence.

“Morgan I don’t hate you! You are worth everything to me! You’ve never been boring and I always want to see you.”

“Then why didn’t you just tell me your plan? You could have trusted me! Instead you did your best to hurt me and leave. How am I supposed to believe you? If you cared so much why did it take so long for you to notice I was dead? Or did you know? Did you only bring me back when you got bored again? That’s so much more believable than you saying you actually care.”

He can’t take this. It’s too much. “Morgan I love you!”

She froze. “No you don’t. You don’t. You can’t. You— GODDAMN IT! This is another illusion! Fuck! I knew it! I get it already, I don’t get to have nice things! I admit that this is a creative one, really meta, but I figured it out so we can get to the post reveal torture now. Stop looking at me like that!”

He didn’t know what look he was giving her, but if it was any near as horrified as he felt then it must be kind of bad.

She frowned, annoyed, when nothing changed. “What, you want to keep going with this bull shit? We already did a happy life with Alex hallucination. It ended terribly. He got bored and killed me, he always does. You let me remember the other hallucinations, of course I’m not falling for this one. Don’t be a sore loser. Let’s just move on already, I know the drill. Just kill me and let’s get to the pain part. Why are you looking at me like that? This isn’t real! It isn’t! I died! I lived a sad, pathetic life and now I’m in hell. Who cares? No one! It doesn’t matter, I don’t matter! So stop pretending to be Alex. He would never look at me like that anyways, you aren’t even convincing!”

He pulled her in to a hug and she burst out sobbing. After a few moments, he did too.

Morgan had fallen asleep after that. She didn’t mean to but it took a lot out of her and she just fell asleep when she finally calmed down. She needed the sleep, it had been three days.

She didn’t wake up screaming this time but she did still have nightmares. When she woke up she noticed Alex was still clinging to her, even though he was asleep now, and at some point he put them both in bed.

Even if she didn’t scream this time, Morgan didn’t want to go back to sleep and try her luck with the next nightmare, so she grabbed her phone. She had a years worth of catching up to do. Without really noticing she started running her fingers through Alex’s hair, his head in her lap now that she sat up. After a few minutes he woke up, she noticed when he pulled the arms wrapped around her tighter and buried his face further into her.

“I don’t know how to prove this isn’t an illusion.” He said after a minute. She kept running her fingers through his hair.

“I know.” It’s very hard to prove a thing like that.

“I’m gonna destroy hell.” He said voice only a little muffled by speaking into her side.

“Don’t. There are definitely people who should be there. People who don’t deserve heaven. Plus it was just doing it’s job.”

“I can erase your memories of hell if you want. You wouldn’t even have nightmares about it. If you want.” He offered after another minute of silence.

She paused and considered. Normally she doesn’t love him messing with her memories but this would be a reasonable exception.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Did you really have an illusion where you and I were together?” He sounded hopeful almost.

“Yes. It ended badly of course. It’s a hell nightmare, it has to turn bad. Otherwise what’s the point?”

“What went bad?” He cautiously asked.

“You woke up one day and said you didn’t love me anymore. And that maybe you never did. And then you left. And when I begged you not to leave, you called me clingy and killed me.” She sighed. She really didn’t like that memory. She was so happy and suddenly it was all gone.

 “I would never do that. You have to believe me.” He turned his head so he could look up at her. “Morgan, please, I could never do that to you. I’ve loved you for years, I’m never gonna stop. And I can’t kill you, you’re indestructible now.” The last part was a whisper but she still heard.

“What was that? Indestructible?” She sighed again. “You idiot.” She laughed. “Wait. Wait. So, when you said new body?”

“I wasn’t gonna give you a shitty body that’d just let you die again! You aren’t allowed to do that, it’s criminal it happened once already.” He sounded incredulous but she also heard an undercurrent of fear.

Hmm. If this is an illusion then it’s a good one. She might as well enjoy it. And if it’s real then even better. She’s sure she’ll figure out which it is eventually.

“Good, because I don’t want to go back to hell.”

“And you won’t!” He responded immediately.

“Good. I want this world to be real, if that counts for anything. I want to be in a world where you love me and I love you.”

“You love me?” He asks surprised.

“Yes, even if you are a giant idiot who majorly fucked up. And were so focused on your own revenge scheme you didn’t notice I was dead.”

“I’m so sorry!”

She smiled, “I know. And if you keep saying it, eventually I’ll say you can stop. Not yet though. So keep saying it. And doing nice things like bringing me on vacations.” She teased him. “I’m not all better, by the way, I feel better than before we talked but crying a bunch didn’t fix everything. It’ll take time.”

“I know.” He replied.

“Good, I’m just saying so you don’t get blindsided later next time I’m sad or scared or mad.”

“You were in hell for a year. Healing takes time. Might be a bit faster if you don’t remember that year, but that’s your choice to make. Not mine.”

Her smile grew. “Exactly. Thank you.”

“I love you.” He says again.

“I love you,” she returns the sentiment. “Now, you love me and I love you, this is a honeymoon suite, we have all the time in the world, want to try to convince me I’m not dreaming?” She winked. It took him a minute but when he got it he shot up.

“Yes. Yes I would.”

She laughed. She really hopes this is real.

Things will be ok, it’ll take some time and some healing but the two of them had plenty of that. They had eachother too. And that was very important.