Chapter Text
“She’s too much for me. I don’t know what to do with her.”
Jemma may have only been six, but she knew whom her mother was talking about. They don’t want me. I messed up again. Her little hands clenched around the banisters as she strained her ears to hear the reply.
“What’s she done now, Maud? She’s six for goodness sake, she can’t be that bad.” That was her father’s voice. She shivered a little. He scared her.
“She’s just not normal, Owen. There’s something wrong with her. She doesn’t say a word; she just sits there with those books of hers. Her teacher says she’s difficult at school, too. She won’t do the work and she won’t say why.” Her mother said, her voice getting louder so Jemma could hear easier.
I’ll be more normal. I’ll talk to the teacher. Please don’t be angry. I didn’t mean to be naughty. I didn’t know that I was being naughty. She’d tried talking, though. When she spoke she said the wrong thing. People got angry then, too.
She held her breath as she waited for her father’s reply.
“JEMMA.” His voice called, loud and cold. She shuddered, gripping the railings tighter, still sitting on the stairs.
“JEMMA SIMMONS.” He called again, even louder. She could picture his face, red and sweaty, his little eyes bloodshot and his breath smelling sour, the stink of that gold liquid he always drank permeating through his pores. It’d be worse if she didn’t go now. She knew that. But she couldn’t let go, couldn’t bring herself to go down there, to go willingly to whatever lay in store.
His footsteps began to walk along the hall. Soon he’d see her sitting there. Maybe if she hid in her room, under the bed…
“Jemma. Get. Down. Here. Now.” His voice was sharp. She was too late. Finally she unprized her hands from the rails they were clutching, standing and staring at her feet. She didn’t want to look at him. She began to go down the steps ever so slowly, the sound of his heavy breathing filling her ears. He was so angry.
She didn’t even know why.
She was on the second to last step when he grabbed her shoulder, pulling her roughly and quickly to the bottom with such force that she fell to her knees, the cold marble floor hard beneath her. She stood up immediately, bringing her eyes up to his chest.
“Look at me Jemma.” He said, his words saturated with disgust. Finally she lifted her eyes to meet his. “I’m so disappointed.”
His words hurt her heart.
She licked her lips, swallowed. “I… I don’t know what I’ve done.” She croaked, her voice rusty from disuse. His scowl deepened.
“Don’t act like you weren’t just listening on the stairs, girl. Not working in school, eh? You’re more trouble than your worth.” He growled, a fleck of spit fling from his lips and onto her cheek. She flinched. “Why can’t you be like your brother? He knows how to make his parents proud. Everything we do for you: buy you all those books, send you to that good school, put the clothes on your back. You throw it in our faces, live with your head in the clouds, ignore us, ignore your schoolmates, ignore your teachers.” His face was growing redder and redder, jowls wobbling viciously. “And you don’t know what you’ve done? You ungrateful little shit.” She whimpered at the venom in his voice and he laughed sickeningly. “That’s right. You should be scared. Don’t know how lucky you’ve been so far.” As he spoke he began to unbuckle his belt, sliding it out of its loops slowly.
When he was done, his belt hanging ready in his hand like a snake playing dead waiting to bite, he grabbed her by the arm, holding so tight she knew she’d have little blue bruises where his fingers gripped.
Unable to struggle she was dragged to the small door under the stairs. He opened it quickly and the familiar smell of damp flooded her nostrils. The dark opening leered at her as he deposited her over the chair that he kept there for this very purpose.
The lick of the belt came suddenly, her cotton skirt offering little protection to its sharp kiss. She bunched her hands up tightly, tears leaking from her eyes as four more blows followed quickly. Then the chair, and her still on it, was pushed roughly back into the small cavity and she was plunged into darkness as her father slammed the door, leaving her in the pitch black of the cupboard.
“A night should do it.” She heard her father mutter, his voice breathless from the exertion of losing his temper, and then she was left alone.
She pulled herself off the chair, standing in the small space, her head brushing the ceiling. She wanted to sit down, but her bottom was still burning, and there wasn’t enough space to lie on her tummy. Pretend you’re in a story. This isn’t real. They love you. They want you. There’s nothing waiting in the dark. She repeated the mantra to herself until she was unable to stand anymore she was so tired, her legs trembling as they tried to hold her up. Finally she slid down the wall, wincing as she sat on the cold floor, stretching her legs out till they collided with the legs of the chair. The house was quiet around her now: everyone must have gone to bed. She kept her eyes wide open, staring uselessly into the pitch black, willing her stare to keep the monsters at bay.
……………………….
Grow up, Jemma. Be normal. Don’t look at them, just ignore them, they’re being stupid. They’re all stupid. You can do it again. You can do it better this time, too, use that new solution you read about. There are always setbacks for scientists. Don’t cry, Don’t let them know they’ve got to you. It doesn’t hurt anyway. Not properly.
Nine year old Jemma was sitting on her own again, crouched in the corner of the dormitory, resolutely averting her eyes from the group of girls that were giggling and looking over at her.
She was hunched over her notebook, scribbling frantically, trying to recreate the work that had just been flushed down the loo by the same girls who were watching maliciously now.
She rubbed her wrist absentmindedly then stopped quickly when she the laughter got louder. She hadn’t meant to rub it, to let them know they had hurt her. It doesn’t hurt, don’t think about it, just focus on the chemistry. Numbers are calming.
It did hurt though, badly.
One of the girls, the one who’d been kept down a year and so was a whole year older than all the other girls, who were already four years older than Jemma, had twisted it violently when Jemma had tried to grab her work back. She was so much bigger, and Jemma was small for her age as it was, and Jemma had tried to pull her arm away and she thought she’d felt something pop but she was so focused on getting away that she’d ignored the pain until now. The problem was that now it really was quite bad. She dared to glance down at her wrist and saw to her alarm that it was bruising, red tinged with blue.
It was bedtime, though, and matron would be mad if she started complaining now.
……………….
She waited at the station for her mother, terrified to face her, to see her disappointment. She may have outgrown the small space under the stairs, but she was sure her father would have something planned to express his disappointment. Aged thirteen and kicked out of school. They’d be so embarrassed. She was doing so well, too: all those A levels: the best the school had ever seen, their own child prodigy to show off to the world.
It had been months since she’d last seen her parents, but they’d written after her last exams. Her father had said he was proud. Her mother had signed the letter off with an ‘I love you.’
She’d thrown that all away with one useless experiment. She hadn’t intended for the lab to burn down. It wasn’t her fault that Kara Wilson had switched the chemicals in the bottles for another malicious prank. It wasn’t her fault that Kara had refused to admit it, either. Expulsion was a little harsh though, she thought.
She was torn from her thoughts by the honking of a horn. Her mother had arrived.
The trip home was totally silent, her mother not even opening her mouth to say hello. Jemma didn’t try to speak to her either.
Her father’s reaction was far worse. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him this angry, and her dreams were filled with him at his worst, red face and screaming lungs. It was far worse than anything she’d ever dreamt.
When he pulled out the belt she wanted to laugh. She thought she’d outgrown that punishment. She wasn’t a six year old any more, wasn’t easily cowed. But when she walked away from him he had grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her around and holding her tightly, her struggles useless.
She felt afraid then, more than she ever had before as the man who was supposed to love her pushed her back, one hand coming up to her neck, pinning her tightly against the wall so tightly she couldn’t breathe. She battered her small fists against his fat chest, but it was useless, she was useless, and she couldn’t breathe.
His fist met her stomach, pushing her own useless arms away, and the force of the blow sent the last of the air from her lungs. As her vision faded she felt his fist meet her stomach again, and suddenly she dropped to the floor, his grip around her neck releasing her.
She took in great gasps of air, her lungs burning and her eyes watering with relief. It didn’t last long, as she heard the familiar crack of leather and saw a black shape whistle through her vision before the bite of the buckle met her back. She curled up into a ball, desperately trying to make herself as small as possible, the blows continuing to fall onto her.
When she woke, she was still in a ball, her arms wrapped tightly around her body. She didn’t remember passing out, but her head throbbed painfully in time with the rest of her body, and she decided that he must have caught her head with that vicious buckle and knocked her out.
Opening her eyes she was alarmed to see only black. For a heart stopping second she thought she may be blind, but then her logical mind caught up, and she decided that it was simply night.
That was what she told herself anyway. No point panicking.
Ignoring her aching limbs she decided to stretch out, pushing her legs slightly only to meet immediate resistance. There was a wall there. Her heart racing a little more, she tried to wiggle backwards, extracting her hands from beneath her, only to collide with another hard surface.
No. They couldn’t have.
She reached out desperately, her hands flying forwards in panic only to meet another cold wall.
They have. Oh my God they have.
She sat up slightly, a hand tentatively reached above, and almost instantly she found the hard ceiling that haunted her dreams.
I’m under the stairs. They’ve put me back in this box.
A shaky sob slipped from her lips as her head bumped against the ceiling, so low she couldn’t even sit upright. She could feel the walls pressing in on her from all sides, the darkness smothering her. She couldn’t breathe in the tiny space: there wasn’t enough air. It was too much, she couldn’t do this: she’d die here if they left her all night.
Keep it together, Jemma. She took a gasping breath, pressing her shaking hands to her forehead and ignoring her body’s protest as she brought her knees up to her chest. Keep it together. Deep breaths. You’re better than them. It was enough. Finally she clawed back control. They could lock her up, but they couldn’t break her.
………………
She was sixteen when she left the house for the last time. Her parents weren’t there to say goodbye as she put her bags in the back of the S.H.I.E.L.D car they’d sent to take her to the airport. The man driving the car asked if she wanted to wait for them to come home. He looked surprised at her laugh.
“I think this is for the best.” She told him. He looked at her understandingly.
“Goodbyes can be hard, can’t they?” He said comfortingly. She didn’t correct him.
..............................
The academy was all she’d hoped it could be. She had lab space, and she had professors who cared, who were excited by her ideas and who could keep up with her manic mind. It didn’t matter that she was the youngest by more than four years, except for that other boy who kept to himself and didn’t even try to talk to anyone.
True, she’d had hopes of making friends, but the age gaps had always been a problem, and as long as she had her science and her books she was lonely.
She hadn’t meant to get locked in the storage cupboard. It was pretty late, or early, even, depending on how you looked at it, and she was still working in the Chem Lab, her mind spinning as she tried to solve the problem that had been bothering her for days. She’d finally come to the conclusion that she needed to change her formula and had hurried to the cupboard to gather the necessary supplies.
It was more of a storage room really, and the chemical she needed was stacked at the back, in one of the small fridges. Propping the door open carefully, she’d hurried into the room, ignoring the tight walls, and yanked open the fridge, extracting the small vial.
She heard a small bang behind her, accompanied by a small gust of air on her neck. She froze.
No. Please no.
She turned slowly, the vial clenched in her hand as she tried to steady her breathing. The door was shut.
No problem. I’ll just open it again. Don’t panic, Jemma.
She pressed her hand against the handle, pushing hard. It didn’t budge. She whimpered pitifully. Why wasn’t it opening? It wasn’t supposed to lock automatically. Taking deep breaths she examined the frame quickly, and saw to her horror that the plastic broom she’d used to prop it open in the first place must have snapped, and a small shard from the handle seemed to have gotten caught in the mechanism, jamming the door shut.
She was trapped, locked in.
“No.” She groaned, loosing control of her steady breathing as she felt the cold press of the walls around her.
“Help.” She croaked, her voice a useless whimper.
Then she snapped, her fists flying, the vial shattering in her hand as she pounded against the treacherous door, her cries for help punctuated by bone shaking sobs. She wasn’t at the academy anymore, she was eight years old, skinny and cold and terrified, trapped and hungry. She was never going to get out, and they would find her in the morning and….
The door flew open.
She stumbled, her unbalanced body toppling forwards and into the arms of the boy who had clearly just opened the door. She recoiled immediately, stepping away from the door and sinking to the floor, still struggling to breathe, even as the walls finally stopped smothering her.
“Are you alright?” The boy asked. She held up a hand, trying to tell him she just needed a minute, and he gasped. “You’re bleeding.” He told her seriously, taking the hand she’d just gestured with.
His touch seemed to calm her, she realised with a start, as the air began to slide into her chest that bit easier. She looked at the hand she was holding, saw the pool of blood welling in her palm. He was looking a little green but he didn’t let go, his brow creased with concern.
“Thank you.” She whispered, and he looked up at her surprised.
“Well I wasn’t going to leave you in there.” He said with a small grin. Then he looked serious again. “Um… I think this may need stitches.” He told her.
“Oh.” She said softly. The boy was still looking closely at her face, although she thought perhaps it was to avoid looking at the blood in her palm.
“Um, it’s Jemma, isn’t it?” He asked her, and she looked at him surprised. “I mean, the English accent, the fact you’re half the age of everyone here, and you were in the chemistry store, too.” He said a little sheepishly. “Doesn’t take a genius to work it out.”
She looked at him closely, suddenly realising she knew exactly who he was. She’d not seen him close up before, but the Scottish accent, the boyish face, it must be him. “You’re Leopold, right?”