Ok, you guys. This is going to be a long story, which I am very excited to tell. I've been working on it a while, but didn't want to post it until I had a good number of chapters under my belt. It is set post Civil War and is rated M for language and sex later on. Please send me your love, tough or gooey. Otherwise, enjoy the show kiddos!
"Go!"
A hard shove sent me reeling down the last two steps of the stairwell. I glared up at my teammate, willing him to trip over his outlandish metal wings. Something animalistic fueled me on, refused to let me quit before I reached the target. I was being strung along by some unseen force, like a tether dragging me in the wake of the fleeing criminal. I pushed my aching legs up the stairs after Sam, straining my lungs to catch up with his ridiculously long strides.
The door to the roof was jammed shut, gracing me with those few seconds required to catch up. Sam jimmied the lock open in time for me to rush through first. Gravel crunched beneath my feet as I skidded to a stop. The night air of northern Siberia swept around me. Flurries of snow smacked against my goggles, fogging up the lenses as they melted against my flushed skin. I wrenched them off, trying to get bearings on the target.
"You're not cleared to engage, Haven," Sam barked in my ear.
"Fucking clear me then. I've got her." I could just make out the blur of the retreating aircraft on the horizon. I raced towards the edge of the roof, throwing myself towards the open air. Sam snatched my backpack, hurling me against the rocky roofing. It tore right through my pants, scraping away pieces of my shins as well. By the time I looked up, Sam was a blur of silver wings heading after the runner.
I sat back briskly, tapping as my earpiece clicked in and out of transmission. "Cap?" I called. Maybe now that I was out of the building, which could also serve as a nuclear bunker, I would get a signal.
"Update," the team leader's voice cackled through the line. We'd been out of commission for a good half hour. Snow storms and remote areas didn't go well with technology.
"Sam's got a lock on Professor Menzel," I replied.
"Good. Get to the rendezvous point. Romanoff is waiting."
"Sam's alone, Cap. He can't take her without back up."
"We're not taking her tonight. Her guards have regrouped. He's just tracking for now."
"Good job taking them out," I deadpanned, shifting to alleviate the pressure on my bruised ass. I felt dizzy now as the adrenaline drained from me. I felt stupid for being so reckless. What did I hope to do once I caught the woman who had experimented one me?
The comm cut out again. I sighed and twirled my finger in the air signaling a retreat for my party of one. I meandered over to the side of the building and glanced down. It was only three stories high. A stocky compound filled to the brink with Menzel's research. Research I'd helped her collect. I'd been her partner for only a year. She was the chemist and botanist, and I had owned the farm—a farm in the very location she needed to grow her questionable crops. She claimed to require the land in her search for a cure for all illnesses. In a way that was true; she had been growing immortal life.
Mixing any number of natural substances with manure is bound to produce some mutants in the fields. But she had the brilliant idea to add her own manmade chemical to the mix—something she called Genysis. And it worked. Of course, she used me as the unwitting test subject, slipping the medicinal grilled corn into our evening meal. To this day a common cold dare not challenge me.
Once she saw the experiment succeeded, she'd decided to press a pillow over my head in my sleep. I remember the feeling of suffocating, not getting enough air in my lungs and screaming until there was even less left. I remember the nothingness that came when my last breath left me. I remember feeling the air all around, but being unable to draw any of it into my body. And then the house was airborne in a terrifying tornado and I was untouched in the midst. That was how I discovered the first of the side effects, my ability to manipulate air. If there are more, they've yet to reveal themselves. I'm still having a hard enough time controlling the one. Menzel had fled the scene and Cap had come investigating the mayhem next morning. That was how I got involved with this crew.
So, now as I stepped off the building, I called the already swirling air to me, using it as a parachute to the ground. The journey was unsteady and at one point I was in complete freefall, but I managed to right myself before my snow shoes hit the packed ground. Streets lamps strained against night and nature to illuminate the small village. With only a sliver of the moon high overhead, no one was out and about. This was too peaceful a place for Menzel to destroy with her ambition. I kicked at a patch of chipping cobblestone with my toe and strapped my goggles back into place. I touched the scanner, but it didn't recognize my heat signature. Frost bite was probably setting in, I thought bitterly. I stuck my gloved fingers into my mouth, blowing hot air onto the appendages.
This time, the goggles blinked to life and began illustrating the map for me to reach the extraction point. I began at a light jog, leg stinging where snow seeped into the raw flesh. I would yell at Sam about that later, when he couldn't run or glide away on those stupid falcon wings.
The journey was uneventful, with only a herd of reindeer traveling through a desolate street to break the silence. The grocery store I was instructed to enter by the map was out of business. And here I'd been hoping to nab a fresh chocolate bar from the shelves.
A horn beeped from outside as our borrowed snow rover pulled up. For people who were supported entirely by Tony Stark, they do an awful lot of borrowing. I suppose after their fall out last year, Stark wasn't inclined to fund their missions any more. I dashed back out into the cold, nearly slipping and face planting on a thin sheet of ice. I saw Natasha shake her helmet without amusement. She revved the engine impatiently. I slid on, huddling closer to her for warmth. Before I was properly seated and secured, she tore off. I grappled for an anchor in her fluffy coat and finally settled into place.
"Trying to compromise the mission, kid?" She called over the wind and snow pelting down on us.
"Only on Tuesdays," I said.
"Lucky it's Friday," she replied.
I could never tell if Natasha was being sarcastic or just mean, so I did my best not to irritate her. Unfortunately, it looked like I'd already crossed that bridge today.
I was trying to will the wind out of our path, or at least encourage it to blow with us instead of directly against us—doing even a minute bit of good might ease her mood. I managed the latter for a solid minute before my control slipped. The blast of unruly wind from behind sent us careening forward, airborne and almost taking out Steve Rogers where he waited on his own snow mobile. Fortunately, he ducked and we sailed clean over his head before landing upright. Natasha whipped around, as lethal as the arachnid she was named for in that moment.
"I can't decide if you do more harm when you're deliberately trying to sabotage or when you're attempting to help."
Ok, that was deserved. I know I tended to jump into things rather blindly. I was used to it only backfiring on one person, however. I'd never had to rely on a team before. Commercial agriculture was a lonely major and an even more secluded occupation. I'd spent all my money on that farm and with it gone,all I had left was tracking down Menzel. Steve looked between us and pointed in the direction of our awaiting hut.
The drive was short and our hideout nothing more than a one bedroom clay house. The walls were padded with furs from the previous owner and the fridge was stocked to the brim with beans whose expiration dates were probably further in the future than even mine. Sam had a permanent claim on the single person bed in the far corner. Natasha and Steve hardly ever slept so that left me to camp out on the floor buried beneath mounds of fur.
The warmth it housed seeped into my gut, making the ice frozen in my hair to slick down my winter attire. I stripped it off quickly, none too keen on an ice bath, and slipped into my grey sweats and woolen jacket. Steve and Natasha did the same and spoke softly as they did so, casting glances that spanned between accusatory and pitying in my direction all the while.
I sat beside the steadily burning fire, biting back a moan as feeling returned to my fingertips. I might just give up on this whole righting of wrongs business. There were too many risks, too many rules. The bear skin beneath me felt like heaven at least and the beans we'd left on for dinner smelled divine. The walls were mounted with kills and pictures of hunts. This place had belonged to a beefy older woman who had more hair on her upper lip than Steve could grow over his whole chest. She looked happy though in the photos, I thought. At least this woman knew what she wanted in life and went for it. For myself, I was considering going back to join that herd of reindeer and becoming one with the wild.
Steve pulled up the chair with fangs hanging down from the arm rests so he could sit beside me. I could see a lecture brewing behind that stoic face. Natasha kept her distance and crossed her arms. "You were given strict orders to identify only." Steve began in his best imitation of a disappointed dad voice. "Nat and I were to take down the guards outside. You were to identify the target so Sam could bring her in. What happened?"
I tilted my head to look up at him through my thick coils of black hair. My darkly tanned islander skin glowed in the light from the fireplace. He paused for just a moment as I put on my best look of innocence. I was not as beautiful as Natasha but I knew how to distract a man. Just because Steve was Captain America didn't make him immune to bedroom eyes.
Natasha stepped in, unamused at my games. "One week ago today, you were suffocated to death in your own bed. We rescued and rehabilitated you. You were brought on this mission because Professor Menzel has no photographs online or any sort of records on file. You stepped out from behind an uncompromised hiding spot to confront her and nearly got yourself and Sam killed. Now she's escaped, knows we're coming, and is back under the protection of her guards."
I looked away, guilt gnawing at my soul almost as much as hunger clawed at my belly. I had been completely down with my small part of the mission. Throughout the few brief training sessions, during which Sam had taken me figuratively and literally under his wing, I'd learned that my upper body strength was on par with zero. I wasn't gunning to get into a fist match much less gun fight with the woman who'd killed me for approximately two minutes. I trusted this little break off group of Avengers to handle her dirty deeds appropriately. Yet, I couldn't explain the unyielding pull in my gut when I saw Menzel in person. It had dragged me from our hiding spot behind one of her multitude of bookshelves. It wasn't anger or vengeance that overpowered me, but an almost carnal instinct. Whatever she'd done had left some sort of imprint in my system, drawing me to her like a child to its birth mother. That terrified me more than any crazy powers could.
"Sorry," I submitted as explanation.
Natasha blinked, barked with laughter, then strode across the room to get as far away from me as possible. The one door pounded open and Sam strode in. He was grinning confidently as he jumped out of his gear.
"I've got some complaints to file against you," he stated with a nod towards me. "But first, I may kiss you."
"Please no," I muttered, sitting up with curiosity.
"What'd you see, Sam?" Steve questioned.
"After this one decided to blow our cover, I perused the target nearly to the southern border. That little get away plane of hers can really pick up speed. I think the storm froze a few circuits in my wings which slowed me down slightly, but I made up for it by catching the drafts coming in from the North."
"Maybe it froze Red Wing," Natasha offered dryly.
"He's tougher than all of us. Anyway," Sam directed this back to Steve, the only one with a serious expression. "I saw where she landed."
Steve sat forward, folding his hands across his knees. Even Natasha, inclined her head with interest. Neither asked the question out loud that Sam was waiting for. I raised my hand and Sam pointed to it excitedly. "Yes, pupil?"
"Is Red Wing water proof?" he frowned at the derailment, but I also saw a glimmer of amusement.
"Yes and since you're all begging for the answer, she landed Omsk."
Steve's expression grew grave and Natasha's went carefully blank.
"Yes, very significant," I said since nobody wanted to fill me on.
Natasha turned to face me, her red hair a flame in the firelight. "It's one of S.H.E.I.L.D.'s abandoned bases."
Little cliff hanger to leave you wondering who's really the bad guy here. ;) If you want more, you're going to have to review!
Also, just so you know, I have the majority of this story finished, so if you want more literally all you have to do is beg me for it. Reviews=faster updates!
~all my love