"Are you alone?" the man asks.
"Yes." The room shakes and the child hides further under the bed. The meagre furnishings of the pale room quake in their place; the lamp in the corner falling over, the dresser rattling against the metal wall, and the flimsy aluminum bed frame ringing with each knocking to the machines around it.
"Will you come with me?"
"Where?"
"Away from here, before it all collapses."
"There's no away from the Facility, the Facility is everything."
"Will you come out from under the bed at least?"
The child does, crawling forward slowly and wary of the big man who is an intruder in the isolation of her room and her life. She's standing on her legs like a newborn fawn, the tremors in the ground unsettling her balance. The man and child stare at one another, him kneeling to her height, her regarding him in confusion and fear. He lays the circle of red, white, and blue beside him and pulls off his helmet, revealing a mess of yellow. She's never seen that sort of yellow before.
"There, that wasn't so bad. Will you come closer?" She does – curious about the yellow – and comes close enough for him to rest his hands on her shoulders and check her over for possible injuries. She tries not to flinch when large hands settle on her. He finds no wounds but her size is concerning. "How old are you?"
"I don't know." The man thinks for a moment and decides to get information later, get to safety now.
"C'mon, let's go." He tries to pick her up, but the second her feet are off the ground she starts kicking in all directions, squirming viciously, and manages to wriggle out of his grasp, landing hard on the floor in a heap. "Hey, hey," he says with his arms up, his voice placating and soft. "I won't hurt you. I just want to get us out of here."
"I'm not allowed out of the room. Not unless a Grey is with me."
"A grey?"
"The Grey people. You're blue." The child says nothing for a time, and the world around them only shudders more and more violently. The man is clearly impatient to be away, but waits. Her face scrunches in thought and consideration and he knows somethings's going on in her head. The look shifts, a decision made in her mind, and becomes one of shaky resolution. The girl carefully stands again, and raises her hand to the man, who gently takes it in his own and watches as a stubborn determination sets on her face. "I don't like grey. Blue is nice."
.
.
The hallways are collapsing, steel support beams doing little for the deteriorating stone of the Facility. Captain America has his trusted shield in one hand, and a frightened child in the other. There had been other children in metal rooms similar to the one he'd found the girl currently holding onto him in. The main difference between them and her though, was that she was alive. Quivering under the ratted bed, mismatched eyes filled only with fright, but very much alive. He holds her tightly to his chest now, careful not to crush her with his enhanced strength as they make their escape.
There are scientists and security guards strewn across the floor like forgotten laundry of someone's floor, involuntarily there yet given little thought by passersby other than 'You're in the way'. Matching the neutral tones of earth and stone, the bodies scattered about are garbed in grey, from lab coats to head-to-toe armor, not a spot of real colour taints the monotony.
"I've never been this far from my room."
"If we have it my way," he starts but pauses to squeeze past two precariously placed slabs of rock. "My way, we'll never see this place again."
"Where are you taking me?"
The Captain doesn't think about his answer until he says it, letting the first thing that comes to mind slip from his lips. "Home."
The girl seems to refrain from questions, although he can hear a few mumbled without any real desire to be answered, and so he doesn't, focusing on dodging falling rocks, scraps of clawed metal, hanging electrical wires that reach for the pair with sparking hands, and making sure none of the debris hits his passenger. The only thing he can think of that would do this much systematic damage to an establishment built in a mountain would be self-destruct countermeasures. His shield is put to good use as an umbrella, and once they reach a relatively safe area, he sets the girl down and fits his helmet onto her head, tightening the strap as far as it could. The head covering engulfs her head, not at all a good fit but at least she's got more protection. She removes one hand tentatively from his neck to pull down on the strap and hold the rest in place better.
He scoops her up again and asks, "Ready to go?" With her nod, they're speeding through the crumbling corridors, each step bringing them closer to safety.
.
.
"See, we're outside now. There are whole worlds outside the… Facility."
"What's that?" she asks pointing to the horizon with one hand and keeping the other around his neck. It's bright out, much brighter than anything in the Faciliy, so the man takes them into the shadow of a large boulder when he sees her squinting and covering her eyes. The Blue man is much nicer than the Grey men. Warmer too.
"Those are mountains. We're on one too." The child looks curiously to the ground they stand on and then around at everything else.
"What's that?"
"Snow."
"That?"
"Trees."
"That?"
"Clouds."
Just behind them there's a whoosh and a thud, one that the man in blue seems glad to hear but makes the girl cling tighter to the blue that she's deemed as safe.
"And that's Iron Man. Don't let the armor scare you," he murmurs soothingly, which at least gets the alarmed girl to look up from the shoulder she'd buried into. The gold faceplate comes up and the man within flashes a smile. The girl doesn't react to it.
"Who's the kid?"
"Found her inside."
"Alright-y. Well, quinjet'll be here in a bit. I flew ahead. You really need to stop losing your comms, Cap. The Captain's getting old, isn't he kid?"
The girl looks to the Blue man, what did the Red man say?
"Capitaine?"
"Oui, je suis un capitaine. Tu sais c'est quoi un capitaine?" She nods and feels somewhat embarrassed for holding onto a man of his importance so tightly. Not that she'll let go anytime soon.
"ETA back home?"
"Eight hours. Shave of an hour if Widow's flying."
"Who else would fly?"
"Some baby agent… Blike, Blake, Black, or… something. First mission flight and I jumped ship to get here because he's so slow. I swear–"
The girl stops listening to the gabble between red and blue, instead setting her head on the Capitaine's shoulder, giving into a wave of tiredness that has her eyes drooping and mouth stretching wide in a yawn.
"Dormir, ma petite."
"J'suis pas le tien," she murmurs with a sleepy pout.
"Dormir, la petite."
Yeah, not sure where this came from. Might write more. Maybe not. If I do then they'll be more drabble-y than plot oriented. Also fluff, because I like fluff.
That be all.
Review?