So I think this'll be classified as a UA, I'm not really following the plot of The Winter Soldier, but I hope things will become more clear as it goes on.
I've had this story kicking around for a while and just started adding to it again, so I figured I might as well post it. I'm not super knowledgeable about the Marvel universe so try not to burn me too bad for any mistakes, but if they are glaringly obvious just mention it and I'll try and fix it.
I only own my own characters, anything else belongs to its respective companies.
Please review if you can.
Here we go!
"Ilse? I-i-i-llyy? Where are you?" My best friend Hannah's piercing voice reached my ears and I watched as she drifted out of the crowd, spotting me almost instantly. She was clutching a large martini glass in one hand and wearing her signature shit eating grin. She bumped into a few people on her way over to my table and giggled a few apologies before nearly knocking her chair over trying to sit in it.
"So, you won't believe it, but I just found you the perfect man." She slurred and was dangerously close to spilling her drink. I wondered how many of those she had had already.
"Oh really? Who?" I replied dully. At some point in her friendship she had made it her goal to find me the perfect husband. She had yet to succeed and I had yet to care.
"He's just over...there!" She pointed in a seemingly random direction and I followed her finger until my gaze landed on a man. He was,
No. Just no.
"Really, Hannah? He looks about eighty!" I whined and she giggled again.
"He's not that bad. He's a history prof at the university so he's right up your alley!"
"You talked to him? Oh please tell me you didn't mention me!"
"Only in passing. He seems interested in you so you should take that as a compliment." Her words stung a little but I blamed the alcohol.
"No! Look, we should get out of here. You've had way too many martinis and it's getting late." I didn't mention that I hadn't even wanted to be here in the first place. Stuffy university functions were not my scene and I hated having to be DD. Hannah had begged me endlessly to come until I had finally agreed to go. In the end it was just a waste of a good hair day.
"But they're just gonna do the raffles for the door prizes! C'mon Illy, I wanna see if I've won anything!" She pouted at me and my heart softened a bit. We had been friends since we were 14 and ten years later were still inseparable. Even with all her flaws I could never be mad at her for long.
"Fine, I'll go start the car and wait for you around front. Just track me down when you're done!" I sighed and stood up, grabbing my purse and coat from the back of the chair.
"Love you! I won't be longer than ten minutes, I swear!" She jumped up and headed into the crowd that was gathering around the front stage. I caught a glimpse of her orange dress before she was swallowed up by the mob. It was the last time I ever saw her alive.
Cursing my decision to wear high heels, I pushed my way through the crowd and headed out the front. I wasn't thirty feet from the doors when a massive explosion rocked the building and knocked me to the ground. I threw my arms around my head as debris rained down onto the street. It lasted about twenty seconds and I barely managed to pull myself to my feet afterwards. My ears rang and my head was killing me but I only cared about one thing.
Hannah.
I staggered my way back towards the building, not paying attention to the collapsed walls or flames that reached out of the broken windows. I could hear myself screaming her name but it sounded echoey and far away.
"Freeze!" A much clearer voice said from behind me. I turned slowly on the spot to face a man in full riot gear pointing a gun at me. It had one of those sniper laser pointers on it and the red dot was aimed directly at my chest.
"My friend, she's still in there! I have to go get her!" I cleared my throat and the ringing in my ears lessened slightly. I took a step towards him and he placed his fingers over the trigger.
"I said don't move!" He sounded panicked. I became dumbly aware of the fact that I was gonna die. This man was going to kill me and I wouldn't see my twenty fifth birthday. I would never finish my degree, never start a family or buy my own house. The perfect man would never be found, because not only was Hannah dead but I was going to be too. Before I could dwell too much on that, a round object came spinning from behind me and hit the guy straight in the head before bouncing back and heading towards me. An arm shot out from over my left shoulder and caught it just inches from my face. I blinked a few times and the object in front of me came into focus; it was a shield. I recognized the pattern instantly.
"Hey? Are you alright?" A voice said in my ear and I turned around to face my savior. Blues eyes peered at me through the blue helmet and I could bet all the money I had that there was blond hair underneath it. I had seen this man's face a hundred times on TV and had even read about him in a few of my history textbooks.
Captain America had saved my life.
"I'm..you're...you're-" I stammered.
"Hang on!" He interrupted and pulled me close to him, sticking his shield in front of us. Bullets pinged uselessly against the metal for a few seconds before he threw his shield out once more and the shots ceased.
"Captain America!" I finished and he nodded. Just then a second explosion rocked the street, showering us with bits of gravel.
"I'll cover you! If you go down the alley you should be able to escape!" He pointed to the right of the building and I ducked into it before anyone else came after us. It was only after I was off the street that I realized I never thanked him.
Saved by a class-A hunk and you couldn't even get his number? I could hear Hannah's voice in my mind and tears started flowing down my cheeks, escalating into loud, messy sobs within seconds. Staggering much as she had but for an entirely different reason, I carried on down the alleyway, stopping only to abandon my ruined shoes in one of the dumpsters. They had cost me eighty dollars but at that moment I would've traded every pair of shoes I owned just to see Hannah again.
I blindly rounded the corner that would've led to safety had it not been for the three armed men blocking my path. I once again found myself with a gun aimed at my chest - only this time there were two more.
"Please! I just need to get home, maybe to a hospital!" I could feel a few really bad scrapes along my arms and back from the debris and I was about ninety percent sure I had stepped on broken glass as well.
"Don't move!" The guy in the middle ordered and I wondered if all these men were robots programmed with only one thing to say. He moved his arm slightly and the emblem on his flak jacket was revealed to me.
"Hey, isn t that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s logo?" In response to my discovery and having three guns aimed at me, I made a fatal flaw and took a step away from them. I felt the bullet long before I heard it.
It hit the bottom of my ribcage and I felt my knees give out as a numb sort of pain took over my abdomen. I didn't do some dramatic movie star fall so much as just flopping to the ground like a dead fish. I couldn't even move my hand to cover the wound as I watched my blood trickle into a storm drain not far from where I lay. In what must've been a hallucinatory state brought on by the blood loss, I could've sworn I saw a man with a black mask and metal arm take out the three men who had confronted me. I was unconscious before I could get a better look.
It felt like just seconds later that I opened my eyes to find myself in a brightly lit room hooked up to far too many machines. I stared out the window for a while until a doctor bothered to check in on me. He showed me a bunch of x-rays of a chest (mine) that highlighted the fact that the bullet had broken a rib before lodging itself in my left lung, but fortunately the damage was fairly minimal. He pronounced me "super lucky" to be alive given the situation I had found myself in and even added that it was probably a good thing I had been such a party pooper and chose to leave early. Okay, he didn't quite phrase it that way, but I read between the lines. He mentioned the fact that while I wouldn't have to spend too long in the hospital, recovery would be slow and to abstain from any long distance running as I would have difficulty catching my breath for a while. I assured him that I would put any potential marathons on hold and he left, but not before propping my bed up more and handing me the remote for the TV in the corner. I turned it on, not so much out of boredom but to drown out the beeping from the machines. It was really starting to get on my nerves.
I flipped through channels for a bit before landing on the local news and my finger froze above the channel button. They were covering the attack. There was raw footage of the scene, clearly taken from a helicopter, which showed firefighters attempting to control the blaze over the hall. Two other buildings on either side had been damaged in the attack and survivors had yet to be recovered. Hannah? Dead. The professor she had tried to hook me up with? Dead. Everyone else who had been there that night? Dead. Everyone except me, that is. I considered turning it off but the reporter was suddenly interviewing a representative from S.H.I.E.L.D. and my interest was once more peaked. The man claimed that S.H.I.E.L.D was working hard to apprehend the people who had done it. I felt my anger rise exponentially at his claim; it was S.H.I.E.L.D agents who had shot at me and I would put money on that they had set off the bombs as well. Frustrated with the world, I shut off the TV, threw the remote to the opposite end of the room and got to my feet. The room felt too stuffy and all at once hard to breathe in, I needed to get outside. After ripping as many tubes off my arms as I could, I made it about as far as the door before a burning pain spread through my chest like fire, effectively halting my efforts.
I was out of the hospital a week later. It would've been sooner had there not been the minor setback of a fluid build up in my lungs ("You were exerting yourself too much!" The doctor had said disapprovingly). I had spent every spare moment exclaiming how great I felt to anyone who would listen until they let me leave. I certainly didn't feel well enough to be leaving the hospital but I couldn't stand the endless wave of visitors anymore, offering their sympathies about Hannah's death and my condition. I didn't want their condolences; I wanted them to bring her back. I cabbed back to my apartment after the complimentary wheelchair ride out of the hospital because I refused everyone's offer of a ride and my car wasn't with me; it had probably been another casualty of the explosion. At least so I thought, until I noticed it sitting in its usual spot in my apartment's parkade. There were numerous dents and scratches in the paint but otherwise it seemed fairly drivable. It had to have been, it couldn't have flown there and none of my family members had mentioned getting it towed. I dug through my purse quickly and realized my key ring was missing, but luckily the building manager was onsite and I begged him to give me the spare key.
"Can't your friends just let you in?" He said as he dug through his desk for it. I blanched instantly, he knew Hannah was dead and there was no one else I could think of who would be in our apartment.
"Sorry?"
"You know, the ones taking care of your bird. Unless, that was meant to be a surprise or something." He gave me a wink and pressed the small key into my hand. I took the elevator, my lungs were still not up to par, and dreaded every floor that went past. I had escaped death twice, and now it seemed I couldn't run from it anymore. I had no idea who or what was going to be waiting for me, but either way it wasn't going to be good.
I stood outside the door to my apartment for a solid five minutes trying to work up the nerve to go in, my hands shook as I slipped the key into the lock. I twisted the knob slowly and pushed the door in, praying that whatever death was in store for me would be a quick one. The apartment was set up so the main door led into the living room and the kitchen lay just to its left. Most of the lights were off except for the one in the kitchen and my vantage point allowed me to see the two men huddled around my table before they saw me. I didn't recognize them right off the bat; they were faced away from me and wearing casual clothes: hoodies, jeans, and ball caps pulled low over their foreheads. They didn't look up until I tentatively shut the door behind me, and as soon as they did I felt my jaw drop.
Captain America and the metal armed man were sitting at my kitchen table.
