Disclaimer: I own a lot of things in this story, but the avengers universe ain't one of them.
Note: I am in between flights, so here's another chapter! Thank you for those who read the first! It is greatly appreciated and I love the feedback. If you are following and got a notice about the second chapter earlier, apologies. When it posted, a lot of formatting HTML popped up and was weird, I had to go through and reedit the chapter. But no worries! Here it is in all its' glory!
The alarm was going off again. She was on her tenth day of counting, or eleventh. She'd lost count some time ago and had to start over. The meals were no longer coming. The red light started up again, blinking on and off, and she stared at it from her lying position, her body bare except for the underwear she had, now dirtied and stained. She had desensitized the scent of filth though some two thousand seconds ago. They'd at least given her the grace of a toilet, if that was what she could call the hole in the ground with a wooden seat over it.
Her missing clothes lay under her head as a pillow in the meantime. They'd forced her into the clothes after four men had tackled and wrestled her to the ground upon arrival, the comfortable ones she'd had removed. She was just as shocked as they were to see her as she was them upon landing though. A new mission arrival right into the base of some lunatic… Due to a decade away from the post, she'd lost most of her reflexes to move and dodge them in time… so here she was. She'd had time to think. Nothing favorable, but the wailing and sobs that had exhausted now only left a dull ache in her chest. One that foresaw like all things, would numb over time and leave a comfortable empty hole... Soft jabs of fresh agony and pain would pierce her mind when she let it wander too far back, however.
So she kept counting, even when she thought it useless to this point; sometimes out loud in a rasp just to hear another voice, but other times with forced thought in her head, making sure it was her voice she thought in, and not allowing the playful chants of 'one, two, three, ready or not mommy, here I come' to invade them. If she let her mind wander to far, her love's voice would whisper in her mind, a hauntingly coax into indulging the auditory hallucination. She did not contemplate escaping from this small place yet; though she knew while not in here, but in the plan of all things, there was a clock ticking away the seconds until destruction would wreck this world.
She could almost smile as contemplated the possibilities of the mission jus allowing her to waste away instead of attempting to stop it though; doomsday was such nasty business. That way though, she would be able to stop thinking, and be nothing at all. It was a nice thought, if not a useless one though. The lord would never allow her to perish from him, not so soon… he wouldn't let her go with only a second half century into her service to him. He would throw her right back into the mission if she fell; uncaring, cold, and not in the least bit persuaded to let a fresh warrior go to waste. After all repairing her was easy, he could do that, he was her lord and after all, what was death to a literal god?
She rolled to her side on the cement slab that had been her bed and curled into a ball. She'd let her mind wander again, and could feel the heat of the tears dotting her eyes, the itch of another emotional wave coming, the suspicion enforced by her body's reaction. A tightening appeared in the bottom of her throat and the pain that was about to make it very uncomfortable to breathe in her chest was coming around again. She forced herself to begin to count once more, she'd been somewhere in the three thousands when she'd left off this time.
The alarm continued on, and she stopped counting a few hundred seconds later as a new sound accompanied its persistent wail. Yells, and shrieks followed by the sound of clashing objects. Subconsciously, her body tensed and her head tilted, and then there it was. The smell of gunpowder and the sound of screams clouded her senses.
It seemed the time to leave was no longer up to her. She sat up and began to put on her clothes. She jumped as a sizable dent appeared in the metal of the door towards her. It groaned in protest, before a high-pitched whining whirl, sounded on the other side.
She barely had time to throw herself against the wall as the door was blasted off its hinges, a blue light tailing it and leaving parts of the metal melted and glowing red. The impact caused the brick wall that'd surrounded her to crumble; dust and rubble shot out towards her and clouded her vision.
Covering her mouth to not breathe it in, she squinted towards the doorway. Soon the cloud lessened, and fell to the floor.
A mechanical whirl hummed from beyond the door, before a red and yellow humanoid like figure stuck its upper half in. Its' head turned, towards the wall before it sharply looked her way. The white of the eyes reviewed no pupils as they looked in her direction. Back flat against the wall, stance wide to keep herself up, she looked down towards the metal door, and then up towards it. Neither of them moved, and the alarm cut out abruptly. The red light finally ceased, broken with the impact.
"Hi." The male voice sounded a bit confused, she wondered for a moment if the world had robots that were sentient. She assumed it was male, but the voice was distorted by the mechanical whirl and tones of the casing it was in. It stood up straight, and much to her disappointment though, blocked the entryway. It jabbed a mechanical thumb over its shoulder however, "You with these guys?"
She leaned forward to see what it was gesturing to, and felt confused at the men lying on the floor, groaning and writhing on the floor in pain. The odd symbol of a red skull with what looked like octopi tentacles on a black background, identical to those that threw her in here to begin with. She grimaced and shook her head.
"Ah, didn't think so." The robot put two fingers to what looked like where ears would've been, "Found a prisoner."
There was silence, and his form stilled as he faced her. He then spoke again, "no, I found her in a HYDRA Cell. Where else would I find a Prisoner, Rodgers?" She watched carefully, her mind buzzing with the plan of action. The door to the cell was open, but could she clear get past it and clear of the area? She felt slow, out of sorts, and confused, but he was a welcome distraction from her previous thoughts. She looked past him again, stepping carefully around the rubble with her bare feet. His voice caused her to pause, breaking her thoughts.
"I don't know if I would say it's another 'enhanced'. More like some poor attempt at a gothic poser. Possible side affects from the experiments these sick bastards have been trying, though."
She almost scowled, her spouse had adored her black toenails and fingernails, it reminded them of demons or beasts, dangerous creatures not to be reckoned with and once the lord's will had manifested in her body, his power within her, she would never be rid of it, so-
The agony was back and she stumbled, her knees slamming hard not the ground with a grunt of pain as rocks and rubble broke into it. Her head bowed for a moment and she looked up through the curtain of her dirty hair towards the bodies. She heard the startled grunt that disrupted the robot's latest words, something about more hostiles, before she forced herself to her feet, red stained the khakis and she nearly cursed at her battered knees. More scars to add to the list of bodily reminders of the past. She licked her lips and looked back up once she found herself steady before the robot pointed at her.
"You. Stay here, don't die and I'll be right back."
And just like that, he was gone.
Erika Burns frowned; eyes narrowed with suspicion as she quickly approached the doorway, looking down both ends of the hallway. Sure enough, he wasn't about anymore. The hallway clear except for limp soldiers, and a light from a hole in the wall down the hallway, leading to the outside. She leaned forward and swiped up one of the loose guns, a beretta M9 by the looks of it, popping open the slide to reload it after she double-checked the clip. The man below her reached for her, and her heel slammed into his face once she noticed in surprise. There was a sickening crunch, and she paused, dark eyes scoring down his chest as he stiffened and then went limp.
It ceased rising and falling after a few moments, and his mouth stayed open as blood dripped from his broken nose. His eyes forever stuck wide now. She clung to the gun tighter as she removed his boots, shoving her dirty, grime covered feet into them, the flat matte of her black toenails causing her to frown with a peculiar thought...
What would he have thought if he saw the lord? She shook her head and grabbed for the man's gun hostler instead once, stripping him of it and the small grenades that came with it. Another man who was bordering on consciousness rolled his head towards her. His eyes focused after a moment, and he opened his mouth, the sound hit the air and she met his gaze and found the gun rose at him before she could realize what she was doing, trigger squeezed.
Erika's eyes widened a fraction as his head whipped back from the force of the bullet, the gun smoking just a little before she looked down towards the barrel, and back towards the head. With a glance towards both ends of the hall, she blinked and continued lacing up the boots, gun carefully set to her side for the moment. She looked down at both boots from her seated form after she tucked in the edge of the pants, and felt a bit of familiarity wash over her; like an old friend embracing her after not seeing her for years. She got up and her stomach groaned in protest from the lack of food, as her body sluggishly began down the hall. Her mind had fallen quiet with the distractions though, as death hovered over the two men, and the others laid unconscious.
The soft sound of shuffling papers caused her head turn towards it almost immediately, gun up. There was no one there though, and just a small manila folder with a few papers that stuck out lying slyly in the shadow of the doorway that had been the entrance to her cell. She down the hall again, just to be sure, before she took it; opened it, and read it. She stood facing the wall, the mild feeling of irritation as it took her too long to read the information, to study the photos, and then to drop it down into the corner before stepping away.
It was gone from her sight once she blinked. Rather than stare blankly at the place it had laid, she turned and quickly made her way from it. In the rush, her foot caught one of the straps and she tripped again with a loud "SHIT."
She landed on one of the soldier bodies, he groaned in protest but otherwise did not move. While she was down there, she palmed his vest for ammunition, and found two extra clips. Keeping an inventory, she got back up and trudged on. She mused quietly about the 'light' at the end of the tunnel before shaking her head and heading deeper into the dark,
She needed to slip out unnoticed, and perhaps through the dark was the best way for her to go about it.
It turned out it wasn't. She should've taken the chance with the light at the end of the hallway. The moment she had touched her boot to snow covered ground, Erika had found herself dodging chaos. The robotic man from before had burst from the apparently large compound she'd been incarcerated in, and was shooting blue beams from his hand that she could only assume were what took out the doorway. She spotted wounded men with arrows in them, and immediately tensed at the idea of one finding its way into her. Arrow wounds were a least favorite.
It was when she saw this massive, hulking, green monster-like man destroy a small firing station, and the men from it splayed out in the process, groaning in pain; she decided this was a new development altogether to her mission, and she needed to clear the hell out of dodge. Now. She'd made it about 40 yards from the compound when an arrow landed at her foot. She tucked and rolled immediately into a ditch and took aim with the berretta M9.
Old instincts were waking up, and she didn't like it; with them the voices had come back.
"You put them in the ICU! No unnecessary death, Eri, I mean it. This world doesn't need anymore killers."
Her vision blurred with tears, obscuring her vision. She could just see him around the tree, bow poised, and arrow ready; this was not the time to be having another psychological fit.
"I know... but they were going to do something awful and I had to protect you."
Arms wrapped around her from behind, strong but gentle, kind. A chin rested on her shoulder. "You won't always be there."
"Liars go to hell, you know."
"I mean it Erika. I understand it's what you do, but this family needs you to tone it back... the world can survive without you in battle mode all the time, warrior woman. The Burns family isn't going anywhere from some imminent threat." Soft lips pulled into a confident smirk. Erika turned quickly around to look at them. Her spouse's bright blue eyes piercing into her and seeing it. There wasn't a 'we', she didn't care at all about the 'we'. She was terrified for them. It was something they never understood, and she desperately needed them too.
"I will always be the-"
An arrow bit into her shoulder, and a loud curse exited her as she fell back on the ground and bit into her clenched fist, tears now streams down her face. The remnants of the broken vow now echoed in the back of her mind. She tried to yank her thoughts away with her rage at being struck and at her mistake. This was not how a mission was supposed to start. This was not how she had wanted it to be. Nothing was going right, everything was wrong. For ten years it had been right, ten years and now it wasn't; it was all shit now. She was supposed to go in unnoticed, and that was all out the window now.
A new, wet dark red blossomed into the khaki cloth that covered her. She tried to calm her breathing s she reached up and attempted in a swift motion to snap the shaft of the arrow off. As this did nothing but agitate the arrow more, she gave another snarl before she fell back and forced her body low, back pressed into the ground as she tried to level with it.
Turning the tip of the gun to the arrow shaft, she pulled the trigger. The blasted end smoked lightly before she began to tear with her nails and teeth at the sleeve of the thin material. Concentrated breaths forced her to shut out the noise of the chaos that continued around her, the voices quieted as she shut her eyes and listened to the sound of her own breath after tying off the wound.
She needed to concentrate on getting out of here, and regrouping. The cover was ruined; now she needed to get it back. It was going to be a hard task, but she couldn't track and appropriately locate the target if there was one painted on her back. She didn't dare reach back into the past for the old ways she had come to call instinct and routine a decade ago. The threat of the voices returning and another distraction causing more damage focused her towards the goal.
There was growling, her eyes turned upward and spotted as the green monstrous creature passing her by. She laid perfectly still until he was out of sight, not even daring to let loose a sigh of relief once he was out of sight. The noise of the fighting sounded a little further away, the zipping whirling of the robotic man' accompanied shouts, gunfire, and the roaring engine of quite a few motorized vehicles by the sound of it. The sound of more roaring from the green beast and orders being called out also did not escape her, as it sounded off from behind. She rolled to her stomach and got her feet under her, crouching just to peek over the tall grass that surrounded the ditch she'd laid in long enough now.
To her north, she could see the vehicles and the green beast crashing further into buildings . There was a man on a motorcycle with a red, white, and blue circular shield that would throw the shield in a Frisbee like motion as it bounced from one enemy soldier to the next. The mechanized humanoid was flying above him, tailing his movements and attacking more armed soldiers with the odd skull octopus patterned badge. She could only assume that it was the 'HYDRA' the robotic individual spoke of.
Thunder boomed overhead and drew her attention as a flash of lightning hit a soldier that had risen behind a vehicle with a woman in a black cats suit with crimson hair. She caught a flash of red from above and stared in awe as a man of all things, flew through the sky. Lightning crackled around him but did not dare touch him, his arm out as it brandished a large metal hammer that seemed to pull him along through the sky.
Erika's mind was doing black flips as it tried to put things together. She'd encountered those of a superhuman like ability before, however this was nothing like she'd encountered before on missions. They were organized, in the chaos, they attacked in formation; their enemies, the same men who locked her away unable to stop them as they put up a worthy offense. Cut down by the indomitable strength of their opponents.
It became clear as she tucked back to the ground; she needed to get out of here and as quickly as possible. Arrows soared above the ditch and landed in targets with a resounding 'thunk' and screams of pain from beyond the ditch. It reminded her of her problem: The archer. She still had the berretta, and the grenades. Perhaps she could throw them out in both directions and cause a distraction? Or a cover? Either way it had to be quick and her time was up. She had nothing truly to lose and the idea of being in more pain was highly unappealing.
There was the easy option, and that was to kill him. He was quick but she just needed him to come out from behind the tree for a quicker bullet to end him. She hunched down and peeked the barrel up. An arrow landed just to her right, and she tightened her grip and aimed. She really didn't want to do this.
"No unnecessary death, Eri, I mean it. This world doesn't need anymore killers."
Tears again, she gritted her teeth against them and hunkered further back. She shook her head and buried it in her hands. One breath, than two. The echo retreated…
Very well, she glowered over her hands, she'd find a different way. But if he shot at her, she shuddered. With her reflexes kicking back in, she didn't know if she could stop, and given the pain in her arm, she knew she didn't want to either.
As the chaos drew nearer she acted, wondering briefly if a decade ago if this would have ever happened to her. Her mind shoved her personal distractions on the back burner for the moment as she pulled the grenades from the holster belt across her chest. She yanked both pins. One she threw to the north, towards the group, the other she threw towards the archer as she vacated her cover, gun out and ready. She peppered his tree as she saw him step out to take aim, forcing him to remain behind it for cover and delay.
Her feet pounded as the ground shook from the explosions of the flash grenades, light erupting in the area behind her, and her feet light on the ground as she bolted for the tree line that surrounded them all. The painful throbbing in her arm accompanied the beating of her heart as it pounded in her head. She cleared the tree line, an arrow hitting the tree just behind her. The green canopy engulfing the light from the sun above as she ran in a serpentine between trees, ears pricked and catching the sounds of the chaos which had become renewed with the interruption.
She focused on covering more ground and putting as much distance as possible between her and it.
