Author's note: Hi, guys. Many thanks to SheWhoRunsMazes and ErinKenobi2893 for letting me know that my scene breaks weren't showing up; that must've been driving everyone crazy! My original documents have nice big breathable spaces between scenes, I've no idea why they didn't transfer and even in editing I couldn't make them stick. Anyway, hopefully, I've fixed things with the magic of line breaks. If anyone notices a random scene switch not marked by a line, please let me know, and my apologies to everyone who felt confused/claustrophobic when they were trying to read! Also, thank you so much for your lovely reviews. They taste yummy. :-D Enjoy the new chapter.
It was a long way down. Long enough that he could see ahead of time that this was going to be a very bad landing. He was more than twice his usual weight and the floor of the ravine was nothing more than stunted trees and large boulders that had crumbled from the ravine walls. Nowhere good to put his feet. He controlled the fall, and the inevitable termination rushed up to meet him. He felt his left knee pop as it took the majority of the weight as his boot just caught the side of a large rock, pitching him hard to the right into another boulder, a crooked branch that grew between them snapping under his side. He slipped down between the stones, gripping them for meagre support as the pain blew like a fireball in his left leg. The air had been slammed from his lungs and he coughed quietly as it came back. The shock had made his body rigid and inflexible. Regardless, he stiffly and slowly leaned down to feel his busted knee. He braced his foot, steeled himself, and punched it hard enough to hear the crack. He threw his head back with his eyes screwed shut and his jaw clenched so tight to keep the yell in that his teeth squeeked. His breathing was loud, gushing in and out of his chest in deep, abrupt fits, but he reached forward to press his hands against the rocks and hauled himself into forward motion. He kept off his left leg for the first few yards, relying on his right leg and his arms to gain good momentum in spite of the awkward terrain. Even when he did reintroduce his left foot to the ground, he kept the worst of the weight off it as best he could, and made his way along the narrowing gorge.
The thrumming of chopper blades was getting closer, but he couldn't place their position until a harsh rattle ripped through the air at his left and spears of dust erupted from the stone under the contact of high velocity rounds. He bolted to the right, trying to use the cliff face for shelter as the chopper passed over. Suddenly, a noise drifted over his left shoulder, something between a groan and a soft sigh. Steve's heart leapt. "Bruce?"
The helicopter came roaring over the ridge and aligned itself with the ravine, slowing down to open fire. Steve spun to face it, putting himself between it and his wards as the bullets laughed coldly off the rocks around them. Bringing his hand up to release the latch on his shield belt, he felt a red hot line shear through his right side, skimming his ribs as he slipped his shield from its mooring. He whipped it up just in time to hear the ringing impact of several projectiles pinging off its impenetrable surface. He had to keep it a little higher up than usual in order to keep the others covered and a bullet plunged up the length of his left thigh, driving through the flesh along the lateral side to a screaming stop in his hip. The strike pulled a strained note from him and before he could think it over, he heaved Mjollnir into the air towards the chopper.
The sky cracked with a great booming rumble and a light that he was ready for this time, closing his eyes tightly, and he felt the incredible fizzing, snapping, vibrating energy run through his hand and up his arm, prickling across his back and chest, up his neck into his jaw. He bore it out as the light switched off and the surrounding noises shifted towards the injured keening of chopper blades as they tilted and, seconds later, collided with the ground. Steve opened his eyes and spied over the rim of his shield; the body of the downed helicopter sagging among the rocks burst in a ball of juicy orange flames and black smoke. He brought his shield back up to protect himself and the others from any flying debris and the heat that blasted his legs, and felt a twinge of regret. Enemy or not, they were still just men following orders for a paycheck. To them, he was the bad guy. They probably felt they were protecting their country. But he didn't have time to dwell on it. He was going to have to repeat his assault when the second chopper found them.
"Bruce?" He tried to get a good look at him but it wasn't easy at such close quarters. "Dr Banner, are you awake?" There was no reply. Bruce felt lax on his back, his breathing slow. "Okay. That's alright," he reassured, "take as much time as you need. I'll get you both out of here." He pushed himself to his feet and his gored leg blazed, traumatised muscles quivering. Blood rolled hotly over his knee, soaking the fabric of his trousers. He turned and tautly resumed his retreat, the graze in his side knitting itself back together as he loped away.
This time when Jane's phone rang, she didn't bother to check who was calling, she just answered it. "Hey! We found him! He's okay."
"That's great!" Darcy enthused. "I told you he would be. I found someone too. Here…"
A new voice took over the line. "Hello?"
Jane frowned, puzzled. "Hello. Who is this?"
"It's Sif. I have urgent business with Thor, may I speak to him?"
"Sif!" she exclaimed. "I'm sorry, he's not here. I mean, we've found him but he's not here right now. What's wrong?"
"Asgard is under seige. The Fire Giants have marched from Muspelheim and are razing our cities to the ground in a surprise attack."
"Oh my god," she slumped in her chair. "Is everyone okay?"
"Our losses are great," said Sif, her voice tight with contained emotion. "Several of our greatest warriors were in other realms, none greater than Thor. The day of the attack, I went down to the Bifrost to bring him home and found the aftermath of a skirmish. The Bifrost has been destroyed."
Jane's heart skipped a beat. "Heimdall?"
"He sleeps and cannot be woken. He has been touched by some magic, and we have failed in our attempts to find a cure."
"If the Bifrost is destroyed, how did you get here?"
"I went to see Mimir, Keeper of the Well of Wisdom, and he opened a door to Midgard. I have journeyed to your abode to find Thor, to take him back with me."
"Thor disappeared. He went looking for something-"
"The Seal of Jormungandr?"
Jane faltered. "I'm sorry, the what now?"
"The price for Mimir's help was something called the Seal of Jormungandr. He claimed that Thor would have it, and we must bring it to the gateway as payment before he will admit us back into Asgard."
"You're trying to save his home, and this Mimir guy wants payment?"
"He is not a man of favours, in good times or bad."
Jane sighed. "Okay. How soon can you been in Russia?"
"Which city is Russia?"
"No, it's a country, it's- Oh right, I guess you don't really have a passport," she realised. "Okay, I'm going to hang up and text you the number for Pepper Potts. Have Darcy call her for you and tell her you need to be here."
"Alright. Thank you."
"No problem. I'll talk to you soon."
She hung up and texted Pepper's number to Darcy, making a mental note to herself to delete it when this whole thing was over. She knew from experience that Darcy was not above abusing important phone numbers. Once it was sent, she took her comm off stand-by to check in with Mr Stark and pass on what she'd learned. "Mr Stark?" she called. She waited but there was no answer. "Mr Stark, are you there? Can you hear me?" She found the little red dot which marked his location. It hadn't moved since the last time she'd looked. "Mr Stark, are you alright?" The returning silence was immense, swelling from the line to fill the whole safe house. "Mr Stark..?"
Steve was hiding as the chopper made yet another pass. It droned so loudly into this narrower part of the ravine that it made the right side of his head ache. He'd definitely done something to that ear. It bothered him every time he exposed it to more loud noises, making it clear that he wasn't leaving it enough time to heal and giving him the distinct impression that if it weren't for the super-soldier serum, the damage would be permanent. The downdraft blew showers of grit and dust off the rocks into their nook under a small overhang in the cliff. Thor's hair whipped at Steve's face and neck, making him wonder how a man so accustomed to brewing storms could stand not having it cut shorter. All the same, he didn't imagine that the Asgardian would be very pleased if he woke up to find it had all been hacked off with a penknife. In fact, it might be grounds for mutiny.
He pressed himself harder into the boulders as the chopper broke out another swathe of exploratory gunfire. They couldn't see their quarry hunkered down here behind the rocks but there was nowhere to escape to. They knew they had them cornered. The stones sang with ricocheting bullets, fragments of ammo and rock chips dancing like raindrops. Steve waited patiently for the inevitable pause in the gunfire, adjusting his grip on Mjollnir. His left thigh and hip were not coping well with him crouching like this. He was still bleeding, and a small puddle had formed under his knee. Even though he could feel that the air was getting colder, sweat trickled down his spine under the pressure of maintaining his position. He breathed slowly and smoothly, keeping everything in check.
The pause had barely begun when he snapped into action. He pushed himself just a few inches up the rocks and thrust Mjollnir out into open air. Lightning struck the hammer and rebounded up into the body of the helicopter with an ear-splitting screech, spewing sparks. The aircraft dropped like a stone into the gully, shattering on impact. The air smelled like ozone, and the ringing assailing Steve's skull again with a chorus of high-pitched tones. Without meaning to, he felt his forehead come to rest against the boulder in front of him. He'd already lowered the hammer onto its top and he let it lie, firmly holding it by the handle while he recovered his bearings. His right ear felt wet and he jolted internally at the thought that something had happened to Thor. He slipped his arm from his shield and lifted his hand to check him but found both his minor injuries and his pulse the same and quickly ascertained that the wetness was his own, he was just bleeding from his ear. The acoustics of the ravine, with its high walls and long narrow channel, had compounded the cry of the lightning; he'd probably ruptured an eardrum. Maybe not for the first time. If it hadn't been such a tight squeeze, he could've protected himself with his shield but as it was, he'd only just been able to wedge it down by his feet. It'd heal, everything always did. In the meantime though, he'd have to be extra vigilant.
He used the boulder to haul himself and his burdens up out of their hiding place, dragging himself out on his stomach. He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, ignoring the protestations of his hip, then attempted to regain his footing to stand. He swayed and almost stumbled, his balance impaired, but brought it under control in time. With the hammer in one hand and his shield in the other, he made his way cautiously towards the fallen craft. There were no signs of life. And when he reached it, he found all five members of the crew dead. The side-mounted gun was destroyed, but the three crewmen who'd been in the main compartment all had semi-automatic rifles slung round them. Steve carefully extracted all three, checked them, then slung them over his own shoulder. Then he turned and trudged away from the chopper, further west along the ravine. He didn't want to be within range if it decided belatedly to blow.
He'd been hoping for a break in the cliff but there was none. All he could do was keep moving until he found a section which seemed to have a lot of handholds. Calling it 'a long way up' was the understatement of the month. It looked insurmountable, towering over him like a skyscraper. But it was all he had. He tentatively raised a hand and tapped Thor's cheek. "Thor?" he called gently. "If you're gonna wake up anytime, now would be good…" He waited. Tapped a little harder. The Asgardian was unresponsive. "No?" He sighed. "Okay."He pushed the handle of Mjollnir back under the strapping, and reattached his shield to its belt. Then he got up onto the highest boulder he could find; he reached up, and began to climb.
Tony was not claustrophobic. A man who spent as much time as possible inside an enclosed suit of gold-titanium alloy, rather than feeling restricted by small spaces, tended, if anything, to feel more secure. When he was inside his suit, he was protected from the world. He could do anything. Go anywhere. But now he was somewhere cramped, rough, and generally unwholesome. And it was bad. He couldn't even have expressed why, because he couldn't quite remember where he was. He was cold, and shivered violently, gripping at his arms and pulling at his wet clothes. But he was also so hot that he couldn't stand it and he writhed in a drenching sweat, blindly striving for more room, his arms striking stone. He couldn't stretch his legs out, and he was trapped between a rock and a hot place, which he shuffled towards and backed away from in turns. Everything was so wrong. He felt like he'd been poisoned, or hit by a truck, he couldn't discern the difference right now. All he knew was, he needed help. "Jarvis," he muttered. "Jarvis…"
"Jarvis, what's going on with the temerature controls?" he gasped, lying on the floor of his lab in Malibu. There was dust and small chips of rubble under him from the hole he'd blown in the ceiling. He couldn't recall what he'd been doing. He must've been in a beatdown, but in that case, why was it so quiet? "Jarvis?" He lifted his head to listen but it drove invisible daggers into his chest. He tried to cry out but it surfaced as a long, drawn-out moan that sounded so unlike him that he flinched, thinking that some weird alien animal was standing over him. Ignoring the pain it triggered, he moved to scuttle away but couldn't: the wires pulled taut, stopping him short. With one half-numb hand, he found thick cables running from the car battery to the bandages around his chest. The moment his fingers scratched the gauze, he choked. "Oh god," he breathed.
"Tony?"
He looked around wildly in the dusty dark. "Pepper?" He swallowed dryly. "No. Nononono, you can't be here. You have to get out of here- Roadie, get her out of here! Roadie? Roadie!" He clutched at the metal bedframe, desperate to get up. "Agh! Come on!" He was zip-tied. He didn't have his suit. And Maya was lying dead on the floor, a bullet hole in her chest. Kilian grinned his wide mouthful of white teeth, his eyes glittering with cold humour. "Wh- Where is she?" Tony demanded. His voice was forceless, croaking.
"It's a shame," Kilian admitted. "I would've preferred that she lived."
Tony balked, confused. "Wait, what?"
Obediah leaned closer to repeat himself. "I would've preferred that she lived."
Tony let out a wounded groan. "What did you do to me? Where is she? Where's Pepper?"
The Mandarin. The explosion. He wasn't in the lab, the lab was downstairs. The Mandarin sent a missile. Blew up the house. So stupid, he should never have given out his address, should never have dared him. Put Pepper in danger. What was he thinking? And Maya… Maya had come to talk and Kilian had shot her. No, wait… Obediah Stain..?
He shook his head. Things were so mixed up, he couldn't get them straight. The floor wasn't flat enough. He could feel the heat of a fire. The fire! He caught a glimpse of it, flickering brightly against the backdrop of pine branches. Its rising warmth created a barrier to the outside, locking him in with his own body heat, but it had burned a little low. He needed to get some sleep, ride out this fever. But if he was going to do that, this fire needed to keep going for him. If it went out and he didn't wake up, he'd freeze to death. He curled up, reaching down to his feet where he'd left the pile of pinewood, and dragged some larger pieces onto the pyre. That should extend its life by a few hours.
He relaxed again. He was so tired he couldn't believe he was still awake. Sleep would be such a relief. Such an escape from this nightmare. The strap of the semi-automatic was tight but he couldn't summon the willpower to wriggle out of it. He just wanted to lie here, inviting oblivion as openly as he could, inticing it into his brain with the promise of complete subjugation. He'd surrender, if it would only come and take him.
This was the worst hangover he'd had in years. He shouldn't be drinking at all. Not while he was burning through palladium cores like they were going out of style. Oh god, he felt like death warmed up, when was this going to end? Where was Pepper? "Jarvis?" he called weakly. He pulled at the strap at his shoulder, sighing unhappily. "Jarvis?..."
Evening was closing in fast. The dull light was fading behind the thick clouds and the temperature was plummeting. The cold air was itching madly in Clint's throat as he panted with his hands on his knees. His body heat was fading now that he'd stopped running. He straightened up, relocating his hands to his hips, and bounced a little on the balls of his feet in an attempt to keep his leg muscles from seizing up. It'd been hours since he'd seen or heard any sign of his teammates. He couldn't be sure where any of them were or what state they were in. He just maintained a course for the storm of enemy activity as they persisted in their search from the air and on the ground. He'd seen scores of soldiers being air-dropped into the forest. Frankly, under different circumstances, he wouldn't even consider going into this. He'd've found alternatives to going completely solo against hundreds of armed and alerted men in uncharted territory. They just didn't have sufficient intel. And truthfully, if this had been a Shield op, Fury would never have approved it. But until he was given clear evidence to the contrary, he had to assume that he had fellow Avengers alive out there. They needed him. However, even with all those threats arrayed across his near future, Clint had a more immediate obstacle making his life difficult.
He stared down the river that glided by before him. Its waters were grey and icy-looking, swirling and eddying over what was clearly a very uneven riverbed. It ran for as far as he could see in either direction. He'd followed it along to size it up, looking for narrowings, or crossings, or even trees that would support a line, and his hopes of getting round it had been dashed. It was a problem. A big one. It could put an end to his rescue operation before he even got it off the ground. But the forest offered him no alternatives, so he was just going to have to suck it up and hope that plain old dumb luck was on his side.
He shrugged off his pack at the water's edge and started getting undressed. With a sparser tree population down here, the wind was howling and its icy teeth sank into him instantaneously, gnawing at his heart. He sat to take off his boots, his already stiff fingers abandoned by their usual dexterity as he fumbled with the laces. By the time he was wearing nothing but sky, he was shivering fiercely, his teeth gritted so hard that his face ached. He bundled his clothes into his pack and tied his boots to it by the laces. Then he stood and swung the pack underarm, four times to build up speed, then let it go. It was a good strong throw, in spite of how his muscles were trying to lock up on him. The pack flew in a long arc and landed with an undignified 'flump' just at the water's edge on the other side. Now came the hard part.
He waded in with unwavering determination, the liquid ice rising up his horrified legs to just above his knees. Then, before he could petrify, he plunged into it bodily. It was so cold that it hurt. A burning, gripping, penetrating freeze that engulfed his world, filling his head with powerful instincts to turn back, to stop moving, to curl up and (the only one he was willing to listen to) to get to the opposite bank. His feet were so numb he could hardly detect the rocks below, but he pushed off from them, propelling himself out into the current. He poured everything he had into powering through. As he suspected, this river was stronger than it looked on the surface and he had no way of knowing how deep it was once his feet left the ground. He kept his eyes on his pack, using it as a marker. It drifted to the left as he swam. The first few flakes of snow began to meander down from the sky. Of course, he thought. Why not?
His body was strongly objecting to the efforts he was demanding from it. Every stroke was like trying to scythe through honey, and the bank he was striving for seemed to get no closer. He was used to the illusion though, from fieldwork and endurance training, and persevered with a faith that he was, in some difficult-to-measure way, making progress. But it dragged on minute after minute. The snow grew bigger, flakes clustering together in close-knit families while his limbs rapidly lost strength. His breathing was degenerating into sharp gasps, beginning to lose its conscienciously regulated rhythm. The water climbed his jaw as he sank by fractions, threatening to invade his mouth when he hauled air in. His pack left his periphery. He remained calm and determined, noting to himself that he'd have a little way to walk to get back on track. But several minutes later, when he still looked no closer and he could feel himself slowing down against his considerable will, a small part of him admitted that things were getting desperate.
He wanted to look back to see how far he was from the bank he'd left. He wanted to know if it was worth going back. But letting up for even a moment would be releasing control. The undercurrent would take him. So he kept going, quietly driving himself crazy with not knowing. He let out an inarticulate war cry, urging himself to try harder. Unfamiliar pangs of panic ran home from his peripheral nervous system, flashing up his spine into his brain, riding the sensations of life-sapping cold and a body losing the fight to keep moving. Stranger still, only part of it was about the possibility of drowning. Worse was the feeling that he was wasting time here, that he wasn't where he needed to be: where he could protect and look out for his team. He'd never panicked over something like that before. He'd been responsible for the safety of others plenty of times, and it had always been at the top of his priorities. Unshakably so. That was his job. But he'd never let a ticking clock get the best of his nerves. Here, now, it was all he could think about. Every second wasted was another that the enemy had to take down the people he'd come through the Invasion of New York with. Good people. Friends.
He was losing buoyancy. The deeper water sucked hungrily at his legs, making threats about its hidden strength. He made a concerted effort to get himself more horizontal and tilted in the water, an eddy gushing over his right shoulder. He windmilled his arm, battling to regain his position. The river dragged his submerged arm down, pulling him even more off balance. Freshwater smashed into his face, making him shut his eyes . He tumbled, and went under. He forced himself to open his eyes to get a blurry view of the grey, orienting himself against the comparatively pale sky. He clawed at the water with calculated frenzy and broke the surface, dragging a great lungful of air. He drove his arm forward to resume his strokes before his control was snatched away again. Ironically, the current which had sent him into a spin had also carried him further across. He was more than halfway now.
The going became more manageable from then on. Progress was excruciatingly slow but steady and he kept his eyes on the gradually approaching bank as a visual lifeline. All his fears and crowding, fluttering thoughts had been extinguished, leaving an empty quiet in his mind. All he was now was a focus on survival. He didn't even have room for relief as he moved into shallower waters. His insensible fingers blundered into a stone as it skated by. He had to wait for the next one to come along and block his sideways motion. He grasped it with both arms, clinging on with what strength he had left. There wasn't much. But his fight wasn't over. If he stayed here, he was just as dead as back in midstream. He had to get out of this water and get warm before he shut down completely.
At first, when he exerted his will on his frozen, exhausted muscles, nothing happened. He was locked up. He wasn't even shivering, which he dimly recognised as a bad sign. The intermittant wind stripped over him, raking him viciously. It would be dark soon. And he'd be no good to anyone if he died here. Not to mention, Natasha would never forgive him. Hell, now that he thought about it, he'd never forgive himself. The Avengers were the best gig he could ever have landed, regardless of how he'd come into it. He didn't feel like quitting now. He ground out a noise of frustration between his teeth, trying to psych himself up for moving, trying to will his body into responding. It didn't. And the snowfall began to thicken towards a whiteout. Beyond the giggle of rushing water, there was only the faraway hum of the enemy as they hunted for lost prey.
