Checked Out
An Avengers/MCU pre-Civil War OC fic

Chapter 6: Almost louder

"Well..." Sheriff Mills said. She had two fingers on the bite mark, each in a different indentation. "How much ice?" The corner of the van was dry, now.

"Enough you'd have to scrape it off your windshield in the morning. Maybe a litte thicker." Camila was squatting next to the sheriff. Snow was standing next to a chainlink fence. The fence surrounded the cylinder that fed gas to the Custer County Sheriff's Office. If she looked out around the corner of the van, Snow could see the green roofs of the school she and Sheriff Mills had passed on the way to the helicarrier, almost a week ago.

"Any idea how it got there?" Sheriff Mills looked up at Snow.

Snow shrugged and let her hands flap against her thighs. "It's just a name. It's not, like, you know." She shrugged again. Camila pursed her lips and looked at Snow, then at the sheriff.

"If you made me try to explain it," Camila said, "I'd say that somehow my cooler got jammed up against the corner from the inside. And this," she said, rubbing a hand across the bite mark, "is just where I accidentally tagged a fencepost. The fence wire somehow got caught up and, I dunno." She shrugged. "I don't want people thinking I'm crazy. But I don't really think it was my cooler and a fencepost."

Sheriff Mills said, "I don't," but her radio chirped. She unclipped it from her belt and said, "This is Mills."

"Sheriff, Hassim," the radio said. "The greenshoes have some equipment coming out. Looks like a drill. Paige is out here with a shotgun, over."

Sheriff Mills said "Fuck" in a conversational tone. Then she held down the push-to-talk button and said, "I'm on my way. Paige, you try anything before I get there, I will press charges, over."

"Roger, Sheriff," said the radio. There was a woman's voice in the background. "Hassim out."

Sheriff Mills stood up. She said, "I have to head down to Round Mountain for a bit."

Snow said, "I'll come."

Sheriff Mills looked at her, then said "As you like."

"You're going up to see the helicarrier?" Camila stood up. "Hell, I'm coming too!" Sheriff Mills opened her mouth. Then she closed it. She looked at Snow again.

Snow said, "Um, unless we shouldn't." Sheriff Mills would probably be okay.

"You should not," said Sheriff Mills. She got into her truck. The tires chirped as she pulled out of the lot.

"So... we're going, right?" Camila asked. "I mean, I'm gonna go up there and tourist-gawk at the greenshoes. You coming?" Snow could see the helicarrier from here, over the roofs of the east side of town. She still couldn't think of an excuse to keep Camila away.

"Yeah, totally," said Snow.

The Sheriff's office was off the main road. Instead of taking the paved street, Camila went out the back of the lot and turned onto a dirt connector. There were a lot of those in Westcliffe. They were sort of like alleys, Snow thought. Alleys in Brooklyn were maintained at least a little bit, though.

"Does this thing have any shocks left?" Snow yelled. The engine was loud, and the creaks and slams as the van went from pothole to pothole were almost louder.

"Nope!" Camila called cheerfully. The seat slapped Snow in the butt so hard her head almost hit the ceiling. She thought about levitating. That hadn't gone well the last two times she'd tried it. Plus Camila was right next to her. Snow pulled on the seatbelt and buckled herself in.

The main road had a little more traffic than usual. The Main Highway Roadhouse had a lot of cars in the lot. None of them were ambulances or sheriff's vehicles. Just people out getting an early dinner. Camila took the left fork, towards Round Mountain. Snow saw a street sign. The fork was called Oak Creek Grade, and also Road 255. The main road was called Main Street.

There were a lot more cars parked on the margin. Camila slowed down and cruised. There was an open spot, and she pulled in. Snow could see the dirt track that she and Sheriff Mills had taken when the helicarrier first landed. There was a loose crowd of people a few hundred feet up the track. They were looking at some kind of big truck that was parked on the open grassland. The truck had some pipes sticking up vertically from the back. There was a tarp shelter set up between the truck and the crowd.

Mustache And Goatee was there. Snow heard his voice and then saw him. He was standing in front of the crowd. He had his big tan gun but he wasn't pointing it at anyone.

"...ordered to disperse," said Mustache And Goatee. Snow couldn't hear the first part. Some kind of loudspeaker kicked in halfway through.

A woman said, "You know damn well you can't disperse me from my own land!"

As Snow and Camila got to the rear of the crowd, Mustache And Goatee said, "Ma'am, you have already been informed that—"

"I got your information right here, Mister Russell!" So that was Mustache And Goatee's name. The woman was at the front of the crowd. Snow could see that she was holding some papers in her hand. "And this easement contract don't cover utilities!"

Snow spotted Sheriff Mills. She was standing next to another man in a sheriff's uniform. She also saw the man that had shot her at Wet Mountain Storage.

"Look, lady," Russell boomed. The woman yelled something Snow didn't catch.

"Hey," Snow said. She nudged Camila. "Who's that guy? With the red hat and beard." She nodded towards the guy that had shot her. She couldn't see his hands. He didn't look like he was in pain, though.

"Who? Oh, Sean? That's Sean Eldred. He's a property guy. Why, you like him?" Camila's quick grin was very large.

"Not really," Snow said. She looked at the truck. Here at the back of the crowd she could see it around the side of the tarp. It would be hidden from pretty much everybody else. It had some kind of big mast sticking up from the back. The mast had an arm at the top, and the arm was holding a long six-inch tube. The tube was spinning. "What are they yelling about?"

"I think the greenshoes want to dig a well," said Camila. "That's a drill." She pointed at the big truck with its spinning tube.

"This whole mountain used to belong to... Paige?" Snow asked.

"Paige Shute," Camila agreed. "They took the mountain but they didn't take all the land around it. Including this part right here."

Snow watched Russell. She looked around but she didn't see Willard. There were a few other Iron Man rejects, and a few guys in dark navy blue SHIELD uniforms. They were all bunched up around Russell. Snow was a little surprised Russell hadn't just started shooting, either into the air or even into the crowd. When they'd first landed, Russell seemed like he'd thought he could kill anybody he wanted. Or do whatever he wanted to them.

Camila edged forward into the crowd, trying to hear. Snow stepped back and walked away. She circled a little wide and came around to the drilling truck. Nobody paid attention to her. From here, almost nobody could see her if they looked. Most of them were looking at the shouting match.

Snow looked at the truck. There was a big tube with threading at the end, maybe five feet long, hanging down from the arm at the top of the mast. Snow figured that tube was sort of like a drill bit. There were hoses running up the mast. They connected to the arm that held the drill bit. There was another tube sticking up out of the ground, directly below the one attached to the arm. The inside of that top had threading, too. Snow guessed that the drill bit screwed itself into the ground tube and spun it to drill the tube into the earth. There were more tubes in a kind of rotating bundle, sticking up from the back of the truck. The arm had a rotating part on it. The drill bit could probably be spun over to grab a new tube when the previous tube had been drilled all the way in.

The bottom of the drill bit was about a foot higher than Snow's head. Snow reached up and grabbed it with her left hand. She squeezed it as hard as she could. The drill bit spun twice more with a loud whining sound. Then something in the arm went BANG and one of the hoses connected to the arm flew off. The hose sprayed water everywhere. Snow ducked away.

"What the fuck did you do?" Russell had come around the edge of the tarp and stopped. He lifted his big tan gun and pointed it at Snow. Whatever he was using to amplify his voice was still on. "What the fuck did you do?" he boomed.

"I grabbed the drill and broke it with my super strength," Snow said. She gestured at the truck with her right hand. Snow saw Sheriff Mills behind Russell.

Russell snorted and walked up to the truck. The drill bit was hanging askew from the arm. Some of the SHIELD guys ran up to look, too. One of them said, "Must've been a clog in the hydraulic line, maybe?" Snow backed away. Nobody paid attention to her so she walked back to the crowd.

"Hey!" Camila said. "What happened?"

"The drill broke," Snow said.

"Are you okay?" Camila stepped back and looked Snow up and down.

"What? Yeah, I'm fine." Snow used her right hand to wipe some mud droplets off her jacket. "I just got sprayed a little when the hoses exploded," she said.

"Did you see what did it?" Camila asked. Snow shrugged with her right shoulder.

The crowd was thinning. People weren't leaving but they were spreading out to talk in little groups.

"Snow?" Snow turned. Sheriff Mills was walking up to her and Camila.

"We're in trouble now," Camila stage-whispered. Sheriff Mills gave her an annoyed glance.

"Hi, Sheriff," Snow said. "I wanted to ask you a favor."

Sheriff Mills stopped short. She said, "Oh?" Then she said, "Well, you want to ride back to town with me and we can talk about it?"

Snow turned to Camila and said, "She's, um, helping me get settled. I should go with her, and um." She shifted her weight. "Thanks. For the ride."

"Hey, man!" Camila laughed. She hopped forward and wrapped her arms around Snow. "Thanks for saving my ass!" Snow thought she might blush, but it was too chilly. Camila stepped back and started away towards her van before Snow could think of something to say.

Sheriff Mills watched her go. "What's up?" she asked.

"Ah, in the truck. I can wait if you have stuff to do here." The small crowd really was dispersing by now. Snow spotted Sean Eldred. He didn't have any bandages on his hands.

"I think we can go," Sheriff Mills said. "Hassim can make sure everybody gets out okay." She led the way to her truck. It was parked a bit further up the track than most of the cars. She and Snow pulled out onto Oak Creek Grade about the time Camila reached her van. Snow waved back at Camila with her right hand. Sheriff Mills said, "So what exactly happened with that drill?"

"I grabbed it," Snow said, "and broke it with my super strength." Sheriff Mills slowed down and looked at Snow. Snow shrugged with her right shoulder.

"And this favor?" Sheriff Mills finally asked.

"I think it messed up my arm," Snow said. She started to unzip her jacket with her right hand. She stopped and thought about her shirt. She'd started wearing it backwards, so the hole between M and ca wouldn't be visible. She finished unzipping the jacket and started pulling it off her left arm.

"What—" The truck tires screeched. Snow levitated a bit to keep from flying into the windshield again. She suddenly realized the windshield had been replaced.

Sheriff Mills put a hand over her mouth and made a noise. She was staring at Snow's left arm. A car honked behind them. Sheriff Mills glanced in the mirror, then pulled across the street to park in the Main Highway Roadhouse's lot.

The point of Snow's left elbow was facing forward. The shapes of the bones in her forearm were visible, crossed over one another. Her wrist was twisted so much that her hand was almost facing the right way.

"The fffffuck," Sheriff Mills said.

Snow said, "The drill spun harder than I thought. It twisted me up before I realized what was happening. Then it broke."

"It doesn't—" Sheriff Mills searched for a word. "Hurt?" she asked.

"It's not comfortable," Snow said. "I think, like. My tendons or whatever. They're just as stretchy as they were before, I mean, when I was regular?" She gestured with her right hand. "Only now they don't break. I think if I can just pop it all back into place it will be fine."

Sheriff Mills thought about that for a while. Then she said, "A winch?" Snow nodded.

"Yeah, just kind of, like. Stretch it all out. Right now everything's kind of locked together."

"A winch," Sheriff Mills said again. Snow nodded again.

Sheriff Mills said, "I... have one on my truck at home."

Also not one of my catchier titles. The arm-twisty stuff is what I originally wanted to have in chapter 5. Snow was going to get her arm caught in the thresher, which would twist it up (as happens in this chapter) without doing any serious damage. If the previous few chapters were about Snow's limitations, this one was more about her strengths. One of which is, literally, strength. I also wanted to add a bit of realism in terms of what super-resistance to injury might actually entail. A lot of our bodies' limitations are set by pain, rather than anything that physically prevents you from (for instance) pulling your shoulder out of its socket and spinning it around. If your connective tissues can stretch the way regular connective tissue stretches, but with a much higher breaking strain and a commensurately higher pain input, you could twist your body in all kinds of ways. Horrifying, gutwrenching, puke-inducing ways.

I spent a lot of time researching those well-drilling trucks, and ended up writing only five or ten lines about them. Ah well.

Thanks for reading!