A/N: By the way if you haven't noticed I'm not a scientist or mechanic at all so I don't really know what how the 'shielding' works xD, it just does. Thanks for reading! Disclaimer: I still don't own the Avengers- what a shocker
I landed on my hurt hand and black spots danced on my vision. Pain smeared my every sense, causing my to bite my tongue so hard it bled.
"Let us out" Jane called to the men outside the doors that closed after we were thrown inside. There was no response besides the truck starting and pulling forward. "What do we do?" Jane asked, looking around wildly. I shrugged slightly, still biting my tongue. "This is illegal!" Jane told the men, who probably couldn't hear her and wouldn't care if they did.
She pulled at the door and then started searching for some way to pry it off and escape. Now that the spots had disappeared from my eyes, I helped her. In the dim light of a cheap fixture above us, I looked about the room. Besides a couple of empty gunnysacks, the steel cell was bare. Blood still poured from my finger, so I ripped a band of fabric off my tank top and wrapped it around to stop the flow. I winced at the pain, but kept my focus on escaping.
After an examination of the door, I realized it was held in place by screws, which I could maybe unscrew with the hairpin in my hair. I pulled it out, and started tampering with one of the screws, slowing loosening it.
"Here. You can start on that side." I said, handing another pin to Jane. She nodded determinedly and took it.
"Who are these people?" She asked while we worked. "What do they want from us? Why did they…burn down my lab?" Anger filled her voice when she spoke about the destruction of her base.
"They're terrorists." I told her."They want to destroy all of our bases so we don't have any resources to fight back with. Your lab just fit that plan."
"Wait, so they didn't even want the research?"
"Well I mean seeing as they burned it all away, I doubt it." I continued talking while I worked, but it was hard to unscrew the screw with only one good hand, which still had a couple of stinging scratches on it from glass.
"That's so wasteful. If I ever met their leader I'd-I'd give him a piece of my mind."
"Good luck with that."
On my side, two screws were gone and Jane had removed four. We worked in silence a few minutes before Jane started talking again. I had a feeling she was just a naturally talkative person, which annoyed me since I was in no mood to talk.
"Why did they kidnap us?"
I thought about it for a little bit. "I'm actually not sure, since I doubt they know who we are. Or maybe…they do. If that's so, it's because they kill all scientists on our side that they meet."
"Then why did they capture and not kill us?"
A horrible feeling settled in my gut. She was right, it was odd they'd go through the pains of kidnapping us rather than just killing us. Such effort probably meant they had plans for us, and I didn't want to know what those plans were. I started unscrewing things faster, desperate to escape.
For fifteen minutes, Jane and I worked furiously to undo the door, and finally I pried off the final screw. With a gentle push, I knew the door would pop out.
"Alright. So when I kick this out, we both have to jump out. The car feels like it's only going maybe 35, so we should be able to jump out without getting seriously injured."
"How do you know how fast it's going?"
I shrugged. "I've spent a lot of time with cars and listening to cars. It would sound different and feel different if we were going fast."
By her confused expression, I could tell Jane didn't totally trust my intuition.
"You're just going to have to trust me. Are you ready to jump?"
"Jump out into a street and possibly die?"
"Yes."
"Alright…I'm ready. I have no choice, I guess."
"Okay 5…4…3..2..1…" On one, I stepped back and rammed my arm into the door. It fell away like a piece of paper and skipped onto the desert road. A bang sounded when it broke, so I knew our captors knew we were escaping. I doubted we had much time. "Jump!" I yelled to Jane over the wind that now ripped across our faces.
After she jumped and rolled unceremoniously through the dirt, I leapt out myself. The impact jarred my whole body, and I fell forwards and bounced on the dirt a couple times. My ankle screamed at me to stop, but in the momentum, I'd lost all control of my body. Eventually, I rolled to a stop several feet in front of Jane. I wished I could just lie there forever, but I heard the truck squeal to a stop, so I knew I needed to get going. I pulled my aching body to its feet and stood by Jane, who'd risen too. She seemed a little better off than me for her landing, and I envied her.
"We have to move." I said breathlessly, pointing to the truck, where the front door was opening. She nodded and we bolted towards a store I spotted in the near distance. If not for adrenaline, I never could have made it, but somehow Jane and I outran our captors and found ourselves just outside of a little town. Since I no longer had any energy, Jane took the lead and led us to an alley behind a post office. We hopped inside a large dumpster filled with paper, and waited with bated breath.
I could've sworn I heard footsteps, but no one opened the trash can. Whoever had come to capture us had lost the trail. I would've been grateful, except that my whole focus was devoted to the pain across my body. I held the cloth tighter around my finger, hoping the blood had stopped, though I couldn't tell in the dark. I missed my phone, which I'd left on the plane, that could've lit the space or let us call for help. Now, we were on our own entirely.
What could've been minutes or hours later, Jane and I decided to leave the dumpster. It didn't seem likely that the men were still searching for us, but we kept to the shadows and kept our heads down just in case.
"We have to get to Texas." I told Jane as I limped along beside her. I'd had lots of time to think in the dumpster, and I realized that my next action should be to save the base in Texas. It seemed to logically follow that they'd bomb bases that were close together, so I had a feeling the Texas base was next. I'd already failed at the beginning of my mission, so I wanted to get a chance to half redeem myself. The only problem was getting there before it got bombed.
"But first we need to find a doctor and food and somewhere to sleep."
"We don't have time for that. I want to get into Texas tonight."
"Why?"
"There's a base there I want to get to before it gets bombed too."
"You can't go right now."
"Why not?"
She raised an eyebrow incredulously. "Because you can barely even walk."
It was a fair point, but I hated to agree to delay. "I'll be fine."
"You should at least get some bandages for those cuts on your arms and- oh gosh, what happened to your finger?"She gestured to the red stained cloth around my broken finger. I hadn't realized she hadn't noticed before, but I supposed it really wasn't that obvious to anyone but me.
"It broke and got displaced. I should probably set it."
"You think?"
We lumbered around the small town until we found a little doctor's office situated on the edge of the town. I barged in despite the closed sign going up in the window and limped to the front desk. The receptionist looked up from her papers, eyes widening. I glanced down at myself, trying to see what she saw. My arms and legs were cut up from glass and covered in dirt and Jane wasn't much better. We probably looked like the living dead to the poor lady.
"Look, I just need some bandages, a washcloth, and some painkillers and we'll be gone."
"I…uh…I can't." She stuttered, taken off guard.
"Please." Jane added. "We're in a bit of a hurry."
"Um…okay. I'll be…right back." She scurried back behind a closed door and returned ten minutes later with the stuff I'd asked for.
"Thanks." I told her before limping over to the bathroom. After swallowing a couple of the advil, I washed off the dirt on my skin and handed the washcloth over to Jane. While she washed off her arms and legs, I timidly unraveled the cloth from my finger. The gruesome sight still nauseated me, but I swallowed the bile and washed off the wound. It had, thankfully, stopped bleeding, and all I had to do was wrap bandages around it and around my index finger to splint it. Once I got home, I planned to get it look at so it didn't heal funny, but the splint was good enough for the time being.
I still looked like a wreck, just a less bloody one, when we emerged from the doctor's office. Haste was on the forefront of my mind, so I went to the nearest parking lot outside a diner and looked around for a car. I was somewhat proficient at hotwiring cars, though I'd never done it to anyone's car who hadn't asked me to, so I knew exactly what to look for. The car had to be old enough and the right type, and I could hotwire it without a hitch. There weren't many cars to pick from, since it was such a small town, but I spotted a silver car that would fit my purposes perfectly.
I removed the antenna from the car and propped the door slightly open with my pocket knife. I threaded the antenna through the space, jabbing at the lock on the door to get it to open.
"What are you doing?" Jane whisper asked, her voice accusing.
"Stealing this car temporarily."
"Stealing a car?!"
"Yep. I'll give it back when I'm done, if I can, and pay for my actions then, I promise. But now I need to get to that lab and save lives, so I need this car."
"If you're sure…"
"I am. I've done this before."
The lock unlocked with a satisfying 'click' and I slid into the driver's seat. After a moment of hesitation, Jane hopped in beside me. I opened the panel on the steering column and fixed up the wires to hotwire the car. It hummed to life.
I put the car in reverse and drove out of the parking lot, glancing back in the rearview mirror to check no one was outside yelling at me. Luckily, it seemed the owner hadn't noticed the theft of his car yet. I hoped it took him a while, so I could get a solid head start.
We coasted across the road towards Texas, Jane finding a map in the passenger side and directing me to the base, which was close to Seminole, Texas. It would've been so much simpler if I just had my phone, I thought to myself after missing an exit due to Jane struggling to read the map. I wondered how people had gotten anywhere without GPS.
Minutes passed into hours of driving and I popped a couple more advil, which I realized guiltily that I'd stolen, to keep the edge off the pain in my body. It was half an hour past midnight, and I was so tired that I could imagine the shadows on the sides of the road were people or ghosts. Jane nodded off in the passenger seat, and I didn't bother to wake her up.
Finally at around four am, I arrived in a small town near Seminole. Parking the car in the back of a parking lot so it wouldn't be noticed, I got out and stretched my legs. My ankle was stiff and swollen, but the painkillers numbed some of the pain I'd normally be feeling. Same with my finger; it barely hurt at all.
I shook Jane awake and we walked towards a Starbucks in a nearby shopping center. After driving all night, I definitely needed a boost. We entered, the sole customers in the store, and I paid for some coffee from change I always kept in my back pocket. I quietly asked the cashier for her phone to 'call my mom', saying my phone had died and she handed it to me while she made my drink.
I typed Clint's phone number, which I'd easily memorized after reading once, like most phone numbers, and called him. It took several rings, but he finally picked up on the final ring.
"Hello? Who is this?" He asked in a guarded voice.
"It's Nika." I told him.
The line was silent for a few moments. "Thank God. We all thought you were dead. Where are you?"
"Well I'm not. I'm In a Starbucks just outside of Seminole with Jane. I need clearance into…" I noticed that the cashier was holding my coffee and staring at me. "Er…your house. I need to install that security system for you." I said for the benefit of the girl, hoping Clint would catch on. " Can you come pick me up?"
"I'm still in New Mexico investigating, but I'll send someone from the Texan base to pick you up. All the pieces were blown up, though."
"That's alright. I can improvise."
He chuckled. "I don't doubt it. Be careful. You really aren't trained for this."
"Thanks. Yeah, I kinda realized that after…" The cashier was still staring at me. "Nevermind. Bye."
I hung up and quickly erased Clint's number from all the memory on the phone, handing it back to the girl.
"Thanks for letting me borrow that." I told her, smiling.
She smiled back. "No problem."
I took the coffee and Jane and I sat outside of the café, waiting for our ride. I wasn't sure what Jane planned to do now, and I didn't think she did either. She seemed pensive, deep in thought, like she was planning her next move. I'd only known her for a day, but I wished her all the luck in the world. I understood what it felt like to lose everything in a bombing more than most people.
A black car pulled up to the curb and I instinctively backed away. The window rolled down, revealing a burly man with dark sunglasses. He took one look at me and Jane, then flashed his Shield/Avengers ID and told us to hop in. I didn't feel like I trusted him, but I remembered that I needed to hurry, so I got in anyway.
When we got to the base, I went straight to the first computer I found and filled in the program for the shielding, ignoring the occasional weird looks people gave me. I probably looked like a hobo in a room full of priests; my rugged appearance made me stick out like a sore thumb among the science elite. But they didn't question me, since the place was so secretive that that it was doubtful a random thug could just break in without the whole place being put on alert.
Once the programming was set, I asked around to find out where they kept spare parts. An intern who deigned to talk to me told me they kept everything in a closet in the back of the building, so I thanked her and went there. I realized I'd lost Jane when I started programming, but I had a feeling she'd just wandered off to talk to whatever science friends she had around here. There was really nothing more she could do for me or I her.
The 'closet' where the spare parts were kept was considerably bigger than a closet. I cheered inwardly and started scavenging, searching for parts to replace those I'd lost. I spent hours back there and in a lab with a welder and other tools that I'd found, feeling pressured by the clock the whole time. I worried every moment that everything would just suddenly go up in flames.
I pulled an 'I'm Nika Stark' to one of the haughty interns and managed to gain their help in setting up the generators around the base. This time, all eighteen went up without us getting bombed before I finished. I whooped and high-fived the intern, who'd I'd actually discovered was kind of nice, and ran inside to turn on the programming.
Just seconds after I switched everything 'on', the base shook. I ran outside, probably a stupid move in retrospect but oh well, and looked up. An explosion was happening in the air above the building, just outside the shield. The bomb had hit the shield and bounced off before setting off. My work was a success.
Another bomb hit, making the shield wobble before the bomb was repelled. Like a firework, the bomb exploded in the air. One more bomb was deflected before all went quiet.
Other scientists timidly emerged because of the loud noise, and a weight came off my chest when I realized I'd succeeded in saving their lives. Even though I let the guilt of letting the people at the last base die go, it still felt like I'd redeemed myself.
A quinjet emerged on the skyline and sped towards us, landing soundlessly on the helipad. I ran towards it as Clint emerged from the ship. He said something to a nearby agent and then approached me, still seeming a little surprised that I still breathed air.
"What happened to you?" He asked, "How did you survive that blast? The whole team thought you were dead."
"Magic." I said sarcastically.
"This is serious, Nika."
"Alright, fine, be no fun. I jumped out of that window and…" I told him the story while we walked inside. He listened intently, only interrupting to ask for clarification. I felt like I was giving an official report, which I probably would have to do later.
When I was done, I asked Clint what he did and got a short yet boring story of leaving the building, helping people get out, establishing a perimeter, and identifying witnesses. It wasn't nearly as exciting as my kidnapping-car stealing journey, but I wished I'd had it easier like him. I just wasn't prepared to be an agent.
I got my phone from Clint and checked the messages before I crashed in a spinny chair in a secluded room in a lab. There were several from Steve, which made my heart ache while I read them. He asked where I was, if I was okay, and then finally just said 'Nika?'. When I put myself in his place, I was horrified. I didn't even want to think about what I'd do if he was lost in a fire and declared dead. I dialed his number but was immediately sent to voicemail. I was almost too tired to be disappointed, and I put my phone in my lap and closed my eyes. I fell asleep, despite the awkward position, in seconds.
Buzzing on my stomach roused me from my sleep. I was really confused for a minute until I realized the feeling must be my phone. I rubbed sleep from my eyes and checked the caller id. I'd barely read Steve's name before I picked up.
"Steve?" I asked.
"I'm sorry I didn't pick up; my phone was off somehow. Are you alright?"
I closed my eyes, soothed by just the sound of his voice. "I'm a little banged up but I'll live. Are you okay? How's your mission?"
"We still have three more targets to search, since the others have turned up nothing, but I'm confident one of these will be it. Nika…I thought you were dead." He cleared his throat, but I could still hear the break in his voice.
"I'm not. I promised you I wasn't leaving. I don't break my promises."
"Sometimes you don't get the choice."
I wondered if he was thinking of the friends he lost in the war, and I felt almost guilty for bringing it up. "I know. But I'll do everything in my power. And you better too."
His voice lowered, and I knew someone must be nearby on the other side. "I have to go." He told me.
I swallowed down my disappointment. "Alright. I love you."
"And I love you."
We hung up and I slipped back into sleep with a smile on my face.
The next day I spent at the lab, waiting for Clint to fly me back to Malibu. Tony had succeeded on both bases, so now we were finished temporarily with our missions. I got so bored just sitting around that I called him to ask about a slight glitch I'd found in the shield and we worked it out over facetime. It was strange to talk to him, but at the same time it felt so natural. I laughed at his comments almost as much as I smiled at Steve's. Once we figured out the glitch, he ended up just playfully mocking me for having left my phone on the plane. "It was a gift." He told me. "And you tossed it away when you needed it most. Good job."
I just rolled my eyes, which he could see since it was facetiming, and told him to fuck off.
Besides Tony, I also called Wanda and talked to Jane, who seemed to be pulling herself together well. My ride was leaving in a couple hours when I got another call. I was confused, wondering what friend I hadn't talked to that would be calling me now.
The caller ID showed up as 'Courtney', and my eyes widened. I don't know why, but I picked up the call.
"Nika? Hi! I just wanted to apologize for the thousandth time."
"And I don't give a damn for the thousandth time."
"Please forgive me!"
Since I never hadn't really ever gotten to give her a piece of my mind and I was feeling especially irritable and tired that day, I left the base so I could chew her out in peace. She waited patiently on the other side of the line while I wandered a little ways away into a sandy space nearby.
"Forgive you? You think I'd forgive you? Courtney, we had some nice times when we were friends, but being friends is built on a little thing called 'trust'. You spilled my biggest secret to the entire world, betraying not only me but my mom too. She never wanted this to get out, and to know it had would've crushed her. She tried to perpetuate the rumor that she was a widow, so she didn't end up with a reputation as a slut. Now she does thanks to you. How the hell did you even find out?"
"When you were talking to Tony, I realized the both of you look alike. Then I remembered how smart you are and your love of cars and stuff and I pieced stuff together. I actually know you a little more than you think; I'm smart too."
I could sense a trace of bitterness in her voice, but I couldn't tell why it was there. Was she jealous? "Well I'm glad you've used that apparently big brain of yours to ruin my life."
"Oh yeah, it must really suck to be an Avenger and to hang out with the biggest celebrities on the planet."
"It's not all cake and cuddling." I snorted. But really, she was kinda right. I liked how my life had become while I was with the Avengers. Wanda was super cool and, well, I couldn't imagine living without Steve. I recalled my old pact to myself to not regret my life choices. Would I regret shoving Courtney away? Probably not, but the way I was yelling at her only reminded me of how I'd yelled at my mom just before she died. If Courtney suddenly died, I realized I didn't want my final interaction with her to be hate. She had been there for me back when I was all alone, and that had to be worth something.
"Courtney- "
I never got to say I forgave her, because in that moment, a hand clamped over my mouth. I screamed.
"Nika? What's wrong?" Courtney asked, but the phone was pried from my fingers and smashed under a boot so I didn't get to reply.
I struggled against the arms that wrapped around me, but I was growing weary fast. The hand over my mouth and nose had a soft scent to it, which I realized while drifting out of consciousness was some sort of knock out powder. The world went black around me.