A/N- Soz for the wait. I'll try to wrap up this arc in the next chapter or so cos i'm just so done with it.
AoU arc pt 2:
So the world is in chaos. Again. And, for once, it's not the fault of a Winter Soldier. To Kara's surprise.
Which means it's back to this: hiding out and doing nothing, because it's too dangerous to go outside — what, with Stark's ugly killer robot, and the twins, especially the girl. They're stuck in a tall multistorey building in Marseille, France, cramped with small rooms and cardboard thin walls, a damp smell constantly pervading the senses and a mattress in the corner. It's overstuffed with families and couples and people just by themselves, and nobody asks questions because who are they going to tell?
It's just they need, after all, and really Kara figures she has lower standards than most at this point.
Besides, there is running water (mostly) and outlets for electricity, so really they're rather spoiled. They've managed to salvage an old box TV from a roadside, which they've fixed up — which is risky, but less so than going outside and finding out news for themselves. She thinks it might be driving Bucky a little mad, though, and they haven't even been here for a week. At least she goes out at night to scavenge for food, but Bucky is much less conspicuous and it's always safer to assume someone is watching.
Stealing from shops isn't a great feeling for Kara, risky too because it forces people to go over their security, so Kara spends an hour or two stealing change or small notes from wallets and pockets, since most of the time humans tend to not notice or just disregard as their own error, before going to small one-euro stores.
Kara's going a little crazy too, if she's being honest. They watch the news everyday on their crappy connection, and Kara sees everything that's been happening, Johannesburg and the Avenger's Hulk and everything else. And she can't do anything because it's too dangerous.
Even though, she just really, really wants to help.
But she's not a hero.
She closes her eyes, settling down on the mattress, trying to block everything out — because if there's nothing else for it, sleep seems like as good an option as any other. From the other side of the room, just about two metres away, she hears the crackling noise of foil packaging opening, and then the sound of potato chips crunching, and the sort of wet sound of food going down the oesophagus and lips smacking together. Below and grounder her and above her, she hears the idle chatter of too many people a packed in together, permeating through the walls. And there's the sounds of flies buzzing around, the communal toilet flushing down the narrow hallway, a squeaky tap, birds chirping at random outside. Everything serves to irritate her, like some sort of miniscule but growing itch deep within her ear canals.
It's hard not to scream from it all. All the little things just scratching away at her.
There are noises all around her, in the building and around the entire city — all the everyday tragedies of life — and she can't do anything about it.
They haven't been staying in the same place for too long — they never did, anyway — the world isn't safe anymore. Except it never was, just for different reasons than now. Not that it makes a difference.
Perhaps she and Barnes are just unlucky. Stupid and unprepared and unlucky. Well, no one can dispute it, exactly.
They're in Busan, South Korea — which is nice and touristy so nobody really looks twice at the two of them — staying low, hiding out, as per. Ultron and Strucker's twins also happen to be in South Korea. Which is such a great coincidence, isn't it?
Just marvellous.
They only hear about it when the Avengers arrive with all their usual chaos and heroic calamity about them. A school bus full of children almost die; a research facility gets trashed and Dr Helen Cho — whose name they recognise from HYDRA's many watchlists — gets kidnapped; and there's a car fight which looks pretty cinematic from the news channels discussing it.
Seoul is a pretty big place, too, and there are a lot of casualties.
Still, Kara can't help but admit relief when the fights over and it seems Ultron has been stopped, for now.
Apparently.
She's out — food needs, again — and because she quite literally has super senses, she can hear the twisting of mechanical parts and the discordant buzzing of electricity and it doesn't match that of the background. And she stops. Listens.
There's a sort of circulating whine coming from her 3 o' clock, her 6 o' clock, and her 9 o' clock, almost like hissing, and there's a sort of dread welling up in her bones. Her gut is telling her to run.
She thinks she knows what it means.
How'd it even find her? Or them… Does this mean it's found Bucky too? They were being so careful!
But, you know, Busan is nice and touristy. There are civilians all around her and she's not sure how this will end in anything other than a fight and a thousand other casualties. And there's not really many places to go but up.
There's no time to think about it, really; she can't risk it. The mechanical clicks get faster and less rhythmical which each passing second as her window of time to act gets smaller.
Perhaps if she flies fast enough, no one will see.
She turns a sharp corner, into a smaller, presumably empty, passageway, takes a breath, and then forces her feet to leave the ground, jumping off the air and the wind. Just an odd blur, hopefully.
It's a good thing she takes to wearing grey now, since it matches the mottled tones of dreary shade in the sky. As soon as she's high up enough, she looks down and starts scanning the cityscape. They aren't that subtle, to be honest — unrefined, almost savage looking metal figures, lurking, prowling, looking like humanoid silver hunting dogs — but they blend in with the rest of the concrete and glass buildings and buzzing technology
Think. She has to think.
She needs to get to Bucky first, of course.
They haven't been here long — just over twenty-four hours — so she finds Bucky where she left him, some deserted corner near the harbour, more or less deserted, least not now that it's working hours.
She could just go and get him, snatch him up like some sort of eagle descending on prey. As long as she doesn't go too fast, he'd be able to handle it, and she could tell him the situation.
Another glance...the pack are descending on him now. And his senses aren't as well tuned as hers but his instincts make him perk up, and slouch even further inwards at the feeling of being watched.
Kara breathes, and focuses herself, aligns her path as though transforming into a bullet into the sky.
One…
Two…
Three—
She cuts through the air, down towards her target (but this time, a rescue mission rather than a killing) not even feeling the air as it tunnels behind her, the sound of adrenaline in her ears.
Her arms meet Bucky's form and she closes her hold around him and does not stop. Bucky feels almost limp in her arms, though he is not might as well be, because her grip is like that of a steel trap, clamping its teeth around its prey.
They shoot up into the sky and it is only when they are above the first layer of ashy clouds that she allows herself to slow, just slightly.
"Ultron," she says, by way of explanation, finally. "It found us, somehow. I think."
Bucky takes a moment to reassemble himself into composure, his body both limp with shock and tense at once. He breathes.
"Um…" and he blinks. "What."
"We've been traced. Stark's creation found us, Ultron. I don't know how."
It's easier, she thinks, to not think, or at least not as herself. At least not right now. It's when it's situations like this that she has to let the Weapon-programming to take over, because it's more helpful, because she has to. Because it's easy and comes naturally, and she hates it.
At the back of her neck, something itches. A metallic sort of scratch.
Her neck itchy and her body sore. Or not really… It feels like a phantom sort of ache.
She looks at Bucky.
The only safe place, says a voice wryly in the back of her mind, is up. Where there's no atmosphere and nothing survives. Not even herself.
Maybe somewhere like the Poles, or Greenland might be safe. They could both survive there, probably, even without any sort of fortress of solitude.
She breathes.
The itch on her neck suddenly grows intense and electrifying. Unconsciously, one hand goes to touch the back of her neck. She frowns. Something is wrong.
"Kara…" says Bucky, something which might be fear leaking into his voice, and his frame grows tenser. "What…"
Even in her hold, the doctor manages a pathetic smile. She drops him. Something is inside of her. She touches it again, something which isn't supposed to be there is there.
There's another shock, this one more intense than before, and she's out cold.