A/N: Ooh, the plot thickens. Happy 4th of July!
"Innocent droplets of rain make almost all events quite natural."
~Visar Zhiti
On her way to work the next day, Avery got an unexpected call from her mom.
"Hey, I forgot to tell you," she told her daughter, "I have to work the late shift tonight, and your dad got called up to New York again, so you'll have to fend for yourself for a bit. Think you can handle it?"
"Yeah, that's fine," Avery said, pinching the phone between her ear and shoulder as she drove. "Good luck. Okay, love you. Bye."
The morning passed uneventfully- that is, after Avery broke it to Carmen that her dad 'didn't know the name of her mystery crush, after all.' Carmen was moping around the McDonald's for the whole day after that. To keep from feeling guilty, Avery just kept telling herself that she was 'doing her duty as an American' by keeping Captain America's identity secret.
It was a pretty lame excuse, but she was desperate.
Around noon, Avery was in the kitchen again, attempting to chuck some potatoes into the fryer before taking more orders. She braced herself on the wall to lean over the vat of bubbling oil, and as she did, she felt tremors.
It wasn't abnormal. Construction was a common thing in the area. Workmen with were always blowing up old buildings or fixing roads with jackhammers- in fact, they often did the latter during the heaviest traffic of the day, Avery usually noted with chagrin.
She kept going about her business until the tremors grew in violence; it got to the point where the huge water jugs in the back began sloshing back and forth. The other employees near them looked up from their phones. Avery stopped what she was doing and went back out to the front. Her eyes found Carmen a few feet away.
"Do you feel that?" Avery asked.
"Yeah." Carmen, still a little pouty, didn't seem troubled at all. If anything, she looked mildly intrigued. "Think we're having an earthquake?"
"In D.C.? It's possible, I guess."
The tremors stopped. Customers around the store didn't really seem to notice. Maybe they thought it was a construction project, too, Avery reasoned.
"Okay then," Avery said, getting back to work. She resolved to google whether there had been an earthquake in the D.C. area when she got home.
As she was preparing to leave around 2:00, she noticed clouds gathering, beginning to obscure the sun. Everything was bathed in the odd green light that comes before a bad storm. She drove home quickly, not wishing to be caught in the rain.
The timing was almost too perfect- it was like the clouds were waiting for her to pull into her apartment parking lot before they opened up and unleashed their full wrath.
She was soaked before she was even totally out of the car.
Torrents of rain drove violently down from the blackened sky. By the time she slammed the slippery car door shut, her collared shirt was already clinging to her skin. Her shoes sloshed. Everything smelled like ozone.
Above her, a concussive blast of thunder sounded, hurting her eardrums with its violence. A thread of lightning ripped up the sky for a sliver of a second. Shoulders hunched, as if submitting to the storm's might, she trotted to her doorsteps, gripping the handrail for support while she ascended them to avoid slipping on the wet concrete.
Thankfully, she didn't have much trouble finding her keys. She quickly pushed the door open and shut it behind her, relishing the stillness of her house compared to nature's cacophony outside. Another flare of white lighting temporarily lit up the whole house, and Avery let out a small "Woo" in spite of herself.
She opened her mouth to call out that she was home, but stopped in mid-breath, remembering that neither parent was present. Feeling a little bad for the tiny flare of pleasure that jumped up in her, she immediately stole up to her room, plugged her iPhone into a speaker, and cranked the music up all the way.
If anyone asked her about it, she would lie- but Avery danced like an absolute spazz when no one else was around.
Singing along to her eclectic lineup of songs- even the instrumental ones, if that was possible- she proceeded to rip off her soggy clothes and jump into the shower. Having lived in D.C. for her entire life, she knew how much pollution was in the atmosphere, and had no desire to be covered in the liquid version of said pollution for too long.
Once finished, she wrapped her towel around her (more to protect her from the chill of the room than to be covered) and made her way back to her dresser, where the music was still blasting. She donned some plaid pajama bottoms and a baggy sweatshirt. Her hair sat in a wet, half-hearted bun atop her head, which flopped around as she danced.
She was just pondering the pros and cons of ordering a pizza versus microwaving leftovers for dinner when she heard it.
Thump.
Right above her.
She stilled, trying to figure out if the sound could have possibly come from her speakers.
Or maybe a tree branch had gotten blown up there from nearby?
Shaking it off, she bent to pick up the pile of her dirty clothes.
Thud.
Louder this time. The pile dropped to the floor. She leapt to the speakers and ripped her phone out, cutting off the music.
Normally, she wouldn't have given noises like these a second thought, but she was always paranoid when she was home alone.
In the dark quiet of her bedroom, her senses were heightened. She strained to pick up any other sound besides the unsteady thrumming of the rain all around her.
As she listened, she discerned faint scuffling coming from the roof just right of her bed.
Oh my gosh, someone's trying to break in, she thought immediately.
The scuffling stopped, which, somehow, was worse than when it was audible.
She crept over to her bedside table, slowly rolling the drawer open and picking up the red pocket knife her dad had given her when she was ten. She vaguely wondered what idiot would rob a house by climbing on a roof during a storm.
It was quiet for a long time. She was just beginning to think that it must have been nothing when she heard another noise.
Before she even placed what this one was, it registered as being familiar. Head cocked, still gripping the pocket knife, she tried to remember what had ever made such weird sound-
"Holy cr-"
She threw down the knife, ran to the window and shoved it open, bracing it with once shoulder. As she did so, a particularly loud peal of thunder shook the house. The rain hadn't slowed. If anything, it had gotten harder; the wind, gustier; the sky, darker.
Humid air blasted her face when she shakily climbed out onto the fire escape. She looked up, but the onslaught of rain prevented her from actually seeing anything. The fact that she was covered in 'liquid pollution' again didn't even register. She was too absorbed in maintaining a firm grip on the slick metal.
Head bowed against the beating rain, Avery gripped one rung, moved one foot, gripped one rung, struggled not to let her other foot slide off.
Her hand finally slapped down on the edge of the roof, and she scrambled her way ungracefully to the top. She stayed on her hands and knees.
The familiar noise of mechanical whirring was even louder up there.
She could just make out his silhouette ahead of her. He was bent at the waist, clutching his side. Beyond that, she couldn't exactly tell what was wrong.
What she could tell was that he was the tallest thing on the roof, had a metal arm, and was standing in the middle of a lightning storm.
Simultaneously, every curse word in her vocabulary ran through her head.
"ARE YOU CRAZY?" she screamed at him over the wind, tasting the bitter raindrops. "GET DOWN, YOU'LL GET STRUCK BY LIGHTNING!"
He stumbled toward her, apparently not hearing what she said. The more he moved, the more it became apparent that he was hurting. He hadn't been in such a bad way since she had seen him struggling to cross the street.
He swayed, buffeted by the waves of rain. She didn't really think about it as she got off the ground and ran toward him. She could only recognize that her friend needed her.
That, and she needed to get him off the roof.
She tripped over her own feet a couple times trying to reach him. Blindly, she felt for his right arm and swung it over her shoulder.
His lack of an effort to shrink back when she touched him only reinforced her suspicion that he was seriously injured. She caught glimpses of his face as she pulled him toward the fire escape- he looked disoriented, though not completely unaware. He adjusted his weight so that she could help him more.
As they neared it, she yelled, "Can you climb?", pointing to the ladder.
He grimaced, but said nothing. He began making his way toward it and descended it painfully. Injured as he was, he was still twice as fast as Avery, who had been climbing the thing her whole life. His athleticism was a stark reminder that, even in his current state, he was anything but helpless.
He reached the bottom, a small iron square suspended just outside her window. Avery made the trip down, slipping on the last step. She fell back and only came to a stop because he was standing there. She could almost feel him wince when she bumped into him.
"Sorry," she shouted.
The square was barely big enough for two people, and as a result, they had very little space to move. Back still pressed to his chest, she reached for the window, which had shut without someone to prop it open.
She was vividly aware of how cold he felt against her. She desperately hoped that it wasn't due to blood loss, because then she would have to call 911, and she wasn't sure how he would react to being put in a hospital.
She gripped the window frame with both hands and yanked up.
It didn't budge.
She tried again, putting her back into it this time. It still didn't move.
"It's stuck!" Avery couldn't believe her luck. This had happened maybe two other times in ten years. And both those times, her parents had been able to hear her knocking and come open it.
He shifted behind her, his good arm coming around to gently push her aside. They switched places with no small amount of difficulty. She craned her neck over his shoulder to watch him, and had to stand on her tiptoes to see anything.
In one fluid movement, his metallic limb gripped the sill, emitting a low, whining buzz as it did so, and ripped the window up with such force that the glass shattered. It was Avery's turn to wince. That would not be fun to explain.
As he brought his arm down, something popped, and red sparks flew from the joint at the elbow, momentarily illuminating their faces. It twitched a few times of its own accord. He clutched it with his good hand. It was clear that whatever hurt him had damaged his arm, too.
"It's okay, get inside!" she yelled over another clap of thunder, urging him forward with an insistent nudge.
He obeyed and climbed in. For a minute, she was afraid he wouldn't fit through, but he made it, and she followed immediately after, falling onto the plush carpet.
She staggered up and shut the window without pausing to collect herself. Realizing this did little good without any glass actually in the window, she pulled down the blinds and rolled them closed, muffling some of the storm's noise.
When she turned, she found him clutching his side again, a little bit of blood now dripping from his mouth. He stared listlessly at the floor, and the piercing gaze she had come to know was now dull and unfocused.
"What happened to you?!" she asked disbelievingly, running to him and guiding him to the wicker chair by the computer.
When he sat, he winced again. "I think I remember my name now," he muttered.
She stopped. "You- what?"
Before he could elaborate, he collapsed into a coughing fit, more blood out bubbling from his lips.
She cursed. "Where are you hurt?"
He vaguely gestured to the spot on his side he had been clutching earlier.
Having a nurse for a mom, Avery knew more about medicine than most people her age. A typical car conversation involved discussing the patients Mrs. Belton had helped treat that day, and when the family watched TV together, they would usually watch E.R. shows. Avery's mom had even made her take get a CPR license as a 'just in case' thing.
So, Avery went into nurse-mode. Without even asking, she knelt in front of him and began unbuttoning his leather jacket. She was so hurried that a few buttons actually popped off.
"Lean forward," she commanded. He did so, surprisingly accustomed to being handled. She pulled the jacket off him, revealing a shirt of under-armor-like fabric beneath. She had him pull this off, too. A gash on his forehead bled freely now.
She couldn't stop herself from giving an involuntary gasp when she saw his torso. There was very little skin on his muscled frame that wasn't bruised. He looked like he had been crushed under a trash compactor, black and blue all over. Where he had pointed to earlier was the worst. An angry, green contusion covered his entire left ribcage.
That explained the blood, she realized with horror. He must have broken some ribs and punctured a lung.
"We have to get you to a hospital," she told him, knowing that this kind of injury was beyond her. "I'm calling an ambulance."
She shoved off the ground and started toward her dresser, but he caught her wrist and stopped her.
"No," he gritted out, desperation tinting his clear eyes. "No one can know I'm here."
She had expected a reaction like this. Without batting an eye, she responded, "You will die if we don't get you help. Look at yourself." He coughed again, emphasizing her point. She tried pulling out of his grip, but, ironically, even his normal hand gripped her like a steel trap.
"Let go."
"No, listen to me." He gave a raspy breath. "I'm not like you. I'll heal."
"Heal, my butt! You've got internal bleeding!" Even as she shouted this, her eyes flickered down to his ribs again, the bruise already noticeably smaller.
She did a double take. "What the-how-?"
"You know the super-soldier serum they gave to Captain America?" he asked with discomfort, finding it difficult to speak. She nodded. "Well I've got something like that, too. I'll heal, Avery."
Her eyes found his again, and she stopped trying to pull away. That was the first time he'd called her by name.
Something was different about him, she thought as she looked at him again. His gaze had regained some of its characteristic harshness, but he was almost...less mechanical. Just barely, but he was.
Whatever had happened to him-beyond beating him to a fare-thee-well- had changed him somehow.
She stood there for another heartbeat, unsure whether she was willing to believe him. Pinned under that knifelike gaze, she wavered.
"You're absolutely positive?" she questioned him.
He nodded seriously.
She took a slow inhale, then finally breathed out, decision made. "Okay. Fine."
He released her and eased back into the chair, visibly trying to keep the pain out of his expression.
She knelt back down in front of him. Small beads of sweat were visible on his forehead and chest. His fists were clenched. It was taking an effort for him to keep still amidst the rolling waves of pain she was sure he was drowning in.
Distracting him from pain once before had helped him, she recalled.
"So," she began, and they locked eyes again. "You said you remembered your name."