a/n: this chapter is dedicated to Emilia for being endlessly supportive with edits and love for Audrey even when I'm a bad author who doesn't update for the entire fall season. Also a shoutout to CatrinaSL who once again saved this from being trash.
Chapter Nine: Time Runs Out
"We'll shout until our bones break." -Son Lux
When Audrey came to, she was distinctly aware of two sensations. One: glass was prodding into the skin on her hands and legs, and two: through her comm, someone was shouting "The helicarrier has been attacked!" over and over and over again.
"No kidding," she mumbled, pulling off her glasses and tossing them aside. The glass shattered, shards lost amongst the mess left over from the windows in the labs. Audrey groaned as she peeled herself up off of the floor, skin burning from the blast so much that she almost wanted to lie down and die already. But when she rolled over and sat up, she noticed two more people that had fallen through the glass with her: Jane and Darcy.
While she'd managed to block most of the explosion from hitting them directly, Jane was completely unconscious and Darcy was only shifting slightly. From further away, they both would've looked like lost causes.
"No, no, no," Audrey mumbled, shaking Jane and slapping her lightly on the face. "Nonononono. Doctor Foster, come on, please."
"What the shit," Darcy groaned, curled up in a ball next to her boss. Her glasses were askew, one lens showing the feathers of a fracture, and her hair was a mess. Her eyes blinked open slowly, and she sat up, screeching through closed lips as she did. "What the hell? Jane." She reached over, and, with much more force than Audrey, slapped Jane across the face. Still, she didn't stir.
"You know what? It doesn't matter. We have to go," Audrey announced. Leaning over, she slung an arm under Jane's shoulders and lifted her up. They needed to get her—and Darcy, for that matter—to a med wing. Soon.
Darcy heaved herself up off the ground, slinging Jane's other arm around her, and the two women began to make their way through the labyrinth of hallways. Audrey opened her mouth to say something akin to, it's okay if we move slowly so long as nobody passes out, until the sound of a roar pierced through the walls. A roar that sounded uncannily similar to the Hulk. So instead, she declared, "We need to move faster."
Audrey and Darcy picked up speed, and between them, Jane's slight body began to show signs of consciousness. She was far from able-bodied, but she began to mumble meaningless sentiments quietly from her spot between them.
It seemed like hours had passed before they reached the main bridge, even though it had probably been under five minutes. Once there, Audrey was able to pass Jane off to another agent, and she and Darcy were escorted to the med bay. Audrey decided to stick around and wait for further orders.
Fury approached her, a large cut on his forehead, looking mad as hell. He pointed to Audrey and Hill. "We need a full evac on the lower bay. Now."
"Yes sir," they replied. Both of them began making their way towards the exit, but before they could, something rolled out towards them.
"Grenade!" Maria shouted.
Audrey acted on instinct. I hope you were right about this thing being fireproof, Tony, she prayed, grabbing the edge of her cape for the second time that day and tackling Maria to the ground. She winced as she stood, the cape now looking like it wouldn't survive another explosion.
It took another shout from Hill as she rolled behind cover and pulled out her sidearm for the blonde to remember that—oh, right—if there was a grenade, someone must have thrown it. For a second, she thought that it might be Barton, that they might be able to stop him. But when she looked up, all she saw were men in S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform, faceless people she'd never met before.
Of course they were in S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform. Loki wanted to make things as difficult as possible, and it was pretty damn hard to stop your enemy when you didn't know who your enemy was.
Two gunshots rang out and Audrey flinched, gritting her teeth. Across the room, Fury was trying to stop the men from getting any further into the room. She knew that if they were able to mix in with the actual S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, there would be hell to pay, so without knowing what she was doing, Audrey sprinted up the stairs and lunged forward at one of the men. Fury pulled his gun away just before she hit him, pulling his helmet off and grabbing his shoulders. Audrey rammed his head into the wall once, twice, thrice, until he passed out.
From his desk, Sitwell shouted into the comms, "We got a perimeter breach! Hostiles are in S.H.I.E.L.D. gear. Hold on to every junction."
"Lord," Audrey murmured under her breath, inhales and exhales jumbled together in a ragged mess of oxygen. The gravity of the situation was hitting her for the first time since the explosion. They were under attack, on a giant flying boat that could fall out of the sky at any second. Either they were going to have to find every single one of Loki's men on the ship and kill them, or they were going to have to knock the boat out of the sky and die with them.
Audrey had just gotten her dad back. She knew that it was probably selfish to feel the way she did, since she was able to live much longer than the average person, but still, hopelessness was not a feeling she was accustomed to. She didn't want to give up. Not without a fight.
And, well, if her choices were to die quietly or die fighting, she was going to go down swinging. Even if it cost her own life, maybe she would be able to save someone else.
There was little time to dwell on this further, because before she knew it, another one of Loki's men was hurtling towards her. Audrey yelped as he struck her behind her knee with his heel, but she tried her hardest not to let it faze her as she swung an angry fist up at his face. It dented the mask he wore, at least, and he stumbled back from the force of the blow. As he struggled to regain composure, she delivered a kick to his stomach, and then another one to the side of his head, knocking him to the floor. Once he was down, she kicked him again to knock him unconscious, and then waved at another one of the agents.
"Can you tie him, please? And disarm him."
The woman nodded, setting off to work.
"Sir," Audrey called to Fury. "Do you still want me working on evac?"
Fury shook his head. "Let Hill and her staff deal with that. I need you helping out Stark and Rogers by Engine 3. We need to keep this goddamn boat in the sky."
"Copy that, sir."
Audrey felt surprisingly calm for someone who could die at any second. As she marched down the hallway, she felt some resignation in her chest, like this was where she was meant to be. She had never been fated to sit at a desk, or work investigations. She was supposed to fight.
The hallways were oddly quiet for the most part, with the exception of a few agents sprinting back and forth from one bay to another. When Audrey arrived, she found one of Loki's men creeping up behind Steve. The super-soldier couldn't tell, though, as he was too occupied with trying to help Tony. She considered calling out to him, but that would just alert the man of her presence and possibly distract Steve from making sure Tony stayed safe, and it was just too many risks to take in that one moment.
As if possessed by something, she jumped on him from behind, wrapping an arm around his neck. Audrey took the heel of her palm and smashed it against his gun as hard as she could, satisfied when it fell from his fingers. She stumbled backwards with the soldier in tow, yanking him down towards the floor.
Unfortunately, she forgot to take into account that she was now pinned down.
The man slipped out of her chokehold, grabbing her own neck with a fist and beginning to squeeze.
Oh no. Audrey began to sputter, trying desperately to suck air into her lungs, but to no avail. She needed to get him off of her, before she passed out.
She scrambled, reaching over her hands for anything to grab onto. Her vision blurred, the seconds before she fell unconscious dwindling. Just as she was about to lose hope, her fingers grazed on the cool metal of a fallen pipe. Audrey closed her fist around it, lifting it up and swinging it with all of the strength she could muster. It made contact with a satisfying thud, knocking him off of her, and then, with a second blow, unconscious.
Audrey gasped for air, trying to take a moment to catch her breath. She could still feel his gloved hand around her neck, knew for sure that there were bruises. More men—five that she could count—began to arrive from the hallway, and Audrey forced herself to stand up. She grabbed another pipe, this one slightly shorter, and gripped them like batons. The weight distribution was wrong, and they were too wide to be completely comfortable, but she would take what she could get.
She lunged forward, slamming the first soldier in the head with the side of the makeshift baton, and then dropped, spinning around to knock his legs out from under him. He bumped into the man behind him, and Audrey took advantage of his discombobulation by flipping her pseudo-baton and jabbing him in the chest with the blunt end of it.
When a third soldier grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to pull her off of the second, she took the pipe in her left hand and whacked him in the nose with all her might. It rattled with the force, sending vibrations up her arm. Audrey hissed, but he dropped her back onto her feet. She threw an elbow back into his already-bloodied nose and he cursed, but she didn't relent, turning and kicking him in the stomach. He collapsed into a wall and bowled over.
Audrey turned back towards the second soldier just in time to catch a punch to the face. She staggered back, tripping over her own feet as her vision blurred. At the exact moment, she couldn't tell if it was dizziness from being hit so hard or tears springing into her eyes. She blinked until her vision was more or less cleared, and then tried again.
She kicked the second soldier in the ribs, then grabbed him by the head and shoved him into the fourth soldier. When his unconscious body landed on top of the fourth man, he was unable to stand, and Audrey was able to knock him unconscious.
The fifth soldier raised his gun at her chest and she tried kicking it out of his hands. To an extent, it was a success—the bullet he'd fired flew past her head and into a wall instead of hitting her. But the weapon was still securely gripped between his fingers.
Audrey shouldered him out of the way, trying to grab the gun without making it possible for him to shoot her unless he wanted to point the gun in his direction too. When he wouldn't let go, she shoved it back into his nose with all her strength, and he gasped before he, too, fell over onto the ground.
"Engine one is down. I repeat, we have lost all power in engine one," Sitwell's voice declared through the comms system. Audrey frowned as she could feel the ship tilting, and she began to slide towards the left side of the hallway. Crap. She needed to get to Tony and Steve now. She threw a glance through the hole in the wall, where Steve was balancing dangerously on a metal grate as Tony flew about behind him, searching for something. Audrey threw herself forward onto the grate, regretting it immediately when Steve jumped in surprise. "Sorry!" she shouted. "I'm so sorry, Steve. Oh my god."
"What are you doing here?"
"Fury wanted me to help out here and make sure nobody fell out of the… sky." She glanced down and her stomach flip-flopped, because holy crap we're thousands of feet above solid ground. Audrey didn't have a fear of heights necessarily, but she thought she might start to with this much distance below her.
There was a loud bang, suddenly, and she didn't have time to be afraid. A stray bullet flew towards Steve and he ducked to stop it from hitting him, but the move caused him to tumble off the grate.
"No!" Audrey shouted, shooting an arm out to grab him before she could stop herself, and Jesus Christ he's heavy. She gritted her teeth as she pulled him back up to safety, her muscles burning. Steve reached up and grabbed the grate, relieving Audrey of some of the weight and pulling himself up.
"Cap, I need the lever!" Tony shouted through the suit's speakers.
"Lever?" Audrey asked, as Steve righted himself. He nodded, scaling the wall and moving closer to a control panel a few meters away.
Audrey turned back to the gunman, and he, considering it an open shot, began to fire again. She threw herself in front of Steve, almost slipping on the ledge, and closed her eyes, waiting for the sting and the blood to come.
She felt something strike her in the chest, hard, like having a rock thrown at her, but when she opened her eyes, she was still in one piece. The bullet had bounced off her chest and down through the sky, flying towards the ground. Audrey narrowed her eyes and the gunman took aim again, only for another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent—an actual one this time—to fly out and knock him out of the ship.
Audrey released a breath of relief. Two strong hands grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around so she was facing Steve, who looked both appalled and bewildered that she wasn't bleeding out. "Thank god Tony made it bulletproof, right?" she assured him.
Slowly, his face began to go from panicked to victorious, and she, too, began to smile.
The moment of happiness was short-lived, however, because the words spoken through the comms a moment later were enough to make her blood run cold.
"Agent Coulson is down."
a/n: I can explain? Sort of? I know it's been three months since I updated, but school has been pretty much impossible recently and while I do still love this story with my entire heart I wasn't able to make time for it over the last few months. This chapter is short, too, and I know that's kind of a crap way to make up for a three month absence, but I promise that things are going to come together soon. As of now, we're only three chapters away from the Battle of New York! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, please please please try and leave a review on the way out. Tell me what you liked, didn't like, what you think of the fight scenes, how much you hate me for being inconsistent and lagging in my update schedule.
Chapter Ten: Mourners Before a Funeral
Audrey threw a hand over her mouth as they lifted him onto the stretcher, a sob threatening to fall from her lips. No victory comes without its costs, she reminded herself.