A/N Synnonence – just woke up to your reviews and thank you very much! Your constructive criticism was very appreciated and I am beyond flattered that you took the time to share your opinions with me as you were reading this fic. I'll bear your comments in mind (especially the one about Bucky being a 'master-assassin', which I agree with) into account as I write my Civil War chapters.
Awesome song to go with this chapter: "And The World Was Gone" by Snow Ghosts.
SHADOW
CHAPTER 35
We do the impossible, and we hold the surge of robots off. Every last one of them. It's messy, especially when none of us really work as a team that well. There were several moments where Thor's hammer nearly collided with me and one time Steve decided it would be smart to ricochet his shield off of what was left of the remaining walls. Wanda and I would have both been decapitated had she not throw up a shield around us.
"Jesus Christ, Steve!" I snap at him, falling back into position behind Bucky as I shoot out another spray of bullets. Large chunks of hair have fallen out of my ponytail and are sticking to the sweat on my face. I'm more cranky than ever, my own exhaustion finally catching up with me. "Watch where you're throwing that fucking thing!"
"WHAT?" he yells, unable to hear me over the chaos. He uses the shield to bash a robot's head in.
"I said –" I snap, ducking as a machine swoops too low. "- watch where you're –" The robot fires an explosive, which in turn Tony fires a heat-seeking flare at. It hits the explosive and it defaults in mid-air, erupting inches above my head. "Watch where you're –" I try again, but the Hulk gives a deafening roar and I growl in exasperation. "Never mind!"
When the last robot goes down, I immediately rip my bullet-proof vest over my head along with my ammunition, beyond caring if I get shot any more. I sit down heavily on the steps by the drill, too tired and too exhausted to stand any longer; my gun discarded at my side.
"We gotta move out – get to those lifeboats" Steve says, barely looking out of breath, and I rest my elbows on my knees, letting my head hang between my legs. His eyes must fall on me, because he says: "c'mon Alex, job's almost done."
I wave a hand. "I just need a breather."
Pietro collapses down next to me, looking similarly winded. I forget that even though he has super-speed, he doesn't exactly have super-lungs. He's panting like he's just run a marathon, which I guess he probably has.
"What, Usain Bolt finally ran out of juice or something?" Clint smirks – obviously relishing in the chance to get his own-back after all the 'slow' jokes. "C'mon Nat –" he adds, as the pair of them break into a nearby plush – if dusty – Audi. "Try and keep up!...yer little turd," he distinctly mutters under his breath, as he revs the engine and speeds off.
Pietro only flips him off by way of response – still too exhausted to actually formulate words.
Bucky's metal hand appears in my field of vision and I look up at him. Like Steve, he's slightly dishevelled, but clearly hardly effected by the physical demands of the fight.
"Okay," I say, taking his hand and allowing him to haul me upright. "You better be proud of me. Not all of us have super-strength or can change into green rage-monsters."
Bucky smirks slightly, handing me my gun which I take back only reluctantly. It was cool at first, now, with my arms so deadened I can barely feel them, it's as if it weighs a ton.
"Sure you don't want me to carry anything…?" he asks, sardonically, and I nudge him in the arm with my elbow by way of retaliation.
"Nobody likes a know-it-all."
"Can't help it if I'm right all the time," he replies, unperturbed. He leads me over to an abandoned motorbike and we both climb on, Bucky driving us at a sickeningly fast speed as we weave in and out of the debris and dead robots on the road back towards the lifeboats.
Getting off the bike is physically painful. I practically slip off the end, barely able to force my stiff leg muscles to move. When Bucky and I clamber on to the nearest lifeboat, I realize that we're one of the last ones to arrive. Natasha and a de-hulked Bruce are strapped in side-by-side, Bruce's modesty awkwardly preserved by a foil blanket. Clint, Steve, Thor and Pietro are busy rounding up the last of the civilians and assuring them onto the boat.
Bucky and I take our seats opposite Natasha and Bruce. Around us, for the most part, are unharmed civilians. Some of them have a few scrapes and bruises, but I am relieved to see no fatalities on our boat. The worst injury as far as I can tell is a broken arm. Seeing mothers hugging their children, husbands with their wives…I smile slightly, allowing my head to tiredly drop on Bucky's shoulder as I watch the various families. We did it.
"Ah shit –" Clint abruptly says, just as he's boarding the lifeboat.
"What is it?" Natasha asks.
"Some kid's still not on the boat –" he replies, in a tone more of mild irritability than panic. It's clear that he just wants to go home, but Clint's not the kind of person to call it a day until everyone else is safe first. He disembarks just as the engines begin to fire up. I watch him jog over to the young boy, not far away, and begin to pull him out of the hole he's been hiding in.
And then I spot the jet swooping in low. A jet that lets rip a deadly line of fire that tears up the ground and makes a direct line to –
This time, I can't seem to make my lungs work properly. I stand from my seat, my hands simply covering my mouth. Everything seems to move slower. I can't tear my eyes away as Clint turns, trying to use his body to shield the boy from harm.
Natasha gets to her feet behind me – seeing what I am seeing. She takes a single, useless, step – her hands landing on my shoulders as she looks past me to her partner of eight years. She seems to crumple – the name "Clint" leaving her in a gasp, as if she's been physically punched in the stomach.
But the bullets don't hit Clint.
One moment there is Clint and the boy. The next moment there is Clint and the boy and Pietro. I blink, and as I blink again as Pietro collapses to the ground.
The engines are now at full power and deafeningly loud. Steve is running over to retrieve the body. The whole thing happened in a matter of seconds when the world just simply stopped making sense. And as the earth begins to move again, Clint gets on the lifeboat and delivers the child safely to his mother. Steve settles Pietro's bullet-ridden body on the floor.
We begin to take off.
"Steve. What about Wanda?" I realise. My voice comes out broken and as hoarse as a bird's. It cuts across everything, bringing us all reeling back from our shock into the immediacy of the present. Steve's eyes tell me everything. "She's still down there!" I yell at him, finding my voice now – pointing at the city which is about to be exploded. "We can't just leave her –"
Bucky stands to try to placate me. "Alex –"
"NO!" I yell, shrugging his hand off of my shoulder. My eyes keep on falling on Pietro's body. He just wanted to do the right thing. "We have to go back! We have to –"
"It's alright, Miss Tsvetkov –" the Vision's voice comes through on all our comm's. "I have her. She is safe."
I falter, wide-eyed.
Dorzhorvhez explodes behind us just as the main ship's docking stations open back up to accommodate the lifeboats. It is a dull, strangely muffled sound – filtered by several miles of open air. Everyone on the boat watches as buildings, earth and rubble rain down from the sky into the river several hundred feet below. Family's clutch one another as they literally watch their homes decimate. Bucky pulls me into a hug, tucking me into his side. When I look up at him, he presses a kiss onto my forehead.
"I'm proud of you," he says, his voice thick. It's a question I had asked half-jokingly, but it somehow means the world to hear him say it.
"Thanks," I whisper back, quietly.
The lifeboat slides smoothly into the dock and the doors open, allowing us to disembark. Steve scoops up Pietro's body into his arms and all of us walk slowly off of the boat and onto the loading bay where hundreds of civilians are milling about. It reminds me of the slightly surreal aftermath after my old missions – where I used to come home and finally realise that it was over. There is a loud chatter of voices – the sounds of crying, laughing, talking. People are embracing.
It is by no means the seven-hundred-thousand that originally inhabited the city, but it is enough.
Steve lays Pietro's body carefully down onto one of the stretchers on the floor. We all stand there solemnly – waiting until finally we don't have to wait anymore and Wanda arrives. She pushes through the crowd and doesn't even stop at the sight of us, at the sight of her brother, dead. It is clear she somehow already knew what had happened; there is a strangely empty look on her face. But by the time she kneels down beside Pietro and reaches out for him, that mask crumples and my heart breaks – because she starts crying.
None of us have any words to comfort her. There is nothing we can do. After a while Steve leaves, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder before he does so. Then Natasha turns away with Bruce, throwing the young girl a sympathetic look as she does so. Thor bows his head. I hesitate before Bucky and I leave her to her grief. I want to say something and tell her how sorry I am, but I know she doesn't need my sorry's right now judging by the way her sobs wrack her entire body – by the way she's clutching her ribs as if trying to hold herself together. I listen closely and realise she's saying his name over and over. Pietro.
Only Clint stays. He just sits quietly next to Wanda, not even touching her. I realise how old and tired he looks right now. His gaze is fixed unwaveringly on the body. I feel tired now, but this is my first battle and Clint has seen many more than I have – and it looks as if – finally – it has all caught up with him.
Maria Hill and Nick Fury are waiting for us by the time Bucky and I reach the fringes of the crowd. They are flagged by six or seven S.H.I.E.L.D agents, and I am completely beyond caring about their presence until it hits me why, or rather who, they are here for.
I stiffen, and Bucky tenses because I have.
"No," I say, automatically.
Maria Hill sighs. "We just need to question him."
"About what?" Bucky asks, looking between me and Hill edgily. I can tell his fight-or-flight instincts are kicking in – his automatic response to any threatening situation – and I grit my jaw.
"They think you defected."
"And did you?" Fury asks Bucky.
"I didn't mean to desert," he shoots back, more angrily than I would have supposed. Nick clearly hit a nerve.
"You abandoned Alex on a highly dangerous mission. She could have been killed. She may not work for us anymore, but I'm still able to hold you accountable for your actions, Agent Barnes."
Bucky's hands ball into fists, but he doesn't say anything for a long time. When I glance at him I abruptly realize that – unbelievably – he is clearly considering handing himself over. "Fine," he mutters, his voice strangely flat and resigned. He steps forwards, shooting a dirty and level look at the guards who move to handcuff him. They don't come any closer. "I'll come in."
"That's all we ask."
"What?– no!" I protest, as the guards begin to lead Bucky away.
"I'll see you later," he throws over at me, over his shoulder. An afterthought.
I watch him go, vaguely stunned that he turned himself over that easily. That I am by myself.
"Wilson's in the medical bay," Fury says, approaching to stand closer to me. His hands are clasped behind his back, but it's obvious he's offering some kind of metaphorical olive branch. "If you want to see him."
"Is he okay?"
"Last I heard he had one hell of a concussion. He should be fine."
I nod slowly, feeling distracted, but Nick still doesn't move. There's a faint trace of amusement in his good eye. "So…the Avengers now, huh?"
I shrug. "I somehow got caught up in it."
"Somehow," he echoes.
"You make it sound like it was deliberate."
"It never is intentional with you, Alex. You just seem to…I don't know…have a certain bug for trouble."
My lips curl upwards despite myself and I look away from him, surveying the room. "You sound like my mother."
Nick rolls his eyes. "We'll be seeing one another –" he says, by way of a departing note.
"Go easy on Bucky."
"He's withstood a hell of a lot worse in his time."
"As the Winter Soldier, maybe." Fury looks at me, somewhat curiously. " – he's not that person anymore."
"You sure about that?"
I think about it. Think about what Bucky maintains – that it feels as if a switch could just be flipped and he'd be a killing machine once more. But then I think about him and how he is. How every word and every action comes from a place of guilt and confusion – in short, from a place of crippling self-awareness. I think of how he is nothing short of human with me.
"Yeah…" I say, offhandedly. "I'm sure."
I slowly make my way up the few floors to the medical bay. It's full to bursting with injured people, but unbelievably, when I reach Sam's bed at the end of the ward, he is fast asleep. I have to shake my head, smirking slightly as I pull up a seat by his cot. I'm so tired I can already feel my eyes drooping, despite the uncomfortable rigidity of my chair, and pretty soon, I'm asleep.
A/N I know a few of you asked whether I was going to kill Pietro off or not, and I have to admit that for a while I really did consider keeping him alive. In the end, however, I decided that he needed to go. If I had kept him alive, his character wouldn't have furthered Alex's narrative in any way. I wouldn't be able to properly be able to write him an arc in chapters of around 2,500 words to justify keeping him around. Plus, I'm juggling enough characters as it is. I'd rather explore the outcome of war and death here.
As you can see, though, Bruce is still around. I thought the end of Ultron where he flew off into the sunset was a bit stupid so, yeah. Bruce is still here.
Once again, thank you to everyone who reviews and everyone who reads this fic. I've just hit 500 followers! Whoa!
Last Of The Lilac Wine