Chapter Thirty
✭
Open, empty air.
I'm with you… to the end of the line.
Wind rushing past. Burning cheeks, whipping hair. Scream ripped from throat.
He isn't your mission.
Thrown off. Casted out. Unwanted.
Glittering blue river stretching out below. Plummeting, twisting, falling.
Your father.
Not true. Couldn't be true. Stomach turning, heart stopping. Couldn't think. Thoughts collided. Instincts at war. Voices in head, all screaming at once.
Lies. Lies. All lies.
Vision blurry. Tears whipped away.
A shadow passing overhead.
"I got you!"
Out of nowhere, a pair of strong arms wrapped around chest. Gasping as entire body lurched sickeningly upwards. Vertigo, whiplash, nausea hit all at once as the fall came to a sudden stop. Then soaring — soaring — across the water, waves flickering by like the frames in a camera reel.
Saved.
By the enemy.
"Hey, hey, take it easy!" man started, sounding more aggravated than afraid when I started to fight against him. Eliminate Captain America and his allies.
But the attempt was sluggish, half-hearted. Head felt foggy. Echoing with words I struggled to understand.
Amelia. This isn't you.
The world kept blinking in and out. For a moment, vision went black. When it returned, the air was suffocating.
The winged man still had a hold as he angled towards the Triskelion. His name, a thought echoed. I know his name.
What was his name?
A headache bloomed behind eyes. Didn't matter. Had to get out. Had to escape.
Must complete the mission at all costs.
"I swear, if you try to kill me after saving your life —" the winged man shouted, only to take a fist to the chin. His head snapped back and the two of us jerked in the air, but he didn't lose control. "Ow! What did I just say?"
Continued to writhe, trying to break free. Any consideration of wellbeing, or high we were above ground (or water) was completely irrelevant, unworthy of thought. It didn't matter. None of it mattered. Failure. Had to fix it. A distraction to the Winter Soldier. Mere collateral damage to Secretary Pierce. But I couldn't fail again.
I couldn't.
At the same time, an intense wave of guilt overwhelmed, and I tried to open my mouth to apologize — but nothing came out.
Instead, a hand reached for knife in belt.
My heart lurched, trying to fight it. Fight the instinct that wasn't mine.
Don't hurt him. Don't hurt Sam.
"This is gonna get rough —!" the man was cut off by a sudden whip of air.
Sam.
His left wing came apart as a quinjet rounded on us from behind. Its fire tore the wing to shreds. Sam cried out. He managed to roll out of the way, out of the line of fire. But it was too late. Both falling once more.
"Hang on!" Letting go of me with one arm, he pulled his ripcord; ejecting the wings, both broken and functional. They spun away like maple seeds in the wind.
Fwoosh!
A parachute unfurled from his backpack.
The force of its backwards pull was a saving grace — and pulled me out of Sam's remaining arm.
"Sam!" my voice, finally breaking free, uttered a single distressed call. The only one I could make. Ragged and broken and terrified.
"No!" Sam yelled, reaching out for me but it was too late. I was already plummeting back for the ground.
I didn't know what happened to him after that. All I knew was that if I hadn't been so busy fighting myself, fighting Sam, had tried to hang onto him instead as he'd asked, then maybe this wouldn't have happened.
But there was no time to dwell on regrets.
Twisting around, I faced my descent. Sam had guided us across the water and over the hangar bays. He'd been trying to get us to shore. He'd gotten so close.
Now I was dropping back to where this all began.
Without the helicarriers in their bays, the three giant hangars were wide, empty basins several hundred feet deep. It delved far below the river's surface — and gave me enough time to whip out my shield for impact.
Curling up behind my shield, I closed my eyes against the incoming ground. If I was going to die, I didn't want to see it.
Whoomph.
The physics of vibranium was a funny thing. Taking bullets against it and one hardly felt a thing. Using it to shield a hundred-foot fall? … Not quite the same.
The impact hit my shoulder first, and my hip, braced against the inside of the shield. It reverberated through the rest of my body, and my head, as shield displaced the impact into the air around and below, escaping in a noise like a cannon shot. The following clang, crunch of metal against concrete, rattled me from head to foot.
But as I squinted one eye open, I was surprised to find myself still alive. And in one piece.
Recovering was a slow, painful progress. First an arm, then a foot. Slowly unfolding myself, wincing at every sore muscle, every injury pulled the wrong way. Warm blood seeped from a spot on my forehead. My left arm trembled underneath me as it supported my weight. Knees wobbled; legs uncertain as I climbed to my feet. My head was still swimming from that… whatever it was back on the helicarrier. The words Captain America said.
Steve.
My breath hitched, a sudden burning behind my eyes. Captain America's helmet had come off in the fight. The blond hair and blue eyes hit me with a sudden memory I didn't have before — arm around my shoulder. Laughing at something I said. The mental impact had me nearly doubled over, feeling like I'd been punched in the gut. Fighting back tears borne of an emotion I couldn't describe. Where did that come from?
I searched but the memory slipped away once more, a little fish through my fingers, fists tightening around nothing but emptiness. Who was Steve? How did I know him?
Wincing as I holstered my shield, I looked up at the sky. Saw, in growing bewilderment, as all three of the helicarriers turned their guns on each other. And started to fire.
Nothing made sense anymore.
Looking further up, behind me, I saw the white shroud of Sam's chute as he swooped over the bay doors and out of sight. Landing safely above ground, I assumed. Good, I thought to myself, although I didn't know why.
I couldn't remember who Sam was, either. I only knew his name. A memory, but not an image. Just a smell — rich and warm and savory. Was it… pizza?
I shook my head, casting it away. Another useless recollection.
Shifted attention back to the destruction of the helicarriers. There was something oddly beautiful in watching each slowly careen downwards, erupting into fire and ash and metal. The gunfire and explosion were enormous from here, a massive roar that echoed across the sky. The only thing louder than that was the sirens ringing off in the hangar bay. The PA system rang out with an evacuation cue. There were people still around me, either watching the same sight as me, or making for an exit.
I just stood and watched, unhearing. The Winter Soldier, still up there somewhere. With Captain America. Dead or alive.
When the first helicarrier hit the river, I couldn't see the impact, but witnessed the ripple effect — literally. A wave crashed over the top edge of the hangar bay on the far end. From my position, the amount of water looked small, miniscule. It had dissipated into a mist by the time it reached the bottom of the hangar.
And then the second helicarrier hit.
I didn't see until too late how awfully close IN-02 had gotten. It had started drifting closer after the initial firing; One of its engines was completely destroyed, and its bow angled downwards at a forty-degree angle, tilted to the right. It hit the river, and then the side of the hangar wall.
And in rising horror, I watched as the wall collapsed, bringing the helicarrier — millions of tons of broken metal and fire — and the entire Potomac River with it.
A waterfall, cascading down in slow motion, filling the contained space with a massive, incredible roar unlike anything I'd seen before. A strong, cold gust hit me first — the initial impact of the water into the bottom of the metal basin. It nearly knocked me off my feet.
More and more water came down. Not a mild rain. Not a mist. A flood. A tsunami.
And it was coming straight for me.
Heart leaping into my throat, I turned. And ran.
All around me, people scrambled for any available exit, any escape from the oncoming tidal wave. They could've been SHIELD or HYDRA — right now they were one and the same. Terrified of the destruction raining down. Just wanting to survive. The hangars had become a deathtrap, a dam to be filled.
Their screams were all but drowned out by the rising roar of the incoming wave.
To my right, about a hundred meters away, I saw a dozen technicians banging on a door that had closed on them. Begging to be let in.
Ignored.
Or forgotten.
Around me, electricity failed. Ozone filled the air as the water swept up everything in its path. Vehicles, aircraft, people, structure — all swallowed up, swept away, devoured by ever-increasing black waves.
I didn't know where I was going; I had some insane notion that I could actually outrun this thing. But Mother Nature was not forgiving.
The rush of crashing waves suddenly became terrifying close. Loud, frightening, hungry. Not even a super soldier was strong enough to fight against them. The only warning I had to what came next were water droplets on my heels.
Then two tons of water slammed into my back. The force of it shoved me forward; I threw my arms out to catch myself, but only hit water — and it sucked me back.
I didn't even think to take a breath before I was underwater.
The shock of impact had me inhaling in surprise. A mistake, as water suddenly went up my nose and down my throat. I tried coughing but that only made it worse. The world went entirely dark as the current tossed me this way and that. I struggled to fight against it, to find my way to the surface.
But even as a super soldier, I wasn't a strong swimmer. I had very no experience before the Crucible, to weak to learn effective swimming techniques, to sick to want to play with the other kids. The one time I'd been in the pool, five minutes of splashing around with wing floaties and a foam noodle for support, and I had already been rendered completely exhausted. I never found the joy in water as other kids did. Even the sensation of floating, as great as it was, wasn't enough to entice me back.
And I had no idea if the Crucible ever taught me to swim. I sure hoped they did.
The childhood memory brought with it a wave of nostalgia and homesickness I didn't know I had. Home. Where was home? Where was that pool?
A community center in Queens. Uncle Ben had taken Peter and I there once.
Uncle Ben.
Peter.
Words. Names. Faces, emerging from the shadows. I reached out to them, yearning. Desperate.
Then I was thrown sideways into a still-standing support beam, and the faces disappeared before I ever got to see them.
Although the pain was immense, I had enough wherewithal to try and cling to the beam, to anchor myself to anything stronger than the waves. Another memory came to me. A bridge. A wide river. The Winter Soldier's hand, reaching out for me.
He hadn't thrown me off, then. Not on purpose.
The memory came and went in a flash. My fingers had a vice grip around a metal edge, but the waves were too strong, yanking me away from the beam.
Somehow, I caught on top of the right current, and it pulled me to the surface.
As soon as my head broke into air, I gasped, nearly choking before my balance was taken from me and I bobbed back under again. My legs kicked but I had no control over what direction I was going in. My arms churned uselessly; I tried to remember how I survived falling into that river under the bridge — but nothing came to me. I couldn't even recall where that had happened, how I got there, or why.
There was an enormous pressure in my head, pounding, pulsing, building up, like the epicenter of an earthquake. I couldn't tell if it was from being underwater or the force of the waves, lack of oxygen, or just the massive influx of new memories I was receiving. Possibly all of them at once.
My head broke surface again, and this time I managed to stay up, taking in lungfuls of air. I was all turned around, facing the wrong direction. I managed to spin myself around, just in time to see partially submerged catwalk coming right for me.
Metal slammed into my gut and once again I tried to hang on, but the waves pulled me under the walk, and I popped up again on the other side.
Moving so fast, I had no time to orient myself — just keep my head long enough to see the next obstacle.
But I never thought to look up.
Something crashed down right in front of me. Part of a catwalk, a machine, a quinjet in pierces. A wheel, a piece of engine, a cockpit. I tried to swim backwards to avoid the falling debris. I looked up just in time to see a wing coming down on me.
I thought I'd end up sliding under the metal after it landed on top of me, but instead I just… sunk with it, trapped underneath as the current pulled me along. It spun me in a circle, and my back hit the floor, bouncing once before I kicked myself off of the wing — the action felt slow and weighty. The water resisted no matter what direction I went in, but I managed to throw myself in the same direction of the current, and it shot me forward from underneath it.
After that, I had no more control. My back bounced off something solid, sending me into a tailspin. The world became a blur.
I couldn't tell where I was going. All I knew was that I was being tossed around like a ragdoll, with a head full of memories that hadn't been there before — and then the world went dark.
And the waves suddenly stopped.
I slammed into a wall in front of me — and stuck there. It knocked whatever air was left out of my lungs. But I was still underwater.
Squinting into the water, I looked around. The space was dark, dimly lit by a door to my left — I was no longer in the hangar. It seemed the wave had pushed me through an open doorway. A doorway now blocked by several tons of broken metal and debris. The tsunami had completely filled this room. The electricity had been cut out, probably by the same destruction that led me here. The room was a mess, desks and chairs gently floating in the water. A lamp, a gun, a shoe. All was still except for me. I saw no one else in here; maybe I was the only one that had made it. It was eerily calm and numbingly quiet. All I could hear was my pounding heartbeat and a ringing in my ears.
As I struggled to pull myself away from whatever I was stuck to, I realized that this wasn't over yet.
My arms reached over my head, behind my back, trying to figure out what the hell I'd gotten caught on. It wasn't my shield, but my jacket — caught on a hook, a sharp wedge of metal.
I choked, and a burst of air bubbles escaped my lips. I didn't have enough air and I was wasting oxygen just by struggling so hard. If I kept doing this, I was going to drown.
Lungs screaming at me, and starting to take in water through my nose, I scrambled for the last remaining combat knife in my belt. It came away easily and I reversed the grip, and slipped the point under the hem of my collar. One jerk, then two — the knife ripped through the fabric and a rush of cold water hit my chest. Lungs convulsing, I finally yanked my arms out, leaving the jacket and shield behind as I swam upwards.
There was a small hole in the ceiling to my left, where a bit of light shown through. The ceiling tiles had broken, opening to a small air vent that hadn't been completely filled. My head burst through water and hit the metal roof. The pain didn't even register as I gasped and coughed, spitting out the water I had accidentally inhaled.
I remained there for a few minutes, getting my bearings. My head swam (ha), and my arms and legs felt like lead, dragging me down. Every kick, every sweep of my arm was a chore, just to keep my body afloat. It wasn't even that my gear was heavy. I was just exhausted.
But removing the jacket had helped. All I had underneath it was a black quarter-sleeved shirt. It was easier to breathe without the jacket constricting my chest. The cool water also helped clear my head.
And made it all the easier for more unwanted memories to return.
A cold dark room. A single door. A cot. A cell. My cell.
Long cement hallways. Underground. A bunker.
Flaming soldiers. Burned skin. Fists striking. Falling. Getting back up again.
The Crucible.
Legs suddenly failing, I gasped as my head suddenly went underwater — a mistake, as I immediately inhaled water up my nose. Resurfaced. Sputtering and coughing again.
I grabbed the edge of the vent to steady myself, and give my body a break from moving. I needed to be calm, I needed to think. This was no time to get distracted. I still needed to get out of here.
The vent, while a helpful aid for air, was not big enough for me to fit in, and I couldn't tell if it could even lead me out of here. I took a lungful of air and stuck my head underwater, looking around. The way I had come in was blocked, and too much for me to handle. The other way seemed to be a single closed door, its glass window letting in the only light in the room. I couldn't tell if water had gotten on the other side, the place didn't look airtight, so I had to assume I had some more swimming left to go.
Great.
Back up for air. First step was to get that door open. Find a way out. Hope I could find more air pockets; I had confidence I could hold my breath for a long time, but that didn't matter if I was exerting a lot of energy, or couldn't find more air in time.
All at once, I felt terribly, undeniably human. Mortal. Being a super soldier wouldn't protect me from this. I could end up just like the other bodies in here.
Pushing aside that daunting thought, I took a few more deep breaths, trying to load my blood cells with as much oxygen as possible, before diving under once more.
I pushed off the ceiling, angling straight for the door. I tried the handle, but was dismayed to find it locked. I kicked it, shoved my shoulder against it, but the water prevented me from getting enough leverage or weight into it. I tested it, wiggling the door back and forth. It wasn't water pressure holding it in — I could tell by the way the water moved around me and the door that the room on the other side had also been filled; otherwise, the difference in pressure would've kept me from moving the door at all. No, something on the other side had wedged this door closed.
I needed something stronger to get it open. Basic science. Friction and efficiency. Eight grade physics. A project on the six classical simple machines. Hand drawn images glued to a giant white trifold and brightly-colored cut out letters. Screw. Pulley. Wedge. Inclined plane. Lever —
Lever. I twirled in the water, loose hair pulling around my face. Across the room, where I had left my jacket. The harness and the shield still wrapped around it.
Kicking off the door (didn't open it, unfortunately), I shot towards my forlorn belongings. From this angle, it was easy to pull the jacket off the jagged material I'd caught on earlier. It looked like it used to be a desk before the water smashed it into an unrecognizable piece of twisted metal. I didn't put it back on — I hated touching it at all, fighting a revulsion that threatened to spew the air out of my lungs.
I didn't know where it came from. This jacket — what it represented — was all I knew.
But it wasn't. HYDRA had lied to me.
The truth hit me like a punch to the gut, and I hung there in the water, at a loss. They had filled my head with so many things. But what was real?
Shaking my head, I pulled the harness away from the jacket, letting the article drop as I slung the shield back onto my back. Although not heavy for me, it displaced my weight and had me rolling backwards before I threw out my arms and steadied myself. As I swam along, I realized it also restricted the flexibility of my back. In order to look up or turn, I'd have to move my whole body, and not just the upper half.
Which meant more energy spent, and less oxygen.
I went back to the air pocket, got another lungful of clean air for good measure, and went back to the door.
Taking the shield off, I shoved one edge into the doorjamb. Angled myself on the other side, pushing off the wall, into the shield — its edge dug into the metal door. I heard the grinding nose as it resisted, the squeak of hinges turning, then —
Fwish.
The door broke open. A gentle current of warmer water washed over me, and I pushed the door open so I could slip in.
A long hallway. Filled from top to bottom. My heart jolted at the sight of several bodies just… floating along the corridor, still, wafting up and down. Unmoving. Dead. The flickering ceiling lights did not help with the chilling effect.
If I didn't get out of here fast enough, I was going to end up like that.
Sliding the shield back onto my harness, I began my journey down the hall.
It was still just as silent as the room I left. As I passed by one of the bodies, I made the mistake of looking at one as I passed — a man, hanging up side down, limbs akimbo. My gaze dropped down to his face. His eyes, wide open, staring into mine.
I let out a breath in surprise, then slapped a hand over my mouth just as a burst of bubbles tickled past my fingers. Shit.
Kicking my legs, I kept going, clipping through the water as fast as I could. The pressure wasn't as bad as it was before, but the headache still pounded behind my eyes. There were a few double-wide doors on my left but they seemed to lead to dead-end rooms (from what I could make out from their dark windows). Also filled with water, and no reliable way out. The only Exit sign was above the doorway just ahead of me.
… Hum. Never thought how helpful those signs would be until I really needed them.
The other end of the corridor ended in an open doorway, a stairwell leading upwards. I was dismayed when looking up, and finding the path blocked several stories up by what appeared to be an entire cabin of a quinjet, sans wings. I didn't even want to know how it got here. Its nose was wedged right through the doorway, the glass of its cockpit reflecting the light down below. I looked around, trying to see if I could squeeze in around it, but none of the holes were large enough, and it was way too big to move.
The only way out was through.
Shield once more proving immeasurably valuable, I slammed it into the cockpit's windshield until it broke. Its dead pilot floated up and out, getting caught in the jagged hole. Grimacing, and growing increasingly aware that I was running out of oxygen, I grabbed the body by the straps of his vest and yanked him out. The crackle of breaking glass echoed underwater. Letting the body fall away, I quickly rammed my shield to break away a wider opening before slipping through.
The cockpit was cold and dark. I didn't even see the air bubble until my head broke water and I took a surprised gasp of air. I couldn't see a thing, but as I swam through the cockpit and into the open cabin, I heard a low groan.
Then the quinjet started to move.
I didn't notice it at first, just moving through water, not grounded to anything. But when I grabbed a pole to push myself forward, I felt the tremor, the shake. Then the irrevocable shriek of metal on metal as the quinjet started slipping down.
Heart racing, I dove my head back under and tried scrambling for the bay doors in the rear, the way up and out. But they were blocked.
And the ship was already falling.
Not holding onto anything, the quinjet moved downwards before I did. The rear wall struck me hard, and my body was thrown back — then struck again as the quinjet hit the side of the stairwell, screeched downwards, its back end flipping towards the other wall, water and air rushing up to greet me — before it crashed down.
My head struck the ceiling and I blacked out.
I came to shortly later, suddenly choking on water. I gasped, head spinning, a terrible pain in my left ear. It felt like something had snapped or popped but that wasn't the worst of it — I had lost my balance. My entire sense of direction. Gravity. Which way was up or down.
And there was no way out.
The front end of the plane had crunched to a mess of metal that I could no longer use as an exit. Not that I could tell if I was up or down anyways, as I spun uselessly in a circle, feeling dizzy and nauseous and unable to ground myself. My shoulder hit a wall and it only confused me further. I didn't know what had happened — we'd dropped what might have been thirty feet. Maybe the pressure change, along with the blow to the head, had ruptured something in my ear.
My vision was a blur, not helped by my rapidly depleting oxygen. Panic set in fast when I couldn't catch my bearings, where I felt upside down no matter which way I was facing. I felt intense vertigo even when I wasn't moving, and it felt like the quinjet was still moving, even though deep down I knew it wasn't. But my senses were giving me completely different information. Hearing in my left ear was completely gone; it felt stuffed, like it was full of cotton, and aching in pain. The entire left side of my body felt out of sorts. Even my head started lilting to that side.
Every time I moved my head made it worse, but I couldn't stop, I had to figure this out. I needed air, I needed to get out of here.
Where the hell was I? Where was I going? Why didn't anything make sense? I felt like I was lost in zero gravity with no lifeline to pull me out. All I could hear was my increasing heartbeat and the strain in my throat as oxygen broke out in little bursts.
Then I looked down, and saw the compass strapped my harness.
The compass.
I'm with you to the end of the line.
The words echoed in my head. A male voice — two male voices, but I didn't recognize them, couldn't tell them apart. Didn't matter. The words weren't important.
The compass — and its magnetism.
Quickly detaching it, I opened the lid and clutched the compass close to my face, trying to reach it underwater. At this point I was curled up in a fetal position, spinning slowly, unable to tell which way I was facing and too scared to waste any more energy trying to figure it out. As far as I knew, I might as well be on the International Space Station.
Light glinted off the glass surface. The needle wavered underneath. I sighed in relief; glad the water pressure hadn't broken it. Tough old thing.
North was behind me. But I wasn't looking at the needle anymore.
No. My eyes were focused on the little air bubble, pressing against the glass.
Pointing up.
I lifted my head, and carefully pulled myself towards the back end of the craft. Vision still swimming, still feeling such intense vertigo that a part of my brain said the compass must be broken, must be wrong — until my head hit air and I gasped, nearly crying as I took in oxygen, nearly hyperventilating.
Warm water streamed down my face. It confused me at first, until I realized I was crying. I pressed a hand to my left ear, pulled it away. Blood.
I wanted to throw up, but my stomach was empty. I wasn't sure how I knew that. I couldn't remember my last meal.
Resting my head against cool metal, I gave myself a minute to recuperate. There wasn't enough air in here to last me very long. I definitely couldn't wait around for a rescue. Would there even be anyone left to rescue me…?
My body shivered, and for the first time I realized just how cold I was. My fingers were completely numb as I clung to the door handle above me. My other hand, a fist around the compass, trembling to the point that it made little waves in the water around me. My core body temperature was dropping too fast. Lack of oxygen, blood loss, and draining energy wasn't helping. I knew deep down that I couldn't do this forever. My eyes were quick to close and slow to open. Sleep was tempting, even now as I floated in this forsaken place.
If I didn't find safety soon, I was going to pass out. And if that happened while I was still underwater, then I was going to die.
I closed my eyes, inhaled through my nose. The world still felt topsy-turvy. I didn't know how long it would take my inner ear to heal and fix itself, but I figured it wasn't going to happen before I got out of here. From now on, I couldn't rely on my vestibular system to get me out of here.
Also, the pressure in the quinjet wasn't the same as the pressure outside of it, thanks to the air pocket. The hatch's locking mechanism slid open easily enough, but I couldn't shove the door open. Pushing up felt impossible.
Sighing, I slumped against the slanted wall. All that work for nothing.
There had to be another way out, but when risking another dive, I found none. There were no side doors, and as I'd observed before in my delirium, the cockpit was smashed, driven straight into the ground.
Back to the air pocket. I looked up, studying the bay door, looking for weak points. I found that water was already seeping in from the cracks along the sides — not a lot, but noticeable. The integrity had been compromised; the door no longer airtight.
I paused to think over my options. In a sinking car, one could smash the windows while there was still air inside. Wait for the water to fill the car, then slip out. Another option was, again, just to wait for the car to fill up with water, then open the door and escape.
But I didn't have enough air — or time — in here to wait out the pressure change. Even in an air pocket, my breath was going to transfer the oxygen into carbon dioxide and I'd just suffocate that way instead. I had to get out now.
Good thing I had a vibranium shield.
The same trick as last time, only not at all. This time, motivated by panic, desperation, and a broken eardrum, I performed the ultra-delicate, sophisticated technique of slamming the shield into the door as hard as I could.
Wham. The metal dented, but did not give.
Wham. Another dent, slightly deeper.
Wham. A crater started to form. A few sparks lit up the dense little air pocket.
Wham. The dented metal deepened further, widening until it reached the closest seam. Water started to seep in a little faster.
Wham. Water hissing, pressure forcing it out like a out of a showerhead. It hit my face, making me wince, but I just closed my eyes and thrust my arm up again.
Wham. Water pouring, gushing. The metal started to groan. Despite the dented metal, the door started bending inward. Another rivet shot off, shooting into the water like a bullet. Startled, I jolted backwards, realizing the pressure overhead was pushing the doors down towards me.
Taking a deep breath, I squeezed my eyes shut and prepared for the final blow.
Wham. Metal split. A small crack, then tearing open like it was made of paper. I slipped under water just as the doors burst inwards, and my precious air pocket exploded into tiny bubbles, spinning upwards.
The force of the incoming water forced me down, but it was short-lived. The air pocket had been relatively narrow and was gone in an instant.
Once more I was floating senselessly, unable to straighten myself.
But light streamed in from above. Somewhere high up, I could make out a tiny square of bright blue.
The sky.
Hope bloomed in my chest, yearning, blissful and terrifying. I was there. I was almost there.
Steeling my nerves, I readied myself for the coming swim. I put away my shield and checked my compass again. I knew which way was up, even if my body didn't.
The ascent was slow. Painfully slow. Partly because my damaged ear made it difficult to focus on what I was doing, but also because my muscles were cramping up, actions growing sluggish. I wanted to sleep so bad.
But I couldn't. Not yet.
In the back of my mind, a distant memory reminded me that going up too fast underwater could make me sick, even kill me. But if I didn't keep going, I was going to die anyways. I'd have to risk getting the bends in order to survive.
Hell, maybe I already had it. According to my ear, I probably did.
Up and up and up. The spot of light made it easier to focus on. Complete darkness had been terrible when I had been disoriented, but this wasn't so bad. Sure, my headache was so powerful now that with each pound I felt myself physically falling forward, but still. Improvement.
I didn't know how long had passed since I left the quinjet. Looking down was a mistake. Vertigo hit me even worse than ever as the narrow stairwell seemed to stretch out before me in an awful tunnel. Choking, I twisted my head back up again, squeezing my eyes shut as the whole world spun around me with the head motion. God, I had to stop doing that.
So that didn't help. I couldn't tell how far I was going, how much progress I was making, if at all. The only thing I could be certain was the flights of stairs rotating around me, the occasional painted number on the walls indicated the floor number. S7… S5… S2…
In the meantime, more images flashed in my head. Because I didn't have enough problems already.
I knew that I had done something before this mission HYDRA had aboard the helicarriers. But for some reason I was having difficulty recalling the exact details. Pierce had been there — I could see his face clearly, smiling at me softly.
But it wasn't kind. It wasn't warm.
Over a plate of pasta. Over bodies.
Three bodies. Two men, and a boy.
I gasped suddenly as the realization hit me. Dmitri, no —
Water rushed into my mouth. I spat it out, but the pressure in my chest was too much. I had used up all the oxygen in my lungs and I couldn't hold it anymore. Heart skipping, I let it all out, a fountain of bubbles reaching up for the sky. I watched them go, fighting flashes of pain — a boy's face, so kind, so sweet, so afraid — higher and higher, so far up, I was never going to make it…
But I kicked my legs, reaching up with my arms and pushing them down again with cupped hands. A few meters at a time. I couldn't stop. I could never stop.
Dmitri. The name echoed in my head again. All I had was a face, the vague memory of a gun in my hand, a beautiful room with painted walls and coffered ceilings, a blinding white blizzard just outside the windows — and a boy on the floor, bleeding out onto a plush blue carpet, staining it black.
I'd hurt him. I'd hurt this boy I couldn't remember. And my heart broke.
What have I done?
Other faces appeared. A bald man in glasses right before he got a bullet between his eyes. A pilot right before he met a nasty end in the engine of his jet. A suited agent just trying to defend an unarmed technician scrambling over a console.
All dead.
By my hand.
How could I do that? At once, two answers occurred me. One, the obvious: because Pierce willed it. Because it was necessary. Because their lives were nothing in comparison to the HYDRA's grand design for the perfect future.
And at the same time, a small part of me knew it was not by choice. That I didn't want to. That I knew it was wrong. That had I been myself, I would've never done it.
But who was myself? I didn't have a self. I was nothing. I had no identity, no personhood under HYDRA. It was as they intended. I was made in their image, their perfect design.
Yet, I didn't feel perfect. Not with my wretched heart. Not with these broken thoughts.
Who was I, then? I didn't have a name. I had nothing with HYDRA.
But I couldn't go back to them, either. Not after my failure.
…The failure that I didn't feel so bad about, anymore.
As I swam, I tried to stuff that rebellious emotion away, but it kept resurfacing, a life preserver that wrapped around me, buoying me upwards in a strange sense of energy and empowerment. I didn't want to push it away. Because it was me.
And as the water finally came apart in my hands, as my head finally breached the surface, I remembered.
Ohana.
Sucking in air, I splashed around senselessly for a bit, my head feeling like a balloon about to pop. My eyes were fixed on the sky above. A giant hole had been ripped through the top of whatever structure I was in — the quinjet's rocky touchdown, apparently. I had finally reached the ground floor, the water leveling out right below the landing. I swam lopsided for the steps appearing out of the water.
They continued upwards for more floor until the ragged hole cut them off. I couldn't reach that far up. Not with the broken stairwell, not as I dragged myself up those steps, my legs suddenly heavy as I pulled out of the water. Without the buoyancy, my entire body felt like it weighed several tons, and I could barely pull myself onto the floor. I used the bars along the railing to help myself along, my arms too weak to support myself.
Finally, finally, solid ground beneath me. I dropped, limp and exhausted, and taking in deep breaths. Calming my racing heart. Trying to make sense of the word bouncing around my skull like a Windows screensaver.
Ohana. Not English. Not any language I was fluent in, anything that HYDRA had taught me. Automatically, that rendered the word unimportant, but I clung to it. I clung to the shape of it, each individual letter that ultimately made no sense to me, sounding it out quietly on my tongue.
It brought images of sandy beaches and beautiful green mountains. Plumeria trees and coconuts. Tropical birds and hibiscus. A crystalline ocean and beautiful waves.
And a little blue alien with big ears and black eyes.
One of these things was not like the other.
But it didn't feel wrong, either. Other images, faces again. Unlike before, these were warm, welcome.
The brown-eyed boy I'd recalled before. Late night movies and soft plush toys. Two left feet and hands that stuck to everything. The one that felt ever present, a rock in a storm, fire on a cold night. Laughter at a funeral.
Peter.
A woman, older, with blonde hair and crow's feet just starting to appear at the corner of her eyes. Thin hands calloused with hard work. But gentle, never applying strength when she didn't need to. A guiding touch. An encouraging smile. The smell of beeswax, sunshine beaming in on a sick day. A yellow umbrella.
Mom.
More faces. Two, this time. Another boy, and a girl who looked much like him. He had pale hair, and hers was very dark. The same eyes, sharp and piercing. Staring right into me. Knowing. Like electricity, too fast to perceive, too powerful to stop; coursing through my veins, reminding me who I was. Who I still wanted to be.
Wanda. Pietro.
Another woman, with dark curly hair and a voice that could stop nations. Wine and funky dancing. The light kept on at night, hugs and whispers. Tears wiped away. Soothing water over a fresh burn.
May.
And that's when I understood. Ohana.
Family.
I realized my stomach was getting cold, and lifted my head to see that the water level had risen to creep along the ground landing. I jolted upwards. Oh shit. The water wasn't done
Another thought hit me at the same time, May's face still drifting in my head. Oh my god, I'm in so much trouble. Aunt May is going to ground me for life.
That one shook me as I tried to get up to my knees, so sudden that I almost fell down again. For a split second, the thought of grounding was more horrible than anything I'd already faced.
I'd trade anything to be grounded right now.
But I had to live through this first.
My legs shook beneath me, as I found the strength again to move. Clutching the railing for support, I tucked the compass back into my pocket and carefully guided myself along, one shaky step at a time. My upset balance had me swaying back and forth.
Just like the time in Health class when they made us wear those Drunk Goggles. Walk around for a bit. Excited because it was the first time, the only time, I was ever going to have any idea on what it was like to be smashed. Wobbling back and forth along a line of tap. Kids laughing as the latest victim struggled along the invisible balance beam. Peter barely made it a few steps. I got half way down before dropping to my hands and knees, grinning so hard it hurt.
I felt like doing the same right now, for entirely different reasons. My head rocked back and forth on my shoulders, feeling too heavy to life. The doorway, closed, was right in front of me. If I could just push through —
Practically throwing myself against them, I nearly collapsed before I grabbed the handle, jostled it a bit before the door gave way. I fell and hit the ground in a heap.
Around that point, I realized there was an alarm blaring. I only heard it in my right ear, which didn't help with the dizziness I was feeling. As I got back onto my knees, I started to dry heave. No food for days. Nothing came up but bile.
Looked ahead. Another long hallway. Completely empty. Papers scattered around, briefcases and files left behind in one great rush to escape.
Picking myself up, I stumbled forward, holding my arms out for balance. The evacuation alarm continued, as if there was anyone left besides me to hear it. I ended up trailing against one wall, leaning against it as I made my way down. The world swayed beneath my feet like I was on the deck of the ship, even though I was the only one that was moving.
On and on I went, in a seemingly endless maze of rooms and corridors. It felt like hours, but might've only been minutes. I tried to keep a quick pace. I couldn't stay here. Not alone, not while the water level was still rising. Had to get out of the building. Had to find help.
At some point, I stumbled into a large atrium with a glass ceiling. It was after crossing a long catwalk over empty air, while outside. The view had been nice, but the return of vertigo had been not, and my entire body shook trying to cross it — even enclosed with windows and a ceiling, I felt like I was going to fall off at any moment.
Anyways, I was glad to finally have solid floor beneath me. A new sound of rushing water almost had me panicking, until I looked over and realized it was just a fountain, beneath some kind of memorial on the wall. My vision swam when I turned my head too fast to look.
Eyes refocused, on the painted gold star directly in front of me.
The price of freedom is always high.
A wall of names underneath. Fallen agents of SHIELD's past.
Visuals flashed in my head, painful bolts of blinding light. I winced, struggling to swim at the same time. Another wall, similar but not the same. Bigger. Outside. No names, but hundreds and hundreds of gold stars. Reading words carved into granite. A voice.
A tall blond man laughing as we raced along a sidewalk. Green leaves flashing overhead. Pounding footsteps and teasing calls. Captain America. Steve.
Here we mark the price of freedom.
I looked down, and saw a body. A SHIELD agent, still, his hand still around his firearm.
Shot through the back.
I stared at the body for a long moment, unable to tear my eyes away. Had I done this? Was I a part of this?
How could I fix this? Was it even possible at this point? A deep self-loathing filled my gut. Not after what I've done. To these people.
To Dmitri.
Maybe I didn't deserve a second chance.
A cry caught my attention. My head jerked upwards, and I nearly knocked myself off balance again. I fell against the wall, heart pounding as I realized there were people close by.
"— not another move, Agent Thirteen!"
And they didn't sound friendly.
Ahead of me, the wall ended about twenty feet ahead. The voices came from behind it, just out of sight. I crept along it, moving as quietly as I could when I had a hard time keeping myself on my feet. Pressing my back against the wall, I peered around the corner.
Three adults, two male, one female. The men were locked in a tussle, the taller, burlier one having the other in a type of headlock, with a gun at the smaller man's temple. The second man, unable to break free, trembled uncertainly, staring at the woman standing across from them, gun raised at the offender's chest.
The bigger man wore dark tactical gear, bloodied and torn from battle. STRIKE, I realized. An ally.
The other two were SHIELD. Both wearing suits, although their clothes were torn and dirty. The woman had a significant bruise on her forehead, both her forearms were scratched and bleeding from close combat. Loose blond hair hung in her face, but she didn't push it aside, cold brown eyes focused on her enemy. My enemy.
I winced, struggling against two different instincts. HYDRA must win. I had to help the STRIKE agent. Even if he shot the hostage, he would still die. The woman would shoot him first before he could kill her.
And that woman, she was dangerous. Something welled up in me, a dislike, a distrust. A SHIELD agent through and through, loyal to none but Nick Fury.
But the other man was utterly helpless, small and skinny, clearly not an agent of any type. Probably an analyst or a technician, judging by the headset still sitting on top of his dark curly hair. He wasn't an enemy. He'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Working for the wrong side. Never given a choice.
"Let him go, Clevinger," The woman, Agent Thirteen, said in a low voice. Hers was the only face I could see, but she was angled away. I was just out of her line of sight. "This is just between you and me."
None of them seemed to realize I was there. I looked down at the gun in my hand. I could do something. I had to do something.
I glanced behind me. At the fallen agent's weapon.
"HYDRA could use you, Thirteen," Clevinger, the STRIKE agent, replied. "This one? He's a traitor. But you can be someone. HYDRA can help you achieve your full potential."
"Oh yeah? How 'bout you shove it up your ass."
Clevinger sneered. "You can drop that gun, Thirteen. We both know you're out."
Agent Thirteen hesitated, perhaps considering a bluff. But the chances of that succeeding were slim, she seemed to realize, and with a slight bow of her head, pulled her hands away from each other. The gun dropped to the floor.
A threat disarmed.
In a sudden move, Agent Thirteen, reached for her ankle, dropping to her knee. But the man was faster, switching his weapon from the analyst to her. "Ah-ah-ah! I wouldn't do it if I were you."
Agent Thirteen froze. The analyst struggled in Clevinger's grip, slightly emboldened now without a gun to his head. But Clevinger just threw him to the floor. The technician landed with a yelp, covering his head when the STRIKE agent turned his gun on him. Finger on the trigger.
"No!" Agent Thirteen lunged.
The gun went off.
She dived over the technician, only a second late. She didn't move afterwards, frozen as she kneeled over him, staring down at the analyst she tried to save.
The technician blinking back up at her.
And Clevinger, standing over them, swaying on his feet. The gun falling from his grip. Agent Thirteen catching it, just as Clevinger buckled at the knees and hit the floor, revealing the bullet wound in his back.
Agent Thirteen and the technician whirled around, staring at the direction of the shooter. Eyes widening when they saw me, a look of mutual shock. Thirteen, already rising to her feet, holstering her new weapon. A hand up, then the other. Peering at me, evaluating a threat. Almost like she recognized me. "Mia?"
Mia? Who's Mia? I didn't have the energy left to ask.
I slumped against the wall, breathing hard, smoking gun in hand. Dropping it, as my knees gave out under me. It had taken all that I had left to keep a steady aim, and hit my target.
"Whoa, easy there," Agent Thirteen said, rushing over and catching me right before I hit the ground. Calling over her shoulder, she addressed the technician, "Hey, Klein, need some help over here! She's hurt pretty bad." Then back to me, a softer voice. "Just take it easy. That was a good shot, kid."
My head sagged against her shoulder, my entire body going limp. I went to catch myself against her, tried to lift my arm around her shoulder, but I couldn't move it. Couldn't move anything. The edge of unconsciousness was creeping up on me, exhaustion pulling a dark blanket around my mind. My reply was slurred, a hoarse whisper. "…was aiming for his head..."
She cast me a wan smile, a drained laugh. "Maybe we can call it even, now. What the hell are you even doing here?"
"I-I don't…" I was struck with the notion that Thirteen was familiar, that I'd met her before. Something about a salad… "Y-you're still SHIELD, right?"
"Always." Thirteen smirked. "You?"
I blinked, and found it difficult to open my eyes again. Something draped over my shoulders, warm and soft. I opened my eyes again and saw the technician, Klein, hovering behind Thirteen, having just put a jacket over me. My eyes drifted between the two of them, slow, sleepy. "Yeah. I think so."
Although I didn't know either of them, I felt a strange sense of relief washing over me. We were on the same side. They weren't HYDRA. They weren't going to hurt me.
Safe. I was finally safe.
"Mia?" Agent Thirteen's voice sounded far away. The further it got, the more urgent it sounded. Something patted my cheek, but it felt so soft, barely even there. "Hey, Mia, stay with me! Don't fall asleep now, okay? Klein, help me pick her up, we need to get —"
I never heard the rest of it. I closed my eyes and fell once more, into darkness.