Hi everyone! Happy holidays!
woke up with a pounding headache on a lumpy sofa in an apartment, but none of it even looked remotely close to familiar.
That meant that this wasn't a SHIELD safehouse (they were all configured very similarly), which was probably smart given that SHIELD was actually HYDRA and all of that fun stuff.
I blinked slowly and groaned, as my vision swam like some sort of stupid abstract painting before eventually coming into a fuzzy approximation of focused. I tried to sit up, very slowly getting most of the way there despite some serious vertigo going on. Wow, I'd really overdone it on this one.
"Hey, Steve, looks like Sleeping Beauty's awake," called a completely unfamiliar male voice (perhaps the owner of the apartment?). He sounded way too chipper for this to be fair.
A door opened somewhere, and Steve walked into the room, looking remarkably well-rested, but most importantly not dead.
Well, I guess my attempt to save his life had at least mostly worked.
"Well, I'll introduce you two, then," Steve said, hands in pockets, looking all relaxed and comfortable. Bastard. "Sam, this is Percy. He saved our lives back there. Percy, this is Sam. He was kind enough to lend us some floor space in his apartment for the night."
For the night? Crikey. I turned my head nice and slowly to have a look at our esteemed host, who, to be fair, looked friendly enough.
"You guys want breakfast?" Sam asked. "If you eat that sort of thing."
Oh, man, I could actually murder an entire fridge full of food at this point (side-effect of using too much power, as I'd discovered, was getting hangry). "Yes, please," I said vehemently before Steve could be polite and refuse his kind offer because he 'didn't want to impose' or something like that.
I wondered if I could ask him for paracetamol as well, because it wasn't like he was going to have a stash of ambrosia and my head was absolutely killing me. It was like the worst hangover ever, except without the consolation that I'd been drunk and having a fabulous time the night before.
Fortunately, Sam was a good cook and made an excellent mountain of eggs and bacon. And coffee. Lots of good coffee.
"Steve says you're some kind of fugitive," Sam mentioned idly as we sat down at the breakfast table. One way to start a conversation, I guess.
"Technically, Steve is also a fugitive right now," I pointed out. "Which means you're breaking the law harbouring any of us."
Sam raised an eyebrow. "But…?"
"But, yes, I was a fugitive before going on the run with these guys. You don't have any painkillers, do you? I have the worst headache."
Sam nodded, standing up to go and fetch some painkillers and apparently satisfied with my answer to his question, which told me that he was a pretty cool guy.
About half an hour and more than one plate of food later, I was starting to feel a little bit more like myself and confident enough in my strength to stand up long enough to take a shower (because I was still covered in concrete dust, which strangely enough doesn't do much for your complexion), and Nat had vacated the shower after spending more time in there than she probably needed.
Naturally, the interesting thing happened while I was butt-naked and in a locked room, having five minutes to take a goddamn shower.
Well, I had no idea what was going on, but the gunshots were most definitely not reassuring, and the not-so-distant crashes really added to the sense of absolute chaos.
I felt a bit bad about it, but I just finished my shower as quickly as I could, before getting dressed in record time (although I did have to actually dry myself with a towel. I tried to use my powers, but my brain felt like it was being squeezed through a toothpaste tube so decided maybe not), and opening the door into a now completely trashed apartment, with its three occupants crouched behind the upturned couch (that I'd been passed out on not that long prior to the incident), bleeding from superficial cuts and bruises, but not badly harmed.
I paused. "What'd I miss?"
o0O0o
"Okay, so you're telling me that the Winter Soldier broke in here? And he's actually your-" I gestured towards Steve, who was sitting in a now-upright chair, holding a tissue to a profuse nosebleed and overall looking like a kicked Labrador- "best friend from the 1940s?"
Nat nodded. "That about sums it up."
I leaned back in my own chair (cautiously, mind you; it had been thrown around a bit and I didn't want to end up on my backside on the floor), and found myself nodding thoughtfully. "Right. I guess we ought to be grateful that none of us are dead. He is the single most deadly assassin mankind has ever seen."
"In fairness, that's because I haven't had enough time to catch up on the twenty years he has on me." Natasha's trademark cocky facade came back as she dabbed thoughtfully at the long graze all the way down her left arm.
"Yeah, yeah." I leaned forward in my chair. "Am I the only one who's realised that HYDRA definitely knows where we are now? Or is that something that just doesn't bother you guys?"
I saw the exact moment that everyone's minds caught up. It would have been a beautiful couple of seconds if it wasn't for the fact that literal Nazis were chasing after us.
"We've gotta get out of here," Steve said, voice still a little thick and muffled by the mountain of blood and tissue around his nose, standing up.
"Thanks, genius. Do you have a plan?" I asked, keeping my voice calm and level because clearly this lot were running around like headless chickens on this one. "We don't exactly have any back up."
Sam shifted from where he was leaning against his kitchen counter. "Yes, you do." He passed Steve a chunky folder which clearly had 'CLASSIFIED' stamped all over it. "How do you feel about breaking and entering?"
Oh, I liked this guy. "What are we retrieving?" I asked, also getting to my feet. "I've broken into SHIELD before; this'll be fine."
"Well, then, you can help us break in again," Sam replied. "I need the Falcon project's equipment."
Nat rolled her eyes and stood up as well. "Car?"
Sam took a set of keys out of his pocket. "Shall we?"
o0O0o
Just over an hour later, and we had some highly-classified 'flight propulsion technology' (well, that's what the box said) in the boot of the car and only a bruised collarbone to show for it (some vents are small, okay?).
One would have thought that we'd have been fairly safe whilst driving along the freeway, but apparently that wasn't to be, because I was now dealing with a world of supersoldiers who can catch up to speeding vehicles and have zero qualms when it comes to sticking their hands through your windscreen and just ripping out the steering wheel as if that was anything that could possibly occur to an ordinary person living a normal life.
Strangely enough, the car then crashed, because generally a lack of a steering wheel means that you can't control where it's driving, which naturally then results in driving into something that you're not supposed to drive into.
Nobody died, so I counted it as a success, even if I felt kind of bad for Sam, since in the twelve hours since he got roped into this mess, he'd had his entire apartment trashed and his car totaled by a maniac who Steve apparently couldn't hurt because his name was Bucky and he was his best friend from childhood.
Clearly, the Winter Soldier didn't share Steve's values, because he was definitely trying to kill all of us with a machine gun, best friend be damned.
The next ten minutes were a total blur of simply trying to survive, and, if I was being perfectly honest, we weren't doing a terribly good job of it. It's a bit difficult when you also have to drag around a very miserable and patriotic Golden Retriever, who didn't seem to want to get out of the way of the bullets that much (slightly concerning, but I didn't really have enough time or energy to think properly about it).
Unfortunately, fucking Rumlow of all people captured us, which wasn't exactly our best moment.
I locked eyes with him as a HYDRA agent pushed his gun against the back of my head, keeping my gaze as icy (and furious) as possible, even when I was mildly terrified of death in this particular scenario. I was really hoping that I could convey that I was definitely still not a SHIELD agent and that Rumlow should put me in a separate convoy from the rest of the captives and, yes, he should not allow for this batshit insane plan to go ahead. However, he only appeared to understand the first two, when it was the third point that I thought particularly pertinent (typical).
I got shoved into a separate armoured vehicle, with far less security than the other three; I was a little happy that my ruse was still working. Rumlow hopped in behind me, releasing me from my cuffs (yay!). "Jackson, what's the next phase of your mission?"
I glared at him. "I told you, it's strictly need-to-know. Also, having you lot come down here all guns blazing and stomping your fucking hobnail boots all over my delicate mission is really not helping here! You are going to blow my cover. I'll need to accompany you to your next location in order to make sure that you don't screw this up anymore than you already have. And, do me a favour and let the three dimwits out there survive, or what's left of SHIELD will make me and come down on us with all of their military might before we've finished our preparations. Understand?"
Rumlow was surprisingly unbothered by the need to take orders from me, but whatever; it made my life easier. He organised the fallback of his troops in a shockingly subtle manner (by HYDRA's standards, anyway), and drove off, quite comfortable with me just kinda chilling in the back while I plotted how to escape without dying (surprisingly few options made themselves apparent, unfortunately). Unsure what to do, I just sat in the car and assumed that I'd be able to stop Rumlow from doing anything too evil.
The convoy meandered through the streets of DC, heading slowly for SHIELD HQ, which was pretty handy for me, as it's where the others had been planning to go as well.
I made a good show of keeping a stern eye on Rumlow, as if silently criticising his driving technique as well as his handling of the mission (I must admit that I wished he'd keep both hands on the wheel, but didn't voice it in case he changed his mind about not killing me).
o0O0o
The convoy trundled into the underground car park of SHIELD HQ (wow, imagine being that brazen), and ground to a slightly-squeaky halt. Rumlow shot me a dark look as if daring me to judge his parking, before jumping out and opening the rear door to let me out as well.
"I thought this was deep cover for you?" he asked. "Surely that means you need to maintain that somehow."
Good point.
"I'll be your prisoner."
"HYDRA doesn't take prisoners," he snapped, suddenly looking slightly wary, as if he suspected.
"They do when they're high-profile ex-agents that they might be able to turn to their cause, don't you think? Anyway, aren't you meant to be SHIELD, or did you not just use your ID to get into the car park?"
His gaze changed subtly to a thinking one rather than outright suspicion.
"If it'll make it more convincing, I won't kill you if you give me a black eye or something."
The prospect of violence cheered him up no end, so he didn't make any further objections to my plan, and promptly smacked me across the face with the butt of his rifle so hard I almost blacked out (and definitely regretted giving him permission as he drove it into my ribs as well, apparently 'just in case', as if SHIELD was in the habit of giving their captives a good once-over with a doctor the second that they arrived).
Rumlow then escorted me through the complex, stopping only a couple of times to mouth Hail Hydra at a couple of other agents. I made a mental note to remember what they looked like for future reference, as I didn't actually recognise any of them (turnover is fairly rapid when there's quite such a high mortality rate, I suppose).
As we kept moving, Steve's voice came on over the tannoy with his very much pre-rehearsed speech about choosing the right side and preventing the total destruction of SHIELD. I rolled my eyes at Rumlow as he led me forward, albeit at a much faster pace. I threw a lopsided grin in for good measure. "God, Steve Rogers is pretty up himself, huh?"
He grunted before pulling me through a door and into a control room of some sort, with sets of controls on a big screen at the front of the space and lines of desks facing it. Sitting at the desks were a bunch of slightly terrified-looking techies who clearly didn't want to work for HYDRA, judging by the number of guns being pointed at faces around the room.
I could play that to my advantage, but I've always had a flair for the dramatics and besides, we couldn't have Nat and Steve having all the fun here, could we?
So I waited slightly, as if challenging Rumlow, before I spoke. "So, how would you care to explain this? Looks a little sloppy to me, to have to threaten people. I'd have thought you didn't want to leave things to chance."
Rumlow's face twisted, but he didn't hit me like I thought he might. Clearly he was now among trusted friends.
Fortunately for me, Rumlow was an idiot who hadn't wanted to offend HYDRA's top brass by disarming one of their finest assets, who was, in fact, lying to his face about being a part of HYDRA. Less fortunately, the room was filled with people armed to the teeth, plus a bunch of innocent people who I didn't really want to get shot.
Well, I assumed that they didn't want to get shot.
He instead gritted his teeth and pressed a gun to the back of one of the tech's heads. "Launch those ships."
The poor guy trembled in his seat, but refused outright, which obviously didn't do an awful lot for Rumlow's mood. "Captain's orders."
Bless. Idiotic, sure, but the patriotism was as admirable as it was sickening. He turned his head slightly to glance in my direction with wide, terrified eyes, and I winked (which was pretty sore, given that most of my face was purple, but hopefully he got the gist) as Rumlow steamed furiously behind him like some sort of rhino with anger management issues (and a pistol).
So, whilst Rumlow was slightly preoccupied with trying to force the tech guy to launch the ships, I pulled a gun out of the waistband of my trousers, very subtly and slowly, while maintaining as normal and relaxed a silhouette as possible (rapid movement in your peripheral vision tends to make you look that way, you see).
I exhaled very slowly and deeply, as if about to snipe from a long distance, and then I leapt into action, launching myself at one black-clad HYDRA agent even as I shot another.
The situation got pretty out of control very fast, to say the least. Within ten seconds, most of the techs had hit the deck (which I had hoped would happen) and were now cowering under their desks as the air filled with bullets flying in all directions. HYDRA agents dropped whenever I lifted my gun, but the odds were never really in my favour, since there were about twenty of them and only one of me (plus the unfortunate bit where most of them were also trained by SHIELD).
And so it transpired that I was wrestled to the ground, spitting and cursing, after a (quite frankly) embarrassingly short scuffle. Rumlow's face contorted into a rictus of fury, but, to my surprise, he didn't shoot me right away, instead choosing to take control of the now-abandoned primary monitor, pressing keys and tapping away, before taking a step back with a victorious flourish.
A stiff, automated voice informed us that the helicarriers were launching, which had kind of been the opposite of what I had wanted to happen. Rumlow waltzed over, never able to resist a good gloat. "You hear that, Jackson? That is the sound HYDRA winning. You never were a true believer, were you? It was just another pathetic lie to save your own worthless skin."
I wriggled slightly from where I was pinned under about six HYDRA agents in order to be able to speak (still a bit muffled, but beggars and choosers, right?). "You still fell for it, though." My hand tingled painfully from where it was wedged under my hip, gun still squashed into my possibly-broken fingers (okay, maybe not, but they hurt, jeez), and I tried to wriggle a bit more to free it, but only really succeeded in doing an excellent impression of a disgruntled worm.
I glared in Rumlow's direction, and proceeded to totally ignore his monologue in favour of hatching an escape plan.
1 - the plumbing. I stretched out my mind to see if I could locate anything convenient. There was a mains pipe only a few feet beneath me, but upon trying to do anything with it, stabbing pains lanced through my skull and my vision whited out, so maybe not.
2 - anything else (don't usually get that far down the list, to be honest). None of the classic techniques would be any good, because these guys all knew them as well and would see them coming a mile off. That didn't leave me with many options, especially when my face was smashed into the floor.
But either way, I didn't want to listen to Rumlow gloating for another goddamn second, because it was really starting to grate. Thankfully, some of the SHIELD techs in the room had finally remembered that they all had guns (as per protocol) and maybe they should help the guy that just tried to take out Rumlow and his goons. Sure, they didn't have any formal training with them, but when you're just a few feet away then it really doesn't make that much of a difference.
I grinned to myself as four of the six agents on top of me leapt up to deal with the situation. Now, two on one; that I could handle. I kicked myself to my feet, relying on sheer strength to escape the goons' grasp.
Look, when it works, it works. It doesn't have to be pretty.
I sent one of them flying with a shoulder-barge, and he careened into the monitors, sparks flying. Unfortunately it didn't cancel the helicarrier launch, but some things are worth trying. The second goon I finished off with a bullet once I'd regained enough feeling in my flattened hand to actually pull the trigger.
I spun around to catch sight of Rumlow sprinting through the exit and towards the upper floors. I growled low in my throat and aimed just right. I squeezed the trigger, and a wolfish sense of pride settled in my mind as I saw Rumlow's body collapse to the ground.
Silence descended on the room, as the dust began to settle on the aftermath of the incredibly short, but bloody scrap.
I nodded sharply. "Trust me when I say that everything is about to hit the fan," I told them simply. "You've done your part here; I suggest that you cash in your remaining vacation days and leave while this place is still standing. Lay low for a while until it calms down."
They wavered, but nobody left. Faithful idiots, the lot of them.
"Look, there is nothing you can do here now. We can't unlaunch the helicarriers, and this place is crawling with HYDRA spies who you may have thought were your friends, and fighting your friends isn't just hard; sometimes it's impossible. The best way for you to defeat HYDRA now is to stay alive. If you can't do it for any other reason, then do it for spite. Thwart their plans. But, for the gods' sakes, get out of here. Please."
A couple of shaking workers staggered to their feet before sprinting away from the room, which opened the floodgates of a stampede of terrified techies, trying their best to escape as quickly as possible. I stepped aside to let them out, eyes and gun tracking the bodies on the ground in case any of the HYDRA agents had somehow managed to resurrect themselves (they hadn't).
There was a distant rumble as what I guessed were the helicarriers finally gunning their engines and taking flight, which was just great and made my day even more complicated than it already was. Man, I wished that I'd just stayed dead and maybe none of this would have happened to me.
I swore to myself and, having checked that the room was indeed empty of living people, sprinted for the top floor where Nat had agreed to collect us from.
The entire building trembled as the carriers opened fire, raining death down, shattering windows and generally making a bit of a mess. And not a wow-that-was-loud sort of tremble, either. More of a liquefied-foundations sort of wobble, if I'm being perfectly honest.
The steady thunder of an approaching helicopter filled my ears, which would have been excellent if it hadn't been rapidly rising to several floors above where I was furiously stomping up stairwell after stairwell.
Halfway up the stairs I found an increasingly frustrated Sam, who was also chasing after the helicopter. Well, at least we were in this together. If by 'together', you meant that he was about fifteen strides ahead of me, of course. He was also yelling instructions into an earpiece, which would have made my life easier if I hadn't been 'captured' by HYDRA at the time of their issue.
There was a terrible groaning noise as what I assumed were the most important bits of the structure finally buckled and gave way, and then there was chaos. Sam and I kept running, even as the stairs began to crack and crumble beneath our feet. The helicopter blades pounded the air, even above the racket of HQ's final death throes, and just as a stairwell window shattered, Sam took one last stride, placing one foot on the windowsill and leaping out, arms windmilling furiously as he tried to cover the distance between us and the chopper.
I kept my eye on the prize, but I knew that even that couple of seconds between us was going to prevent me following. My foot landed on a broken stair, which promptly vanished from under me, and I plunged to one knee on nothingness as the entire structure began to freefall.
o0O0o
I thought that maybe I had gone blind.
It was just so completely, mind-numbingly dark.
I tried to lift my right hand to feel what was above me, but it was pinioned somehow. I was glad to find that my left (although very sore) hadn't suffered a similar fate, and reached a probing hand upwards, only for it to be stopped mere inches from my face by rough concrete.
My breath quickened, but I battled down the panic and tried to think logically, despite the dust in my lungs and the weight on my chest.
I cast my mind back briefly. Building collapse. Buried. Freaking out.
I forced my breaths to slow and even out again. Okay, second attempt. Cold, logical. Come on, Percy.
I had been towards the top of the building, so maybe that meant that the wreckage above me wasn't too deep. Maybe I could be found.
Maybe not, but we can hope, right?
On the slightly more terrifying side, I had no idea whether my air would run out. It was already tasting pretty stale, and the choking brick dust wasn't exactly helpful either.
I did a little bit of an experimental wiggle to see whether I could move any part of me, but it seemed that, despite the insurmountable luck of having a lump of concrete land in such a way that it created a pocket to keep important things like my chest three-dimensional, the less important parts of me had not been given the same generous treatment.
By that, I mean that my legs were completely trapped. I tried to move my right arm again, and a furious spike of pain ran down it, which tore a tiny, terrified whimper from my lips.
The darkness and the all-encompassing silence weighed down on me with almost as much weight as the rest of the collapsed building. I hoped vaguely that Sam had made it when he made his desperate leap, because I wouldn't wish something like this on anybody.
Unable to do anything, I focused all of my effort and consciousness on my breathing.
In. 1, 2, 3.
Hold. 1, 2, 3.
Out. 1, 2, 3.
In. 1, 2, 3.
Hold. 1, 2, 3.
Out. 1, 2, 3.
Try not to freak out. Try not to freak out. Try not to-
I don't know how long I lay there in the endless dark, choking on dust, rationing my air, but it felt like an eternity.
Eventually, someone had the foresight to lift some of the wreckage off of my body, and actually allow light to reach my eyes for the first time in hours? Days?.
I'll admit that I yelled a little bit. In my defence, there was a chunk of rebar through my arm.
"Welcome back, Agent Jackson." Coulson's familiar dry smile greeted me. I honestly could have killed him for the smug smirk on that stupid face of his (but boy had I ever been so glad to see somebody not dead). "Let's get you some help."
Thank you for reading! See you next time!
