Chapter Songs: Burning Pile by Mother Mother, House of the Rising Sun by Audiomachine, and Smoke Signals by Phoebe Bridgers
Headcanon of the Chapter: when they were kids, Jack once stuck a piece of gum in his sister's hair and when it wouldn't come out, they had to chop an inch off Danielle's hair. She never forgave him, she hates her hair short.
Noah should've been dead... A part of him wished he were as he lie on the cold, hard floor of some dark room. It was a blur to him. He remembered glimpses... moments... memories.
An escape.
Jolts of electricity coursing through his veins.
Screams.
Blood.
Danielle jumping in front of the knife meant for him.
The way his legs sagged against the cold floor as Strucker's men dragged him away screaming.
He thought they were going to kill him. That same part that wished he were dead right now still wished they had just taken him out back and ended it all. He didn't want to be locked away in some cell for the rest of his life, being poked and prodded, being used, being subjected to things kid his age should never have to be subjected to.
He was an experiment that they just kept on probing... and he just wanted this endless cycle to end.
At first, Noah had found solace in the two sets of siblings. He'd smiled for the first time in years with them at his side. But... now they were gone. And he was alone. In yet another cold, dark, cell.
Noah was content to stay here, lying on his side, crumpled like a discarded toy in the corner on the floor just before the door to the larger room outside the cell creaked open. The lights throughout the room and cells flickered on.
It was bright... too bright. Noah had to cover his eyes to try and get them readjusted to being in a place so lit up after being held in the dark for so long.
His eyes were narrowed, but he was able to make out a handful of armored guys walking in. He was immediately on edge, his arms pushing from off the floor as his legs dragged their way up off the ground until he was standing before these men... waiting for the inevitable moment for them to finally kill him.
"This him?" A taller, burly man with spiky dark hair and a bit of brush for a beard narrowed his eyes in speculation at Noah through the gates between them. That's when Noah realized where they were... in some kind of bank vault. It was nice. Expensive. Where the hell had they taken him? "Kinda skinny. What, did they not feed you in Europe, kid?"
Noah's jaw clenched. He was dead anyway, might as well say the things in his head. "What do you care?" He bit back.
"Because I'm not about to have some bag of bones dragging down my team," the man retorted just as bitterly, if not even more so. "We already gotta drag around some fossil and his fresh piece of ass. The last thing I need is to have some whiney teenager holding us back."
"What makes you think I'll do anything with you?" Noah spat at the man through the bars. His fists clenched, he could feel the heat radiating from his palms, the sensation moving up his arm as his anger and frustration grew.
All the men outside the cell bars took a step back, immediately put on edge by the show of power, but not the scruffy man in front of him.
He laughed. Chuckled. Absolutely beamed at the heat radiating from Noah's hand. "Hot damn!" He whooped. "You've got some heat, kid. Forget what I said about dragging us down... You'd probably put our asses on the map in HYDRA history with the way everything's going down real soon. Forget Captain America and the Black Widow, we've got our very own superhero, boys."
Noah narrowed his eyes at the man, now both of his hands were clenched. "I'm not doing shit for HYDRA."
"Who else are you gonna do your little party tricks for then, huh?" The man prompted. "Your little friends back in Europe? You really think they care about you?" The heat in his eyes and in his hands faltered at the man's mention of the Twins and the Harper siblings. How had he... "Yeah, I heard all about your situation at that Sokovian Hellhole, but then I heard they were trying to get rid of a powerful asset out there and I was the first to put in the request to have you here."
"Why?" Noah prompted. "Why didn't you just let them fucking kill me?"
The smug grin on the man's face fell as he got closer to the bars, his voice low and his expression no longer joking. "Because... you've got that spark in you, kid. That little heat behind your eyes that gets you out of bed every morning. That burning anger that festers inside of you that you just gotta let explode... I want that," he explained. "We've all got that spark here. In this room. In this unit. In this team. You want in- you wanna be able to get that release and fight for something bigger than a bunch of super kids that probably aren't thinking twice about the fact that you're gone-" Noah winced. "-This is your chance at that."
Noah paused, his clenched fists at his side slowly unclenching, the heat radiating from his body dissipating as he contemplated the man's words.
"Yeah... that's right," the man smiled, that wicked turn of lips revealing the fangs in his mouth in a wolf-like manner. "What's your name, kid?"
"Noah..."
"No last name?"
He shook his head idly.
"Metal," the man chuckled. "My name's Brock. But everyone here just calls me Rumlow. You got a nickname, Hothead?"
Noah shook his head once more.
"Eh, you'll get one soon," he chided. "Until then, you're gonna stick around here for a while. Have the doctors come in and make sure you're not totally fucked up like the Other Guy."
Noah didn't bother to ask who the 'Other Guy' was, his mind was now only focused on all the people around him. He'd once latched onto people in a cell... But for some reason, this group felt different. He didn't feel like a piece to some kind of puzzle... He felt like he actually belonged, like they wanted him there and didn't just think of him as some throw away.
That's what he'd been to Strucker. To the Twins. To Jack. To Danielle.
No more would he be thrown away in some dark corner. He was about to burn that metaphorical cell down to the ground.
Noah shook away the memory.
Present day, it was still cold and dark, but this time he wasn't in a cell. He was sitting on a crate of some kind... some shit still left over after the Avengers swept it cleaned then demolished the place after what happened with Ultron and the entirety of the city of Sokovia sort of blowing up in the sky. Noah thought the half-destroyed building looked very eerie beside the enormous hole in the earth the Avengers had left. It was fucking poetic.
A part of him hoped Jack would be stupid enough to let his kid sister tag along, but he also knew Jack wasn't that stupid.
Never the less, he was counting on at least a few of the remaining Avengers would show up. He didn't need Danielle there, at least not yet anyway. He needed to get her protective unit out of the way before he could zero in on her and that fucking insect she cared so much about... The Spider-Man.
Noah'd been watching Danielle for months before he had finally decided when to strike. He wanted her at her most vulnerable, he wanted her when she wasn't expecting it. He'd spent nights on the roof of the old Avengers tower, overlooking her balcony at that nice Penthouse she was staying in all alone. He'd sit in the back of the disgusting and crowded subway train cart with a hood pulled over his head, watching her idly look out the window of the train as she stood on her own. He'd even watch her walk to and from that pathetic school in Midtown Manhattan, her earphones plugged in, unaware of the world around her and of him trailing her at every corner since the day he'd set his plan into motion months after what happened in Lagos.
He could've revealed himself to her any of those times. The opportunity was there, and he almost had the first time he laid eyes on her upon his arrival to the Big Apple just after what had happened with Eris at the Washington Monument. He had almost let anger get the best of him and just burnt her to a crisp one day while she was alone in that snazzy Penthouse, or standing idle on the subway, or walking through alleyways with her earphones in... But every time, he was thwarted by a lingering presence that followed Danielle like a parasite.
The Spider-Man.
He'd first spotted the red, blue, and black spandex wearing nuisance when he was spying on Danielle through her balcony window. It had been the closest look he'd gotten of her in-person. No longer through a TV screen or a blurry memory of them from years ago... She was there now.
Her hair was shorter, pulled into a messy ponytail. Her face hadn't gotten any paler or darker... it was like she hadn't gotten any sun since getting out of that Sokovian prison. And her body was so... relaxed as she laid on her stomach, sprawled out with a textbook and paper work in front of her, her pencil idly tapping the edge of her lip as her eyes scanned the words on both items beside her. The first thing that caught Noah off guard was how normal she looked. How alive she looked. How relaxed and not terrified she seemed. It almost made him want to go in and burst her little bubble in a fiery ball of flames.
Only... he wasn't alone.
Perched on a separate roof, Noah watched with narrowed eyes as the same web-slinger he'd seen in viral videos and on news broadcasts before, swing through the night before he also perched himself on a building just across from Danielle's Penthouse balcony. Noah was ticked, wondering if this bug was going to go in... He never did. He just sat there, watching her almost as intently as Noah had been moments before he'd arrived.
Noah figured he'd get tired, leave, and then his opportunity to go in and do what he was there to do in the first place would present itself once more. But... the Spider-Man never left. He stayed out there for another couple hours. Every so often, he'd leave at the sound of police sirens or a weird crashing noise that came from somewhere around the block, but then he'd just come back again.
Then, as Noah's surveillance continued, he began to see the pest everywhere he went, everywhere Danielle went. At the school. On the subway. Swinging above her as she walked through alleyways. Eventually, Noah pieced together who the kid beneath the mask was... it wasn't too hard to spot the boy in her classes that stared at her almost as intently as the Spider-Man did from his spot on the roof adjacent to her window. Then, come to find, Danielle looked at him almost the same way he looked at her when he wasn't looking.
Spider-Man was a pain in Noah's ass... but he would also be the key to getting to Danielle.
He wanted her to hurt. To feel the pain he felt.
It was never his plan to kill her that first night he'd confronted her on the Brooklyn Bridge. He'd only wanted to get under her skin, show her how helpless she was up against him without the powers or protection she relied so heavily on. And he did.
When he watched her after that first time, he relished in watching her throw worried glances over her shoulder to someone who wasn't there. The way her back stiffened when he watched her through her school's cafeteria windows. And the way she had sat on those school bleachers outside for the rest of the day... All because she was scared of him.
Good. That's what he wanted. For her to acknowledge him. To feel some semblance of worry about where he was, when he'd be back to finish what he started, weary about his next moves.
Then the second time, when he'd been found out.
Now that wasn't apart of his plan. He had wanted to reveal who he was much later on to her, but he figured he could use it to his advantage... And so now he was.
"Hey, kid."
Noah's frown deepened. He hated it when his thugs called him 'kid.' He should've burnt them all to a crisp when Brock had first left what was left of his old HYDRA/SHIELD team to him following the Lagos incident. But Noah figured one day he'd need them to make a good distraction.
"What?" He bit out through clenched teeth, not bothering to spare him a glance from over his shoulder.
"We've got movement. Ten cliques out from over the mountains. A jet and another unknown flying object... We think it's the-"
"I know who it is," Noah cut him off swiftly. "Keep them on their toes. Direct all firepower to keeping the flying ones outside of the perimeter." Noah stood to his feet, walking back around to the bustling base, his cronies wandering aimlessly with their big guns and grenades in their hands. God, what a bunch of barbarians.
"Kid, they're the Avengers. We can't hold them-" the man tried to protest, but Noah didn't give him an inch.
His eyes glowed in anger as he glared down at the man. He swallowed hard beneath his gaze. "Tell your guys that the electric one is mine."
"...Yes, sir," he whimpered before scurrying off, spouting out tactical orders that would never actually work against fucking Iron Man and the crazy android that was on his way to them right now.
But he didn't need them to work. He just needed them as a distraction.
Everything was in place. It had to be. He didn't spend months planning for it to fail now. He'd spent too many years in the dark not to have it end in anything other than a ball of fire. He was finished being shoved away in a dark corner... forgotten. He was about to burn it all down.
"Maybe you shouldn't..." Peter had tried fruitlessly to get Danielle to back out of going to that surveillance room Vision had said was open for her. He didn't know why he kept trying, she had always been a glutton for pain and more stubborn than even MJ could be sometimes.
Danielle shook her head, her eyes glued to the many screens splayed out before them on a large wall at the end of the dark, empty room. Each camera showed a small red dot on a map, attached to the side was a channel to listen to audio, and at the very top was a recording through what she assumed to be the Quinjet as it flew through the night sky towards the threat of someone that she used to consider a close friend.
"I have to know," she explained to him a soft whisper.
"Know what?" he prompted her.
"Why he's doing this," she replied. "I... I'd understand if he's angry about Rumlow, I'm... angry at myself, too. But- he said something back at the building before Jack and Rae had shown up. He wasn't mad when I mentioned Rumlow, he was mad when I said I wouldn't leave you to die there."
Peter shifted on the balms of his feet, trying not to focus too hard on the fact that she'd actually told a man trying to kill her that she wasn't going to leave him behind to burn.
"But I didn't leave Noah... why would he think I did?"
"He spent a lot of time with that Rumlow guy," Peter explained. "He probably told him a bunch of crap about you and your brother to get him to turn on you. And now he wants revenge." Danielle closed her eyes, trying to keep a steady breath as the red dots on the screen crept closer to the big blue one at the center of the map. "Elle, he's a psycho that's pissed for what HYDRA did to him and wants someone to pin the blame on now that Rumlow and whatever's left of HYDRA is gone now. This isn't your fault, you shouldn't have to watch this."
He was hesitant at first, but after he noticed how relaxed her posture was the closer he got to her, he felt it was alright to place his hand on her shoulder. She didn't flinch.
"Come on, Elle."
She didn't pull away, she didn't stiffen. And for a second, he was pretty sure she was considering it for a second. That was until the intercoms came to life.
"Approaching target. ETA fifty seconds to point of entry in Navi Grad." It was Rae's voice speaking into a mic. Danielle had to assume she was the one piloting the jet. "Tin-Man, Colonel, now would be a good time for you both to get in those soda cans of yours and make yourself useful. The closer we get, the more likely they're gonna start shooting and I'd rather not break my perfect record of flying without getting shot out of the sky today."
"The Silver Sable spoke," Rhodey chuckled. "You heard her man, get moving."
"What am I, taking orders now?" Tony.
"While you're in this jet that I'm flying- yes," Rae retorted.
There was a pause.
"...C'mon, get moving Robo-Colonel. You heard the woman."
Peter couldn't help but chuckle at hearing the team's antics. He never would've thought that such stuck-up and hard-set people like the Avengers would so easily crack jokes with another. He wondered what had happened between him and people he was so close to during the Battle of New York and the Battle of Sokovia to make them fallout so hard if this was what their dynamic was like from before. Peter imagined it would be like if he and Danielle ever got into that big of a fight... No, he couldn't even imagine turning on Danielle that way. He'd be just as bad as Noah if he did.
There was loud sounds of whooshing air followed by the images of two of the red dots that had previously been apart of a cluster suddenly broke off and away from what Danielle and Peter assumed to be the jet. Now there were only two dots in the jet: Rae and Jack- and three outliers; Rhodey, Tony, and Vision.
"Approaching. ETA thirty seconds," Rae repeated.
"How's it looking out there?" Jack asked, any traces of humor the young man usually had in his voice were absent. He sounded more anxious than actually curious.
Peter and Danielle heard the distant sound of wind in the background before someone replied, "Dark. Quiet... Too quiet." Rhodey remarked.
"Don't get too used to it," Tony called back. "The closer we get to the old base, the more likely they are to start-" There were sounds of loud explosions, echoes of bangs that sounded close to thunder. Danielle flinched from where she stood before the screens. "...Shooting," Tony finished with a groan.
There were more explosions to follow the closer the Quinjet and the three flying outliers on the radar grew to the pulsating dot near the edge of the map where they'd tracked Noah to. Danielle and Peter anxiously watched as the three fliers behind the jet abruptly broke apart, two going one way, the third going another. The Quinjet remained on course, but it didn't seem as though Rae was having much fun going through the rain of fire.
"Tony- you mind hurrying the Hell up and blasting this guy's firepower?" She demanded "I'm not about to blown out of the sky by Lava Girl's evil little shit twin."
There was a bit of grunting and sounds of repulsors on the other ends of the comms. "Did you just-" A shot fired. "Did you just reference Shark Boy and Lava Girl?"
"Did you just understand a reference from Shark Boy and Lava Girl?" Rae shot back before grunting. "Ah- shit! Wing's hit!"
Danielle leaned forward, her hand at her lips as her eyes darted between the radar and the vital signs nearby. "Come on..."
"Miss Sable," Danielle heard Vision speak cooly and calmly as though he weren't flying through heavy fire. "Steady the plane, I'll maintain cover fire for you and Mr. Harper to make a safe landing."
Danielle watched as one of the outlying dots on the radar that had separated slowly made it's way back to the large dot on the radar. Carefully, the dot swooped in front of the larger dot on the screen and circled around the main point where Noah was and where the shots were coming from.
"Vision's drawing away fire. Tony, Rhodes- you mind lending a hand with these shooters near the drop zone?" Rae called out, her voice strained from seemingly flying with a broken wing on the Quinjet.
"On it!" Tony grunt, the two small red dots near the sides of the the larger red one honing in on the center where Rae and Jack were flying in. There were several sounds of explosions and crashing noises. Back in the surveillance room, Danielle held her hand to her chest, her teeth nervously gnawing at her bottom lip as she anxiously listened in to see if her brother and team had made it in. "Sable?" Tony called through the comms. "Taking a lot of heavy fire out here. Did you two make it in?"
There was a long pause. Only static.
"Sable? Harper?"
Danielle checked the vitals on the second screen... Jack and Rae's heartbeats were both a little erratic, but so were everyone else's that were fighting outside.
"Are they okay?" Peter muttered from beside his partner.
There was still no answer.
"I..." Danielle stammered. "I don't know."
Did I just lose my brother?
Shit, that hurt...
Jack groaned in pain only to cough when the air from the sound caught in the back of his clogged throat. He felt like he was breathing straight smoke and dust... from the looks of the inside of the Quinjet, he just might've been.
There was smoke everywhere, the lights turned red as an unseen alarm blared within the cabin. He couldn't see the fire producing the smoke, it might've just been from the crash... The crash.
"Mm," Jack groaned, pushing himself from off his back. He could feel his bones ache in protest, but he couldn't listen to his body right now, not when they had a killer to catch. They... plural- shit! "Sable?" Jack called out as he stumbled onto his feet, catching himself on the wall of the cabin of the jet. He coughed up more smoke, "Sable?" Still no answer.
The Enhanced turned to the left where the pilot's seat was... it was empty. He turned to the other side of the cabin, still no sight of her... only smoke. Then he turned to the back gate to find it open... that was where the smoke was coming from. Outside. Had she... had she left him? No, she wouldn't have... Unless someone took her and left him.
Jack halted in his tracks.
She was being used as bait. Noah wanted him to go chase after her.
When Jack glanced up from the open back gate of the jet, he could see a lit up building a few yards away. The old base... The one he saw in his nightmares. His prison for 4 years. The place that both cursed and blessed him with his Enhancement. The birthplace of Statix and the place where his childhood died.
This was a bad idea...
He didn't have a choice.
Jack stepped off the jet and marched towards the building. The boots of his suit crunched against the slowly melting snow laid fresh on the forest floor in Novi Grad. It felt oddly familiar. Jack hated the memories attached to this place and snow. If he'd never experienced snow for another millennia, it would be too soon.
As he slowly approached the old and broken down HYDRA base, he could hear the sounds of Tony and Rhodey's repulsors still being shot from the distance. If he strained his eyes hard enough, he was sure he would be able to see Vision at work with the gem on his head, but Jack's focus was on getting to Noah right now.
The back door Jack and the rest of his siblings had once used to escape this facility years ago was blown open... more like burned open. Jack paused momentarily to examine the way the sides of the iron doorway were melted in. It was cool to the touch and rock-hard... This hadn't been recent. Noah must've been staying at this base for some time now.
Jack continued through the door. It was pitch black in the old cells, freezing as well... Just like Jack had remembered. The only thing he was thinking as he continued through the cold metal bars was that he was just glad he hadn't let Dani come with him to relive the worst years of their lives in this desolate place.
He pressed on.
It was like muscle memory. He hadn't even remembered that there'd been a staircase that led back up to the main quarters, yet his feet walked up them as if he'd done it a hundred times before. Perhaps he had, but never on his own accord. He was always either kicked, pushed, or dragged whenever he was out of his cell.
He shivered, but not from the blistering cold.
He needed to get out of this place.
Once he'd reached the main quarters, he stopped just before turning the corner. There were a series of men in armor. Only a few, not more than half a dozen still standing guard. When Jack glanced out from the corner he was hiding behind, he could make out two figures at the far end of the room standing beside a large fire burning beneath what seemed to be some kind of make-shift chimney. One figure was standing tall, rubbing his wrist impatiently as he paced. The second, lying limply against some crates. Jack could make out the pale, white hair reflecting from the fire's light.
Sable... and Noah.
The building shook and Jack ducked back within the shadows. He glanced up at the billowing roof of the base, he could see small particles of dust and brick falling down. The base must've taken another hit from the three Avengers still reigning an assault from the outside. It would be only a matter of time before they'd break through. Jack had to launch his own assault now.
"We should kill her now," one of the guards in black supplied the Pyromaniac. "Send a message to the bastards outside that if they don't fall back now-"
"We kill her now, they'd pummel us all without remorse," Noah's low voice called from over his shoulder. Jack watched as he glanced down at the unconscious woman still lying at his feet. He turned back to look at the fire, sitll rubbing his wrist. "They'll come to us."
"And they'll just stick us in some cells!" Another guard cried out. "What are you playing at, you freak-!?"
Jack didn't bother to wait for Noah to reprimand his men. He fired off a single blow of electric jolts down the line of guards lined up near the back of the room. They all fell with a collective thud. Not dead, but... they'd be knocked out for some time.
Noah spun around to see what was left of his guard. Jack crept out from the darkness to show himself to the one they called Arson. When Noah spotted him from across the room, his eyes flashed red. Almost as red as the fire behind him.
Jack glanced down at his work... "They're not dead," he assured the Pyromaniac on the other end of the room.
"I couldn't care less about the idiots," he shot back, practically growled. "They were a means to an end from the beginning."
Jack narrowed his eyes at the fellow Enhanced. "That's all people are to you? A means to an end-"
"That's rich coming from you of all people," Noah spat. When Jack frowned in confusion, Noah rolled his eyes. "What was I to you while we lived in separate cells down the hall from one another? You played a brother well, but the only person you and your sister actually cared about were each other. I was nothing but meat."
"You know that's not true," Jack began, flinching when Noah took a swift step towards him. He took a step back in response, one of his hands coming to hold a ball full of electric jolts ready to be fired.
Noah glanced between Jack and his hand, almost beckoning him to go ahead and blow him to kingdom come. Jack didn't. He slowly lowered his hand, letting the electric shock in his palm diminish as he straightened himself out once more.
Noah pursed his lips. "What are you going to say now? That you're not here to hurt me? That you just want to talk?"
"I'm not my sister," Jack replied. "I'll hurt you if I need to, but I'd rather it not come to that point, Noah."
"That's not my name," the Pyromaniac sneered. The building shook, but not from his rage. Though, Jack felt as though he could practically feel the anger radiating off the man just as much as he could feel the heat of the large fire burning behind him.
Jack scoffed, "What do you go by now? Arson?" He rolled his eyes. "That the name Rumlow gave you?"
Noah swallowed hard. Clearly, Rumlow was a touchy subject... which made Jack just want to poke at it even more.
"Is he why you're doing all of this?" He pressed as he slowly began to stalk to the side. "Seriously? HYDRA trades you from one cell to another and you think the man they gave you to actually cared about you? You were nothing but a pawn in HYDRA's game and Rumlow's!"
"Versus being a pawn in you and your sister's!" Noah shouted back, walking parallel to him. "Rumlow never feigned love for me. He never lied to me and told me he cared about me, that we were family. I earned my keep when I was with Rumlow and the STRIKE team. I earned their respect. I was vital to them, important. But they never once pretended that I was anything more than a vital member of their game. You- you and Danielle- you pretended I was someone to you... then the moment I-" he cut himself off when his voice cracked. "The moment I'm no longer useful, you throw me out like some kind of plaything-"
"We thought you were dead!" Jack retorted. "You really think we would've left you the way we did had we known you were still alive?" Jack saw something flash across Noah's features, only this time it wasn't rage. It was... realization. Shock, perhaps. Almost as though he'd just been told a truth he never knew before. "What did they do to you when you were with STRIKE? What did they tell you?" Jack pressed, but Noah just clenched his jaw, unable to meet his eyes. "They lied to you-"
"Shut up," Noah growled beneath his breath.
"No," Jack replied simply. This time, Noah did look up at him, fire burning within his dark irises. "You were manipulated, don't you see that?"
"Stop talking," he sneered, his fists catching in a ball of flames as he grew angrier.
"Are you really so far in denial that you can't even see what you are-"
"Stop-"
"You're nothing but their pawn!" Jack shouted. "Manipulated and brainwashed to do their bidding like the good little soldier you are!" He stopped to catch his breath, he glanced down at the fire in Noah's hand and knew... This was it.
"You're nothing but HYDRA's bitch."
Then it all exploded.
"Gah!"
Noah cried out in pure rage as the fire in his hands came up to blast towards Jack.
But it never reached him.
"Tony- now!"
Sable had ran over in a flash, her arms thrown up to create an invisible barrier around herself and Jack by proximity. The fire licked the sides of the shield moments before it was able to reach Jack. Jack was just about to thank her when the gold and red Iron Man suit crashed through the wall directly beside them. The Enhanced watched Tony raise an arm and fire off a single missile in the direction of the source of the flames encasing Sable and Jack.
"No-!" The words died in Jack's throat when an even bigger wave of fire and smoke blasted through the side of the room where Jack knew Noah stood. Suddenly, the fire that had been launched at the barrier from Noah was replaced by fire launched at them from close proximity of the missile blast. Despite the barrier Sable was holding steady around them, Jack still flinched away from the blast.
When the dust settled, she slowly lowered it.
Jack turned back to face the side of the room where Noah stood moments ago only to find nothing but flames and burning, charred wood...
He was gone. For good.
"Are you alright?" Jack vaguely heard someone call to him through the ringing in his ears. "Kid? Statix? Jack!" The Enhanced snapped out of it, his eyes pulled away from the flames to find Sable yanking at his arm. "Are you alright?"
Jack didn't answer her.
He brushed past her to get out through the way Tony came. There was no point in sticking around. Noah was dead. There job was done here, left behind in some charred remains in the base that had forged the man that was now burning in it.
Danielle wasn't sure what she was expecting when she stood waiting anxiously for her brother's return. A part of her was hoping the threat was gone. Another part of her was secretly hoping Jack would bring Noah back, unharmed... It was a small flicker of hope, but one she held on to nonetheless.
She hugged her arms around her middle, glancing up at the slowly lightening blue sky, waiting for that small dot on the horizon to arrive. She'd been standing here since she'd first been alerted by Hill that they were on their way back after communications went down. They had to send a second Quinjet after Jack and Rae's was shot down, but she assured Danielle they were unharmed... when she'd asked about Noah, she hadn't given her an answer.
"Here." Danielle peeled her attention away from the sky to find Peter at her side, his hand extending a royal blue hoodie. "You're shaking," he pointed out when Danielle furrowed her eyebrows in confusion at the gesture.
She spared him a sad smile before taking the jacket and pulling her arms through the sleeves. It was too big for her, it must've been his. It smelled like Axe cologne, Cheetos, and something distinctly... Peter. She ignored the way she pulled the jacket around herself tighter.
"They should be here by now," she muttered, her fingers pulling at the blue fabric on the hoodie to keep from picking at her nails.
"Maybe they stopped to get breakfast on the way back," Peter joked light-heartedly. When Danielle didn't laugh, he wiped the joking expression from his face and reached out to set a hand on her shoulder. "They'll be here."
Danielle moved her hand from the jacket to reach out to place it on his.
The sun was just starting to come up, the light reflecting off the rippling water along the river just beside the Compound property, Danielle spotted it. The small Quinjet approaching from the clouds.
The two teenagers stood idle at the edge of the landing pad walkway, watching as the jet swept in from the sky and carefully landed without even so much as a breeze of air blasting towards them. As soon as the the Quinjet's landing gear hit the ground, Danielle was already making her way towards the edge of the landing pad, her hand falling from off of Peter's and Peter's hand falling away from her shoulder as he watched her go.
Danielle reached the edge of the landing pad, her eyes locked on the back gate of the jet that slowly opened. She held her breath, waiting for everyone to climb out.
The first one walking out was Rae. Tony and Rhodey were walking side by side close behind her. Vision not far behind them... and finally...
When Jack walked out of the jet, his head was bowed. There was ash and soot covering every inch of his exposed skin. She could see red rims beneath his eyes as though he had been crying for hours... When he finally looked up, his eyes met hers immediately.
There were moments before the siblings could exchange a single look and say more than they could with words. This was one of those moments. Danielle took one look at her brother and knew... the threat had been eliminated, along with Noah.
Danielle's eyes were beginning to tear, she could no longer see her brother in the distance. She couldn't breathe, her heartbeat growing erratic to the point where all she knew was how to run. Run.
"Danielle!" She could hear Peter shout after her as she brushed past him and dashed back into the Compound, the tears streaming down her face as she choked back the sobs.
She wasn't sure where she was headed or where her legs were carrying her, but she somehow found herself sitting ramrod and cross-legged at the end of Wanda's bed. She knew Jack would immediately look for her in her old room, but he wouldn't think to come back to this room.
Something had happened between Wanda and Jack in the time after Lagos, just before Wanda escaped the Compound to join the rest of the Rogue Avengers in Leipzig, Danielle knew that much. She never knew details, but she knew the relationship between the two had been strained ever since. Because of that, Danielle knew Jack refrained from ever coming into this room.
The same way Tony refused to even go near Steve's room after what happened in Siberia. Yet another incident Danielle had heard about, but never knew the details of.
Sitting on her sister's bed, she cried silently as the sun seeped through the windows just above her bed. She remembered coming in here so many times to watch a movie or one of those old-timey shows Wanda loved to watch so much. Though her and Wanda met and grew up for a time in one of the worst places of their lives, their friendship and love only grew stronger from the pain and torment they had gone through together.
Wanda had felt loss and pain unlike any other after Pietro had gone. Danielle felt at a loss when Pietro was killed, too, but... she couldn't imagine how Wanda felt. Danielle couldn't imagine what it would feel like to lose her brother either.
Now all she couldn't help but think with the loss of Noah was how he must've dealt with his loss. The loss of them, the loss of his life in Novi Grad. He thought they'd abandoned him, a fate far worse then dying, Danielle felt. She wondered if he cried this hard when he realized they left him, when he saw them in Sokovia fighting alongside the Avengers without him.
A sob caught in Danielle's throat, her hand coming up to cover her mouth so not to alert anyone that might've been lingering in the halls.
She didn't stifle her cry hard enough, unfortunately.
"Danielle?"
The brunette glanced up at the door to find Vision poking his head inside.
She sniffled.
Vision frowned, bowing his head as he entered. He shut the door and silently walked over until he was seated at the edge of the bed beside Danielle. He seemed hesitant, unsure of how to handle the task of comforting a crying teenager.
"You grieve," Vision stated simply. Danielle didn't look at him, only nodded and sniffled some more. "But... you feel guilty about your grief." It wasn't a question, and she wasn't denying it.
Danielle sniffled. "What does it mean when you grieve for someone who tried to kill you? Someone who posed a danger to your friends and family? Is it wrong? Is it sick?"
"You are not sick to feel emotions, Danielle," Vision exclaimed. "This isn't grief for someone who harmed you. This- what you're feeling now- is grief for the person he was. Grief for the chance you've lost to help redeem him, help him. You are not wrong for that."
Danielle bowed her head, her hair falling like a curtain over her face as a few stray tears slipped down her cheeks. "...he thought we'd abandoned him. For years, he'd thought we'd just left him. He probably died still believing that," her voice cracked. "I failed him."
"What happened to Noah wasn't your fault," the android reassured her. "You can't blame yourself for what happened to him. It isn't fair to you."
Danielle lifted her head, her hand coming up to wipe away the tears still on her face. "Since when has anything been fair for me?"
Vision dropped his head. He seemed to be debating with himself about something seeing as he couldn't really argue with the girl's logic.
Eventually, he seemed to settle with himself.
Danielle glanced down to watch as he reached into his pocket and produced a flip phone. "There's a quality in most humans that I find exquisite. It's the thought that their love can spread like wildfire and no amount of space in between them can ever halt it's burning reach..." he held out the phone to Danielle.
She took it from him, glancing up to meet his eyes in confusion, an unspoken question in her eyes: what's this for?
She flipped the phone open and saw there was only one number programmed into it.
Vision slowly stood from the bed's edge, walking himself back to the room door. "You can only talk for two minutes," he explained from over his shoulder. "She won't be able to talk back, but... she can hear you." Danielle furrowed her eyebrows. She?
She opened her mouth to ask, but Vision had already phased out of the door.
She... He couldn't have meant...
Danielle glanced away from the door to the photograph on the side of the desk across the room. Sat inside a small frame was a series of photos from the booth at the Long Island Pier from Danielle's birthday last year. Her smiling face plastered between her sister and her brother's. It was one of the last few happy memories Danielle had of her and her siblings together.
The brunette cast her eyes down to the phone, her thumb idly hovering over the call button.
What would she even say? Would she even answer? What was she supposed to do?
Despite all the questions she posed to herself, she hit call.
She pressed the phone to her ear and waited. It rang once. Twice. Three times.
Then finally, it stopped... someone had picked up.
"Wanda," Danielle's voice cracked, she sniffled to cover it up. "It's Danielle, I... Vision gave me the phone to call..." she paused, unsure of really what she was supposed to say now. Maybe just what she felt. "You're probably worried. I don't know if you have news where you are or if you're even keeping up with news, but I- I just want you to know that I'm safe. Jack is safe, too... I hope you're safe. I hope you're okay."
She glanced at the time on the digital clock on her sister's desk. She had a minute and a half left.
"I know you can't come back," she hiccupped. "But I hope you stay safe. I hope you can call me if you're not. I'm glad you have Steve with you, and Sam, and Nat, and Bucky... I'm glad you're not alone."
Less than a minute left.
"I miss you," she was crying now. "I miss you so much. I wish you could come back. I wish I'd gone with you some days..." she took a deep breath and took control of her emotions once more, reigning in her sobs.
Twenty seconds left.
"I can't stay on the call for long, but I just wanted to tell you-"
Fifteen seconds.
"I... I love you," she said it as though it were a whisper. "I love you so much."
Ten seconds left.
"And- and tell Steve that I..."
Five seconds.
"I..."
Four.
"I-"
Three.
"I'm sorry."
She hit the end call button and shut the phone before another round of sobs overtook her.
When has anything ever been fair for her?
A/N: Lmao- a chapter? From Ally? No way!
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I kinda don't remember which reviews I've answered and which are new- so review next chapter and I'll respond! :D hehehehe
