A/N: Italicized text can represent several things (dialogue in another language, inner thoughts, flashbacks, etc.) please be aware of this and the context to better understand what is happening!
!CONTENT WARNING!
This chapter will cover suicidal thoughts, suicidal planning, attempted suicide through shooting and overdosing.
If you wish to skip over it for you're own wellbeing, scroll to the line break where the list of names starts: "Bucky Barnes, Nick Fury..."
She didn't even remember losing consciousness.
Honestly, the fact that she was alive was a miracle.
After the battle with Thanos, after…
Well, after everything else that happened, it didn't take long for Odette to succumb to her injuries. Seconds, really. She thought the world was going fuzzy and numb because of tears and the shock of Bucky literally turning to dust before her eyes. But then she was sideways, her face smushed into the soft earth as survivors began to panic.
Seconds? It felt like an eternity.
But, really, who knew how time was passing—certainly not Odette. Some distant part of her brain recognized that the moving lights overhead was actually sunlight as she was whisked through the Golden City. Again, that distant part of her brain told her that she was being flown somewhere—likely the Medical Center, but she simply didn't have it in her to keep her eyes open.
When had she been picked up? When did the earth become the sky?
Her eyelids felt heavy, the blur of the world was turning white.
"Hey, hey! Doc, look at me." That was Rhodey, "You're gonna be okay."
She could see her curls flying in her vision, but she couldn't feel the wind. Her entire body was tingling, warm, numb.
The bright spring sun was replaced by the sterile white lights of the Medical Centre. Her body felt hot. Then cold. There was an empty feeling in her chest. Almost as if a cavity existed where something else once sat.
Broken sternum.
Traumatic pneumothorax.
Pulmonary lacerations.
Rhabdomyolysis in her shoulders.
Everything hurt. Her upper body was in an indescribable amount of pain as she was jostled around.
"I'm right here, Doc." Rhodey's voice sounded as though he were speaking through a pillow. "Cap is on his way, just, please," he pleaded quietly, "please make it…"
"Colonel Rhodes, would you please step aside?" An unfamiliar voice made her ears ring. Odette couldn't stop the breathy whine that escaped her lungs, nor could she stop the hot tears that fell down the sides of her face and into her ears. Her hand opened and closed, grasping at air.
"I'm right here, Doc. I'm taking a step back, but I'm right here." Rhodey's voice was even more muffled and distant than before.
Odette began to panic. It started as a small jump in her heart as unfamiliar hands grabbed at her numb skin.
An oxygen mask slipped over her face and she was forced to breathe. Almost immediately she could taste the blood in her mouth, smell the blood in her lungs. Every movement required a considerable amount of effort, so she opted to lay still and let whoever do whatever they wanted with her broken body. Her body wanted her to react. She was panicking! She needed to move, but her body felt foreign, heavy, even her eyes struggled to work properly. Every few seconds she felt herself going cross-eyed, and though she was trying her damndest to focus on the ceiling tiles overhead, she was slowly losing consciousness.
Thoughts came and went with nothing tangible for her to latch on to.
Actually, there was one thought that remained.
You failed.
Broken sternum.
Traumatic pneumothorax.
Pulmonary lacerations.
Rhabdomyolysis in her shoulders.
They kept saying these things, but they meant nothing to her. It felt as though parts of her body were drifting away from her, connected to her core through invisible lines of energy that were just barely hanging on. She was forced to take a shuddering breath, energy coiling in her stomach as she let out a silent wail.
Hot, salty tears stung her skin.
Then the convulsions began.
Despite being numb all over, Odette could feel the hot energy that arced out of her. The sterile environment changed to one of concrete and steel. Steam and blood consumed her.
There was screaming.
And then—darkness.
It would take a full week before she woke up completely. So many had been injured in battle, and so many doctors had been lost. In the chaos, she was one body in a bed, no more important than the next body in the next bed. Even when she woke up, she was never awake for more than a few hours before the pain and medicine put her right back to sleep.
Still, the Medical Center in Wakanda couldn't have the Avengers that survived clogging up the hallways and stuffing up the room. As soon as she was stable, Steve ordered them back to New York.
For Odette, the change was seamless.
One moment she was in Wakanda, and the next, she was home.
Home…
New York.
A dry groan forced itself out of her throat, exhaling through her nose as the throbbing in her skull. Her chest felt as though it had been sliced open and exposed like a frog up for dissection.
"Hey," Bruce's voice came as a surprise, "Take it easy, Odette." Even though her whole body was numb, she could still feel the pressure of his hand on her shoulder. Not that she could move even if she wanted to. Her eyes moved frantically, searching the ceiling until Bruce's blurry image came in clear. "You really did a number on yourself, huh, Doc?" He frowned. "Almost lost you back there."
Odette couldn't say anything. Her tongue felt like a lead weight in her mouth. Her jaw felt wired shut. She inhaled sharply. Her lungs felt like stubborn balloons, free from her body and unwilling to cooperate and bring in enough oxygen to satisfy the throb in her head. All of her brain power went into staying awake and processing the sharp, aching pain in her chest.
"Still feeling pain?" Bruce asked. Odette looked at him with what she hoped was a deadpan expression. "Right, sorry." Bruce sheepishly frowned, "Well, I was just about to administer some more pain meds. Let your body rest so it heals." She knew this, he knew she knew this, it was just awkward having a conversation where one party was unable to respond in their normal manner.
Bruce replaced the nearly empty IV with a full one, working quickly so Odette couldn't fully wake up and experience the full amount of pain her body was in.
Her head felt heavy as she slipped back into darkness.
Odette sat in the darkness of the lodge. "It would be so easy." She told herself, her hands ghosting over Bucky's modified Johnson rifle. Everything was awful, horrible, a living nightmare.
They had survived, but at what cost?
They'd won the war, but at what cost?
Their team was gone.
Their world was gone.
Bucky was…
Odette squeezed her eyes shut, more hot tears clung to her eyelashes. Lately, it seemed like all she could do was cry. She knew it was starting to get to Steve. She saw the long, sad stares he gave her when he thought she wasn't paying attention.
"Steve…"
God, he had been so wonderful during this period of...transition.
Steve made the days a little more bearable. He was what got her up in the morning, got her to eat (even if it was the bare minimum), got her to do the stupid things Director Fury had advised them to do in order to "catch up".
Odette could have scoffed at Director Fury's words. "Period of transition", "catch up". As if she intended to stay here. As if she wanted to rejoin society.
She gripped the rifle so tightly her knuckles turned white. "It would be so easy."
A bullet.
That's all it would take.
A single, well-aimed, well-timed bullet.
She couldn't risk other methods. Alcohol was out of the question, she couldn't even get drunk. Medication she was afraid would have the same effect. Hanging would take too long, she might make too much noise and be found. She was too cowardly to slit a vein, and she was afraid that would also take too long. She wanted it to be quick. Something swift. Something no one could stop or undo.
She'd be reunited with everyone. Her family, her team, her friends, Bucky. All the pain and helpless numbness would be over. No longer would she spend hours sitting in the same spot, staring at the same spot on the horizon. No longer would she burn her skin in showers that were too hot. No longer would Steve look at her with eyes filled with sadness.
Pitying her.
"It would be so easy."
She didn't want his pity. She didn't want anyone's pity. All she wanted was to go home. She wanted Bucky back. Her knuckles felt stiff as she uncurled one hand from the rifle and raised it to the dog tags around her neck.
"Bucky…"
As a young woman in Decatur, she'd never experienced this level of heartbreak. She usually saw when a boy was ready to leave her and was impassive as they presented the news to her. Of course, that usually caused the boys to lash out at her, blaming her lack of feelings for them for the reason of their unfaithfulness.
But losing Bucky?
Bucky, who taunted and teased her with a life of domesticity, a life of peace after suffering years of turmoil and trauma? Bucky, who whispered words onto her skin that left a fire in her veins? Bucky, who was so sweet, and charming, and a perfect gentleman (even if he was still a useless flirt with anything on two legs), who had somehow wormed his way into her heart when she swore off army boys early in her career?
She still remembered the sting of the snow on her skin as she screamed her heart out to the heavens, seeking any sign of life that might bring any level of closure.
She remembered silence was her only answer.
She wanted the silence now.
She wanted all these dark and horrible thoughts to end.
Odette gripped the rifle and took a breath. "It would be so easy…"
Her hands were shaking, despite them gripping the rifle like a lifeline.
In the next room over, she heard Steve's bed creak.
Was he awake?
No, no, no, he couldn't be awake…
If he was awake he might discover her.
She held her breath, her heart pounding in her ears as a fine layer of sweat built up on her forehead. No other sound came from Steve's room. She swallowed, her mouth going dry. She looked down at the rifle, her vision swimming as she tried to focus on ending this pain.
"So easy…" She reassured herself, her mind going numb as she went through the motions of checking the rifle's safety and barrel chamber.
Another noise came from Steve's room.
She wanted to yell at him to shut up. He was making this harder than it needed to be, whether he knew it or not.
Odette forced herself to breathe, it came out as a tearful gasp. She was shaking like a leaf in a tornado, unable to stop herself as she stood herself up in a panic, the rifle clattering to the floor where it—thankfully—did not discharge.
"What am I doing?" Odette began to panic, seething deep breaths in and out through clenched teeth, "What am I doing?!" She started to pace, doing what she always did when she didn't know what else to do. She started at her feet, her hands going up to her hair where she grabbed fistfuls of it in an attempt to hold onto something—anything but the gun!
"How could I even think of doing this?!" Her head was spinning as her breathing increased with her heart rate. "This isn't how you were raised!" She scolded herself, "This isn't what Bucky would want!" Although, who knew what Bucky wanted because he was dead.
Odette swung back and forth between cursing her cowardice in killing herself, and her cowardice in taking the easy way out of her current predicament.
"Either way, I am a coward!" She picked the rifle back up, unloading it the safe way, and taking it apart for good measure…
As she had done every night for the past week since they'd been sent there.
"A coward who would rather leave her only friend behind. A coward! A damn coward!" She cursed herself. Needing some way to get out her frustration, Odette sat down on the bed and lifted the pillow to her face. In a very unladylike and uncharacteristic move, she bit the pillow and screamed into it.
Her lungs burned and her heart ached, but when she pulled back for fresh air, she felt a little better.
Well, her teeth hurt now, but she didn't feel like killing herself...tonight.
Panting heavily, Odette didn't even notice when a familiar double knock hit her door. Still lost in the haze of her mind, she jumped when Steve called out, "Odette?"
"Y-yes?" She cleared her throat, hoping he didn't notice how thick and gunked up her voice sounded.
"Is," He hesitated, "Is everything alright?"
"Everything's fine." She lied.
"It's just," Steve was quiet for a while, and Odette prayed he'd leave her be, "It sounded like you were screaming."
"Damn you." She wanted to say. Instead, she said, "Must've been a nightmare. I'm sorry."
For a moment, Steve was quiet again. Odette stood up from the bed. She took a hesitant step forward, but stopped when he said, "Well, if you want to talk about it…"
"Talk about it?" Odette wanted to laugh, "Talk about how I'm a coward? How I would rather die than spend another second in this miserable place?" She knew the weight of her admission would haunt Steve for the rest of his own life. Instead she said, "I appreciate the offer, Steve." Her eyes stung as tears and sweat mixed together, "But I'm tired...I'd like to go back to bed." Another blatant lie. She hadn't been asleep, but she would eventually fight her way there, even if she knew exactly what would meet her in her dreams.
"Well...the offer always stands." Steve said quietly, "Good night, Odette."
"Good night, Steve." Odette answered.
When she woke again, it was pitch black in the clinic.
Odette knew better now. She was smarter now.
The pain had never really gone away.
She'd only adapted to live with it, pushed herself to get up each day and face it.
Now?
Odette wasn't sure if her body was numb due to the residual pain medicine flowing through her veins, or if it was because she was numb to the decision she'd come to the moment her knees hit the ground in Wakanda. She reached up and yanked the breathing tube out of her throat. She gagged.
"Doctor Swann, I insist you return to bed." Friday's voice was distant, watery. Odette wouldn't have heeded her words even if she could hear them.
Her heart felt like a twisted, sharp, foreign object in her chest. She could feel it beating erratically, trying desperately to escape its fate, though it almost felt disconnected from her body. Even though her mind told her she was in pain, her body moved on its own. Her feet took step after painful step towards the supply cabinet in the clinic.
"Doctor Swann, your lungs have not fully recovered. You need to return to bed and put your breathing tube back in. I will call Doctor Banner to assist you."
Odette knew the Avengers facility clinic like the back of her hand. Even if she had been blindfolded, Odette would have known what she was grabbing.
"Doctor Swann. Return to bed or I will call in the team." Friday's plea went ignored.
Odette's arms felt heavy as she twisted the handles of the cabinet downward and pulled them open. She knew how much to take to make sure she would slip away when no one could possibly be paying attention. She knew how much to take to make sure there would be no recovery. She knew how much to take to overpower the super soldier serum running in her veins, the serum desperately trying to keep her alive.
"I'm sorry, Doctor Swann." Friday's words fell on deaf ears.
The sink in the clinic was her lifeline, giving her a spot to lay out her tools.
Syringes filled with liquids to numb her body and mind. There would be no survival instincts kicking in to stop her.
A cup, which she had to fill three times in order to get all the different pills down.
"The team will be here shortly, Doctor Swann. Please return to bed." Friday urged.
She gripped the edge of the sink, fully extending her arms in an attempt to hold her head high and look through her sweaty curls at her reflection. Her shoulder blades felt as though they were on fire. Her chest felt achingly empty. And when she finally got her eyes to focus on her reflection, a frightening shell stared back at her with hallowed eyes and an unhinged jaw. Blood and vomit dripped from her reflection's open mouth. Odette gagged, her knees and elbows gave out and her chin hit the lip of the sink. Her teeth rattled in her skull, and she was sure she bit her tongue.
Her arms went wide as she continued to fall. She didn't even attempt to catch herself as she knocked her supplies to the floor. Her bloody chin made her skin slick and her head slipped backwards off the sink. Her body fell back with a heavy, dull thud. She stared blankly at the ceiling, her vision going out of focus as a warm numbness overtook her body. Vaguely, she was aware that her heart was slowing down. She was aware that she was dying.
"Soon...it will all be over soon...it will be so easy…" Odette's thoughts felt separated from her body. Despite the fact that her body had twisted upon her fall from grace, she didn't feel the tension in her joints.
She didn't feel anything.
The doors to the clinic hissed open.
"Odette!"
"Odette?!"
"Get her out of here! Odette, look at me, look at me!"
"Shit...Cap…"
"Is she going to be okay?"
"Get Brooke out of here! What did you do?! Odette!"
"We gotta pump her stomach—now! Get her back on the bed!"
"Don't you do this to me, Swann."
Bucky Barnes.
Nick Fury.
Maria Hill.
Groot.
Pietro Maximoff.
Wanda Maximoff.
Sam Wilson.
Shuri.
T'Challa.
Odette read and re-read the growing list of names on her tablet. Numb. She was in her own room now. After her...attempt...no one wanted her to be alone on the other side of the facility.
Cooper Barton.
Laura Barton.
Lila Barton.
Nathaniel Barton.
Hank Pym.
Hope Van Dyne.
Janet Van Dyne.
Scott Lang.
At least in her room Odette was alone. And she was finally able to take that god damned tube out of her throat. Breathing still hurt, but she refused oxygen unless she was sleeping. The last thing she needed was her flatlining again and sending her team (or what remained) into a panic. Although...if she flatlined again...it wouldn't be through her own doing. The team made sure to monitor her medicine intake—which was down to zero meds. The IV she was still connected to only served to supply her with fluids. Lots of fluids. Fluids that, unfortunately, forced her to stay alive.
Betty Ross.
Thaddeus Ross.
Erik Selvig.
Jane Foster.
Monica Rambeau.
Yelena Belova.
Alexei Shostakov.
Melina Vostokoff.
Odette scrolled back through the list of names, coming to Bucky's name near the top of the list. She tapped his name, his mugshot from Germany as well as an extensive file made from S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA information expanded to block the growing list of names on her screen.
It was dark by the time Ayo and Bucky reemerged from the forest. Odette rose to her feet as soon as she spotted them at the tree line. She jogged across the open field, heart pounding furiously in her chest, meeting them halfway. She slowed to a stop as they came to a stop across the space. Panting, she looked between Ayo and Bucky.
"Did…" She swallowed, her mouth dry, "Did it work?" Her hand had instinctively come up to grab the dog tags around her neck, squeezing them as though they were a life line.
For a moment, neither of them said anything, and Odette feared she may pass out from the ringing in her ears. Then, Ayo broke into a grin. "He is free."
Odette forced herself to breathe. Tears burned the corners of her eyes as she turned to Bucky for confirmation.
He smiled and nodded.
Odette let out a most unladylike squeal of joy as she ran the last few steps and threw her arms around Bucky. He staggered back a few steps, but remained upright. Firm. Strong. With his one arm, he returned the gesture, squeezing her tightly and crying into her shoulder.
As they both swayed with their combined weight their knees gave out, but she still clung to the shawl around his shoulders. She pulled back and cupped his face, desperately pushing the sweaty hair out of his face in an attempt to see him clearly in the low light.
"Free?" She repeated breathlessly.
Bucky nodded, tears and silent sobs shaking his shoulders. With a shaky hand he reached up and held her face, "Free as a bird, doll." He breathed out. His hand traced along her jaw, snaking back to the nape of her neck where he grabbed a fistful of her curls and pulled her forward. Their foreheads collided but neither of them cared. "God," he choked out.
Odette couldn't help but let out a tearful laugh. She smiled, unable to keep her hands still as she rubbed her thumbs under his eyes.
Bucky tilted his head back, peppering Odette with small kisses.
On her lips, her nose, her cheeks, her forehead.
They fell back into the grass, indifferent in that Ayo was watching the old couple with a mixture of emotions. Disgusted, afterall, they were laughing and rolling around in the dirt. Pity, since it had taken over seventy years for the two to find peace together. Pride in her princess for undoing decades worth of torture and brainwashing. Happiness because the laughter coming from the two relics was almost infectious.
Almost.
"King T'Challa has granted the two of you full pardons," Her words got them to stop giggling and touching each other to look up at her with eyes wide in disbelief. "You will have peace and privacy here."
Bucky turned to look at Odette. She looked at him.
Bucky's face broke into another smile—God she loved that smile. "Peace." He breathed out.
Odette grabbed the back of his head and pulled him to her, pressing a firm kiss to his forehead, "Peace." She repeated, wrapping her arms around him.
Odette rubbed her face to ground herself in her body once more. She laid the tablet down on her lap and peered down at the ice pack on her chest. The ice inside had melted a while ago, leaving her with a wet, liquid pouch on her chest. With a grimace, Odette tossed the melted ice pack on the floor. Not her intended target, but she'd worry about it later.
She felt a change in the air before anyone else in the facility was even aware of the change. With a breathy groan, Odette forced herself to sit upright, stretching her back upwards until a satisfying series of cracks rippled up her spine. She sighed and turned with a stiffness that told more about her wounds than any medical test could.
Super soldier or not, she was still human. Despite her superior healing speed, the damage was greater than anything she'd been through, and Odette had put her body through a lot of trauma in the past few years. Not to mention she still had to deal with the pain and aftermath of being nearly run through with a piece of alien weaponry. Christ, she'd been lucky the alien hadn't aimed a little to his right. He'd gotten close, but had missed her heart by barely an inch.
And, of course, there was the matter of her overdose, which left her feeling as though her brain had been replaced with cotton balls.
Odette inhaled sharply through her nose as she turned and dangled her legs off the bed. She breathed out through her mouth, feeling the heavy weight of her lungs within her chest. Gripping the edge of the bed, Odette clenched her jaw as she took a tentative step down, extending one leg before the other to test the waters.
A bolt of pain raced up her leg. She groaned, a guttural sound in the back of her throat that was more animal than human. Still, she pressed on, lowering her other leg and experiencing the same bolt of pain up her body. She blindly reached out beside her and gripped onto the pole as though her life depended on it.
At another place in another time she would have collapsed. But Odette was stronger now. Now she simply pushed through the pain, shuffling one foot before the other as though she were trudging through waist high water. Every time her foot fully connected with the smooth tile floors, a ripple of pain shot up her body.
She wasn't supposed to be out of bed, but she had to move. It was strange, almost like someone...or something...was guiding her along. Somehow, she knew where she was supposed to go.
Bruce and Rhodey were the only ones in the lab when she entered, and they both looked at her in shock.
"Odette," Bruce's voice was barely above a breath.
"Doc, you really shouldn't be out of bed." Rhodey stood up and gently grabbed her shoulders to block her from entering the lab any further. Odette looked up at him, then wordlessly looked over his shoulder. "What is it, Doc?" Rhodey slowly turned to look over his shoulder, attempting to follow her line of sight.
Bruce followed her line of sight, "This?" He asked, pointing the end of his pen at it, "It was Fury's. We picked it up the day after we dropped you off here." He explained. He nodded to Rhodey, who slowly lowered his hands from Odette's shoulders to her elbows. He guided her into the lab and onto a stool.
It looked like an old pager, but there was a device attached to it that made it chunkier and heavier. The pager was lit up with an eight pointed star on a half red, half blue background.
"It's giving off some kind of signal," Bruce stepped around the table to stand beside Odette, but she couldn't look away from the pager. "We bypassed the battery. We're hoping whoever...or whatever Fury was trying to call responds."
"Bruce." Rhodey hissed as if to warn him off from saying more.
"What?" Bruce gestured helplessly, "Maybe she knows something we don't." Then he looked back at Odette, "Do you know what this is?" He asked as though she hadn't heard him before.
Odette couldn't speak even if she wanted to. Her chest felt bruised, her throat felt like sandpaper.
Then, with no warning or fanfare, the pager went dark. Odette swallowed, her heart beating painfully in her chest.
Bruce and Rhodey immediately noticed the change in her and they turned back towards the pager. "Wh-what—wait, what happened?" Bruce stammered as he stepped away to inspect the monitors hooked up to the machine the pager was in. "Go find Steve." He ordered.
"On it." Rhodey nodded, leaving Odette to sway on her stool.
Odette tried to clear her throat, it hurt like hell. She groaned and tried to stand up. "Hey-hey," Bruce stepped back over to her side, "Maybe you shouldn't push yourself, Odette."
Odette's lip pulled back in a silent snarl and she kept one hand planted firmly on the desk beside her and the other wrapped tightly around the IV pole. Shaking, struggling, she pushed herself to stand.
"What've we got?" Natasha asked as she and Steve returned behind Rhodey. Odette could hear their steps falter upon seeing her, and she craned her head over her shoulder to look at her friends. "Odette," Natasha moved first, stepping up to offer a steady hand to Odette's shaking frame.
Odette bitterly swatted Natasha's kind gesture away, her eyes flickering over to the pager. "God, just speak." Her mind scolded her. But her jaw felt wired shut.
Bruce looked up from the notes from the monitor, "Whatever signal it was sending finally crapped out."
"I thought we bypassed the battery?" Steve's voice was tense. He was angry. He was frustrated. He was tired. He stepped up beside Odette, taking Natasha's spot as she walked over to the pager.
"We did." Rhodey pointed out, "It's still plugged in, it just," he motioned to it helplessly, "it just stopped."
"Reboot it. Send the signal again." Steve ordered.
"No need." Odette said before she even realized it. She turned on her heel, meeting the stern gaze of a young woman.
"Where's Fury?" She demanded.
"Who the hell are you?" Rhodey asked.
The woman wordlessly tilted her head, narrowing her eyes at Rhodey.
Steve stepped between the team and this newcomer. "How do you know Fury?"
The woman turned her scrutinizing gaze towards Steve. "I'm an old friend." Was the only answer she had. Odette's brain did a record scratch...why did that sound familiar..? As if sensing her thoughts, the woman turned to Odette, "Where is he?"
Odette had already exhausted her vocal chords with her previous two words. Thankfully, Natasha stepped up beside her, "Fury was one of the people we lost."
"You lost a whole person?" The woman cocked an eyebrow up.
"In case you missed it, half of the Earth's population is now gone." Rhodey snapped.
"Director Fury happened to be one of them." Bruce added.
"Half the population of the known universe is gone." The woman corrected them.
"The universe?" Natasha asked in disbelief.
"Shit." Odette felt a chill run down her spine. Once more, her body began to shake. Her knees began to give out. Both Steve and their mystery guest hurried to catch her before she could fall.
"You shouldn't be out of bed." Steve scolded sharply.
"What happened?" The woman asked at the same time.
Odette stubbornly pushed both of them off her, having already caught herself on the nearby table with her elbow.
"Y-you said half of the universe was gone?" Bruce spoke up.
The woman looked back at him and nodded, slowly leaning back out of Odette's personal space. "Life suddenly began to vanish as I picked up the signal." She nodded her head towards the bulky pager behind them. "Fury wouldn't have called unless it was absolutely necessary."
"Did you happen to see a human man out there?" Bruce asked.
"Wow, that is so incredibly vague." The woman deadpanned.
"We lost one of our own in space." Steve was quick to cut off the woman's snarky response. "Tony Stark."
"Stark?" It was clear that name rang a bell with the woman, but her expression was unsure. "Where?"
"We don't know." Natasha admitted.
"You don't know?" The woman repeated in disbelief.
"Look, if Fury called you here to help, here's how you can help." Steve ordered, "Find Stark and bring him home."
"Steve…" Odette's voice was hoarse. He turned to her, his eyes dark and sharp. A lifetime ago she would have shrank away from him. But she wasn't a frightened doctor under his command anymore. "Can we trust her? We don't even know her name…" And Odette didn't like how often the woman was staring at her. A glance here or there would be one thing, but to just outright stare? It was unnerving.
Thankfully, Steve seemed to understand her voiceless concerns. He turned back to the woman, "We answered your question. Now answer ours. Who are you?"
The woman sized Steve up before she said, "Captain Carol Danvers."
"Well then, Captain." Steve said, which threw Odette's pounding head into a spin, "I suggest you start looking for Stark. Right now he may be our only key to finding the man responsible for killing half of the universe."
Carol shot one final look at Odette before she nodded, "Fine. I'll look for your guy." As she turned around and walked out, she said, "I expect first dibs on the man responsible for this." She said.
They ignored her, and just as Odette was about to let out a breath of relief Steve grabbed her by her non-IV arm and all but dragged her out of the lab.
She let out a strangled, dry, pathetic yelp at the sudden, rough, jerked movement. Just like she'd been back in Austria, Odette was useless in keeping her feet under her. She couldn't keep up, but she wouldn't submit herself to going limp and being dragged.
Vaguely, she was aware that he was dragging her back to her room, and she let out a grunted gasp as he practically manhandled her onto the bed.
"What were you doing out of bed?" He demanded.
Odette suppressed a whimper as Steve began to inspect her body. She hadn't ripped out her IV, she wasn't physically damaged, but he still forced her arms up and checked her wounded torso.
"Why can't you just obey orders?" He let her arms fall to her sides.
Odette couldn't speak. Her lip trembled as more tears threatened to fall. Steve grabbed either side of her face, forcing her to look at him. The fire in his eyes made her panic. With the last of her strength she grabbed Steve's wrists and tried to pry him off her.
"No!" Steve's words were sharp as he easily overpowered her. Her head lolled limply in his hands as she took shaky gasps of air. "Look at me." He ordered.
Odette did so, a hiccup building up in her lungs as she struggled to breathe. Her heart hammered in her chest, for a moment, she feared it was beating so wildly that it could be seen through her clothes.
Steve's expression softened, for a moment he just stared at her. He took a breath, "Why?" He whispered.
"Feeling." Was all Odette could croak out.
"You had a feeling?" Steve asked.
Odette nodded.
"What, about Danvers?"
She nodded.
Steve sighed, he let his hands slip away from her face for only a moment as he pulled over her swivel chair. Odette let her chin fall to her chest as Steve sat down in front of her.
He rested his elbows on his knees and took Odette's hands—much more gentle than he had been before. "We'll talk about that later," he said, his voice growing softer, "But I meant," Odette looked up at Steve through her lashes, "why'd you do...this?" He turned her hands so her palms were facing up. A big, nasty bruise sat on her forearm, just under the IV injection site. It'd been where she'd injected the tranquilizer that was meant to keep The Hulk calm when all else failed.
Tetrodotoxin B. She'd learned that trick from Fury, only she didn't stop with the dose to make her heart slow.
She couldn't look at him. She couldn't tell him that, even after everything they'd been through, she was still the coward he'd found strapped to a bed in Austria. Nothing had changed. Who was she kidding?
"Odette," Steve tucked a finger under her chin, gently forcing her to look at her. All the anger he'd been carrying was melting away. "I can't lose you, too." His voice was barely above a whisper, it nearly broke as he fought back his own tears. "I—," his voice did break here, "I've never been more afraid than when I saw you…lying there…" Odette pulled her head away from him. She couldn't look at him.
"Why?" Steve asked again.
"I," Odette's voice cracked, "Don't know." She panted out.
"Odette," Steve's grip on her wrists returned. "Do you even realize how scared we were? How terrified Brooke was?"
She couldn't stop herself. The hiccups began. Hot, fat tears broke free of the damn holding all of her together. She shook her head, panic rising once more.
"Odette, please, just talk to me." Steve was practically begging at this point. He cupped her face in his hands, her thumbs running under her eyes in a poor attempt to brush the tears away.
Odette continued to sob, painful gasps of breath tearing at her lungs. She collapsed into Steve's arms. A single phrase stuck on her tongue as he held her like she was his lifeline.
"I'm sorry."
Thank you to everyone who has already favorited/followed/reviewed!
This chapter had to be rewritten a few times. I originally wasn't going to cover Odette's attempt in depth, but I feel like it's something that needed to be covered, especially since I very briefly mentioned it back in The Swann Flies and rarely brought it up again except for in passing. Suicide is a very sensitive topic for me (both as someone who has survived multiple attempts and someone who lost a very close friend less than a year ago to it) and I avoided writing about it to avoid those memories.
But I'm happy with how the chapter came out.
See you Thursday!
