"How close are we?" Logan was panting.
"Not short enough." Steve carried the maps uselessly; he'd already memorized them all. They fought with the memory of the sudden visitor he'd almost been pummeled through by. It was as if Steve was a magnet, and the non-human arm (it couldn't have been human with the way that Thor treated it) set itself toward him like he was the north pole. Then he'd disappeared, and left Steve warier and none the wiser.
A small part of him wished he were home watching talkies, but with the maps and the stranger he forced that thought out of his mind.
Steve re-eyed the fortress they were running towards. The sun-bleached stone walls were obviously unnaturally smoothed down. "I think we should go up the side instead of around. Thor, how many of us can you carry?"
"How many of you can hold on?"
"I'm not flying."
Nat was conserving all her breath for running, but the glare she shot Logan threw daggers.
Logan shrugged, distorting his features. "I can climb up easy."
"Like you navigated us through the dark easy?" Steve shot.
"I don't want my claws to jut out at anyone they don't need to. I fly with you, there's no saying what could happen-"
"You've lived long enough and you can't control your own claws, what use of time is that?"
"I used my time using my claws."
"Then you should know what to do in a fight. We'll drop you off first." Above the mountain ledge Steve could barely make out the helicopters. "I'm sure you could find a way to put your skills to use."
"...By not flying," Logan asserted.
"No."
Thor maneuvered quietly towards Natasha while the others fought. Figuring the argument's long and repetitious road, he grabbed the both of them with one arm and flung Mjolnir high with the other.
Logan was 20 feet up when he decided the pain form the drop wasn't worth it, and for a moment, Steve was at ease with the fact that the strange visitor couldn't chase him from the sky.
Once they got to headquarters, it would be chaos - for both Not-Actually-SHIELD and them.
...
When Clint was perpetually lost in a forest, he climbed trees. Fat help they were.
Every time he looked out over the branches he could see the fortress, easy. Every time he returned to the ground his surroundings were slated against him. He'd gone out to the left of where the group was originally trekking, and the area seemed to be much denser than whatever they'd traversed through before.
He squirreled his way through until it seemed like every tree's aim was to enclose him. He resented it.
"I resent you, trees," he half-shouted.
For a moment, it seemed like the trees listened. They let up enough for Clint to find a pocket, at least.
He examined his selection of paths and started towards the best-looking one. "Thanks."
He tripped on nothing, right before the first new tree. Hawkeye never tripped.
It was his one self-described talent besides arrows and fitting into vent shafts. He couldn't have tripped by himself; he almost felt like his foot had been pulled out from under him.
Now he noticed a bump where he'd 'tripped,' a gnarled root, and it hadn't been there before. He was Hawkeye. He noticed things, and even if he wasn't Hawkeye he would have definitely noticed this.
Perhaps the trees are alive, he thought suddenly, but he pushed that thought away and started more carefully down the path. Just in case.
The forest seemed to laugh at him.
He was struck against another tree, and this definitely was not on his part.
But it wasn't the trees. It couldn't have been. The trees let off and the path grew wider, which probably worried him more.
The wisp of a chuckle joined to his left, barely enough for him to hear. He shot a smoke arrow at the source. It exploded four feet to the right of where he aimed, and in its wake, he could just make out the doubled-over figure of a man, coughing heavily. Clint pinned him against a tree.
The tree pinned both of them and elongated its branches to move them into a completely different area. It loosened enough to let them go, although its intent was probably for the other man.
The other man coughed and sped away through the path, flickering in and out of sight. Cint followed his trail of smoke. He found him collapsed in the middle of a small covered grove, worriedly being checked on by a girl slightly younger.
Clint was just bewildered and exasperated by this point. The girl stared at him with red and hateful eyes.
"We'll get rid of you once and for all now," she said, raising her hands. They glowed red too, but Clint had had enough and struck her with an injection arrow.
He was pretty sure they were superhumans, which would made it difficult to have a fair and non-lethal conversation when they came to. Clint climbed up another tree.
Above the mess of branches, he could finally gauge his distance, which was far. Really far. Clint looked up at the sky and sighed.
He still needed to find a way to join Steve, but at the rate he was going, it was probably a lost cause. Even if he left there and then...
That's probably the best course of action, Clint thought suddenly, staring at the girl and the boy. If you can't beat 'em, get as far away as you possibly can.
He shot them each with another injection arrow and did exactly that.
...
"Tony Stark."
"Hey."
Tony blasted on sight (the porta-potty's door by now was almost non-existant) – but the force fields were still up, apparently. The man on the other side of them smiled.
"Hello."
"You're kind of the worst, you know," Tony said, powering down his blasters. "I mean, who interrupts a guy when he's obviously gotta go?"
"My deepest apologies. May I have the pleasure of talking to the man underneath the mask?"
"You are."
"...without the mask?"
Tony paused. "No. No, you may not. Listen, whatever you're doing, it's not going to work."
The man sighed. "We will be the judge of that soon enough." Just like that, the force fields turned off, and Iron Man's blasters turned back on.
They went straight though the man, and Tony scowled. The guy was a hologram.
He got himself out of the portable toilet facility and looked around.
"Jarvis?" He asked, and the AI responded as a ringing in his ears.
"There is a potential magnet above your head, sir."
Tony looked up. There was, indeed, a magnet. The entire ceiling was a magnet, and it was held back by yet another force field. "Thanks, Jarvis."
"Happy to assist, sir. About the recent package that was added to my system-"
"We'll talk about that another time."
"It contains alarming material that I fear would prove catastrophic if applied."
"What did I just say?" Tony shook his head, irritated. "Tell me something helpful. What's a good way out of here?"
"You'd want to take the door on your left. There are squadrons surrounding all sides of the building, and one is approaching you from the southeast door."
"Great." Tony rushed to the end of the room and checked his infrared. He could barely make out the figures, which meant-
"The force fields are up outside too, aren't they."
"It would appear to be so, sir."
Tony groaned. "Right. What altitude are we at?"
"Cruising altitude, sir."
"Looks like we'll have to go through the floor."
"I wouldn't advise that-"
Tony blasted the tiles a few feet away from him and a terrible roaring noise filled the room, sucking him out with it. He held onto the side of the hole.
"We are directly under a wind turbine-"
"You could have thought to tell me that earlier!" Tony rounded up his energy and pitted himself perpendicular to the source. The pulling force strained him, and he wished he would have thought to blast it when he'd still been holding on.
He finally got away and looked down.
"Jarvis," he asked, "Where am I?"
He was on the side of a mountain, or crossing over one. Jarvis pulled up a scan of the maps Maria had given Steve.
"Comparing your maps to the surrounding terrain, I would approximate the following location."
He was far north of the forest. Fairly close to the supposed 'destroy-file' location. But he'd have no way of returning if he went.
A thunder clap caught Tony's attention, and he waved the maps away. Clouds had begun to form on the other side of the mountain, far away – and only on that side.
"You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"The cloud formation is highly irregular, sir."
"That it is." Tony sped off in an arc towards the unnatural naturality, hoping the airship's other passengers wouldn't follow up on him with too much of a fight.
For once, his wish was answered, and that concerned him.
Hope you all stay safe and healthy.
Thanks for reading. Until the next!