Disclaimer: I have no idea what practices nurses use to determine injuries/best heal them. I did as much research asa I could, but I'm only 14 and I've got no actual experience in the field.
Chapter Six: With Nothing to Lose
"I am the girl anachronism." -The Dresden Dolls
Audrey slept the entire jet ride back. Thankfully, Tony managed to shut up long enough to let her rest, but she still dreamt of rather bizarre things—nothing she remembered very clearly, but images that left a weird, upside-down feeling in her stomach. Or maybe it was the bruises.
Steve carefully nudged her awake when they landed back on the helicarrier's hangar, and helped guide her to medical. She rested a fairly generous amount of weight on his side as he led her over, but to his credit, he didn't complain.
She wasn't really sure what she'd expected, jumping straight into battle. If she'd stuck to the plan, she'd probably have been spared a lot of the injuries.
She was thankful for the serum; without it, Audrey might've gotten herself killed. So honestly, it wasn't as bad as it could've been. Keeping up the positivity was a little hard, though, when she winced every time she inhaled, as it caused her lungs to expand and press themselves against her ribcage. She grimaced as Steve stepped away to open the door to the infirmary, where nurses in scrubs were scattered about at their stations. One of them rushed by her, paused upon seeing Audrey's bruised face, and nodded. "We'll take her from here," she assured Steve.
"Do you want me to stay with you?" he asked. Audrey shook her head no, not wanting to keep him from anything that might be more important than a few bruises. He nodded, opening his mouth but then closing it immediately after, like he'd stopped himself before saying something.
When the adrenaline faded, Audrey almost felt embarrassed about the fight. She'd held her own, to some extent, and she knew in her heart that it was for a good reason, but emerging with such heavy limbs just proved how inexperienced she was compared to everyone else on the mission. Technically, she'd trained longer than Steve had. But she'd never been out in the field like that. While Steve knew that you had to expect the unexpected, she'd only been prepared for the situations that Peggy had laid out for her in the boxing ring below Howard Stark's mansion in New York. Those had always been just a precaution, not something she would ever have to use.
The nurse who had stopped her reached out a hand, pulling her back towards one of the private rooms and sitting her down on the examining table. Audrey made a move to hop onto it, trying to appear graceful, but the heavy combat boots swung her legs back so that they hit the cabinet below with a loud thud. Through the gap between the curtain and the wall, she noticed a nurse jump at his cart. Oh my god, Audrey, what are you doing? She grimaced out an apologetic smile.
"What happened to you?" Erin asked, tilting her head to the side with what seemed a lot like genuine concern.
Audrey glanced at her ID badge. ERIN SIMONS. LEVEL 8.
"I got punched by a demi-god," she answered honestly, then made a face. It had been a weird couple of days. "A bunch of times in a row," she added, paranoid that her first sentence alone made her sound self-righteous.
She felt like she was being both pathetic and conceited. Honestly, had anyone else gone to the med bay? Tony hadn't, and Tony didn't have any magic serum running through his veins.
"Uh," Erin started, fumbling for a way to reply. "That's horrible."
Audrey snorted. Her honesty made the blonde feel like she could trust her.
"I'm gonna need you to unzip the tac-suit," the nurse said, resting her clipboard down at the counter. "Uh, you're Agent Carter, right?"
Audrey nodded, reaching up and unzipping the suit to her waist, slipping the sleeves off her shoulders. Despite the cool air in the infirmary that she was now exposed to, her arms were warm.
"So you've got the serum in your blood?"
Audrey nodded again, even though she'd thought that information wasn't accessible until level 9. At this point, did she care, really? The only thing she could think about at this moment was the ache in her ribs. And, well, there was always room for anxiety—about where Barton was, if she was ever going to need to go back into the field, and the weight that had been resting on her shoulders for the past week: the whole issue of her dad.
Even though he'd only been discovered six days ago, Audrey's insomnia and already-skewed perception of time made it feel like it had been far, far longer. Steve had entered her life and blown it to pieces, basically. Would she have even been called in if Captain America wasn't brought back from the dead? She could've been in her office, blissfully unaware of the magic invisible city flying around the sky, solving cases with Caroline and Claudia and Lindsey, the rest of her team.
It wasn't fair to blame it on him, she reminded herself. For all she new, Fury had planned the meeting weeks ago, before Steve Rogers being alive was even possible. And Captain America or not, Loki probably still would've taken the Tesseract. Really, she should've been more grateful that her dad had come back. Even though there were… complications to it all. Did Steve even want to be involved in her life? Did she want him to? He hadn't planned on a kid.
But, well, neither had Peggy, technically. Still, Audrey was an adult now. She didn't need Steve to be a fixture in her life if he didn't want to be. And that was fine. Fine. It was perfectly fine.
(Except, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that his rejection would sting.)
Audrey hissed, suddenly, yanked out of her internal-back-and-forth by Erin lifting up her shirt and probing the skin underneath.
"Sorry," the nurse apologized. "How far can you inhale before it begins to hurt?"
She sucked in a slow breath, counting to four before the pain really kicked in.
Erin nodded. "I don't think it's broken. I'm going to give you some painkillers, but your metabolism might process them before they get a chance to work, so maybe double the dosage." She blew out a breath. "What's the deal with your healing? Is that accelerated or is it just harder to injure you?"
Audrey frowned. "Um, honestly? I've got no idea. I've never been injured this badly before." Her cheeks heated up with embarrassment.
The other woman made a sturgeon face. "Well, I guess this is a pretty good story to tell, then, right? Better than getting your ass kicked during a Black Friday sale."
"Are you speaking from experience?"
She laughed a little. "Well, from the experience of watching it happen." Turning around to the counter, she grabbed something from the counter, running it under the sink. Audrey expected her to turn around with some tool she was going to proceed to poke her with, but instead, she came back with a paper cup. "Water?"
Audrey nodded vigorously, reaching out and snatching it up. She downed it in seconds, and it soothed her aching throat almost immediately, but still left her thirsty. She rested it down on the examination table gently, a few inches away from her hip. Even though her fingers were nimble, the cup fell over.
"It's the vent. It's right outside," Erin explained, lifting up a clipboard and then scribbling some things down. "They'll give you the painkillers at the desk out front. Otherwise, I mostly recommend sleep and some good food. Give yourself a few hours to rest, so that your body can focus on healing itself."
"Thanks," she said to Erin, careful not to kick the table as she slid off of it. Audrey pulled her suit back onto her shoulders, zipping it up to her neck. "I'll see you around."
Actually, she really hoped not. Erin seemed like a lovely person, but Audrey had no interest in busting up her ribs ever again.
After grabbing the bottle of pain meds from the desk, Audrey headed back to her locker, where she shrugged off the gear and slipped back into her skirt from earlier. This time, however, she grabbed a gray t-shirt instead of the button down, and opted for flats instead of pumps. She discarded the uniform in the bin by the door on the way out, pulling out her phone and checking the time in London.
Audrey took a deep breath. Did she want to tell her mom? It seemed like the obvious answer was no, because Peggy would probably hobble out of her bed and into her wheelchair and push herself across the ocean to kill her for being stupid. But it felt wrong not to. Peggy had been the one to train her in fighting, she at least deserved to know that her training saved Audrey from getting pancaked by a dude in a weird hat with a stick.
She dialed the number. Three rings later, the line was answered. "Hello?" Peggy greeted.
"Hey, mom. Uh, listen, so, I kind of… did something stupid."
Peggy hummed into the phone, the tone sounding an awful lot like an inquiry. "Well that's an excellent way to start me off this morning." She huffed. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"
Uh… "Sort of. Yes. But I'm healing."
"What happened?" Peggy demanded. "Did you get into a fight?"
"How did you know?" Audrey questioned, furrowing her brow. Seeking to deny her transparency, she followed up, "Did Fury tell you?"
"I know you. You're in a time of crisis, and I know that you do the right thing." Then, after a moment, "Plus, look at your parents."
She opened her mouth to protest, but then realized it was true. Steve had gotten himself beat up plenty of times when he jumped into fights way out of his depth. Peggy had gone back into the field part time, like, a month after giving birth. Both family lines had histories of cannonballing into wars and walking straight into fistfights on a weekly basis.
Audrey laughed. "I suppose that's true."
"I know it's true," her mother countered. "Just stay safe, alright, darling? Promise me you'll stay safe."
There was nothing about this that was safe. The flying boat could drop from the sky any second, one of the armed agents could go rogue and attack her, or Loki could break out of his prison and decide to stab her.
But she gritted her teeth and answered, "I promise. I love you," she added quickly.
God, she hadn't lied to Peggy since the nineties. And even then, it had been more of a no, I didn't spend my calculator money on movies, rather than an I promise I won't die kind of fib, and the latter seemed way, way worse than the former.
Audrey hung up her phone, pocketing it before heading down to the conference area in the command center. She took the winding hallways left and right, stepping through the door just in time to hear Bruce's words. "He really grows on you, doesn't he?" the scientist remarked sardonically.
If we're speaking in terms of a parasite, then yes.
Audrey made her way to a spot on the table a few seats to the right of Natasha. Everyone was fairly spaced out around the table, and she didn't want to make it weird. To the redhead's left was Bruce, and a few seats down from him was Steve, still dressed in his uniform, brow furrowed as her analyzed the facts.
"Loki's gonna drag this out," her dad said, still in full Captain America mode. "Thor, what's his play?"
The blonde god was standing over in the corner, looking pensive. Audrey doubted he would recognize her, she'd only caught glimpses of him in New Mexico, a few as he tossed agents left and right, and a few later when his alien robot pal had decided to rampage through Puente Antiguo. He was wearing a comm in his ear that had definitely not been there before—Nat must've given it to him when they'd returned.
The redhead in question was sitting at the head of the conference table, worrying her lip, the only betrayal to her blank visage.
At Steve's questioning, Thor was pulled from his thoughts, announcing, "He has an army."
"Uh, what?" Audrey crowed, because even one alien had been enough to wipe an entire town off the map. But an army of aliens?
Natasha shot her a look from across the table, looking back at Thor a moment later. Still, Audrey felt the message loud and clear: this was a bad situation, and she needed to sit down and listen. It wasn't cruel, just stern. Audrey's cheeks heated up and she rested her chin in her hands to hide the embarrassed blush. Even if the intention wasn't to insult her, and Natasha was in the right, she couldn't help but feel the need to suddenly hide under a desk and never leave.
"The Chitauri," Thor went on. "They're not from Asgard, or any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the earth, in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."
Well that was great. Not only was Loki a murderous god, but he had an army of aliens at the ready to wage war against the human race.
She had never been trained for this. She guessed that even Natasha hadn't been trained for this, in the years she spent in Russia. Really, the only person with enough experience to qualify for alien-fighting was Thor, the actual alien in the room. Audrey wondered if he'd ever seen worlds end.
But then, she realized that Loki wanted to win the earth. Not destroy it. "He wants the planet to remain intact?" she asked. "Obviously, he's willing to destroy stuff to get the whole of it, but he doesn't want to end the human race, or the world. He just wants to control it." Looking up for confirmation, she continued, "Right? Am I right?"
Thor nodded slowly. "Yes, that is likely correct."
"But he'll be using an army? From outer space," Steve inquired solemnly. He looked to Audrey and she nodded. Later, she'd have to tell him that this was also not a weekly occurrence in twenty-first century living.
"If he doesn't want to destroy the world, we still have things he wants," Natasha concluded.
Thor turned around. "Not quite, I'm afraid." At everyone's questioning looks, he went on. "To bargain with Loki would be to... how do you put it? To sell your soul, I believe. He's a skilled liar and he isn't to be trusted to follow through."
Well, then. Negotiations were out of the question.
"So he's building another portal," Bruce confirmed. "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."
"Selvig?" Thor asked.
"He's an astrophysicist," Audrey answered. It seemed that she was now answering any question she heard with whatever answer she could scrounge up, which was probably (definitely) a disaster waiting to happen. Just like this whole alien-army thing. And her job in stopping the alien-army. So.
"He's a friend," Thor argued back.
"Loki's got him under some kind of spell," Natasha relayed. "Along with one of ours. It's the whole reason why we brought Doctor Foster on board, so that she can be our go-to when it comes to Erik's research. The two worked very—"
"Jane is here?" Thor interrupted. The slightest bit of panic passed over his features before he cleared his throat and masked it. Audrey guessed that she was the only one who caught it, and maybe Natasha as well.
"You know her?" Bruce inquired, surprised.
"We met during my… my previous visit to your realm," he replied vaguely. "She's on the ship? Right now?"
"Right now," Bruce returned.
"I see."
Audrey raised an eyebrow, glancing back and forth between Thor's conflicted countenance and her father's puzzled one. For the first time in a while, the awkward pause hadn't been on her account. She pursed her lips into a frown, unsure of what to say next. A beat passed, soundwaves empty.
Thankfully, Steve decided to speak up: "I wanna know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here."
"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," Bruce argued. "That guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You could smell the crazy on him."
Audrey opened her mouth to compliment the… uniqueness of that metaphor, but stopped short. Now wasn't the time. She didn't want to humiliate herself further.
"Have care how you speak," Thor warned, voice deep and stern. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he is my brother."
Uh, wait, what? Since when were unreasonable murderers exempt from being insulted because they're your brother? Audrey might've been biased, just from the black and blue marks skittering across her torso, but she felt like the point still stood. She didn't want to argue with Thor, mostly because of his hulking figure and god-status, but was only barely able to restrain herself.
"He's killed eighty people in two days," Natasha, bless her, answered flatly.
The god winced. "...He's adopted."
Audrey made a face, but dropped it when Bruce steered them back on track. "What did he need the Iridium for?"
Right. That. The attack on the gala had been at the gala specifically because the building contained a science wing. Studies on meteorites had been taking place there, and in those meteorites? Iridium. It was rare, according to the notes Foster had sent along with them on the jet—a ten page packet, back and front, single spaced, but with a post it on top that read CLIFF'S NOTES VERSION: iridium: rare, from meteorites, forms anti-protons -Darcy. But Bruce's question was a good one. They knew what it was (ish), but they still didn't know why.
"It's a stabilizing agent." Audrey turned to catch Tony muttering something quietly to Coulson, before he stepped away with a flourish and started talking. "It means the portal won't collapse in on itself, like it did at SHIELD." Tony went on to pat Thor on the shoulder mockingly before continuing down the bridge towards Fury's command center. "No offense, Point Break, You've got a mean swing," he assured Thor, then, Tony-like, returned to the topic at hand. "It also means that the portal can open as wide, or stay open as long as Loki wants."
Well, that's horrible, Audrey thought, followed rapidly by, Why did I sign up for this? about a thousand times in a row. Just because she knew how to hit things with her fist did not make her qualified to save the world from aliens. It took all her self-control not to drop her forehead onto the table and start bawling.
Find the bright side, her inner-Ana reminded her, but the more Audrey considered, the more and more clear it became that there was literally no bright side.
The facts went like this: Audrey was on a flying boat, which was also currently housing a demigod who had tried to murder her a few hours ago (she teared up a little every time she took a deep breath); there was a possibility that aliens were going to come enslave the human race; an incredibly dangerous object was still floating around somewhere on the planet; an assassin and a genius had been brainwashed into committing some fairly heinous crimes, and were still M.I.A.
None of those sounded good. None. There was no bright side, no matter how far into the distance she squinted.
Also, there was the looming cloud of worry that she had no idea where she stood with Steve. She didn't know whether he had any interest in being a part of her life or if he was just going to stick around until he passed a psych eval and could get as far away from SHIELD as possible. What if he regretted his romance with Peggy? What if he was the guy that got bummed out because hell-yeah to getting laid but hell-no to the consequences? Would he have agreed to visit at the end of the month if he didn't want to? Maybe it had been the pressure of the situation. Just after getting what was likely the biggest shock of his life, and he'd been willing to agree to anything - familial bonding, a trip to London to see his now-eighty-year-old ex. She wanted to ask him about it, so that she was sure she wouldn't be dragging him around. But would he pass off politeness long enough to tell her the truth? Could she deal with the rejection if her suspicions were true?
Sarcastically, Tony called out to the sea of agents, "Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the top sails." When nobody reacted, he jabbed a finger out at one of the computer screens. "That man is playing Galaga! He thought we wouldn't notice, but we did."
She turned back so she was facing forward. Her neck hurt, and she wasn't going to suffer to watch Tony act stupid. When Audrey glanced back at Steve, she found him excitedly looking over at the screen Tony had pointed at, trying to see whatever had caused such a fuss.
Rubbing her eyes, she swallowed down a yawn. It had been at least twenty-four hours since she'd last slept, and during those twenty-four hours, she'd participated in the most physically aggravating fight of her life thus far. Hopefully ever.
Behind Thor, Coulson passed by, another agent with a tablet in tow. "Thor?" he called. "I need to ask you some questions about your brother."
"Of course, Son of Coul," the god responded, following after the agent. "I have some questions for you, as well. I have heard tell that Jane Foster—"
"Yes, Doctor Foster is..." Audrey heard Coulson saying as he led Thor out of one door.
"Everything else is pretty easy to obtain," a new voice called out from the other entrance. Audrey jerked up from the table in surprise. She'd been so close to tuning the noise out and drifting off, and the arrival of a different person had dragged her out of her almost-rest. Jane Foster was dressed in a flannel shirt and old jeans, her hair up in a sloppy ponytail, a clipboard in her hands that she zeroed all of her attention on. Behind her, Darcy Lewis was carrying three college-textbook sized notebooks, all of which were well-worn. "Your guy…" Jane trailed off. "Barron?"
"Barton," her assistant corrected, dropping the books down on the table and sighing in content.
"Right. Barton. Well, all he needs is a power source to catalyze the cube's energy." Jane dropped down into the chair next to Audrey picking up the notebook on the top of the stack, opening it up halfway through and pulling a pen from her hair. She yanked the cap off with her teeth and began to scribble down notes in the margin. "Something he could heat to… five, eighteen-thousand, twenty one… one-twenty million Kelvin—"
"—to break through the Coulomb barrier," Bruce finished.
Jane's eyes lit up like Christmas. "Yes. Exactly."
Tony stepped back over to the table. "Finally, people who speak English."
"Is that what just happened?" Steve wondered aloud.
Before Audrey could answer, Darcy quipped, "They're scientists. They think everyone talks in theories and understands exactly how technology works. You just have to let them do their thing and feed them pop tarts on occasion."
The three scientists fawned over each other for a moment; compliments on each other's dissertations, journal papers, and advancements in technology flew back and forth, followed by a spitting remark from Tony about how great it was that Dr. Banner also turned into a giant green monster if his heart beat too fast.
"Um… thanks," Bruce answered, voice wavering uncertainly. His gaze dropped to the floor. Audrey shot Tony an unlikely-to-intimidate glare, but felt some relief that at least she wasn't the one screwing up anymore. Despite that, he really shouldn't have been an asshole to Bruce. Really.
"Dr. Banner is only here to help us with tracking the cube," Fury interrupted. "I was hoping you might join him and Dr. Foster as they search."
"Let's start with that magic stick of his," Steve decided, ever the Star-Spangled-Man-With-a-Plan. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon."
Fury considered. "I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube. And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys." Taking a deep breath, he instructed, "Stark, Banner, and Foster, I need you working on that. Romanoff's with me to interrogate our… guest. Rogers and Carter, wait for further orders."
Audrey assumed that that meant she had free time, so as the inhabitants of the room dispersed, she announced, "Let's find the cafeteria!" Looking to her dad, and then to Darcy, she repeated, "Right?"
While Steve nodded, Darcy simply shrugged. "Jane ate a little while ago, and as long as someone makes sure she doesn't stab herself with her tools she'll be fine, so if that was an invitation, then yes! Let's find food! But if it wasn't, forget I said anything."
"It was," Audrey assured her, pushing up from the table. "Then, I'll probably pass out on the first remotely-soft surface I find."
The cafeteria was mostly empty when Darcy, Audrey, and Steve arrived. A few uniformed agents milled around with trays in their hands, but for the most part, it was deserted.
"Dude, this is kind of a rude question, but what happened to your face?" Darcy asked.
Audrey looked over at Steve, thinking for a moment that the question was aimed at him before realizing that she was the one with a black eye and a cut down her cheek, not him. Well, he'd had a cut on his cheek, but it had healed at some point on the jet, after Audrey fell asleep but before they'd arrived.
"Um," she answered. "Well, the guy we were… arresting? We were arresting him, right?" She looked to Steve for confirmation. At his nod, she continued, "Uh, so we were arresting him, but he didn't really… want… to be arrested. So, you know, he punched me in the nose. A few times."
"Right…" Darcy replied, appearing only half-horrified by this tale of events. "Are you okay?"
Audrey waved it off. "I'm fine. It happens." No. It didn't happen. Not to her, ever, and why was she so determined to make it sound like she had a history of fighting people? She had a history of wanting to fight people, but she hoped to god that nobody was going to overhear her, take it the wrong way, and think she was prepared to muscle up and throw some punches. She was unqualified for that kind of work. Really, really unqualified.
"You guys eat a lot," Darcy remarked, clutching a mug of coffee in her hands. "Seriously? Your team's food budget must be super huge. And I ate at a diner with Thor once."
Audrey wondered briefly if Darcy knew the Asgardian was on board.
Halfway into her third sandwich, she could feel the aches and bruises begin to ease a little. While Darcy and her father were keeping up polite conversation (Steve significantly more reserved than the woman across from him), the blonde had been packing away plate after plate of food.
"Are you from New York?" Steve asked.
"Uh, no, Pennsylvania. Then Culver University, and then New Mexico, and now New York. It's nice, but the cell reception sucks."
Steve almost frowned, but stopped himself before it was noticeable. Sticking to the cover of a shadowing agent, he nodded indubitably and replied, "Yes, it certainly does."
Audrey hadn't quite gotten around to teaching him the normal linguistics of a modern man, and judging by Darcy's slightly narrowed eyes, she was noticing something was up. Please believe that all people in the military are like this. Not just the ones from the forties. She offered a crazed smile from around the opening of her water bottle. Darcy offered one back, but hers was full of less panic and more perplexity.
Well, that was great.
Smooth, Carter. Excellent move.
"Where are you from?" Darcy returned.
"Um, me?" Audrey asked. "Or, you know, him?"
That was such an unnecessary follow up oh my god way to make it weird.
Darcy's hand gestured back and forth. "Y'know. Either. Both. Whichever."
Well. Points to her for not embarrassing Audrey on her less-than-commendable social skills.
"Los Angeles," the blonde answered, just as her father said, "Brooklyn." Quick to clarify, Audrey said, "I mean, I'm from Los Angeles, and he's from Brooklyn. California. I mean, Los Angeles, California. Because Brooklyn is in New York. Obviously."
Dear god. If she were having some weird, out-of-body experience that had somehow landed her watching herself speak, Audrey would've been horrified by her own babbling. Stop. Talking.
That had never worked in the past, so Audrey snatched up a handful of cold fries from her plate and shoved them into her mouth, rendering herself mute for the moment. As she worked to deal with that, Darcy finished the last fry on her plate and stood up. "I should probably check on Jane, because there's a fifty-fifty chance that she's electrocuted herself, but this was fun! I'll find you later, probably. If you aren't busy doing, like, fight-y stuff." To Audrey she said, "I hope you feel better. And if you ever get into a fight again, I recommend tasers. They're proven to work against gods." To Steve, she just gawked for a second, smiled, and said, "I'm off to wrangle some scientists!"
"It was a pleasure to see you again," Steve told her, smiling broadly.
"Yeah," she called back. "It was nice to look at—see you again." She smacked a hand over her face. Darcy offered a sheepish grin in apology. "Bye."
As the two super-soldiers licked the wounds left behind by that embarrassing conversation, Audrey's eyelids began to droop and the horror at her own foot-in-mouth syndrome faded away.
She was exhausted. So much so that she was ready to pass out on the table. "I'm gonna find a place to nap," she decided, shuffling away to drop her plate and tray off.
Steve followed suit.
Eventually, Audrey stumbled upon a lounge somewhere amongst the residential areas of the ship. She didn't know what purpose it served, or whether or not it was exclusively for mission control agents or what, but that didn't stop her from collapsing onto the first couch she saw and dozing off immediately.
It might've been a dream, or maybe not, but Audrey could've sworn she felt Steve toss a blanket over her. It was probably a her brain playing tricks on her when he wished her sweet dreams.
But still, Audrey felt like a little girl for a moment, not twenty-one, not sixty-four. Just a child being loved by her dad, with a dark sky out the window, lit only by the stars.
a/n: This was more of a filler chapter than anything, I'm sorry. But there are big things coming up soon! Audrey's costume reveal, a training session with Natasha, more Steve and Aud bonding, and the next chapter gets us halfway to the Battle of New York!
I love all the feedback this story has been getting, and I'd definitely appreciate reviews on this chapter as well! The more feedback, the sooner Audrey gets her costume and the sooner we get to the Battle of New York.
Quick shoutout to jabberwocking and emilia christine who sat patiently and peer-pressured me into writing this chapter, they're both fab and they both also have Marvel stories you should check out!
Chapter Seven: To Make it Official
Audrey stared up at the uniform, jaw on the floor. Suddenly, the weight of her name, and everything that came with it seemed to weigh a lot heavier on her shoulders.
But she was willing to carry that burden. For the right cause. For the right people.