A/N: Ha. Haha. Hello. It has been….a while.
As in. Like. I'm-about-to-graduate-college-when-suddenly-Endgame-appears-and-RIPS-ME-A-NEW-ONE-while.
IDK about you guys, but *SPOILERS MAYBE* Endgame did ma boy dirty with that lack of screen time (Don't even talk to me about that uncharacteristic resolution of Steve's plot lol. Bucky who?). So uh. Let's just go back to 2014 for a hot second and pretend that we're not all in fetal position in a corner (slash reliving every Marvel movie that's been made since 2008).
For all of the fans who left me these heartachingly sweet reviews in these past few hiatus years— I LOVE YOU, and anything that I've mustered the energy to write goes out to you! Since it's been a while, bear with me while I get back into the swing of writing this again. That fleshed-out plot outline of mine has to be useful for something, right?
And since you've had to wait….this chapter has a lil bit o' extra G-rated spice for ya.
"If we move like lighting charging through the angry sky
And intercept on the arrow of time
Well we just might make this out with our heads held high
So the story continues with minds without fear."
~Imogen Heap
The moment Taskmaster's clones returned her to Avengers Tower—depositing her on the same floor which their counterparts had ravaged—Avery's first instinct was to sprint downstairs and reassure herself of the Soldier's wellbeing. It was not long, however, in the aftermath of the heated battle, that the heroes began to rouse themselves from their untimely slumber. Predictably, Steve—with his impeccably resilient biology—was the first to show signs of life. He sat upward slowly, blinking hard, massaging his brow with a bloody hand. Remembering himself, he stiffened, his sharp eyes sweeping the room and immediately coming to rest on her.
"Avery," he said, relief and confusion mingling in his tone. He jumped to his feet, hastening toward her—remarkably quick in consideration of the beating he had just taken. "Are you alright? What happened?"
The other Avengers began to shuffle and groan, each moving at his own pace to get off the floor. Steve stooped to lend Sam a hand and pull him up. The latter shook his head, trying to clear his ears from blood and debris.
"Um, well," she said, observing as Bruce limped over to Tony and began patting his face to wake him. Tony continued to slumber, mouth open, looking like he was about to let rip a huge snore. "Thor showed up and electrocuted the living crap out of everything in the building except for us. So that was pretty great. You know, not dying."
Steve's head quirked to the side in an ironic nod. "Yeah. Always good to avoid that."
Sam seemed to have regained some of his usual alertness. "Then where is he?"
The trio looked around. Beneath the shattered glass, there had to be at least two-dozen human-shaped scorch marks all over the penthouse floor.
Avery took an imperceptibly quiet breath. She had been preparing herself to lie to her friends the moment Taskmaster's clones had put her in the unmarked van that drove her back. She put her hands in her pockets, rolling Taskmaster's vial between two fingers.
"I couldn't tell you. After Thor got here, I talked to him for about two seconds before one of those things tried to blast off with some important-looking piece of paper. Thor went after it, all of them reanimated, and one knocked me out. I woke up a few seconds before you all."
The words sounded pretty convincing as she related them. If Sam or Steve thought anything weird about her demeanor, it didn't show. And if she did seem a little off, she hoped that they would chalk it up to shock.
Sam and Steve shared a telling glance—it had been a close call. They were lucky to be alive.
With a coughing fit, Tony sat up abruptly; Bruce shuffled away a little to give him some breathing space.
Everyone stilled as Tony rubbed his jaw, shadowed eyes surveying the damage of the room. Uncharacteristically silent, he puckered his lips and spit out a sizeable amount of blood. Then, he wobbled to his feet, meeting Steve's quiet gaze.
Tony's face was unreadable. After a beat, voice chilled with anger, he said, "I don't know what this was, and to be honest, I don't really care. I can't deal with this right now."
With one stiff command to JARVIS to ready the car, he left the room.
Avery watched Steve rub his forehead wearily. Sam kicked some debris with his foot, then grimaced at the jagged ceiling. There was nothing to say.
"Will he be okay?" Avery asked softly, half to herself. Steve took a seat on the remnants of a coffee table. Standing, Bruce answered indirectly.
"I'll call Pepper." Hitching his tattered trousers, he shuffled from the room in search of a cell phone.
"Not exactly a typical workplace conflict, is it?" Sam said dryly, letting out a deep breath.
A rumbling voice broke the silence. "You lot look as though a dwarf has just pilfered your prized mead mug."
Avery turned. Thor stood just inside the gaping hole in the side of the tower, cape ruffling slightly in the wind.
"And you're a sight for sore eyes," Steve said, the ghost of a crooked smile alighting on his face. He stood, meeting Thor halfway. The two men gripped each other's elbows in an ancient-looking version of a handshake.
Thor grinned. "You must have really missed me, Steven, to call me to Midgard not three months after I was here last."
"Yeah, well," Steve said warmly, "Three months feels a lot longer when you're not a thousand years old." Steve turned. "Sam, Thor. Thor, Sam."
"How you doin'," Sam said, nodding. Avery gave Sam credit—he really wasn't phased in the slightest by the gleaming Norse god before them.
"Did you catch that thing?" Avery asked Thor.
The god's countenance darkened a bit, as changeable as the thunderstorms he wielded. "No. Just when it seemed to have thought that it lost me, the bizarre creature flew itself straight into the river, stolen papers and all. No matter how I think it over, I cannot reconcile it."
"You mean it just…killed itself?" Sam said. "It didn't take the stolen stuff anywhere?"
"It would seem so, yes."
Steve frowned in contemplation. "That…doesn't add up."
Avery's palms went clammy for a second, Taskmaster's words echoing in her head.
The Avengers can't know. If they caught wind of the drive's existence and tried to help recover it, my dear employers would realize I wasn't doing my job. That wouldn't end well for me, so I'd make sure it wouldn't end well for anyone. Capiche?
What had that asshole been thinking, making his clone self-destruct instead of carrying out its fake mission? A stupid mistake like that one threatened to expose Taskmaster's own plan before Avery could even try to find Gamma Grid Six. If the Avengers sensed something was off, it wouldn't be long before they really started investigating.
She opened her mouth to say something, but feared that it would sound disingenuous. The vial was heavy in her pocket, nausea trickling into her stomach. She felt like a traitor.
Thankfully, at that moment, Steve's focus shifted. "Bucky," he said simply.
Avery didn't have to fake the lightning-quick reflexes that hurled her after Steve as he fled the room. She knew better than anyone that the Soldier was safe, but her pounding heart compelled her to see it with her own two eyes.
To her relief, he was still there when they arrived—unconscious, but breathing. He lay stiffly on the hospital bed, oxygen mask flung haphazardly to the side where Avery had yanked it off to hear him speak.
His vital signs beeped steadily on the bedside monitor, and Steve visibly relaxed. Sam and Thor came stomping down the stairs after them. Turning, Steve said, "He's alright."
Avery suppressed the need to draw near and touch the Soldier, as if doing so in the presence of the others would somehow alert them to the new objective that buzzed in her skull.
Thor craned his neck into the room. "Your sick friend, I take it."
Steve nodded. Sam came up beside the Captain and put a firm hand on his shoulder.
"Why don't we go sit down for a minute?" he said. "Talk out what we need to do."
Steve nodded, sparing a last glance at the monitor.
"You too, Avery. Come on," Sam said, offering a hand.
"Um, actually—I think I'll stay here for a bit. If that's okay," she said.
Sam stared back at her, blowing out another breath. "Thanks," she said preemptively.
A faint edge in his voice, Sam replied, "Use the intercom if you need us."
Avery met Steve's eyes, and they shared a wordless gaze. She listened to the booming echo of Thor's voice as the three men proceeded back the way they had come.
For a while, Avery listened to the soft electronic beeping. At last, she swallowed, pulling out the vial.
Using a syringe, she injected the rosy liquid into the IV bag. She watched as the tube flushed pink, the solution trailing down lazily to his arm.
The beeping went on steadily.
More for herself than for him, she laid a hand quietly on his fist. Then, she departed.
She didn't last through the company of the others for very long. Briefly, she listened to the theories they lobbed at one another about the nature of the attack, what to do next with no Tesseract, the strange behavior of that clone—but after a spell, she feigned exhaustion, excusing herself to bed.
The wind seemed particularly loud just beyond the glass of her penthouse window. She lay wide awake, sheets tangled around her legs, one arm draped across her forehead. Her unfocused eyes barely registered the glowing lights of the city below, her mind far too busy processing all she'd learned from Taskmaster.
She had no idea if, or when, the memory serum would kick in. But if it did, like her gut was telling her it would, it was a godsend—perhaps the only thing in the world capable of preventing the Soldier's condition from taking an immediate and permanent nosedive. And if she and the Soldier could get their hands on more than one of these external memory hard drives, it could mean the end of his suffering.
But the entire situation made her feel uneasy.
Taskmaster held the upper hand in every capacity. If she let slip to the Avengers, or if they suspected something, they were all dead. If Bucky failed in his one-man attempt to retrieve the drive from one of HYDRA's most secret facilities, they were dead. If they didn't try anything at all, they would run out of Taskmaster's serum—and Bucky would be as good as dead.
She bit her thumbnail, contemplating. They really didn't have much of a choice.
As she lay, the temperature of the room seemed to drop several degrees. She shivered in her white tank and pajama shorts, shifting beneath the merlot sheets of the expansive bed. The atmosphere felt…off. Her heart began to beat a little faster.
Someone was in the room.
She raised herself up on one elbow, eyes straining in the dark. They immediately detected a dull metal gleam in the corner, and adjusted to trace the outline of a familiar form. She sat quickly upright. Her breath caught in her throat, and the frantic beat of her heart beat frantically for a different reason.
She fought hard to distinguish his face in the shadows. Some seconds went by. Though he knew he'd been spotted, he stayed where he was, watching.
She eased herself out of the bed, her eyes never leaving his silhouette. She took a few steps forward, initially slow; with each step, she picked up speed, until she was moving toward him with a desperate, abandoned pace.
Her outstretched palm, reaching blindly in the dark, collided squarely with the center of his chest. His sliver hand glinted dimly as it came up, keeping her fingers pressed close against his beating heart, and she stilled.
She felt his broad shoulders shudder as he embraced her, the adamantine cradle of his arms all at once so formidable and so fragile. His face buried in her neck; her fingers threaded inextricably through his rich umber hair. She took long, steady breaths to squelch the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes.
"I'm so—so glad you're awake," she managed, unable to say anything more.
His whisper was scratchy in her ear, throat dry from the oxygen mask. "I really don't know how."
Avery worked her jaw, her euphoria doused by the impending discussion. "A lot has happened," she said carefully. "I have…a lot I need to tell you."
He pulled away from her slightly, evidently able to see her better than she could see him. He gently tucked a stray curl behind her ear. "You look as exhausted as I feel. You need to rest."
His eyes were clear, aware. The temporary cure had done its work.
She felt like she would die if he left her now. As he lingered, she ventured a guess that he might feel the same way.
"Stay," she said softly.
Neither of them moved, both contemplating the word that had fallen, unprompted, from her mouth.
She knew how it sounded—how easily another could misconstrue her meaning. Instinctively, though, she knew that they understood each other. The innocent need to be close simply could not be ignored.
He inhaled shakily, saying nothing. In the cool darkness, she took his hand, pulling him gently to the bed.
Her brain lobbed protests in spades, but she ignored them.
Facing each other, they eased themselves onto the mattress, a little less than an arm's length apart. She shivered, and he immediately pulled the covers over her.
Her eyes had adjusted by now. He looked just a bit skittish, but, boldly, he reached a hand up to brush her lips with his thumb—brow quirked in an unspoken question. His eyes were guarded.
Her lips burned with memory in response—a stolen kiss, left impulsively on his forehead as she sprinted upstairs to warn the Avengers of the coming battle.
A promise.
She reached up to caress his hand, giving the tips of his fingers one, gentle kiss. Inching closer, she let his muscular form mold around her as he cradled her tightly to his chest. His skin was warmer than she remembered it before. She was safe here—perhaps the safest she could possibly be.
His cool, robotic hand stroked the back of her hair. They lay in the quiet, the moment of peace as precious as it was rare.
A blissful eternity ticked by. The gentle rise and fall of his broad chest was hypnotic.
Faintly, a question poked at the edge of her mind.
What were they to each other, really?
Did it have any chance of ending well? Was this—whatever it was—doomed to destroy them, one way or another?
The connection they had was undeniable, all-consuming. It had been enough to push her to things she never could have dreamed of doing a month before. She had thrown her life willingly in harm's way for him, and he for her—all without either of them ever giving an explanation why.
If she had to explain their relationship to someone in clear terms, she doubted she could. His 50 years of torture aside, biologically speaking, he had to be a good five or six years older than her. She was way in over her head— this new danger she sensed was unlike what it had been like to run from gun-toting mercenaries, or duck from exploding glass and debris. It was like dancing at the edge of a burning flame, drawn irresistibly by warmth, but so easy to be burned.
She had to believe that, as long as he was here to hold her, protect her— it would be okay.
Maybe he sensed the buzzing of her thoughts. "Do you know," he said, barely above a whisper, "why I came back to you on the roof that day?"
She lay very, very still.
"In 50 years…" he began, and she felt his chest rise with another measured breath. "In 50 years, you were the first person to show me compassion. It didn't…make any sense to me. At all. I couldn't stop thinking about it. But something about that compassion was…familiar. The human thing to do." He paused, finding the right words. "I guess seeing an act of humanity after all those years made me realize I was made of more than metal."
Words failed her. In response, she merely pulled him tighter, and they drifted off together.
They needed each other, and for now, that was enough.