Little Bird's Vengeance Chapter 6 Rail Trip
The wind whipped past Red Robin's head as he fell. He spread his limbs to slow as much as possible, but avoided snapping out his wings until he was a little lower. Twisting his head, he tried to find the nearest coast. Luckily, the mask protected his eyes. Eventually he saw land.
As he kept falling, he judged the distance still to go, then flared the wings. Immediately he felt a strain on his right shoulder, where the hastily-repaired damage had left the rig unbalanced. He angled, aiming for shore and hoping he didn't end up in the ocean for too long. This form of transport was designed more for roof-hopping than long distance flight.
As it turned out, he only had to swim the last hundred metres or so. He came ashore on a piece of deserted coastline, and quickly orientated himself. The sun was sinking, so not only did he have a general sense of direction, he also knew his internal clock was maybe eight hours out. Not surprising, considering the time he'd been in the cell with little frame of reference. His best bet was to reach a city, and work out his next move from there.
After some time walking inland, he found a railroad track. Changing direction, he followed it, knowing he'd reach a station eventually. With the growing darkness, he was safe from passing eyes. He kept listening; a train could save him hours. Or squash him.
It did not take too long for his hope to be rewarded. When the train came past, he jumped onto the roof of it, held tightly and tried to concentrate on staying awake. His suit was saturated with seawater, sapping his strength and chilling him. His recent forced inactivity hadn't been terribly restful, and he could feel the stress weakening his grip. He focused on keeping his hold, and considered his next actions.
From what he'd gleaned from the papers Barton and Romanov had given him, his best bet for getting home would be using Stark tech. Stark's public business was based in New York. The conflict was that he couldn't get to Stark's technology without alerting the Avengers (of whom Stark was one), and thus SHIELD. Whether or not that would be a good thing, he didn't know. He needed to do a little research to find out just what SHIELD was in the eyes of the world.
He'd get off when the train stopped at a major station, find out where he was, and find a library. Hopefully, he'd be only one train journey from New York.
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Red Robin ended up spending the day in Philadelphia. It wasn't safe to travel on the outside of a train in daylight, and the timing just didn't work out in his favour. After being up nearly to dawn reading online news sites, checking maps and timetables, he found a nice, cosy, condemned apartment block to shelter in. He curled up in a corner and promptly fell asleep.
When he woke, it was starting to get dark already. It could be said it was advantageous that it was wintertime; shorter days meant more hours of darkness, and a longer period for Red Robin to move freely. 'On the other hand,' he thought wryly, 'It also means my suit's still wet. Yuck.' He shivered, running a hand through his hair, and noted a build-up of salt and grime. Yup, he definitely needed a nice, warm shower. Preferably before his compromised immune system let him catch flu.
As he made his way over the roofs to the train station, checking the time against his (updated) mental clock to make sure he didn't miss the train to New York, he reviewed the data he'd gathered the previous night.
The Avengers were, in general, wildly popular among the general public, and somewhat less so among the government. Not too dissimilar to the Justice League, who frequently went through rough patches in their political standing. But the Bats were almost never popular with anyone; so Red Robin didn't care much about that. Much more interesting were the rumours flying about SHIELD.
As far as the media were concerned, SHIELD was a government defence initiative that supported the Avengers. A little further digging revealed that they'd been around a lot longer, and that they had international concerns. He'd tried hacking the Pentagon, but the computer in the library wasn't powerful enough to be time-efficient.
What he knew of the Avengers, from interacting with Romanov, Barton and Captain America, reading the newspapers and his research, indicated he could trust them- well, sort of trust them. Trust them to help him, and not try to kill him on sight at least.
Besides, it's not like he had anywhere else to go, especially if he did get sick.
He flattened himself to the roof of the train carriage. He'd had plenty of practice riding the outside of trains when he had to journey between Bludhaven and Gotham whenever he got called to deal with an emergency in one city while he was in the other.
It was usually a little easier. In addition to a freezing wind-chill factor, his shoulder was still aching from his unbalanced wing-rig yanking the joint when he fell. And it had been a week and a half since he'd eaten something not laced with sodium pentothal. And he was definitely feeling a bit off. Add the stress of being marooned on another Earth…
He really did need help.
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When he reached New York, he zipped off the train before it stopped, swinging up to the rooftops. He didn't know New York too well, but he'd memorised maps of pretty much every city in America, and there were only a few differences. Stark Tower, nicknamed Avengers' Tower, would be fairly easy to find. Especially from the air.
Once he reached the higher skyscrapers, he snapped out his wings and glided. His shoulder felt like it was on fire; he suppressed the ache using several techniques he'd learnt over the years to keep fighting in the middle of a punch up. Eventually, he saw the Tower, with the specialized landing platform for Iron Man, and the single letter A lit up on the side. He glided down to the platform and landed in a crouch, gently dispersing the force of the impact.
Instantly, he found himself looking at an arrow on string, two handguns, repulsor gauntlets, a red-white-and-blue shield and a large hammer all pointed menacingly at him. For a fraction of a second, he wondered if he could take them all. 'Bad plan,' he reminded himself, and straightened up, holding out his empty hands. "Woah, guys, stand down," he said aloud. "It's me."
AN: So now we're up to speed with what Red's been doing after his little tumble. I hope no-one's desperately disappointed he didn't drown. If you are, I hope you get over it.
Next week, I'll be updating Black and Red again. If you're not reading it, then I'm afraid you will have to wait a bit longer, but why not go check it out? And I will be continuing the Wayne's Boys series, again in Flashback both this week and next week. Again, why not give it a go?
As always, please review. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in a PM or a review.
Katara