A/N: Hello agents. I'm sorry I didn't update on Monday as usual, but I had a lot of things going on these past few days. Among cloudy days in my life there are still some with sunshine. I finally got my driver's license yesterday! So, hooray, I guess. Just wanted to share that with you.
Thank you so much to all who read this story and others I've written. Your support is welcomed and appreciated, and I am thrilled each time there is a comment.
Enjoy this next chapter.
Chapter 22: Angel falling from the sky
The flight to Sokovia is long and tiresome. Most agents sleep in the designated bunks to be fully rested. The prospect of fighting an army of indestructible robots would freak out even the most badass of them, which in everyone's opinion is Melinda May, the Cavalry.
Tris sits at a table with May, Daisy and Uriah eating sandwiches and chit-chatting. Well, the younger agents do. May is just leaning back, staring at the metal wall.
"You little SOB. So, you asked out our Beauty," Daisy says referring to Marlene. Uriah actually blushes a little which makes Tris chuckle.
"Yeah. Thought I should pull my shit together. I mean, if Angel finds happily ever after, why not me?" he asks teasingly, knowing full well this will annoy his best friend.
"Fuck off!" Tris says laughing, but can't help but feel a slight pain in her chest. Happily ever after… she always thought that to be a fairy tale for naïve little girls. Tobias is her prince, but she is no princess. And whatever they have isn't "happily ever after". It's that weird shit in-between, the calm before the storm part. She only wonders what the storm is. Her death? His death? Thinking of him dying makes her stomach flip and she rushes out of the room and into the nearest bathroom. She immediately starts to violently throw up, bringing tears to her eyes and a crushing ache to her chest.
A knock on the door startles her and she starts heaving again. Without saying a word or even moving, Tris senses someone entering and believes it to be Daisy, since, apparently, Uriah can't watch someone puke. Die in pain, yes. But not puke.
"It's okay," May says rubbing Tris's back soothingly. Surprised by who entered the small space, Tris turns her head to find the older agent kneeling next to her. A rare smile crosses May's face but instead of reciprocating it, Tris turns back to the toilet bowl and throws up. "It will pass. This mission is dangerous, more than any we ever faced." Good timing for a pep talk Tris thinks, but remains quiet. Fuck, she hadn't thrown up before a mission since she left the Academy. Then again, she never faced a Terminator before. "It's okay. Even now I get sick before some missions," May confesses, startling Tris with the statement.
"You?" she asks, trying to sound teasing.
"Yes, me." Tris stands up with May's help and holds onto the sink. She dares look herself up in the mirror and immediately looks away when a hideous creature looks back at her. She really hates puking.
"We're gonna die,"Tris says after she washes her face and rinses her mouth.
"Probably. I hope not, though," May says seriously. Tris doesn't know if the older woman is trying to be comforting or funny. If any.
When they emerge from the bathroom the rest of their team is gone, most likely to their bunks to rest. They still have a few hours left and Tris decides to follow their example. There's nothing left to do than wait. Before she left the Playground she wrote several letters: one for her parents, one for Coulson, and one for Tobias. His is the longest and was the most painful to write. But in the event she won't make it, at least she wrote down her final thoughts. At least the final coherent thoughts. But as much as she wishes to tell those same thoughts in person, she wants to walk into the next life without any burden.
Tris lies in her bunk, her eyes wide open staring at the ceiling, thinking of her loved ones, the mission, her dreams, her fears, her husband. Tobias. The most unlikely scenario came true and she fell in love with this man. From all the people in the world she fell in love with him. Thinking of him makes her heart ache and wish she would live a different life, a boring, ignorant life. She would even want to be the good little housewife her parents wanted her to be, a tidy housekeeper, a loving wife and caring mother – the perfect Mrs. Eaton. But as it so happens she is not. She is an agent of SHIELD, an assassin, a spy, and most of all she is Inhuman.
Why does she have to get glimpses of a terrible future? Why does she have to be an agent? Why couldn't she be more like her siblings? They live normal, boring lives. She could have had that. So why didn't she?
The answer is simple. She is more than that. She is her grandfather's favorite. Almost no one in their family knows it, but her grandfather was one of the first agents of SHIELD. He was very young when he enlisted and fought in the war and then became a spy for the Strategic Scientific Reserve and later helped Peggy Carter to create and run SHIELD. Of course, no one in her family knows this except those who were part of SHIELD themselves.
It was her grandfather who encouraged her to join the spy organization because he saw her potential long before anyone else. But she is tired and too damaged to continue. She will never fully leave SHIELD and always be on call for situations like the Ultron-one. But she is no longer the same she was when she first started. She had seen too much, done too many bad things. If the universe granted her this, she would resign as active agent and make a life. Whatever life she will have, she knows she can't continue this one. It is too much. She had lost too many friends already and by the end of the day she might lose more.
Tris shakes her head, trying to chase the negative thoughts away, but it's futile. They are here and they are here to stay. She closes her eyes, forcing her eyelids to remain closed as she starts counting sheep. She might not be able to sleep on the Helicarrier(1), but at least she will rest her body, even if her mind works at full capacity and light speed.
However, the monotone sound the aircraft makes lulled her to sleep, and Tris wakes only when someone is shaking her lightly. In her groggy state she believes to be home in her conjugal bed and almost chastises Tobias for waking her up. But as she slowly opens her eyes and spots her best friend staring down at her, the reality of where she is and what is about to happen hits her like a ton of bricks. Reluctantly, she sits up and rests her head in her palms. The heavy burden of the mission is weighing down on her for the first time. Whatever the puking episode was, this is much, much worse.
"Ready to die?" Uriah asks jokingly. Tris scoffs. Of course, not. And neither is he. But this is their thing. They prepare themselves mentally for the worst and do their freaking best to avoid it. But they never faced a robot before.
Tris gears up and meets the rest of her designated team on Deck C where May briefs them about each of their jobs. Apparently, the Avengers are holding Ultron and his metal cohorts off, while every available SHIELD agent is supposed to lead the civilians to the safety of the helicarrier. Tris is partially absent as May explains the layout of the city and for the first time the agents hear that the super-intelligent AI managed to lift a chunk of earth on which the city resides up into the air and plans to drop it once its high enough.
"Why drop it?" one of the agents asks.
"Do you know what wiped out the dinosaurs?" May asks pointedly. What the hell have dinos to do with it? How long was Tris out to skip over this detail?
"Uh," the agent stutters.
"An asteroid," another answers instead. What?
"Actually, recent studies suggest that it was a combo of asteroid strike, climate shift," Daisy starts saying when May gives her the stink eye. "Just saying," she says lifting her hands in defense.
"To shorten this, Ultron wants to drop Sokovia to the ground causing dust to shoot high into the atmosphere and cover the sun, leading us into a nuclear winter." That's a bit extreme, Tris thinks to herself, but then again they are facing Terminator-like robots.
Frankly, Tris doesn't care what that Uber-robot wants. They need to stop him and they need to evacuate the civilians.
"Shouldn't the Inhumans among us, I don't know, do more Inhuman stuff?" Uriah asks.
"Our highest priority are the Sokovian citizens. If you encounter one of the robots fight back, but only if necessary. Do not engage unless absolutely necessary. Our reports state that even the Avengers have a hard time fighting them. And as far as we know, this chunk of land might drop any minute. Civilian population comes first. Don't play hero!" May orders. The agents nod and as soon as the hatch opens they rush outside.
The scene greeting them is one of death and destruction mixed with science-fiction-movie robots engaging into small battles with Avengers and agents alike. Civilians are seemingly everywhere, scared and some are injured. Here and there Tris spots bodies on the ground, presumably dead. Bile rises within her and she fights a powerful gag reflex when she sees the shredded body of a child. The memories of her first solo-mission rush back into her mind and Tris remains frozen in place watching in silent horror as scenes from a diabolical play unfold before her very eyes. The infernal sound of bombs exploding, metal crushing into the ground, terrified shrieks and screams of fleeing survivors are seemingly set on mute as Tris doesn't hear anything above her rapid, violent heartbeat. The air is filled with metal and a slight scent of ozone. The scene before her seems unreal. She was only this scared when the Chitauri attacked, but even then she had the presence of mind to let her body move while her mind tried to comprehend what was happening. But this… man-made robots where killing humans.
"Tris!" Uriah yells from her right. Snapped out of her own little world, Tris follows the sound of his voice and sees him engaged in a fight with one of the robots. She immediately goes to help her friend and fights as best she can. May was right. These things are a handful. No wonder she said to not engage unless absolutely necessary. Well, this is necessary. Tris uses her power turning into her Angel-self and forming a barrier between the robot and them. The shield holds for long but the power of this machine is quickly draining Tris's energy.
"I can't hold him back much longer," she screams as a ball of energy hits her side and makes her loose balance. Tris falls to the ground and the last thing she sees is a bluish blur that appeared and disappeared so quickly it almost looked unreal. As she stands up again and looks toward where the blur went, she recognizes the person. Pietro Maximoff a.k.a. Quicksilver. Coulson briefed them on the Twins, Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, former Hydra assets with special powers. Pietro is incredibly fast, while Wanda could manipulate your mind. Before the Avengers set out to fight Ultron, the Twins switched sides and are now on SHIELD's team.
Tris watches as the once-enemy fights another robot, soon assisted by Captain America. As the SHIELD agents get as many civilians as possible onto the helicarrier, Tris disregards May's orders and rushes to where she spotted Tony fight several robots.
"Tris!" she hears Uriah yell after her, but she ignores him and continues on her way. Within minutes, she reaches Tony and finds another ally, whom she never saw before.
"Angel! What are you doing here?" Tony asks as he manages to dismember yet another robot before a new wave of mechanical foes attack them.
"Tony, I dreamed about this!" she yells over the roar of the on-going battle.
"What?" the billionaire asks startled.
"I dreamed of this. I had a vision of this battle," she continues.
"Why didn't you say something then?" he asks with a still confused look in his eyes.
"It's not like I could be 100% sure, could I?" Tris asks sarcastically, not liking where this is going.
"I didn't mean it like that," Tony replies. "Can we discuss this later?" he asks as two robots attack him. Tris looks around and sees that the mysterious ally is currently engaged in a battle of his own, while several more robots rush toward them. For the first time, Tris feels completely helpless. She knows she has to fight, knows she might die, knows this is more serious than anyone wanted to admit.
Tony is blasting one shockwave after another into the approaching crowd of robots. Natasha valiantly fights them off as best she can, Thor uses Mjolnir(2) to summon lightning to send it into the enemy ranks. Captain America uses his shield to deflect attacks, while Hulk smashes one robot after the other. But it seems as much as they fight and destroy these metallic zombies, new ones emerge and come back even more powerful than the ones before. Tris looks up to the new ally, whom she still doesn't know the name of, and wonders who this mysterious-looking man is. He seems alien. His skin is red, his suit is tight and of a dark blue-green color. A yellow stone is in the middle of his forehead. But never mind that; he is freaking levitating. But her attention is quickly captured by the young girl in red, Wanda Maximoff, Codename: Scarlet Witch. The girl bears an expression of despair and pain, her eyes wide in shock, her mouth agape as she falls to her knees. What happened to her?However, before Tris can dwell any longer on the young girl, two of the robots attack her. All the Avengers are engaged in their own fights and can't help the SHIELD agent.
Tris squirms and kicks but to no avail. She remembers one of the sessions she had with Lincoln(3) and follows his advice. Calm down. Breathe deeply. Focus on something positive. Tobias.
An energy surge rushes through Tris's body, rebooting her and giving her new strength and confidence. As she concentrates more on the face of the man she loves, she feels an incredible power grow within her, wanting to come out.
"Tobias," she whispers and the image fades, soon replaced by the image of more robots rushing toward her. But as she thinks this is the end, a shockwave hits them all and the robots holding her let go, falling to the ground and break apart.
Her ears are rushing, her heart is pounding, noise and screams mix together into a chant of grief. Tris looks up and sees the Scarlet Witch blasting more robots into the air and releasing them to crash to their inevitable demise. Tris wonders what brought this on, but doesn't question it. She helps her friends fight the enemy as best she can and for the first time today she feels like she can do it. Like she can win this battle. The energy within her is still unexplored, but under severe pressure and in hopeless situations she always found a resource she didn't know about yet. Lincoln once told her she is energy. And she does pay attention to FitzSimmons. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it only transforms. Lincoln told her something about channeling her power. She just needs to visualize it.
As four enemy robots rush toward her she closes her eyes and allows her other senses to "see" them come. She can make out only their forms, but that is all she needs. She visualizes herself grabbing a sword and extending it before her. She waits for the right moment, just as the four robots are close enough and swings the sword, cutting them all in half. When Tris finally opens her eyes, half expecting it to have worked and half to see them stand there befuddled watching her wave her arms in the air like a lunatic, the four robots lie on the ground, cut in half and slowly "dying". Tris looks from them to her arm, that seems to have transformed into a sword made of light. But just as she wants to examine it further, the earth quakes. First, she believes it to be Daisy who causes the tremors, but as Iron Man comes toward her, she realizes something else is going on.
Tony stops in front of her and takes his mask off, looking defeated and tired. She can't blame him. It seems like they were fighting for hours and maybe they have.
"You need to go. This whole chunk is crashing down now that Ultron can't hold it up any longer."
"What about you?" she asks concerned for her friend.
"I'll be fine. Go to the helicarrier! Now!" Tris doesn't wait for him. She knows he can take care of himself if necessary. Tris rushes toward where the helicarrier is, finding it hard to run with the earth all wobbly beneath her feet. Or perhaps it's her who is wobbly on her own feet.
Tris runs and jumps and trips and stands up again. She can feel the city falling to the ground and only hopes that her fellow agents evacuated all of the civilian population. A pang of guilt makes her wonder if her selfishness might have caused another agent's life. She quickly dismisses the thought.
There, the helicarrier. Just 30 feet away. Tris runs faster than she ever thought possible, but just as she nears the edge of the city the helicarrier flies away from the falling city, leaving Tris trapped on it. She looks around for something she could use to jump, but odds are she would land beneath the city and subsequently be crushed by it once it hits the ground.
Panic settles in. She knows there is no way out. She is about to die. She will never see her family and friends again. She will never see Tobias again. She will never kiss him. She will never make love to him. She will never tell him "I love you" again.
Tris closes her eyes and kneels down. Whatever may come, she's ready. She did her duty; she will pay for her crimes. Her only regret: not being with him. With Tobias.
(1) Helicarrier – wiki/Helicarrier
(2) Thor's hammer
(3) Lincoln Campbell is the love interest of Daisy, an Inhuman himself and worked with Daisy's late mother Jiaying in the Inhuman sanctuary known as Afterlife. He used to be a coach for new Inhumans, helping them go through the process