Allie
III
Sharply I'm awoken from my drug induced sleep by a huge blast in the side of my prison. The debris knocks me back and piles on top of me before I can comprehend what's happening.
The drugs and the trauma have started taking a toll, I feel to weak to move.
Desperately I try to lift some of the metal off, or wiggle free but all movement only causes pain.
"Help! Help!" I rasp as loud as I can. "Help!"
III
Gabie
III
"Gabie! Jarvis located Allie!"
My attention shifts immediately from the soldier I'm locked in combat with to him. Quickly I blast the Extremis guard into a wall and fly up to meet Stark.
"About time," I huff and Tony smirks.
"That's what I said."
With that he flies towards a blown in shopping contrariness hanging above the main platform.
Tony and I land gently onto it and begin looking around.
"Gabie? Tony?" a weak voice croaks and our eyes immediately find her.
It's Allie, she's lying under some rubble curled on her side.
"You came for me."
The second our eyes meet the bond reconnects and the emptiness vanishes. It's Allie, it's my best friend, she's okay.
Tony bends down and lifts a bigger piece of metal but as things shift Allie cries out in pain.
"Stop! Put it down, put it down, put it down," she begs and Tony gingerly lowers it.
My heart breaks to see her like this, so scared, so beat down.
Tony and I kneel down to her level.
"See what happens when you hang out with my ex-girlfriends?" Tony jokes and I sharply elbow him.
I hold out my hand for Allie to take, in eager to touch her skin, to feel her back in my head.
"You're such a jerk," she breathes out.
"Yep. We'll talk about it over dinner," he continues as Allie attempts to take my hand.
"Come on Allie just a little further," I coax and lean forward. Allie starts crying as she tries to take hold of my hand, her reach not coming close enough.
It's a gut wrenching sound, one I wish I'll never have to he's again.
"Come on. A little more, baby," Tony encourages.
As she manages to touch the tip of her fingers to mine, suddenly a heated orange hand breaks through the rubble and jams into the chest of Tony's suit. Before I can react it pulls the reactor right from the suit and knocks Tony aside. I jolt back in surprise allowing the assailant to backhand me upside the head.
Aldrich rises out from under the rubble and looks at Allie. While my head spins.
"Are these guys bothering you?"
"Please don't hurt them," Allie whispers weakly. Aldrich gets to his feet and stands over Tony and I.
Instinctively I kick Aldrich's feet out from under him and when he falls I smack his head into the metal ground. He chuckles, a chuckle that makes Allie's eyes widen in terror.
"RUN!" Allie screams suddenly. Her fear jolts me from my stupor and I scramble back.
Before I can get out of reach Killian opens his mouth and blows fire right at me and Tony. I hold up my arms and split it right down the middle but abruptly my power is disrupted and pain seizes my leg.
The fire dissipates to reveal Killian has planted another pulsing device into my skin.
The pain is paralyzingly and unrelenting, forcing me to fall back utterly still.
Aldrich goes over to Tony and kneels over him.
With the arc reactor out Tony is locked into the suit.
"Don't get up!" Killian taunts and places one finger around the indented hole in the suit where a reactor should be.
The skin begins to heat up and Allie cries out.
"Ooh, is that hot in there? Stuck? Feel a little stuck? Like a little turtle, cooking in his little turtle suit?" Killian hisses and traces his finger around the indent.
"Oh, Tony," Allie whimpers.
"She's watching. I think you should close your eyes," Killian suggests to Tony and I. I glare at him and agonizingly reach out to claw at him. He bats my hand away easily. "Close your eyes." Tony and I continue to stare at Aldrich.
"Close your eyes, you don't wanna see this," he repeats sternly and raises his hand.
Just as he brings it down a knife ejects out for the suit and slices it right off.
Aldrich shouts in pain and falls back as the severed limb falls to the ground.
"Yeah, you take a minute," Tony grumbles.
"The hand!" Allie exclaims abruptly and my eyes divert to find the missing hand melting through the ground.
It only takes anther second for the ground to fall through taking Allie, Aldrich, and me with it.
"Allie!" I call out as I fall and land hard onto the platform below. I didn't see where Killian fell.
"Gabie!" she cries back as the crane drags her across the platform.
Next thing I know Tony is dropping down on his feet without the suit and running after her.
"Jarvis, give me a suit right now!" he yells and I roll over. Tony leaps as a suit flies towards him but falls short and falls onto a lower platform. "Aw, come on!" he growls.
Breathing heavily I force myself up on my elbows and reach down to the metal in my skin.
Hesitating my hand freezes in the air but then I hear Allie yelp out in pain and I close my nails around it without a second thought. Closing my eyes right, I grip onto the device and yank backwards.
It rips out with a fish of blood and jolting pain.
"AGH!" I hiss and frantically press my hands to the open and flowing wound.
The pain is dizzying but the proximity to Allie gives me strength.
I push myself up and grab ahold of a railing. I have to get to her.
Tony is finally coming up on the dangling crate holding Allie, giving me renewed hope.
Weakly I take a step, and another.
"Allie, I am coming for you. I won't ever give you up," I whisper and push forward.
"The President is secure, Tony. I'm clearing the area," Rhodes reports over the coms as I shakily hold out my hands.
I allow air to move around me and lift me up, carrying me to Allie. The pain scatters my focus so I shake and jerk in the wind.
"Nice work," Tony praises.
Tony finally manages to get to Allie as she hangs off a rig.
"Allie, I got you. Relax, I got you," he coos and she reaches her hand out for him. "Just look at me."
Tony reaches out to her but she's too far for him.
Before I can propel myself forward a heated hand grabs my ankle and yanks me down.
I hit the ground hard, dazing me even more, but luckily a suit knocks away the soldier.
Sitting up I weakly open my eyes just in time to see her fall.
III
Allie
III
"Honey, I can't reach any further, and you can't stay there, alright?" He looks so sincere, his face showing signs of stress and battle.
Weakly I reach for him, my fingers barely touching his.
"You gotta let go. You gotta let go! I'll catch you, I promise!" he vows and I shake my head.
"I'm scared," I cry. "I've been so scared."
"I know baby but this is almost over. Please Allie let go and I'll catch you," he encourages and his eyes meet mine.
I trust him with all my heart.
"Okay," I utter and nod my head.
Suddenly the rig shifts and time seems to slow down. My body falls and my hand grazes Tony's grip.
"It's okay Tony, I love you, and I know you did the best you could."
And then I fell into the fiery pit beneath.
III
Gabie
III
"Please let them be okay, please let Tony, Nat, Steve, and Bruce be okay. Please let Gabie be okay, please let Gabie be okay, please let-"
Soon she is lost from my sight as flames envelope her body thirty feet below.
She's gone.
"ALLIE NO!" I screech and sprint forward. My body is wracked with agony but the despair clouds it.
Tony has already turned away with a shocked expression. I throw myself at the bars and look down.
"ALLIE!"
That's when I feel a sharp snap in my mind and feel our bond sever. The pain is overwhelming and forces me to crumple to my knees.
Killian steps up with a wicked grin on his face but I barely notice.
"Thats too bad, I would have caught her," Killian taunts. Tony lurches forward and tackles Killian right off the platform.
I can't respond, the pain is suffocating. I feel as I cannot breathe, I can't speak. I am unable to comprehend her being gone. Her presence is no longer in my mind, my life.
"Gone, she's gone," I whisper.
And just like that the realization I will never see her smile again hits me.
Before I realize I'm screaming and everything around me is falling to chaos. Wind starts rushing by, fire begins to rapidly consume the ship, and the water level has started rising dangerously high. My abilities, their lashing out.
"Gabrielle!" Rhodey yells He is circling above me in the Iron Patriot suit. "You need to stop! You'll sink this whole ship!"
"She. Is. Dead!" I screech back and clench my fists. "He killed her." Cold fury overtakes the agony and I get to my feet. "I am going to rip him limb from limb." With wind and fire swirling around me I stalk forward.
Tony and Aldrich start fighting, Aldrich looks as though he's winning. He easily destroys two of Tony's suits using his ability generate extreme heat.
He grabs hold of Tony in the suit and holds him up.
"Well here we are, on the roof," he observes coldly.
Aldrich rips Tony's suit apart, making Tony fall out and onto the ground.
At that moment I land behind him with my anger manifesting itself around me in fire and air. Aldrich is unbothered and we appear to be locked in a standoff.
Killian pauses and we see that one of Tony's suits is flying toward them.
"Mark 42 inbound," Jarvis reports.
"Well I'll be damned. The prodigal son returns."
Tony holds out his arm to allow the shit to attach to him but the suit catches on an iron bar and falls to pieces.
Aldrich grins and Tony groans.
"Whatever."
"You really didn't deserve her, Tony. It's a pity, I was so close to having her...perfect."
Aldrich jumps down in front of Tony, ready to attack again, ready to kill him.
"Okay, okay! Wait, wait! Slow down, slow down! You're right, I don't deserve her!" Tony calls frantically and holds his arms up. "Here's where you're wrong, she was already perfect." Tony nods to me and I hold up my blazing arms.
Pieces of his suit start ramming themselves into Killian and attaching to him. Once they're all on him I hold my hands down and pour columns of fire from them. The blaze engulfs Killian wholly.
"Jarvis, do me a favor and blow Mark 42."
"Noooo!" Killian screeches.
Tony starts dashing away and leaps over a bar, landing another level below.
Killian lets out a rageful yell as the suit blows to pieces taking him with it. I get blown back and off the platform. I fall to the base level and hit the ground hard next to Tony.
It was all over so fast.
Smoke is clouding the air around us as a fire burns bright before us. It is the burning rubble that holds Allie's slowly burning body.
"You did deserve her," I whisper after a second. "She-She loved you." Another onslaught of tears rush down my face as I choke up. Looking over I see Tony is crying as well.
"I love her," he admits. "I failed her."
"No Tony-"
"I invited a terrorist to our home! This is my fault! My soulmate, my fault."
The darkness weighs heavily and there's a hole in my soul, in my mind, where she was.
My back hits the ground and my arms lay flat out on it.
Every passing second drives home the fact that she isn't here anymore, she won't be here anymore.
It's unbearable, how can I handle this? How am I supposed to handle this?!
There is no way I can live on without her, no scenario where I will ever live again.
She gave me too much in life and she has taken it all back in death.
I will never be remotely okay again.
Allison Hollden the Siren is dead.