The liquid flowed mist-like out of the vial and evaporated down Jane's throat. She only knew she was swallowing something because of the tingling heat it gave off. Steve watched as the glow disappeared and darkness engulfed them. He all but stopped breathing, and for a moment, it seemed as though nothing was going to happen as Jane lowered the empty vial with a frown. Then the air around them changed from a gusty wind to an abrupt absence of movement of any kind. About two seconds passed before it started just as suddenly as it stopped, only this time it all rushed toward Jane like she was the eye of a storm.
There was a deep, dull bang that shook the earth and it brought Jane to her knees, knocking the others off kilter. The rush of air toward her grew stronger and stronger, and she had to use all of her strength to withstand the crushing force. Steve righted himself and tried to approach her, but there was some kind of gravitational disturbance around her. Even though all the air was rushing towards her he could not get any closer than he was, an invisible force beyond his strength kept him back. Try as he might, he couldn't get to her. Dog was barking and yelping next to Bucky, his hackles raised and his teeth bared.
Her head fell back and her voice split the night as the power of the force began to overwhelm her. The others were all trying their best to get to her, but they encountered the same problem as Steve. He was beside himself. The power rushing to her continued to grow, and soon it began pulling what little light there was around them into itself.
Critical mass arrived for Jane as she felt herself fail under the crushing weight and at that moment she understood that all she could do was to surrender, so she did.
Steve watched, helpless, as there was an implosion darker than the darkness where Jane was, followed by a moment devoid of all sound and all light. He had the sensation that it grew deeper for a moment before a shockwave sent them all flying through the air, landing a considerable distance away.
As soon as he collided with the ground, he worked to right himself, his eyes searching for her. She wasn't there. He ran toward the spot where she'd been not a moment before only to find the earth bare and scorched. The gusty wind returned, but she was gone.
The others came running, arriving at the same place he was. Stunned silence.
"What just happened?" breathed Shuri, her ears ringing.
Steve sank to his knees as his heart cracked and broke in his chest. His lungs were battling to find the air to sustain him through the pain and in the blink of an eye he felt like he'd just woken up out of the ice again.
A deep orange glow tore his gaze from the spot where she'd been. The others saw it too and looked up as the cloud bank began glowing brighter and brighter like a fire was growing in it.
The fire focussed to a point, and a burning object erupted from the cloudbank. It was travelling so fast that it hit the earth right as they saw it. Steve judged it to have fallen about twenty miles away. The soundwave dragged the shockwave behind a wall of scorching hot air, and for the second time that night, everyone went flying.
As he regained his composure, he could hear Dog barking in the distance. Looking in the direction of the sound, he found him already inside the Fighter, desperately calling to them, and something inside him knew it was her.
The dishevelled team clambered into the ship, everyone understanding that they had to get to the crash site first. Shuri took off before the ramp closed. Nat collapsed against the wall, clutching her wrist. Sam was nursing a bloody nose, and Nakia had a broad graze on her arm. Shuri seemed to have come out of it alright, and Steve ran his hand over his still hot cheek, noticing his slightly singed beard.
They began descending again in mere moments, and Steve jumped out of the ship before it touched the ground, breaking into a run towards a rising plume of smoke. The crater left by the impact was big enough to park three busses in. He paused on the edge as the others caught up, squinting into the centre through the thick smoke. Glowing embers seared and whistled around the crater. Dog was barking again, and Shuri was struggling with him on the leash.
"I'm going in," Steve told the others.
"Not by yourself you're not," said T'Challa as he and Bucky followed him down the steep incline, slipping in the loose earth. As they closed in on the centre, Steve could make out the outline of a figure lying on the ground, and his pace quickened.
She was curled up on her side, her suit different and glowing with reams of runes, unconscious. He dropped to his knees next to her.
"Jane?" he said her name as if he'd just now learned it for the first time, touching her shoulder carefully, afraid that she was scorching. To his surprise, she felt quite cool. She didn't respond.
"We've got to get her out of here," said Bucky with urgency thick in his voice. Steve carefully slipped his arm under her shoulder. He gathered her legs in his other arm and rolled her up into his embrace where his tattered heart reached for her through his ribs.
"I've got you," he whispered to her.
T'Challa and Bucky were halfway out, and he followed until his battle with the loose side of the crater was won, and he ran with her to the Fighter.
As Shuri took off, he sat down with her, unwilling to let go, Dog whining and sniffing around her.
"Is she alive?" implored Shuri as Nat searched for a pulse on Jane's neck with two fingers, for a moment, she couldn't find anything.
"Nat..." Steve willed her to speak.
"Wait, wait... it's faint, but it's there, she's alive!" Nat sat back as relief flooded the Fighter.
"Let's not do that ever again!" exclaimed Sam.
"Whatever that was," mumbled Nakia.
Shuri put the Fighter down at their earlier rendezvous point, and they made their way back to their plain-sight hiding place on foot. They slipped onto the grounds of the Forum Homini hotel undetected, and Steve made for their room, the others on his heels.
He lay Jane down on the bed and touched her bracelet to change her out of her suit, but nothing happened.
"I think this is broken," he said absentmindedly as he shifted her gently until he thought she was comfortable.
"Well it wasn't exactly designed to withstand re-entry into earth's atmosphere," quipped Shuri, "I'm surprised she's still wearing a suit at all." She pushed past Steve and began checking Jane's vitals. She checked them a good four times before she stood back with her hands on her hips.
"Her heart is beating, she's breathing, her pupils are responding, her reflexes are fine," she finished her sentence in her head, just as Bucky said the words out loud.
"But she's not waking up."
"Well, not to sound negative or anything, but she did just fall to earth from who knows where, after she was sucked out of existence by God knows what." Sam offered his sobriety.
There was a quiet nod of agreement form Bucky and T'Challa. Steve sat down on the edge of the bed, not taking his eyes off Jane.
"Sam's right," said Nakia, "we just need to give her some time."
"We don't exactly have that in spades," reminded Nat.
T'Challa motioned to Jane. "We have no choice."
The party stood in silence for a while as they each pondered the now looming reality of facing what may be in the ground without the knowledge Jane might have gained.
Steve finally spoke. "Get some rest; I have a feeling we're gonna need it."
The room slowly emptied until it was just Jane, Steve, Nat and Dog.
"Are you going to be okay?" asked Nat.
"She's here isn't she?" he answered her with a rhetorical question.
Natasha smiled and frowned at the same moment. She was worried about him. They'd come very close to losing Jane tonight, and she didn't know what would've happened if they did. She shuddered at the thought.
"Let me know if you need anything," she said as she looked over her shoulder in the doorway.
"Thanks, Nat." He answered.
He heard the door slide shut with a click. He brushed a stray lock of hair off Jane's cheek and kissed her forehead, whispering, "come back to me."
He looked down at himself. There was fresh damage to his combat suit, and there were grazes of dried mud where he'd met the ground. He stood up and stripped off the suit as he made his way to the shower. His ears were alert to the slightest sound through the pour of the water, in case she woke up. His mind was tumbling with the events of the night, and after all of it, he worried at what she'd been through, where she'd gone.
He finished up and found her where he left her, with Dog sleeping on the mat next to the bed, he looked up as Steve approached, his tail wagging lazily. Steve pulled the covers over Jane and slipped in next to her, switching off the bedside lamp in the process. He lay awake for a long time before sleep finally turned worry into uneasy dreams.
It was later than usual when Steve jolted awake. His eyes blinked open, and it took him a moment to remember where he was. He turned his head to check if she was still alright to find her on her side, facing away from him, her suit gone.
He pushed himself up on his elbow. Looking her over he realised that she must be sleeping or woke up in the night and passed out again. As if hearing his thoughts she rolled onto her back, her eyes opening to see him staring at her.
She was suddenly desperate for him and he sat up against the pillows as she climbed onto his lap and nestled in his neck.
"Hey..." he whispered. "Are you okay?"
She considered his question for a moment.
"I'll be okay."
Steve frowned as he kissed her hair.
"What happened?"
She sighed. "Is it alright if I'm just here with you for a while before we do that?"
"Yeah, of course, it is," he answered.
After a while, she turned in his arms and saw in his eyes the stain of everything that happened the night before. She straddled herself over him so she was facing him and ran her fingers through his beard.
"I kept my promise," she whispered.
Steve frowned.
"I came back to you."
He pulled her into a deep kiss, conveying everything that he was feeling, and let her pull him back out of the ice. Before he knew it he was lost with her and he loved it. His hands wandered down to her hips and just as he slipped his fingers under her shirt, he heard footsteps on the deck outside and broke the kiss to see who it was.
Nat and Bucky. He looked longingly into Jane's eyes as she moved off him, and stood next to the bed, pulling her clothes back into place before walking to the door. Steve pulled the covers up over his lap.
"You're awake!" Exclaimed Nat as Jane slid open the door and she threw her arms around her. "Are you okay?" She asked, holding Jane at arm's length to inspect her.
"I'll be okay."
"What happened?" asked Bucky.
Jane's eyes fell to the floor with a frown as her smile faded and Bucky and Nat looked at Steve where he was thinking about baseball on the bed.
"Has she told you what happened?" Bucky asked him.
"She wasn't ready to."
Nat was trying not to smirk as she guessed at why Steve hadn't got up.
"I guess you haven't been watching the news then?" She asked as she reached for the remote and switched on the TV, flicking to a news channel.
The Umsuka site, along with the brand new crater and the scorched spot where Jane had disappeared was swarming with people, vehicles of all shapes and sizes and white tents appearing like mushrooms
Jane looked at the TV in horror.
"We need to get those people away from there!" she all but shouted.
Nat and Bucky turned to look at her and Steve go up out of bed and walked over to her.
"What's going on?"
"Can we get the others?" she asked, her eyes brimming with tears, "I think it's better if I told all of you at the same time"
Nat called T'Challa and ten minutes later, Sam, Nakia, Shuri and T'Challa walked into the room. They were all very happy that Jane was awake. Shuri hugged her and stepped back with concern etched on her face.
"Can we all form a circle and take the hand of the person next to you?" asked Jane.
"What? Are we singing kumbaya?" Quipped Sam.
Steve shot him a look.
Jane swallowed the hard lump in her throat before she spoke. "What I am going to show you will be frightening to you, but please, do not be afraid."
Steve frowned as he looked at Jane and just as she caught his eye, the world dissolved away and he was no longer in the hotel room.