Hey! So I took a break from this story for a couple months I think and I just recently started back up again. I really love writing it so I couldn't stay away for much longer. I know my writing isn't perfect but this story is something fun that I like to share with fellow fans. This chapter is shorter than the last but very important. Hope you all enjoy! Please review I love hearing from you guy!
We landed in Sokovia in the early morning, the sun was barely peeking up over the horizon. It was a calm beauty with the sky painted hues of soft pinks, yellows and blues. But it was a false sense of security. No matter how pretty the sky was, it didn't stop the fact that we were about to enter into battle yet again.
I don't know what it was about today but it just felt unlucky. So far we've been extremely lucky and there was a heavy feeling of dread hanging over us that this time we wouldn't get away untouched.
Clint was able to land us in an empty parking lot towards the south side of the town. The plus of using a small jet like this one is that you could practically land it anywhere. Cap didn't add anything to his pep talk from earlier, so the cabin was filled with a tense silence.
We quickly finished up what needed to be done; strapping on utility belts, tightening shoe laces, syncing our comms, and I secured the filtration mask snuggly over my nose and mouth. When Tony first suggested that he make one I immediately thought WWII gas mask and firmly vetoed that idea. I didn't think the look would exactly scream 'I'm here to help!', but Stark designed a sleek mask that just looked like a flattened white bubble over my mouth. I still think I look ridiculous but it's better than it could have been.
Stepping out of the jet, the first thing I noticed was a huge graffiti Captain America head marked up with I imagine to be Sokovian curse words. Steve let out a sigh and I couldn't help but crack a smile and laugh. It was probably all the stress but the whole thing just tickled me pink and I could not stop laughing. Steve sent me a glare and I raised up my hands in surrender. Hey, Clint and the others are laughing too, why single me out?
"What? I'm just appreciating the local art." I laughed, a grin spreading across my face. My cheeks strained a bit with the expression, it had been a while since I'd used those muscles. The super soldier huffed but just rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, it's wonderful. I can only imagine what it says." Steve replied dryly.
"Well I would translate, but you don't like that kind of language." I teased. Steve made a move to rebuttal but Wanda cut him off.
"The bridge is the main route out." Wanda informed us. Although she didn't comment on the beautiful artwork, I could still see traces of humor on her face.
"We can cover the other roads." Pietro added.
"Aright, let's wake everyone up and get them out of here." Cap commanded. The twins nodded and Pietro took off to start the evacuation. Steve took one last glance at his cartoon depiction and shook his head. As Clint walked past him, he slapped his hand on Cap's shoulder and commented,
"It's not bad." I laughed again and followed Clint into town, leaving Steve with his lovely portrayal.
Thor took off with Vision to locate Ultron and Tony had taken Bruce to go find Natasha before we landed, Stark was able to use Clint's data to track down the red head so they had a pretty good idea where to find her. I was relieved that we knew where she was, but who knows what condition she'll be in once they actually find her.
I sighed. It was the calm before the storm, everything was asleep except for the occasion tweeting of birds already awake for the day. Clint and I had unofficially partnered up for the time being. We were walking together and clearing out buildings where we could. Every once in a while a flash of blue would zip passed followed by a flow of evacuees pouring out of homes. Clint and I would then direct then towards the bridge.
It would have been better to split up and cover more ground, but there an unspoken rule between us that we were going to watch over one another. I was watching Clint because I made myself a promise that he would make it back to Laura. And always thought it was his priority to keep me safe, I think it's because I'm the youngest and remind him of his kids.
Slowly, a steady flow of Sokovians made their way into the streets. Some dressed completely and others just in their pajamas. But almost all wore a disheveled and slightly disgruntled look. That was better than fear and panic though. If we could keep them as calm as possible for as long as possible then we would be golden.
"Do you think we can get them all out in time?" I asked Clint.
"Let's hope so." He replied gruffly fiddling with an arrow head. We made our way to the bridge that led out of the city. It jam packed full of cars and people hurrying to evacuate. They were moving too slowly for my liking. The faster they moved the better chance they had at survival.
Wanda came into view on the other side of the square. She easily stuck out in her red get up and it was hard to miss the streams of red energy coming from her hands. When the brunette woman saw me, she nodded and made her way over.
"This part of the city is clear, Pietro is still working on the northern part." Her blue eyes were wary and a little anxious, but she seemed to be holding up pretty well so far. This was the easy part though.
"Good, this might actually work out." Clint said. And of course as soon as he finished speaking there was a humming in the distance that sounded very similar to a small aircraft quickly approaching. Barton and I shared a look. Here we go, I thought.
I moved closer to the bridge where Cap was standing while Wanda and Clint flanked the sides. The crowds' chatter had died down nervously at the noise and we waited together in anticipation. As the sound got closer it sounded less like a small plane and more like a buzzing. I furrowed my eyebrows and there it was.
In the distance I could see the distinct glint of sun on metal swiftly approaching the town. With a feeling of dread, I realized that Ultron had released his army. My heart rate sped up as Cap flew into action, yelling for people to start running.
The people started screaming and the crowd surged forward, dropping their unnecessary items in favor of running for their lives. I had to jump on top of an abandoned car to avoid being trampled by the townspeople.
I waited until the very last moment I could, pulling in energy before expanding a barrier the size of a tennis court over the evacuees. The robots smashed into it forcefully, whether they were trying to break it down or they didn't have time to move out of the way it didn't matter to me.
"Get off the bridge!" Wanda shouted, pushing people away from the potential hazard. They didn't need to be told twice, like a switch the crowd lurched back towards the city.
I cringed as some of Ultron's bots repeatedly rammed into my shield, it was just one after the other smashing into it with no regard for how many robots got demolished in the process. Out of the corner of my eye I saw one come in from behind a building and straight for a group of citizens, so with one hand I blasted a burst of energy at it causing the machine to break down and fall to the ground. One down, millions more to go.
We should have come up with a better evacuation plan because the way the people had scattered made it impossible for me to protect all of them. I was able to keep a majority out of harm's way with a massive shield but there were a couple dozen that ran in the opposite direction and out of range.
"Wanda, the people!" I yelled pointing the group nearest to her. I was immensely grateful that we had another enhanced to help us out. Immediately she sprinted over to the alleyway where a clump of civilians had ran into. Hot on her trail were a few metal men, I watched in horror as they opened fire on the crowd. But thankfully Wanda manifested a red wall in front of them, blocking the attacks.
"Run!" She told them. The Maximoff girl didn't much experience with barriers so after a few hits, it dropped and they got a shot in at her and she tumbled to the ground with a grunt. Crap. I glanced back at my own shield and found that I was no longer the focus of the robots attack, most of the people had already fled this area. So I let my energy dissolve and took a second to relish in the feeling of it returning to me before I dashed over to Wanda.
She appeared to only be stunned by the shot, I think most of her energy caught the attack before it could damage her. But none the less I encased her in a protective bubble while I summoned a solid ball of energy and hurled it at the robots in front of her, destroying them on contact.
"Thanks." She said catching her breath. I gave her a hand and pulled her up.
"We got to go, this can't be the only place Ultron is focusing his attacks on." Wanda nodded and we ran back towards in the inner city where most of the robots had congregated. I tried not to let the out of focused look in her eyes bother me, but she didn't look good. I didn't think about it too long though because I became preoccupied with a heard of robots trying to kill me.
Robots were spilling out of shops, rooftops and they were even coming up out of the gutters. It's New York all over again. A huge invasion. An overwhelming sense of fear and hopelessness made its way to the surface but I stifled it as best I could. Now was not the time to lose my shit.
Instead I focused on the mission. Protect the Sokovians. It was simple enough to cover the civilians while Steve, Wanda, and Hawkeye took down the robots, but man I forgot how tiring prolonged combat actually was. That was probably the hardest part, the robots went down relatively easily but there was many of them it felt like it was useless to even fight at all.
A string of robots appeared ahead of me, all raising their arms in preparation to fire. I glanced at the barriers I had constructed around random groups of civilians and tried to think of a way to deflect the oncoming personal on slot and still protect the others. I couldn't think fast enough though so I focused on strengthening the barriers and braced for impact but in a bluish gray blur the robots were all dismantled.
"You are good, yes?" Pietro asked and he slid to a halt next to me. His expression serious for once and his hair was a hug windblown mess. It took me a second to respond, my body was still waiting to get shot.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Go check on Wanda she looked like she could use some help." I told him once I snapped out of it. He nodded and zipped off in the direction I had pointed him in.
There was a deep rumble in the ground and I stumbled as the earth shook. An earthquake? Perfect timing, sure why not? The earth split open twenty feet away from me and I created a bridge of energy to fill the gap and catch the unlucky few who were caught on the rift. They scrambled off and managed to scamper back to relative safety.
"What the hell is going on?" I whispered to myself, grabbing on to a street sign to stay standing upright. "Guys update?" I asked into the comms.
"Sokovia is going for a ride." Friday's voice cut over the communications line. My eyes widened, a ride? What kind of ride? A couple of Ultron's robots flew closer to my position, and instead of attacking the started spouting out some crap about how humanity will rise and fall. Honestly it was terrifying but also a little strange. Was there normally this much talking during a fight?
"There's a magnetic field around the city, keeping us up in the air. Sarah do think your electromagnetic energy would be enough to cancel it out?" Tony questioned. An overwhelmed laughed escaped my lips.
"Probably not Stark, and even if I could, we would be free falling." I replied honestly.
"Ah, right. OK new plan…"I waited for him to continue but he didn't say anything more. "I'll get back to with that." I rolled my eyes, very helpful.
A robot crashed into Cap and he flew several yards into a car. I flinched as I heard the air forcibly leave his lungs. We were going nowhere fast. It was all fine and dandy to protect all these people but with no way to get them to the ground, it was a futile effort. Regardless, I fell into an odd pattern. Find civilian under attack, protect civilian, crush robot, get them to safety, repeat…and then repeat some more.
"Cap you got incoming." Tony informed us. Steve groaned and pull himself into a sitting position.
"Incoming already came." I watched Wanda leading a boy into an alleyway and noticed that she hadn't seen the robots heading after her. Rushing forward, I ran to cover her, but Clint fired an arrow and beat me to it. The boy ran into a building and away from the immediate action so I turned to head back out but half a dozen robots appeared up above blocking the way.
"Go, go, go!" Clint shouted as he pushed Wanda into an abandoned building. The robots moved in after them so I shielded the entryway, preventing them from getting to my teammates. They hid in there for a few moments, I'm guessing they hadn't noticed my barrier yet. I ballooned it around us until it completely covered the building as I waited for the two to get their acts together.
Any day now Barton.
As if on cue, Clint barreled out of the door and I dropped the shield so he could get a clean shot in at the robots. He yanked me down behind a car as an explosive flew past us. We shared a look, we both knew we were in way over our heads. But Clint looked fine so far, despite a few cuts and bruises here and there but otherwise unharmed.
Wanda then burst out of the dilapidated doors and with little effort she destroyed the remaining robots as Barton and I watched in fascination. Her red energy was flying around in the air, manipulating the metal men and destroying them. Clint and Wanda shared a nod and Wanda smiled a bit, I suddenly had the feeling that I was out of the loop on something. Then a streak of gray ran between us causing my ponytail to whip my face.
"Keep up old man." Came Pietro's voice as he promptly snatched up his sister and sped away. I smirked but then remembered that no one could see it because of the filter I had on. Clint huffed in annoyance and drew back his bow and arrow.
"No one would know." He muttered as he aimed in the direction that the Maximoffs had just left. "Nobody…" I rolled my eyes as he released the tension in his weapon and restocked his arrow.
"Clint." I chided stepping over a fallen door. The archer started running down the street, doing his best to avoid the rubble.
"Hey last we saw him, Ultron was sitting on him. Yeah he'll be missed, quick little bastard. I miss him already." Clint joked. I laughed and ran alongside him. That was another reason I hung around Clint, he was funnier than the others.
I met up with Cap and Wanda, and walked with them to the town hall while Clint did a sweep around a row of abandoned buildings. A good portion of the citizens were redirected here once the bridge had been compromised. Pietro was missing from the group so he must have dropped Wanda and gone off on his own.
The city looked awful, it resembled a war zone more now than a bustling town. Walls were caved in, there were fallen trees and there was a heavy haze of dust and smoke hanging over. I sent a quick prayer in thanks of the filtration mask.
There was a lull in the fighting at the moment and more than anything I hoped the dusk clouds stayed where they were. They made it more difficult to see where I was walking and while that was annoying but it also helped hide the bloodied bodies that littered the ground. I did my best to ignore them for now and promised myself that I would deal with the emotional trauma later. That, however, didn't stop the bile from rising up in my throat.
"Avengers, we're leading civilians to the town hall, try and meet us there." I heard Steve say both in person and over the communication device to the absent team members. The Sokovian people were rushing indoors but Cap lead us around to the side of the building underneath a crumbling pavilion.
It was minute, but I could feel the air thinning as our flying city rose higher and higher. It wasn't a problem right now, but give it time and I would have to find an evacuation route, or an oxygen tank.
That line of thinking was quickly dropped when a familiar read head came into view.
"Natasha!" I exclaimed in relief. She shot me a grin and said,
"Hey kiddo, long time no see. Rogers." I rushed over to her and threw my arms around her shoulders. Natasha wasn't usually one for hugging, but she gave me a couple good pats on the back.
"Romanoff." Steve acknowledged.
"Are you OK? What happened? Where's Bruce?" Nat laughed a little at all my questions.
"I'm fine, he just kept me locked up. And he hulked out so he's somewhere." She said waving her hand around vaguely. Nat's eyes moved passed us and landed on Wanda. Her eyebrow lifted.
"Is that my jacket?" Wanda awkwardly looked down at the red leather jacket she had swiped from the tower.
"She's with us now." Steve replied avoiding the question. Nat had a thing about others messing with her stuff.
"Still doesn't explain my jacket." Tasha rebuked with a scowl.
"Fighting these robots is getting us nowhere." Clint intervened walking to stand next to his partner. His face was as blank as always but his relaxed stance betrayed his relief at seeing Tasha alive and well. "The air's getting thin, if we go up much higher people will start dropping." I stared at the ground stubbornly as I felt my teammates glance at me.
"Hey, Nat. Long time no see." Clint added.
"Hey, that's my line." She said bumping his arm with her elbow. "So what's the situation?"
"There are people in the city still hiding." Wanda said worriedly. Steve nodded in affirmation and told her,
"Get em out. Barton watch her six." Clint gave Nat a reassuring grin before taking off after the Sokovian girl leaving the three us behind.
"Now what?" Nat asked striding closer to us. I couldn't help but smile at her again, I was so happy she was back.
"We fight robots." Steve instructed plainly. Natasha grinned and whipped out her electrified batons. A gush of wind blew past me, pulling loose some blonde strands from my hair tie and Pietro appeared holding up a severed metal arm.
"Today? We fight robots today?" He said excitedly, he was all hyped up and energized like he running on pure adrenaline. Where was he getting this energy? The rest of us looked like sluggish senior citizens in comparison.
"Or is next month better for you?" Pietro teased sarcastically before tossing the arm at Cap.
"We get it, we're slow." I said drolly while rolling my eyes, suddenly feeling more energized myself. The speedster smirked and sent me a wink as he flashed away. He was so annoying.
The robots just kept coming. No matter how many we destroyed they just kept coming back like cockroaches. Steve told us that the next wave was going to hit any minutes and I wasn't sure if I would be able to keep this up. My body was tired at this point whatever energy I had earlier was gone now.
And I didn't have enough stamina to reign in my supernatural energy either, it was just floating around me in little translucent wisps. And of course, my stomach still felt like it was on fire. Those pain pills puttered out in a pitiful amount of time.
"Do you see the beauty of it? The inevitability? You rise, only to fall. You, Avengers, you are my meteor." I whipped around and stared at one of Ultron's bots. I was getting really tired of all the monologue-ing really fast. "My swift and terrible sword and the Earth will crack with the weight of your failure. Purge me from your computers; turn my own flesh against me." Hawkeye shot the drone that was babbling incessantly about our destruction and it fell to the ground, only to have another one takes its place.
"It means nothing! When the dust settles, the only thing living in this world, will be metal!" The robot declared before I effectively obliterated it angrily with one quick swipe of energy.
"Can you believe this guy? It's like he's never going to shut u-" Clint's words were cut off by a huge explosion that went off so close to me I was blown back several feet. It had come as a huge surprise, I wasn't able to protect myself.
I slammed into the ground and I felt rather than heard the whoosh of air as it was crushed out of my lungs. I gasped and painfully tried to suck in large gulps of air. If I could, I would have cried out. I wouldn't be able to hear it anyway, there was a loud ringing in my ears that blocked out everything else.
I attempted to sit up but my arms gave out as a wave of vertigo passed through me. Vaguely I noticed the building I had been standing next was up in flames.
A pairs of hands hoisted me up jerkily and it took a couple seconds to register that I had been moved into an abandoned building. I blinked my eyes quickly, trying to clear the debris from them but my eyes were having trouble refocusing. All I could do was gasp like a fish out of water until I recovered and pray that this didn't trigger and asthma attack.
It was dark in the room and I could just barely make out a humanoid figure. Out of fear and without rationality I tried to stand up and defend myself, but a hand shoved my shoulders back onto the floor.
There was a flurry of motions in front of my face and it took me longer than it should have to recognize that Clint was waving his hands around. Why was he doing that? He was mouthing something to me but I couldn't quite make out the words, I've never been a good lip reader.
"What?" I rasped. I wasn't sure if he heard me or not so I tried to speak louder. Clint's grey eyes widened and he slapped a hand over my mouth. What was he doing?! He brought a single finger up to his lips and shook his head. Oh, he wants me to be quiet, I realized dumbly.
Clint started waving his hands again in odd motions and with a foggy mind I tried to make sense of it. Tears of frustration welled up in my eyes, I had no idea what he was trying to do! I just wanted to be able to hear something other than this awful ringing!
Clint stopped what he was doing and made the motion for calm down. Something made him jump and he looked around warily again before relaxing. Then slowly he started moving his hands again and his mouth simultaneously. My breathing was starting to even out again so I could concentrate enough to just make out,
"Can you hear anything?" In sign language. Of course! That makes complete sense, the blast took out my hearing and Clint knows that I speak sign language. Wow, that explosion must have taken out some brain cells along with my hearing. Shakily I responded.
"No, just a ringing in my ears." Barton nodded and messed with my belt for a couple seconds.
"It's not permanent, your hearing will come back." He reassured me and I exhaled in relief. Clint helped pull me up into a sitting position and uncap my inhaler. Oh, duh.
"Can you do this by yourself?" I nodded and took it from him. I had forgotten that I had my inhaler with me. Stark had an extra one at the Tower and had given it to me on the flight over. After breathing in the medicine deeply my lungs started to feel much better.
"This area has cleared out for now, are you good to go back to the others?" He signed.
"I'll be ok, my hearing is getting better. I'll get back to you on the nausea though." Clint watched me for a few more seconds debating whether or not it was ok to let me head back out. He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts and offered me a hand. I let him pull me up and we made our way back outside.
"Stay close, I'll be your ears for right now."
"Oh, good. The deaf leading the deaf." If there wasn't a possibility of me having a concussion, I was positive Clint would have slapped the back of my head.
The sun was high above us, or was it? It was hard to tell with all the clouds and dust obstructing our view. Well, wherever the sun was, it was definitely later in the morning, probably almost noon. Clint left me with Steve and Natasha while he went to go check in on Wanda.
Apparently Tony started to explain his plan, Nat had to translate. I wasn't aware that she knew sign language until today. Given her motions were a lot clumsier than Clint, she did the job. The plan didn't sound (no pun intended) too great, it involved blowing up the city. But so far it was the only plan we had.
Cap repeated that he wanted a solution, not an escape plan. But Stark explained that the impact radius was getting bigger every second. I could feel the air getting thinner, we were definitely getting up there.
"Cap these people are getting nowhere." Natasha reminded, even though she was signing this my hearing was good enough that I could understand her. I grimaced, we definitely couldn't blow this thing up if civilians were still on it. But Stark had said that the impact radius was getting wider and wider the longer we were up here. What was us up here compared to all those lives down there?
"There's worse ways to go." Tears stung at the corners of my eyes at how inevitable it all felt, she wasn't wrong. Nat looked out at the clouds that we were now floating above, "Where else am I gunna get a view like this?" A sad chuckled worked its way up and Nat sent me a smile, one that I returned, not that she could see through my mask though.
She was right of course. What better way to go out than to be with friends and saving the world.
"Glad you like the view Romanoff, it's about to get better." Fury's voce cut in, now that I heard loud and clear! Startled I glanced around, looking for the one eyed man. I didn't have to look much further than the enormous helicarrier rising up from the clouds. A bubble of joy and relief settled in my stomach, now they were getting somewhere!
"Nice right?" Fury said as if reading our minds, "Pulled her out of mothballs with a couple of old friends. She's dusty, but she'll do." Ha 'she'll do'? Like he doesn't know how perfect this is.
"Fury you son of a bitch." Cap commented, voice laced with relief.
"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" I teased him, earning a halfhearted glare. Nat sent me a started look, but I signed that I could hear pretty well now.
"You're never gunna live that one down Stevey-boy." Natasha informed him. I watched giddily as the helicarrier released dozens of boats that headed directly to the floating city, ready to evacuate the Sokovian people.
"This is SHIELD?" Pietro asked in amazement. I jumped a bit, I hadn't even seen him.
"This is what SHIELD is supposed to be." Cap informed him proudly, his tired expression smoothing out. Pietro nodded and with a smile he added,
"This is no so bad." No, not bad at all. Now all we had to do was get everyone on the ship and destroy the city. Easy peasy.
I glanced over at the Sokovian and frowned when I saw his bloodied arm.
"You got shot?" I asked with my eyebrows raised. He peered down at me and then at his arm before shrugging.
"It was accident." I scoffed at this.
"I certainly hope so. I thought you were too fast to get shot?" I added. Again he shrugged and sent me grin.
"I was distracted by a beautiful girl." Rolling my eyes I snorted. Leave it to a guy to get shot because he was checking out some chick.
"Poor girl." I commented, earning an even wider grin. The speedster leaned down closer to me.
"I was talking about you." He informed me, smirking as my cheeks heated up. Was that comment really necessary?
"Oh." Was the most intelligent thing I could come up with. I was grateful that my mask covered most of my face, hopefully I could find a burlap sack to stick over my head so I could just hide my embarrassment easier.
"Alright you two, let's load 'em up." Steve said, thankfully stopping me from embarrassing myself any further.
Hope you all liked it! Please review!