A/N: Hello everyone! Hope this chapter isn't too late. And I truly hope you enjoy it!
"I'll go stop Romanoff. You take care of the rest," he says.
"Wouldn't it be better the other way around?" I ask. But he is already gone around the corner. I grumble all the way as I go in the opposite direction, which I hope is a fairly accurate choice of where the rest are.
While jogging aimlessly, I press the communicator against my ear. All the lines are coming through, so I need to concentrate hard to find the right information. It's sort of like listening through white noise, only worse. Finally, I hear a faint echo saying, "I'm at the rear engines, Capsicle. Tell me when you make it to the control pad outside." I immediately take a turn that will lead me to their side of the helicarrier. When the corridor diverges into two, I stop for a second. The one on the left leads to the engines, and the one on the rights leads to the control panels. I bite my lip, going a couple of steps to the right before going to the left, and then stopping altogether in the middle. Closing my eyes, I try to think of the most strategic action. If this is a trap - and it's looking more like one by the second - who would need more help? The answer now is obvious. I go down the corridor on the left.
I make a final sprint towards where Tony is. There are significantly less people here, so it's easier to make it through. I reach the door to the outside engines just as Tony is about to go through it. "Stop!" I shout. He turns around, surprised. I must look like a mess, with my hair disheveled and smoke remnants probably on my face. But my appearance is the last thing on my mind right now.
"Trap... repeat... don't go," I say, not sure if I'm making sense. I pant, trying to organize my thoughts. He just looks at me in that same strange way with his mask up.
"Ok, kid, let's try that again. But make it quick," he says.
I take a deep breath and let it all out in one go. "The crazy guy is repeating everything that Loki did in the same way, so if you do what you're doing, he'll predict your actions and you'll be falling into a trap."
He stays silent and processes that information for a while. He's quite slow today. After a moment, he winces, as if he has a sudden headache. His eyes dilate very subtly, but it's enough for me to notice now that I know what to look for. Just at that moment, I hear Rogers saying that he's ready. "You're not making any sense," Tony says, making for the door. I slip in between him and enter the outside, slamming the door behind me and locking it from this side. He immediately bangs on the door. "What do you think you're doing?" he asks, the sound muffled by the heavy metal.
I wish I knew the answer. The wind blows strongly around me, tossing my loosened hair in uncontrollable waves. I take the leisurely time of putting it back in a ponytail. I pull the gun out of my holder and carefully sneak around the area. Although I don't really know how this trap thing works, I assume that there will be at least some people around to operate it. The corner made by the round engine looks suspicious. I'm only a couple steps around it when a metal ball rolls towards me.
Instinctively, I kick it as far away from me as I can, but its heavy weight doesn't allow it to roll off the edge. I duck, expecting a bomb explosion. But the only thing I hear is a high-pitched screech.
Opening my eyes in slits, I realize that nothing has happened. I cautiously walk over to the ball to examine it. It has now opened, sort of like a clamshell, and is gently rocking. I crouch down and examine it more closely, taking care not to touch it directly. Touching strange objects burnt me once today already, which is enough. The center of the ball is filled with colorful wires and what looks like plasma. It's a pity that engineering is not my strong subject, or I would be able to know what it is. And, more importantly, whether it is a threat to me or not. I try to make an educated guess by looking at it from many angles, as if that will help. I'm examining it closely when the shiny surface reflects a figure behind me.
I swivel around and dive to my right, hearing the bang of a gun and the swish of a bullet a couple inches from my ear. My head rings from the sound. I loosen the weak force field I've been putting around the helicarrier and use it to protect myself. Several bullets ping off the wall. Before I even get the chance to focus my eyes, I fire a couple shots towards the shadows that surround me. When my vision clears, I see a few bodies lying on the ground and more people surrounding me, still trying to shoot me. It's easy to pick the rest off. With a couple of shots, all is quiet and still.
I stand up and survey the area. The bodies lie around me, almost enclosing me in. A shiver runs down my back, even though I try to remain stoic. I stay for a while, just looking at each of them in turn, but not really seeing. The wind tosses my hair and creates waves through my loose shirt. I try to keep my mind clear and empty, which works for a while, but I can feel some thoughts creeping in. Just when I can feel myself start to think, the floor lurches to one side as the engine next to me makes a spluttering sound. That pushes my thoughts to the side, making me focus on the obviously more immediate matters. I open the door, expecting Tony to come barging in, but find that there is no one on the other side. Confused, I look both ways, and find him leaning on a wall. His head is bent downwards and he looks as though he will soon slump down. I quickly rush up to him.
"What's wrong?" I ask.
His answer is muffled through his mask. In an irritated manner, he forces it up with his hand. "Something interfered with my systems. Almost everything shut down. I still need to get them back up again."
I think hard about that for a moment. I go and retrieve the metal ball, taking care to step over the bodies without actually looking at them. I bring it to him, snapping my fingers to get his attention. He looks up.
"Get that thing away from me," he says, slapping it from my hand. It rolls, making a clinking sound until it stops by a wall. So it is what I thought it was. A pinch: a device that shuts down all other electric devices.
This just confirms the whole trap conspiracy.
"It already activated. When I went to the engines, it rolled towards me. Which would have been you, had I let you go in."
I can see him think about that, narrowing his eyes. In the meantime, his systems reboot, lighting up his suit. "Are my eyes blue?" he finally asks.
I actually take it seriously and peer into them. "Not really," I say. "I think that, for whatever reason, you just have a predisposition to do exactly what you did last time."
He nods slowly. He starts suddenly, as if from a realization. "We need to go stop the others."
I almost jump. Barton was only going to stop Romanoff, and the rest were my job. I check my watch and find that I've already spent five minutes dealing with this. That's plenty of time for... the worst to happen.
He makes a gesture for us to go, when the floor lurches to one side again. "I think you should fix the engines," I say.
He looks hesitant. "You sure you can do it by yourself?"
I bite my lip but nod in what I hope looks like a confident manner. "Sure. How hard could it be?"