27 final call
There was a cool arm under the back of my knees and a burning one cradling my bouncing head against a strong chest. Bucky's calming scent washed over me as I shifted back and force in the careful embrace as he carried me steadily further uphill. My eyes were laden with lead and refused to open more than a slit. The morning sky was the color of pepto bismal, or maybe that's just an association to the fact that I felt like vomiting everywhere. A few clouds lingered in the air, timid in build, afraid of what was to come, afraid to draw attention by fleeing.
We must be on a walking trail, because otherwise I would not have been able to see through the thick tangle of trees that now merely passed on the outskirts of my vision. I may not have my abilities anymore, but I could tell how still the air was. Just like when Hugh invaded the safe house in Florida. Not a bird streaked through the air or cawed with its usual morning vigor.
Shutting my eyes against the tense whispers that my ears began to pick up, I drew a steadying breath. We were still trudging uphill, so the encounter hadn't occurred yet. I might have been useful conscious or untied, but they had taken matters into their own hands. So much for trusting me.
A tug at my wrists told of the loosely bounds ropes there and similar knots sat about my ankles. When I flicked my tongue out to sooth my raw lips, it met the gag in place. Any other situation where I was in bondage with Bucky, this might have been a turn on. As it was, I really just wanted to break his nose just a little bit.
"Just stay still," Bucky murmured feeling me stir in his arms.
"Fuck you," I stated, though it came out indistinguishable. I think he got the gist from my tone. Even if I wanted to escape, my arms and legs felt like they belonged to someone else. Even if I had feeling, I still had a dud leg that would make resisting pointless.
"I won't risk you. Not again. Please understand," he begged.
"I see him!" Sam swooped down from his bird's eye view just low enough to hover at Steve's side. "He's coming downhill." A dozen sets of hands reached for varied weaponry. "He's holding back."
"Trap?" Steve asked.
"Maybe he senses we have Haven. Don't you have that ability too? Or had?" Sam asked.
"I told you. He just needed to see me to come to his senses. Can you untie me now?"
"Afraid not buttercup. You guys go ahead. Make sure he's not yanking our chain. I'll stay with Rosales." Tony Stark offered.
Bucky glanced to Steve for approval and set me down gently. He pressed a frustrating kiss to my forehead before falling into step with the land team: him, Steve, Natasha, Scott, and T'challa. The others had vanished into the trees at the beginning of this trek.
Quality time with Tony Stark was not something I ever needed in my life, not after he voted for me to be sent to the Raft. But here we were, kicking back in the heart of South America like best buds. Well, I was in bondage and he wore the Iron Man suit, acquaintances, I guess.
He sat beside me with a thud of metal, pulling up the face mask to watch our retreating forces. He reached over and pulled down my gag at least.
"Think I'll double cross you?" I asked. I spat to get the foul taste of the cloth from my mouth.
"No. I figured you out. We're a lot alike. Maybe that's why we clash. You're self-deprecating. It's not selfless, just careless. That has me written all over it. Barnes is trying to keep you alive the only way he knows how." Tony replied quickly.
Sweat trickled down his nose, though he had yet to actually do anything besides fly along in his suit. He blew a lulling fly from his long eyelashes, drumming his fingers against his knees. I shifted, my wrists, trying to get blood flow back to my hands, propping my back up against a tree with some effort.
"Yeah, I know," I murmured. If it was hard for me to trust myself, I know Bucky was even worse off. I could not hate, him however.
A smile glimmered on his lips then hardened into the careful cockiness he religiously wore. "You're not a bad kid," he told me.
I blinked up at him, tilting my head. "I never thought I was."
"Then you're a lot surer of yourself than the majority of people here."
He stood when the heavy thud of several combined footsteps could be heard coming down through the trees. He reached down and securing my muzzle and I groaned in frustration. I saw Hugh first, walking, alive. He had put up no resistance, so they would get him to the hulk proof safe house before administering the serum.
Bucky spotted me and smiled reassuringly. Tony flew over, blocking the bulk of the party from my view. "New slate?" he asked Hugh.
"Joy did not wish for me to be like this. I will honor her death," Hugh replied, sniffling pathetically.
"Good choice, Mongo. Mercy would be proud too," Tony clapped Hugh on the arm.
The action itself didn't unsettle the goliath of a man. But when his watery eyes fell on me, bound, silenced, leg wrapped with medical gauze. Shit. I saw the change like the switch of a light, on to off, light to dark. Granted I had been the one to volunteer the idea of playing bait, but no one could have predicted his reaction.
Sam hit the ground first, a forced landing because of the drop in air pressure.
"Woah! Easy there pal." Scott was thrown against a tree, helmet emitting a crack that echoed through the trees with only the cut of Hugh's eyes.
"One chance pal. Stand down." Steve instructed.
"I will have Mercy," Hugh stated.
Tony opened his mouth to seize the whopping joke left hanging midair when the fucking winds from the four corners of hell touched down. Bodies went flying in every direction, weapons were discharged. I saw a blur of red approach Hugh slowly in the madness, Vision. He reached out a hand, letting it dissolve into Hugh's chest. Questioning eyes leapt up when he couldn't kill him.
"It's poetic right? My wife didn't mean to hurt me and I repaid in kind," Hugh said before sending Vision flying off over the tops of the trees.
Tony's feet were latched onto the ground, keeping him mostly upright. But the kinks in his armor were being crushed into useless wrinkles of metal, bolts were flying in every direction. Steve knelt at his side, shield deflecting the blasts from the front, though he could do nothing to keep it from battering against his back, sending him face first into the grass.
I do admire the Avenges and their intentions. But they had to know that Hugh seeing me, the woman he thought was his daughter, restrained, weakened, unable to explain, it was no wonder he lost his goddamn mind.
In an attempt to stand, I was tossed back, ravaged in the wind like a frail kiddy kite. I was thrown into brush so dense, the entire sky was blotted out. Thorns that dug into my ass became useful as I sawed away at the ties on my wrist. Rubbing my cheek against my shoulder, I was able to remove the gag and pant out breaths as thick as the air crushing down.
Hugh was not creating a vacuum this time, merely throwing the entire weight of the atmosphere down onto our shoulders. How did Atlas ever manage to hold up a world this heavy? I could barely lift my hands to free myself.
The pressure pressed down like the hand of God itself, plastering me against the sweaty earth, crushing my lungs like grapes. In movies, this is where my powers would kick back in. There would be just enough of a remnant to save my life and save everyone else.
And for a naive moment, I thought as much truly happened. Because the stones on my chest crumbled to nothingness and air pushed down my throat like an old friend desperate for me to breathe.
But then, I saw Hugh kneeling over me, tears streaked down his filthy face. They leaked down to my face, burning hotter than the Amazon around us. "Mercy," he whispered miserably.
Swallowing deeply, I reached out a hand to grasp his. "It's ok. It's ok, dad."
A blur whizzed behind his head. He flinched at a dart embedded with the cure attached to his side. Red magic hugged the boarders and I turned to see Wanda a few yards back.
"Get away from her," she gasped out, swaying on her feet with the force of the threat.
"Hugh, no!" I grappled for his arm to hold him down, but he shook me off, not feeling the touch at all.
He got up slowly, teeth grit against the effects already coursing through his massive body. "You," Hugh whispered, lashing out with a whip of air meant to severe Wanda clean in half. She barely got a shield up before the blow landed.
A shadow of black hit Hugh from behind, knocking him forward a few steps. T'challa slashed down his barrel of a chest with razors for claws, shredding his shirt and leaving angry red rivers flowing down the pasty skin.
Hugh was bleeding.
I was on my feet desperate to intervene. He was turning, he was weak; he was human. He couldn't hurt anyone anymore. An arrow whistled past me, scraping the skin off my temple before embedding itself in his throat.
Clint dropped to the ground beside me, leaves scattered in his hair, tucked in his camouflaged uniform. Hugh braced his feet, roaring in outright rage. He lunged out, nailing T'challa in the head with the back of his meaty fist. His spin might have carried him directly into me, but Clint jerked me back, strong hands holding me at bay, because I was still straining forward. I had to do something.
A gunshot rang out, and more blood appeared like a blossoming flowered over his heart. Natasha limped to Clint's other side, her face a mask of terror and resolve, her weapon not lowered from its target.
Hugh dropped to his knees, the white of his eyes stained with the color covering him now. He glanced down at his body in shock, then back up. At me.
He smiled faintly, teeth glittering with scarlet. "Haven?" he asked.
"Let me go, Barton. He deserves someone at his side. He's already dying. Please!" I begged.
Clint released his grip hesitantly and I sprinted forward. My own blood trickled down from the wound above my eye, half blinding me, making the world pitch up sideways slightly.
The same light that kept me from getting to Menzel initially cut through the trees, it cut through Hugh's head, wrapping around like a halo. I dropped to my knees beside his lifeless body, catching the hulking form before it could hit the ground. The smell of charred meat and sour bile wafted up to me.
Dead. He was dead.
Tony clunked over, ripping off his destroyed suit as he walked. Bucky and Steve staggered behind him, supporting each other. Everyone hovered closer, breathing down my neck, muttering nonsense things that made me want to scream.
Bucky collapsed beside me, cradling a limp wrist, a pressure fracture. "Ace? Ace, it's over. You're safe," he said.
I nodded, and let someone pick me up, drag me away from Hugh. At least he was with Mercy now. At least he was with Joy. They were a family once more. And I was left here alone.