Chapter Text
The world before me faded in and out of focus as nausea took hold of my stomach. The sweltering fatigue drove through my body, causing my muscles to spasm as I pushed myself up from the stone floor. Arms encircled mine before I could find much success, hauling me to my feet. I could feel myself searching for purchase but the pads of my feet kept slipping. My energy was gone, I used far too much all at once. My head spun as I was tossed back onto my bed and allowed to rest. It wasn’t long before darkness completely consumed my vision.
The visions were always more cloudy after I had used most of my energy. The Soldier was once more the focal point, but he looked far from the soldier I had come to know. The most striking change was his eyes. Usually they were empty but still held a whisper of sorrow, but these eyes crinkled at the corners. He focused on something in front of him, but before I could see it the vision threw me elsewhere. It was hard to focus as the eyes and images flashed before me. Ten or a hundred images passed in a second, some familiar but most were strange. Their voices followed their images, overlapping and morphing together to be indistinguishable from each other. My head hurt so bad. The light shifted once more, but the voices followed. Someone said my name. The pulsing in my head grew and spread to my spine, pulsing and pounding against my bones and flesh.
I could hear the voices shouting, whispering, and then they were gone. They returned with a fervor, almost like I could hear them in front of me. The nausea kept creeping up my throat as I used my last bit of consciousness to force it back down. Usually the nausea wasn’t this bad. Did I break my limit this time? The light between my eyelids blinded me, but I could see movement. Was I moving or was the world moving? I reached for my lifeline, but nothing came to meet me. The alarm blared in my ears, but it was not nearly as loud as the voices still surrounding me.
Something was touching my neck. I urged any of my muscles to get it off, but they only vaguely obeyed, my hand coming into contact with something firm. Definitely an arm. No one was allowed to touch me except the handlers. Was I actually dying this time? Were they cutting their losses finally? I was moving again, I couldn’t figure out which way was up and the rocking movement reinvigorated the nausea. I don’t know when the voices in the vision stopped, but the voices next to me were concerned and harried. They were not familiar, or were they? These ones seemed to hit something in my brain, but I was far too exhausted to care. Something was happening and my brain was not working enough for me to figure it out.
My back hit a solid surface, and that’s when the nausea won. Luckily, I hadn’t eaten today and the only thing that bit my esophagus was a small bit of bile. I could tell someone was talking to me, but I could neither understand them nor form a complete sentence. Arms once more encircled mine, but instead of the punishing grip of the handlers, I was greeted with firm but gentle arms on either side of me. They wrapped my arms around their necks and I struggled to keep myself on my feet. One of them was taller than me and the other shorter, so I was walking off-kilter.
I peeled open my eyes to the harsh fluorescent lights of the bunker. The shorter one pushed me into the other, and I saw a vague shape of black and red as it left my periphery. The other one was talking, though I couldn’t understand half of what he said. Then, his tone changed.
“...a live one, Nat. I’ll… …meet…” Those goddamn alarms.
My feet followed the example of my eyes and started working on their own. Mostly. I still leaned on the tall one, and managed to get a vague idea of what he looked like. I’ve seen him before, definitely. He had a gash on his temple that bled into his short blond hair. As we walked, or stumbled, I could feel he had something like a holster attached to his leg. These were definitely not handlers, then. They always kept their holster on the right side. A small bit of hope filled me, maybe I’ll be able to finally get out of this shithole.
He leaned me against the wall, muttering a quick apology, then pulled the bow from his back. A bow? This guy infiltrated this hellhole with a bow? It would be comical if he didn't down three handlers down the hallway in the blink of an eye. I considered my current physical condition, the fact these two people could not possibly be handlers, and decided whatever fate they have in mind for me would be far better than what I had been experiencing at the hands of Hydra.
He pulled me back to his side, apologizing once more and then trailing off. I was finally conscious enough to figure out where we were. We were heading out. Thank the fucking gods. My stride quickened, desperate to leave, and nearly fell face first into the concrete. Luckily, he caught and steadied me. We kept limping along until I started to hear footsteps. We had just passed a hallway. Someone was coming from behind us.
The person I was using as a crutch made no indication that he heard the footsteps. Surely he had a plan. Of course he knew, right? I tried to tell him, warn him, do anything, but my mouth failed me. He had no clue.
I reached my left arm between us to his thigh, and far slower and sloppier than I was hoping to, I drew and aimed his gun behind us to the handler. I managed to hit him in his torso, but the gun flew out of my hand before I could hit him a second time. My crutch swore, pushed me against the wall again, shot an arrow straight through the handler’s chest, and in one fluid motion picked up his lost gun and propped me on his shoulder again.
He swore again as he pushed himself backwards through the door, “Next time, a heads up would be perfect.”
His comment wretched a chuckle from my chest. I haven’t heard flippancy like that since I was brought to the bunker.
Outside was far colder than inside, and my breath was stolen by the wind’s whip marks on my face. The shock of the cold managed to give me a small boost of energy and I managed to quicken to a small jog. Luckily, the jet he mentioned was open and waiting for us not far from the bunker’s entrance. He sat me down on a bench, and started to buckle me in. Focus was coming back even more, and I could make out more than just shapes and colors. He looked tired. Tired and kind.
Shortly after he got me situated, the short one—a woman with red hair—joined us. She was holding her side with her left arm as she shot at some unknown target with the gun in her right. She shouted something at the man, and the jet started to move.
The adrenaline was the only thing keeping me conscious at this point. The two of them conversed somewhere to my left, and I was left with only my thoughts as company. What the fuck just happened?