New Year's Day

Chapter 5

March 11th, 2015 Pt. 1

Nat and Clint rode straight through the line of fire. Nat was driving an armored vehicle over dozens of HYDRA soldiers at a time and Clint could be seen blindly firing arrow after arrow into the sea of charging men. No matter where he was looking, he never seemed to miss. Thor was using his hammer to soar from place to place, taking down barricades that had been aggressively firing at us from the second we stepped into the forest off the Quinjet. Tony and Sam were speeding across the top of the treeline, occasionally shouting potential strategies for us to use on the ground. Steve was fighting a group of men hand to hand, throwing his shield against trees and other men and using the rebound to take more of them down. Bucky and I were further from the fight, slowly trekking toward the massive castle we knew to be the main HYDRA base.

"Bruce!" Steve yelled over comms, he sounded panicked. "I hate to say it-" there was a short pause and the sound of grunting as Steve took down more soldiers, "but I'm calling it. Code Green."

Bucky and I stopped and looked at each other, exchanging nervous glances. Steve was right, we were dangerously outnumbered. We had aimed to be overprepared, but no one had expected the base to be armed with this many men.

"Come on, let's keep walking," I said to Bucky, and we continued on our stealthy pace toward the castle. We walked for a few more minutes and eventually found an entrance to an underground part of the base; a 3-foot wide steel hatch in the ground that would've gone completely unnoticed if not for the dull buzzing sound coming from whatever was underneath it.

"Alex," Bucky hesitated, "I think I found our entrance."

I walked towards him as he bent down, reaching out to grab the handle of the hatch. His hand, however, stopped 6 inches above the rusted steel door, like some invisible force was holding him back. "Shit," Bucky spoke over comms, "it looks like there's some sort of energy force field around the base. We can't get in."

"Language," Steve responded, much more quickly than I was expecting. Bucky and I doubled over with muffled laughs and waited for instructions. "JARVIS, what are we looking at?"

"It seems the building is being guarded by an energy shield," said a robotic voice. "Strucker's technology is far more advanced than the other bases we've taken."

"So the scepter is here," Thor shouted. "There's no way Strucker could mount a defense this complex without it."

"So what's our play?" I asked. "I don't see us getting in here anytime soon unless we can get this shield down." I looked at Bucky and shrugged. It probably wasn't the best idea to send us inside with just guns and my magic, but we'd work with what we had.

"JARVIS, find me a weak point. I want to see if I can poke it with something and get this shield down," Tony commanded. A moment later I saw dozens of suits similar to Tony's flying over us into the city. He must have called in the Iron Legion.

Bucky sat down and I leaned against a tree, waiting silently for a few minutes to hear if Tony was able to find a way to get the shield down. After a while, I said, "This place is a fortress. I don't want to, but once we're in we'll probably have to split up. That'll be our best shot at getting the scepter back. When we get in we can figure out whether or not we'll actually be able to, but I think that's our best plan of attack."

He looked up at me, "Alright, I can take the upper levels, that's probably where most of the men are. We can call each other over comms if either of us finds what we're looking for." He paused, "Be careful, alright? The last thing I need is to see you get hurt."

I looked down at my feet, my cheeks flushed. I was about to respond when we heard a loud explosion on the northeast side of the building. "Shields down, you guys should be good. Get in there while we take down the rest of these idiots and we'll join you," directed Tony.

I opened the hatch and descended the staircase, making a bubble of protection around us with my magic. I assumed we'd entered a storage room because it was dark and unguarded, and the light from my powers emanated off the walls in a soft blue glow. The room itself was unassuming enough, with boxes strewn about in random stacks, but I had a hunch that it was a disguise for something more sinister. We walked slowly for a while longer, checking every room we passed until we eventually found a staircase leading to the ground level.

"You go," I said, stopping and turning around to face Bucky, who was behind me. "I'll keep searching down here and come back up once it's cleared."

"Alright," he smiled, "just be careful."

I returned his smile and walked on down the dark hallway as Bucky made his way up the staircase. I immediately heard a loud thud above me and whispered over comms, "Buck, you good?" which he returned with,

"I'm fine, there was one guy guarding the door but I neutralized him."

I shivered. Neutralized. It wasn't important, these men were HYDRA, and hardly innocent. I took a few more steps down the hall before I heard a panicked Natasha in my earpiece.

"Clint's hit! I need evac," she yelled. Nat knew how to stay calm in stressful situations, but I could hear the anxiety burried in her voice. If I didn't know her so well, I probably would've missed it.

"Thor, get Barton to the jet. We have enhanced in the field, so keep your eyes open and don't engage unless you need to," Steve asserted. He had a talent for detaching when things got overwhelming, and I knew we could all count on him to keep his head on straight.

After a moment of silence, I decided to continue walking. I was too far away to give immediate backup, and I knew the mission. I had to find the scepter.

Gradually, my eyes began to adjust to the lack of lighting in the basement, and I started to see the rough outline of a door at the end of the hall. As I approached it, I saw a single electronic keypad where a doorknob should've been. That's odd, why would they need something to be this guarded on a storage floor? I raised my arms in an X and pulled down, focusing on destroying the metal components of the lock with my mind. Surely enough, the lock exploded, and the door slowly swung open to reveal a large warehouse-like room. Without the lights on I couldn't quite make out what I was looking at, but I deciphered the outlines of distorted shapes and pieces of metal that I didn't recognize.

"Guys," I whispered over comms, "I think I found something." Silently, I made another protective bubble in an effort to illuminate the walls and mysterious figures that surrounded me, then walked to the center of the room. All around me were weapons, but not from Earth. They were from the Chitauri. I saw the flying vehicles they used to fly through the skies of New York, their odd guns and armor, and worst of all, the bodies of the giant beasts that had come down from the wormholes opened by Loki. I turned in circles, taking in my surroundings in pure shock when I noticed something strangely normal in the corner of the room: a bookshelf. A bookshelf? Wait, no. Definitely a secret door.

I made my way towards it and ran my hand along the shelves and crevices, trying to find an odd book or latch that might open to whatever was so obviously being hidden. I bent down, running my fingers through the dust and spiderwebs that littered the untouched surfaces of the shelves when I found a single circular indent in the wood. I pressed it, and the bookcase slowly began to slide to the right, revealing a second room behind the wall. But this room wasn't dark, it held a strangely familiar glow, and on a table in the center of it, I saw the source.

"I found the scepter, basement floor at the end of the hallway. You guys really need to see this," I said. My voice wavered. What could Hydra possibly be planning with all these weapons?

I couldn't bring myself to wait, so I stepped forward. Something was calling me toward the scepter, a whisper of a promise for something I couldn't comprehend. Against my better judgment I reached out, and immediately I was engulfed in yellow light. It consumed my senses; my vision blurred and the world went quiet. The last thing I felt was the painful thud of my weight hitting the cool concrete floor. Everything went black.