Intertwine

55 - I'm Glad It Was You

ALINA

And then she collapsed. Just in the middle of the road. Bucky caught her just before the back of her head hit the tarmac. 

"Someone call Barton." I heard Tony mutter.

"I'm on it." Sam said as he landed behind me.

Very gently Bucky laid Aditi down onto the ground, taking care that her head was supported. He looked up at me, kneeling down on one knee beside the girl.

"Where is she Alina?" His blue eyes looking nearly grey with intensity.

"She was in the building as it collapsed, along with Loki. Vision and Wanda haven't been able to find anything so far, but we'll keep looking." We'd only just got communication back online, something had completely messed with our devices. According to Vision it was all down to a woman they'd encountered at the site, one of the women from the video. I was exhausted. And I'd just lost Roara.

Bucky got to his feet and after one glance behind my shoulder, he ran in the direction of the building.

"BUCKY!" Someone from behind me yelled. I turned. It was Cap. That was who he'd looked at  then. I rolled my eyes. He couldn't even say goodbye? The manners this man had were appalling.

"Steve, leave it." I advised. There was no point in stopping him, and Steve knew that as well as I did. We needed to sort through the rubble and see what we could find anyway, no point in having less people there.  

He caught up to me, not even out of breath, but his chest was still visibly rising and falling from his run. "Where's he going."

"The building site. Roara and Loki were in it when it collapsed." I explained quietly.

"Damn."

"Keep this swearing up Captain Rogers and you'll need to wash your mouth out with soap." I gave him a wry smile. Earlier when, well when I'd done the thing, he'd let out a very imaginative sentence of swear words that I didn't think he was capable of stringing together. On the other hand it had been the first time I'd seen Tony Stark speechless in my entire life.

"Is this really a time to joke?" Thor asked, coming over to where we were standing, his red cape flowing behind him. "My brother was in that building."

"So was my best friend." I snapped back, matching him. I stood up to my full height, looking him in the eye. "We don't have time right now to go and cry, we have to pull ourselves together. We have time to be emotional later. The only other thing we can do is try to laugh." I wasn't nearly as big as him, but he got the message. He still didn't take orders from me though.

Thor pushed passed me and went over to Tony. "I'll take the girls back to the tower. And then I am coming back and I am going to find my brother."

Tony nodded. "Take Banner's niece first. I don't think Bruce would want her just sitting on the sidewalk like that. We'll look after the other girl."

With that Thor picked up Fiona in one hand and with the other spun his hammer. His feet flew from the ground and he was in the air. I looked around. Peter was now by Aditi, his gloved fingers rearranging her torn pyjamas so they were less revealing. I hadn't even noticed that her nightshirt had been pulled down. She didn't look any older than 15 or 16, but I knew from her profile that she was 17. It was the two french braids in her hair and the pink pyjamas that she was wearing that made her seem so young.

"What's the situation Sam?" Steve asked, changing the subject.

"They've set up a camp in Central Park." He informed me. "We have video footage from redwing showing the two agents from the video there, the woman looking pretty roughed up. They've got some metal buildings they seem to be using for technology centres. About 60 more agents now from my heat scans. Fury says they've set up an evac order, we don't want a repeat of the zombified citizens from last time."