It snowed overnight. As always, the morning after a snowy night is especially pure, especially clean, especially beautiful.
It's freezing cold, the air burning in the people's lungs. The few birds that didn't fly away over winter fluff up in the trees. Animals hide from the coldness, from the fresh start of the world.
A lonely road leads through a forest. It has been a long time since the last car driving here, driving to the next town. The town where something terrible happened.
People have been talking in the neighboring town. "Did you hear?" they say. "Did you hear? The Avengers were there. They were shot. They fought but lost."
"Did you hear? They fought against one person."
"Did you hear? One of them got kidnapped. He was taken as hostage."
"Did you hear? They are searching for him."
They didn't lose. He wasn't kidnapped and also not taken hostage. But they are searching for him.
He doesn't need to be searched for.
He's walking down this road, with a girl next to him, leaving a bloody trail behind. He has an arm made of metal. A red star was once painted on it, the paint crumbling by now. She has a star on her cheek. Still red, still fresh. But it is cut in half as if to break the bond to the meaning of it. Two stars, two persons. Two stories, trying to be hidden.
They don't talk.
They're breathing heavily, processing what happened. They have seen a lot of death. More death than almost anyone else. They have caused a lot of death. And most of it, they regret. But not what happened tonight.
What happened tonight was a relief.
No one will ever know.
They will tell people it was a gas leak. A gas leak blew up the underground research station in the forest. A gas leak that only they survived. The truth is, that the girl found the mechanical lab. She did, what she was best at. She built. A bomb was activated right after they left the facility.
They won't talk about it. Ever.
What happened, happened.
Some people forgive. Some people take revenge.
Those two people walking down the road to the next town, they forgave each other. They didn't forgive their torturers. They took revenge on their torturers. They enjoyed taking revenge on their torturers.
Some people will realize what happened. They will look at the hole in the ground and think "That can't have been a gas leak." But they will let it be.
What happened, happened.
And they don't regret it. Not a thing.
The man is relieved. Relieved he got her back. Relieved she got herself back. She doesn't know who she is. Yet. She will find out. She will find out with him; they will find out who she is.
She is still troubled. She doesn't know what's real and what's imagination. Yet. He can help her. He knows her pain. He will help her. Help her, after he abandoned her once.
They will help each other.
And maybe it will be all right. One day. Maybe.
It won't. Both know that. It will never be "all right", they will never recover from what happened, from what they lost, from what they had to do in order to get it back. They will never forget any of it.
But some things aren't to be forgotten. Some things need to be remembered. Some things need to be preserved so as to prevent similar mistakes.
They will never do anything like this again. They don't know yet what they'll do with the time left for them. They don't know yet what the world is going to say.
All of that doesn't matter. They have each other.
And that is enough.
YOU ARE READING
The Mechanic || 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘳¹
Fanfiction{completed} ❝You've heard him scream before. Hurt or scared didn't matter, his screams always sounded the same. But this time, they're worse. They're full of grief.❞ For years, you've been working for Hydra, constructing weapons, inventing new ones...
