The Fall Of The Phoenix (Marvel/The Avengers)

Chapter 10 - My Babies

You know that feeling when your drifting off to sleep and then you're suddenly jolted awake by the feeling of falling. Do you remember how frightened you were in that brief second before you realized you were actually safe in your own bed? It's quite an accurate feeling, however, there was no life flashing before my eyes nonsense. Then again, I remember everything every second of everyday so maybe it did, but it felt no different than normal.

I remember screaming however. The further I fell the louder I got until a sudden crash into my side silenced me as my head slammed into something metal.

Next thing I knew I was waking up in the infirmary with Steve hovering over me.

"Don't try and move." He said, a little panicky as I fumbled to sit up, but I shook him off and pulled myself upright despite his protests.

"What happened? How long have I been out?"

"Twenty minutes or so. Stark and I saw you falling from the turbine panel after we fixed it. He caught you, but he was going pretty fast and your head slammed into his chest."

As if I had only just noticed the blinding pain on the left side of my head I groaned as I touched my fingertips to it and felt a small cut. This really wasn't my day.

"Where's everyone else?" I asked. "And Phil, did medical get to him?"

"He's gone." Steve said, looking away. "They called it fifteen minutes ago." I closed my eyes and let one stray tear fall down my cheek and over the cut below my eyes before quickly brushing it away. I tried to stand up, but Steve immediately placed a hand on my right shoulder. "You aren't meant to get up. The doctors patched you up, but..."

"I'm fine." I said stubbornly. "Just help me to the meeting room or something, I'll rest there."

"Alexis..."

"Stephen." I shot back in a mocking tone causing him to sigh and roll his eyes before helping me up.

I glanced in a mirror on my way out and I had certainly looked better. I had a split lip, a cut on my cheekbone and now another cut in my hairline on the right side, but surprisingly little bruising or swelling, I guess I could thank my fast healing for that. My shoulder was wrapped up in bandages and I could feel some cooling ointment on it and my leg was also strapped. They had definitely given me pain killers though, strong ones and the concussion wasn't helping me focus either, so I wasn't able to help the heeling along any faster at this particular point in time.

The infirmary wasn't far from the control room where we had our gatherings so it didn't take us long to get there, but on the way Steve informed me that the Hulk had fallen from the hellicarrier while fighting Thor and they were still trying to locate him. I doubted the fall would kill him of all people, or things, and if they hadn't found him by now it was probably a good sign. That meant he wasn't tearing apart major cities. They hadn't heard from Thor since he fell, but there was no evidence that he had been in the cage when it hit the ground so I assumed he had used his hammer to break the glass on the way down. Nat had apparently found Barton and knocked him out and he was now in the infirmary as well and she was with him.

I planned to go and see him later, but for now I knew where he was unlike the other two.

"What are you doing up?" Fury questioned as Steve helped me into a chair.

"She insisted." Steve said back and nothing more was said. I sat between Tony and Steve, Tony's back to us all while Fury and Hill stood opposite us.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket." Fury began after a moment of silence, "I guess he never did get you to sign them." He finished, tossing the Captain America collectors cards across the table towards Steve. "We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, the location of the Cube, Banner, Thor... I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming. Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract." He said, walking around the table, making brief eye contact with me. "I never put all my chips on that number, though because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea. In heroes." Fury said as Tony stood from his seat and made an abrupt departure. "Well... it's an old-fashioned notion." Fury stated before taking his leave with Hill behind him.