Eagle (A Loki love story)

Chapter 83

Plot Chapter

When the dust settled and my head stopped spinning and my ears stopped ringing, I opened my eyes and helped Steve move debris out of the way. Nat was still unconscious.

"Mira, do you know of any ways out of here?"

"The elevator shaft. It's completely hollow, aside from the elevator. That's our best hope of getting up, unless you want to dig through all this." I gestured to all the rock around us. The only source of light was from fire perhaps two floors above.

"Ok, let's go." He picked up Nat and I cleared a path as best I could to the shaft. The blast had damaged it severely, creating narrow, slanted ledges to get up to and makeshift handholds to grasp. Since Steve was stronger, I carried his shield and he took Nat up on his back. When she regained consciousness, she climbed on her own and the progress went much faster.

When we reached the surface, Steve had to push a cement plate down so we could get out. Fires were raging and we instantly had to duck and take shelter under the rubble. But not from the flames. There were half a dozen Quinjets flying over the wreckage, searching for us with spotlights, and I was picking up the voices of the STRIKE team getting closer and closer.

"They're following our tracks. Can you cover them?"

"I can try." I went behind and brushed my foot over them and from there, I proceeded to step only where Steve, who was carrying an exhausted Nat, stepped. At last, we found a little dark cave in which to hide, in hopes that we would get overlooked, but our hopes were dashed when Rumlow's shadow appeared before us. Without thinking, I turned myself invisible and covered Steve and Nat to the best of my abilities.

"Don't move." I hissed. Suddenly, I heard Rumlow appear at the entrance, blocking our only way of escape, and I nearly screamed. He shined his light all around, I could tell because of the sudden increase of energy it took to keep us hidden, and then at the ground, but evidently found nothing. Swearing to himself, Rumlow got on his com.

"Call in the Asset. They got away."

We waited there for a whole hour after the STRIKE team left, just in case. There was no question as to who the Asset was, but our biggest concern was where would we go? Our car was undoubtedly gone and there was no safe house in the area.

"There's a town about five miles from here. If I remember the map correctly. If we can get there, we can get back to DC.
"Wait, why would we want to go back there?"

"Because we have to take down SHIELD and Project INSIGHT."

"But where are we going to go? They'll be watching all of our places, phones, and bank accounts."

"But not Sam's house."

"We shouldn't drag him into this."

"We don't have to. We just need a safe place to stay."

It took us all night to get back to DC. None of us really got any sleep. We were the only ones in the train car we chose, but that didn't stop us from taking watches and sleeping restlessly. When at last we reached our destination, it looked like Sam had just gotten home from his run. He had a nice little place on the edge of the city, not somewhere SHIELD would look very soon. He didn't have a doorbell, so we knocked. Sam was there in ten seconds and recognized us right away.

"Hey, man. Mira."

"I'm sorry about this, but we need a place to lay low."

"Everyone we know is trying to kill us."