Man Out of Time - A Captain America / Avengers Fanfiction

Chapter 53

Chapter 53

The door slammed open, smacking into the wall.

"We found him!"

Bernice looked up from where she'd taken shelter in the corner of the room, the feel of two walls and the floor pressing against her back giving her a physical sense of security. The ship, itself, was giving her the hug the soldiers buzzing outside the door were too clueless to understand she needed.

"Wh-what?"

"They found him," Corporal Ivanko repeated.

Bernice wiped the snot trailing down her face with her sleeve, struggling to her feet. She had the same numb disbelief now, now that she'd caught a glimpse of the volcano where Steve had died and been forced to accept the fact they would probably never find his body, then when Miss Potts had first told her yesterday that he was missing. Dead? Ivanko helped her to her feet, holding her elbow to steady her.

"Is he...?"

"Alive!" Ivanko grabbed her hands and squeezed them. "They found Colonel Rogers and Agent Barton alive! Director Fury told me to come get you right away."

The Marine tugged her towards the door. Bernice followed, so happy that all of a sudden she thought she might float down the hall. Ivanko led her to the bridge, where the look on Director Fury's face caused her jubilation to be short-lived.

"Mr. Fury?"

Nick Fury wore that same guarded expression he'd had the day he'd come to Grandma Peggy's nursing home to expose her as a fraud.

"He's badly wounded." Mr. Fury's one good eye was filled with worry. "We don't have a lot of information. A medevac chopper has been sent to airlift him out of there."

"What about Natasha?" Anger rose in her veins at the mere mention of the shape shifters name.

"She's dead." Mr. Fury pointed to the row of radios and radio operators lining one edge of the bridge. "Agent Barton is on an open civilian frequency. We can't ask him to convey any more information until we get him someplace secure for a debriefing."

Dead. The bitch was dead. Oh, thank god! If the idiots had listened to Steve's instincts about the viper in their midst instead doubting him, all of this could have been avoided! She suppressed the urge to blurt out something stupid, such as 'Steve told you so' right into Director Fury's face. There was no reason for her to be here except Pepper Potts had been compassionate enough to drag her along. Nick Fury was humoring her. If she wanted to have these kinds of privileges the next time Steve was missing or injured, then she'd better play nicely with the man who had the power to simply send her home.

Oh, god! The next time? She couldn't even think about that right now...

"Thank you." Bernice forced a ghost of a grateful smile. It was all she was able to manage, so badly did she want to break down and blubber. But this was Steve's world. The world of her grandmother. The world her grandmother had discouraged her children from entering because this world was so harsh.

Corporal Ivanko bustled her through the city-sized ship, a labyrinth of endless identical corridors, until they burst into the sunlight on the landing deck. Her arms wrapped around her body as though wearing a straightjacket, cold even though it was summer in the southern hemisphere. She searched each new helicopter which landed, hoping it was the one. Man and machine buzzed around the helicarrier, stowing equipment and gear as though they were hornets storing food for the coming winter. She realized by the swell of the ship and rocking horizon that the USS Gerald Ford was no longer airborne. It had landed sometime in the past several hours, flight of something so enormous a glorious waste of taxpayer money and fuel. She had been so distraught, she had not even noticed.