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CHAPTER SIX FRIENDS AND FOES
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When Riley blinked open his eyes, the first thing he noticed was dust falling down around him. His throat felt like it was on fire from breathing in all the debris and dust, and his entire body ached. Blinking a few times, the first thing he noticed was that he was on the floor directly below the lab. It took him a few more moments to remember what had happened. The rising tension between everyone in the lab. Bruce finding the location of the Tesseract. The explosion that tore apart the floor beneath their feet and sent them flying through the air. Riley landing on his back first, and then his head following. His fingers went to the back of his head. They came back red, though there wasn't a lot of blood. It was probably nothing but a small scratch.
He started to push himself up into a sitting position, wincing as the ache followed down his spine. He tested his limbs slowly, one after the other, just to make sure nothing was broken. He was dimly aware of chaos around him. A fire roaring, not put out yet. Shouting as everyone yelled to get to safety. Someone yelled that there was a hole in the Helicarrier, and another one was yelling about an attack. Clearly, there was an attack. The agents, scientists, and bomb experts on the Helicarrier weren't so incompetent as to blow something up on accident. He decided to look around himself then, noticing that large slabs of metal had fallen with the explosion. One had nearly fallen on his leg, only missing by a small centimeter. He let out a rush of breath and pulled his legs closer to himself, looking around with more alarm.
The memories had come back quickly, but now the feelings toward them were arriving. He felt shock, but he also felt a small sense of fear. Above all, however, there was adrenaline. He scrambled to his feet and proceeded to walk through the debris, looking for anyone else that might have flown out the laboratory windows with him. It wasn't long before he caught sight of red hair. He froze when he saw that she was already awake, her ankle buried beneath a slab of metal. And a few feet away from her, writhing on the ground like he was in pain, was Bruce. Seeing him squirm and knowing what that meant, Riley shot forward and knelt by Nat.
"Leave," Nat said immediately, knowing who he was while never taking her eyes off of Bruce. "Leave right now." Under any other circumstance, her tone of voice would have sent Riley running. You simply didn't say no to Natasha Romanoff, not unless you either wanted to end up dead or, in a loved one's case, bald the next morning. But this wasn't any other circumstance, and Riley certainly wasn't about to leave Nat alone with someone about to turn into a large green monster. Riley ignored her orders—possibly the first time he had ever ignored an order from Black Widow—and started to shift the large piece of metal off of her leg. He was relieved to feel that the piece of metal wasn't very heavy. Natasha's leg was pinned, but it wasn't injured. That was good. He had a feeling they were about to have to run.
