Fic: Hard Rain Tesserae (1/2)
Title: Hard Rain Tesserae
Author name: framlingem
Beta names: quiva, M.D. (offline)
Characters: Clint Barton, Steve Rogers, Maria Hill, Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Coulson's Mom, Coulson's Niece, Pepper Potts, Surprise Flight Attendant and her colleagues
Fandom/Universe: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: G
Word count: 10 826
Warnings: Canon character deaths and violence.
Summary: After the events of The Avengers, everyone buries their dead, and the world starts to recover. Mostly.
Notes: Thanks very much to my co-worker from New York. If there are any NYC impossibilities in there still, they're my fault. Thanks also to Walk Off The Earth for this. This was written for marvel-bang, whose mod was very patient with me.
Fanworker name: taibhrigh
Type of fanwork: Fanart (book cover and interior illustrations).
Art Master Post: here. I didn't give her much to go on, for which I am eternally sorry, but the art is fantastic.
1. One hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’
Captain America gives speech to crowd in New York. Photo: P. Parker.
NEW YORK, USA (Reuters) - Thousands of New Yorkers gathered today in Manhattan to pay their respects to the emergency service workers and civilians who lost their lives in last week’s attacks. For the second time in this young century, the city of New York was the site of a tragedy unlike any previously occurring in the USA, and for the second time the citizens rallied to recover. One very old citizen was on hand to give a memorial speech. Eyes all over the world were glued to their television screens as Steve Rogers, the recently-awoken Captain America and de facto leader of the newly-formed “Avengers” who made such a difference in the attacks, spoke humbly of the heroics of those who gave their lives in defence of their city - in defense, some might say, of (continued p.2)
There was a public funeral for the dead police officers and firemen of New York. New Yorkers being New Yorkers, the procession route had been crowded with volunteers as soon as the city had had its chance to catch its breath; all the fires extinguished, the citizens turned up with every possible tool and cleaning implement they could think of. Their ranks held everyone from engineers and construction workers to inspect and secure buildings whose original blueprints had not included gaping holes in their walls to teenagers with brooms and thermoses of coffee. Other parts of Manhattan were still a shambles, but by the gorgeously sunny Saturday afternoon the route was clear, passable, and either safe for crowds or roped off. Being underground, the subway had not been badly damaged by what the Twitter-verse was calling #etsinnyc , and proved invaluable for ferrying construction supplies and workers to and from the hardest-hit areas where rubble cluttered the streets.
Steve rode the subway in from Brooklyn for the procession, alongside a bunch of folks who, but for their clothes, weren’t a whole lot different from the people he’d ridden the subway with a few months ago. Decades ago. This would take some getting used to. Stark - Tony, he reminded himself - Tony had offered to fly him in to City Hall to save time, but he’d turned down the offer. Today wasn’t about him, and being flown in by a bright red-and-gold rocket-man in full view of everyone would be disrespectful. Even if, he had to admit to himself somewhat sheepishly, the ride itself’d be pretty fun. Maybe another time. For now, he was content with holding on to a hanging strap and being just a face in the crowd of people crammed into the subway carriage. Being able to see over the heads of most of the throng was nice, too.
He let the current carry him out of the train and up the stairs onto the street and around an area surrounded with concrete dividers and caution signs, towards the cordon surrounding a stage in City Hall Park. People were milling about on the grass, but they all seemed to be behaving themselves. A small child, of that age where Steve had trouble telling boys from girls, was staring at him, so he waved. The kid waved back, and his mother scooped him up, scolding him.
“Sorry, sir! I’ve been trying to teach him not to stare at strangers...”
Steve grinned. “It’s fine, ma’am, I don’t mind. I’ve been stared at by worse.” He stuck his tongue out at the little boy, who giggled and responded in kind. “Er...” Steve looked guiltily up at the boy’s mother. “Sorry. I hope he doesn’t make a habit of doing that to people now.” The woman sighed and ran her free hand down her face.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure he’ll pick up worse habits as he gets older.”
“I’ve, uh, got to be going. Nice to meet you, ma’am. Handsome boy you have there.” Steve beat a hasty escape and headed for the cordoned-off area, where there was a stage equipped with some microphones and a loudspeaker. There was bunting, too, the red-white-and-blue banded with black, and he cringed a bit. He did not have fond memories of bunting. At least there weren’t likely to be any dancing girls. At least, he didn’t think so. Things had gotten a lot more relaxed in the future. He liked it, mostly, but some occasions needed a certain dignity.
He dug the badge Fury had given him out of his pocket and showed it to the police officer who looked to be in charge. The cop checked the name against a list on a clipboard, glanced at Steve’s face, and let him in, shaking his hand as he passed.
“It’s an honor, Cap. We owe you one. Welcome back.”
Steve gripped his hand in return, hoping that any smudges he’d picked up strap-hanging didn’t transfer to the cop’s white gloves. “Did my job, officer. Same as you. And thanks.”
He’d gotten three steps further on when he heard the cop’s voice call out to him again, confusion evident.
“Hey, Cap?”
“Yeah?”
“Ain’t that a private’s insignia? Thought you were a captain.”
Steve looked ruefully down at his arm. “Wouldn’t you believe it,” he said, “what with everything, the Army never did get around to actually promoting me.”
The cop roared with laughter, heedless of the disapproving looks from solemn passers-by. “I’d believe it, all right. Figures. Hey, you! Yeah, you! Sorry, buddy, you gotta stay over on this side of the cordon, VIPs and family members only past the line.”
“I’ll let you do your job, officer. Be safe.”
“Thanks, Cap, you too. You on the list, sir? No? Then you’re general public, an’ you gotta hang out with the rest of ‘em. Move it.”
With a wave, Steve made his way up to the stage, where he could see Tony. Fortunately the man had forgone the Iron Man armor and instead was wearing a suit Steve was pretty sure cost more than the annual rent on his new Brooklyn apartment. He was staring down at some kind of device, but Pepper was on his arm, and waved him over.
“Steve! How are you?”
“Fine, Ms. Potts.” he said. “Nice day for it, isn’t it?”
She rolled her eyes, smiling so he’d know she was teasing him. “Please, Steve. It’s Pepper. Ms. Potts makes me sound like the teapot in Beauty and the Beast.”
He smiled back at her. “Haven’t seen it yet, Ms. Potts.”
“Oh, you’ll love it. We’ll have to fix that, won’t we Tony. Tony! Put that away, you can work on it later.”
“Huh? But it’s - oh, hey, Cap, when did you get here?”
“Just now, act -”
“Right, right, hey, Steve, you should meet the mayor. Mike! Mike, this is Captain America. Steve Rogers. Steve, Michael Bloomberg, he’s running this thing, oh, hey, big screens going on, we should go sit down. You look weird in a normal uniform, by the way.”
It took a while for the procession to reach them at the park. Steve recognized the route as the one that had been used for the ticker tape parade at the end of the war; it had been one of the first bits of footage SHIELD had shown him when he’d woken up from the ice. The crowds on the big screens that had been set up so that folks in the park could see the whole parade were huge and silent, arrayed in orderly rows - well, as orderly as crowds of civilians that size ever were - along the sidewalks. He guessed nine in ten of them were wearing black armbands. Good. It was odd, doing this, watching drummers and pipers playing on the screens, watching the police marching in their dress blues as though they were right there, and hearing the sound echoing off the buildings from far away and mixing with the cooing of the pigeons, who were taking advantage of the large crowd to grab fallen crumbs. Howard would have been the first to have any of this, he thought, and half-smiled at the idea of Howard taking the back off of a television and ripping the wiring out. He glanced to his right, past the mayor, at Howard’s son, who had put the device - “tablet”, Steve thought, and felt a little guilty for marvelling at the gadgets on a day like this one - away and was staring at one of the screen, right hand white-knuckled around Pepper’s left, jaw muscles clenched. Pepper was bearing up well, stroking her thumb along Tony’s gently. Howard would be proud, Steve thought. His son was a good man.
The drums and pipes grew louder and, cued by the sight of them entering the park, Steve stood to attention. The sound drowned out the pigeons and put an end to the murmuring of the crowd, who’d already been standing but made a collective effort to slouch a little less. Steve caught sight of a homemade “I ♥ New York” sign off towards the right. The procession came to a halt, and Steve took a deep breath, straightened his uniform, and approached the podium, drawing some pages from his breast pocket and nervously unfolding them.
It took a while for the applause to die down, and the blush was still on his cheeks when he started to speak.
“My name’s Steve Rogers. I guess you probably know me more as Captain America, but that’s not so important right now. I’m here like you are, as a New Yorker who’s grateful to a lot of heroes. I was honoured to witness the courage and compassion of the police officers, firefighters, paramedics, and ordinary citizens who did their utmost to protect their fellow human beings. I would be privileged to thank them in person, but far too many of them are not able to be here today.” Nor were a lot of courageous, compassionate men and women he'd known. He'd looked up as many people as he could. A lot of them were in Arlington. “Their families, however, are.. On behalf of everyone, I’d like to express my thanks and condolences to the families of...”
(cont) their planet. There cannot have been a dry eye in New York as Rogers read the list of names which will be engraved next year on a memorial sculpture to be sponsored by Stark Industries, as announced afterwards by owner Tony Stark and CEO Virginia Potts who were also in attendance. Other members of the Avengers were occupied elsewhere, said a spokeswoman.”
2. Saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
“Flight attendants, please prepare for takeoff.”
“You get a load of the passenger in 16A, Jenny?” Bobbi whispered, settling into her jump seat and fastening her harness.
“Hm? No, I was helping that family with the three kids get settled in. His seat belt’s on and he doesn’t have headphones on, but that’s about all I checked. Why?” It was a full plane. There’s been a rash of cancellations from locals who’d decided they’d rather stay home and spend time with their families or help with the cleanup, or just assumed that the FAA would ground all the planes - to be honest, Bobbi was kind of surprised to be working today, just over a day since the hole in the sky had first opened over Manhattan, but Newark airport was undamaged. Weird. If she’d been an invading alien overlord, New Jersey would have been the first to go, she thought, taken aback at herself immediately after that. How could she think that? Ugh.
The cancellations had been balanced out by people who’d wanted to get out of the city, or had suddenly-urgent business in the EU. There were also a few people, Bobbi knew, that United had extended special courtesies to in order to get them onto the non-stop flight to Stuttgart - customers who’d lost family in the smaller, forgotten massacre that had taken place there before the invasion of New York.
Invasion of New York. It sounded like a bad movie. Everything sounded like a bad movie. “Invasion of New York”. “Massacre in Stuttgart” (okay, that one was more of a novel. Movies never happened in Stuttgart). “Flying Aircraft Carrier”, for crying out loud, and why hadn’t there been any more news about that? She hadn't seen it herself, but the aviation gossip lines were humming with it. Flights had been diverted to Boston and Philadelphia, and people were stuck there sleeping in airports trying to find a way to get on a flight to wherever they’d been going in the first place. She’d heard from a buddy who worked the United customer service desk at Logan that a lot of Bostonians had offered couches, beds, and floorspace to stranded travellers. Be nice if the same thing was happening in Philly, but she hadn’t heard on the news yet. The news was still focused on Manhattan, much as it had been eleven years ago, showing the kind of footage you couldn’t tear your eyes from no matter how nauseous seeing buildings you’d known the shape of your whole life being torn apart made you feel. At least there was more variety. In 2001, she’d crowded into a jam-packed, eerily-silent student lounge and spent the afternoon watching the planes collide with the towers, over and over and over. She took a deep breath and focused her attention back on Jenny, who’d kept talking.
“... pretty good-looking, in a beat-up kind of way, don’t you think? He looks tired, though. I had to wake him up for takeoff.”
The big Pratt & Whitney turbofans were increasing in pitch, now, and she tuned Jenny out as the 757 accelerated down the runway. She liked this part, even facing backwards, liked the reassuring pressure of her harness, liked the sudden cessation of vibration as Jerry or Trish eased back and the plane nosed into the air, liked the tiny clunk of the wheels folding up that you only noticed if you were looking for it. It was normal. She liked having something normal.
Bobbi lost herself in her post-takeoff routine for a while, checking in on the family whose infant had started screaming a few minutes in, poor little thing. Sucking on a bottle had helped to equalize the pressure in its ear, and it was much happier now.
So were the passengers sitting next to it, one of whom was Jenny’s handsome-but-tired passenger in 16A. He was, as advertised, pretty beat up. She spotted a bruise at his hairline, and he was sitting stiffly, twisted sideways in his seat as though to take pressure off his back. He looked exhausted and drawn, with sharp creases around his mouth and between his eyes. She’d never seen someone look so simultaneously sleepy and jumpy before; as she handed him the glass of water he’d asked for, his eyes were constantly moving. The woman in the seat next to his looked nervous.
He thanked her for the water, in a gravelly voice that sounded like he hadn’t spoken for weeks, and paused, clearly debating with himself. Bobbi waited. “Could you,” he cleared his throat, “could you pass me the orange bottle from the front pocket of the black and purple bag in the overhead compartment, please?” He winced. “Actually, maybe pass me the clear one, too. Eight-hour flight, right?”
“Yes, sir. We’ve got a headwind, though, so it might be longer.”
“Faaaan-tastic. These should be good for seven hours, ‘s’far as the medics could tell me.”
Medics?
“You’re military, sir?”
“Something like that.”
She passed him the pills, and he knocked them back, taking a swallow of the water. “You were there, weren’t you,” she said. There wasn’t much question of what she meant by “there”. He got quiet, and she rushed to apologize. “I’m sorry, sir, that’s none of my business. I’ll put these back - front pocket, right?”
“Don’t worry about it. And front pocket’s fine. Might need a second pillow, if there are any going spare...”
He was already fading, shoulders finally losing a bit of their tension, the lines around his mouth becoming less stark.
She caught her watch on one of the bag’s other zippers while she was putting the medication back into the overhead bag, and froze. Bobbi wasn’t military, or law enforcement, but she was an aviator in a post 9/11 world and she could spot a weapon case when she saw one, even if the sizing was a little weird for a rifle and too big for a handgun. 16A was jumpy as heck, not military but something like it, and those pills might not have been the painkiller and muscle relaxant the bottles’ labels claimed them to be. 16A might just be a good actor. Airport security might have been distracted and overloaded what with everything. Hell, he might have had an accomplice. He did look like he was sleeping, though, and she’d seen a lot of sleeping people over the years. Well, shit.
She very carefully zipped the bag back up with the pills in the front pocket, just like she’d found it, closed the overhead bin, and made her way forwards. She hoped her poker face was good - her heart was pounding, and she nearly jumped out of her shoes when someone grabbed her sleeve as she was headed through first class. It turned out to be the weedy-looking guy in 3C.
“I need a Scotch.”
“Of course, sir. Someone will be right with you.”
“Hurry up, girl, I’m thirsty - ow, what did you do that for, Carla?”
“Be polite, dear. Sorry, miss. Just bring him a coffee, please, I think he’s had enough to drink already, haven’t you, Charles.”
The man grumbled. “Sure. Coffee, then. Honestly, Carla...”
“Don’t honestly me. I don’t want to spend the next seven and a half hours with you snoring my ear off because you’ve had too much to drink. Thank you, miss, coffee will be fine. He takes two milks -”
“Cream and sugar”
“ - two milks, no sugar.”
Bobbi smiled gratefully at the man’s wife, and headed to the galley, where she found Jenny.
“Jenny, I need to check something with the cockpit. Can you get 3C a coffee, please? Milk only.” Jenny looked at her with concern.
“Sure, Bobbi. Everything okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.
She picked up the phone to the cockpit.
“Jerry, Trish, it’s Bobbi. Can I come in for a moment?”
“Sure. Everything okay?”
“I... I’m not sure. I’ll tell you in a minute.”
The cockpit door clicked open, and she slipped inside, closing the door quickly behind her and leaning against it. Out of the front windows, the sky was darkening, shading from blue into indigo. Sit. She needed to sit. She slumped into the vacant flight engineer’s seat and clasped her trembling hands together.
“There’s a passenger in 16A. He says he’s not military, but he sure looks it. I think he might have a gun.”
Jerry nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “Not a gun, though, some weird high-tech bow.”
“What?” Her voice rose an octave and cracked. Wincing, she brought it back down. “I mean, what? You knew about this?”
“Sure. Some government LEO, name of... Barton, I think. He has air marshal qualifications, apparently needs his weapon as soon as he hits the ground. Special dispensation. He’s okay under title 49. What, you weren’t briefed?”
“Do I look like I was briefed? Do I sound like I knew some guy was bringing a weapon into my cabin? No. No, I wasn’t briefed.”
“Geez, Bobbi. I’m sorry, I should have double-checked. Please don’t kill me, I have to fly the plane.”
“You’re Trish’s backup. She can fly the plane.” Bobbi turned the full force of her glare on Trish, who was doing an excellent impersonation of an invisible ninja pilot who wasn’t part of the conversation, and ground out, “not that she told me either. Did either of you tell Jenny? Or the rest of the crew? Because I sure didn’t.”
“I’m sorry,” said Trish contritely. “So’s Jerry. Right, Jerry?”
“Yes! Yes I am. Very sorry.”
“We should have checked with you to confirm, but, well, it’s been a crazy couple of days. I was focused on mechanical checklists and it slipped my mind.”
Bobbi softened a bit. “It has been crazy. Don’t think for a moment that I won’t get revenge in Germany, though. I know where you’ll be sleeping, and I will pounce. When you least expect it. I’m tougher than I look, you know.”
“Suuuure. Under that pretty blonde exterior you’re secretly a super-soldier like that Captain America guy, Richards or whatever his name is.”
“Rogers. And that’s right, Jerry. I will end you. I’m going to go let the other stews know about 16A. Fly the plane or something. Don’t you have buttons to push?”
The rest of the flight was mostly uneventful. The infant sucked happily at its bottle, having become much more cheerful as the pressure inside its ears equalized and they stopped hurting, then fell asleep. Bobbi located the passengers who were travelling on compassionate tickets to attend the funeral service in Stuttgart, and poured them glasses of wine. “Compliments of the airline,” she told them. It didn’t seem like enough. It was something, though.
The sky outside darkened, and she took the opportunity, as she always did, to peek out of a window. She liked the overnight flights - there was always something serene about the starry skies over the Atlantic. Not that she could see the Atlantic - today was an overcast day, and there was a layer of clouds reflecting the starlight and moonlight back up at her. She'd seen ATC charts and knew that the sky was actually pretty crowded, usually, but it still looked big and empty, even with the wing lights that joined the stars in sparkling off in the distance.
Meal service finished, the cabin lights were dimmed and most of the passengers were conked out, including 3C who was snoring on his wife's shoulder. His wife rolled her eyes at Bobbi as if to say “what are you going to do?”, then turned back to her e-reader. After doing one more cabin walk-through, Bobbi returned to the galley and closed the curtain to attempt to concentrate on the sudoku book her mother had given her for Christmas..
Landing did not go as smoothly as the rest of the flight.
“Sir? Sir, we’re landing. I need you to wake up now.”
There was no response from Mr. Barton in 16A. The angle he was twisted at didn’t look comfortable, either, despite the airline pillow crushed between his head and the wall. Bobbi tried again.
“Mr. Barton?”
Still nothing. She reached out and touched his shoulder gently... then nearly fell into the lap of the woman in 16B as Mr. Barton grabbed her wrist and yanked, bringing them face to face, with only a quick grab of a seat back with her left hand preventing her from toppling over entirely. His eyes were wide and he was panting against her cheek.
Military. He was military. Or something. He was tired, he was hurt, and she’d touched him without his knowledge. She should have known better. At least his weapon was safely out of reach in the overhead compartment.
16B was looking at her in horror. Bobbi did her best to silently convey “look, it’s all right, I’ve got this under control, feel free to carry on with your book, sorry about all this” with a twist of mouth and eyebrow, then turned her attention back to Barton.
“Mr. Barton? Look at me, Mr. Barton. My name’s Bobbi. You’re on a plane. You’re all right.”
His fingers loosened around her wrist a little - she winced internally at the thought of the bruises she’d have later - and his eyes focused on her face.
“I - I don’t - what?”
“You’re all right. You’re on an airplane. We’re landing in Stuttgart soon, and I couldn’t wake you, so I touched your shoulder. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”
His gaze moved to his hand, still gripping her wrist, and he let go as suddenly as if he’d been burned, scrubbing his face. She straightened up and rubbed her arm, trying to restore circulation to her hand. He looked stricken.
“I’m sorry. Did I - I didn’t?.”
She was unsettled, but he was a passenger on her aircraft, and he needed reassuring. “It’s all right, sir. You just woke up, and I’m fine. Just a little startled, and I think that probably applies to both of us. Would you like some water? Do you need anything?”
“No, no, I’m fine, I’ll be fine... actually, come to think of it, you have a mirror?”
Bobbi was confused. “A mirror?”
“Yeah. Nothing big, just one of those little round ones women carry. Have one of those?”
She dug her compact out of her jacket pocket and passed it to him. He grabbed it out of her grip and opened it, frantically examining his reflection, holding it close to one eye, then the other, searching for something. Bobbi wasn’t sure if he found what he was looking for or not, but he slumped back into his seat, satisfied with whatever result he’d obtained, and held her mirror out so she could retrieve it. She took it gently, being careful not to touch his fingers as she did so, and stowed it back into her pocket, smiling in what she hoped was a cool, collected, reassuring and professional manner at both Barton and the poor woman sitting next to him, who was sitting ramrod-straight and staring fixedly at the back of the seat in front of her.
“We’re landing now, sir, ma’am. Please make sure to keep your seatbelts fastened, and electronics turned off. Thank you.”
Everyone else she checked on was either already awake or responded easily to her prompting, much to her relief, and the landing went smoothly. As she stood by the exit into the jetway and bid every passenger goodbye, she was planning the drinks she planned on ordering in the hotel bar and thanking her lucky stars she had a long layover in Stuttgart. A good sleep was probably in order, too. Maybe a massage. Definitely some ice for her wrist.
That’d have to take second priority, though. She had something she wanted to do tomorrow.
3. Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’
There was no public funeral for SHIELD’s dead. Officially, there’d been no public confirmation that there were any SHIELD casualties, or even that SHIELD was an existing agency. The Helicarrier floated a couple of hundred nautical miles offshore while mechanics performed what repairs were possible without a drydock; flight had been deemed inadvisable, or, in the words of Stark, “a fuckin’ stupid idea, Patches, I won’t be around if anything goes wrong this time and that one turbine is held together with spit and glue right now. You never struck me as a moron before, don’t let your badassery override your brain.”
Stark’s particular idiom aside, Maria Hill was in complete agreement. Even now, with coffins draped in flags lined up in two orderly rows of eight at the end of the number two runway, she could spy the bright sparks of metal being welded out of the corner of her eye.
A corner of one of the flags had come unpinned and was flapping in the wind. She crossed over to it, boot heels ringing crisply on the deck, and crouched down, tenderly smoothing the flag back into the regulation sharp crease and pinning it back into place. Most of the casualties had been shipped back to their families, but these sixteen either had none - not uncommon for SHIELD agents, a lot of people with families tended to reconsider when they heard what the job involved - or had chosen not to fill in the next-of-kin line on their paperwork. It didn’t matter, anyway. SHIELD took care of its own.
She knew this one. He’d been one of hers, a bright young thing specializing in Logistics. He’d had a knack for scrounging things up from out of nowhere, anything that was needed, sometimes even before she’d asked him for it. The rest of the department, M*A*S*H fans to the bone, had nicknamed him Radar. He had nothing else in common with the character - he’d been darkly handsome, independent, and he’d died bravely, she’d heard, shot by one of Loki’s men as he tried to keep them from the bridge.
Bravely. Like that mattered. Everyone died bravely in the letters she’d been up all night writing to next-of-kin. Bravely, quickly, and with no pain. Never mind that Annie Callahan had bled out from her femoral artery, screaming; never mind that Yves Geoffrion, who’d taken one of Barton’s arrows to the gut and a bullet to the chest, had sobbed bubblingly and called Maria “maman” just before he stopped breathing. The letters were about comfort, not about truth. It wasn’t far from the truth, anyway. They'd all been brave. They’d all been hers. She patted Radar’s coffin as she straightened and made her way back towards the end of the runway, where Colonel Fury was waiting, snapping a salute as she got there.
“Hell of a thing,” he said, pensively.
“Hell of a thing, yes sir.”
She’d said all she needed to say in the letters she’d written to their families; she’d even written letters about the ones like Radar, who’d had SHIELD - who’d had her - as their only family. It made her feel better to know there was a record of their deaths, of who they’d been, in a drawer somewhere, in case she ever found someone who wanted to know. Maybe she’d write a book about them all, if the operation was ever declassified and she lived to retire. As it was, she was glad the Colonel was giving the eulogy. She wasn’t sure she’d have been able to. Maria Hill, Ice Queen of SHIELD, sure - if she hadn’t been able to keep track of scuttlebutt, she’d have made a lousy excuse for a SHIELD agent - but she was human after all, and, unlike Fury, she’d worked closely with these people.
The coffins slipped, one by one, out from under their flags and into the sea, like so many before them. The splashes seemed awfully loud. The splashes seemed awfully muted. The splashes were awful, and she held her salute’s perfect form and forced herself not to look away as the last coffin vanished from sight.
A roar caught her attention, and she looked up to see the Helicarrier’s jet contingent rip through the air, and finally, as one peeled off to leave a hole in the formation, she let herself close her eyes a moment. She’d berated herself once for letting something as simple as the missing man formation affect her so much - after all, she’d seen it plenty of times, at funerals and at memorial events she should be inured to it - but with time she’d come to be grateful for her reaction. If she ever stopped reacting, she’d step down from command.
There was a wake being held in the mess below decks, and she was raising her second glass to her lips when she overheard a whisper she didn’t like very much.
“ - nowhere to be seen.”
“Doesn’t mean he wasn’t here, this is Barton we’re talking about.”
“Yeah, but Romanov’s not around, either.”
A third voice joined the first two, low and bitter. “Of course not. He knows better than to show his face around here after what he did.”
“He might be a traitor, but he’s not dumb enough to disrespect the dead. I met him a couple of times before he joined SHIELD, he always did it clean.”
By this time, Maria had come up behind the third guy - Nguyen, his name ribbon read, not one of hers, and a good thing for him too. She cleared her throat.
All three agents jumped, guiltily, and came quickly to attention as they matched name to face. She noted with satisfaction that the second speaker had even gone a sickly shade of puce. Ice Queen of SHIELD, she reminded herself, and injected all of that ice into her voice.
“It’s good of you to be concerned about the absence of your fellow agents, Nguyen, Jones, and... Martin, isn’t it? Under Sitwell’s command, if I remember correctly?”
She had to hand it to Martin. The woman had enough courage to meet Maria’s glare head-on. “Martin, under Sitwell, yes ma’am. Ma’am, we’re not concerned. And Barton’s hardly a fellow agent anymore. I don’t care if he was compromised, you die before you betray your own.”
Courage apparently didn’t indicate intelligence. She spotted Nguyen wincing almost imperceptibly.
“As I understand it,” she said, every syllable perfectly clipped, “he was not given that option at any point. Have you ever been on a mission with Barton, Martin? No? Nguyen, Jones? Neither of you?”
She leaned in, and they took a step back. “Pity. If you had, you would know that Barton does not place his own life above those of his fellow agents. Colonel Fury and I both owe him our lives, as do several other agents currently in this room, and you are all damn lucky that I’m the one who overheard your conversation. You can tell by the way your noses are still three-dimensional.”
The goldfish impression they were all doing put her in the most cheerful mood she’d been in since Loki had crashed the research facility.
“I’ll speak with Agent Sitwell in the morning. I suggest you all return to quarters and pack. Loyalty aside, you’ve all shown an appalling lack of judgement.”
“Ma’am?”
“Yes, Jones? What is it?”
“Where are Barton and Romanov? I’m actually surprised they’re not here.” Thank goodness. One of them wasn’t a complete loss. She’d tell Jasper to go easy on this one.
“They had personal business elsewhere, Agent. It's up to them whether they want to tell you what it is when they get back... I notice you're all still here. I suggest you change that.”
They scattered. Someone yelled, “to our lost! May they live forever!”, and Maria shouted the traditional response - “May we we never die!” - and drained her glass in one gulp. Wiping her mouth on the back of her black dress glove, she headed to the bar for another. It was a good night for whisky.
Part Two
Author name: framlingem
Beta names: quiva, M.D. (offline)
Characters: Clint Barton, Steve Rogers, Maria Hill, Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Coulson's Mom, Coulson's Niece, Pepper Potts, Surprise Flight Attendant and her colleagues
Fandom/Universe: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: G
Word count: 10 826
Warnings: Canon character deaths and violence.
Summary: After the events of The Avengers, everyone buries their dead, and the world starts to recover. Mostly.
Notes: Thanks very much to my co-worker from New York. If there are any NYC impossibilities in there still, they're my fault. Thanks also to Walk Off The Earth for this. This was written for marvel-bang, whose mod was very patient with me.
Fanworker name: taibhrigh
Type of fanwork: Fanart (book cover and interior illustrations).
Art Master Post: here. I didn't give her much to go on, for which I am eternally sorry, but the art is fantastic.
1. One hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’
Captain America gives speech to crowd in New York. Photo: P. Parker.
NEW YORK, USA (Reuters) - Thousands of New Yorkers gathered today in Manhattan to pay their respects to the emergency service workers and civilians who lost their lives in last week’s attacks. For the second time in this young century, the city of New York was the site of a tragedy unlike any previously occurring in the USA, and for the second time the citizens rallied to recover. One very old citizen was on hand to give a memorial speech. Eyes all over the world were glued to their television screens as Steve Rogers, the recently-awoken Captain America and de facto leader of the newly-formed “Avengers” who made such a difference in the attacks, spoke humbly of the heroics of those who gave their lives in defence of their city - in defense, some might say, of (continued p.2)
There was a public funeral for the dead police officers and firemen of New York. New Yorkers being New Yorkers, the procession route had been crowded with volunteers as soon as the city had had its chance to catch its breath; all the fires extinguished, the citizens turned up with every possible tool and cleaning implement they could think of. Their ranks held everyone from engineers and construction workers to inspect and secure buildings whose original blueprints had not included gaping holes in their walls to teenagers with brooms and thermoses of coffee. Other parts of Manhattan were still a shambles, but by the gorgeously sunny Saturday afternoon the route was clear, passable, and either safe for crowds or roped off. Being underground, the subway had not been badly damaged by what the Twitter-verse was calling #etsinnyc , and proved invaluable for ferrying construction supplies and workers to and from the hardest-hit areas where rubble cluttered the streets.
Steve rode the subway in from Brooklyn for the procession, alongside a bunch of folks who, but for their clothes, weren’t a whole lot different from the people he’d ridden the subway with a few months ago. Decades ago. This would take some getting used to. Stark - Tony, he reminded himself - Tony had offered to fly him in to City Hall to save time, but he’d turned down the offer. Today wasn’t about him, and being flown in by a bright red-and-gold rocket-man in full view of everyone would be disrespectful. Even if, he had to admit to himself somewhat sheepishly, the ride itself’d be pretty fun. Maybe another time. For now, he was content with holding on to a hanging strap and being just a face in the crowd of people crammed into the subway carriage. Being able to see over the heads of most of the throng was nice, too.
He let the current carry him out of the train and up the stairs onto the street and around an area surrounded with concrete dividers and caution signs, towards the cordon surrounding a stage in City Hall Park. People were milling about on the grass, but they all seemed to be behaving themselves. A small child, of that age where Steve had trouble telling boys from girls, was staring at him, so he waved. The kid waved back, and his mother scooped him up, scolding him.
“Sorry, sir! I’ve been trying to teach him not to stare at strangers...”
Steve grinned. “It’s fine, ma’am, I don’t mind. I’ve been stared at by worse.” He stuck his tongue out at the little boy, who giggled and responded in kind. “Er...” Steve looked guiltily up at the boy’s mother. “Sorry. I hope he doesn’t make a habit of doing that to people now.” The woman sighed and ran her free hand down her face.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure he’ll pick up worse habits as he gets older.”
“I’ve, uh, got to be going. Nice to meet you, ma’am. Handsome boy you have there.” Steve beat a hasty escape and headed for the cordoned-off area, where there was a stage equipped with some microphones and a loudspeaker. There was bunting, too, the red-white-and-blue banded with black, and he cringed a bit. He did not have fond memories of bunting. At least there weren’t likely to be any dancing girls. At least, he didn’t think so. Things had gotten a lot more relaxed in the future. He liked it, mostly, but some occasions needed a certain dignity.
He dug the badge Fury had given him out of his pocket and showed it to the police officer who looked to be in charge. The cop checked the name against a list on a clipboard, glanced at Steve’s face, and let him in, shaking his hand as he passed.
“It’s an honor, Cap. We owe you one. Welcome back.”
Steve gripped his hand in return, hoping that any smudges he’d picked up strap-hanging didn’t transfer to the cop’s white gloves. “Did my job, officer. Same as you. And thanks.”
He’d gotten three steps further on when he heard the cop’s voice call out to him again, confusion evident.
“Hey, Cap?”
“Yeah?”
“Ain’t that a private’s insignia? Thought you were a captain.”
Steve looked ruefully down at his arm. “Wouldn’t you believe it,” he said, “what with everything, the Army never did get around to actually promoting me.”
The cop roared with laughter, heedless of the disapproving looks from solemn passers-by. “I’d believe it, all right. Figures. Hey, you! Yeah, you! Sorry, buddy, you gotta stay over on this side of the cordon, VIPs and family members only past the line.”
“I’ll let you do your job, officer. Be safe.”
“Thanks, Cap, you too. You on the list, sir? No? Then you’re general public, an’ you gotta hang out with the rest of ‘em. Move it.”
With a wave, Steve made his way up to the stage, where he could see Tony. Fortunately the man had forgone the Iron Man armor and instead was wearing a suit Steve was pretty sure cost more than the annual rent on his new Brooklyn apartment. He was staring down at some kind of device, but Pepper was on his arm, and waved him over.
“Steve! How are you?”
“Fine, Ms. Potts.” he said. “Nice day for it, isn’t it?”
She rolled her eyes, smiling so he’d know she was teasing him. “Please, Steve. It’s Pepper. Ms. Potts makes me sound like the teapot in Beauty and the Beast.”
He smiled back at her. “Haven’t seen it yet, Ms. Potts.”
“Oh, you’ll love it. We’ll have to fix that, won’t we Tony. Tony! Put that away, you can work on it later.”
“Huh? But it’s - oh, hey, Cap, when did you get here?”
“Just now, act -”
“Right, right, hey, Steve, you should meet the mayor. Mike! Mike, this is Captain America. Steve Rogers. Steve, Michael Bloomberg, he’s running this thing, oh, hey, big screens going on, we should go sit down. You look weird in a normal uniform, by the way.”
It took a while for the procession to reach them at the park. Steve recognized the route as the one that had been used for the ticker tape parade at the end of the war; it had been one of the first bits of footage SHIELD had shown him when he’d woken up from the ice. The crowds on the big screens that had been set up so that folks in the park could see the whole parade were huge and silent, arrayed in orderly rows - well, as orderly as crowds of civilians that size ever were - along the sidewalks. He guessed nine in ten of them were wearing black armbands. Good. It was odd, doing this, watching drummers and pipers playing on the screens, watching the police marching in their dress blues as though they were right there, and hearing the sound echoing off the buildings from far away and mixing with the cooing of the pigeons, who were taking advantage of the large crowd to grab fallen crumbs. Howard would have been the first to have any of this, he thought, and half-smiled at the idea of Howard taking the back off of a television and ripping the wiring out. He glanced to his right, past the mayor, at Howard’s son, who had put the device - “tablet”, Steve thought, and felt a little guilty for marvelling at the gadgets on a day like this one - away and was staring at one of the screen, right hand white-knuckled around Pepper’s left, jaw muscles clenched. Pepper was bearing up well, stroking her thumb along Tony’s gently. Howard would be proud, Steve thought. His son was a good man.
The drums and pipes grew louder and, cued by the sight of them entering the park, Steve stood to attention. The sound drowned out the pigeons and put an end to the murmuring of the crowd, who’d already been standing but made a collective effort to slouch a little less. Steve caught sight of a homemade “I ♥ New York” sign off towards the right. The procession came to a halt, and Steve took a deep breath, straightened his uniform, and approached the podium, drawing some pages from his breast pocket and nervously unfolding them.
It took a while for the applause to die down, and the blush was still on his cheeks when he started to speak.
“My name’s Steve Rogers. I guess you probably know me more as Captain America, but that’s not so important right now. I’m here like you are, as a New Yorker who’s grateful to a lot of heroes. I was honoured to witness the courage and compassion of the police officers, firefighters, paramedics, and ordinary citizens who did their utmost to protect their fellow human beings. I would be privileged to thank them in person, but far too many of them are not able to be here today.” Nor were a lot of courageous, compassionate men and women he'd known. He'd looked up as many people as he could. A lot of them were in Arlington. “Their families, however, are.. On behalf of everyone, I’d like to express my thanks and condolences to the families of...”
(cont) their planet. There cannot have been a dry eye in New York as Rogers read the list of names which will be engraved next year on a memorial sculpture to be sponsored by Stark Industries, as announced afterwards by owner Tony Stark and CEO Virginia Potts who were also in attendance. Other members of the Avengers were occupied elsewhere, said a spokeswoman.”
2. Saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
“Flight attendants, please prepare for takeoff.”
“You get a load of the passenger in 16A, Jenny?” Bobbi whispered, settling into her jump seat and fastening her harness.
“Hm? No, I was helping that family with the three kids get settled in. His seat belt’s on and he doesn’t have headphones on, but that’s about all I checked. Why?” It was a full plane. There’s been a rash of cancellations from locals who’d decided they’d rather stay home and spend time with their families or help with the cleanup, or just assumed that the FAA would ground all the planes - to be honest, Bobbi was kind of surprised to be working today, just over a day since the hole in the sky had first opened over Manhattan, but Newark airport was undamaged. Weird. If she’d been an invading alien overlord, New Jersey would have been the first to go, she thought, taken aback at herself immediately after that. How could she think that? Ugh.
The cancellations had been balanced out by people who’d wanted to get out of the city, or had suddenly-urgent business in the EU. There were also a few people, Bobbi knew, that United had extended special courtesies to in order to get them onto the non-stop flight to Stuttgart - customers who’d lost family in the smaller, forgotten massacre that had taken place there before the invasion of New York.
Invasion of New York. It sounded like a bad movie. Everything sounded like a bad movie. “Invasion of New York”. “Massacre in Stuttgart” (okay, that one was more of a novel. Movies never happened in Stuttgart). “Flying Aircraft Carrier”, for crying out loud, and why hadn’t there been any more news about that? She hadn't seen it herself, but the aviation gossip lines were humming with it. Flights had been diverted to Boston and Philadelphia, and people were stuck there sleeping in airports trying to find a way to get on a flight to wherever they’d been going in the first place. She’d heard from a buddy who worked the United customer service desk at Logan that a lot of Bostonians had offered couches, beds, and floorspace to stranded travellers. Be nice if the same thing was happening in Philly, but she hadn’t heard on the news yet. The news was still focused on Manhattan, much as it had been eleven years ago, showing the kind of footage you couldn’t tear your eyes from no matter how nauseous seeing buildings you’d known the shape of your whole life being torn apart made you feel. At least there was more variety. In 2001, she’d crowded into a jam-packed, eerily-silent student lounge and spent the afternoon watching the planes collide with the towers, over and over and over. She took a deep breath and focused her attention back on Jenny, who’d kept talking.
“... pretty good-looking, in a beat-up kind of way, don’t you think? He looks tired, though. I had to wake him up for takeoff.”
The big Pratt & Whitney turbofans were increasing in pitch, now, and she tuned Jenny out as the 757 accelerated down the runway. She liked this part, even facing backwards, liked the reassuring pressure of her harness, liked the sudden cessation of vibration as Jerry or Trish eased back and the plane nosed into the air, liked the tiny clunk of the wheels folding up that you only noticed if you were looking for it. It was normal. She liked having something normal.
Bobbi lost herself in her post-takeoff routine for a while, checking in on the family whose infant had started screaming a few minutes in, poor little thing. Sucking on a bottle had helped to equalize the pressure in its ear, and it was much happier now.
So were the passengers sitting next to it, one of whom was Jenny’s handsome-but-tired passenger in 16A. He was, as advertised, pretty beat up. She spotted a bruise at his hairline, and he was sitting stiffly, twisted sideways in his seat as though to take pressure off his back. He looked exhausted and drawn, with sharp creases around his mouth and between his eyes. She’d never seen someone look so simultaneously sleepy and jumpy before; as she handed him the glass of water he’d asked for, his eyes were constantly moving. The woman in the seat next to his looked nervous.
He thanked her for the water, in a gravelly voice that sounded like he hadn’t spoken for weeks, and paused, clearly debating with himself. Bobbi waited. “Could you,” he cleared his throat, “could you pass me the orange bottle from the front pocket of the black and purple bag in the overhead compartment, please?” He winced. “Actually, maybe pass me the clear one, too. Eight-hour flight, right?”
“Yes, sir. We’ve got a headwind, though, so it might be longer.”
“Faaaan-tastic. These should be good for seven hours, ‘s’far as the medics could tell me.”
Medics?
“You’re military, sir?”
“Something like that.”
She passed him the pills, and he knocked them back, taking a swallow of the water. “You were there, weren’t you,” she said. There wasn’t much question of what she meant by “there”. He got quiet, and she rushed to apologize. “I’m sorry, sir, that’s none of my business. I’ll put these back - front pocket, right?”
“Don’t worry about it. And front pocket’s fine. Might need a second pillow, if there are any going spare...”
He was already fading, shoulders finally losing a bit of their tension, the lines around his mouth becoming less stark.
She caught her watch on one of the bag’s other zippers while she was putting the medication back into the overhead bag, and froze. Bobbi wasn’t military, or law enforcement, but she was an aviator in a post 9/11 world and she could spot a weapon case when she saw one, even if the sizing was a little weird for a rifle and too big for a handgun. 16A was jumpy as heck, not military but something like it, and those pills might not have been the painkiller and muscle relaxant the bottles’ labels claimed them to be. 16A might just be a good actor. Airport security might have been distracted and overloaded what with everything. Hell, he might have had an accomplice. He did look like he was sleeping, though, and she’d seen a lot of sleeping people over the years. Well, shit.
She very carefully zipped the bag back up with the pills in the front pocket, just like she’d found it, closed the overhead bin, and made her way forwards. She hoped her poker face was good - her heart was pounding, and she nearly jumped out of her shoes when someone grabbed her sleeve as she was headed through first class. It turned out to be the weedy-looking guy in 3C.
“I need a Scotch.”
“Of course, sir. Someone will be right with you.”
“Hurry up, girl, I’m thirsty - ow, what did you do that for, Carla?”
“Be polite, dear. Sorry, miss. Just bring him a coffee, please, I think he’s had enough to drink already, haven’t you, Charles.”
The man grumbled. “Sure. Coffee, then. Honestly, Carla...”
“Don’t honestly me. I don’t want to spend the next seven and a half hours with you snoring my ear off because you’ve had too much to drink. Thank you, miss, coffee will be fine. He takes two milks -”
“Cream and sugar”
“ - two milks, no sugar.”
Bobbi smiled gratefully at the man’s wife, and headed to the galley, where she found Jenny.
“Jenny, I need to check something with the cockpit. Can you get 3C a coffee, please? Milk only.” Jenny looked at her with concern.
“Sure, Bobbi. Everything okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.
She picked up the phone to the cockpit.
“Jerry, Trish, it’s Bobbi. Can I come in for a moment?”
“Sure. Everything okay?”
“I... I’m not sure. I’ll tell you in a minute.”
The cockpit door clicked open, and she slipped inside, closing the door quickly behind her and leaning against it. Out of the front windows, the sky was darkening, shading from blue into indigo. Sit. She needed to sit. She slumped into the vacant flight engineer’s seat and clasped her trembling hands together.
“There’s a passenger in 16A. He says he’s not military, but he sure looks it. I think he might have a gun.”
Jerry nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “Not a gun, though, some weird high-tech bow.”
“What?” Her voice rose an octave and cracked. Wincing, she brought it back down. “I mean, what? You knew about this?”
“Sure. Some government LEO, name of... Barton, I think. He has air marshal qualifications, apparently needs his weapon as soon as he hits the ground. Special dispensation. He’s okay under title 49. What, you weren’t briefed?”
“Do I look like I was briefed? Do I sound like I knew some guy was bringing a weapon into my cabin? No. No, I wasn’t briefed.”
“Geez, Bobbi. I’m sorry, I should have double-checked. Please don’t kill me, I have to fly the plane.”
“You’re Trish’s backup. She can fly the plane.” Bobbi turned the full force of her glare on Trish, who was doing an excellent impersonation of an invisible ninja pilot who wasn’t part of the conversation, and ground out, “not that she told me either. Did either of you tell Jenny? Or the rest of the crew? Because I sure didn’t.”
“I’m sorry,” said Trish contritely. “So’s Jerry. Right, Jerry?”
“Yes! Yes I am. Very sorry.”
“We should have checked with you to confirm, but, well, it’s been a crazy couple of days. I was focused on mechanical checklists and it slipped my mind.”
Bobbi softened a bit. “It has been crazy. Don’t think for a moment that I won’t get revenge in Germany, though. I know where you’ll be sleeping, and I will pounce. When you least expect it. I’m tougher than I look, you know.”
“Suuuure. Under that pretty blonde exterior you’re secretly a super-soldier like that Captain America guy, Richards or whatever his name is.”
“Rogers. And that’s right, Jerry. I will end you. I’m going to go let the other stews know about 16A. Fly the plane or something. Don’t you have buttons to push?”
The rest of the flight was mostly uneventful. The infant sucked happily at its bottle, having become much more cheerful as the pressure inside its ears equalized and they stopped hurting, then fell asleep. Bobbi located the passengers who were travelling on compassionate tickets to attend the funeral service in Stuttgart, and poured them glasses of wine. “Compliments of the airline,” she told them. It didn’t seem like enough. It was something, though.
The sky outside darkened, and she took the opportunity, as she always did, to peek out of a window. She liked the overnight flights - there was always something serene about the starry skies over the Atlantic. Not that she could see the Atlantic - today was an overcast day, and there was a layer of clouds reflecting the starlight and moonlight back up at her. She'd seen ATC charts and knew that the sky was actually pretty crowded, usually, but it still looked big and empty, even with the wing lights that joined the stars in sparkling off in the distance.
Meal service finished, the cabin lights were dimmed and most of the passengers were conked out, including 3C who was snoring on his wife's shoulder. His wife rolled her eyes at Bobbi as if to say “what are you going to do?”, then turned back to her e-reader. After doing one more cabin walk-through, Bobbi returned to the galley and closed the curtain to attempt to concentrate on the sudoku book her mother had given her for Christmas..
Landing did not go as smoothly as the rest of the flight.
“Sir? Sir, we’re landing. I need you to wake up now.”
There was no response from Mr. Barton in 16A. The angle he was twisted at didn’t look comfortable, either, despite the airline pillow crushed between his head and the wall. Bobbi tried again.
“Mr. Barton?”
Still nothing. She reached out and touched his shoulder gently... then nearly fell into the lap of the woman in 16B as Mr. Barton grabbed her wrist and yanked, bringing them face to face, with only a quick grab of a seat back with her left hand preventing her from toppling over entirely. His eyes were wide and he was panting against her cheek.
Military. He was military. Or something. He was tired, he was hurt, and she’d touched him without his knowledge. She should have known better. At least his weapon was safely out of reach in the overhead compartment.
16B was looking at her in horror. Bobbi did her best to silently convey “look, it’s all right, I’ve got this under control, feel free to carry on with your book, sorry about all this” with a twist of mouth and eyebrow, then turned her attention back to Barton.
“Mr. Barton? Look at me, Mr. Barton. My name’s Bobbi. You’re on a plane. You’re all right.”
His fingers loosened around her wrist a little - she winced internally at the thought of the bruises she’d have later - and his eyes focused on her face.
“I - I don’t - what?”
“You’re all right. You’re on an airplane. We’re landing in Stuttgart soon, and I couldn’t wake you, so I touched your shoulder. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”
His gaze moved to his hand, still gripping her wrist, and he let go as suddenly as if he’d been burned, scrubbing his face. She straightened up and rubbed her arm, trying to restore circulation to her hand. He looked stricken.
“I’m sorry. Did I - I didn’t?.”
She was unsettled, but he was a passenger on her aircraft, and he needed reassuring. “It’s all right, sir. You just woke up, and I’m fine. Just a little startled, and I think that probably applies to both of us. Would you like some water? Do you need anything?”
“No, no, I’m fine, I’ll be fine... actually, come to think of it, you have a mirror?”
Bobbi was confused. “A mirror?”
“Yeah. Nothing big, just one of those little round ones women carry. Have one of those?”
She dug her compact out of her jacket pocket and passed it to him. He grabbed it out of her grip and opened it, frantically examining his reflection, holding it close to one eye, then the other, searching for something. Bobbi wasn’t sure if he found what he was looking for or not, but he slumped back into his seat, satisfied with whatever result he’d obtained, and held her mirror out so she could retrieve it. She took it gently, being careful not to touch his fingers as she did so, and stowed it back into her pocket, smiling in what she hoped was a cool, collected, reassuring and professional manner at both Barton and the poor woman sitting next to him, who was sitting ramrod-straight and staring fixedly at the back of the seat in front of her.
“We’re landing now, sir, ma’am. Please make sure to keep your seatbelts fastened, and electronics turned off. Thank you.”
Everyone else she checked on was either already awake or responded easily to her prompting, much to her relief, and the landing went smoothly. As she stood by the exit into the jetway and bid every passenger goodbye, she was planning the drinks she planned on ordering in the hotel bar and thanking her lucky stars she had a long layover in Stuttgart. A good sleep was probably in order, too. Maybe a massage. Definitely some ice for her wrist.
That’d have to take second priority, though. She had something she wanted to do tomorrow.
3. Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’
There was no public funeral for SHIELD’s dead. Officially, there’d been no public confirmation that there were any SHIELD casualties, or even that SHIELD was an existing agency. The Helicarrier floated a couple of hundred nautical miles offshore while mechanics performed what repairs were possible without a drydock; flight had been deemed inadvisable, or, in the words of Stark, “a fuckin’ stupid idea, Patches, I won’t be around if anything goes wrong this time and that one turbine is held together with spit and glue right now. You never struck me as a moron before, don’t let your badassery override your brain.”
Stark’s particular idiom aside, Maria Hill was in complete agreement. Even now, with coffins draped in flags lined up in two orderly rows of eight at the end of the number two runway, she could spy the bright sparks of metal being welded out of the corner of her eye.
A corner of one of the flags had come unpinned and was flapping in the wind. She crossed over to it, boot heels ringing crisply on the deck, and crouched down, tenderly smoothing the flag back into the regulation sharp crease and pinning it back into place. Most of the casualties had been shipped back to their families, but these sixteen either had none - not uncommon for SHIELD agents, a lot of people with families tended to reconsider when they heard what the job involved - or had chosen not to fill in the next-of-kin line on their paperwork. It didn’t matter, anyway. SHIELD took care of its own.
She knew this one. He’d been one of hers, a bright young thing specializing in Logistics. He’d had a knack for scrounging things up from out of nowhere, anything that was needed, sometimes even before she’d asked him for it. The rest of the department, M*A*S*H fans to the bone, had nicknamed him Radar. He had nothing else in common with the character - he’d been darkly handsome, independent, and he’d died bravely, she’d heard, shot by one of Loki’s men as he tried to keep them from the bridge.
Bravely. Like that mattered. Everyone died bravely in the letters she’d been up all night writing to next-of-kin. Bravely, quickly, and with no pain. Never mind that Annie Callahan had bled out from her femoral artery, screaming; never mind that Yves Geoffrion, who’d taken one of Barton’s arrows to the gut and a bullet to the chest, had sobbed bubblingly and called Maria “maman” just before he stopped breathing. The letters were about comfort, not about truth. It wasn’t far from the truth, anyway. They'd all been brave. They’d all been hers. She patted Radar’s coffin as she straightened and made her way back towards the end of the runway, where Colonel Fury was waiting, snapping a salute as she got there.
“Hell of a thing,” he said, pensively.
“Hell of a thing, yes sir.”
She’d said all she needed to say in the letters she’d written to their families; she’d even written letters about the ones like Radar, who’d had SHIELD - who’d had her - as their only family. It made her feel better to know there was a record of their deaths, of who they’d been, in a drawer somewhere, in case she ever found someone who wanted to know. Maybe she’d write a book about them all, if the operation was ever declassified and she lived to retire. As it was, she was glad the Colonel was giving the eulogy. She wasn’t sure she’d have been able to. Maria Hill, Ice Queen of SHIELD, sure - if she hadn’t been able to keep track of scuttlebutt, she’d have made a lousy excuse for a SHIELD agent - but she was human after all, and, unlike Fury, she’d worked closely with these people.
The coffins slipped, one by one, out from under their flags and into the sea, like so many before them. The splashes seemed awfully loud. The splashes seemed awfully muted. The splashes were awful, and she held her salute’s perfect form and forced herself not to look away as the last coffin vanished from sight.
A roar caught her attention, and she looked up to see the Helicarrier’s jet contingent rip through the air, and finally, as one peeled off to leave a hole in the formation, she let herself close her eyes a moment. She’d berated herself once for letting something as simple as the missing man formation affect her so much - after all, she’d seen it plenty of times, at funerals and at memorial events she should be inured to it - but with time she’d come to be grateful for her reaction. If she ever stopped reacting, she’d step down from command.
There was a wake being held in the mess below decks, and she was raising her second glass to her lips when she overheard a whisper she didn’t like very much.
“ - nowhere to be seen.”
“Doesn’t mean he wasn’t here, this is Barton we’re talking about.”
“Yeah, but Romanov’s not around, either.”
A third voice joined the first two, low and bitter. “Of course not. He knows better than to show his face around here after what he did.”
“He might be a traitor, but he’s not dumb enough to disrespect the dead. I met him a couple of times before he joined SHIELD, he always did it clean.”
By this time, Maria had come up behind the third guy - Nguyen, his name ribbon read, not one of hers, and a good thing for him too. She cleared her throat.
All three agents jumped, guiltily, and came quickly to attention as they matched name to face. She noted with satisfaction that the second speaker had even gone a sickly shade of puce. Ice Queen of SHIELD, she reminded herself, and injected all of that ice into her voice.
“It’s good of you to be concerned about the absence of your fellow agents, Nguyen, Jones, and... Martin, isn’t it? Under Sitwell’s command, if I remember correctly?”
She had to hand it to Martin. The woman had enough courage to meet Maria’s glare head-on. “Martin, under Sitwell, yes ma’am. Ma’am, we’re not concerned. And Barton’s hardly a fellow agent anymore. I don’t care if he was compromised, you die before you betray your own.”
Courage apparently didn’t indicate intelligence. She spotted Nguyen wincing almost imperceptibly.
“As I understand it,” she said, every syllable perfectly clipped, “he was not given that option at any point. Have you ever been on a mission with Barton, Martin? No? Nguyen, Jones? Neither of you?”
She leaned in, and they took a step back. “Pity. If you had, you would know that Barton does not place his own life above those of his fellow agents. Colonel Fury and I both owe him our lives, as do several other agents currently in this room, and you are all damn lucky that I’m the one who overheard your conversation. You can tell by the way your noses are still three-dimensional.”
The goldfish impression they were all doing put her in the most cheerful mood she’d been in since Loki had crashed the research facility.
“I’ll speak with Agent Sitwell in the morning. I suggest you all return to quarters and pack. Loyalty aside, you’ve all shown an appalling lack of judgement.”
“Ma’am?”
“Yes, Jones? What is it?”
“Where are Barton and Romanov? I’m actually surprised they’re not here.” Thank goodness. One of them wasn’t a complete loss. She’d tell Jasper to go easy on this one.
“They had personal business elsewhere, Agent. It's up to them whether they want to tell you what it is when they get back... I notice you're all still here. I suggest you change that.”
They scattered. Someone yelled, “to our lost! May they live forever!”, and Maria shouted the traditional response - “May we we never die!” - and drained her glass in one gulp. Wiping her mouth on the back of her black dress glove, she headed to the bar for another. It was a good night for whisky.
Part Two