Project 43: Healing

Ignore the elephant

Going back to New York was something Elias never thought he would do. He had been convinced he could live his entire life, however long that may be, staying as far away from the place as he could.

A week after Novi Grad had come crashing down from the clouds, the Avengers were on their way to New York. The quinjet sped through the sky and no one dared to say anything. Most of them just stared at the somehow scary young man who had turned out to be almost a hundred years old. They didn't know what to do or say, even Stark couldn't think of anything

Elias sat still his elbows leaned against his knees as he slowly fiddled with his fingers. He was afraid. He wasn't scared of murderous robots or fighting for his life, but he was petrified of going back to the place he had run away from seventy years earlier.

Elias could no longer see the tanlines he had once had on his right middle ringer. The feel of a ring that he had once carried with him everywhere seemed so distant, like an echo of a simpler time. Still, he kept on tracing a circle around his finger, hoping to feel something there.

Ha had always known going back would bring back a lot of memories, but it wasn't exactly how he had imagined it. He didn't have violent flashbacks to the years he spent with his father or get lost in memories with the people he had once known. Instead, he felt like once again he was being carried off to battle. He remembered how it felt to slowly roll through the forests knowing that he or the people around him would most likely die. He could still remember the sound of the engine humming and the way the cold bit on his fingers.

For a week after taking down Ultron, Elias had to stay on the helicarrier while the Avengers attempted to fix what they had broken. The Stark Relief Foundation was working tirelessly to bring healthcare to the people harmed during the fight and rebuild what they could. Still, Elias knew it wouldn't be enough.

The Avengers held a huge press conference where they attempted to explain what had happened and what they were doing to help the situation. Elias had sat in his small room observing the event on television, listening in horror as Tony Stark admitted to creating Ultron. Even if it had been an accident and his intentions had been good, Elias despised the man with every fiber of his being. Because of the bearded bastard many people were injured or lost their lives. Countless innocent people, so many children, were traumatized because Tony Stark lacked impulse control.

The archer Elias had learned to call Clint left right after the press conference to be with his family. Elias was shocked to find out someone like the archer could have a family, a sense of normality. For all he had ever known, soldiers and fighters didn't have the privilege to live a normal life.

Elias wasn't sure why he stayed. He could have run like he had so many times before. Maybe he could have still caught up with Dimitri or maybe he'd go back to Belize to see Dominik and Victor. Still, he was trying to be a better person. He wanted to be a person the people he cared about could be proud of, the person his men had once looked up to, the person Colonel Miller saw in him. Elias needed to try to find that version of himself. The man who ran into battle for his men, the man who stayed behind so the others could flee, the man who lived in the vents for three days in order to have a chance of saving his friends. It didn't help that Elias' face was plastered on every TV in the world so his options were very limited.

The air in the jet felt heavy. The Sokovian redhead Elias had learned to call Wanda was still in deep grief over her brother. Even tho Elias hated the woman for working with Hydra, he still felt bad for her. For the whole week, Elias had been ignoring Wanda and basically everyone else for that matter.