A/N: Hey guys! Apologies again for the late update. University is... time-consuming, to say the least.
I did want to give an update on this story and where it's headed- it's almost over. After this, I have only one more chapter to write. But I promise you, this storyline, as I said in a previous update, is FAR from over. A second book will be coming very soon, as Promise Me is going to be a trilogy series! We've got a LONG way to go before this story is over.
For those of you who have stuck by this story since its beginning a year and a half ago, I want to thank you for your patience. You guys have endured slow updates, procrastination on my part, and some serious writer's block, and yet, you still managed to support me throughout writing this story. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Okay, now that my sap is over, on with the story! Enjoy chapter fifteen!
- Harper E. Pierce
BUCKY:
Five hours earlier:
Thank god she was okay. After seeing all the footage from Somalia, and seeing how much damage had been done, I thought for sure she was hurt. But her text around noon letting me know she was okay made me feel a lot better.
I spent most of the previous night tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep. For once, it wasn't the nightmares waking me up every hour. I didn't even get that far. The bed just felt empty without her in it. Knowing she was in danger awoke a deeply rooted anxiety that I couldn't shake no matter how much I tried to clear my mind. The tightness in my chest wouldn't go away.
Around six am I just gave up on trying to fall asleep and started my day. I went down to the gym first and for the first hour, I mainly just used the punching bag. I needed to get her off my mind for just a second, because I knew that the more I thought, the more I'd worry. I quickly found the silence in the gym all-consuming, but I didn't know a lot of music from after the forties and fifties. Then I remembered a suggestion Natasha gave me- someone named Britney? Anyway, I put on some of her music and managed to distract myself for a couple of hours.
After that, I had a shower, got dressed and had breakfast, before turning on the nine o'clock news. When I saw Bruce's big green monster jumping all over buildings in the city on the television, I immediately understood why everyone always said he was the last guy in the room you wanted to piss off. From what I could see, Tony was fighting him in a giant Iron man suit- clearly, the mission had gone very wrong. From then on, all I could do was worry. Worry about if she was hurt, or worse... or if somehow HYDRA got involved and took her.
I called her four times, but there was no answer. I had to stop myself from jumping straight to conclusions, knowing that not answering a phone in this line of work didn't really mean someone was hurt. If she was okay, she'd call me back when that mess was over. So, instead, I kept my eyes on the news, waiting for the moment the whole situation calmed down, so I knew when to expect her to call me. And within half an hour of the whole thing on the news ending, she sent me that text.
Again, after finding out she wouldn't be home with me that night, the text did little to calm my nerves. Especially after what she said to me before she left.
It was the exact same thing I said to Madeline the night before I left for the war. The empty promise I made to comfort her in a time of need. What if Briar was doing the same thing? Did she not think she'd make it back? That couldn't happen. She needed to be here, be safe. I didn't know what I would do without her.
But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered about her response to that question. It was the exact same thing I said to Madeline the night before I left for the war. And Madeline said the exact same thing I said to Briar before she left. That was one hell of a coincidence.
There were a lot of coincidences with Briar. A lot of secrets. There was still so much to know about her. After our first night together six months ago, I thought I learned her big secret. That although it was completely against the rules, she had feelings for me. But since we moved into the tower, I'd been getting the feeling that wasn't it- or that there was more to it than just a crush. And for some reason, I was fairly certain everyone in the tower knew what it was to some extent.
Even though they tried to hide it, I knew Steve and Briar were falling out. I didn't know why, Briar always denied she was even fighting with Steve, but my best friend was a lot more obvious about it. Steve was a bad liar to begin with- and now that I thought about it, we never finished our conversation about Madeline. He said he had pictures of her. And I asked for them after the night I dreamt about Madeline- or Briar in place of Madeline at my high school prom. Another coincidence. Now that I thought about it, just how many were there?
What about what she said about her file? Or her choice of words before leaving, the dream about my prom, or the last name in the paper. The last name... the nurses' uniform I found. Her last name was on it. Madeline was in the army nurse corps. But she went missing- if she went missing, I assumed her uniform would've too. But why would Briar have one? She was born in 1988, almost seventy years would've passed by the time she was able to even enlist.
But what if she did know something about her? I don't know how she would, or why she'd keep it from me if she did, but there were too many puzzle pieces missing not to at least consider the possibility that Briar was hiding something about Madeline from me. And there was only one place I knew for a fact I'd find at least a clue. Quickly, I made my way to the stairs and headed down to her and Nat's floor.
But when I got to the bottom of the steps and went for the door, I found that it wouldn't open. She locked it. Briar had never done that before, why would she do that now? Did she not trust me? What the hell gave her the inkling that I would- oh. The incident before Tennessee... I almost forgot about it. I guess she learned her lesson from the first time I snooped around her bedroom. And if the door was locked, that meant she'd restricted access from the elevator to her floor. Likely to prevent me from doing exactly what I was about to do again. Dammit.
But we'd been sleeping together for months now. We'd shared moments together I knew she shared with no other person before. She was my best girl. And yet, she still didn't trust me even after six months of all that. I felt a fire light in the pit of my stomach all of a sudden. I wanted to rip out my hair and I felt my face get hot. What the hell was she hiding from me?
"Fuck it." I sent the door flying off its hinges with the force of my boot and entered the kitchenette of their floor. I'd deal with the consequences later for breaking into their floor. Immediately I made a beeline for Briar's bedroom, and thankfully, the door was unlocked.
In true Briar fashion, the bed looked like a hotel had done it up, the floors were freshly steamed and not a single bit of dust-coated any shelf in the room. Everything was in perfect shape. The question was where would I start looking? She likely had everything locked in a safe somewhere in her closet. So I went over there first.
On one of her shelves was her SHIELD-issued safe. I knew I'd find pistols in there, but because I didn't bother to open it last time I searched her room, I decided a more thorough investigation of that safe was needed. So I ripped the door off. And inside, I found exactly what I expected. Two fully loaded pistols, no false bottoms.
Next, I pulled out the nurse's uniform and laid it on her bed before looking through all of the pockets and places where something could be hidden. Clearly, I hadn't been looking too closely at it the first time I'd seen it. Old, dry blood spatter that hadn't washed out littered the hem of the dress. Where had that uniform been?
At first, other than the door on their floor and the safe (which I could easily get replaced before she returned), I was careful to keep her stuff in tact and exactly how it was supposed to be. But as the hours passed and I barely found anything, I began ripping the room apart. By the time five o'clock hit, there were drawers across the room, the bed was a mess, a chair flipped on its back and her desk was in shambles. But I still found nothing.
In a last-ditch effort to look around, I went back to the closet. I found nothing there the first time I peeped around in her bedroom back at the apartment, so I figured I wouldn't waste too much time on it this time around. But it was the only place I hadn't really checked for anything. I guess it was worth a shot.
The first place I searched was that drawer of costumes I saw six months ago. The one that just made me shake with rage after going through it. I hated HYDRA for putting her through that bullshit. For making her dress up in those tiny lingerie costumes and dangling her in front of their targets like an object to be played with. But I sifted my hand through it anyway, looking for anything that would give me a clue to what she was hiding. But once again, I found nothing.
"Dammit!" I slammed the drawer shut. But at the sound of the slam, I heard something fall within one of the dressers. My brow furrowed in confusion, wondering what the culprit of the noise was. Gently, I pulled open the same drawer I just closed, but nothing was in there. Then I tried the one above it, but it still looked like a normal sock drawer. But when I opened what I thought was her underwear drawer, I found something... odd.
Except for a couple of old candle jars, it looked like nothing was supposed to be in there. But I think that was before the file that was now sitting in the bottom of the drawer fell out from the top of the highest drawer. Then I noticed the tape marks on the short ends of the files. She taped it to the bottom of the top drawer.
This was her file. The only files SHIELD never dumped onto the internet. This had to be the reason why she never wanted me in her room. The reason why we only had sex in my room. The reason she had her major rule in the apartment. The things I still didn't know about Briar were in this file. Everything she was hiding was in my hands, just begging to be opened, ready to spill her secrets.
But as I took the file to the bed, which was now covered in items that could've been clues, and sat down, I had second thoughts about opening it. She trusted me. Opening this would mean she'd lose all trust in me. With the state of her room now that I'd ripped it to shreds, she'd be pissed right off already. But doing this could ruin our relationship- waiting for the day she told me everything might've been the better choice.
But what if she never told me? What if the trust I assumed was there wasn't? She'd kept her door locked on her floor, which was something she'd never done before. In that way, she proved she didn't trust me. But Nat's words suddenly echoed in my head; I want you to know that everything she does, whether good or bad, is because she loves you. What did she mean by 'whether good or bad?'
There were too many unanswered questions. So many things she avoided. This file would give me the answers I needed. And honestly, I'd bet any money that Briar was making a bigger deal out of whatever was in that file than what it was. It didn't matter what was in it- I knew who she was inside, and I loved her.
I opened the file. And it was exactly what I thought it was. Her HYDRA files. Her subjugation information, her biographical information, and an old, worn picture of her in the freezing tanks. The first of many pages looked the same as mine, so I skipped to the mission reports. But as I looked closer and looked through more of her mission reports, I realized something was off; her mission reports dated as far back as 1945.
"What the hell?" I muttered to myself. I had to have missed something. When I flipped back to the first page of her experimentation files, my heart started to race. No. No fucking way. It wasn't possible.
Current Date: 18 MARCH, 1944
Test Subject Name: MADELINE BRIAR BAKER
Birthdate: 7 MAY, 1920
Hair colour: GINGER
Eye colour: GREEN
Height: 5'6
Weight: 130 LB
Received: Synthetic 'super-soldier' serum injection in both trapeze, deltoids and quadriceps.
Experiment status: SUCCESS
Briar couldn't be Madeline. If Madeline was still alive, there's no way she would lie about that. Maddie was always honest with me- why would she lie?! This was bullshit. It had to be. I flipped through more of the pages, reading the mission reports in the chronological dates going from the 1950s all the way to 2009. All with Madeline's name at the top. No. This was wrong. Madeline died a long time ago. I saw it in the newspaper.
I flipped past the last page and felt my hands begin to shake when I saw a ziplock bag stapled to the back of the file was a driver's license, a passport. The driver's license was recent, from almost three and a half years ago. I opened up the passport, and before I could look at anything, a folded-up piece of baryta paper fell out of it.
But it was when I opened up that piece of paper that my stomach dropped. It was a photograph. Of her. Of Briar and I together at Coney Island. We already had a picture together at Coney Island. It was on my phone, in my camera roll. Except there was one key difference. This photograph was taken in 1938.
I exhaled a shaky breath and gripped the picture tightly in my hands. The picture was practically vibrating. There was no denying it now. I finally knew why I felt a strange comfort in the presence of Briar. Why I could connect with her better than anyone else. Why she reminded me so much of Madeline Baker, the girl I used to be in love with. Because Briar was Madeline. She was Madeline Briar Baker. She was... Maddie.
Maddie. It wasn't a codename like she told me when we first met. Nor was it the name of an agent who went missing in Bucharest, like Natasha told me. It was her name. The name Steve called her so many times in front of me without me realizing it. It was the name I always called her.
Maddie signed up to be an overseas war nurse the night before I left. The uniform on the bed was hers. That's why we got into the fight we did. That's why I finally told her how I felt. Because I was damn terrified I'd never see her again. That I'd come back home and get a telegram saying she was killed in action. That I'd never get the life I wanted with her. The white picket fence, a couple of kids, a dog.
I felt a tear roll down my cheek as I realized something; I couldn't protect her. I let all those horrible things happen to her because I wasn't there to protect her. If I hadn't left that night, she never would've signed up to go overseas. And she wouldn't have gone through everything she did with HYDRA.
There was so much that in hindsight, I should've seen. When I kissed her in the bar, it only hit me now why she was so upset about it. When I remembered Maddie and I's first kiss, she knew it the moment I said 'I promise'. And she didn't want me to.
But why? Briar- I mean, Madeline's mission was trying to help me regain my memories. Why was hiding her identity from me helpful? And why was everyone else helping her?
They were lying to me. All of them. For her. Every one of them knew her true identity and kept it from me. Fury, Natasha, even Steve. It made no logical sense as to why. There was no reason behind it that I could think of. My best friend lied to me for Madeline, and I didn't know why.
I didn't know what the Avengers and what was left of SHIELD were planning for me, even if their intentions were good. I couldn't trust anyone here. One thing my time at HYDRA taught me was that those who lie have an agenda of their own. I didn't know what SHIELD's agenda was, but Briar- Madeline's lie made it clear they had one. And I didn't want any part of it.
With the picture in my hand, I sped out of the room and back upstairs to my floor. Once I got to my room, I found a backpack and began throwing my essentials in it. A few changes of clothes, a toothbrush, my memory book, a baseball cap and the bank card Briar gave me in case of emergencies. I'd have to destroy it the minute after I made my withdrawal at the bank. At the last second, I looked at the picture.
I didn't want to leave. I wanted more than anything to stay and let Briar explain herself. But the risk I was taking in staying was too great. There was too much I still didn't know. And I knew HYDRA was still out there. I couldn't risk it. I wanted to believe so badly that Maddie was the same girl I fell in love with in the forties, but so much had changed. We weren't the same people as we were back then. Maddie never lied- Briar made a habit of it. She proved she wasn't trustworthy.
As much as my heart told me to stay, wait for her to come back and deal with it then, my head told me it was dangerous. Maddie in the forties could only shoot a pistol at best, and maybe, and that was a huge maybe, hold off a guy in the street if he were the same size as her. But now, she was just as dangerous as I was. If it came down to a fight, it would get ugly, fast. And despite all the lies, and her unknown agenda, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt her.
I took the picture with me. I needed something to remind me of her. Or in case something ever happened. Without a phone, I had no pictures of her, nothing to remind me of her. I grabbed the bag and went for the elevator to go to the garage. I had to get out of that tower as fast as possible without being seen. When I got down there, I realized there was only one thing I could drive in that whole place. Stark's insurance company would understand.
I grabbed the keys to Briar's motorcycle off the hook on the wall and hopped on the bike. Without thinking twice, I turned on the ignition and flipped up the kickstand before driving it out of the garage. I didn't look back at Avengers Tower. I likely wouldn't see the place again.
As I began making my way towards JFK, I decided to take the scenic route- through Brooklyn. I'd find a bank there that I could take money out of before buying a plane ticket. But I wanted to drive by the places we used to go as kids.
I drove by all the places we used to hang out getting wasted. All the areas where the bars used to be, where I'd go to spend a night with her and Steve. Sometimes I'd find some other doll to dance with for the night. How sometimes I'd see her standing at the bar, with a look of sadness in her eyes, without having a clue as to why. Hindsight was always twenty-twenty.
I drove by the park I used to walk her home through. And there, I thought about our last kiss. How it felt, the way she tasted. Sure, it was our first kiss, but it was also the last time I thought I'd ever see her again. It was where we made our promise.
I remembered the day I told her I was leaving. I remembered the makeup running down her face. I didn't even know how to tell her I got my conscription notice. It was her friend Dottie's birthday when I got the letter, and I didn't plan on telling her about it until the next day. I didn't want to ruin her night.
But in true Maddie fashion, she noticed something was wrong. And the moment we were alone, she called me on it. Even before she was trained by HYDRA to notice changes in behaviour, mood and expression for intel, she always knew when something was wrong.
Before going to JFK, I stopped by a bank in Brooklyn, and took out five thousand dollars from Briar's account. I didn't know how much a plane ticket would cost, nor getting fake documents and finding places to crash wherever I stayed. But I figured that would be enough to start off with. Once I got the money I needed, I headed straight for the airport.
It wasn't long before I arrived at the airport. I left the keys to the bike with it, knowing that someone else would eventually find a better use for it. That, or Briar... Maddie- fuck, I had to get used to that name change- would actually find it.
The first thing I did when I got to the airport was look for the next flight out that still had seats. I stood in line at a booth where I could purchase tickets, hoping to go somewhere in Europe, far away from the Avengers. And I knew they'd come looking for me. It wasn't Steve I was worried about finding me, or even Stark. If I really wanted to, I could make sure they never found me. But Briar went through the same training I did. She would know exactly where to look. She'd find me eventually, even if I was constantly moving. I looked at the flight departure times above the desk, looking for flights that would give me enough time to get through security and on the flight. All I needed was an hour.
"Hi sir, how can I help you today?" The perky woman at the front asked.
"Hi, do you have room on the next flight to..." I stared up at the screen again, "Vienna?"
"Yeah, actually we had a few spots open up a minute ago. Will you be needing to book a flight home as well?" She smiled.
"No, just one-way, thanks," I mumbled.
"May I see your passport for the rest of the booking information?" I handed her the little book, feeling a tightness in my chest. I prayed that she wouldn't recognize my name. Her long nails loudly tapped on the keyboard, before handing the book back to me.
"Thank you, Mr. Barnes. Have a safe flight." I nodded and headed towards the security departures, knowing for a fact that I'd have problems there. I couldn't exactly walk through with a metal detector. I had to think of an excuse as quickly as possible, hoping they'd just let me through with whatever I could come up with. I was nearing the front of the line by the time I came up with something, and quickly, I took my dog tags out of my shirt.
"Alright sir, please take your shoes, belt and anything out of your pockets before walking through the-"
"Actually, I'd prefer a pat-down, if you don't mind?" I interrupted the security guard instructing the passengers on the flight. The security guard eyed me carefully, but his eyes suddenly stopped at the centre of my chest- exactly what I wanted.
"That's perfectly fine, sir. We'll just take you to the side," I followed the man towards the other side of the security area, and took off my shoes and belt. I tried my best not to flinch when his hands were on my left shoulder, reminding myself that this was much better than going through that metal detector, so I looked away, tried to distract myself- the television above my head would do.
CNN was playing. I expected that, I knew a lot of flights were cancelled from the Avengers' attack on the African Coast, and they had to keep passengers aware. But what I saw on the news wasn't the attack. It was Briar's picture.
"It was discovered that the team of heroes has been harbouring a female HYDRA terrorist from the 1940s. Similarly to the currently missing Winter Soldier, she is another enhanced person that has been repeatedly cryogenically frozen to be used to commit crimes against humanity. She is around five-foot-six, with long red hair and green eyes. With the Avengers, she is known as the notorious Red Rogue, but her real name is Madeline Briar Baker."
"Sir?" I suddenly refocused on the security guard waving his hand in front of my face, "I said you're to go."
"Oh, sorry... thanks." I grabbed my stuff from the conveyor belt, and put my shoes back on before leaving the area.
Why would SHIELD dump all of her files onto the internet now? If SHIELD already figured out that I'd left, doing that wouldn't exactly encourage me to go back. But what if they hadn't? What if it was Briar... Maddie, who did it? But what sense would that make? Was she trying to tell me she knew that I'd figured it out?
It wasn't long before I was boarding my flight for Vienna, and sitting in a tiny, uncomfortable passengers' seat. I would've taken the quinjet if I knew how to fly it, but for now, my fake documents worked with public air transport. I knew I wouldn't be there long, but once I got to Europe, I could easily avoid air travel- I'd do a much better job of going undetected once I was. But Europe was over four thousand miles away- I had a long way to go before I got to Vienna.
I took the picture of Maddie out of my pocket, and looked at it again. She was looking at me, and laughing. Because I'd stolen her cotton candy, and stopped her from trying to grab it back. We went out to celebrate her graduation from high school. She looked so happy. I hadn't seen her smile like that since... since 1943.
Briar was a shell of who she once was. It broke my heart to see her like that- it was only now that I understood Steve's false hope about going back to the person I was. I wished she'd be the same doll I fell in love with all those years ago. If she was, she wouldn't have lied to me. But that was the thing. I wasn't the same guy either. I was a shell of who I once was.
I felt a tightness in my chest as I thought more about it. I hadn't had much time to do that. I just needed to focus on getting out first. But my eyes began to blur as I stared down at the picture. Water splashed on the photograph, as I made the blur go away with a harsh blink. I wished that I could wake up with amnesia, and forget about the stupid little things. The pain would go away. How she, my best friend- my love- betrayed me. I couldn't even trust her.
She was supposed to be there for me. Help me regain my memories... and she kept them from me. Then she got me falling for her- falling hard, and fast so that one day I'd crash and burn. I began to doubt if anything she told me was true. Whether she really wasn't working for HYDRA, what SHIELD really was, if she really was a virgin- like I'd somehow be more attracted to her.
And I still didn't know why she did it. There was no reason for her to lie about who she was- nor was there a reason for her to rope everyone else into it. Whatever it was, I wanted no part of it.
-
When I arrived in Vienna, the first thing I did was hop on the train toward Bratislava. I could spend a few days there before making a more permanent stay in Zilina, and from there, I didn't know where I'd go- I'd figure it out when I needed to. But hiding out in Slovakia, for now, seemed like the best option.
I wasn't nearly as worried about Steve finding me- he wasn't an experienced bounty hunter. Bri... Madeline, on the other hand, would likely find me very quickly. She knew how to disappear- the problem with someone having the same training as you is they know how to think like you. I had to think outside the box to keep her from finding me.
About an hour later, I arrived in Bratislava. It was around eleven in the morning, and I had to find a place to stay for the night. There were hostels all over the city, most would take me in for cheap.
I wandered around the city for about another twenty minutes when I found one. Small lobby, one older man running the front desk.
"Hello sir, do you have vacancy?" I asked the old man.
"Yes, I do. What kind of room were you looking for?" He replied with a thick accent.
"Anything you have available for four nights."
"It'll cost you seventy-eight,"
"Do you take American dollars?"
"It's ninety in American dollars." I paid the man quickly, and he gave me the key to my room, "you'll be in room 305." I headed up to the third floor and found the door to my room.
It was a cozy place, but it was all I needed. Certainly one of the nicer places I'd stayed. I was surprised to see a small TV in the room. Usually, hostels didn't have them, but I was grateful for it. I could at least watch the news while I was here. I dropped my bag on the twin bed and looked out the window into the street. I'd been to Slovakia before. Not in this part, but a little ways' east, in a HYDRA base the Avengers took down a few months back.
I felt a pang in my stomach and realized I hadn't eaten anything since the plane. I grabbed some money from my backpack and left the bag in my room before going back out into the street. I grabbed a map from a convenience store down the street and started looking for places to get some groceries. I didn't want to go out to eat if I could avoid it- I could cut down on costs and just make food in the communal kitchen the hostel had. I knew five grand wouldn't be nearly enough to get by, but once I settled in a place for longer than a week, I could get a job.
There was a market about four blocks from the hostel. I couldn't tell if it was just my hunger that made my mouth water even more, but the food smelled so good. Pierogies with bryndza cooked in hot pots, fresh fruit and vegetables picked that day were sitting in food carts. Fried cheese, french fries and tartar sauce stands were around, along with a few stands for different soups that smelled delicious. The growls from my stomach were growing louder- maybe a couple of small lunches out wouldn't hurt?
Once I got a few vegetables, some hot food to reheat later, coffee grounds and milk, I ate some pierogies for lunch, and began making my way back to the hostel. I tried to budget as much as possible, considering that I'd have to move from place to place quickly, and some of what I bought might've had to stay behind if SHIELD came after me. Or worse, if Maddie or the Avengers did.
I had to forget about the Avengers. Thinking about them made me think about her. And when I thought about her, all I felt was this weight pushing so hard on my chest that I could barely breathe. So, I turned on the small TV in the room- and immediately, the channel was on the news. So much for forgetting about the Avengers.
They were fighting another battle in Seoul. Ultron's bots were flying all over the place, and Steve, Maddie and Nat were in the background following a truck from Helen Cho's lab. I felt my heart leap in my chest when one of the bots hit Maddie and blasted her back about fifteen feet. But I reminded myself; she lied to me. I didn't know what her motives were. Forget about her.
I noticed the picture in my jacket pocket and pulled it out again. I looked at the woman I saw there, smiling brightly at me, then looked at the screen. In one way, she was exactly the same, but in another, almost unrecognizable. She was shaped into an assassin. The perfect spy. And that's where I screwed up. From the beginning, she let me know that was her occupation. And slowly, I forgot she was anything less than the agent they created.
I had to forget about it all. Her family, her loyalty, her willingness to accept me for who I was. It was an act. It was all a mission. I remembered when I asked her to stop treating me like a job, but that was exactly what she wanted. She needed to have me close, she needed me to trust her. But I still had no answers- no reason why she lied to me. And without seeing her again, there was no way I'd get it.
-
I'd stolen a motorcycle in Bratislava and gone to Zilina four days ago, trying to get as far away from Sokovia as possible, considering half the city was levitating and was going to drop at any second. Part of me wanted to head straight toward Sokovia, and make sure Briar was okay, but I knew better than that.
I'd been watching the news like a hawk. The Avengers were under a lot of scrutiny. A whole country was in shambles, at least three thousand dead, and even more injured. They were taking the rap for it. I knew the truth; if they weren't there, it would've been a lot worse. Who knows what Ultron would've done?
It wasn't just Sokovia that the Avengers were under fire for; over a week ago, the world found out about Briar. How the Avengers were harbouring a "dangerous criminal" or whatever the hell the headlines read. It didn't surprise me. Given both Briar and I's criminal records, it was enough to put us both in prison for the rest of our lives at least. But the Avengers remained silent on anything to do with her.
She hadn't been in the media since the fight in Sokovia. It woke an anxiety in me that I couldn't shake- I didn't trust her, but I didn't want to see her dead either. I hoped she was okay. A part of me wanted to run back to America and hug her. Say I was sorry for leaving and tell her everything was going to be okay. But I couldn't. What would SHIELD do? What would she do? My absence was no secret to her now.
It was almost five o'clock in the evening when I turned on the news again. There was a broadcast going on in New York City, right in front of Avengers Tower. The woman on the news was reporting what was going on, while Slovak subtitles played below. I was surprised to find this feed in English, but it told me that the feed was playing live, and was obviously extremely important. Most of the time, broadcasts from the States were already translated to Slovak and made the six o'clock news. But I found my eyes glued to the TV nonetheless.
Press littered the ground below the platform and podium, where I saw Tony Stark and Steve making their way up the steps. He was dressed in a suit, his hair combed and beard freshly trimmed. But the remnants from the fight in Sokovia were still very much present on his face, in the form of dark purple bruises.
"The Avengers have prepared statements on the events that occurred in Sokovia last week. I would now like to invite Steve Rogers and Tony Stark up to make theirs," Rhodes stepped down from the podium, while Stark took his place.
"Thank you for the introduction, Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes," Tony began, "I would like to start by announcing that the Avengers facility will be moving locations in a few days. This was prompted by the events that occurred in Sokovia, and here in our beautiful hometown of New York City three years ago. Our mission is to keep you all safe from harm," he stated. Tony stepped back and allowed Steve to continue.
"To the Sokovian citizens who survived the attack last week, I would like to say, on behalf of the Avengers, that I am deeply sorry for what you've lost because of the battle fought on your land. You've lost your families, your homes, your loved ones, your country. There's no way we can even come close to repaying you for the damage caused. You all made a sacrifice no one should ever have to make to save the world. But you did. For that, we thank you." Steve continued.
"The Avengers wish to provide relief to the displaced citizens of Sokovia, in re-establishing their homes. In partnership with the United Nations, we have initiated the Sokovian Relief Fund. Stark Industries and the Avengers organization have given over a billion dollars in donations combined towards the fund. Please, New Yorkers, Americans, anyone- there is no way to even imagine what the Sokovians have lost, let alone understand. Give what you can." Tony continued, "we can now take this time to answer questions." Hands from the press began dashing upwards like rockets. Tony gestured to a woman in the front.
"Mr. Stark, do you believe the Avengers are responsible for the attack in Sokovia?" She asked. I
"I believe it is more complicated than just responsibility, however, the Avengers do take some responsibility for the attack. Next question," Tony pointed at a man in the middle.
"How are we expected to rely on the Avengers to help us when the damage is this devastating?" said the reporter. Steve took hold of the microphone.
"If the Avengers were not there to help, the damage that occurred would've been catastrophic," Steve grit his teeth through the answer.
"Next question!" Tony shouted, then pointed to another person in the crowd.
"Last week, it was revealed that the Avengers had been harbouring a Russian spy from HYDRA. How can we trust the Avengers when you are hiding dangerous individuals like this from us?" Rhodes moved toward the podium and took over.
"No more questions." The press began shouting their questions over top of one another. He gestured for the two of them to make their exit, "I know a lot of you have questions regarding the individual from HYDRA that was revealed to you last week. And we will be addressing that today." The press didn't stop with Rhodes' words. They just continued barking questions over one another. Frankly, I was quite annoyed with it. I was about ready to watch something else. "I would now like to invite Madeline Baker to the podium." My eyes shot up to the TV.
Maddie's walk was strong, but far from confident. The press was completely silent as she took her place at the podium. When she looked into the camera, it was like she knew I was there, watching her. Her jaw was tight, and her eyes were cold and grim. They seemed puffier than normal, and redder. Everyone looked at her as if she was a ticking time bomb, ready to go off at any moment.
"I want to thank you all for coming here today. The Avengers appreciate that you all want to listen to what we have to say about the events that occurred last week," she paused, and took a breath, "the Avengers wanted to make an announcement pertaining to the file released about me. But I thought it was best if I told you the truth." She began, "everything in that file is true."