I could smell thick smoke invade my senses. I was quickly pulled from my own memories to welcome the screams of a desperate mother. I looked up and saw a small child on the top floor of apartments leaning against a locked windows pounding on the glass with tiny fists and the smoke grew closer. I looked as the woman struggled against two fire fighters as she tried to save her only daughter. I looked around me, and saw the men dressed in their uniform helpless to save the small child.
"The stairs are completely gone, no one can save her." They meant they couldn't save her, but I was willing to try.
I pushed past the helpless men. Their hands tried to stop me but all they caught was the ash filled air as I leapt into the burning building. I looked up to see the wooden floor burning like paper against a flame quickly receding and growing more fragile.
"Liberty what are you doing?!" Hawkeye's thoughts shot through me as I reached up and jumped up and grabbed the smoldering floor boards above my head, causing the embers to burn through my skin. I pulled myself up and soon heard the weak cries of a child.
"There's a little girl in here, the firemen outside said they couldn't help her, so I had to." I looked to see a barely standing set of stairs, my feet barely touched them as I ran up them, but still they collapsed into a pile of embers under the lightest touch.
"Help me!" the little girl cried, as I raced towards the next set of stairs, suddenly the house gave a large groan, then I felt it the burning wood beneath my feet gave way. My fingers clutched onto the exposed beams above my head, I pulled myself up through a burnt hole in the wood to see the thick smoke twisting a billowing violently toward the young girl barely steps away from my. The burnt wood, sliced into my hands with raw splinters and burnt down to the bone as the embers still burnt in the boards. I screamed as I pulled my hands out from the wood. The girl looked towards me as sweat poured from my forehead and evaporated on contact with the heated floor. I clutched my hand to my body and ran over the girl.
Her eyes were full of fear, but still full of hope.
"I'm going to get you out of here." She looked up at me with light blue eyes, and she smiled at me. The black smoke and embers had covered her face in ash, I quickly opened my arms to her, as the fire continued to climb the wooden and brick structure around us. The house groaned and warped around us.
"I need you to hold on tightly to Me." she nodded as she buried her face into my neck. I pressed the palm of my hand against the hot glass and watched as it shattered but stayed perfectly suspended as I moved it away from the window frame. I looked down into the street below to see Clint Barton looking up at me as I stood on the window ledge.
I looked down, I know I would survive if I jumped from this height; I looked at the little girl into my arms and held her closer to me. But I didn't know if she would.
"Clint I need you to shoot a zip wire into the corner of the building and air the end toward you." He moved through the crowd under silent instruction and drew out his bow with arrow in place.
"I can't send you up a guide Liberty." I nodded to myself as I watched the fire eat through the floor boards making the brick outer shell more and more unstable. I watched as the zip wire was fired upwards, it locked itself into the brickwork. I held the girl tightly against my body with one arm as I slowly moved myself towards the zip wire on the outside of the building.
"I'm scared." She mumbled as she buried her face deeper into my neck.
"Don't worry; you'll be with your mum soon." I feel her fear filled tears drip onto my burning skin, as sweat covered my skin a thin layer. I reached one hand out to the zip wire and grasped it tight.
"Get ready to catch me Clint." I said as I looked back at the window I once stood in to see flames licking at the wooden frame. I took a deep breath, and dropped from the ledge. The girl screamed loudly as the wire tore through my skin and gnawed against my bones as we hurtled toward the ground.
"Don't worry I will." Was the last thing Clint thought of, as I slammed into his body. He stumbled back taking in the impact of my body against his. His arms were tightly wrapped around me and the child, as we stood there for a few second, making sure everything was ok. I could feel the soft breath of the little girl against my neck, and I felt her shake from the shock in my arms. I pulled myself away from Clint to see the child's mother run toward me.
Her eyes were blood shot and her ash covered skin showed the trails of tears that carved through it. She gently took her little girl from my eyes, and rather than tears of helplessness and desperation they were now tears of hope and gratitude.
"Thank you." She mouthed with shaking lips as the mother hugged daughter and daughter hugged mother. I looked down at my mangled hand to see bone still standing out from the bloody and torn flesh. I wrapped my good hand around it and watched as a piece of black cloth knotted itself around my injured hand.
I watched as paramedics crowded around the mother and child making sure both were safe. I stood away from them and smiled down at the grinning child who now had her mother to comfort her. I looked over my shoulder to see Clint looking down at me.
"You didn't have to do that you know." I nodded and watched the happy mother and child.
"I know I didn't, but I would never want anyone to go through a pain that not even I can imagine." He nodded and wrapped an arm around my shoulder.
"Are you ok Liberty?" I looked up at him looking down at my cloth wrapped hand. I nodded and flexed my fingers causing the muscle less part of my hand to spasm and twitch. I hissed and balled my hand back up into a loose fist.
"I'm fine, it'll heal soon enough." Clint nodded as we walked away from the fortunate scene, the suddenly I heard it.
"Thank you Liberty." I twisted out of Clint's arms to see the small girl wrapped in her mother's arms, looking over her own mothers shoulder and waving at me with joy in her eyes. I looked shocked at the child, but soon shocked facial features slowly morphed into a gleeful looks as I waved back at the small child.
"Liberty what's wrong?" I looked at Clint and smiled at him, as I pulled my hand up to my chest as the raw healing muscle twitched and contracted. I hissed, and looked up at Clint, who looked down at me with saddened eyes.
"Nothing is wrong Clint..." he quickly broke off my sentence before I could finish.
"There is something wrong, I'm calling Natasha now." He pressed his index finger into his ear and quickly began to talk.
"Hi Tasha, I have Liberty here with me... were both fine, we need a ride...see you soon." The conversation was fluid and quickly no pauses or breaks as if it had been rehearsed. He smiled down at me meekly and ran a hand through his dirty blond hair.
"Yeah she saw us on the news, back at stark tower and here." He pointed without looking to a freelance video crew pointing the cameras directly at us. I waved my hand in their direction, magnetizing any piece of metal inside the camera, causing pieces to crumple inwards and other pieces to completely malfunction.
"Problem solved." I said with a sigh. I was not impressed by the antics of the freelancers making money from those who could have lost so much, in such a precise and deadly attack. I sighed as I lowered myself to the warm tarmac road and sat there, the tarmac was scattered about in chunks due to the shockwaves that came from the bomb.
Clint sat down next to me, and sighed also.
"Why do you do stuff like that?" I looked at him out of the corner of my eyes as we sat in front of the burning inferno that was once someone's home.
"What do you mean by stuff?" he ran his hands over his hair again and shrugged.
"You know, jumping into burning buildings?" I chuckled as the fire soon began to die with the help of liters of water that were pumped onto the blaze. I shrugged and continued to watch the dying blaze.
"I don't know, I feel like the last resort when it happens, like no one else could save them, if I didn't try to." Clint nodded as a Lamborghini Gallardo in black pulled up behind us. I quickly pushed myself up from the ground, and so did Clint.
"Get in, we need to get there fast, and Liberty I need you to see something." I nodded to Natasha, and slid into the back of the Lamborghini. The windows were tinted stopping peoples pry eyes; I sighed and looked down as the damping piece of cloth wrapped around my hand. But as it grew damper more and more pieces of grey ash vanished into the ether.
I sat there was we sped through the wrecked and ravaged city. People stared at us from the street, some looked perfectly healthy, but others were spattered in their own and others blood. I wanted to stop this car and try and help, but right now I couldn't.
I slowly peeled away the bandage from my hand and flexed it gently. I dropped the piece of cloth onto the leather seat beside me, and looked down at my raw hand. Here was no skin at the center of my palm was just muscle glistening with blood. I looked away from it, and wrapped a hand around the moist muscle and watched as a gold haze wrapped around my hands and once again wrapped it in black cloth.
I sighed as we quickly exited New York and began to travel toward the cliffs. There was a partition between the front and back of the car were Clint and Tasha sat. I didn't want to pry but I could hear muffled voices and I wanted to know what they were talking about.
"Did she say anything about what has happened over the past Six years?" Clint shook his head and quickly looked over his shoulder to me, I smiled at him and he just smiled back.
"She hasn't said anything about what happened between her and hydra, she hasn't said anything actually." Natasha nodded and pressed her index finger to her ear.
"Bruce we're here with Liberty, open the door." I looked around me just to see grass that was quickly cut off by the cliffs. Then the ground in front of the car rose up to reveal and underground tunnel, lit by spot lights. We drove down it as the ground closed up behind us.
"She knows something about Hydra, we don't, and all I know is that she was there in Japan when it happened." Natasha quickly pulling into a parking space made for the Lamborghini and stepped out of the car. I quickly followed suit as Clint reached for my door handle. I opened the door first making him grasp at the glossy finish of the car.
"What did you want me to see?" I asked Natasha, she looked at me with her piercing blue eyes.
"Tony is upstairs in a coma, but in a stable condition." My eyes grew wide, I move to run, but she suddenly grabbed my hand which was wrapped in the piece of black cloth, I bit into my lip as her nails dug into the muscular tissue of the palm of my hand.
"But I know you have something to do with it." She growled her eyes narrowed down at me, as her nails continued to rip into my palm.
"What are you talking about?!" I said as her grip didn't loosen. I didn't want to hurt her, but she obviously had no qualms with hurting me.
"Natasha let go of Liberty." We looked to or side to see Clint with a stun arrow pointed directly at Natasha's chest.
Her nails pulled themselves out of the skin of my palm, as she stepped away from me.
"She knows something Clint, she was there in Japan!" Clint didn't lower is bow, as he stared Natasha down.
"I know she was, and so did Hydra, but that does not make her a suspect!" Clint spat, as he drew his bow back further.
"I was in japan." I finally spoke up as my hand slowly returned back to its undamaged muscle tissue self. Clint quickly lowered his bow and looked down at me; Natasha looked at me with rage filled eyes, automatically seeing me as the enemy.
"Hydra was abducting mutants from their homes, that's why I was there I wanted to do something about it, instead I became one of the few captured. They judged quickly whether you were worthy or not, if you were you would be taken to be experimented on, if not they killed you. But you already knew that didn't you?" I asked but Natasha looked away from me with guilt.
"I had to be sure Liberty, from what evidence we found it looked like very few made it out alive, I just needed to know if you were one who was working for them or escaping from them." I scoffed, I didn't care why she asked, it was the fact she thought for one second that I worked for Hydra that I really cared about.
"I really don't care Romanoff, it was the fact that I gave up my own life to save the world over six years ago, and yet you have the audacity to think I could betray the avengers so easily." Clint stepped away from Natasha and walked towards me. While Natasha just stood there shocked and guilt ridden.
"Liberty I'm..." I cut her off mid-sentence; I didn't want to hear anymore.
"The fact that it was the Russian spy that thought I was the one who was working for hydra; it tells you something about your own conscious." I turned away from her, and began to ascend the basement stairs to find the man I need to save.