#bithors

You worked nights at an off-shore research and development site for the Roxxon Corporation in Lab number 394, a large rectangular room that housed more lab equipment than it had any right to. The bleached white walls were lined with bleached white counters, and the rows of florescent lights reflected off the bleached tile floors, casting everything in a sterile glow. Notoriously nicknamed The Vault, it was the most restricted of the onsite research facilities, requiring three separate types of verification in order to get in or out of the large, reinforced metal door, and only a handful of people possessed all three. In the centre of the lab, they had managed to cram three desks, two of which belonged to coworkers you’d never met, piled high with paperwork: official documents, notes, scribbles doodles, and perfectly balanced chemical equations. The third desk, however, had been your home away from home for nearly three years, a silent witness to your greatest breakthroughs and breakdowns. The Vault itself was equipped with a very advanced alarm system and quarantine protocol to prevent the spread of the viral cultures you needed for vaccine development.

You’d activated the quarantine protocol when the alarms sounded, sealing yourself within the vault, casting the lab into near blackness save for the amber alert light flashing steadily in the corner. You thought it had been a drill. It was always a drill. They ran them every couple of months to keep everyone on their toes. But then the screaming started. A concussive round of semi-automatic gunfire went off in the lab above your head, making your stomach turn and your ears ring. The silence that followed was worse. Somewhere in a distant part of your brain you were surprised the shots didn’t echo. You’d always thought they would echo. You tried to steady your breathing to the rhythm of the flashing amber light. One rotation. Two. Three. A strange sound like a pull and a pop startled you. Then the light went out, casting the room into total darkness. You clutched the pipe even tighter, desperate for support. They must have cut the auxiliary power. Now there was nothing to do but wait and wonder: who was alive, who was dead, and how long were you going to survive with the ventilation system offline?

The pipe in your hand twitched and shook itself free from your grasp and you hand to slap your hand over your mouth to stifle a scream. Squinting into the darkness you could barely make out the vague figure of what must have been a man -tall, broad shouldered, and scowling, the shadows twisting his features into something menacing. A monster in the night.

“Oh!” You exclaimed louder than you meant. In a heartbeat he closed the little space between you, towering over your frame, before backing off just as suddenly. A series of panicked questions fired through your brain as fast as the neurons carrying them. What was he doing here? How long had he been there? What did he want? Was he going to hurt you. The shadow where his eyes should be never left your face. He was watching you. Waiting. Maybe for you to work it out. He hadn’t killed you, or worse, yet so he couldn’t be one of them, but he certainly didn’t seem safe either. Did the monster speak? It was worth a shot. Mustering every ounce you had left of your courage, you asked the first question you could muster.

“How long have you been standing there?” You whispered, nearly smacking your hand to your forehead at your own stupidity. How was that the most pressing question?

A heartbeat. Two. You could count them by the thrumming in your ears before…

“A while.”

Success!

“And are you –”

“I’m not here to hurt you.”

Another bang against the door cut off your reply as the walls chipped and dust and less-than-savoury remains drifted down from the ceiling. Another wave of nausea rolled through you.

“Buck,” a voice crackled through his comms. “Buck, what’s your location.”

I’m in the vault,” the man, Buck apparently, sighed, pressing his finger to his earpiece. “Someone,” he cast a sidelong glance at you, “activated the quarantine. And you really don’t need to shout, Steve.”

The back of your neck grew hot under his penetrative gaze.

“Well, what would you have done?” You hissed, keeping your voice much lower than he was bothering to.

He cocked an eyebrow, but he didn’t reply, listening instead to the voice on the comms.

“Head for the rendezvous,” he said after a moment. “I’ll meet you there as soon as we’re out.”

You strained your ears to hear the reply but there was only silence on the other end. Suddenly, something rammed against the door, making the metal groan and quake in protest.

“I’m good, Steve. I won’t be long.”

“Fine,” Steve relented, clearly not thinking it was fine at all. “Just don’t get lost.”

“Try not to jump out of any more planes while I’m gone.”

“That was one time and –”

A female voice interrupted through the comms. “Hate to break up your little bromance guys but we’ve got incoming.”

“Get out while you can,” Buck warned as another bang dented the door. “I’ll get the formula and meet you there.”

“Formula,” you hissed indignantly. “Which formula?”

“Yours.” He cast a glance at the buckling door before turning his full attention to your desk. He threw open the drawers, grabbed loose-leaf pages, notebooks, file-folders, rifling through them only to cast them aside. Your stomach rolled uncomfortably. He was touching your stuff. You needed to sit down. Another bang. You could see the metal starting to give way. You gripped the edge of the lab counter to steady yourself. Suddenly the room was spinning, the initial adrenaline wearing off.

“Hang on. Hang on. Hang on!” The words burst from you as you ran forward to catch his hand before he touched something else.

He froze like a startled cat deciding whether to scratch. His back straight. His eyes dark and angry. You flinched back almost instantly.

“Don’t.” He rolled his shoulder, shaking his head as though he was trying to clear some intrusive idea.

“I –” You tried to think, praying he wasn’t in the midst of some violent mental break, “I thought you said you weren’t going to hurt me.”

“Look,” he leaned close, his face inches from yours, his blue eyes bright, intense, burning. “I get that you’re scared. I do. But right now, your choices are me or a team of Hydra operatives and I guarantee they won’t be gentle. Now, where’s your formula?”

“How do I know you’re not just going to kill me as soon as I give it to you?”

His face twitched into a grimace. “You don’t. But if I’d wanted to kill you, I would’ve done it already and taken it anyway.”

Another burst of insolence shot through your brain. “You wouldn’t be able to find it without my help.”

He snorted. He actually snorted. “Sure.” Another bang, the seal around the top of the door popped and thick tendrils of grey smoke slipped into the lab. “We’ve got about thirty seconds before the bust down that door. So what’s it gonna be?”

You stared at him for a moment, trying to clear your head. What choice did you have, really?

“Right,” you finally nodded, ducking under your desk. Fumbling with your keys, you unlocked a hidden compartment and pulled out a large green binder. “Formula. Check. Can you get us out of here?” You tried to make it sound like you didn’t secretly think he was going to grab the binder from your hands and leave you to fend for yourself against the oncoming hoard but the tremor in your words gave you away.

Buck nodded, “Get behind me and whatever you do, stay close.”

“Right.”

The men outside were shouting again.

“They’re setting up their explosives.” Buck explained. “When that door opens, hit the ground, and when I say run, you run. Understand?”

“I understand.”

The heavy footfalls behind the door faded away into silence. One second. Two seconds. A sound like thunder tore through your ears as the heavy door creaked and groaned and finally game way under pressure, falling inwards with a crash. All at once there was chaos. You threw yourself to the ground as a team of men in black tactical gear burst through the opening. Buck launched himself at them, striking out with just his fists against a hail of bullets. You slammed your hands over your ears. They were shouting. The room was filled with the scrape of metal against metal and the sickening squelch of metal against flesh. Then you heard it.

“Run!”

You jumped to your feet, your vision locked on the clearest path through the door. You took off, not bothering to check to see if he was behind you.

“This way,” you heard him shout. Casting a furtive glance over your shoulder, you saw him coming up on your left, passing you with a few easy strides to lead you to the stairwell.

“Why does it have to be stairs?” You puffed, not meaning for him to hear as he jumped them two at a time.

“Because you work in a basement!”

Damn.

You kept pace behind him, binder still clutched tight against your chest, until you reached the top, where he waited a moment to let you catch your breath.

“You good?”

“Most days,” you quipped, getting agitated.

“Let’s go.” He took off down one of the main corridors, leaving you to trot dutifully behind. You were dizzy with questions, every nerve in your body burned, overstimulated. You wanted to stop. You wanted to sleep. You needed something to focus your mind. A thought nibbled at your brain.

“Hey!” You called, louder than you meant, hoping to get his attention.

“Yeah?”

“How did you even get into my lab? It was under quarantine. Airtight. Nothing could get in or out. And if you were in there before I activated the protocol, I definitely would have seen you. You’re not exactly a ninja.”

Silence. Maybe you were pressing your luck? Just because he agreed to get you out doesn’t mean he couldn’t change his mind at any moment.

“I have a very particular set of skills.” He took a sharp turn down another hall lined with large windows set in wide panes. The moon outside glistened full and bright and menacing on the blood-spattered tile.

You couldn’t help the panicked laugh that bubbled up out of your chest. “Shut up. Everyone’s seen Taken.”

Great. Well done. Sass is a sure-fire way to get yourself killed. You waited for him to snap at you, or glare, or something.

“Not everyone,” he chuckled.

He rounded another corner. Suddenly, he turned to you, grabbing you by the arm and tucking you into a window alcove.

“Whatever you do, don’t look down that way.”

“What? Why?”

“You’re gonna have to trust me on this one.”

Raising his stolen gun, Bucky fired three shots into the glass. The sound burst through your eardrums like thunder, making you jump and grip the frame for support. Spiderweb cracks spread out across the glass but it didn’t shatter. You cast a furtive glance over his shoulder and were met with the sight of something dark and red pooling across the moonlit floor. Bile rose in your throat and you had to swallow hard, snapping your eyes closed in a futile attempt to stop yourself from collapsing in a fit of panic. You didn’t want to see. You didn’t want to know. And you certainly didn’t have time for this.

“Hey,” Buck coaxed, nudging your foot with his boot. You opened your eyes, startled to find him staring at you so intently. “You gonna make it?”

You shook your head, you could feel panicked tears welling up in your eyes. “Nope. Nope. My coworkers are dead. There are people trying to kill me. You might be trying to kill me. And now I’m crying so I don’t even get to die with dignity like they do in movies.”

He smiled a soft half-smile. There was something about it –sad and warm and comforting all at the same time. He didn’t look as evil when he smiled. Saying nothing, he pulled his left arm back, the moonlight glinting off the metal plating on his hand, and struck the glass, sending shards flying out over the cliff.

“You know we’re like a thousand feet up, right?”

“This is nowhere near a thousand feet.”

You stared out through the shattered glass and down to the rocks below, the inky sea roaring over them in a menacing spray of salt and foam. It wasn’t until Buck Blue-eyes snapped his fingers in front of your face that you realized he was staring back at you, expectant, with his arm outstretched.

“This is the part where you hold my hand,” he murmured, voice steady as he cast a furtive glance down the whitewashed halls, now spattered with blood. “I’ll keep you safe.”

“This is going to hurt,” you grimaced, gripping his hand tightly.

“You may want to shut your eyes.”