Phoenixfire

Ashes and Dust III

By the time Wanda cuts the link to Nat the Redhead is in tears and curls herself around Phoenix. She can still taste the ashes on her tongue. Rage begins to build. But she contents herself with holding the frail woman in her arms. For tonight that is enough. "I will get your Phoenix back. I will rip them apart. And you will burn them, where they fall" she promises the unconscious form. Nat settles down more comfortable next to Phoenix and bans each thought but having her back with her. Safe. Breathing. For tonight, that will have to be enough. Tomorrow though.... Hell would rain.

Due to Wanda's help, Phoenix sleeps through the night filled with good dreams. No memory of the day infiltrates her safety. So, when the dawn comes up the first few moments are bliss. She is cuddled up in the strong arms of Natasha, smells her vanilla bodywash and underneath that which is purely her. Only when the first involuntary movement as she wakes moves one of her sore muscles everything comes rushing back and Phoenix is fully awake and on high alert. Her breath hitches as she scrambles away from the warmth and her back hits the wall next to the bed. A strangled gasp escapes her, while she presses her hands to her chest that feels too empty. Where there usually was song inside there is only ashes. Her eyes burn with unshed tears as all the warmth Nat had provided the night before evaporates and leaves her trembling with cold. With a whimper she slides down to the floor and once again curls up in the corner between wall and bed, now around the empty core deep down.

Woken of her light sleep by the first frantic movements, Natasha slides out of bed after Phoenix and drops into a crouch next to her. "Phoenix, I am here. It's okay. I am here" she repeats over and over. It takes a while, but when her words penetrate the fog of grief around Phoenix she looks up. "N... Nat, she is gone. I...I am cold. Am I dead?" Her words are broken and finally the tears break free. "I know" Nat says. "I know, I am here. You are not dead; you are here with me." Nat holds out her hands as an offering, not wanting to frighten the woman in front of her. "Come on love, take my hand and let me help you up. I can see you are freezing, and the floor is not the comfiest spot" she tries to give her voice an easy sound, but doesn't success fully. "Come malen'kaya ptitsa, it's just me." Again, it takes a while, then Phoenix struggles into a sitting position and finally takes Nat's offered hands, who in return pulls her in tight. There is some blood on the front of the nightshirt – some cuts have re-opened it seems. Nat manoeuvres Phoenix under the covers trying not jostle the woman to much. Phoenix curls up in a ball again. Nat hugs her to her body, not caring of the icy knees pressed into her stomach as she rests her head above the others, mumbling sweet nothings and gently stroking with her hand through Phoenixes hair. Phoenix falls into a fitful sleep once some measure of warmth has returned to her, her mind still too exhausted to deal.

A little while later... "Friday, can you please measure Phoenix's body temperature and keep the room temp so she keeps warm?" Nat asks quietly the computerized heart of the compound. "Yes, I can do that. Wouldn't it be better if she was transferred to Med-bay?" "No", Nat negates. "She has to feel safe right now. This is her room." As she feels the room temperature rise, she detangles herself from the sleeping form. "Friday keep me updated when she wakes or so much as gets restless. I have to see the others. Are they up yet?" "Mr. Stark and Mr. Banner are. Mr. Rogers and Mis Maximoff and the Vision have just returned to their rooms a few hours ago. Mr. Parker is not in. The other agents are not on the floor. Might I suggest an open commlink between you and this room so you can listen in." "Good Idea". While talking she quickly dresses in a black shirt and pants and adjusts the commlink, so it sits comfy. Before leaving she returns to the sleeping form on the bed and lightly brushes the hair from the face. "I'll keep you safe. I make you good again" She whispers, then leaves to find the others.

Grabbing a pot of coffee from the kitchen area she enters the lab looking into two pairs of tired eyes. "Do you have any news where they came from? What they want, how they did what they did?" she asks quickly before Bruce or Tony get a chance to speak. Tony rubs through his face once to clear his mind, then indicates to the screens across the room. "We found security footage from the area. The Van has a fake plate, and we lost it tracing it, when it entered the tunnel system toward the airfields." He indicates towards an array of machinery amidst which the clothes Phoenix had worn yesterday are laying. "No DNA-hits yet. We found some of that one guy but haven't identified him yet." He takes a deep breath. "We.... found some footage showing what happened in the ally. Too grainy to make much of it, but we are currently running the faces through recognition. What's interesting though is, that there have been more hits like this. 3 in the past week and some 52 in the last 2 years. We never got wind of this because it was just missing persons. Unattached people get lost again and again, but once we started looking, we found similarities." He flicks through some files on another screen. "Though with Phoenix they were sloppy. The others showed up again after a few days, dead. Runaways, Society's rejects, all it seems with minor powers, a knack for growing things here, a little healing touch there, nothing major to come to anyone's attention but those in direct contact – With Phoenix they upped their game – higher in connection and power level." He turns from the screen to Nat. "We are not totally sure how they did what they did...With the Power that is. The other things.... Well..." Again, his hand rubs through his face. His gaze turns again to the screen. "See here" he taps the screen to play on mute "Phoenix is losing hold over the power spectacularly, and this woman - Wanda told us she's hydra? - grabs it as if it's a being, a bird, and stuffs it into this cage thing." Watching the same few seconds on repeat several times, Nat whispers, remembering what she had seen in Phoenix's memory: "Yes she is Hydra, and seemed to know Phoenix. She said something about experiments and that Phoe has escaped thrice..." Trailing off Nat finally can't take it anymore and lowers her eyes from the screen. Bruce silently asks "Why didn't she fight against them. We know how much she can do. A simple shield of hers would have been enough...." "She couldn't" Nat answers as quietly. "They injected her with something that made her unable to run, to move, to access her power." She steps up to the screen and taps rewind. They see Phoenix slap her hand to her neck as if she were killing a mosquito, right before the men catch her. "There. Blow dart most like. And...before... She was proving herself to herself. You know she is last to shield out in the open to keep her powers as inconspicuous as possible. What she has just been through weeks before... I shouldn't have let her go on her own..." "Why didn't she use the com?" "She said... she said she was not fast enough."