Fire and Ice

•30•

"Kate!" Thor shouts, snapping her out of it. Her whole body rocks back and forth as he jogs with her in his arms.

"What?" she asks, squinting against the sun.

"Finally, you're awake. Can you walk? I'm... not feeling so well."

She nods, and he sets her down. They begin to move again. "What happened?"

"The girl was much stronger than I anticipated."

"Yeah, no kidding."

They soon reach the Quinjet, where Steve is standing at the back, waiting. "You two alright?"

"For the most part," Thor replies, walking past him. Kate only nods. Clint, sitting on the floor with Nat, stands, his eyes asking her the same question. She shrugs. Her entire body is aching, her head hurts, and there's a couple things she saw just now that she can't make heads or tails of. She stills wonders if she made the right choice, went through the right door — if it even matters now that it's over.

But still, somewhere inside her, she feels lighter.

"You okay?" she asks Nat. All Nat does is shake her head, staring across from her. Kate sits next her, wrapping one arm around her shoulders.

They take off once Tony returns with a battered Bruce. The Hulk just nearly destroyed a city, and it's already getting around. Bruce sits down by himself, facing away from everyone, so Kate stays with Nat, thinking. Not about what just happened — she keeps the guilt at bay for the moment. She thinks about Ryan.

Not the good times with him, either, the times she always forces her mind to go back to when it can't help but focus on him. But the time that she lost him.

~_~_~_~_~

Banging awoke Kate from her dream, all the details of it leaving the second she was awake enough to get up and investigate the sound. She grabbed the baseball bat from its spot next to her bed and crept to the front door, wondering who it could be at so late an hour. She was perturbed that the best sleep she'd had in weeks was interrupted at one in the morning.

The person on the other side of the door continued knocking, pausing every so often to see if she would answer. Finally, mid-knock, she yanked the door open, ready to attack whoever was on the other side.

But her bat lowered. "Jones?" she asked. "What are you doing here?"

He was wearing his gear minus the air tank. His jacket and pants were dirty, but the reflective stripes still shone in the dark, even as the snow fell.

"Hey, Kate," Jones said. "Mind if I come in?"

Kate's brows furrowed. "At one in the morning? Seriously, what's going on?"

"I was going to call you, but... I figured this was better said in person."

Kate began to get worried. "Tell me what? What's wrong?"

Jones sighed. "Kate, you might want to sit down for this."

"Just tell me," she demanded. Ryan's hurt, she thought. He's probably at the hospital right now wondering where I am. For the first time in a while, she started to pray, even as she looked at Jones, waiting for him to speak.

He looked at her cautiously, then slowly said, "There was a fire tonight."

"Yeah, I gathered." She gestured to his clothes impatiently.

"Kate, Ryan..." he started. It was like he didn't know what to say.

Kate's heart seized with fear and dread. She prayed harder. "Well?" she said. "How bad is it? What happened to him?"