Mirage // Marvel Universe

extraction_protocol

Emptiness.

I feel nothing, not even the ground under my body or the heat on my skin. Not even pain. It's like I'm slowly sinking in a vast ocean. I can feel myself getting heavier under the growing pressure.

My ears ring in terrible harmony to the silence as I pry my eyelids open. The warehouse is in tatters, and I almost think it's day until I realise that all the light is coming from the flames. I turn my head to the side, and I see him. Spencer lies mere inches away from me, a dark gash across his head and eyes open towards the night sky.

"Spencer—" I croak not even above a whisper. He doesn't respond.

His chest does not lift with breath. I groan as I move to touch him. Maybe if I can just wake him, he'll be okay... he's only sleeping... he has to be...

My hand goes right through his arm. I think I must just have something wrong with my vision, so I try again. Once more, my hand passes through him like I'm not even here. I must be dead, I tell myself. The thought should scare me, but it doesn't.

I look back up to the sky. Smoke blocks the stars from view, and ash snows down from the heavens. It could almost be a pleasant winter day if I ignore the fire and ringing in my ears. I imagine lying in the snow next to Spencer, both of us happy— both of us alive. No mission. No explosion. No lifeless eyes. Maybe that's what being dead is like: peaceful.

I let my consciousness go once more.

The sound of beeping wakes me. At first, I'm annoyed— alarm clocks are truly the worst— but there's something else too. Voices. It takes quite a bit of concentration to hear what is being said, and even then, they sound distorted.

"Do we know what caused the effects?" Asks one voice, a male.

The second voice is harder to hear, and all I catch is the last bit. "—but we have the labs running every possible test."

"Is she stable at least?"

"For now."

"And do you think she'll wake up?"

"Right now, it's taking every cell in her body just to stay alive." There's a long pause. "I wouldn't get your hopes up for a full recovery even if—"

"Hold on," the first voice says. There's movement nearby. "Harper, can you hear me?" I know that voice. Clint? "Harper?"

I fight against the heaviness of my eyes. The room is bright at first and it takes a second for my eyes to adjust. Blue-tinted lights shine down on me from every angle and wires and tubes sprawl across the room. I blink multiple times to make sure my vision is correct.

A woman in a white coat stands at the end of my bed in front of a wide glass wall looking out into a hall. Clint sits in a chair beside my bed, hand an inch away from my hand.

"Barton?" I ask, voice gravely, "What's happening?"

"You're in a SHIELD hospital," Clint answers.

"I don't understand..."

"We'll explain everything soon, but for now, you just need to rest up."

I dismiss the idea of going back to sleep entirely. Now was not the time for rest, not when I had already had so much of it.

"Where's Spencer," I ask before I can even think about the words falling out of my mouth. Clint shifts his weight, averting his eyes from mine. The air in my chest solidifies. "Barton, where's Spencer?" Between the emotion and the strain of my throat, I can barely get the words out. My eyes begin to tear up against my wishes. I had survived so surely Spencer must have too. He had to have survived. He just had to.