Cherry || b.barnes

42 || Break Me Like a Promise

I'm left speechless, but there is no time to think about what this paper just revealed. What it means. For me, for my future, for the people around me. My first thought started with getting to know about these powers this Rogue-person should inhabit, but my thoughts never ended.

I hear the elevator move up five stories down. Like hit by an arrow, my head shoots up straight, facing myself in the panorama window. But I'm not looking at me; I'm looking through me, looking nowhere. Concentrating on the lift, on metal screeching along metal in a frequency that should be un-hearable for humankind, it kind of freaks me out that three levels down, it hasn't stopped yet.

Who's incoming? Wanda, maybe? Natasha is gone, and on search for her are literally all the others. Wilson, Barnes, Rogers, Barton, Banner, Stark. Everyone disappeared to different spots all around the globe. I doubt that Fury himself is planning to visit me; a person that cares so much about his business and so less about other people – and I don't speak of the world's population, I speak of personal relations such as friends and family –, probably wouldn't pay any of his time to visit the all-around failure of a daughter of one of his soldiers. Not even the one of his close to best soldier.

No, I think it should be Wanda. But I haven't seen her in quite a while, and I somehow doubt that it is her. Call it mistrust or caution or even paranoia, but I'm moving fast as I get the papers back together and stuff them between the grey pillows. The noise of the mechanics is starting to drive me crazy, blaring like a siren in my head while I all but find something to defend myself with. Not given much of a choice, I get the scissor and scooch over, considering different hiding options. I could just stay behind the wall that separates the corridor and living room, but that's somehow obvious. I could hide in my or one of the other's rooms, but then, I'd maybe don't get enough information about the intruder. Who has access to this building, anyways? Isn't Stark's security system, like, the best in the world?

However, these are thoughts I neither have time to spare for. Just as I assumed, the lift is stopping right on this level, announcing its arrival with the high note of a bell. The doors open in the same second that I get more or less comfortable in my hiding spot. Knowing that's where most people doesn't usually look at first, I made it a short process to climb noiselessly onto one of the dark, shiny hanging shelves on the walls and pray for them to be able to carry my weight. I went for the one on the wall between the living room and the hallway; the surprise will be on my side. 

»Hello?« I hear next, a male's voice, high-pitched, almost like a teenager's. Pre-voice break, or in the middle of it. »Mister Stark?« follows, and while his light steps vibrate in my ears, I form myself to the smallest ball possible, trying to lurch onto whoever like a cat out of the shadows. Like I always have, and always will. »Are you here?«

Forming my eyes to slits, I try as hard as I can not to breathe too much, too loud. Hand clasping around the scissor like my life depended on it, the ball of nervosity finally settles in the pit of my stomach. The ball of nervosity that always comes before a fight, that gets your adrenaline on the next higher level. And sharpens my senses. »Mister Rog- Excuse me, Steve, are you here? Is anyone at home?« His pace becomes a little slower, nonetheless louder. I can hear a beat thrumming in the background, almost like a pulse. But it's... strange. It's like a human's, but it's not. It's slower than the mean beats per minute request, significantly slower so but somehow also stronger. Like there was more determination behind it. Not like James's, nothing compares to James's heartbeat. Lighter, somehow, but nonetheless containing a might that I haven't registered ever before. Could he be a mutant?

»Happy let me in, I kind of had something good.« he sounds nervous now, his blood flow increasing in speed, directed upwards. Probably blushing. I can hear him in- and exhale right behind me, only the relatively thin, white wall dividing us. »You know, Mister Stark, I'm sorry for lending the microscope longer than I planned. I just wanted to-« He pauses mid-sentence, and it almost sounds choked. Confused, I close my eyes for a second knowing he won't come into my view any time soon, for he stopped moving.