Insane in my Russian Brain - P. Parker

Chapter Twenty Nine

Kat awoke to a piercing noise filling her ears. She had a terrible migraine that wouldn't go away and had the urge to throw up in a toilet.

She sat up quickly, her hand instinctively going to hit the alarm clock that sat next to her bed. She lay back down, staring up at the ceiling.

Only then did she notice that this wasn't her room, nor was it her bed.

The walls were painted an eggshell white, and there was a chord sticking through her arm. The door closest to her opened, revealing the blonde-haired man Kat had grown to love. Steve.

He smiled, sitting down at the edge of the bed. "Sorry, I forgot to reset it when I moved your stuff."

"What... where are we?"

Steve smiled, resting his hand on her knee. "The Avengers Compound. Don't worry, we're perfectly safe. After everything went down, the whole accord situation was called off."

"Is she here?"

"She's in a meeting right now... do you want to join them? I have to be in there in a few minutes, but I can always pull a wheelchair for you and take you there."

Kat stood from the bed, walking towards the door. She ripped the IV out of her arm, the monitor flatlining. "Why would I need a wheelchair? That's ridiculous, Steve-" She tripped over her feet, falling to her knees. "Good point. Where would I find one of those?"

⧗ ⧗ ⧗

"It's been twenty-three days since Thanos came to Earth."

"World governments are in pieces. Um..." Natasha watched as Steve wheeled Kat into the room, placing her chair down next to where he leaned against the wall. "The parts that are still working are trying to take a census and it looks like he did... he did exactly what he said he was gonna do."

Kat cleared her throat, trying to keep her voice from breaking as she saw an image of Peter flash by. "Thanos wiped out 50% of all living creatures. Gone... in just a matter of minutes."

"Where is he now? Where?" Tony held up his hand and adjusted his glasses. He looked awful. He was attached to an IV, much like Kat, and obviously hadn't been lucky enough to get sleep.

"We don't know. He just opened a portal and walked through."

Tony sighed, looking over at Thor who sat on the steps, his head down. "What's wrong with him?"

"Oh, he's pissed." Kat turned to... a raccoon. A talking one at that. This day had just gotten a whole lot more interesting. "He thinks he failed. Which of course he did, but there's a lot of that going around, ain't there?"

"Honestly, until this exact second, I thought you were a Build-A-Bear."

Steve lightly slapped Kat on her arm for her comment, shaking his head. "We've been hunting Thanos for three weeks now. Deep space scans and satellites and we got nothing. Tony, you fought him."

"Who told you that? I didn't fight him. No, he wiped my face with a planet while the Bleecker Street magician gave away the store. That's what happened. There was no fight, 'cause he's not beatable."

"Did he give you any clues, any coordinates, anything?"

"Uh... I saw this coming a few years back. I had a vision. I didn't wanna believe it. Thought I was dreaming."

"Tony, I'm gonna need you to focus."

Tony put his head in his hands, sighing. He looked at Kat, who shook her head violently. "She saw something."

"No! No... Tony, what I saw was on a completely unrelated note."

Steve turned to Kat. "Unrelated might just be what we need."

"I promise you, it won't. What I saw has nothing to do with Thanos or any shit like that. Nothing." She turned to Tony, shrugging. "We've found nothing that we could use. We need a new plan."

"You know what I need? I need a shave." Tony stood, knocking things on the table away from him in the process. "And I believe I remember telling all youse alive and otherwise, that what we needed was a suit of armor around the world. Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms or not. That's what we needed."

He ripped the IV out of his arm, throwing it on the ground. Rhodey tried to stop him, but Tony pushed him off. "I said we'd lose. You said, "We'll do that together, too." And guess what, Cap? We lost. And you weren't there. But that's what we do, right? Our best work after the fact? We're the Avengers. We're the Avengers, not the Pre-vengers. Okay? Right?"

"Stark, you made your point. Just sit down, okay?" Kat stood from her seat, despite Steve's best wishes, and walked to Tony. "You're sick. Sit down, you should not be up."

"Hypocritical much? No? After what you saw, you can not talk. You saw your mother-"

"Tony-"

"No! Let me finish. You saw her die, you saw Natasha die. And you're telling me that's not important?" He laughed and shook his head. "Hypocritical."

Tony walked away from her, heading up to Steve. He ripped his arc reactor straight out of his chest, placing it in Steve's hand. "Here, take this. You find him, you put that on, you hide."

He crumpled to his knees, his hand catching his fall. "I'm fine."

No, he was not fine. He passed out on the floor, and Steve had to carry him all the way to the other side of the compound where the medical bay was. With the little luck they had left, Bruce was able to give him a sedative that knocked him out for the rest of the day.

But that didn't mean they could all rest. Everyone still had questions they needed to get answered.