𝗗𝗜𝗚𝗜𝗧𝗔𝗟 𝗦𝗜𝗟𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘 - 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗹

Cheerful Oblivion

A/N: I'd like to apologise in advance for this chapter. Trying to write canon scenes and also make them your own is hard, and fight scenes are even harder. I really struggled with writing this, but although it isn't a particularly exciting chapter, it's necessary for the plot. Honest to God, next chapter will be more interesting to read. This is just a long fight scene with added Iz and Steve arguing. 

Soz, but big love to anyone who reads this anyway!!

- Adrienne :)

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Isabell doesn't think.

She just shoots.

Two bullets hit home in the neck of a police officer and he drops like a swatted fly, whilst something explodes beside her. Eighteen months of peace may have originally put her at a disadvantage, but HYDRA code is engrained into her brain like a burn mark.

When in doubt, exterminate.

Isabell is vaguely aware of more explosions, people bursting through the windows, but James and Steve seem more than capable of taking care of it. They dance around her like wooden soldiers, fighting off bullets like rain, and she doesn't miss the protective arm that flings up to shield her.

James is James. No matter where they are, no matter what is happening around them, it is her first and everything else second.

Isabell swallows.

She watches one metal fist go through the floorboards, dragging out a dusty backpack. She knows what that is. James' precious notebooks; packed full with every little memory and thought he's processed in the past two years. She's read some of them, secretly, and she knows how important they are to him.

Both her and Steve watch as it goes right out of the window. It is followed shortly by two police officers.

Isabell clicks her mind back into focus. She'll kill them. She'll kill them, she'll kill Steve Rogers, and then it can go back to how it used to be.

She pulls a knife from the counter and sinks it into any warm flesh she can reach.

Blood. Fuck.

She blinks, and suddenly, she is covered in it. Dripping, soaked from her shoulders to her feet, saturating the worn leather of her boots, crusting in her hair. On her fingers, her face, in between her teeth, Isabell can taste the stuff like it's suffocating her.

She stands on the stairs of their apartment, gun in one hand, knife in the other, and tries to melt herself out of a fully conscious state. She needs something bad. Something that hurts. When she is in pain, she can keep herself in her body. Sometimes, she feels like she's floating. That is not a good feeling.

She can go after the backpack.

Isabell darts between tangles of flailing arms and legs, ripping her knife through hot skin as she struggles back to the apartment. They are screaming. People are screaming, and it is because of her.

It is because of James.

She doesn't even want to look at him.

Gulping and gasping, she stumbles against the wall and out towards the balcony. Hot, cold, bloody, shaking, she stares at the tiny dot of the backpack. She can jump that distance, maybe, and if she can't, she'll recover quickly anyway.

Isabell places both hands on the damp rail, swings her legs over it and closes her eyes.

Freefall.