Radioactive | Bucky Barnes

THE AVENGERS: CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Steve saw the look in Rhiley's eyes—the fire was back, but so were the cracks. Determination masked by exhaustion. Fury stretched thin across grief. She was standing, but barely. And he had no idea how to hold her together once this was over.

If they even made it that far.

"We gotta get back up there," he said, nodding toward Stark Tower looming in the distance like a throne waiting to be claimed.

"Unfortunately," Rhiley muttered, eyes on the sky, "I can't fly."

It was a flicker of humor. A shadow of who she'd been in the war. But it didn't land right. Not here. Not now.

Steve didn't get the chance to respond, not with a Chitauri Leviathan tearing through the portal above them, its armored hide glinting like a blade in the sun. The roar of it shook the street.

"Stark," Steve said into the comm, "are you seeing this?"

"Loud and clear," came the reply, static laced with sarcasm. "Got any bright ideas?"

"Hypothetically," Rhiley shouted over the chaos, pointing up at the swirling blue light of the portal, "what if I could take control of that?"

The others turned.

"The portal?" Steve asked, already bracing. "No," he said before she even finished the thought. He didn't need to hear the rest. His gut said no, his heart screamed it.

Rhiley's expression said I knew you'd say that.

"Like you did back in the underground base?" Barton chimed in, loosing another arrow into a dive-bombing Chitauri.

Rhiley blinked. "You saw that?"

Barton didn't look at her. "Yeah. I was brainwashed, not blind."

"We should start a mind control survivors club," she muttered.

Only Steve reacted, his lips twitching despite the weight in his chest. But Rhiley wasn't done.

"I get to the tower, I get to the Cube," she said, urgent now. "I can disrupt the signal—slow the portal, maybe even redirect it."

"It could kill you," Steve said.

Rhiley turned to him. Calm. Resigned. "I know you promised to protect me, Cap."

He felt the hit of that word like a sucker punch.

"But I'm going to do this—with or without your support. So either back me... or I'll walk right through you."

Steve hated her resolve. Hated how much it mirrored his own.

He nodded, reluctantly. "Go."

She started to run—then stopped. Turned back to him.

"He didn't believe in promises," she said, voice low. "But he believed in chances. And your chance at saving the world?" She smiled—and for the first time since Phil's death, it was real. Fierce. Final. "It's damn big, Cap."

Then she was gone.

Steve stood frozen for a heartbeat longer than he should've.

He didn't like the odds of her coming back.

But he liked the idea of stopping her even less.

-

-

-

FLASHBACK

Later that night, after they'd made their plan and Steve had gathered his thoughts, he found himself standing outside of Rhiley's door. The silence of the compound felt heavy, oppressive, as though it was holding its breath. He hesitated for just a moment, his hand hovering over the doorknob.