alone

"Code Nine-Nine-Eight-Zero-Two-Sonar-Apple-Field-Evergreen. It's Tony Stark. I'm here to help and I'm coming in."

Barton Homestead - January 9th, 2016

"Is he dead?"

"No."

But the words rang hollow, as though that were only to be true for minutes or barely hours more.

A pause.

"Is she dead?"

Another pause.

"Not yet."

Terror, safety. Pain, comfort. Guilt, freedom.

Why?

Sitting hunched over, bare arms wrapped around her jean-clad knees, Christa stared at the metallic wall several feet in front of her. She could've moved. She could've moved an hour ago. She could've joined Cooper and Nathaniel in the bunker-like bedroom, climbed into one of those beds so that she could be comfortable. Not sore. Not pained. Fall asleep, even.

Except she wouldn't be able to fall asleep. And the pain in her back and her arms and her knees was almost distracting enough from what was happening now for her to forget.

But it wasn't enough.

A small beeping could suddenly be heard in the silence of the blank, metal room. Christa flipped around and shot up, hurrying over to Laura's side, heart pounding in her chest.

"Are they okay?" she breathed, voice cracking slightly from lack of sleep and use since all the screaming it had gone through that evening. Christa's eyes raked over the bodies of the nearly lifeless man and girl, searching for something new, some sign that they weren't breathing--something they could only be doing because of the masks hooked up to their faces--but could find nothing.

"That's not what that sound means." Laura walked over to a side of the room that contained panels and a board with a few buttons and what looked like some sort of communication device, some of those things being labeled and some of which not. She looked closely at it, as though confirming her suspicions.

Dread dropped into Christa's stomach.

"Don't tell me more of those assholes got into the house. Or are getting their way into the panic room," she said warily.

Laura turned to look at the girl. "No. It means that one of the Avengers is here to help us."

| | |

"Code Nine-Nine-Eight-Zero-Two-Sonar-Apple-Field-Evergreen. This is Colonel James Rhodes of the U.S. Air Force and the Avengers. There are no active enemies found on the premises. I have medics with me. I am coming inside."

The words came from a masculine voice outside the door, the sound muffled but hearable due to the sonance placed in it. At the first word, Christa's heart nearly skipped a beat, anxiety levels beginning to soar a half a second before she realized that this was not something to be worried about. Supposedly--according to the "Sonar-Apple-Field-Evergreen" (she assumed that meant "SAFE"--she was okay. There wasn't any harm. Nobody else was coming after them.

Supposedly.

Evidently the man had typed into a keypad or something in order to get inside, because several moments later the door had opened and three people had come in.

"Colonel Rhodes," Laura said to the man in the middle as the three came down the last few steps. "And you're--"

"Medics," responded one of the other two.

A look of relief washed over Laura's face. "My husband--my daughter--they got shot--" She ran over to the seemingly lifeless forms on the makeshift beds by the wall full of medical supplies, a wall that looked straight out of a hospital.

The two followed her quickly, one at each injured person, inspecting them, checking their heart rates, scanning their eyes.

"Why are there so few of you?" Christa's eyes darted from the medics and injured to look at the man who had come with them, a dark-skinned man who looked familiar for a reason Christa couldn't quite explain.

The man turned his gaze to her and gave the smallest of smiles. "How much do you know about the Avengers Initiative?"

"About as much as anyone who's heard about anything on the news," Christa responded, folding her arms.

"Know anything about Hydra? S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"I've taken history classes."

"Is she trustworthy?" The man--Colonel Rhodes--turned to Laura.

Laura's gaze flitted over Christa, and for a moment, she worried that the question wouldn't be answered positively. That it would flip her over to the outsider she'd already worried she had been the moment it was revealed that she would be intruding on their home.

"I would trust her with my life," Laura responded.

And yet, thinking about all the damage she had caused to the house, Christa still felt herself labeling herself as an outsider.

Rhodes turned back to Christa. "S.H.I.E.L.D. would have been here to help. But it fell two years ago when it was found that Hydra had infiltrated it. There are not many people who can be trusted with dealing with the world's... unusual... business. Only a few people we could trust were near enough to come. It was lucky any of us were in Iowa in the first place."

"Is anyone else coming?" Christa asked. Because yes, she'd met some people in the Avengers Facility, but she really didn't feel like seeing a certain one of them right now.

"All of the Avengers were alerted. People we could trust in the area got alerted, and... here we are."

The expression on Christa's face was an odd one. It had been since the three people had arrived. It was blank, neither worried nor happy, but it was a mask. She was trying to mirror the blank calm on her face inside, but then she looked over at Clint and Lila, lying there, helpless, and then she wanted to scream.

It was all her fault--all her fault--all her fault--

| | |

"...we've got people on the way who have the ways to move Mr. Barton, but the girl will have to stay here until further notice."

"Is there a chance... is she.. are they...?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but we really don't know yet."

Christa was back to sitting on the floor. Timewise, it felt like it had been decades since the three people had first arrived. Reason told her it had probably only been a couple of hours. Now, though, she was tracing her fingers against the screen of her phone. It was black, empty. She wished she could turn it on and some sort of message would tell her that everything was going to be okay, that she could look up something on the internet and it would tell her that the injuries that Clint and Lila had sustained would not be fatal, that her mom was actually alive, that this was all a horrible nightmare and that she was about to wake up and everything would be back to normal and everyone she knew would be okay--

"Code Nine-Nine-Eight-Zero-Two-Sonar-Apple-Field-Evergreen. It's Tony Stark. I'm here to help and I'm coming in."

Christa's heart stopped at the voice.

Dread dropped to the pit of her stomach.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!

Anthony Edward Stark was the last person she wanted to see, particularly right now, when she was feeling guilty enough.

Christa turned her deep brown eyes down to the ground, heat washing over her face.

She was not going to look at him. She was not going to respond to him. She was going to pretend she'd never even met him before.

Clunking footsteps. Coming closer and closer.

Behind her, Tony Stark's eyes flitted briefly on Clint and Lila lying on their beds, spoke a whispered word with Laura and Rhodes, and then his eyes went to Christa and didn't leave.

"Hey, kid."

Ignore him. Ignore him. Ignore him.

Clunking footsteps coming closer. Why was he coming closer? Why did it sound like his feet were strapped inside a pair of metal boots?

A pause.

"Christa?"

Ignore him. Ignore him ignore him ignore him ignore--

"Christa, will you talk to me, please? I have something I have to say to you."

Fine.

"What do you want?" she snapped.

"Christa, would you turn around, please? It's a little hard to talk to a back."

Be that way, then. Jerk.

Christa flipped around and jumped to her feet. She was pleased to see that the man before her looked a little scared at the movement. Sadly, it was only a little, though.

Stark--who, she now realized, was clad in his red Iron Man suit--opened his mouth as though about to say something, but Christa cut him off. She really felt like being loud right now.

"What do you want?" she repeated.

Stark's mouth closed, just staring at her. His expression looked almost... happy? Was that it? But how could one be happy amidst such terrible, terrible, humiliating circumstances?

"I--"

A pause.

"Kid... the paternity test--"

"What about it? Coming to mock me about it? 'Cause if so, I've beat myself up over it enough, okay?" Christa snarled. She turned the other direction, going to the same room Cooper and Nathaniel were currently asleep in.

"Christa--"

She felt a metallic glove on her shoulder, and she flipped around again, anger displayed on every feature on her face.

And before she could yell--

"Christa--there was a mistake with the test. I--I'm your dad. I really am your dad."