Tombstone, Arizona - Log 5
Oct. 23rd, 2012 01:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
The flight happens in terse silence, apart from the whistle of the wind through the damaged window. Damaged though the ship is, it still flies well enough; if Logan hadn't gone at the aliens themselves, the damage he'd inflincted wouldn't have been enough to bring the ship down.
It's been ten minutes of that heavy silence, which means that they've felt more like half an hour, when the mothership suddenly pops up into view. One minute there was nothing in the desert, and the next they're faced with a spaceship maybe big like a couple of planes, lying in the desert as if it belonged there.
"Cloaking device," Zoe murmurs under her breath, looking back as if she could identify the exact spot where the cloaking begins.
But their little ship flies over to a docking bay, and there's no time to wonder about anything.
"Zoe, Logan, you focus on finding the Sullivan kid," Steve tells them. In the face of what they're getting themselves into, everything else gets shoved aside, so he sounds just like his usual self. "Sharon and I are going for the control center."
---
Sharon’s got a couple of big problems with this plan, but keeps them to herself. Not the least of which is the fact that they’re bringing Zoe [who’s certainly not helpless but is still just a kid] on board a ship that it’s their plan to blow to smithereens. Though she sees the logic in keeping her close rather than leaving her on her own. Also Sharon’s not wild about Steve’s reticence to shoot to kill. Hopefully he’ll get all right with it, and fast, since they’re going to kill them all anyway, but she’s got this awful image of a strategically-winged hostile shooting him in the back. Compassion is a dangerous quality for people like them to have.
For his part, Logan is just happy he’s supposed to go with Zoe, cause otherwise there woulda been... a disagreement. He wouldn’t trust anyone else to look after Zoe, plus the fact that he wasn’t about to pair off with either of the Americana Twins. He wouldn’t know whether to kill the aliens or his teammate.
“Come on, kid. Stick close, OK?” He sets off down a hallway toward the belly of the ship.
---
Sometimes, Zoe thinks Logan couldn't be more patronizing if he tried. She rolls her eyes, but says nothing, because right when you're infiltrating an alien spaceship is obviously not the time to bring up that kind of issue, or any issue at all not directly linked to survival, or the plan. The plan she has in fact no issue with. She has one of the guns, and Doc's knife in its hiding place; she's set, and she follows down the hallway as Steve and Logan take the lead.
Eventually they get to a fork in the hallway, and they know (not Steve, but the rest of them) from the things the alien showed them that the control room is on the left, and the labs on the right. Labs with human guinea pigs. Sharon tells Steve as much, and he nods, and simply exchanges a look with Logan before the two of them leave.
By the time they run into their first alien, Zoe's pulled her knife out of her corset, just in case, because knives are quiet when guns are not, and it turns out that was a right move. She hears somebody coming behind her, and she turns around in time to see another grey-blue alien dressed in shimmering greys appear behind her. Her knife flies through the air and hits him (him?) straight in between the eyes on the front of his head, hopefully before he can send out a telepathic alarm.
Then she goes over to him and picks up her knife, and meets Logan's gaze easily as she turns back around, and wipes the blade free of grey blood on her skirt, almost mechanically, as she gets moving again. Speed is of the essence if they want to pull this off.
---
Logan knows enough about Zoe that he’s able to keep surprise off his face as she neatly disposes of the first alien they encounter.
Shit, kid.
It’s freaky, of course, but her instincts are right on; they need to get this done silently. He sticks his gun back in the waist of his pants. He takes the lead to make sure he gets to the next alien before Zoe, and snaps its neck with no fuss, and then they’re at the door to the labs. Logan has a little reverse Roswell moment when he sees the young man strapped to the table, being crowded over by two aliens with medical tools.
When one reaches for his little ray gun, it’s exactly what Logan’s been waiting for.
>SNIKT<
He charges them, roaring, claws out; thank god for imminent danger and innocents to protect. He assumes Zoe will take the hint of him tearing the baddies to pieces and get Timmy to safety like some kind of space age Lassie.
The rush of relief Logan feels as his claws sever arteries and rend alien flesh would probably put some fear into normal people.
---
It's a good thing Zoe isn't normal people.
She trusts Logan to take care of the aliens. She knows that she could help, but there's a kid strapped to the table, probably Sullivan's kid (Al?), so she trusts Logan to take care of them, and moves to his side. There are several instruments - what else could she call them - diving into the kid's body, and screens on the side reading what she assumes are vital signs. She takes a few seconds to study those, first, and she's being pretty good at compartmentalizing. Logan tearing aliens to shred next to her doesn't phase her in the least.
---
The ship’s got a skeleton crew, but isn’t totally undefended. Lucky for Logan the half dozen security aliens underestimated the force it would take to bring him down; he takes a hit from one of their ray guns right center mass, but it isn’t enough to put him down.
Hurts like hell, sure, and his shirt is basically fried off his body, but Logan’s still standing. Bad news for Mork and his buddies. He catches the nearest one in the throat with his claws, using him to bowl over two others before tackling another bodily to the ground, sticking him with both sets up to the knuckles. Grey-green blood is everywhere in short order.
---
Zoe looks up briefly - and in alarm - when Logan gets hit by a laser ray, but then she sees his claws go right through an alien's throat, and he's not done, so she figures he's fine. Sullivan Jr is probably less fine than Logan, if she trusts what she thinks she's reading off the machines, so she loses no more time and starts to pry probes, or whatever the frak you want to call them, out of his body. He's stable, at least, but it isn't long before one of the aliens manages to reach her and she's glad she kept her dagger in one hand, so she can stab the alien straight in the head, with all the force she has.
That grey blood is splashing everywhere once she pulls the knife back, and she shoves the body away in no time.
"Logan!" she cries out, needing him because she can't carry the kid on her own, even if she's stronger than she looks.
---
Logan’s elbow-deep in alien guts, and barely hears Zoe when she calls his name. He remembers that they’re actually in a hurry, that Rogers and Carter are somewhere trying to figure out how to blow the whole place to hell.
---
There's another half-dozen aliens - probably security, again - getting into the lab, and Zoe figures the kid can wait long enough for them to make sure that they can transport him safely. So she leaves him there, her knife in one hand, a gun in the other, and gets to work alongside Logan.
***
Steve and Sharon, it turns out, work pretty well as a team. They meet a few aliens on their way to the control room, but they take care of them swiftly and silently, in order to preserve the element of surprise as long as possible. They're pretty easy to knock out, it turns out, or at least when you're Steve, even Steve-with-nanites.
Then they reach a bend in the corridor, and it's pretty obvious one of the aliens they took out must have had time to send a telepathic warning to the others, because Steve barely has time to duck back behind the corner and against Sharon when he's greeted by a flurry of laser beams.
He's had enough of laser burns from that time in the testing facility, and he just looks at Sharon, just to make sure she's ready to cover him once he dives back out.
He really doesn't like using guns, after all, and is not going to unless he absolutely has to. What he wouldn't give to have his shield right now, though.
---
Steve’s need to incapacitate the sentries rather than killing them [which would have been gross, but could have been done quietly] has apparently ruined the surprise part of the plan. Steve squishing her against the wall was pretty surprising in itself, and Sharon’s glad he only looks at her for confirmation of their next move and doesn’t have time to see the little blush that may have been on her cheeks.
She darts out from behind the corner and puts down the alien in one shot, moving them only a couple of feet before the cavalry [irony not withstanding] shows up, and then it’s a confusing ruckus of lasers and pistols, no small amount of smoke in the air thanks to the ancient six shooters. They press on to the door to the nerve center of the ship, and a lucky laser blast nearly takes off her head, shooting the little electronic panel beside it instead. To his credit, Steve doesn’t look back to check, just keeps on moving, aliens dropping like flies in his path.
Action is really his forte, even if he doesn’t like to kill.
---
And Steve isn't killing now (that he knows of; it's difficult to tell, with alien physiology), but that's mostly because he doesn't like the guns, and it's easier for him to move through the aliens and drop them in hand-to-hand combat, which they seem to have very little training in. His blood is pumping and it isn't very long before every alien on the deck is down on the floor, thanks to their combined efforts.
He looks over at Sharon, automatically checking her for injuries, but she seems alright, and he moves out of the way to the console, since she knows how to do this, and he doesn't. While she does her thing, he's going back to the door, stopping to the side of it, ready to ambush any hostiles that might step through it in case it opens.
---
“I really wish we had a way to communicate with Zoe and Wolverine.” She shakes her head as she presses buttons. The system is foreign but not totally counter intuitive, and the mental instructions from their prisoner had been easy enough to understand. As she keys in the code, a little pictogram appears on the screen in addition to an auditory countdown. Judging from the rate that the little pie chart is disappearing, they have about ten minutes. Hopefully the rest of their team is already out in the desert waiting; they’d decided that flying the little scout vessel would be too risky, in case it was tied in to the main computer.
“Time to go.” She nods and jogs back to the door, where she almost runs into Steve, who hasn’t moved.
---
Steve tries to press the oddly-shaped button which, they have figured out by now, is meant to open doors, but nothing happens, and that's when he notices that the panel looks pretty grilled.
"We're in trouble," he tells Sharon, after pressing it a few more times, and still nothing happens. Looks like his gun is going to be good for something at last, and he hits its butt hard against the corner of the panel, to try and pry it off, allow Sharon to try and figure out the electronics. She's a lot more likely to manage than he is.
---
The panel gives way to Steve with little protest, because it’s fused into one solid piece that falls to the floor with a sickeningly final-
>CLANG<
Sharon stares at it in horror for a second, then at the useless ends of wires hanging out of the wall, before she peels away to find another exit.
“What kind of moron builds a bridge with only one door?!”
---
It's pretty obvious that this is the only way in and out, so Steve does what he does best. He puts the gun away, and he tries to break down the door by repeatedly slamming into it, shoulder-first. But it's not just the only door, it's also a very solid door (which, at least, makes sense), and Steve isn't even making a dent in it, and his shoulder is starting to hurt.
But it's not like they have a choice, and the countdown keeps them very aware of exactly how long (how short) they have left. So he keeps going, until each slam of his shoulder into the door makes him wince in serious pain.
---
“Steve goddamnit! Stop before--” What, before he hurts himself? Sharon can hardly escape the irony of trying to dissuade Steve from cracking his scapula when they’re very likely about to die in a really ugly explosion.
She rushes back to the main console, pushing buttons for half a minute before slamming her fist down on it in frustration. Of course she doesn’t know how to shut the thing down, and anyone who might have told them is dead or not likely to wake in time. Sharon puts both hands against her temples, willing herself to think, dammit, figure out a way...
---
Steve doesn't stop when Sharon tells him to, but he does, eventually, because he isn't sure his shoulder can take many more hits like this, which in itself wouldn't be that much of a problem if he was achieving anything. But he isn't, the doors are intact, so he leans his forehead against it for a quiet moment, his opposite hand on his smarting shoulder, before he pushes off of the door and turns around to see Sharon slamming her fist down on the console.
There's got to be another way, but he can't think of one right now. There are no air vents they could fit through, their guns or the alien lasers couldn't do anything to the door, the electronics are apparently shot (he trusts Sharon on that one), and she apparently can't stop the self-destruct sequence.
He half wishes the countdown were shorter, so he wouldn't have time to accept his helplessness, because he hates nothing more than that. It would be fine if it were just him, but it's Sharon as well, and it makes his blood boil that he can't do a thing to save her. He walks over to her and puts a hand on her shoulder, waits until she's looking around at him. "I'm sorry, Sharon."
---
“Don’t apologize!” Sharon blurts, horror struck, and shoves Steve’s hand off her shoulder. “How could this possibly be your fault?” She turns away so he can’t watch her face, which isn’t doing anything dignified. She’s not going to get hysterical, but it seems like such a stupid, pointless way to die. Sharon’s used to the threat of death looming in every assignment, but when she’s working for SHIELD at least the assignments mean something, help somebody. This game, task, whatever the hell it is is NOT worth her life, or Steve’s. Hadn’t been worth Amy Pond’s or Jane Shepard’s. It’s insane, and unfair, and still the countdown marches on.
But if she’s actually going to die, there’s no way she’s going to spend her last minutes fighting with Steve Rogers. About anything. As quickly as she shoved him off, Sharon turns and wraps her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder.
“I’m the one who’s sorry.” About everything.
---
Steve holds her close in a strong, steady embrace, his head against hers, and the thought fleets through his brain, selfish, that as far as people to spend his last living moments with go... But it's a selfish thought, and he still wishes she were safe, and he were here alone. If he had stayed close when they interrogated the alien pilot, he would have known how to trigger the self-destruct, and she wouldn't have had to be there.
But he's certainly not going to let her feel guilty about this, especially not when they have minutes left to live.
"Hey, if I don't get to say it, neither do you," he points out, no-nonsense and his usual kind of warm humor woven into it. His hands are on her back, and he breathes in her hair, then kisses her head, and he can't help but wonder if her Steve would have been better, if her Steve could have saved them both.
---
“Steve...” It’s almost a question, murmured as his face presses into her hair. There’s no way to stop what’s about to happen, and Sharon’s determined not to be afraid. Not afraid, even, but the fight or flight adrenaline is still coursing through her, demanding action, except of course there’s nothing to be done. Except live, even for the tiny slice of the little pie chart that remains.
Sharon shifts and wraps her arms around Steve’s neck, and doesn’t look for his shock or hesitation before she kisses him, for the thousandth and first time.
---
To be honest, Sharon would have found neither shock nor hesitation, just the same spur, and one of his hands moves up to tangle in her hair even as he kisses her, for a simple first time, and he shoves her Steve out of his mind and pretends that she's really kissing him, because he's really kissing her. He kisses her the same way he does everything else: completely, genuinely, earnestly. And it might be happening because they're about to die, but it just makes him want to live even more, makes him tighten his embrace around her and kiss her deeper.
---
It’s a crying shame they’re about to die, because there’s so much intention and perfectly frustrated emotion in that kiss that Sharon gets a little lightheaded. One of her hands slides down to frame Steve’s face, to ground her right where she is, because if she has to die, she’s going to have this moment for everything it’s worth...
The first groan of metal doesn’t break her concentration; she assumes it’s part of the self destruct. But it’s followed by a-
>CLANG<
>CLANG<
>CRAAAASH<
Wolverine stands in the gaping hole that used to be the broken door, claws out, breathing hard, and looking daggers at Steve and Sharon, who are still holding each other out of pure dumbfounded shock.
“If you two wouldn’t mind DOING THAT LATER, WE SHOULD GET MOVING!”
---
It's Wolverine shouting that makes Steve snap out of it, and he'll take the time to process - well, any of it - later, once they're out of harm's way. For now, he lets go of Sharon only to grab her hand (for some reason, it feels like the thing to do), and the three of them take off running back to the ship they came in on.
Zoe's inside, at the helm, and the kid they were originally supposed to save is in the back, so it's an even tighter fit this time. Steve's about to ask whether she can even fly the ship when it becomes clear that she somehow can. From his position in the back, he can't see her do it, so for now he just shuts up, and looks at Sharon's profile as Zoe takes them up and away from the timebomb that is the mothership.
The timebomb explodes right on schedule, and the blast of the explosion shakes their small ship, but Zoe keeps control and they fly off to safety. She lands the ship a few miles out of town, so they won't have as much to walk (their horses are long gone back to Tombstone), and it's only as he moves out of the ship that Steve sees her pulling a wire out of her arm, like some sort of electronic IV.
"That... was not fun," Zoe comments, looking and sounding pained.
---
Sharon’s staring outright for a second, and after she turns to give Zoe a good hard looking over, her voice is still a little astonished.
“We agreed we were leaving on foot, Zoe. Whatever you just did was a hell of a risk to take.”
Not to mention pretty freaky. But Sharon also knows there wasn’t enough time for them to make a run for it after Wolverine smashed in the door. So she owes Zoe her life, and Steve’s.
Logan growls from beside Zoe,
“I’m sure we’re all real concerned that she didn’t follow procedure and all, but can we get the hell out of this tin can to discuss it?”
---
"You agreed to leave on foot, I decided to save our collective asses," Zoe answers, still frowning as if in pain, even if she is doing her best not to sound like it anymore.
"Come on," Steve tells her, and he's already out of the ship, and holding a hand out to the kid. She looks pretty shaken; she can probably use it. The best clue that he's right is that she accepts his help without a word. "You're gonna have to tell us what you did, though," he adds after he gets her out of the ship.
---
Logan waves Sharon on with sarcastic chivalry.
“After you, toots.” She glares but doesn’t actually have it in her to pick a fight, not when she was convinced her life was over not ten minutes before. She leaves and takes Zoe’s arm, not looking at Steve as she does so.
Logan hoists the semi conscious Sullivan over his shoulder as he makes his way out of the ship. He barely weighs anything at all, which is plenty worrying. He shakes his head as Rogers offers him help carrying.
“I’m fine.” He looks at him sidelong as they start back toward Tombstone.
“You seemed to be handling the excitement pretty well.”
---
"What happened anyway?" Zoe asks before Steve can answer anything. She hasn't asked yet because managing the ship's flight computer was taking all her focus, but now she looks up at Sharon. "What held you back?"
---
Sharon clears her throat, blushing and super glad it’s dark outside to hide that fact.
“The door got damaged as we were breaking into the command center - it wouldn’t open when we tried to get out again. After setting the auto destruct, of course.” She hopes her customary black humor covers any sign of the omission she’s making. And man, what an omission.
---
"Sounds like excitement alright," Zoe confirms, and is thankfully still feeling too poorly to notice the fact that Steve's cheeks have gone pink, or that he and Sharon won't look at each other.
It's been ten minutes of that heavy silence, which means that they've felt more like half an hour, when the mothership suddenly pops up into view. One minute there was nothing in the desert, and the next they're faced with a spaceship maybe big like a couple of planes, lying in the desert as if it belonged there.
"Cloaking device," Zoe murmurs under her breath, looking back as if she could identify the exact spot where the cloaking begins.
But their little ship flies over to a docking bay, and there's no time to wonder about anything.
"Zoe, Logan, you focus on finding the Sullivan kid," Steve tells them. In the face of what they're getting themselves into, everything else gets shoved aside, so he sounds just like his usual self. "Sharon and I are going for the control center."
---
Sharon’s got a couple of big problems with this plan, but keeps them to herself. Not the least of which is the fact that they’re bringing Zoe [who’s certainly not helpless but is still just a kid] on board a ship that it’s their plan to blow to smithereens. Though she sees the logic in keeping her close rather than leaving her on her own. Also Sharon’s not wild about Steve’s reticence to shoot to kill. Hopefully he’ll get all right with it, and fast, since they’re going to kill them all anyway, but she’s got this awful image of a strategically-winged hostile shooting him in the back. Compassion is a dangerous quality for people like them to have.
For his part, Logan is just happy he’s supposed to go with Zoe, cause otherwise there woulda been... a disagreement. He wouldn’t trust anyone else to look after Zoe, plus the fact that he wasn’t about to pair off with either of the Americana Twins. He wouldn’t know whether to kill the aliens or his teammate.
“Come on, kid. Stick close, OK?” He sets off down a hallway toward the belly of the ship.
---
Sometimes, Zoe thinks Logan couldn't be more patronizing if he tried. She rolls her eyes, but says nothing, because right when you're infiltrating an alien spaceship is obviously not the time to bring up that kind of issue, or any issue at all not directly linked to survival, or the plan. The plan she has in fact no issue with. She has one of the guns, and Doc's knife in its hiding place; she's set, and she follows down the hallway as Steve and Logan take the lead.
Eventually they get to a fork in the hallway, and they know (not Steve, but the rest of them) from the things the alien showed them that the control room is on the left, and the labs on the right. Labs with human guinea pigs. Sharon tells Steve as much, and he nods, and simply exchanges a look with Logan before the two of them leave.
By the time they run into their first alien, Zoe's pulled her knife out of her corset, just in case, because knives are quiet when guns are not, and it turns out that was a right move. She hears somebody coming behind her, and she turns around in time to see another grey-blue alien dressed in shimmering greys appear behind her. Her knife flies through the air and hits him (him?) straight in between the eyes on the front of his head, hopefully before he can send out a telepathic alarm.
Then she goes over to him and picks up her knife, and meets Logan's gaze easily as she turns back around, and wipes the blade free of grey blood on her skirt, almost mechanically, as she gets moving again. Speed is of the essence if they want to pull this off.
---
Logan knows enough about Zoe that he’s able to keep surprise off his face as she neatly disposes of the first alien they encounter.
Shit, kid.
It’s freaky, of course, but her instincts are right on; they need to get this done silently. He sticks his gun back in the waist of his pants. He takes the lead to make sure he gets to the next alien before Zoe, and snaps its neck with no fuss, and then they’re at the door to the labs. Logan has a little reverse Roswell moment when he sees the young man strapped to the table, being crowded over by two aliens with medical tools.
When one reaches for his little ray gun, it’s exactly what Logan’s been waiting for.
>SNIKT<
He charges them, roaring, claws out; thank god for imminent danger and innocents to protect. He assumes Zoe will take the hint of him tearing the baddies to pieces and get Timmy to safety like some kind of space age Lassie.
The rush of relief Logan feels as his claws sever arteries and rend alien flesh would probably put some fear into normal people.
---
It's a good thing Zoe isn't normal people.
She trusts Logan to take care of the aliens. She knows that she could help, but there's a kid strapped to the table, probably Sullivan's kid (Al?), so she trusts Logan to take care of them, and moves to his side. There are several instruments - what else could she call them - diving into the kid's body, and screens on the side reading what she assumes are vital signs. She takes a few seconds to study those, first, and she's being pretty good at compartmentalizing. Logan tearing aliens to shred next to her doesn't phase her in the least.
---
The ship’s got a skeleton crew, but isn’t totally undefended. Lucky for Logan the half dozen security aliens underestimated the force it would take to bring him down; he takes a hit from one of their ray guns right center mass, but it isn’t enough to put him down.
Hurts like hell, sure, and his shirt is basically fried off his body, but Logan’s still standing. Bad news for Mork and his buddies. He catches the nearest one in the throat with his claws, using him to bowl over two others before tackling another bodily to the ground, sticking him with both sets up to the knuckles. Grey-green blood is everywhere in short order.
---
Zoe looks up briefly - and in alarm - when Logan gets hit by a laser ray, but then she sees his claws go right through an alien's throat, and he's not done, so she figures he's fine. Sullivan Jr is probably less fine than Logan, if she trusts what she thinks she's reading off the machines, so she loses no more time and starts to pry probes, or whatever the frak you want to call them, out of his body. He's stable, at least, but it isn't long before one of the aliens manages to reach her and she's glad she kept her dagger in one hand, so she can stab the alien straight in the head, with all the force she has.
That grey blood is splashing everywhere once she pulls the knife back, and she shoves the body away in no time.
"Logan!" she cries out, needing him because she can't carry the kid on her own, even if she's stronger than she looks.
---
Logan’s elbow-deep in alien guts, and barely hears Zoe when she calls his name. He remembers that they’re actually in a hurry, that Rogers and Carter are somewhere trying to figure out how to blow the whole place to hell.
---
There's another half-dozen aliens - probably security, again - getting into the lab, and Zoe figures the kid can wait long enough for them to make sure that they can transport him safely. So she leaves him there, her knife in one hand, a gun in the other, and gets to work alongside Logan.
Steve and Sharon, it turns out, work pretty well as a team. They meet a few aliens on their way to the control room, but they take care of them swiftly and silently, in order to preserve the element of surprise as long as possible. They're pretty easy to knock out, it turns out, or at least when you're Steve, even Steve-with-nanites.
Then they reach a bend in the corridor, and it's pretty obvious one of the aliens they took out must have had time to send a telepathic warning to the others, because Steve barely has time to duck back behind the corner and against Sharon when he's greeted by a flurry of laser beams.
He's had enough of laser burns from that time in the testing facility, and he just looks at Sharon, just to make sure she's ready to cover him once he dives back out.
He really doesn't like using guns, after all, and is not going to unless he absolutely has to. What he wouldn't give to have his shield right now, though.
---
Steve’s need to incapacitate the sentries rather than killing them [which would have been gross, but could have been done quietly] has apparently ruined the surprise part of the plan. Steve squishing her against the wall was pretty surprising in itself, and Sharon’s glad he only looks at her for confirmation of their next move and doesn’t have time to see the little blush that may have been on her cheeks.
She darts out from behind the corner and puts down the alien in one shot, moving them only a couple of feet before the cavalry [irony not withstanding] shows up, and then it’s a confusing ruckus of lasers and pistols, no small amount of smoke in the air thanks to the ancient six shooters. They press on to the door to the nerve center of the ship, and a lucky laser blast nearly takes off her head, shooting the little electronic panel beside it instead. To his credit, Steve doesn’t look back to check, just keeps on moving, aliens dropping like flies in his path.
Action is really his forte, even if he doesn’t like to kill.
---
And Steve isn't killing now (that he knows of; it's difficult to tell, with alien physiology), but that's mostly because he doesn't like the guns, and it's easier for him to move through the aliens and drop them in hand-to-hand combat, which they seem to have very little training in. His blood is pumping and it isn't very long before every alien on the deck is down on the floor, thanks to their combined efforts.
He looks over at Sharon, automatically checking her for injuries, but she seems alright, and he moves out of the way to the console, since she knows how to do this, and he doesn't. While she does her thing, he's going back to the door, stopping to the side of it, ready to ambush any hostiles that might step through it in case it opens.
---
“I really wish we had a way to communicate with Zoe and Wolverine.” She shakes her head as she presses buttons. The system is foreign but not totally counter intuitive, and the mental instructions from their prisoner had been easy enough to understand. As she keys in the code, a little pictogram appears on the screen in addition to an auditory countdown. Judging from the rate that the little pie chart is disappearing, they have about ten minutes. Hopefully the rest of their team is already out in the desert waiting; they’d decided that flying the little scout vessel would be too risky, in case it was tied in to the main computer.
“Time to go.” She nods and jogs back to the door, where she almost runs into Steve, who hasn’t moved.
---
Steve tries to press the oddly-shaped button which, they have figured out by now, is meant to open doors, but nothing happens, and that's when he notices that the panel looks pretty grilled.
"We're in trouble," he tells Sharon, after pressing it a few more times, and still nothing happens. Looks like his gun is going to be good for something at last, and he hits its butt hard against the corner of the panel, to try and pry it off, allow Sharon to try and figure out the electronics. She's a lot more likely to manage than he is.
---
The panel gives way to Steve with little protest, because it’s fused into one solid piece that falls to the floor with a sickeningly final-
>CLANG<
Sharon stares at it in horror for a second, then at the useless ends of wires hanging out of the wall, before she peels away to find another exit.
“What kind of moron builds a bridge with only one door?!”
---
It's pretty obvious that this is the only way in and out, so Steve does what he does best. He puts the gun away, and he tries to break down the door by repeatedly slamming into it, shoulder-first. But it's not just the only door, it's also a very solid door (which, at least, makes sense), and Steve isn't even making a dent in it, and his shoulder is starting to hurt.
But it's not like they have a choice, and the countdown keeps them very aware of exactly how long (how short) they have left. So he keeps going, until each slam of his shoulder into the door makes him wince in serious pain.
---
“Steve goddamnit! Stop before--” What, before he hurts himself? Sharon can hardly escape the irony of trying to dissuade Steve from cracking his scapula when they’re very likely about to die in a really ugly explosion.
She rushes back to the main console, pushing buttons for half a minute before slamming her fist down on it in frustration. Of course she doesn’t know how to shut the thing down, and anyone who might have told them is dead or not likely to wake in time. Sharon puts both hands against her temples, willing herself to think, dammit, figure out a way...
---
Steve doesn't stop when Sharon tells him to, but he does, eventually, because he isn't sure his shoulder can take many more hits like this, which in itself wouldn't be that much of a problem if he was achieving anything. But he isn't, the doors are intact, so he leans his forehead against it for a quiet moment, his opposite hand on his smarting shoulder, before he pushes off of the door and turns around to see Sharon slamming her fist down on the console.
There's got to be another way, but he can't think of one right now. There are no air vents they could fit through, their guns or the alien lasers couldn't do anything to the door, the electronics are apparently shot (he trusts Sharon on that one), and she apparently can't stop the self-destruct sequence.
He half wishes the countdown were shorter, so he wouldn't have time to accept his helplessness, because he hates nothing more than that. It would be fine if it were just him, but it's Sharon as well, and it makes his blood boil that he can't do a thing to save her. He walks over to her and puts a hand on her shoulder, waits until she's looking around at him. "I'm sorry, Sharon."
---
“Don’t apologize!” Sharon blurts, horror struck, and shoves Steve’s hand off her shoulder. “How could this possibly be your fault?” She turns away so he can’t watch her face, which isn’t doing anything dignified. She’s not going to get hysterical, but it seems like such a stupid, pointless way to die. Sharon’s used to the threat of death looming in every assignment, but when she’s working for SHIELD at least the assignments mean something, help somebody. This game, task, whatever the hell it is is NOT worth her life, or Steve’s. Hadn’t been worth Amy Pond’s or Jane Shepard’s. It’s insane, and unfair, and still the countdown marches on.
But if she’s actually going to die, there’s no way she’s going to spend her last minutes fighting with Steve Rogers. About anything. As quickly as she shoved him off, Sharon turns and wraps her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder.
“I’m the one who’s sorry.” About everything.
---
Steve holds her close in a strong, steady embrace, his head against hers, and the thought fleets through his brain, selfish, that as far as people to spend his last living moments with go... But it's a selfish thought, and he still wishes she were safe, and he were here alone. If he had stayed close when they interrogated the alien pilot, he would have known how to trigger the self-destruct, and she wouldn't have had to be there.
But he's certainly not going to let her feel guilty about this, especially not when they have minutes left to live.
"Hey, if I don't get to say it, neither do you," he points out, no-nonsense and his usual kind of warm humor woven into it. His hands are on her back, and he breathes in her hair, then kisses her head, and he can't help but wonder if her Steve would have been better, if her Steve could have saved them both.
---
“Steve...” It’s almost a question, murmured as his face presses into her hair. There’s no way to stop what’s about to happen, and Sharon’s determined not to be afraid. Not afraid, even, but the fight or flight adrenaline is still coursing through her, demanding action, except of course there’s nothing to be done. Except live, even for the tiny slice of the little pie chart that remains.
Sharon shifts and wraps her arms around Steve’s neck, and doesn’t look for his shock or hesitation before she kisses him, for the thousandth and first time.
---
To be honest, Sharon would have found neither shock nor hesitation, just the same spur, and one of his hands moves up to tangle in her hair even as he kisses her, for a simple first time, and he shoves her Steve out of his mind and pretends that she's really kissing him, because he's really kissing her. He kisses her the same way he does everything else: completely, genuinely, earnestly. And it might be happening because they're about to die, but it just makes him want to live even more, makes him tighten his embrace around her and kiss her deeper.
---
It’s a crying shame they’re about to die, because there’s so much intention and perfectly frustrated emotion in that kiss that Sharon gets a little lightheaded. One of her hands slides down to frame Steve’s face, to ground her right where she is, because if she has to die, she’s going to have this moment for everything it’s worth...
The first groan of metal doesn’t break her concentration; she assumes it’s part of the self destruct. But it’s followed by a-
>CLANG<
>CLANG<
>CRAAAASH<
Wolverine stands in the gaping hole that used to be the broken door, claws out, breathing hard, and looking daggers at Steve and Sharon, who are still holding each other out of pure dumbfounded shock.
“If you two wouldn’t mind DOING THAT LATER, WE SHOULD GET MOVING!”
---
It's Wolverine shouting that makes Steve snap out of it, and he'll take the time to process - well, any of it - later, once they're out of harm's way. For now, he lets go of Sharon only to grab her hand (for some reason, it feels like the thing to do), and the three of them take off running back to the ship they came in on.
Zoe's inside, at the helm, and the kid they were originally supposed to save is in the back, so it's an even tighter fit this time. Steve's about to ask whether she can even fly the ship when it becomes clear that she somehow can. From his position in the back, he can't see her do it, so for now he just shuts up, and looks at Sharon's profile as Zoe takes them up and away from the timebomb that is the mothership.
The timebomb explodes right on schedule, and the blast of the explosion shakes their small ship, but Zoe keeps control and they fly off to safety. She lands the ship a few miles out of town, so they won't have as much to walk (their horses are long gone back to Tombstone), and it's only as he moves out of the ship that Steve sees her pulling a wire out of her arm, like some sort of electronic IV.
"That... was not fun," Zoe comments, looking and sounding pained.
---
Sharon’s staring outright for a second, and after she turns to give Zoe a good hard looking over, her voice is still a little astonished.
“We agreed we were leaving on foot, Zoe. Whatever you just did was a hell of a risk to take.”
Not to mention pretty freaky. But Sharon also knows there wasn’t enough time for them to make a run for it after Wolverine smashed in the door. So she owes Zoe her life, and Steve’s.
Logan growls from beside Zoe,
“I’m sure we’re all real concerned that she didn’t follow procedure and all, but can we get the hell out of this tin can to discuss it?”
---
"You agreed to leave on foot, I decided to save our collective asses," Zoe answers, still frowning as if in pain, even if she is doing her best not to sound like it anymore.
"Come on," Steve tells her, and he's already out of the ship, and holding a hand out to the kid. She looks pretty shaken; she can probably use it. The best clue that he's right is that she accepts his help without a word. "You're gonna have to tell us what you did, though," he adds after he gets her out of the ship.
---
Logan waves Sharon on with sarcastic chivalry.
“After you, toots.” She glares but doesn’t actually have it in her to pick a fight, not when she was convinced her life was over not ten minutes before. She leaves and takes Zoe’s arm, not looking at Steve as she does so.
Logan hoists the semi conscious Sullivan over his shoulder as he makes his way out of the ship. He barely weighs anything at all, which is plenty worrying. He shakes his head as Rogers offers him help carrying.
“I’m fine.” He looks at him sidelong as they start back toward Tombstone.
“You seemed to be handling the excitement pretty well.”
---
"What happened anyway?" Zoe asks before Steve can answer anything. She hasn't asked yet because managing the ship's flight computer was taking all her focus, but now she looks up at Sharon. "What held you back?"
---
Sharon clears her throat, blushing and super glad it’s dark outside to hide that fact.
“The door got damaged as we were breaking into the command center - it wouldn’t open when we tried to get out again. After setting the auto destruct, of course.” She hopes her customary black humor covers any sign of the omission she’s making. And man, what an omission.
---
"Sounds like excitement alright," Zoe confirms, and is thankfully still feeling too poorly to notice the fact that Steve's cheeks have gone pink, or that he and Sharon won't look at each other.