Free Falling

Chapter 6

Time was running out.
Dani slid down the zip line to the train, mentally panicking. Bucky was going to fall into the canyon below in just a few short minutes. She couldn’t let that happen.
Conversely, she couldn’t let that NOT happen. Every time she thought of saving him, she got visions saying that that was a terrible idea and showing her all the people who would die as a result.
The events leading up to his fall whipped by. She fought the Hydra agents, not really mentally present. There was no way she could just let this happen…
And then, it was time. It was only a matter of seconds now… and Dani got an idea.
She could take his place!
She let slip a guffaw at that. It was so obvious! She wasted no time in switching the standing positions with Bucky. Time slowed to a crawl.
As much as it hurt to bang against the ragged flap of metal as the blast of energy blew her out of the train, it hurt worse to see the fear in Steve and Bucky’s eyes. The past months had been rough, and they hadn’t really talked to her. Steve, bless him, had been so awkward around her. She knew it wasn’t because she was a girl, because he never acted THIS awkward around girls. It was because he had opened his soul to someone and that someone had basically lied to him for the duration of their friendship. They understood why she had pretended to be a guy, they just didn’t like it. It was only recently that they started becoming close with her again, and Steve had even started confiding in her once more. And now she was throwing that friendship away and saving it at the same time, because she knew that Steve would never forgive her if she let Bucky fall to his apparent death. It broke her heart to see the fear in their faces, in spite of her resolution.
They reached out to her and yelled to her to hold on. She knew she had to let go soon, but she wanted to say goodbye at least.
“I have to do this, please back up!” she yelled. The shock was apparent on their faces. “I have to fall to protect the timeline, I’m sorr-”
Her apology was cut off as Bucky leaned forward to grab her wrist. The train bumped a bit and he lost his balance.
Before her horrified eyes, he fell as Steve tried to grab for him. Both of the remaining friends looked down in complete and total shock as Bucky tumbled downward, screaming. Dani felt a hand wrap around her wrist, and then found herself in the train with an almost violent jerk. Steve had pulled her in. Both of their eyes were filled with tears.
“I… I was supposed to fall instead of him! I was going to replace him! I…” Her frenzied, horrified rant was cut off as Steve pulled her into a hug. Sobbing heart-wrenchingly onto each other’s shoulders, they waited for the train to reach its destination.
XXX
Finally, Dani got to meet Peggy Carter. She just wished it had been under better circumstances.
She was one of Dani’s personal heroes. It was to her that Dani now looked for strength. If Peggy dealt with all of life’s problems without more than a few tears, so would Dani.
Steve, in his typical manner, decided that a direct attack against Hydra’s much more powerful force was the way to go. Had she not known that it would work, Dani would have vetoed it as a crazy suicide mission.
They were breaking into the facility now. Everything was going exactly as the movie had. One by one the enemy agents fell as the infiltrating soldiers pushed towards the hangar.
Steve had forgiven Dani for Bucky’s death. She had explained that someone needed to ‘die,’ without telling him what their poor friend would be going through right about now. He saw that she had tried to take his place. He was upset but not at her. Dani couldn’t forgive herself, though. Her one shot at redemption now, in her opinion, was to keep Steve from crashing the plane into the ice. Once again, the visions tried to dissuade her, but she wasn’t about to let something traumatic happen to her only other friend.
The group quickly found themselves at the hanger. Dani felt numb as they chased the escaping plane, got a ride from Peggy and the Colonel, and just barely made it inside. She almost was injured from not paying attention in the ensuing fight with the henchmen. And as Dani and her best friend battled Schmidt one last time, she felt the tears roll down her face as she realized that there really wasn’t anything she could do without killing millions.
A vision hit her like a brick wall. Steve wouldn’t crash the plane while she was still in it! That stupid idiot… He would try to land the plane someplace else, succeed, and never get iced.
She sighed, knowing what she had to do.
A trap door was conveniently near to her. As Schmidt was sucked into the portal, she opened it. Steve noticed her.
“Dani! What are you doing!?” He started to walk over to her.
“Stay back, Steve!” she hollered over the engine, sitting and putting her feet into the hole. He stopped and held his hands up non-threateningly.
“What are you doing!?” he yelled again, the wind nearly drowning out his voice. Dani couldn’t meet his eyes.
“I have to do this to save a bunch of lives. I’m sorry…” she slipped the rest of the way through the hatch. Steve, with a strangled cry, dashed forward to try to grab her. His fingertips lightly brushed her arm, and then she was out. His worried face at the hole was only visible momentarily before the plane carried him out of view.
She was free falling. It felt… just like it did when she time-jumped. Her breath caught in her throat with every heave of her chest from how strange it felt. She was always falling. Falling when she was time-jumping, falling now, falling… except when she could have saved Bucky.
And with that thought, she crashed into the icy water below and lost consciousness.
XXX
She was still falling. Purple swirled everywhere… she guessed that she had jumped just before she had drowned. Funny, because she wasn’t wet.
The sensation seemed to last much longer than it usually did, which was mildly frustrating. Thinking was very difficult in this in-between place. It was like the swirling, deep violet stuff that completely surrounded her was seeping into her brain and fogging over everything.
After what felt like years, Dani landed hard on her bottom. The fog cleared to reveal a crying child. His tousled brown hair flopped uselessly over his eyes, preventing him from seeing her. Further inspection of the area showed that this was his bedroom… Crap. She couldn’t be found in some random kid’s bedroom.
The door banged open just then, and a short, angry looking man glowered down at the boy. Dani stood up.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know how I got here, I’ll just be going…” To her surprise, the man didn’t look at her when she said that, but the boy did, momentarily, before returning his horrified gaze to the man. “Uh… sir…?” He still didn’t respond.
She was about to sneak around him and take the chance to get away when he spoke. Not to her, however, but to the cowering heap on the floor that seemed to be his son.
“Why isn’t this room clean!?” he thundered. He sounded incredibly drunk. Glancing around the room, Dani noted that it was actually meticulously clean. What was this guy’s problem? He roared down at the silent child. “I asked you a question, you little shit!” The kid gulped.
“I…I did clean…” He obviously had cleaned. The father plainly didn’t like this answer, though.
“Don’t talk back to me! DON’T YOU DARE TALK BACK TO ME!” the plainly inebriated man demanded at the top of his lungs. To Dani’s horror, he grabbed the kid by the shirt and lifted him off the ground.
“HEY!” she yelled, not about to let this slide. She hauled back and punched the man squarely in the back of the head.
Her hand went clean through.
Eyes wide, all she could do was sit and watch as the man beat the kid practically senseless.
When the man got tired, he left his son crying on the floor, somewhat bloodied. She crouched next to him and put a hand on his back. It didn’t ghost through like it had with the father. The boy nervously looked up.
“Wh-wh-who are y-you?” he stuttered through his hiccupping sobs. Dani sighed.
“I’m… your imaginary friend.” And she knew with certainty that, even if the orb came and offered to let her go home, she would turn it down. This kid needed her. “What’s your name, dude?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light to hide her horror at the situation.
“I-I’m Bruce B-Banner.”

Notes