It's that time of the week again! You can submit between 500 - 1000 words of your unfinished fic to bc.unfinished@gmail.com and get the help you need. We could use some more submissions. Let's all be wonderbras of creative support, shall we?

Today's submission comes from cybermathwitch.

A mixture of chemicals spreads and pools and she's lying dazed half in and half out of one puddle. It's a sickly bluish gray color and smells sweet and metallic but she has no idea what it contains. She pushes herself over and away but it's already soaking into her clothes and then she hears familiar voices, it sounds like Steve, and that’s the Hulk's grunt and then hands are picking her up and she hears Thor saying her name close enough to her that he must be the one carrying her.


She's fairly certain she has a hell of a concussion, knows from the feel of it that her shoulder is dislocated and her ribs are probably cracked. She risks opening her eyes against the pain and is looking at the red and silver of Thor's armor because he has her head tucked against his shoulder with a protective hand. They might be flying, or maybe running, and distantly she hears the familiar whine of the quinjet engines and she never realized just how much she liked that sound.


Footsteps hit plating and she's being set down in one of the seats while Thor props her up. It's blurry, but she can see feet crossing the floor - blue boots would be Steve, bare feet mean Bruce-back-to-Bruce-again... but she can't quite manage to raise her head any higher, it hurts too much. Definitely a concussion then, one even she'll feel for days.


Metal on metal, again familiar, tells her Tony's just landed on the deck and he must have Clint because she hears both the gears engage to close the hatch and a strangled "Tasha" just before the world fades away.


*****


She's not sure how long she's been out when she raises her head up, forces herself to focus through the fog and feels her heart climb up into her throat, or it might be her stomach because she's pretty sure she's going to throw up. She has to focus on each of them, one at a time, because nothing will stay still - but they're all looking at her like she's some kind of ghost or miraculous visitation and she realizes in one horrible moment that they didn't know.


Fury fucking didn't tell them anything.


"He didn't-" she tries and realizes she's choking on it. "Tell you. He was supposed to tell you," she knows it's too little too late, and not helping, but what else can she say? She can't read them by their expressions because her vision's blurred, edged in red and pain.


Tony's saying something about "goddamn manipulative bastard" and Thor is saying that he doesn't understand (he's still right beside her and she feels the rumble from his chest as he talks) - Bruce is apparently silent on the matter and it's Clint she actually tries to look at.


"Clint," she tries, not sure what she's going to say, but he doesn't let her get there, anyway.


"You didn't tell me. You set this up and you didn't tell me. I thought you were dead - we fucking buried you!"


Only they couldn't have buried her, but she doesn't doubt there was a memorial with some token or maybe ashes in place of her body. He's not yelling. It would be better if he were yelling. She's seen him get mad before. It's easy to get him worked up about little things, flashbangs of temper that act as a relief valve to keep the pressure from reaching critical. He'll curse, maybe throw something, then be fine. But there's another side to his anger, one she's only seen a handful of times - at Loki, or the agent that nearly got her killed in Bratislava, or once at a target when they found out what else he was selling along with former Soviet weapons.


She's never, ever seen it pointed in her direction before now. Even though she's survived bullets and bombs and monsters and gods, she doesn't know if she can survive this.