Okay. Death smells like shit and is painful, apparently.
I'm nauseated by the overwhelming scent of what I can only describe as hot garbage. Love that.
Every nerve in my body hurts. Fuck, I must be in hell.
My ears ring endlessly, yet I hear muffled sounds of life. I can't quite breathe either. It feels like I'm underwater—yet somehow still on fire.
Hell is indeed a confusing place.
Fuck… did I really die?
God, that's a cruel joke. I wanted to die so badly for all those years, and when I finally start to get a glimpse of happiness, I die.
In a very pathetic manner, I might add. I mean, seriously, I put up no fight against that demon.
And Mira. Shit—Mira.
She saw…
She's never going to be able to unsee my death. It's going to haunt her the way all the death I've seen once haunted me.
It's odd, though. I expected to see everyone I killed here, shouting at me and getting their hits in for what I did to them. Then again, I can't see anything. The world is dark. Empty—
Honk.
And there's a car in hell… huh?
Maybe it's going to run me over. I don't recall ever killing someone that way, but I guess however they want to torture me is fine.
A gentle giggle and muttered conversation invade my ears through the murky water I must be floating in.
Who's laughing in hell? Is Lucifer a woman?
Like being pulled from cold water, I become more aware of my limbs—and the searing pain in each one. I manage to pry my eyes open and squint at the invading light above. The sounds around me grow clearer. Louder. Livelier.
"The fuck?" I mutter. My voice is strangled and weak. My mouth is dry as a freaking desert, with chapped lips to match.
I manage to move one arm.
It flops onto my torso.
Flops.
Oh. That's broken. Very broken. Gonna need to give that a minute.
I try to lean forward. Every bone and nerve in my body screams in a chorus of agony that sends me falling back into the crinkling mess beneath me. I groan and glance around.
I'm lying in an alley, surrounded by brick buildings. I'm sprawled across a heap of trash bags behind a few metal cans. Others are tipped over and spilled.
Explains the smell, I guess.
Where am I?
Did I get launched out of the apartment?
Yeah—an explosion happened. I must've been tossed out and landed here.
A distant, familiar groan sounds nearby. I can barely crane my head enough to see that a wooden fence at the end of the alley is destroyed—crushed inward.
"Bucky?" I groan, trying again to move.
"Here." His hoarse voice answers from near the splintered wood. "You okay, Vivian?"
I glance down to take inventory.
My arm is still useless. My left leg has a bone protruding from it. The tear in my stomach is significantly smaller and clearly healing, but from the pain and my uneven breathing, my internals aren't done repairing themselves.
"I'm alive. You?" I grunt.
A silent beat passes. "Same."
"Mira?"
"I've got her. She's okay… out cold, though."
More car horns blare in the distance. A car backfires. My hearing is fully returning now; the sounds of the street are unmistakable.
"What happened?"
Wood shifts and scrapes against concrete. I crane my neck again and see Bucky forcing himself upright. His T-shirt is torn at the side, blood seeping through. Cuts drip along his neck and one slices across his cheek. His right arm hangs unnaturally low—shoulder either dislocated or broken.
Mira is tucked securely against him in his left arm. Thank God that arm is vibranium.
She looks so small, her head resting beneath his chin.
He limps toward me, legs unsteady. At least he can move. He finally flops down beside me into the same heap of trash. Even that small movement draws a grunt of pain from him.
"Is that your bone?" he groans, eyeing my leg.
"It's fine… it'll heal." I shift my useless arm out of the way so he and Mira can be closer.
Never thought I'd see the day I was grateful someone was lying in trash beside me—but hell, it's comforting that he dragged his injured ass over here just to lie with me.
"You see where that thing went?" he asks.
"No. Everything went blank when the explosion happened. Also, who the fuck blew up your place?"
"I don't think it was a bomb. I think it was Mira. When I went to grab her, this weird green light was floating around her."
"Guess she teleported us somewhere." I groan and use my one good arm to shove the bone back into my leg. Might as well set it right so it heals faster.
Bucky shifts Mira carefully against me and my useless arm.
"Let me look around for a second. See if we're still in New York at least."
With visible difficulty and the support of the wall, he creeps toward the mouth of the alley, disappearing out of sight behind the trash cans.
"Well?" I shout.
Silence.
"Bucky?"
More silence.
Oh shit.
Was that thing just waiting around the corner?
I try to sit up, desperate to move, to see, to be ready—but my body gives out and I collapse back down. I'm useless. With Mira unconscious, we're sitting ducks.
At the very least, I can shield her.
Firm footfalls echo back down the alley.
Relief floods me—I recognize his limping steps immediately.
He rounds the trash cans, a strange look on his face. Shocked. Like he's seen a ghost.
"Well? Where are we?"
"Not where," he mutters.
His eyes roam over something I can't see. He looks stunned.
"Bucky! What is it?" I snap, harsher than intended. I hate suspense.
He grabs the trash cans and yanks them aside one by one, clearing my line of sight.
And that's when I see it.
People walking down the street. Kids running. Cars zipping past.
But they're all…
Old.
And I mean old-fashioned.
The men wear suits and hats. More mustaches than I care for. Women in perfectly tailored knee-length dresses, some in kitten heels, others in flats. Hair pinned and curled just right.
"When," we both say in unison.
The realization settles deep in my chest, releasing an ache I never knew I carried.
I'm home.
We're home.
New York.
The 1940s.