The world came back by degrees, and every shade brought a new level of hurt. The face plastered against cracked and bloodied glass didn't move, even after the one-note blast of the car horn had ceased. It wasn't until the car itself shifted that the German inhaled, and a blue eye cracked open behind the visor.
"Scheisse." He thought about prying his face off the glass, and decided he needed more time. "And to think... I usually trust your driving."
It hurt to peel his sticky face off the ruined glass, and a blind hand pawed for Lena as Fritz fought to center himself. They rolled down a cliff, he knew that much. But before that... did the anti-grav fail?
"Talk to me, Union Jack, what's broken?"
Awareness tingled somewhere in her fingers and toes, the distant expression of a painful reality waiting for her. Lena lingered, shock holding her beneath the waves of consciousness, for another minute or so. Finally, as the seconds ticked by and the dime sized pool of crimson below her grew quarter sized, Lena yanked herself back to awareness.
The series of events played sharply against fluttering eyelids, the jerk of the car, the grav field failing and sending them careening into the ground, the sensation of falling and crashing, car rolling. Something bugged her, a motorbike speeding off around them seconds before the crash. But as Lena's mind could latch to the concept, unravel the consequences, the pain crept into awareness and Lena let out a low groan.
"Fritz?" Her voice rasped, wincing as she pulled her face from the lena-shaped indent in the airbag. Blood dripped down her nose, and the glass nestled into her limbs bled freely, but she seemed to be functional enough for the moment. A sound of pain and relief escaped her as Lena made contact, catching his wrist in her hand. "The bike, did you see the bike??"
Her mouth was sluggish, tongue unresponsive and cheeks full of cotton. Lena pushed out a breath and tried again. "Before we went down. Too fast to deactivate the mag field. Thought I saw something flash," Rattled axons snatched onto data from around her, the roar of the sportbike blowing past them, the dull thunk of something slamming against the undercarriage of the car. There was something there, Lena's awareness fading as the adrenaline dripped free through the bloody gashes in her body. A sigh of frustration escaped her as her body slumped forward in the seat.
"Are you hurt? Gotta get a call out, get an evac out here." Lena mumbled through blood drained from her nose. "Don't move, your neck. And the car, s'not stable" It was easy for her to fall back on crisis response, drilled responses as she tried to piece the puzzle back together again. Oh, the irony of barking the orders to the man who had taught her these protocols.
