Chapter Text
You were laughing, eyes crinkled into crescents as you walked with your best friends, an arm intertwined with the one on the right. It was blissful, the LA lights illuminated the night, red, green, and blues of the signs casting shadows over your faces. A girls night out, was what your friend Amanda had suggested, and the other two of you didn't need much convincing. They were sufficiently tipsy already, pregaming at Jazz’s apartment beforehand. Not that alcohol had any effect on your extraordinarily heightened metabolism, but you’d learned by now how to fake it.
It was after you had taken a few deep breaths and calmed from the laughing fit and looked to Jazz at your left, that within the people walking the opposite direction just past her, something caught your eye. More-so someone . Your laughter died in the hollow of your throat, once humor curved eyes narrowed into slits as you stopped dead in your tracks, arm slipping from Amanda’s.
You barely heard your two best friends call your name and people brushing past your roadblock stance muttering with irritation as you slowly turned your head. When you had finally made the 180 you found those blue eyes you knew so well already staring intently at you with the same narrowed gaze. Your legs moved faster than a normal human’s should, turning on your heel and shoving forward. With maybe a fifteen foot plus reaction time head start, you thought you had a decent chance at getting away, even though he had a several inch advantage on the stride comparison. You always had been faster than him, though.
They weren't supposed to be here . You cursed to yourself as the gasps and shouts of people behind you let you know that you were indeed being chased. Shifting left, you shouldered through oncoming people and then into the traffic of cars. Horns blared, but you were more focused on the footsteps behind you, noting that they were far quieter than they should be. Once a ghost, always a ghost. And as you hurdled a car hood, you thanked yourself for wearing the jeans with the rips in the knee that, while also making your hip to waist ratio look fantastic, offered more mobility than the skirts your companions were wearing. The black boots that gave a sexy and sophisticated look were more of an old-habits-die-hard scenario, knowing you couldn't run in heels made you never purchase the death trap shoes, and you never knew when you needed to run. Like now.
LA was across the nation from New York. And based on your ear to the ground, HYDRA had no recent activity in the area, so why they were here made no sense to you. You had come to this city on purpose, because one could be invisible amongst the crowds. Especially on the opposite coast as to where the people you were trying to avoid were located.
The steady rhythm of your foot falls and the now two, two , sets behind you were driving you mad. You couldn't help bumping shoulders with people and knocking them to the ground, shifting into survival mode like returning to an old friend. People stared. Who wouldn't stare at the very recognizable blond and brunette pair of absolute specimen men, running at top speed after a woman close to outrunning them. Phone cameras came up too late to catch your face, and you were thankful for that, but you knew too well that surveillance cameras had a watchful eye. You risked a glance behind you, and judged that the distance was enough for you to safely reach into your bag and pull out the mask you always had stored there for situations like this.
It was strange, you had the checklist of the things you did just in case but when the time comes when it is the case you’re still thrown for a loop.
Taking another chance look behind you, you were thankful that you didn't lose too much ground with the mask. Again, you muse, you’d always been ever so slightly more swift on your feet
Now, with all of your face besides your eyes safely hidden behind the structured fabric mask, and you’d been running long enough a familiar club had come into view, you shot a hand out into the air. A metal pipe from the alley came slamming into your palm a second later. With a turn of your other wrist, a lamp post groaned and came falling behind you. Both cylinders of metal adeptly missing any civilians, but the latter slowed down your pursuers, even just by a few milliseconds. Luckily by this time, people had seen others parting like the red seas, and your coast was clear when your feet touched the manhole cover in the sidewalk and you clenched a fist, using it to lift you up and keep you moving forward, not unlike a hover-craft, as you turned and whipped the metal pipe backwards before your feet hit the ground again.
With the doors to the club in view, the pounding base music was loud enough to be heard and harmonized with your feet hitting the pavement. Lifting the mask as the bouncer came into view, you shot your eyebrows up and jerked your head to indicate behind you. The large man's own eyebrows furrowed, then raised again when his gaze shifted over your shoulder to the pursuers hot on your trail. With a nod, he lifted the red rope just long enough to let you through, and braced for impact.
The sudden change in atmosphere would normally be a shock to the senses, but you were so intent on escape that it was periphery to everything. You quickly shed your light coat, it was more for fashion than warmth anyways, even in the winter, California was still mild. You draped it over the shoulders of a girl at the bar who smiled uncomfortably at someone hitting on her, giving her a smile and telling her you’d be waiting outside when she was ready before dissolving into the mass of bodies again. Hey, even in life or death situations, women protect women. Next, you swiped two scarves from ladies who had them tied loosely as sash belts around their waists, using one to tie around your hair and pocketing the other. Putting your hand out, you felt the metal in the room sing as you searched for what you were looking for. Within seconds a spring assist knife had slithered out of someone's front pocket and into your awaiting palm. Looking down, you almost smiled appreciatively at the decent model in your hand. It wouldn't stand up for long, but it would work in a pinch.
Wading again through the waves of sweaty bodies, you stayed low as you watched the two men enter the main floor of the club. Being Avengers had club perks apparently, even if this club was known for its shady back deals.
Which is partly why you were a regular.
They moved through the crowd with efficiency, and you had no doubt of their deadliness in the field. But this was your turf. Your friendly bartender caught your unusual slinking, and the two men following you, and shot you a look, which you replied with a cutthroat motion and a grave shake of the head.
‘I need them distracted’. Your eyes screamed. And she understood. Because not 30 seconds later when the blond you hadn't had the privilege to meet in person leaned against it, gesturing in a way that said he was giving a description of your height and hair length, that she gave a long and pretty damn convincing look of contemplation before she pointed towards the VIP section in the very back of the club.
When he motioned for the other soldier to the way the bartender pointed, you took off out the front, tucking two one-hundred dollar bills in the bouncers lapel, telling him one was for the bartending as your feet hit the pavement once again.
You judged you had a maximum of three minutes until they figured out your little trick, and you knew you had speed on them, and while you could render one of them useless by way of a metal arm, by design no less, you couldn't take the other soldier in strength, especially with the amount of concentration it took to control said metal arm. So, you concluded quickly, running was your best bet. Sending out a pulse, the vibration that only a hunk of fine machinery could resonate sounded back a few blocks down. Legging it, you pulled your mask back on and entered the traffic once again. Stepping in front of the low-suspended sports car, you stopped the machine by hand. Slowly circling to the driver, you jerked your head to the side, and based on the anger-turned-cold-terror in the driver's eyes at the car stopping at its own will, the owner relinquished the car in an instant. But that terror turned to confusion when you took off the mask, put in on her face and shoved her back into the car. With a flick of your wrist there was pedal to metal, the tires screeched painfully loud. If they hadn't caught on which way you were going before, they sure would now.
Again, you flexed the opposite hand and cars parted similarly to the crowds of people before, skidding sideways in ways wheels shouldn't go as they hit the curb and each other enough to let the sportscar through. In a matter of less than 5 seconds, the car was going 60 down the strip. Quickly, you joined the crowded roads again, switching out the head scarfs and casting the used one around the shoulders of someone heading the opposite direction. Once you saw a flash of two familiar forms take off down the middle of the road, you ran perpendicularly to them. Opposite way was too suspicious, once they figured out it wasn't you behind the wheel of that car, they’d know you were throwing them off your trail, and standard procedure is to throw them off in the exact opposite direction to extend the escape time. But, eventually, that would still lead them to you. If you went perpendicular, you’d have far more possibilities of not being caught up to or found. Maybe the soldier, soldat, would figure this tactic out instantly, maybe not. You were trained by the same people, after all.
Meanwhile, your phone had been vibrating constantly as your two best civilian friends were no doubt looking for answers. Sirens wailed in the distance, and you figured they called the police after seeing their normal office worker friend being chased mercilessly by America’s most well known super soldiers. You wondered if they noticed how much distance you made in a single second. How even Usain Bolt stood no chance against your strides. You hoped they didn't, if you ever hoped to return. No doubt the police, or the iron legion, would be at the doorstep of your apartment in half an hour. Luckily, you didn't need the time. Using a manhole again, you propelled yourself up into the air, landing unnervingly quiet on your fire escape. Breaking the window, you were in, set the barricades to the front door, grabbed the go back, and were already miles away by the time Stark had tracked your identity and address down for your duo of pursuers.
Now all you had to do was disappear again. You’d done it before, you’d do it again. Though you would admit it was easier when it was only one organization hunting you down for sport, the other thinking you were long dead if they even knew you existed at all. Somehow, you didn’t think they did. There was more than recognition in those blue eyes that stared so intently at you, there was a confused remembering, as if he had met you before and was trying to figure out from where, and it took a second for the shift of true recognition to wash into them.
-
It took them over a week to hunt you down again for the first time. By then you had changed cities. Miami. Changed your hair, a drastically differeny yet still inconspicuous color than your previous. Wore sunshades and a sun-hat as you walked the streets with your go-bag never leaving your back now. You’d figured they’d managed to track you by the shake down of the local kingpin that owed you from a while back. You swore the mob gossiped more than middle schoolers. Having set an alarm system at the airbnb so that when they entered with a stealth squad, you received a notification, you made them before they made you, and you dissolved into the night again.
Seattle.
New Orleans.
Toronto.
Mexico City.
You made it out each time unscalthed, though by the skin on your teeth each time, and they were only getting closer with every move.
Somehow, the incident in LA was kept out of the news, your name never released. It wasn't even on missing persons, you found when you checked a few weeks after your escape. Unfortunately, you’re pretty sure that search was what helped them narrow down your location in Seattle.
He was breathing down your neck, you knew. But you couldn't leave the western hemisphere, the quinjets were quicker than any plane, even if you tried to ground those hunks of metal from the sky, you didn’t think you could pull it off. You couldn't risk even enemies of the Avengers knowing your location, because a trail was still a trail, and they’d sniff it out like bloodhounds.
It had been months since the most recent escape in Mexico City, and you were in Chicago now. You weren’t in the public at all now, stayed hunkered down in abandoned buildings, booby traps and trip-wires of metal scattered around and always on high alert. You were close. So close. You knew. There had been reports of HYDRA movements in Europe, and they were probably dealing with those. You’d even seen pictures of them overseas, but you very well knew it could be a trick.
It had been six months and change since you first found yourself rooted to the spot in the sidewalk, illuminated by the neon signs and storefront windows, staring into those hauntingly familiar eyes. And it was then that you were awoken from your dozing by the vibrations from twisting of little aluminum tacs under combat boots. It was only a matter of time before he found you. He’d want revenge, probably. Blood to be repaid. Maybe not, maybe it was a sort of redemption for him, tying up loose ends of that life. He had to know you’d been brainwashed too, hadn't he? Maybe this was that adventure savior complex.
But had to know, didn't he? The power coursing through your veins would render him useless, not to mention that pal of his’ shield. Which meant that he had company. Not as much as other times, but while the number dwindled, you knew the experience and effectiveness in battle of each member had gone up. You wouldn't be surprised if the entire squad had surrounded the perimeter or was infiltrating your domain right now. They were halfway to where you were by the time you had packed up, and because you knew the perimeter was surrounded, you knew you had to go up.
The windy city lived up to its name as it whipped your hair around you. And you waited patiently as the two soldiers found their way to the roof, a red haired woman you also recognized had been there to meet you, and finally a man with a contraption of wings on his back landed seconds later.
He said your name. His voice was different now, it wasn’t who you knew before, but it was cold nevertheless. Hearing him say your true name rather than the title your captors had given you almost made you flinch, two world you never wanted meeting coming crashing together.
“ Soldat .” You responded equally as cold, but somewhere in the back of your mind you wondered if he could hear the difference in your voice too.