True North [Stucky Fanfiction - IN PROGRESS]

36 - The Shadow's Revenge

He recognizes where he is, now that he's had a moment to stop and collect himself. He's in a hallway closest to a private lab dedicated to the study of the Chitauri. That fight with the aliens and the Avengers was far too fresh in Peter's mind for Sasha to be meddling in this branch of the labs. Anger isn't an emotion that Spider-Man commonly feels, but he thinks this kind of frustration is justified.

A plan forms in his mind quickly. He has no idea what he'll find in there, but his objective is to stop Sasha from whatever she's doing. Malicious intent is what they call it on TV, and he's pretty sure she has it. He'll need some good evidence to convince Mr. Rogers that Mr. Barnes isn't guilty, but that comes second. Or maybe third. Not dying comes first. This list is getting pretty long. Get in, stop Sasha from being evil, don't die, get out. Do the rest of the Avengers make lists before they do missions?

Peter presses his palms together to get his thoughts back on track, squinting at the metal lab doors. A muffled scraping noise sounds from just beyond them, and he takes that as his cue so as not to ruin his element of surprise.

The doors crash open violently to either side of the red-clad teen and Sasha drops the large piece of metal she was holding, launching herself towards a counter and grasping for the gun atop it. Peter doesn't let her get there, missing her hand like he intended but webbing the weapon to the table. She spins, reaching for a gold rod, but Peter's webs are faster and her hand sticks to a nearby pillar.

Immobilized for the time being, she stares at him, strands of black hair falling in front of her face. To his surprise, murder doesn't dance in her eyes the way he expected it to, even though she did just try to kill him seconds ago. The way she tilts her head makes her seem younger than she must be.

Peter crosses his arms. "This doesn't look really good for you."

She doesn't say anything for a moment, eyes trailing from inspecting his suit to glancing over his shoulder casually. "You're alone."

"You underestimated me this whole time. There's no reason to think I can't still take you down."

"Did you get that from a movie or something?" Sasha probes. Peter didn't, or at least, he doesn't think he did, but she's so calm, much calmer than the three or four alleyway criminals he got to practice his web shooters on before the Wave. She blows the hair out of her face and smiles. "Come on, Peter. Do you know who I am?"

He doesn't respond. Aunt May taught him not to humor people like that. Instead, he takes a few steps around the lab, being sure to give Sasha a wide berth. Mounted on the walls and strewn across the tables are various kinds of the Chitauri weaponry, the likes of which he's never truly seen up close. Sasha was in the middle of something judging by the disorderly state of the place. He pauses in front of a desk covered in papers, the top drawing depicting a wormhole, another showing a model of the fourth dimension, a larger sketch showing the big Chitauri ships — Leviathans, the media called them — next to a much larger alien mothership Peter had never seen. He brushes the pages off to the side, revealing a larger sheet of paper with an image of a very small Earth, her moon, and a warped line connecting it to a darker planet on the other side of the page.

"What are you doing with all this?"

She watches him with mild interest. "Have you ever looked up at the stars, Peter? This is an uninhabitable planet. We can't live here. I can't live here. We have to leave to survive."

Oh.

"You know, I always thought explaining your master plan to the hero was only something that happened in movies." The quip hides his unease as he tries to wrap his mind around exactly where she intends to go, how, why.