Flame (Scarlet Witch)

The start of something new

:

Two years before Sokovia's fall.

...

The streets were crowded. The clouds were beginning to close in, and Clover knew she had to finish her mission in a matter of minutes. If she didn't... it was a possibility that she would not be walking out of there alive.

It felt as if her heart was in her throat, pounding and trying to escape. She felt exposed, and the fear of being found was scarier than thinking about having a bullet in her head. Clover had heard all the stories about what Hydra did to their prisoners. She could simply name all the causalities of her friends who had run-ins with the dark group. She no longer saw those friends, only in pictures and memories since their bodies were too dehumanized for her to see them again. It didn't end when they tortured you until you died. They went beyond death and played with possibilities until you weren't human anymore. You were simply just a toy to be played with.

Just like the Winter Soldier.

God, all she wanted to do was find him. All she wanted was to catch a glimpse of him. Clover knew he was watching her, but she also knew she couldn't do anything about it. That was her mission. Let him have a glimpse of her, and when he shot, he would give away his position and then everything would be worth it in the life of Clover Kingsley. She would get to touch him, perceive him, to understand the technology that messed him up; and pretty messed up he was.

The only problem and risk that Agent Coulsen had warned her about was the fact that they couldn't promise that they'd be able to bring her back into safety. Once she was shot at, she was officially Hydra's puppet. That, or SHIELD would be able to save her eventually. But even as she was stepping into the plaza of people in the middle of Sokovia, she knew they wouldn't get her back. Not when Hydra was in the way.

It came as fast as she dreamed it to be. The bullet hit her alright, except it didn't hit her bullet-proof vest that was hidden under her clothing as it was supposed to, but rather her arm. The shock hit her almost as hard as the bullet did, and she looked around for any sign for the Winter Soldier. She saw the hidden agents run around the building he was supposedly going to be at.

They had already forgotten her, but the other side didn't.

She saw two men with beards walk towards her and even though it was hopeless as soon as she started, Clover ran into the crowd with a frantic look plastered on her face.

Her long hair was pulled up and away from her face, but she knew it was a mistake. If she had left her hair down, it may have been harder for them to find her. Over twenty girls at least had her length of long hair, and were all wearing it down. The regular pedestrians of the small city were mostly all brown hair and blue eyes, and she fit the description perfectly. The only difference was that she was wearing it up. She should have known to check what the style of hair was around that area. That was her sort of job; to find out what their surroundings would look like. Alas, her knowledge did nothing to help her as she ran straight into a corner with a hydra man who was grinning wickedly.

The people of the city either did not care, or were used to that kind of thing when she screamed and ran for her life in the opposite direction. She should have a gun. Where the bloomin'-bunnies was her a gun when she need one? She sort-of said that aloud, and would have laughed at her self for being a wacked gas, if it weren't for the fact that she was being chased by trained assassins.