As I watch the kid get his team together- which is an odd sight, given that his team is mostly older than he is- my rage sits inside me, a slow, passive boil. Seated on top of a table, I twirl a knife in my hand, weaving it around my fingers.
One circle. Scientists. Two circles. Hydra. Three. Sokovia. Four. Experiments. The knife slips, and hot blood drips onto my fabric-clad leg. I frown, but stare at the blood dripping until it clots. Savoring the stabbing pain. Pain focuses. Feelings fly, wandering thoughts, but pain is focused. One feeling. No emotions. Simple.
"I don't think you should go," James murmurs, practically appearing next to me. I jerk my head to the right and see him watching the preparations impassively.
"And I think that I should,"
"They can do it perfectly well without you," He returns, lips hardly moving. I chew on the corner of my lip.
"I don't disagree, but I'd like to go,"
"I think you're too close to this one, Ross," James sighs. I'm about to open my mouth and tell him that I didn't bring him in for his opinion, but I cut myself off.
"Tell me to stay and I will," I say coldly, swinging my head to look him in the eyes. "Tell me that you want me to stay here, and not go on this mission, and I will. I won't disagree. I'll stay here, they'll take the mission, and I won't get involved any further," I snap. Because I do value his opinion. I'd hate it. But if he really told me not to, I would listen.
A small wrinkle grows between James' eyebrows, but that's the only sign of his discomfort. Swiftly, he bends and presses a kiss to my hair.
"I care about you, Ross. Don't do anything stupid," He whispers, walking away. I exhale harshly, my breath shaking.
"Boss, you ready?" The kid asks me. I search for his name, like a slot machine of names and faces and more importantly, weaknesses. Lincoln. He's also kind of invisible, but not in the same way Maru is. He bends the light around himself, but he can also use it to blind people. One of the youngest here. I was bored, so I made him a team lead. Surprisingly, it went very well. The others follow him, even though he hasn't suffered like the rest. A mutant of his own accord, raised far from the reach of Hydra. Lucky him.
"Let's do this," I reply as I swing off the table.
__
This is about the one situation that I would like a telepath. I despise them on principle, but right about now they'd be helpful. It's pitch black as we surround the scientist's house. I've told Lincoln to lead like he would, and I'll play along. So when he raises a hand and points towards the house, we all copy the signal and burst in at the same time. He took the front door, his girlfriend the back, and the rest of us burst through the windows. I, of course, opt for teleporting past it, but it accomplishes the same effect. The scientist is sitting at the table, her hands raised, but she doesn't shake. I tilt my head curiously.
"Are you Marina Thomas?" Lincoln asks in a deep, steady voice, his face visible in the kitchen light.
"My maiden name," She replies without hesitation. "I go by Page now,"
I watch her odd confidence. Her honesty. I wonder what she thinks is happening. Maybe she thinks that we're cops. Come to arrest her for her work. Let her husband alone if he cooperates. Her husband shakes slightly, knuckles white around the cup he's holding. He's scared. Their gazes don't wander. Steady. Looking only at us. Either they're completely relaxed, or they're prepared to hide something. I let my gaze wander around the room.
"And you worked under Hydra for 12 years, correct?" Someone else asks, her voice cold. This is procedure. Give them opportunity to deny. To tell us that we've got the wrong person. Maybe we do. Maybe they're weak. This Marina woman isn't.
"It was closer to 11 that I worked for them," She replies. "But I'm past that now. Moved on. Got a nice settlement when I split, in agreement to not resume work now that I've learned so much from them," There's reverence in her voice. I snarl.
"Learned from the experiments? From the children you kidnapped?" I snap.
"All our volunteers came willingly," She protests.
"Did you ever bother to ask them that?" Lincoln's girlfriend snaps in another language, one that makes Marina blanch. Good, I think.
"You're not cops," She says finally, slowly. "You're from Hydra,"
"We're of Hydra. We're the monsters that you created. Hydra stole our lives, our homes, sometimes even our names. And you helped them," I say slowly.
Then a lot of things happen quickly. Her leg snaps under the table, colliding with something, and the whole house goes dark. A ceramic cup shatters, a door slams, and everyone scatters. After several moments, someone has a light. The scientist and her husband are gone.
"Spread out!" Lincoln shouts, firing off orders. Everyone heads outside, assuming that's where they'd be found.
I don't follow. I'm staring at the counter, at an object I can hardly make out in the fading, flashing light. I walk over to it and run my fingers over the surface.
And then I bolt down the hallway, throwing doors open.
I come to the last door, and it's locked. With only the slightest hesitation, I swing my leg up and plant my boot right above the knob, breaking through the inside frame. The door slams into the wall behind it, and I see the husband slowly stand up, his arms folded across his chest in an odd way.
"Turn around," I command in a low voice. "Slowly,"
He heaves a sigh, one that reeks of panic, but slowly turns around. It can't be. I have to be wrong. It wasn't a sippy cup. I repeat this to myself, but when he turns around, I'm confronted by a hard decision.
What to do with the small child in his arms. Her hands are curled into small fists, and she's sloppily wrapped in a faded blanket I can barely make out in the inconsistent light. Outside there's shouting, distant sirens. A woman shrieks, and then there's two gunshots that abruptly cut it off.
The scientist is dead. Her husband and her child stand in front of me, and he's shaking harder now.
"How old is she?" I ask coldly, nodding to the child but not looking at her. Her father swallows hard.
"She turns five next month," His voice cracks. I nod slowly.
"Give her to me," I say quickly, holding out my hands. "You don't all have to die tonight,"
"You- you'd take care of her?" He asks in a deadly whisper, clinging to his child. I tilt my head. This is a parent's love. A love that so many of us never got to remember.
"Yes, now give her to me," I snap. He nods, crossing the room, and hands the child to me. She's light, but heavier than I expected.
"What is her name?" I ask him quietly, staring at the small girl's face. Her nose is still upturned like a baby's. Her hair is a blonde fringe, covering her forehead.
"Zoe," He says it like 'zoh' with the long o. "It was my mother's name."
"Zoe," I repeat slowly, looking up to him. "She will know no pain, in this life or the next," I promise him. Words I deserved to hear.
"Thank you," Her father says, tears streaming down his cheeks. I raise my hand, a field flickering on my fingers, and swiftly wrap it around his heart. A silent death, even if painful. It's what he deserves. Hydra gave no mercy, so neither can we.
The man collapses onto the floor, and I watch him for a moment before turning my attention to the child. Four years old. I wonder how old I was when my parents were taken from me. It must have been more than four. A four year old is not a reliable test subject, but being raised by them would make you compliant. She's been raised by Hydra. I don't know what her mother taught her, but she showed no remorse.
Zoe sighs, rolling towards my chest. I trace a finger down her cheek, her soft skin and delicate eyelashes.
And when I delicately cut off the oxygen to her brain, I begin to cry for the first time in a long time.
Her heartbeat stops, and her body stills in my arms. I feel satisfied that she felt no pain, but something in my chest aches. A slow sadness. A longing for what should have been. None of this should have happened. I shouldn't have an army of child experiments, and I shouldn't have to hunt our creators. I shouldn't have to kill a child.
But I did.
I lock my jaw and wipe the tears off my cheeks, one hand wrapped tightly around the little girl, and then I step over the corpse of her father to get to her bed.
I place her back under the covers, and I tuck a stuffed octopus into the crook of her arm. When the police come, they will find the scientist shot, the husband's heart crushed, and a daughter with no known cause of death. They will know it was us, and they will quickly discover her past. The only reason she's evaded New S.H.I.E.L.D. this long was her husband's name. He protected her. And in death, he thought he was protecting his daughter.
A sad endeavour.
I wrap a field around his body and carry him out the front door just as people start to ask where I was.
"He was hiding in a closet," I say coldly, trying to force some humor into my voice. So pathetic. Hiding, right?
"Set him next to Marina," Lincoln says. His voice is thick.
Tonight, we all mourn.
They can mourn the kills, and I can mourn a secret daughter, and all of us can mourn the lives that Hydra has destroyed.