a/n : no cuz i am sorry about this besties
please comment, vote, and react!
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SPENCER REBECCA BANNER HAS THE WORST LUCK.
No, really.
One second, she's having the time of her life - dancing, kissing, living - and then, with just a moment's notice, she sees a HYDRA agent.
And she's not hallucinating. This is not one of those self-sabotaging mechanisms that are just a defense thing, no, it's really a HYDRA agent. She can tell. The stance, the placement, the shoes. She's been in that stance, she can recognize that placement, she's worn those shoes.
She falls short. She stumbles.
Pietro is pulling her back to him, his eyes filling with concern. Spencer's thinking of a million and ten ways to get out of here, but if this guy's got eyes on her, at least five others do. But he might not have eyes on her just yet, she realizes and lets Pietro pull her in more, almost flush against his chest.
She speaks quietly so he tilts his head down to listen. "HYDRA's here," she tells him, softly, trying not to cause alarm. She can feel him tense against her, but Pietro keeps a blank face. "We've got to go."
Pietro nods, once. "Hold on tight," he directs her, and Spencer grips his shirt sleeves before a question can even form in her head.
She blinks, and they're in front of the cabin.
Her panic finally catches up to her, but Pietro is already forming a plan. "Pack everything," he tells her, and Spencer's eyes snap up to him. The communication device, clothes, food - we need to leave. Far away."
"Okay," Spencer says, turning towards the house. When Pietro doesn't move, she demands, " Aren't you coming?"
His eyes are busy scanning the area. "I need to check the town," he tells her. "See how many are here, find the Avengers."
Spencer freezes.
"You'll be alright," he promises her, but Spencer doesn't buy it. He steps forward to place his hands on her shoulder. "Listen, Spencer," he calls, slowly. "Pack. Please."
And he's off, leaving Spencer with the remnants of a kiss against her forehead.
Well, if she's going to do anything, this is the time; Spencer runs towards the door of the cabin, throwing it open, her eyes immediately racing to the communications device sitting on top of the tablE. She's zeroed in as her hand reaches for it - so much so, that she doesn't even notice the man in the corner of the room.
She's shoving communications devices into a bag by the time he finally speaks.
"What the hell are you doing?"
The noise makes Spencer jump, but the voice sends her into a deep panic.
Her eyes snap up to the man watching her expectantly. Soldat. His mask is tugged down, and he's watching her with piercing blue eyes that are so different from Pietro's. Her skin is flushing with fear, and she can't even think of what to say. She doesn't try to run, because there's a gun in his hand.
"You had a chance," he growls, and Spencer's attention is flickering between him and the gun. "You had a chance to run, and what the hell is this?"'
He picks up a bundle of fabric - Pietro's jacket.
Spencer doesn't reply.
"You could have gotten out," he tells her. "And instead you play house."
"You don't get it," she snaps, her eyes glaring daggers. "I had no other choice-"
"You could have run," Soldat argues. "You should have run. Instead, you act like a damn child playing dress up-"
"Don't do that," Spencer snaps, a snarl on her lips. Soldat stops, watching her with furious eyes. "Don't pretend you wouldn't do the same thing."
There's no basis behind what Spencer said. She doesn't even understand Soldat half the time, and the truth is told, she's pretty sure if he got a chance at escape, he wouldn't have messed it up as she did. He's so much more screwed up than she is - she knows HYDRA's been in his head much longer than they've poked in hers. He can't remember as she can - not as much, not as intensely, not ascertain.
If he remembers anything, at all, he can't even trust it.
Soldat says nothing. When he doesn't shoot her, Spencer walks right past him, into the hallway, on her way to the bedroom. She waits for him to attack, but still walks, anyway.
Soldat doesn't shoot her, he doesn't drop-kick her either; but he does follow her into the room.
"You don't have time for this," he tells her as Spencer grabs stuff out of drawers, and shoves it into a bag she's pulled from under the bed. "They're already here."
Spencer lifts her eyes for just a second, to look into Soldat's.
"I know," she said, focusing on her work. "I saw them, but the..."
Her words are lost. She's not sure how much she can tell Soldat - after all, he is their soldier. Even if he doesn't give everything willingly, Spencer knows what they can do to him.
But Soldat's eyes are on her. He's waiting for her to finish.
Spencer can't. She trusted him, sure, but that's when she had no other choice. When she didn't have Pietro. When she didn't have her memories.
She brushes past him, rushing to the bathroom. Half of her is screaming at her to run, now. She doesn't need a damn toothbrush to survive, but she's waiting for Pietro. He's coming back for her. She's not leaving without him.
"They know," Soldat says, after a moment. Spencer catches sight of him through the bathroom mirror. "The Avengers. Madam knows."
Spencer's heart sinks. Everything is falling apart.
It's okay, she thinks. It's okay because the AVengers have beaten HYDRA before. They're smart, and they must've expected resistance, and they're not going to leave Pietro behind. They're not going to leave her behind. It's okay.
Spencer nods, once, shoving her way past him again. The barrel of the gun brushes past her leg accidentally. It sends a shiver up her spine.
Her back is to him when Soldat finally speaks the whole truth. His voice is flat and low when he says, "I was sent to kill him."
Spencer turns. Her eyes lock with his, but not in the normal way. She's fucking furious.
"And you're here," she spits out. "With me. So how's that going?"
"I gave you a chance to get out," he reminds her harshly.
Spencer shakes her head angrily. "No," she denies. "You let me get kidnapped with no explanation. I thought he was going to kill me-" she says, throwing her arm out. "And now? You're not going to fucking touch him."
Soldat says nothing as Spencer grabs the bag shifting it onto her shoulder.
"I have to bring back one of you."
Spencer freezes in place.
She turns, slowly. Her body is shaking. She's at the end of what she can take. What she can stand.
Her jaw sets. Her eyes are blazing.
"No," she tells him.
Soldat stares her down. His eyes are locked with hers, and Spencer takes the opportunity to grab the barrel of the gun just at her side and bend it.
The metal bends like clay in her green hands, twisting to an unusable angle.
Soldat doesn't move to stop her. He just stood there. The gun falls to the ground.
Finally, he tells her, "You should have run."
A fist comes barrelling at Spencer's face.
She's quick to dodge, stumbling back a few feet, knocking down a chair from the kitchen table. Soldat tries again, but now her arms are up, protecting her face.
His third hit, Spencer catches - his fist in her palm, and she summons that green to the center of her hand, and shoves him back.
He flies across the room, but using the soles of his boots, he stops just short of the wall.
He's running towards Spencer, now, and she's bending her knees to prepare. This is just like sparing, she tells herself. Except... it's not. It's really nothing like that. At all.
His hits don't land, at first. It punches in rapid succession, but then he's got his foot grappling around Spencer's ankle, forcing her to the ground. She falls, but scrambles to face upward again; when she does, his fist is barreling down again.
It's her stomach, first. It aches, and her arm drops. Then it's her cheek. Her mouth.
She sees the blood on Soldat's fist, and it comes down again.
It's okay, she thinks. It's alright. She knew this was going to happen, she knew that eventually, it would be over for her. She let Pietro think she had longer - she let the sun pull her towards the fire. But it's alright. As long as Pietro finds the Avengers. As long as he's alright.
The sun will still come up, and the world will still turn.
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SPENCER WAKES UP ON THE WOODEN FLOOR OF THE CABIN.
Her head is pounding.
But... something's different.
Soldat isn't here. He should be here. The protocol is to knock out the target (or kill, if need be) and then move to the secondary location. Spencer should be in a HYDRA transport right now. Or dead, you know, either one.
But her head lifts slowly from the wood, and she's careful not to look too closely - she knows she'll see blood. She feels lightheaded. She's sure it's from the blood loss, but there's something else.
She feels open. Lighter. No more buzzing and sparking in that head of hers.
Because when she wakes up, Spencer Rebecca Banner can remember. Everything.
It's clear. For everything.
She remembers her dad, and how he would always bring her thai when he came to visit her at the towers where she was studying. She remembers that girl in the picture - Wanda. She remembers their sleepovers and coffee dates and her clothing advice. She can remember Clint, and his farm and the way he always said he liked Spencer more than Pietro.
And Pietro. Spencer can remember everything about Pietro.
The room grows hot, quickly, and it takes Spencer a few moments to grab onto the leg of a chair and pull her body up.
She really can remember everything. From the hospitals when she was a kid, to the dance recitals, to the science fairs, to...everything. She can remember her life again.
She also can remember recent events, you know, like when she almost got murdered by the Winter Soldier like an hour ago.
For a second, she thinks maybe this is a dream. A hallucination. A trick. Something HYDRA gives her so they could yank it right back, but as Spencer drags herself to the window, her body aching with wounds, she sees that there are no HYDRA agents holding her in. There's no transportation. No soldiers in suits, it's just...her.
Just her.
Pietro.
She ignores the pain totally now, throws caution to the wind, and sprints towards the door. Her body is swaying - loss of blood, pain - but she keeps trudging forward. He should have been here by now.
She's a couple of feet into the woods when she starts yelling. She has no other choice. She doesn't have the ability to just make her rounds or to keep walking until she finds him.
She's screaming his name. It's desperate and broken and pathetic, but it's all she's got left. He'll know. He'll understand. He always has.
There's a rustle further in the woods. Spencer's heart skips a beat. She's got tunnel vision, now, running forward, shoving past tree branches and foliage.
She sees a clearing. She sees a head of silver hair.
Her heart is fluttering, really, because she is so fucking excited to tell Pietro, to let him know that she's back, and she's sorry, and she's half-convinced that Steve is still bad and that she will harass him for being with that mutant for decades. She'll be with him for decades. God, she missed him.
And when that head of silver hair turns, and the face registers in her head as Pietro's, a full, breathless, amazing smile slowly rises to her lips.
He doesn't smile. His body falters for a second, and now a soldier in view. Not SHIELD, but HYDRA.
Then she sees the gun against his head.
"Well, you're not the smartest one," someone says, and Spencer can immediately recognize the voice. Madam. Her eyes shoot over to where the woman is stepping out of the trees, coming into focus. "That's why we always had Soldat in charge of the missions."
This is the woman that causes her months of torture. Tied her down and sparked up her brain, forced HYDRA agents to hold her up, and ran whips down her back when she couldn't do things right.
She doesn't want to look at this woman, she wants to look back at Pietro, but she's not sure she can handle it.
She doesn't speak, of course. She might remember everything, but her memory can still set in course those events from the previous months. She does not speak unless spoken to. Especially when there's a gun against someone's head.
Madam is there with her raven black hair and devilish smile. She looks the same as she did, but here, she looks more sinister.
With an agent holding Pietro at gunpoint, his hands tied behind him, and all her memories back, Spencer realizes she looks like those villains from all those stories and movies.
But Spencer's not the protagonist. She's not the hero here. she can't win.
"You've come just in time, Merzost," she calls, beckoning Spencer forward. Spencer can feel the heat of Pietro's gaze on her. "We were just giving your... savior a choice."
She looks between Madam and Pietro, catching his blue eyes again. He looks in pain, and there's a giant bruise on his head, and redlines forming from the restraints. He struggled. He fought. And now, his eyes are pleading with Spencer not to do anything at all. It's over, she recognizes.
Spencer looks back to Madam.
"We can kill him," Madam offers, with a little shrug. "A warning to the Avengers not to touch our property."
Spencer tenses. The gun against his head shifts, the agent preparing for the words from Madam.
"Or, we take him with us," Madam suggested with a little shrug. "A souvenir. A great asset - he did work with us being he got all that righteous propaganda stuck in his head."
"No," Spencer spits out, finally breaking her silence.
She doesn't care if Madam hurts her. This isn't fair - she only gets one of them. But she can't fight, there's the gun, and Pietro can't... die.
"I will come," Pietro says, and Spencer turns to him, horrified. For a second, she forgets that he knows exactly what he's signing up for - he's been there, before. But volunteers are different from captures.
"I swear my allegiance to HYDRA - I will work for you," he says. "I will do what you want, just...don't hurt her," Pietro finishes. She can tell he's trying to keep his voice calm and level, but it breaks, anyway. "She tried to go back to you. I would not let her. She can't even remember anything. Punish me, not her. It's not fair."
She wants to tell him that she remembers. Everything. All of it. Because if that gun goes off, Pietro deserves to know that he's everything to her. He's her goddamn sun - her world revolves around him.
Madam smirks down at Pietro. She grabs his chin in her hand and jerks it up. The action makes Spencer furious, but she says nothing. She can't.
"Oh darling," she laughs. "You don't call the shots here. And believe me-" her eyes flicker to Spencer, "There's enough punishment to go around."