For Christ's sake
Sienna's hands went to her hip after she put the wrapping down, left fingers sliding back to grip the handle of her concealed pistol. Her hard breaths from strenuous activity began to still as she focused in her array of emotions. Sweat dripped down her forehead as she waited for her sister to make the first move. The sound of the door shutting echoed over the open space, her asking after the reverberations dimmed, "What are you doing here?"
Zerina made her way down the stairs easily. Her hazel eyes darted between the steps and the woman at the bottom of them before finally uttering her first direct words to Sienna in over seven months, "Bad dreams."
Firman's jaw clenched as her stomach pulled itself into fitful knots, noticing the Sprouse girl wasn't armed. Still, she wouldn't take the chance of giving her the benefit of the doubt. She didn't speak after that, instead removing her grip from her pistol and going back to the punching bag. She didn't turn her back on what could be a potential threat and observed her in sideways glances.
"What about you?" Zerina pressed. Her voice was cold and rather smooth, but one look at her body language suggested otherwise. The rigidness of her muscles showed her poorly concealed apprehension and perhaps anger.
Another quick jab at the leather before she curtly replied. Natasha's voice still flickered in the back of her mind, piling atop irritability to make her tone sharp, "So now you want to talk."
"You can't blame me for taking my time." The sister returned the blunt edge of the words, her balanced facade falling without too much pressure.
Sienna wiped her temple with the back of her hand, meeting the other woman's stare. She watched her left hand curl into a fist. Her initial observation of her sister had put violence as a possibility, but now the agent wasn't sure. Yes, it was obvious she was mad, but Firman didn't take her as one to immediately go to throwing punches. Maybe Sprouse just wanted to scream at her.
Whatever the intention was, she wasn't going to handle it this moment with so much else going on. Too many echoes in her head, "Can we not do this right now?"
"What?" Zerina's brows scrunched together as she mocked the younger's statement, arms folded over her chest, "Not at least give me an explanation I'm owed? I really shouldn't be surprised I guess. That's kind of your thing."
Sienna's teeth gritted together, looking back to the bag in front of her. Vexation breathed under her skin as she focused on a two sequence hit followed by a swift side kick, knowing that fighting the actual person in the room wasn't a good idea. Instead, she settled for the lump of contained sand, not giving into the obvious bait for conflict, "Look, you know I didn't kill Nya-"
"Don't forget about lying to me about definitely murdering my mom. You almost got away with that one." Sprouse tried to adopt an aloof rage, and it was actually fitting her chilling accusations now.
Another quick set of jabs made more noise to fill the tense break in conversation. She didn't avert her eyes from her target as she cut to the chase, "Okay, did you come down here to try to stir something up or is this just coincidence?"
"If you call confronting my mother's killer and possibly my sister's 'stirring something up' then-"
"I didn't kill Nya." Sienna clipped, breaking away from the activity to glare across the room.
"You're the reason she's dead."
Firman's shoulder muscles tightened as she found herself facing another stark truth. Her head swam with the knowledge of both Morocco and the unfortunate death of her murderous half-sister. Nya had died from a fall, and then presumably a kill switch implanted in her by her superiors. But why had she even been in that position? The best guess was it was all to avenge Isabelle.
Sienna didn't divert eye contact as she kept self-control, but the massive pressure of everything that had unfolded in the last twenty-four hours felt like a physical weight. Her empathy for the person standing in front of her should've been present, but wasn't. She just wanted to leave the situation, "Maybe I am. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for lying to you."
"Someone sounds honest." Zerina taunted, not believing the half-hearted apology.
"I am being honest." The spy forced out between shut teeth. She was regretful, very much so, but her body once again fell into that feeling of claustrophobia, causing her to grow greatly uncomfortable and short-tongued.
She didn't turn away from her opponent to undo the wraps over her knuckles, ready to leave the basement. Her throat had constricted, wishing the argument was done.
Zerina had completely different plans. She had suppressed her grief and wrath too long, "The truth's new for you. You know what else is? The fact that you've been gone five months and no one suspects you."
"Suspects me of what?" Sienna kept removing the cloth while she knew full well what question her sister raised; one of her loyalty.
A cold smirk that looked too much like Nya accompanied another accusation, "You come back in great shape after being in the hospital for under two months. You conveniently forget everything from when you were abducted."
Sprouse knew what territory she was walking into. Her body language stayed firm with her vexation, but eyes betrayed her observation to see how far she could push the seasoned agent. Perhaps she even feared the reaction despite her boldness.
"What are you accusing me of? Being a double agent?" Firman left the wraps behind, turning to full on face her. She was appalled by the claim. The idea of even betraying SHIELD, the entity she'd devoted her life to? Very close to crossing a dangerous line, "Yes, I did lie to you and I'm sorry, but-"
"Hard to take that from a murderer."
This was enough. Sienna could feel her ribs shrinking around her organs and felt like she was growing smaller. She was being lured into a fight and her distressed state was too easy to manipulate, "I'm loyal to SHIELD. Now stop trying to wind me up and leave me alone."
The stairs were now very inviting as the basement had grown too confined for her liking. She grabbed her spare knives off the table and fastened them back on her jacket whilst she headed for the steps up.
"Oh, fine, run away." Zerina still held her grief close as it bloomed into bitterness that flourished in anger, calling after her last living relative, "Go back to your Captain and Romanoff or Coulson's team, keep lying to them."
"I'm not lying to them." Deep breaths cooled her from completely giving into the bait, letting her voice become more natural to conceal indignation. Her gut twisted with the mention of her friends, something that should've been left alone.
"It's not your first time."
Sienna pressed her lips together, chest rising with an intake of oxygen. Natasha's recorded speech kept in her mind as her skin felt hot. Her mind was becoming overloaded and she shielded her hostility, "I'm not a double agent, but someone in SHIELD is and that's what we should be worried about right now. There's a reason we're in this cabin and on the run."
"I think I can find time for the person who destroyed my family as well." Zerina' irises again betrayed her as they gave away her alarm when Firman abruptly turned.
"Okay, I did, is that what you want? For me to admit it?" Her voice rose, the terror she felt when sitting on the mattress upstairs listening to the goddamn truth flooding into her uneasiness. It even surprised Firman herself when she sounded more pleading than annoyed. She made up for it in fierceness, "Yes, I did! But I was nine years old and it was an accident. I'm sorry I took your loving mother away from you. I'm sorry I took Nya from you."
The Morocco incident. Isabelle's abusive behavior. The entirety of her life as a child soldier and the fact she was living inside a body of alien energy. Her mysterious disappearance and whoever killed Fury. All those things charged her spiel and she didn't know how to digest it. All this had brought her just short of yelling. Sienna regretted her brief outburst as soon as it happened. She soon felt like she couldn't even breathe.
Sprouse stepped back, not prepared for the rush of her sister's response. Yet this was the beginning of the rage she wished to combat to release her own caged anguish, "Finally, I'm getting somewhere. What caused you to break, CeCe? Why are you so angry. Is vulnerable a new thing for you?"
Sienna's tensed at the nickname Isabelle had coined, but that wasn't what stopped her amidst the gathering emotional turmoil. No, it was another word she had come to avoid that now acted as a trigger.
Vulnerable.
Vulnerable.
Just as the memory of her fighting in white hallways had resurfaced in the middle of a tense moment, another came with the mention of a single trait.
"Doesn't it hurt, for someone like you, who had so much faith in who she is, to be vulnerable? For an Avenger to be at someone else's whim?"
The way the word was uttered contrasted greatly to Zerina's pronunciation. It lacked the boiling hatred, replaced instead by a demeaning iciness of a man in power.
Cold.
Suddenly, she was strapped with leather to a stretcher. It was cold, oh so cold, feeling as though her bones had being frozen. She tipped her chin up to a dark ceiling in a poorly lit hallway, light scarce and dim. Sounds from far down the stretch echoed off the walls, metal clanging and Slavic voices exchanging murmurs. A lab.
A man, his face aged in a way that looked years beyond his time with deep, sullen eyes and a monocle, stepped up to stand right above her line of vision. His Soviet accent sunk deep into his English, but he pronounced the language well as he leaned down to observe her.
She felt afraid, confused, and stripped of any freedom she had. The woman possessed a fear that she had not felt in a long time, one that made you quiver with just the thought. She knew pain was coming, she could guarantee it.
"Day twelve," Another voice said above her, but she was unable to see the owner. Still, her senses were overpowered and struck by immense terror. No, she didn't fear him, she feared the things he would make her, "Subject still not producing wanted results. Going in once again before the wounds have proper time to heal."
The monocle man was content to watch, stepping back to the side of her vision as the stretcher moved somewhere else, "Vulnerable, but we haven't broken you yet, Miss Firman. I doubt we're anywhere close to your limits. Don't worry neviditeľné pomstiteľ, we'll get there. First, you need to finish what was started."
Vulnerable.
Vulnerable.
Sienna returned to the basement in Bradley's cabin and back to the present. Her reality shifted to its current state while her mouth fell slightly agape.
The five months. The memory of the monocle man was from the five months gone. It was of experimentation.
Her hand fell under her jacket to the ten long scars that stemmed from the middle of her stomach and traced back to her spine. Those wounds were the deepest and the worst according to Meredith. They were from experimentation. They were trying to activate the Tesseract energy in her.
Zerina was of course oblivious to this revelation, brimming with her rage. She observed the affect her claims had on Firman. To see the killer of her mother be crippled so easily invited more malice to fill her, "It must be. I expect better from an Avenger. Maybe that's why they offered me the job."
The agent's muddled mind was still trying to process the painful memory just revealed. Her confusion pressed against the inside of her skull and that affliction didn't flee when her eyes drifted upwards. Her forehead crinkled with only more uncertainty as she dwelled on Sprouse's statement, "What?"
"You were gone." The fast pace of her words was much different from the other's slow realization, "They needed someone to fill the shoes of the Unseen Avenger-eer Deathshade, Phantom, whatever they call you these days. I was a candidate."
"You were what?" Sienna's confabulation dealing with her amnesia combatted her present self-depreciation over Natasha's revelation. She was confused, a feeling she'd found to be a permanent residence the last few weeks. Adding the fact she'd become increasingly pissed off at her sister, it made her mad.
Bradley had told her that Fury had a meeting with Sprouse shortly before the lost Avenger's reappearance. Colton explained he first thought it was to initiate her into becoming a numbered agent, but couldn't find a reason why she'd been picked.
It was also apparent that she wasn't lying.
Firman took a step down one of the stairs, visibly shaking her head, "Are you telling me the director offered you my....what? My name?"
How could Nick do that? How could he lie to her about the energy in her own body and cover up an entire operation only to scorn her title, the only action in her life she could ever truly call good, by giving it to a practical stranger that hated her? To the woman who's family she'd ruined?
Zerina took another large step back to put distance between the pair. The older sister had not only brought that subject up at a quite terrible time, but seemed proud of it. She was proud that she finally took something back for once. Though that accomplishment was fading once she realized how bad an idea it was to push, "In a manner of speaking-"
Sienna's remorse in family matters began to rapidly decay. She had fought in the Battle of New York. She fought an alien armada and attained a huge, ugly L scar from a maniac on her arm to prove. She watched her mentor die along with a lot of good agents. She had watched her best friend get possessed, was the one who was rejected from the Initiative, but still went to the ground.
Zerina didn't get to take that away. To her, it was a legacy and the only thing she'd been able to do right in her entire life, the only thing in her life she knew was right. It was by miracle her word didn't falter when she pronounced them firmly, "I am a killer, a murderer, and a liar and I deserve too pay for what I've done to you, but I'm also the Unseen Avenger. I earned that title and you have no right to it."
Zerina got the message. That didn't mean she was done. Yes, she admitted to herself she was afraid of the look in Firman's eyes as she laid claim to her name, but her own anger wasn't easily snuffed.
"Have your precious label. In truth, I didn't even want it. I want my family back. Can't bring that back, can you?"
She had tried to come off aloof and cold, but too much despondency went into the tirade.
"I want my twin brother, I want Xander. He died. I want my mom back. She's dead. I want my father. He died in a mental asylum, somewhere he shouldn't even been. He didn't deserve that."
Sienna had retreated from her verbal assault, forcing herself to swallow as she shrunk as she heard all of the relatives she never knew and how each name was followed by the same statement; death.
"I want Dmitri back." Zerina's voice buckled, grappling to hold on to the fierceness that came with anger. Now, she found herself with only pain. She resembled an aching, wretched soul as her nails dug into her palms, finally allowed to express her despair, "Remember him, Nya's brother? We told you about him? He's dead too."
"We searched for you. Me and Nya, we looked forever. My mom's last child, my last living relative besides her. And what do we get?! You! You murdered my mom, and you took Nya. You may have not pulled the trigger, but it was all you. She just wanted justice for our mother, that's all she wanted. Nya went to the wrong place for it, but can you blame her? We lost everything. And now I lost her! Now accuse me of stealing a few words. At least you have that and your agency behind you and the mess it's become. At least you have something to live for."
The atmosphere became a noose around each woman's neck as Zerina wouldn't allow herself to cry, even though tears made her eyes shimmer under the dim lighting of the basement. Sienna didn't speak, knowing that her sister's intention had been fulfilled. The last person to bear the Sprouse name only wished to be heard for a moment in her suffering, even if it was shaming Firman. She was justified in that respect.
"I'm sorry." The agent repeated after a space of time which felt like such a long, tedious stretch of waning quiet. The genuine remorse her previous agitated apologies had lacked was fully apparent.
Zerina brought a hand up to wipe her eyes before tears could spill, the steely glare not broken by the regretful acknowledgement, "I don't care. I'll leave you alone now."
~~~~~
She ended up on the bathroom floor asking the age old question many had wondered before her;
How did I end up here?
Sienna had taken a shower to wash off all the sweat from her workout. She'd now done the rather cliche act of wiping the condensation from the mirror and looking at herself, wondering how so many things had changed in just the span of twenty-four hours.
She now sat cross-legged on the tile floor, not knowing what else to do. Layla had woken up and greeted her with a hug before going to the kitchen to make breakfast. Bradley had said hello. She didn't know if she could ever look Zerina's way ever again.
The woman closed her eyes, bringing her head into her hands, Eight months ago, I was at the height of my career with the notion I was an only child, had a completely normal human body, thought my friends were honest with me, and was on my way to yet another promotion. Funny how that all turned out.
Her initial emotional outbreak over the situation had begun to calm, allowing her logic to finally get a say in her thought. With a deep breath, she reviewed the events in her mind to put it all in perspective;
First was the Tesseract somehow in her body. Then was the Morroco incident and her letting herself fall to trauma in the brain due to the surge of energy in her parietal lobe. After recovery she got back into the field and helped with the evaluation of Tony Stark for the Avengers Initiative. She submitted herself as a candidate to Fury, but he rejected her because of her history. New York happens and traces of the Tesseract begin to show up again in her DNA.
A year and a half later is the phone call from Coulson. That leads her to the Bus team and learning Coulson is alive. Then she learned of her sisters' existence. She doesn't tell them she killed Isabelle. Nya takes her and is supposed to turn her into her superiors, but doesn't in favor of getting her own revenge. Nya dies because of the kill switch in her head planted by her employers. The employers attempt to apprehend Firman and send Qade after her, a man who's supposed to be dead. She kills Qade.
Employers then kidnap her and presumably experiment on her for five months, meaning they must have known about the Tesseract in her system before the event. For some reason, she ends up on a commandeered SHIELD ship with no memories. Recovery speeds up because of Tesseract, but Fury orders Meredith not to tell her. Fury is killed by maybe the same people who took her. SHIELD becomes compromised. She goes on the run and ends up here, where Natasha's video reveals so, so much.
Sienna inhaled as she looked back up, swallowing before letting out an audible breath.
Fifty-six people killed. Fifty-six people dead.
She could hear Natasha's voice in her head, telling her it wasn't her fault. It sure felt like her fault.
Another deep breath as she could feel more guilt flow into her as if it was a sea under her skin, ready to drown her as it filled her lungs.
No, not now. C'mon Sienna, not now.
What had they told her when she was young at the Academy? What had they told every agent that went made the cut for their training;
The enemy will hit you hard. The reason why you can call yourself an agent of SHIELD is because not only can you hit back faster or harder, but you can do it over and over again because other lives depend on it.
Other lives depend on it.
A reason she'd had been considered good at her job was not only her dedication and resilience, but the fact she could detach herself from her emotions to complete an objective. It was a solid fact that other missions hadn't involved her family, the death of a director, and about everybody lying to her at some point. This one had hit much closer to home.
This time, Sienna couldn't name an enemy. She didn't know who took her or who killed Fury or who contaminated her organization. She didn't know who to form a fist against.
But other lives depended on it. They depended on her to not fall apart on a bathroom floor. She needed to find out who kidnapped her. She needed to root out the traitor in SHIELD. She needed to avenge Fury's death, because wasn't that her job?
Sienna pulled her still semi-wet hair into a ponytail, opening her eyes as she got up to find a tie. Her shoulders were still pulled tight and her head wouldn't stop replaying both Natasha and Zerina's voices on full blast, but she had to do her job. It was the one thing she know she could do.
Before she was even fully on her feet, she heard rapid footsteps clamor up the stairs. Once they reached the second floor, five fast knocks hit the door. Bradley.
She opened the door to Colton, who seemed to have lost a bit of his laid back demeanor. His body language relayed an urgency that immediately put her on edge, "What's the rush?"
"Downstairs quick." Was all he said, immediately going back from where he came. Firman pulled her jacket on quickly as she followed, suspecting the worst.
She was met with the worst. It only took one look at Layla's distressed face to know that the safe house was no longer a good place to be. The blonde was chewing on her lip as she sat on a chair next to a computer in the main living room, which now showcased several different camera angles from the surrounding area. Agents in black dotted the area around them, perhaps a quarter mile away from the house all around.
Sienna could immediately feel her heart rate quicken, leaning over Renning's shoulder to get a better look at the team sent to bring her in, "Two teams, all high level field agents. This is going to be a problem."
"ETA is under seven minutes." Colton told her, predicating when they'd make their move, "They don't know we've spotted them. We need to move fast."
She nodded, but forehead creased in confusion as she turned back to him, trying to form a plan of escape when she asked, "Why didn't we know about this until now-"
"I checked the security cameras when I got on the computer out of curiosity." Layla's voice was higher than usual, foot tapping against the ground nervously, "They must have somehow neutralized the alert system. Not an EMP, otherwise all electric would be out."
Something still didn't sit right with Firman. Besides the anxiety pouring into her at the thought they were literally in a kill box for an ambush with no way to get to the cars, something wasn't right. She peeled away from the screen and got closer to Bradley, finding a few things he'd told her tat weren't adding up. She kept her voice lower not to scare Layla anymore, "I thought you said this place was off SHIELD books and the alarms would alert us up to four miles away. They didn't even go off."
Colton eyes kept darting in between the woman and the view screen, shaking his head as he knew time was running thin, "They were supposed to-"
"They didn't." She countered, not finding anytime for excuses as she could feel her blood running faster through her veins, adrenaline coming in.
"There is a possibility they could've been shut off from outside."
"How likely?"
"Little to none. The system shouldn't have malfunctioned either."
Sienna didn't find that comforting, considering the fact Zerina was upstairs. Had she betrayed her SO and brought SHIELD? Her worst suspicions could be coming true, "Can someone from inside the cabin turn them off easily?"
Bradley's facial expression let her know that he followed her speculative train of thought, sighing as he shook his head, "Not easily, no. Without my authorization, the alarms don't come down. Sprouse is no tech wiz, either."
Still didn't erase the idea of her sister being a double agent from her mind, "What about location? If they put trackers on the vehicles, which would be only yours and Layla's, and you two aren't even suspects, they would've attacked at night. Easier concealment and would've taken us by semi-surprise. Textbook principles."
"We'll have to ask them that, and we'll have plenty of time to in five minutes. Right now we can't afford to blame one of our own." He took a step back into the kitchen, staying away from the windows as Firman rolled her eyes.
She could hear Zerina come down the stairs, her steps slowing when she reached the end of them, "What's going on?"
The suspicious agent made direct eye contact with her relative, watching her as she relayed the news, "We've got an attack coming. SHIELD found us."
Sprouse seemed surprised by this, swallowing hard before asking another question, "How? I thought this was called a 'safe' house for a reason."
Layla turned away from the screen, wringing her fingers together as she took deep breaths to calm herself, "I think we should find an escape plan, like now. These guys aren't going to give us anymore time. Colton?"
The girl's expectant gaze almost broke Bradley right there. She tried so hard to mask her growing terror, but she was painfully terrible at it. She was a science and communications officer, not a spy. She was, overall, the most vulnerable in this situation.
Agent 21 soon had to look past the anxious techie to Firman's irritated appearance. He cleared his throat, voice steady under the mounting pressure, "We're several hours from the White House. This cabin was a safe house for the president back in the 80s. Now it's obsolete, but they're still escape routes from thirty years back. There are tunnels from the basement that run under ground and pop back up about 100 meters from where the cars are parked."
"That's convenient." Zerina commented, going to see the computer screen showcasing the agents preparing to take the cabin. Firman felt her chest grow tight at her proximity to Layla, finding her too close to her friend. She still could very well be a mole.
"You sure SHIELD doesn't know about the tunnel?" Sienna forced her gaze back to Bradley, her tone flat and crisp as she felt the ICER on her hip.
"They would've posted guards at the ending hatch. There are none."
That made enough sense. She nodded her head in acknowledgement, addressing everyone in the room, pushing past her blatant distrust of her sister. She'd just keep a close eye on her, "Okay, we've all got to start moving. I'll grab my duffel bag from upstairs, but I think that's all we'll be carrying."
"Okay," Sprouse quietly agreed, heading for the door to the basement, "I'll grab a few guns from the rack downstairs."
The other three agents all froze as she said that, which caught the woman of guard with their dramatic change. Layla's mouth fell ajar as if she was going to say something, but decided against it.
Sienna, on the other hand, was close to fuming, "Excuse me?"
"What?" Zerina asked, matching the malice that had been uttered, "I'm just going to grab guns."
Firman clenched her jaw, resisting the urge to curl a fist as she found herself beginning to burn with rage, pulse already spiked with the notion of a fight coming. Her voice told of her disgust, "Those are SHIELD agents out there. They wear the same insignia you do. I probably trained with half of them in the Academy. Yeah, they've been sent after us, but they are acting under orders."
"They're coming to kill us-"
"They're coming to apprehend us." She challenged, knowing the oath she took never to harm another loyal agent. Now, she couldn't avoid giving them a beating, but it'd be a cold day in hell before she killed a SHIELD member without a dependable reason, "They have tranquilizers. ICERs only."
The tension created by the small dispute was palpable in the small room, the two relatives locking eyes. Zerina refused to say anything at first, still close to the basement door that led to the small armory. Bradley, her superior officer, spoke his mind as well, "You heard Agent Firman."
Slowly, Sprouse obliged as she dipped her chin down. Her teeth were clenched tight, gaze traveling over the trio as she icily said, "Roger that."
aye kids it's only been like 12 days since the last update this is like a record for me. it would've been up four days ago but i was on a sports trip and had literally no time to write then had to catch up on hw but it's up!
yes i know i promised a fight scene but this hit the 5k limit early and family drama went longer than i anticipated so that's fun. woot woot for attempting to make z seem like an actual human being and not a one-dimensional caricature that everybody loves to hate
sooooooo we got si's pov coming back next chapter with the great escape and i get to write a si fight scene!!! it's been years since i wrote one!! literally!!! i miss my og badass
also what are your guy's predications from here on out??? we reunite with nat and steve real soon but on what do you guys think will happen besides that?