Anja blew her whistle, and arms crossed and hip popped. "Heather, get over here!"

With a groan and a grumble, the small girl obliged, dragging her feet over to her coach. Heather was not happy about the change in staff, but was more than happy to share her opinions about it. Loudly, and for extended periods of time. It made Anja wanna pop her little head off. "What?" she asked, with that goddamn attitude.

"When you finish that pass," Anja started, gesturing towards the mat where her young student just butchered her pass, "you're struggling to get height on your split leap. And that's because you're stopping yourself completely before jumping. Take that energy from your pass and use it to propel yourself. It's a lot easier that way and it looks better."

Heather scoffed. "What do you know?"

"What the fuck do you mean 'what do I know,' I'm your fucking coach?"

"Stavros says you're not allowed to swear."

Anja glowered. "Yeah and he also says not to act like a little brat and here we are. Do your pass again until you get it right."

"I am getting it right," she argued, and all Anja could think was that if she ever pulled this shit with her old coach, she'd be running laps until she passed out, after, of course, getting screamed at until his voice ran raw. "This tumbling pass is too easy for me. Let me do at least a double twisting Salto."

"No, not a chance in hell," Anja countered with a scoff. "Just because you land the skills doesn't mean you're landing them well. You're too eager to move up skill levels that you're forgetting your foundational skills. Your round-offs suck and that makes your Saltos suck. So, you know what? Go do fifty round-offs."

"What?" Heather exclaimed, face dropping.

"You heard me, go! Before you really start pissing me off."

"Such a-"

Anja blew her whistle.

The college-ruled paper was crumbled between Anja's thumbs. She stared down at the name, at that address, far longer than she needed to. She had it memorized, she had it memorized before the paper was ever in her hands. Her throat was dry. The buzzing in the diner had already set her on edge and now she was fucking sweating.

Alexei fucking Abramovich.

The idea of it all made her nauseous.

"Are you serious?" she asked, after a pause that lasted just a little too long.

The girl across from her acted too old for her age. She slumped up against the booth, small frame taking up more space than she needed, with her feet propped up in the spot next to Anja. Her clothes were baggy and bright, covering up bruises and blotches. Her thoughts were loud and her emotions were louder. It was like Anja was being screamed at. The girl was irritated, on edge, trying her hardest to play it off as passive. "You know who he is?"

Anja swallowed. "Yeah, I know who he is."

The girl leaned forward, dropping her boots to the tile floor with a thud, leaning in closer. Anja could smell fried foods and dried sweat all over her. "I mean do you really know who he is?"

"Liberated some uh, goods from him once," Anja answered, looking back down at the paper. "Pharmaceutical and otherwise."

The girl fell back again, slumping and lounging and "I know I'm asking for a lot but, listen, I'm not the only one. I haven't even got it the worst."

"You don't have to explain it to me."

But the girl was insistent. "I just need you to know that I'm not asking you to do this for the wrong reasons."

"I know."

"You believe me?"

Anja didn't look up from the paper. "Yeah."

The girl snickered, didn't give that wide-eyed pleading thank you that some girls did. Anja felt it hit her gut, some bitter twist of resentment from the girl that Anja couldn't really explain. "I was ready to rally up everyone else to convince you," she said, reaching for a fry on her plate and tossing it towards her mouth. She just missed, and it dangled off the side of her mouth. It really bothered Anja that she didn't do anything about it. Just let it sit there.

"It only takes one. I'm not a cop," Anja scoffed. She was trying to radiate that same whatever energy that Anja wouldn't have been able to see through if she was anybody else. "This is gonna take me longer than my usual job. I don't know how long but I'm just one person and this guy, he's protected."

This made the girl straighten up, French fry falling from her face to the ground. "How long do you think?"

Anja shrugged, finally folding the paper and placing it in her jean pocket. "It depends. I'll have to learn his schedule and his weaknesses and when he's alone and getting that information isn't always easy." She always dreaded this type of job, a job that took more than one night, jobs that put more people at risk. But Alexei Abramovich was not the type of man that was left unattended, not the type of guy who would even allow for anyone like Anja to slip through his window. The paper was heavy in her pocket. "It could take a couple of months, if I'm being honest."

"A couple of months?" the girl exclaimed, slamming her hand against the dinner table. "Do you realize how many-"

"Yes, okay? I do realize," Anja cut her off. She wasn't sure if she was irritated with the girl or if the girl was so irritated with Anja it was rubbing off on her just a little too much. "But if I'm gonna do it, I have to do it right. You only get one chance in my line of work and if it's as bad as you say it is, I can't risk that one chance."

The girl blanched for a moment, anger prominent in the way she held her shoulders, how she crossed her arms. "You have to kill him, you know."

Anja had to take a very deep breath before she responded. "Don't say that out loud. Not in public."

"When am I supposed to say it?" she questioned, failing her arms wildly and Anja had to put almost every ounce of energy she had into making the two of them seem uninteresting. This was not the type of attention she needed. "You know you're not exactly an easy person to get into contact with. I called three different numbers before I got an answer and it wasn't even you! Had to wait weeks for the meeting and now you're telling me it's gonna be another couple of months? He could kill people."

"What I do requires discretion and if I'm not discreet, I'm in a prison cell," Anja explained, carefully, words and tone delicate. This was the problem Anja had with girls like her. Girls with loud emotions. At a certain point she couldn't tell what was hers and what wasn't. That kind of uncertainty made her uncomfortable. "I don't like the waiting game either but I do what I have to to stay on the streets."

"And how many girls die because of that?"

"And how many more don't?" Anja snapped back, finally letting her gentleness break. And from the way the girl flinched and leaned back, Anja regretted it. "Look, you've been through a lot, I know that. I get that. I don't want you or anyone else to go through it more. But I've been doing this for a long time. You have to trust that I know what I'm doing."

"You better. Girls' lives are ridin' on it."

Anja grabbed a pen from the checkbook and scribbled down ten little numbers on a napkin. "If you have any information on him, anything you think might help, call this number." She stood, ready to leave. "And don't let anyone see that."

"Who is this guy anyways?" Mick asked, arms crossed and slinking in the one chair Anja had in her apartment. A bean bag, no less. He kept adjusting, the beans squishing and shifting against each other.

Anja swung her arm forward, letting the knife slip from the tips of her fingers and fly towards the stacks of plywood. It stuck dead in the middle with a satisfying thud. "Scarface meets Tony Stark meets Ivan Drago," she replied easily, reaching for another knife tucked into her sock, and throwing it right on the mark before Mick could even blink. "He inherited his family's mega pharmaceutical company and rakes in an extra couple million every year illegally selling weapons that'd make the Hulk shit his pants. The Russian bastard."

Mick blinked. "Hmm, so not good."

Another knife landed dead center. "Not good."

There was a moment of silence while Anja stalked over to the plywood, yanking each knife out of the wood with a light grunt, wiping them clean on her jeans before sliding them back in their respective holsters. Then she'd start again.

"So how're you gonna kill him?" Mick asked again while Anja found another placement, beyond Mick, slightly to the right, getting an angle on the target.

She shrugged, and then moved for the knife on the back of her leg, spinning before she threw it. Dead center again. Anja was getting bored with it. "I dunno. Maybe a gun."

This made Mick blink, and his heart kick up a notch. That made Anja smirk. The kid had a lot of lip with her, it was nice to know she could still strike some fear in his heart. "Do you own a gun?"

"I own a lot of guns."

"Since when?"

Anja shrugged, throwing another knife. "Since I was fourteen."

"So you're gonna shoot an arms dealer?"

The irony wasn't lost on her. But she really didn't know what she was gonna do about it. Anja had a few very close calls in her short life, and one of closest of them all happened in the back of a van belonging to Alexei Ambramovich. She wasn't eager to gamble her chances with him again. "I dunno, maybe? I haven't exactly worked out all the details. Guys like this aren't exactly easy to get to. You gotta learn their schedules, their buildings, their security, get past their lackeys. It's a lot of work just for one guy."

Mick just shrugged, like the solution was easy, simple, obvious. "So don't do it."

Anja shot him a harsh look. "Don't be stupid."

"What do you want me to do?" It wasn't a question whether or not Mick would help her. If Anja was doing a job, Mick would be there. That wasn't ever a doubt she had, for how sticky the kid was.

Anja froze for a moment, tilting her head and eyeing her board. It was littered with jagged holes, scars from where she ripped the knife back out. She had been at it for hours today, bored with the gym and bored with the knives. She needed more plywood. Or a shooting range. Or a new way to kill someone."Own any amateur spy equipment? Mini cameras? Tracking devices? Little things people won't notice?"

"No."

"Well, find some and tell me where to steal it from," she replied, piecing together a skeleton of a plan. "Then I sneak into his building, plant it, and watch for openings."

Mick groaned, dropping his head back and squirming his legs. The whiny bastard. "You're literally psychic, you can't just look?"

"Doesn't work like that, dumbass," she shot back. "Things are always changing, future shifting, that whole deal. Too many factors here to rely on just that."

"Maybe that's why you can't see the spider boy."

Anja tensed. The spider boy was still a sore subject with her. He hadn't shown up since that first night but she couldn't just rid of that bitter taste in her mouth every time she thought of him. And there was something that so deeply disgusted her about the idea of him saving her. Like she needed help. It made her shudder.

"That's not why I can't see the spider boy," she grumbled back.

Mick tilted his head, grinning like he liked getting under her skin. Like this was the only way he knew how. "Then why can't you see the spider boy?"

Anja gave him a shrug, throwing the knife a little harder now. It landed, the hilt itself smashing through the wood and dropping to the ground. "Dunno. Maybe because he's a freaky spider mutant and he's too quick to be predictable."

"Can you read his mind?"

"Haven't tried."

"Can you read his emotions?"

"Haven't tried."

"Well, fuck, Anja, what have you tried?"

And that was enough for Anja to snap. She tossed her hands in the air, waving a knife around wildly. "Not dying? Not getting arrested? You fucking prick," she practically spat, still not wiping that stupid smirk off Mick's oily face. "I think I need to refine my skills."

"You haven't missed once."

"Not those skills. My, er, mental ones. Need to focus on controlling more than one person at a time. Sorting out thoughts, too."

"You can barely control one person at a time."

Anja stopped, completely turning towards Mick with her arms limp by her side. The boy in front of her looked weak, clumsy trapped in that bean bag chair, limbs too long for it. Anja's eyes bore into his. She saw them, shiny and green and big and wide.

And she didn't really know how she did it. It wasn't something she was supposed to do, when the trials started. Her father called it a blessing, a sign that what he was doing was right. But when she looked into Mick's big dumb eyes, saw a thin string between them, and said, "Jump out the window," she knew that he would.

And he tried. Despite the look of horror in his eyes, his body was working against him and his legs were scrambling, rushing to get to Anja's seven story window and fling his body to the ground. Because she told him too.

But before he could, before he got even close, Anja saw the string break, fall flat to the ground, and Mick dropped to the ground to the sound of her rapturous laughter.

"That's not fucking funny," Mick said, panting, crawling back to the safety of his bean bag like he didn't trust his body to walk him there.

"Yes it is," Anja countered between fading giggles.

"I could've died."

She rolled her eyes, reaching back for her knives. "I wouldn't have let you die. Don't be dramatic."

"You're a bitch, Anja, honestly."

Her legs dangled off the edge of a low building, fire escape below her feet for a quick getaway but a wide view of the city in front of her. Beside her, a police scanner buzzed, fuzzy voices blending together. She'd do that sometimes, when her schedule loosened up and she was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for someone to need her help, hoping that they wouldn't.

It was a quiet night. A couple of drunk assholes being drunk assholes to cops and a bunch of public pissings and vomitings and other shit that Anja really couldn't be assed to give a second thought about. Still, she had her balaclava pulled over her face, hood on her head, poised to strike.

There were some things she wouldn't touch; bank robberies wouldn't even cause her to lift a finger, to turn her head in a different direction. Anja had an agenda, some quench for vengeance that no amount of blood could satiate. Protecting corporate property wasn't worth the effort it would take to draw blood.

The night was cool. Summer was slowly fading into fall, and Anja was reveling in the way the sun set earlier, the nights felt breezier, and the humidity levels let her breathe again. Below her, she watched cars make hasty left turns, and she kept an extra cautious eye on the drunk girls that stumbled in groups, heels clacking against the pavement, clinging onto each others' arms as they stumbled and laughed their way through the city. She wondered what they'd do if Anja just dropped in, asked to join them. For a second, she pictured it, pictured her own muscular form in a silkily dress with strappy, shiny shoes to match. Anja felt silly, stupid and ditzy. Like she could ever afford a pair of shoes like that.

She wondered where Mick was on his list of tasks she'd left for him. She wondered if the blonde girl with buggy green eyes was finally safe. She wondered if she would die trying to kill Alexei Ambramovich and before she had time to wonder anything else, the hairs on the back of her neck were standing up and she felt like she wasn't alone.

Anja didn't like reading minds. She didn't like seeing the future and she didn't like controlling people. She didn't like the prying, the burden of knowledge and the way people's darkest thoughts and deepest fears flung themselves at her, making her eyes bloodshot and heavy. But even worse than that, was when she couldn't. Because it drove her fucking crazy that she could never see him coming.

She saw him before he saw her. She stayed low to the ground, watching as he swung from one building to another, flying past her and off to the next one. And she knew it would be smart to stay where she was and mind her own goddamn business, but she wanted to know. She wanted to know what he was doing and how he was doing it and what was so fucking special about him that he could completely block her out. So she followed him.

Once there was a safe distance, she stood, silent as she sprinted towards the edge of one building and lept to the other. And she couldn't match the speed of swinging from lampposts and roofs and whatever the fuck else but Anja was light on her feet, fast , faster than what should've been possible.

She could see him up ahead while she ran, breathing tightly controlled. Her feet were barely touching the ground and when she jumped from one edge to the other it was as if she was flying. Anja felt strong, felt powerful and confident as she flew, suspended above the ground and when she landed, easily and silently. And then she lost him. Anja skidded to a stop.

He was just there. Bobbing in front of her, like he had a destination in mind. She groaned, kicking the gravel under her feet.

And just when she was about to tell herself that hey, maybe it was for the best. Maybe she should've just been minding her own fucking business, the hairs on her neck were standing up straight.

When she turned, he was leaning up against the edge of the roof like he had been waiting for her, casual. "Why do they call you the Harpy?"

And she wanted to scream. Because not only could she not see him coming but she couldn't hear his thoughts and the only thing she could get from him was this unbearable wave of confidence that made her feel like a standing target.

And the question pissed her off too. It should've been obvious.

"Fucking hell," groaned. And she didn't have the chance to run the options through her head because she wouldn't even be able to see him and that really limited her options to just running the fuck away. So for a moment, she stood still, and then, she went to sprint for the fire escape.

But when she jumped off the edge there was something latched to her, something on the back of her hoodie that pulled her back and tossed her to the ground. She slammed to the ground, as Spider-Man winced for her. "Ah, nope! Sorry, not that way," he shrugged as Anja stood to her feet. "Guess you're stuck with me."

God, she hated him so much. Fuck, fuck, fuck. "Alright. You wanna do this?" she questioned, tilting her head towards either one of her shoulders, listening to the bones crack. "Fine then bug boy."

And she charged.

Realistically, she thought she could hold her on in close combat. Anja spent a lot of time after that first night, watching videos and studying his form. He was better with distance, when he was quick and could swing in and out of sight, before his opponent could figure out what was going on. If she cornered him, though, wouldn't let up, she'd have a chance. She could disable the webs and land a few harsh blows and that'd be it.

He blocked a punch, and then another, and the another but he wasn't ready for the swift kick that connected Anja's shin with his side. He grunted, and Anja shoved an elbow into his nose. He aimed his web at her face. She leaned back, the top of her head nearly touching the ground as she raised the tip of her foot right under his chin. She shot back up to a harsh blow to the cheek.

"How'd you put that image in my mind?" he questioned, distracting Anja for just a second, quick enough for him to swipe his leg behind her knees. Anja caught herself on her hands and kicked her legs behind her, landing in a steady, crouched position. "How'd you- oof -how'd you make me see something that wasn't there?" he asked, and Anja snarled, leaping for him. "No? Okay. Alright then, how'd you change my mood?"

The way he dodged her so easily made her blood boil. "Oh my god, would you shut up? We're fighting."

"What, you can't do both at the same time? Or you can't talk and manipulate me at the same time?" Anja kicked for his head, but he caught her foot and thrust her forward. Anja spun before she caught herself in air, catlike in her landing. "Cause, I have to be honest, it's really lame if you can only do one."

Under her mask, she furrowed her brow. "Is this a game to you?"

"I mean, a little," his voice was light, jovial.

Anja looked up at him, study him for a moment. He was lanky, but steady on his feet and she thought that a guy who had a lot of weaknesses wouldn't advertise his presence in a bright red and blue suit.

And before she could figure it out, her wrists were trapped in that god awful sticky shit and he was pulling her forward, trapping her in his webs.

But Anja was fast. When he yanked her close enough, she raised her feet to his gut, stomping on him and forcing another elbow into his jaw, and knocking him on the ground. She tucked her head under her shoulder and rolled past him. The white webbing still hung from her wrists.

"I have to admit, that was impressive!" he called back to her, still lying on his back, coughing. "What do you do, like, Pilates?"

"Enough with the cute talk, alright?" Anja snapped back, and while the kid was down, she lunged, hand on a knife that she had strapped to her thigh. In one swift movement, her forearm was pressed against his throat and she held the shiny knife above his head. "Listen, I don't have an issue with you. But if you don't stay the fuck out of my way, and let me do what I need to do, I will kill you. Got it?"

He coughed under the pressure from her arm. "You-you think I'm cute?"

Anja rolled her eyes, pressing down just a little harder while her other hand worked quick to find pressure points. Pressure points that would leave him still while she fled. "Christ," she mumbled, pushing off of him and rushing towards the fire escape.

The cry of "Wait, come back, lady criminal!" echoed off the rooftops and made her think that maybe she should've killed him.

i made some changes to previous chapters for plot purposes.

also i dont rlly love this chapter but. im glad i updated. thank u to everyone who read and reviewed i love u guys.