Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too. I also don't own Marvel or any their storylines or characters, I don't even know most of their storylines or characters. I'm just a sad little fan here.
AN: Thanks to Nursekelly for the encouragement and help.
Earth-7475 Universe, pt 2
The basement of the Avengers Facility is enormous.
It's a labyrinth stuffed with Stark technology around every corner, some benign, but most apparently more than a little dangerous.
While wandering around, wasting hours as they tested his blood and picked apart scans of his body with a fine toothed comb, Gale has stumbled into a room filled with half incinerated vests, another with locked boxes that spilled green light from the creases of their lids, and, most ominously, a small room only occupied by a pair of pinstriped pants hanging on what looked to be a rusted display rack.
Gale doesn't even step foot in that room. It's too odd to be harmless.
Despite the space, the testing area Madge had taken him, Katniss, and Mellark to felt cramped.
The ceilings are strewn with wires and pipes, some only held in place with copious amounts of duck tape and twist ties. Boxes overflowing with spare parts sit in every corner, some stacked dangerously high, threatening to topple over at any minute. It isn't the most reassuring place to have his life tested, at least not in Gale's mind.
The scanning machine looked like something out of a grainy documentary. It clattered and wheezed when turned on and the screen flickered on and off several times before Alameda banged it with a mallet.
It had been so noisy when Gale had climbed inside. He almost expected it to collapse around him, but half an hour later he'd been jerkily spit out, a little disoriented but that seemed a minor detail considering he'd thought he was going to die only moments before.
"Well excuse us," Alameda grumbled when Gale complained and made a face at the medieval equipment she'd brought, rolled out on a clattering serving cart no less, to take his blood. "This isn't exactly the Mayo Clinic here. We're working under the radar, which means making do with what's available."
And apparently what's available is outdated tech and medical supplies from the Second World War.
They might've been good enough for Steve Rogers, but healthcare has come a long way, and it's the one area of life Gale is pretty sure no one has nostalgia for. He likes not getting infections from blood draws.
"Is that sterile?" Mellark asked, eyeing the needles warily.
"Eh," she'd shrugged. "Hasn't been opened in seventy years. Good enough."
Gale hadn't even had time to yank his arm from her before she'd jabbed the needle in and begun digging for the vein. He'd almost say she did it on purpose, but she'd done just as awful a job on Katniss' draw.
"I'm in surveillance, not phlebotomy. You're lucky I remember anything about my field medic training," she told them as she packed their blood up and put their scans on discs to take to the people who'd tell them if they were walking time bombs.
She'd cheerfully left them after that, much to Gale's relief.
Then they'd waited.
Pulling the door to a room crammed full of broken metal contraption, some melted straight through, Gale turns and finds Madge watching him from down the hall.
Her skin is a strange kind of pale, painfully washed out by the harsh white light hanging over her head.
After a moment of hesitation she walks toward him, stopping at the door and smiling weakly.
"You should be careful," she tells him. "A lot of this is Howard Stark's storage. His 'bad babies', I think they called them."
"So...dangerous?"
Madge grins. "I think that's an understatement."
Gale chuckles, crosses his arms and gives the door a half glance. "I'll keep that in mind."
A quiet settles between them after that, only broken by the hum of electricity buzzing in the walls around them.
For a moment, Gale just stares at her.
She still looks exhausted.
Madge's hair is lank, a few strands falling from her loose ponytail around her face. Her clothes are a little better, or at least not quite as ragged, a rumpled skirt, ancient blouse, and a pair of too big shoes.
Not polished, not put together, and not rested in the least.
"You sleep?" He asks, noting the growing shadows under her eyes and already knowing the answer.
Her lips twitch as she presses her fingers to her temples, shakes her head.
"Haven't slept well in a few...months, I guess." She shrugs. "My brain can't turn off."
He can sympathize. With everything that's happened, he can't seem to rest well either. There's too much to worry about, his family, friends, now Madge…
"I keep thinking there was something I missed." She begins gnawing her lip. "I should've seen what was happening. I was trained to see this kind of thing and it went down right under my no-"
"No one else saw it either," Gale cuts her off. He can't listen to her beat herself up, not when everyone else was twice as blind.
At least she'd had the sense to have reservations to submitting to human experimentation. Gale hadn't, and now he might be a weapon awaiting the right trigger.
She looks like she might argue, but settles on just sighing, rubbing the side of her head and fighting off a headache.
"Have you had any luck finding Cartwright?" He finally asks, hoping to get her mind off all their failings and onto something productive.
Grimacing, Madge nods.
"That's actually why I came to find you." She glances at him, crosses her arms, nose wrinkling. "We'd tracked her to an old safe house in Russellville and thought she'd be heading to Memphis, there's a Baskin-Robbins in Conway she'd probably stop at and we'd make contact, but she never turned up at either check point."
"Maybe she got spooked," Gale offers. "I mean, Cartwright wasn't exactly the brightest, but she might've thought Hydra was tracking her and decided to avoid known safe zones after the safe house."
"Doubtful," Madge answers. "Delly was never good at coming up with her own plans."
Besides, Delly Cartwright wasn't one to go off on her own, she'd want the security of the known, even if she knew it wasn't exactly safe. In fact, Gale is surprised she made it this long without being picked up. Subtlety wasn't her strong suit. If anything, she was the least capable of staying underground of all the super soldiers.
"You think they got her?"
Madge nods, her expression grim.
She doesn't have to say that's a bad thing, they both already know it.
If the tentacles of Hydra have snatched up Cartwright, she's doomed, just like anyone they send her after if the super soldiers have something in them that can make them controllable.
"Peeta and I are going to Arkansas to see if we can find where they took her." She tells him. "I've already started putting out feelers with the usual people and-"
"You're not going with Mellark."
Neither of them has any real combat skill. There's no way he's letting Madge go out with just Mellark as backup. Hydra will have them strung up in an abandoned Walmart before they even take a swing in their own defense.
"Gale, this isn't a battle. This is research and stealth."
This is the quiet work he loathes. It's still dangerous though, and he isn't about to let her jump headfirst into it without someone better than 'Marshmallow' Mellark.
"Doesn't matter," he tells her, crossing his arms over his chest, staring down at her. "I'm sick of being here anyways."
"It's been a day."
He shrugs. "A day too long."
And it'll be too many days more before they know anything. He'll go crazy down here.
Lips tugging up, Madge shakes her head.
"Peeta and I are going as newlyweds. It'd be a bit hard to explain you away."
Gale's teeth grind at the thought of Mellark getting to play lovey-dovey husband and wife with Madge. He can't imagine Katniss being anymore happy about it than him.
He's helping his friend, really, when he thinks of it that way.
"I can be your husband," he says before thinking it through.
The second the words pass his lips, Madge's cheeks flame up and her eyes focus on the smudged door handle beside them.
"That's-Gale, you can't-"
"Why not?" No one would question it, and he wouldn't even have to pretend to be in love with her.
Besides, he's earned a little time with her after thinking she was dead for so long, not Mellark.
Pressing her fingers to her eyes, Madge sighs.
"You aren't trained for this." Her hands drop to her sides and she forces a smile. "Besides, you need to be here for the results of all this testing."
Gale feels a growl of frustration rumble in his chest. "Those won't be in for weeks. What am I supposed to do until then? Hang out down here with Stark's failed experiments?"
Just because he's in limbo doesn't mean he can't do things. He's a field agent. Maybe not the kind they need for this mission, but it's slim pickings at the moment since their organization is in the crapper. Besides, he's a fast learner. Or he can be, if Madge needs him to be.
Gale ought to be good enough for this.
Teeth grinding, he slams his hand into the door.
A deafening crack fills the air, several screws shoot off and skip along the concrete floor, and when Gale looks over the door is dented in and popped from the hinges.
He pulls his hand back, looks at his palm.
It's not even pink.
Closing his eyes, he swallows down bile and evens his breathing.
He's a monster. No wonder Madge wants him to stay down here. He belongs with the other defective things.
Something soft wraps around his hand, squeezes it tight, and when he opens his eyes he finds Madge has stepped closer.
After his outburst he wouldn't blame her if she'd run, it would be sensible, but she hasn't. She's holding his hand, treating him like a human even though he isn't much of one anymore. He'd traded in humanity for power. He doesn't deserve sympathy and understanding.
Glancing at the door, she grimaces before looking up at him.
"I know this isn't ideal, but...what if you come with me and get captured? They're looking for you too, you know?"
He does, but at the moment he doesn't care. They used him and he'd like a chance to get a little revenge. Inaction has never suited him. It's why he's here in the first place.
Past all that, he doesn't plan on getting caught. He won't let them take him and use him as a pawn. Not like they had when they'd recruited him for the serum.
"I can't stay down here," he half whispers, trying not to look at the battered door. "You came to me and pulled me into this. I can't just sit back now. Let me do something. Let me help. Please."
Madge licks her lips, chews the bottom one, her nose wrinkled up in thought and Gale's insides churn.
He wants to kiss her, pull the door off its hinges and drag her into the almost empty room on the other side and show her how much he'd missed her and how happy he is she isn't dead, convince her he needs to be the one to go with her. Convince her with his lips and his hands that he won't let anyone hurt her, but stops himself.
His body is too unpredictable for him to give her even the friendliest hug without extreme caution. With his self-control he'd end up doing something awful to her without even knowing it, all while trying to show affection.
It's the least desirable trait he's gained from the serum.
Gale can't even convince himself he won't hurt her by accident, what chance does he have of making her believe he's the best man to protect her?
"It's a bad idea. A very bad idea," she finally says, her eyes studying his hand for a moment more before looking up at him, her lip puckered.
Instantly Gale knows what she's thinking, and he doesn't blame her.
He's dangerous with just his normal temper. God only knows what he'd be like controlled by Hydra, if there is something lurking in his body, ready to help the enemy.
She should say no, point to the door as evidence that he's not safe to be around her or other people at least until they know that Hydra won't say a word or trigger a biochemical response in him that can level a city, but she doesn't.
"It's not fair to keep you locked away though. Not when I dragged you here for the studies." Her lips edge up into a smile. "Besides, if there's one person I know won't let us get caught, it's you."
It's a reach and Gale knows it, but damn if he isn't grateful for her faith in him. It means more than she'll ever know, especially when he's got so little belief in himself lately.
"Thank you," Gale sighs, a smile finding its way into his face. "I'll be on my best behavior, I promise."
Madge rolls her eyes.
"You'd better be."