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: Again, thanks to Nursekelly for the help.
Earth-7475 Universe, pt 4
Madge keeps her eyes studiously on her phone, focusing on the overnight reports and hoping for a sign of Delly.
She refuses to look at Gale. Her eyes had done enough staring last night.
It's a wonder Gale hasn't called her out on being a creeper.
When she'd walked out of the bathroom last night and found him shirtless and washing up for bed though, all her wits had dried up and she'd just stood there, open mouthed and dull.
Her senses weren't as sharp as his, but they'd certainly done their very best to drink in every inch of his bare skin for later use, and she'd even caught a whiff of the mint from his toothpaste.
It wasn't until she'd recognized the tune he was inexplicably humming that she'd shaken off her stupor.
If staring like a dumbstruck school girl weren't bad enough, she'd somehow snuggled up next to him during the night. In her defense, the room was cold and getting under those undeniable filthy sheets just wasn't an option.
Even if it had kept her warm, and far more comfortable than she's willing to admit, it can't happen again.
"He's dangerous," Mr. Abernathy had warned her before she'd left to search for Delly with him. "They all are. You shouldn't even be out hunting for that girl. Ought to leave it to Fury. He's got teams meant to take down creatures like her."
"Delly isn't a creature, and neither are Gale or Katniss. They're our friends."
And she wasn't going to let Hydra kidnap any of them as use them for their own twisted purposes.
"I still say it should be Peeta going with you, if it's got to be anyone. Hawthorne's brain was only functioning in the most primitive areas before he let them dick around with his genetics, he's practically a single celled organism now," he'd added.
Ignoring him, Madge had finished packing and kissed his cheek.
"It'll be fine."
He'd pressed a taser into her hand and sighed.
"If I can't convince you I'll arm you," he explained. "His filthy hands get near you, shock the shit out of him. Aim for the balls."
Rolling her eyes, Madge had stuffed the taser in her bag, an extra weapon was never a bad thing, and sighed.
"Right."
Gale, even with the serum in him, isn't a danger to her, she's certain of it. She trusts him, and Katniss and Delly. The only way they'd hurt her or anyone else is if Hydra did something to them.
And they clearly have with Delly.
That, she thinks, still trying to focus on the screen in front of her and ignore the sound of rattling silverware, hum of breakfast time patrons at the diner, and the hungrily eating Gale in front of her, is what she needs to keep her energy on. Saving her friend.
Not memorizing how Gale cuts his food or how he chews.
He's got enough going on, wondering if there's something lurking in his mind and body that might make him snap and become the very thing he fights. He doesn't need Madge and her silly crush looming over him.
Even if she's sure he's not a danger, she doubts he's got as much faith in himself.
"Are you gonna eat that?" He asks, eyeing the bacon still on Madge's plate.
Shaking her head, Madge pushes the half eaten plate toward him.
It's a wonder he has any room left for food. He'd ordered the entire breakfast menu, a few twice, and drank at least three glasses of milk, two orange juices, and an entire pot of coffee. He'd single handedly wiped the diner out of toast too.
Grinning, he puts it on his empty plate and begins shoveling cold eggs onto the bacon before shoving it in his mouth.
It's a little obnoxious, but at the same time strangely endearing.
"That's because you love him," she can almost hear Peeta teasing her. "It's a psychological thing."
While he's probably right, no one would be able to say Gale isn't adorable eating. He just looks so happy about every bite, and his good mood is a little infectious.
Madge just sighs and lets herself have a moment to watch him devour his newly acquired meal.
She's been a little bit in love with him forever. It's why her first instinct, when Shield had crumbled and burned and Hydra had risen from the ashes, had been to warn him.
If Gale was safe she'd accept whatever fate awaited her.
"You need to start looking out for yourself, sweetheart," Mr. Abernathy warned her when he'd caught her trying to track Gale's whereabouts in the middle of the night. "Hydra'll be watching for us to slip up, and looking for each other is the easiest way to do that."
So despite her desire to know he was safe, that he'd taken her warning and run, she'd dropped her searching. She'd have to have faith in him.
When they'd realized Hydra had probably done something to their test subjects, Madge had jumped at the chance to find them. Her patience and faith were rewarded.
It would've been simpler to contact Peeta, definitely smarter, but she'd chosen Gale. She'd wanted to see him, see for sure he was alive and well and that her efforts had done some good.
She hadn't been sure he'd missed her, but he'd hugged her, nearly crushed her, and that gave her hope that he was at least glad she hadn't been either killed or a secret Hydra agent.
Maybe he liked her a little more than she'd always thought.
Volunteering to take Peeta's place as her help in the search for Delly might've just been anxiety getting the better of him, not wanting to be cooped up, or maybe he wanted to spend time with her.
She could hope anyways.
With Gale it's hard to tell. Talking isn't exactly his strong suit and his expressions are all but unreadable. He almost always seems to either be scowling or smirking and Madge hasn't worked out just what that says about him or his moods.
He's determined to be a mystery, whether he knows it or not.
Making a small grunting noise, he butters his toast, then slathers some grape jam on it, getting a bit on his thumb that he licks off.
Madge doesn't even realize she's still watching him, wondering idly what his lips and stubble would feel like against her skin, when she hears her name.
Gale is frowning, gaze focused on her, and she feels her cheeks warm for what seems to be the hundredth time in only the past few hours.
"Did you take that medicine?" He asks, his eyebrows pulled together in concern as he stares at her.
Nodding, Madge looks back down at her phone, trying to focus her filthy brain. It's not cooperating though, keeps reminding her how sweet Gale's concern has been and just how easy it would be to play being sick, get even more of his attention.
She isn't sick though, just has a wistful imagination that makes her blush like an idiot every time she gets caught acting like a teenager with a crush.
Thankfully Gale seems oblivious to the fact that her 'fever' isn't real.
He'd been an absolute gentleman that morning, gone into the drug store and grabbed everything for fever and pain relief he'd apparently seen before coming back out and shoving the plastic bag into her lap.
"I, uh, didn't know which one you'd want," he'd explained.
Smiling weakly, Madge had taken a Tylenol despite feeling perfectly fine before stowing the rest of the medication in the glove compartment of the rental car.
"Maybe you need more," he tells her, tilting his head, eyes still on her furiously blushing cheeks. "I think you fever is back."
"It's the sun," she lies, gesturing to the window, refusing to look up and soak in his concern. "I'm just getting too warm."
He nods, and glancing up Madge can see he isn't totally convinced by the way his expression stays tight, but doesn't say anything.
"Should we keep driving south?" He asks finally, sitting back and crossing his arms over his chest.
Madge nods. All signs point to Delly heading south, though whether she's going toward something or just away from something, Madge isn't sure.
Snatching up the ticket, Gale stands and waits as Madge gathers her purse and jacket before grabbing her hand and pulling her toward the register.
It's distracting, feeling the warmth of his calloused palm against hers, and Madge almost trips over her own feet she's so focused on memorizing the feeling.
"You two are just the cutest," the woman, Melba her badge reads, coos as Gale hands her his card. "So sweet too, I remember when my husband used to hold my hand. Now he can't even hold a conversation with me."
Grimacing, Madge isn't sure what to say to that.
Melba smiles a little too brightly as she hands the ticket back to them.
"Enjoy the honeymoon while it lasts, kids."
Gale grunts and tugs Madge along, out the heavy glass door and to the car.
"You know, you don't have to tell everyone we meet we're newlyweds," Madge points out. "It's only the story if anyone asks."
The color in his face deepens and Madge almost laughs.
"Sorry. Not used to the undercover stuff," he mumbles, starting the car.
Buckling in, Madge gives him a reassuring smile.
"It's okay, just, it doesn't have to be the first thing you offer up. Just act natural," she tells him.
He'd almost shouted it at the waitress when they'd arrived at the diner for breakfast.
"We just got married," he told her before she'd even introduced herself, looking a bit panicked. "We're on our honeymoon."
The poor girl had nodded uncertainly, given him a confused smile. "Oh, uh, congratulations."
"Natural. Right," he mutters, putting the car in gear.
#######
A few hours later they're stuck in traffic headed south when Madge's phone vibrates noisily beside her.
She expects another false alarm. There've been plenty.
Anytime a blonde woman is mentioned it goes off, giving Madge a police report. As it turns out, there are a lot of blonde women in Texas, and a lot of them are in trouble with the law.
After the first ten reports Madge had narrowed the results down, adding a very small age range and Delly's estimated weight and height into the data.
It had cut the results down, but the alarm still went off at least every ten minutes.
"What's this one? Another college girl?"
Madge rolls her eyes and gives him a small smile.
"I'm going with soccer mom."
Clicking on the file, Madge almost drops the phone.
It isn't a police report, but a flag from facial recognition software they'd tapped into for their search. So far it hadn't given them so much as a single hit, but it was apparently paying off now.
The picture is grainy, but still easily recognizable as Delly.
She's holding an extra long corndog in one hand and what looks like a tub with a straw in it is lodged between her other arm and her body.
The manic look is gone from her face, replaced by the same sweet expression Madge remembers Delly always wearing when they first started working together.
"It's her," Madge quickly tells him, involuntarily reaching out and grabbing his arm, giving it a squeeze. "Gale, we found her!"
He stares at her hand for a moment, probably wondering why she's touching him when there's no one around to put on a show for, before nodding.
"Where is she?"
Pulling her hand back, Madge keeps her eyes on her phone and mentally scolds herself.
She needs to get control of her body. Gale is under enough stress without her grabbing him out of nowhere.
"The fair," she answers before going to her GPS. "We aren't far off."
Gale leans over, his breath ghosting over Madge's hands as he looks at the directions.
"Let's go get her."
Turning the wheel sharply, he takes the little SUV over the edge of the road, jumping it into the soggy grass area separating the interstate from the side road.
"Gale! That's illegal!" And unsafe.
He just grins in response.
They leave a muddy trail of tire tracks behind them as they speed away from the stalled traffic and toward the fair grounds.
#######
Gale parks with as much care as he'd cheated the interstate driving laws.
The little SUV ends up lodged, rather recklessly between a pair of semi trucks with decals of busty women on the mud flaps.
Madge would've complained, but time isn't on their side and parking is minimal. They didn't have time to hike two miles and pay twenty dollars. Hydra is probably using the same tricks as them to find Delly.
Weaving around families with screaming kids, they stop at an elderly man with a wand checking people as they funnel into the ticket lines.
"No weapons allowed past the gates," he tells them. "Please have your bags open for us to check."
They end up behind a man on a scooter arguing with someone on the phone, who takes several minutes to open his fanny pack, before getting past and getting their tickets.
"No weapons," Gale grumbles as they finally get past the woman taking tickets. "This is Texas! Isn't everyone armed?"
Madge certainly is, but doesn't mention she'd snuck in her taser.
Glancing around at a dozen drunk college age boys, laughing loudly and sloshing beer onto the hot concrete, Madge hopes not. Alcohol and firearms aren't a pleasant combination.
"Where do we start?" He asks, turning his back to a stand selling tickets for the purchase of food and rides.
Shrugging, Madge wrinkles her nose as she catches the scent of fried food wafting towards her and looks at her phone.
It's like looking for a needle in a stack of needles.
Pressing a finger to her temple, Madge looks up at Gale.
"Where would you go if you were Delly?"
He shrugs. "I'd go to a hospital and ask them how I got body swapped with an Amazon."
Madge rolls her eyes.
"After that."
For a minute Gale just frowns, then sniffs the air.
"Food."
Madge groans. "You just ate."
He'd eaten his body weight in syrup alone. How could he still be hungry?
"No," he shakes his head, a grin forming on his lips. "She was eating. Delly came to the fair for food. That's why I'd come. Katniss and I figure being constantly ready to eat is just a side effect of the serum."
It makes sense, Madge thinks as she mulls over his suggestion. The serum had put their bodies into overdrive. To do what they can do, outrun cars without so much as getting winded and punch through walls like they're made of tissue, heal in the blink of an eye, something must've changed in them at a metabolic level.
It definitely explains how Gale could pack away several short stacks, a dozen eggs, and an entire pig worth of bacon and still eat Madge's left overs.
"Okay," Madge nods, pulls out her phone and taps up a picture of Delly grinning dopily. "I guess we start showing her photo to vendors then."
It's as good a plan as any.
Nodding, Gale takes her hand, pulls her through the crowd.
There's no real need for him to latch onto her hand, but she doesn't tell him that.
If they find Delly all their acting will be over, and she decides to get as much contact in the last moments of she can.
#######
They wander through the fair for the better part of an hour, asking at every fried food stand if anyone has seen the sunny blonde on Madge's phone.
Everyone of them answers yes.
"You just missed her," a man serving deep fried pb&j sandwiches tells them. "She in trouble?"
"No," Madge answers as Gale eats his third deep-fried food-on-a-stick. "Her phone is dead."
"Maybe we should just start yelling for her," Gale says, tossing his latest meal's stick in the trash.
"That would scare her off," Madge points out, irritable under the hot noonday sun.
Maybe sensing Madge's mood taking a downward swing, Gale grabs her hand again and drags her toward one of the buildings housing the car show.
Normally looking at cars would be low on Madge's list, but it's at least cooler inside and, after a wait she gets to use a non-portable potty.
"Do you want a drink?" Gale asks when she emerges from the bathroom. "There were gallon margaritas out there."
"Are you trying to be a widower already?" Madge asks, snorting at the confused expression on Gale's face. "A gallon margarita would kill me, Gale."
He might've gotten a super liver with the serum, but she's still got her simple, unaltered one.
How anyone can process that much liquor and still be breathing she isn't sure.
As if to prove her point someone across the room stumbles and sends ice and drink onto the floor with their bucket sized cup.
"Oops!"
Expecting a very drunk girl to be giggling and clinging to her equally drunk boyfriend, Madge rolls her eyes and squints across the room.
Her mouth drops open when she spots the drunk.
Blustering around on the ground and trying to stem the flow of drink from her plastic bucket with her bare hands, Delly is loudly apologizing to a man dressed like a rodeo clown without wig and makeup.
"Gale…"
"I see her," he answers, his eyes locked on Delly. A hunter with his prey in his sight.
They slowly walk past several car displays, mixing with the crowd, until they're behind Delly.
"I just tripped over my feet," Delly blubbers, her voice rising. "I'm just so sorry!"
"Delly?" Madge calls to her, voice so soft she doubts can Delly even hear her.
Before she says her name louder though, Delly freezes, her head cocking her ear up. She'd heard.
Slowly, Delly's wide blue eyes turn, almost unfocused, and meet Madge's.
"Madge?"
A smile creeps onto Madge's face and she lets out a sigh of relief.
"Dell-"
In less than a blink of an eye Delly is up, her feet slipping in her spilled drink.
"Get away, Madge!" She shouts, scuttling away. "You need to stay away!"
"We want to help you," Madge tries to explain. "Delly, we need you to come with us so we can-"
"Stay away!" Delly shouts, looking increasingly panicked.
Reaching out, her hand digs into the bumper of a truck, crushing it as easily as if it were plastic, and with a grunt, rips it off.
"Please!"
Then the softness is gone from her eyes, replaced by something feral, inhuman.
Letting out a scream, Delly swings the bumper at Madge, but it never makes contact.
Instead it crashes around Gale's forearm, stopping just over Madge's head.
"Don't touch her!"
Without so much as taking a breath, Gale wraps his free hand around the bumper and swings it up, flinging Delly overhead.
She flies, crashing into the windshield of a F250, sending the crowd scattering and screaming toward the exits.
Looking unfazed, Delly rolls off the truck, reaches over, pulls the hood from the front, and tosses it as if it were a plastic frisbee.
Gale bats it away just as easily.
"Get a hold of yourself, Cartwright!" He shouts.
"She isn't right, Gale!" Madge tries to explain as she works through how to fix this mess in her head. "Seeing us triggered her!"
"You don't say!" He yells back, ripping the door off a car and using it as a shield as Delly pulls the wheels and doors from her truck off and throws them at him.
She's going to kill him. Her mind has been compromised, probably programmed to destroy her former friends. Madge has to stop her, she has to save Gale.
Delly's attention is all on Gale as Madge has a sudden spark of inspiration and begins digging through her purse. She makes a triumphant noise as she finds the taser, thankful security wasn't as vigilant as they ought to be.
Racing around the trucks, Madge grips the taser in her hand and dodges debris, bits of window, parts of an engine, and the side view mirrors, as Gale keeps Delly distracted.
Gale's eyes widen when he spots Madge climbing up in the bed of the truck to Delly's left.
"Madg-"
The taser fires and the prongs hit Delly.
She stays up, turns and glares murderously at Madge, but Mr. Abernathy had clearly been properly paranoid. The taser is definitely super charged for serum altered individuals.
The taser jolts again and Delly goes to her knees, then her palms, before finally collapsing.
For a few minutes Madge stands limply, just watches Delly's body on the ground, occasionally twitching, before she feels something brush her fingers.
Jumping back, she looks down and finds Gale, sweaty, bruised, and with a few scratches that are rapidly healing on his cheeks, leaning against the truck and looking up at her in concern, his hand still outstretched where he'd reached for her.
"I had to stop her," Madge explains, her voice shaking, barely carrying in the dim quiet of the now vacant showroom. "She was gonna kill you."
It sounds like justification for knocking out a girl in distress, and it is, but there hadn't been a choice. Delly would forgive her, once they sorted her mind out. She wouldn't want to hurt anyone and she'd be grateful this happened.
"She'll live," Gale tells her, glancing at the now still Delly, breathing shallow. He turns back to Madge and offers her a hand again. "Come on."
Slowly, Madge sits on the side of the truck bed and swings her legs over, lets Gale help her jump down.
She lands with a plop beside him, her knees buckling under her, causing Gale to catch her around the middle to keep her from falling.
There's a gaping gash on his forearm. The bleeding has stopped already, it's probably started to heal just like the small nicks he's littered with everywhere else, but it still kills Madge. She should've thought faster.
"Gale, I'm so sorry," she whispers, blinking back tears. He's hurt and she feels at least partly responsible. This was her mission, she should've had a plan for this. Nothing ever goes smoothly and she should've known seeing them might have this effect on Delly. "I didn't-this is my fault. I should've thought faster, I sh-"
"You thought ahead," Gale cuts her off. "You smuggled in a weapon and you saved our asses. You moved plenty fast."
"No, I should've known-"
"Madge," he growls, "you did the best you could. No one can plan for everything."
She almost points out that some people do. People with more experience and forethought than her, but he gives her a stern glare and quiets her protests.
Reaching out almost involuntarily, Madge runs her fingertips over a fading bruise on his cheek and grimaces.
"Still, I wish you hadn't gotten hurt because of it." She sighs. "I don't even have a bandage."
Not that he'd need one, but still, a little first aid might not hurt. At least she wouldn't feel so useless.
His eyebrows furrow and she expects him to tell her she needs to stop beating herself up again, but then his lips twitch into a smirk.
"If you wanna help it, you could always kiss it better."
For a moment, Madge just stares at him, unsure if he's making a joke or teasing. Then she realizes she doesn't care.
The time is all wrong. She shouldn't be thinking about kissing Gale while poor Delly is face down in the middle of a car show at a state fair, but Madge can't make herself care.
Without waiting for him to laugh, tell her he's messing with her, Madge pops on her toes and presses a kiss to the bruise.
She lets her lips linger, memorize the sensation of his stubble on her skin, the warmth of his breath, the scent of his body, before finally falling back on her heels, her own face flaming.
"Better?" She asks softly, her eyes focused on his chest, counting his breathes.
Calloused fingers reach out, tip her chin up, and when she sees his face, the bruise has healed.
"Yeah," he whispers.
He starts to lean in, and Madge prepares herself for his lips on hers, but then someone lets out a low moan to their right.
Delly stirs, seems to be waking up, and that kills the already strange moment.
"We should, uh, get her out of here before she wakes up and we start all over," Gale tells her, sounding every bit as disappointed as Madge feels.
Madge nods, runs a hand through her hair and tries to settle her nerves before pulling out her phone and sending a message to Mr. Abernathy telling him they need a rapid extraction.
When she looks up, Gale is hoisting Delly up, like a very heavy bag of potatoes, over his shoulder.
"Where are we meeting them?"
Madge holds out her phone. "Just follow me."
He does, making huffing noises as he does.
"I've still got a lot of injuries," he says, cutting her a glance. "You can't see all of them."
A little smile twitches up on Madge's lips and she gives him a small look.
"Okay."
He almost trips over his boot.
Madge takes that as a sign he'll be perfectly happy with her particular brand of medical attention. Whether he really needs it or not.