Thanks to the faves and follows! It feels really good to know people like what I write!
This chapter has a tiny bit of bad langauge, and I would apologise, but if I did it would mean that I wrote it in for no real reason other than poor word choices. The words are supposed to show the complicated side of Raegan. Anyway, let me know what you think!
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing except my OC's.
~O~O~O~
Raegan woke up that night suddenly.
Something didn't feel right, and she had learnt over the years to go with her gut feelings.
Stealing over to the door, she silently opened it and crept into Ali's bedroom. His gun was under his pillow, and without waking him she got under the sheets next to his sleeping body. He smelt surprisingly good, and she chided herself for letting herself think about how a guy smelt.
The door to her bedroom across the hall creaked, then the whisper of 'not here' could be heard before shadows moved closer to Ali's room.
"Do we kill straight up?" The whisperer stuck their gun through the doorway.
"Kalinski sleeps through anything," another voice replied. "He won't notice until morning."
Raegan reached up under Ali's pillow and pulled out his gun, slowly removing the safety and training it carefully at the door, which was suddenly pushed open and two figures stood there.
"Die, bitches," she said, and squeezed the trigger.
~O~O~O~
He woke to Raegan's shouts of indignation as she was dragged out of his room by four heavily armed guards. "What the hell is going on?" he asked sleepily.
She glowered at him from where she was straining against the guards in his doorway. "They were totally right: you really do sleep though anything."
That was when he noticed the bodies on the floor. "What part of 'no killing on my watch' did you not get?" Ali asked as she was dragged down to their shared living room.
One of the guards cuffed her hands behind her back and sat her against the wall.
The officer in charge stopped Ali with one hand to his chest. "She saved your life, Kalinski. Much as you don't want to admit it, she was right," he said quietly as they both stared at her poking her tongue out at any military personnel daring to look in her direction.
Ali left the officer in charge where he was and crossed over to where Raegan was sitting, squatting down in front of her.
"The way they're acting, it's almost like they don't appreciate me saving your life," she said bitterly.
"Thank-you," he said softly, putting his hand on her shoulder and looking her straight in the eye. "I should have listened to you before. I'm sorry."
She smiled, but her eyes focused on something behind him. "Shit," she muttered, and Ali turned his head to look in the direction she was staring in.
Max had entered the room.
~O~O~O~
Max strode over to where Raegan sat, his face livid. "What the hell did you think you were doing?" he shouted.
Raegan glared at him. "Saving people's lives. What about you?" she sniped back.
"I'm just wondering how you somehow managed to singlehandedly kill two agents?" he replied.
"Easy. It was either Ali or them." Max's expression softened a little at her blunt statement. She sighed and slumped against the wall. "I'm sorry," she said. "Were they friends?"
"Nobody liked Kami and Alex. It's okay, Raegan," he said gently as a tear slid down her face.
"Can I go have a shower?" she asked. Max nodded. "But only if Agent Kalinski accompanies you." He chuckled at her expression of horror. "Just into the bathroom. We have such a thing as morals."
Raegan glared at him. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't really believe you."
"I won't look," Ali said. "I have some decency."
Raegan gave him a small smile. "Ali, you are yet to learn that it is not you I am worried about."
Raegan slipped into the bathroom, motioning for Ali to follow her as more soldiers made their way into the small apartment they both shared. What multiple soldiers were going to do in the already small apartment, she didn't know.
"Turn around," she ordered Ali as she pulled her shirt up over her head. He did as she told him, but not before he noticed the long- evidently deep- scars that ran across her back.
"So, what did you do that was so bad that you ended up wanted by Trustheim?" Ali asked. She turned on the shower, the sound of the spray hitting the tiles bouncing through the bathroom.
"I was in the science division," she replied briskly. "I'm an alien, you see."
Ali inhaled sharply. "As in the 'take us to your leader' type?" he asked quietly.
"Yes, but there'll never be an actual invasion, so don't worry about that," she said softly. "I'm the last of my kind."
~O~O~O~
Raegan dried her hair as Ali passed her a pile of folded non-descript clothes- a pair of blue jeans and a black shirt with a v-neckline, blushing a deep red that was a stark contrast to his sandy blonde hair and turning away, whistling softly as she got dressed.
Her damp red hair cascaded down her back as she pulled on the t-shirt.
"If you don't mind me asking, how did you get the scars on your back?"
"I do mind, actually, but if you must know, that was the Trustheim Disciplinary Code 804."
"You mean... they lashed you?" Ali asked, horrified. "How old were you?"
"Twelve." Rage overcame Ali's facial features briefly before it disappeared. "I cannot believe that the Director allowed for that to happen," he said quietly.
"The Director was the one who delivered it," Raegan replied bitterly, pinning her damp hair away from her face.
"The Director is a good man. I doubt he would allow anybody to be lashed," Ali mused aloud.
"And yet he did. I think you need to rethink your perspective of the Director." She turned to face him, anger distinctly on her face.
"Goodnight, Ali. I will keep watch- make sure nobody tries to kill you."
~O~O~O~
He woke to Raegan in the kitchen, making breakfast while writing quickly on a notepad.
"What you doing?" he asked sleepily, stifling a yawn and collapsing into a bench beside her.
"I caught a glimpse of Max's mind last night. I'm trying to remember as much as I can from his thoughts. It's hard enough as it is, so do you feel like going and pouring some tea for me?"
"Why not coffee?" Ali asked inquisitively, pouring some of the warm brew into a mug and sliding it over to her. She took a sip, glancing over at him with one eyebrow raised.
"Some people are just far too dependent on a morning caffeine fix," she sighed, scribbling over the pages yet again.
"And yet, you just drank something that contains caffeine," he countered. "So yeah!"
She responded by poking her tongue out at him. "It's not my fault you idiots are that uncultured that you don't have decaffeinated tea," she teased.
"We aren't uncultured!" Ali spluttered, spitting the sip of coffee he had just had into the kitchen sink. Raegan raised an eyebrow.
"Really?" she asked sarcastically. "Because what you just did is clearly the height of civilisation."
Ali scowled at her and took a gulp of coffee. "So, what you got on everybody's favourite S.O?"
He craned his neck to read her scrawled writing on the almost full notepad. She tapped it a few times with her pen before draining the mug of tea and looking up at him.
"Operation Twilight, Project HERO, some Initiative involving me, and some weirdo called Fury. Wears an eye patch, looks a bit like a pirate. He's a Director of some organisation that Max cannot say without an acronym."
"Nothing like the Director here?"
"If by that, you mean he doesn't give people beating for no apparent reason, then the answer is yes. He seems pretty nice in Max's memories, if a little scary."
"I'm flattered, Miss Adakai," a voice said from the couch.
Raegan whirled around and pulled the gun out from her jeans pocket.
Ali gave her a sideways glance. "I am going to be sensible and not ask how you acquired the gun and which of the higher-ups I am going to have to talk to about this," he said slowly.
Raegan snorted. "Wise choice, Ali."
"That's interesting," the voice continued. "Why do you converse with one of your captors and use his actual name?"
"Hey, I will be the one asking the questions thank you," Raegan snarled. "How did you get in here?"
She noticed the open air vents and sighed. "Barton showed you the way to my room, didn't he?"
"No, he didn't," a female voice said silkily as the owner strolled around the corner, gun in hand. "I did."
Raegan smiled. "Natasha," she said, relief overtaking her features.
"Hey Raegan. Ears still pointed?"
"Government agencies and secret organisations still after me too, I see," Raegan said sarcastically, motioning toward the man on the couch's head with her gun. "Mind telling me who this idiot is?"
The man stood up, and Raegan instantly noticed the eye patch covering his left eye. "My name is Nick Fury and I am the Director of SHIELD. I'm here with a proposition for you, Miss Adakai."