These chapters are updated at random and they either come out short (or shorter), but I'm happy to say that we are getting closer to the sequel of "ACASW". Since you guys are such avid readers, with your encouragement and small bits of criticism, I'm gonna throw you a bone here. I think when I previously posted "Web of Intrigue", people were confused on where to look to until after I added an extra chapter in the previous story to give them the right directions. Anyway, here's the sequel title of "ACASW":
"Ariadne's Web"
I already got somebody to do the cover art for me and it's gorgeous! When the next story gets posted up, find a picture of Spider-Gwen and you'll be good to go. Man oh man, I'm so excited! I'm pretty sure the next chapter will be the last one, for this side series at least, before we get it on back to our main girl's journey into the MCU, making waves while trying not to crap her pants. "Web of Intrigue" will continue on, in case you're wondering, to tell other tales that I think will have been glossed over in the future installment of this series. Oh? Think you misheard me? Oh no, you heard right: "Future installments".
I won't get into too much details, but let's just call it that one thing where you look at this story and wonder... "What if?"
;p
Disclaimer: MCU belongs to Disney and Marvel Studios/Comics, I only claim ownership over my Original Character(s) and a little bit of the plot!
Warning: Language, Violence, Adult Content, possible Triggers (there will be heads-up for these things), and whatever comes to mind.
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ഢҼb oҒ أӣҭԻأᏩմҼ
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B Ƭ
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The lights were flicked off.
...
"I'm in a healthy relationship with Pepper Potts. You remember her, right? Tall? Strawberry blond? Killer high heels she will literally use to stab anyone to death with—?"
Instead of standing there and listening to Stark babble on about him pining for his CEO girlfriend, Natasha cuts right in with a statement that she knew would get everyone's attention like snapping fingers in a quiet room.
"She's coming in." she looked at her phone, the message from Coulson giving her and the others a heads up. "Don't wanna scare her off."
"I can already see her running for the hills. Seriously? Is this a rescue operation or an interrogation?" Barnes muttered, scowling at her. "I'm not gonna sit around in the dark like some creep. Turn on a lamp or something."
As an agent who's variety of specialties included stealth, this tactic shouldn't have voiced any complaints from the Winter Soldier. Though, given who they were about to meet, she could see why he wasn't so keen on pulling this song and dance on the girl.
"Is this the first thing they teach you in super spy academy?" Tony wondered out loud, his sarcastic self not wanting to miss an opportunity to throw more japes. "First lesson: if you want to extract a mark, make them shit their pants first."
All she did was give the two a look that said she was not impressed with their unwelcome snide commentary. The never ending sass and shade they kept throwing at her (she was SHIELD's poster child in their eyes) was nothing but a nuisance, yet at least they were more tame compared to the other people she had worked previously before. It still would have been reassuring if she had brought Clint with her, he would have dished out as much as those two grouch's were throwing at her. Coulson unfortunately thought that three people was already pushing the limit in their first ever contact with Weiss.
If all their speculation and theories were correct, Stark was deemed with highest probability that Iron Man and Spider-Woman would come to some sort of shaky truce. Barnes was still an ambiguous case, leaving a lot of people with doubts whether his presence would be welcomed, but the Winter Soldier was pretty persistent in proving everyone wrong about their presumptions. Natasha, however, was an entirely new element that would take the girl off guard.
Natasha was representing SHIELD, and she needed to be there to see if the girl was the real deal. She had already gotten her hands more dirty after being sent on several operations in taking out former colleagues, had captured few alive and "interrogated" them for more information on the whereabouts of the next cell that needed to be wiped clean off the slate while it was all reported as terrorist attacks in the reports to the higher ups.
Already there was a buzz of tension going on in their network, people looking over their shoulders and eyes ever watchful of their peers' movements. Sometimes she felt the hair on her arms rise when she stood inside an elevator, agents pressing themselves against the surface of the walls as they never wanted to be caught with their backs open in case of an unseen attack from the people they were working with. Natasha could not count how many times she saw the faces of people she walked past in hallways, shared a lunch table with, or sometimes worked with when Clint was not available—her previous training the Red Room prepared her for this. She killed others like her to survive.
She still remembered the way Coulson stared at the list and faces of the marked agents they had taken out, pausing over some he had been watching grow into remarkable people until their lives were forcefully cut down by his hand.
Clint had been paranoid and shaken at the slightest possibility that someone would catch on to his monthly disappearance to the safehouse. He wasn't the only agent.
The people from the hallways, lunch tables, and assignments were all familiar faces she would remember ahead of times, but between them and her, at least she and the people who mattered weren't going to end up six feet under.
If there was the smallest hint that everything they were led to believe about the girl was false, Natasha would not hesitate to pull out one of her knives and stick it in the girl's face. Sure, the information they gathered was true enough, but this all could have been a ploy from the beginning to gain everyone's trust and then strike them when they least expected it.
Self preservation was the goal, but it was also Clint and his family that was in danger, so Natasha would gladly continue with the bloody operations to take out any and all danger that posed against herself and her own people. If she could do it back in the Red Room, she could do it again in SHIELD.
For now, she'd endure the sassing and shading.
It was like a cloak of silence passed over them, all three falling quiet as they waited for the owner of the apartment to come. Natasha forced herself to keep calm, her experience easily masking the twitch and drowning out the adrenaline that threatened to rush up when her mark was coming up the stairwell. It was like her senses suddenly heightened to the point where she could hear high heels tapping against the hard concrete floor, drawing closer and closer.
The door from the apartment's entrance gave a jiggle; they could hear the tiny keys jingling from where they waited in the living area because how still and quiet all three of them became. And then the door opened.
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Something was different.
The Asset watched the girl cough up the last bits of vomit to the floor, taking in her deathly pale complexion and the scrawny limbs that she called her arms trembling like quaking leaves in the wind. The girl looked close to losing her strength and falling face-first in the messy puddle, too weak from the series of attacks thrown at her by the Asset to give a good fight. She was starved and cold, it was only a matter of time, but...
She was still stubborn, acting like a child throwing a tantrum when she didn't want to follow through with her guardian's rules. Failing every lesson thrown at her by the Asset and her other Instructors. She was becoming a disappointment, a student who performed poorly for her teachers for the lack of trying, and the Asset could see the shift in the superiors that were watching the proceedings with dark looks and deep frowns on their faces.
They were going to have to pull out other means soon if she didn't comply to her teachers. Other means that made her wish she was dead than she was alive, that she would scream and cry and beg before fading away inside herself.
Yet despite all that was going on around them, there was something that nagged at the back of his head. Watching her, fighting her, teaching her, beating her, the Asset felt a change of pattern as their sessions continued. Day after day, he saw the way the girl was looking around her surroundings, the way she was looking at the soldiers, Instructors, the Doctors that watched them from the observatory above, and the Baron. Before, she was too afraid to look at anyone in the eye, or sometimes she would make her eyes see past whatever body was standing in front of her, but now...
She was looking at the Asset, past the pain and swollen eyes and bruises and broken bones, she was giving him a look that made him feel a small sense of alarm.
There was something going on. A growing threat that he wanted to report, to take care of with a swift and clean slice of the throat with his knife or a quick draw of his handgun in between her eyes. There was no proof of whatever danger she was about to impose, she would remain locked away in the bunker for an indefinite period until the Baron deemed that she would be taken out (unlikely anytime soon), there was also multiple hallways she couldn't navigate without the clearance of a staff member, not to mention the security guards that were armed to keep her from making a run for it.
Whatever escape plan she had, it would end in failure.
(youwouldknow)
It still didn't erase the foreboding sense that there was a shift of balance. Their might, their sense of power over her, her fear, it was gradually diminishing from her eyes as the days went by. Her eyes that were wide and pleading grew darker as they stared at all the things and people she watched in silence.
The Asset finally gave in his paranoia and ordered for more security to be stationed around in the training halls and outside her cell.
That did nothing to deter her. Perhaps another tactic needed to be used to enforce the idea that any dreams of being free was futile. The Asset was taught to be a realist, idealism had no place where he and the girl stood. Their power was for the men who stood on top, to keep it to themselves was being stupidly selfish. The Asset was not merciful, but this was the only bit of kindness she would get from him: whimsical and weak beliefs like the girl's were meant to be crushed and overpowered by people like HYDRA, the sooner she learned, the better off she would be.
She slammed against the concrete wall behind her, collapsing in a small heap on the floor.
The Asset didn't give her time to recover; the Instructors did not want him to go easy on her today.
She snapped her head up, raising it high enough that his heavy boot missed her head completely. He moved to kick upwards but her hands were already on his legs, causing the move to push her up on her feet thanks to the momentum he unintentionally provided for her. She was getting a little better, still clumsy to fight back with her fists but moving fast enough to evade several blows and kicks. He swung a fist at her, but that too was caught.
He expected that. In an easy move, he used the same arm she captured to yank her towards him and flip her around until she had her back to his chest. His metal arm came immediately around her throat, squeezing it hard enough to close the air from going and out of her lungs. A gargled noise escaped the girl, struggling to shake him off her back but he had lifted her off the floor, so all she could really do was dangle like a wet rag. She kicked her legs uselessly, but that didn't help any with her situation.
What he didn't expect was to lose control.
Her flailing and kicking around ceased and instead rose in a steady move that when she swung her legs back down, creating a momentum that came thanks to the help of her super strength, she forced the Asset forward that he flipped over until he landed violently on his back. His shock made him briefly lose concentration which led to him losing his grip on the girl who had already hauled herself up and turned on him.
He fought back, trying to gain back control, but she wasn't giving him any room to strike her. They rolled around on the floor until she ended up behind him while lying on her back against the cold concrete floor, her arms and legs tightly secured around his torso to prevent him from making any attacks against her.
From above, the Baron appeared pleased with the sudden turnaround. So impressed he was that he gave a small applause for the impressive display the girl managed to achieve in finally subduing her opponent. She still needed work to fight back, but this was better than no improvement at all.
But she didn't care about impressing anyone.
No, she was too immersed with keeping a tight grip on the Asset, drawing her face closer until he could feel her shallow breath tingling against the outside shell of his ear. She wanted to say something to the Asset, probably wanted to express herself for the first time since they were both too busy having one-sided fights against one another to have conversations. Did she want him to cry? Did she want him to beg for mercy? Did she want him to reenact the way she had when she was first brought into the training rooms? Did she want him to apologize of all the hurt he caused her, and helped when he was ordered to?
What she said was world shattering.
"Longing"
It came quietly, not how it was usually announced so loudly that the words bounced around the room to continue ringing inside his skull afterward for hours. Her voice which quaked with fear and meekness came at him like a knife, forcefully cutting into the deepest parts of himself like how a scalpel would with a body, and her arms and legs were like the leather bindings which kept him from escaping that cold metal slab table.
"Rusted"
The Asset felt the sense of panic, the loss of control of the situation, the balance she was threatening to shift. His struggling renewed, arching his back to crawl over until he was on his feet so he could slam himself into a nearby wall if only to silence her. He needed to get her off.
"Seventeen"
The other soldiers were beginning to stare, no longer in curiosity but with suspicion. He opened his mouth, ready to yell out orders but the girl was more quick. With one hand kept on his arms in a solid grip, his mouth was forcefully clamped shut, preventing the Asset to call for aid.
"Daybreak"
He tried to shake his head, shake her hand off his jaw, but she only pushed his head backwards until it was resting against her shoulder. Forced into the locked hold, her voice remained with clear intentions that she was going to finish this before anyone had the chance.
"Furnace"
They finally began to notice something was wrong, the way he was trembling violently like he was still experiencing spasms from his time on the Chair. The girl was too close to the Asset, doing something that was causing their Soldier to react such a way.
"Nine"
The Baron barked an order from above, the Asset could barely understand it he was too busy trying, and failing, to block out the voice that whispered things that reminded him of all that was absent and dug out from his body and mind. Words that continued to cut deeper as the knife forged on inside him, reopening the scabs that would never close up.
"Benign"
His body was failing to fight back, the imaginary bindings of leather coaxing him to keep still. It was almost over, it was almost time for him to—
"Homecoming"
The other soldiers moved. Pulling out their batons, electric charges sparking to life. The voice wavered for a small bit, but they forged on like the knife that was inside his head, wanting to reach closer to that place that made the Asset fall back inside.
"One"
He could hear the others yelling, their voices threatening to crowd around, but their words were muddled because only her voice came clear to him like a cloudless blue sky with the sun out.
"Freight car"
(withyoutilltheendoftheline)
The Soldier opened his eyes, counting eight guard they were surrounded by with their batons ready to be used. The other security guards were still ways off, remaining in parade rest unless orders by the Baron were given. The Baron, the Soldier saw, was leaning over the observatory, watching like a hawk.
"Please Bucky, get me out of here," was her quiet order. "Don't let them take me."
She lets him go.
The Soldier complied.
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The Soldier watched the burning base grow farther and farther until it was but a bright speck in the distance from his place behind the chopper's cockpit. The girl, dressed in stolen clothes to cover herself against the cold biting winds from the Siberia winter, stared ahead of her.
There was small specks of blood on her face, but she did nothing to wipe it off. The Soldier, unlike the person sitting next to him, was covered in gore from using bodies as shields against the rain of bullets when there was no cover to fall back into. Thankfully the girl wasn't totally useless, having helped with providing enough distraction and chaos so that he would take off for cover or dive for the next weapon when he ran out of bullets.
Agents, Instructors, Guards, Doctors, the Baron, all killed and left to burn after the Soldier left an explosive when the girl ordered that the entire base be eradicated off the face of the earth.
"Just burn it. Burn it all, I don't care." she croaked, voice clear and unwavering despite the way her body trembled after everything.
They'd soon have to leave the helicopter behind once they reach Moscow, the chances of it being rigged with a tracking device was too high. They also had to avoid other HYDRA bases (again, her orders).
Her orders were abnormal, forcing him to kill his own commanders and destroy the base where he operated. The only time his handlers wanted someone within their faction killed was because of failure, their incompetence, their expired usage to the cause, their arrogance, their use in being made as an example for everyone to keep in line, and a message to anyone who threatened to compromise their cause.
Yet it didn't matter who or what the person, nor the reason why they needed to be eliminated, she simply wanted them all dead and gone.
Not only that—she wanted the Soldier to disappear.
She wanted him to leave, to never return to any HYDRA base, safehouse, compound, or other establishments where they operated. The girl wanted him to stay away from everyone, from the cities, towns, villages, or small communities. Whatever compelling feeling he got from wanting to go back, she said, don't follow through with it no matter what. He would disappear, fade into the background where he would have to look over his shoulder at all times.
That was his final mission, said the girl. By far, the most abnormal person to ever command him. Orders were orders, and the Soldier always complied.
"James Buchanan Barnes."
The Soldier turned towards her, but she was staring at the endless snowy landscape ahead of them.
"Don't forget it, it's all you have right now: your name."
(thatwasthelastgiftshegavebeforesheleft)
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He was still there.
Flying faster than he had ever since that time he thought Pepper and Happy were in danger, but he made it to the mansion in Manhattan. The sky had gotten dark, the city lights illuminating the entire metropolis which he carefully navigated with JARVIS silently guiding him. He was going to feel bad about it later when everything was said and done, his voice biting and venomous when JARVIS tried to dissuade this whole confrontation business, urging for Sir to call someone, please because what if this was a trap and what if they Sir was overwhelmed?
Tony wasn't good at listening to logical advice.
The armor landed like a meteor, the ground beneath him caved in and burned from the power of the thrusters. The landing could have gone smoother, more gently really.
(donotgogentleintothatgoodnight)
His face plate folded backwards, letting his eyes rest upon the shadowed figure that had jumped to their feet in surprise when he made land fall. The man in the baseball cap and hoodie sweater was standing in front of two black gravestones surrounded by a small wall of hedges that came to the person's thighs.
The mansion was abandoned mostly, but Tony couldn't bring himself to sell the estate. He hired people to take care of the yard and gardens, his mom loved to grow things when she had time to. Sometimes Howard would even take a small walk outside, a way for him to think about whatever next project for his business, the fresh air giving him some strength before he had to go back down in the basement where it smelled of oil, machines, and booze.
That man standing in front of him looked the same as he did when he killed Howard and Maria all those years ago.
That man standing in front of Tony still looked like James Buchanan Barnes, Captain America's sidekick, one of the Howling Commanders, and a man turned to become the thing that helped destroyed everything everyone helped create in trying to keep the world safe (before SHIELD/HYDRA ruined it).
"You," Tony growled, his voice threatening to break from merely looking at the monster wearing a familiar ghost's face.
He didn't give the other man time to react. With a lunge forward by the power of his thrusters, his open hand quick to take the grasp of the surprised Winter Soldier by the throat with another fist clutching the front of the sweater before flying towards the back wall of the estate. Behind his plate mask, Tony watched with satisfaction the way the body in his hold crumpled easily like the bricks of the ruined wall did after he rammed the assassin through it.
The Winter Soldier landed on the empty street, coughing and shaking off the dust and small debris that followed him. Tony sneered from behind the mask plate, looking around for anything he could use to flatten this asshole.
"Mr. Stark—"
Not finding anything in his reach, he instead went for the next best thing: a Prius. His suit gave something like a wheeze, the arms and legs enforcing its strength thanks to the arc reactor boosting as power as it could to keep the car from flattening the man inside the suit, Tony then heaved towards where the assassin was.
The dark-haired man stared from a few dumb seconds at the car thrown his way then quickly rolling out of the way of the car's destructive path. Having been so distracted on the possibility of being squished to death, Tony had flown over towards the HYDRA spawn, grabbing him by the ankle to swing his body like a human bat and hit a homerun when it slammed into the next car's windshield.
The man didn't pick himself up again.
By now, all the ruckus Tony was causing was starting to grab some attention. Dark windows from nearby buildings were lit up, curtains pushed aside to reveal curious faces that wanted know what the hell was going on outside their homes, bystanders from a block away were starting to look down the street with worry.
"Sir, you must stop. You are, as Ms. Potts would say, in hot water as it is with the explosion at Stark Industries and the highway incident."
(Idon'tcarehekilledmymom)
He walked up to the car, grabbing the Winter Soldier by his dirty, dusty, and torn jeans to drag him off the windshield and hood. When the man didn't look like he was going to get up on his own, his metal fingers curled around the super soldier's throat and lifted him up with their faces inches away from each other.
He wanted to kill this man.
He wanted to so badly kill the Winter Soldier.
Eyes slowly fluttered open, wincing at the intense light flaring on his face from the artificial eye holes the metal face plate provided. They were a brilliant blue, full of pain and resignation as they dizzily tried to focus on Tony.
He wanted to kill this ghost that used to be known as Bucky Barnes.
"What's the Fist of HYDRA doing skulking on my fucking doorstep?" Tony hissed, tightening his vice-like grip on the man's throat.
Instead of getting any answers, anything really, the Winter Soldier's eyes rolled back closed and the rest of him became an unconscious dead weight that hung on Tony's hand like how laundry hung on a clothes line. Tony glared hard at the assassin's face, silently willing him to open his eyes and face him, but the Winter Soldier remained unconscious with no indication that he'd be waking up anytime soon.
"Sir," JARVIS alerted him, pointing at the increase of attention. It was still too dark, JARVIS had temporarily blacked out the street lamps to give more cover, but if more lights from the apartments nearby came on, it was going to expose him.
There was going to be people wanting answers on why Iron Man was beating up some guy with his weaponized suit.
He was already under fire because of the aforementioned explosion at his company and fight on the highway against Stane. He was only happy nobody, besides the people that were with Pepper, got hurt, but public opinion was shaky at best. Christine Everhart certainty didn't help matters as she liked to bring up his past as an irresponsible drunkard who was way in over his head thinking he could take on the rest of the world with his fancy suits. Just like that, half the people were wowed by Iron Man while the other half looked dubious.
If this scuffle between him and the Winter Soldier got out, it would paint Iron Man in a very bad light. Everyone would be too busy shocked and appalled by the image of the flying superhero to look past the image and deeper within to see what he was really doing. They would compare this to a police officer using too much force on an unarmed civilian, citing brutality.
With the whole media circus keeping him away, slandering his name and purpose, forcing other partner company's to retaliate by cutting off ties to Stark Industries that it would fall incredibly low in the stock market, the Winter Soldier would make off and disappear like the wind.
And Tony wasn't going to let the Winter Soldier walk away. No more disappearing into the shadows like a good HYDRA snake.
He looked back towards the mansion.
"JARVIS?"
"Sir?"
"Do me a solid and call Rhodey. Tell him to bring a police van." Tony hoisted the unconscious super soldier over his shoulder. "And tell Happy to meet me at the airport."
"Yes Sir."
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"What the hell...?!"
The Winter Soldier stared back at Rhodey with wary eyes, looking pitiful and not at all like the murderous robot they've read from the files with his dark hair looking like a rat's nest, face bruised and bloody from the ass-whooping Tony gave him, and clothes that looked like the Soldier had stolen off the back of some homeless person. If there was one word Rhodey could pick upon first meeting this legendary phantom menace, it was this: anticlimactic.
If anything, the Soldier appeared to be more scared of Rhodey than Rhodey was of him. His metal monstrosity of an arm was stuck between a giant metal clamp, some enforced tool Howard kept in his dead workshop to keep the assassin from going anywhere. Though from the looks of it, the Soldier didn't appear like he could put up any more fights; rather, the dude looked more like he needed to have himself a thorough showering to get rid of the smell and filth he accumulated before being found, not to mention a warm meal in the man's stomach. Judging by the dark bruises under his eyes, the quiet assassin didn't appear to have an easy time in sleeping either.
Shaking off the observation on the shifty super soldier, Rhodey turned his eyes on the person that had him fly all the way to New York at three in the goddamn morning.
He wasn't complaining much about waking up in the odd hours of the early morning, Lord knows how many times Rhodey did that on his own, but a little warning would have been nice. He especially would have appreciated a heads up when it involved the Winter motherfucking Soldier!
Tony meanwhile was sitting across the room. The Iron Man suit was standing upright in sentry mode, ominous eyes gazing down at the Winter Soldier whilst the head of Stark Industries busied himself in munching on some Chinese take-out like he wasn't sitting in the same room with the world's deadliest assassin that had been around kicking ass and taking names since before the Cold War.
Rhodey stared at him.
Tony only offered a shrug.
"I got hungry waiting for you, honey-bear."
Tony then had the audacity to make an obnoxious slurping noise from his plastic cup he sipped through the straw, meeting Rhodey's angry eyes. There was going to be words later on, but for now, he wanted to finish eating his Teriyaki plate before they had to move their prisoner and transport him back to California with them.