August 15, 1992

Terry looked at the screen in front of her, feeling bored. Prison duty wasn't particularly exciting. She could appreciate downtime, anyone could, but she had been raised to be active, not to just sit in a chair and do a desk job.

She felt someone wrap their hand around her hair and give it a sharp yank. Terry was jerked backwards. She immediately lashed out backwards with her arm as hard as she could.

"Oh, hey, ouch! Ouch! I surrender, I surrender!"

The hand let go of her hair and Terry turned in her swivel chair.

"My hair is not a toy Wade," she said.

Wade grinned at her: she could see the fabric bunch up strangely at the corners of his mouth. He shrugged and leaned against the wall.

"Can't help it," he said, "You're like one of those cabbage patch kids. Red cabbage."

"Don't be an asshole," she said.

"I'm the best asshole there is," he said.

She rolled her eyes, but it was an old exchange between the two of them. He peered over her shoulder at the different screens.

"So, how's all of our little inmates here?" he asked, "Any of em makin shivs yet beautiful?"

"No," Terry said, "Just boring stuff."

He leaned on the control board.

"You could always go with my suggestion," he said.

She closed her eyes.

"We are not staging gladiatorial fights among prisoners," Terry said.

"I never said that!"

"Right," Terry said, "You said they should be dressed as different cartoon characters while they did it."

He giggled then, that strange, insane giggle that scared most of the SHIELD operatives. Terry'd always had a stronger stomach, so the most it had done was unnerve her while her father rolled his eyes.

While she still wasn't completely comfortable with it, it was just a part of who he was.

"Come on," he said, "Don't tell me you never wondered about who'd win in a fight: Daffy Duck or Porky Pig?"

"No," she said.

"I mean, you'd think it'd be the duck, right, but he's super stupid!" Wade said, "I think that if they were in a life or death situation-"

Despite herself Terry found herself laughing.

"Just stop talking," she said.

"Not gonna happen beautiful," he said.

He looked around and leaned a little further.

"Of course," he said, "Now that your dad isn't here to give me evil laser beam looks, when's your shift end?"

She looked up at him, pushing some of her hair out of her face.

"Three hours," she said.

"Hmm," he said, tapping his chin.

Terry leaned back further and watched him as he cocked his head, almost like he was in deep thought.

"I'm thinkin dinner," he said, "There's a great place, well, it's okay, well, maybe not, but it lets you go in costume with your weapons."

He made a face.

"Taco Bell doesn't anymore," he said, "Dicks."

Terry hesitated and put a hand on his arm.

"You don't have to go in costume you know," she said.

He looked down at her.

"Either that or the cashier faints," Wade said.

His tone was light, but Terry knew him well enough to hear the edge there. She remembered her own reaction when she had first seen him without his mask on. Terry had grown up around mutants, remembered seeing Hank for the first time, and all of the other people with strange mutations who came in and out of Westchester.

It just made the gasp that she couldn't stop seem all the worse, to see the injuries that could never heal, the scarring that was still seared into her mind. She remembered the sneer in his voice when he turned away from her, and the invisible shove that made her decide that that gasp would not be the final word on the matter.

His voice still drifted through her thoughts as she touched his face, her own acidic voice letting him know that nothing had changed, to stop being such a baby and trying to push her away. His muttered words about how kind she was had somehow sealed the situation for them.

Just like she did then Terry reached out and touched Wade's masked face. If she concentrated she could just feel the scarred welts beneath the fabric. She smiled faintly and pulled up the edge of the fabric.

Before he could do anything she flipped it up to his nose and kissed him on his mottled, scarred lips. When she released she could see that he was already pulling the mask back down again. His eyes were quirked in a way that said just about everything about them.

"Well, we could always have something delivered," she said, "My place?"

His mask bunched up at the corners again.

"Pizza?" he asked.

"Pizza," she said, "But no applesauce, okay?"

"Aww..." he said.

Terry flipped her hair.

"You can add the applesauce later," she said.

"Have I told you you're amazing beautiful?" Wade asked.

She smiled then, trying to ignore the pain she felt in her heart. It was probably the closest that Wade would ever come to saying that he loved her, even when she'd told him how she'd felt. She'd come to terms with the fact that he was never going to say a long time ago, and all that was left was to move past that one twinge of pain.

"Not lately," Terry said.

He began to say something, Terry wasn't sure what it was, but the monitors began to flash and a siren went off. Terry swirled around in her seat and began clicking through different camera angles, Wade coming up and standing next to her.

She finally found a view that showed a heavily built blond man and a woman covered with fur running down a hall.

"Prison break?" Wade asked, his tone giddy.

Terry keyed in the command for a lockdown and sent out the automatic alarm.

"Those aren't prisoners," she said, "I think they're busting someone out."

"So, prison break?" Wade asked.

"They're breaking someone out, that much is certain," she said.

Wade whooped as Terry got up. She grabbed the SHIELD standard issue guns, not that she had used them often. She had been taught to rely on her limbs and voice to fight her battles for her, not a machine. Still, she liked the reassurance.

She tapped the screen again, getting a better view of the hall.

"This makes no sense," she said, "No one's in that sector right now...except..."

Her voice died off. She pushed away from the computer monitor and began to hurry down the stairs. Wade began loping after her, catching up with her after a few seconds.

"Didn't finish your sentence beautiful," he said, "Is that what they call a hanging verb or-?"

"Wade, Sinister's down there," Terry said.

She keyed the code to the doors and ran as fast as she could. Wade kept pace with her, his brow furrowing behind his mask before his eyes lit up.

"Oh yeah, that's that guy you fought in the second story, right?" he asked.

"Wade, we really don't have time to listen to all the weird stuff you reference right now," Terry said, "It's deep shit if he gets out, okay?"

"Okay, okay," Wade said.

She keyed the final code and stood at the hallway and put a finger to her lips. Wade took out his katanas and the two of them moved as quietly as they could down the hallway. Terry took as many deep breaths as she could, trying to get her lungs to stop burning. She'd need to be in good voice for later.

Terry peeked around the corner. The furred woman and the blonde man were standing in front of Sinister's cell. She put a hand out to stop Wade and the two of them watched as the blonde man began pounding numbers into the key pad.

"Hurry up," the furred woman said.

Terry looked at Wade. She knew that, somewhere, reinforcements were coming. She also knew that they didn't have time to wait for them. There was very little that waiting could get her, and there were two of them now.

She jerked her head towards them. Without a word Wade moved around her, putting one of his katanas away and taking out one of his guns. By the time the blonde man looked up Wade had already gotten a shot into his arm.

"Trick or treat!" Wade roared.

Terry smiled and turned around the corner. Wade didn't bother to cover his ears, and Terry didn't bother to warn him. They had worked together for far too long to need something so arbitrary as that. His healing factor would take care of the damage she was about to do.

She screamed as loudly as she could, the sound causing the room to shake. The furred woman howled and clamped her hands over her ears. She saw blood trickle out of one of the blonde man's ears.

Terry took another breath and the furred woman launched herself at her. The first swipe of her claws caught Terry's arm, but Terry twirled around and kicked her backwards. She followed it up with a swift kick to her head, but the woman dragged her to the ground.

She rolled onto her back and the furred woman leaned over, her claws extended. Terry sucked in air and screamed in her face. The woman faltered and Terry got up and smashed her head into the wall. When she was finished she saw Wade whistle over her head, hitting the wall.

Wade got back to his feet, bouncing from one foot to another.

"Here kitty kitty kitty!" he crooned.

The man snarled and raced for him, claws outstretched. Terry rolled out of the way as Wade buried his katana into the man's arm. He tried to hit him, but Wade flipped over his shoulder and shoved him away. Terry got to her feet and looked at the control panel that he had been tampering with.

She saw a countdown on it and recognized it as he countdown to the door's release. Her heart thudded painfully and she ran up to it. Her fingers began flying over the keys, trying to counteract the ominous ticking.

Wade moved beside her, his swords drawn.

"What's wrong beautiful?" he asked.

"The door's going to open in a minute unless I can stop it," she said.

"Well, that's not good," he said.

"Thank you Captain Obvious," Terry said.

She looked around her as the blonde man began running towards them, his face still in a snarl. Terry looked away from him. The keypad codes for the prisoners were unfamiliar and she was in a race against the clock. She couldn't afford to get distracted.

"Watch my back," she said.

"Always," Wade said.

There was a touch of tenderness in his voice, and Terry knew she would have to take back her earlier estimation on how he would say he loved her. She shook it out of her mind as she began moving her fingers furiously across the keypad.

Behind her she could hear the continued battle. Sweat beaded on her forehead. She had thirty seconds left now.

"You won't get it, you know."

She didn't look up, didn't let Sinister's voice rattle her. She couldn't.

"You're Cassidy's child, aren't you? It appears that you did take after your father."

She pressed another few buttons and saw the countdown slow down. She was so close, fifteen seconds away from the door opening.

"Shame. I would have liked to investigate that."

A hand wrapped itself around Terry's throat and she felt claws dig in. Terry had enough time to see the furred woman before she was tossed to the side. A ripping noise filled the air and Terry fell to the ground.

She looked at the tiles beneath her, at the gathering red. Her hair wasn't that long, was it? Instead she saw that the different drops were pooling together. Her hand went up to her throat and came out red.

Terry tried to take a breath and couldn't. She tasted the blood filling her throat and coughed as the door to Sinister's cell opened. He looked at her with a strange condescension as the furred woman took out some smoke grenades. Terry made an abortive movement towards them when the woman dropped them. Soon Terry couldn't see anything.

When the smoke cleared Terry couldn't taste anything other than blood. She fell to the floor, twitching slightly, trying desperately to clear her throat.

"What the hell just happened?"

Wade moved through the smoke, batting it away from his face. She could see his eyes widen as he knelt by her, his words coming in short bursts that she couldn't quite hear.

"Terry, keep holding your damn throat, okay? I'm gonna get some help but...don't...goddamn it don't..."

She felt him pick her up, but she couldn't breath, couldn't even focus on his face.

"Please don't...don't do this to me, okay? So don't-"

A blanket of darkness closed in around, her lungs starved of oxygen

"Terry? Terry!"

Her eyes closed and the world faded away.