So it goes with saying that only things I own with any connection to MARVEL I bought on Ebay or Etsy. MARVEL COMICS & MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE are their own creatures and I have nothing to do with either of them aside from the fact I enjoy reading or watching them, and am grateful for the ability to play in their world. I claim nothing, and I receive nothing for this, expect the pleasure of putting something out into the world.

You can also find this story on ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN under the same title and pen name along with a place to post suggestions.

Don't forget to check out the Photobucket album listed on my profile page too. (My apologies. I didn't realize FF removed the links. I have corrected the problem in what way I can, so for those who like the visual additions, feel free to check them out.)

DAY FOUR

CHAPTER NINETY ONE

FRIDAY, MAY 4TH 2012

0203 HOURS

VELES TAXI GARAGE

HELL'S KITCHEN NEW YORK

DUNCAN AKA ALEXANDER

HYDRA is all about 'the new world order' crap, but at a certain point down at the bottom of the ladder, it's really all about just creating chaos. creating fear and misery. Nothing motivates people more than those.

HYDRA's created wars, HYDRA has ended wars. They've cleared the path for certain political leaders, and removed others . They've orchestrated economic recessions or collapses. They've bankrolled terrorist organizations or events, all sorts of big deal stuff. But it's not all big ticket plans. They work the small scale too, you have to when your plan is to make things so bad people are willing to accept a little horrible.

Serial robberies, gang violence, drugs, corrupt cops, police brutality, cover ups and misinformation in the news. Sometimes they even throw in a murder or shooting that goes unsolved just to make people nervous. A couple old ladies die execution style on the way home from the store, the treats they had for their grandchildren scattered and sitting in their blood.

What a tragedy? Why did it happen? Why isn't anything being done? When will they strike again? People get scared and angry, people get stupid, and some group gets paid.

There's a lot of 'em that get paid in Hell's Kitchen. The Kitchen Irish, the Yakuza, the Russians, the Dogs of Hell, Madame Gao's drug trade and any number of other groups clawing for power and property.

I'm running on a very short list of options here. I'm not only trying to hide from S.H.I.E.L.D but the HYDRA moles inside S.H.I.E.L.D, so I couldn't exactly go to any of them for help. It's not like we run around duck walking, and greeting each other with hail HYDRA. We share that secret with the person who recruited us into it, and maybe one other, but most of the time not even that. So I can't trust anyone to really be S.H.I.E.L.D.

That's why I came to this city, and why I'm in one of the Veles taxi garages run by the Ranskahov brothers. Two former Bratva captains who murdered their way out of a prison would have a very hard time getting out of their country, let alone their continent without a little help. Lucky for them HYDRA decided that American soil could benefit from their personal business practices, and we helped bring them over, or I did.

Personally I never wanted to see these assholes again. Human trafficking isn't my thing. that doesn't change the fact I'm standing in a shitty shop bathroom in front of a time worn mirror with a bendable desk lamp on the toilet to make up for the dim ceiling light, and carefully removing my 'eye' with a jeweler's tool set.

I've been really lucky this thing hasn't killed me yet, and for a while I kept telling myself that maybe I should just leave well enough alone. Messing with it might trigger the fail-safe that seems to of malfunctioned. But the truth is, while taking it out might kill me, so will leaving it in because eventually they might figure out a way to reboot this thing remotely, and then I'm definitely dead.

So I decided to man up and flip the damn coin here. I'm not gonna lie, holding those clippers to the plastic wire coating I felt like I might piss myself, but then they cut through clean and nothing happened. Nothing happened.

I twisted around and dropped myself down on the seat of that toilet, my head leaning so far back and touching the wall, and covering my face in my hands I just started to laugh.

For 5 years, 6 months, 23 days everything I saw was being seen by someone else. I couldn't sleep, drink, piss, or shower without someone else there watching me do it. Every second, whether my eyes were opened or not. It took almost 24 years, for me to understand what freedom felt like. I was too young when it started to realize but I've been a slave to my father from the day he adopted me when I was 5. I should have known something was wrong though when my 'father' put his ten year old 'son' in boot camp.

I just got set free, by a woman who meant to kill me, by another person who lived in a prison without bars, and she did it on my damn birthday! Oh I'm definitely taking her to France now, if she wants, where ever the fuck she wants.

There was something almost disturbingly delightful about crushing that eye to pieces under my steel toed boot, and flushing the pieces down the toilet after I taped a gauze band-aid over my eye. I couldn't remove the metal housing for the prosthetic, but didn't really plan to, since it was fused with part of my skull. I just wanted the bomb out of my head, and broken beyond recognition before I went and talked to the brothers.

I walked out to find a rather unsurprising surprise waiting for me, in the form of a shirtless muscle head, a semi circle of men and a bunch of closed garage doors. I was really hoping to skip this shit but I knew better. I don't come pre-packaged in prison tattoos and scars like they do in Russia, so my accomplishments in violence aren't declared and don't give me the benefit of an unspoken back the fuck off.

They like to joke I'm a pretty boy, and because this time I walked in clearly on the losing end of a fight, I have to first to prove I'm still a man worth their time. If I want to get to the work part I have to get past the play first. "And he'd be?"

"Boris." The fact that Vladimir is all smirk at the sound of my amused sigh makes it pretty clear which of the brothers set this up. Anatoly on the other hand is at least polite enough to offer me a bottle as I shed my jacket. I always liked Anatoly just a little more. He has less rage and more sense than his younger brother, doesn't mean I'm not gonna enjoy beating the shit out of his man. "Okay big guy, I win you gotta say moose and squirrel."

0218 HOURS

"Does it hurt?" Despite those god awful fake nails she is wearing she manages to be gentle as she puts another butterfly band aid over the broken skin around my empty eye socket, doing a decent job and containing her discomfort at the sight. "No love, not anymore."

I was mildly concerned I might lose the fight, because I still had a bullet hole in my hand despite the industrial strength glue holding it closed, and being minus an eye my depth perception was off. But then Boris decided punching me in that eye was a idea, and after my head stopped ringing I found the idiot hunched over cradling his hand, and I returned the favor by hitting him in the face with a wrench.

They gave me a bottle of Stolichnaya Red and Trixie is a reward.

Trixie is the blond dressed in fishnets and lace, with bruises hidden beneath her thick foundation who is sitting in my lap carefully cleaning up my wounds for me and pouring me drinks. She's one of Vladimir's girls, I can tell by the way she cowers around him, and it makes me want to kill him, but I can't because I need their men. So instead I'm holding a kidnapped woman in my lap, making comments about how I don't want to infect my dick with his left overs and hating myself for every second of it. I can't save everyone and sometimes good intentions mean you save no one.

"So this job you have, tell us, yes?" Anatoly's the one who asks, his question withheld for half a second as he takes in the sight of the strange lines on my chest under the pretty blond's hands, the sight clearer after my shirt was ripped in the fight. "It's right up your alley, kidnapping and transportation."

"How many?" Smirking I pick up my half of the shots Trixie poured for us. "Just two, me and a woman." And tip it back.

NOTES FOR THE READERS:

I really didn't want to do it this way, because even though I surrendered to the idea, I still think it's a massive time jump. My only other option though was to rewrite the scenes from the AVENGERS and not only is that unnecessary because we already know them by heart, but the scenes while being important don't apply to Arnora's story. Any attempts I made at connecting them had me repeating what has already been covered, so I just decided to skip ahead to day four.