No-One But You (The Mystic Consultant) - Part 1

Chapter 71: Red Lights (Part 1)

...

I'm sorry. Wait. A truce?

Clint Barton was reluctantly following the others. They were moving at a pretty slow pace, and it all had to do with Victor's precious boyfriend...

The baby archer wasn't paying attention. He wasn't following along at all, and he kept thinking about how he left his cellphone back on his tiny bed. He forgot about it, and he zoned out half of the conversation that was going on around him.

Clint was missing the fact that Ezekiel had been repairing his suit as they migrated North. The archer zoned everything out until he heard something being said about them agreeing to a truce.

...

A fucking truce? Yeah right.

What about all the body snatching shit? Clint wasn't convinced the behavior would suddenly end. He didn't understand what Ezekiel got out of it anyway. He almost asked...

Ezekiel held a sharp look. He almost responded to Bucky's persistent conversation, but an alert from his technology suddenly paused his thought.

He received a notification that he had been waiting for, and his troubled heart started racing.

"A truce works for me. I might need you three, right now."

Key word, might. Ezekiel planned out a move in his head, but he decided to include Natasha, Bucky and Clint Barton as backup.

The other members of the group seemed confused. His mood changed pretty quickly, and naturally they questioned what the Jackal said.

They all looked hesitant. Hesitation didn't work for Ezekiel. He calculated a move that actually included them, and he needed them to get on board. The Jackal seemed a bit more composed as he stepped toward Natasha Romanov, and he quickly extended out his hand.

"I will tell you what you want to know, if you agree to help me. Deal?"

He wasn't asking for trust. Ezekiel was pretty over trying to earn any of that. Natasha took a moment. She stared at his hand, and then she glanced over at Bucky.

Bucky seemed a bit dumbfounded with the change, but he held a quirky smile. Natasha was ultimately getting what she asked for, but the archer wasn't buying it.

Clint Barton watched Natasha touch his hand. All of a sudden she was making a deal with the devil's son, and then Ezekiel moved on to shake Bucky's hand.

Victor's "friendly roommate" was the only one that kept his arms crossed. He didn't extend his hand out at all. The archer barely even moved after the conversation took a bizarre and sudden turn.

I mean, what? Ezekiel didn't seem "better" but he suddenly seemed pressed for time. The others didn't know it, but he had to act quickly.

The alert he received had to do with Wade Wilson...

Trying to convince Victor's roommate to join his cause felt like a waste of time. Ezekiel struggled with it in that moment, so he made another quick decision.

"I'll take my chances with two out of three."

Meaning some low-rank "field agent" named Clint Barton could stay behind. Ezekiel didn't plan to beg or wait for him to join the conversation either.

He didn't like him to begin with, and the archer caught the drift.

The Jackal turned away, then he covered Bucky's arm with his white tech. It spread over toward Natasha, and he finally gave the two of them the armor that he designed when he first worked for S.H.I.E.L.D..

They were supposed to be a "team" back then, and Ezekiel felt like he might be needing them to pretend like that was still a thing.

"You back me, I will back you. No games."

That was the contract he had going on with the X-Men, and in his mind, that was the contract he just successfully made again with two members of S.H.I.E.L.D.

He didn't have time to hear them talk about it either, or question anything that he said. Ezekiel covered himself with the armor that had been malfunctioning, then he took off toward Wade Wilson.

He left Victor's friendly roommate far behind, and the baby archer kept staring ahead.

Bucky and Natasha were still processing the tech that randomly covered their skin. It was directly connected to Ezekiel's suit, so they both started screaming when they were forced to follow it.

Chapter: END

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