Chapter Text
“What the hell is going on?” Hunter asked, as they raced down the steps of the city clerk's office.
“If only I knew.” She pulled her hair back into a ponytail.
They ducked into an alleyway to get away from prying eyes.
“We need to get our things, then we need to get out of here. There’s probably more on their way.” She said, starting to walk down the alley, spotting a car parked further down. She grabbed her wallet and pulled out a miniature set of lock picks. With a bit of finagling the door was unlocked. She slid into the driver's seat and unlocked the other door for Hunter. She used her key to pop off the cover under the steering column and pulled out the wires.
“You know how to Hotwire a car?” Hunter asked as he got into the vehicle.
“You don’t?” She asked, as if it was akin to riding a bike. After a moment she’d found the right bundle of wires. “Knife?” She held her hand out.
“I was always afraid of frying my brains.” He put his pocket knife in her hand.
She popped it open and began to strip the wires. She twisted the ignition wire to the battery wire, then stripped the starter wire. She touched the starter wire to the battery wires. Sparks. She continued to spark the wires until the engine roared to life. She revved it a few times to ensure it wouldn’t stall.
“Are you bleeding?” Hunter asked, finally having a moment to give his should-be wife a once over.
She shrugged, “tis merely a flesh wound.” She started to pull out of the alley. “You can’t go up against a katana and expect to come out unscathed.”
“Huh. You really weren’t kidding about the ninjas,” He said.
She pulled the nunchucks out of her waistband and dropped them into his lap as if she was dropping a mic.
“Oh. You have receipts.”
She leaned against the hood of the car, phone held to her ear with her shoulder as Hunter loaded the last of their things from the storage unit.
“Thank you again, Pepper. I owe you massively.” She said before hanging up. “Phone please,” She ordered, holding her hand out to Hunter.
He reluctantly handed it over.
“We’ll get new ones. I just don’t want anyone tracking us.” She said, grabbing a roll of duct tape from the car. She approached one of the trucks parked in the lot of the storage facility and slithered under it. She taped their phones to the underside of the trailer. To anyone tracking their phones it would look like they were going to Minnesota with the Smiths, or California with the Wongs.
She returned to the car and got into the driver's seat. Once Hunter was in they pulled out of the parking lot.
After a quick stop for supplies and pizza they were pulling through the garage door of a small warehouse along the Hudson. The setting sun poured through the windows filling the space with a yellow glow.
Hunter got out of the car and took stock of where he was. He knew better than to question Bobbi. A table with some papers caught his eye. “Wait. Stark Industries? Pepper. As in Pepper Potts?” He asked.
“No, Sargent Pepper, from the Lonely Hearts Club.” Her voice was laced with sarcasm.
“I didn’t know you had friends in such high places,” he commented.
“I helped them out with a corporate espionage problem a while back,” she shrugged. “But we’ll be safe here for a few days. Tony used this place as a safehouse. Kept it off his and SHIELD’s servers.” She explained.
He nodded, “let’s get you cleaned up,” he said, patting the table.
She sat down on it and peeled off her jacket. The sleeve was sticky with blood.
She bit down hard on her lip as the burn of rubbing alcohol radiated through her arm. She craned her neck, trying to get a glimpse of the cut, cringing at the sight of her own bicep pulsing with every beat of her heart. “It’s going to need stitches.”
Hunter nodded and began to get the supplies they’d picked up ready. He carefully bent a sewing needle into a curve and placed it in a bowl of rubbing alcohol along with a spool of dental floss. He pulled on gloves before threading the needle.
Bobbi pulled a glove onto the hand of her uninjured arm, reaching over to help pinch the skin together for Hunter. As soon as the needle was near her, she turned her head away and squeezed her eyes shut. Her jaw was clenched and her breathing heavy.
“Good as new, love.” He said as he finished wrapping her arm with gauze. “Now go have a beer. Doctor’s orders.” He said with a smile.
“Don’t let your ego get too big for your head.” She slid off the table and grabbed a bottle from the six pack. She firmly held one of her batons to the table to keep it from rolling away and used the metal edge to pop the lid off before offering it to Hunter.
“I knew those were good for more than just threatening me.” He teased, setting the box of pizza down and taking the beer.
She popped open her own beer and had a large sip before grabbing a slice of pizza.
While they ate the laptop open beside them combed through databases trying to identify the ninjas.
“Who do you think they are?” Hunter asked.
“To hell if I know. It’s not like ninjas are a common occurrence in my line of work. Cryptic gunmen with mysterious scars and funky accents, sure. But ninjas? They’re an anomaly.” She took a large swig of beer.
“Oh. Right.”
“You ever encounter any during your time as a merc?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
Her laptop dinged.
“Got a match?” Hunter asked.
Bobbi quickly looked over at the screen and shook her head. “It’s a message.”
One of our contacts reached out - earlier today a bounty over your heads was activated. Half a million each. Seems like the Russians wanted to tie up a loose end but needed to make sure you were back on US soil so they could feign innocence. Filing for the marriage license confirmed that. DC wanted me to make sure this got to you.
- D
40.730772, -73.997686, 14:25
Her eyes finally left the screen and landed on Hunter. “This cannot be real. It has to be some kind of joke, right?”
“I don’t know, love. Your description of the ninjas seemed pretty real to me.”
A beat.
“You’re right.”
“So what do we do next?” He asked.
“Survive.”
“And how do we do that?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice was brittle, as if it would shatter at any moment.
The academy had prepared her for countless situations, but nothing could have quite prepared her for this. For the first time in her life she was truly on her own. There were no resources. No backup. No extraction. No one to bring her body home. And that realization hit her like a ton of bricks.
Bobbi’s fingers wrapped around her batons. Their heft against her palms was a welcome comfort. She paced along the table, hands mindlessly twirling while they tried to work out a plan.
“Staying stateside is a death sentence. An international flight would give up our location. We need to drive. South probably. Costa Rica wouldn’t be a bad place to settle down.”
Deep down she knew that they wouldn’t be settling down anywhere anytime soon, but she wanted to keep that glimmer of hope alive. She’d begun to let herself get excited at the possibility of having a normal life, but all of that had been torn to shreds in an instant.
“We can’t get across the border without raising alarms.”
“We need to disappear. Become ghosts. As far as I’m concerned, Bobbi Morse and Lance Hunter no longer exist.”
She sat on the floor, her left leg tucked under her and her right outstretched as they sorted through their things. They had three piles - one to keep one, one to get rid of, and one to destroy.
As she went through her backpack she pulled out a little pouch and tugged the zipper open. Inside was a bottle of painkillers, she took them when the weather or mission made her previous injuries flare up, and an inhaler, after losing half her lung, colds were especially rough on her. Her injuries a permanent reminder of everything she’d sacrificed for SHIELD. She peeled off the labels with her name before zipping up the pouch and tossing it into the keep pile.
They continued to slowly work through their things, the throw away pile continuing to grow larger and larger. They’d decided to try and limit themselves to keeping only what they could each store in a backpack. The destroy pile contained only things that could be used to identify them.
The sun had dipped below the horizon casting a blue hue over everything. The Manhattan skyline glimmered on the other side of the river.
Her thumb ran across the embossed metal. The badge shouldn’t have meant anything to her, that version of SHIELD had crumbled with the Triskelion. Yet it meant everything. It represented over a decade of her life. The sacrifices she made. The marriage she lost. The people she’d saved. The life she should still be living.
Hunter laid his hand on her shoulder. “Hang onto it. That eagle still carries a lot of weight to some people.” He said quietly. He had kept his dog tags.
“And they could use it to identify my body.” She mumbled as she tucked it into her pocket.
“I was trying not to put a damper on things.”
Her hands lingered as she reached for the last item and traced over the spots where the fabric had been repaired, each one brought up a different memory of her old life. Tear filled eyes looked down at the mess of blue, gray and black sitting in her trembling hands.
Hunter’s arms wrapped around her waist, “take as much time as you need,” he whispered. The suit had been a core part of her identity for over a decade.
“This one’s from Dubai,” she said, her fingers brushing over a sewn up hole in one of the gray panels.
Hunter groaned. “Don’t remind me of that bullsh*t.”
“It was fun.” She said with a small smile.
“For you maybe.”
The dry desert air wafted through the unfinished building. Below them the bustling streets of Dubai roared with activity. Hunter laid on his stomach looking through the scope of a sniper rifle, observing the party below. Mack sat atop a bundle of lumber, computer open, tracking Bobbi’s location. They’d set up hours ago, waiting for her to move in. Though the sun had set, the temperature had just barely dipped below a hundred.
The mission was simple. Provide support while Bobbi infiltrated a launch party thrown by a CEO that SHIELD suspected of arms trafficking. Or at least that’s what Hunter was led to believe.
Their comms crackled to life with Bobbi’s voice. “Approaching now. H, you in position?”
“Of course, love.” After a few minutes of looking through the scope Hunter couldn’t locate Bobbi. “Where are you, Mock? I don’t have a visual. I’ve scanned the entire ground floor.”
“Look up.”
He finally caught sight of a shadowy figure with blond locks, crouched on the roof with her middle finger held up. “What are you doing up there? I thought this was undercov-“ She’d shut off the comms.
He shot a glance back at Mack, “what in the bloody hell was that?”
“Classified. Just cover her.” He said, still typing. “Elevator is grounded. Signal her.” He said.
“And this is why you aren’t supposed to get into bed with spies,” he muttered, flashing his light at her three times.
Bobbi disappeared into the elevator shaft. A few moments later three flashes of light came through a fourth floor window. An indication that she was out of the elevator shaft and Mack could reactivate it.
Hunter continued to watch over the party. “There’s two guards heading towards the elevator.”
“It’s fine.” Mack said, not even taking a moment to look up at him.
“No it’s not. If they catch Bobbi she’s a dead woman. We need to go over there and warn her.” He shot up.
“No we don’t.” Mack stood in front of the doorway. “You walk over there and blow this entire op she will never speak to you again. That life you have planned for yourselves. You can kiss that all goodbye.” His voice was sharp.
“Why should I trust you?” Hunter snarled.
“She’s a good spy, one of the best. She planned this OP. You need to trust her.” Mack said before pausing for a moment. “She’s like a little sister to me. If anything happened to her on my watch I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.” All of the harshness had faded from his voice.
“Fine.” He grumbled, returning to his post by the window. This was the first time he’d met Mack and it’s safe to say that his trust was in short supply. He kept the scope trained on the fourth floor, desperate for any indication that Bobbi was okay.
A few minutes later Bobbi’s head popped up in a window. She held the flashlight up for a moment, starting to send another message. Three blinks. A guard wrestled the flashlight from her hand and she was down. He looked in the direction of the building, trying to locate who she was communicating with.
“sh*t. She’s been made.” Hunter said, finger hovering over the trigger. “Us too maybe. I can take him out.”
Bobbi had been very clear with her instructions. No bloodshed. She did not want to deal with the paperwork.
“Do. Not. Shoot.” Mack spat.
“Why? Bob’s been compromised.”
“Her orders, not mine.”
Hunter looked back through the scope, the guard crumbled to the ground, falling victim to a flying baton.
The comms crackled back to life. Gunfire rattled off in the background. “We’ve been made, boys. Move to exfil.” She said through heavy breathing.
“Copy that Mock,” Mack responded. “You heard the woman, move out.” He said to Hunter.
Hunter quickly packed up the rifle and slung it over his shoulder.
Feet pounded up the stairs. They needed to get out. He unholstered his pistol. “Stay behind me.” Hunter ordered.
Mack grabbed a metal pipe that had been lying around the construction site and tightly gripped it.
With a lot of heads slammed and punches thrown they managed to clear a path outside.
As the pair emerged into the moonlight, a Lamborghini pulled up. The window rolled down revealing Bobbi, a big grin on her face. “I thought you boys were supposed to be my extraction.”
Hunter couldn’t help but chuckle at his girlfriend. “Sorry, love, we got a little distracted.” He quickly climbed into the front seat, leaving the back for Mack.
As soon as the doors were shut she floored it. They were being tailed by a pickup with armed guards firing at them.
“Take the wheel.” Bobbi ordered.
“What?” Hunter asked.
“Grab the steering wheel.”
Confused, Hunter obliged and reached over, grabbing hold of the steering wheel.
Bobbi pulled her knife from her pocket and looked down. A spot of blood was forming around a hole on the gray panel of her suit. She used her fingers to make the hole a bit larger before jamming the knife into her wound and digging around.
“Did you get shot?” Hunter asked.
“Eyes on the road!” Bobbi exclaimed. She pried a small bit of metal out of her abdomen and chucked it out the window. “Those asshats tried to tag me like a pair of keys.” She muttered, wiping off her fingers on the legs of her suit. She unholstered her gun and flicked the safety off. “Keep driving,” She ordered as she popped her head out of the window and returned fire. She quickly hit a tire. The truck lost control and hit a guardrail.
She ducked back into the car and took over driving.
“What in the bloody hell was that?” Hunter asked, now that it seemed like imminent danger had passed.
“The mission.”
“Not the one I signed up for. It was supposed to be an undercover OP.” He said.
“I never said that.” She pointed out.“I said that I would be infiltrating a building with a party. I never said I would be a guest at the party. You jumped to your own conclusions.”
“Bobbi, I risked my life for this. You don’t think I deserve to know the whole truth.”
She shook her head. “That’s not how the system works. If every contractor involved with an OP knew the whole truth that puts people like me in danger. Say word had gotten out about our little mission, they would have increased security on that floor and I would have walked right into a trap.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I didn’t make a blood pact with Sam the Eagle or whatever,” he muttered.
“Exactly.”
"So you really don’t trust me?” He asked.
“When did I say that? It’s not my call. These protocols are in place to keep us safe out in the field.”
“Oh sure Bob, hide behind your shield again.”
Mack cleared his throat. “Can this couples therapy session wait until I’m out of the car?”
“C’mon Merc, you’ve got to admit that racing a Lambo through the streets of Dubai in the middle of the night was pretty cool.” She said, cracking a small smile.
“Would’ve been more fun if I got to drive.”
She rolled her eyes, “you could’ve if I hadn’t needed to bail out my extraction.” She quipped.
“We were being shot at.”
“Yeah I was too.” She said quietly. Her gaze fell back down to the suit in her hands. Her fingers tugged the zipper closed before folding it. Tears ran down her cheeks as the neatly folded pile of leather and nylon fell into the barrel.
“I’m going back inside.” She said quietly before extracting herself from his grip and heading into the building with her head hung low.
Once in the bathroom she took a long hot shower, desperate to wash off the ick of toilet water and public restroom. Now dressed she stood facing the mirror, a towel draped over her shoulders. Armed with scissors she began to cut away at her signature blonde locks until they were shoulder length. She looked down at the pile of hair in front of her before catching her reflection in the mirror. Behind her she could see the billow of smoke - her past life being reduced to ashes.
The Mockingbird was dead.
