You or Your Memories
“Alexander, wake up. You need to wake up now.”
A big hand shakes his shoulder roughly but Sandor burrows further into the dark corner of the closet. He doesn’t want to be awake. “Sandor, you need to wake up. It’s okay. He’s not going to hurt us anymore,” his brother whispers and finally, Sandor opens his eyes. Yegor is staring down at him with his big wide eyes and there is a streak of blood across his forehead and more blood dripping from the skin under the eye that is already beginning to bruise.
His brother’s hand cups Sandor’s face: “I promise Father won’t be able to hurt us anymore, but we need to leave. Now.”
**
The punch came from a mile away and Sansa let her head roll with it to lessen the impact. Even still, her cheek collided with her teeth and tangy blood filled her mouth. She sucked on the cut, worked up a lather.
The doctor stepped up: “Tell me, Captain, who do you love most in the world?”
Sansa had to laugh then. She let her bloody teeth show and then spat for effect; a splash of red on concrete. What a ridiculous question to ask a prisoner. Although, she mused, eyeing the doctor up and down, maybe not so ridiculous if the prisoner hasn’t answered any of your questions and you were desperate for anything.
“Are they dead?” he asked like he thought that he could possibly use Sansa’s hurt against her. “Is there anyone left who would care if you died?”
There was a small pop in Sansa’s implanted earpiece so she swallowed and said the first words she’d spoken in days: “Sure there are.” There was a bang on the solid door and the doctor and the goon who’d been torturing her backed away. The next hit slammed the door open and all 6’4 of Oathkeeper, electric batons in hand, came barreling through. She put down the goon like he was less than nothing and when the doctor tried to run, she knocked him out with a swift hit to the back of the head.
“Hey, Cap,” Oathkeeper greeted as she gently lowered the doctor to the ground. She sheathed the batons and quickly zip-tied the man’s wrists behind his back.
Sansa tried very hard to ignore her pain.
“You look terrible,” Oathkeeper said and Sansa breathed out, breathed in, breathed out, pulled against her bonds, screamed at the flare in her shoulder, and the ropes broke away.
“You’re late,” Sansa panted and spat out the last of the blood in her mouth.
“Red Thorn needed a little more time than anticipated,” she said.
Sansa frowned and raised a hand to press against the mound of her popped shoulder. The timeline had been two days; Captain America sneaks into the Warlock facility, plants the hacking device, gets caught to distract the Warlocks so they won’t notice Red Thorn and Squire poking around. After two days, her team storms the facility, makes some good arrests, and gets Sansa the hell out of there.
That’d been three days ago and a dislocated shoulder and four ripped-out fingernails and what might be a shin fracture.
“Tell me you got the formula,” Sansa gritted out because that would make it all worth it.
Oathbreaker’s grin revealed all of her crooked teeth and all of her joy: “We got it. It’s already on it’s way to the chem lab.” She gestured at Sansa’s shoulder: “You want me to pop that back in?”
Sansa nodded. As Oathkeeper positioned Sansa’s arm, she asked, “My shield?”
Grunting, Oathkeeper yanked, pushed, Sansa shouted, lowered her arm and answered, “Sellsword secured it. It’ll be waiting for you in the Quinnjet.”
Sansa panted for a moment as she went through the flow of pain, agony, relief and then all of that dulled into a persistent ache. After waiting a moment to make sure Sansa wouldn’t collapse, Oathkeeper hefted the doctor over her shoulder. “Ready?” She asked, with kind eyes and compassion in her smile.
Sansa nodded and started to walk, leaving bloody footprints from the unhealed cuts on her feet.
She’d feel better when she got her shield back.
**
God but the world felt heavy. Sansa had meant- she'd meant to go for a run, to see that lawyer in Queens, she'd meant-
Sansa turned over on the mattress and it felt like dragging bones. The yellow curtains barely moved in the humid breeze and Sansa had to close her eyes and she tried to get a hold of her hurt, she’d planned to-
God but the world was heavy.
**
Sansa bent down low over her legs, feeling the familiar stretch of the muscles, held the pose. She closed her eyes and breathed in, grimacing. She was still doing the stretches that the physical therapist had taught her. The doc said that her knee was healing too fast and that the exercises would make sure that it healed the right way.
She shifted slowly, moving fluidly into the next pose so that her nose brushed against her knee. A laugh rang out through the gym and Sansa turned her head to look. Bronn and Tyrell had been sparring- a deadly, terrifying, thrilling sight- but he’d swooped her up into his arms, hands settling on the small of her back. Tyrell had been the one to laugh, startled into the sound and there was a look of joy on her face; open and honest. For just this moment, she’d been distilled into a young woman in love. Sansa smiled.
Bronn ran his hands up Margaery's sides, a caress. He slid one up her arm, taking her hand, the other pulling her taut against him. Then, with an exaggerated flourish and a grin that made him look much younger, he twirled her out and in and into a tango. Margaery laughed again and fell into step. She brought her hand into his and let him lead her across the mat. At the edge, they made a swift turn. Their bodies moved easily together, close together, made into one.
Just as quick as they’d spun into the dance, they moved apart and went back to the spar; as deadly and beautiful as ever.
**
Two nights ago, Sansa ran a recon mission where she got made, almost got captured, but got out without jeopardizing the next day’s mission. The next shift wouldn’t find the bodies until the Howling Commandos were already in position.
On the way back, she stumbles against a tree, vomits, and when she looks up again, there is a grassy field just past the treeline and waves of wild flowers that look soft in the moonlight.
Yesterday, they ambushed the camp, found a heap of tortured corpses left behind by the White Walkers and blew the buildings all to hell.
Today, they are sprawled out in the grassy, flower-ridden field, waiting. Bran is hunched by the radio, turning the dials to find a signal but it’s not urgent. Things are quiet. The only real sound is Rickon cleaning a gun and wind going through the trees.
Sansa is splayed out on her back, head turned to the side and watching a clump of wildflowers sway back and forth. They have sturdy stems and delicate petals. She reaches out a hand- it moves too slow like the day- and she plucks one from the ground. Roots don’t come with it. She twirls it in her fingers for a moment and glances at her sister. Her eyes are closed but she’s not sleeping.
Sansa sits up, plucks another flower. Another. Slowly, in familiar movements that she hasn’t made in years, she makes a crown.
She puts it on her head and smiles, just a little. Then, because all she has to do is wait, she makes another one. And then one more. One more, one more.
When she stands, each of her siblings turn to look at her; the weight of Tully blues and Stark greys. She puts a crown on Rickon’s head and Robb laughs when she puts one on him and Bran wears his with a smile that crinkles around his eyes. Arya, though, Sansa holds out her hand to, the crown hanging limp from her palm. An offering.
Arya takes it and her smile is bright, bright, bright. Arya is not, outside of dark lit hallways and creeping through the night, often a graceful woman. Not because she is klutzy but just because she can’t be bothered. Now, she takes the crown made of purple and white and yellow, and places it on her head with more care than it really deserves.
“Your grace,” Arya dips her head.
Sansa curtseys, “Your grace.”
And then they laugh, full-bellied and well, even though nothing is all that funny but just because it feels good to do it. Then they are all laughing suddenly and Arya jumps up and starts to twirl, pulling on Sansa’s hand until they are spinning around and around and the wildflowers around them go blurry and the sun shines too bright because all of a sudden there are tears in Sansa’s eyes and she lets go of her sister’s hands.
There is Arya, standing with a flower crown on her head but covered head to toe in a deep green uniform with a belt of bullets looped around her waist and a blood stain that refuses to come out of her pants.
The world clashes and crashes and Sansa sobs and sobs and none of her family say a word because they had all cried like this before; nothing about this was new.
**
The office of Martell & Sand was decorated with warm browns and deep reds. The furniture had seen better days, as had the coffee table, but it had been well taken care of and was undeniably professional. The woman at the reception desk glanced up and smiled at Sansa although her attention was focused on the phone conversation that she was having. Her name plaque read “Nymeria Sand.”
Ms. Sand had a river of black hair spilling down her shoulders, thick and wavy and it shined. Her white dress was pristine and her nails were perfect. She was the jewel of the room;.Where the furniture was worn, she was immaculate. After a moment of listening, she spoke in rapid-fire Spanish, something about making an appointment to discuss an eviction notice and what action could be taken against it. Her voice was crisp and clipped. This was a woman who breathed efficiency and productivity.
After typing a few quick lines, she bid goodbye to the caller and turned her eyes to Sansa, running them up and down, calculating. Then she smiled bright and false and said, “Ms. Martell will be with you in a moment, Miss Stark. You can have a seat,” she gestured to one of the chairs.
Sansa smiled and sat, not bothering to pick up one of the magazines or fiddle with her phone like most people seemed to. Instead, she let Ms. Sand watch her as she looked around. To the left was a private office, the window in the door read "Arianne Martell" in crisp gold paint and on the other side of the room was a matching door with the name “Sarella Sand.” A family firm, Sansa mused.
After just a moment, Ms. Martell walked out of her office and came up to Sansa. Rising, Sansa shook her hand; it was a firm grip, just a little on the strong side as if she was trying to prove something. Her smile was fierce and pointed. Ms. Martell’s pant suit was expertly tailored and Sansa had the distinct impression that both the lawyer and receptionist were trying to make up for the rundown office by making themselves flawless.
“Ms. Stark, if you’d like to follow me into my office we can discuss what brings you here today?” Ms. Martell gestured towards the room on the far right and Sansa nodded and let her lead the way in. Unlike the warm colors of the reception area, Ms. Martell’s office was severe and white with a window looking out into the street. The office suffered from the same rundown qualities as the rest of the Martell & Sand. But then, it was an old building in Queens that had seen better days.
Ms. Martell watched Sansa for a moment, lips pursed. Sansa held shoulders up and her chin level, kept her jaw relaxed. She’d dressed in a sheath dress today and moderate heels- not as nice as she had dressed to meet with Lannister but well enough to give the impression of maturity and professionalism. She wanted this meeting to be a relationship not a power play. From the assessing looks that she’d gotten so far, it seemed like that’d been a wise choice.
“Why are you here?” Ms. Martell asked, deciding to be blunt. “I was under the impression that SHIELD had its own lawyers.”
Sansa nodded: “They do. But they’re not the lawyers that I need.”
“And what is it that you do need?”
“I made a bit of a rash decision a few weeks ago,” her lips turned up in a rueful smile. “I’m not too proud to admit when I’ve made a mistake.”
Ms. Martell’s face stayed blank and interested, only raising a single eyebrow. Sansa tilted her head before deciding the best way to go about this. “You heard about the destruction of Brownsville?” she asked, sure of the answer.
“You mean the destruction that you and Iron Man caused?” Ms. Martell said, clearly unimpressed.
Sansa let the comment pass: “And you heard about the Lanniscorp plan to build high-rise condominiums in the area?”
Here, finally, Ms. Martell smiled, cold and bitter: “You mean the plans to gentrify a low-income neighborhood?”
“That’s the one,” she said, matching the lawyer’s smile. “I may have told Tywin Lannister that if he made any attempt to follow through with that plan that he would have to go through me.”
“May have?”
“Threatened may be a better word.”
“So you came to me for, what? Legal advice?” Ms. Martell was leaning forward now, obviously intrigued.
“I did my homework before choosing you. You’ve done similar work in the past, haven’t you?”
Ms. Martell nodded: “Not usually on such a large scope but, yes, I’ve done tenement law before.”
“You want to take on another case?” Sansa asked, acting nonchalant even though nothing about the situation was. Asking a small-time common law lawyer in Queens to go up against the gaggle of lawyers that Lanniscorp could toss at them wasn’t something to shrug about. But Sansa really had done her homework and if any firm was going to be crazy and passionate enough to take the case, it was going to be Martell & Sand, Attorneys at Law.
Ms. Martell leaned back in her chair and gave Sansa another long, assessing look. It was more thorough than the last one, more critical. After a moment she asked, “Why? And don’t give me those lines you pulled in the interviews about it being the right thing to do.”
It was a question that Sansa had anticipated and she had a carefully planned answer because it involved giving up pieces of herself. “How much do you know about the history of Brooklyn?” she began with.
“Not as much as I know about Queens.”
Sansa had expected this: “Brooklyn’s got a long history of taking care of our own. In the 30s, a lot of how we did that was with groups like the Committee for Industrial Organization and the Radical Women’s League. And I was part of all of that. I did my first strike when I was 14 even though lord knows I couldn’t afford it and I became a union maid and I joined the League because there I was, just some slum kid in a factory making 15 cents a day and for the first time in my life, I felt like I had power. Like I mattered, my friends mattered, my family mattered. ”
Sansa took a breath: “But that didn’t lead to much of a paycheck and I’ve lived in 17 different places in my life. The worst was some frame house in Navy Yard with rats and cockroaches and dirty air. The nicest place was a cold water flat in Brooklyn Heights for 15 months right before the war. Most times I left because the rent got to be too much but other times- the world was cruel to a lot of people and when they stand up and fight back, you stand up with them no matter the consequence. I don’t have many things in my life that I’m proud of but that, standing up, I’m proud of that.”
“So sure, I’m standing up for Brownsville because it’s the right thing to do but the truth of it is that I’m just angry. I’m angry that I woke up in your glitzy future to find out that there’s still people being treated like they’re not worth anything.”
“Then why not join one of the Brownsville groups organizing to stop the remodeling?”
“I have. They recommended that I come to you and I’ve been going to meetings, volunteering, doing what I can. But unlike back in my day, I’ve got a name and I’ve got money and maybe this time I can do more than I could before.”
“Let me get this straight then,” Ms. Martell said. “You threatened Tywin Lannister- one of the most powerful men in the world- that if he didn’t build affordable housing in the neighborhood that his son helped wreck that you would, what? Take legal action?”
Sansa shook her head: “It didn’t really get that far. Mostly I said that I’d throw my weight behind my legend and give him a hell of a hard time and turn the public against him. But I figured having a lawyer on retainer wouldn't hurt.”
“Are you an idiot?” Ms. Martell asked, incredulous.
Sansa laughed. “Oh, probably. Like I said, I think I made a big mistake but believe me, Ms. Martell, I haven’t given up on a fight in my life. I ain’t givin’ up on this one either just because he’s a fat cat with a billfold.” She sobered. “Are you going to help me?”
Their eyes met for a long moment. It was a big question, Sansa understood that. She was glad that Ms. Martell was taking the time to consider it seriously. Martell & Sand was a small firm if not necessarily new. It’d be their biggest case, almost unthinkably so but both Arianne Martell and Sarella Sand had the history that she wanted; community based, defenders, and had worked with community organizers. They cared about the people.
Finally, Ms. Martell nodded, a sharp quick movement. “Alright,” she said. “Let’s stop Tywin Lannister. First things first though- if you want to use your name as a weapon, you have to make sure it has power, that people know who you are. And I don’t just mean the name Captain America. I mean the person.”
Sansa sighed: “You want me to get a twitter account, don’t you?”
Her smile was all teeth: “I want you to get a twitter account.”
**
Captain America@Sansa Stark
I believe I was promised flying cars #thefuture.
**
It was one of those murky, sweaty Monday evenings where Brooklyn skies were more yellow than anything else and it didn’t help having the fan on or the windows open or being stripped down until there was barely a stitch of clothes on you. And normally, normally, Sansa wouldn’t be thinking about it, was too damn thankful for being home to even think about it but-
Sometimes she missed the war. Not the war, but she missed having a reason to trek over hills in France or, once, during those weeks in Germany, going through Schwarzwald and seeing massive, rolling, stretching green for miles.
She missed it, days like this. She missed it.
**
Sansa clutches the prescription note in her hand, tight. It crinkles up and she breathes deep and blinks back tears. She can hear her father tinkering around in his lab, muttering occasionally. She can hear her mother wheezing in their bedroom. She makes herself look at the note again, read the number in the little box that was laughing at her; you had enough money for the doctor but not enough for the medicine.
Ma coughs and coughs and Sansa stands in a rush, pushing the paper into her trouser pocket. She hurries to the kitchen and wets a rag before going to her mother and pressing it against her forehead. Even through the damp cloth, Sansa can feel the heat radiating off of Catelyn. The room smells acidic and cryptic; sweat and the lingering stink of sickness. Catelyn is sweating through the sheets again and as Sansa wipes down her forehead, her ma’s bowls release and Sansa wants to scream. She doesn’t.
Instead, she rolls up her sleeves and turns her mother over and starts to clean her up. It’s been like this for days and she is resigned to the fact that cleaning up these messes is starting to get routine, even if it’s only been a little over a week. Three days ago, Sansa had come to the apartment to find Catelyn lying in a mess of her own shit, smelling like that’s where she’d been all day.
She’s never hated her father more; for not caring that his wife was sick, for not noticing the smell in the apartment, for not leaving his lab, for not getting a job, for not looking after young Rickon, for believing that the only thing in the world that mattered was finishing the serum for the betterment of humanity. Oh, she could hate him. But she tries very hard not to.
The mess her mother made is more liquid than anything; she’d only been able to swallow broth, and barely any of that, for days now. Her throat is too sore and swelled up for anything else, her stomach too roiled to accept something more. After cleaning her up as best as she can, Sansa bundles up Catelyn’s night dress and carries it to the sink where she could scrub at it and soak it for a while after that. First through, she fills the bucket up and carries it back into the bedroom and after wiping her mother down more thoroughly, puts her in a new nightdress and fluffs the pillows.
All through it, Catelyn moans and wheezes and sweats and her eyes slide right past Sansa and get heavy and hazy staring at the corner. Then Catelyn starts panting, pupils blowing up, and her chest heaving and then, and then, and then she goes utterly silent and still. For one terrifying, horrifying moment, Sansa is sure that her mother has died in her arms, naked and covered in her own shit.
Then she gasps like Lazarus and starts to cough and heave in air; a vicious cycle of in and out and in and out.
Sansa feels helpless but it’s not as horrible as it was in the past; she’s gotten very, very used to feeling helpless.
As she finishes wiping Catelyn down, Sansa runs through the same list that she’s been stewing on since Ma fell sick. It’s made up of numbers and dollar signs and Sansa’s utter inability to make it all add up. If this had all started up a week, no two weeks earlier, before all the rent was due and all the bills were paid, she’d have had enough. Sure, she and Arya would have been evicted again, but living rough for a week or so would be better than Ma being sick and there being no more money in the coffee tin. The money from the blue pictures she’d done last week had been enough for the doctor but what she had left over wasn’t near enough for the medicine. Or food. Not near enough.
Sansa hangs the washed nightgown on the wire outside that stretches from fire escape to fire escape, taking down the one that she’d hung up the day before. She folds it, dazed and dead eyed. She’s exhausted, her limbs dragging and heavy. She feels numb all over, like that night two winters ago when she’d tucked herself into an alley corner to sleep because a fella that she’d used to go ‘round with and had taken to using his fists on her was lurking around the building, waiting for her. It feels nearly just like that; very cold, very numb, and a sort of resigned terror and dull anger. Just like that.
Sansa turns and is confronted with the closed door of her parents’ lab. She stares at it and slowly, that dull anger builds a little, flares a little and she finds herself walking over to it. For just a moment, she hesitates, thinks about knocking, and then pushes the door open.
Ned is hunched over a notebook and taking glances at the beakers in front of him. He doesn’t look up. Sansa looks at him, feeling that anger still but mostly feeling that heavy exhaustion. Her head tilts and she wonders when her father got so old. A drooping face and greying hair with a hunched back and squinting eyes because she couldn’t afford to get him glasses.
“Scarlet Fever,” she says and her voice is flat.
He pauses and then, in the firm voice she remembers from when she was young, says, “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s just a cold.”
That’s when the anger comes back because how could he- how in the hell could he- “The doctor was just here, Dad. He just left. I have-” she fumbles for the prescription but can’t make herself take it out. “She’s dying . Can’t you smell it?” She asks and he still, damn him, he still won’t look at her.
She stalks forward, going further into this tomb of science than she has since she was 15 years old. “Don’t you care ? Your wife is dying. The mother of your children is dying right next to you and you’re- you’re-” she snatches up one of the beakers that's filled with a horrifying blue liquid, “you’re in here working!”
That gets him moving. He pushes back from his stool before she can back away and snatches the beaker back. “Don’t touch this,” he says, stern, like he could control anything she does anymore. “Don’t touch anything.”
Sansa laughs, so bitter, and makes a grab for his notebook, getting it away from him: “I should rip this up! Burn it, maybe! You think you’d notice anything then? You think you’d care then!”
“Don’t take that tone with me. I am still your father,” there’s a fire in his eyes like he was coming alive, like he was finally realizing that there was a world beyond his vials and notes and drive to save the world from war by creating warriors.
“Are you? And here I thought these were your kids,” Sansa splays her hands out, bringing in all the lab with its precious and well cleaned equipment, the big iron lung leaning against the back wall, just waiting for her or her siblings to crawl inside and be injected once her father's work was done. “Here I thought you’d forgotten you’d ever had a family.”
She tosses the notebook on the ground and Ned forgets about the fight, automatically stooping to pick it up. He wipes off some imaginary dust and smooths down the page. He takes a deep breath: “This work is very important, Sansa. It’s going to save the world. I had thought you understood that.”
“Sure,” Sansa says and then, getting mean with it, playing dirty. “‘Course it’ll save the world. Won’t save your wife though. Sure as Sunday won’t do that. But you keep on workin’, Dad. Maybe you’ll at least notice when you lose your lab partner.”
She leaves then, sick of the conversation and sick of herself and closes the door behind her. Ned doesn’t follow, doesn’t call out or do a single thing at all.
**
Sandor slides the two watches, billfold and bracelets across the table to Yegor who snatches them up, grinning. Sandor smiles when his brother ruffles his hair. “This will feed us for many days,” he says and Sandor feels very proud of himself. He is getting very good at picking pockets. He had only been caught once today but he had run too fast for the man to catch him and he’d gotten the watch too.
It meant that tonight Yegor would be nice to him and that they’d have payment to sleep with the rest of the gang of boys instead of on the streets. It meant that they would be warm tonight. Warm and fed. It was the first good day in many days.
**
Robb turns the corner and Sansa pushes herself away from the wall. She watches him walk and he stands tall and proud with his chin up. She’s always thought that he was too good for their slum neighborhoods and the way that roaches got into all the apartments. He holds himself with too much dignity and with too much fight. He shouldn’t be working night shifts at the docks. But just like the rest of them, he’d had the bad luck to be a kid when Hoover was around and everybody was losing everything.
Finally, he notices her and his shoulders droop. She considers, for a moment, lying to him. But that wasn’t right. She was his ma too and he deserved to know. “That bad?” he asks when he stops in front of her.
She nods, swallows: “Scarlet Fever.”
“Christ,” he says under his breath and runs his hand over his eyes.
Sansa opens her mouth but the words get stopped up in her throat. She’d thought- she’d thought that after everything, she wouldn’t have any qualms with pride. Turns out she did but in moments like this, pride was the last thing that mattered, so she made herself give it up: “Do you have anything you can spare?”
She knows right away from the look in his eyes that he doesn’t, not that she’s surprised. “It got all used up on the Little Blue Books- we’re circulating that Bertrand Russel piece this time and it’s really gonna shake things up-” He stops, looks down, contrite and remembers himself. “Sorry, Sans. If I’da known it’d get so bad-”
“It’s okay,” she tells him and it’s mostly true. Both Robb and her dad are trying to save the world. Sansa could pick up the smaller pieces.
“It’s not, though,” he tries to argue but stops when Sansa puts a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s okay,” she repeats and makes sure that her eyes are earnest and sincere. “I’ll have enough.”
**
Yegor drags Sandor through the streets of Moscow to a part of the city that he has never been to before. It is a place where there a trees and clean sidewalks and there are no bread lines. It makes Sandor nervous and he fingers the torn and dirty hem on his shirt. It reminds him that he is barefoot and has not bathed in a very long time.
“Where are we going, Yegor?” Sandor whispers but his brother just yanks him along faster.
They eventually stop in front of a large manor with a tall iron fence. The house is white and it gleams but it has a black door that looks sunken and deep and there is an air around the house that makes Sandor want to run away. But Yegor has an iron grip on his arm and Sandor is forced to walk through the gate and up to the door.
Yegor turns to him, grabs his chin and yanks his face up: “You will not cry. You will not complain. You will be quiet. You will do whatever anyone asks of you. If you do all that, then we will live and we will never have to sleep in the streets again. Do you understand?”
Sandor nods his head and stays quiet. Yegor knocks on the door and a tall, thin old man answers the door. He smiles.
“Welcome to the House,” he says.
**
She sits on the fire escape and smokes her cigarette. Kitty Kallen croons from her neighbor's apartment about kissing after a long, long time. Inside, she can hear Rickon and the scratch of his pencil as he does his homework. She doesn’t want to risk him getting sick so he’s staying with her and Arya tonight. Bran will take care of Catelyn. It’s a lot to ask of a 16 year old kid but that’s how it was.
Brooklyn coal smoke is all around her and clinging tight but Sansa lets herself sink into this moment. Because tonight- well. She could really use a sweet moment before tonight.
**
Sandor slams Micah against the hard concrete floor and is proud of the force in his limbs, of the power that surges through him. He holds his friend down for a count of five and then stands back. When Micah holds out his hand for help, Sandor gives it, pulling him up.
“Best three of five?” his friend asks, although he is wincing and there is blood in his mouth. Sandor nods and they position themselves again. Fists up, bloody knuckles and when they charge at each other, they are feral but controlled, wiry grace and muscles forming in their young bodies.
Soon, Sandor hopes, he will be as strong as Yegor, although he doesn’t really believe that. He hasn’t seen his brother in days. The House of Black and White separated them weeks ago and at night, Sandor can hear the laughter of young men from the other side of walls. He wonders, as he blocks Micah’s fist, if his brother is laughing too. He can’t remember the last time his brother laughed.
A movement. Sandor flicks his eyes towards it, gets a punch to the stomach for it. A crowd of agents walk through the training room door; all in black and greys but even still, she makes herself known.
Yevgeny Sergeyevich shouts and the other children training with Sandor halt. He whistles so they all scramble into a line for inspection. Sandor stands as tall as he can, trying to flex his meager muscles. Micah slouches.
Everything is silent.
A boy coughs.
She is standing so tall, grey eyes piercing the wall. He has never seen someone stand so proud, for all that she is ignored, for all that she is empty. There is a rifle in her hands, a pistol on her hip and a harness with six knives lining her ribs. The mask on her face runs sharp on her cheekbones and not for the first time, Sandor tries to imagine what the woman looks like without it.
An agent steps forward and Sandor wrenches his eyes away from the Winter Soldier. He will be picked this time. He is sure of it. His knuckles are bloody- he throws a good punch. His partner yesterday has a cracked rib- a good kick. He is taller than the rest of the children he trains with. He will join his brother and laugh on the other side of the wall.
Sandor does not get picked. The next day, when he knocks Micah down, he doesn’t offer his help. It was a mistake to be kind.
**
The hairs on the back of her neck rise just as she’s slipping on her pumps. Arya doesn’t turn on the light, doesn’t make a sound. But Sansa knows she’s there.
“Where you goin’?” her sister whispers so Rickon won’t wake up.
“Late shift at Red’s. Then morning shift at Murdock’s,” Sansa murmurs and grabs up her coat.
“You told me you couldn’t get those shifts; you’ve been tryin’ all week.” It’s an accusation and Sansa bristles.
“You callin’ me a liar?” she hisses, not turning to look at Arya.
“Guess I am,” Arya’s up close to her now, just at her back, and Sansa feels the hard tension coming off of her. Sansa turns, makes herself do it, makes her get this over with.
“Then why’re you asking questions that you already know that answer to? You know where I’m going.”
The yellow street light pours through the kitchen window, dripping shadows down Arya’s face and her eyes are hard for a moment, like steel, like fire. Then a great big breath whooshes out of her and all at once, right before Sansa’s eyes, she looks small and sad and defeated.
“I was hoping that I was wrong,” she admits, dropped shoulders. Then, summoning that bright fire back, the one that makes Arya who she is, she declares, “There’s got to be another way. We’ll think of something.”
“You know there isn’t,” Sansa throws back, pushing down useless anger. “We’ve done everything we could. There isn’t-”
“I’ll sign up for those typing classes,” Arya promises, desperate.
“With what money?” Sansa pushes.
“Maybe tomorrow I’ll finally get a job!”
“You won’t get paid in time-”
“I’ll-”
Sansa grabs her sister’s arms, hard, and pitches her voice even lower: “There isn’t time. Arya,” she tightens her grip, “If she doesn’t get that medicine soon, tomorrow, she’ll die.” Sansa doesn't say that Catelyn might die anyway.
Arya holds the look for a moment and then looks down, draws herself in tight. “I could go,” she says quiet and scared but determined. “I could do it.”
A wave of love washes over Sansa, love for her brave little sister. She smooths Arya’s hair back. “No,” she kisses her sister’s forehead. “No, you could never go through with it. And that’s okay. But I can, I can do it.” Arya pulls back with big wide grey eyes. Sansa smiles, sad. “Just- make sure Rickon gets to school in the morning. Alright? Do that for me?”
For one terrible moment, Sansa is sure that Arya is going to cry but then she gets control of her face and nods, quick and sharp: “I’ll go straight to Ma and Dad’s afterwards. I’ll take care of her.”
“I’ll meet you there,” Sansa promises. She turns to skulk away into the night and then, suddenly, Arya throws her arms around her and hugs her tight. “If any one of them hurts you, I’ll kill them,” Arya’s words are harsh and honest.
“Yeah, yeah I know,” Sansa says and hugs back just as tight.
**
A man comes to get Sandor in the night. It is an agent he has never seen before with a serious face and his lips are nothing but a thin line. When he first came to the House, Sandor would have been afraid of such a man. But he has been here for three years and there are not many things that scare him anymore.
The man tells him to get dressed and then leads him through empty hallways into a part of the sprawling building that he has never been to before. It is a part of the building that only true agents of the House allowed into. For a brief moment, Sandor lets himself believe that tonight is the night that they will induct him but he knows that it is not true. Even Yegor has not been inducted yet and what use does the House have for a 13 year old boy, even if he is big for his age?
He is led down a flight of stairs and then a hallway until the agent stops him in front of a door; it is large and iron and there is a faint light seeping out from underneath it. The agent knocks and the door swings wide. Sandor is ushered inside even though the man does not follow him in. The room is smaller than he expected and there is a fireplace at one end of the room and a man in a plush armchair in the other. Yegor stands in the center of the room. He is wearing a look that Sandor has not seen for years; the one he wears when he is mean and scared and preparing himself to fight back against Father.
It makes Sandor very nervous.
He glances at the man in the chair- it is the Kindly Man- and tries to understand why he is here. Maybe they are kicking Yegor and him out of the House; maybe they are going to force Sandor to leave the House and his brother. But then why would the man be smiling? But his brother is not.
They are all silent. Sandor because he is scared, Yegor because he has not been told to speak and the Kindly Man because he does not want to. But when he does want to, he says, “Yegor Ivanovich Clegane. Are you loyal to the House?”
“Yes,” his brother says because he has been asked a question.
“Alexander Ivanovich Clegane. Are you loyal to the House?”
Sandor swallows and even though he is still scared, he says, “Yes.”
The Kindly Man is silent again, his mouth still smiling. Then he says, very firm but very quiet, “You will prove it, both.” He turns his head to look directly at Yegor: “Hurt him.” He turns to Sandor: “Let him.”
Yegor glances to the fireplace that is crackling quietly. He looks like even though he is scared, he is prepared to be cruel.
Later, when Sandor is lying in the infirmary with bandages on his face and pain searing through his mind, Micah will come to his bedside and ask if Sandor was afraid. He will tell Micah no, that he was proud to prove his loyalty to the House of Black and White. Many years later, he will even believe the lie. But as Yegor approaches him looking mean and cruel, Sandor is very scared and for one horrible moment he hates his brother and does not ever want to love him again.
But he will. For many years he will continue to love his brother, until one rainy day in the plains of Kansas, Midas will order Yegor to once again hurt his brother and the Mountain will move like an avalanche towards the Hound and he will not look mean and cruel and scared. He will look blank as if he never cared at all. Then, Alexander Ivanovich Clegane will hate him. Then, he will break his shackles.
But that is many years away and until then, the smoke of his own burning flesh will stay with Sandor, pushed far into the back of his throat and waiting to be breathed out.
**
The john is just slipping a hand up her legs, going for the garter hooks, when a sharp whistle blows from the mouth of the alley. The stranger jumps back and hastily does up his belt, fingers fumbling. Sansa feels a wave of relief that is quickly barreled over with anger. It’d taken her hours to finally work up the courage to approach the john, to let herself smile at some strange man and work out the deal. She’d been so close to that money, god she could almost have tasted that money except-
Heavy steps rush towards them and Sansa pushes away from the wall, brushing her hair back from her shoulders and making sure that her chin is up. There wasn’t any shame in tricking out, she reminds herself. No shame if she really needed the money. And if the cop thinks any different- well.
“And just what do ye think you’re doin’ back here?” the cop says and Sansa blushes deep and dark. Just her luck that it’s Officer Selmy. He isn’t looking at her though. He is staring down the john she’d picked up outside the bar, staring him down like he’s nothing but maggots. Maybe she can just slip away.
She starts to slink off but Officer Selmy’s hand shoots out and snags her by the coat. “And you-” he turns to her and his face goes slack and she knows that he recognizes her even under the garish make-up she’s trussed herself up in.
He glances back and forth between her and the john before letting her go and pushing at the stranger: “Gan’ gone then, get of here. Ye got no business here.” The man doesn’t need to be told twice.
Sansa buttons up her coat fast while Officer Selmy is looking away from her. She is equal parts terrified and angry now. Every part of her is spinning out of control, her mind reeling, trying to find a solution to this mess, trying to think of how to get away from him and to another lousy joint where she could find another lousy john. Officer Selmy turns back to her and his face looks sad.
“Oh Sansa, what would your mam say if she could see ye tonight?” he murmurs like he has any right at all.
That’s when it all becomes sad and desperate and fury for her, because he’s right and he’s wrong because- “It’s for her that I’m out here. She’s dyin’,” she tells him because she knows that once a long time ago, he was sweet on her ma. “This is the only way for me to get money for the medicine.”
“Surely-”
Sansa runs her hand through her hair, feeling wild and hysterical; she’s sick of saying this: “The only way,” she repeats and looks him in the eyes even though she’s starting to cry. “I have borrowed every dollar I can, I have pawned anything I could pawn and gone down to the Bowery and taken blue pictures and all I need is six dollars. Six dollars . Am I supposed to let my ma die when all it’ll cost is one bad night? It’s just one bad night,” Sansa pleads and doesn’t even give a thought to pride.
Officer Selmy sucks on his lips and can’t seem to meet her eyes. “Six dollars?” he says more to himself but she nods her head anyway. “Alright,” he looks at her. “C’mon then.” He starts to walk out of the alley and Sansa just stares, knowing her mouth is hanging open.
He glances back, jerks his head: “I’m not gan’ arrest you, not for trying to save your mam. ‘Sides,” he smiles, “I’m off my beat.”
“Then-” she starts, then stops, not sure how to finish.
Officer Selmy walks back towards her, gentle, like she's a wild deer that might startle. Sansa supposes that she might be. “I’ve got some money saved up,” he tells her. “The wife passed away a few years ago and we never had any children. I was just saving it for a rainy day. Ye can have six dollars. It won’t put me out.”
Sansa blinks and it takes a moment to let herself believe this. Things like this- nice things, easy things- they didn’t happen to her. They didn’t happen to people like her- slum-living, money-pinching, scrabbling people like her. Then Officer Selmy tips her chin up and it’s a kind smile and Sansa wants to cry because maybe just this once things turned out the nice way instead of the ugly.
“C’mon then,” he gently pulls her along. “When was the last time you ate?”
Sansa shakes her head; she can’t remember.
“Alright. Six dollars and a hot meal,” Officer Selmy promises her. “How does that sound?”
“Wonderful,” Sansa whispers but really it sounds like a miracle that she's going to have to pay back later.
**
Sandor watches the Winter Soldier sharpen her knives. Hours before, they had sliced through the bones of Soviet defectors and tomorrow they will do the same. For once, Sandor muses, the legend was true; he has never seen a Fury like the Winter Soldier, has never stood so close to chaos.
Her eyes are blank again, her movements methodical, but now Sandor knows better. He’s seen the fire in her eyes.
Sandor cocks his head to the side, hands on the armrests of the musty hotel armchair. The Soldier does not look up. “You are not so empty as they say, are you, Soldier?” he asks although he does not expect a response. “No,” he answers himself. “You burn inside.” He leans forward: he knows, he feels it too.
He considers for a moment how to break through the steel exterior to get at the fire underneath. Not to get close- he has seen the handlers who push too far, has seen them torn limb from limb by the grip of the Soldier’s metal arm. He wants only to feel the embers.
“Did you kill Captain America?” he asks because he has always wondered and perhaps the Winter Soldier, like so many in their profession, suffers from pride, however unlikely. “It has been over 30 years and still no one has claimed the shot.”
Nothing. Then it occurs to him. What tames a beast? A muzzle.
“Take it off,” he gestures to the black mask that has covered the Soldier’s face for decades; the one he has never seen her without. The Winter Soldier’s eyes flash to his. “Show me your face,” he commands, greedy to finally see the beast for what it is.
But the Soldier only stares at him with fire burning sharp. She has stopped sharpening her knives and is holding one in a grip that only a fool would believe was casual. He is too close though to stop now. He is cracking her; he is going to break open the machine and see the fur underneath. Sandor stands, makes himself a threat, takes a step towards her, ready to remove the mask himself.
“Now. Take it off now-” he reaches forward but finds himself slammed against the hotel wall, the breath rushing out of him and a knife at his throat.
“No,” the Winter Soldier speaks fierce with defiance, the sound muffled by the mask pressed to her lips.
“Why?” Sandor challenges because sometimes even he is a fool. “Do you like being their dog?”
The knife is gone from his throat and is buried hilt deep in the plaster by his head. The metal plates of her arm whir. “You are the only hound here,” she spits.
Sandor laughs, gritty and deep, feeling his fangs. “We are both dogs,” he answers her, “but only you crave the leash.”
“Don’t you ?” she snarls.
For a moment, Sandor is sure she will kill him; her eyes blaze so bright. For a moment, he is sure she will remove the mask. Then, abruptly, she backs away from him and sits back in the hotel chair to finish sharpening her knives. Sandor doesn’t move from the wall. His adrenaline is spiked, both from breaking her steel exterior and from the knowledge that he had come so close to death. He revels in it. He shakes from it.
For a beat, all is still and silent and heavy. Then the Winter Soldier turns to him and he is shocked to see deep pools of sadness in her eyes. A hand, the flesh one, rises to touch the mask. “It is all I have,” she tells him with a voice from far away. “There is nothing else left.”
Sandor stares at her, thrown by the statement, by the longing in the Soldier’s voice. Then her eyes cloud and they turn from sadness to confusion to the empty void once more. She picks up a knife. Sandor walks back to his chair.
Tomorrow they will complete the mission.
**
One day, without looking, not even remembering it at all until she saw it, Sansa found a baseball field in the old lot where the boys used to play stickball. It hit her all over again, in a deep burst of breath, just how much she missed them.
Of course there was a baseball field. This was the built up side of Brooklyn- flowers by the trees and fine grained sand at the end of the slides. Of course there was a baseball field. It used to be just a lot with rusty metal and some dried up grass but there had been so much space and sky that the boys had played stickball there for years; Robb, then Bran, then Rickon. Arya, whenever she could bully the other boys into letting her.
Sansa didn't linger- the hurt was a little deeper than she could bear out where anyone could see so she moved on.
Later, propped up against the punching bag and panting, Sansa couldn't decide if she was glad to have seen the lot at all, if the remembering had been at all worth it.
**
Late into the night, Sansa gasped awake, still choking on Japanese mud and smoke. She felt like she was burning from cold, like she was going up in flames even though her limbs were flash frozen and flaring with pain. She gasped again and went light-headed with the rush of air but it felt so good to breathe that she did it again; big heaping mouthfuls of the stuff. Sandor- he put his hand on the small of her back and she wanted to shout because even that hurt. Everything always hurt so bad . Why’d it all have to hurt-
His hand pressed a little harder and Sansa could barely stand it but it jolted the ice out of her like it always did. As soon as she could, as soon as she was melted enough, Sansa jolted out of the bed and fell to the floor. She scrambled away on all fours until there was a wall at her back and she could see Sandor sitting up in bed, watching her and looming. Sansa gulped for air again and wanted to close her eyes but didn’t. No telling what she’d see if she did.
Instead, she focused on Sandor. Late at night like this, she could see how old he really was. Pain lines mixed with scars and flint eyes high over his hard square jaw. He wore his hair down when he slept and it brushed his bare shoulders, covering the lovebite Sansa had given him- she checked the clock- barely two hours ago. Sandor didn’t- he never- there was never anything soft about him. But at night, that was when he came closest.
“Do you remember the first person you killed?” he asked so abruptly that Sansa jerked back, her head knocking against the wall.
“What?” she blurted because just a moment ago she'd thought him soft.
“The first person that you killed. Do you remember?” Sansa stared at him. Still sitting in bed, sheets draped across his hips, hair haphazard and voice sleep-rough, this man asking her-
“No, no, I don’t,” she stammered because it wasn’t really a lie. Not really.
His eyes bore down on her, as crushing a weight as any ice. Sansa looked down, breathed hard. She looked up: “Don’t make me tell you.”
He shifted on the bed to face her full on. His fists were tightly clenched and Sansa’s stomach dropped, heavy with anger. “You don’t actually want to know,” she spat. “You just want to tell me about yours. You don’t give a damn about the first man I killed.” He stayed real quiet and real still. “So tell me, huh. Just say it. Who’d you first kill, Sandor?” She asked, much more bitter than she meant but damn it, she just wanted to sit in the corner of her lover’s bedroom and hurt as quietly as she could.
Sandor made to get off the bed but Sansa jerked her head at him. He stopped, raised his knees so the sheet tented and rested his arms on his knees. He waited because the bastard could be endlessly patient when he wanted to be, when he pushed his anger down. Sansa wrapped her arms around herself because she could wait too.
He looked away first and all of a sudden, Sansa found that she wouldn’t mind telling him, not if it would help him say the terrible thing that he so desperately wanted to let out. She closed her eyes, saw a flash of- and opened them quickly again and in a rush said, “I fought in the trenches for months and fired my weapon on most of those days but I’m not sure I ever actually killed someone there. I must’ve but I don’t know for sure. But,” and now Sansa closed her eyes and let the image come. It seemed important somehow, honest, that she say it when she could see the man. “He was a middle-aged man, looked close about to my father. Not really old, but not young. And he didn’t- it wasn’t even him or me. He was just some dumb fella who fumbled his pistol and couldn’t get the safety down and I could.” Sansa saw it still; greying hair and squinting like he needed glasses, a slight paunch hanging over his belt. She opened her eyes and didn’t feel any better for having said it. “So that’s it. That’s the first person I really killed.”
Sandor nodded, slow. He hung his head and very, very quietly, in Russian that Sansa could just piece together: “My friend. Micah. A test. Orders.” Then he sat back on the bed and closed his eyes and didn’t look at her again for the whole night.
**
The Soviet Union is desperate; their world is crashing down around them. This makes the House of Black and White desperate. Otherwise, they would not have ordered such a drastic mission. He and the Winter Soldier are meant to disrupt a peace summit between the most powerful men in the world: the CEOs of oil companies, of pharmaceutical companies and dirty politicians who have had their hands in the mud for decades. They are dug in like tics and together, they can change the world. They can decide if the Soviet Union is no longer profitable.
The mission will be messy, it will be loud. It is going to be hard but it is good to fight by the Soldier’s side again. Their partnership had not lasted long but together, they are well oiled and efficient. It has been years since they have worked together- her loan to Midas has lasted much longer than anticipated. But now they fight together as if time has stood still and nothing has changed.
Same days he looks in the mirror and is scared that that is the truth.
The day of the summit, the world’s greatest men are stuffed into a fortified room in a hotel that is perched on the side of a mountain in the Alps. All staff who have not worked there for two years have been dismissed and all of the rooms have been booked out. They had built themselves a fortress.
The night before, Sandor had been given the ridiculous task of suspending himself from the roof and replacing the pane of bulletproof glass on the only window through which the Winter Soldier could made the impossible shot from the top of a speeding train that will only pass by the hotel once that month.
But the Soldier makes the shot to disrupt all alarms and communications and any peace talk for the Middle East is dissolved.
Sandor meets the Soldier in the forest outside of the hotel and together they press the detonator to the charges that Sandor had placed. It is only for show but the House wanted to remind the world of their power. Desperation had made them gaudy.
The great men stumble out of the rubble of their bomb-proof sanctuary, coughing and choking on dust and debris. The Hound and the Soldier raise their guns and the men fall, roses of blood sprouting from their torsos. Sandor sees a flash of red hair coming from out of the rubble. The little girl is crying, dressed in a flouncy white dress; some powerful man’s daughter. He raises his gun and aims.
“No,” the Winter Soldier whispers. It is her tone that makes him look at her. The Soldier’s eyes are blooming and shocked. She is breathing heavy. She is trembling.
“The House has ordered no witness,” The Hound argues but the Soldier doesn’t even look at him.
The Soldier drops her gun. It sinks deep in the snow. She stumbles forward. She takes a step, a step towards the crying girl. Her hands come up and they undo the clasp of her mask. It falls even heavier than the gun.
“It’s alright,” the Soldier says and kneels in front of the girl. “I’ll keep you safe,” and Sandor’s breath catches because it was in English; flawless, unaccented English.
The Soldier picks the girl up; she’s stopped crying. Sandor stiffens, takes aim at the Soldier. His hand is shaking. He can’t breath. He can’t pull the trigger. He is breathing too fast. He feels a drip down his face; a tear. Teeth clenched, he aims again and the Soldier does not look back and she disappears into the mountain and smoke. The flash of red hair goes with her.
Sandor gasps and he can’t hold the pistol a moment longer. It falls by the Soldier’s. He can’t even look at it, doesn’t even know why. He doesn’t even know why he fumbles the radio, why he stutters when he reports that the Winter Soldier has gone rogue, doesn’t know why he wishes he could have gone with.
**
Sansa stepped out of the bodega, blinked, but didn’t stop walking. She slipped her phone out of her pocket, let a man get in front of her on the sidewalk and walked past the turn that would get her home and followed the man with the rat tattoo on his neck.
She dialed quickly and Agent Snow answered on the first ring. “Hey, Johnny,” she said, “I saw a rat at home. You want me to stop at the bodega, pick up a trap?”
Agent Snow didn’t miss a beat: “No. Keep distance and pursue. Let’s see if we can find the nest. Turn you comm on. We’ll be tracking you.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll talk to you later,” Sansa hung up. She spared a thought for the schwarma she’d just bought before handing it to a homeless man and getting the Tickler back in sight.
It was a lucky break. In the three months Sansa’s team had been on the case, they’d mostly only been able to catch low tier hustlers. Enough of them had been able to point them to warehouses and drop sights and then, finally, to this man. Their intel was that he was a mid-tier pusher and enforcer. They had limited surveillance on him but if Sansa could track him back to something it’d put them leaps ahead of where they were.
Sansa pulled out her phone, put in her earbuds and went into a slouch; just a girl, not a threat, just a girl going home from work. He seemed to be wandering almost aimlessly for blocks, taking her closer and closer to Queens. She was worried that if he didn’t stop soon, she’d be made. The streets were getting emptier and that always meant more of a risk. At least the night was on her side.
The Tickler took a sudden left and took off at a run.
“Fuck,” Sansa muttered and took off in pursuit. He was fast, much faster than she’d anticipated, but not enough to lose her. She wrangled the shield out of her tote, discarding the bag without a thought. She expected him to make a break for an alley or, if he was really confident, to go up a fire escape.
But he didn’t. Instead, the Tickler dashed across the street and hopped the fence of the Evergreens Cemetery. Which was entirely unexpected. It was a big open space and Sansa wasn’t exactly hiding the shield from him. One throw and he’d be out.
Except it turned out that Sansa and SHIELD had completely underestimated the Tickler. He was a true Parkour traceur- he leaped and rolled and flipped his way through the cemetery and wove through trees and tombstones. And then he threw a knife at her with amazing precision and speed. She barely raised the shield in time.
He took her on a chase all through the cemetery and then through Highland Park where she finally got a clear shot and the bastard somehow dodged it. Sansa scooped the shield back up, not breaking her gait.
“Snow,” she panted, “I think we may have underestimated this guy. I’d put money on him being enhanced.”
“I’m getting the same impression. We’ve got agents closing in on the park. Keep him going. We’ll catch him,” Agent Snow’s voice crackled in her ear.
“Acknowledged.”
He made his mistake in Forest Park; he pulled out a gun and fired off three shots. It cost him time and made him stand still long enough for Sansa to let the shield fly. He took it to the ribs and he stumbled back.
He didn’t go down.
The hell is this guy? Sansa thought and that was it before the Tickler suddenly rushed her, another knife in hand, his gun lying by her shield.
It was a merciless fight and Sansa found herself on the defensive. The knife hissed through the hair. Her body flowed with each move but so did his. Definitely enhanced. Sansa grappled for her own knife, and from there is was it’s own dance.
Sansa got a grip on him, threw him back and then he flipped just the way that Sandor always did. The Tickler fought exactly like the Hound and where does a mid-tier pusher learn Systema . It made her hesitate and that was Sansa’s mistake because in a blink, her knife was gone and the Tickler had her backed against a tree, his blade digging sharp into her gut.
“C’mon, Little Bird,” he grunted, his breath foul, “I wanna hear you scream.” His knife sliced her belly, clean and smooth and Sansa did scream from it but she also brought her knee hard into his gut. He pulled back and it was enough for Sansa to drive her fist into his neck.
“Scream around that,” she told him as he choked for air. “And you might have missed the shield, but the name’s Captain America.” She geared her body for another attack, breathing through the searing pain in her stomach and ignoring the blood squeezing out of her.
Suddenly, the Tickler was yanked back from her, a gloved hand shooting out from the darkness.
Sansa blinked and fell back against the tree. Maybe she was losing more blood than she thought. That or there really was a group of five women in snake themed costumes who were attacking the Tickler. And doing a great job of it. One of the women- decked out in a red catsuit and painted with scales- kicked his knees out and he went down and another woman in light brown wrangled him, tying up his hands with zip-ties.
“Hey thanks,” Sansa said, feeling a little woozy.
Another one, all in black with a green diamond on her back turned to Sansa, a mask covering her eyes but showing off her blood-colored lips. “Of course, Capitán. We would not let such a man into Queens.”
The one in red handed Sansa’s shield to her: “If you’re going to go up against one of Midas’ men, I’d recommend not dropping this.”
Sansa took it and carefully masked her expression of surprise because she knew that voice. She had to bite back a laugh. Arianne Martell: lawyer by day, vigilante by night. She’d bet that one of the other snake women was Sarella Sand.
“I’ll take into consideration,” Sansa said. Sansa pressed a hand to her stomach, trying to put pressure on. “You ladies got names?”
“We are the Serpent Society. And you are in our territory,” Ms. Martell told her. Sansa wondered if she knew that Sansa had recognized her.
Sansa heard the soft padding of feet surrounding them. “You want my recommendation? I’d get out of here. SHIELD isn’t too fond of vigilantes,” Sansa told them.
The Serpent Society glanced at each other. Ms. Martell nodded and they all bled back into the night. Sansa found herself impressed and grateful. Not just for stopping the Tickler but for knowing that Brooklyn had her and Queens had its own protectors.
The Tickler groaned on the ground, and tried to shuffle to his feet. Sansa pushed herself off the tree and planted a foot on his back. Agent Snow and his STRIKE team came out of the shadows and when he saw the downed man, a boyish grin broke out across his face. “I guess you set a trap anyway,” he said as one of his agents hauled the Tickler up, binding him more securely than the Serpents had.
“Couldn’t be helped,” Sansa told him. She watched him take her in, his eyes landing on the gash in her stomach.
“You’re hurt,” he said.
Sansa nodded. “I’ll get to medical. Where’s the van?”
“Over on Forest Park Drive. Can you make it on your own?”
“Sure,” Sansa told him and went off before he could protest. The Tickler was a big catch and he’d be caught up in that.
Sansa felt bad for lying to him but she couldn’t go to medical. Not yet. She had questions digging at her and so she stumbled her way through the park and all the way to Rego Park and up Sandor’s fire escape. The whole way, the pain mingled with the tension in her heart and the throb of adrenaline and she wasn’t sure if she should be furious or terrified. Ms. Martell had said that name and it brought back the memory of Sandor in Red Hook rattling off the facts of his life. She hated that memory, hated knowing that she was going to have to bring it up and break her promise. She hated that she’d have to hurt him.
She tumbled into his apartment with a huff of air, her boots catching on the lip of the window. Her shield clanged against the hardwood and went rolling somewhere into the corner. “Fuck,” Sansa muttered, and pulled her body around so she was sprawled on her back. Panting, Sansa pressed fingers to the slash in her gut and bit off a sharp cry.
“You look like shit,” Sandor told her and she heard him slip a knife back into its sheath. “You need a hand?”
Sansa started to shake her head- stopped at the wave of nausea: “Just gonna stay here for a sec,” she said. Then, because she knew she actually did need to do something about the knife wound, “A first aid kit would be nice, though.”
He nodded and she heard him go back down through the hallway. Clenching her eyes tight, Sansa jerked her body upright in one smooth motion- like ripping off a band aid. She made herself stand and stumble into the kitchen, turning on the light and pulling out the chair. By the time she collapsed into to it, she was starting to feel like she might pass out. Not from blood loss- she’d be fine there, serum working like it should- but from the tumultuous mix of fear and pain and confusion and dread.
Sandor had watched her do all this from the archway of the hall, heavy eyed and like he was shaking off sleep. He held out the kit to her- well stocked and thorough- and she pulled out the scissors to make quick work of her shirt.
“You want me to do that?” he asked, gesturing. “I have a lot of practice taking you out of your clothes.”
“Cute, stud, but you’ve got clumsy fingers,” Sansa told him, not taking her eyes off her work. It was a lie, of course, but her mind was torn between fight and flight and she couldn’t bear the thought of him close right then. Didn’t know what would happen.
He didn’t call her on it though, instead setting out what she’d need to flush the wound and clean it. Sansa gingerly slipped off the remains of her shirt, dropping it to the ground before putting on the medical gloves. Sandor caught her gaze, silent, are you sure you won’t let me -
Yes. He nodded and sat down in the chair across from her. Sandor’s long hair was down and he must have washed it recently because it shined dark. His hooked nose caught the yellow light and Sansa wished that she could put him at ease.
She did want to let him help. She did. But there were too many unknowns and it wasn’t that she didn’t trust him- Sansa Stark would go down trusting Sandor Clegane and it’d be the death of her someday, trusting so blind- but this wasn’t about trust. This was about boundaries and she’d worked hard to set those clear.
After cleaning the wound she reached past the anesthetic he’d left out and for the surgical staples, keeping pressure on. Holding the dispenser in her hand, Sansa lifted up the gauze; the bleeding had already slowed enough where she wasn’t worried about closing it up. She took a breath, slouched down for a better angle and quick and careful as she could, Sansa stapled herself shut. Then it was quick work; new gauze, a bandage, and snapping off the gloves.
“Will you talk now?” Sandor asked, his bad mood gathering like rain clouds. “Tell me why you did not take this to SHIELD medical?” He flung a hand out at the mess in front of them.
“Needed answers first,” Sansa said, and then because it wasn’t actually an emergency, amended herself, “Well, I wanted answers first.”
“From who?”
“From you.”
Sandor sat up straight.
The part of Sansa that liked to tell people she wasn’t a threat, that she was just a girl, just some girl no threat here, just a pretty smile, almost took over. She almost put a sweet light in her eyes, almost softened the lines of her body, anything to make these questions easier. But she wouldn’t. Not for something as important as this.
She met his eyes.
“That day that I ran away from SHIELD and you went back into your programming, I promised myself that I wasn’t going to ask you any more questions. You’ve had enough taken from you and anything I knew about you was going to be something you wanted to give. I’m breaking that promise right now,” Sansa told him, waited a moment. He nodded.
“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. But Sandor, that day in Red Hook, you said his name, you said you worked for him, so I have to ask, I have to know- who is Midas? And what does he want with my city?”
Sansa couldn’t have predicted the way that Sandor’s pupils would blow up or the way that he would throw himself back from the table, his chair clattering to the floor and an ace bandage getting thrown, leaving a beige trail into the dark of the hallway. She couldn’t have predicted just how fast his hand would go for his knife or how fast he’d scramble away from her.
But it meant that she’d been right to ask. If Midas meant this much, something this big to Sandor, then she’d been right to ask.
“You don’t owe me an answer,” Sansa whispered to the terrified man in the corner, “but I had to ask.”
His laugh was earth-shattering and bone dry. His shoulders shook with spasms of it and Sansa knew better by now than to be afraid of Sandor but in this moment she came very close. His eyes were ragged and his neck thrown so far back that it convulsed around the barks of laughter. In the wildness of all that sound, words pushed themselves out, hysterical with rage, Sandor gagged on the words, “He is the only man worth running from. If Midas wants your city, Лисичка, then you run.”
“And if I won’t?” Sansa asked.
“Then you are a fool,” Sandor answered. “And you will die a fool. You think you have seen evil? You think you have brushed shoulders with it?” He shook his head. “No. Midas has fingers all over the world. Kennedy. South Africa, Brazil. The genocide in Darfur, Rwanda and your towers. SARS, Plague, FIFA. His touch is everywhere and it all becomes gold.”
“What does he want?” Sansa asked.
“Power. Not an Aryan race or to create a communist world; only power and control,” he looked down, mouth twisted in disgust.
Sansa tried to wrap her head around all of that, found herself thinking of the Night King and Craster and finds that it isn’t so difficult to believe. “How does he do it? Who works for him?”
“Anybody he asks. But his own people are the Brave Companions,” Sandor looked back up at her. “They are ruthless, brutal and filth. You ever meet one, you kill them slow. They have not earned anything but that.”
Sansa frowned, thinking about spreading tentacles: “Iron Man and I fought a Brave Companion in July.”
“Please, Sansa, leave this,” the desperation in his voice didn’t surprise her, “Stop the drug, if you can, but leave him. It’ll only get you killed.”
“You know I can’t do that, Sandor,” she told him and something horrible and furious twisted over his face.
“Being Captain America isn’t worth your life. No lie is big enough to be worth your death.”
Sansa’s nostrils flared, her jaw clenched. “It doesn’t matter what my life is worth. The people I’d save-”
Sandor slammed his palms against the table: “Damn it, Sansa! This is not some playground of a Warlock lab and a group of wet-eared mercenaries. It is not even your White Walkers. If you go after Midas and he catches you- and he will- they will torture you, drug you and the only thing left of Sansa Stark will be that fucking serum in your blood. And when you are no longer useful to them, they will kill you.”
“If Midas is so powerful, how did you escape? If it’s so impossible, then how'd you do it?” Sansa pushed. His eyes were wild and Sansa knew she was tearing him to pieces with these questions and she’d never do it for anything less important.
His hand flew to his hair, stretching his scalp back. His breaths were hard and heavy: “You think it was easy? It took me 7 years! 7 years to fight through that damned drug and the torture and my own fucking brother! I tried more times than I can remember and after each time, they’d torture me and wiped my mind! They took my name!”
“What pushed you then! What broke you? What was your line?”
Sandor seemed to curl in on himself and Sansa was astonished to realize that this is what he looked like when he was scared. This memory, it must be raw and dripping: “The mission was to start a fire in a hospital in São Paulo. All those children, and one of them- it reminded me of the, I remembered - I couldn’t. It was enough. The fire was enough. That was my line.”
Sansa’s lips parted, her heart clenched at the thought of it, at the thought of all that evil wrapped up in one person. God to ask for a thing like that-
“Sandor,” she murmured and was astounded by his bravery when he met her eyes. “You know I have to do this.”
He nodded, numb, resigned, cracked.
“I’d like you by my side but I understand if you can’t,” she said, still soft.
He flinched: “You’re asking me to help kill you.”
She didn’t tell him that it was a thing worth dying for or that she was meant to be dead anyway. Instead, she said, “I know it’s a lot.”
“ You rip me up, ” he whispered, sweet and low and in Russian. But he said it to her face and looking at her and she knew his answer. “I’ll always be at your side. We belong to each other .”
Yes , Sansa thought, we do . She’d been resigned to dying for years but she hoped, desperately, that she could spare him that. He had enough demons.
**
After three days of sleep deprivation, someone finally unlocks the door. Sandor is being punished for failing to find the Winter Soldier as quickly as the House wanted. They suspect that Sandor did not want to find the Soldier and the little girl she had taken. Sandor thinks they may be correct.
Sandor knows that they are going to come to his door moments before they do because they turn off the flashing lights and shut down the alarm and for one moment, everything is dark and silent.
The door slams open and the light, steady and yellow, outlines Agent Trigorin. “Come,” the man says, with his automatic trained on the Hound and looking terrified but trying very hard not to show it. Sandor rises and there is vertigo but it passes. He follows Agent Trigorin with his limbs feeling numb and detached from his head like his body doesn’t belong to him. This is not a new feeling.
Agents flank him, surround him, escort him to a secluded part of the facility and to a door that Sandor has seen bodies being dragged out of. He can smell the stink of urine and shit and blood even through the steel door and concrete walls. His sleep-hazy-desperate mind is stabbed through with clear, cold terror. His heart races, thumps, and sweat beads at his temple. The agents don’t follow him inside.
There are two people in the room and he barely recognizes the Winter Soldier. Gone is the proud spine, the rage and fire in her eyes, the harsh, deadly presence of her. She is a broken, crooked, pathetic heap. Her hair shorn too close to her head, it is bloody and scabbing in some places. Naked, a dislocated shoulder, ribs jutting out awkwardly and a bone sticking out of her arm.
There is no mask, but it doesn’t matter. Her whole face is a mess of purple bruises, dried blood, fresh blood, specks of vomit, snot and murky drool. Faceless, still, even when exposed and broken. It is only by her eyes that he knows her, even though they are sucked dry.
The door opens behind him but Sandor doesn’t look away from the Winter Soldier.
There is a sniffle and Sandor knows, with a roil in his stomach, why he is here. At the noise, the Soldier finally lifts her head; body going on alert; turned on and honing in. Grey eyes go from void to filled with hope and dreadful, heavy certainty. The Soldier knows too.
The red-haired girl is shoved forward like a lick of growing flames. She goes directly to the Soldier, drawn, and Sandor wants to reach out and grab her shoulder; save them both the pain, but he doesn’t. He wonders, when he sees the girl pet the Soldier’s arm, what they did for the month before he found them; what bond could have been forged to make a child caress a killer’s arm.
The other man in the room, the torturer, lets it happen for reasons that Sandor wishes he did not understand; a final act of cruelty before he finishes the punishment. It is just a moment, but one more tender than Sandor has ever seen. He doesn’t want to shatter it, doesn’t want to end this beauty that he didn’t know could exist, doesn’t want to destroy something so sweet that it defied impossibility and made the Winter Soldier disobey.
“Now,” the torturer orders, tossing a knife at Sandor’s feet, sure that the Hound will pass this test. The girl doesn’t flinch and the Soldier’s lip trembles but doesn’t look away from the child’s sweet face. Sandor cannot pick up the knife.
“Now,” the order is repeated, furious. It is an order and orders are obeyed. Orders are obeyed but the Winter Soldier did not- the Winter Soldier did not- did not follow orders and a little girl is looking at her with love and it was going to end like things in the House of Black and White always did; pain and death. Unless Sandor does not follow orders.
His whole body trembles.
“Hound,” and this is not a warning. It is a promise and in fear and rage, Sandor picks up the knife, the world spinning around him and the handle seems as if it was oozing into his skin and it’s as if he can hear a crackle and snap of fire deep in the bowels of this concrete, cold room. He steps forward-
“Please,” a desperate woman croaks. Sandor stops because she had said that in-
“Please,” the Winter Soldier begs in English.
“Now,” the torturer yells and shocked by the sound and by his own storm of confusion, rage and pure terror and so, retreating into the familiar, the Hound slits the girl’s throat and then Sandor drops the knife. The proud, lethal woman howls and gets covered in new, wet blood.
**
“Sandor,” she whispered, even though the sun was coming in through the yellow curtains and there was no one around to hear. “Sandor, I love you.”
He rolled over and looked at her, deep.
“Love is for children,” Sandor said and it would have seemed callous and barren except Sansa could read the softness in the lines of his mouth.
“Yeah, maybe. Maybe,” she choked a little on the words, swallowed. “But that don’t make it any less true.”
He kept looking at her, looking hard, looking at her soft; an endless contradiction of a man. Then, whispering because he understood that this conversation couldn’t happen any other way, he said, “I know you want to be loved.”
She blinked back the wetness in her eyes: “Everyone wants to be loved.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time but Sansa knew it was only because what he was going to say was going to be important and those things took time.
“I don’t think I can love.”
“I know.”
“But if I could, Sansa,” their hands came together, “I would love you.”
“I know.”