SCARLET HAIR
“…SO… WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR AGAIN?”
Olivia sighs, glancing at Bruce before she fixes her attention to the alley again, taking a faux-causal sip of her iced coffee. He looks kind of lost.
“She’ll be coming out of the alley,” she reminds him patiently. “About 5’7”, late 40s to early 50s. If we’re lucky, scarlet hair— I’m not holding my breath though. I’ll know her when I see her.” Bruce nods, hesitating. His eyes flicker between her and the alley, brows creased with worry.
“Right…” he agrees, slowly. “And you know that… how?” Olivia tries to focus on the alley, though she can already feel the headache coming on.
“I met her once or twice,” she replies, “by accident. Height and age, I know because I have eyes. The hair color is just a guess— I saw a dye stain on her arm one of those times. She could’ve changed it since.” He nods.
“Are we sure she’s coming?” He asks. “I mean, what if she doesn’t have work today?”
“She’s coming,” Olivia replies, a little more snappishly than intended. “I didn’t spend the last week straight combing through police reports and calendar events for nothing. She’ll be here, and when she gets here you’re staying in the car.”
His head snaps to her in offense.
“Hey— wait, what? You can’t do that,” he protests. “I can help! I thought we had a deal.”
“The deal was that you could come stake the place out with me,” she counters, utterly unrepentant. “We’re here, we’re staking it out— but this is as far as you go.”
“What? Why not? You don’t think I can be sneaky? I’m sneaky. I snuck past the government for five years!” Bruce claims, looking so desperate that Olivia almost wants to let him come— except for the part where she doesn’t. At all.
“Bruce, you’re a fucking Avenger now,” she counters. “If I let you step out of this car, you’re going to be swarmed by your adoring fans and I’ll probably end up getting shot. Is the swarm of fans conducive to the plan? No. So you’re staying.” His shoulders drop.
“I don’t get that,” he complains under his breath. “Fans. Fans of who? The other guy? Why does he get fans? All he does is run around and break everything. I mean, I have— seven PhDs. Where are my fans? Nowhere.”
“Bruce,” Olivia sighs, her patience audibly thin, “if you don’t shut the fuck up in the next 10 seconds, I’m throwing you out of the car and letting the fans have you. I don’t even care; you can walk back to the Tower.”
Bruce falls silent.
“…you know, you could have just asked—“
“That’s it,” Olivia announces, her voice coming out a little too loud, and Bruce balks.
“What? Are you actually throwing me out? I—,” he starts, only for Olivia to shush him, already in the middle of taking off her seatbelt.
“No,” she hisses back, keeping her voice down for whatever reason, “she showed up.” She pushes open the car door to clamber out. “I’m going after her—,“ she pauses to duck her head back into the car—, “stay here.”
The door slams shut, leaving Bruce in the car as Olivia follows after Wolf. The older, scarlet-haired woman rounds a corner, and Olivia adjusts her scarf and sunglasses as she follows suit, being sure to stay back a little and pretend to text someone.
It’s looking as though this might turn out well, actually. She doesn’t even look vaguely suspicious.
“Where is she?” comes from her right, and Olivia flinches forward, focusing so hard on not stabbing the speaker in the stomach that she fumbles her phone. It almost drops onto the unforgiving sidewalk, but she manages to barely catch it.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” she hisses, glancing at Bruce before craning her neck to see if Wolf noticed anything.
In the split second that Olivia was distracted, she disappeared entirely.
Olivia groans quietly, her eyes flicking briefly to the left at an alley to make sure it’s empty. She grabs Bruce by his tie and yanks him into said alley, ignoring the dirty looks she gets from some passersby who she damn near knocked them into.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Olivia demands flatly, her tone already furious. “I told you to stay in the car.”
“I just wanted to help,” he protests. “I mean, I—,” he falters, frustrated. She groans.
“Well, thanks to your so-called ‘help’, we lost Wolf,” she snaps. “God, I cannot believe you. You think this is a casual outing? There’s at least a hundred people on this block alone that want me dead, Bruce. I asked you to stay in the car and I trusted you to understand that I know what the fuck I’m doing. Why can’t you ever just fucking trust me?”
Bruce’s face drops into one of realization.
“Oh— Liv, no, that’s not—,” he starts, and she scoffs before he’s even finished with the word.
“It doesn’t matter if that’s how you meant it Bruce,” she snarls sharply. “You think they’re gonna ask questions? What matters is that you just put us in a whole lot of danger and made me lose our target. If she noticed us, this whole operation is fucking doomed, and I’m never gonna get this target off my back without damn near dying.”
Shame twists Bruce’s face. His arms go out helplessly, then he pulls them back in.
“I didn’t— I was just trying to—,” he starts, his voice going quiet. Olivia holds up a hand, and he goes silent. She takes a deep breath, then lets it out.
“You were trying,” she emphasizes, “to make up for not being here before by inserting yourself into everything. And you shouldn’t— but we can talk about that later. Right now, I need to go track down Wolf. Stay here. I mean it. If you follow me, you will get in my way. I’ll be back.” He deflates a little, but nods.
“Okay,” he agrees, relenting, with a deep sigh. “Stay safe.” The last part sounds like a plea more than anything. Olivia nods once.
“I will,” she pledges, reaching out and patting him once on the arm for reassurance. Then, she turns and vanishes up the fire escapes, leaving Bruce to wait in the alley.
He catches himself thinking about how it got so cold all of a sudden.
Or maybe it’s in his head.
Olivia leans over the edge of the building, magic shimmering over her, keeping her hidden. She searches the crowds for the familiar face, quietly praying to find her even as she glances at her watch.
It points her in a direction, even as it moves, and sure enough, Olivia sees Wolf among the crowds, crossing the street. She backs away from the ledge as the illusion falls away, making for the fire escape and half-sliding down it back into the alley.
She skirts directly past a very confused Bruce, following the needle on her watch towards Wolf. She calms down once the woman is back within sight, and follows her down two more streets before the other woman finally enters an apartment building.
Olivia turns invisible as she slips in behind Wolf, watching the elevator doors slide shut and taking that as her cue to reappear. The number above the elevator goes up, up, up, then stops at 6. Olivia presses the button, and the elevator comes back down. She turns invisible before the doors open, just in case— but it’s empty.
She turns and leaves, sealing that information away for a more unreasonable hour.
Just in case.