Run, Y/N, Run
You’d pushed yourself before. It had been your therapy, once, sneaking out of the house and going for an early morning run. It was how you shut off your brain. All the worries. All the insecurities. The only true silence you’d ever known was the sound of feet on pavement. Now, it was the only thing keeping you from collapsing.
After fleeing from the Avengers, you ran for over six-hours straight. As a strategy, it didn’t make any sense. You’d passed plenty of places to hide out and plenty of cars to steal. Hell, you could’ve caught a plane and been halfway to another continent. Yet still, you ran.
You ran to block out the image of Louis and Seb’s lifeless bodies lying on the floor. Of Kilroy being taking into custody by Captain America. But most of all, you ran to block out the image of the girl you’d shot bleeding out on the floor and Natasha’s eyes boring into you with one unmistakable meaning: I’m going to hunt you down and make you pay.
You only stopped running when you’d burned a literal hole in your shoe. Luckily, it happened near a medium-sized town, the only decent break you’d caught since being released from prison. You’d been on the run when jobs had gone south before, but this was the first time you’d been on your own, and you were annoyed at how much your brain was relying on Kilroy’s advice. Even more so when you realized how much of it was right. So, you dutifully skipped the big box stores for a local pharmacy that was less likely to have security cameras and picked up a box of hair dye with your scant cash before heading to a corner market.
It was the first grocery store you’d been inside since your release and even though it was small, the choices were overwhelming. You gave yourself a few minutes to stroll the aisles until you caught sight of your appearance in a freezer door. You looked horrible. Besides the rather conspicuous hole in your shoe, your hair and clothes were a mess and there was a deep purple bruise on your neck where Natasha had pinned you against the wall. Worried you’d start drawing attention you grabbed the closest frozen pizza, zipped up your jacket, and got the hell out of there before anyone called the police.
“Y/F/N Y/L/N,” Tony said, leaning against the door where Nat still sat next to Wanda’s bedside, her eyes glued to the monitors in case there was even a slight change in Wanda’s still unconscious condition.
Nat’s eyes shot up, surprised, as Tony walked into the room, both pleased and worried that his former Red Room spy was so consumed by observing Wanda that she didn’t hear his approach.
“I got a match.” Tony handed Nat a tablet with a photo of your unsmiling face in an unmistakable orange jumpsuit. “She was released from prison the day before she attacked the lab.”
Nat didn’t know whether to be impressed or disappointed. “That’s her alright.” Her curious green eyes skimmed the charges that had landed you in lock-up in the first place. “Accessory to armed robbery. Let me take a wild guess who the mastermind behind that was.”
Nat thought back to her earlier conversation with Kilroy, their “guest” in the basement. He’d seemed certain you’d come to rescue him, so certain, in fact, that Steve was convinced you were already on the way to the compound and all the Avengers needed to do was be ready when you got here. But Nat, true to her skeptical nature, wasn’t convinced. Even if Kilroy was responsible for injecting you with the serum, she wasn’t naïve enough to believe that made him your savior. In fact, if her experience growing up in the Red Room was any indication, Kilroy was probably closer to your Dreykov, which made your next move much more uncertain.
Still, for as vicious as you’d been at attacking her and shooting Wanda, the more Nat replayed the botched mission, the more one action gave her pause. Even after shooting Wanda and slamming Nat into the glass case you’d still been careful to step over Wanda’s body in the doorway. From her dazed position on the ground, Nat could’ve sworn your face wore a look of guilt as you disappeared down the hallway. And even if it didn’t, you’d passed up a perfectly good opportunity to kill them both. Though Nat’s first priority was avenging her teammate, she had to admit your surprising superstrength mixed with your even more surprising morality made her inclined to capture you alive, at least until she had a chance to talk to you.
“You should get some sleep.” Tony’s voice echoed in Nat’s head as she read what JARVIS had been able to pull on your background. A series of foster homes wasn’t surprising but the lack of any record from sixteen until your prison stint left Nat feeling sick to her stomach in a way that she didn’t think was possible for someone she also wanted dead. Not a single social media account or prom picture? Did you even graduate high school? Nat pushed all those thoughts away as she focused back on Wanda. It didn’t matter. Her teammate was seriously hurt. Every minute she kept breathing was progress, but nothing was guaranteed, and that lack of control filled Nat with a rage that no broken childhood could put out.
“Have JARVIS scan all CCTV footage within several hundred miles of the lab. If her speed’s even half as fast as Steve we’re looking at a large area, and that’s if she didn’t catch a ride.”
Tony nodded, already retreating to the door. He was much more comfortable in his own lab than anywhere else in the compound, especially when medical doctors were involved. “Already done,” he said, nodding at Nat. “I’ll let you know as soon as I get anything.”
“Good,” Nat said, mind already thinking ten steps ahead. “Did you already flush that serum down the toilet?”
Tony shook his head. “I was just about to when I got the match for our super soldier-ette.”
“Don’t,” Nat said, as authoritatively as she could muster on no sleep. “It could come in handy as a bargaining chip if Y/N needs a little persuasion that isn’t rescuing the guy that turned her into a killing machine.”
Tony frowned, sensing Nat’s past and yours blurring together. “You got it. I’ll put the vials in storage. But if Steve finds out...”
Nat flashed him a small thank you smile. “He won’t.”
You spent a good five minutes trying to use Seb’s lockpicking kit to gain entry to a dark, car-less house, hopeful the vacationing family that lived here had at least one member with a women’s size nine foot. But no matter how much you worked the keyhole, it stayed locked. You had to hand it to Seb, he clearly had much more patience and skill and you eventually gave up, opting instead for climbing through an obscured (and now broken) kitchen window.
After preheating the oven for the frozen pizza you gave yourself a tour, wondering at all the high-end electronics and fully stocked fridge. Desperate to replenish your calories, you nevertheless stuck to the plan, taking a kitchen shear to your hair before you applied the darker dye, letting it sit while the pizza cooked. The smell of dye and melting cheese was mildly off-putting but you were so hungry no smell would’ve kept you from devouring the pizza straight out of the oven.
“Oh my god,” it snuck out of your mouth without warning as soon as the first bite of tomato sauce hit your taste buds. Friday nights had always been pizza nights with Kilroy, a rare indulgence after a week of planning whatever your next half-baked job was. Part of you was sad to be eating alone. Even in prison you quickly established a group of friends; the quirky, quiet new girl who could break someone’s jaw with a single punch proved to be a hot commodity. Still, it was nice not having to hide your nutritional needs, and the whole pizza was devoured in less time that it had taken to bake.
You stayed in the hot shower until the water ran cold, feeling a twinge of guilt at being wasteful as you wrapped yourself in a fluffy robe. It was getting late, and each passing hour made you more confident you’d have the house to yourself for the rest of the night.
You padded down the carpeted hall towards the home office. Just as you’d hoped, a computer sat invitingly on the desk with a sticky note stuck to the monitor. You weren’t the world’s best hacker, but even you could make an educated guess that the combination of numbers and letters scrawled across it was the password. As the computer booted up, you unzipped the small bag you’d taken off Louis’ body. Inside were the three intact vials of serum.
You grabbed one and held it up to the light of the monitor. You knew more than anyone that there was no telling what was truly inside. Hundreds, if not thousands, of scientists had tried to recreate the legendary super soldier serum with mixed results and even more varied side effects. You knew you’d gotten lucky; your batch was surprisingly stable. Watered down, sure, but still potent enough to be effective without turning you into the Hulk, though the first few days had felt like hell, every centimeter of your body screaming as it was torn apart and rebuilt from the inside. It was torture in the best of situations, but who knew what this particular serum would do.
You tossed your misgivings aside; Kilroy had gotten you into this mess for one reason and one reason only: you needed money. And that hadn’t changed just because of the Avenger’s interference. If anything, it made you more resolute. Just a little cash and you’d start fresh. Do something respectable with your life. You thought you’d kick ass at owning a gym.
So as soon as you logged into the computer you headed straight to the dark web. It was something you’d seen Kilroy do hundreds of times; you’d even helped him on occasion. It wasn’t hard to place an ad, and the words flowed out of you as you hyped up the serum. Proud of yourself, you proofread your post and added one final sentence before pressing send: “serious inquiries only.”