forgotten friend
Medusa slipped through the endless hallways.
Being in a chase brings a primal fear, the kind that brings out every ounce of you, that empties the reserve tank of the reserve tank.
It is the kind of fear of the worst of nightmares, the kind that ignores physical and mental pain in the pursuit of safety.
Medusa loved it, loved the way the hunters became the hunted.
The look of dawning horror on their faces as they went from monsters to trembling children alone in the darkness.
She had always loved the hunt, it had been better with her secret unofficial partner, the winter soldier.
Oh, how she had missed him.
She had missed him every time he was put in cryo, and once he had escaped he had forgotten her.
When she finally saw him again, wandering the tower in the middle of the night, he had been so innocent and monstrous at the same time, so confused about the simplest things but at the same time, he was still the same person she had known.
He hadn’t recognized her face, but he had remembered medusa.
He hadn’t remembered that rainy night.
Shaking herself from her thoughts she slipped into the control room, who said she wasn’t allowed to have any fun?
Besides if she added music no one would be too concerned if she started to hum under her breath as she turned the base into a slaughterhouse.
She would have to tell the team eventually, might as well make them slightly less terrified of medusa, make her more human, not just a master assassin.
And if the music she played was what she listened to when she was with Rusty and it would help him remember her, that was no one's business but her own.
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James’ hands clenched into fists so tight the metal of his left-hand groans.
The gas mask he was wearing was apparently bulletproof after Sam had gotten himself shot in the face by the agent who had come to assist Gorgon.
Trust Toni to make a bulletproof gas mask in the span of a few minutes.
No one wanted to make the first move, so the avengers were currently locked in a stalemate as Gorgon stared at them with a gaze that made it clear she was in her…
not right mind…
but at least her own mind.
Winter was wreaking havoc in their mental space, hating having to cover their face even though it was with something from Toni, but also the fact they didn’t know where Medusa was.
The fact they weren’t by her side.
James didn’t like it either, he and winter both felt the draw to Medusa, the interest, the memories just out of reach
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She called on the serum that flowed through her veins, healing her thigh from where the EMP had collided with her suit.
While she didn’t enjoy how draining the tech aspect of the serum was, she didn’t need it, she was the best in the world when it came to tech and she didn’t need any fucking Extremis to help her.
But the injection had been one of the best things for medusa, it had made her faster and stronger.
She could process information at twice the speed she already could.
But the healing, the healing was the best part.
The healing is what allowed her to truly hunt.
To exact her revenge in close combat rather than strategic sniping like the winter soldier.
She was unparalleled when it came to close combat because she had trained as a baseline human and then everything she could do was amplified.
She had experimented with her abilities once or twice, letting people get closer and closer to killing her before brutally using the Kadochnikov Systema, Krav Maga, her weapons, or poison gas.
She had never enjoyed the kill but she loved the fire that coursed through her veins.
She knew that whatever part of her that enjoyed the hunt, the adrenaline, the kill, would never go feral. She would never become a different person, she almost had once, but after that slip she never let it happen again.
The agents in the control room turned to look at her, she let them know she was there, it would provide at least a little more of a challenge.
Taking a step forward she twisted a gun from the first agent's hand, catching the weapon and slamming it into his skull with enough force for the weapon to crumple.
Sensing another agent from behind her she hauled him up and over her shoulder, wielding him like a sledgehammer into yet another agent who had drawn a knife and had been slinking up to her in the shadows.
The last man though, he, had stood and watched calmly.
She knew him.
He had been the winter soldier’s handler.
She would enjoy this.
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He struggled to reign in his anger and steady his breathing.
This was the second time he and winter had snapped in the last two hours, that was a major problem.
But then again, it wasn’t entirely their fault.
By the end of fighting Gorgon James sported a bruise on his side and a minor dent in his left arm from when he had bashed her skull in.
Everything had been going fine, they were winning and James didn’t need to step in. content to let the widow use a gun she had scavenged off a fallen agent to slowly cripple gorgon.
That was until Gorgon had made a mistake, getting overconfident was one thing.
Pissing James and winter off?
That was a death sentence, all she had said was a single slight.
A minor insult to the person she had been modeled after.
For reasons still unknown to James all it had taken was her mentioning how Medusa would disappear again and go back to hiding like a coward after suffering such a ‘humiliating' defeat at the hands of Hydra...
they had gone ballistic.
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If you've never seen the transition from a human to a corpse, the moment the soul passes on, it is a very moving experience.
If it is one you love there is a moment of grief, as if all the love you ever felt for them, every good memory sparks up as if the soul makes this SOS for them to return.
If it is someone you despised, someone who you had managed to exact revenge on and bring about their death, you were filled with warm satisfaction, knowing the ones you cared for had been avenged.
That was how medusa felt as she stood over the corpse, data chip in hand.
The carcass, the corpse, the remains of the body without them are so very different. Seeing it makes it real in ways that are hard to transmit to the deep subconscious self in other ways.
Smiling to herself she walked to the computer system, it was ancient but she could work with ancient. Fingers flying over the keys, she poured as much data as she could into the chip she had collected.
All the while the audio system had started to pick up on the playlist she was forcibly downloading.
What was a mass execution without a little music?
She let AC/DC pour through the speakers.
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Highway to Hell was pouring through the speakers when James finally saw medusa was safe.
This base must have had a never-ending stream of agents, at least 20 lay dead but they still had 50 more to go.
But she had walked in like nothing was wrong, only bothering to hurl an agent that had lunged at her into the wall 10 feet away, the impact leaving a dent with a sickening crunch.
Since when had she been able to do that? It had been years since he had seen her truly fight without holding back, without letting him complete his missions. She had always been distracted when they were together, making sure to keep one eye he had never seen on him at all times.
“Still here?” the surprise evident in her voice was slightly offensive as if he would leave her…
But hadn’t he? he had left her and even forgotten about her.
His slip in concentration led to her hurling one of her few daggers to him, he caught it effortlessly.
He recognized this one, it was one of her favorites.
It was also his favorite, her custom Jagkommando Tri-dagger.
It was the embodiment of his forgotten friend. It was perfectly balanced, incredibly sharp, and was absolutely deadly.
Twisting it could tear organs, even the handle was deadly, able to shatter glass and inflict unparalleled amounts of blunt force trauma.
Hydra had given him a few, but none had ever matched the craftsmanship of the one he held.
Adjusting to the familiar grip he was suddenly thrown back into a memory of the last time he had held the blade.
Ok so this is the dagger, it is one of if not the most deadly hand to hand combat weapons to ever exist. When used properly wounds bleed out in minutes and entire TEAMS of surgeons are needed to close them.