2
0330 HOURS — ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE
The witching hour cloaked Andrews Air Force Base in pre-dawn stillness, broken only by runway markers glowing like fireflies and the distant shimmer of D.C.’s skyline. A C-130 Hercules punched through the clouds, its grime-streaked fuselage roaring with a bone-deep hum that rattled the quiet. Fresh from Peru, it lined up with runway 01R, flaps whining, landing gear locking with a resolute THUNK. Tires kissed tarmac with a sharp SCREECH, smoke curling into the chilly air as the plane taxied toward a shadowed hangar. Six matte-black SUVs waited, each emblazoned with a stylized eagle clutching a globe—S.H.I.E.L.D.– Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division.
Agents stood in crisp formation, suits dark, eyes colder. Among them, Director Nick Fury, his bald head catching the runway’s glint, his long coat casting a stark silhouette. His presence was a gravitational pull. The Hercules’s engines growled to a stop. The rear ramp lowered with a hydraulic HISS. Agent Phil Coulson stepped out first—average height, unassuming build, more tax auditor than spy. Worn hiking boots, faded jeans, a plaid shirt under his S.H.I.E.L.D. jacket. His calm eyes could sell trust to a snake. “Morning, Director,” he said, shaking Fury’s hand with a steady grip. “How’d she do?” Fury’s voice was gravel and authority, sharp enough to cut through the night. Coulson glanced back at the ramp. “She’s right there.”
A second figure emerged: Ashley McIntyre, recently turned eighteen, red hair pulled into a messy ponytail, freckles stark under the floodlights. The sleeves of her blue blouse were rolled at the elbows and her jeans were visibly stained with dirt. She looked like she just came back from an expedition and that wasn’t far off from the truth. A former senior at Midtown Polytechnical High, now splitting time between MIT’s quantum physics labs and a S.H.I.E.L.D. field internship, she was wildly out of her depth but too stubborn to show it. She clutched a secure metal case like it was her lifeline, her knuckles white. Don’t trip. Don’t drop it. You’re supposed to be here, Ash. You earned this. Kinda. Her sneakers—scuffed, with doodled circuit patterns mixed with superheroes from late-night study sessions—squeaked faintly on the ramp. The air thickened as she approached Fury. She handed the case to the containment team, her fingers trembling, then tried for levity. “Uh, go team? Mission accomplished?” Her voice cracked, and she threw up a hesitant high-five.
Silence.
Fury’s eyebrow arched like a drawn bow. Coulson’s lips twitched, suppressing a grin. “Work in progress, sir,” Coulson said. “But she’s got a real spark for field work.” Fury gave a slow nod, his eye unreadable. “We’ll see.” Ashley’s stomach plummeted. Smooth, McIntyre. Really nailed that first impression. “Follow me, rookie,” Fury said, striding toward the hangar. “Tell me what we’re dealing with.” Ashley hurried after him, heart hammering. He’s not your chem teacher. Focus. “Yes, Director, sir.” She winced. Stop babbling. She took a breath, channeling the clarity she felt in MIT’s labs, surrounded by humming servers and chalkboard equations. “The object we recovered in Peru—it’s Chitauri tech, but… weird. It's solid at room temp, but shift the temp below or above ninety-two degrees, and it turns non-Newtonian, like liquid metal with a mind of its own. It ripples—like a pulse—when you touch it, almost like it’s sizing you up. I saw it reshape itself in the field, mimicking the texture of the rock it was buried in. Camouflage, maybe. It's way-way weird."
Fury stopped dead. Turned. “Sizing you up,” he echoed, his stare—a laser boring into the green hopeful agent. Ashley swallowed, her mind flashing to the late nights she’d spent sketching pictures of the Avengers in her dorm, trying to make sense of the seemingly impossible. “Yes, sir. Its structure… it’s not just complex, it’s alive. Crystalline pathways, like neural networks, but liquid-based. I think it’s a bio-computer. Sentient. Maybe an AI that chooses when to shift phases.” Her breath hitched. Did that sound brilliant or totally unhinged? Fury’s eye narrowed, sharp enough to carve through her confidence. “Wait kid, you’re saying this thing thinks–that it’s ALIVE? Better not be another damn Ultron.” He shot Coulson a quick glance.
Coulson gave a subtle nod, his faith in her a quiet anchor. Ashley pressed on, her voice steadier. “It’s not just reacting, sir. It’s… cautious. Like it’s testing us as much as we’re testing it. In Peru, when we scanned it, it emitted a low-frequency hum—almost like a heartbeat.” Fury exhaled, slow and heavy. “Chitauri tech is trouble even on its best day. If this thing really is alive, it’s got an agenda. Coulson, get it to the Triskelion lab. Level Ten protocols.”
Coulson adjusted his jacket, smirking. “She’s right about one thing, sir. It’s way-weird.” He motioned for Ashley to follow as the containment team sealed the case in a reinforced SUV. “Come on, kid. Time to show you’re more than just a failed high five enthusiast.” Ashley’s face burned, her fingers nervously brushing a pen in her pocket. Analysis team. With Fury’s eyes on me. Yeah sure. No pressure... Coulson gave her shoulder a quick squeeze. “Relax. You’ve got this. We all started somewhere.” His tone was almost fatherly. She nodded, clutching the faint hum of her own resolve. She simply nodded in reply.
Ashley slumped in the fourth SUV, her brain buzzing like a quantum processor on the edge of overload. She's been what twenty-four hours awake—maybe thirty?—and her thoughts raced faster than particles in a collider. Best summer of her life? Worst? Too close to call. While her Midtown classmates partied at beach houses or posted graduation selfies, she’d spent three months in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s pressure cooker: surveillance and counter-surveillance, investigative technique, containment protocols, hand-to-hand combat, firearms training aggressive and evasive driving. Stuff no eighteen-year-old from Manhattan expected to tackle. Guns had terrified her at first, her only experience blasting virtual aliens in video games. But Agent Ward’s steely drills rewired her fear into respect. “A firearm’s just a tool,” he’d said, his voice cool like tempered steel. “Use it right, and it saves lives.” S.H.I.E.L.D. was about order, precision, protecting people. Ward’s lessons gave her a new lens: firearms weren’t evil but tools of control, and protection like mastering code she could master a gun. Which one rested in a holster at her hip—a compact 9 mm Parabellum.
Ashley's fingers again brushed a pen in her pocket—a gift, etched with binary code given to her during a late-night anime binge with Vivian Sawyer, her MIT lab partner and roommate, possibly something more. The Chitauri tech from Peru hummed in her mind, its eerie pulse replaying like a glitchy signal. It wants something, she thought, unease prickling at the back of her mind. Her doodled sneakers tapped the floor, one sketch catching her eye: a tiny Millennium Falcon, drawn during a study session with Vivian. They’d bonded over shared truths—they were both transgender, both embracing their femininity with quiet confidence, both adamant that The Empire Strikes Back was the best Star Wars film. The night before Peru, sprawled across Vivian’s dorm bed, one shy glance led to a kiss, then a night of closeness that felt otherworldly, intense and loving. Vivian’s sharp wit and gentle warmth were Ashley’s anchor against the world's chaos.
Lost in the memory, Ashley didn’t notice the contrail streaking toward the convoy at breakneck speed. High above the Frederick Douglas Memorial Bridge, a drone stalked them like a bird of prey, its AI-assisted targeting matrix locking onto the lead SUV. A hellfire missile launched, slicing the pre-dawn inky blackness with murderous intent. Coulson, riding shotgun, had been keeping things light, regaling Ashley with Frederick Douglass trivia from his near-encyclopedic mind. “Did you know Douglass learned to read in secret? Taught himself to—” His eyes caught the missile’s glint out of the corner of his eye. “Get down!” he barked, voice that cracked like a whip but still laced with fatherly urgency.
Ashley’s heart lurched. Get down, huh what??? She looked around confused and she was soon overwhelmed with terror. The missile struck, obliterating the lead SUV. Then a secondary blast—the gas tank—sent it flipping skyward, flames clawing at the night sky. The convoy Screeched to a halt, swerving to avoid civilian cars. “Stay down, kid,” Coulson ordered, his calm replaced by steel. “No heroics. Take cover. Now! We’ll clear the area and secure the package and I’ll come get you. You stay here, got it?” She nodded in a wide eyed daze and fumbled with her seat belt. Once free she threw herself to the floor of the SUV. The acrid stench from the burning lead unit stung her nostrils and caused her eyes to water. Her mind soon raced back to the Chitauri tech—was it broadcasting their position? Was it calling for help?
In the dim-lit nerve center of the Hydra redoubt, buried deep beneath the Virginia hills, Vivian Sawyer's breath came steady and sharp through the balaclava's filter, her lithe frame coiled in the pilot's harness like a spring under tension. The holographic display glared with thermal blooms from the blast—satisfying reds and oranges licking the convoy's lead husk, agents scattering like scurrying ants. Her gloved hands danced across the neural interface, syncing her pulse to the drone's thrusters, the machine an extension of her will, her vengeance. There you are, Ash, she thought, the endearment twisted with a lover's ache and a traitor's glee, eyes—hazel and unyielding—locked on the feed zooming toward the fourth SUV, where a familiar red ponytail spilled across the floorboards.
Scared? Good. You should be. We could've burned bright together, away from their chains. But you chose the stars and stripes and now you can watch them burn. The drone hummed approval in her veins, its cloaking field rippling as it banked low over the bridge's guardrails, civilian traffic frozen in horrified gridlock below. Vivian's lips curved beneath the hood, a ghost of the smirk she'd flashed Ashley in stolen dorm-room hours, now sharpened to a blade. "Second course," she murmured, voice a silken rasp over the comms, thumbing the secondary payload: cluster munitions. The drone's underbelly split open, releasing the swarm in a whispering arc toward the trailing SUVs, timed to kiss the ground just shy of the containment vehicle. Explosions rocked the bridge. One of the Shield SUVs flipped through the air flying over the edge of the bridge civilian vehicles were torn to pieces. Agents surrounding the unit were either gutted by shrapnel, or kissed by searing flames. Innocent drivers also succumbed to the violent onslaught. Come out, babe. Run to me. The bridge is our ring tonight, just you and me. Alarms blared faintly in her earpiece—SHIELD countermeasures pinging the skies—but she was already ghosting the drone higher, evasive spirals prepped, her free hand absently tracing the faded binary tattoo on her wrist, a relic of warmer nights. The girl in the SUV didn't know yet that the heartbeat she'd described wasn't the tech's alone—it was a Hydra beacon, woven into the Chitauri's veins during extraction. "Your move rookie."
The scanner in the front seat crackled, the SOS sharpening for a moment—HELP—before dissolving into alien static, like a voice drowning in a storm. Ashley fumbled with the device, struggling to stay as low as possible. Every scream and explosion jolted her, shaking the rookie to her very core. Her hands were trembling as she engaged signal filters on the touch screen interface. A second signal flickered—fainter, closer, transmitting from her pocket. Could it be? No, she couldn't... Her mind was racing but she pushed the thoughts from her mind. The pressure was on and she had a job to do.
S.H.I.E.L.D. Scanner Log - 0347 HOURS, 17 MARCH 2015
Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge
[Signal 1: Chitauri Tech]
20-2000 Hz (base hum @ 20-50 Hz, spikes @ 1000-2000 Hz) Pattern: Repeating SOS (... --- ...) with alien overlay (high-pitch whine) Waveform: Phase-modulated sinusoidal, amplitude spikes under stress Data: Brief "HELP" decode @ 0332, dissolved into static Status: Active, unstable, reacting to external interference Note: Signal pulses sync with device glow and phase-shifting
[Signal 2: HYDRA Interference]
1500-2500 Hz (targeted overlap with Chitauri spikes) Pattern: Continuous wave with burst pulses, encrypted (HYDRA cipher) Waveform: Frequency-modulated, high-amplitude bursts Data: Rolling key encryption, partial decode (tactical comms) Status: Active, disrupting Chitauri signal, source nearby Note: Signal peaks align with attacker comms and jeep movements
[Signal 3: Unidentified (Source Unknown)]
Suspected 1000-3000 Hz (pending confirmation) Pattern: Faint, low-power pulse, possible OOK modulation Waveform: Single-tone, ultra-low amplitude Data: No decode, possible tracking or jamming assist Status: Active, intermittent, correlates with Chitauri stress Note: Source proximity suggests physical device (nearby)
Ashley’s breath was caught in her throat. “Sir, there’s another signal boosting the interference. It’s… nearby.” She didn’t say the pen, she couldn’t accept that she was possibly used. Coulson nodded, ducking as bullets rained down at him. “Jam it, McIntyre. Whatever’s guiding HYDRA, kill it.” Ashley rerouted the scanner’s output, sending a counter-frequency. The tech’s hum stuttered, the glow dimming, and the attackers’ comms crackled, their advance faltering. A jeep swerved, its driver cursing. Ashley clutched the pen, its warmth unsettling. Vivian’s face flashed in her mind—her smile, loving nature, was it all a facade? Coulson seized the moment, barking into his radio: “Fury, HYDRA’s jamming the package’s signal. We need extraction now!” He glanced at Ashley, his voice softening. “Nice work, kid. Keep that scanner hot. We’re not clear yet.” Ashley nodded, her mind spinning. The Chitauri tech was afraid—but of who?
Vivian's jaw tightened beneath the balaclava as the drone's feed stuttered, static veiling the thermal haze of the bridge like a shroud. The jammer's pulse hit her interface like a slap—crude, SHIELD-issue, but effective enough to garble the HYDRA cipher mid-burst, her ground teams' jeeps lurching as comms dissolved into white noise. Clever girl, she seethed, the endearment a barb in her chest, hazel eyes narrowing at the grainy outline of Ashley huddled in the SUV, scanner aglow in her lap. Always the puzzle-solver, huh? Her fingers flexed on the neural yoke, rerouting auxiliary frequencies through the Chitauri relic's embedded backdoor—a Hydra modification, subtle as the binary she'd inked on that pen, pulsing now like a shared heartbeat gone rogue. The drone dipped, cloaking field shimmering as it evaded a SHIELD quinjet, its payload bays priming with EMP chaff to blind the rookie's toy. Vivian's voice cut through the outpost's hum, low and laced with frost over the encrypted line to her teams: "Regroup at vector three. Flush them onto the span—her onto the span. No kills yet. The package comes to me intact." A jeep's driver acknowledged with a clipped burst before the line frayed again, but it was enough; her operatives tightened the noose, rifles barking in controlled volleys to herd the convoy survivors toward the bridge's heart, away from the mainland's reinforcements. The unidentified signal—Ashley's pocket traitor—flickered defiantly, its OOK modulation syncing with Vivian's override, a digital whisper urging the Chitauri tech to hold, to hold for mother.
She leaned forward, breath fogging the HUD's edge, the tactical gear's plates creaking against her frame as she plotted the drone's descent. You're jamming the wrong ghost, love. That hum? It's mine. Calling you home. With a savage twist of her wrist, the drone unleashed the chaff in a glittering cascade, EMP erupting mid-air to fry the scanner's bandwidth and plunge the bridge into electronic twilight—streetlights winking out, radios hissing to silence. In the feed's bloom, Vivian caught a glimpse of red hair whipping in the chaos, Ashley's form scrambling from cover. Run to the middle, Ash. Where I want you-need you. Her transport was already en route, blacked-out chopper slicing the Potomac's veil, balaclava itched like a promise. The duel beckoned, a battle between lovers turned to rivals. "You'll pay for joining them, for joining SHIELD." The agency's name lingered a foul taste - like biting into a rotten piece of fruit.
The drone uncloaked as the QRF-tasked Quinjet streaked by. “This is Leviathan; we’re on task one minute out.” Coulson breathed a sigh of relief. “There’s our ride, kid,” he called out. The remaining agents took up positions around the vehicle carrying the payload. Ashley spotted the aircraft on approach. That’s it; this nightmare is almost over. A twin pair of missiles slammed into the fuselage. Upon detonation, flames engulfed the craft. Smoke billowed from the fractured frame. It spun, hurtling towards the bridge like a raging comet. "Oh no!" McIntyre watched in horror as it grew closer, closer. Impact was only a matter of seconds; but those seconds stretched on for an eternity. She curled up into a protective ball, and then there was the thunderous roar of the crash.
The bridge shuddered under the Quinjet's dying throes, twisted metal screeching as it gouged a fiery scar across the span, hurling debris like shrapnel confetti into the Potomac's black maw. Vivian's drone feed captured it all in high-def carnage—the contrast of orange against predawn gray, agents diving from the blast wave, Ashley's form a fleeting shadow amid the convoy's wreckage, curled up and alive. Still breathing, Vivian thought, a thrill coiling low in her gut, equal parts regret and rapture. Her thumb ghosted the firing stud, holding back the kill-shot; no, this ends face-to-face. Debris was scattered along the highway. Under a piece of wreckage lay Coulson, he was still, unconscious. Ashley feared the worst. She crawled from the rear of the SUV like a fearful child. The smell of burning fuel singed her nose and throat, she gagged and choked tears welling-up at the corner of her eyes in response. In the distance there was a clash of shadows, were they hostile, friendly? She noted the tactical movements. One kicked over a prone figure and fired two rounds from a carbine. A gun is a tool. A tool if used correctly will save lives. Ashley unholstered her weapon and took aim. She bored down the sight and lined up the shot before the shadowy figure could dispatch another person. BAM! BAM! BAM! The pull of the trigger felt heavier than it did in training. A herky-jerky movement signified her targets were hit. Both figures dropped to the deck. Ashley blinked, and began trembling… I-I just kill-killed two people. Her stomach roiled like weathered waters of the Potomac. She then threw up, her whole body convulsing as tears flooded from her eyes. “Oh… oh my God.” She cried and sobbed. Her sight lingered on their still forms. She was stricken with guilt.
In the frenzy of the assault, Vivian snatched the vial from the wrecked containment SUV, slipping it into her belt like a stolen promise—Hydra's prize, now hers alone. Vivian ghosted through the smoke-wreathed trestles like a specter unbound, carbine slung low and loose. The Quinjet's corpse smoldered mere yards away, its twisted frame a pyre casting erratic shadows that danced with the HYDRA jeeps' headlights, her teams fanning out in disciplined arcs to cull the stragglers. But the shots—three crisp cracks echoing off the girders—froze her mid-stride, her HUD pinging the thermals: two of her own dropping, center-mass glowing forms cooling fast on the deck. No, she snarled inwardly, the loss a fresh laceration atop the old ones, hazel eyes slicing through the haze to lock on the source—a redheaded silhouette, pistol trembling in white-knuckled hands, body wracked with heaves as bile splattered the asphalt. The balaclava's weave trapped her ragged exhale, a mix of fury and that damned, unkillable ache; Ashley, her Ashley, painted in blood for the first time, the rookie's baptism a mockery of the gentle nights they'd shared kisses and secrets. You really think that you're saving lives? Vivian's mind lashed, boots silent on the scarred as she circled wide, using the wreckage's bulk for cover, her squad's suppressed chatter fading to background static.
One operative—hers—ventured too close to the sobbing figure, rifle raised in query, but Vivian's gloved hand flashed a halt signal, sharp as a knife. She's mine to break. The air thickened with the Potomac's damp chill and the bite of cordite, the bridge a coliseum now, civilians long fled, SHIELD's reinforcements choking on gridlock miles back. She rose from the gloom like a tide, carbine leveled but unfired, the blacked-out tactical silhouette blending with the night—faceless, nameless, the lover's features buried under layers of deception. Twenty paces separated them, the gap a chasm of shattered trust. Vivian's voice modulator kicked in, twisting her silken timbre to a gravelly hiss over the wind-whipped span: "Drop it! You only get this one chance." Her stance was poetry in motion—weight balanced, free hand hovering near the vial at her belt, ready to claim her victory if the girl bolted. Look at me, Ash. See the ghost S.H.I.E.L.D. made. The quinjets' remains were caught in a gust of wind, embers danced at their feet, the duel igniting not in fire, but in the raw, unraveling space between them. In the distance the THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! The sound of rotors clapped against the shimmering surface of the river. The Hydra chopper was growing near. So was the din of an army of emergency vehicles racing to the apocalyptic scene.
Ashley was frozen like a statue–her psyche a rollercoaster of emotions fear, anger, sadness. They all worked overtime to overwhelm her. She looked up at the figure barking commands. She stared in disbelief and mouthed–”Viv?” She knew, her gift, the pen was the damming piece of evidence. Ashley’s face grew as hard as the concrete biting into her knees. She didn't waiver, didn't flinch, she stared defiantly at the figure bearing down a carbine on her. The pain in her chest felt like a fist clutching her heart. All she could ask was, “Why?
Vivian's world narrowed to that single syllable—Viv—whispered like a curse from Ashley's lips, cracking the modulator's veil just enough for the raw edge of recognition to bleed through. The carbine dipped a fraction, not in mercy but in the seismic jolt of exposure, her gloved finger easing off the trigger as if burned. She knows. The thought was a live wire, sparking through the tactical haze, hazel eyes widening behind the balaclava's mesh—unseen, but the subtle hitch in her breath betrayed the fracture. Twenty paces felt like an eternity now, the embers at their feet swirling in mocking eddies, the Chitauri's silenced hum a ghost in her belt, pulsing once in echo of the girl's shattered heart "Why?"
She straightened, shoulders rolling back under the gear's weight, a predator reassessing its prey. The squad's shadows held at the periphery, rifles trained but frozen by her earlier signal, the bridge's span a private arena amid the smoldering ruin. Vivian's free hand rose slow, deliberate—not to strike, but to hook a thumb under the balaclava's edge, peeling it up just enough to bare her mouth and jaw, the septum ring glinting in the firelight, lips curving in a smile that was half snarl, half sorrow. Blonde strands escaped the hood, framing features Ashley knew from pillow-talk and quantum sketches: sharp cheekbones, the faint scar from a dorm-room mishap with a soldering iron. "Why, heh... yeah, why indeed. You don't know what SHIELD IS! WHAT THEY TAKE FROM PEOPLE! WHAT THEY TOOK FROM ME!" She growled like a wounded animal, her voice dripping with venom. "They took everything from me. Including you... I actually did start to fall in love with you. I wanted an out for us both, but then you left for Peru... and... that was that. You chose your side, and you'll PAY FOR IT!" She leveled the carbine, iron-sights square with McIntyre's forehead. "I should kill you."
Ashley climbed to her feet and dropped her pistol. It clattered to the ground. She stared at her classmate, her lover with eyes filled with rage. "So do it!" She snapped back at blonde. "You certainly did hold back earlier, do IT!" Ashley shouted in challenge her cerulean gaze locked onto Viv's heavenly hazels. The young woman choked back a fresh wave of tears. “I'm with Coulson! I'm with SHIELD! And I'm not going to let you hurt another person on this bridge.”
Sawyer broke out in a mocking laugh "Like you could stop me" her voice grew low and bitter all the sweetness reserved for their nightly pillow talk sessions gone, it's now weaponized, echoing off the bridge's scarred girders. The pistol's clatter rang in her ears like a dropped gauntlet, Ashley's fists balled white-knuckled at her sides, freckles stark against tear-streaked cheeks flushed with fury. Now there's that fire, she thought, the sight twisting her hatred deeper, hazel eyes tracing the girl's defiant stance amid the pyre's glow, embers catching in her red hair like fallen stars. A vision of her parents in a shootout with SHIELD agents played out in her head like a Blu-ray on repeat. Now, Vivian revealed herself, the hood danced in the wind and dropped to the ground. Next she undid her vest and molle-webbing. She stood before Ashley–her lover now enemy. She tossed her carbine to the deck and clenched her fists. "I loved you, I really did. But all that is over now, I promise you one thing, I won't beat your face too bad. That way your Mom and Dad can have an open casket." She then roared like a maddened lioness. "You have NO IDEA WHAT THEY STOLE FROM ME! AND YOU STAND THERE, TAKING THEIR SIDE! I LOVED YOU, I WANTED US TO BE TOGETHER!"
Ashley interrupted the tirade with a lightning quick fist. Viv's roar choked into a gasp as Ashley's fist connected—a flash of knuckles cracking against her jaw, snapping her head sideways with stars exploding behind her eyelids. The impact burned hot and coppery in her mouth, blood welling from a split lip, the septum ring twisting like a thorn as she staggered back two paces, boots scraping gravel and embers on the bridge's scarred deck. Thatta girl, show me what'cha got, she thought through the daze, pain sharpening the world to a razor's edge, her discarded carbine clattering forgotten amid the wreckage. The vest's straps hung loose now, a deliberate unarming—no tools, just us—her body bared in the tactical undershirt clinging to lithe muscle earned in Hydra's shadows and stolen gym hours, the vial's pouch a subtle bulge at her side.
She tasted salt and iron, Ashley's tears mingling with her own unbidden ones, but fury ignited hotter than the Quinjet's husk, propelling her forward in a blur of motion honed from betrayal's forge. Vivian lunged, not with a weapon but with the raw, feral grace of a lover scorned—her hand snapping out to seize Ashley's wrist mid-swing, twisting it just enough to unbalance without breaking, pulling the girl off her feet and into a clinch against the girder's cold steel. Their breaths tangled, chests heaving in syncopated rhythm, Vivian's free arm snaking around Ashley's waist in a hold that was half restraint, half desperate anchor—the vial's hum vibrating against her forearm like a shared pulse gone wild, its pouch pressed between them in the crush. "They took my family, Ash—raided our home, gunned them down," Fury left me in the rubble with nothing but echoes of their screams! And you side with HIM! I'm going to kill you for that." she hissed, voice cracking raw against the redhead's ear, hazel eyes blazing inches away, freckles and fury so achingly familiar it burned worse than the punch. "SHIELD calls it order; Shield’s order digs nothing but graves. And you—you were supposed to be my horizon, my out—until you chose their badge over my fucking heart."
Kill me, bitch you can try. Ashley struggled in the clinch, her chest pressed tight against Vivian's, the two of them locked in a grinding stalemate of sweat-slicked fury. They grappled on their feet, trading dirty blows in the tight quarters—punches grazing ribs, short rabbit strikes THUDDING into sides—but it was the knees that turned the tangle vicious. Ashley drove hers up first, a sharp snap into Vivian's thigh that buckled the blonde's stance for a heartbeat, muscle compressing with a dull thump that echoed like a muffled gunshot. Vivian hissed through gritted teeth, retaliating with a brutal counter-knee to Ashley's midsection, the bony ridge slamming into her gut just below the ribs, forcing a Whoosh of air from her lungs and a wet yelp that crackled like static. They traded again in the crush—Ashley's knee blasting Vivian's hip in explosive fire, Vivian's ripping upward to kiss the redhead's inner thigh with scorching precision, each strike a whispered betrayal amid the grunts and gasps. Ashley yelps as Vivian’s forehead whips straight into her face. The redhead's legs turn to wobbly noodles as she struggles to find her footing. Vivian unleashes another set of crushing blows. Ashley is becoming overwhelmed and attempts to cover up. An elbow kisses her brow with fueled with by a scorned jilted heart. Something sticky trailed down to her jawline. She was sent barreling into a railing which she used for support. Until a fist hammers her chest like Thor’s Mjolnir. Her whole body shudders from the penetrating blow. Cough! Cough! She wheezes as she fights to find the wind stolen from her lungs. In the tangle of limbs, Ashley's hand darted like a shadow—fingers brushing the pouch at Vivian's waist, sleight of hand honed from lab pranks and dorm-room sleights, palming the vial in a fluid snatch before Vivian could register the loss.
Ashley's Wheeze cut through the din, her breath ragged and raw, her freckled face a mask of blood and defiance—crimson flowing like the Potomac from the headbutt, brow split open by the elbow's cruel kiss. Her vision blurring at the edges like a faulty hologram, but her free hand clawed upward, nails raking Vivian's exposed neck in a desperate bid for leverage. Fight back, Ash. You're not just some lab rat. You're a fucking SHIELD agent! The thought fueled a surge, her knee snapping up toward Vivian's midsection with the sloppy fury of a cornered animal. It connected—barely—raking ribs earned in Hydra's brutal sparring pits, drawing a hiss from her lover-turned-nemesis.
Vivian's hazel eyes—wild now, pupils blown wide with adrenaline and something perilously close to grief—locked on Ashley's staggering form. God, you're beautiful like this, she thought, the admission of a poison in her veins, even as her body coiled for the next strike. Blonde strands plastered to her sweat-slicked forehead, the tactical undershirt torn at the collar from the grapple, revealing the jagged edge of a scar from that long-ago raid: S.H.I.E.L.D.'s "justice" etched into her collarbone like a brand. "You hit like you hack, Ash—weak, and predictable," she taunted, voice a velvet blade, circling with the predatory grace of a panther in the pyre's glow. Her discarded weapons lay forgotten in the shadows, but her fists were weapons enough, knuckles bruised and bloodied. In a swift singular movement, Viv pivoted on her heels and whipped the sole of her combat boot across Ashley's elven-like face. "NGH!" Ash whined. Loose crimson curls whipped through the air as she dropped to her knees. The taste of copper filled her mouth as she rose to unsteady feet.
She spat a glob of red onto the asphalt, leaning heavy on the railing, her chest heaving like bellows starved of air. Did that earlier punch crack something—a rib? And my jaw, shit it hurts! Every breath was a knife twisting into her lungs, but the pain sharpened her, burning away the daze. Her cheek burned and the bones in her mandible resonated like a tuning-fork striking metal. HYDRA shadows shifted at the bridge's edges, her squad holding fire on a silent command, this duel their commander's twisted sacrament. Ashley pushed off the rail, legs leaden but defiant, launching a wild haymaker that whistled past Vivian's ear. It missed, but the follow-up—a strike to the throat—knuckles brushing the trachea but lacked the force to crush the windpipe. Viv gasped a winced, the seating pain radiating in her throat. Ashley threw a right cross which Viv ducked and weaved avoiding the blow. Filled with rage, she grabbed a handful of McIntyre's hair and ripped strands free from the roots. "Arrrghh!" Ashley Screeched like a wounded banshee. "Something to remember you by, babe" Vivian snorted, placing the torn lock in her pocket.
Ashley's scalp burned worse than the wreckage of the quinjet. Tears poured from her eyes and her fists shook with uncontrollable rage. Agent Melinda May’s voice–her combat instructor echoed in her head. Whether it's a kick or a punch, you hit your target like you intend to strike right through them. Ashley put all her weight into a punishing body blow, her knuckles digging deep into the core of her opponent. The hooking knuckles tenderized Vivian's liver, waves of pain flowed like a tsunami. With a guttural roar that tore from her throat like shrapnel, Ashley surged forward, channeling every ounce of her slight frame into the assault. Her right hook whipped in low and vicious, knuckles slipping under Vivian's guard like a predator's talons, slamming into the soft hollow just left of her navel. The impact landed with a meaty thud—flesh yielding, then rebelling—Ashley's weight driving the blow home as if punching through to the Potomac's roiling depths below. Vivian's liver absorbed the punishment like a sandbag under siege, the organ compressing in a burst of agony that radiated lightning-white up her spine, stealing her breath in a ragged choke.
The blonde buckled sideways, her extended hand curling into a claw as she folded around the pain, knees kissing the debris-littered deck with a grind of gravel and bone. A low, animal keen escaped her lips—half curse, half confession—hazel eyes watering not from tears but the body's brutal betrayal, vision tunneling to pinpricks. "Fuck Ash, nice hit" she Wheezed inwardly, the scar on her collarbone throbbing in echo of old wounds, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s raid flashing like a strobe: parents crumpling in sprays of red, leaving her small and screaming in the rubble. This punch though? It hurt worse, because it came from her—the one who once mapped her tattoos with kisses, not fists.
Ashley peppered Vivian with rapid fire fists, most shots finding their mark. Vivian wrapped her arms around the redhead to cease the onslaught. Ashley grabbed her wrists as Vivian landed another vicious headbutt and another–a THWACK! of bone on bone cracked with the intensity of a gunshot. The attack sent Ashley sprawling towards the edge of the bridge and she impacted the barrier with a dull THUD!
Vivian offered her no quarter and buried a series of blows into Ashley's kidneys. "Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!" Ashley grunted with each punch landing, her body jerked with pain spreading through her torso like an out of control wildfire. Vivian scooped Ashley's pistol from off the ground. She cocked the slide and fired BAM! There was no pause, no second guessing, nor any second chances. They were rivals and Viv pulled the trigger with no sign of remorse. The love they shared was gone, replaced by mutual pulsing hatred.
The round sliced her left temple and sent her barreling over the edge. She landed with a Splash into the dark churning current. Vivian aimed at the flowing Potomac River and emptied the clip into the inky waters. The slide locked with a sharp Click! She pivoted and addressed the team “All that matters is-” she checked her belt and clenched her jaw. “That BITCH!” Her hazel eyes scanned the river, trying to spot that brat’s form. The wail of sirens grew closer and the flashing strobes were visible in the distance. Their wailing carried through the pre-dawn night. The chopper rose from the river and hovered just above the scarred smoldering bridge's deck. "Move out!" Vivian growled. She and her squad jumped into the chopper's skid. For your sake, you better not wake up when we found you.
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