Chapter Text
"Salem? The Salem?" Fitz asked from the back seat of Bobbi's personal Arc. The Stark Motors electric-reactor hybrid sports car was custom painted a sleek dark-blue-almost-black with white trim and had a stylized mockingbird figure for a hood ornament. She didn't get to drive it much since it screamed 'Hi! I'm an Avenger!'. "The X-Men live in a mansion in the place known for burning witches?" He sounded amused in that very slightly condescending British way he had sometimes.
Bobbi turned her head all the way around to look at him with a snarky grin, prompting a squeak from Simmons in the passenger seat. Grinning, the Avenger took her hands right off the wheel and crossed her arms. The car continued serenely forward and then around one of curves on the sleepy back country road. It even missed the snow banks piled to each side of the road, in a New York state winter. "Com'on Jemma like a custom Starkmobile can't drive itself?"
"It can't," Fitz said with snort. "Not for long. I helped him with the schematics and we made them self-limit driverless time to less than a minute. Then it pulls over and shuts off, send an emergency signal."
Laughing, Bobbi turned back to the road and took the wheel again. "Yeah, he didn't want our personals to be able to travel without input unless it was exigent circumstances--like an explicit verbal order or remote controlled. Didn't want us cruising around unconscious and bleeding out or something. In any case, yes, Fitz the actual witch burning Salem and gosh I wonder why it would have that reputation since the Xavier family's been here since the Mayflower landed?"
"Are you suggesting the Salem Witch Trials were actually proto-mutant persecution?" Simmons said in a suddenly fascinated voice.
"Pretty much just saying that out loud, m'dear. That's exactly what they were and things aren't a hell of a lot better now. Which is why the X-Men, the second most powerful super human team on the planet--after the Avengers, of course--lurk out here in the middle of no where. It's easier than dealing with the bigots and assholes they get." She swept both of them with a look. "So, hey, if something looks weird or bizarre its okay to stare a little. They understand the impulse. Just try not to blurt out 'You're covered in spikes!' or 'What's with the tail?'."
"Good lord, woman, we're British. Imperturbable and excessively polite are both in the genetic make-up," Simmons retorted.
They all laughed.
"Really, though, we have different mission goals as teams. The Fantastic Four are explorer/scientists. The Avengers, well, we're the frontline major event go-to strike force. The Defenders are just a loose collective that come together for specific, smaller threats. The Runaways are one step up from a street gang, really. The X-Men can do all those things but they spend most of their time protecting mutants and mutant rights within the framework of threat assessment. We're allies and personal friends...that sometimes disagree with each other vehemently. You should see Steve and Cyclops go at it about letter vs spirit of the law, and civil rights and personal responsibilities. It gets scary because they're both actually right, from opposite sides of the issues. You just want them to stop fighting. Clint once yelled 'Can't you see what you're doing to the children?' in the middle of a baseball game a few years back." She smiled fondly at the memory then grimaced. "We lost, damn grand-slam home run right over Thor's head by Colossus caught on fire which was ruled fair by Jarvis and I am still pissed off about that..."
She devolved into muttering for a moment.
"They do a mean Christmas spread though. If you can wrangle an invite, it's totally worth the calories. Since you two have agreed to be our semi-permanent liaisons and we need--really really need post the Siege debacle--to foster closer relations among the teams it was time to show you around the X-Mansion. Just the public bits, probably. They're cagey about the underground and that's cool. We're the same way." She paused and studied the tree-lined road, bucolic and empty but for their car. Her face grew sad and quiet for a moment. "You two need to know where you can run to stay safe. No matter what, even if we were on opposite sides of a war, our non-combatants could seek refuge with the other team. You might spend your time locked in a cell but they'd keep you safe."
"Would that happen?" Fitz asked. "The X-Men and the Avengers going to war with each other?"
Bobbi sighed. "It's almost happened twice. Once over Magneto and that only ended because he turned himself in to the United Nations for trial. The other one Steve literally won't talk about but it had something to do with World War II, and Black Widow, and Wolverine and the Winter Soldier. Cap, Storm, Widow and Cyclops talked it out some how but things got super tense for about two weeks. There were a couple of clashes, Clint kicked the shit out of Angel; I wound up nearly drowning in the middle of the Atlantic. That douchebag Namor saved me and spent like four days claiming he couldn't get me back to the surface right then and perhaps I wanted to sleep with him, hmmmmm? He has a human fetish apparently."
"Oh my god, what did you do?" Jemma said with a horrified laugh.
"Pointed out that if he was still alive when I was done hitting him, spear guns were functionally just underwater bows and if he touched me the first thing I'd do when I escaped Atlantis is teach Clint to scuba dive." Mockingbird smiled fiercely. "Even underwater, they know what Hawkeye can do."
"So, it could happen then? The Avengers versus the X-Men?" Fitz repeated, dogged and practical.
"Yes. But it gets less and less likely the more time we spend around each other. Hence...this trip."
Fitz nodded, accepting the premise. "This place certainly is sleepy. I don't think we've seen another car since we turned off the main road back there."
"We haven't. I wonder if there's some sort of cider festival or something, though it's the wrong time of year for it."
"You people don't make cider, you make apple pop with a little alcohol in it," Jemma said.
"I can still have you both deported, you smart ass," Mockingbird replied but she seemed distracted. At the next four way stop, she turned to the right suddenly, then sped up. In a few minutes they were pulling into the square of a beautiful little American colonial town, with a park in the center, benches, a war memorial, quaint shops...and an air of total desertion. Nothing moved in any direction. The streets and sides walks were clear, with neat piles of swept and shoveled snow at regular intervals. Frost covered all the windows, which looked dark and cold from the outside.
Bobbi kept her hands on the wheel for a moment, then spun the car around and stopped it in the middle of the street, pointing out of the square. She reached into the compartment between the front seats and withdrew a hand gun, checking the clip and barrel in a few smooth practiced motions. The gun she handed to Jemma, the car keys to Fitz. She popped the trunk and got out of the vehicle, all in silence. The two MI-13 scientists followed her. Behind the car, she stripped down to her underwear as though it were not below freezing and peeled into her Mockingbird tactical suit. Fitz studiously gazed in every other direction. Jemma watched Bobbi's back, earning her an approving smile.
Shrugging into her trench coat and pulling her tac goggles over her eyes to complete her gear, Mockingbird gestured around. "This is North Salem town. It's the closest populated area to the X-Mansion. Several hundred people live here. So, where are they? No radio chatter, nothing on the police scanners. Last snow fall was two days ago and these buildings are stone cold, no residual heat left in them per my HUD. No bodies. No blood. The X-Men would know if something happened here; they might not call right away but they'd at least leave a damn message."
She scanned across the whole area, turning in a circle. At two points she stopped, made an adjustment to her goggles. At a third point, she murmured "huh" and went silent again. When she came back to Fitz-Simmons Bobbi was wholly subsumed into the Avenger.
Mockingbird nodded at them both. "Here's what's going to happen. We're going to walk around the town a little and check for life. If at any point I give you an instruction you will obey it without question. If I order you to run, you will come back to the car and get in, with Leo in the drivers seat. If I order you to leave me behind, you will drive as fast as physically possible out of this area. I gave Jemma the gun because she's a better shot, I gave you the keys, Leo, because you're a better driver. Don't trade them off."
Then she marched off in the direction she'd been facing when she said 'huh' without waiting for their answer. They trailed behind her, both looking nervously around at every door way and scrap of litter.
The silence started as eerie and became oppressive within a few meters. Mockingbird kept up a slow, smooth scan, her hands loose at her sides and never far from her weapons. As they passed out of the square into a residential street she pulled out her batons and twirled them in her grip.
Every house was empty, every store locked and cold. The streets showed no signs of life...until they had walked two more blocks, almost to the end of the built up area. They had turned a corner and were unable to see the car or the square when Mockingbird held up one hand abruptly, holstering her batons so fast it seemed she'd never had them. She touched her goggles and went very still.
Smiling, the expression more baring teeth than anything friendly, she kick turned on one heel and began striding back the way they came, her voice sweet and clear and friendly when she spoke. She sounded so happy and calm that both Jemma and Leo did not quite register her words and she had to repeat herself.
"Head back to the car, now. Right now. Move normally, walk calmly. But go."
They caught up with her and she faded back till they were in front of her a pace. "Listen to me, no talking back, no arguing. Everything will be still and calm right up until it slams into high gear. I cannot explain, you just have to obey. Keep walking back to the car. If I scream run, you run to the car, you get in and drive away. You leave me and you don't look back."
Fitz opened his mouth and she cut him off savagely.
"No, Leo, you do not argue. You do not stay. No heroism, no waiting around. If you try to help me here, you will fail, you will both die and you will make my sacrifice in vain."
"Sacrifice?" Simmons whispered, her eyes darting around like a frightened goldfish.
"There is almost no chance I'm going to live through the next hour, Jemma. You two will not make that death meaningless, you understand me? Both of you nod."
They nodded.
Out of the corner of her eye, Simmons saw motion. On top of one of the buildings. Just a flash of dark and light, moving smooth as a tiger.
"Don't look at him," Mockingbird said quietly. They heard the sound of plastic ripping, then the distinctive hiss of a dermal spray.
"What did you just take?" Simmons snapped.
"Something Bruce would love to skin me alive for making, and you can tell him I knew that when I made it, neener, neener."
"Mockingbird--"
"My personal hellbrew, he calls it. Clint, Nat and I all carry some. Amphetamines, adrenaline, epinephrine, high absorption neurotransmitter replacements, analgesics. For about thirty minutes, I'm Captain fucking America." Her voice already sounded manic. "And it only takes a couple months off my life each time!"
Jemma winced and shook her head.
"I'm about to lock my coms open on the emergency channel, which means the team will go into red alert mode and you're going to hear everything I do. No matter what you hear remember I am doing this so you can get away." She sounded eerily, fatalistically calm.
Leo looked back at her. Mockingbird was fully ascendant, her strong beautiful face as remote and cold as a marble statue. She quirked her lips at him lightly. "I'd say tell Clint I love him but I'll get the chance to do that myself I think, when the coms lock open. Tell Bruce neener neener like I said. He'll like that."
"He'd prefer you lived," Simmons said sadly.
"Me too. Clint and I only had sex twice last night. No where near enough to go into the after life on."
She looked up as though judging the angle of the sun in the sky.
"Bobbi," Leo Fitz said, his voice as calm as hers. "What's going on here?"
"We didn't walk into a town, Fitz Simmons. We walked into a tripwire."
The motion out of the corner of Jemma's eye suddenly exploded towards them. Mockingbird reached out and shoved them both out of them way, almost gently. They both stumbled forward and spun around.
A...man? landed on the pavement in front of them, with Mockingbird standing between them. He was naked, his body covered in a near pelt of dark hair. His face was set in a snarl of pure animal rage and as he landed six bright claws slide out of his hands, flashing in the air. A distinctive "SNIKT" sound hit them with a flat, dull finality.
Wolverine. Their silent stalker had been Wolverine, of the X-Men.
"Run," Mockingbird said softly.
The naked man and the Avenger exploded into motion at the same time. As Wolverine leapt forward Mockingbird collapsed to one side, her hand sweeping up in an arc, releasing something in a wide spray in the air in front of him. Wolverine hit the cloud and howled, spinning in mid-air to land in a crouch, his hands clutching his face. In a confused flash, Simmons saw livid chemical burns appear on his exposed skin. Then Fitz had her by the arm and they were running as fast as they could for the car.
Behind them, the mutant screamed, a hunting cry, and came after them. They heard Mockingbird shout "No!" over the sound of his terrifying rush. With no conscious volition, her hands came up, Jemma turned and emptied the clip of the gun into Wolverine's torso. She saw the impact of at least seven of the bullets, the spray of blood. He was close enough she saw chips of bone flying into the air from a bullet that hit his chest. Armor piercing rounds and they didn't even slow him down.
He was so close. She was going to die.
A glass ball hit him on the back of the head, exploding in a spray of red and colorless liquid. He jerked when it hit him and dropped back into that feral crouch. A wave of something sickly sweet wafted over her as Leo manhandled her around to run again.
Pheromones, she thought. Blood, laced with pheromones. Trigger scent, to draw the predator off the running humans. Mockingbird even fought like a biochemist.
They made it to the car and it was already running. Leaping in, they heard the radio chatter on the emergency channel for the first time.
"--gaged, repeat, I've engaged with Wolverine. He's not responding to verbal cues, or his name. I've identified myself as Mockingbird and an Avenger. Fitz Simmons are away, I think."
As though spurred by her words, Leo slammed the car into gear and pressed the accelerator to the floor. Jemma huddled in the passenger seat, weeping and reloading Mockingbird's gun with hands as steady as rock.
****
"Fitz Simmons are away, I think."
Jarvis's voice slid into her ears. "They are leaving the area now, in your vehicle. Internal readings indicate neither is injured."
Mockingbird felt a flash of satisfaction as she sprinted head long down the slippery road, hearing the sound of pursuit gaining on her with terrifying rapidity.
Captain America came onto the channel. "Any sign of the other X-Men?"
"No," and then her HUD told her he was in the air behind her, claws out. She went back, doubling over on herself, her weighted combat boots slamming into his face as he went over top her. The edge of speed and clarity from the drugs got her past and away from him in a tumbling pass without being touched.
"Wrong, wrong wrong, no no I'm not that fast not even now, no," she hissed.
"Mockingbird, can you get to safety?" Cap's voice was comforting, deep and rich and sounding majestically calm even though they were both talking fast.
"No. All I can do is delay--" and she deked hard to one side, down a narrow lane between houses. Behind her, Wolverine slammed into the wall of one of the houses, unable to stop himself, bare feet on the ice.
He screamed again, nothing human in the noise, but seemed to be standing still. Mockingbird hit a patch of the same ice--she'd known it was there from her HUD--and turned into it until she was sliding backwards facing him. At the edge of the slick spot, her boots grounded out and she dropped into a crouch. He was in a similar position, his breath steaming, the only sign he was naked in the freezing cold.
She called out to him again.
"Logan? Logan, it's Mockingbird. Bobbi. I used to bounce for you in Madripoor. You've eaten my caramel salt popcorn. Whatever you are seeing, I am not an enemy."
Her only response was a thick dark growl but under the noise, in the sub vocalization, the HUD picked up a word.
goooooooooooooooo
She rose to her feet and backed away from him, step by step, her hands pulled back into the sleeves of her jacket. The drugs in her blood made everything preternaturally sharp, as though carved into the skin of reality with a knife.
So she saw the exact instant his facial expression changed.
As they had faced off, his snarl had...lacked conviction...was the only way to put it. He looked like a man at war with himself, twitching and all but mumbling.
She was maybe thirty meters away from him when his face set into a killing mask. He bounded forward in a powerful lope, hands coming up in his fighting stance, to present his claws.
Mockingbird pushed off hard, like a sprinter--
--and ran towards him.
As she hit the same patch of ice, she dropped into a full baseball-style hook slide. Looking up, she saw him pass above her. Since he was naked, that was quite an eyeful she had to admit. Her left hand emerged from her sleeve with a mass of weighted wire and threw it upwards, towards his legs.
The bundle twitched for a second, then suctioned onto his skin, twisting and unraveling to wrap around his ankles. He hit the ground face first and rose to his knees, roaring.
Mockingbird activated the taser-bola, modified from the one Hawkeye used in his arrows. Iron Man had added a powerful magnetic component, so she could adhere it to cars or giant robots or suits of armor...or a metal-laced skeleton. At full power it was strong enough to literally kill an elephant.
She had it on full power now and Wolverine still almost made it to his feet before the current surging through his body sent him crashing back down again. That bought her maybe five minutes.
Mockingbird emerged at full speed back out onto the main road of the town. Going left would get her to the road out, towards the highway and possible rescue.
She ran right. She would not lead Wolverine, now in hunter/killer mode, towards innocent people. Fitz Simmons had gone that way.
The voices in her head came back. They had fallen silent during her fight, which would have been transmitted live via her HUD back to Avengers Tower.
Captain America breathed strength into her heart with his voice. "Nice work, Mock. We have help on the way to extract you."
There was a chance the drugs were messing with her emotions a little too.
She spotted a path through a stand of trees and remembered the open fields beyond led towards the X-Mansion. She changed directions towards it instantly.
"Won't be in time."
"Yeah, it will, little bird." Hawkeye's beloved growl echoed in her head, drawing tears to roll down her cheeks, little trails of cold salt.
"Won't and you know it."
"Bobbi, are you hurt? Every physical reading is spiking," said Bruce Banner.
"Took a hit of my special brew, Brucie-baby. I'm feeling great!" She almost giggled.
"YOU DID WHAT--" His roar in her ears started to go green at the edges and was cut off by Black Widow's bellow.
"BRUCE CALM DOWN!" Even the Hulk obeyed her when she spoke like that.
"I had to," Mockingbird called out. "I wouldn't have lasted past the first exchange otherwise; he would have killed Fitz Simmons. I hit him with the caustics, the pheromones and the taser, Steve. They all worked, slowed him down, but you know him. You can't do the same thing twice."
"I do know him. Or I knew Logan. I'm not sure what's chasing you." Captain America sounded sorrowful.
"I know," came Hawkeye's voice, livid with rage. "A corpse."
Mockingbird stumbled, feeling her limbs start to shake. She was pushing hard enough that the fatigue poisons in her blood were already beating down the drugs. "No!" She yelled. "No, you're not allowed to say that. You're not allowed to do that!"
She snapped her batons together on the fly and pole vaulted a still running stream. As she landed on the other side, she heard the distinctive sound of a body moving at speed through the bushes behind her.
"If he kills you, little bird--"
"You won't hunt him down! You won't! Damn you, Clint, promise me! Steve, promise...this is still Wolverine. Still Logan. Not an animal to be put down."
Her HUD threw a schematic up, showing that her pursuer was only a few seconds behind her now. She dodged around a stand of willows, then dropped to her knees and tucked her staff under her left arm pit, slanted up at a forty degree angle, the far end braced against a thick root system just visible under the snow.
"If you treat him like a monster that's what he'll become. Do the math."
And she snapped the sword end of her pole out behind her as he slammed straight through the trunks of the trees, ripping them to kindling on the way. Mockingbird felt the shuddering impact as her blade--coated with monomolecular diamond and capable of scratching the Vibranium in Captain America's shield--impaled him right through the torso, skipping off his Adamantium coated ribs on the way. Blood hot as lava splashed across the back of her neck. She dove forward, rolling in the snow. Her goggles caught on a rock and were ripped off her face as she rose to her feet.
And fell down again as pain seared up her leg. She saw three straight cuts across the front of her thigh, right through the reinforced super Kevlar. She saw the white of bone before blood began pouring out. He'd caught her with his claws at full extension as she tumbled. She hadn't even felt the initial cut, as sharp and fast as a shark bite.
"I'm hit." She said. "Can't run anymore."
"Try," Hawkeye said, his voice like a dead thing.
"I am, sport," she responded. She grabbed at a nearby tree, hauled herself up, swallowed a scream of agony as her injured leg took even the tiniest amount of weight. Wolverine was thrashing through the debris of wood and snow behind her, nearly free of the boar spear she'd turned her staff into.
Mockingbird took a deep breath, and managed to stagger a few steps through the line of trees and into a clearing, just smooth fresh snow. In the distance rose the peaked roof of the X-Mansion.
She smiled a little. She felt no more pain, no more cold. Even the jittery remnants of the drugs burning in her blood seemed to clear away, leaving a mellow lassitude in their wake. A single hot hard breath twitched her hair from behind.
"I love you, Clint."
SNIKT
She saw the four metal claws emerge from the front of her torso. When they withdrew, Mockingbird fell to her knees and dropped her chin to her chest, watching idly as the bright white snow turned red.