So, the funny thing? Strong as the impact was, she was still pulling her punch.
Being a Widow is about perfect control: of emotions, of the job, of your body. In one of her first training sessions, Petra punched the broad-shouldered sneer of a man hard enough to pulverize his jaw. From then on, it was drilled into her: Leave no mark. Hide who you are, what you can do. Your talents are not yours; your talents, and your life, belong to the Red Room.
The Soldier’s hand wraps around her slender neck, and Petra stamps down on the instinctual panic. Again, control. She grabs at the metallic wrist, squeezing, trying to see if she can dislocate - no go. There’s a moment between them, when her wide eyes lock with the Soldier’s narrow, impassive gaze, and she gurgles something that might be a laugh.
Her grip tightens, steadying herself, and she lifts her entire body off the ground. He’s strong enough to hold her, yes - but when her torso curls in on itself in a second, when her thighs slam into his neck, it’s with enough force to send him staggering back. Enough force for an opportunity to wrench her neck out of his iron grasp, to gasp for air and cartwheel off of him.
He rebounds off his kitchen counter, a sweep of arm accidentally colliding with the abandoned glass of water, where it rolls onto the floor and shatters. Glass ricochets off their legs. For a moment, some long-dead humour stirs upon realising that they were making out just a minute ago and how the fuck did this go so wrong so quick,
but there’s something in that particular move with the thighs which makes his gaze narrow in suspicion. That acrobatic, balletic cartwheel. He’s been almost choked out by a specific redhead’s legs often enough that he just has to ask:
“Are you a Widow?” James demands, frowning at her. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about already, with HYDRA and SHIELD alike coming after him —
She is as still as silence, posture hardened into battle readiness. Like a coiled snake prepared to strike, waiting for its opponent to make a move, analyzing which of a dozen different responses would be most appropriate. Grant – James – the Soldier – asks the question of the hour. Damn Romanoff, that fucking little turncoat, for the intel she's offered up to the enemy. Well, her handlers say she's the best since Romanoff. Petra says she's even better. Time to prove it.
The snake sheds its skin. Harper Carlson melts off of her: gaze narrows, gin spreads across her face like oil, the relentless energy of a devil-may-care horny co-ed dissipates. “Oh, obviously.” Even the accent's gone: SoCal vocal fry replaced with her (not) natural tongue. “Just like I told you. Men, all the same. You've had your fun - “ He throws a punch, and Petra steps to the side easily. “Running around. A little taste of being your own man.”
She ducks under the next blow, sweeping a kick to his legs. He stumbles, but doesn't fall – no matter, it puts her in a position to leap, taking a few steps up the wall to backflip over him, landing on his back with an arm around his neck. Chokehold.
“But we are not our own, Winter Soldier. We belong to the Red Room, you and I. Come home.”
Come home, she says, but thank god, oh, thank god she doesn’t seem to have the actual activation phrases. Otherwise, she could’ve whispered those to him anytime during their walk over here. The Red Room wants him and HYDRA wants him, but it seems neither of them want to play nice with each other. If she’d been sent by HYDRA, this could’ve played out so differently: a few carefully-deployed words punching straight into his cerebral cortex, rendering him limp and compliant once more.
So instead, it’s a fight. A spider hanging off his back, arms strangling his throat. James slams backward into the counter and some flimsy shelves break, sending plates clattering to the floor; his poor little Romanian studio apartment’s getting wrecked, the neighbours are going to have so many questions about all the crashing and banging in here,
don’t think about that right now, even if you survive you’re not staying here,
and gasping for breath, he finally just tips backward and lets his body-weight drop, a sudden plunge and landing directly on top of her, driving the breath out of her. He’s heavy, both from his size and that crudely-wrought titanium in his arm. Then they’re scrambling across the floor and he goes for— the sink, the cabinet door under the sink. There’s a gun there, taped to the pipe. Just need to grab the gun.
(Down the hall, there’s the sound of another crash. A stairwell door kicked in. Boots approaching.)
Muscle memory takes over. Petra tightens her grip, thighs clenching around his chest as she digs the heel of her palm against his trachea. Go to sleep. Come home to Mother Russia. Everything will be okay. But he ruins it, and a part of her admires him for being stubborn. She does her best to twist out of his way, to avoid being crushed, but she’s too closely entangled to escape.
“Motherfu - “ Cut off with his chest on her stomach, at her head painfully slamming against the floor. She growls, throwing jabs against his neck and shoulders. Two knuckles protrude out slightly, pressure concentrated, just a little more pain. She has her mission, yes, she is to recover the asset. But now, with everything fucked up, she wants to hurt him a little, too.
One of her fake nails breaks off. There’s grooves in the wooden floor where her jewelry’s digging in. Barnes reaches underneath the sink, and she tries to kick the door closed, but it’s his metal arm, so it just bounces off. And then she sees the all too familiar glint of cold, dark steel in his hand.
Petra lets go of him completely, stops her assault, and flicks her wrist towards the ceiling. Her canisters activate - it’s the large pleather cuffs on her wrists, the ones just a little too big, that she masked by leaning into the idea that little Harper Carlson likes bangles and bracelets. She shoots out webbing and pulls, lifting herself into the air like a gymnast so he’ll just shoot at nothing. She twists, lands on the ceiling, and sticks there.
(A HYDRA squadron stomps through the apartment. Above them, three AIM scientists prepare the charges to blow through the ceiling. Across the street, through the window, the field is a deterrent for a sniper. But Benjamin Pointdexter is no ordinary sniper).
His bullets punch into the plain wall, but she’s already gone.
“What the fuck,” James says, and this time that reaction is just him, gobsmacked and colloquial, staring into empty air where she’d bizarrely swept up to the ceiling.
It means there’s a wide open space between the window and him, and Bullseye staring down the sights. James’ gaze drifts downward at the bloom of red light on his chest, and some well-honed instinct makes him start to jerk out of the way just in time that it’s not a killing blow: but it hits him and James drops again like a stone, the bullet embedding itself in his shoulder.
Which is, ironically, what saves him when the HYDRA ground-forces reach his front door and send another smattering of gunfire through the apartment at what would have been chest-height, except he’s on the floor and Not-Harper is on the ceiling, and so it misses both of them. The fruit-bowl explodes into shards of ceramic, the ancient fridge takes a beating but somehow doesn’t break.
Okay. Definitely not getting his security deposit back. Everything is fucking happening so much. James watches and feels his makeshift little life evaporating around him, blood seeping into his shirt, a distant pain; the Winter Soldier had always been good at shoving aside personal pain as irrelevant.
The thing is, after their original collaboration all those years ago, HYDRA and the Red Room aren’t exactly on speaking terms anymore. Dreykov and Karpov rising through the ranks of their respective organisations with aspirations of their own, and that meant there wasn’t room in their plans for yet another power-hungry former Soviet general, too many wolves eating at the same table.
So when the HYDRA soldiers enter, they’re staring in bafflement at the shape clinging to the ceiling. A muttering of Russian, “Get her,” and the gunfire resumes while James starts army-crawling toward the back exit.
He’d thought they were reinforcements, coming in to back her up, but— maybe not.
There are five men. HYDRA soldiers, picked for their brutality and sharp-shooting skills, led by a man who’s killed as many people as a plague. And she is one girl, five-foot-something, in heels and a halter top designed to draw attention, not provide any real support. It’s almost a fair fight. Maybe she ought to give them a handicap.
They raise their guns, and the Widow uncoils, flinging herself down to land on the shoulders of the closest. Unlike with Barnes, she doesn’t choke him out - just grabs, jerks, and snaps his neck. Four. A handspring, and she brings her force down on the knee of another. He screams and falls to the ground, while gunshots pop off around her. She doesn’t stay still, but jumps again, letting them turn, letting them try to aim, letting them waste bullets as she pinballs around the apartment. She fires webbing, sticks a man’s feet to the ground, snatches a gun, and shoots him in the head. Three.
Her Spider-Sense screams at her, and she twirls to the side as the ceiling above her collapses. One of the AIM scientists is caught with a HYDRA bullet to the neck, while she grabs another and hurls him through the window. Three.Six. Four. The last one panics; she throws him into the surviving HYDRA agents, sending them toppling to the ground.
One of them - a sneering man built like a linebacker on top of another linebacker - throws his gun away, draws a knife, and lunges at her. In a single motion, she jumps and curls her knees to her chest, flipping over him and slips her shoes off. When she lands, barefoot, he turns, and Petra drives the stiletto heel into his eye.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Being a Widow is about perfect control: of emotions, of the job, of your body. In one of her first training sessions, Petra punched the broad-shouldered sneer of a man hard enough to pulverize his jaw. From then on, it was drilled into her: Leave no mark. Hide who you are, what you can do. Your talents are not yours; your talents, and your life, belong to the Red Room.
The Soldier’s hand wraps around her slender neck, and Petra stamps down on the instinctual panic. Again, control. She grabs at the metallic wrist, squeezing, trying to see if she can dislocate - no go. There’s a moment between them, when her wide eyes lock with the Soldier’s narrow, impassive gaze, and she gurgles something that might be a laugh.
Her grip tightens, steadying herself, and she lifts her entire body off the ground. He’s strong enough to hold her, yes - but when her torso curls in on itself in a second, when her thighs slam into his neck, it’s with enough force to send him staggering back. Enough force for an opportunity to wrench her neck out of his iron grasp, to gasp for air and cartwheel off of him.
“Stay down, pretty boy.”
no subject
but there’s something in that particular move with the thighs which makes his gaze narrow in suspicion. That acrobatic, balletic cartwheel. He’s been almost choked out by a specific redhead’s legs often enough that he just has to ask:
“Are you a Widow?” James demands, frowning at her. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about already, with HYDRA and SHIELD alike coming after him —
no subject
The snake sheds its skin. Harper Carlson melts off of her: gaze narrows, gin spreads across her face like oil, the relentless energy of a devil-may-care horny co-ed dissipates. “Oh, obviously.” Even the accent's gone: SoCal vocal fry replaced with her (not) natural tongue. “Just like I told you. Men, all the same. You've had your fun - “ He throws a punch, and Petra steps to the side easily. “Running around. A little taste of being your own man.”
She ducks under the next blow, sweeping a kick to his legs. He stumbles, but doesn't fall – no matter, it puts her in a position to leap, taking a few steps up the wall to backflip over him, landing on his back with an arm around his neck. Chokehold.
“But we are not our own, Winter Soldier. We belong to the Red Room, you and I. Come home.”
no subject
So instead, it’s a fight. A spider hanging off his back, arms strangling his throat. James slams backward into the counter and some flimsy shelves break, sending plates clattering to the floor; his poor little Romanian studio apartment’s getting wrecked, the neighbours are going to have so many questions about all the crashing and banging in here,
don’t think about that right now, even if you survive you’re not staying here,
and gasping for breath, he finally just tips backward and lets his body-weight drop, a sudden plunge and landing directly on top of her, driving the breath out of her. He’s heavy, both from his size and that crudely-wrought titanium in his arm. Then they’re scrambling across the floor and he goes for— the sink, the cabinet door under the sink. There’s a gun there, taped to the pipe. Just need to grab the gun.
(Down the hall, there’s the sound of another crash. A stairwell door kicked in. Boots approaching.)
no subject
“Motherfu - “ Cut off with his chest on her stomach, at her head painfully slamming against the floor. She growls, throwing jabs against his neck and shoulders. Two knuckles protrude out slightly, pressure concentrated, just a little more pain. She has her mission, yes, she is to recover the asset. But now, with everything fucked up, she wants to hurt him a little, too.
One of her fake nails breaks off. There’s grooves in the wooden floor where her jewelry’s digging in. Barnes reaches underneath the sink, and she tries to kick the door closed, but it’s his metal arm, so it just bounces off. And then she sees the all too familiar glint of cold, dark steel in his hand.
Petra lets go of him completely, stops her assault, and flicks her wrist towards the ceiling. Her canisters activate - it’s the large pleather cuffs on her wrists, the ones just a little too big, that she masked by leaning into the idea that little Harper Carlson likes bangles and bracelets. She shoots out webbing and pulls, lifting herself into the air like a gymnast so he’ll just shoot at nothing. She twists, lands on the ceiling, and sticks there.
(A HYDRA squadron stomps through the apartment. Above them, three AIM scientists prepare the charges to blow through the ceiling. Across the street, through the window, the field is a deterrent for a sniper. But Benjamin Pointdexter is no ordinary sniper).
no subject
“What the fuck,” James says, and this time that reaction is just him, gobsmacked and colloquial, staring into empty air where she’d bizarrely swept up to the ceiling.
It means there’s a wide open space between the window and him, and Bullseye staring down the sights. James’ gaze drifts downward at the bloom of red light on his chest, and some well-honed instinct makes him start to jerk out of the way just in time that it’s not a killing blow: but it hits him and James drops again like a stone, the bullet embedding itself in his shoulder.
Which is, ironically, what saves him when the HYDRA ground-forces reach his front door and send another smattering of gunfire through the apartment at what would have been chest-height, except he’s on the floor and Not-Harper is on the ceiling, and so it misses both of them. The fruit-bowl explodes into shards of ceramic, the ancient fridge takes a beating but somehow doesn’t break.
Okay. Definitely not getting his security deposit back. Everything is fucking happening so much. James watches and feels his makeshift little life evaporating around him, blood seeping into his shirt, a distant pain; the Winter Soldier had always been good at shoving aside personal pain as irrelevant.
The thing is, after their original collaboration all those years ago, HYDRA and the Red Room aren’t exactly on speaking terms anymore. Dreykov and Karpov rising through the ranks of their respective organisations with aspirations of their own, and that meant there wasn’t room in their plans for yet another power-hungry former Soviet general, too many wolves eating at the same table.
So when the HYDRA soldiers enter, they’re staring in bafflement at the shape clinging to the ceiling. A muttering of Russian, “Get her,” and the gunfire resumes while James starts army-crawling toward the back exit.
He’d thought they were reinforcements, coming in to back her up, but— maybe not.
no subject
They raise their guns, and the Widow uncoils, flinging herself down to land on the shoulders of the closest. Unlike with Barnes, she doesn’t choke him out - just grabs, jerks, and snaps his neck. Four. A handspring, and she brings her force down on the knee of another. He screams and falls to the ground, while gunshots pop off around her. She doesn’t stay still, but jumps again, letting them turn, letting them try to aim, letting them waste bullets as she pinballs around the apartment. She fires webbing, sticks a man’s feet to the ground, snatches a gun, and shoots him in the head. Three.
Her Spider-Sense screams at her, and she twirls to the side as the ceiling above her collapses. One of the AIM scientists is caught with a HYDRA bullet to the neck, while she grabs another and hurls him through the window.
Three.Six.Four. The last one panics; she throws him into the surviving HYDRA agents, sending them toppling to the ground.One of them - a sneering man built like a linebacker on top of another linebacker - throws his gun away, draws a knife, and lunges at her. In a single motion, she jumps and curls her knees to her chest, flipping over him and slips her shoes off. When she lands, barefoot, he turns, and Petra drives the stiletto heel into his eye.
Three.