Hollow Scars 26
Title: Hollow Scars
Chapter: 26 The Color of Betrayal is Blood Red
Author: Me
Disclaimer: Iron Man and the movie-verse including all of its characters do NOT belong to me, but to Marvel and all its glory. Though, Scarlett Damien does belong to me.
Comic: Iron Man
Pairing/Characters: Tony Stark/Scarlett Damien, Pepper, Rhodey, Happy
Rating: M
Author's Note: I write long chapters! I mean not excessively crazy long but long enough! I'm the sort of writer who likes to think of their stories as novels and so I aspire to give readers what they would expect upon purchasing a book. I average around 13-15 pages a chapter, but sometimes I've got less and sometimes more! I hope you can look past the length and the time it may take to read and give it a shot. I promise quality work.
During one of the layovers on Scarlett’s way Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow Scarlett had discovered that her phone was horribly malfunctioning as she suspected it had been before boarding her plane in South Africa. She had been both annoyed and grateful to discover that it had caused a problem for her.
On one hand, she was incredibly annoyed because she was sure that it meant she had to have missed messages from Tony all day long and he was likely fretting over her safety wherever he was. Not that he’d bother to tell her where he’d gone or anything but she had decided it was better not to ask and just to let him do whatever it was he felt he needed to do. As long as he checked in with her every so often that was.
She could only hope he was out of harm’s way doing whatever he was doing. It was still peculiar to care about someone the way that she did. In a sense, it was almost as annoying as her phone being broken. She was worried about Tony and he crept into her thoughts at the weirdest time. But since she was so used to not caring about anything except for her job and the task at hand, it often flustered her and left her confused and unsure of how to deal with it.
At the same time Scarlett was grateful the phone had broken because it gave her something to occupy her mind outside of the files that Natasha had given her over lunch and wondering what the hell Tony was doing. By the time she’d gotten onto the second plane she’d already been over the files ten times and had absorbed their information as much as she thought she could. Later she would look them over one more time before hiding them away and continuing with her mission in Russia.
Sleep was an elusive beast once more and proved impossible on any stretch of the flight which was a shame because Scarlett was pretty tired.
Her mind was a whirlwind of information and more than usual at that. What Natasha had warned her of had actually gotten to her, against her better judgment of course. Could she really be walking straight into the lion’s mouth? Not if Natasha had anything to say about it and she was sure that the assassin had waited only as long as necessary before catching a flight that would get her to Russia soon after Scarlett so she could continue to shadow her. Scarlett was nowhere near naïve enough to think that S.H.I.E.L.D. would back off simply because she told them to.
Besides that, she knew Natasha well enough to realize that the bad ass assassin wouldn’t back down because Scarlett didn’t want her to get involved. She fully anticipated running into Natasha at some point in the next few days, particularly if things went wrong. In a strange way, Scarlett was grateful for this though she would never openly admit it without heavy amounts of sarcasm to mask her true feelings. Thankfully, working on her phone to repair the damage done would help distract her mind from her wayward thoughts on the second flight. After purchasing a second phone in the airport terminal in Dakar to use for spare parts, Scarlett went to work.
By the time Scarlett’s flight landed in Moscow she had a cell phone she was confident would work, though she wasn’t sure the text messages and missed calls would be recovered without tapping properly into the network she was using. She decided there would be time for that after she was done dealing with MedCo. After she touched base in Moscow, got a hotel room to store her things and got changed, Scarlett would send Tony a message to let him know that she was sorry she’d disappeared for the day and hoped she didn’t cause him any upset.
If he was out of his mind with worry, which Scarlett somehow doubted was possible for the notoriously self absorbed billionaire, she would go out of her way to make up for it later.
It was late in Moscow when she left the airport and soon enough it would be very early. With a hotel room acquired, Scarlett got changed into the customary black outfit that made her look like a woman on a mission since it was, at long last, time for that look. Not that she had anything else to wear besides the dress that she’d purchased in Cape Town at the hotel anyway. But still, Scarlett was ready to get back to her roots and break into the extensive facility that had been set up in Russia, about thirty miles outside of Moscow on an extensive stretch of land. If nothing else, MedCo had always been careful enough to isolate their facilities from the public when necessary.
She was positive after looking at the files that the facility was akin to the one she’d been held captive in during her short stint of employment for MedCo. According to the paperwork she’d been provided with there was a substantial amount of medical personnel on staff and after seeing what she’d seen in Dakar and Madrid Scarlett wasn’t surprised. Would there be more monsters like Erick hiding there? If that were the case, she wouldn’t stand a chance. Abandoning her backpack, notebooks and anything else that wasn’t important Scarlett left her hotel room locked up after triggering the device that would give anyone trying to steal her things a nice hefty shock.
The experimental monster that was Erick’s reanimated corpse had hopefully died when she set the ship on fire. In her mind’s eye she saw the many crates that had been stored in there and wondered if they too were filled with monsters. With any luck the whole damn ship had been destroyed and consequently any ungodly experiments that were left on that ship. Unfortunately Scarlett knew that she didn’t have that kind of luck, at least not lately.
If she had to she’d contact Clint Barton also known as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Hawkeye, the so-called man on the inside, but Scarlett wasn’t counting on having to do that. She would be on her best behavior once weapons were obtained since hers were ditched at the airport before going through security. Well, every weapon minus her Tesla glove, security had no idea what it was and she didn’t plan on letting them ever find out. After years of sneaking around from job to job she’d learned how to properly conceal weapons when necessary and she’d discovered that the only weapons worth concealing were the irreplaceable kind, such as her glove.
After she’d repaired her phone she had sat planning in her little notebook enhancements she wished to make to the glove including a built in communication device. She’d almost used the remaining pieces of the extra phone to try and build one then and there but it would’ve been too hard to conceal on the plane from other passengers. It was one thing to have the back of her cell phone pulled open, it was another thing entirely for her to have a strange looking glove with the potential for explosive capabilities laying on her tray table.
Scarlett would kill for a vacation right about now, not that she’d ever necessarily wanted one before.
Worn out was not the right term for what she was. No, she had far exceeded being “worn out”. Natasha was right, something was still wrong with her and the more she pondered over what had been brought to her attention the more she considered she could very well have some form of pneumonia. That wasn’t good. Pneumonia wouldn’t go away on its own. When she let her mind wander she became concerned that she was actually sick from some experiments that had been done on her or from contamination after being at one of the ruined cities earlier in the week. As rational as her mind usually was, it was impossible to stave off thoughts of being experimented on entirely. Just because she was rational didn’t mean she was fearless.
Right now, Scarlett was praying for pneumonia.
Coughing as if on cue Scarlett continued her love affair with Ricola cough drops as she took several buses across Moscow. She soon stopped to eat something small since the nagging voice of the Black Widow in the back of her head reminded her that food was necessary to continue living. She had lost weight and a considerable amount of that weight lost had been muscle mass and not fat. When she was free of this burden of MedCo, she would have to work hard to regain her strength.
But for now, Scarlett had a plan and with any luck she’d be able to close this chapter of her life once and for all without ending hers. At least that’s what she was hoping for. Seated again on a bus after having finished a small breakfast, nursing the coffee that had become one with her blood in recent days, she watched the cityscape of Moscow disappear from view. It was a beautiful city when she wasn’t creeping around the unsavory ends of it. Some of her favorite memories had been in that very same city, but there was no time for reflection.
Readjusting the black jacket she wore, she zipped the collar all the way up to her neck and straightened it afterward. Compared to the weather in South Africa and Spain, Russian summers were a breeze. Granted it was a bit humid but it didn’t get much higher than thirty degrees Celsius and that was something Scarlett could deal with easily enough. Plus there was a nice cloud cover rolling in from the east that would help keep the heat down.
The more covered up Scarlett could remain the easier her job would be. While she’d stopped for food she’d also stopped to replace the handguns she’d discarded in South Africa along with a few other handy weapons that she kept strapped in her boot and inside of her sleeve. Guns were obvious to those looking for them and Scarlett liked to almost always carry something a little more personal around with her if she could. Lately she’d been neglecting it but, she didn’t have access to the arsenal of weaponry she had once had. Scarlett was severing ties with her old life left and right and it was leaving a void… of machinery and weaponry mostly. It had come to her attention that Scarlett had made nearly no personal connections in the last ten years outside of Scott, Natasha, and the Indian man. Since those relationships had all been hopelessly destroyed, Scarlett didn’t have to worry about anyone else popping out of the woodwork.
But the loss of fancy weaponry was something she could rectify after the final tie had been severed. Scarlett got off the bus again at a small stop on the outskirts of a suburb outside of Moscow. There was no one around at least that she could see and it was a little unsettling. The sun had risen in the sky and there should have at least been some kids coming out to greet the day. Instead, there was no one. It didn’t exactly look like the best neighborhood anyway, now that she studied it a bit closer. Not that Scarlett was afraid of bad neighborhoods, she could more than take care of herself in a dark alley and was often the predator in those situations. But something didn’t sit right with her and it made her stomach churn.
It very well could’ve been the sketchy coffee she’d purchased from a Russian street vendor combined with the thirty or so Ricolas she’d consumed but she had the feeling it was something far more sinister. Part of Scarlett’s old life had been to trust her instincts and while they had failed her on multiple occasions in the past month she was hoping that they would hold true at least until she’d finished with MedCo.
If her instincts weren’t leading her astray then what was wrong with this place? As the next bus she meant to catch in order to get to the other side of her final destination pulled up, Scarlett decided to skip it and take a closer look around. Something was terribly amiss and she was going to get to the bottom of it before she ran headfirst into the lion’s den covered in bait. Waving to the bus driver to let him know she wasn’t going to catch this one, she watched the bus roll away, plumes of smoke coming from the exhaust pipe behind it as it drove out of sight.
“Scarlett? Is that you?” A familiar voice, one that Scarlett hadn’t expected to hear anytime soon, made her stiffen up. Hair stood up on the back of her neck and goose bumps prickled along her arms, giving her the chills and making her nervous. It should’ve been a voice she was relieved to hear but instead it left her feeling uneasy and almost a little sick. The biggest question on the forefront of her mind was: what the hell was Scott Aaronson doing in a large Russian suburb at the same bus stop that she’d ended up at? The odds were impeccable and as she did the math quickly in her head she realized it was nearly impossible.
Turning to face her ex-boyfriend she could see a smile on his face and relief in his eyes. There were even tears brimming on the edges of them but Scarlett was still suspicious. As he came to hug her she hesitated but then returned the gesture. Much to her surprise he nearly lifted her off the ground and buried his face against her shoulder, almost sobbing with happiness to see her. Scott had definitely changed since the last time she’d seen him which had been in a MedCo security video strapped to a chair with a black bag over his head.
How had he changed?
There were the obvious things such as the way he’d bulked up in just a month and then of course his hair was shorter and less perfectly kept together. His glasses were gone and somehow his eyes seemed duller than they once had. These things could all be explained away of course, but Scarlett didn’t think it was that simple. She could hear Tony in her head, warning her that he was up to no good. Could it be that her new boyfriend’s insane irrational jealousy of her ex-boyfriend who she’d long suspected dead wasn’t so irrational after all? Just thinking that made her head hurt.
Hesitantly Scarlett returned the hug and decided that even if something unsavory was going on underneath the surface of Scott’s miraculous and very sudden reappearance, she would have to act like nothing was amiss at all until she’d uncovered the truth.
“Wow, you were the last person I expected to run into in this neck of the woods.” Scarlett finally managed to collect her thoughts and offered a legitimate smile. Scott clasped his hands on her shoulders and looked at her with that same look she’d once thought was love but now thought was something else. He was happy to see her, but something was off in his loving gaze. What was it? Scarlett was surprised she’d never noticed it before but it wasn’t like she’d ever been a very good girlfriend back during their relationship so maybe she’d overlooked it. She’d had too many other things to pay attention to, like work, work, and more work. Scarlett had been the not so stereotypical workaholic girlfriend.
“What are the odds?”
“Astronomical, actually.” Scarlett scoffed and Scott pulled his hands away but smiled.
“You would be the one to figure them out before returning my hug, wouldn’t you?”
“Old habits die hard.”
“I see that.” Scott looked her over and Scarlett felt very suddenly out of place.
“But enough about that… what are you doing here? I… I mean not that I’m unhappy to see you, I’m just surprised. There are six billion people in the world and we practically run into each other in a place we’ve never been to together.” Scarlett faked a laugh, something she’d often done with Scott to begin with so she was hoping he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Scott urged her to sit down at the bench near the bus stop and she joined him but at arm’s length. She had decided she couldn’t trust this new version of Scott until he’d proven to her that he was worthy of such a gift.
“After the fiasco with that place you were working for I woke up in a hospital and… I was hurting, let me tell you! I don’t know what it is you did there but… it left me a nasty scar.” Scott lifted his shirt to show her the scarring on his side and Scarlett looked away. How many nightmares had she had about having been responsible for his death and there he was, nearly fine. It shook her to see him, and for more reasons than she could count. At least now there was one less thing to do after MedCo had been taken care of. Scott had been found and she could say her piece and move on with her life. But now that Scott had found her, it still left her with a thousand questions she wasn’t sure she wanted the answers to.
“I thought you were dead.” Scarlett hung her head and looked away. The guilt she felt was real even if she was wearing a mask for most of the conversation thus far. Inside the MedCo facility she had decided that his life and hers weren’t worth letting MedCo win and she had made the decision to let him die. Not that she hadn’t tried, and hard at that, to save his life. It was the only reason MedCo had been able to keep her locked up for so long, because she’d been trying to find a way out without any casualties. But there hadn’t been a way out.
She hadn’t realized how true that statement was to the rest of her life. Was there no real way out after what MedCo had done? She thought that killing Marcia and Mikhail would put an end to it, but maybe that wasn’t the case. Even if she erased every trace of her inside MedCo there would be someone else who would remember her and come after her. It was a vicious cycle and Scarlett was finally beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, she would have to live with what she had done without the ability to make up for the wrongs she’d committed in hopes of finding freedom.
“I thought you were dead.” Scott looked serious and for a second Scarlett considered trusting him. He averted his eyes and furrowed his brow, his jaw even clenched as he reflected on the revelation. “You’ve been getting into trouble for years, trouble I never knew existed before we met and while I knew it was inevitable that it would lead to your end there was nothing that could prepare me for actually losing you.” Scarlett softened. If Scott was acting he was doing a damn good job of it. The Scott she remembered was too dopey to be this good.
“I didn’t expect them to use you against me. Go figure I would try to take a normal job and end up in more trouble than I’d gotten into when I was looking for trouble.” Scarlett rolled her eyes and itched at her sleeve. The spare ammunition she had tucked there rubbed against her thumb and the urge to defend herself grew. Her mind and her body were arguing back and forth and she honestly didn’t know which was going to win. Something about Scott sent up red flags in every part of Scarlett but there was also a big part of her that wanted to believe what he was saying.
Scarlett wanted nothing but happiness for Scott, happiness that she could never give him during their time together. He’d been there for her, or at least she had believed he’d been there for her even when she’d reflected on the times where he’d mostly reprimanded her and tried to talk her out of her crazy lifestyle. Every sane boyfriend would’ve tried to change her to stay safe right? That was love. But Scarlett couldn’t have cared less what Scott did as long as it didn’t interfere with the business she’d been running back then. That was definitely not love. Her mind was racing and Scott could tell, that much hadn’t changed.
“You’re still confused aren’t you?” Scott smiled, patting her leg. She quickly brushed his hand away under the guise of turning to face him a bit better.
“I still don’t get what you’re doing here. I mean it’s great to see that you’re alive and I saw that you checked out of a hospital later… once I had realized you weren’t dead that is. But the odds of us ending up in this particular bus stop at this particular moment are… the numbers are getting to me.”
“You’re hyper rational Scarlett, you always have been. Sometimes fate takes things into its hands and there’s nothing that can properly explain it.” Scott smiled that same stupid smile that he always did and Scarlett looked away.
“That’s not how reality works, Scott. You and I both know that. It’s cute to think that things are often meant to be but…”
“Okay, so you really haven’t changed.” A hint of a frown crossed Scott’s brow but he quickly masked it with a chuckle. Warning signs flashed in her thoughts again to pull back and get the hell out of there but where would she go? Maybe following her instincts this time hadn’t been the best idea.
“There are some things about me that will never change Scott, no matter what happens.” Scarlett shrugged nonchalantly and finally gave him the cold shoulder. Why did he keep focusing on her changing? What change was he looking for in her? Of course she had changed but not because of him and certainly not for him. Tony popped into her mind again. He had been the reason she’d changed and that was after she had tried as hard as she possibly could not to.
“After I got out of the hospital I worked hard to take care of myself. With you gone, I needed to be wary of your enemies and make sure that… I could handle what was coming. I’m sure you noticed what’s changed about me.”
“Well considering you used to be a literal stick figure…” Scarlett cocked an eyebrow and much to her surprise Scott laughed. She had always given him a hard time about taking care of his body. Not because she was shallow but because she had worried about exactly what he’d used as an excuse to finally get into shape. Scott could never take care of himself back then, clearly that had changed.
“I was. But I have been working hard and after applying at a few places and actively seeking work I got hired at one of the technical enhancement centers here! I was about to catch a bus to Moscow but I was running a little late when I spilled my tea this morning and… well here you are. Now tell me that’s not fate?”
“So you work here?” Scarlett wasn’t buying the story and the fact that Scott had gone out of his way to bring up her history to make her feel guilty and responsible for what had become of him had only solidified that for her. Then again, Scott had always been like that with using guilt to his advantage. It was how he’d ended up her boyfriend in the first place. Their relationship had a strong foundation of guilt and blame.
“Well, I work in the city. Not here, this is a bus stop. Are you okay?” Scott furrowed his brow and took her hand which she promptly pulled out of his reach.
“I’m fine, Scott. For someone who is supposed to be dead, I’m remarkable.” Scarlett decided she would say what was on her mind now and then get going. Being with Scott was putting her behind schedule and it made her feel unsettled. When she’d finished with MedCo she would have to make sure to look into Scott’s history a little more in depth. Admittedly she had ignored a large chunk of their time together so maybe he was up to more than she had ever suspected. Scott had always seemed harmless and so she had treated him as though he were incapable of doing harm. But now after time away, she was beginning to think it was a wrong assessment and a case of very poor judgment.
Maybe she’d have to lay off the scotch for a little while.
“If you ask me, I’d say you look terrible. You’re thin and you have these… bags under your eyes. And now that I look closer you’re all banged up, Scarlett.” Scott pointed to the wound on her head that had successfully knocked her out when she’d been thrown off of the ship in South Africa after fighting Erick. No, scratch that, after she’d gotten her ass handed to her by Erick the zombie. Scarlett was still having all sorts of Resident Evil flash backs that she didn’t want to deal with.
“Well, aren’t you sweet? It’s been a weird week but I’m just fine.” Scarlett nodded her head and urged his hand away from her. Why did he keep trying to touch her? Didn’t he know about personal space and how to stay in his own? How annoying. “And actually I’m glad we ran into each other because there are a few things I need to tell you.”
“I don’t think that any good conversation has started like that. Why don’t we at least grab lunch and talk it over there?” Scott nodded down the road toward a shopping center Scarlett had noticed on the bus ride there.
“I’d rather do this here plus I just ate on the way here.”
“Okay.” Scott seemed disappointed but shrugged his shoulders and then waited politely for her to say her piece.
“I thought you died when they were holding you to use against me. They wanted me to build something I wasn’t comfortable building and… even then I refused. I made them believe I was doing what they wanted me to do so that I could bide my time and find out where they held you. Unfortunately what I built to keep them fooled turned out to be just as harmful as what they wanted from me in the first place. Before I could get to you I overheard someone giving the order to execute you and then the place went to hell. I had every intention of looking for you.” Scarlett sat proudly. “But I was sick. I got sprayed with some nasty chemical and shot. It wasn’t one of my better days.”
“Some chemical?” Scott grimaced, looking genuinely concerned and actually touched that she had gone to such lengths for him. Had he doubted her dedication to their relationship too? She’d always suspected as much since he had often sat her down to have talks about where things were going and how they would never be able to establish a real life together with her chasing ghosts.
“Yeah, it’s all cleared up now.” Scarlett waved off that topic since she didn’t really have the time or energy to get into the details. “MedCo had been using Stark Industries as a front for some of their dealings and while I still haven’t figured out how they got their hands on so much Stark Tech I had a good idea at the time. It was funny, Iron Man saved me and brought me exactly where I needed to be in order to get revenge for you.” Scarlett shrugged and smiled slightly. Summarizing what had happened to her had never been her forte. Scarlett really didn’t like drawing attention to her misdeeds and mistakes but this was one she had to at least explain for her own sanity.
The guilt had been nearly eating her alive since she’d woken up in Tony Stark’s lab half dead nearly a month ago now. It seemed like far more time had transpired since then. She’d traveled halfway across the world after that and often times she had to remind herself that it was just that too much was happening at once, not that too much time had passed. Her eyes traveled back to Scott who was listening intently. Why did she get the feeling that he already knew how this story ended? She sure wished someone would tell her. Something on his arm caught her eye and she immediately withdrew her gaze.
Did Scott have surgical scars on his arm? And the scar he’d revealed to her when he’d lifted his shirt seemed out of place for what he’d been through. Hadn’t he been shot? Even Scarlett had a scar from being shot. Actually Scarlett had several scars from being shot though only one of them was from her ordeal with MedCo. The chemical on her leg had left a nasty wrinkling in her skin but it was fading over time, thankfully. The scars on Scott’s body were too methodical and precise. They were from some kind of procedure not a gunshot wound and an explosion.
“Since there’s been no report of Stark turning up dead and his stocks are higher than ever, I’m assuming that didn’t go according to plan.” Scott’s smile momentarily faded into a scowl and Scarlett watched him suspiciously.
He was lying. Scott was definitely lying. The red flags hadn’t been a misfire, her judgment had indeed been correct. Slipping the pocket knife she’d smuggled into the sleeve opposite the extra ammo into her palm, Scarlett nodded to confirm Scott’s suspicions. She wouldn’t make the first move but when Scott made his she would be more than ready. The bigger he was the harder he’d fall.
“I know this sounds crazy but Tony Stark is not the man you and I thought he was for years. I’m sure there were points in time where he was… the megalomaniacal asshole we suspected but not anymore. Scott, Tony’s a really good guy and he’s trying to climb out of the hole he put himself into. What started out as a search for revenge changed everything about my life. You keep saying I haven’t changed but that’s because I don’t think you ever really knew me very well.”
“We’ve been back together for all of five minutes and you’re already harping on that? I know you very well Scarlett, maybe better than you know yourself if that’s what you really think of me.” Scott grimaced, the mask of happiness faltering for just a second before his attention turned back to her.
“Back together? No, no… we’re not back together Scott. Our relationship died in that explosion and for more than one reason. The first being that I never loved you.” Scarlett was smiling despite her words but Scott looked angrier than she had ever seen him and his face was turning red from clenching his jaw as hard as he was. “And you deserved a woman who could love you. I was never capable of it and I didn’t realize that when we were together because I just assumed what we had was love.” Scarlett kept the knife in her hand now, ready to jump out of the way when Scott chose his moment to strike. “I fell in love with Tony Stark even though I wanted him dead. That’s how I know I never loved you and never could. I tried desperately not to fall for him and it happened in spite of both of our attempts to sabotage things.”
Scott got up from where he stood and Scarlett sat and watched his every move. He seemed to be contemplating what she’d shared with him and trying desperately to keep his anger in check. Peering over her shoulder, Scarlett searched the perimeter. There were a good hundred places she could hide in the distance, which was great because she was certain that she was going to need them in a few minutes. Right now she had the upper hand. Scott seemed to think that she was being sincere about everything she was saying. He saw her having missed him because even after all this time he wanted her to miss him.
If he saw she was lying he wasn’t letting on. Scarlett had been mostly honest, at least about the important things. Now her mind was trying not to wander over how far Scott’s treachery went back. How long had he been playing the victim simply to make her feel guilty? In his own way had he been trying to manipulate her into living a different life? Scarlett was almost completely positive he had a connection to MedCo now which meant he was the reason she’d been set up by them in the first place. Had he ever even been held to use against her? She didn’t know what was real and what was made up now.
She should’ve seen it coming a mile away. It was obvious even to Tony and while he was a genius it didn’t take a genius to see that Scott had to have been turned against her at some point. Scarlett didn’t want to see it.
She wanted Scott to continue being the dopey boy she’d met while working in Senegal who had been so sweet and naïve in the ways of the world that he’d been outraged when he discovered what Scarlett really did for a living. Was this her fault? Had she turned Scott into what he’d become? A man covered in surgical scars, trying to manipulate someone into loving him?
“Scott, I know it’s hard to hear but you had to have known long before I did. We were never really compatible. Happiness is hard to find and I never knew what it was until I met Tony and even then it’s still something I’m figuring out. You deserved it.” She continued to speak in the past tense since she was pretty sure Scott was no longer the man who deserved happiness if he was in fact guilty of what she suspected.
“I need a minute, okay? This… this is a lot.” He groaned under his breath and kept his back to her his hand on his head as though he were suffering from some terrible headache. Scarlett sighed and rolled her eyes behind his back.
“Because I wasn’t in a rush or anything, okay. Take your minute.” Scarlett glanced down the street. She should’ve gotten on that bus. Her gut was always right! It had been about Tony, it had been about MedCo, it had been about the job in Afghanistan that had started this twisted spiral she was stuck in and yet she still continued to ignore it and fight against it at every opportunity! What the hell was wrong with her? Why was she so stupid sometimes? For someone who was supposed to be smarter than the average bear, she was certainly acting like a dumb ass.
Scarlett’s phone buzzed in her pocket and she jumped nearly a mile. It had been so long since she’d gotten a proper phone call that she hadn’t expected the feeling and it set her nerves on edge. When it buzzed again she pulled it out of her pocket.
“I’ve got to take this.” She saw that Tony was calling her and it couldn’t have been worse timing. Scott was still ignoring her and was now muttering under his breath. Sliding her finger over the screen she answered the call and placed the phone to her ear, standing up and taking a step away. “Now is not a great time.” She hissed into the receiver.
“Do you know how long I’ve been trying to get in touch with you?” Tony’s voice hesitated on the other end of the line. He hadn’t been expecting her to pick up considering he’d been trying to call her for the last twenty four hours and she hadn’t bothered to respond once. He’d filled up her voicemail with messages asking her to call him back and expressing his concern and now she was acting like she’d been inconvenienced?
Oh, they were so going to have a very long talk about communication when he next saw her.
“Yeah, sorry about that. My phone got wet in Cape Town and it fritzed out. I didn’t realize and had to rebuild the damn thing on the plane. But could I possibly call you back? I’m sorta busy.”
“No, what I have to say can’t wait. And it’s not something stupid so don’t dismiss me okay?” As she paced along the sidewalk and pushed her messy hair out of her face something happened that she hadn’t suspected when she turned her back on Scott for a split second. Something cold and circular pressed against the back of her neck and she recognized it immediately as the barrel of a gun. She hadn’t heard Scott move or come toward her. How had he done it so quickly? She’d only turned around for a second! In her left hand she now held the switch blade and was very carefully opening it to defend herself.
“Tony…” She whispered cautiously and felt the barrel press harder against the back of her neck. Saying his name seemed only to anger Scott further. Something must have snapped in Scott’s brain to make him act the way he was. Maybe too many surgeries and experiments had destroyed his rational mind.
“Don’t say another word to him.” Scott whispered threateningly and she could hear the click of the barrel as it cocked so close to her ears. While Tony spoke on the other end of the phone, Scarlett contemplated her next move hoping she could find a way out of her predicament without getting shot. Scarlett was very tired of people shooting things at her.
“Stop arguing with me! It’s Scott! Scott is the man you’re looking for! He’s behind it all Scarlett, every damn bit of it! I know you’re going to be pissed at me for this later but Scarlett he’s obsessed with you. Something in that guy’s head broke… more like twenty screws popped loose and now he’s gunning for you, okay? He set you up in Afghanistan to be tortured, he’s been working with MedCo all along even from way back then. Scarlett I know it’s had to hear, but it’s Scott. It’s always been Scott.” He sounded hopeful and as he watched his flight pattern as he flew closer to his destination in Russia he hoped he could get to her in time. He hoped even more that she would understand what he had done and why. When she stayed silent on the other end, he knew she was as angry as he suspected she’d be.
Scarlett was holding her breath. Scott was behind what had happened in Afghanistan? He’d put her through that torture? And he expected her to love him after he had set her up for the worst moments of her life? Her chest constricted and she almost panicked. Churning in her stomach was the breakfast she’d eaten that morning and she cursed Natasha Romanoff for making her eat. But the cold barrel of the gun pressing against her neck kept her in the here and now, clearing her mind immediately.
If she panicked, she was as good as dead.
“…don’t make me do it, Scarlett.” Scott whispered, moving closer to her and grabbing onto her shoulder roughly. It was on purpose, by design. She had pushed him away on numerous occasions in the last half an hour and now he was making a point that he would do whatever he damn well pleased regardless of how Scarlett felt about it.
What had she done that had turned this man into a monster?
“He’s been stealing your ideas for years and selling them to private dealers… You know those little black notebooks you carry around with scribbles of these ridiculously genius things that you never get around to? I spied through one, you should know I’m a nosy guy okay? I’m not sorry for that but I am sorry for this. Look Scarlett I’m a jealous, greedy son of a bitch but Scott’s way more of an asshole than I thought he was. You’ve got to lay low. Call S.H.I.E.L.D. I know you don’t want to and honestly I don’t want you to either but if Scott’s coming for you then you’re in more trouble than you can imagine. He’s done some things… experiments on himself. Scarlett you don’t stand a chance and I’m not saying that as an over protective boyfriend. I’m saying that because it’s true. I did the math and you know my math is never wrong. Don’t argue with me, it’s never wrong.”
Scarlett closed her eyes and felt them burning with emotion. For years he’d been betraying her? Stealing her ideas even? How long had she financially supported the both of them and he had been stealing her ideas to sell for a profit? And now he was one of those things?
This was her fault. She knew all along that it had been and now finally her demons were catching up with her one by one and dragging her down to hell.
Sorrow quickly turned into rage and Scarlett’s hand trembled with anger. Scott wasn’t going to wait long before making his move but she was certain of one thing. He didn’t have the balls to pull the trigger that would blow her brains out. What was about to happen could break Tony’s heart but she didn’t have any more options, not now. With any luck she’d be able to hang up the phone and break the connection before she dropped it. But first she had to let him know that he was right, and at least give him that comfort.
Though somehow she doubted that Tony would find any comfort, even with the few words she would find time to spare. Would she be able to kill Scott? After everything she’d shared with him and the years she’d spent mentally defending his motives, would she really be able to see him as the monster she now knew he was.
“Scarlett, I’m really sorry. But your ex-boyfriend is a double crossing, evil, manipulative asshole.” Tony exhaled, nervous when she didn’t respond to him. “That is a completely different kind of asshole than I am. Assholes like me look down on assholes like him.
“I know.” She finally whispered, preparing herself for the fight that was about to come.
Chapter: 26 The Color of Betrayal is Blood Red
Author: Me
Disclaimer: Iron Man and the movie-verse including all of its characters do NOT belong to me, but to Marvel and all its glory. Though, Scarlett Damien does belong to me.
Comic: Iron Man
Pairing/Characters: Tony Stark/Scarlett Damien, Pepper, Rhodey, Happy
Rating: M
Author's Note: I write long chapters! I mean not excessively crazy long but long enough! I'm the sort of writer who likes to think of their stories as novels and so I aspire to give readers what they would expect upon purchasing a book. I average around 13-15 pages a chapter, but sometimes I've got less and sometimes more! I hope you can look past the length and the time it may take to read and give it a shot. I promise quality work.
During one of the layovers on Scarlett’s way Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow Scarlett had discovered that her phone was horribly malfunctioning as she suspected it had been before boarding her plane in South Africa. She had been both annoyed and grateful to discover that it had caused a problem for her.
On one hand, she was incredibly annoyed because she was sure that it meant she had to have missed messages from Tony all day long and he was likely fretting over her safety wherever he was. Not that he’d bother to tell her where he’d gone or anything but she had decided it was better not to ask and just to let him do whatever it was he felt he needed to do. As long as he checked in with her every so often that was.
She could only hope he was out of harm’s way doing whatever he was doing. It was still peculiar to care about someone the way that she did. In a sense, it was almost as annoying as her phone being broken. She was worried about Tony and he crept into her thoughts at the weirdest time. But since she was so used to not caring about anything except for her job and the task at hand, it often flustered her and left her confused and unsure of how to deal with it.
At the same time Scarlett was grateful the phone had broken because it gave her something to occupy her mind outside of the files that Natasha had given her over lunch and wondering what the hell Tony was doing. By the time she’d gotten onto the second plane she’d already been over the files ten times and had absorbed their information as much as she thought she could. Later she would look them over one more time before hiding them away and continuing with her mission in Russia.
Sleep was an elusive beast once more and proved impossible on any stretch of the flight which was a shame because Scarlett was pretty tired.
Her mind was a whirlwind of information and more than usual at that. What Natasha had warned her of had actually gotten to her, against her better judgment of course. Could she really be walking straight into the lion’s mouth? Not if Natasha had anything to say about it and she was sure that the assassin had waited only as long as necessary before catching a flight that would get her to Russia soon after Scarlett so she could continue to shadow her. Scarlett was nowhere near naïve enough to think that S.H.I.E.L.D. would back off simply because she told them to.
Besides that, she knew Natasha well enough to realize that the bad ass assassin wouldn’t back down because Scarlett didn’t want her to get involved. She fully anticipated running into Natasha at some point in the next few days, particularly if things went wrong. In a strange way, Scarlett was grateful for this though she would never openly admit it without heavy amounts of sarcasm to mask her true feelings. Thankfully, working on her phone to repair the damage done would help distract her mind from her wayward thoughts on the second flight. After purchasing a second phone in the airport terminal in Dakar to use for spare parts, Scarlett went to work.
By the time Scarlett’s flight landed in Moscow she had a cell phone she was confident would work, though she wasn’t sure the text messages and missed calls would be recovered without tapping properly into the network she was using. She decided there would be time for that after she was done dealing with MedCo. After she touched base in Moscow, got a hotel room to store her things and got changed, Scarlett would send Tony a message to let him know that she was sorry she’d disappeared for the day and hoped she didn’t cause him any upset.
If he was out of his mind with worry, which Scarlett somehow doubted was possible for the notoriously self absorbed billionaire, she would go out of her way to make up for it later.
It was late in Moscow when she left the airport and soon enough it would be very early. With a hotel room acquired, Scarlett got changed into the customary black outfit that made her look like a woman on a mission since it was, at long last, time for that look. Not that she had anything else to wear besides the dress that she’d purchased in Cape Town at the hotel anyway. But still, Scarlett was ready to get back to her roots and break into the extensive facility that had been set up in Russia, about thirty miles outside of Moscow on an extensive stretch of land. If nothing else, MedCo had always been careful enough to isolate their facilities from the public when necessary.
She was positive after looking at the files that the facility was akin to the one she’d been held captive in during her short stint of employment for MedCo. According to the paperwork she’d been provided with there was a substantial amount of medical personnel on staff and after seeing what she’d seen in Dakar and Madrid Scarlett wasn’t surprised. Would there be more monsters like Erick hiding there? If that were the case, she wouldn’t stand a chance. Abandoning her backpack, notebooks and anything else that wasn’t important Scarlett left her hotel room locked up after triggering the device that would give anyone trying to steal her things a nice hefty shock.
The experimental monster that was Erick’s reanimated corpse had hopefully died when she set the ship on fire. In her mind’s eye she saw the many crates that had been stored in there and wondered if they too were filled with monsters. With any luck the whole damn ship had been destroyed and consequently any ungodly experiments that were left on that ship. Unfortunately Scarlett knew that she didn’t have that kind of luck, at least not lately.
If she had to she’d contact Clint Barton also known as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Hawkeye, the so-called man on the inside, but Scarlett wasn’t counting on having to do that. She would be on her best behavior once weapons were obtained since hers were ditched at the airport before going through security. Well, every weapon minus her Tesla glove, security had no idea what it was and she didn’t plan on letting them ever find out. After years of sneaking around from job to job she’d learned how to properly conceal weapons when necessary and she’d discovered that the only weapons worth concealing were the irreplaceable kind, such as her glove.
After she’d repaired her phone she had sat planning in her little notebook enhancements she wished to make to the glove including a built in communication device. She’d almost used the remaining pieces of the extra phone to try and build one then and there but it would’ve been too hard to conceal on the plane from other passengers. It was one thing to have the back of her cell phone pulled open, it was another thing entirely for her to have a strange looking glove with the potential for explosive capabilities laying on her tray table.
Scarlett would kill for a vacation right about now, not that she’d ever necessarily wanted one before.
Worn out was not the right term for what she was. No, she had far exceeded being “worn out”. Natasha was right, something was still wrong with her and the more she pondered over what had been brought to her attention the more she considered she could very well have some form of pneumonia. That wasn’t good. Pneumonia wouldn’t go away on its own. When she let her mind wander she became concerned that she was actually sick from some experiments that had been done on her or from contamination after being at one of the ruined cities earlier in the week. As rational as her mind usually was, it was impossible to stave off thoughts of being experimented on entirely. Just because she was rational didn’t mean she was fearless.
Right now, Scarlett was praying for pneumonia.
Coughing as if on cue Scarlett continued her love affair with Ricola cough drops as she took several buses across Moscow. She soon stopped to eat something small since the nagging voice of the Black Widow in the back of her head reminded her that food was necessary to continue living. She had lost weight and a considerable amount of that weight lost had been muscle mass and not fat. When she was free of this burden of MedCo, she would have to work hard to regain her strength.
But for now, Scarlett had a plan and with any luck she’d be able to close this chapter of her life once and for all without ending hers. At least that’s what she was hoping for. Seated again on a bus after having finished a small breakfast, nursing the coffee that had become one with her blood in recent days, she watched the cityscape of Moscow disappear from view. It was a beautiful city when she wasn’t creeping around the unsavory ends of it. Some of her favorite memories had been in that very same city, but there was no time for reflection.
Readjusting the black jacket she wore, she zipped the collar all the way up to her neck and straightened it afterward. Compared to the weather in South Africa and Spain, Russian summers were a breeze. Granted it was a bit humid but it didn’t get much higher than thirty degrees Celsius and that was something Scarlett could deal with easily enough. Plus there was a nice cloud cover rolling in from the east that would help keep the heat down.
The more covered up Scarlett could remain the easier her job would be. While she’d stopped for food she’d also stopped to replace the handguns she’d discarded in South Africa along with a few other handy weapons that she kept strapped in her boot and inside of her sleeve. Guns were obvious to those looking for them and Scarlett liked to almost always carry something a little more personal around with her if she could. Lately she’d been neglecting it but, she didn’t have access to the arsenal of weaponry she had once had. Scarlett was severing ties with her old life left and right and it was leaving a void… of machinery and weaponry mostly. It had come to her attention that Scarlett had made nearly no personal connections in the last ten years outside of Scott, Natasha, and the Indian man. Since those relationships had all been hopelessly destroyed, Scarlett didn’t have to worry about anyone else popping out of the woodwork.
But the loss of fancy weaponry was something she could rectify after the final tie had been severed. Scarlett got off the bus again at a small stop on the outskirts of a suburb outside of Moscow. There was no one around at least that she could see and it was a little unsettling. The sun had risen in the sky and there should have at least been some kids coming out to greet the day. Instead, there was no one. It didn’t exactly look like the best neighborhood anyway, now that she studied it a bit closer. Not that Scarlett was afraid of bad neighborhoods, she could more than take care of herself in a dark alley and was often the predator in those situations. But something didn’t sit right with her and it made her stomach churn.
It very well could’ve been the sketchy coffee she’d purchased from a Russian street vendor combined with the thirty or so Ricolas she’d consumed but she had the feeling it was something far more sinister. Part of Scarlett’s old life had been to trust her instincts and while they had failed her on multiple occasions in the past month she was hoping that they would hold true at least until she’d finished with MedCo.
If her instincts weren’t leading her astray then what was wrong with this place? As the next bus she meant to catch in order to get to the other side of her final destination pulled up, Scarlett decided to skip it and take a closer look around. Something was terribly amiss and she was going to get to the bottom of it before she ran headfirst into the lion’s den covered in bait. Waving to the bus driver to let him know she wasn’t going to catch this one, she watched the bus roll away, plumes of smoke coming from the exhaust pipe behind it as it drove out of sight.
“Scarlett? Is that you?” A familiar voice, one that Scarlett hadn’t expected to hear anytime soon, made her stiffen up. Hair stood up on the back of her neck and goose bumps prickled along her arms, giving her the chills and making her nervous. It should’ve been a voice she was relieved to hear but instead it left her feeling uneasy and almost a little sick. The biggest question on the forefront of her mind was: what the hell was Scott Aaronson doing in a large Russian suburb at the same bus stop that she’d ended up at? The odds were impeccable and as she did the math quickly in her head she realized it was nearly impossible.
Turning to face her ex-boyfriend she could see a smile on his face and relief in his eyes. There were even tears brimming on the edges of them but Scarlett was still suspicious. As he came to hug her she hesitated but then returned the gesture. Much to her surprise he nearly lifted her off the ground and buried his face against her shoulder, almost sobbing with happiness to see her. Scott had definitely changed since the last time she’d seen him which had been in a MedCo security video strapped to a chair with a black bag over his head.
How had he changed?
There were the obvious things such as the way he’d bulked up in just a month and then of course his hair was shorter and less perfectly kept together. His glasses were gone and somehow his eyes seemed duller than they once had. These things could all be explained away of course, but Scarlett didn’t think it was that simple. She could hear Tony in her head, warning her that he was up to no good. Could it be that her new boyfriend’s insane irrational jealousy of her ex-boyfriend who she’d long suspected dead wasn’t so irrational after all? Just thinking that made her head hurt.
Hesitantly Scarlett returned the hug and decided that even if something unsavory was going on underneath the surface of Scott’s miraculous and very sudden reappearance, she would have to act like nothing was amiss at all until she’d uncovered the truth.
“Wow, you were the last person I expected to run into in this neck of the woods.” Scarlett finally managed to collect her thoughts and offered a legitimate smile. Scott clasped his hands on her shoulders and looked at her with that same look she’d once thought was love but now thought was something else. He was happy to see her, but something was off in his loving gaze. What was it? Scarlett was surprised she’d never noticed it before but it wasn’t like she’d ever been a very good girlfriend back during their relationship so maybe she’d overlooked it. She’d had too many other things to pay attention to, like work, work, and more work. Scarlett had been the not so stereotypical workaholic girlfriend.
“What are the odds?”
“Astronomical, actually.” Scarlett scoffed and Scott pulled his hands away but smiled.
“You would be the one to figure them out before returning my hug, wouldn’t you?”
“Old habits die hard.”
“I see that.” Scott looked her over and Scarlett felt very suddenly out of place.
“But enough about that… what are you doing here? I… I mean not that I’m unhappy to see you, I’m just surprised. There are six billion people in the world and we practically run into each other in a place we’ve never been to together.” Scarlett faked a laugh, something she’d often done with Scott to begin with so she was hoping he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Scott urged her to sit down at the bench near the bus stop and she joined him but at arm’s length. She had decided she couldn’t trust this new version of Scott until he’d proven to her that he was worthy of such a gift.
“After the fiasco with that place you were working for I woke up in a hospital and… I was hurting, let me tell you! I don’t know what it is you did there but… it left me a nasty scar.” Scott lifted his shirt to show her the scarring on his side and Scarlett looked away. How many nightmares had she had about having been responsible for his death and there he was, nearly fine. It shook her to see him, and for more reasons than she could count. At least now there was one less thing to do after MedCo had been taken care of. Scott had been found and she could say her piece and move on with her life. But now that Scott had found her, it still left her with a thousand questions she wasn’t sure she wanted the answers to.
“I thought you were dead.” Scarlett hung her head and looked away. The guilt she felt was real even if she was wearing a mask for most of the conversation thus far. Inside the MedCo facility she had decided that his life and hers weren’t worth letting MedCo win and she had made the decision to let him die. Not that she hadn’t tried, and hard at that, to save his life. It was the only reason MedCo had been able to keep her locked up for so long, because she’d been trying to find a way out without any casualties. But there hadn’t been a way out.
She hadn’t realized how true that statement was to the rest of her life. Was there no real way out after what MedCo had done? She thought that killing Marcia and Mikhail would put an end to it, but maybe that wasn’t the case. Even if she erased every trace of her inside MedCo there would be someone else who would remember her and come after her. It was a vicious cycle and Scarlett was finally beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, she would have to live with what she had done without the ability to make up for the wrongs she’d committed in hopes of finding freedom.
“I thought you were dead.” Scott looked serious and for a second Scarlett considered trusting him. He averted his eyes and furrowed his brow, his jaw even clenched as he reflected on the revelation. “You’ve been getting into trouble for years, trouble I never knew existed before we met and while I knew it was inevitable that it would lead to your end there was nothing that could prepare me for actually losing you.” Scarlett softened. If Scott was acting he was doing a damn good job of it. The Scott she remembered was too dopey to be this good.
“I didn’t expect them to use you against me. Go figure I would try to take a normal job and end up in more trouble than I’d gotten into when I was looking for trouble.” Scarlett rolled her eyes and itched at her sleeve. The spare ammunition she had tucked there rubbed against her thumb and the urge to defend herself grew. Her mind and her body were arguing back and forth and she honestly didn’t know which was going to win. Something about Scott sent up red flags in every part of Scarlett but there was also a big part of her that wanted to believe what he was saying.
Scarlett wanted nothing but happiness for Scott, happiness that she could never give him during their time together. He’d been there for her, or at least she had believed he’d been there for her even when she’d reflected on the times where he’d mostly reprimanded her and tried to talk her out of her crazy lifestyle. Every sane boyfriend would’ve tried to change her to stay safe right? That was love. But Scarlett couldn’t have cared less what Scott did as long as it didn’t interfere with the business she’d been running back then. That was definitely not love. Her mind was racing and Scott could tell, that much hadn’t changed.
“You’re still confused aren’t you?” Scott smiled, patting her leg. She quickly brushed his hand away under the guise of turning to face him a bit better.
“I still don’t get what you’re doing here. I mean it’s great to see that you’re alive and I saw that you checked out of a hospital later… once I had realized you weren’t dead that is. But the odds of us ending up in this particular bus stop at this particular moment are… the numbers are getting to me.”
“You’re hyper rational Scarlett, you always have been. Sometimes fate takes things into its hands and there’s nothing that can properly explain it.” Scott smiled that same stupid smile that he always did and Scarlett looked away.
“That’s not how reality works, Scott. You and I both know that. It’s cute to think that things are often meant to be but…”
“Okay, so you really haven’t changed.” A hint of a frown crossed Scott’s brow but he quickly masked it with a chuckle. Warning signs flashed in her thoughts again to pull back and get the hell out of there but where would she go? Maybe following her instincts this time hadn’t been the best idea.
“There are some things about me that will never change Scott, no matter what happens.” Scarlett shrugged nonchalantly and finally gave him the cold shoulder. Why did he keep focusing on her changing? What change was he looking for in her? Of course she had changed but not because of him and certainly not for him. Tony popped into her mind again. He had been the reason she’d changed and that was after she had tried as hard as she possibly could not to.
“After I got out of the hospital I worked hard to take care of myself. With you gone, I needed to be wary of your enemies and make sure that… I could handle what was coming. I’m sure you noticed what’s changed about me.”
“Well considering you used to be a literal stick figure…” Scarlett cocked an eyebrow and much to her surprise Scott laughed. She had always given him a hard time about taking care of his body. Not because she was shallow but because she had worried about exactly what he’d used as an excuse to finally get into shape. Scott could never take care of himself back then, clearly that had changed.
“I was. But I have been working hard and after applying at a few places and actively seeking work I got hired at one of the technical enhancement centers here! I was about to catch a bus to Moscow but I was running a little late when I spilled my tea this morning and… well here you are. Now tell me that’s not fate?”
“So you work here?” Scarlett wasn’t buying the story and the fact that Scott had gone out of his way to bring up her history to make her feel guilty and responsible for what had become of him had only solidified that for her. Then again, Scott had always been like that with using guilt to his advantage. It was how he’d ended up her boyfriend in the first place. Their relationship had a strong foundation of guilt and blame.
“Well, I work in the city. Not here, this is a bus stop. Are you okay?” Scott furrowed his brow and took her hand which she promptly pulled out of his reach.
“I’m fine, Scott. For someone who is supposed to be dead, I’m remarkable.” Scarlett decided she would say what was on her mind now and then get going. Being with Scott was putting her behind schedule and it made her feel unsettled. When she’d finished with MedCo she would have to make sure to look into Scott’s history a little more in depth. Admittedly she had ignored a large chunk of their time together so maybe he was up to more than she had ever suspected. Scott had always seemed harmless and so she had treated him as though he were incapable of doing harm. But now after time away, she was beginning to think it was a wrong assessment and a case of very poor judgment.
Maybe she’d have to lay off the scotch for a little while.
“If you ask me, I’d say you look terrible. You’re thin and you have these… bags under your eyes. And now that I look closer you’re all banged up, Scarlett.” Scott pointed to the wound on her head that had successfully knocked her out when she’d been thrown off of the ship in South Africa after fighting Erick. No, scratch that, after she’d gotten her ass handed to her by Erick the zombie. Scarlett was still having all sorts of Resident Evil flash backs that she didn’t want to deal with.
“Well, aren’t you sweet? It’s been a weird week but I’m just fine.” Scarlett nodded her head and urged his hand away from her. Why did he keep trying to touch her? Didn’t he know about personal space and how to stay in his own? How annoying. “And actually I’m glad we ran into each other because there are a few things I need to tell you.”
“I don’t think that any good conversation has started like that. Why don’t we at least grab lunch and talk it over there?” Scott nodded down the road toward a shopping center Scarlett had noticed on the bus ride there.
“I’d rather do this here plus I just ate on the way here.”
“Okay.” Scott seemed disappointed but shrugged his shoulders and then waited politely for her to say her piece.
“I thought you died when they were holding you to use against me. They wanted me to build something I wasn’t comfortable building and… even then I refused. I made them believe I was doing what they wanted me to do so that I could bide my time and find out where they held you. Unfortunately what I built to keep them fooled turned out to be just as harmful as what they wanted from me in the first place. Before I could get to you I overheard someone giving the order to execute you and then the place went to hell. I had every intention of looking for you.” Scarlett sat proudly. “But I was sick. I got sprayed with some nasty chemical and shot. It wasn’t one of my better days.”
“Some chemical?” Scott grimaced, looking genuinely concerned and actually touched that she had gone to such lengths for him. Had he doubted her dedication to their relationship too? She’d always suspected as much since he had often sat her down to have talks about where things were going and how they would never be able to establish a real life together with her chasing ghosts.
“Yeah, it’s all cleared up now.” Scarlett waved off that topic since she didn’t really have the time or energy to get into the details. “MedCo had been using Stark Industries as a front for some of their dealings and while I still haven’t figured out how they got their hands on so much Stark Tech I had a good idea at the time. It was funny, Iron Man saved me and brought me exactly where I needed to be in order to get revenge for you.” Scarlett shrugged and smiled slightly. Summarizing what had happened to her had never been her forte. Scarlett really didn’t like drawing attention to her misdeeds and mistakes but this was one she had to at least explain for her own sanity.
The guilt had been nearly eating her alive since she’d woken up in Tony Stark’s lab half dead nearly a month ago now. It seemed like far more time had transpired since then. She’d traveled halfway across the world after that and often times she had to remind herself that it was just that too much was happening at once, not that too much time had passed. Her eyes traveled back to Scott who was listening intently. Why did she get the feeling that he already knew how this story ended? She sure wished someone would tell her. Something on his arm caught her eye and she immediately withdrew her gaze.
Did Scott have surgical scars on his arm? And the scar he’d revealed to her when he’d lifted his shirt seemed out of place for what he’d been through. Hadn’t he been shot? Even Scarlett had a scar from being shot. Actually Scarlett had several scars from being shot though only one of them was from her ordeal with MedCo. The chemical on her leg had left a nasty wrinkling in her skin but it was fading over time, thankfully. The scars on Scott’s body were too methodical and precise. They were from some kind of procedure not a gunshot wound and an explosion.
“Since there’s been no report of Stark turning up dead and his stocks are higher than ever, I’m assuming that didn’t go according to plan.” Scott’s smile momentarily faded into a scowl and Scarlett watched him suspiciously.
He was lying. Scott was definitely lying. The red flags hadn’t been a misfire, her judgment had indeed been correct. Slipping the pocket knife she’d smuggled into the sleeve opposite the extra ammo into her palm, Scarlett nodded to confirm Scott’s suspicions. She wouldn’t make the first move but when Scott made his she would be more than ready. The bigger he was the harder he’d fall.
“I know this sounds crazy but Tony Stark is not the man you and I thought he was for years. I’m sure there were points in time where he was… the megalomaniacal asshole we suspected but not anymore. Scott, Tony’s a really good guy and he’s trying to climb out of the hole he put himself into. What started out as a search for revenge changed everything about my life. You keep saying I haven’t changed but that’s because I don’t think you ever really knew me very well.”
“We’ve been back together for all of five minutes and you’re already harping on that? I know you very well Scarlett, maybe better than you know yourself if that’s what you really think of me.” Scott grimaced, the mask of happiness faltering for just a second before his attention turned back to her.
“Back together? No, no… we’re not back together Scott. Our relationship died in that explosion and for more than one reason. The first being that I never loved you.” Scarlett was smiling despite her words but Scott looked angrier than she had ever seen him and his face was turning red from clenching his jaw as hard as he was. “And you deserved a woman who could love you. I was never capable of it and I didn’t realize that when we were together because I just assumed what we had was love.” Scarlett kept the knife in her hand now, ready to jump out of the way when Scott chose his moment to strike. “I fell in love with Tony Stark even though I wanted him dead. That’s how I know I never loved you and never could. I tried desperately not to fall for him and it happened in spite of both of our attempts to sabotage things.”
Scott got up from where he stood and Scarlett sat and watched his every move. He seemed to be contemplating what she’d shared with him and trying desperately to keep his anger in check. Peering over her shoulder, Scarlett searched the perimeter. There were a good hundred places she could hide in the distance, which was great because she was certain that she was going to need them in a few minutes. Right now she had the upper hand. Scott seemed to think that she was being sincere about everything she was saying. He saw her having missed him because even after all this time he wanted her to miss him.
If he saw she was lying he wasn’t letting on. Scarlett had been mostly honest, at least about the important things. Now her mind was trying not to wander over how far Scott’s treachery went back. How long had he been playing the victim simply to make her feel guilty? In his own way had he been trying to manipulate her into living a different life? Scarlett was almost completely positive he had a connection to MedCo now which meant he was the reason she’d been set up by them in the first place. Had he ever even been held to use against her? She didn’t know what was real and what was made up now.
She should’ve seen it coming a mile away. It was obvious even to Tony and while he was a genius it didn’t take a genius to see that Scott had to have been turned against her at some point. Scarlett didn’t want to see it.
She wanted Scott to continue being the dopey boy she’d met while working in Senegal who had been so sweet and naïve in the ways of the world that he’d been outraged when he discovered what Scarlett really did for a living. Was this her fault? Had she turned Scott into what he’d become? A man covered in surgical scars, trying to manipulate someone into loving him?
“Scott, I know it’s hard to hear but you had to have known long before I did. We were never really compatible. Happiness is hard to find and I never knew what it was until I met Tony and even then it’s still something I’m figuring out. You deserved it.” She continued to speak in the past tense since she was pretty sure Scott was no longer the man who deserved happiness if he was in fact guilty of what she suspected.
“I need a minute, okay? This… this is a lot.” He groaned under his breath and kept his back to her his hand on his head as though he were suffering from some terrible headache. Scarlett sighed and rolled her eyes behind his back.
“Because I wasn’t in a rush or anything, okay. Take your minute.” Scarlett glanced down the street. She should’ve gotten on that bus. Her gut was always right! It had been about Tony, it had been about MedCo, it had been about the job in Afghanistan that had started this twisted spiral she was stuck in and yet she still continued to ignore it and fight against it at every opportunity! What the hell was wrong with her? Why was she so stupid sometimes? For someone who was supposed to be smarter than the average bear, she was certainly acting like a dumb ass.
Scarlett’s phone buzzed in her pocket and she jumped nearly a mile. It had been so long since she’d gotten a proper phone call that she hadn’t expected the feeling and it set her nerves on edge. When it buzzed again she pulled it out of her pocket.
“I’ve got to take this.” She saw that Tony was calling her and it couldn’t have been worse timing. Scott was still ignoring her and was now muttering under his breath. Sliding her finger over the screen she answered the call and placed the phone to her ear, standing up and taking a step away. “Now is not a great time.” She hissed into the receiver.
“Do you know how long I’ve been trying to get in touch with you?” Tony’s voice hesitated on the other end of the line. He hadn’t been expecting her to pick up considering he’d been trying to call her for the last twenty four hours and she hadn’t bothered to respond once. He’d filled up her voicemail with messages asking her to call him back and expressing his concern and now she was acting like she’d been inconvenienced?
Oh, they were so going to have a very long talk about communication when he next saw her.
“Yeah, sorry about that. My phone got wet in Cape Town and it fritzed out. I didn’t realize and had to rebuild the damn thing on the plane. But could I possibly call you back? I’m sorta busy.”
“No, what I have to say can’t wait. And it’s not something stupid so don’t dismiss me okay?” As she paced along the sidewalk and pushed her messy hair out of her face something happened that she hadn’t suspected when she turned her back on Scott for a split second. Something cold and circular pressed against the back of her neck and she recognized it immediately as the barrel of a gun. She hadn’t heard Scott move or come toward her. How had he done it so quickly? She’d only turned around for a second! In her left hand she now held the switch blade and was very carefully opening it to defend herself.
“Tony…” She whispered cautiously and felt the barrel press harder against the back of her neck. Saying his name seemed only to anger Scott further. Something must have snapped in Scott’s brain to make him act the way he was. Maybe too many surgeries and experiments had destroyed his rational mind.
“Don’t say another word to him.” Scott whispered threateningly and she could hear the click of the barrel as it cocked so close to her ears. While Tony spoke on the other end of the phone, Scarlett contemplated her next move hoping she could find a way out of her predicament without getting shot. Scarlett was very tired of people shooting things at her.
“Stop arguing with me! It’s Scott! Scott is the man you’re looking for! He’s behind it all Scarlett, every damn bit of it! I know you’re going to be pissed at me for this later but Scarlett he’s obsessed with you. Something in that guy’s head broke… more like twenty screws popped loose and now he’s gunning for you, okay? He set you up in Afghanistan to be tortured, he’s been working with MedCo all along even from way back then. Scarlett I know it’s had to hear, but it’s Scott. It’s always been Scott.” He sounded hopeful and as he watched his flight pattern as he flew closer to his destination in Russia he hoped he could get to her in time. He hoped even more that she would understand what he had done and why. When she stayed silent on the other end, he knew she was as angry as he suspected she’d be.
Scarlett was holding her breath. Scott was behind what had happened in Afghanistan? He’d put her through that torture? And he expected her to love him after he had set her up for the worst moments of her life? Her chest constricted and she almost panicked. Churning in her stomach was the breakfast she’d eaten that morning and she cursed Natasha Romanoff for making her eat. But the cold barrel of the gun pressing against her neck kept her in the here and now, clearing her mind immediately.
If she panicked, she was as good as dead.
“…don’t make me do it, Scarlett.” Scott whispered, moving closer to her and grabbing onto her shoulder roughly. It was on purpose, by design. She had pushed him away on numerous occasions in the last half an hour and now he was making a point that he would do whatever he damn well pleased regardless of how Scarlett felt about it.
What had she done that had turned this man into a monster?
“He’s been stealing your ideas for years and selling them to private dealers… You know those little black notebooks you carry around with scribbles of these ridiculously genius things that you never get around to? I spied through one, you should know I’m a nosy guy okay? I’m not sorry for that but I am sorry for this. Look Scarlett I’m a jealous, greedy son of a bitch but Scott’s way more of an asshole than I thought he was. You’ve got to lay low. Call S.H.I.E.L.D. I know you don’t want to and honestly I don’t want you to either but if Scott’s coming for you then you’re in more trouble than you can imagine. He’s done some things… experiments on himself. Scarlett you don’t stand a chance and I’m not saying that as an over protective boyfriend. I’m saying that because it’s true. I did the math and you know my math is never wrong. Don’t argue with me, it’s never wrong.”
Scarlett closed her eyes and felt them burning with emotion. For years he’d been betraying her? Stealing her ideas even? How long had she financially supported the both of them and he had been stealing her ideas to sell for a profit? And now he was one of those things?
This was her fault. She knew all along that it had been and now finally her demons were catching up with her one by one and dragging her down to hell.
Sorrow quickly turned into rage and Scarlett’s hand trembled with anger. Scott wasn’t going to wait long before making his move but she was certain of one thing. He didn’t have the balls to pull the trigger that would blow her brains out. What was about to happen could break Tony’s heart but she didn’t have any more options, not now. With any luck she’d be able to hang up the phone and break the connection before she dropped it. But first she had to let him know that he was right, and at least give him that comfort.
Though somehow she doubted that Tony would find any comfort, even with the few words she would find time to spare. Would she be able to kill Scott? After everything she’d shared with him and the years she’d spent mentally defending his motives, would she really be able to see him as the monster she now knew he was.
“Scarlett, I’m really sorry. But your ex-boyfriend is a double crossing, evil, manipulative asshole.” Tony exhaled, nervous when she didn’t respond to him. “That is a completely different kind of asshole than I am. Assholes like me look down on assholes like him.
“I know.” She finally whispered, preparing herself for the fight that was about to come.