Chapter Text
“Seems to me, you’re free to go.”
If only it were that easy.
…
Time passes in the manner of a dream. The Prime Minister leaves and Coulson leaves and the President leaves and suddenly they find themselves alone, silence pressing in from four concrete walls.
“Firing squad. Siberian prison camp. Home free. Spin the wheel, what’s it gonna be?” Hunter mutters under his breath, squeezing Bobbi’s hand tightly with cuffs and chains jangling between them. “I didn’t actually mean to make that rhyme.”
She doesn’t respond, because there is no response. Just a little huff of air, half a laugh, half something else. A release of some kind. They have, separately and together, prepared for their deaths so many times. Every don’t die out there an acknowledgement that it could happen.
But they’ve never waited for it. Never sat in a room, chained to a table with a fluorescent light fitting flickering overhead. They’ve never allowed other people to argue and negotiate and manoeuvre to determine their fate.
“I kinda hate Coulson right now.”
Bobbi presses her lips together in what might be an attempt at a sardonic smile, “Me too.”
They don’t, not really, but hope is one of the hardest things to bear.
…
A loud gurgle breaks the silence.
Bobbi feels a laugh bubble up in her throat. She tries to hold onto it, to push it away because it’s so completely inappropriate but the thought that, in the midst of life and death and potential international disaster, her body still needs something as mundane as food seems hilarious. And the more she tries to stay sober, the harder it becomes until suddenly she’s giggling hysterically and it’s terrifying and all-consuming and a hair’s breadth away from crying.
Hunter is staring at her with a mixture of amusement and concern, “You alright, love?”
She nods, helplessly trying to reign back control. He lifts a hand to brush her hair out of her face, but swears quietly when he realises he can’t reach.
Bobbi takes a couple of deep breaths and swallows slowly, willing the laughter not to turn to tears. “I’m fucking starving.”
Hunter looks at her and she can see the cogs whirring in his brain, see him deciding whether it’s a step too far, too soon, too close to the line. He decides to chance it, “Mushroom soup?”
It’s the lift of an eyebrow that does it, the quirk of a smile that finally sobers her. It’s the thought of never having this again, this shorthand, this ease around another person.
“No.” She shakes her head, suddenly serious, “I never want to see another mushroom in my life.”
…
Ten years later, Bobbi picks the mushrooms out of a risotto at a wedding reception. Despite the surprising turns their lives have taken in the intervening years, they still taste of loss.
…
The day (night?) wears on.
“What do you think they’re doing?”
Bobbi shrugs, “Having a tea break.”
Hunter presses against her shoulder, aching to put an arm around her and hold her close. She’s looking down at her lap, tense and coiled and almost vibrating with impatience and dread.
“What did you do to your hand?” There’s a slightly surprised edge to her voice, as if it has only just dawned on her that she doesn’t know.
“Tried to punch a shadow muppet.”
“Ah.”
Now he thinks about it, there’s a dull ache emanating from the middle bone along the back of his hand, a fiery pull when he flexes the fingers. He tries to carry on not noticing. He doesn’t need this sort of distraction.
Bobbi takes his hand in hers, turns it over gently and feels along the swelling. There are so many things he wants to tell her, so many words fighting to trip off the edge of his tongue. He wants to tell her that he loves her, that whichever way this goes, they’ll get through it together. Even if they can’t be together any more.
Hunter imagines life alone in a Siberian prison cell, imagines the wind whistling outside and Bobbi’s unseen presence three feet or a thousand miles away. He swallows.
She looks up to find him staring at her. Her mouth quirks into the shadow of a smirk.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
Bobbi sets down his hand and presses against him, shoulder to shoulder.
She knows.
…
“We were nearly executed.”
It comes from nowhere, the thought spilling out into the night. The reality and the finality of it finally hitting home.
“That wasn’t the worst part.” Hunter responds, and Bobbi’s lips tighten as her grip turns to steel.
“No.” She says softly, “No, it wasn’t”
…
Footsteps outside and a key turning in a lock. The scraping of rust on steel is an assault on the eardrum.
“Here we go.” It’s a whisper that echoes around both their skulls before they pull apart, expressions guarded and bodies tensed for a fight.
A metal tray slams down on the table between them and a bag drops at their feet. The man walks around towards them.
“What happens now?” Bobbi’s voice is steady.
The man gestures at the tray, and then the bag, not meeting their eyes, “Eat. Get dressed. Then we go.”
“Go where?”
“Airport.”
He leans down and releases them both from the table, taking the handcuffs with him as he locks the door behind him.
Bobbi puts her hands on the pockmarked surface, feels herself slump backwards in her chair. All the breath leaves her body as the tension holding her upright starts to leak away.
And then Hunter throws his arms around her and practically launches himself into her lap. She squeaks in surprise and lets out a small gasp of laughter. His hand snakes around her side, pulling her towards him, and then there’s a piercing, stabbing sensation.
Her sudden intake of breath is quiet but sharp and he pulls back.
“You alright, love?”
“Yeah.” She takes a breath, “Steel-toe-capped boots, meet ribs.”
“Anything broken?” She sees him tense, a flash of anger appearing in his eyes before he very deliberately lets it go.
She tips her head to one side slightly, before shaking it, “Don’t think so.” And takes a few shallow, steady breaths whilst Hunter continues nuzzling into her neck, his hands gentle this time, feather-light up her side. She feels herself start to smile, “This is really not the time.”
He pulls away with a huff of mock-exasperation and pokes tentatively at one of the bowls of stew set in front of them. It’s the colour of dishwater and seems to be mainly composed of cabbage, “Well, this looks tasty.”
“Yum.”
There’s a giddiness to both of them, a delirium born of three days without sleeping in a proper bed or eating a proper meal. And the sudden reprieve from execution probably has a part to play too.
Hunter tastes a spoonful of stew and pulls a face, “I really hope this isn’t my last meal.”
…
“What’s that?” She points at the bag of vegetables he’s unpacking on the counter.
“Cabbage.”
“Nuh-uh, no way.”
“Oh, come on, I’ll fry it up with bacon.” He roots around in the bottom drawer, “Where have you hidden the garlic? Call it exposure therapy, it’ll be tasty.”
Bobbi still looks unconvinced, her expression an almost child-like look of disgust. He stands up and loops a hand around her waist, planting a light kiss on her cheek, “I promise.”
“You better.”
…
They dress. Back into the black jeans and sweaters they pulled on a van in Taipei, two (three?) days ago. Everything’s sweaty and musty, and their pockets have been emptied, but anything’s better than the scratchy cotton of a green jumpsuit. Anything’s better than the clothes others have almost certainly been sent to their deaths in.
Neither of them has any desire to sit back behind the table they’ve been chained to for the past several hours, looking up at people standing around them like naughty school children behind a desk. And so Bobbie perches on it, moving slowly to avoid shifting her ribs, toes scuffing against the ground.
“You think…?”
Hunter shrugs, leaning against the wall, “They’re gonna try and knock us off before we make it to the airport…?” He shrugs slowly, “I’d say we’ve got a fighting chance. They’re out of inhumans.” He’s smirking slightly, trying to make light of it, bringing it back to him and her and their bodies against the world, without power and politics hamstringing them at every turn.
“That we know of.” Bobbi mutters darkly, but she feels herself smile all the same. With Coulson gone, and SHIELD out of the firing line, they’re free. If they’re going to go down, they can at least go down fighting.
She continues, “Anyway, that suit…Coulson, was it? Seemed like he knew what he was doing.” She plays the part, even now, assuming someone’s watching, “I think we’ll be ok.”
…
“Hi. My name is Phil Coulson.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Sir.”
“I’d like to ask you a few questions, if that’s alright.”
Bobbi nods slowly, playing along and waiting for the out. Waiting for her chance to tell him to leave without them. But this time Coulson’s right-hand doesn’t reach for his left, the camera keeps running, and there’s no help coming.
He leans over the table, face contorting into a sneer, “Which of you is going to die first?”
She feels her stomach slowly freezing over, feels bile rising in her throat, “Coulson—“
“You betrayed me, Morse, did you really think I forgave you?”
“No, we—“ She swallows and Hunter is staring at her in horror. It can’t happen like this. “Coulson, please—”
Bobbi wakes with a gasp at the back of her throat and stares hard at the ceiling. Hunter stirs beside her, rolling over and curling into her warmth.
She swallows, closes her eyes, and tries to sleep.
…
They sit in the back of a blacked-out van for what feels like hours, stopping and starting and jolting their way across the barren country.
It was dark outside when they left Interpol, and it’s still dark (or, perhaps, dark again) when they stagger out onto a tiny snowswept airfield. The plane bounces giddily down the runway, jumping hesitantly into the air, and whilst it’s not the most terrifying flight either of them have ever experienced, it’s not exactly restful either.
The sun comes up eventually, a searingly blue sky pouring bright daylight in through the circular windows. The new dawn feel like a bonus, something neither of them had really expected to see.
They hold hands and don’t let go.
…
“Bobbi.”
“Mm?”
“Ow.”
“What?” She asks distractedly, and then looks down at his hand, which is slowly turning white and tingly in her grip, “Woops, sorry.” She let’s go suddenly, looking sheepish, and continues to twirl spaghetti on her fork with her other hand, “I was thinking about something else.”
Hunter grins, “Well, try not to amputate me next time.”
…
Moscow airport at 6am with no sleep is a bewildering and confusing place. They’re escorted through security under armed guard, yawning vacationers pausing to stare in the middle of sorting their liquids into little plastic bags. The pin in Bobbi’s knee sets off the metal detector, and she has to talk fast in Russian to avoid being carted off somewhere again.
They enter the plane ahead of the other passengers, settled into window and middle seat with an escort in the aisle.
“Where are we going?” Bobbi asks, hoping that speaking Russian might get more than a monosyllabic response.
“America.” The man shrugs.
She could press further but, in the end, it doesn’t really matter. They have to start from nothing, wherever they end up. The pilot soon announces their destination, anyway.
New York isn’t somewhere that holds anything for either of them, but at least it’s vaguely familiar. Arriving at JFK might feel something like arriving home.
“I’ve never been deported before,” Hunter mutters in her ear, “I do enjoy new experiences.” He struggles out of his sweater, uses it to pillow his head against the window, and promptly falls asleep.
Bobbi’s never been deported either, and nor has she ever come quite so close to facing a firing squad. But she has lost everything she ever trusted and had faith in in a couple of hours before, so that should be nothing new.
They take off with a sickening rumble and the taste of recycled air. The in-flight meal is nothing special, but it’s food, and so Bobbi devours it before lifting the armrest, leaning against Hunter and closing her eyes.
She falls not quite into sleep, but into a stupor, brain finally too exhausted to do anything else.
…
I should call Mack, Bobbi thinks, as she browses groceries months later, It’s been ages. And then she stops in the cereal aisle, pausing to let a wave of grief break over her. It never stops, her mind constantly trying to trick her into thinking that ‘never’ really means ‘someday’, and then she has to feel it all over again.
Later that week, she snaps a photograph of two pigeons fornicating on the tree outside their window because she knows Daisy would find it hilarious. The image stays on her phone for close to a year, waiting to make the journey, before she finally deletes it.
…
They’re given back the contents of their pockets at the other end of the flight, a little plastic bag each. Or, most of it. Phones, passports, a bit of lose change and a stray pen. Their weapons and tech are clearly lost forever, Bobbi’s batons likely even now being studied by Russian engineers for replication.
The phones were wiped remotely by Daisy as soon as they were taken into custody, now full of useless, fictional contacts and nonsense Whatsapp exchanges. Hunter browses morosely through his contacts, “Apparently I know someone called ‘Fat Steve’,” he mutters into her ear.
Passport control has been warned of their coming, and they make it through without incident. There was a part of both of them expecting to be arrested again at this end, that they’d become a problem the US government would want to sweep under the carpet somewhere. But Coulson is extremely good at these games. They are, truly, home free.
They stand on the other side of arrivals, surrounded by crying relatives and over-excited children, buffeted by trollies full of suitcases rushing to and fro.
Hunter turns to look at Bobbi, her bewilderment and hesitation reflected in his eyes, “What now?”
“Cheeseburger?” Bobbi asks, a careful smile behind her eyes.
It seems as good an idea as any.
…
“Cheeseburger?” She asks, whenever the world becomes a little too much. It’s a breathing space, a chance to think ‘What now?’
Years later, when the news is full of wizards and spaceship and aliens (again), when Hunter crumbles to dust in front of her eyes and she feels her heart be torn out of her chest, because she tried to give her life for his once already and why wasn’t it enough? Why is it never enough?
Then that ridiculous word, that ridiculous idea conceived a lifetime ago, it cycles around her head and she wants to tell her brain to just shut up, to shut it out, because it can’t help her now.
Bobbi throws a chair at the wall and sinks to her knees.
They’d always known this was coming, one way or another.
She’d just hoped they’d have more time.
…
They find a Shake Shack in arrivals, no curly fries, but the burgers are hot, and try to plan out the rest of their lives.
“We seem to be left with homelessness or a life of crime,” says Hunter, as he surveys all their worldly belongings laid out on the table in front of them.
Bobbi glances over his shoulder, at the CIA agent who followed them through the airport and is now not-so-subtly watching them from the Starbucks across the way, chewing thoughtfully on a mouthful of fries.
“Life of crime is more appealing, but we’ll have to lose the tail first.” She mutters back.
When Hunter next looks up, there’s a woman making a beeline towards them through the crowds, “Heads up.” He inclines his head towards her, and Bobbi glances over her shoulder, does a double-take, and then turns back around, trying very hard not to laugh.
Hunter just raises an eyebrow at her, “Play along, then?”
She nods slightly, and her expression returns to one of exhausted neutrality.
“Mr and Mrs Hartley?” The woman’s voice is high and nasal, bottle blonde hair and a slight air of scattiness about her.
Bobbi nods and stands up.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” the woman gushes, “The traffic was appalling.” She takes in the scattered remnants of burgers still in evidence on their trays, “Are you ready to leave?”
“Just a sec.” Hunter swallows rapidly, and then gathers up the loose change and detritus from the table top, tucking it all into his jacket pocket.
“We’re parked on Level 3.” The woman throws over her shoulder, as they pass through the sliding doors and out onto the sidewalk. It’s heaving with people: businessmen and women rushing past with briefcases; families heaving trollies of suitcases, and parents grabbing on to stray children. There’s clamour and noise and life to it.
Hunter pauses for a moment, lifting his face up to the sky. The day is grey and overcast, the air heavy and oppressive. The rolling clouds and cool wind threaten a downpour. Bobbi stops a few paces ahead and glances back. She quirks an eyebrow at him and cracks a smile before they both barrel onwards.
…
After living for so long in a mostly windowless bunker, the concept of weather takes a little getting used to. The sounds of rain pummelling the roof, or wind rattling through an open window are strange and unnatural, waking them both in the night.
The dawn sun streaming in through the curtains in the morning however, that is something Bobbi has missed more than she would have believed. Hunter rolls over and hides his head under the pillow, but she turns into it, absorbing the colour and life of another day.
…
As they pull away in a non-descript hatchback in short-term parking, their companion’s voice drops at least a register, “We’ve got you an apartment in Harlem. It’s not much…” She shrugs, “But you didn’t give us much notice.”
“We didn’t give you any notice.” Bobbi responds, and the woman just smirks slightly, catching Hunter’s eye briefly in the rear view mirror and raising an eyebrow.
Hunter’s head is starting to feel like cotton wool, like his senses are being assaulted from the other side of a fog. He idly wanders what day it is.
Bobbi breaks the silence after a few moments, “I thought we were strictly personas non grata to government agencies.”
The woman shakes her head slightly, “We’re not a government agency. Not anymore.” Her lip quirks slightly, “Also, I’m extremely careful.”
“I hate to break it you, love,” Hunter interjects from the backseat, “But we’ve had a tail since we got off the plane.”
The woman just smiles, “They’re both dealt with.”
He feels like he should have an answer to that, like there’s a pattern to the banter and he’s just out of step. He should probably also be at least a little more curious as to who this woman actually is, and where they’re going. But his brain’s whirring a little too slowly and his last reserves of giving a shit are fast whittling away.
He watches Bobbi in the passenger seat as she runs a hand through her hair and grimaces at the tangles. He watches the tension slowly leak out of her shoulders and listens to the cadence of her voice as she gives their driver the edited highlights of their fall from grace.
He breathes deeply.
They have more days.
…
A one-bed apartment, a hot shower, food in the fridge. A good night’s sleep, and their personal effects arriving in a series of oddly shaped parcels over several months. It’s a lot to be grateful for.
Bobbi drifts through setting up fake-ID’s and bank accounts and utilities bills with half her mind always on something else. Hunter picks up groceries and makes sure they both eat at vaguely regular intervals and that vegetables are, occasionally, part of their diet.
The swelling in his hand eventually goes down, the bone stitching itself back together only slightly crooked. Bobbi rolls over idly to look at the alarm clock one morning and misses the ache stretching across her ribs.
They keep going, keep busy, keep pretending there’s something important to do, but a constant refrain echoes in the backs of both their minds.
“What now?”
…
“So.” Hunter says meaningfully as they cross the threshold, “Do I get to know who that was?”
Bobbi flicks a light switch, and a bare bulb illuminates the carpeted hallway, “Who?” she says distractedly, “Oh, her name’s Natasha.” There’s a slight glint in her eye as she says it, but he’s too exhausted to work out what that might mean.
They both stare longingly at the shower, before deciding that would be too much effort, and collapsing fully dressed on top of the bed.
Hunter wraps himself around her, breathing in sweat and dust.
“Love you.” He mutters in her ear.
“Love you too.”