the backstabbing bastards
a habit of friends turned enemies · 1/23

The wind had made its way inside the room. Blowing the panel curtains to the side. Sending a sway for its way of reminding him how the window shattered. A key symbol of how many important parts to this life were broken. His hand crashed through the window to get inside once he found his way home after permission granted. Permission meant next to nothing with an immovable hammer blocking the door from the inside. He was furious with his wife. More furious of her not taking the mix up as Thor serious. Furious about the days that led to the moment. Furious he was sitting in the dark, nursing on a bottle of cheap beer, and them collecting along the kitchen table. Piling up with no where to go but on the floor or the recycling receptacle if he grew the strength in his legs to reach it. What drew his attention away from sitting in silence after being left alone in a vacant house was the active baby monitor.

The device picked up on Helios and Mabel. Pawing around or sleeping. Keeping the sound at its minimum when he could hear them just in the other room. Guess he wasn't all that alone, except with his thoughts and the double cross he should've seen coming. Just more than a mile away would've saved him the knife to the knee and the one at the back. When it was pulled out from the joint just as a fall from a few stories could've severely injured the average human, he leapt like a cat only to hobble away in boosted vehicle before the suits could ever reach him. Phantom pains from the jagged edges of a tactical blade were still lingering as his knee wasn't at 100% but manageable on its own since Monday. Where it unfolded in the reaches of his mind, that grating feminine mimic husk of a voice unmatched to the person felt like and was a trap on its own. He didn't know which was more painful. The ache of his ears or the bend of his knee.

I didn't want to do this but it wreaks of bullshit. The stench is different, declan.

The stench was different. Quite the opposite of Bruce and it showed after uploading precious files onto the drive that was a way to keep his foot in a game. Slade was always for the long haul and keeping options open for the betterment of his own agenda. Sworn allegiance was only to a select few and making the list of keeping true to them despite the role of his played, he was thinking ahead. Having enough of involvement where people were sure pawns, it was a matter of time when counter moves would reveal itself. Being watched over and tampered with by the governmental forces masked behind masks and other guises, the rewards seemed to outweigh any and all risks, including watching a bond crumble in the matter of seconds between drawn opposite hardware.

How's this different from any other day, Wilson?

Calling for the other to put down their arms had to be a ploy and the way Slade saw it was from the idea that none of the breach of space, classified in nature, was supposed to happen the way it did. He took two more sips. Knocking back the beer, savoring it as replaying was going to keep him up. Asking what could be done differently and outlining the possibilities as far as his state of thought decided to carry.

What do you want with the files?

You're not in any position to ask those questions. Gun down Ward or whoever the fuck you are.

Who he was. Anyone for that matter, pushed them in ways that had been uncharacteristically alarming. The difference between being plucked from one body and stuffed directly into another had delicacies and an intricate force of fucked up that finding their way back would be like digging under the rubble of damage. Threats not idle in nature added to the thickness in tension. He felt it in the dark. Mimicking the way Slade departed to join the rest of the overextended visitors in the ether of a doctored fold. Harmful and deliberate by a higher manipulator that everyone swarming for scraps turned their nozzle upon one another. It was nature of humans at its core. Seeking blame in their neighbor, the one with a similar plight as the power over all held the biggest blame. He scoffed, hissing to himself at the replay that would be drawn out on the whiteboard soon, along with the shot of nobodies he had to exterminate one way or another to make sense.

A nod to the wrinkle of time and the hijacked space, was soon the parallel of where his loyalties now rest. Trusting was hard enough as it were and the most of it came down to people's word if their actions soon matched. Nothing was not adding up. Not now and maybe not ever. She was right. His wife was despite the Norse God that spoke on her behalf. Giving his time a long tired sigh, he finally put the beer down and got up to find solace elsewhere than in an empty kitchen. The back sliding door to head out kept on trail to reach the garage, a place where he collected the clearest portion of thoughts. Heavy traced thoughts in his pursuit for clarity, drummed up the last things said to ever be exchanged before the alarms rang of a snake in the hen house.

You first.

Definitely not, you.

Well, it looks like we got a situation then because you're not walking outta here with that list. I don't trust the merc you got in that skull, brother. Give me the drive.

Well that makes two of us, bro. there's no situation here, best you get out of my way unless I make you. That's another situation we don't want. Move.

When all hell breaks loose, he broke instantaneously. The shattering glass was reverted back to just as he looked over his shoulder. The closing of the garage door hinted that he had much to hide and the privacy required was preferable in choosing on how to move next. Not in the way that instincts said to abort mission when first plans was foiled, but a variable outcome to still feel like all the short sighted work was salvaged enough to end with the favorable goal. Slade hid his disappointment and the fury well then when his senses were dulled enough for a short fragment of time. Long enough to pull from items needed, hidden from view and pack away the tools of a job he had to now commit fully to. It was either kill or be killed and it he now knew where both men stood.


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