Poison

Chapter Twenty

Her hand was still tingling from the encounter with Steve. She shook her hand out, hoping that it would stop the strange sensation. While walking to the makeshift armory, she kept replaying the encounter. The way that his hands brushed over her stomach caused new butterflies to fly.It kept happening every time she thought about it. She groaned internally and tried to focus on the mission ahead. There was no time to dissect what she was thinking and feeling.

Her distracted mind kept her from noticing that the armory was currently being occupied by someone until she bumped into a hard surface. In order to stop herself from falling over, she grabbed onto the first stable object. Her hands grasped onto Pietro's biceps while he grabbed ahold of her waist.

Noticing his shirtless state, she rushed out of his arms and turned to give him some privacy.

"I'm so sorry."

"You seem distracted."

"I'm good."

"Oh so you wanted to see me shirtless?" Christine's eyes widened. She rushed to correct her mistake, but it was too late."You could have just asked, y'know?"

Her eyes rolled on their own accord. "Are you done yet?"

"Yes."

She peeked over her shoulder to confirm his clothed state before fully turning around. He leaned against one of the tables with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Shaking her head at him, she kept her eyes low as she went to the table filled with weapons and holsters. His eyes never left her while she was loading one of the pistols. Checking if there was a bullet in the chamber before holstering it. She grabbed some empty magazines and began to load them with bullets. Her hands became shaky with the audience and she dropped a bullet. It almost rolled into the ground before a hand stopped it.

She turned to look up at Pietro, who had chosen to move closer to her. His chest was pressed against hers and her breathing quickened. Each time her chest rose and fell, they would make contact. A few breaths transpired between them before he reached a hand up in his grasp, the stray bullet.

"Here." He whispered.

She cleared her throat before breaking their contact. "Thank you."

She pushed the bullet into the magazine and kept her eyes on the table. After a few moments of silence she sighed before setting it down and turning to look at the man staring at her. "Can I help you?"

"You're leaning on your left side, are you injured?" As he inquired about his physical state, he layed his hand on her side.

She jumped at the physical contact. "So we're touching people now?"

"You don't like me very much, do you?"

She pried his hand from her side"Last time I saw you, you were trying to kill me and my friends. So, No."

"Understandable"

Flashing a sarcastic smile at him, she grabbed the remainder of her weapons and brushed past him. She didn't get very far before he sped in front of her, placing them chest to chest again.

"If you're injured, you shouldn't go."

"That's sweet, but I'm going."

Once again, she brushed past him. He grabbed her arm and reeled her back into his chest, but Christine was ready this time. When she bumped back into him, she held her knife up to his throat.

His eyebrow rose.

"I'm sick of everyone trying to tell me what I can and can't do. I'm going and that's final."

"You have broken ribs, one wrong move and they can puncture your organs and you're dead."

"Guess I better not make a wrong move." She removed the knife from his neck and he retreated with his hands up.

Someone cleared their throat and they both broke eye contact. Finally having enough room to move her arms, she sheathed the knife in her hands before turning around. Thor was standing in the doorway with a smirk on his lips. She opened her mouth to make some excuse, but instead just walked out of the armory Thor in tow.

They both approached the quinjet and Thor ended up slowing his steps.

"Christine?"

"Thor?"

"Clint informed me about what happened with your sister." Her stomach dropped slightly. "I know what you are going through."

Christine frowned at her own selfishness, she should have known that the god would have known exactly how she was feeling. "Loki, was it?"

"Yes, my brother Loki and I have a complicated relationship. After the Midgardian Battle I had to make a decision, whether or not to view the man in front of me as my brother that I was punishing or the man that brought an army to kill defenseless people." She looked over at him to find that he was staring at his hands. "I chose to look at him as my brother, the man that killed dozens of men, women, and children."

"My brother is a murderer and a scoundrel, but that doesn't mean I don't love him. It took me awhile to figure that out, that I didn't need to beat myself up for missing him or loving him."

Her teeth sunk into her lip as she contemplated this. "You were never given the opportunity to grieve, because you associated that with the guilt over what you did. You need to let yourself grieve."

He gave her on final pat on the shoulder before crossing the distance to the quinjet. She took a moment to collect herself before she followed behind him.

There conversation lasted longer than Christine had thought. Although they were the first ones on the roof the rest of the team had beaten them. When she arrived, she stood at the back of the jet.

"Alright, we should be in Sokovia in less than four hours." Clint caked from the pilot seat.

She pushed off the wall that she was leaning on and approached the table that Thor, Tony, and Steve had gathered around. They sensed her presence and they all glanced at her before going back to the nap in front of them. Sneaking a glance, she could see that it was a map of Sokovia. Her eyes found the black dot on the map.

"What does the black dot mean?"

"It's where Clint pinged Nat's last transmission."

"So we hit that place first?"They all shared a glance. "What's the issue?"

"We know Ultron is going to have spies all over the city, so we have to be careful." Tony said.

"Ultron has taken this place hostage and the civilians don't even know about it. We need to evacuate the city before we do any type of combat."

"All I'm hearing are excuses."She fiddled with the curls brushing her shoulders before getting fed up and pulling it into a low bun. "We need to split up."

"Wanda and Pietro know this place, this is their home. They should evacuate the citizens. Vision and Tony you can be our eyes in the sky, we need to know if any robot decides to sneak off and where to; this fight stays in Sokovia."

"Vision?"

She motioned towards the Vision. "Thor's Vision. I got tired of calling you it."

He gave an appreciative nod and she returned it with a smile.

"Captain, Clint, and I can do ground work. That leaves Thor and Bruce to go and get Nat."

Her eyes scanned the jet and she realized that they were all looking at her. When her eyes fell on Steve, he smiled at her. The silence combined with the stares made her uncomfortable and she began to squirm. Steve could see her squirming and interrupted the silence.

"Looks like we have a plan."

—————————————————
I am just cranking out these updates!

Thank you for your patience.

Vote. Comment. Share.