Aim: Hydra | Y/N Story | Sequel to "Aim: Avenger"

9. Partners?

"I know, but you don't have to do it alone. At least ask Peter for help."

"No, Ben. He's a kid, with a bright future ahead of him. You can't take down Hydra without killing anyone, and I will not allow him to be put in a position to make that choice." I hadn't known Peter for very long, but I found myself constantly tuning in to his thoughts. Sometimes he would be struggling with school work, sometimes he'd stress about impressing 'Mr. Stark'. But sometimes, his thoughts would drift to me, and what I could do. He once imagined what it would be like to fight together, a day I hoped would never come. 

I won't let him fight Hydra, and after I take them down I'm disappearing and trying to live a normal life. Of course, there was a loophole: fight alongside him while fighting Hydra. But no, that's not going to happen; I will never let Peter get hurt. I was pulled out of my thoughts by a knock on the door.

"The door is open!" I called. I placed my hand over the gun I kept hidden under the couch cushions, ready for an ambush. But it was just Peter, with his earbuds in as usual. Relaxing, I greeted, "Oh, hi Peter!"

"Hey. So I was wondering, are you busy?" He asked, looking at me with a shy smile.

"Nope." I should probably work on combing through my intel, but it could wait. 

"Cool." He nodded. His body language told me he wanted to ask me a question, and his thoughts were a constant loop of him trying to force the words out of his mouth. I smiled, trying not to laugh. "So, Y/N. I was wondering, and you can totally say no, I don't want to force you to, so if you don't want to-"

"Peter, I can read your thoughts. Yes, I will go on patrol with you." I said, still smiling. "But the first sign of press and I'm out." I warned.

He was grinning from ear to ear. "Deal!"

"Let me grab my suit." I walked into my bedroom, which was mostly bare save for the twin bed, computer, and a few gadgets I'd been working on. Opening the closet, I pulled out the suit that Tony had made for me, a sad smile replacing the one before it. Shaking the melancholy from my head, I grabbed my jetpack/hover board device. I need to come up with a name for this thing. I thought as I walked back into the main room, where Peter, now in his suit minus the mask, was talking to V and Ben. I'm glad the three of them were getting along, and that Peter was handling the whole 'dead friends' thing pretty well. Then again, he was bitten by a radioactive spider and is on a first-name basis with a literal god, so it's probably not that weird to him. "Ready to go." I announced.

"Can we come?" Verdienen jumped up and down, like a kid asking to go on a roller coaster.

"No. Mr. Bright Red Suit already attracts too much attention. We don't need a whole caravan of people to patrol." I responded, causing the two of them to frown. "We better get going. Petty crime isn't going to stop itself." I stepped towards the window, opening it as Peter pulled his mask over his face. "Well, Pete, show me the ropes of being good." I declared, powering on my jetpack.

"Well, it'll have to be on-the-job training." He joked, shooting a web across the street and swinging, as I flew behind him. I was surprised at the low levels of sound the pack produced, and reveled in the feeling of being up so high; it was thrilling to have wings. A stranger's thought snagged my mind, catching my attention.

"Peter, over here." I swooped down to a seemingly abandoned building, landing silently as Peter did the same.

"What is it?" He asked in a low voice.

"I don't know. I heard someone . . . praying. Not odd, I know, but their tone sounded afraid. It just caught my attention." I said, thinking back to the voice I heard. It was pleading.

"Karen, scan for heat signatures in the area, please." Peter requested politely.

"Who?" I cocked my head at him.

"Karen. Oh, right! She's the A.I. Mr. Stark put in my suit." He casually replied.

"What? Does it record everything?" My mind suddenly jumped to Stark, sitting in his lab, watching the footage of me meeting Peter. How I said I wiped him. Crap.

"Yeah." He replied simply, before moving on and saying, "there's a bunch of people in this building, a majority of them look like they're on the ground." He reported.

"Great." I threw my hands up. "What if he watches the footage? I can't have him looking for me." I was not going to be happy if I had to leave my lair. I really liked being Peter's neighbor, and I was getting closer to finding the General.

"Maybe, I don't know. But right now we need to focus on saving these people. That's the first lesson; you set aside your problems for others." He crawled up the wall, entering the building through a window.

Screw that, I don't have the patience for a sneak attack. I threw open the front door, letting it hit the wall as I pulled out a knife and pistol from my belt, one in either hand, and crossing them in front of me.

"Was that the front door?" I heard a gruff voice whisper. Someone, it sounded like a child, cried for help, only to be silenced by the sickening sound of metal cracking against a skull, a sound I was all too familiar with. "You, go check it out."

Not very soft footsteps sounded against the cracked concrete in my direction. I hid behind the corner, waiting for them to show so I could quickly slit their throat and catch their body so no one heard it hit the floor, but the footsteps stopped.

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