The Wolverine & The Black Cat

45 // Serendipity

C H A P T E R   45 :   S E R E N D I P I T Y

"Set me on fire
I'm still alive
Bet you didn't think that I'd come back to life

Bet you thought that I was dead
But I'm not dead
Stronger, stronger, everlasting
Now you're faster, never-crashing
Stronger, stronger, everlasting
Now you're faster, never-crashing
Bet you didn't think that I'd come back to life

Stronger"

People used to wonder what a crash between a tornado and a volcano looked like. It looked like this. His eyes widening, then closing. His hands, letting go of my wrists just to climb up my arms slowly while he pushed us both further against the wall. My fingers, clutching his shirt savagely. His mouth, opening up to mine. My body, or his, tensing up where they met. Our tongues, sliding over each other, melting all seasons into one. He didn't just smell like summer; he tasted like it too. He tasted like all things epochal and endless, like the things we craved because they only happened once a year, because we knew they would come and they would leave, and that alone made us stay.

The kiss had as much hatred and rage as it had of something else, something dangerously close to desire, almost like a repulsive passion that I desperately wanted to get away from but couldn't. I was irremediably drawn to it, and I hated it, because if I was feeling like this my plan would backfire on me. I had wanted to end him with this, and yet it felt like I was beginning. Our mouths couldn't stop; they were glued to one another, feeding off each other as if they were made from the same matter, craving the same needs. He didn't back away and neither did I, and through the kiss, we were fighting in a different way, like two magnets repelling and attracting each other.

And when he finally backed away, I couldn't tell who had won. It just didn't feel like any of us had lost. He looked at me with eyes wide open, his breathing uneven and his heartbeat disjointed. Or maybe just mine.

"Felicia..." He said again, all of his firmness from before gone, replaced by a hesitation and fragility that made me hopeful my plan had worked after all. He was completely out of his comfort zone, now that he had stepped into mine. "Why would you do that?"

"Why, didn't like it?" I tilted my head to the side, a lopsided smirk pirouetting in my lips.

"It wasn't real." He said through gritted teeth, his fists so clenched his arms were shaking. I tried to ignore how his muscles flexed, how the veins on his biceps were so rivetingly drawn, as if an artist had painted them themselves. My fists stiffened too. This guy evoked things on me when I was supposed to not feel anything but devotion and duty towards HYDRA's cause.

"Is that what matters?" I prompted. "If it was real or not? That's what the Big Bad Wolf is worried about?"

He had been unsettled, befuddled, but now he took a decisive step towards me and I tried to ignore how my lungs reacted to him.

"What have they done to you?"

"They gave me a purpose." I said automatically. "Which is more than I can say about you."

One of his brows raised as he inspected my face like no one else was there, no fight going on, no shouts, no shots, no losses.

"You remember me, so it's not like what they did to the Winter Soldier."

"Well, let's just say I don't need to have my mind erased to be effective and serve causes. My memories don't hold me back. He's too weak."

"No, if they haven't wiped your mind yet it means the brainwashing isn't complete. They wouldn't risk having a killing machine that can remember." He insisted. "It means you're still in there."