||BEHIND THE MASK SERIES: BOOK 4||
────── ✼✼✼ ──────
"Sometimes you need a second chance
because you weren't ready for your first."
────── ✼✼✼ ──────
In which Charlie Barton is pulled
back into the world she left behind
to help a man with a metal ar...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
────── ✼✼✼ ──────
𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟐 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐆 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐄𝐃𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑
────── ✼✼✼ ──────
Charlie stood in her place between the trees as she watched the girl run faster than humanly possible around the track a few more times. Despite her thoughts continuing to tell her to turn around and go home, her feet moved towards the redhead as if her life depended on it. As soon as she reached the track, the teen came to a tumbling stop in front of the archer, showing Charlie that she had difficulty controlling her abilities.
The two girls just stared at each other for a long moment, the younger with no emotion in her eyes. That alone made Charlie believe she was about to sprint far away from the school. However, her thoughts were soon proved wrong when the ginger girl looked the Barton girl up and down, now with a curious yet irritated look on her face. Once she finished studying the older girl, the teen looked back up to meet the Barton girl's eyes.
"Can I help you?" she asked in a tone that made it seem like what she just did was completely normal.
"How did you do that?" Charlie questioned, only to receive a quirked eyebrow from the girl in response.
"I don't know why running is so interesting to you."
"Running normally? I couldn't care less," the Barton girl told her before gesturing towards the track they were standing next to, "but running faster than the eye can see? Yes, that does interest me. So, I'm gonna ask again, how did you do that?"
Her mouth stayed sealed shut as she stared at the Barton girl for another long moment without even attempting to hide the hatred in her eyes. After standing there in silence for what felt like an eternity, Charlie found herself copying the girl's previous actions and studying the teen. It wasn't long before her eyes stopped on a familiar object hanging from her neck. The archer's attention stayed on the dog tags for a second longer before she finally saw the small symbol engraved on the back of it.
It was an exact copy of Wanda and Pietro's.
"HYDRA?" Charlie whispered just loud enough for the redheaded teen to hear as she looked back up to meet her hazel eyes.
As soon as the disbanded organization's name cut through the silence that began to surround them, all the emotion and color faded from the young girl's face. It wasn't long after that when she began to study Charlie once again. After she finished taking in every aspect of the blonde girl in front of her, a long sigh escaped her lips as she unconsciously crossed her arms over her chest.
"HYDRA needed test subjects so my parents forced me to be one. They worked for HYDRA before they...disappeared when I was twelve. At least, that's what Strucker told me. I was forced to stay with them and follow orders until the Avengers took them down a year ago. I'm just glad it ended before anything really started."
