Unravel

Breath in, breath out, in, out. Left foot, right foot, keep your posture, keep breathing, keep running, Elizabeth kept telling herself as she jogged through Prospect Park.

It had been three days since the last time she had worked out, so she had to make up for it with an extra long route, or at least so she told herself. Vito certainly didn’t seem to mind and happily trotted along.

But while Vito didn’t mind, Elizabeth did. She had been scolding herself for slacking off in not only her workout routine but also her job. Keeping up with her actual assigned work had become more of a side job than what she was actually supposed to be doing. Her personal interests had gained the upper hand. But she wanted to get back on track so she started with a jogging route two times as long as her usual, for good measure. It was a Friday night already anyway, so this was her way of ending a shouldn’t-have-been-this-stressful week - by falling into bed completely exhausted.

Prospect Park was silent and seemed to be empty except for her and her companion. Except for a few cars, an ambulance and her dog panting beside her she couldn’t hear anything. This might have been relaxing to her at any other time but even though this was supposed to be her down-time she couldn’t help but let her mind wander. The last time she ran through a dark park she found a dead person and was threatened. Just the dark park and the silence brought back these memories and while she didn’t feel the need to panic at the possibility of finding another body, she was still on edge. Surely this couldn’t happen another time. It wouldn’t. Not so soon anyway.

She kept treading on the already well-worn trails of the park, trying not to let her thoughts get the best of her, but this was easier said than done. So she tried to focus on something different and started humming to the song that was currently, howsoever, stuck inside of her head.

She tried to softly sing although it certainly didn’t sound much like anything under all of her panting. Vito looked at her, thinking she was speaking to him which prompted Liz to snap her mouth shut. “Don’t judge me, dog.” She knew the dog wasn’t going to judge her - neither for singing nor for her song choice but the remark felt kind of necessary. She had at least tried to divert her attention.

She kept humming, running along the trail, trying not to get caught on any of the roots poking out of the soil but it wasn’t light enough outside, so she slowed down. Vito kept pulling on his leash, not used to the change of pace but suddenly he started growling and all that Elizabeth could think was, Oh God.

“Vito, hey!” Elizabeth pulled on the leash to get him to calm down but her dog was having none of it. He kept growling and pulling on the leash. “What in God’s name is wrong with you?”

She tried to see what Vito had spotted but the dimly lit park might as well have been pitch black, she wouldn’t have seen any more than she did now.
She might have kept wondering what he had spotted, had she not felt a hand snake around her waist, pulling her back with a force stronger than she had ever felt before. Elizabeth let out a yelp as she was pushed down onto the floor, something heavy on top of her torso. Besides hearing Vito growl and bark at whoever had overpowered her, she could also feel him trying to fight off whoever was holding her down.

Although this time, when she saw his face, she didn’t even want to laugh one bit, not even a very humorless laugh. One the contrary: When she heard her dog whimper, she got angry.

“Stop hurting my dog, you fucker,” she seethed, fighting against his hand that was holding her down. But he was too strong, too heavy and didn’t budge, no matter how many kicks or half-assed punches she aimed his way.

“Stop struggling, I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Well I’m sorry but this does seem a lot like hurting me,” she protested, trying to kick him off of her. “And my dog!”

She kept struggling but the more she did, the more he seemed to hold her down and the less she could move. To be quite honest, she didn’t know whether she felt more scared or pathetic..

“Finished?” he asked. When she didn’t answer except for shooting him a glare, he slowly lifted his arms off of her and held his hands out in front of him, still kneeling. “I’m not here to hurt you.” After he looked at her dog he added, “Or your dog.” He slowly lifted his hand from the dog.

Elizabeth scrambled backwards with Vito’s leash in hand, pulling him with her, although he was still growling at the Winter Soldier.

“What do you want?” she asked, still panting and holding onto her dog’s collar like her life depended on it. “Am I going to find another body a few yards down? This is going to make me look suspicious after a while… or am I going to be the body?”

“No,” was all he said but he did so with force.

“Then what do you want from me?! You don’t just tackle people out of nowhere!” She was nearly shrieking by now but she couldn’t care less. She was scared, defenseless and pissed off.

“Shut. Up,” he seethed and Elizabeth fell silent. She didn’t know what had come over her but whenever she felt scared she started to ramble. But now that it was completely silent she could even hear her heart thumping inside of her chest. “I’m not here to hurt you but I will, if you keep this up.”

Elizabeth’s eyes grew in size and she nodded. What else was she supposed to do? She had no gun and she couldn’t take out someone that had more strength than ten men combined. So she kept still and obeyed to the best of her ability. Well, as good as her stubborn mind would let her.

“I know you are tracking me,” he started, focusing solely on her and ignoring Vito who was still growling. “You need to stop.”

“Wait, this is why you tackled me? You can’t be serious,” she told him in utter disbelief. Truth be told, she had been anticipating something different. A more serious threat maybe. She couldn’t quite believe that this was supposed to be all. “And if I don’t stop?”

He audibly breathed in and continued, “I’m not going to kill you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Then what?”

“I need you to understand what I’m doing.”

“What, going around and murdering people? I really don’t understand any of that,” she spat at him. “You could just kill me and get on with it.”

The only thing she thought of after the last sentence had left her mouth was that she seriously needed to shut up.

“Are you Hydra?” he suddenly asked and Elizabeth furrowed her eyebrows.

“What?”

“Are you - a member - of Hydra?” he repeated slowly, staring at her.

“I-,” Elizabeth hesitated, watching him carefully. After a few seconds she slowly but confidently answered. “No.”

“That’s why I won’t kill you,” he answered and slowly stood up. “The people that you have found - they all deserved to die.”

“But that’s not something you get to decide!” she exclaimed. “You can’t go around and decide who gets to live and who doesn’t!” She had scrambled to stand and was struggling to keep upright. It seemed that he had pushed her down onto the ground just a little bit too hard. But his belief had made her furious and she almost forgot all about the pain on her sternum. “You don’t get to play Go-!”

“I don’t care!” he boomed. “It’s what they deserved. And you trying to track me down is just going to lead them to me.” He was seething with rage and his shoulders heavily rose and fell.

Elizabeth’s thoughts raced inside of her head. No murder ever was excusable to her. The act of taking another person’s life, no matter how “deserved”, was the most horrible thing she could think of.

“You don’t honestly expect me to feel sorry for you,” she deadpanned. When he didn’t answer she let out a short, humorless laugh.
“I won’t stop,” she told him, shaking her head in disbelief of what he was asking of her. “Never. You deserve all the justice that will inevitably come your way.”

When he didn’t answer and only stared at her, she stood up and pulled Vito along on his leash. She wasn’t going to stay and have a stare-down with him.

“So that’s it?” he suddenly asked from behind her.

“I don’t see what else there is to say or do,” she replied. “You won’t kill me and I can’t do shit to take you out. So I either wait until you leave or I leave first.”

After her reply she could hear his metal arm whirr as he clenched his fist but a few seconds later he was gone and Vito had finally stopped growling.

She couldn’t for the life of her find an answer as to why she couldn’t keep her mouth shut. She had been trained for stressful situations but this was entirely new to her and her inner kid - that started babbling and spewing things that made her appear braver than she actually was - resurfaced.
All she knew was that her heart had definitely missed a beat, or two.