Natasha walked briskly, hugging her long brown coat around her thin frame. To anyone on the outside she looked like any other woman who was eager to get home. But in reality she was on her way to make a rather delicate deal for some information. Once she thought she was going straight, but with the fall of SHIELD she found herself reverting back to her ‘hero-for-hire’ ways. Which was why she found herself in a particularly dark, scarcely populated area of New York City. She heard the thugs closing behind her before they spoke up.

"Представьте себе видеть Вас здесь, мало паука." One of them said.

Her lips curled up ever so slightly before she stopped and turned around. “You know perfectly well why I’m here.” She arched an eyebrow. “Have you brought what I asked for?”

The man nodded at his associates and they backed off slightly. In her peripheral vision, Nat catalogued their weak spots just in case. The man, Edgar, pulled out a USB from his pocket and held it in front of her. She held out her gloved hand (she knew better than to leave her finger prints everywhere) for the USB. Edgar smiled and dropped it into her hand.

“This has everything?” She said as she stuffed it into her pocket. 

Edgar just nodded and took a step closer to her. Alarm bells were ringing in her head but she ignored them. She strained her neck to look up at the bear of a man with a stubborn look on her face.

“About your payment.” He said, a predatory look on his face.

“Yes, you get to walk out of here with your lives.” She smiled.

The associates looked scared, they were new on the job and had probably heard stories about her. But Edgar wasn’t so easily persuaded.

“Ah, Мало паукa, everyone knows you have gone soft. You couldn’t kill me if you wanted to.”

He raised a hand to touch her cheek, but he never made it that far. She had him on the floor with his arm twisted behind his back before he could even take a breath.

“I have not gone soft.” She hissed into his ear.

Nat was about to knock him out, his associates long gone, before she heard someone walking up behind her. She released Edgar and spun around, fully intending to incapacitate whomever thought they could sneak up on her. But she realised she knew the person a second before her foot made contact with their abdomen.

It should be dark. The time reads half past one o’clock in the morning and Ororo sits in a dark car along the street across from Stark Tower. The tower out-shines the surrounding buildings with the amount of light it’s casting. She’s been sitting alone in the dark car, in silence, for quite a few hours now. Ororo is still unsure of what exactly it is she’s doing...if anything.

Her team doesn’t know that she’s here, and that is for good reason. Ororo has always been a cautious and skeptical person, so her original goal of coming out here....the possibility of just going with her gut and trying to infiltrate the building.....would definitely cause backlash if her opinions were voiced. But unlike the Professor and some of her teammates, she does not have as strong a personal connection with the Avengers. That coupled with her innate difficulty with trusting people is why she sits here in the dark now. This is her third time in the past 6 weeks making this journey and sitting out here alone.

The problem is, she doesn’t necessarily have a tangible reason to personally distrust the Avengers. She even knows that Hank was once part of the group as well, and she’d trust Hank with her life. Her only concern now is their close association with SHIELD and the organization’s recent downfall under Hydra. What if the Avengers themselves were also compromised? The Professor won’t hear anything of it, but Ororo needs to know for herself. She’s seen so much in her life that she feels this isn’t too hard to imagine.

Leaving the grounds of the institute was always a bit of an adventure. Be it for business or the occasional errand, something always seemed to happen when he left. Today was, of course, no different for Scott. He never left the grounds of home for leisure. Why would her? There was nothing beyond the walled grounds that he found remotely enjoyable enough to venture out for. The concern for his safety versus leisurely activities always leaned towards keeping him at the institute, unless business called for him. 

Today he was riding his motorcycle in to the city and parking it at a meter. He wanted to run in to the convenience store for some general every day items. His list had it laid in neat handwriting. Sugar, coffee, fresh milk, some cold medicine for a few of the students, and batteries for the remote control in his office. He frowned at someone else's handwriting at the bottom trying to get him to buy chocolate bars. “...Quire...” He huffed and shook his head. 

The clock on her phone read four thirty in the morning. Raven hadn’t slept in almost three and a half days.

Sometimes, she’d kill to be someone else.

Now for instance.

Mystique was dead. All those she had protected, had kept close, were out of her control.

But Raven was back and wasn’t used to being alone for this long. She’d come to trust a select few mutants who she’d let stay in the warehouse every other night when she slept.

Sleeping was a vulnerability. Raven wasn’t keen on letting someone catch her then.

Her warehouse was bugged. She was sure of that much. If not by SHIELD’s lackeys, then by a mutant who wanted to know who was trying to step up into Mystique’s spot.

She knew she looked ragged and her hair was hanging in her eyes, but Raven pulled up the hood of the jacket she was wearing and walked into the all night cafe on the corner. 

New York City.

God, it had been forever since she’d been here. She headed out of her small private office and through the break room, ready to leave.

“Sir.”

Raven turned at the voice. The soldiers in her unit had called her sir initially to mock her but she’d simply nodded instead of correcting them and it had stuck.

He stood at attention, off to the side of one of the break room tables and she nodded, letting him relax wordlessly.

“What are you in here for, Callahan? I thought you had the day off.”

“Yes, sir, originally, but it seemed like a waste when I knew -”

“When you knew I wouldn’t be here?” She interrupted him, brow arched up.

“No, sir. Of course not. I just knew I wouldn’t leave my quarters if I took the day.” She waved off his stammered reply. She didn’t really care. He was lying anyway.

“Mmhmm, whatever you say.” She rolled her eyes, ducking into the back to change into street clothes. Physically change. She almost missed not wearing real clothes.

She padded back out through the break area, nodding at three more of her soldiers who had wandered in. Watched as all three of them snickered as an Army private wandered over - damned shared working area; they’d shoved all the military branches into one set of offices - and asked if she was there to visit her big brother.

Shook her head and walked out without answering. He’d learn.

In another life Skye would have never imagined that she could ever hold a gun in ease. 

She takes out a few different guns, remembering how Melinda pointed out that she needed to work on her shot gun skills and went over to the range, setting up a target and grabbing a pair of protective goggles and headphones.

For the next hour she just looses herself in the repetition of loading the gun, aiming, shooting and repeat. 

No more field missions, Melinda had said.

The problem with that logic wasn’t the idea that someone would recognize him -- it was that SHIELD was nothing without the Director at this point. Phil had taken necessary precautions, but the thought of him falling for any reason was enough to make the team that had worked closest with him, the BUS -- well, it made them nervous.

He was relatively sure that anyone who recognized him out and about would recognize SHIELD for the help they’d been during that meteor shower last week. Nor should they make the connection -- Phil had a forgettable face, and that was enough to get him by in days past. Still, it was enough to make him wary.

He dressed down, jeans and a t-shirt under a leather jacket with his mirrored aviators in place. They were specially crafted and would allow him to see people trying to blind side him. That was all the excuse he needed to wear them.

Never too late for caution.

Today he was trailing a known HYDRA operative. This was a part of a cell that was outside of contact with SHIELD directly, and were much more palatable to deal with.

It was easier to place people in boxes that way.

He paid for a cup of coffee at the corner stand, getting himself a croissant as well. His mark was thirty yards to his left, across the street and waiting for the bus. He crossed the street, his headphones in and not playing music, making it seem as if he were oblivious to the world around him under his Yankees hat.

As he crossed the road, someone bumped his arm, splashing coffee up his leg as he dropped the cup to the pavement.

Best to make a scene.