Teresa Parker

“They why would you assume—” Tabitha rolled her eyes and jumped out of the bin, dusting off her hands but knowing that the stink was going to follow her. It would be a coin toss if anyone else noticed it, though. No one at her place seemed to give a shit about showering. “Well, Miss not 4B, is the dumpster your home then? Because I hope I didn’t spill your Starbucks.” Flicking her hair over her shoulder, Tabitha crossed her arms and jutted out her hip. “Depends on who’s asking.” 

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“For all I know going through dumpsters is how you like to spend your freetime” Teresa replied with a shrug, it wouldn’t have been that surprising to her if that was the case, she’d met a lot of people who liked to do weird shit in their freetime. “No, it’s not and I don’t live here I just walk through here on my way home” though tomorrow she would almost certainly take a different route home, she tried to alternate routes as much as possible, she couldn’t risk taking any chances with Gray Blade looking for her. “My name’s Teresa.”

Teresa didn’t say anything at first, only looking at the other woman with a slightly confused frown on her face while trying to decide if she wanted to know what that meant or not. After a brief moment she sighed “alright, I’ll bite, what is the obelisk?” She asked, knowing she probably should have just left it alone, but then again that had never been her strong suit.

He’d known the first time he met her that there was more to her than met the eye. After all, it wasn’t as if most people had trained agents chasing them down in back alleys. There was a story there, he was certain of that much. And if he were someone else? He’d push to know it. But Robbie wasn’t the kind of guy who cared where other people came from, wasn’t someone who wanted to know everything about a person. The Rider told him who deserved vengeance, he did his own research to confirm the claim, but from there? He’d never given much of a shit. “Gotta say,” he hummed thoughtfully, “most people ask me more questions when they’ve seen me in action.”

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“What kind of questions do they ask?” She could guess of course, but she was still curious. She hadn’t asked because she hadn’t been that surprised, she’d dealt with powered people in her work, and after accessing Project Twilight she’d learned a lot more about heroes and villains both. “The agents you helped me get away from, they’re part of something called Gray Blade, I used to be one of them” she explained, he deserved at least that much after he had helped her. “They used to be a division of SHIELD, but I’m almost positive that they’ve gone rogue.”

It wasn’t fair, Rictor decided, to say that people were idiots sometimes. People were, as it turned out, idiots all the time. He rolled his eyes as the woman across from him spoke, irritation clear on his expression. “Boy,” he said dryly, “I’m jealous. See, I’d pay real money not to have to hear your voice.” Picking fights. Rusty’s voice echoed in the back of his mind. Do you ever do anything else? Even dead, Rictor was pretty sure Rusty knew the answer to that question was a pretty definitive no.

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“What a coincidence” Teresa exclaimed with a very obviously faked smile “I would pay real money not to hear your voice too” she said, tilting her head as she looked at him, fake smile still in place. “Besides, what I was suggesting isn’t that crazy as long as you know what you’re doing” she told him with a small shrug “I see how that last part might be a problem for you though.”

She looked scared. It was the first thing Danny noticed, the first thought that crossed his mind. He didn’t know who she was, but he knew people were looking for her. There’d been whispers among some of the Triads he’d been after earlier, murmurs that there was a girl in Chinatown, that someone was after her, that it was a situation best left alone. And Danny, of course, had never been good at leaving anything alone. Finding her wasn’t hard, and neither was recognizing that look in her eye. Fear, desperation. He’d seen it in the mirror plenty of times. Carefully, he held up his hands to show he was unarmed, bandanna secured tightly around his face. “Because I’m telling the truth. I know you’re running away from people. And I think they might know you’re here. I just want to help.”

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He seemed sincere but she couldn’t be sure, she’d met her fair share of people who were good at lying and pretending, for all she knew he was doing the same. When he said he knew she was running from people and that they might know where she was she took a step back as she narrowed her eyes at him, “how do you know that?” She demanded, few people knew about Gray Blade and she couldn’t think of many who would know Teresa was running from them either.

Robbie had never been good at reading people. With the Rider’s help, he could tell if they deserved to live or die, but beyond that? He couldn’t look at someone and determine what they were thinking. And deserving of vengeance and okay to let live were two very broad categories when it came to human beings. Looking at this girl now, most of what he could determine was that she was nervous. Not quite afraid, but nervous. Unsteady. Maybe a little confused too, though that one could have been Robbie projecting. (She reminded him of Gabe, and the last time he’d seen Gabe was in their house in L.A. after Eli was shoved out of his body and Gabe was looking at him with wide eyed confusion from the living room. He was projecting. He knew that.)

The people who came into the alley after her were a little easier to read, largely thanks to the way the Rider perked up in his head at the sight of them. These guys were bad news. Unfortunately for them, so was Robbie. The girl was right, of course — the agents had no interest in backing down. Robbie rolled his shoulders, letting his eyes burn orange. “Well,” he said, voice distorted as the Rider came a little closer to the surface, “I was sort of hoping they wouldn’t. If we’re being honest.”

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Teresa’s main job at Gray Blade was hostage rescues and most of her missions were international hostage rescue ones, half of the time it involved negotiation which had made Teresa great at reading people and situations. Even with her ability to get a good read on people, these days she had a hard time trusting anyone, even if she was right about a person she couldn’t risk being wrong, not with Gray Blade hunting her. She was inclined to trust this man though, even if she was still a little weary he was willing to fight the Gray Blade agents to protect her depsite just having met her. Of course she couldn’t rule out that it was just a set up by Gray Blade but it was doubtful.

His voice was different when he spoke again, disorted in a way, but Teresa didn’t really react, she’d had run ins with powered people before even if that hadn’t been her main job when she was with Gray Blade. “Not that I don’t appreciate your help but, are you sure you want to do this? They have a lot of resources and you’d probably end up on their bad side with this” she didn’t really want to get someone else messed up into this, she’s the one who’d stolen the information and created this mess.

“Maybe not,” Natasha allowed. After all, there was no telling her story with a happy ending. She simply couldn’t imagine it, but that had never bothered her. Not when you considered the life she had lived up until this point. “But even if you know the ending of the story, you write what happens in the middle. You might not be able to change your story, but you could help someone else’s.” 

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“My story is like this because I decided to help someone else’s” Teresa replied, glancing around the place every once in a while. What she could tell Natasha was limited because she had no idea if Gray Blade was watching or not, her money was on them watching though. “I know the most likely ending to this, but if I had the choice, I would do it again” the information she had stolen from Gray Blade could hurt a lot of people, many of them heroes, and Teresa didn’t plan on giving the information back without a fight.

“They say? Then why won’t you touch it?” They toy was on the ground and Colleen was ready to drop it back into the dumpster. Not because she believed it was cursed — but because she didn’t want any of the kids to see it and think it would be a fun thing to bring inside. “Or are you part of those people?”

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“No, I’m not part of those people” Teresa shrugged “but these days it never hurts to be careful.” While she didn’t really believe that those toys were cursed she’d seen a lot of weird shit during her time with CIA and Gray Blade so like she said, it didn’t hurt to be careful when it came to these things.

Jamie rarely took cases. And in fact, Tabitha was pretty sure he hadn’t taken this one at all — it was just one that had gotten picked up by someone for fun and now Tabitha was knee deep in a dumpster pretending to know what the fuck she was doing. She started kicking over bits of trash, only glancing up when someone asked if she was okay. “I’m standing in fucking trash — do I look okay to you?” Tabitha grumbled under her breath, knowing the other woman wasn’t asking to be annoying or frustrating, Tabby just only had one reaction, and it was blind irritation. “You’re not in apartment 4B are you? Because they’re one bloody handprint away from jail time.”

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“Hey, I don’t know what you like to do on your free time” Teresa commented while briefly holding her hands up in mock surrender. “I mean even if I was in 4B, which I’m not, I probably wouldn’t tell you now” she replied, though she really wasn’t the person the other woman was looking for, if she was the tracks would have been much better covered. “So what did 4B do exactly?”

“I have no idea” Teresa shrugged, it wasn’t really something she could answer for him as she didn’t really know him. “I don’t know you so far all I know you really lost it a long time ago” a little harsh maybe but it was true and Teresa did have a habit of not filtering things before saying them out loud, though more often than not that resulted in bad jokes for the most part.

“Guess so” Teresa agreed with a nod. Robbie had helped her get away from the group of agents Gray Blade had sent after her, he hadn’t known the whole story and still he’d decided to help her, taking her side over the agents that were after her. There weren’t many people Teresa felt she could trust now, she’d come to trust Natasha a little because if she wanted a way out of this mess she didn’t have much of a choice, but with Robbie it was different. With others she had a hard time trusting them, but with him she was having a hard time not trusting him after that day in the alley. He hadn’t known the full story when he decided to help her and now she was trying to fill in some of the gaps at least.

Teresa made sure to keep some distance between them, in case she needed a head start, while she studied him. She’d heard about him, Iron Fist, he’d also shown up in the information she stole from Gray Blade, from what she knew he was one of the good guys, but then again Gray Blade was supposed to be one of the good guys too. He said he was on her side but these days Teresa had trouble trusting anyone, she couldn’t afford to trust the wrong person. “Why should I believe you?”

“No” Teresa deadpanned as she looked at him “I have completely lost the ability to hear my own voice” she said, while she kept the sarcasm out of her tone it was clear she wasn’t serious. “I can only hear other people, which includes you unfortunately” she commented with a slightly exaggerated sigh.

[📱to Unknown ] oh [📱to Unknown ] gosh how do i keep doing this [📱to Unknown ] i’m so sorry [📱to Unknown ] if nothing else comes of this conversation, you should absolutely try peking garden [📱to Unknown ] they’re tofu is hands down the best tofu in twenty-eight known galaxies

“…Right.” Robbie’s voice was dry and monotonous as she explained the joke, sounding utterly unamused. Definitely something Gabe would come up with. He wondered what the hell this kid was doing out here on her own, wandering through the shitty part of the city with only bad jokes to protect her from the worst New York had to offer. She spoke again, and he felt himself tense. She was running from something. That much was clear. The question, of course, became what? In New York, if could be anything from run-of-the-mill criminals to goddamn aliens, and one of those two options was well above Robbie’s paygrade. 

His questions was answered when the goons showed up. They looked human enough but, then again… so did Robbie. Whatever they were, be it human or enhanced, he didn’t think they’d be much of a match for him. (That was arrogance speaking, of course. Even before the Rider made a home in his head, Robbie had assumed he’d win every fight no matter the odds. It got him his ass handed to him more than once, but those occurrences had been less frequent since his deal with the Devil.) He gripped the chain wrapped around his shoulder, ready to swing it at any moment. In a heartbeat, he could have it covered in flames. In another, he could have the Rider join the fight. But that kind of thing drew a lot of attention, and it tended to freak people out on top of it. The last thing he wanted was to spook the kid behind him into taking off before he could figure out how to help her. 

She explained in vague terms, and Robbie’s jaw tensed as he nodded. “All right,” he shrugged, rolling his shoulders and turning his attention to the problem at hand. “Don’t think she wants to talk. How about you fuck off somewhere, huh? This isn’t a fight you want to have. You can trust me on that.”

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It had been a terrible joke and explaining it hadn’t made it any better but it was the first thing that had popped into her head and she decided to go with it, making bad jokes in serious situations seemed to become somewhat of a habit these days. In her defense she hadn’t expected to run into someone when she turned down the alley so all she had was bad jokes and little else at the moment, or she did have the skills she had learned from the CIA and SHIELD, but that was it. She didn’t carry a weapon most times anymore, doing everything she could to draw as little attention to herself as possible, which had worked for the most part but she knew it had only been a matter of time before Gray Blade found where she was.

None of the Gray Blade agents seemed discouraged by his words and Teresa wasn’t completely sure what he could do against the group of agents and their weapons, but he seemed confident. For all Teresa knew he could have powers or some sort and that’s why he was so confident, she supposed she’d find out any second now. “I don’t think they’re gonna back down” Teresa commented.

“I already pretty much say whatever comes to mind.”

The pushback stopped and finally Teresa was asking different questions instead of avoiding the ones that Natasha was asking. Most people knew something about Black Widow. They knew the rumors and in SHIELD the whispers tended to be especially harsh. “I might have gone through something similar. And having two agencies breathing down your neck — waiting for a single slip?” Natasha shook her head. It didn’t bode well at all. Because for all appearances, SHIELD seemed disinterested in Gray Blade. But after Hydra and all their other public failures, they couldn’t afford to have another public debacle like that. “There’s only one way a story like that ends, and it’s not happy.”

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“Maybe not everyone is supposed to have a happy ending to their story” Teresa replied, she knew the risk when she deleted the information from Gray Blade’s server, she knew they’d come after her and they had. Now she didn’t know who to trust, Natsha seemed like she maybe wanted to help but Teresa couldn’t know for sure, the Black Widow’s skills and her connection to SHIELD made it hard to decide if she could trust her or not.