Chapter Text
“Sooo,” Tunnel Rat shuddered as Roadblock basically breathed down his neck, “When is that grub gonna be done?”
“Geez!” Tunnel Rat scrubbed desperately at his neck, trying to erase the feeling of warm, moist breath from his skin. There were not many things Tunnel Rat found to be disgusting, but that was definitely one of them. Peeved, he tried shoving Roadblock out his space, but his nickname was not inaccurate. Dumb maybe, but not inaccurate. He couldn’t budge the guy. He sidestepped away. “Get out of my space, man.”
Roadblock stepped after him, a dogged look in his eyes. “I’m starving, T Rat. I need food. Even if it’s your weird root soup.”
Tunnel Rat rolled his eyes. “Ok, first off, don’t insult my food. You think I’ll feed you after that? Second, do you want uncooked tubers? Think raw potato, you want to chomp down on that?”
“Weren’t you literally just eating one?” Duke piped up, not even looking up from his book.
“Yeah, but that’s a thing I do. That’s not a thing you guys do. It’s called ‘consideration’. Maybe you should all try it some time.”
“That’s nice. Consider this. I’m big and very hungry,” Roadblock said. He stepped up to the fire and looked down into the bubbling pot. He looked like he might actually stick his face in there.
Tunnel Rat shooed him away, “Fine! Fine! Undercooked tubers it is! Get your bowl.”
Roadblock looked way too pleased with himself as he picked up the bowl and spoon he had perched on a nearby log in anticipation. He wouldn’t look so happy when he munched on a raw root.
“You partaking, Duke?” Tunnel Rat asked, giving the food a final stir and reaching out for Roadblock’s bowl.
“My kit’s in the truck. I’ll wait. Wouldn’t want to wake the bear,” he said, still engrossed in his book.
Tunnel Rat sniggered with Roadblock. Bear was accurate. Scarlett wasn’t exactly the happiest camper right after waking up. Not that she was happy most of the time. Take just a few hours ago when she had kicked them all out of the truck, insisting she needed to sleep after driving all night and to “air out” the truck. She’d glared right at him when she had pronounced that, like they didn’t all smell a bit funky after a couple of days roughing it.
He ladeled up and said with a chuckle, “Yeah, good way to get sho- aahhHHH! ”
The sudden blast of the plasma gun and the harsh echo it made on the bulletproof metal made them all jump. Tunnel Rat felt he was man enough to own up to the fact that he was the only one that shrieked like a little girl though. Who wouldn’t scream when unexpectedly showered with boiling broth and undercooked tubers though?
He could still be proud of the fact that he was only a second behind Roadblock and Duke as they ran for the truck. And he could be even prouder that he did not scream when Scarlett; bleary eyed and stumbling like a drunk, slammed into the doorway and waved a thrashing snake around in their faces. Arms shaking and jerking like she was wrestling a ten foot behemoth, not a skinny four footer.
“GUWAH!” Roadblock moved faster than one would expect.
Which was unfortunate, because when he jumped back he had both mass and momentum on his side. He barreled into Duke, who had no hope against the laws of physics and gravity. He sailed back in a truly terrifying manner, and Tunnel Rat got to experience having a solid, blue eyed man fall right into his lap.
“Phuuuuh!” He deflated like a popped balloon, and he felt his back crack. Nice.
Tunnel Rat supposed he should be grateful it got him away from the snake, which Scarlett was still waving around like a lunatic.
“Scarlett!” Duke yelled, trying to untangle with him.
“It’s fine!” she yelled back.
It really did not look fine.
The snake contorted and thrashed. It’s head bent at an angle Tunnel Rat would call disturbing and bit Scarlett.
“Ooh! ” They all screamed this time.
Scarlett finally dropped the thing. It hit the ground with a dull thud and slithered off, like a bolt of manic black lightning.
Roadblock reached out, “Are you-”
“I’m fine!” She was totally clutching at her hand like she’d just been stabbed though.
Tunnel Rat shoved at the struggling Duke, finally getting him up and off.
“Uh, you sure about that?” Roadblock asked.
“Let me see,” Tunnel Rat demanded.
“It’s fine. Look,” Scarlett lifted her sleeve and he saw another bite mark. It was harder to see with the blood but he could identify two rows of teeth marks, not just two puncture holes. Same with the one on her hand. They didn’t look discolored.
“Was it poisonous?” Duke demanded, asking the question they were all wondering. “She going to be ok?”
“She’s going to be fine,” Scarlett bit out with an eye roll. “We’re in Maine.”
That astute revelation made them all pause for a moment. Personally, Tunnel Rat wasn’t seeing the significance.
“Ok? So?” he asked.
“So, Maine is not known for venomous snakes. They do have Northern Black Racers. It’s endangered. Can grow up to six feet. Has a white chin.”
“Ok,” Tunnel Rat looked back at the other guys, checking to see he wasn’t the only one surprised by this sudden display of Herpetology, “When did the city girl become a wildlife expert?”
She glared at him. “Please. My parent’s house had snakes. You all act like I’ve never even seen a yard before. I may not be a farm girl, but I wasn’t actually locked up in a concrete jungle all my life.”
“Huh, well, even if you’re not dying of poison those bites should still get some local wound care.”
“No hospitals,” Scarlett warned. “We’re supposed to be laying low.”
“Well, if your skin starts turning purple and your lungs stop working there’s not much I can do,” he said with a shrug. He continued with a benevolent spread of his hands, “I can slap a band-aid on though. So, if your little fangy friend really wasn’t poisonous then we shouldn’t have a problem. Anybody got a band-aid?”
“I’m on it,” Duke said, squeezing past them so he could retrieve the little med kit they had. Scarlett looked miffed at the jostling. She kind of always looked that way though, so who could really know? She probably would have rathered getting up and getting it herself. Like an independent woman.
Duke liked to be helpful though, especially in any sort of crisis. Which this wasn’t. Probably. Hopefully. Duke really looked way too serious as he handed the med kit over though. Like Scarlett might actually keel over at any second. Sure, maybe she was drastically wrong and was going to die before they could get her to a hospital, but give the girl some credit. Scarlett wasn’t stupid, and if she was getting symptomatic then she’d let them know. If, worst case, the snake was venomous then the best thing right now was for her to keep calm. If Tunnel Rat knew anything, he knew the best way to keep Scarlett calm was to act like she was right. Nothing raised the woman’s blood pressure faster than trying to say she was wrong.
Duke hovered over Scarlett as Tunnel Rat opened up the kit and searched around for a disinfectant wipe. Geez. Even if she started frothing at the mouth and convulsing, there’s not much boy wonder could do.
And yep, Tunnel Rat could definitely see Scarlett’s blood pressure starting to rise as he hovered. She looked like she might bite him if he didn’t back off.
“You know what would be real nice?” Tunnel Rat asked, looking at Duke. “Some Yarrow. You know what Yarrow looks like?”
“I do,” Roadblock chimed. “My grandma would make tea out of it.”
“Huh, we’re learning all kinds of things today,” Tunnel Rat muttered as he ripped open the white packet. “I think I saw some on the roadside.”
“Let’s go then,” Duke said, hopping down and clapping Roadblock on the arm as they walked away. Cheered up by the thought of being able to be helpful.
That left Tunnel Rat alone with Scarlett. Maybe an oversight on his part.
They were both silent as he swabbed and examined her punctured skin. She was staring at his hands pretty intensely though. Maybe a bit critically. She wasn’t saying anything though.
Awkward.
“So, do snakes usually hate you?” Tunnel Rat asked. Personally, he wouldn’t be surprised. Scarlett wasn’t the type to inspire the warm fuzzies in anything really.
“He just thought I was a snack. He did freak me out though. That’s the last time I let my arm dangle while I sleep.”
“Yeah, we heard the gun ,” Tunnel Rat said with an arched eyebrow.
She looked mildly embarrassed, another first for the day. “I wasn’t really trying to hit him. I was just hoping to scare it off with the noise. He was trying to eat me. He’d latched on pretty good.”
“That’s fun that you don’t think to scream for help or anything, you just shoot.”
She huffed. “I had it covered. Honestly, I’m the one that’s probably been bit the most. Well, maybe besides Roadblock. I got bitten enough as a kid, though.”
“Seriously?” Didn’t really fit his mental image of a young Scarlett. Well, actually, she never seemed like the type who was a kid. She always kind of seemed like one of those weird people who was probably grown and planted by aliens to observe human behavior. So, if she had actually ever been a child, he could possibly see a glaring little redhead crawling into a bush to battle snakes.
“Plenty of snakes where I grew up. I was never the type to really leave things alone either,” she said with a wry smile. Oh, wow. Yep, he could see it. Little Scarlet, ponytail and all, crawling into a bush to pick a fight with a snake.
“Huh, so you’ve actually got a thing with snakes,” he said.
She shrugged. “They were cool as a kid.”
Poor snakes. Getting chased down and harassed by little Scarlett.
“They always seemed to turn up wherever I was though,” she added. “My...well, someone once said I seemed to attract them.”
So, maybe just snakes with bad taste.
“So, Snakebait , huh?” He said with a grin and a raised eyebrow.
She gave him a flat look. “What?”
“Snakebait23. Always wondered where you got that name. Turns out you were just a nerd who likes snakes.” Strangely fitting. He began to chuckle to himself. He trailed off when he noticed the shocked look on her face. “Or maybe not.”
She cleared her throat and rearranged her face into her customary glare. She reached up and tucked an invisible strand of hair behind her ear though, like she was embarrassed.
Maybe his long-shot thinking wasn’t far off?
“It didn’t have to do with Snake Eyes did it?” he asked, knowing he sounded way too gleeful as he leaned closer.
“What? No! That’s- that’s ridiculous ,” she spluttered. She never spluttered.
“Oh,” he laughed incredulously. “Oh, holy crapola. It did. Oh my gosh.”
“Private! It had nothing to do with him.”
She was really trying to pull rank now. If that wasn’t suspicious, then he’d eat sewer chunks.
He raised his hands up and conversationally backed away, knowing he had some sort of win in his pocket, “Ok, ok. Whatever you say.”
She didn’t look reassured though. Probably because he really didn’t believe her. He could see an internal battle going on in the tight-lipped lieutenant.
“It had to do with a dream,” she said, like it physically hurt her to have to say it.
“Sure,” he said, still grinning.
“No, really.” She seemed serious. Really serious. She was trying hard to look him dead in the eye, but it seemed like a battle. “It was back when I was first starting to really investigate Cobra. I found Kiby’s site. He was talking about the head of Cobra being part snake. I had food poisoning. Pretty bad. I had all these nightmares, like, fever dreams about some man turning into a snake and trying to eat me. I mean, I wasn’t really in my right head, but I set up an account and sent him some messages.” He’d never really seen Scarlett look nervous before. Like, ever. He was reminded of the fact that Scarlett didn’t really do the whole personal, vulnerable thing.
“Oh.” He told himself he wasn’t disappointed that it had nothing to do with the ninja. If he really thought about it, it didn’t seem to jive with Scarlett’s personality.
But what Tunnel Rat didn’t know, and would never know if Scarlett had anything to do about it, is that there was another part to that particular dream.
When they bedded down for the night, it was all she could think about. Most of the details had faded away with time. She honestly hadn’t thought about it in years, but now when she closed her eyes the worst snippets of it replayed on a constant loop.
An ugly King Cobra, chasing her. When it caught her, when it crushed her in it’s coils, it’s hissing was like laughter. The feeling that she wasn’t just meant to die but meant to suffer, was more terrifying than not being able to breathe. That malicious feeling still managed to take her breath away, all these years later. That laugh felt like it was still rattling in her bones.
Unsettled, she sat up and listened to the sounds around her. Trying to ground herself back in reality. Duke was snoring like a bear again. Tunnel Rat was twitching and would make little noises occasionally. Roadblock had a steady, deep breathing that was almost comforting. She began to breathe with him. As the oxygen flooded her system she felt steadier. She knew sleep was about as far away as the sunrise though.
With a huff, she got up and quietly slinked into the Coyote. If she was not going to be sleeping, she could be doing something useful. Like looking through the truck’s schematics again.
As she scanned over the documents, she really wished Tunnel Rat hadn’t stirred up that nightmare in her memory. It lingered unpleasantly in the back of her mind. It brought out bad feelings.
“Ridiculous,” she muttered to herself as she scrolled through the specs. It really was. It had just been a bad dream. A long time ago. It didn’t mean anything.
She couldn’t shake the feelings though.
She insisted to herself that she couldn’t put any special meaning into it. She couldn’t treat it like a bad premonition, because then she wouldn’t be able to move forward. The fear would paralyze her. Because, as bad as being crushed and laughed at was, the second part had been so much worse.
There had been another snake. Black and sleek, it raced out of the shadows to savagely bite at the coils wrapped around her. As it crushed the cobra within it’s jaws, it stared directly at her with a glinting, silver eye.
Hissing, the cobra spasmed and released her. She could breathe again, but only because the cobra needed the length to strike at the black snake. They fought over her. They spit endless amounts of poison at each other’s eyes. They spiraled and coiled together in mesmerizing, hypnotizing ways while trying to crush each other. As they tangled together, constricting and biting, she knew they were locked in a death grip. They were slowly suffocating and dying of poison together.
That was the worst part. It felt hopeless, because they would either live or die together, tangled up as they were. The cobra couldn’t live. If the cobra lived she would die. Everything would die. The cobra needed to die, but she did not want the black snake to share the same fate. It would be her fault if it did. Not necessarily because she could stop it, but because she was the reason it was there in the first place. She had a feeling, a premonition, that maybe it was trying to protect her. She didn’t want it to die, but the cobra couldn’t live. There was nothing she could do.
That had been the truly crushing part of her dream.
A sudden weight on her shoulder made her flinch. Hand reaching for a nonexistent weapon at her hip, she spun around.
A steel visor glinted in the low light cast by her device.
“Snake Eyes,” she said with relief. He briefly squeezed her shoulder and cocked his head. Asking if she was all right.
A small smile came unbidden onto her lips. She had one lucid moment from that whole experience. Snake Eyes, kneeling by her on the bed. Gently helping her sip water, hand firmly on her shoulder. Strong and alive. It was the only time during the whole experience where she had felt awake. The only time where she had felt like the dream and all those feelings were silly. That maybe it wasn’t real.
He really always showed up in the nick of time. Always helping her. Always trying to protect her.
Her smile flickered out, as she was reminded of an old premonition.
“Couldn’t sleep. I’m all right.”
He pointed to his hand.
She glanced at the gauze loosely wrapped around her hand.
“Snake bite. I’m all right.”
He gave a single nod.
“Are you all right?” she blurted out, as he reached down for something in his pockets.
He stilled. Hesitated. Then he cocked his head again.
“I mean it.” She stood and said earnestly, “I know you can take care of yourself. But you’re not going to get in over your head, right? With all of this, you don’t have to… you don’t have to kill yourself over this. You know that, right?”
He paused again. She couldn’t see behind his visor, but she knew he was scanning her. Looking her up and down, trying to figure out what was wrong. Trying to figure out where this was coming from.
With him standing right there, watching her, it felt silly again. The worry, the anxiety that she was going to lead him into death seemed ludicrous. Snake Eyes, with all of his talents and weapons. Suddenly embarrassed, she turned away.
“Never mind. You know what you’re doing. Sorry.”
Snake Eyes didn’t need any cautions from her or her old fever dreams. He was his own man, and he knew his limits. If he even had limits. He was so much better than her, stronger and smarter. She didn’t have any business telling him to be careful. He had his own bones to pick with Cobra, and she shouldn’t try to stand in the way of that.
A warm hand grasped her shoulder again. Gentle but firm. He was a solid presence behind her, a physical reminder that he had her back.
She closed her eyes and let his warmth and his strength seep into her.
She rested her hand on top of his and breathed deeply.
Really, it was silly. Snake Eyes could take care of himself, but even if he couldn’t, he had her. She wasn’t helpless. She had teeth too. She’s the one who had begged for training and fought through grueling exercises. She was the one who had dragged herself up to his level, so they could stand against Cobra together. She wasn’t bait, and she wasn’t going to be the reason Snake Eyes died.
They both had their reasons for pursuing Cobra, but they were in this together.
“Did you have something for me?” she asked, turning back to him and back to business. Reassured and ready.