Mission Possible
“Peace is a funny thing. You never notice how loud the silence is until you stop running.”
Avengers Compound - 6:04am
There was a crack in the ceiling.
It wasn’t large, or dramatic. Just a tiny jagged thread, tucked in the corner where the concrete met drywall. Wanda stared at it every morning, like it might someday change. Like it might spread. Or vanish.
It never did.
The room was warm. Vision’s form beside her was still and precise, one arm draped loosely over her waist. He didn’t need sleep, but he’d learned to simulate it—slow, steady breaths, closed eyes, relaxed muscles.
Wanda had once told him that his breathing comforted her so he had mimicked her sleeping pattern.
She appreciated it. Really. The effort. The intent. He always remembered the little things about her.
Vision stirred. “You’ve been awake for 13 minutes and 20 seconds.”
“You really know how to ruin a peaceful moment.” She mumbled, voice still thick with sleep but a soft smile grazed her face.
“It usually only takes you an average of 6 minutes to wake and begin your day.”
Wanda huffed a small laugh and rolled onto her back. “Sometimes I just like to enjoy the peace.”
Her hand drifted to his, fingers resting against him. Warm. Familiar. Safe.
She was safe now. The world was stable. The chaos was gone. This was everything she ever wanted. The calm, the domestic routines of life.
She closed her eyes and allowed herself to feel like she was in one of her sitcoms that she would watch as a child. Wanda was content with her life.
Vision broke the silence again. “It seems that Director Fury will be requesting your presence soon, if you would like to have breakfast before.”
Wanda sighed as she rolled over to press a soft kiss to his lips before getting out of bed. He knew what she liked, to be fully fueled and awake before the chaos of the day began.
In the kitchen, however, the scent of a cinnamon candle mingled with burnt toast and herbal tea. The light filtering through the large windows of the shared 8th floor was soft and golden, casting long shadows over the kitchen tile. A sign of the early morning.
Natasha moved around the kitchen as if on autopilot. Starting the pot for when Wanda would wake up.
The widow herself had been awake for some time, her usual routine of getting up hours before the sun rises to go for a run. It gets her adrenaline flowing, something she needs. It reminds her that she’s alive.
Unfortunately the same can’t be said for the potted plant that sat next to the TV in the living room. Fred.
Wanda had named the plant and insisted they make their shared floor into a true home, but of course none of the three had remembered.
She grimaced and made a mental note to water him. Again.
Natasha’s now empty mug sat by the sink… black ceramic, faint chip on the handle. A second pot already brewed. Just water, since Wanda preferred tea over coffee. Natasha always beat her to the kitchen. Always disappeared before Wanda made it down the hall.
It was their ritual. Wordless. Familiar.
Personal space, yet tethered. Natasha’s door was always half closed. Wanda’s usually wide open.
The third room, always closed. Empty. Storage space, technically.
Each floor in the compound was built like a college dorm mixed with an apartment. A living room with floor to ceiling windows, open layout to the kitchen. A hallway with usually 2 to 3 bedrooms.
Clint didn't live in the tower, only staying when needed otherwise he would stay at home with his family. Sam had recently moved in, staying on the same floor as Steve. Bruce had been staying on the same floor as Vision until he and Wanda had gotten together. Now the Android spent most of his time on Natasha and Wanda's floor.
Natasha didn’t mind.
The quiet didn’t bother her anymore. She wasn’t haunted by footsteps or locked doors or the sound of someone screaming behind a two-way mirror.
These days, she wakes up when she wants. Drinks real coffee. Takes hot showers that don’t run out after three minutes. She even laughs, sometimes. Not often. But enough to know she still could.
She was happy.
Which terrified her more than she’d ever admit.
Natasha didn't have time to dwell on that thought, deciding to get a quick rinse in before the day begins. Before finding something else to do.
She made her way back into the shared kitchen barefoot, hair damp from the shower. The smell of Wanda’s tea hit her first… cloying and floral, clashing horribly with her dark roast. She didn’t say anything. She never did. She knew why the witch preferred it over caffeine.
The plant near the window was drooping again.
“Fred’s dying.” Natasha muttered, mostly to herself.
Wanda’s voice drifted from the hallway. “He’s just dramatic.”
Natasha snorted. She liked mornings like this. The hum of coexistence. The small sounds of someone else moving through the same space without needing to fill it with words.
She poured herself a second cup of coffee and leaned against the counter. Outside the window, the skyline glowed pale gold.
Somewhere down below, people were living their lives. Breakfast. School runs. Chores. Arguments over toast.
Natasha Romanoff. Spy. Assassin. Co-habitator.
She liked this version of herself. Even if something inside her whispered that it couldn’t last.
Not because she didn’t deserve it. Not anymore.
But because she was growing, remembering her past didn't burn as much anymore. The red in her ledger doesn’t haunt her as much.
Both women sat in a comfortable silence, just calm before the counter buzzed from Natasha’s phone.
INCOMING BRIEFING – 0700 HRS
MISSION PRIORITY: BRAVO
TARGET: HYDRA FACILITY
Wanda didn't have to ask what the message was. “Fury.”
Natasha sighed.
The quiet never lasted.
Avengers Compound: War Room - 7:00am
The war room wasn’t as dramatic as the name suggested. No flashing red lights. No doomsday alarms. Just soft overhead panels, a curved projection table, and the low hum of a holographic map waiting to be told where to focus.
Wanda entered first, her tea still in hand, loose curls pulled into a low knot at the nape of her neck. Natasha followed, a half zipped tactical vest over her fitted black tee. They didn’t speak. They didn’t have to.
Steve stood at the front, arms crossed, flanked by Bruce and Sam. The energy in the room wasn’t urgent… but it wasn’t casual either. It felt like everyone was waiting for someone to say what they were all thinking.
Steve cleared his throat. “I won’t beat around the bush. This one’s… unusual.”
The hologram flickered to life, casting a pale blue glow over the table as a forest landscape came into view… pale skies, almost like a horror story forgotten in time, a dark shape embedded into the earth.
“Hydra?” Natasha asked, already skimming through the mission file.
Steve nodded. “An old biogenetics facility. Codenamed ‘Hemlock.’ Thought to be abandoned.”
“Keyword ‘thought’.” Sam added, arms crossed.
Bruce swiped through satellite overlays. “Three days ago, we picked up an encrypted ping from a defunct SHIELD channel. It was automatic… like something inside was reactivated.”
Wanda frowned. “Power surge?”
“Maybe. Or someone tripped an old security grid.”
“Could be a trap.” Natasha said calmly.
“Could be a lead.” Steve countered. “Hydra ran their earliest genetic experiments and enhanced soldier tests out of this site. Most of the intel was scrubbed before the fall. If there’s anything left... we want it.”
“What’s the mission profile?” Natasha asked, all business now.
“Infiltrate. Retrieve data. Confirm status of facility. Engage only if necessary.”
“Great.” Wanda muttered, setting her tea aside. “So who’s going in? We don’t need all of us to enter. Raises too many questions”
Steve gave her a look. “The facility's underground. Remote. Shielded.”
The map zoomed in… entry tunnels, floor schematics, old personnel files marked with redacted lines. Wanda’s eyes scanned it all without blinking.
Vision entered then, dressed as if he'd just stepped out of a strategy seminar. Clean suit. Crisp movements. He stood beside Wanda and offered her a gentle nod.
“I assume you’re volunteering?” he asked.
Natasha spoke first. “I’ll go, I can slide under the radar long enough to create a mirror drive.”
“I’ll go with as an inside back-up.” Wanda said, the two women sharing a polite and professional nod.
Vision looked like he wanted to say something, but she stopped him. “You’ve got the Geneva Summit.” She reminded him. “World leaders. Fancy glass podiums. I’ll survive.”
His face didn’t shift, but something in his posture twitched. “You’re certain?”
Wanda smiled gently. “Always.”
Vision hesitated. Then he stepped forward and kissed her cheek. It was soft, familiar. Practiced.
“I will be available if needed.”
Natasha’s voice was quiet, but firm, a small smile forming. “We’ve handled worse. I’ll keep an eye on her.”
He only returned Natasha’s smile before leaving.
Steve gave the final nod. “We’ll take the jet. Nat and Wanda go in, and the rest of us will be at the rendezvous point, about 500 yards west. Keep this quiet. We leave in 15.”
Bruce tapped the console. “And Wanda? Try not to melt anything on the way in.”
“No promises.” She said, already turning to leave.
Natasha followed, downing the rest of her coffee. “She’ll behave.”
“Since when?” Wanda smirked over her shoulder.
The doors slid shut behind them.
Quinjet - 8:07am
Hydra.
The name still stuck like something bitter on the tongue.
Wanda zipped up her suit with practiced ease, fingers glowing faintly as she adjusted the containment seals over her forearms. The mission briefing had been clear… old facility, known for bioengineering. Possibly still staffed. Possibly hostile.
Standard infiltration. In and out. No casualties unless necessary.
Except Hydra didn’t really do “standard.”
Natasha moved silently through the hangar beside her, checking her gear with the kind of efficiency that could only come from someone who used to be on the other side of missions like this.
She didn’t talk much while prepping. Wanda had learned to read her silences instead.
This one was checking up on her. Allowing Wanda the time to tell her if she wanted to back out. Natasha gave her an out, without pressuring. Hydra missions always felt different for Wanda. And the widow knew that. This one seemed to put her more on edge, having been a Hydra experiment herself.
“I’m good.” Wanda reassured her. Also herself. Her past trauma fueling her need to make sure everything goes right rather than making her feel like she needed to run for the hills.
The quinjet was silent, purring under their boots while the soft voices of the rest of the team filtered by. The air inside was crisp. Cold. Familiar.
“Loaded for stealth.” Natasha said, scanning the control panel. “High-frequency scanners online. We’ll jam comms from half a mile out.”
Wanda slid behind her, crossing her arms as she glanced at the projected route on the dash. “And here I thought this was going to be quiet.”
“Hydra doesn’t do quiet.” Natasha said. “They do secrets. And corpses.”
Wanda sighed, fingers drumming against her arm. “Still not convinced this isn’t a trap.”
“Oh, it is. Without a doubt.” Natasha said without missing a beat. “The question is who it’s meant for.”
She turned, already double-checking her weapons. “Old Hydra tech runs like cockroaches. No matter how many times you burn it, it keeps twitching.”
“I hate that you’re probably right.”
Natasha didn’t smile. But her eyes did, just for a second.
They’d done this before.
Get in. Disable the perimeter. Retrieve the data. Get out. Don’t die.
Wanda glanced down at her gloves, then at her reflection in the darkened cockpit window. “You think we’ll find people?”
“Maybe.”
“Kids?”
Natasha’s jaw flexed slightly. Steve spoke the words the rest were afraid of admitting. “If Hydra’s still running programs like this... I hope not.”
They didn’t say anything after that.
The quinjet hissed softly as it powered down, steam curling into the frozen air. Wanda and Natasha stood at the edge of the ramp, wind tugging at their coats.
Steve and Sam had put the jet into its cloaking mode and watched them off. “Keep communication clear.”
Both women nodded as they began their trek into the forest, heading in the direction of the coordinates that had been given.
No lights. No motion. Just the heavy quiet of snow settling over something long buried.
Natasha scanned the tree line. Wanda reached out with her senses.
Something stirred beneath the surface… not sound, not sight, not heat. Something older.
It pulsed.
Not Hydra tech. Not mechanical. Organic. Living.
And… familiar.
Her breath caught in her throat.
“What is it?” Natasha asked, already shifting into defensive posture.
Wanda’s voice came soft and careful. “There’s something inside. It’s not mechanical. It’s like…”
She hesitated.
“Like what?” Natasha asked, eyes narrowing.
Wanda’s magic sparked faintly at her fingertips, flickering.
“I don’t know.”
That phrase alone had Natasha’s senses on high alert.
They continued walking until they reached a singular concrete building in the middle of a clearing. Both only speaking through shared looks, Wanda sensing the energy of the building and Natasha using her heightened senses to find a way in.
After finding an open vent on the roof of the building they slowly made their way inside. The vent creaked open with no resistance. No locks. No retinal scanners. Just steel groaning against time.
Too quiet.
Wanda and Natasha slipped inside in tandem, silent as shadows. Lights flickered weakly overhead… emergency backup only. The hallway ahead stretched into darkness, broken by intermittent doorways and shattered glass.
Wanda’s boots scuffed against the floor. Dust. Thin layers of it. Undisturbed.
“This place is dead.” Natasha whispered.
“Where did everyone go?” Wanda replied. “It’s emptied.”
They moved deeper.
Desks overturned. Files shredded. Cabinets left open. It was the kind of exit made in haste… not strategic retreat. No order. No pattern.
“Someone packed up in a hurry.” Natasha said, brushing a gloved hand over a desk smeared with God knows what. “This wasn’t a shutdown. It was an evacuation.”
“Then why didn’t they clean their tracks?”
Natasha spoke into her earpiece, calm but cautious. “Steve, it’s empty. They must have been tipped off. Didn’t have enough time to set up their usual contingencies.”
Most of the Hydra facilities that they had found abandoned before, were rigged to explode to get rid of any other evidence. This was rushed. Evacuated out of fear.
They both knew what that meant. Hydra had something to hide. They had something worth fear of losing.
Wanda approached a wall console… burned out, wires sparking faintly. Her magic brushed against it, searching for residual energy.
There was none.
But deeper inside the base, past the offices and ruined labs, something else throbbed quietly. Not a heartbeat. Not quite.
A memory.
Her skin prickled.
They passed through what was once a containment wing. The cells were open, the restraints unlocked, medical equipment smashed against the floor.
Wanda stepped through broken glass and paused at the far wall. There, on the concrete, were faint traces of red… no longer blood. Symbols. Scratches.
Drawn in spirals.
Not chaos magic. Not exactly.
But close.
Wanda reached toward it without realizing. Her fingers hovered over the etchings, breath shallow.
“Wanda?” Natasha said behind her.
She didn’t answer.
The energy was stronger here. Echoing. Faintly alive. And laced with something else…
Pain. Fear. Power.
It wasn’t hers. But it knew her.
She jerked her hand back as if it had been burned.
“This is where the signal came from.”
Natasha walked up to the console, inspecting it. “We won't be able to get any information from it, but if they left in a hurry we might be able to find some kind of files around.”
Wanda just nods, following the traces of energy left behind from the emotions of every person in the building. She hears Natasha tell Steve that they could use an extra hand searching the mess left behind. Both him and Sam agreed to come pilfer through the scattered files along the floor.
She can feel fear all through the building, mostly Hydra grunts. Fearing the all mighty Avengers. There’s more than that though. There’s an underlying fear of what was already in the building and a stronger fear that she almost misses.
The signature is so similar to her own that her power dismisses it.
There’s a fear of the world. Fear of itself.
She’s pulled from the feeling by Sam holding out a half burned sheet of paper. “Do we have any information on this? It’s wrecked to all hell but I don’t like seeing the word ‘success’ on stuff in here.”
Natasha grabs the paper and looks at the ash covered words.
[REDACTED] GENESIS PR- [BURNED]
[BURNED] [BURNED] UBJECT 112 [REDACTED]
INACTIVE [REDACTED]
[REDACTED] SUBJECT 113 - FULL TERM [BURNED]
SUCCESSFUL [BURNED] [BURNED]
“Nothing damning here but it’s worth taking back with us.”
Full Term.
Those words stuck with Natasha for some reason. Everything about this mission has her off put.
Hydra. Bioengineering.
Drawers were open. Files half burned. Sample cases shattered. Paper floated underfoot, curling with age and neglect.
“I’ll take the eastern wing.” Natasha said. “Data servers were probably there. Maybe there’s something left for me to find.”
“I’ll help.” Sam added, nodding to Steve.
Steve turned to Wanda. “You okay to check the med bays?”
Wanda nodded slowly, distracted. “Yeah. I just... want to see something.”
She walked alone down a hallway, her body moving before her mind could catch up. Each step made her feel further from the mission and closer to something... personal. The walls here felt different. Warmer. Charged.
She passed a broken mirror. Her reflection flickered… just once.
She turned. Nothing behind her.
The base was supposed to be abandoned.
So why did it feel like something was waiting?