2
Voices. Echoing all around her.
Yelena!
Small figure, blond hair, clutching her shirt. Sobbing. Why was she remembering that day? She had swore to never look back. But…
Don’t touch her, I will kill you all!
Her screams as they got separated still haunted her dreams. They wake her up in the middle of the night, gasping for air.
Your pain only makes you stronger.
She had survived all those years on those words alone. It made her strong. Stronger than the others. And that’s how she survived.
The ceremony is necessary for you to take your place in the world.
A strong arm around her neck, squeezing, relentless.
I have no place in the world.
Exactly.
Pain flashed through Maria’s head. She suppressed a groan of pain as she started to slowly wake up. She didn’t really know what had happened, and people tended to be a bit more careless with divulging information in front of an asleep target. She did a mental check of all her body parts, looking for broken bones, but found none. That was good. She was surprised to notice that she wasn’t tied up.
“Underestimating me, huh.” she thought with a suppressed smirk. Her ears were ringing, and she could feel the hard floor on her back. She slowly opened her eyes, assessing her surroundings. It was a dimly lit room, with gray walls and white cemented ceiling. There was a door on the far corner and behind her there was…
“Natasha!” Maria whispered. She rushed to her side and knelt beside her. Scanning her face for any visible bruises, Maria noticed that the redhead was slightly shaking. She reached out to brush the hair out of her face but as soon as she touched her forehead, was suddenly pinned to the floor, the smaller woman on top of her, one arm on her throat, green eyes blazing with a deadly stare. It startled Maria, but she was immediately overwhelmed with anger at herself. That was a stupid move. She should know better than to wake a former assassin when they were obviously having a nightmare.
They stared at each other for a couple of seconds, calm blue eyes gazing into deep green frantic ones. Then, recognition flashed in her eyes and Natasha jumped to her feet, breathing hard.
“Maria… Oh my god, what did I do?”
She stared around the room, taking it all in, and then her gazed refocused on the brunette. Maria stood up, and took a step towards her girlfriend, only for her to take a step back.
“Natasha…”
“No Maria, don’t… don’t come any closer. I don’t want to hurt you.” She looked around her, frantic, and started to pace while fidgeting with her sweater’s sleeve. Maria hadn’t noticed that her clothes had changed. She walked confidently towards her and took the other girl’s hands in her own.
“Hey, look at me” Natasha locked her gaze on hers and Maria smiled, comforting the redhead. “You didn’t hurt me. You could never hurt me.” She didn’t look convinced.
Maria smirked. “And besides, I can hold my own. I’m not SHIELD’s Deputy Director for shit and giggles.”
Natasha chuckled and squeezed her hands, visibly relaxing.
“Understood, Commander Hill.” Her teasing tone was back. Maria smiled and kissed her forehead. Slipping her arms around the taller girl’s hips, Natasha snuggled close and whispered a “thank you” into her shoulder.
“Of course Tash. Anytime.”
“So. Do you have any idea where we are?”
Maria broke away from the hug and turned on work mode. They needed to get out of there. They would have time for snuggles later.
“I woke up just before you,” she shrugged, “my guess is as good as yours.”
Natasha walked towards the door, testing the handle.
“It's open,” she said, turning towards Maria.
“Wait, seriously?” She frowned, confused.
“What kind of kidnapper leaves the door unlocked?”
“The kind that doesn’t check their victims for weapons, apparently,” she said, pulling her gun out of its hidden holster, “The stupid kind, I guess. I don’t know, and I don’t care. Let’s just get out of here,” Natasha stepped out and waved for Maria to follow her, holstering her gun in the process.
There was something fishy going on, but Maria didn’t have any choice but to follow her girlfriend. She crossed the room in a few long strides and caught up with the spy. They were halfway through the corridor when a shiver ran down her spine. She felt Natasha stiffen slightly at her side and knew that she had noticed the same thing as her. Someone was watching them.
They were doing a pretty good job too, and it might have passed unnoticed by anyone else, but the two women were experienced.
They didn’t make a move, so she and Natasha continued walking calmly. The less fighting was done, the better.
“Where does this hallway lead anyway. It just goes on and on,” Natasha complained. “It’s so boring. At least make the evil lair interesting, you know?”
Maria rolled her eyes at the other girls' complaints.
“Don’t you think that if this base was more interesting,” she said with an emphasis on the ‘interesting’ “it would be more difficult for us to get out?”
Natasha huffed, with playful annoyance.
“At least we wouldn’t die of boredom,” she said, walking backwards so she could face the brunette while talking, “I would kill for some action right about now.”
“Careful, you’ll jinx it”
They had finally arrived at another set of doors that looked like the exit. As Maria reached for the handle, the whole building shook, and a huge blast of… something propelled them backwards. Maria crashed into the wall loudly, and Natasha landed on her, cushioning her fall. She bounced back and landed on her feet gracefully. She looked around and to her surprise, they weren’t in the hallway anymore. And they weren’t alone either. In a second, she had her gun out and got into a defensive position, arms raised, ready for an attack. Adrenaline pumped in her veins and all of her senses sharpened.
Twelve pairs of eyes were locked on the two newcomers. They were half hidden in the shadows, and quite far, but still a potential threat. Natasha assessed the situation expertly, plotting various ways to incapacitate them all and run away. The group started to walk in their direction, carefully and at a steady pace, quietly whispering between them. Natasha felt her muscles tense, expecting the fight.
“You just had to jinx it,” Maria huffed from behind the spy. Something was wrong. She sounded out of breath, and Maria Hill is never out of breath. Natasha turned around and lowered her weapon out of surprise. The brunette was clutching her arm. It was twisted at a weird angle and looked dislocated.
“You’re hurt.”
The spy raised her gun again, aiming it in the voice’s direction. A man was walking slowly towards them, hands raised to show that he held no weapons.
“Let us help you. We won’t hurt you, promise.” He was still too far to see his features, but one thing was for sure, he was jacked. Even at this distance, Natasha could see his muscles shape his T-Shirt. He had blond hair and was quite tall.
Maria hisser in pain behind her, and Natasha held her gun tighter in her hand. She had to protect her. She wouldn’t fail to protect the people she loved again.
“Back off,” she growled. The guy risked another step, and Natasha switched the safety off.
“If you take another step in this direction, I will blow your brains out. Back. Off.” This time, she made her voice a terrifying mix of calmness and iciness. Even the toughest people shivered when she addressed them like this. However, for some reason, the only thing that it managed to do was make the man lower his arms. Another man moved forward. He looked strangely similar to Tony Stark.
“Wait, is that you, Red?”
Now, everybody was slowly getting closer and closer. She fired her gun at the side of the first man’s head, close enough so it could leave a mark, but far enough so it wasn’t dangerous. It surprised them, to say the least, and they stopped their progression.
“What did I say? Back off.”
“That is enough, agent. Lower your weapon.”
A familiar voice said, and Natasha felt relieved to hear her boss’s voice. She looked to the side and recognized Fury, Director is SHIELD. Behind him was another familiar face.
“Hey Tash, what’s up?” Said her best friend.
She couldn’t understand what Clint was doing here but boy was she glad to see some familiar faces.
She didn’t lower her weapon through.
“Damn Hill, you look all roughed up. What happened? Had a rough meeting with the wall?” Clint smirked.
“Shut up and patch me up, dumbass,” she replied drily. He knelt beside her and observed the damage. He grabbed the arm and popped it back into place in one smooth movement. After he was done, he stood up and eyed the situation. Natasha was still clutching the gun aimed at Cap's face and the super soldier looked too scared to move a muscle. He helped Hill get up and addressed her.
“Nat, you can lower the gun now. You’re scaring the shit out of Cap. »
That's when Maria finally recognized the guy.
“Wait, Captain America? Wasn't he dead?” The brunette was confused, and her head hurt from the overthinking. He couldn't possibly be here, could he? “Didn't you crash a plane like 65 years ago to save America or something?”
“Yeah no, that was like 70 years ago.”
“Pretty sure it’s 65.”
“I think I would know…”
Natasha’s brain was going a hundred miles an hour, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. The guy at the end of her gun was Captain America, a guy that is supposed to be dead. She apparently knows him, as well as Tony Stark, who feels comfortable enough to give her a nickname, red. From the way that the other people in the room look at her and Maria, she’s pretty sure that she’s supposed to know them too.
The fact that they are all here means that they have something to do with what will most likely happen next, and If she had to choose, she would prefer to have them as allies than as enemies. Besides, Clint seems to trust them, and oddly enough, so does Fury. She trusts Clint so in retrospect, she should trust the other people there.
“… since I was there.”
“If you do the math, it is impossible. The accident was in 1945, right? So if you do a simple subtraction…”
“It doesn't match because we aren't from the same time.” Natasha holstered her gun and moved to stand beside Maria. They shared a glance, to make sure they were okay before she continued.
“We come from 2010. You guys are from 2015 aren't you?”
At their bemused expressions, she cocked an eyebrow, a smirk on her lips.
“It fits. Think about it,” she pointed at Steve, “he's not alive where we come from. Stark obviously knows me, and I'm willing to bet anything that the rest of you know at least one of us too. But I've never seen any of you before, except for Clint and Nick. Because we haven't met yet.”
There were a couple of minutes of silence while everyone thought about it. It did fit. But...
“That doesn't explain why we're here in the first place,” a handsome African-American man said.
“I guess we'll find out soon enough,” said Maria, pointing at a screen that no one had noticed before. It was turning on.
People that are there:
Natasha Romanoff, Maria Hill, Clint Barton, Nick Fury, Tony Stark, Rhodey, Bruce Banner, Thor, Steve Rogers, Wanda Maximoff, Pietro Maximoff (cause he didn't die in this fic) Vision, Sam Wilson and Phil Coulson.