In Their Hands ✧･ BARNES ✔

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  SHE STRUGGLED TO OPEN HER EYES. She felt weak and tired. She felt as if she couldn't control her body at all. She groaned just a little as she tried to sit still and stop swaying.

   She heard voices around her and she saw faces, too. She felt something hard and uncomfortable below her. It was something she had known the feeling of much too well. She would wake up here and sleep here every night back home. 

   She continued to struggle, but before her eyes even fully adjusted, she began to panic. She tried to stand up and get off, but the man above her held her down. She started to scream and kick and she tried to get away. 

   He didn't grab her too tight, but she still didn't want the guard to touch her. She just wanted to see Natalia, who she hadn't seen since she was four, in her mind.

   "No, no kid. You need to lay- hey, why are you crying?" She heard a man ask. She halted when she didn't hear any type of Russian accent hinting at the words he spoke. None of the men at the base - except for the superior- spoke english without an accent. And she knew that this couldn't be the superior because he sounded too young. However, she didn't remember him.

   Zola's eyes slowly adjusted to the light of the room. She kept trying to blink the blurriness away.

   "I'm not gonna hurt you kid. Remember me? Clint?" He asked, gently laying Zola back down onto the floor and kneeling beside her. He seemed concerned for the small girl. She was so little but she was so paranoid.

   "Clint?" Zola questions, scooting away. She didn't know a Clint. It wasn't a Russian name, so he couldn't be from home. As long as he wasn't from home.

   "Yeah. Remember?" He lifts an eyebrow in confusion. When they were back at the S.H.I.E.L.D base, Zola was smiling and talking to him. He seemed confused when she started to scoot away.

   Zola only shook her head with fear swimming in her eyes. Clint stood to his feet in defeat.

   "Alright, Natalia, come get your kid. She's acting weird." He calls up a staircase to the left. Zola's head darts in his direction. That was her Mama's name.

   "Mama?" Zola asked. She climbed to her feet at the sound of her mother's name. The fear started to disappear from her eyes and hope took its place. Her mom was here? Her head darted from corner to corner of the room as she searched for where her mother could possibly be. She was going to see her again? 

   "Uh, yeah. Are you feeling okay?" Clint asks. Zola was acting weird. She knew him, they'd met back in Budapest. Why did she start screaming and crying when he tried to help her down? He was concerned and a little freaked out.

   "Gde Mama?" She angrily looks up at him, taking steps toward him with a glare. He takes a few steps back because he remembers how well she can fight. He didn't understand. Where is Mama?

   "Alright, kid, if you're gonna try and beat me up, then get out of my house." He says as he holds his hands up in a surrendering position. Zola continues to glare at him, waiting for directions on how to get to her mother.

   Natalia came down the old, rickety steps of the house and looked down at Zola. She lifted an eyebrow and swiftly made her way down the rest of the steps.

   "Zola? Chto ty dayalesh'?" Natalia asks. Zola's head whips around into her mother's direction and she immediately runs over to her, throwing her arms around her. She squeezes her as tight as she can and she begins to cry into the denim of the jeans Natalia wore. She was borrowing them from Clint, so they were pretty big. He also had a belt for her, which was still big, but it worked. He would have to go out to town and shop for both of them. Zola? What are you doing?