Tragedy of Natalie Thomas-MCU

Chapter 14

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Chapter 14

One day later.

They had one more day to think about Lilith's trade. They couldn't trace the signal of that fateful message, but one thing had changed: Instead of the stress driving the team apart, they'd bonded together.

Natalie hadn't spent last night alone in her room. Seeing Lilith again made her emotionally vulnerable to just about everything. Every small noise made her jump and shake, and at every sudden movement she flinched. But she went through it all with a smile.

Sam had stood up for her. When push came to shove he hadn't thrown her aside, and it made her appreciate him even more.

Sam had let her sleep in his room last night. He had figured she wouldn't want to be alone. Originally they'd set her up a blow up mattress on the floor of Sam's room. But halfway through the night she'd woken up from a nightmare, and ended up sleeping on Sam's king sized bed with him. Sam had woken up cold in the morning, with Natalie fast asleep at his feet. She had curled up in all of his blankets, and didn't wake up until about noon.

Sam, however, couldn't sleep in. He was trying really hard to keep his stress under control, but he still had work to do. They were going to get Bucky back, they just had to figure out how to do it. This trade was an obvious weakness, and all the Avengers team had to figure out how to exploit it...

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Sam was sitting at the dining room table, thinking through the problem one more time.

There were a few variables making this complicated. The trade that Hydra proposed only had a few options. One of those opinions was to give Natlaie's life for Bucky's, and the entire team was repulsed by even the thought of it. Hydra didn't view Natalie as a person, but instead as a bargaining chip in their twisted game.

But they needed to get Bucky back. The longer he was with Hydra the closer they got to resetting Bucky. It's one thing to have a friend die, but it's another for them to look at you and not even recognize you. They couldn't just ignore the trade entirely, this was a weakness that they had to exploit.... But how?

Another option was to pretend to agree to the trade, and attack the agents holding Bucky... But then Hydra would have their friend as a hostage if things went south, and that could put him at even more risk.

The same option applied for Natalie: They go through with the trade, somehow bypass all of Hydra's security, and rescue Natalie and get her home. This was no doubt one of the last bases, they'd searched every corner of the globe, and if they could take this one out, it would no doubt lead them to the rest... But if they did that Hydra could easily threaten or hurt Natalie, and use her powers against them at their full extent.

Hydra had thought all of this out perfectly, and there were no options.

Sam looked up wearily, Wanda was still asleep, she'd spent most of the night working over this same problem. SHIELD had sent a few possible strategies, but the Avengers weren't going to follow through with those plans. All SHIELD wanted was to wipe Hydra out, and all their solutions to this stalemate had involved Bucky, Natalie, or both of them getting hurt.

Scott was lying on the couch with Hope, they were both fast asleep. Scott was basically at 100% again, but he was using his wound as an excuse to escape the stress with Hope. They'd stayed up late last night, talking and trying to calm nerves.