The Black Hawk | Yelena Belova & Kate Bishop Story

~Consciousness ~

Kate had written a short letter for each of the Barton family and packed some favorite sweets for the children.
When she got to the mailbox, she noticed a black van parked across the street. She didn't know why, but she had a strange feeling in her stomach, something wasn't right here.

She put the package in the box and took a few deep breaths. Whether she was imagining things or actually something fishy was going on, panicking was always a bad idea.

First she had to find out if they were actually strange people, that is, if they would follow her and go after her.

Slowly she started walking in the direction she had come from. Arrived at the crossing she looked around, there was no black vehicle to be seen anymore. She let out a relieved sigh and her fast heartbeat calmed down slowly.

She was almost back at her apartment when all of a sudden exactly the same car as before was parked in front of her, blocking the way.

Kate swallowed nervously, no doubt, her mind hadn't just played tricks with her, something sinister was definitely going on here.

She just wanted to turn around and go the other way as fast as she could, she didn't know who that was, what the person had wanted and she had no interest in finding out. All she wanted to do was bringing a few postcards to the mailbox, how did all of this happen?

All sorts of horrific scenarios ran through her mind and again she felt panic spread through her.

Her step quickened until she finally started to run. The blood shot through her whole body and the adrenaline gave her so much power as she had never felt before. She just wanted to get away, somewhere she felt pretty safe.

Although she knew she could fight, she had proved that with Clint a few months ago, but now - suddenly it was all... gone.
She felt so helpless, everything she had learned from martial arts over the years was erased from her head, she was glad that at least she could still run and wasn't completely frozen.

When she stopped briefly to catch her breath, a tall man suddenly stood in front of her, he was wearing a black leather jacket, black pants and sunglasses.

'Don't run!' he said in a thick Russian accent.

'What?' Kate tried to sound as normal as she could after sprinting for what feels like 10 minutes.

'I just want to ask you something, no need for you to panic.'

'And what if I don't want you answer your questions?'

'Well... that would be a good time to start panicking. '

'If you think I'm falling for your attempts at intimidation you're wrong, you know I'm very good at fighting. If I were you, I wouldn't mess with myself.' She wiped a strand of sweaty hair from her face.

The man in front of her didn't change his facial expression and didn't make any movement, so unfortunately the hoped-for deduction from the crazy man didn't happen.

She then heard a soft click behind her and with small, careful steps, she turned around and looked into the eyes of a second gloomy figure, which were also covered by large black sunglasses.

The person's right hand had a gun pointed right at her and was grinning with a coy smile.

Kate sighed inwardly, annoyed that she got into this "predicament", couldn't she just have stayed at home today?

'Okay, what is it that you wanted to ask me?'

'Yelena Belova, she's with you, right?'

Kate was surprised when asked about her new roommate. What did these guys have to do with Yelena?
Who were they anyway, at least no people to piss off that was for sure, but she was determined not to reveal any personal information about herself or Yelena. It just wouldn't be right and as an Avenger she couldn't just ignore that.

'Ehm... why do you want to know that?'

'She's a friend from someone I know.'

'A friend?' She gave the strange looking man a questioning look.

'Ms Bishop, you would be better off simply answering the questions, or would you rather come with me and tell my friend personally?'

After a short moment a crazy thought shot through Kates head:

Why not get to the bottom of it and get to know Yelena's so-called friend?
What could she do anyway, either be forced to tell everything there and probably be killed afterwards or gather all her courage and go to the boss and find out more.

However, her plan still had many gaps and she hesitated to actually implement it.
While still unsure what to do, a hand grabbed her upper arm so hard that she had the feeling her blood was being pinched off in the arm.

She bit her lip to keep herself from screaming.
Suddenly it occurred to her - why not scream or at least try?
The people clearly wanted information from her, if they just wanted to kill her they would have done it long ago.
So she took a deep breath and screamed for help with all her might and as loud as possible.

Both of the men were startled, but soon regained composure, immediately the person behind her grabbed her by the neck and put her into a headlock while screamed into her left ear:
'Scream one more time and you're dead!'

The lack of oxygen made her face turn blue and her whole body started shaking uncontrollably. She couldn't move anymore, everything around her blurred before her eyes.

One question took over her mind completely - Would she suffocate here on the street?

Panic that she had never felt before was building up inside her - she was afraid of dying. She didn't want to die just yet, not like this, not now.
She still had so many plans for her life, what if she lost everything because of a stupid decision?

Just when she thought the last bit of oxygen in her body had been used up and everything that she could have done better in her life flew by in front of her eyes, the pressure on her neck eased up and she sank to the ground, powerless.
She started coughing and was desperately gasping for air to get her circulation going again.

She felt dizzy and no matter how hard she tried she couldn't get off the floor and stand up.
Slowly she opened her eyes to see what was going on around her. With blurry vision she spotted a figure fighting the two men, who quickly gave up and retreated.

Relieved she laid her head back on the cold ground of the street. The last thing she saw was the person who had rescued her coming towards her and the next second everything around her went black and she lost consciousness.