Free Soul | Natasha Romanoff

Chapter 11: the fallen ones, the standing stills

Everything felt to be a distant dream, muffled sounds and far echoes growing wild as her vision was a flickering light, flashing celestial blue and deep indigo shining through her lidded eyes. The ground was shaken by the sheer panic that seized every being on the Helicarrier, calling for the names of the ones whose duty was to fight, to fight the fights no one else could.

Get up, get up, get up...

She let out a soft cough and whispered through a stutter the sole name, the only paradigm of reason. Her lids felt heavy, her head throbbing and her breath shallow from dizziness, whilst she groaned and struggled to push herself up on her forearms. She fell back and flat against the hard ground, succumbing to the weight of her body and rubble, the burden of her awakening magic.

You gotta fight.

Rubble kept falling around her lying body, an ominous smoke elevating in the ambient air, herself trapped under a heavy metallic plate which wouldn't budge without a good hit in. The universal blue was slowly seeping through her skin, reaching beyond the parts of her she was unaware of; the voices came back, more peaceful and less invasive, though virulent like a tocsin.

Get up.

"We're okay." She heard from afar, in a space and time she couldn't make out the rules of, albeit she was still able to feel those intense viridescent eyes gazing with such ardor at her inert body, "We're okay right?" The voice now approached the stone cold barriers of her mind like a soft knock on the rough oak wood of a door.

Get up now!

"Hyunjae."

You gotta protect her-

A bestial growl resounded in this time and space less distant from her mind, her fingers twitching at the warning sign wrapping around the neck of Peace and Quiet, and squeezing them tight like they meant nothing. The blue lights began to glow bright as she could hear her voice, distressed and panicked, calling for her over and over again in a breathed out plea.

It triggered her.

The aura surrounding her body turned more intense as determination aroused from deep within her chest, pulsing and pulsing from that core and sending electricity throughout her limbs, till reaching the brim of her fingertips. She pushed herself up with an unknown strength, throwing the heavy metal plate aside in a breath, before she fell down to lay on her side with a groan.

It took her some seconds before she regained her complete consciousness and, in an urgent haste, she attempted to stand up, though it was in vain, her legs too wobbly. She fell back quite harshly, her head spinning and spinning and her chest burning as if a fire was burning her lungs; it was flames of power coursing through her veins, beating like the bass of a lifelong music.

Something stronger than her self-control was growing wild, pushing into the barriers she had forged to find the freedom it rebelliously sought— it was disturbing, it was unnerving. But, there was a far more alarming matter to tend to, so her head shot up to find Natasha's distress, and in no time, she bolted forward to crouch beside her body trapped under layers and layers of metal.

Natasha was more important than whatever voice was whispering into the hollow of her ear, to find it, and to take it.

"Okay... I've got you, I've got you." Hyunjae breathed out in a rush, moving aside to place her grip under all the rubble. Bluish silver particles began to float around her hands and arms, her eyes flickering into a paler tone of azure just as the snarl turned louder in danger, more monstrous, heightening the pressure they could feel in the atmosphere.

Natasha snapped her head towards Banner who was trying with all of his might to keep the Hulk at bay, the sight only enhancing further her gnawing anxiety. A dreadful heatwave washed over both women, a sudden surge of stress choking all calm out of them; Hyunjae hurried even more her movements, her vision turning sharp and omniscient again as she readied herself for the lift.