The shadow Hunter

chapter 64

I stared down at myself, at the suit. It had been a long time since I had put on the shadow hunter suit and it didn't feel quite right anymore. It wasn't that the fabric didn't fit me, or the controls weren't molded to me perfectly and the boosters didn't help me jump higher than humanly possible- if anything those things had all gotten better. It's that I felt like a lie, a faker, standing in a superhero suit, pretending to help people when I could barely help myself, when I had hurt so many people. 

"It suits you still." Nat's voice issued from behind me. I turned my head towards my shoulder, she was leant against the door frame to what had been Wanda's room.  "Does it?" I questioned. She pushed herself off the frame and stepped closer to me. "It was always made for you." Maybe that was true, but it was not made for what I was. "You deserve to wear it you know." Nat told me after a silence. I didn't reply at first. 

"We both know that isn't true." I muttered. "Steve was right to question my sanity." Nat stiffened. "No he wasn't." She told me. "He has no idea what me and you have had to go through." She snapped slightly. "He crashed into ice and woke up seventy years later but he never had to live through those seventy years, never had to fight to get out." She exhaled slightly before continuing. "That's what we have had to do. We crashed into ice when we were just children and had to fight our way out, to not get stuck there, we spent those 70 years fighting with everything we had." It didn't make me feel much better, it only made me think that I still had many years in the ice and when i got out, life wouldn't be the way I expected it to be. 

"Tell me what you're feeling." Nat said suddenly and I couldn't help but let my lips quirk ever so slightly.  "I'm feeling..." I started. "unsure." I told her truthfully. "Because I don't know what I'm going to feel going back to hydra." I uttered. "And I feel on edge, like someone is going to sneak up on me and I know they will I'm just not sure when." Nat furrowed her brows. I didn't say anything for a moment and then sighed. "What if I see him again?" I spoke quietly. "What if I see Pietro again?" If I saw him, I wasn't sure I would be able to walk away, I wasn't sure I could over come the urge to warn him about Ultron. "Then you'll say your goodbyes." Nat told me, even though she knew I couldn't really because to talk to him would jeopardize everything. 

Nat started to move towards the door. "I'll meet you with everyone back in there in a few minutes." But before she could leave I turned around to face her. "Ask me again." I instructed. Nat looked confused. "What are you feeling?" She obliged. "I'm scared." I told her truthfully. "I'm scared this won't work and I'll go back to my cabin in Russia and I won't be able to stop this time." I admitted. "I'm scared this will work and Peter will come back and barely recognize me, that he won't want me." I was 5 years older then he would be now and I looked different, was different. "And I'm scared I'll be alone again." Nat simply smiled, "You'll never be alone." Before she left I asked her one more question. "What are you feeling?" Nat grinned more. "Hopeful." 

I entered the large workshop where we had built our  machine. Tony saw me in my shadow hunter suit, the one he had made for me, and smiled. "Is everyone here?" Steve asked. All 11 of us- all what was left. Tony started to pass out silver plated bracelets- very similar to my own activator for the suit I wore. "These will activate the time suits- you can deactivate them once you arrive at your destination but you must wear them whilst travelling from here to the destination and back." He explained. "Why?" Clint asked, turning the bracelet over curiously. "Because otherwise your body will disintegrate." Tony told him bluntly. We all snapped the activators around our wrists and upon tapping them, we became dressed in a white suit- almost like astronauts. 

The 11 of us gathered together and Steve started to talk. "Five years ago, we lost. All of us lost." Steve spoke. "We lost friends." I thought of Wanda, and MJ and Ned. "We lost family." I thought of Peter because any less word to describe him wouldn't be right. "We lost a part of ourselves." I thought of the person I had been before. "Today we have a chance to take it all back." I hung onto Nat's hope. "You know your teams, you know your missions, get the stones, get them back." Get Peter back. "No mistakes, no do-overs, one round trip each." This was my only chance- I couldn't even think what would happen to me if I lost him again.