verb.
To come or go back to a place or person.
noun.
The firing of a weapon to counter a shooter's shot.
•
They recoiled from their pasts, and in doing so found each other.
But the universe isn't kind enough to let a moment of peace last.
It took se...
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A gasp of pain wheezed from Kat's aching body as she hit the metal platform hard – the tight hold of Steve's arms around her doing little to shield her from the Sceptre digging into her ribs as a result of their rough landing.
"You're alright, Kat – I've got you."
Her helmet folded back as strong, sure hands helped her to kneel on the platform as he stood – the sudden rush of air against her skin alerting her to the fact that there were tears running unchecked down her face, her eyes vacantly staring down at the blood-streaked Sceptre that she still clung to, only seeing the haunting image of cold blue eyes burning into her own.
"Did we get 'em all?"
"Are you telling me this actually worked?"
The whir of the machine powering down overhead merged with voices she hadn't heard in hours, years – seconds, in reality. Her own ragged breathing struggling to calm as she blinked heavily. Forcing herself to look past the images that haunted her and at the object in her hands.
They had done it. She hadn't failed. She had brought it back.
"Clint? Where's Nat?"
She almost didn't hear Bruce's question, but the silence that followed was enough to draw her head up. To make her look around the group stood on the platform, before her gaze landed on Clint. On the way his eyes seemed to look through the platform he knelt upon. His features utterly still, utterly still – until he blinked, the sudden shine of unspoken emotion in his eyes making Kat's chest seize.
Nastasha wasn't with him.
Nastasha hadn't come back.
"No..." The word slipped from her trembling lips as that realisation seemed to settle over the group. As Bruce fell to one knee, his fist driving into the platform in the same moment the Sceptre slipped from Kat's hands, clattering against the metal in a jarring contrast to the silence that surrounded her. A silence that screamed.
See you in a minute.
No. No, it had to have been a mistake. A miscalculation. Her coordinates hadn't been set right; she had just missed the return point – there had to be an explanation. She couldn't be gone.
Forcing her shaking legs to move, she staggered across the platform, half-falling down the ramp towards the control panel.
"Kat..."
"S-she's not-" She whimpered at Steve's utterance of her name, looking past the tremor in her hands as she grabbed for the tablet resting on the console, searching frantically for the signal of Natasha's tracker. "She's miscalculated - entered her coordinates wrong- w-we have more particles, we can-" She half-choked on her words as a tiny sob fought its way from her throat. "Wh-wherever she is we can- we can't just..." Her stilted words trailed off as an error message flashed on the screen. It couldn't find Natasha's signal.
