Withered webs || marvel

21- A haunted house with a picket fence

Irena woke up 2 hours later in the Quinjet. Her head was in the lap of Natasha as she sat, staring off into space. The sky around them had turned into a gradient of navy and black as they flew through clouds.

Everyone was silent in the bubbles they had created for themselves. Clint was the only one who seemed perfectly fine. Tony was trying to act like he was but Irena could tell he wasn't because his eyebrows were slightly turned at the ends.

She didn't let anyone know she was awake, she just stared at the wall in front of her, not bothering to move a muscle.

30 minutes after Irena woke up, Tony got a hold of Maria.

"The news is loving you guys, nobody else is." She started.

Irena just listened to what the woman had to say. Steve had noticed she was awake now and attempted to meet her eyes which were feverishly captivated by the gray wall in front of her.

He was worried about the young girl. When he entered the Quinjet, he saw the girl asleep in Natasha's lap with tear stains down her cheek and a bloodied lip. Her color was off and she looked like she wasn't even mentally in the room.

"There's been no official call for Banner's arrest but it's in the air," Maria informed them.

Irena was too bent out of shape to care. She liked Bruce and felt selfish as ever for feeling this way but she wasn't herself. It felt like someone had crept into her mind and played around. Like they went through all the file cabinets in her brain and didn't bother to clean up.

"Stark relief foundation?" Tony asked her.

"Already on the scene, how's the team?" She questioned.

"Everyone's..." He started before he took a look around at everyone in the jet. What he saw didn't lessen his worries. He had 3 very torn-apart adults, one consciously comatose teenager who seemed to be frozen in a trance, and a perfectly fine archer. "We took a hit but we'll shake it off."

"Well for now I'd stay in stealth mode, and stay away from here," Maria suggested. 

With a small avert of her eyes, Irena was able to see a very sweaty Bruce who looked severely uneasy. Based on Hill and Stark's conversation, she guessed he went green and smashed a bit more than Ultron and the twins.

"So run and hide?" Tony asked for confirmation.

"Until we can find Ultron, I don't have a lot else to offer."

With a sigh and a look around, Tony spoke. "Neither do we."  He said before he hung up on a solemn-looking Maria.

Irena was conscious, she heard everything that went on. She heard Tony and Clint discuss the fact that they were about a few hours away from a safe house. She wondered where it was. She hoped somewhere not hot. But at the same time, Irena wasn't conscious. Her mind kept going back there, to what she saw. The thought made her want to fall back asleep and wake up in a year or two.

Once Natasha zoned back in, looked down to see Irena's eyes open, and focused on the same wall she had just been encased in, she took a strand of her hair and started to fiddle with it. Irena didn't mind, she needed the distraction. She needed to focus on something else besides the Red Room without having to get up and talk to anyone.

After a bit of silence, Irena softly spoke quietly only Natasha could hear.

"You went back too, didn't you." She asked, not taking her eyes off her spot.

"Yeah Doll, I did," Natasha answered in a whisper.

There was more silence before Irena answered. "We didn't deserve it, we were only kids." She said to both of them that sounded more like she was telling herself as a reminder.