Remnants of Time

Chapter 1

Song Choice: Soothsayer by Zack Hemsey

Natasha pulled herself up a balcony, her leg wound scraping against metal and then stone, the burst of pain making her suck in a harsh breath. She almost let out a moan but no, she needed to concentrate and mainly, to not be noticed. That was because right now, a number of men entered the street underneath her, all clad in the same uniforms, carrying handguns and expecting another surprise attack by the scarlet spy.
Not today, she decided with a look at her leg, but I'll sure come back for more.

The balcony wasn't big, only enough space for her, a lonely greenish cactus and a chair. A glass door led into the house, or more precisely, the apartment, one of thousands in the densely populated urban France. The handle didn't budge under her hand and curtains prevented the redhead from peeking in.
The light of the streetlamp a few meters away turned the glass into a mirror and she frowned at her appearance. Several cuts parted her black uniform, traces of an explosion hung in her hair, and some kind of mesh created a neat net pattern on her tired face.
Well. She wished all these were the only traces her little surprise visit had actually left.

Natasha sighed. This mission was stupid. Had been from the beginning. Maybe she should've stayed in the dark for a few days longer so that she could've come up with a really good way in and a clever enough strategy to come out the HYDRA facility unharmed. No one had asked her to do this, it had been her own choice, born out of emotions she had assumed buried since decades. Curiosity always pushed her, however, it simply was the best catalyst for risky actions and she had gotten almost all she wanted, except she hadn't managed to take it outside.

It was only a few pieces of paper she'd come for, assemblies of letters any child could've written out for her, but put her life at stake now for having been read. It made a difference. Written by a man in a high government position, now filed in her head as Hydra, these words could mean her death. But she was running from police units since a month already, most definitely alarmed by the CIA, who despised her way of finding herself missions, so adding Hydra to the list didn't change much. Natasha had expected them to drop the chase, however, as soon as she had left the building. Hydra had not recovered to full force after DC yet.

A cat snuck up on her, but instead of swatting it away like she usually did with cats, the spy let it sit right next to her intently watching thin gray smoke rising beyond the houses.

She could almost hear Steve's disapproval. He liked to always have everything planned out so neatly, so organized so that she actually felt like she was back in training, back under the wings of a mentor teaching her how to survive. And then he sacrificed himself on a regular basis and that was something she'd never seen in either her training or the rest of her life and that she'd never really practiced, which was either really good or really bad.
She couldn't live so selflessly, not when he wasn't around.

And now he wasn't, definitely not, he was in Wakanda, her network of spies claimed and she guessed King T'Challa intended on keeping it that way. The public wasn't supposed to know, they didn't, according to newspaper headlines and internet articles. The king was intelligent so he would keep them, Steve and the others, in the isolated little country of his, until the roaring waves of politics smoothed down around the Sokovia- Accord matter, for the good of everyone involved. No need to let the world know he harbored heroes declared criminals by the law of his father, honored regent before him. Maybe they even tried to fix Bucky. A bright flame of hope flared in her, small, but steady like her heartbeat. The Winter Soldier mentioned in the files she'd seen just a few minutes ago.

Natasha knew she couldn't keep this intel from Steve and she swore she wouldn't. What the two men had was special, their brotherly bond she envied deeply but never openly, and she didn't dare to keep both from recovering.
The cat caressed her bare hand with a few sweet strokes of her tail and disappeared towards the roof.
"Adieu, mon ami petite", Nat whispered and heard the softest reply that faded into the night, mirroring the gray pillars of smoke on the other side of the city.