The Ghost [Marvel | Steve Rogers]

Chapter 11

Upstate New York, USA

Early Winter 2015

The days were counting down and Nina was finding her excitement levels were inching higher every day.

As were her anxiety and nerves, but she was trying very hard to ignore that bit.

The day when she would be moving into her dorm, ready to start classes at MIT was coming ever closer. As her Aunt had implied that Stark had hinted, Nina had passed her exit exams with flying colours and her acceptance into the prestigious school had been secured.

So now it was just a matter of getting ready and waiting. Christmas was coming in just a couple weeks and after that?

University.

Thinking on it nearly had her bouncing with excitement.

Even Pietro was getting drawn into it, her cheerfulness bolstering his admittedly more reserved opinion on the dwindling days she had left at the Compound. Especially given his recent mood following the Avenger's first attempt to put a stop to a mercenary named Crossbones in Sudan. Long story short, it had not gone well, the former HYDRA operative slipping away from Captain Rogers, the Twins, Nat and Sam in no small part thanks to Pietro disregarding one of Steve's orders and deciding to take things into his own hands when he thought the Team wasn't doing enough fast enough.

It obviously hadn't panned out.

"You should have seen Captain Rogers lay into Pietro," Wanda had told Nina later, her voice heavy and grave. "I'm not sure I've ever seen him so angry. Not even during everything with Ultron." That Nina could imagine given what she'd also overheard a couple days after the failed mission.

"You're part of a team, now, Maximoff. You have your job to do just like everyone else and you have to trust that your teammates can do their job just as well as you can. Wanting to make sure the bad guy doesn't get away and wanting to protect your team is understandable," the Captain had been saying just as gravely as Wanda had been telling Nina about the whole thing, his frustration and disappointment clearly evident, "but we need to be working together. We lost out on Rumlow because you thought you knew best and you didn't trust your team. We can't do our job if we don't trust each other. You have to focus on your job, on the mission. If you don't? That's when someone gets killed." And Pietro hadn't taken it as well as he could have, meaning he hadn't taken it well at all. It had taken several days for Nina and Wanda to snap him of his foul mood and get him to understand Steve's point, though the resentment and certainty on his part that he had done the right thing still lingered to some extent.

What definitely didn't help any of them was that after what had happened in Sudan, Crossbones seemed to be getting bolder now that he knew the Avengers were onto him. If he hadn't been on the Avengers' radar before, he certainly would've been now. Which meant there was now an added drive to get ahead of him.

It was certainly never boring around the Compound, that was for sure.

And Nina was going to miss it. All of it. The training. The place itself. Even the tension and anticipation that came from an active mission held an odd sort of appeal.

But especially the people. Nina was especially going to miss seeing the people she had come to care about within the Compound everyday. Pietro, certainly, though that one would be a little easier since he'd promised with a wonderfully roguish light in his eye that he would visit often. She would miss Wanda and the Captain and definitely her Aunt Nat. Sam, Rhodey and Vision. Even Stark's odd sporadic and unannounced visits.

And she would miss her mom. No question there. She was used to being occasionally separated on some level—Nadine had been leaving Nina to look after herself for short spans of time for a couple years, now when she had gone off on missions. But going away to school and her mom popping off on a mission? Those were two very different things. And it left a tremoring bundle of nerves hiding just beneath her breastbone at the thought.