SANCTUM | Avengers

19

- NINETEEN -

The flight to Sokovia felt like a lifetime. I tried to close my eyes- to get to rest I knew I would need- but nothing worked. My brain only spun with every single possible outcome of this battle. Even now, as we walk towards the city centre, my heart races so loudly I swear the others can hear it.

"Everybody know what we're doing?" Thor asks, turning to look at everybody nodding their heads. When his eyes finally meet mine, he cocks his head to the side. "Even you, shadow girl?"

Shadow Girl.

He gave me that name during the days of preparation. It is funny having a nickname. I never had one as a child, and certainly not during training. 

"Ready as I'll ever be."

I steel my face, trying to look like I am telling the truth. I trained, studied, and worked so hard to become something so different than whatever I am now. Nothing could have prepared me for this.

"Listen up," Rogers says, looking over his shoulder.

"You say that like we have a choice," Stark replies, only his face visible behind his suit.

Rogers ignores him. "Our first job is to evacuate the city. We still don't know what his plan is or what he did with all the vibranium, so be on the lookout. Pietro, I need you to run and get the warning to everybody. Fast."

Without warning, the speedster is off, leaving nothing but a small plume of dust in his wake.

"Wanda, I need you to reach in to their minds; get them to leave the city."

The timid girl that I met those months ago is gone; in her place stands a woman who is ready to give her all. Fear is etched on her face, but I can almost feel the determination racing through her veins.

Slowly, her red tendrils make their way like veins through the city- in to houses, across streets, and reaching the minds of any citizen within reach.

"Nina and Tony," he finally turns to look at us, "you know what to do. Vision won't be far behind and the rest of us will be there as soon as we can."

He looks at the others. "We go on foot. Help where you can but keep your eyes open."

I nod my head at him and he reciprocates- an understanding between soldiers. A small acknowledgment by two people who's lives could have been so different but have somehow both found themselves on the dusty streets of Sokovia.

"I know you did not agree to this," Tony says from behind me, "but if I asked you would have said no."

Suddenly, his hand is around my waist and we are soaring through the air, hundreds of feet above the now small buildings below. The breath is torn out of my lungs as he banks left and descends, landing in the city centre.

He unceremoniously drops me in an alley, not before turning back and yelling,

"Stay here. Wait for the signal."

Just as he turns the corner, a wave of panic rushes through me. It has been a long time since I have felt raw, undiluted fear, but suddenly it all comes crashing down; these people, this team- I might let them down again. I might fail. All this sacrifice, all this death. It could be for nothing.

"Stark!" I call after him. "Wait!"

He stops, poking his head back around the corner. He raised an eyebrow impatiently.

"I-" I stutter, the realization that I have never been this scared before hitting me square in the chest.

"Spit it out, Blahov, we don't have all day."