Artemis : The Seventh Avenger ➳ Steve Rogers [1]

04 [ 04 ]

☆ ☆ ☆

NATASHA

"What are you doing?" I demanded as I entered the Med Bay to see Cam on her feet and packing her bags.

"I'm sick of this place, Nat." She whines, "Is it too much to ask to rest in my own room?"

"The Doctors need to run their tests." I try to reason.

"Yeah, well. That's exactly what I didn't want." She mumbles and I understood where she was coming from.

From the needle marks on her arm and the cuts that covered her skin, it was clear she's already had her fair share of tests.

Words can't describe how relieved I was that we've managed to get her out of that hellhole. We've pulled off the impossible, they said. Well, she did. She survived this long, didn't she?

She was shaken, I could tell. Although she was trying her best to put on a brave face. But that's what Cam always does when things go bad, she picks herself up and keeps going. I never knew how she did it, but she always bounced back. No matter what.

And so I let her do whatever she wants, trusting that she'll know her limits.

I sat down on the edge of her bed with a sigh when she spoke.

"I need to leave." She says, "Disappear for a little while."

My eyes dart up to look at her immediately, "What? No, absolutely not. You're not leaving."

I sigh, running a hand through my hair, "I didn't keep you off the Red Room's radar just so you could risk your life running from another organisation." I argue, "This is too dangerous. If anything, what you've just gone through should've taught you that."

"One little incident is not going to scare me away, Nat." She answers.

"Little? There was nothing 'little' about it. They hurt you!" I yell in frustration.

"And that's what happens in life. We get hurt, so what?" She retorts, "You've taught me to embrace the pain, to grow from it. So, that's what I'm doing."

I let out a grunt in annoyance, cursing myself internally for ever telling her that.

"It's not safe for you out there. Please, Cam." I plead, hoping I could get through to her.

"It never was. Never will be, for any of us." She shrugs, "Hydra was willing to infiltrate us to get to me, twice now in thirty-two hours. They're not going to stop."

She sits down beside me, taking my hand in hers.

"I can't risk people getting hurt because they tried to protect me." She says, "Most of the agents here already think my extraction was a mistake. I don't want them to be right."

"How?" I ask.

"I've been talking to Phil. We've made some plans." She says, reaching into her bag to pull out a file and a burner phone and hands them to me.

I take it to look through it, before looking up at her again. "If you're leaving, I'm going with you."

She shakes her head, glancing at me with a smile, "You belong here. You'll have Clint."