WILD CHILD │ barnes ¹

fourteen

𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃 𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐑𝐒

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Natasha drops the rocket launcher. Her body feels heavy and she would love for nothing more than to drop onto the floor and curl up and go to sleep. But she can't because there's a gaping hole in her shoulder from where the bullet entered.

On the concrete ground just metres away from where she stands, a child soldier lies defeated on the floor. Her arms are before her body, palms outstretched as if begging for the man with the metal arm to come back.

Natasha sees Steve snap out of his paralysing shock. The Captain steps forward and scoops Evgenia up in his arms and cradles her close like a baby. The girl's stone blue eyes are empty and the black warpaint around her eyes are smudged from tears.

Natasha feels her heart ache at the sight of this shattered child. It reminds her of what she used to be.

A dozen black vans surround them as agents pour out, guns in hand, ready to shoot. She's forced onto her knees. An agent handcuffs her hands behind her back, ignoring the redhead's protest of pain. And then they lead the four of them into the back of the van.

It closes with a loud shudder.

Natasha shuts her eyes, her head woozy from the pain of the bullet wound. Her mouth is dry but she has to know.

'Steve, Steve, did they take her from you? Where is she?' The words come out as slightly hopeful. They sound like the words of a mother desperate to know if her child is safe.

'It's ok Nat, she's still here. She's with me:'

Natasha cracks an eye open.

Evgenia slumps on the seat next to Steve, eyes open but glassy.

She breathes a sigh of relief. Natasha is already half unconscious when Sam Wilson knocks into her shoulder, jolting her awake. She's ready to let out a string of curse words at the man when Maria Hill rips off her helmet.

'That thing was squeezing my brain.'

There's an awkward sort of silence before the commander gestures at Sam. 'Who is he?'

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Lights.

Bright, flickering lights that buzz a golden orange. Blurry shapes dance in and out of her vision as men and women in white lab coats poke and prod at her.

Is she back at the base? Where was Papa?

Then all too soon she's pulled under again and the lights dim to blackness.

When she awakens again, a redhead is seated on a plastic chair next to the bed she's in, shoulder bandaged and weariness etched onto her face. Evgenia pushes herself off the mattress but hands dart out and her head makes contact with the uncomfortably soft pillows.

'My leg, what did they do to it? Did they fix it?' In her state, she's slipped back into the familiarity of her mother tongue.

A hand grips her own ones as the plastic chair is pulled closer with a silver screech. But the owner of the hands don't answer her.

A blonde man - the Captain, stands in the corner of the room.

'When you fell and cut your leg open, shrapnel and debris got in. The doctors managed to get all of it out but the infection had spread to the lower half of your leg.'