She woke up with a gasp, the world around her a blur, all she heard was a buzz in her ear as her hand instinctively reached for the gun she kept under her pillow but instead her hand just brushed against soft sheets beneath pillows.
A cough was heard, and she whipped around pupils still blown and saw Natasha holding it by one finger as it swung slowly back and forth.
She relaxed running a hand through dark hair as she sighed in relief.
"I always take it before you wake up Kit" she explained throwing it back into her lap as she nodded, breathing like she had just run a full marathon trying to collect herself.
Natasha understood, in that quiet way that was just very her, she put the gun on her bedside table quickly. Natasha just unceremoniously swatted at her thigh for her to move over in her small bed so she could sit there next to her until her heart went back to a normal beat.
Her head now on Kit's shoulder she sighed before speaking.
"You didn't come back in until 8:30 in the morning so I thought I'd let you sleep in" she said as green eyes darted to the alarm clock on her side table, a bright red 2 pm glared back.
Her hand tangled itself in the bottom of her dark hair playing with it in a friendly gesture. She needed a haircut badly, growing it out for the first time, usually keeping it in a pixie cut more out of convenience and laziness than anything else, it was growing out past her ears now.
"You also have mail" she said gesturing back to her side table, a small pile of mail had collected there next to the clock as Kit bite back a groan.
"Probably from anti mutant groups again, as if it's my fault I was genetically enhanced now I'm going to hell for it too" she scoffed
"Yeah you know I thought it'd be the whole queer, murdering, sinning thing but I think it's definitely the mutant thing" Natasha said smirking at her friend.
Natasha, she was a strange character and also as close to a best friend as Kit has. She was one of the world's greatest spies and self proclaimed master of disguise though no one really argued with her or had evidence to prove otherwise, pretty sure because Natasha had killed them.
She was amazing, master of anything she put her mind to honestly, and she just gets Kit. Which is a rare and unusual thing for her honestly, given her history and line of work.
She was extremely pretty, 'way too pretty for Clint' Kit would often tease her .
Her bright red hair was currently framing her makeup-less pretty pale face. But she was tall and also muscular, and she's watched the lady kill men with her thighs alone.
When Kit met her she was cold, calculating reminding her of someone she couldn't put her finger on, She was one of the few who spoke to her when she was first brought in because she was the only one who knew Russian.
She had brought Kit back apparently, her and Clint, she had been their mission but that is all a blur to her, she don't remember much of it but had cringed when she saw the bruises on her face and arms, had she done that? A flood of guilt had filled her blood at the time, despite being handcuffed to a hospital bed.
She had been wary of Kit, like she was a ticking time bomb that everyone insisted wouldn't go off, and even Kit herself couldn't blame her, she kind of was.
She had attacked her, shot at her before she had managed to get me and just because of the kind of person Natasha was, and the kind of work they were in, she doesn't forget something like that.
It was subtle but Kit had noticed, of course she did.
She would palm her knives or her gun whenever Kit was in the room or moved too quickly, always watching her out of the corner of her eye.
She'd subtly put herself between her and Clint who had no sense of danger and constantly threw himself around the girl with loud laughs and slices of pizza.
He had decided the best way to help Kit recover and to get to know her was to not treat her any special, despite almost killing him and his partner and best friend and the freakish mutant powers, and occasionally steal her socks so she had to go chasing after him around SHIELD headquarters.
It wasn't until she had relapsed one day, after the doctors at SHIELD had tried to give her some immunization shots.
Agents rushed into the training room to get Natasha while she trained, telling her the mutant on floor 13 was in a panic screaming in Russian.
When Natasha entered the room it was wrecked and thrown apart even the bullet proof windows were cracked.
But she laid there in the middle of the wreckage in a ball, tears leaking out of her eyes as pain filled every single pore, her breath was coming in and out in breathy gasps and small screams.
There was nothing but white noise in her head, and glimpses of memories that she couldn't full form fuzzy and unclear.
Natasha didn't say anything, she knew the expression on the girl's face quite well, having been on her own a few times.
"Hey look at me, pay attention to me talk to me" she said hurriedly in Russian, "What caused you to do this? What happened?"
"Needles, no no needles no more please they did that to me they put it in my blood they hurt me all the needles all the experiments" She started to ramble not even really realizing what she was saying fully, clutching her head and sobbing again.
She had simply nodded, not trusting her voice to work as she felt her heart ache for the small 19 year old train wreck in front of her.
Natasha sat there, letting her cry it out and ran her hand through the girls hair until she fell asleep.
She had told Kit later that she saw a lot of herself in her at that time, that she knew what it was like for her. To have someone else in your head and not know what was real and what wasn't.
But that was then, that was 6 years ago when Kit was 19 and now she claims that the girl has more than earned her trust.
"You need to get up before all the pizza is gone though" she finally said when Kit calmed down, breaking the silence.
"Yeah yeah let me shower and I'll be out in a bit" she said excited at the idea of pizza.
"Clint brought Lucky by the way so I doubt your pizza will remain safe for long"
She nodded, not surprised at all honestly with the amount of time Clint spends here he might as well pay rent.
"Why the hell does he even pay for his own apartment?" as she shrugged before moving to leave her bedroom.
"Hey you're needed at SHIELD later remember? Captain America was found frozen and all that, they want us for some reason" she said shrugging before leaving the room completely to avoid the rush of complaints.
She groaned at the news but she was already gone so she forced herself with heavy tired limbs to roll out of bed glancing at the mail on the bedside.
And sure enough, some letters from Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, one from the desk of Erik Lehnsherr, and a postcard from America Chavez as well as some from pro-mutant groups, and a few hate letters from Anti-mutant groups, "Friends of Humanity" and "Natural Order" loved to send their monthly threats in the mail.
She walked up to her mess of a closet and grabbed at some clothes; she grabbed at a pair of denim skinny jeans, "Pretty sure this was my last pair without some form of blood or brain stain" she whispered to herself.
A plain white shirt, and her best and favorite leather jacket which somehow has been spared the usual fate of most of her jackets which is complete devastation and other people's blood stains.
Tripping into her more or less clean bathroom she sighed turning the shower on. She quickly ripped off her pajamas of an oversized SHIELD hoodie, she had about 30 of them, and a pair of underwear she quickly kicked off so she could enter the shower.
She audibly groaned as the hot water hit sore muscles and bruises it felt really good but it burnt as she cracked her back under the water pressure.
She managed to do all of her necessary routine as well as washing her hair for the first time that week.
She sighed again as she dried my hair with a towel after changing, looking in the slightly foggy mirror at her reflection staring back.
She had decided that throwing on some makeup, since she was leaving the apartment, wasn't the worst idea.
Natasha had been teaching her some makeup techniques recently and had actually gotten the hang of them.
Some eyebrow powder and mascara later. she was walking out of the steamy bathroom to greet Clint and Natasha in their actually surprisingly clean apartment.
They were currently a mess of limbs on the couch with Pizza dog sleeping against their feet.
Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye, special agent, local fuck up, master of archery and acrobatics and pissing me off. He was tall, lean but muscular and not bad on the eyes despite the countless bandages he was usually covered with.
"Sup Blinkey" Clint said casually tilting his head back, showing off brand new bright purple hearing aids, as he looked at the girl with a cocky grin as she immediately flipped him off.
"Don't need to know ASL to read that do ya Hawkguy?" she muttered before scavenging through pizza boxes until she seemed to find a piece that satisfied her.
The pizza place down the street knew them by name, asking about their work week whenever they picked up the phone, knew their favorite pizza orders by heart and the delivery guys basically got them Christmas cards each year.
"Eugh Clint if you're going to constantly be here at least do dishes once in awhile" she said through a mouthful of pizza glaring at the sink.
"I don't even do dishes at my home!" He argued.
"Probably because you're never there!" she retorted angrily as Natasha snorted.
She patted Lucky and gave him the crust of her pizza despite Clint's protest.
"You spoil that dog" he groaned as Lucky barked.
As she started the search for her backpack which she found eventually under Natasha's jacket and threw it on.
"Why don't you use your powers to go to work?" Clint asked jokingly.
"Because that usually causes things like fights, and mass panic" she said rolling her eyes at him again.
She looked at the clock and sighed, grabbing another piece of pizza, kissing both of them on the cheeks and closed the door behind her, started heading towards the subway.
Of course what she didn't expect to see when she approached the fancy, glass SHIELD building was Captain America himself racing out of the building like he was on fire.
Forgetting her usual "Not using your powers outside of work and home" she decided to use her powers-teleportation.
She teleported directly in front of him putting her hands firmly on his chest "Captain!" he ignored the girl like she wasn't even there, continuing to charge and she continued to teleport a few feet back each time.
"Cap! Come on slow down!" nothing from him.
"Let us talk to you!" He just gently managed to push the girl to the side as he continued to race into the middle of the road as Agents and cars and what she assumed was Nick Fury barreled past her.