Disclaimer: I do not own The Avengers or anything you recognize. Happy Reading!


"What do you mean she's off the grid?" Her voice is hard, and it draws the attention and fear of nearly everyone in the room.

"Exactly what I said Red Riding Hood." Tony's voice snarls back at her. They're all frustrated, the tension is rising quickly and Natasha knows someone's about to explode.

"Well then fucking find her!" Her hand slaps the table hard, and she realizes that she's the one exploding. She's raging and about to rip a hole into somebody's head over this girl.

"Gee, what a great idea. Why hadn't I fucking thought of it?" They're standing nose to nose now, neither backing down, until Steve has Natasha by the shoulders and he's pulling her back, distancing her from Tony.

"Everyone needs to calm down. Fighting like this isn't going to help us find Wanda."

Natasha feels her anger start to drain, but she grabs onto it tight, because she can deal with the anger. She can't deal with the other feeling that's been settling in her stomach for months. She can't think about it right now.

"The last time she checked in she was an hour outside of Tibet." Clint chimes in, pointing to a pin on the holographic map that's pulled up in front of the team. "Thirty minutes later her comm's get shut off, and her signal is headed a different direction. Fifteen minutes after that her signal drops offline around here." He's pointing to the different areas of the map, but Natasha is having a hard time focusing on anything at this point.

"So more than likely she's being held in this area." Sam points out, a circle appearing around the area they'll have to cover to find their missing teammate.

"Well what are we waiting on? Let's go find us a witch." Rhodey's voice spurs Natasha into action, and suddenly the fire is back inside of her.

"Vision's already in Tibet, since he was supposed to meet Wanda there and come back together." Her voice is strong, and she feels like a leader, even if that's Steve and Tony's jobs. "We have a large area to cover, so it's going to be faster if we split up." She offers to go by herself, but the idea is shot down by everyone. They're giving her a weird look, and Natasha feels like they know something she doesn't. She doesn't press though, just grabs Clint and heads off towards their transport. The faster they get there, the faster Wanda gets home.

The flight is quiet, and Natasha knows clients been dying to say something to her since they've landed, but she's not giving him that. She can't talk to her best friend about this right now. It's way too much for her to handle, and she knows telling Clint will only make the situation more realistic on her.

Too bad he doesn't understand that.

"Natasha." His hand grips her arm and pulls her to a stop, and she opens her mouth to protest before he's cutting her off again. "No, shut up. I'm your best friend Natasha. You think I don't know when somethings wrong with you?" Her eyes drop to the ground, scanning the rugged terrain beneath their feet. She knows there isn't a way out of this.

"We're wasting time Clint. We need to be searching for Wanda instead of just standing here." Before he can stop her she's walking again, and she knows by the sounds of footsteps behind her that he's following.

"Fine. We'll walk and talk then." She wants to groan, roll her eyes maybe, but she keeps silent.

"You know I've always been there for you Tasha, and I always will, but I can't be there for you if you won't come to me." His voice is soft, and Natasha hates how easily he gets to her. "You've been hiding. You haven't said a word about Banner ever since he left, and I might not have seen what Laura saw between you guys, but I know something was there. He left you, and you haven't dealt with it at all!"

His voice is getting louder, but Natasha refuses to respond to him, even if the frustration and worry is clear in his tone.

"If that wasn't enough to cause this talk, then how about this? Why does it seem like every single time Wanda is in trouble, you lose your cool? I've seen you in life or death situations and that mask of yours has never slipped. So why does it practically shatter when she's involved?" Her heart practically stopped in her chest. Clint could not know. Her breath got caught in her throat, and she clung to what little anger she had left over from earlier to keep her grounded.

"My mask cracks around you all the time. You're looking into this too much." Her voice is breathy, and even to her own ears it sounds like she's trying to persuade herself more than him.

"I'm your best friend, it's different around me." His eyes get a strange look in them, the same one shed been getting from Steve and Sam back at the base. "Natasha—" before he can finish a huge explosion fills the air, and Natasha feels herself lifted off the ground as she flies back a few feet.

"Son of a— Natasha wait!"

She's already moving. She would know those tendrils of red anywhere, and they're straight up ahead. She pushes herself, her legs pounding the ground as she crosses the distance to where she can see the smoke rising. For the second time in the last ten minutes her heart stops. There's Wanda. Her brown hair fanned out around the crown of her head, and her body lying against a tree trunk. Her eyes are barely open, and the red fading from the air. She's spitting at a man towering over her, and his gun is pressed into the side of her head.

Wanda's too weak to fight it, and Natasha can tell just by looking at her. So she pulls out her own gun, and she pulls the trigger without hesitation. The bullet hits it's mark, and the man slumps over sideways, his body still. She's about to make her way towards Wanda when she hears the arrow fly past her cheek. She twirls around just in time to see three more guys advancing on her, the fourth taken down by one of Clints arrows as the man himself comes flying through the same trees Natasha just came through.

Natasha's gun gets knocked away in the scuffle and she breaks at least one guys nose and gives him a pretty good knee to his manhood before she incapacitates him. The other gets her famous thigh move, before he's down for the count as well. Her eyes go to Clint, and he nods back.

"Go check on her." Natasha doesn't need to be told twice. She crouches down in front of a barely conscious Wanda, her hands resting on the girls cheeks.

"Hey, come on now. I need you to stay awake for me Maximoff." She's patting the younger girls cheeks lightly as she checks over for injuries. The cut on her temple is trickling blood, and Natasha knows once she finds the bump that Wanda has a mild concussion. Her hands slide down slowly, checking bones for any fractures or breaks. Her left wrist is fractured for sure, and Natasha thinks Wanda might have a broken ankle.

"Damn it Maximoff. You're always so much trouble." She grumbles at the girl as she reaches down to get her, wrapping an arm around her waist to support her.

"You love trouble." Wanda's lips are pulled up in a half smirk half grimace as she tries to walk alongside the Russian beauty.

"Why else are you always saving me?"

Natasha doesn't answer, and soon Clint's on the other side helping stabilize Wanda as they report back to the team. Wanda's soon passed out in their arms, and Natasha knows she needs to be awake because of her concussion, but before she can shake the girl, Clint's voice reaches her ears.

"Hey Tasha?"

Her eyes shoot to his and she sees the understanding there, but before she can say anything, the medics are there and they're swooping Wanda out of their arms and taking her to get checked out.

"I understand now." She shut her eyes lightly as he walked away from her.

Now if only she could understand it herself.