[A/N] I wasn't going to post this upcoming week, so here's an update a week early! And it's the longest chapter yet (which is hopefully a good thing instead of a cause to roll eyes).

You can pretty much sum up this chapter as Natasha being a constant badass and Lena screaming the entire time, so I hope you all enjoy!

No matter how many times Natasha shakes her off, Lena's hands ensnare her waist at every sharp turn, every dodge between cars, and every airborne moment. At least she has stopped yelping. One less distraction as they weave throw Glasgow traffic and architecture, chasing the car that has swallowed Alma.

Their pursuit has taken them from a restaurant, where they watched their target, to the city's heart, with its veins of bridges and pavement. As Natasha loses a police tail through a shopping center, she uses Lenora's screams and exclamations as her horn.

After that debacle, they depart the city soul into the expanse of the breathing, pulsing outskirts. Thankfully, at least, whoever is in the black vehicle ahead isn't armed or, if they are, they aren't shooting. Out of reach like this, Alma's abilities with nerve manipulation lose their effectiveness.

The ebony machine before them swerves into the lane of oncoming traffic. It sets off a chain of tires screeching and bellowing horns. Glass shatters as front bumpers collide with trunks. An arrow of metal and smoke spears the road, a wall between them and the getaway vehicle.

Natasha doesn't stop.

Lena screams her name. Claws dig into her ribs. Warm smoke swarms her nostrils, her collarbone, smashes the ice shard wind. Cars pile onto each other, impose on the other lane. They close in on her gap between an accordioned smart car and a mass of silver tangled with flame wisps. The only time she presses the brakes is to lock the front tire and kick up the bike's rear, like a scorpion posing to strike.

A plastic helmet smacks into her shoulder as she swings the motorcycle over the crumpled tiny car. A grunt sears through her sides, where her passenger anchors all her weight.

Natasha posts forward and Lena, who doesn't hear or process the command to stand, slides underneath her. Every ounce and muscle fiber in Natasha strains to keep them upright, to pivot them, to fasten her passenger onboard.

By the time the back tire bounces against tar, they've surpassed the barrier. Natasha floors the bike forward again. They've lost some ground, and she sits on Lena at first in the rush to return to her seat.

Cars continue to soar and skid toward them, hornets cornered and unsure of where to land or what to sting. The wind tries to claim her hair, whipping it behind her, undoubtedly snapping against the helmet she has made Lena wear. Her cheeks, mouth — any and every unnecessary body part turns to stone. All energy diverts to her arms, legs, core, and the place where Lena has her locked in a death grip.

Their target skirts past a slowing truck to dive left onto a road less occupied. Natasha follows at top speed, willing her bike to maintain velocity up the short incline that lies before them.

"Should I shoot them?" Comes a yell directly into her ear, where the winds roar.

A section of her concentration shoots toward the gun at her hip, very much within Lena's reach. For many reasons — too many to review during a high speed chase — she's not about to relinquish control of her weapon to her passenger, and she says as much. "No — follow my order!"

As though to directly defy her, their target — a teenager and her accomplice or captor — veers off into dirt. The nose of their car charges toward a distant plane.

She can't let them reach their destination, but she also can't trust Lena's untrained aim to shoot out a tire.

To compensate, she wraps her fist around the accelerator and doesn't relent as they catapult forward. The tires gnash and beat against the gravel below in complaint — this bike is constructed for agility and quick maneuvers, not offroading. It'll have to endure the dust storm and rocks as they eat the distance between them and the car bumper.

The horizon becomes their forefront. A field withers into a cracked, untended road. The plane yawns and waits to receive its metal passenger. Three times she glimpses into the interior. The first time, she sees four figures waiting. Next, two run within and, on the last look, they return, not with guns, but some sort of bodily bulk. From this far way, it's material is indiscernible. As long as they don't shoot, they're not the top priority. Not yet.

Over the lion's growl of her bike, the rush of a constant gale, and rocks crunching, the whir of the plane starting is lost. Nevertheless, she can imagine it as the craft rolls forward. It's a small form of torture to see, anticipate what will unfold and feel uncertain about preventing an undesired outcome. It's one of the downfalls of being so good at what she does.

The car before her must be close to hitting maximum speed. It screeches at its last thrust forth, clattering onto a ramp that instantly begins to close after it.

Dammit. High tech as her bike is, she can't make it leap up onto the incline that rises higher and higher. There is something else, however — someone else.

She beats the plane's initial velocity as it works into takeoff. This allows her to slip beneath its mammoth belly and shout to her passenger, "Stand up!"

"What?!"

The steel tongue retreats higher and higher. They don't have time for this.

"Stand on the bike and jump up!"

It's a big ask — impossible for someone untrained. But Lena's tough, much tougher now than she was when she first came to S.H.I.E.L.D. Despite other flaws that make her a poor candidate for a secret agent, she has the resolve and maybe, hopefully, the reflexes. She cannot hesitate. She has to trust in herself.

Still the ramp recoils. The wheels spin on faster, surging in pursuit of the sky.

"Now!"

The legs behind her shift and fidget instead of lifting. "What if—"

"Go, Lenora!"

The grip on her waist flutters up to her shoulders. A light pressure pushes her into the seat, not enough to propel Lena up, however. The undesired becomes the inevitable, and it soars toward them.

"Lenora!"

"Just — wait—"

A heavy clunk from above announces their failure. Natasha's expression twists into a grimace. She uses one hand to appeal to the back brake while the other delves into her suit, snatches a tiny circle of a device, and flings it heavenward. It adheres to a smooth panel of metal as the plane lurches into a sprint that leads them into the expanse of the clouds.

On land, there is Natasha, her bike, an empty field, and Lenora panting apologies to her spine.

"Nat?"

The moniker snatches her attention from the software programs churning away on the computer screen. She looks up not to Bruce, but Lena. Her hair is dampened, dilute drops of red trickling down her front, yet another apology in her droopy eyes. Natasha's loathe to remove her concentration from the blips and code on her loaned laptop, to stray from known territory, but she's also opposed to ignoring this girl, he fellow companion on this new mission.

"Are you mad at me?"

Her fingers fasten to the computer whilst her mind computes this — not only honesty, but a slew of new sensations that she's only just been introduced to. Wrinkles of worry sketch the shape of Lena's eyebrows. Trepidation has her wringing the wet towel in her clutches, and nothing but unfiltered emotion radiates from her.

Where is Natasha's programming for sincere consolation? Lost, likely, somewhere between lessons in martial arts, ten ways to kill without a weapon, and disconnecting sympathy's wires in her brain when she pulls the trigger.

"I was pissed earlier," she says tactfully, "but I have a plan B."

"'Cause you can't depend on me?"

On anyone, she corrects internally. Aloud, she chooses a different reply. "I always have a backup plan."

Unlike most others — including Lenora until just recently — the other woman nods in acceptance of this response, though her forehead collapses into a crinkle. "I'm sorry I'm still not strong."

"You're capable. I wouldn't have told you to do something you couldn't." For this conversation, she tries to take a cue from the younger female and abandon her filters. As best she can, anyway. "This kind of work is part physical and knowing what you're capable of. These people don't care about modesty — they value doing."

"I'm trying." Lena promises. "I'll do better next time."

"I know." Natasha tells her. It's nothing but the truth.

With that sealed, she returns to watching the dot phasing on and off within S.H.I.E.L.D's designed tracking program. Over the screen's rim, strands of damp, crayon red hair whips around with Lena, who turns to throw her towel on the bathroom floor. Clad in pajamas, the young adult comes to join Natasha on the king size bed. She blinks at the lines of code and flashing coordinates.

Unable to make sense of it, she asks, "What the hell is this?"

"Tracing and tracking. I bugged the bottom of that plane and Bruce sent me information about the thing in your chest." On their first night in the safehouse, Natasha took Lena into the bathroom, ran water from the sink and shower, and, in hushed tones, told her everything that Bruce had relayed. They scoped for cameras and mics afterward.

Lena's eyelids twitch, trying to compute. "You can make sense of all that business?"

"With a little work."

"You and Bruce are both hella brilliant." A long stream of air flows out, leaving her impressed and something else. Natasha's seen this in Bruce; it's a sort of deprecation that hangs from shoulders, causing a hunch. Sure enough, Lena, ever sure and outspoken, is subdued now. "Makes me realize I had no business looking at unis. I could never make sense of this stuff."

Without removing her gaze, though nonetheless candid, she responds, "They don't teach you this in college. Besides," she admits, "I never went."

Lena's brown eyes widen into something bug-like. "What? There's no way." She scrutinizes the screen, imploring it for the cipher to its secrets. "How did you learn this then?"

Unbeknownst to the teen, that's asking to enter a tangle they don't have time to unravel — definitely not now. "A different kind of schooling."

"Okay. Vague."

Of course it was. Natasha's trying to find the source of this twisted havoc, not host a heart to heart.

Lena keeps pressing. "Does S.H.I.E.L.D have, like, online courses or something?"

"S.H.I.E.L.D doesn't have much anymore." That, at least, is succinct and honest.

"What do you mean?"

"It's a long story."

"Do you wanna explain?"

She switches tactics. "When I'm not trying to track a plane and trace a software developer."

"Gotcha." For all of thirty seconds, nothing verbal passes, only the definitive clack beneath Natasha's fingers and beeps chirping from the laptop speaker. It's not even enough time to get her hopes up before Lenora continues pestering. "So how'd Bruce get to the lung thingy?"

She resists a sigh. "A minor noninvasive procedure into Berhanu's lung. He dislodged it and had Berhanu cough it up."

"Uh huh." Unfortunately, her interest is piqued. "How've you been talking to him?"

"Standard text messages. Just like anyone else." That was her only form of farewell after Marquez and Barbara shoved them onto a cramped craft that grounded them back in the U.K.

Somehow the contact has evolved from a virtual debriefing to check ins between lab procedures and investigating. Though it's odd to return to notifications on her normally vacant screen, she isn't complaining.

"Doesn't he keep his phone off all the time?" Lena points out.

"Not right now." She keeps her mind, her fingers fixated on the keyboard.

"So...could I maybe talk to Berhanu?"

If it will get the questions to stop, then Lena can have custody of Nat's cell.

She removes a hand, digs out her phone, unlocks it, and passes it without mention of time zone differences or the potential of no one answering. "Here."

"Do you wanna talk to Bruce?"

Against her will, hesitation snags her typing pace. "What?"

This time, it is Lena who gives a lacking answer. She flashes a sly grin. Prize in her grasp, she springs up from the bed's edge and departs from the room already searching for Bruce in the limited contacts. Natasha returns to watching the blip approach the answers they've been seeking.

The plane lands stateside — Vermont — making that their next destination. Four women — three agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and a superpowered young adult — abandon the safehouse and cross an ocean to chase down an end to this charade.

In the process, a vomiting spell spurs Lena from an upright sleep, making the cabin reek of bile musk for the duration of the trip. Admittedly, Barbara's warped scowl provides some distraction, and a good luck message from Bruce lifts Natasha from the stench for a brief time. That, and the fact that there's no trace of blood in the puke puddle. Although, that's more of a relief than anything.

They land without further incident with stomach matter, which means Natasha sticks Lena back on the motorcycle with her and careens off. With the coordinates input into her bike, it's simple enough to track down the facility hidden in plain sight — a small office building squeezed in the midst of unsuspecting suburbia. Simpler still is breaching the interior and following the chatter straight to Alma, a woman, and two unidentified males. Then turmoil commences.

Outnumbered four to two are better odds than what she usually faces. However, a reluctance to shooting a teenager in the back of the head means their entrance needs a little tact.

In lieu of bullets, Natasha shoots an electroshock probe from one bracelet onto the throat of a man with slick blonde hair and sideburns that branch into a mustache. When he collapses, it's only for a few seconds before his fingers grip the origin of electricity and seemingly quell the shock. By that point, both girls have turned. One man drags the other to the room's other exit, and Lena's at Natasha's side.

"HYDRA!" Alma yelps. She darts to obstruct Natasha and Lenora from the men's getaway.

"We're not HYDRA, you idi—"

An unexpected wrist smashes into Lena's throat as she says this, in the middle of rushing toward her adversary. Her sentence ceases with a gurgle and her stumbling backward.

Not for a moment does Natasha reel. Her wrist flies up to dispense another probe, this one leeching onto the brunette woman's shoulder, who now sports an extra arm.

This time, when Natasha delivers the shock, her target collapses and stays down.

The woman manages to grumble out, however, "Ali."

Natasha's already prepared when the other teen rushes. What catches both Alma and Natasha off guard is a crimson whirlwind that spins on the floor and knocks the Greenlander prone in one sweep.

Pride can't set in, not when the probe has dispensed its full jolt and her victim scrambles back up.

It's Natasha's turn to yell to her partner, "Lena — stop them!" She trusts in her ally to understand that she means the men scampering from the room.

Their threat is not their powers, but their minds, their capability. In the long run, that makes them a greater risk. For now, Natasha can apprehend these two mutants. The extra arm the one woman has sprouted and Alma's nerve manipulation are mere minor complications and motivation to not get sloppy.

"Cyrus, Lionel — run!" The girl with too many appendages yells.

Lena utilizes her favorite technique to roll back and spring forward into a run. On the floor, Alma struggles for dominance over gravity, for control of half of her body.

Despite the additional hand, it's easy for Natasha to land a kick in the unnamed woman's side when she mistakenly turns and attempts to pursue Lena. The impact drives her to her knees. It doesn't stop her from swinging her side with double arms to nab at her attacker.

Weakened from the shock, the limbs do little more than flail. It's futile against a quick evasion and a swift punch. The force of it delivers the woman into unconsciousness. Pretty tendrils of sepia splay around the head that collides with the ground.

Someone shouts from the hallway, a muffled warning to their pursuer. Alma utters a slur with a sound like, "Gahee."

A young face, melted with slack on the right side, orients one eye toward the corner closest to Natasha. The empty chalice of a gaze lolls around without aim while one half of her body scrabbles for something secure. The other portion of the teenager remains limp, a phantom. To a wall, she murmurs once more, "Gahee. Gahee." It's reminiscent of Clint's kids when they were gurgling toddlers. Those babies could exercise full movement, though. This is a growing teen who, just minutes ago, could articulate and fight.

This is another first. Usually, in her experience, someone suffers from a gunshot wound, some blow to their person, a form of torture — something external, something inflicted. Lena may have knocked Alma down, but that shouldn't have caused this. Nothing in Natasha's history equips her to relieve these symptoms. Summoning an ambulance is a distant, undesirable last resort.

She reaches for her phone and a shout comes, edged with fresh panic. "Nat!"

The halls augment the sounds of sprinting to a stampede that backtracks on its forward progress. Lena storms back into the room. The beginnings of streams run down Lenora's pinkened cheeks. Her mouth hangs slack, panting. Natasha watches terror morph into bemusement. The young woman's lips form the round shape of a "what" but give no sound.

Truthfully, she's glad to see Lena unbloodied and out of breath, but that doesn't erase Natasha's own confusion. "What happened?"

"I...you're not…" The processing flashes across Lena's expression in a medley of twitches, shakes, and quirks. "I thought you were shot."

There had been no gunshot. None of their adversaries carried firearms. That statement simply makes no sense — a hallucination that doesn't fit with the mold of reality. Perhaps the cancer could be blamed, but Lena's symptoms have only been physiological thus far, not neurological.

"I'm fine." Natasha affirms, caught between kneeling toward Alma and darting out the door. "What happened to the men?"

Shame adds its shade to Lena's cheeks. "They kept running. I thought I got near, but I heard — I thought I heard a gunshot. And I got scared, so I let them go."

Natasha marches toward the exit, avoiding Alma's trembling form.

"I'm sorry, okay? I was worried. I thought—"

Natasha presses her phone into Lenora's palm. "Alma's having a stroke. Call Marquez or Barbara and get them in here."

With a tide of questions splashing her back, she breaks into a run after the two men. Cyrus and Lionel.

The pursuit only takes her to an empty garage and dead ends.

By the time she returns, empty-handed and burdened with the image of fresh skid marks seared onto asphalt, Alma has stopped squirming. In the haze of shock and haste, Lena and the other mutant, who has come to, have forgotten their quarrel. Lena clutches Natasha's phone like a raft's edge in the midst of a storm and pleads with it. The two young women stoop over a comatose girl, a likely corpse, and try to shake and yell life back into her. No one else comes, not until Natasha mentions to Barbara the mutant who's alive.

When Natasha tells the girl — Gabi — to flee, Lena doesn't protest.

That morning, he texted Natasha wishing her good luck in her search. He doesn't know what compels him to it, what motivates each smiling emoticon he painstakingly deliberates sending. Or maybe he does know somewhere within, where dust has collected and numbed the nerves. Maybe there's an inkling somewhere untouched by green, a place that frightens him more than anger, more than the Hulk.

Whatever the reality, it doesn't matter come the late afternoon when a response buzzes in his pocket. It's not a thanks or any note of positivity, rather a paragraph describing that day's events, ending in the death of Alma, the hush of mortality's limits dawning over Lenora, and a new lead — Cyrus and Lionel. Last names to be identified, presences to be tracked down.

How does someone formulate a sincere response to a life taken too young through pixels and flat letters? How can he offer comfort from countries away, and why is it now he thinks back to the daze when he rested on her lap? Why do his contemplations wander to sharing space in his room and weaving new trust between them, to the latest incident of vein-stretching and seam-ripping rage falling away into slumber with her touch as the culprit?

This he struggles to fathom when an entrance to the lab clears way for Jung with Jones and Ford on his heels, Akira cuffed and dragged between them.

Jung announces himself with a snide remark. "Time for your next patient, doctor."

No, he thinks, a decision solidifying. They have names, they have the device's data, they have adequate intel. Now he needs his lab partner to analyze this beside him. He needs to have her eyes on the same computer monitor and her commentary as they craft theories. It's time to find the crux of this — the mutations, the cancer, the death — with the person whom has all of his trust.

It is Berhanu, however, who vocalizes first. He approaches from a place of apprehension. "What is this? What are you doing?"

A sneer slithers toward Bruce. "He speaks English." Jung comments.

"He's a...fast learner," Bruce says lamely.

Berhanu charges on. "Do you know what he is capable of? Do have an idea about—"

A Cheshire's smirk peeks out of Akira in the instant before glass shatters and backs thud against metal, including Bruce's. His skull accepts the crash, smashing onto a counter as he stumbles and trips back. Red drowns him before green can erupt.

Once the moon glows in the new night and the supervising agents have retired, Natasha seeks Lenora out on the balcony of this S.H.I.E.L.D-owned apartment. Technically, it's formerly S.H.I.E.L.D's, but was never vacated and reoccupied. So it is here they stay for today, and outside she finds her ally.

Despite the warmth with notes of oncoming summer, Lena is curled into herself, the light above her off, crouched against the railing in a chair she's pulled right up to the bars. Her forehead presses all its weight onto the metal. Her eyes are unmoving. This calm, this quiet Natasha would expect from Berhanu. Lena is the fire to his river but, like this, she is cooled ash.

"How long you been out here?" Natasha asks, alerting the girl to her presence more than anything.

Not a flinch nor any pep elevates the voice that answers. "Dunno." Eerily calm, she poses a question of her own. "How long d'you think until I'm a vegetable?"

Foreseeing the progression of this, Natasha grabs one of the other two chairs and tugs it near Lena. "Hopefully treatment will take that possibility off the table."

"What if it doesn't?"

She asks for things Natasha can't possibly know, for answers not within herself. Instead of stating such, Natasha tells Lena what she's sure of. "We caught the cancer. We know what makes it worse. Alma didn't have that and that's why she was caught off guard. You'll be prepared."

It's hard to read a person when their expression remains blank as paper. Whether Lena believes her or not doesn't affect the next statement off her lips. "I think I get why you let her go now." Natasha doesn't press, and Lena stays stagnant as she looks out and continues, "You didn't want her locked up and treated like B and I were. Yeah?"

"I didn't want us to become a self-fulfilling prophecy."

"Yeah." In silence, Lena's mind wanders elsewhere, and takes her to an apology that slips out, unprecedented. "I'm sorry I let those guys get away. I remember coming up on their tails — the bald one grabbing me, and then the gunshot. Then they were running again and...all I could think of was you on the floor. Bleeding. I couldn't leave you like that."

Sometimes you have to.

As if detecting the notion, Lena grips the metal rods and admits, "I dunno what kind of life you've had, but I've always had my family there for me. There's always been someone. When it wasn't them, it was some girlfriend or boyfriend. Then it was Berhanu, and then Bruce, and then you too. And I...I just had to run. I couldn't leave you — and I hope you wouldn't leave me. We've got to be there for each other, you know?"

Vaguely. A web of support is something Natasha had just learned how to construct, and she has yet to fully put her weight on its links. Clint got her started so many years ago, Steve reignited the torch, and now it's up to her to keep it aflame. At last, she has reasons to keep this hope alight, even if they aren't all here with her in the present.

"I'm such a shit."

The brusque self-degradation snaps Natasha out of her thoughts to Lena, who has yet to move.

"You're being too hard on yourself." Nat says, entirely aware of her own hypocrisy.

"No." Lena's head shakes against the metal. "You don't get it."

"You wanna enlighten me?"

"Not really. But that's because I keep fucking up, and I want to do something right. So I didn't tell you. But that was another fuck-up, and now I just don't want you to be mad. You'll probably be mad though—"

Blood slows and chills in her veins. "What is it?"

"You know how I was talking to Berhanu the other day, and we were checking in and just talking, really. At the end though, B was talking about the lung thing — well, I brought it up but he said — whatever." Lena sighs a gust. "He has this theory. Bruce explained how the thing could've gotten in our lungs and Berhanu realized that someone could've done the same thing to Bruce and no one would notice. 'Cause he's already the Hulk. And that's, like, a super mutation."

Ice freezes under her skin. The surface boils magma hot. Fire and ice forge her exterior to a bubbling glass ready to shatter and spear whenever she detonates. She can't explode here, not kilometers upon kilometers away from where she needs to be, where she wants to be.

Natasha stands, spurring Lena to utter, "Nat?"

The younger woman asks for forgiveness when fury has not breached Natasha's mind — not yet. That she reserves for the culprits behind this.

First, however, they're going back to the boys.