"Steve, you still there?"

"Yeah. I am, Nat."

"Well, uh-- you be careful, okay?"

"Always." He said, and she waited for him to say something else but the damned walkie talkie just stayed quiet. Okay then. So that's all he had to say to her.

"Goodbye, Steve." With trembling lips she sighed to the device though she knew he probably couldn't hear her anymore.

Natasha bit her lip, sucking in the balmy air of the tropical jungle. She'd just told him that she was in love with him. And he didn't say it back, she reminded herself.

She tucked her talkie on her waistband and kept on walking along the quiet jungle, gulping in a slight regret of even saying those three words at all; I, and love, and you. She knew she shouldn't have said it. It was dumb.

But it was, nonetheless, the truth.

How did she come to realize it? Well, walking alone in the jungle surely gave her enough time to began delving into things previously unthought of. The thought of not wanting to lose someone, isn't that what people define as love? Because come to think of it, it's exactly what she currently thought of Steve. She feared for his life, feared that any harm would come his way, feared the thought of not seeing him again. Maybe. Maybe that's what love is supposed to feel like. And maybe that's why I confessed. Maybe I wanted him to know so that he hopefully thinks of my well being when he's about to do something stupid? Maybe?

You're an idiot, Romanoff.

She looked down to the jungle floor, kicking away dried leaves and twigs along her path just to kill time. This walk felt like forever. The air was now getting warm, too warm to her liking and she instantly started to miss those deadly winterstorms she endured back in Russia.

After a while, a relieved smile finally began to curve on her lips when her steps took her down to a surrounding that felt more familiar to her eyes. She knew these trees, these vines and branches. She was getting closer to the lake. The more steps she took, the more excited she got. She made a run for it, until she could see glimpses of the waterfall behind the trees.

And then she stopped abruptly, quickly pulled herself away from the open space and hid behind a tree. She saw something. Or to be exact, someone.

She only saw a glimpse of the person-- someone wearing black and gray all over his body. She slowly peeked out to get a better view. A soldier from the looks of him, wearing an elaborate body armor that covered him from head to toe. His weapon was a modified version of an assault rifle and a grenade launcher, making her squint when she thought about what the hell was all that for. As she looked on she noticed that the man was definitely not alone.

She quickly pulled back to her cover when one of the men turned his head to her direction. They still haven't noticed her presence. That's a good thing for now. It certainly got her worried on how Steve's holding up, though.

With her slick, light movements, she made her way up a tree, quiet and agile, as if she was dancing her way through. Sneaking around has never been a problem for her; it's one of her main skillsets. She made it to the top branch without the soldiers noticing-- from this point of view she counted seven soldiers standing around the waterfall and noticed how they've torn down the hut that she and Steve had set up.

"Bravo one to bravo five, you copy?" Natasha overheard a voice that came through one of their talkies.

"Bravo five copy. What is it, over?" A soldier standing next to the lake replied. He had a rough, low voice of a heavy smoker.

"Any updates on the search, over?"

"We found a manmade tent, might belong to the Avengers. Over."

"That's good. Stay sharp. We're heading there."

"Permission to shoot them on the spot, sir."

"Permission denied. Boss wants them alive."

"Copy that."

Okay, they are definitely not friendly. The sight of the torn apart hut broke her heart a little, but now was not the time for vengeance, yet.

"The Brazilians are driving me nuts, man." The soldier who was chattering in his talkie just then walked over to his friends, he was now standing next to the collapsed hut, kicking away the pieces of torn wood.

The one with the grenade launcher turned and looked at him. "Just ignore em'." He had a slight Irish accent, barely noticeable.

"Why did boss have to recruit Brazilian soldiers anyway?" The smoker groaned. "They don't speak English, those motherfuckers. Can't understand a damn thing they say!"

Another one of the soldiers, who was standing next to the lake, decided to join in the conversation, "That's because they speak Portuguese you dumb asshole. We're in their turf. It should be us who's speaking their language." Her voice was light and high pitched. She was a woman.

The grenade launcher holder took a step towards the female soldier. "And do you, speak Portuguese, lady?"

She laughed. "Fuck no," and the other soldiers laughed with her.

Natasha left the soldiers and kept on heading south, all the way to the beach. Along her way, she encountered more than twenty armored personnel wandering about, and she snuck past them almost effortlessly, using both the ground and through the trees. One time she was even so close to one man that she could stab the back of his neck if she wanted to, but she didn't. She just climbed up the tree right behind him and went on.

She jumped down the last tree that separated the jungle from the beach, and took a look around the premises, making sure she was out of anyone's sight. She could make out more and more soldiers roaming the sandy earth under the broad daylight. All of them looking distracted and bored.

She smirked. Why do they have to make it so easy? I was hoping for a challenge, she thought. She scouted around some more and immediately caught sight of the boats that must've taken them here. She saw quite a number of them: jetskis, trawler boats and yachts. When she observed more carefully, she noticed how a soldier was lounging about in one of the motor yachts. The other ones were left completely empty, since the soldiers seemed to have stationed themselves around the island.

She took a deep breath and made a dash across the beach, towards one of the yachts, hoisted herself up on it successfully and slid into the flying bridge unnoticed. She opened the cabinet under the steering wheel and began working on hot-wiring it. She's done this before, it shouldn't be a big deal.

That is, until a set of heavy footsteps entered her earshot, followed by a tall shadow that casted over her soon after.

"Hi." She smiled at the tall, heavy armored figure who just stared down at her wide-eyed. "Cool ride you got here.

It was obvious that the soldier was about to yell something and announce his comrades about her presence here, but the widow gave him no chance to. She pulled out her knife, and swiftly swung it to impale him in his underjaw with perfect aim. Blood began leaking out to her hand as she carefully laid the dead man to the ground, afraid to make a noise. She then pulled the blade out, wiped off the blood on his armor before tucking it back to her holster. That was a close call, she pondered as she searched him for any pockets. She stopped at the armor on his thigh that had a small pocket. Keys. She smiled as she took out the content. She stuck it onto the ignition and it fitted right in.

KABOOM!!!

She froze where she stood, a wave of chilling shivers coursed through her spine. A rush of hot, harsh wind swept through her and the sound of the explosion vibrated in her hearing and for a moment the blue sky was replaced by the vibrant colors of vermillion and scorching red; the air was dusty from the force of the wind and she could make out what looked like a massive cloud of red eruption at the heart of the island. Then another loud boom shook the ground, and another.

Steve's done it. He's blown up the mine.

"What the fuck was that?" One of the men shouted, taken aback.

"Head to the explosion now! The Avengers have got to be there!"

"Let's go! go! go!"

"Call backup! Inform all squadron that there's an explosion here!"

"Get off your asses! Code red!

Natasha watched with horror as dozens and dozens of the soldiers began making a run for the jungle, headed to where Steve's at.

Oh no, no, no. Steve.

Everyone was too preoccupied with their new task and too taken aback by the sudden explosions that no one seemed to mind her as she jumped off the yacht and slits the nearest soldier's neck with her blade. Most of them have gone into the jungle by now, and she walked with stern steps across the beach amongst the chaotic atmosphere, shooting two, three, four, seven remaining soldiers before she, too, entered the jungle, where the real battleground lied.

She counted four loud booms as she entered the jungle, sliding through the trees as fast and as unnoticeable as she could, for she knew she was heavily outnumbered. She needed to get to Steve as fast as she could and that should be her only focus for now.

Her heartbeat rampaged against her ribcage. She kept glancing up at the smoke in the sky, making sure she was headed in the right direction. She was forced to kill about ten soldiers-- done quietly by either snapping their necks or stabbing them with her blade, and as she went on she had to leave her rifle behind because it seemed to only weigh her down.

There could be over 50 soldiers stationed here for all she knew, and she started to believe that rough count as she kept running into more and more soldiers along the way.

She accidentially stepped on a mossy surface on the branch while she ran along the branches that made her trip and fall to the hard ground. It took her breath away for a second and the pain struck her nerves but she knew she had to keep running.

Right now, not running was not an option, though.

The impact apparently has drawn attention to her. "Female redhead on my 6!" A soldier ran towards her, pointing his rifle at her and began shooting. She slid behind a tree for cover. Fuck.

Another soldier appeared on her left and she quickly pulled out her glock and shot him on his wrist. He shrieked and let go of his rifle. It was one of their armors' weakspot for sure, but nowhere deadly. She shot him again, this time another weakspot on his knee. Damnit! I need a more fatal weakspot.

A bullet hit the tree stem right next to her head, missed her by a mere inch. She quickly reacted and shot the shooter on his head, throwing him aback by the force. When the underside of his neck was exposed to her sight, she smiled confidently. That's it. That's fucking it. She wasted no time and shot him dead right there.

She kept running and running. Now more and more soldiers started noticing her presence and she grew more agitated over time since taking them down has proved to slow her pace by a lot. She climbed up a tree and started running and jumping along the branches, running higher and higher up whilst avoiding the gunshots from below. But of course the lines of trees had to come to an end after some time, and she stopped abruptly, almost thrown off balance where she stood at the end of a branch. She paid attention the the five soldiers making a run towards her, and when she felt it was time, she jumped down and landed on one of them, twisting his neck in the process. She had both of her glocks out, and she shot the soldiers around her with a speed so swift that no one else had a chance to even raise their gun. When she looked up again at the sky she could see that she was now very close to the smoke. The sound of gunshots was filling the air relentlessly, along with shrieks of pain and loud thumps as if an object was thrown all over the place. Natasha ran as quickly as she could towards the noise, pushing past the trees and shooting a few soldiers along the way.

It wasn't long until her eyes caught sight of him, her Steve Rogers. There he was, blond hair and fair skin, standing tall on an open space with his mighty shield and a grimace. They were shooting at him and he shot back at them every once in a while, but he mostly threw his shield around or bash it at them as a deadly blow. She looked around him and acted quickly upon seeing three different soldier who had their rifles aimed at him. She shot them all to their deaths.

He noticed and turned his head to look at her, smiling ear to ear as if she was the best surprise he has ever witnessed in his life.

"Steve!" She called, running faster towards him amidst all the smoke that resulted from the explosion.

That smile didn't last long, though. He looked to his left, was about to say something, but his voice was muffled by an explosion that knocked down a tree right in front of her and sent her flying back a few feet. She looked to her left and saw the Irish soldier with the grenade launcher, fresh smoke coming out of its barrel.

"Natasha!" She could vaguely hear him call her name in the distance, but her head was already dizzy from the strike and a thick fog of exploded dust and muck limited her from looking at her surroundings. She ignored the dizzying pain on the back of her head and along her spine and tried to get up.

Up, Natasha. Get the fuck up. You can take this, she forced herself to get on her feet;

And that's when another blow of explosion struck her unconscious.