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Shifters of Shield Search for Answers Chapter 55

All the components meant to make bracers for the cubs collars were smashed into pieces. What had not been destroyed by shooting a weapon through it had been fried by the water sprinklers engaging. The tech lab room had been the only one touched. It had been a calculated strike. It had been a move to take down the computer system tied to Romanov's bracer. The GPS was disabled. The bracer had no system communicate with so it could no longer receive data or have information fed into it.

The only other thing touched was the weapons storage area. It had been broken into and a single revolver with ammunition had been taken. When they all came running towards the lab, the Black Widow was moving towards the gangway and gunning the Stark Bike. Natasha Romanov was gone.

Melinda May remembered immediately Natasha Romanov's words to her right before she was fitting against her will the bracer. The redhead told the Asian she should have run. She also Melinda she would fight the bracer with all of her being. She had told May bluntly it she had three choices. She would have to leave her, fight her or sedate her. Melinda had made her choice of sedation. Natasha had responded in turn. Fitz lab was destroyed. Romanov was on the run. Romanov had taken the Stark Bike. It was sleek, fast and it could fly.

Used to responding to a crisis quickly, the team went into action. Maria moved to monitor the chase and mission to find Natasha Romanov. Fitz turned on the channels to monitor Emergency Channels and Coast Guard. Simmons's job was to watch the babies and stand by for a medical situation. May and Coulson raced to Lola and got airborne.

Melinda knew it was a race against time. Natasha Romanov was an expert to eluding capture, disappearing and not looking back. If the trail grew cold it very well disappear for good.

Coulson started a search pattern while Melinda searched the water as well as the sky. Her brown eyes looking up then down then up again. To say she felt frantic was an understatement. To say her mind was racing would be a given as well.

Melinda May knew she had made a grave mistake as soon as Natasha started refusing her touch and withdrawn when the bracer was placed on. Shifters need touch and it hurt her physically to see her Omega dismiss her. But Melinda had tried to tell herself that it would just take some time for Romanov to adjust. Instead, she had stopped speaking to everyone except Skye and Kori.

Now sitting in Lola, Melinda May admitted the truth. She had been a terrible Alpha to Natasha. She was so angry at being rebelled against she had responded with dominant force. Natasha Romanov, who she was, what she had been through and her feelings were pushed aside because Melinda had felt she was "justified".

Fitz's voice rang through the comm into Lola, "The Emergency EMS is getting calls about a flying bike. I am sending you the coordinates."

"Romanov's bracer's GPS is non-functional," Maria Hill said matter a factly and a little clipped. Melinda May knew the brunette's voice tone well enough that she was not mad at Romanov. She was mad at herself.

Senior Leadership had dropped the ball. Shield leadership onboard the yacht had held things to close to vest as they always seemed to do. Hill, Coulson and May had not shared with Romanov what they were attempting to do and why. Communication was severed in the name of security leaving the person it effected the last to know. Hill, Coulson and May had stood by the tried and true rule of Shield. The precept of security level clearances as well as the notation of "need to know" was always to be upheld. The shifters of shield management team had taken a problem of the shifting of the babies and Romanov's shifting without intent and worked to solve it. An afterthought had been the realization such technology could be used to monitor Romanov's shifter seizure disorder as well. What had been left behind was Natasha Romanov and her individuality.

Melinda May forced herself to focus fully on finding the airborne yellow Stark Bike. Her guilt and what the team had don't wrong could have been thought about later. For now, May needed to focus on the now.

"If we don't find her, if she has a seizure, if she drowns, I don't know what I will do," Melinda admitted to Phil as a lover and not a fellow shield agent.

"Focus on the now Mel," Phil took one hand off the wheel and patted his mate's leg.

"It's my fault, our fault. She felt forced out Phil. Shield was done nothing but fail her. We have don't so now too. I am not angry at her. I am angry at myself." Melinda continued.

"I am listening to the chatter in the US Coast Guard. They are responding to a report of a yellow sport bike floating in the water," Maria's voice was braking as she relayed.

Melinda May's stomach dropped and her heart rate accelerated as fast as Lola was doing. Tasha was in the water, hurt or drowned. Her opportunity to make this right may be lost forever.