Maria yawned while she stretched her long slender body in bed. Her heavy, sleepy eyes opened to find Natasha propped up on an elbow next to her with her bare chest out, blankets at her belly, as she stared at her.

"Why are you watching me sleep?" Maria grumbled.

"I'm not watching you sleep, I'm watching you wake up."

"It's too early for semantics," she groaned, rubbing at her eyes. "Speaking of early, what time is it?"

"Time to get up, hence why we're awake."

"Are you purposely being annoying right now or are you always like this and it's taken me to this very moment to realise it?"

Natasha chuckled while Maria pushed herself upright, pulling the blankets over her cold nude upper body. She reached over to check her phone, noting the time, realising that Natasha wasn't wrong, it really was time to get up. She then placed her mobile back before focusing her attention back onto her friend who still had her gaze fixed onto her. "Okay, seriously. What gives?"

"I've just been thinking."

"Yeah?"

Natasha, too, sat up while pulling her side of the blankets to her shoulders. She then cocked her head as she began pushing brown hair behind Maria's ears. "Some people can become the closest of friends, some might be physically attracted to each other, and some may even fall in love." She then pulled her hand away from Maria, placing it in her own lap. "But what we're all truly searching for is to find all three of those aspects in one person."

Maria shook her head as she pulled her knees to her chest, trying to protect herself from the conversation that she was suspecting was about to unfold. A conversation that Natasha clearly already rehearsed in her head. Maria didn't even bothering to counter her friend's false assumption that everyone was searching for companions in the specific way she'd just described, because there was no point. Maria was one of the people who wanted all three of those things, especially in one person, and Natasha knew that.

"Why are you saying this?"

"You know why," Natasha said softly. "You've known for a long time now. We both have."

She was right, they did both know but she was still afraid to admit it. "You're my best friend." She felt the need to say.

"And you're mine." A heartwarming smile grew on Natasha's face. "I'd walk through fire for you, and l'm pretty sure you'd do the same for me, but that still doesn't change the fact that you're not in love with me."

Totally petrified by her emotions, Maria muttered so quietly that her own ears didn't quite register that it was her voice speaking, "I could be. Who's to say?"

Natasha reached over and placed a gentle hand on Maria's knee. "For awhile there – in the beginning – I thought maybe one day our time would come for that." She squeeze her leg. "But now I know we're just not meant to fall in love."

"How do you know?" she asked softly, deep down already knowing the answer.

"The way you look at Hope." Maria's breath hitched in hearing her friend's words. "I saw you two yesterday and, Maria, you've never looked at me like that."

"So what are you saying?"

"I'm saying maybe we should stop with these sexy little recreational times of ours. You're using them as a distraction and – as your friend who cares for you deeply – I need to quit enabling you."

Maria nodded slowly, understanding that she was right. She then sighed, wanting to be an equally supportive friend too. "I guess I should quit enabling you too."

"Me?" Natasha asked in utter confusion.

"Yeah, I keep letting you use our bed to hide your feeling for Clint in."

"Clint?" she scoffed. "You're really reaching with that one."

Maria smirked, rolling her eyes. "Uh huh, sure I am." Not buying her words of denial for a second.

"What if I told you he has a secret family already?"

"Oh yeah?" She eyed her playfully. "Out somewhere in the midwest hiding on a farm."

Natasha grinned. "A wife and a kid, with another one on the way."

"Don't forget about the dog, the wood pile, and the American flag in the front yard."

Natasha chuckled. "Could you imagine?"

"No." Maria laughed before she eyed her suspiciously. "And by the way, nice avoidance technique."

"We were talking about you, not me," she shot back.

Maria sighed. "Sometimes it hits me just how hardwired your training is and it makes me wonder if you're even capable of revealing sensitive information about yourself."

"Yeah." Natasha's voice shifted to a frail tone. "Sometimes I wonder that same thing too."

"Don't let this opportunity you have now slip away," Maria said with the utmost sincerity. "He might not wait around forever for you. Trust me, you don't want to end up in a situation like mine."

Natasha smirked at her playfully. "I don't know, we could pine together. Start a group, make matching bracelets, have a secret handshake."

Maria huffed, "I'm not pining."

"You are. But it's a good thing."

"How in the world is that a good thing?"

"Because" – Natasha rubbed her thumb over Maria's leg, where her hand was still resting – "you need to hold on for a bit longer. You always try to push your emotions down and pretend things don't affect you, but they do. Especially now more than ever. Don't give up on her, not yet."

"What, are you telling me to fight for her? Because I won't meddle between her and Scott."

"No, I know you won't. You value her happiness above all else, even if that means she's with someone else."

"Then what? I'm just supposed to be miserable as I watch from the sidelines, hoping one day she comes to the conclusion that I'm actually the one for her?"

Natasha shrugged and scrunched her face. "Pretty much, yeah."

Maria sighed. "Well this sucks."

"Like a bullet wound to the stomach, I'd imagine." She sympathetically nodded.

"You've had one of those." Maria thought back to the last time that her friend was shot.

"Yeah, and it sucked." Natasha gave her a lopsided smile before kissing her on the cheek. "Now, come on we have to get up, it's getting late." She drummed Maria's leg before crawling out of bed to go into the bathroom.

Maria sighed before she too got up. She then retrieved her clothes from off of the floor. While she heard the shower turn on, she got dressed only to then leave quietly and go back to her own room so that she could properly get ready for the day.

Hope was completely out of it that morning. They were taking turns at Clint's latest range course, but Hope didn't feel in the mood to give it a go. She merely stood in the back and let the others try it out.

Ever since her lunch with Maria the day before, she wasn't able to get the other woman off of her mind. In her head she would replay every word that she could recall that had fallen out of Maria's beautiful mouth, fixating on her breathtaking smile and her intoxicating laugh. And when she thought on all the things Maria had said about her family, and the way that she'd opened up to her, Hope wanted to cry. It killed her to hear about her past. She wished that she could have held Maria in her arms and kissed her forehead when she was telling her story. She'd never known the agony of not being able to show someone in whom she cared for, that they were loved, in a time when they'd displayed such pain and vulnerability.

Hope sighed, eyes fixated on the clouds through the window that lay off to the side of the course. Not once in her life had she been so enthralled by another person. It was like every time they interacted, Hope would sink deeper into this longing for her.

"Earth to Hope." Scott waved his hand in front of her face. She blinked and focused on him. "Water break." He pointed at the gang who was wandering off to take a short breather.

"Oh, right." She nodded, turning to go to her water bottle at the side of the room; she sat down with it on a nearby bench.

"So did you end up calling Li mei?" Hope heard Natasha asking Steve as they all gathered at the side of the room.

"No."

"Did you chicken out?"

"Who's Li mei?" Sam asked.

"Girl from financing. Super cute. Perfect for Steve."

"Wait, what?" Scott jumped in. " You're single?" he asked while turning to their team leader. "Why did I think you were dating Maria?"

The entire room laughed, including Steve before he responded, "Well that would be extremely awkward if I was."

Scott looked around the room at everyone as he said, "Yeah, I feel like I'm missing something here."

"Yeah." Sam clapped Scott on the back. "Maria's gay."

"Oh." Scott seemed to have been allowing the information to sink in before he said, "Yeah, that would be awkward then." He nodded.

Hope shifted in her seat, paranoid that Scott was somehow going to connect the dots between her and Maria, now that he was presented with this new information.

"So, Li mei?" Natasha asked Steve again.

"What is it with you and your mission to find me a date?"

"Maybe I don't want to be the last person you've kissed anymore."

"You kissed Nat?" Clint asked, in a not-so-pleased tone.

"It's not what you think. We were trying to hide in plain sight. Natasha, tell them that thing about people not liking public displays of affection."

She shrugged. "I don't know what he's talking about. He's clearly trying to make up excuses to hide the fact that he wants me."

Steve laughed while shaking his head. "Oh, you are really something, Romanoff."

Suddenly, the lights went off while loud sliding and clanking noise came from all around the room, shutting out the sunlight, making Hope jump to her feet. When the red emergency lights came on, it was revealed that metal shielding had dropped to seal the windows, doors, and elevator.

"Tony, what did you do now?" Steve sighed in annoyance.

"This wasn't me, I swear," he replied, yet it wasn't in his normal unbothered tone that Hope was accustomed to hearing, he sounded concerned. "Jarvis, control room."

The masculine voice with a British accent spoke up from his Iron Man suit. "I am unable to reach communications. Sir, I seem to be completely disconnected from the tower in all capacities."

"Is this because of your security upgrade?" Natasha asked him.

"No, it hasn't been implemented yet."

Clint crossed the room to where they geared up for training. There he opened a locker and pulled out a two way radio, instantly tuning the dial as he clearly had a channel in mind.

"Barton to Hill, do you read me?" He spoke into the receiver.

They all stood in anticipation as they were only met with static. Then, before Clint spoke into it again, they heard blades from a helicopter outside.

Natasha simply announced, "Chopper!"

"Are they landing?" Sam tracked the sound as he was now looking up to the ceiling.

"Tony, is there a way out of here?" Steve addressed him.

"I enforced the lock down on this floor to stop anything shy of the Hulk. The reason this place became the training room was because of this very feature."

"Are there any backdoors?" Natasha asked.

"Suuure," he said, though it didn't sound convincing.

He went over to the panel that he'd been in the other day. He stepped out of his suit before he started to tinker around, but after a minute he pulled his head out from the wall and sighed.

"Well kids, I do believe we're stuck. There's no power running through this system right now to do anything."

Steve huffed, "Great."

The radio then cracked. "Hill here, does anybody read?"

Clint eagerly answered, "It's Barton. We're trapped in the Ready Room. What's going on out there?"

"Somebody got into our system. I'm locked out. Hostiles are breaching the building." Her words ended with the sound of gunfire followed by radio silence.

"Hill?" Clint spoke into the radio but no response came.

Natasha then grabbed the receiver out of Clint's hand as she tried. "Maria?"

After a few moments the radio crackled again. "Yeah, I'm here." Her voice came through load and clear.

Natasha sighed in relief. "Status?"

"I'm in Controles, hostiles are incapacitated."

"And you?"

"Gunshot wound to the shoulder. I'll live." Hope felt her stomach knot in hearing that she was injured. "Shit," Maria cursed, "I've got eyes on more unfriendlies approaching from the street. I count at least twenty men."

"I thought she was locked out," Tony said while reaching for the radio. Natasha handed it to him. He then repeated his question into the radio. "I thought you were locked out. How do you see them?"

"Window and binoculars, Tony." Hope could almost hear the eye roll through her tone. "Okay, tell me how I get back into the system."

"Do you have the upgrade program on you?"

"Yes."

"Okay, plug in the drive. Theoretically, it should crash the already existing system before downloading the new one."

Hope stood on alert, ready for Maria to gain control back and let them out to deal with the intruders.

"Alright," came Maria again, "it's downloading, but it's estimating twenty minutes until completion."

Tony informed her, "Some systems may come active before then."

A moment later Maria's voice was heard, not through the radio, but through Tony's suit. "Like communications?"

Tony smirked. "Hopefully lockdown controls will be next."

"Problem!" Maria exclaimed. "The defensive system is activated."

"That's a good thing."

"No, as in self destruct, self defense."

"Oh my god," Tony muttered to himself in horror. "The upgrade must've triggered it."

"It says we have under three minutes until impact, and I can't stop it from my end."

"Tony, what is going on?" Steve demanded.

"Ah." He sounded both scared and guilty. "The tower has an emergency self destruct." He stuttered out an explanation, "A missile launch from satellite, to be exact. And, well, it's been deployed and is now on its way."

"To the building?" Scott gasped.

"Yeah."

"So, what" – Scott threw his hands up – "we're just supposed to wait for the doors to hopefully open for us before then?"

Maria then came through communications, interrupting Scott, as she was talking loudly over, what sounded like, a strong wind. "I think these guys are A.I.M. so when you get out, make sure to tell Fury that."

The room fell silent, apparently everyone picked up on her implication that they'd be around later when she wouldn't be.

Natasha lifted her arm to talk through her communicator on her wrist. "What the hell are you planning?"

"They left a chopper right on my doorstep." Hope could only assume that the helipad was right outside of the control room.

Natasha dropped her arm as her face went white. "Oh god, she's going to intercept the missile."

"Like, fly into it?" Scott asked as she then slowly nodded. "She's gonna parachute out of it before it hits, right?"

Sam said with an empty voice, "Helicopters aren't equipped with parachutes."

Hope had to do something. There was no way she'd just stand around and let Maria sacrifice herself for them.

"You said the air vents have pulsating electrical fields," Hope said more to herself than to Tony, yet she was looking at him, still wanting a confirmation.

"Don't." Tony was evidently following her train of thought. "If the force field activates while you're passing through, you will absolutely go into cardiac arrest when it hits your body – probably killing you in your miniaturised state." He shook his head. "It's just too much power."

There wasn't a single word spoken that scared her in that moment, all she could think of was Maria flying to her doom. Hope then turned to Natasha and said, "Tell her to jump."

Before anyone could respond, she activated her helmet and shrunk down. She thought she heard Scott yell her name, but she was so tunnel visioned that she wasn't sure. She flew up to the ceiling where an air vent lay at the top of a wall. She hovered for a mere moment, watching the sheen of the field flickering. Then – like a bullet – she took off, full speed towards the opening. Just as she was about to breach the duct, she eased off ever so slightly on her speed, seeing the field activate just before she reached the threshold. She was sure that she was about to crash into it, but she ended up slowing down just at the right time, by the right amount, that she flew successfully through right after the very moment the field pulsed off.

The feeling of satisfaction didn't enter her psyche as she was far too focused on weaving through the ducts to find a way out of the building. Luckily, it didn't take her long to reach an exit as she popped out at a roof access. She then quickly scanned her surroundings, finding the helicopter already flying away from the tower. Without hesitation, Hope beelined towards it as swiftly as she possibly could, flying faster than she'd ever had, trying to catch up with it.

The chopper was climbing in height, but Hope was not concerned with matching its altitude, she needed to be lower anyway. Then she saw it, she was about a hundred metres away from the helicopter's airspace, when the missile came hurtling towards the aircraft. "Jump," Hope muttered to herself as she was looking upwards, her eyes glued to the pilot's side.

To her relief, the door opened and Maria managed to get a single foot out before the missile hit. The explosion aggressively tossed her out of the chopper, Hope was certain that she'd been knocked unconscious by the shockwave.

Hope took a brief note of the landscape below, seeing the harbour not too far away as she flew full speed ahead to Maria. Hope came from underneath, angling herself upwards to reach her. Her intentions were to slow her decent by cutting down the distance of the fall, while aiming them up and towards the water. She wished more than ever that she'd gotten her blaster to work successfully on organic structures, then she'd only need to shrink Maria and catch her and then fly her down to safety. But – alas – she could not do that. So just as Maria was above her head, Hope grew to size, catching her in her arms.

Hope held on to her securely as their path arched in the air. Then as they began their decent they started rolling in the upwards draft as Hope somehow managed to control them when she wrapped her legs around Maria's unresponsive body. She then made sure to flip them and hold the other woman so that Maria was on top of her, not allowing for the outcome of her hitting ground first. Hope, in her lightly armoured suit, was going to take the brunt of the impact.

She strained her neck to look to the ground, not sure if they were going to make it to the water or not. Realisation hitting her that this could very well be the end. She knew that she had an out, that she could save herself. All she had to do was shrink down and fly away unharmed, but there was no possible way in which she was going to do that. She would never leave this woman wrapped in her arms to fall through the sky alone. She was prepared to die if it gave Maria a chance to live. So she held Maria tightly as they crashed down into the shallows of the harbour. Her body feeling a surge of unimaginable force and then absolutely nothing.