Jen is yawning, still in her dress from their night out and John is lecturing Lucy to hurry up;
"You'll see her tomorrow morning before the flight, you crazy kid. You can talk about how good Wicked was then."
Lucy sticks her tongue out and takes up her Playbill, "Okay Dad. I got it, dad."
Izabella chuckles, waving, "See you tomorrow."
Natasha steps out into their living room, because where else would the girls mingle.
She checks her phone, "Where's your Aunt, Izzy? It's almost 11:30."
Izabella checks the clock herself, circling now that her friend is gone for the evening. She crouches beside Natasha and studies the suit of the Black Widow currently in a small suitcase.
Romanoff is preparing for a mission- the last with Fury, or so he says.
Izabella invites herself into the front pouch of Natasha's luggage to find a charm bracelet. She recognizes it, and knows the story behind it; ruby and emerald stones dangling from the center.
" Vrach's wedding present to me," Natasha is feeling nostalgic and packing it is no coincidence. If she's going to a gala without Bruce, she'll take him with her somehow.
Izabella carefully holds it in between her fingertips, "Where is the mission?"
"Mexico," Natasha folds a sweater.
Bruce looks over the frame of his lenses toward the girls, passing through to locate a pen.
Alex's ears go up so Banner's attention drifts toward the dog next who decides to stand and sniff around the apartment.
Bruce taps the table with a knuckle and checks the clock, "I'm fading, Tasha. What else do you need for your mission?"
Natasha twists her lips, searching the room, "I'm missing a glove?"
Izabella leaves the bracelet on the nearby coffee table with a point, "I can check your laundry."
"Thanks."
"You're welcome."
Natasha pivots with a smirk slowly spreading across her face when she looks at Bruce, "I can't decide if you look completely 'mad scientist' or completely adorable."
He visibly weighs his options, abandoning a print out in front of him drawn up for Jennifer to take home. It's about Lucy, some hypothesis for her eyes while Izabella's new abilities weigh heavily on his mind, "Does it have to be one or the other?"
Natasha bites her lip, content when he suddenly embraces her, wrapping his arms around her waist. She hums and holds his face gently;
"Svetlana should be here soon."
He hums in reply, kissing her palm, "I love you."
Her head tilts, "I'll be back in two days."
"So four."
" Vrach. "
Alex perks up, his ears pulled back on high alert when he fixates into the window and growls through the open blinds.
"He saw a pigeon," Natasha makes an assumption, confident in her bet.
Bruce carefully redirects her chin back towards him to kiss her one more time.
"I find it-,' Izabella calls out and immediately goes quiet over their kiss, refocusing on the floor until they've parted, 'I am sorry, I was too loud."
"Don't apologize," Bruce chuckles, carefully parting from his wife.
Natasha sighs when Alex's barks get louder. His tail pauses when she moves to calm him with an ear scratch, her back to the large window;
"Oh my gosh, what has gotten into you sladkiy mal'chik moy ?"
Alex whimpers, his tail going down completely on high alert.
Natasha's brow furrows, "What is it Alex? What's wrong?"
"Here, I'll take that," Bruce extends a hand to Izabella, shoving the last piece of Natasha's uniform into her bag.
Romanoff snaps her fingers, "Alex, stop-."
" Vrach! " Izabella shrieks milli seconds before the large window shatters, recognizing the eyes of someone all too familiar. A uniformed figure swoops down, powder flowing from off her hands before immediately vanishing.
Natasha leaps to the right, covering her head as the glass and smoke fill their living room with an explosive burst. Alex whimpers from behind her and Bruce stands ready to bring the Hulk until Izabella lifts her hands and engulfs the four of them in a light green mist.
A half second before they all vanish, the couple lock eyes with a former student, a young girl of about 13 who emotionlessly blows the smoke from her hands and into the tower. Her eyes dark, a Hydra symbol on the shoulder of her black jacket.
It's almost slow motion to see Linda attempt to wipe them out without a second thought, spiraling downward with a small swarm…
It's a full second before Izabella is back at the apartment, coughing through the leftover smoke. If there's one thing the tower is good for, it's the precautionary measures put in place should the home base of the world's greatest heroes be attacked. The sprinklers have put out the fire, alarms loudly blaring in her sore ears.
Someone is calling, it sounds like Jen…
The Iron Man suit has arrived, Tony mumbling a bit of reassurance as his covered hand moves to clear the smoke from the room.
Izabella's head is spinning, there's a cool damp feeling from a nostril and trickling down her neck, her palms are equally damp. She coughs with a throbbing in the back of her skull.
The first eyes she sees are Lucy's, wide with concern;
"Your hands are bleeding! And your nose! And your ears! Why are you bleeding? Oh my god! Dad!"
John pushes through, scanning the room nervously. Steve has arrived, shield in hand, as the smoke settles.
Tony's next words cut Izabella to the core;
"Where's Bruce?"
"There's no sign of Natasha either," Steve circles the room as the dust begins to settle.
Jennifer is green and ready for action as always, pivoting to Izabella.
Lucy narrows her focus on her friend, "Did you do something with your powers?"
"Where did you send them?" Tony pulls back his mask.
Izabella looks up with her blurred vision, "I...I not. They were with me."
"Well, clearly they're not with you anymore," Tony states the obvious.
Jennifer clenches her jaw, she's been through this all before with the young girl, fully aware of how she works thanks to her conversations with Bruce, "Okay- it's alright. Think about your threads-."
Stark continues, temper rising, "What was the last thing you saw? The dimensions, Izzy."
"I don't-...I don't know," Izabella holds her head and wipes the blood from her nose, clutching her palms together to stop the blood there as well. She's torn her stitches open in an effort to protect them. Now sore and dizzy, she can't recall where.
Jennifer softens her tone as best she can, "Okay, it's okay. Are you alright? Did you get hurt from the explosion? Do you need some water?"
Lucy's jaw drops and her face is flushed of all color, "What do you mean- wait. You lost Uncle Bruce?! You lost Aunt Nat?!"
Jennifer takes a breath, trying to stay calm, "It's alright, Lucy. We'll figure it out."
"It's not! Izzy, I trusted you! Did you save them or not?!"
Tony shakes his head, becoming impatient, "The last thing you saw; What was the last thing you saw? We should go to the lab."
Izabella stutters, unable to process. Her mind is somewhere between Linda and the terror in the eyes of her two mentors.
She's watching now as Steve comes towards her with a damp cloth for her injuries.
Between the adults encroaching in her space, the look of disappointment in their eyes and the event that's just transpired, she's completely overwhelmed.
"Okay, she's going to pass out," John offers and urges the group to remove her from the room.
Jennifer is ready to oblige until Izabella sinks right where she is, unable to stand, "I not feel my feet-."
Tony circles the room, Steve moves in to pick her up and Jennifer just lifts a green hand, "She needs to breathe. You're a bunch of tall freaks in her face! Back up!"
"And what are you?" Tony quips.
Izabella pants. Lucy is yelling again, mid freak out.
It's almost in a way Izabella wishes she hadn't seen before, with her eyes glowing golden- a shade that haunts her nightmares.
John shouts to try and prove louder than his daughter and calm her.
Mikhailov loses her vision next, falling backward onto the ground in a puddle of tears. Jennifer is calling for her and judging from that familiar voice yelling her name, Svetlana has arrived.
The last thing Izabella sees before her world goes black are one of the few things left intact within the apartment; it's those tiny stones of red and green, dangling from off the toppled, half burnt coffee table.
Natasha's focus is finding Izabella, rattled when she quickly vanishes. Her eyes are as wide as Bruce's. They breathe heavily, eyeing each other with a million questions;
"You don't think she glitched back to the tower."
Bruce shakes his head, "No, no. I'm sure she's fine...The tower has- precautionary measures…Tony's home."
She glares, "Comforting."
"Jen's around."
"…Better."
Bruce forces himself to believe that Izabella is alright, checking in on Natasha next;
"Are you okay?"
Natasha nods and checks in on her dog who whimpers at her heels. She wraps her arms around herself as she steps out on the plain field. Everything looks gray, fog filled. The rolling hills off in the distance barely visible through the smog.
"Where the hell are we?" She snaps.
It's impossible to spot a landmark, in the cold vacant space. He holds her shoulders. For Natasha to shiver, it's truly freezing.
Bruce takes her hand next and leads them along the nonexistent path in search of anything that will give them some information.
"I have no idea."