CHAPTER 20? HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? :D
It was March 17th. The day that they set out for Russia for the second time. Steve couldn't help but feel dread in the pit of his stomach. What would happen this time? Who could they lose? Which member of the team might not come back on the return flight? Who could Steve imagine life without? Who would be tortured? He could tell that Natasha shared his same doubts, along with some of her own that were probably more terrifying than his own.
"You okay, Red?" Tony asked as he hauled his suitcase up the stairs of the airport.
"As well as I can be." Natasha said, her tones clipped and short. Steve walked close beside her, his side brushing hers when they were jostled by the other people going to the airport. Looking straight ahead, she continued "Fury reserved the whole plane for us. There's no one on our flight to Russia." Steve raised his eyebrows. Since when did Fury do that kind of stuff?
Beside Tony, Steve, and Natasha, Maria was walking. She had no suitcase. Wanda had shoved all of Maria's stuff into a backpack.
"You're not taking guns as a carry-on, Nat?" Steve asked casually. Natasha snorted.
"Please. We're bypassing the security checkouts, or else people would think we're mad terrorists. No, there's SHIELD agents that went to the airport to explain. Maria was one of them." she said. Steve almost felt sorry for the airport security. They were eyeing the Avengers with looks of awe and distrust.
"How's it going, Maria?" Steve asked, turning to the brunette SHIELD agent. She gave him a tight smile. Steve noticed she was doing what he had notice she did quite a bit- holding her arm stiff at her side, and her face was wiped clean of emotion. He could see something burning behind her eyes, though, almost fighting to be seen. He stepped closer.
"Are you sure?" he asked softly. She nodded, her gaze straight ahead. "Let me take your backpack, Maria."
"If I take it off, it will hurt." she said, almost inaudibly. Steve looked ahead, too. To the other Avengers, it looked like they were having a polite conversation.
"Your arm is bothering you again, isn't it." he said. "Maybe you should go home." That got her attention. She spun around so that she was facing him.
"I'm not going home, Steve. I can't sit back at the tower wondering if you were all dead. I can't do that. I would go crazy, alone with Pepper in there. I don't want to be treated like a cripple anymore!" she said, her voice frustrated.
"You're not a cripple to me."
"Everyone else acts like they need to carry my bags, or help me with random stuff that I can do alone. It's impossible to act like a normal person when people are constantly dancing around the subject of my arm!" Maria continued. "I need you to be the one that doesn't do that."
"They all care about you, Maria, and the last time you strained yourself too much, I thought you were going to die. I can't lose you, Maria." Steve tried to tell her. Maria's eyes flashed menacingly.
"Maybe you should worry about Nat instead." she said bitterly. "She's your girlfriend. Worry about her. She deserves it more than I do."
"That's not true and you know it."
"Did you tell Nat that you couldn't lose her?" Maria said icily. Steve blinked. He hadn't expected that question. By the way Maria looked at him, he knew that she knew the answer too. "Didn't think so. Maybe you should ask her if you can carry her bag."
"Maria!"
They boarded the airplane. Vision brought no luggage. He needed none. He sat down in his chair while Wanda stuffed her red backpack into the overhead compartment.
"If Fury reserved the whole plane, are we still sitting in a row?" Wanda asked to the general public of the plane. The others nodded. Wanda shrugged and plopped next to the Vision. He shifted uncomfortably. The Sokovian made him nervous. She was a little weird and slightly different from the other Avengers. More gentle, somehow, and more innocent.
"Are you well, Miss Maximoff?" he asked awkwardly. Wanda nodded. She fiddled with the string of her red hooded sweatshirt.
"Fine. Planes make me uneasy." she said softly. Vision frowned. He hadn't known that. He hadn't really gotten to know any of the Avengers, but he knew a lot about them from what he had learned from JARVIS.
"Why is that, Miss Maximoff?"
"Our house was leveled by a plane. I can't ever forget that, and being in a plane makes me feel like we're dropping bombs on houses as we go by, ruining people's lives like Stark's bombs did mine, and Pietro's." she explained.
"I am deeply sorry for your loss, Miss Maximoff." Vision said politely. Wanda gave a thin smile.
"Thanks for rescuing me, that day. It was very hard for me, knowing that I was all alone. I couldn't think straight and I was ready to die."
"No one deserves that fate, Miss Maximoff. I regret that Pietro died. He seemed like an entertaining soul." Vision said finally. "A bit like a less self-centered Mr Stark." Wanda laughed at that. Vision was startled. No one had ever laughed at his words before. It was a new experience.
"How do you feel about going to Russia, Vision?"
"I've never been there before. I am excited to experience a mission there, and perhaps we will also do some sightseeing if it goes well." Vision said. "Human experiences are different for me, and so I am interested in this."
"That's an interesting way of putting it, but I can understand that."
Steve hated fighting with Maria. Even now, at the end of the row, sitting next to Coulson and Stark, she seemed very on edge and nervous. His gaze drifted over to Wanda and Vision, chatting politely together, and Stark and Maria, conversing somewhat seriously over who-knows-what.
Natasha was shivering in her seat.
"You'll be alright, Nat." Steve told her. "It'll be easy. Get in, get out. Pretend it's like any other mission. Don't think about it too hard." Natasha straight ahead at the back of the seat in front of her.
"I'm scared that I'll have a flashback in the middle of a mission and accidentally kill one of the team members. Like you. We'll all be split up, and you'll be there, and if something triggers it again, Maria won't be there to save someone's life."
"You won't have a flashback. I'll make sure that nothing harms you. If you ever need a break, we'll stop and you can gather yourself." Steve reassured her. "I won't let you down, Nat. I'd never do that. You know that."
"I know, it's just-" Natasha broke off. "What if you get yourself killed? How will I live with something like that on my shoulders?"
"It won't be your fault. Sometimes things are out of control, and it's all we can do to ride it through and make the best out of what we have." Steve told her. "I would never blame you on my death. I would take full responsibility."
"So much has happened because of my actions." Natasha whispered. "You had to watch... that... and Maria's arm- I can't even look at her anymore, because I'm afraid that she's mad at me, and that was my fault. I never should have brought that knife into the meeting."
"But she's okay. She's happy, Nat, and she knows that it's not your fault." Steve tried to tell her.
"She's not happy. Look at her, Steve." Natasha said. Steve obediently looked. Maria was sitting bolt upright, her face blank, but behind her eyes was a fire that threatened to consume the calm, ocean blue that Steve was accustomed to. "I noticed it at that Broadway show. She was in pain the whole time, but she didn't tell anyone. I've been watching her, and whenever she gets like that, she gets all SHIELD agenty and unemotional. Blank. Unsympathetic. It's the face that all SHIELD agents have. We all do."
"It's her choice."
"It just makes me feel so guilty, that's all." Natasha confessed. "And going back, I feel like we're walking into a trap of some sort. Like he expected us to come back. I don't know if I'll pull myself together enough to kill him."
"That's my target, too. We're a team because we're assigned to the same thing, and we're both supposed to get to Alexei. If you can't, I will. No one will know." Steve said, putting a hand on Natasha's knee.
"Thanks, but I think I should do it." Natasha smiled weakly. "It's what's supposed to happen."
You all deserve a t-shirt that says "I survived 20 chapters of No More Memories without keeling over". I can't believe that I've written this story for that long of a time! It's been great, but it's not over.
And I think I've decided that there WILL be a sequel. I don't know what it's going to be called, but I do have a plot for it. Vaguely.
Anyhow, thank you SO much for all your amazing support and guidance. I've grown so much as a writer through Steve, Nat, and Maria.