Chapter Text
“Everyone ready?” Wanda looked at Steve who was sitting in the back of the quinjet with them. He had just briefed everyone on what the mission was going to be like and what he wanted everyone to do.
It was her, Steve, Sam, Rhodey and Natasha going. It was going to be a simple mission with the five of them.
So simple…
Wanda’s head drifted as she heard the team mumble between each other.
The last few months Steve had started to include her more in missions, which was exciting, but in the same few months she had also had to deal with her, and Natasha's relationship fall more and more apart.
Okay, to be fair, after Natasha broke up with her in January, it had already been pretty much as destroyed as it possibly could have been. But Natasha had even said that doing it when they did was an attempt to make sure their friendship at least didn’t get too affected by it. Of course, in reality, that couldn’t be more far from what had ended up happening.
Wanda really wished it hadn't ended as messy as it had, but the way they had broken up after standing in her room yelling at each other for half an hour… it honestly couldn’t have gone worse than that.
Both of them pretended nothing had happened. Or at least tried to around the rest of the team. The team didn't know they had been a thing to begin with, which really was one of the biggest conflicts in their relationship. But because of this, they had to pretend everything was fine when they were with them. They had to talk and work together, and Natasha still had to train Wanda a few times a week.
The training sessions were the worst part. Normally Wanda and Natasha could hide in the crowd and let the rest of the team do the talking, not having to actually interreact with each other. But when Natasha was training her, they were forced to talk to each other. It was very minimal talking and it was only when Natasha gave her instructions or corrections, but it was still words exchanged. Words with cold tones and ugly or annoyed looks served with.
Wanda had actually thought that the training sessions would be the easiest way to try and iron out the conflict and act, and try to talk to Natasha again, however, Natasha had shown no interest in trying. Natasha seemed to not want to repair what they once had, and preferred the distance. And to add salt to the wound, after a few weeks Natasha had started to give away even more days to Steve so Wanda could work with him more to “get her field ready” also known as obviously wanting to spend even less time with her.
The only good thing about this training mess was that Wanda could join them in the field now. She hadn't been on a single real mission since the one over a year ago in Spain. Right now she was only allowed to go to the “easy” missions, but it was still better than nothing. It was a nice feeling she was part of the team for once.
Wanda collected her head just as she watched Sam starting to circle around in the sky looking for a nice landing spot.
It was going to be a very simple mission today, one of the tames one Wanda had ever been part of… which was really saying something…
They were going to what has been rumoured to be an old Hydra base… or something… to investigate the area and see if they could find anything interesting or useful. They knew it was abandoned now and held basically no danger to it at all which was why Wanda had questioned why so many were going in the first place. However, she had stopped questioning it when she had seen how big of an area they were going to cover. It would have taken days to cover alone if you were doing a thorough investigation. But with both Sam and Rhodey being able to be airborne, and Steve and Natasha's previous experiences doing things like this, it was going to be very easy and very fast.
Still, it was a really boring mission, and honestly, she didn’t have much interest in it at all. She knew it was important to get more comfortable in the field, but poking around in a dusty building was not the way she wanted to do it.
Wanda looked uninterested out of the window as they finally touched ground again. She hadn't even bothered to ask exactly where they were going because she didn’t really care. She knew it was somewhere in maybe east Europe. Or was it north?... or… south…
She groaned softly to herself as the ramp lowered and the team went up on their feet. Natasha was in the front with Steve as always. She was after all the leader with him.
It was hard knowing the leader of the group had now decided not to like her anymore. Natasha had, and still really did, mean a lot to Wanda, and she couldn’t really deny that. Even if Natasha had broken her heart, she was still so special to her, and Wanda really did want to forgive her. Maybe the shot of ever being in a relationship with her again was gone, but she still wanted her in her life.
“Sam and Rhodey keep updates on coms if anything happens, keep to the east and west. Nat, you hang back, Wanda and I will look over the north side.” Steve looked at her after he finished his small speech to everyone. Lucky as Wanda was, she wasn't even allowed to walk alone, or really do anything alone, so she was of course going with Steve.
After everyone nodded at each other, Steve and Wanda took a small jog towards and around the back of the huge building before picking an entrance.
The area they had to go over was giant, but thankfully it wasn't too hard to cover and secure, it was more a matter of just doing it.
Wanda flicked her hand, flying a few dusty old books away from the table, skimming over the titles as she made her way down the room. To her left, she could see Steve holding a notebook and looking at the cover before dropping it on the floor as he moved on.
It was such boring work. At least it would have been somewhat fun if they expected anything out of it, but they didn’t, they expected literally nothing.
“Last time I went through an old archive I almost got blown up, but this seems way nicer.”
Wanda lifted her head looking at Steve who looked through a bookshelf now.
“Well, at least we can finish in a day or two,” Wanda said with a small smile back, looking at Steve who nodded.
“And at least we have somebody to talk to, hu.” Steve walked up to her nodding at the door with a small smile before he led her out of the current room into the next one.
The next few hours were not the most exciting ones Wanda had lived through. They were just going from room to room looking over everything. They hadn't found anything particularly interesting, and the work seemed slow. At the same time, Steve had a point, the two of them being together was probably a lot more fun than going around alone like the three others. Sometimes some of them talked over the coms, but in general, it was quiet between them, unlike Steve and Wanda who talked constantly.
She liked Steve a lot. He was kind and caring and always seemed to take the time to talk to her when she needed it. It was nice knowing her team cared about her, even though sometimes the group felt a lot more like colleagues than friends. Of course, they were actually colleagues before anything else, but with work that took so much time, and not so much room to do other things, Wanda did really feel the need to have a friend in there somewhere as well.
“Think it’s getting dark,” Wanda mumbled as she pushed away a chair to look under the table.
“Let’s finish up this room then and call it a day. Think we will be done early tomorrow if we keep the same speed.” Steve said with a small smile before lifting his hand to his ear. “Finish up what you're doing and meet us in the quinjet, well do the rest tomorrow.” Steve nodded at her before Wanda quickly started to fly things across the room feeling very eager to finish up looking at old books and dusty shelves.
“Steve, have you heard from Natasha recently.” Wanda lifted her head when she heard Sam’s voice through the earpiece. “I haven't heard from her in hours.” Wanda could hear some wind over his voice indicating he was already circling around the area.
“No,” Steve answered shortly, giving Wanda a small look before nodding at the door. Wanda could see him picking up his shield he had left by the entrance, throwing it over his back quickly before marching out of the room.
Wanda could tell how Steve was using long strides to walk faster. He didn’t run yet, probably trying to not make it a big deal before they had more information. Just because Natasha wasn't on coms didn’t mean something necessarily had happened either.
“I just got to the quinjet; she isn't here either.” Rhode’s voice entered the conversation. He paused for a bit before he added. “Steve, did you see if she had a gun in her holster?”
Wanda threw Steve a confused look as he increased the speed out of the area they were in. Why did she have a feeling they were all thinking the same thing?
“Why?” Steve answered back short, looking around him as they sped.
“Her windows bites are in the jet,” Rhodey answered back, sending a shiver down Wanda's spine.
Was Natasha not armed? Had she left them back on purpose? Because if so, why? Surely that was a huge risk, even if it was a simple mission. Yes, she was capable of protecting herself but that was still not something Wanda thought was safe.
She stopped when she realised what she was doing.
Why was she freaking out over Natasha now? Yeah, sure they were friends but that didn’t mean she needed to freak out. She was an Avengers for crying out loud.
Deciding to try and calm down her overthinking she just followed Steve to a sharp right, knowing they were heading to the area Natasha had been in. She was sure Natasha was fine. After all, Natasha was very capable of taking care of herself. And surely if something had happened, she could have contacted the teams on coms. She wasn't that stupid to take on something she couldn’t handle alone when she had backup, right … Right?
“Steve!” Wanda lifted her head when she heard Sam's sharp voice. She could see a shadow a few hundred feet away stupe down towards the ground just out of sight from them.
“Rhodey, we need the kit.” Wanda’s back went cold as she heard Sam add to his sentence before she could hear him mumble low, probably something to Natasha that the coms weren’t able to pick up.
Not bothering to care about how Steve only had his feet to move him, Wanda propelled herself up and forwards with a hard boost of her powers, flying towards where she knew Sam was.
She only had a small second to take in the view from above, seeing Natasha leaning against Sam, looking completely beaten up, before Wanda was forced to soften her, landing sprinting forwards them.
“Hey, don't push yourself too hard.” Sam’s voice was soft as he helped to support the woman. It looked like she had been beaten up multiple times with marks from a heavy battle covering her entire body.
She had a long slash along her entire arm and what looked to be a shot or stab in her side. Her face was not much better with a bruise over her lip and a small cut on her forehead which had a trial of blood from it down Natasha's entire face.
The woman groaned low, taking a step before she fell forwards. Her eyes rolled up into her head as Sam caught her, and it was no hiding how the woman was clearly in pain.
“What the hell is going on?” Rhodey was the next to land, dropping the red first-aid kit down on the ground beside him before helping Sam turn Natasha in his arms. Her eyes were shining weakly back at them, looking up at them as if she was begging them to make the pain die down. And while Wanda wanted to do nothing more than exactly that, she didn’t know how, not to talk about how it wouldn't be her place to do so in the first place.
Even if she wanted to help, to move closer and not just look at them from a distance, she felt like she couldn’t. Sure, as a friend she should be allowed to be worried, and as her colleague and teammate she should be allowed to help when she was in pain and danger… the only problem was that she didn’t feel like she was any of those two too Natasha anymore. And if she weren’t, she also didn’t have a place to care for her in the first place.
Wanda backed away even more when Steve finally caught up, turning almost completely away for them when the boys leaned over the redhead.
She could only see part of Natasha's lower body past Sam and Rhodey now, watching them from the corner of her eye.
“Nat, stay still” Wanda could hear them mutter between each other as they continued to hang over the woman, probably all trying to patch her together.
“Steve, I’m fine.”
Wanda only turned her head back towards them when she heard Natasha's weak voice. It was low, but at the same time, it didn’t hold any pain in it. Her eyes had calmed down now, not showing the same pain they had a few minutes ago. Instead, they were turning empty, losing more emotions as she carefully pushed Steve out of the way.
“Natasha.” Steve's voice was warning as he let the woman use him as support to drag herself up into a sitting position.
“Well she is Nat, what did you expect?” Rhodey said with a small eye-roll as he backed off as well, letting the woman get the space she wanted.
They hadn't been able to do much, only wrap her arm in a clean bandage and dry off some of the blood from her face. Other than that she looked as beaten up as ever.
“Nat, tell us what happened!” Steve continued to look at her annoyed. They all knew Natasha wasn't the most open person and getting anything out of her could be very challenging. But at the same time, they also knew that Natasha being injured like this was abnormal already, not to talk about this was a mission where nobody should have gotten a scratch at all.
“Steve, it’s nothing,” Natasha answered back flat, looking between all of them.
Wanda lowered her eyes when Natasha's met hers.
Natasha had looked at her and yet it felt wrong looking at her back.
“Natasha did you get attacked or not!” Steve made Wanda lift her head again. He was saying what everyone probably had been thinking. This couldn’t have happened from nothing, somebody must have caused all of this, somebody had to be the one to blame.
“Steve it was nothing okay, I made a mistake, and I ended up hurting myself, now let it go!” Natasha's voice was louder now, and what had been an emotionless voice was now filled with anger as she growled back at the man.
“Fine, but we are going back to the compound, and you are going to get some real medical care.” Steve looked back at the woman with a defeated look in his eyes. It was clear Natasha wasn't going to give any more information now, maybe not ever, and they just had to deal with it.
Natasha didn’t look back at them as she slowly started to walk towards where the aircraft was. Her limp was obvious and for every step, Wanda could see the pain flare up in her eyes, and yet, none of them moved to help her. Steve was the only one even remotely close to the redhead, and even he kept his distance as they walked.
“So… she totally was jumped…” Wanda turned her head to Rhodey as he spoke up. He was looking at Sam with that kind of ironic, but also tired, look in his eyes as he picked up the first aid kit, brushing some dust and dirt off his suit as he moved.
“Yup, unless she decided to jump off the top of the building just for fun,” Sam answered between his teeth, looking after Natasha and Steve.
“I'll go with the first option,” Rhodey said before lowering the mask on his suit and taking off with Sam right behind him.