We've been at the base for two days now and no one has showed up. Not a trace of them. No calls or text. Nothing on the news. The only thing that has been broadcasted are those sick executions. And Dottie continues to get more and more violent and relentless with them.
Today,she decapitated every last member of the family. And then she laughed and ended with the russian version of 'God Bless America.'
Natasha ended up being fine. Mild concussion and her windpipe was damaged,but she's fine now.
The atmosphere here at the base is worse than that of at the house. Arguments,curses uttered and yelled across the room,multiple physical fights.This is what happens when all is released. The feelings they've bottled up because they are brave and need to prove that to one another. But in these arguments,none of that matters.
There are whispers of quitting. Whispers of turning both Natasha and I in. Whispers of the others being dead.
And even though I want it to not be true,we've been here two days and they have yet to show their faces. Yet to contact us or even show up on TV. If Dottie did catch them,she'd parade them to lure in the rest of us. But even that has not happened.
I crawl out of bed,shower,and dress in the S.H.I.E.L.D training sweats and shirt.
Natasha is down in the training room,doing sit ups upside down.
I leave her alone and slide past her to the punching bag.
This is my release. Where all my emotions are expressed. I can't hurt this. I try and convince myself each time that maybe this will help me forget. But then it comes back in dreams. When I see Peggy. When I have to listen to broadcasts on the news. When I have to face Bucky.
He's the worst reminder. When I face him,there is nothing I can do.
But now there is more to release.
The tower. My friends. Bruce. Natasha. Dottie. Those innocent families. Jaxon. His family. What she has caused all of us. The pain.
I'd began without realizing I had. And I don't stop either. I slam my fist into it over and over,my knuckles slicing open ,the skin breaking on them.
Every time I punch,blood paints that spot on the bag,but I ignore it.
Natasha beneath that rock at the tower. The stories of Bruce being told. Clint's words to me. Tony trying to quit The Avengers. Bucky's cold eyes when he held Natasha up by her throat. The sqaudrant being killed in France. When I thought Natasha might die. When Ward shot her in her chest. When he laughed as I threw the S.H.I.E.L.D.
All of it comes flooding back in flashes of memory. In quick flashes.
I see the blood. The fire. Hear her screams. Her cries. Hear his laugh. Hear the explosions. Hear her tell me she was done for. Hear Bruce. Hear Jaxon cry out in pain.
I see it all. All of it.
Every last detail.
I see Ward over and over and over. The way they promised me he was in jail. He hurt her. Twice.
I see Dottie. The way she has managed to slip into Natasha's mind and grab hold of it.
I see Bucky. The way he held her there. The way I hesitated, because it was him and I should've have been more concerned about her.
I see the way I imagine the rest of them dying. Screaming for mercy as they put bullet after bullet after bullet through their skulls.
I feel the way they felt to watch another be killed only to know that they were next.
