Love In A Hopeless Place (An OC x OC Marvel Fanfic)

Chapter 3

The team of heroes didn't have time to react as Ultron and Tony's iron legion came through and started fighting them. Thor grabbed his hammer as Steve took his shield and Stark got his suit. Natasha and Banner took cover behind the bar and she reached for the gun that was hidden under it for precaution.

"You should know I'm a better shot when I'm pissed off," Natasha warned from behind the bar as she held the gun towards Ultron and started firing. The action, however, turned out to be useless as the bullets simply bounced off of him, her and Banner panicking internally when it didn't work. Well... Natasha was doing it internally. The doctor was definitely showing it, but luckily he didn't change a shade.

Steve managed to capture Ultron's attention enough for them to sneak up the stairs and get to a safer place by throwing his shield at him, the action still useless. An iron legion droid threw him across the room, straight into a wall.

"You're unsupervised for 5 minutes and you already fuck up." The Russian accent made it clear who it was. Mia quickly helped Steve up and they started going after the droids as well as Ultron.

The team managed to take down a few of them, but Stark's number one project was still on his feet. The teenager's blood started boiling when she saw her father being hit by Ultron. Without even thinking, she threw herself on Ultron, hitting him with her best moves, but the android was quicker; he grabbed her foot when she came up to hit him and threw her into a wall with ease. Even though the Russian hit her head pretty bad, she was still up for a fight. Mia held up her hand and shot him with a Widow bite which unfortunately bounced off of him and straight back at her in a split second. The electrical shock and the contusion made her pass out as soon as it hit her. Thor threw Mjolnir straight through Ultron turning him into pieces upon impact, the iron legion shutting down with it.

The team was pretty shaken up, most of them were hurt too. Maria had glass in her foot and Steve, who had a few bruises, helped her walk, Tony had a few cuts on his face, and the little spy was still unconscious.

"Doll?" Bucky asked as he rocked her gently, trying to get her to wake up. "Mia! Sweetheart, wake up."

"Ow," she mumbled, a frown contouring her features but her eyes remained closed.  "Those really do sting." With the help of her father, she got up but the headache took over in a matter of seconds, making her hold her head in her hand and lean onto him for support.

The team was now in Tony and Bruce's lab, trying to mend their wounds. Maria was pulling glass shards out of her foot whilst the teenager held an ice pack to her head and slumped back in her father's protective embrace. It has become a common practice between the two, especially after hard missions – they would cuddle up in her room or on the couch in the common room and watch a movie or just sit there in silence or talk about random stuff, sometimes even the mission if it took a toll on them. It always brought them both comfort, even if it was in different ways. After being touch starved for so long, physical touch became one of their love languages.

    "Wanna tell us what the Hell was that, Stark?" asked Natasha, still pissed off about what happened.

She changed out of her party dress into more comfortable clothes – sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a zip-up hoodie. The Widow took the zip-up hoodie off and draped it over her daughter's shoulders in an attempt to cover her. Mia was wearing just a sports bra and leggings as she had time to change out of her dress before all Hell broke loose. Natasha didn't have a problem with it as the whole team saw her in such outfits multiple times when they trained, but she gave in when she saw the overprotective father looks Bucky kept giving her.

The outfit did make her a bit suspicious though; she had noticed that her daughter tended to wear a looser shirt and sweatpants or shorts to bed – just like she did – as they have met multiple times at night whether it was Natasha checking on her or comforting her after a nightmare, sometimes even in the morning if it was a bad one for the teen and she didn't feel like changing before breakfast; the outfit she had on was her basic training outfit. That's when it clicked.

The group of people listened to Tony's explanation and tried their best to come up with a plan and figure out what the damage was as the tech genius set up one of his other AI's, FRIDAY. They all went back to their rooms, trying to get some sleep as they had a new battle ahead. However, the parents remained in the lab a bit longer since Bucky felt the need to express his worry.  Even though he just got back, he had already noticed something was wrong with his daughter and thought Natasha would be able to shed some light on the situation, but she was just as clueless. She still told him the few things she knew and promised to talk to Mia. Taking into consideration that they're both trained assassins, their parenting skills are quite good.

The Widow didn't stop when she reached her room. Instead, she kept going until she reached her daughter's room. She announced her presence with a soft knock on the door and let herself in after her daughter told her to. Natasha didn't say anything, she just stood by the door and studied her daughter who was sitting on the bed.

"That look is really scary, y'know? No wonder everyone around here is scared of you," Mia joked as she tried to snap her mom out of her gaze but it turned out to be useless. She tried to avoid the look by looking away. "Okay, now you're really scaring me."

"Talk to me, please. Don't think I haven't noticed something's up and I know you weren't going to sleep. You worry me, dorogoy..." Natasha spoke softly as she saw the state her daughter was in, a soft frown contouring her face.

The teenager looked up at her mother with tears in her eyes, her train of thought far gone. All she could manage to say was a barely audible "I'm sorry," before breaking into tears. She knew it was okay to cry – she managed to learn that in the year she spent with the team – but it was still hard for her to show emotion when someone else was there, especially her mother.

The older Widow's heart broke at the sight, immediately engulfing her in a tight hug. "Oh, sweetheart... It's okay, detka, it's okay. I got you, you're safe," the spy reassured and rubbed soothing patterns on her daughter's back. "Everything is okay, dorogoy." After a couple of minutes, the kid seemed to calm down and Natasha cautiously brought up the question, "Do you feel comfortable enough to tell me what's going on?"

"When the enhanced got in my head in the last mission, she- she showed me my worst fears, I'm sure they did the same with Stark. I uh... I was back in the Red Room training with Yelena and then I was back with HYDRA and then-" she couldn't tell her that part. Something in her head told her that if she spoke about it – maybe even if she thought about it for too long – it would be real. With her mom's encouragement, she kept going, "I was back here, everyone was, and I lost control of my powers, and I- I hurt you. I'm so sorry, mama." She covered her face with her hands as the image flashed in her mind, bringing along a new set of tears.

"Sweetheart, listen to me. You're not gonna hurt me, okay? You're not gonna hurt anyone. You had all the reasons to do that when we first met and you didn't. You're a good person, everyone knows that. I can only imagine how scary it must be to have your powers, but you're doing so well, baby. You won't hurt anyone, I promise," Natasha guaranteed. "And about Dreykov and HYDRA... I swear to you, they'll never lay a finger on you again. Everyone in this team, this family, will fight for you."

"It seemed so real... Since that mission, everything has been coming back," Mia mumbled and looked up at her mom, finally fully taking in her worry and now she started feeling guilty for that.

A sympathetic smile tugged at the older Russian's lips. "And by the bags under your eyes, I'm assuming the nightmares are back too... Panic attacks as well? Is that why you drank so much tonight?"

"Yeah... I have them under control though, don't worry."

"I'm your mom, I'll always worry, detka. Do you want me to talk to Bruce? Maybe he can get you something for that," she offered, being fully aware of the toll it can take on someone.

"Yeah, mom, because an Avenger taking pills to deal with their trauma is exactly what the world needs to know. They will definitely trust us to save the world," she thought before shaking her head. "I'm not sure about that."

Natasha nodded slowly and said, "Okay then. Let me know if you change your mind. Try to get some sleep, kotenok. We'll figure everything out tomorrow. You'll see, everything will turn out just fine. It always does." She got up and kissed her forehead, mumbling a soft "Spokoynoy nochi," before leaving the room.