The Ghost [Marvel | Steve Rogers]

Chapter 43

New York City, USA

Spring 2015

She wasn't entirely sure why she was sticking around anymore. She wasn't much use to anyone, it seemed.

She hadn't been able to keep her daughter safe; she wasn't trusted enough to fight; she wasn't getting anywhere with her searches...if anything she was a liability on that front...

...She'd lost Natasha...

Arguably, of course, there wasn't anything she could've done for her sister, and Natasha would probably be the first in line to make sure she was very well aware of that fact. But that didn't stop her from feeling responsible for her little sister being taken by Ultron.

She had just watched.

She wouldn't have thought it, but it somehow felt worse than not being there.

...No...that felt just as bad...

It was just a different sort of bad.

Still, she should have done something!

But at the same time, her analytical side, honed by years of training and experience, told her that as soon as Ultron had grabbed Natasha, there was nothing she could've done.

It was why, when her gun had materialized in her hand as Ultron latched onto Natasha's foot, Nadine hadn't pulled the trigger. Had she fired at the robot, not only would she have pissed him off more—he'd already proven impervious to gunfire, after all—she would've risked hitting her sister.

No, she was berating herself instead for not being prepared for something like that to happen. She should have been ready for Ultron to try something like that. It didn't matter that the Cradle barrelling through the air toward her had thrown her off balance—figuratively and literally—she should have been better prepared. She shouldn't have been drawing her gun only when Ultron appeared in the mouth of the Quinjet to snatch away her sister.

She shouldn't have been on that Quinjet... A furious sob tried to claw out of her chest. Of all the times not to challenge Rogers when he decided to give her an order...of all the times not to simply do what she felt she had to do...

But no. She'd second-guessed herself when she'd seen the chance to get on the ground herself, to potentially help. She'd stayed on the Quinjet where she was next to useless. She'd let Ultron get in her head. And she'd let Rogers' reaction shake her.

She was off her game.

And she was terrified that it might just have gotten her sister killed.

She forced down the horrified tremor building beneath her ribcage.

First Nina and now Natasha? Why couldn't she seem to do enough to keep her family safe?!

On top of it, now the rest of the Avengers were going to be turning on her if Captain Rogers' reaction to just part of her most closely guarded secret coming out was any indication.

And she didn't have Natasha in her corner at the moment to back her up, either...her head dropped to her hands.

This was just getting worse all the time.

Natasha had been right. Nadine bit back a groan. Her little sister had been urging her to tell the team the whole of her suspicions about why Strucker had wanted Nina...and by extension about her history with the Winter Soldier.

In hindsight she should have. The reaction could hardly have been worse than the one she got on the Quinjet. At least had she been the one telling it, she could have framed it better, breaking her secret gently rather than having Ultron spring it on her companions in the bluntest, most horrible way possible.