THE DEATH SEASON ▹ final avengers ✓

06 | "on her way"

chapter vi of the death season :

" UH , UNCLE SAM . . . WHO IS BRUCE ? "

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" I think going back under is the best thing . For everybody . "

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january 10, 2018

new york, new york

SVETLANA STAYS BY THE WINDOW of the quinjet with an unreadable expression on her face. The redhead's eyes are squinted with concentration as she bites on the inside of her bottom lip, scratches repetitively at the silver lining of her suit, and then bounces slightly where she stands. Svet can hear the others around her getting ready for landing, but she just can't seem to move from her spot. The world outside the window is just so... something.

Svetlana isn't sure what to think of the Avengers Facility.

The entire area is flooded with dark green trees and a gray-teal lake waves nearby and the compound itself is big and white and... like something out of a hazy story that Svet was never allowed to hear. A strange uneasiness settles itself in her stomach, making her scrunch her nose and uncomfortably bounce her shoulders like this can shake it right out of her. It really doesn't.

Even after the quinjet settles down on the landing pad with a large 'A' stamped onto its back, Svetlana can't seem to move. She's too busy to move, anyway. Svet's busy trying to work herself out. That's what her mama always tells her to do when she gets so caught up with her feelings. Usually that will be when Sam teases her about how she's a teenager and she's supposed to be a 'big insane ball of feelings', followed by Natasha smacking the back of his head and Steve giving him a look. Really, feelings are sort of a sensitive topic in the Barnes-Romanoff family, as Svetlana calls them; to be completely realistic, after thirteen years of being repressed, it's rather hard to learn how to manage them.

But, anyway, if she is supposed to work her stupid feelings out, then Svet supposes... she feels guilty. Guilty because she was one of the reasons that most of her family were forced to leave a place where they actually belonged. It was their home, a good and safe place to be sure, but it was still a place where Svetlana Barnes did not exist and the Winter Soldier and the Bloody Ballerina were considered fugitives. It's like entering the world of the Avengers, a world that Svetlana has no right to be in. And it makes her feel small and alone, and for a moment, her brain almost tricks her into thinking no one else can understand that particular reaction.

But of course, one other person can.

Just one.

And he's thousands of miles from here, which might as well be another world away.

"Hey Slugger?"

Answering to Sam's favorite nickname for her, Svetlana swivels around to see that everyone else is waiting for her at the bottom of the open bomb bay door.

"You ready?" Natasha asks the girl carefully, a single blonde brow quirked down in concern.

And despite the storm going on behind her face, Svet just gives a quick smile and an eager nod before growing very very serious, sort of confusing those who are still waiting for her. With a deep breath, the nearly seventeen year old girl decides it's time she tries out her uncle Sam's instructions on 'How To Be Cool 101'.