Always Okay ─ n. romanoff ✓

thirteen

THE HYDRA agents shoved Sasha and company into the back of a car, two more agents already inside. She slid onto the built-in bench beside Natasha, whose head was angled downward. The look in her eyes was far away, and Sasha could see the life draining slowly. She inched closer so that their arms were pressed against each other.

"Hey," she whispered. "Wake up. I'd prefer things not end like this. I'm not in the mood to drag your body around while in cuffs."

She was trying to lighten the atmosphere, but inside, her intestines were tying themselves in knots. It didn't really help that between having eaten nothing for days and her own blood loss, Sasha couldn't think straight. Sitting across from her, Steve was staring at his shoes, his face covered in ash.

"It was him," Steve said. "He looked right at me like he didn't even know me."

"How's that even possible?" Sam asked him. "It was like seventy years ago."

"Zola. Bucky's whole unit was captured in forty-three, Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall. They must have found him and..."

"None of that's your fault, Steve," Natasha murmured in a faraway voice. Steve looked down again.

"Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky."

Sasha swore Natasha glanced at her as he said that, but she couldn't tell for sure. She put her head on Natasha's shoulder, and Nat leaned her head back, closing her eyes. Sam looked over at the two of them.

"We need to get a doctor here!" Sam yelled. "We don't put pressure on that wound she's gonna bleed out here in the truck."

Out of nowhere, one of the guards produced an electric rod and stabbed her partner in the chest. She knocked the other person out with ease before removing her helmet, revealing a messy-haired Maria Hill. Nat and Sasha looked at each other, then back at Maria.

"Ah, that thing was squeezing my brain." Maria nodded at Sam. "Who's this guy?"

"I feel like that's probably the last thing we should be worrying about right now." Sasha waved. "Hello. Remember me?"

Maria smirked. "Unfortunately."

She pulled a small device out of its holster. Sasha watched with confusion, then curiosity, then horror as Maria cut a hole in the floor of the vehicle. Maria sliced the cuffs of everyone in the van in two, the halves clattering to the ground. When the truck came to a stop, they all crawled through the hole and onto the street. Sasha stood up, not even noticing Natasha's entire body propped up on her own.

"Not to be a cynic, but where do we go now?" she asked.

"Follow me," Maria said, and so they did. She led them to a haphazardly parked car, forcing open the sliding doors. For the second time that day, the four of them shoved themselves into the dark back of a van, and Maria positioned herself behind the wheel. Sasha settled in, allowing a barely conscious Natasha to lean into her. She struggled to suppress a scream as the gash on her arm erupted in white-hot pain, but she wasn't about to ask Natasha to move. No one asked Natasha Romanoff to move and lived another day.

★★★

It was hard to gauge how much time had passed before Sasha finally saw sunlight again, but it felt like about five minutes. As Maria cracked open the doors, Sasha hissed and slanted her hand just above her eyebrows. She helped Natasha upright and helped her out of the car. In the light, Sasha looked down and realized her favorite blue shirt was almost completely stained red. By some miracle, her white Superstars had escaped almost unscathed, but it didn't matter when it hit her that her phone was gone.

"No, no, no!" Sasha exclaimed, sticking a hand in each of her jeans' shallow pockets as though it could be buried in there somewhere. Everyone turned to watch her.

"Sash, what is it?" Natasha closed her eyes and draped herself more heavily over Sasha.

"My phone! I can't find my phone!" Sasha felt like sobbing. Maria looked at her like she was crazy. In fairness, she certainly felt crazy.

"It's better that it's gone. We don't need Hydra tracking us here."

"But Audrey..." Sasha trailed off when she noticed no one was paying attention. They had arrived at a rusted door that had bars like a jail cell. Maria swung it open, and as the group dragged their feet into what looked like a tunnel that someone had forgotten about a long time ago. The walls were full of reddish-brown patches and dirt. A man started running in their direction.

"GSW!" Maria yelled. "She's lost at least a pint! And the kid has a pretty deep gash on her arm."

"Let me take them," the man said.

"They'll want to see him first."

"Who?" Sasha asked, then added under her breath, "Satan? Has he finally come to take me to Hell? Because I can't wait."

But much to her surprise, Maria led them to a maze of plastic curtains. Sasha gasped. Instinctively, her spine snapped up straight, nearly jerking Natasha away. Neither of them was really paying attention to that, though, because Nick Fury was lying right in front of them. It was all Sasha could do not to run up and hug him.

"About damn time," he said. Sasha grinned.

"Hey, Nicholas."