𝙼𝚢 𝙴𝚞𝚙𝚑𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚊 ✰ 𝙱𝚞𝚌𝚔𝚢𝚡𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛

Chapter 13

A year ago

"Soldat?" The agent crouched down to her eye level.

"Ready to comply." Her face was expressionless.

Blank.

"Good." He gave her a sinister smile as he closed the leather journal. "This is your target." He held up a security footage on a tablet of a red-haired woman. "Find her and kill her."

"Understood."

Meanwhile

"I'm going out to get some snacks, anyone want anything while I'm out?" Nat gazed over to the few people in the kitchen.

"How 'bout some little juice boxes for Parker over here." Sam chuckled, slapping Peter on the back.

Nat smirked as the elevator doors closed in front of her. She got off at the ground level, walking to the nearest grocery store. Tony always protested that she didn't need to go and buy things like that on her own, but her and Wanda always scolded him, reminding him that booze, tortilla chips and blueberries couldn't be the only source of food in the complex.

"Right... Thor likes pop-tarts, Sam secretly also likes juice, what else?" She slowly paced down the junk food aisle.

"Popcorn!" She snatched a bag of kernels from the shelf and threw it into her bag.

She grabbed a few different types of chocolate and candy and made her way to the checkout. She unloaded the snacks, the lady at the checkout eyeing her down in the process.

Nat looked up and smiled awkwardly. The lady returned the smile, continuing to stare her down.

"C-can I help you?"

"Oh sorry. It's just you look so familiar." The lady laughed to herself. "I've seen you somewhere."

Nat half expected this kind of encounter every time she left the house, although it wasn't something she'd ever get used to.

"Oh maybe it's because I-"

"Ghost World!" The lady pointed. Nat stopped and creased her forehead in confusion. "What?"

"You look exactly like that girl Rebecca from Ghost World. Oh and the sister from that Home Alone movie that didn't have Macaulay Culkin in it."

Nat chuckled weakly, handing her the cash and leaving, completely dumbfounded and confused.

She twirled the plastic grocery bag around as she made her way back to the tower where everyone was waiting for her. The shortest way by foot was an alley that stretched from the busy street to the one where the tower stood.

Her footsteps left a clunk clunk noise as she ventured into the alley. It wasn't until she was about halfway through when that same sense and paranoia rose in her chest that there was someone lurking around her. Maybe it was something that just naturally came with being an assassin your whole life.

She slowed down until her steps no longer echoed off the walls. That's when it came to her.

Whack

"You're fast. Should've known sooner you'd been watching me." Nat smirked after narrowly dodging the kick coming straight for her with her forearm.