Nat's POV:
Atlantic Ocean 07/15/2009
The plane was steadily gliding through the white clouds of the darkening night sky.
Natasha admired the stars twinkling above her head and felt strangely calm. The feeling spread out inside her chest and even though she wasn't tired she closed her eyes. Not to sleep but to take in the peaceful mood the world seemed to give to her before the chaos would break down onto them. But she didn't waste one thought on her future problems. For just as long as the moment lasted she was fully occupied by it.
That was until she heard frantic mumbling coming out of her earpiece that she had put on Kate's seat after she made sure her partner had fallen asleep. Questioning her senses she opened her eyes and put the earpiece back in to find out that her senses had not deceived her. On the other end of the line, she could hear Kate move too much to be soundly asleep. The mumbling must've decreased but she could still hear her wince once or twice.
Without a question, her body had decided for her that she would go and help Kate so she jumped to her feet. Only her mind was holding her back from leaving the cockpit. What followed were moments of standing around indecisively followed by relief when she heard a decrease in movement and mumbling. Relieved she turned back to her seat and she would've sat back down in peace if Kate had not said that one damned word. Natasha froze in movement when Kate mumbled a soft but desperate "Mama".
Her feet carried her to the middle of the plane faster than her mind could come up with a plan on how to get Kate out of this...situation.
Haphazardly she stood in front of a curled-up, lightly shivering Kate and watched with guilt as she tried to decide what to do about it. If she was going to be too rough she might frighten Kate. But if she was going to be soft and tender Kate might think that she was invading her personal space. It might make her uncomfortable to be that vulnerable in front of a person she barely knew.
Carefully, she touched the agent's shoulder and when she gave no reaction she started to lightly tap it and whispered: "Kate wake up."
When none of her trials woke her up she started to lose faith in her ability to help Kate. Hesitantly she looked at her. She couldn't just walk away and pretend it didn't happen. Softly she placed her palm on Kate's cheek and felt her lean into it immediately.
"Kathrine, wake up.", her voice was soft but deep, quiet but loud enough to help Kate slowly ease out of her state of distress.
Natasha watched as a tear ran down Kate's cheek and her eyes fluttered open.
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Shared POV:
Still hectically breathing Kate leaned on her right elbow and her other hand traced the scars on her lower back, too disoriented to understand that she wasn't alone at first.
Nat, on the other hand, shocked by Kate's fast reaction, let go of her face in fear of crossing a line just to grab the woman's shoulder to pull her back to reality shortly after without missing the wandering hand on Kate's back.
"Hey, hey I got you. You're fine.", she reassured Kate whose eyes were now fixed on hers. The panic inside them slowly subsided.
The mere compassionate look in Natasha's eyes let the panic and pain inside her die down to a point where she was present enough to understand that she was not alone. But not just not alone, no. Her boss was sitting right in front of her. A different kind of panic arose in her and she turned away in shame. She behaved like a little kid. A little kid anguished by nightmares, not an agent trained to save people's lives.
"Sorry, that was...", she stopped her sentence in search of a word that best described how unprofessional and stupid she felt but couldn't find the right translation to what she had in mind. Since Nat said she knew German she just said it: "...unangebracht"
"Hey, it's okay no need to be sorry. Happens to the best of us.", Nat waved it off and offered Kate her hand who accepted it thankfully. Her unimpressed reaction had allowed Kate to ease up a little. Nat pulled her up and watched as Kate jumped down from her bunk bed onto the carpeted floor of the plane.
"How long till Tehran?", she asked after putting on her shoes with Natasha's eyes still on her. Her voice was a little scratchy from the tension she had been in for the last few hours and she let her thumb carefully stroke the nape of her neck.
"We should be above Spanish ground any minute now." With that in mind, Nat turned to make her way to the cockpit to answer possible radio transmissions from the Spanish waypoint but stopped once more.
"Are you coming?", she asked looking over her shoulder and received a thoughtful look from Kate.
"I think I need a shower first but I'll join you afterwards.", she mumbled and walked away from a worried assassin trying not to show it.
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TRIGGER WARNING: The actions taken in this sence aren't healthy ways to deal with guilt, trauma or neg. emotions of any sort(There is no proper self harm or anything depicted but it's still not healthy)
Kate's POV:
Standing inside the bathroom she could barely move. With the sink and toilet in front of her and the slim glass shower behind her, she started to slowly pull her shirt over her head. Her muscles shook even at this small amount of endeavor. She looked up at the mirror in front of her and found a pale, weakened version of herself. Her hand thoughtlessly brushed over her left cheekbone but the expected pain never appeared. Of course, it didn't she was fine. This was all so long ago. There was a good reason she had forgotten most of it. And whether she liked to admit it or not deep down she knew that that had only been the beginning.
She traced a different scar on her ribs. It was round but a lot darker than her skin color. She hadn't gotten around to covering it up but she usually tried to ignore the constant reminder of what she couldn't remember happening.
Opening her belt, she let her pants fall down onto the floor and got out of her underwear before slowly turning and stepping inside the slim but long shower. Not without shooting a glance over her shoulder in the mirror to see the scars caused by the heat and power of electricity covered with a wickedly glaring crow.
The water ran over her sweat-glazed skin. Warm and comfortable against her goosebumps. Pushing her head under the shower head the water created a numbing wall between her and the real world. The rushing of the water took her far away from the cold metal under her toes thousands of feet above the ground. But before she knew it far away turned into forgotten times and pictures of broken limbs, missing fingernails, and many, many nights alone on the cold, dirty floor of a cell bleeding and aching in pain.
Tears start to flow down her cheeks, mixing with the water drops. Her knees get weak and she leans back on the misty but cool glass and slides down until she was sitting on the floor. She wrapped her arms around her knees and cried some more. And she hated herself for it. She shouldn't be so weak. She should be strong and behave like a grown woman, not like a little child. She did it before, right? She had been strong before. So, why was it so hard to do right now? She needed to get her shit together. She had to stop being such a wimp and start acting like an adult.
She reached over her head and turned the hot water off so that only the cold washed over her. A familiar feeling of duty and strength came from this punishment and she found the might to get up and get dressed.
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Shared POV:
Nat snuck back into the cockpit when she heard the bathroom door being carelessly opened. While Kate stretched her shoulders and jumped around to pump herself up. Kate strolled over to the door of the cockpit and leaned on the wall next to it, sparkling with a put-on mask of confidence. She knocked on the door and heard how Natasha got up and walked towards it.
Nat opened the door with the same empathetic look in her eyes as before that quickly disappeared when she saw the cocky posture of her counterpart. "What's up?", she asked with a light tone of amusement swinging within her words.
"I was thinking you versus me. Until one taps out.", Kate answered in an intentionally arrogant, flashy tone.
"You really wanna do that? I'm a lot to handle, you know?", Nat teased back, intrigued to see how Kate would manage in a fight with a marshal artist of her caliber.
"I'm down if you are.", Kate replied without missing a beat or the chance to flash a smug but charming smile at the agent in front of her.
"Let's do this."
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Thanks for reading this chapter
It's really taking me a long time to set it up right but I want the story to feel like the long beginning paid off
So, sorry if I'm dragging it out too much for you
~1513~