Maybe We Don't Deserve Perfect - Discontinued

Chapter 8 ~ Seven Seconds Too Long

Rima smiled at the young widow, "Good question! If I know Vikki and the others, they'll try their darn best to leave something behind for us to find."

"... I guess so..." Adira said, falling silent again.

Natasha hoped that the young widow would learn how to use her voice. Being quiet about all her opinions all the time must have been rough. Natasha knew how that went, it was how she had been for a long time after escaping the Red Room and joining Shield.

She hadn't stopped the Red Room. Her fists clenched, but she forced them to relax.

She had failed her final mission to convert to Shield. Her brows furrowed, she forced them to even out.

Remain impassive.

She wasn't going to fail again. Not when people like Adira's lives were on the line. There would be no more collateral damage if she got her way.

Lila sighed deeply, draping herself over the back of the couch in the apartment, "I'm so boredddddd."

Vaani glanced at her before returning to more closely inspecting the apartment for clues on the Widows' whereabouts.

"Keep complaining and I might just send you back to your mom," Clint said, peering up the chimney.

Lila gasped, "You wouldn't dare."

"I would too."

"Well, jokes on you, you can't! You wouldn't use the time and resources to send me back instead of searching for the Widows!" Lila pointed out, glaring at the upside-down vision of her dad.

"She's got you there," Wanda commented, out of sight in the kitchen.

"Dang it. Kiddo's growing too smart."

"Ha. Get wrecked."

Vaani's frown deepened, but she didn't say anything as she kneeled down to check under the tables.

"Nothing in the kitchen," Wanda told them, walking out of said room, "but you might want to check again, Vaani. I'm not a hundred percent positive on what I'm supposed to be looking for."

Vaani gave a curt nod, making her to the room.

"So I guess we just wait then?" Wanda asked, sitting on the couch next to Lila.

"Yup."

"That's so boringggggg," Lila whined.

"Something you gotta get used to, Kiddo. A lot of parts of superhero work are more boring than people think."

Lila let out an exaggerated sigh.

Yelena could think of a cooler way to die than just being sniped, but seems like life wants to spite her once again. She did promise she would die for this mission though, so maybe life is really just telling her to keep her promises.

Yeah. Just die.

"YELENA! OVER HERE!"

Yelena's head snapped to the right as she was running zig zags across the roof. There was Evelyn, crouching behind a rooftop access of the building they were running ontop; beside her was Tatyana, who was pulling her own gun out and trying to target where the sniper was.

Yelena dashed forward and slid into place beside them, bullets ricocheting across the roof behind her.

"I have a feeling we're onto something!" Tatyana said brightly, firing off a few returning shots.

Yelena nodded.

Tatyana shot again, and the returning bullets stopped.

"Go go go!" Tatyana shouted, dashing around the corner.

They followed her. All three of them dashed across the roof and jumped across a gap. Yelena dashed a bit ahead of the other two and crashed through the window the shots were coming from, raising her arms to protect her face from the shattering glass.

She was met with a room filled with three men, all armed. At least one of them was laying against the wall, nursing an injured shoulder.

Yelena dealt with him first with a swift kick to the head. She spun to deal with the other two when Tatyana crashed through a window to her right. She landed on one of the other men, knocking him to the ground. Evelyn followed close behind her.

The last man didn't take any time to dash out of the room.

"Search the room for leads!" Yelena found herself shouting, dashing after the man, "I'll deal with him!"

She didn't wait to see if they listened.

Natasha's attention was snapped away from looking for leads when she heard gunshots.

A lot of them.

Rima swore.

"Language," Natasha said, tearing off to where she thought the thundering sounds came from.

Rima ran after her, "Adira has heard worse!"

Adira nodded solemnly, "I have. Much much worse."

Yelena almost swore when Evelyn caught up to her and insisted she was coming with her. She did swear when the man they were chasing pulled out a gun and started blindly shooting behind him.

"Keep running!" Yelena said, "There isn't a high chance he'll hit us if we keep moving!"

Evelyn nodded.

They started gaining on the man.

Yelena had half the mind to pay attention to the scenery flying by them. Doors. Some open, some closed. In the ones that were open, Yelena could see brief flashes of stacks of paper and tables of what seemed like vials of chemicals.

The man took a hard right, skidding to a stop in a room filled to the brim with papers and stacks of books. He had nowhere else to go. The room was a dead end.

"Talk about a dead end," Evelyn said, wielding a knife that must have been hidden somewhere on her body.

Yelena narrowed her eyes at the man, watching as he slowly turned around with his hands raised above his head. The gun was pointed to the ceiling, no longer an immediate threat.

He was smiling.

It took five seconds too long for Yelena to realize what was happening.

It took two seconds too long after that for her to tackle Evelyn back around the corner they had just run around.

Seven seconds too late for her to save Evelyn.

The world burst into flames.