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.CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.
[28]. The Good, The Bad, and Then There's the Romanoff's.
[PART ONE]
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❝ ʏᴏᴜ'ʀᴇ ɴᴏᴛ ɢᴏɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ɢɪᴠᴇ ᴜᴘ
ᴀʀᴇɴ'ᴛ ʏᴏᴜ? ❞
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MOM STAYED BY HER word and took me back to the hotel while she, Tony, and Natasha worked on trying to get the DNA to process quicker. I was sitting on the bed all alone in the room. The others had been out eating dinner. I wasn't hungry... I felt too sick to even do shit, to be honest.
The door unlocks, through it walks Kate. I had only known because she's the only person who had the room key. I kept my eyes on the ceilings, not bothering to look at her. I feel a weight on the bed beside me.
"How are you feeling?" Kate whispers.
"Like I deserve to rot in hell."
"You've always been dramatic." Kate sighs, she props herself up on her elbow so now she facing me. "It's not your fault, Nat."
"Yeah? then why does it feel like it?" I scoff. "I'm the one who blasted him off of Peter— I could've killed him and I didn't. But before that— I killed a dozen other people. A-and I just had to panic."
"It's because you've got a heart, nothing is wrong with that," Kate replies. "A-and we've all killed before."
I scoff. "Who have you killed?"
Kate stays silent.
I glance at her as if looking at her made me remember everything that happened when I went back in time. I also remember her. "What happened to Ashley, Kate?"
Kate seemed taken off guard by my question. "How do you know about Ashley?"
"Oh uh— when I went back in time you happened to have been dating her." I softly reply. "You— you looked in love."
"I was." Kate exhales deeply. "Ashley and I met when we were kids. A classic enemies-to-lover story. She was there for me when I discovered some things about my... family. I grew to love her— everyone loved her really. She was amazing. Capable of seeing the good in the most evilest souls. She had a good heart, a good mind, and a good soul. Some took advantage of that— she got mixed up in my family's drama, she was on the wrong side of town... I thought she was one of them..."
"One of who?"
"Some random group my dad had an alliance with. I didn't want anything to do with his drama." Kate tells me. "He didn't like that. He gave me the whole family has each other's back and that I was just a disgrace. So I left, I stayed with James and he helped me train. The day came where dad had enough, he thought I was replacing him with James. He was angry and jealous. So he came after the Rogers family with full force. Peter not knowing what was going on allowed Ashley into the house..into the fight... later she got caught in the crossfire, I shot an arrow right through her heart." a tear fell from her eye as she spoke. "I killed her."
"Kate—"
"Don't tell me it wasn't my fault... I had enough talk from Wanda and James." Kate interrupts. "I've moved on... or at least I'm trying." she looks at me.
I turn to my side, looking at her. "I don't— I don't know if I'm capable of loving."
"I could say the same about myself." Kate shrugs.
"I don't want to hurt you."
"You can't."
I smile. "You're not going to give up aren't you?"
Kate smirks. "On you? Never. I know we'll be something one day. I believe... we could fix one another."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"I'm in need of fixing right about now."
We share a look, before you knew it Kate had been leaning in and so had I. In less than a second, the gap was closed. And it felt like nothing but heaven. I was scared, I've lost too many people. I don't want to hurt Kate. But I couldn't stay away from her.
Katherine Bishop would be the death of me... but maybe she was right. Maybe we could fix one another.
But of course, all good moments come to an end. Her phone had been going off. Kate groans and pulls away from the kiss, she leans over and grabs her phone.
"Who is it?" I ask.
She shows me the caller ID which read out my mom's name. Of course. Even miles away mom was still capable of ruining my moments.
Kate picks up the phone and holds it against her ear as they spoke. "Hey...yeah, she's here...Uh...I don't know her phone might've been on vibrate."
I lean over and grab my phone, and I see that there had been several miss calls from Mom and a few unknown numbers.
"What?...are you serious?"
I give her a look of confusion.
"Y-yeah, we'll be there... okay be careful...bye."
"What happened?"
Kate throws the phone. "The results came back."
I smile. "That's great. Wh-who's blood was it? Do we know him?"
"Yeah... we do know her."
Oh... her.
"Sharon Carter."
Holy shit...
My eyes widened. "The blood was Sharon's?"
Kate nods.
"B-but that can't mean anything. I mean... it was fresh so—"
"Natasha, it was fresh. She was in the containers before we even told her about it." Kate interrupts, she seemed annoyed. "I told you something was off about her and I stand by it...and Romanoff seems to as well. They want us to meet them downstairs like now."
I don't say a word, I nod and hop out of bed. We go and wake up the others. The five of us made our way downstairs where mom, Nat, and Tony had already been.
"Did you tell them?" Natasha questions.
Jace scoffs. "What? That the hot ones happen to be the evil ones. Yes, she told me Sharon's blood happened to be the blood we found."
Tony nods. "Well if that isn't enough proof to show she's not on our side... here is something else that we put together." he hands us over five individual files with paperwork as we looked through it, he told us about what we had been reading. "Sharon Carter was on the run for five years back in 2018. She wasn't blipped away, just on the run. Around the same time, this powerful person named the Power Broker spiked up. This person— is crazy rich, powerful and everyone here in Madripoor knew about em."
"The Power Broker spiked up only around the time that Sharon started settling in." Natasha now takes over. "What we also know is that the Power Broker had someone on the inside of the government. And guess who just got accepted back into the world." she shows us a news title of the government allowing Sharon back into their walls. "Since Sharon has been allowed back in the county things started disappearing. But no one would suspect a thing since she's a Carter. And we know the world loves the Carter family just as much as they love the Stark's and Rogers'."
Mom looks me in the eyes. "I was able to go back to the container site. Somehow I found a spell capable of fixing the flash drive. Tony and I helped ourselves to look through it and uh... just look."
Tony uses his now new rebuilt suit to show us a holographic video. On the screen appeared Sharon who was going through the lab. The video continued like that for a moment, she was looking for something. Out of the corner there he was... there dad was. He snuck behind Sharon and they both broke out into a fight. He had the upper hand until a familiar face— Daniel and his men came behind him and smacked him over the head.
"That bitch." Kate snarks.
From there they dragged Dad's body out of frame. My heart broke. And I know moms did too. We let Sharon into our home... we trusted her.. and this entire time she was behind this all.
"That explains how those guys found us at the shipyard." Peter scoffs. "Sharon must've called them to get the flash drive."
Jess shakes her head in disbelief. "She was willing to kill us for that flash drive. So- so the world didn't find out."
"I should've known." I scoff. "All the hypothetical talks about the Power Broker with her. It's like she told me and I just looked past it. She made it so obvious and I just— I fell for it like an idiot."
"We all did, don't beat yourself up." Kate places a hand on my shoulder.
I pull away. "No- no don't. You told me there was something off and I didn't believe you."
"So what do we do now?" Jace questions.
"We make that bitch suffer," I reply.
Sharon Carter—now known as the Power Broker took my father from me. And now, she'd pay.