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“It’s time to go.”
Natasha looked up. Gamora was standing in the doorway to their room with her arms crossed over her chest and her gray lips twisted to the side in cynical amusement.
“It’s not going to go away just because you refuse to acknowledge it,” the Zen Whoberian warned her.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, Natasha stood up from her desk. Systematically, she refiled the Academy Secrets spread out on the dark wood and carried them over to the safe under her bed, where she locked them in carefully.
“I’m not looking forward to it, either,” her roommate counseled her. Gamora shifted, one hand brushing through her hair to encounter the empty space where her sword usually rested. “But it’s all about being part of a team, right?”
“A team ,” Natasha muttered. “I want to be an Avenger , not a member of a team. Avengers can do solo missions.”
She started strapping knives under her clothes and hiding various other innocuous-looking weapons on her body.
“Not exclusively,” Gamora corrected. “This is really hard for you, huh?”
“You have a team already,” Natasha said, fixing her friend with a glare. “I don’t need one. Of course I’m not comfortable with this.”
“And I thought the Black Widow wasn’t afraid of anything.”
“I’m not afraid.”
Gamora studied her tense posture. “I’ll stick close, okay?” She stepped into the room until she was within arm’s reach of Natasha, though they didn’t touch; they rarely did. “It’s not going to be as bad as you think. Jan organized it, not Fury.”
Natasha set her shoulders, nodded, and led the way out of the dorm.
~ ~ * ~ ~
“Trust falls!” Jan shouted in excitement. “Everyone’s going to climb up the tree and fall into their teammates’ arms! It’ll be super fun!”
Natasha wasn’t the only one to react negatively, but where most of her fellow students groaned, she shivered. Gamora, pressed close by the crowd, nudged her in comfort.
Wasp began organizing the assembled heroes into groups of four, and Natasha cast suspicious glances at everyone around her. When Jan got to their section of the group, Natasha was practically vibrating with tension, but the Wasp moved on quickly. Natasha looked behind her to see what second-rate heroes she was supposed to trust to break her fall, and blinked in surprise.
Gamora raised a challenging eyebrow.
Misty Knight winked, her bionic hand propped on her hip. “I’ve got your back, girl.”
“This exercise will serve us well when we combine our talents for spying,” Mordo explained, adjusting his sling ring nonchalantly.
Natasha relaxed for the first time all day. She smirked at her… friends.
“Let’s show them what a real team can do.”