Natasha winced as she moved around the corner to get out of the blast range of the random weapon that Eleanor had collected on her way there. She trusted her aim, she would most definitely hit the lock, but neither of them knew what kind of blast radius that weapon had. HYDRA weapons were notorious for getting more bang for your buck, packing the tiniest of weapons with the largest of casualties.

So, whilst Eleanor pointed the unknown blaster at the locked door, their faces scrunched slightly in anticipation before the shot was taken. Luckily, it did only blow up the lock, and not the entire cell and everyone nearby. So far so good.

As Eleanor went to carefully place the blaster down so as to not set it off and shoot someone in the face, Nat and Bruce worked on moving the heavy cell bars back into the wall as it wasn't a door that swung open.

Nat walked out, happy to have regained her freedom, but within seconds was engulfed by an orange blur as Eleanor smashed her body into Natasha's and gripped onto her with the strength of a God. When Nat regained her balance, she snaked her arms around so that one hand was on Eleanor's lower back and one hooked onto her shoulder in order to pull her as close as she could as well.

"Are you okay?", Eleanor frantically rushed out to her wife. In their peripherals they spotted Bruce walking around the corner, things were still awkward with him.

Natasha nodded and placed a lingering kiss on Eleanor's hair, "Yeah, I knew you'd come and get me", she smiled as Eleanor pulled away whilst they kept ahold of each other's waists.

Eleanor grinned back and tilted her head, "You did?". Both women knew that they would go to the ends of the Earth to find each other again when separated, but it was hard for Eleanor to believe that Natasha had zero doubts whilst she was stuck in that cell.

"Yeah, because I know you've always got me". Eleanor searched Nat's eyes before she grabbed her collar and pulled her in to connect their lips, and despite the roughness of the initiation, it was anything but that. As they interlocked perfectly their movements were slow and delicate, yet full of need, showing just how scared the two had really been even though they were trying not to show it.

It came to a stop when Natasha couldn't help but begin smiling against Eleanor, causing the younger woman to laugh and remember their other reason for being in Sokovia, "Come on, we got a job to finish".

Hand in hand they swiftly began walking over to the bottom of the steps where Bruce was waiting for them so that they could all high-tail it out of there. As they ascended the rickety steps with no support, Natasha could feel Eleanor's body tense up as they got higher, so she squeezed her hand three times. 'I Love You'.

Immediately Eleanor began to relax, Nat wouldn't let her fall. It was all just an irrational fear, and soon enough they reached the top of the steps and made their way through the base to the outside world.

As soon as they looked forward into the forest, Natasha and Eleanor both felt a sense of urgency. Ultron would unleash his plan soon and they needed all hands on deck, so they let go of each other to ready themselves for a sprint back to the city, but Bruce standing awkwardly behind them stopped them in their tracks.

"Are we not going?", Natasha turned to him with her brows furrowed slightly.

"I can't fight where there might be civilians, it's too risky", Bruce looked down at the floor ashamedly. Eleanor and Natasha understood where he was coming from, but they truly needed all hands on deck for this threat, it wasn't just fighting off a guy with too many guns, it was fighting a guy with all of the guns.

Nat looked like she was about to say something else, but was interrupted by the city a few miles away starting to rise into the air, shaking the ground around them, debris pelting to the floor where they stood. With eyes bulging in horror they all took many steps back to get as far away from the border as possible as they watched the land in front of them get higher and higher with every passing second. They knew that Ultron had many tricks up his metal sleeves, but causing a part of the Earth to separate from the rest of the globe was not on their 'Ultron Apocalypse Bingo' cards.

"What the fuck", Eleanor breathed out and turned to Nat, "We really need a code-green, if anything to get us back up there".

Natasha nodded a few times with her jaw slack and turned back to Bruce after yanking Eleanor out of the way from a falling rock. "Bruce, I know we aren't exactly on the same page right now, but I really need you to do us a favour".

"No, no I can't", he took a few steps back and looked at Natasha as though she was crazy. They needed to act fast, so whilst Eleanor huffed and went back to staring at the rising city, trying to figure out a way to get up without Bruce, Natasha was thinking of a way to get him to be the Hulk. It wasn't like they could force him, Natasha thought.

Though her train of thought stopped at that station, they needed to force a Hulk transformation. "Hey, El!", she yelled over to her wife, trying to be heard over the rumbling sound in the background. When Eleanor took a few steps closer she continued, "He hates you, make him angry!".

"I beg your pardon?", Eleanor frowned and scrunched her nose up, that sounded like a terrible, terrible plan. Unless Natasha's plan was to turn her into mush then in that case it was an excellent plan.

"What?!", Bruce again stumbled back, trying to get as far away from Eleanor as possible as she would likely agree to Nat's plan eventually.

"Just do it!".

"Fine", Eleanor shook her head and looked at the ground. She wracked her brain for ideas as she stared at her feet, and then she focused on the small rocks and pebbles surrounding her, and her eyes widened as she did a Cheshire cat smile. Nat frowned at seeing her wife scrambling to collect an armful of rocks, but did a brief head tilt to show that she was impressed with the quick thinking. It was a way to annoy him where they could keep their distance, and her aim was perfect.

"Hey tough guy!", she shouted before pelting a rock that was the size of the palm of her hand at his abdomen.

"OW, what the-", he didn't get to finish before more pebbles and rocks were thrown at his arms. The stomach one was just to start the fire, she didn't want to do any actual damage to him. So, aiming for the arms was just to fuel that fire. "Would you stop that?!", he yelled, but she didn't, seeing that he was getting increasingly angry. The veins in his neck and forehead were popping out, and his hands were clawed as he tried to hold himself back.

Eleanor stopped for a moment, just to make it seem like she was done. Bruce was clearly struggling to hold back his alter-ego, so when Eleanor suddenly chucked the tiniest pebble she could find at his chest, that was it. The scales had been tipped, and the Hulk dynamite had exploded. It was always rough seeing Hulk transformations when he didn't want to, and this time was not any better.

He roared as his clothes tore and his skin gradually turned green. When he was at full height, Eleanor made sure to take some lengthy steps back, which had been the correct decision. As soon as Hulk had come to, his eyes locked with Eleanor's and he huffed angrily before attempting to charge forward.

Natasha rushed to her aid, which stopped him in his tracks. She spoke to him in a calm voice, reassuring him that everything was okay and that they just needed to get up to the top. He smiled slightly and nodded, Hulk only listened to Nat. He still looked less than enthused to see Eleanor approaching, but he didn't attempt to stomp on her, so she took it.

She was still hesitant, however, and practically stood behind Natasha, using her as a human shield. To which Natasha gave her a look showing that she was not impressed, but Eleanor merely shrugged, Nat would be fine.

Hulk turned his back to the two women and crouched down slightly, trying to signal for them to climb onto his back. They didn't understand at first, but when he let out a groan of annoyance and pointed at his back, they got the message. "Not another piggyback", Eleanor whined and leaned her tilted her head back as she dragged her feet along the floor to reach him. In Seoul she had been on the back of both Steve and Ultron, both experiences were terrifying, and considering they were about to go flying through the air onto a floating rock, she didn't doubt that this time would be any different.

Natasha climbed on first and did her best to loop her arms around his neck, Eleanor climbed on a moment later and did the same, though her arms were also on top of Natasha's. "You read-?", Natasha began but was stopped by the Hulk running forward to gain momentum for the awful jump that lay ahead.

Both Eleanor and Natasha began screaming when they were lifted up into the air into what could only be described as a controlled crash, without much control. They clung on for dear life when they landed on a falling chunk of debris to propel them forward further.

They were barely able to hold on, their torsos flying about every which way. As soon as they hit the wall of the floating city rock and the climb began, Natasha's grip loosened and she slipped. She made a desperate grab onto Hulk's back but there was nothing to grab onto until Eleanor caught her hand as Nat's body hung in the air. With their sweaty palms, her hand almost slipped, but she was able to cling on. There was no way in hell that Eleanor was going to drop Nat.

Eleanor grunted as she tried to keep her grip on Natasha, but also Hulk's shoulder so that they didn't both plummet to their deaths. She was relieved when they hit the flat ground, and Eleanor used all of her strength to swing her arm and launch Natasha forward so that she could try and have a smooth landing, as the way that they were crashing about through the trees, making his balance be lost, meant that she probably wouldn't. Natasha hit the ground and rolled before Hulk and Eleanor did.

When she managed to land in a standing position, she watched as Eleanor was hurtled off of his back and thrown forward. She hit the ground harshly and bounced back into the air before gravity did its job again. Just like Nat, she managed to stand instead of rolling onto her back like a starfish. Natasha immediately came running over to her, "Thank you for catching me".

"What, that? Nah, that was easy", she breathlessly joked whilst Nat dusted some mud off of her suit, which was of no use, it had been dirty before coming to Sokovia. They turned to face Hulk staring at them with his brows furrowed. "Sorry about that Brucey", Eleanor grimaced, worried that the idea of being turned into a pancake wasn't quite gone. But his face softened and he gave her a small nod, making her exhale deeply from relief.

"Now go be a hero", Nat spoke, he roared which would usually make them jump, but this time it was a battle cry, so it made them smile as they started sprinting in the same direction as him.

---

The city was in tatters, which wasn't surprising considering it was floating through the air. The wind was also whipping through them due to the high speed of the city's ascent. Eleanor was very glad that she took the time to re-tie her air. Natasha's was shorter than Eleanor's but she still didn't understand how she could fight with her hair completely down, not even with at least the front parts pinned back. Though apparently, Nat managed so she never brought it up.

With how fast the two women ran, they reached the city within ten minutes and immediately saw the wreckage. There were cars strewn everywhere, newspapers flying about the police, people running and screaming, and of course, robots flying about the place. Natasha had some batons with electricity flowing through them that she was using to fight off the robots, and they were effective.

Eleanor however, had her guns, which they had learnt from being ambushed at the party: were not effective. At first, she began using her knives to tear damaging holes into the robots that flew close enough to her, but her supply was soon running out. Frantically she began searching the place in an attempt to find a makeshift weapon. It was something that she had to do a few times during her time as a SHIELD Agent. Sometimes your weapon became faulty from things like waterlogging, or it got tossed away from you. In these cases, you had to use whatever was available to you. So, when she saw a metal pole laying on the ground that had once had a road sign attached to it, her eyes sparkled as if she had just spotted candy.

Briefly abandoning Natasha, she ran forward to pick up the new weapon. She threw it in the air and caught it to test out the weight to calibrate her brain for certain movements, and rushed forward towards her wife again. She didn't look like an Avenger with what she was holding, and instead looked like someone who was about to go and smash up their ex's car, but it worked.

She batted away multiple bots on her way back to Nat, who was currently doing a front flip into a forwards roll to avoid enemy blasts, before using her batons to short-circuit one of the bot's legs and then hit it in the face. Eleanor continued her sprint forward and drove the metal pole through the chest of a bot who was advancing on Nat, before yanking it back out, sending the bot crumpling to the floor.

It wasn't long after that that more bots were advancing on them, it was beginning to overwhelm them. Nat gave punch after punch with batons in hand, sending pulses of electricity through the bots, whilst Eleanor swung the metal pole around in every direction, her body on autopilot as it calculated every moment. They were managing to stay afloat, but their movements were getting sloppier from exhaustion as they breathed heavily with their hearts pounding in their chest, and there seemed to be no opportunity for rest coming soon.

Eleanor was broken out of her state when she heard Natasha yelling her name, she whipped her head around in the direction of Nat, and her eyes bulged as she saw a bot flying toward her at a very high speed. There was no time for Eleanor to move out of the way before it picked her up by the front of her suit and lifted her into the air. The metal pole dropped out of her hand, but that was the least of her worries. The bot tossed her towards the ground, Natasha ran forward as she watched Eleanor crashing to the floor, and winced when she saw her smashing through the front window of a car.

The younger woman lay sprawled out on the front seats on her stomach, one leg awkwardly lying on the dashboard. It took her a few seconds to be able to breathe again as she was winded, but after a few gasps for breath oxygen entered her system again. Every muscle screamed at her when she rolled onto her back, and she practically jumped out of her skin when Natasha ripped open the car door that was closest to her head.

"Are you okay?", Nat looked down at a squinting Eleanor as she towered over her, and she could only think of one way to respond.

"Ouch".