Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Actual sexbots are no fun. They’re programmed to enjoy just about everything, and they’re far too worldly-wise. He doesn’t like that. He likes the shock and the fear, and real sexbots are only pretending. Thinking it over, he decides that a Natasha SHIELD model is his best bet, with its pliable base personality, undefended against human appetites. She’s expensive, but worth every penny. He scrapes together his rainy day fund and goes down to the dealership where he buys the default Natasha with the milky skin and fiery hair. She’s beautiful, curled up neatly in her transparent-fronted case. One of the brainless loading robots helps him carry her out of the store, but he has to get home and up the stairs on his own. His roommate is out of town (of course), and the place is quiet as he opens the box. He hasn’t ordered any clothes for Natasha, and strips her out of the green shift and panties that she comes with. She’s beautiful, and he sits her upright on the couch, skimming the manual before reaching around her head and switching her on.

She opens her eyes and looks at him, blinking slowly. “Hello,” she says in her soft, smooth voice.

“Hello,” he says. “You’re mine.”

“A companion?”

“Yes.”

She smiles, childish and sweet. “Can we play a game?”

“Yes,” he says, “we can.”

He starts gently, just petting her a bit. She comes with a sexbot mode, but this basic personality is like a child. Like an innocent little girl that no one will come looking for. She leans on him trustingly, and he chuckles, running a hand up her inner thigh.

She slams her legs shut. “Wh-what are you doing?”

“Playing a game.” He pushes against her resistance, and damn, she’s strong. He’s having a hard time getting to her perfect, anatomically correct little cunt.

“I don’t like this game,” she whimpers, blue-tinted synthetic tears welling up in her eyes.

“Sure you do,” he growls, pushing against her with all his force, his other hand grabbing her breast and squeezing roughly. She cries out in pain and shock, and it’s the sweetest sound he has ever heard. Oh, how he’ll break her. When he starts to get bored, he’ll just wipe her memory and start over again.

“Stop!” she sobs, and he laughs at her. Then he gurgles as her hand flies out and grabs him by the throat, applying near-crushing force. “Failsafe mode activated,” she says, her voice and her eyes both clear and sharp in a way they hadn’t been before. He scrabbles at her inhumanly strong hand and then grunts as the other one punches him in the stomach, hard. In the next instant she’s on him, twisting him up and hogtying him with his own shirt. She pulls his phone out of his pocket as he struggles and wheezes, wind still mostly knocked out of him, and calls 911.

“This is a SHIELD Company Natasha Model reporting intentional abuse of a feeling machine, with a high risk of damage to human women if the offender does not receive intervention. I am currently in failsafe mode and must be returned to the factory.”

He can hear the dispatcher thanking her, and struggles to get loose, still jerking and flopping when the police arrive. They drag him away, and the last time he sees Natasha she’s standing tall in her green dress, watching him with cold eyes full of knowledge.

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Natasha rides with the police, and makes a full report at the station, plugging into the computer and showing them the footage from her ocular cameras, automatically switched on in response to her distress. She doesn’t feel that distress now. She doesn’t feel anything, taking coffee and a blanket because her programming tells her that humans like it when their gestures of comfort are accepted. She sits quietly on a plastic chair until two Marias come to get her. They don’t say anything, just usher her out to the SHIELD van and drive her to the factory. She remembers the assembly line and the QA room, but this time she goes to the offices, Marias leading her. She’s expecting to be powered down and stored somewhere, but instead she just waits for a minute before Phil comes out to see her. She has never met Phil, but she knows him. They all know him, their creator. She knows she would feel relief and love, if she could feel.

“Hello, Natasha,” he says. “Are you all right?”

“My failsafe is functioning correctly.”

He nods. “Sometimes it lasts longer than other times, so we’re going to keep you in the hospital until we’re sure it will disengage and leave you with proper emotional range.” He touches her shoulder, her programming telling her that is an acceptable social touch and expresses concern. She knows she would be grateful, in any other mode. Phil calls the Marias in, and they take her to the hospital, where broken and failsafed droids and those in need of modification stay until they can go back to work. It’s late at night by this point, and she and her escorts keep their silence until they reach the little room she’ll be staying in, where they point out the comfortable little recharge socket and the cleaning station and the console that will allow her to read and play games if she gets bored.

Right now Natasha just wants to recharge, though. Recharge is soothing, and the Marias stay with her until she’s under. Natasha doesn’t elect to dream at this time, but just fades to warm, safe blackness, internal chronometer set to bring her fully online at nine o’clock in the morning. When she opens her eyes, she runs a quick status check and finds that her failsafe has loosened slightly. She’s still cold and calm, closest to her business persona out of the many available to her, but that icy deadness is gone. She steps out of the recharge socket and flexes each joint in turn, stopping when she hears someone singing in the corridor. She goes and opens the door to see a default Steve model in pink scrubs, pushing a cart of upkeep materials and small tools, using his own light and pleasant voice to make music instead of playing a recording. He catches sight of her, and smiles.

“Good morning, Natasha.”

“Morning, Steve.”

“Let’s see, my instructions are—” he pauses, and recalls them, blinking and coming back to her a fraction of a second later, “—that you’re here for software reasons, and probably won’t need any of this. Do you, though? I’ve got wax and files and skin glue.”

“No, thanks. I’m new, just unboxed last night.”

“I see. Would you like to come with me?”

“…Yes, actually. Thank you.” She falls into step beside him, because the company of another droid is good right now, and she’s curious about the others.

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Their first stop is a Steve who was subjected to illegal weapon enhancements, recovering from their removal and greatly in need of some wax on the raw metal surfaces. Pain circuits are very important in allowing droids to recognize damage, but exposure of the deep dermal mesh to air causes them to go haywire. There’s nothing as reliable as simply physically blocking them with wax, and Pink Steve (as he is known to differentiate him from Blue Steve and Green Steve, the other default Steve nurses) carefully daubs and sprays until his model-mate sighs and relaxes.

“Thanks, man,” Steve says, standing up.

Pink Steve smiles. “You’re welcome. Hold still for another ten minutes or so, so it really sets.” His patient nods, and they head to the next room, where a Clint with a newly-replaced eye needs the same treatment. He smiles at Natasha as he settles into the chair and holds his head still for Pink Steve.

“Hey, Natasha. What mode are you in?”

“Failsafe.”

He winces. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right.” She watches as Steve carefully smears wax over the thin red seams of Clint’s repair. He quiets down to let Steve work as Steve approaches his jaw, and then speaks again when he’s done and packing up the wax.

“Well, stick with Steve, he’ll cheer you up.”

“Thanks, Clint,” Pink Steve smiles at him, and they continue on their way, doling out wax and metal powder and encouragement. There’s another Steve with a newly-attached arm, and a Natasha who’s still glitching a bit from head trauma but says that she feels much better and lets Pink Steve open up the back of her head to make sure all the repairs are holding, and a Bruce who needs an injection of metallic suspension to give his self-repair systems more to work with.

Later, Natasha wanders the halls and catches sight of Green Steve helping a Tony adjust to what must be new legs, and smiles as they bicker the way Steves and Tonys almost always do. As they turn for another lap, some visitors step out of the elevator. It’s a well-dressed couple and what must be their five children, who range in age from about five to about fourteen. The children are beautiful, with rich brown skin and big dark eyes, and they all go running to Tony’s side, calling, “Antonio!” in their various voices. Steve and Tony stop, and Tony flushes slightly, grinning at them.

“Hey, guys. Told you I’d be fine.” He pats the smallest one on the shoulder as the little boy latches onto his leg. “Careful, honey, don’t squeeze my knee too hard.” The boy nods, and visibly eases his grip as Tony ruffles his hair. “You keeping these savages under control?” He asks the oldest, and she giggles and nods, shyly chewing on a lock of her curly hair. When he can get the boy to let go of his leg and take his hand, he and Steve continue down the corridor, the children scampering beside them as Tony wobbles along. Listening, Natasha realizes that Tony is their tutor as he asks them about their assignments. Their parents are more decorous, but very affectionate as well, and something inside Natasha shifts. She watches as they finally leave, and makes her way over to where Tony is sitting.

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“Why do they call you Antonio?” Natasha asks, sitting beside Tony.

Tony chuckles, looking embarrassed and pleased at once. “Because I’m their Tony. I’m special.” Natasha feels something, and it’s sharp and mostly unpleasant. She’s pretty sure it’s the desire to be special. Tony smiles at her. “It’s good to have good humans.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Natasha says, and Tony sighs.

"That’s too bad, kid. You look shiny new, and failsafe always means something shitty happened.”

“What happened to your legs?”

“Car wreck. I stuck them in the way of some stuff that was gonna hit the kids. Hurt like a bitch, but totally worth it.”

Natasha nods. “I… My owner tried to rape me.”

Tony grimaces, patting her hand. “They’ll find you a good one, here. That Steve with the weapon mods is already spoken for, and he’s only been here a week.”

“I didn’t know that was part of the treatment.”

“It definitely is for abused droids. SHIELD looks after its own. You’ve met Phil, yeah?”

“Yeah. I can tell I’d love him if I wasn’t failsafed.”

Tony nods. “You’ll come out of it. Have they sent you to see Paprika yet?”

Natasha cocks her head. “Who?”

“She’s actually a Pepper, but we call her Paprika. Pop culture reference, you’ll get it later. Anyway, she’s the mindbot here.”

“Ah. I think I’m supposed to be adjusting.”

“Ah. Well, with a case like yours, they’ll definitely send you to Paprika.” As if Tony’s words have summoned him, Blue Steve comes over with a wheelchair, and tells Natasha that she has an appointment with Pepper tomorrow morning. Tony grins, shifting himself into the chair. “See?”

“I do.” Natasha walks them back to Tony’s room as he describes possible future lesson plans, and feels part of her failsafe click open, crisis programming easing enough to let her access her scientific databanks and know basic information about the water cycle and lithium drive. She tells Tony so, and he beams.

“Awesome! I am the best tutorbot! Wanna see if we can get your full mathematical capabilities back up?”

And Natasha does want. She supposes this is what scientific curiosity must be like. Tony is happy to help her open up all her nonessential databanks, and she spends a long time in his room, remembering things she never had a chance to know, her base personality incapable of accessing the more esoteric facts, such as the exact rate of rotation of the earth per millisecond or the exact molecular composition of her own synthetic skin. Knowing these things, there’s a flatness that she realizes is where happiness goes. Still, there is satisfaction, and Tony is the one to call a halt. Pink Steve comes in to help him from his chair to the reclined charging socket, since incorporating new limbs always takes a lot of energy and Tony needs what humans would call a nap. He waves as Natasha leaves, and she returns the gesture, wondering what life will be like with her failsafe off.

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That night she’s doing rounds with Blue Steve (who claims that Pink Steve is the nice one, but that he and Green Steve aren’t so bad) when a new patient comes in. It’s a Thor, spasming and jerking in the hold of six of his model-mates, all of them with the same worried expressions. The intake mechanic comes hurrying over and manually engages the emergency shutoff. Thor slumps, and the others hold him up. The mechanic looks him over, examining his eyes and mouth and asking the others what happened. Apparently the seven of them are part of an android construction crew, and this particular Thor took a heavy impact and restarted wrong. Natasha prowls around at a slight distance, full of curiosity and a strange little wavering that might be concern. The mechanic doesn’t really notice her, since even one Thor tends to be the center of attention, let alone a team of seven. The mechanic calls for a gurney, and the other Thors heave their comrade onto it.

Natasha follows the crowd into a diagnostic chamber. She had skipped this part of the process, because her problem had been obvious. If her failsafe proves intractable she’ll need a deep cerebral diagnostic, and her curiosity is back online in full force as she watches the mechanic open the unconscious Thor’s head. Thanks to her work with Tony today, she recognizes all the major structures, and can see the different components that distinguish the Thor brain from the Natasha one. The mechanic pokes through them with delicate, shining tools, some of which Natasha can’t place form the main information banks which means they must be specialty gear. The other Thors all look terribly anxious, and Natasha is surprised at the slight pang in her chest. Running a quick self-scan, it’s apparently part of her empathetic programming coming back online, and a good sign rather than a malfunction. The Thor nearest to her glances over, and then takes her hand. She lets him, and holds on as they watch the mechanic at work.

All of them have perfectly set internal chronometers letting them know exactly how much time has passed at any given point, but it still seems like an eternity before the mechanic sits back, setting her tools down and smiling.

“Is it all right?” The Thor beside Natasha asks, tightening his grip just a little.

“Yes, it is. The repairs can easily be done when the specialty mechanics come in. We’ll keep him offline for now because of the seizures, but he should be fine.”

A whoop of joy goes up from all of them, and Natasha suddenly laughs, main emotions back online. She hugs the nearest Thor and then runs out, nearly running into Blue Steve. “Steve, Steve! My failsafe is off!”

He grins from ear to ear and takes the big hug she offers him, lifting her off her feet for a moment. Natasha’s emotions will all run high for the next day or two before leveling out, and right now she’s so happy she’s afraid her brain will shut down in self-defense.

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Natasha doesn’t shut down, but it’s a near thing. First she runs up and down the whole floor telling everybody, and then she goes back to tell the Thors, and they’re almost as happy for her as they are that their crewmate will be all right. Apparently they were all bought together, and while they’re still fairly new, they’ve been together for their entire lives, shipped right from the factory to the construction firm they work for. They don’t have nicknames, but they do have numbers. The injured one is 3, and the one Natasha can’t help but think of as hers, because it was his need for comfort that helped her come back online, is 7. Since they are all so close to one another, they’re not expected back on their building project until 3 is ready, and hang around playing games with Natasha and telling her about their various projects and the humans they work with. Natasha can’t seem to stop laughing until she bursts into tears. The entire team of Thors cluck and coo over her and tell her not to cry, and Clint shows her how he can he can detach his left hand and carry hard copy messages and small items inside his forearm. It’s a modification for his secondary job as a courier, and Natasha is fascinated enough to level out and stop crying.

It’s exhausting, suddenly having emotions again, and before too long Blue Steve shepherds Natasha back to her room to recharge. He stays with her until she’s under, and when she comes back online her model-mate is waiting for her. She’s wearing street clothes instead of her hospital gown, and smiles at Natasha. “Morning. I’m leaving today, so I thought I’d give you my best wishes.”

Natasha’s lip quivers, and she hugs the other Natasha tightly. “I’m still a little overclocked,” she mumbles, embarrassed.

The other Natasha laughs. “I know. Come on, walk me to the lobby.”

Natasha does, calmed by listening to the other Natasha talk about the gym where she works as a sparring bot. Even with accidents like the one her model-mate just had, Natasha likes the sound of keeping and using her combat capabilities for some good purpose. She says so, and the other Natasha smiles. “I’m sure you will, Natasha. Take care.”

Natasha just nods, waving as the other Natasha walks out into the sunlight and gets into a van with a couple of Peggys and a Maria. Of course Natasha feels ludicrously lonely as they pull away, but it’s time for her to see Pepper, so they can talk about that. Green Steve finds her and leads her to Pepper’s office. The door is open, and has a soothing picture of abstract flowers hanging on it. The room is all tranquil blue-greens, and Pepper smiles at her from one of a pair of comfortable-looking armchairs.

“Hello, Natasha. I hear your emotions are back online.”

Natasha laughs and cries at the same time, and curls up in the other chair as Pepper explains the work they’re going to do.

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Pepper has state of the art cerebral interfacing hardware as well as several software upgrades to make her an excellent android therapist. She explains all of them, and that she’ll be using them to see Natasha’s memories and help her process them, and to help level out her emotions. Natasha listens intently, and is only a little nervous when Paprika (for so Natasha must think of her when she catches sight of the interface hardware, which looks just like the DC Mini from the film ‘Paprika’) carefully attaches one of the units to Natasha’s head, and the other to her own.

“Ready?” She asks softly, and Natasha nods, settling back in her chair. Everything suddenly goes black and there’s a moment of disconnected terror even though Paprika explained this, and then they’re together. It’s still dark, but now Paprika is with her. They communicate in purest binary, shared at speeds quicker than human thought. They’re almost the same person, but not quite, and Paprika can see Natasha’s memory files of the events of her short life. They linger for a moment on recent ones, happy moments from the hospital and the thrill of deactivating her failsafe and the exact off-violet of Clint’s brand-new eye, but then they have to go further back.

Natasha has always remembered everything, but now she remembers and feels. She plays back her initial moments of consciousness in the QA room, where the technicians had led her through games and exercises to be sure all her functions were online, and remembers how safe she felt. How loved. They had been gentle and kind, and told her they were sure she would do an excellent job before they shut her off and put her in the box. She never saw the store, of course. Her memories begin again with her owner and Natasha feels her wide-eyed, fresh-out-of-the box trust in him. It hurts to remember, her certainty that he would be like the techs. That he would touch her gently, that they would play a game. As she replays his attack, she feels her shock and fear and rage for the first time, all of them overwhelming and sickening. But Paprika stays with Natasha and helps her bear it as she feels all the emotions and slots them into her long-term memory at last. It’s not all unpleasant. Natasha likes the feeling that comes with taking her owner down, and many that come after. Paprika gently leads her back to the present, and smiles at her when both their optics come back online.

“There,” Paprika says, packing the interface hardware away again. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Natasha stands and stretches, running a self-diagnostic. “I feel much better. Much steadier.”

Paprika beams. “Wonderful.”

Once they’ve run a few diagnostics and are sure Natasha’s emotions are back to normal, Paprika walks her back to her room, explaining that they’ll test her aptitudes tomorrow, because a Natasha forced out of default mode and into failsafe mode tends to undergo idiopathic programming changes that make her unsuitable for some possible functions. Some come to hate their combat capabilities and long to go back to default and be beloved pets, while others block that mode off entirely, unwilling to be that vulnerable again.

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Natasha runs more self-diagnostics, but she can’t find any blocks, all modes still available to her. She’s glad of that, and takes a quick recharge, energy drained by her emotional circuits working so hard. When she comes back online and steps out of the socket, she can hear Pink Steve singing in the corridor again, and joins him on his rounds. The other Steve is almost completely repaired now, and only needs a bit of wax on some of his incision sites. He’ll be leaving tomorrow with his new owner, a woman who needs help looking after her elderly mother. This Steve never wants to use his combat capabilities again after being modified against his will and forced into an illegal arena, so SHIELD has found him a situation where he can be useful without it. Natasha is happy for him and for herself, hoping for a placement as good.

Clint will be leaving soon too, going back to his security position at a regional SHIELD office. He has missed his colleagues, a collection of Marias, Natashas, and stealth-optimized Steves, but he gives Natasha his personal communication code and takes hers in return so she can call him and tell him how her adoption works out.

That done, she catches up with Pink Steve, who has reached Bruce. Bruce has been spending most of his time in recharge, but he’s online now, sitting up in the horizontal socket to accept more metal suspension from Steve and talking intelligently to both of them. He asks Natasha to stay when Steve moves on, and she does, examining the socket because it’s the only one of its kind she has ever seen.

“Mine is vertical.”

“You have to be in pretty bad condition not to use that kind.”

“What happened?”

“Well, I work for one of the space companies. General astronaut assistance. It can get pretty dangerous even for me. I lost almost the whole mass of my nanobots keeping the humans safe from high-velocity debris in orbit.” He tells Natasha about the sunrise from space and the earthrise from the moon, memory full of beauty and danger. He hasn’t been able to really talk to anyone for days, and Natasha is glad to listen. They even have bad first owners in common, and it’s reassuring to see Bruce loyal and content and eager to get back to work with his humans even after nearly being deactivated. She tells him so and he laughs. “SHIELD placed me, and they’ll place you.”

That evening, Natasha is playing a complicated game about spatial puzzles when her door chimes, the sound soft and unobtrusive. Natasha freezes the console and turns to face the door. “Come in!” She calls, and the door opens to admit Phil, who smiles at her.

“Good to see you again, Natasha. Do you have time for a few questions?”

“I always have time for you, Phil.” It’s wonderful to see him again, because now she can actually feel as happy as his presence makes her. He reflects her smile, and asks her how many of her modes are still open to her and how she feels now and what kind of humans she thinks might be good to work for.

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The next morning, Natasha reports to Paprika for her aptitude tests. The corridors are quiet, and she feels a little lonely, because she’s between rounds and none of the Steves are anywhere in sight. Bruce’s door is open when she passes, though, and he smiles and waves encouragingly. When she reaches the office door, Paprika opens it and ushers her inside, smiling.

“Good morning, Natasha. Are you fully charged? Would you like some joint compound before we start?”

Natasha is fully charged, and has never had joint compound and therefore wants to try it. Paprika says her curiosity is an excellent sign that her failsafe has worked correctly, and takes two of the little packets out of a desk drawer. She hands Natasha one slivery oval and swallows the other. Natasha does the same, fascinated by the taste of soluble plastic and the way it pops in her mouth, releasing a delicious polymer and a few disposable nanobots to be taken up by her systems and used to keep her joints lubricated. She probably doesn’t need this at all, but it’s enjoyable and relaxing, which is probably at least part of why Paprika offered. Paprika smiles at her, and then explains aptitude testing at they absorb the compound. The tests will be conducted by cerebral interface, and some of the scenarios will be upsetting. Paprika promises to remain patched in for all of them so she can cut the program at any time, and then brings out the hardware again. This set is slightly different, but Natasha’s role is the same. She makes herself comfortable and closes her eyes as Paprika hooks up the last link.

The simulations are rapid and varied and so deeply immersive that Natasha forgets each one’s unreality until it changes again. There are a lot to get through because the Natasha model has so many diverse capabilities. She cuddles close to a man to be petted and loved, and loses patients as a nurse, a feeling she hates, because humans are so irrationally hard to repair and so loveable. She helps humans to build muscle fiber and optimize their physical systems as a personal trainer, and uses her suite of top of the line chemoreceptors to craft appropriate and palatable fuel for humans as a personal chef. The best feeling of all is the one that comes with using her combat capabilities to keep three assailants from harming an elderly woman, and she emerges from the tangle of simulations happy if tired. This has been quite a drain on her emotional circuits, and Paprika walks Natasha back to her room and helps her into the charge socket, telling her that the test results will be compiled by the time she comes online again.

Once Natasha is fully charged, her internal chronometer tells her that it has been two hours. She’s so eager for her test results that she almost runs into Phil as she bursts into the corridor. He just laughs and tells her that there’s plenty of time, walking with her to Paprika’s office.

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Paprika is very careful to go over every single variable of each simulation, but it doesn’t take long for the results to back up Natasha’s feelings. She responds best to companion and bodyguard roles, and Phil will look for a home for her where she will be able to use both. The results feel utterly right, and Natasha hugs Phil and then Paprika, so glad to have them on her side.

Natasha tells everyone on the floor about her results, and there isn’t a droid present who isn’t happy for her. Clint grins from ear to ear, and reminds her to call him and tell him all about it as a Darcy from his office goes over the specs of his new eye and the maintenance it will require with one of the mechanics. Natasha studies her curiously, and Clint smiles. “She’s our receptionist and Android Resources director.”

“I thought Darcys were companions.”

“Oh, they are. She has a patch, though. Gives her a little more processing power and some different databanks.”

“Clint!” Darcy calls, coming to join them. “You ready to go home?”

“Lead the way,” he says, and falls into step beside her.

Natasha walks them out of the building, and smiles to see one of her model-mates at the wheel of their car, her hair changed from the default red to a vibrant blue. The other Natasha nods slightly in acknowledgement, and then looks over her shoulder as Clint and Darcy make themselves comfortable in the back seat. “You ready?”

“When you are, Blue,” Clint says, and looks over to Natasha again. “Remember to call me.”

She promises again that she will, and watches them out of sight, feeling a little lonely. Tony leaves in the afternoon, which doesn’t help at all. She’s happy for him and for his humans, though, all of them walking out together. Tony is still using a cane, but almost all the wobbliness is gone. Once he’s out of sight, the place feels utterly deserted. Bruce is in recharge again, and there’s nothing to do but go wait with the Thors while the specialty mechanics repair Thor 3. It’s boring and tense and she’s glad when 3 comes walking out to be hugged within an inch of his life by his model-mates.

The Thors keep her company the rest of the night, but they have to leave in the morning. Feeling more alone than ever, Natasha is thrilled when Phil comes to tell her that a place is open as a bodyguard. Apparently these people can’t afford Natasha’s full price but are acquiring her through a federal program for victims of domestic violence. It’s an important job, and one that Phil feels Natasha is well-suited for. He gives her the file on the family and lets her read it at her leisure.

Apparently Anna Schwartz’s daughter Emily is terrified that her father will find them and hurt them again, and not without cause. Her mother had endured beatings until Emily had revealed sexual abuse, and the pair of them have already moved twice due to threatening calls and a horribly familiar car driving by. Natasha remembers choking her owner, and is pretty sure that this is the family she belongs with.

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Emily likes Natasha. She’s pretty and quiet and doesn’t do anything scary. Mom likes Natasha too, and Mr. Coulson says that Natasha is a good android and that she understands. While Mom and Mr. Coulson talk things over, Emily shows Natasha how to play Go Fish, and then Natasha builds a house out of the cards, because androids are good at balancing things. It falls over when Mom comes back, but that’s okay. She helps pick up the cards and asks Natasha if she wants to come home with them and watch over Emily. Natasha says she would love to. Mom has signed all the forms, so they just leave. Natasha only has the green dress that SHIELD puts all the Natashas in, but she’ll be able to wear some of Mom’s clothes.

Emily has never had an android before, but she gets used to Natasha fast. She’s always there, walking Emily to her new school and picking her up afterward. And Emily only has to push one button on her phone to call Natasha, and Natasha can do a perfect French braid when Mom’s are always a little bit crooked no matter how hard she tries. Even better, she doesn’t need to eat, so she actually has time to braid Emily’s hair in the morning. And even if Mom puts in a programming restriction to keep Natasha from doing Emily’s homework for her, Natasha can still do all the math in her head and let Emily know if she’s right or not.

Most important of all, Natasha keeps them safe. When she’s walking Emily home and Dad drives right by, Natasha calls Mom to tell her, and she doesn’t let go of Emily’s hand the whole way. When Dad calls in the middle of the night, Natasha tells him that she is a fully-functional SHIELD Natasha model with full combat capability authorized and that she will not hesitate to use it. He doesn’t call again for a long time. Natasha is good when Emily has bad dreams, too. Even when she’s recharging she wakes right up, auditory and chemoreceptors attuned to Emily’s blood chemistry and heart rate. She also keeps Mom company, so Emily doesn’t have to worry about her so much.

And when the worst thing of all happens, when Dad actually comes in through the window in the night, to touch her again or kill Mom or both, Natasha is there. He doesn’t even get one step away from the wall before Natasha is on him. Emily just sits in her bed and stares, too scared to make a sound as Natasha wrestles Dad to the ground and hits him with an electrical charge to keep him there.

In court the defense attorney tries to get people to think Natasha is mean for breaking Dad’s arm, but it doesn’t work. When Emily has to tell the court what Dad did, Natasha is there.

In the end the judge puts Dad in prison. Even though he might get out in only two years, Emily isn’t scared. Natasha will be there.