Work Text:
Roxy raises her chin, curls her toes once in her boots, and then focuses instead on calm breathing and calm eyes.
Natasha Romanov, the Black Widow, the woman who half the textbooks would be written about if she weren’t classified and if they actually had textbooks for espionage and not just increasingly terrifying practicals, smirks. Roxy wonders what the smirk means. She’s been trained in body language, but so has Natasha, and here’s the thing: Natasha is better. Better in a way that Roxy will probably never be, because things have been hard, but her past isn’t brutalised the way that Natasha’s was.
(“Just admit that you fancy her,” Eggsy said, tipsy in a tastefully cut jacket, grinning easily.
Roxy, equally tipsy and even better dressed, scowled and admitted nothing; Eggsy was just jealous that he didn’t get to coordinate with the Black Widow on a mission.)
“You can relax,” Natasha tells her, “I’m not some kind of final exam.”
She could be, though. Merlin’s eyes had glittered when he told Roxy that she’d be working with the Black Widow, and while ostensibly they’ve made it, things are never what they seem. Working with Natasha Romanov feels like some kind of test, anyway.
Natasha laughs at whatever she sees in Roxy’s expression; it’s not a cruel laugh, but Roxy flushes anyway. She feels like a child next to the Black Widow, who’s seen and done everything. Everything.
“Come on,” she says softly, and Roxy follows, a step or two behind.