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Natasha pulled her phone out as the group of five walked in silence up the tree-covered hill, slipping from shadow to shadow, pressing themselves against the rough bark.
Peggy, out in front, leading everyone, didn’t notice what she was doing.
Her eyes skimmed over her calendar before she scrolled away to find what she was really looking for. She knew what day it was. Of course she did. And she knew Peggy also knew what day it was, though neither of them had mentioned it.
One year ago. Three hundred and sixty five days.
She had been at SHIELD headquarters that day, hunched over paperwork, cursing Clint for leaving it all to her to fill out when he had promised her that this time he would be the one to do it.
“I hate you, Clint Barton,” she had been muttering to herself when there had been what seemed like an explosion out in the hall. It had taken her moment — a moment where she had already pulled her pistols out of her suit and had crouched down beside the door — before she realized it wasn’t an actual explosion but an explosion of sound. People yelling and screaming and shouting like they had just discovered life on other planets.
She yanked opened the door to her office and stepped out.
“What is going on?” she asked some sweaty, red-faced agent who was gasping for breath like he had partied too hard.
“Captain … Peggy … Carter ….” He had gasped out. “They found her.”
She’d stared at him like he was maybe actually insane, but he wasn’t the only one saying so. She could hear the name “Carter” being whispered across the room.
She pushed herself through the crowd, finally spotting Maria Hill at the front, busily talking into a headpiece on her ear. She made her way to Maria’s side.
“Oh, Natasha!” Maria said, looking grateful. “Thank goodness you’re here. I need someone to come with me to greet Fury and Captain Carter.”
Natasha blinked at her. “Captain Carter is really here? The Captain Carter? Who vanished in 1945?”
“Yes,” Maria said, like that was obvious.
“But how?”
She shrugged. “No idea. But why don’t we go find out?”
It turned out Captain Carter had gone through a portal in 1945 and come out the other side in Times Square 2012. Alone and confused but still ready to fight.
She had joined SHIELD willingly. Trained with the agents. And when aliens — something else Natasha of a year ago would never have expected, even though Natasha of a year ago would have thought she was prepared for anything — invaded New York, she was one of the first to jump into the fight.
And now they were here. Partners after Clint had taken time off to recover. They had been working together side by side for more than six months.
And once again they had a mission.
Or, rather, Peggy had a mission. Natasha had two. And the second one involved a certain file she kept in her phone.
She smiled to herself as she found it, clicking on it to open it up.
She looked up then, noticing Peggy was about ten feet in front of her.
“Captain Carter?” she called out, hurrying to catch her.
Peggy turned to look at her.
“Nice of you to join me, Romanoff.”
Natasha ignored that. “You know I have important business to attend to.”
Peggy rolled her eyes. “I don’t need a date, Natasha.”
“Well, you obviously do. You’ve rejected my other …” She paused, trailing her finger down all the crossed off names in her file. “fifty prospects I’ve given you.”
“Natasha!”
“Exactly,” Natasha said. “I agree it’s ridiculous. There is definitely more than one good person in this list of people you have so rudely rejected.”
Peggy shook her head. “I am quite happy not dating,” she said.
“Really?” Natasha said. “Because what did you do last weekend?”
Peggy didn’t answer, instead pretending to be super focused on the path up ahead.
“You didn’t even leave your apartment, did you?”
“I do not see how this is any concern of yours.”
Natasha made a noise deep in her chest. “Well, as someone who is trying to find you the perfect date, I think it’s very much my concern.”
Peggy shook her head. “You’re never going to drop this, are you?”
“Not until you are happily dating and getting laid.”
Peggy groaned. But she didn’t dispute Natasha’s statement.
“Fine,” she said. “Tell me which potential Mr. Perfect you’ve found for me this time.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m over Mr. Perfects for you. You’ve rejected them all. Now we’re on to Miss Perfects.”
Peggy stopped so quickly that Natasha actually ran into her, something that literally had never happened before.
“Oof,” Natasha muttered as Peggy whirled around.
“What did you say?!?!”
Another first: Natasha couldn’t tell if Peggy was angry or horrified or amazed or incredulous. Or all of the above. But she supposed it didn’t matter though. The answer was still the same.
Natasha shrugged. “We’ve run out of men at SHIELD headquarters,” she said simply. “And you told me about kissing that showgirl.”
Peggy continued to stare at her for a moment longer, and then the edges of her lips started to curve up. But before the smile could fully break free, Peggy had turned back around and continued walking.
“Well,” she called back over her shoulder. “Tell me about this mystery woman.”
Natasha hurried to catch back up.
“Gladly,” she said. “Her name is Eleanor. She’s in wardrobe. You know, the pretty brunette who helps us get fitted for undercover outfits? She seems sweet.”
Peggy sighed. “Eleanor is very pretty,” she agreed. “And quite sweet. But you already know I am not dating her. The same way I am not dating anyone else we work with.”
Natasha wrinkled her nose. “Everyone dates people they work with these days,” she said. “Though I guess the woman at the coffee shop down the street from headquarters seems cool. I’ll have to get her name.”
Peggy’s punch came out of nowhere. Landing right on the shoulder. A friendly tap some would say, but Natasha narrowed her eyes.
“Hey!” Natasha said.
“Stop trying to set me up,” Peggy said. “We haven’t even had breakfast yet. And we need to focus on this mission”
“I’m multitasking.”
Peggy turned back around and started walking faster. “The answer is no, Natasha!” she called over her shoulder.
“I didn’t say anything!”
“It’s still no!”
Two hours later and Peggy had rudely rejected at least three more of Natasha’s very thoughtful date suggestions, but they had also finally arrived at the target site: an enclosure at the very top of this very steep hill. The two of them, along with the three other operatives who were assigned to the mission with them, crouched down behind a tall stone wall that circled the enclosure they needed to get into.
On top of the stone wall were three rows of barbed wire that sputtered with electricity. A sure sign that the people inside valued their privacy and security. And also, in Natasha’s experience, a sure sign that what was happening inside was on the opposite end of the scale from legal and moral.
Peggy and the other operatives looked to Natasha once they were all safely hidden from sight. She yanked her SHIELD-registered tablet from a hidden pocket near her hip and quickly set about gaining access to enclosure’s security system.
Once she was ready, she held the tablet out so Peggy, crouching next to her, could see.
“Three men outside,” she said, pointing to the screen. “Two by the front door. The third doing rounds across the yard. Inside, looks about ten men total. Most are congregated in this room in the back. The others are scattered here, here and here.” She pointed to the various rooms she saw them in.
“The security office looks to be here.” She pointed to that too. “That room also controls the lights and the ventilation system. And the office with the safe looks to be here.” She pointed that out as well.
Peggy nodded and studied the map Natasha held in her hands. Thirteen to five didn’t always make for the best odds, but they had to element of surprise on their side.
And they had Natasha and Peggy.
“Okay,” Peggy finally said. She looked up at the other agents with them. “Perkins and Hawking, you two take care of the guards in the front and then start clearing the rooms at the front of the building. There should be about four of them. Johnson, you and I are going to clear out this room. Nat, you get the security office. Cut the lights and get whatever files you can. We need proof of their weapons tracking, and we need to know what kind of weapons they’re tracking.”
Peggy looked around at everyone. “Everybody good?”
Four nods and whispers of, “Yes, Cap.”
“Then let’s do this,” Peggy said. “On my go.” She held up her hand, using her fingers to illustrate her words. “One … two … good luck everyone … Go!”
Johnson stood up first, pressing a small black box against one of the electric wires above the wall. Instantly a section went dark. She nodded at the two other agents, Perkins and Hawking, both who immediately made their way up and over the wall and the wire.
Natasha listened to the soft thud as their shoes hit the ground and then, less than a minute later, the startled gasp of one of the guards.
A few seconds after that, her earpiece crackled.
“Guards are neutralized,” Perkins said.
“Copy,” Peggy answered. She looked at Natasha and Johnson. “And we’re up,” she told them, a grin stretching across her face.
Natasha couldn’t help but laugh at Peggy’s excitement. She tucked her tablet back into the pocket near her hip and yanked one of her guns from its holster. She waited for Peggy and Johnson to scale the wall and the wire and disappear on the other side.
Then it was her turn.
She landed quietly on the ground next to the stone enclosure. She could see Peggy and Johnson already halfway across the grounds, Peggy’s shield gleaming on her back.
Natasha looked around, confirming everything was quiet, and then she too took off across the yard.
She knew if anyone happened into the security room while they had been doing this — or had been somehow contacted by the guards before Perkins and Hawking had taken them out — then they already knew they were out here and were probably prepared for them.
But that was what Peggy and the other three operatives were for. Her job was to get the files. SHIELD couldn’t very well track illegal weapons if they didn’t know what weapons they were tracking.
She made it across the still quiet grounds to find a broken lock on the door that led inside. She opened it and slipped carefully into a long hallway, just like she had seen on her tablet moments before.
In the distance, she could hear the sounds of yelling and guns popping and objects crashing. She smiled to herself. The others seemed to have it under control.
The security office was off the main hall in the back of the building. She crouched down, in case of stray bullets of objects coming out of any side doors, and raced down the hall.
The noises from her fellow SHIELD agents and the thugs they were after continued as she made her way past door after door after door, but she didn’t see anyone. She was almost feeling like her battle skills were being a little neglected when she reached the door to the office. She slid it open and had just enough time to see the pair of shiny, very overly polished shoes, in the doorway before a punch aimed toward her head.
She grabbed the guy’s arm and twisted, and then threw him back over her head. He landed with a huge crash against the hallway wall.
She turned around to see the man-shaped hole now in the wall and cringed slightly. But then, it wasn’t like the thugs were going to be needed this building once SHIELD was done with them.
She slipped inside the office, confirming no one else was waiting for her, and closed and locked the door behind her and then tucked a chair up under the doorknob for extra measures. It wasn’t the most secure way to protect a room, but she didn’t think these thugs were exactly candidates for Mensa.
She could still hear fighting beyond the walls of the room, but she figured her co-workers would have that under control shortly.
The building’s computer system was against the far wall of the office. She made her way to it, clicking it on.
Not even password protected.
Natasha shook her head. Did thugs not even try anymore these days?
She reached into a pocket on her vest and pulled out a flash drive, inserting it into the computer’s matching drive. A few more clicks and the computer’s contents were copying, all the thugs’ dirty secrets soon to be revealed to SHIELD.
The security system was next. That was on the opposite wall from the computer. A simple one. A small device with a monitor with four cameras, two of them showing the grounds with absolutely no guards in sight, one showing a room full of a lot of unconscious bodies and the other showing …
Oh no.
Natasha felt her heart begin to pound in her ears, her blood running cold.
The fourth room hadn’t been on her schematics. From the lack of light — just a small bulb overhead, it looked like — it was probably underground. A hidden bunker to store all their illegal weapons.
Except this wasn’t machine guns or bazookas or any such thing she had been prepared to deal with.
Bombs. They were storing bombs. And from what she could tell, highly explosive, very sophisticated bombs that could take down cities.
Quickly, she clicked on the device in her ear.
“Cap, we’ve got a problem.”
It took a painfully long second for Peggy to answer. “We have a bigger one out here,” she said. “I need you to get the other agents out, Nat.”
“But …” Natasha’s eyes trailed from the camera on the room with the bombs to the camera with the room with the bodies. She realized in horror as she looked more carefully that three of the bodies belonged to the other SHIELD operatives.
“No buts,” Peggy was saying into her ear. “Two of them got away. I’m going after them. Get the other three to safety. I’ll be there soon.”
“No, Cap, you need …”
A crash sounded in the background on Peggy’s side.
“Tell me later!” she heard Peggy yell. “Be there soon!”
The connection dropped. Fuck.
Natasha glanced at the security cameras one more time. The bomb room appeared to be empty. And on the room with the bodies, she was starting to see movement — but not from any of the three SHIELD agents.
“Arrrrghh,” she grumbled to herself, but Peggy was right. She had to get the other three to safety, and then she would go back in and warn Peggy what was at stake. Hopefully one of the other three would be conscious enough to alert SHIELD. With their planes, they could have someone to them in less than thirty minutes.
She looked over at the other computer. Ninety-seven percent it said.
“Hurry up,” she murmured, moving closer to it but keeping her eyes on the security cameras.
Ninety-eight.
Ninety-nine.
Good enough. She hurried back to the security cameras, yanking out the cord and turning everything dark. She pulled the recording box loose and tucked that into her hip pockets and then went back for the flash drive.
One hundred flashed on the screen.
Thank god.
She snatched it out of the computer and stuffed that back in her vest pocket. She yanked her pistols from her holsters and hurried to the door, slipping out into the hall and past the man she’d dented the wall with.
The room with the bodies was two hallways away from the main one, approximately off the center. She found it easily.
At least ten bodies littered the floor, but as she flew through the door, one thug looked up at her in surprise. He was bending over Perkins, probably about to put a bullet in his brain.
The guy never saw Natasha’s foot coming, not even when it cracked him in the jaw and sent him flying backward, landing on top of one of his buddies.
The thug went limp almost immediately.
Natasha bent down over Perkins. He was starting to stir.
“Perkins. Perkins. Agent Perkins,” she whispered. “Come on. We have to get out of here.” She tugged him upright, his eyes beginning to open.
“Romanoff?” he mumbled.
“Come on,” she repeated. “We have to get out of here.”
Recognition — of where they were and what they were doing — appeared in his eyes. She saw him snap to attention, his focus returned. She pointed off to his right, where the crumpled form of Hawking lay. Toward the back wall, Natasha could see Johnson slumped on top of a couple thugs.
“You get Hawking,” she told Perkins. “I’ll get Johnson. We have to get them back to the other side of the wall and call SHIELD.”
He nodded. “Roger,” he said, then, “Where’s Cap?”
“Going after the two that got away.” She tried to keep the worry out of her voice. After all, Captain Carter was her commanding officer, and a very capable one at that, and if she said she could handle, then Natasha had no reason to not trust that.
Except something about this whole thing didn’t sit right with Natasha, and she knew Peggy didn’t have all the information. She didn’t know about the bomb.
But she had to get the other agents to safety first. She couldn’t leave any member of her team behind. She wouldn’t leave anyone behind. Never. Not even on a direct order. It was her one rule to herself since she had joined SHIELD.
She had been left on her own for the first nineteen years off her life. And once she had joined SHIELD, she had vowed to herself that she wouldn’t ever do to anyone else what had always been done to her.
Now, she crept over the prone bodies, heading toward Johnson. In her peripheral vision, she could see Perkins bending over Hawking, trying to assess the damage.
Johnson was completely out. Natasha crouched beside her, putting a finger below her nose, confirming there was breath. But Johnson wasn’t going to wake up from a few choice words from Natasha, so she would have to do this the hard way.
She slung the agent over her shoulder, turning around to find that Perkins had done the same to Hawking.
“Come on,” she said to him. “Let’s get out of here.”
The hurried down the hallway, Perkins stumbling a little under Hawking’s weight, but he kept up with Natasha. She kept one pistol at the ready in case they encountered any difficulty, but they didn’t run into anyone trying to stop them.
That should have been comforting, the thought that they had taken them all out except for the two that Peggy went after, but it wasn’t. Instead, an unusual shiver of fear washed down Natasha’s spine.
None of this felt right, and it wasn’t just because of the bombs in the basement, though she knew that was a contributing factor.
Natasha and Perkins burst out the front door of the building, but again no one was there to stop them. They hurried across the grounds to the spot where they had come in.
Natasha could feel Johnson begin to stir. She bent down and slid the agent off her shoulder, propping her against the wall. She then gripped her upper arm and shook her gently.
“Johnson. Hey. Are you with me?”
The agent’s eyes finally opened. She blinked at Natasha, and then fear covered her face.
“It was a trap,” she whispered.
Natasha frowned at her. “What?”
Johnson pushed herself more upright. She had a gash on her head — Natasha could see it now that they were outside — but the blood dripping down her face didn’t seem to bother her. Instead, she reached up a hand and clasped Natasha’s wrist.
“It was a trap,” she repeated, her voice almost frantic. “They were waiting for us.”
“That’s impossible,” Natasha said. “How would they have known …”
“It was a trap,” Johnson insisted. Beside Natasha and Johnson, Hawkins began to groan slightly. Perkins huffed as if out of breath.
Johnson reached over and gave Hawkins a slight punch on the arm.
“It was a trap!” she said, her voice rising. “Tell them it was a trap!”
Hawkins groaned again. “It was a trap,” he muttered. “They were waiting for us.”
Natasha glanced behind her. The grounds and the building now quiet.
If it had been a trap, if they had really been waiting for them, if they had been expecting them …
Panic and fear converged in Natasha’s mind along with the pieces. If it was a trap, then they knew Peggy was coming. A hero who couldn’t be stopped by guns and fists. But could be stopped by bombs in the basement.
Natasha leapt to her feet, adrenaline pumping.
“Get to safety!” She ordered the three agents in front of her. “And call SHIELD! Tell them to come now! Tell them there are bombs!”
“There are bombs?” Johnson’s voice came out as a squawk, but Natasha didn’t have time to repeat herself. She turned around and began to run.
“Where are you going?” Perkins yelled out.
“To get Cap!”
“She told us to retreat!” Perkins shouted, but Natasha didn’t care what he said. She wouldn’t have cared if Nick Fury himself was standing there screaming at her to stay back. There was no way in hell she was going to watch this place explode with Captain Peggy Carter still inside.
She burst back through the front door, letting it crash into the wall. She almost expected a rush of men coming toward her, but once again there was no one. They had probably threatened Peggy to make sure none of her agents came back to rescue her. They probably thought all SHIELD agents were good little soldiers.
But they clearly hadn’t been paying attention if they thought she would just stand by.
She raced down the hallway until she reached the spot where smaller hallways began to branch off it. She needed to think. The basement hadn’t been on the schematics, but it had to be accessible by a trap door in the floor. And it had to have been somewhere they could get Peggy without being seen on the security cameras. Or seen by any of the rest of them as they had raced down these halls taking out as many men as they could.
And then she realized. There had been a storage closet just off the room where Peggy and the others had battled with all the men. The schematics showed the closet was only accessible from the hallway, but she was willing to bet her right arm that there was also an entrance from the room. Somewhere on the far right-hand side that didn’t show up on the security feed.
Decision made, she turned a corner and began to run again, heading straight for the room. This time, it wasn’t just bodies on the floor. A few were stirring and one had a gun pointed straight at her as she came barreling through the door.
She didn’t care. Ten seconds later and they were all back on the floor in an unconscious state.
She hurried over to the corner where she thought the access to the basement might be.
Yes. There. She could see the outline of a door built into the floor.
A sense of relief washed over her. She was on the right path. Now to get down there, punch out some bad guys and save Peggy, all without letting any bombs go off.
Natasha paused. That, she knew, was easier said than done. Especially since she had no idea the situation down below or if she was even on the right track. Though she felt confident at least that she was. The bombs were an unexpected twist to this mission, but in other ways, bad guys were very predictable.
She bent down, taking her time, knowing she needed to be as quiet as she could. Despite the thudding that had just gone on up here, the element of surprise was her best weapon.
She ran her fingers along the edge of the trap door, easily finding the lock mechanism. They obviously hadn’t planned for anyone else to need a way in.
Very slowly, she pried the trap door up, pausing periodically as she did so to let her eyes adjust to the darkness down below and to see if she could hear anything. Also to see if any guns or fists appeared in the crack, but no one down there seemed to sense she was coming. Or if they were, they were graciously waiting for her to get to the bottom before attacking.
Once the door was lifted just high enough, she lowered herself to the ground and shimmied through, letting it close above her.
She was on a very narrow and very steep staircase. One lone lightbulb at the bottom of the stairwell cast a faint glow. Not enough for her to really make out any details but at least enough for her to see where she needed to go.
She crept silently down the staircase, moving lower and lower into the earth. Finally, as she approached the bottom, she began to hear muffled voices. There didn’t seem to be that many of them — perhaps just two — plus a female voice that she hoped was Peggy.
She wondered if there was another exit from down here, or if the men were planning to race back up the stairs before setting off the bombs. If that was indeed their plan, but she thought it must be. They were probably just trying to get information out of Peggy first. Everyone always wanted information about SHIELD.
But they were stupider than Natasha originally thought if they thought that Captain Peggy Carter would give them any info. She would rather be exploded by a bomb.
Though Natasha was not about to let that happen.
She made it to the last flight of stairs. Down below, she could see a door that led into another room. She could hear the voices more clearly now.
“Are you sure you don’t want to think about some more?” a deep male voice was saying.
“No.”
Peggy’s voice. Loud and clear through the doorway. Again, Natasha felt a sense of relief wash over her. She crept a little further down the stairs, keeping her body pressed against the wall so the light wouldn’t reach her and cast any shadows that anyone outside the door might see.
“You would really rather be blown to bits by this bomb?” another male voice said. He sounded like he was in disbelief.
“Yes.” Natasha could almost hear Peggy rolling her eyes. “Especially if it puts an end to the agony of you bloody idiots talking to me.”
Natasha almost snorted. Instead, she crept down a few more stairs.
“You might want to think about that again,” the first man said.
“I’d rather not,” Peggy said.
“I guess you want your co-workers to die then too.”
Natasha froze, her foot almost to the last stair. She heard silence from the other room, and then Peggy said, in a very cautious tone, “What do you mean?”
The second man laughed, but it was the first man who replied. “Do you think we’re dumb enough to not account for them?”
“I think they’re fine,” Peggy said.
“You would think that,” the first man said. “But we have been watching the whole time. We know where you came in. And my men are there now, taking all your agents hostage.”
Natasha held her breath. He had to be bluffing. She hadn’t seen anyone out there, and if they had been, would they not have warned their boss that she had come back inside? Would these two not be looking for her right now?
“I don’t believe you,” Peggy said. Her voice sounded strong and confident, but Natasha thought she could detect a very slight waver. Peggy wouldn’t have given a single second thought to anything that affected her own life, but if her team was in trouble, that was different.
“It doesn’t matter if you believe me,” the first man said. “Because it is true. And as we speak, they are dragging your agents inside this building. So you will die and they will die.” There was a pause, and Natasha could just see this bastard smirking in self-satisfaction. “A win-win for us, as you say.”
Natasha rolled her eyes before stepping down on to the ground and inching over to the door. She leaned over very carefully until she could peek out into the room.
The two men’s backs were toward her, and just beyond them, she could see Peggy, strapped to what looked like a giant metal contraption. She was bound around her wrists and ankles, presumably with magnetic handcuffs so she couldn’t escape.
The men, though, appeared to be unarmed. Probably not wanting to take chances in a room full of explosives. Over beside the one to her left’s feet lay Peggy’s shield.
Natasha contemplated. She could take out the men, use her tablet to deactivate the magnet in the handcuffs and take a chance that this guy was bluffing, that their men weren’t surrounding Johnson, Perkins and Hawking, And then they could get the hell out of there and wait for SHIELD to arrive, which, if the agents had done what she’d asked them too, should be arriving within ten minutes or so. Natasha estimated she had been in here for about twenty minutes so far.
If these men were bluffing and the other SHIELD agents had really made it to safety. If they hadn’t …
Well, she could go with Plan B, but Plan B was a horrible plan. It involved heading back up the stairs, checking for the others, freeing them if need be and then all of them coming down here to free Peggy. But that also involved luck — that these idiots wouldn’t blow Peggy up before they could do that and that the other thugs, if there were others up there, weren’t going to be contacting these two to say they had lost control of the situation.
No, she needed to risk it and go with Plan A. Peggy would surely yell at her for risking the lives of the others on the team, and Fury would demand a write-up and tell her he was tired of giving her chances for her to always choose wrong, but there were too many holes in Plan B. And she had to believe that her instincts were right, that they were bluffing to get Peggy to tell them what they wanted to know, because they had done their research on the one thing that mattered and knew enough to know that Peggy’s team was Peggy’s weakness.
Out in the room, Peggy was still refusing to cooperate.
“Show me proof that you have them,” she was saying, “and perhaps we can talk.”
“Ummm,” said the second man.
“No,” said the first man. “How about we just explode everyone?”
Oh, shit.
Natasha leapt into action. She sprang through the door, guns outstretched, tackling the first one before he even saw her. He crumpled to the ground, something small flying out of his hand.
“Natasha!” she heard Peggy shout, but the second man had jumped on top of her. She elbowed him in the stomach, hearing a “whoof” leave his body. The man below her managed to swing a fist at her, catching her on the jaw. The second man grabbed her hair and yanked it, her head snapping backward.
Ughhh, why couldn’t this ever be easy?
She leapt, kicking the first man in the face right as he tried to get up again. Then she flipped, propelling herself upward to land on the second man’s shoulders. Some of her hair ripped from her head, coming out in his hand.
“Ow,” she grumbled, wrapping her legs tightly around the man’s neck. “You don’t ever rip a lady’s hair.”
The man below her gasped and choked, reaching up to claw at her with his grubby paws, but she just pressed her legs harder, watching his face turn blue, until his hands fell limply to his sides.
She waited another moment before leaping off, letting the man fall to the ground. The first man was still on the ground, but she sent another kick to the head to be safe. Then she ran to Peggy. Who was glaring at her.
“You can thank me later,” Natasha said.
“I’m going to thank you never,” Peggy said. “You were supposed to get the others to safety!”
“I did,” Natasha said, feeling slightly offended by that.
“Did you?”
Natasha wanted to say yes, of course she did, but the truth was she didn’t actually know. They also didn’t have much time to argue about it now.
She yanked her tablet from her hip pocket and quickly found what she needed.
“What are you doing?” Peggy asked.
“Freeing you,” Natasha said. She clicked a few more buttons, her tongue between her teeth as she worked, trying to concentrate.
Okay, there. She clicked one last button, and with the horrible sound of metal scraping on metal, Peggy’s handcuffs lost their magnetic charge, sending her sliding to the ground.
She yanked them off her with ease.
“No need to say thank you for that either,” Natasha grumbled.
Peggy didn’t answer her. Instead, she was racing over to where the first man lay, diving to the ground as if in search of something.
“By your left hand!” Natasha called, seeing the little black device glinting under the man’s leg.
Peggy snatched it up and looked down at it. Then she looked up at Natasha. A look of horror crossed her face.
“Sixty-two seconds,” she said.
Natasha stared at her for one of those seconds, and then every ounce of adrenaline kicked on.
“Run!” she shouted, and she and Peggy raced back through the doorway Natasha had come from, flying up the stairs as fast as they could.
Halfway up the stairs, Natasha knew they were never going to make it. They had ten seconds left at most.
Peggy seemed to sense this too. She yanked her shield out of the holster on her back and held out an arm toward Natasha.
“Hold on!” she yelled, and Natasha leapt, letting Peggy catch her under her arm like she was a giant football.
Then Peggy began to leap, going from staircase to staircase at a dizzying speed. She hit the top landing just as a small creak sounded below.
They were out of time.
Peggy dove up through the trap door, Natasha still tucked against her. They hit the floor just as the building shook and heat exploded around them.
Natasha lifted her arms over her head just as something heavy landed on top of her. She thought maybe it was Peggy.
The room shook again, more violently this time, a chain reaction of explosions far beneath them. The ceiling cracked, debris rained down, and heat exploded around them.
Natasha lifted her head, to see if they could make it through the door. She had half a second to see the piece of the roof flying toward them before everything went black.
--
Pain. In her head. And her arms. And her chest.
So much pain. She felt like she was on fire.
She tried to speak, but the only thing she heard above the ringing in her ears was the sound of someone whimpering.
She tried to open her eyes, to assess the damage.
What had happened anyway?
She felt something soft and gentle touch her hand. Cool. Soothing against the pain everywhere else.
“It’s okay.” A soft voice. A gentle voice. A familiar voice, but her head hurt so much. She couldn’t think enough to place.
The voice kept talking, soft and soothing, like a lullaby.
“You’re going to be okay, Nat. You’re safe. They’re going to take care of you. You’re just fine.”
It sounded nice. Safe.
She let herself sink back into the darkness.
--
She came to again. Her head still hurt. So did her arms and her chest. But it felt a little less like she were on fire. It was more a dull ache.
She tried to open her eyes, but the light above was too bright.
She tried to assess the damage, but her head was pounding too hard for her to think.
Something soft was holding her hand again. Something cool. Tracing patterns up and down her arm.
“Shhhh,” said the voice, and this time she remembered. Captain Carter. Peggy.
“Just rest, Nat,” Peggy said. “You’re okay. You’re going to be fine. Just sleep now, okay? There you go. Just sleep.”
--
It went on like that for a while, days disappearing into small bursts of consciousness, each one a little longer than the one more, each one a little less painful. After a while, she began to remember. The mission. The bombs going off. Peggy trying to shield her from the flying debris.
She remembered the heat, the flying chunk of the roof.
The first time she tried to talk, she realized there was something in her throat. She clawed at it as Peggy took hold of her hands. She drifted off before she got it out, but when she woke up, it was gone.
She tried to talk a second time, but her throat was too dry. Peggy put bits of ice on her tongue and made sure she didn’t choke. Then Natasha drifted off again.
Finally, what seemed like a lifetime later, Natasha’s eyes opened once more, but this time, the only pain in her body was a dull ache. Nothing she couldn’t deal with.
She assessed the damage. She could move her fingers, wiggle her toys. She felt a bit stiff, but that was probably from lying in bed for who knows how long.
She tested her voice now.
“Hey, Soldier.” She sounded like a frog croaking, but it worked. Peggy looked up from the book she was reading and beamed, instantly grabbing Natasha’s hand in hers.
“It’s good to see you, Sleeping Beauty,” Peggy said.
Natasha ran her tongue over her lips, trying to get moisture back into her mouth. Peggy reached over and lifted a small plastic glass off a side table. She held it to Natasha’s mouth while she took some sips. She could have done it herself, but she wasn’t going to tell Peggy that.
“How long have I been out?” she asked once she’d polished off the water.
“About a week,” Peggy answered.
“Ooof.”
“That’s what happens when you disobey orders and run toward a bomb.”
Natasha lowered her eyes. “Is everyone else okay?”
“Yes,” Peggy said. “They’re fine. They made it out and called SHIELD. SHIELD arrived right after the place exploded.”
“So the men had been bluffing?”
“It looks that way.”
Part of Natasha wanted to tell Peggy she had told her so, but she didn’t. She had made the choice to deliberately disobey orders, and she was ready for whatever consequence Peggy was going to give her.
Instead, she said, “Thank you for protecting me.”
“That’s my job, Natasha. I’m not going to let one of my team get hurt when I could do something about it.”
One of her team. Just another agent.
Natasha could read between the lines. She felt more hurt than she expected to.
“Well,” she said. “I wasn’t going to let you get hurt either. That’s not how I do things.”
Peggy sighed.
“If you want to take me off your team, I understand,” she continued. She had an urge to look anywhere but at Peggy, but she forced herself to keep her eyes on her commanding officer.
Peggy sighed again.
“Natasha, you’re my partner. I’m not kicking you off.”
“You’re not?”
“Only you would be stupid enough to run into a building that you know is about to explode to get me out.” Peggy leaned forward and her hand found Natasha’s again. “And if you hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”
Natasha felt an unfamiliar sensation. A lump in her throat.
“Just don’t ever do it again,” Peggy said. “We almost lost you.”
Natasha looked down at her body. Really looked. Her legs and torso were wrapped in bandages. An IV went into the hand that Peggy wasn’t holding. A few machines beside her beeped.
“Am I going to live?” she asked.
“Probably,” Peggy said, then she smiled. “But you might have some scars from the burns.”
“That’s nothing new.”
“You also had a concussion and some cracked ribs. They want you to stay here for at least another few weeks. Do some physical therapy just for extra caution.”
Natasha wrinkled her nose, then winced at how much that hurt.
“Do I have to?”
“Yes, you have to,” Peggy said. “It’s literally an order. From Fury. And me. And anyone else who can give you orders.”
Natasha would have laughed if she hadn’t felt so frustrated, but she knew it was a small price to pay for getting to still work for SHIELD. For getting to still work with Peggy.
“Fine,” she said.
“And hey.” Peggy squeezed her hand. “The good news is they gave me some time off too. So you won’t have to worry about being bored. I’m going to be right here.”
“Great,” Natasha said. She tried to play it off as being deadpan, but her skills weren’t quite up to her normal standards.
Peggy laughed. “I know you love it.”
Natasha promised herself that Peggy would never know how much she really did.
--
The weeks in the hospital should have gone by slowly, but they didn’t.
Besides the physical therapy, which she hated, because honestly, if they just let her, she would have gotten up and walked right on out of the hospital and gone straight to the gym to work on some sparring, it was actually almost fun.
Peggy, as she had promised, spent almost every day with her. They played cards and extra long games of Monopoly and watched really crappy television shows. Peggy even brought her coffee from the coffeehouse down the street and food from some of her favorite Manhattan restaurants. And Natasha went back to one of her favorite past times — finding Peggy a suitable date, with any and every one who walked down the halls.
Except this time it felt different. Because for some reason, this time Natasha found herself constantly hoping for Peggy’s rejection to come.
“Ohhhh,” Natasha said, one night toward what she hoped was the end of her stay. The doctors had been assuring her they would be discharging her on Saturday if she showed sufficient progress. Which she couldn’t see how she wouldn’t since she felt like she had already more than shown sufficient progress. But if these doctors wanted her to take down everyone on staff in one swoop to show she was ready to be back at work, then she would do it. “There was a new hot doctor on staff today! I think maybe he’s from the neurology department. Should I get his name? And then his number?”
Peggy glanced up at her from the crossword puzzle she was trying to solve. From an actual newspaper. Like she was somebody’s grandmother. Which, Natasha supposed, in another life she very well could have been.
“You could,” Peggy said. “As long as you plan to use it for yourself.”
Natasha frowned. “Why would I do that?”
A smile played on Peggy’s lips. “Why wouldn’t you do that?”
“Because I’m trying to find you a date.”
“Yes,” Peggy said. “But I’ve decided I’m trying to find you a date.”
“But I don’t date.”
“But you want me to date?”
“That’s different,” Natasha protested.
“Is it though?”
“Yes!” Natasha said. “Because you were dating back in 1945, before the portal! And I know you lost Steve, but there are great people here, and you could find someone and be happy!”
“Natasha,” Peggy said, her voice suddenly quiet and almost deadly serious. “I know that 1945 was before you were even conceived, but for me, it was just a year ago. And I know a year is a long time. But I’m just … not ready for that. I don’t want to date some random person you find for me, whether they are a doctor or a barista or a SHIELD agent.”
Natasha pursed her lips. She knew she could overdo — in fact, she overdid it on purpose most of the time — but she had just always thought it was something that Peggy secretly didn’t mind putting up with. The way Natasha used to put up with Clint dropping out of the air vents on top of her paperwork every week.
“I’m sorry,” she said. It felt weird leaving her lips. She rarely apologized — or, at least, she rarely meant it.
“It’s okay,” Peggy said. “I just wanted you to know.”
“So then I shouldn’t mention the cute surgeon from the other day?”
Peggy laughed. “Maybe not,” she said.
“Okay,” Natasha said. “But if you’re ever ready, you let me know.”
“Yeah,” Peggy said. “You’ll be the first person I tell.”
--
As expected, Natasha was released from the hospital on Saturday and given strict instructions to avoid blows to the head for at least a month. She scowled at that, knowing it meant that Peggy would have to sideline her from missions for at least that long — and knowing her like Natasha did, probably for longer “just to be safe” — but she signed the papers that said she understood. It wasn’t like there was anything she could do to change it, and she was more than ready to get home.
Also as expected, even though Natasha had told Peggy about a hundred times that she was perfectly capable of getting herself home, Peggy showed up the morning of Natasha’s discharge to stay with her.
There wasn’t much to pack up. Just a couple shirts Peggy had brought for her after she’d woken up and some yoga pants and a few snacks they hadn’t yet gotten around to eating. Plus the deck of cards. Peggy had already packed up the Monopoly game the night before.
But Peggy sat in the chair beside her bed and waited with her until all the paperwork was signed and dotted and the doctor had given her okay. Then, Peggy had smirked at her as the doctor told them it was standard procedure for all patients to exit in a wheelchair.
“Seriously?” Natasha said and glared. She had to give the doctor credit though. The woman was undeterred by a look that had brought down many a lesser man and woman.
“Unless you want to stay here,” the doctor said.
“I do not.”
Peggy and the doctor at least both had the decency to let her get out of bed on her own and settled herself into the wheelchair.
“Don’t let me see you back here again, Miss Romanoff!” the doctor called as Peggy pushed her out the door and down the hall.
Natasha did not dignify that with a response.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she said to Peggy once they were safely ensconced in the elevator, heading down to the lobby.
“Maybe.”
“I hate you.”
“Well, maybe next time you’ll listen to direct orders.”
“I probably won’t,” Natasha said.
Peggy laughed. “Yeah, I know.”
Out front of the hospital, they found a SHIELD-issued car. Peggy climbed in beside her.
“Should I drop you off at your apartment first, Captain Carter?” the driver asked.
Peggy looked at Natasha. “I could come over if you want. Help you get settled?”
Natasha was tempted to say no, that she had it, that she could get settled by herself, but before the words could leave her mouth, she thought about her apartment. Small and empty and just her sitting there on the couch.
Suddenly, her chest ached, like she missed Peggy even when the woman was sitting right next to her. What was wrong with her?
“Yeah,” Natasha answered. “I’m sure I have some overly processed food that we could make for dinner.”
“They have take-out in this century, you know?” Peggy said. But to the driver, she said, “Just drop us both off at Agent Romanoff’s.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” said the driver, putting the car into gear.
--
Peggy stayed well into the night. True to her word, Peggy ordered them some Chinese food from a place she knew, and they sat on the couch watching movies and eating.
“You’re quiet tonight,” Peggy said, after the second movie finished. “For you, I mean.”
“Well, now that I can’t set you up on any dates, all my best material is gone.”
“Natasha,” Peggy said, like she was a mother scolding her child for saying something ridiculous.
Natasha shrugged. “I’m just thinking,” she said, as truthfully as she could.
“About?”
About you. And being here with me. And why I don’t want you to leave.
Natasha decided not to be that truthful. Instead, she changed the subject. “Do you miss it?” she said. “Your old life? The old days?”
Peggy studied her, like maybe she wanted to ask what Natasha had really been thinking about, but then she shrugged.
“Yes,” she said.
“Because it was better?”
Peggy frowned. “No,” she said. “It wasn’t better. Not really. It was just … taken away so fast. I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye.”
Natasha nodded. “I get that.”
“There’s a lot of things that are better now,” Peggy said. “No polio. No polio is good. The internet. Woman working outside the home being the norm. I couldn’t even have my own credit card back in my time. All of those are really good things.”
“But no Steve,” Natasha said. She watched to see if Peggy’s eyes clouded over like they normally did when someone brought Steve up, but this time it was only a brief wave of sadness.
“He was my friend,” she said. “He was a good man. I miss him very much.”
“I’m sorry you lost your friend,” Natasha said, and she meant it.
Peggy smiled at her. “Thank you. Luckily, I’ve made new ones,” she said, and oddly, Natasha felt her face grow warm. Maybe because no one had ever said that to her before, except for Clint. It was still a weird feeling.
“Yes,” Natasha said. “But how many would risk a bomb going off to save off?”
“Romanoff,” Peggy growled, and the melancholy from a few moments before was broken.
Natasha burst into laughter and so did Peggy, before they turned on another movie.
--
Natasha had been hoping that maybe, just maybe, there wouldn’t be any missions for Peggy and the rest of the team while she was sidelined. In fact, she’d hoped, very overly optimistically, she knew, that maybe Fury would just let them train and perhaps hack into a few computer systems of some nefarious criminals during the month.
But sure enough, on her second week back, Peggy broke the news. The team had been called up, and of course not only was it a mission that Natasha couldn’t go on — not even for technical support. Fury gave a firm, “Not even if you were the last agent available” when Natasha brought it up — but it was an overnight mission. Three overnights.
Natasha nodded as Peggy told her the news, trying to seem happy for the team and understanding of the circumstances. And she was. She knew this was her punishment for not obeying Peggy’s direct orders, and she knew she was lucky this was all it was, but the thought of being at SHIELD for four days by herself, and then home in her small apartment for three nights, by herself, made her feel almost unbearably lonely.
Which was so weird that it made her feel on edge about worrying about being lonely.
She had spent the majority of her life alone. Four days was nothing, even if she had gotten used to Peggy being next to her every day since the failed mission. But it was still just four days. Younger Natasha would have been horrified if she could see her now.
But luckily she had a lot of practice in sucking it up and doing things because she had to, even if she personally would have preferred not to, so she programmed everyone’s tablets and downloaded maps and schematics for them and made sure they all had the equipment they needed, and then she stood on the landing pad and waved goodbye as the Quinjet soared into the air and was vanished into the sky above.
And then she went to her office and sat at her desk and tried to concentrate on the paperwork that had piled up. But in the end, she went home and curled up on her couch and watched crappy television programs and hoped that maybe the mission would go super well and they would all be home early.
Or maybe it would just go well and they all would be home. After their last mission and their narrow escape, Natasha knew even supposedly easy missions could go horribly wrong.
--
The days dragged by. And nothing Natasha did could make them go by any faster. Not catching up on what seemed like an excessive amount of paperwork. Not working out in the training gym. Not having lunch with Maria Hill. Not even eating potato chips and watching reality television.
All she could think about was Peggy and where she was and what was happening and if she was safe, because no one else would risk a bomb exploding to save her.
She also spent time scolding herself for being stupid, because being like this was entirely opposite of who she normally was. She contemplated calling Clint and having him yell at her until she came to her senses, but she had a feeling she knew what he would say if she told him what she was feeling, and she didn’t want to hear it.
She was not, nor maybe she would never be, ready to hear what she knew he was going to say. Because it couldn’t possibly be true, even if that truth was practically standing in front of her and bopping her repeatedly on the nose.
Burying her head in the proverbial sand was not what she considered one of her defining character traits, but sometimes — and in this case — it seemed the best option. So that’s what she did, while the seconds and the minutes and the hours and the days dragged on, until finally, there was a knock on her door and Maria Hill stuck her head inside.
“They should be touching down in five,” she said.
Natasha almost leaped from her seat in an explosion of joy, but instead she smiled in what she hoped was a calm and normal manner and said, “Oh, really? Thanks for letting me know.”
She thought she saw Maria roll her eyes at her before she shut the door behind her, but Natasha convinced herself she had just imagined that.
She purposely made herself sit in her desk chair for five more minutes, even though her nerves felt ready to blast her body into orbit. Then she stood up and walked to the door, forcing herself to take painfully slow steps down the hallway, like she was just going to check on any SHIELD agents who were returning from a mission.
She had just started up the ramp that led to the roof and to the Quinjet landing pad when she heard and saw them up above, headed her way. And there in front was one Captain Peggy Carter, grinning at her like she had never been happier to see her.
And in that moment, Natasha let all pretense drop. She jogged up the ramp to her team, and when Peggy and the others pulled her in for a group hug, she happily went, not even thinking of issuing her normal protests.
--
“I was thinking about something.” It had been a few hours since Peggy and the rest of the team had returned. She and Natasha were camped out at Natasha’s apartment, eating Chinese and letting Nat get caught up on everything that happened on the mission.
But now Peggy was looking at her with an odd expression on her face, one Natasha, oddly enough, couldn’t quite read.
“You were thinking you never want to go on a mission again without me,” Natasha said.
“Well, yes,” Peggy said. “But I was also thinking about something else.”
“Okay?”
“Remember how I told you I didn’t want to date.”
Natasha narrowed her eyes a little. “Do you really think I could forget?”
“Well, I think I was a little hasty.”
Natasha almost dropped her chopsticks. She took a moment to pull herself together.
“You want to date?”
“Yes.”
“And you want me to help find you a date from my trusty list?”
Peggy laughed. “No.”
Natasha frowned. “I’m confused.”
“I want to date,” Peggy said. “But I don’t need you to find me a person to date because I already know who I want to date.”
Natasha almost dropped her chopsticks again.
“Did something happen on this mission?” she asked cautiously. Was Peggy into Perkins? Or Hawking? Or Johnson?
But Peggy was shaking her head. “Not in the way you mean,” she said. “But something did happen.”
Natasha put her chopsticks down. She was feeling too nauseous to eat now anyway. She waited for Peggy to continue.
“Being gone for so long,” Peggy said. “It made me realize some things.”
“Like that you want to date?” Natasha said.
“Like how I really feel about someone,” Peggy said. “I’ve spent way too long trying to convince myself that what I feel for this person means nothing. That we’re just friends. But I realized that I don’t want to be just friends. Or just work colleagues.”
Natasha was afraid she’d say that. “I thought you didn’t want to date one of your co-workers.” She wondered if maybe Peggy meant Maria. Maria was great after all. If Natasha were going to date a co-worker, she would probably date Maria too.
“I wouldn’t say she’s just a co-worker,” Peggy said.
Natasha shook her head. “I still don’t know where you’re going with this.”
Peggy laughed gently. “Oh, Natasha.”
Natasha frowned. “I don’t think it’s very funny.”
“Nat.” Peggy leaned forward and took her hand, and then she took her other hand. Natasha stared down at their hands and then back up at Peggy and … Oh!
Her mouth dropped open.
“You mean me.”
It was barely a whisper, but Peggy smiled. “Yes,” she said. “I mean you.”
“You want to date me?” Natasha said, and then again. “You — Captain Peggy Carter — want to date me, Natasha Romanoff?”
“Yes, Nat, I want to date you.” Peggy squeezed her hands. “But only if you want to date me.”
“I want to date you!” Natasha said, the words spilling out of her mouth so quickly, she felt like her tongue got tripped up. But it didn’t matter that she probably looked like a fool, because Peggy was leaning forward and tugging on her hands, and then Natasha was on her knees and so was Peggy, and then their lips met, right there over Chinese food in the middle of Natasha’s small SHIELD-registered apartment.
And even though Peggy had been eating garlic chicken and Natasha was sure she had bits of teriyaki chicken stuck in her teeth, it was better than any kiss Natasha could have imagined.
And it both felt like an instant and also forever before they broke apart, each of them panting softly.
They stared at each other, their food still between them.
I love you, Captain Peggy Carter, Natasha wanted to say, but she wouldn’t. Not yet. There would be time for that later.
Instead, she let a smirk form across her face.
“I think we need to work on that a little,” she said, and Peggy’s laughter in the air was the only answer she ever needed.