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Once, I had an empire in a golden age
I was held up so high, I used to be great
They used to cheer when they saw my face
Now, I fear I have fallen from grace
It was hours before they had time to regroup. The suicide bomb Rumlow had been packing was powerful, decimating the southeastern corner of a high rise. Everyone was all hands on deck: Sam had taken Wanda back to the quinjet once the rescue teams arrived, but Steve and Natasha remained to assist in evacuation, retrieval and triage. Vision and Tony were notified, though there wasn’t much they could do from a continent away but send transport that wouldn’t get to Nigeria until the next day and try to start damage control.
Tensions were high between the two Avengers and all others; they were the group that was involved in the initial altercation, and while the bomb wasn’t brought by the Avengers and it exploding in the market could have killed hundreds more than the 26 that had perished in the building, all fingers were pointing at Wanda and her teammates.
It was nearing twelve hours later when Steve and Natasha regrouped. Before each mission, Natasha made sure that there were two meet spots for the team in case things went sideways. Lagos was the first mission in years that the spots had been used, but she was grateful that her training had been beaten into her bones and that a spy’s instincts (paranoia as Clint called it) never failed.
Steve had made it to the dive bar first, changed into his casual clothes with his suit and shield stuffed into a comically large backpack. He was sipping a drink at the bar attempting to blend in, but his height, build, and dour expression prevented that.
Sliding onto the stool next to him, she ordered two shots of vodka and slammed them both immediately. “Today was bad.”
The Captain could only let out a cynical chuckle, chugging the remaining gulps of his drink. “No shit, Nat. I haven’t heard screams like that since…” Sokovia, Washington, New York, the War. There were too many situations that could fill the silence.
“Let’s go. Remember, the first rule of going on the run is-”
“Walk, yeah, I remember. And we’re not on the run, we’re just… retreating,” Steve grumbled as he rose from his seat and started towards the back door. Natasha left her cash on the counter with a quick thanks before following.
The back alley was deserted, only a few streetlights illuminating the area. The city was quieter than usual, like every person, building, and vehicle was mourning the tragedy that occurred. Ten minutes of walking through the alleys brought them to a main street, and Natasha’s instincts told her to shift their image.
She wrapped her hair up in a bun to help disguise the colour in the dark, changed her walk to lessen the natural sway of her hips, and slide her arm through Steve’s. Having been on enough missions with her, Steve understood the message and made subtle changes to his clothes, posture, and took her hand into his.
“See anything interesting, love?” he asked, wanting to know if this was habit or caused by a potential threat.
“Nah handsome, the only interesting thing I see here is you.” The message was clear, but she squeezed his hand as well to indicate everything was okay.
The remaining walk was quiet. Natasha turned them into an alley and pulled a key out of seemingly nowhere to unlock the first door. The hallway was pitch black, but once the door was shut and solidly locked with all three deadbolts, she flicked on the lights.
“Status?” she asked, moving towards the small kitchenette where she also stashed a large first aid kit.
“Fine, a few bruises that’ll be gone in a few hours and a scratch or two. Tired, but that’s nothing new,” Steve sighed, dumping his bag on the floor.
“I’m going to need a hand,” Natasha stated, moving the crate onto the counter before stripping off her dark hoodie and shirt. Luckily the first responders had some spare clothes she could use, otherwise her injuries would have been far more noticeable in her beige jacket and blouse.
“Jesus Nat,” Steve exclaimed. There was a long cut running from her mid back on one side to her hip on the other, and a smattering of bruises all over her body.
“Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain,” she joked, trying to distract him.
“It wasn’t in vain, I found it quite useful,” he snarked back, reaching into the box to grab a disinfectant wipe. “Do I even want to know where this came from? You kicked Rumlow’s boys into the dirt.”
Natasha barely noticed the sting of the antiseptic, too used to the sensation, but frowned at the coldness. “Fuck your hands are like ice cubes, Rogers, what the hell?”
“It’s the wipes, not my hands. You know I’m a human furnace, so you know it ain’t me. Quit stalling.”
“Aye aye Captain. It was some metal during a rescue effort. I was getting some kids out, so I didn’t really notice until later. The bruises were from that damn grenade Rumlow stuck in the tank with me,” she explained, watching him finish the wipe down and apply a waterproofed dressing.
Steve only nodded, appearing to have run out of energy. Natasha was also running on fumes, so she let him finish before doing a quick wipe down in the washroom’s shower and changing into a spare shirt from the emergency stock of the safehouse.
Steve did the same, returning to the main room of the bachelor’s suite to find most of the lights off and Natasha already laying down in bed. He slid under the covers and reached over her head to turn off the remaining lamp, plunging them into darkness.
Natasha only gave him a few moments to settle down before rolling over to put her head on his chest. Steve responded by wrapping his free arm around her waist.
“Today was bad.”
“Tomorrow isn’t gonna be much better.”
Once I was the great hope for a dynasty
Crowds would hang on my worlds and they trusted me
Their faith was strong, but I pushed it too far
I held that grudge ‘til it tore me apart
What word would you use, Mr. Secretary?
Dangerous.
Natasha knew everyone around her considered her dangerous, but it had been a long time since someone said it to her face.
When she was a girl, everyone was trained to kill, and would do it in a heartbeat. Even the landscape was savage, a frozen wasteland that kept people out of the facilities as much as it kept them in. Survival of the fittest was the way of the Red Room, so she became the best. A foolish thought lived in her head for a few years as a child, that if she was obedient and exceptional, she would someday earn her freedom. That dream died the day they strapped her to a table and pumped her veins full of fire to ensure she would be the perfect weapon for her country forever.
With nearly nine decades of experience under her belt between the Red Room, SHIELD, and the Avengers, dangerous was an understatement.
Ross left the compound shortly after Steve left the team meeting, irritated by the non-answer offered by the majority of the team. Vision and Wanda made their way back to her room where she was living in self imposed exile. Sam and Rhodey continued to argue about the Accords, thinking that the louder they talked the more correct their side would become. Tony stood staring at the image of Charles Spencer being shown on screen, head so full of thoughts that he barely noticed Natasha leave the room.
The silence of the hallway was more jarring than the yelling, leaving her feeling unsettled and exposed. What she had said about the accords was true, having one hand on the wheel was better than none. Natasha wasn’t sure she could go back to having not steering, she couldn’t be sure that she wouldn’t fall into some dangerous old habits. While she may have been living as an American citizen for nearly thirty years, it didn’t cancel out the first sixty of her life as a machine.
To an outsider, Natasha seemed cool and confident at all times; the ruse was good, but when it comes to old assassin training and homicidal urges, faking it ‘til you make it doesn’t cut it. Control kept her together, otherwise she would fall to pieces and there was no Peggy Carter, Phil Coulson, Nick Fury, or Clint Barton to save her this time.
“Brooding is usually reserved for the Captain, Red, so cut it out before our quota is fulfilled,” Tony quipped, leaning against the doorframe a few steps from her.
Natasha huffed out a laugh, turning to face her friend. Standing before her was a different man than she first met eight years ago, and the passage of time had taken its toll on the Iron Man. Greying hair, tired eyes, and fine line wrinkles changed him from man-child playboy to Tony Stark, trusted ally and friend.
“I think we may have to petition for an increase if the world keeps going to shit.” Tony nodded, moving to stand next to her and peer out to look at the grounds of the Avengers compound.
“What do we do, Nat?” His words sounded… lost.
“I think we need to do the best we can, whatever that may look like for each of us. It’s the only thing we can do. At this point, I only care about keeping Wanda safe and our family together,” Natasha stated, realizing that nearly everything else was negotiable in her eyes. If she could keep her family, she could keep control. Who knows, maybe quitting the spy game would be good for her? Retire and live out the rest of her unknown number of years doing ‘normal’ things. She could open a gym, get a cat? The options were endless.
“Agreed. I’m doing what I can with the lawyers and Pepper to make sure nothing happens to Wanda,” Tony shared, trying to read her.
“Thanks Tony.”
“Don’t thank me, just make me a promise. If you’re going to pull a disappearing act, don’t go forever. At least leave me a super intricate trail of clues to follow if I ever need to find you,” Tony asked, eyes locking with hers.
“I’ll try.”
Power went to my head and I couldn’t stop
Ones I loved tried to help so I ran them off
And here I sit alone behind walls of regret
Falling down like promises that I never kept
An empty airport in Germany was not where she hoped this would happen. Natasha had wanted it to be settled in the living room of the compound, an angry discussion that ended in reluctant agreement from both sides and everyone staying together.
Instead, Natasha was fighting against Clint and Wanda to reach Steve. Wanda had done some damage by throwing her into the corner of a luggage truck, but Clint had been pulling his punches, so she wasn’t in bad shape.
She managed to intercept Rogers on the roof of a building. Throwing a few widow disks as a distraction, Natasha vaulted herself onto Steve and tore his shield from his grip.
“You’re not going to stop, are you?” She asked, watching him sink into a familiar stance.
“I can’t.”
She rushed him, and in the ensuing scuffle she managed to get into a position to bring him down. Unfortunately, years of training together meant that Steve knew most of her moves and since she wasn’t aiming to kill, he had the upper hand. Ripping her off his shoulders, he put her in a bear hug long enough to ask a question.
“You got your gear, right?”
“Yeah? Why-”
Wasting no time, he used his body weight to throw her from the building. Free fall was alarming considering she never thought he would chuck her off a roof, but survival instincts kicked in ad she used her grappling hook and cord to prevent an unfortunate fall. The jolt from the rope stopping her momentum jostled her, but nothing that would keep her down for long. Steve disappeared towards the hanger once he saw her sprawled on the ground in one piece.
“Jackass,” she groaned to herself, rolling onto all fours for a breath before starting to run towards the quinjet. Having a subtle fighting style in a group of obnoxious superheroes made sneaking through the fight zone unnoticed relatively easy; no one was looking for her attacks, and no one noticed her absence in the field.
Sliding through the back of the hanger, Natasha made a split-second decision to place one of her personal trackers on the jet. If Steve did leave, she wanted to know where he was going.
She only had time to power up her widow’s bite before Steve and the Winter Soldier ran in, narrowly escaping being crushed to death by yet another falling structure. The exhausted look on Steve’s face made her chest hurt; she was supposed to be protecting her friends, not electrocuting them.
The Winter Soldier seemed ready to punch his way out, and in this scenario, out was through her. Aside from their brief bout when he was escaping containment, it had been a long time since she fought the man hand to hand. The bridge in DC didn’t count since there were so many parties and ranged weapons, including the gun he used to shoot her, so this would be their first real match up since she left the Red Room and her teacher behind.
Steve seemed noticed the tension as well but focused on trying to find the right words to say instead of analyzing the confrontation between two of his best friends.
Movement behind the men drew her attention, and her decision was made. If Steve and the Soldier didn’t leave now, T’Challa would kill Barnes for vengeance.
“I’m going to regret this.” And she would regret it. Not tazing the future King of Wakanda, he would recover and get over that. She would regret breaking another promise to Tony, a person she cared for deeply.
“Go.”
My foes and friends watch my reign end
I don’t know how it could’ve ended this way
Smoke billows from my ships in the harbour
People look at me like I’m a monster
Now they’re screamin’ at the palace front gates
Used to chant my name
Now they’re screaming that they hate me
Never wanted you to hate me
“We played this wrong.”
Tony and Natasha faced off in the compound, in the room where this whole mess started.
After Steve and Barnes escaped, she had let T’Challa up and walked out onto the air strip, ready to face the consequences of her actions. The Black Panther was spitting mad, speaking what was likely very rude remarks in her direction in Wakandan, but refrained from starting another fight.
Police and SWAT had arrived at the scene to secure the remaining ‘fugitives’ and assess the situation. Natasha didn’t stick around long, only checking to ensure she knew the details of the prisoner transport, Rhodey’s medical evac, and Ross’s ETA to the scene. She only had a few hours head start due to Ross flying from Geneva to Germany, but Natasha knew he would come for her at the compound, to destroy the last place of safety she had on this earth.
“We? Boy, it must be hard to shake the whole double agent thing, huh? It sticks to the DNA,” Tony spat, knowing exactly where to hit to make the words hurt most.
“Are you incapable of letting go of your ego for one goddamn second?”
A pause. “T’Challa told Ross what you did, so they’re coming for you.”
“I’m not the one that needs to watch their back.” Spinning, she left before she said more that she could regret. Make another promise that she would inevitably break.
Natasha knew that she had an hour at best before Ross was knocking down their door to arrest her, so she jogged to her room. Once she changed her clothes and packing two small duffels full of clothes and all the cash she kept just in case in a hole in the wall she cut behind a baseboard, she made a pitstop in the armory. She grabbed a variety of weapons then moved to the medical centre next door.
It felt so final, cutting the tracker out of her arm. A little device had been implanted in her tricep after her defection as a failsafe if she ever went rogue. She hadn’t and eventually the original tracker, one more deadly than the current model, had been replaced with a benign one that only transmitted her location when one of her American handlers accessed the secure server to turn it on. Even though only three people in the world had access to its data, the fourth having just passed away, Natasha wasn’t willing to risk her life on data security.
She had never felt the need to remove it, knowing that all the terrible things she did in her line of work were sanctioned and allowed, thus removing the risk of being tied to illegal activities. Now, Natasha was going against the government and country that had taken her in. Going against her friends that had created a family and, after a rocky start, welcomed her into it.
The pain was sharp when she cut into her arm, deep enough to move under her muscle and access the area the chip was implanted into. The tweezers were worse, digging around in her flesh for traction on a little metal piece only three millimetres long. A minute had passed before she had it, pulling the bloody tool out of her arm, dumping it in a metal bin. Blood was flowing steadily down her arm, but she didn’t have a lot of time so a rough clean up and bandage job would have to do. The clock on the wall said it had been twenty minutes since she left Tony, and Natasha wanted to be long gone by the time the Secretary got here.
Bags in hand, she shrugged on a hoodie and made her way down to the parking lot where Steve stored his motorcycle. The bike would be more useful getting places fast and could be used to get out of a tight situation if necessary. Natasha reached for the keys on the peg board where sets for the whole garage hung but found the spot empty.
“Looking for these, I presume?”
T’Challa stepped out from behind a parked Porsche, leaning casually against the hood.
“Here for a rematch? I’m not in the mood,” Natasha snarled, walking towards the man with full intention of snatching the keys out of his hands. T’Challa only shook his head and raised both hands in a peaceful gesture, stopping her in her tracks.
“I just received some information that you will find interesting,” he began, lowering his arms. “The Captain was correct; James Barnes did not kill my father. Police in Germany discovered the dead body of Dr. Broussard two hours ago, along with bomb making equipment, a brown wig, and facial prosthetics.”
“He was right,” Natasha breathed, relief flooding through her. After everything that had happened, she had been beginning to doubt her internal compass, but it hadn’t failed her. Even if she didn’t make it immediately, she made the right choice.
“Indeed. Now, you and I both need to go to the same place; I need to catch my father’s killer and you need to reach your friends.”
“Haven’t you heard? I’m America’s new most wanted. Not exactly the kind of company you want to keep around,” Natasha stated in a matter-of-fact tone. The prince’s expression remained almost perfectly smooth. Almost.
T’Challa pushed off the hood to stand in front of her, looking down at the keys in his hands. “I acted with the information I had at the time, but I am also the reason you’re in this position. My jet is fueled and ready to depart to find my father’s true killer; I could use some assistance.”
My castle’s crumbling down
And I watch all my bridges burn to the ground
And you don’t want to know me
I will just let you down
You don’t wanna know me now
Siberia was just as miserable as she remembered. Even though she had not been back to Russia in a decade or two, Natasha wasn’t surprised she could still remember the exact sting of the air in her lungs. A person never forgets the feeling of their first home.
The quinjet landed just outside the facility, cloaking itself as soon as the two occupants left the immediate vicinity. T’Challa wrapped around the left side of the building to investigate a figure sitting outside, but Natasha decided it was best to remain unseen if the person was Zemo. No need to drag T’Challa through the muck of the Accords with her.
Large metal doors loomed in front of her, slightly cracked open and creaking in the wind. There was no sound coming from inside, no sign of movement, but Natasha drew her Glock regardless. Poking the nose through the door, she carefully cleared and followed a long hallway. Lights on ahead signaled that someone had been meddling around in the facility.
A still room with Tony prone on the floor was not what she expected. Steve and Barnes were nowhere to be found, but that was probably for the best. No matter how close she and Steve had become, she had signed the accords and had broken some their trust.
Natasha moved to check her friend’s pulse. It was strong, but his skin was cool to her touch. Giving him a once over, she noticed a couple things: his arc reactor was sliced through, seemingly by the shield laying on the floor a few feet away, his suit was barely retaining heat, and aside from a few concerning dents, Tony seemed to be in one piece.
Reaching for the emergency release button under his left arm, she waited for the click and hiss of the metal separating. The armour wasn’t too heavy, so she removed the upper pieces in no time and stood next to Tony.
Lifting him into a fireman’s hold, Natasha paused to ensure she maintained her balance before moving to the emergency exit closest to where T’Challa had disappeared to. It didn’t take long to find him; he was observing another man who sat in handcuffs. Hearing the crunch of snow under her boots, he travelled the short distance between them.
“Rogers and Barnes are gone. Tony’s not going to be running races any time soon, but he’ll be fine.”
“Take him to the jet, along with anything else you deem important. I’ll get our other friend situated in the cell and will meet you in the cockpit,” the prince said, gesturing to the seated man with his head.
Nodding, Natasha readjusted Tony on her shoulders and trudged down the dilapidated staircase towards their ride. After settling Tony into the medical bay, she returned to the room she had found him in.
Scorch marks covered the walls and debris was strewn across the floor. Small bits of shiny silver metal were scattered across on patch, and Natasha knew what it was the instant she looked at it. The Winter Soldier’s arm was blown off, and Tony was the one to do it.
A sinking feeling started in her gut. Natasha knew what the fight was over, she just couldn’t believe that Steve hadn’t told Tony years ago when they found out under Camp Lehigh. Hydra had used Barned to kill the Starks, along with many other influential people. The two o them had talked about their discovery a few days after Steve woke up in the hospital, and they came to the agreement that it was Steve’s secret to tell. The Soldier may have been important to her a lifetime ago, but to Steve he was James Buchanan Barnes, his best friend for life.
Reaching down, Natasha grabbed the shield that had been discarded. A shield built by Howard Stark for the best friend of the man who killed him. Even with the bad memories attached to it, she couldn’t just leave it behind.
Next Natasha looked at the dead super soldiers. Since the project was in the 90s, the people in cryo were too young to have been around when she was serving. At least she wouldn’t have five more ghosts from her past to haunt her.
Nothing else was of any value, so she returned to the jet to begin take off procedures. T’Challa was finishing securing Zemo and Tony hadn’t woken yet, so she was alone.
The silence was both welcome and disconcerting; for years, she had begrudged how loud the team was on the way back from some missions, used to the silent communication between her and Clint before the Avengers. Now, she wished there was some chatter to distract her from her thoughts.
“Ready to fly?” T’Challa asked, moving to check their flightpath.
“Yeah. Wakanda first, then auto pilot to New York.”
The flight was a little over six hours in stealth mode, and the sun had just begun to rise when they landed at the royal palace. It had been a quiet trip, no hostile governments or ex teammates to bother her.
Once landing procedures were complete and the jet was parked, Natasha stood from the pilot chair and grabbed her bags from a compartment she had tucked them in. Her resources were limited for now, but once she reconnected with her network there would be no problems.
Natasha had made it halfway down the loading ramp before the prince intervened again.
“Not going to say goodbye?” He questioned, gesturing back to where her sleeping comrade laid.
“Not exactly on the team at the moment. He’s still in the clear with the accords as long as you don’t share with the Secretary again, so I won’t stick around and give him something to lie about.” Natasha turned to leave once more, but T’Challa was frustratingly persistent.
“There are others here who would be interested in seeing you. I was told visitors arrived a few hours before we did in search of asylum and medical care.” Steve.
Would he really want to? After she chose Tony, after she doubted him? Instead of standing by his side and supporting him like a true partner, she let him down.
“Rogers is better off without me. The bridge burned when I chose to sign, and he chose to leave me in Germany to take the fall. If he wanted me around, he wouldn’t have left me in that hanger.”
T’Challa just shook his head, exasperated by her stubbornness. “At least leave a way to contact you.”
Natasha laughed, a surprisingly loud, bright sound. “This isn’t my first time on the run. When they need me, they’ll have all the tools to do so. But do me a favour? Give this to the Captain.” She tossed a small flash drive to the man, who turned it over in his hands like it was a foreign object.
“And this is?”
“I heard our friends are stuck up shit creek without a paddle. That’s the way to get them.” T’Challa’s eyebrows rose, eyeing the stick with interest. It had been a long flight surrounded by high tech computers, so she had made the best of it. She didn’t tell him that embedded in the blueprints were subtle hints to their old missions together; things that only Steve or Tony would know and bother to remember that would lead them straight to her.
For once, Natasha kept a promise. A little road map of inconspicuous clues so that when the time came, other Avengers could find her.
No. The team was dead in the water. Their influence, status, and trustworthiness were broken beyond repair. The age of the Avengers was over. Now, it was just a few old friends that had rifts between them that may be too big to bridge. Betrayal and prison weren’t something that a person got over quickly.
“Good luck, Natasha.”
“Good luck, King T’Challa.”
With a brief bow, Natasha walked away while forcing herself not to look back.