Chapter Text
When Natalie Rushman takes her first step onto what they call the “tiny red dot” in Asia, the island greets her with a typical tropical downpour. She gazes behind glass panes from the bustling terminal at the dark clouds and sheets of rain – not quite the warm welcome she would’ve liked, but at least she’s packed for the humid weather.
A blue cab with the word “Comfort” emblazoned on the doors takes her through jammed expressways, passing high-rise buildings and lush greenery. The fare in red numbers read eighteen-twenty when it stops at the three-star hotel she’ll be staying at. She hands the driver two unfamiliar orange ten-dollar notes. He returns her a handful of coins in exchange, and in accented English, tells her to enjoy her stay.
She checks in and lets herself into Room 714, down the corridor on the right and three doors from the lift lobby. Maneuvering red hair into a messy bun, she strips off the clothes she’s been wearing for the past twenty-four hours and steps into the bathroom for a quick shower, letting the warm blast of water take the edge off the exhaustion. It’s past three in the morning back in the States; she caught no sleep at all on the plane, and jet lag tells her she might not be able to stay conscious for another seven hours till bed.
At least she's got nowhere to rush off to. She’s a jobless American now – by choice, having tendered her resignation at the school she'd taught at. After a long four years, it became clear that the initial excitement of the job had whittled to discontentment with the mundane mediocrity of life. Quitting meant no more irate overprotective parents and stuffy board members to report to. It also meant she would have to find another source of income and a new direction to focus in, which led to the decision to fly half the world in hopes that she would stumble across some form of inspiration.
Her circle of colleagues and even smaller circle of friends had been surprised, which surprised her. They either don’t communicate often enough, or maybe she’s just adept at hiding dissatisfaction.
They celebrated the beginning of a new chapter of her life with a night of drinking – a request she normally wouldn't have agreed to due to the influence of her past strict ballet regime, but she conceded after some persuasion and left them all in the dust. She credits her exceptionally high alcohol tolerance to genes. Or something. She wouldn't know. She's never seen her parents drinking when they were alive.
She steps out of the shower, wrapped in a fluffy, white towel. Standing before the mirror, she wipes a portion clear of steam with a hand, scrutinizing her reflection with a critical eye.
Maybe a haircut would do the trick – something short, trendy, and yells independent twenty-seven-year-old.
The thought makes her scoff. Abandoning her bathroom musings, she dresses quickly, and with the rain still pouring out, heads down to the second floor where the dining area is. No one is around except for the staff and an unusually buff blond guy who’d either forgot to towel after his bath, or else he’d just finished an exceptionally vigorous workout.
She picks through the buffet and sits by the window, trying not to pay too obvious attention to the increasing number of plates stacked on the other occupied table. Halfway through her meal, a shadow falls over her seat; it’s the blond dude with a twinkle in blue eyes.
“High metabolism,” he says in an amused voice.
Her face warms as he tilts his chin in goodbye and strides off, haversack over his shoulder.
Guess her staring hadn't been as inconspicuous as she thought.
Back in her room, weariness returns with full force. With one last look at the rainy landscape, she pulls the steel-grey curtains together, drowning the room in darkness.
Adventures in a new country can wait till the next day.
Tony Stark lounges under the shade of a tent-covered area just outside a Starbucks café. It's better than languishing under the heat of the midday sun in his jeans, shirt, and the striped hoodie that is now tied around his waist. Unlike the patrons out queuing for rides, he isn’t here for enjoyment; he’s here to watch people.
He takes a sip of his White Mocha, eyeing a group of particularly rumbustious teens when his cell phone rings.
It’s Barton.
He swipes the green button across the screen and is rewarded with Paul Young crooning into his ear with the oldie Every Time You Go Away.
“Enough with the sappy 80s soundtrack, Barton," he says in irritation. "The last thing I need is for you to influence Jarvis with your crappy taste in music.”
“You know you miss our karaoke sessions.”
“You using karaoke sessions to convince me to come back?” He slaps at the sweat trickling down his neck. Blasted heat. “Fail.”
“They’re looking for you.” The archer's voice takes on a more serious tone.
“Who?”
“Not funny, Stark. They don’t know where you are, and it’s making them nervous. It’s making us nervous.” Barton pauses. “It’s been over ten years, Tony. She could be anywhere.”
“Hm, so who’s the master – or mistress – at hide-and-seek?” He scans his environment, lifting his sunglasses when he sees a familiar figure and dropping them back on his nose when it turns out to be a false alarm. “Tell Shield to stop looking for me.”
He cuts the call and breathes out a sigh of frustration.
For the past three months, he has travelled from sandy shores and rugged cliffs on one continent to concrete jungles on another – all for the red-haired girl who’d gone missing at fifteen. He’s tried burying his obsession under the job. He's tried addictions to sex and drinking. For a couple of years, he’d given himself over to alcoholism, but it only caused him to wake from drunken stupors, sweating and heart racing, plagued with memories and horrific outcomes that his mind would conjure. The terror would drive him back to the bottle, where it’d put him into a numbed state until unconsciousness came, and the whole cycle would repeat itself.
Barton, tired of watching his friend throw his life down the drain, called in reinforcements: Bruce, the father he hadn’t seen in years.
Half-inebriated and burning with rage, he'd screamed and taunted his adoptive parent, now with streaks of grey in his hair. It hadn’t been a matter of concern that the Hulk, the gruesome result of the scientist’s last experiment with a super soldier serum and exposure to gamma rays, might emerge, enraged; death would have been a welcome relief.
He’d ranted and railed until there had been nothing left to say. Slumping to the ground, he stared through blurred vision at his lap. When he finally looked up, the man was no longer there. He cleaned up his act and was good until another wave of nightmares, more intense than the last, hit. Instead of succumbing to the lure of alcohol, he ran for safety.
He ran to find her.
He shuts his eyes and breathes in the heated air, trying to focus in the cacophony of sounds that sweeps over him: the noisy chatter of patrons, the clatter of rollercoasters, the screams of thrill-seekers, the obnoxious pop from the café’s outdoor speakers, and the big band music drifting over from Hollywood Boulevard.
When he opens his eyes, red flashes in his peripheral vision.
He shoots out of his chair. It topples over with a metallic clang behind him. With his heart slamming against his ribcage, he whirls the redheaded female around to face him.
His heart drops like lead to the pit of his stomach.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, releasing his grasp on the astounded woman’s forearm. “I thought, uh," he stumbles. "I thought you were someone else.”
Disappointment is a bitter pill to swallow.
He spends the rest of the day wandering aimlessly, walking the lengths of streets and riding buses from one unfamiliar place to another. Dusk arrives. He stares up at the canvas of heavy, foggy clouds under the shadows of towering cranes, blinking at falling raindrops. The city lights up against the darkness of the sky. He thinks she would like the view. When midnight approaches, he finds himself on an arched bridge, gazing down over the edge, and wonders what it’d be like to plunge into the black waters.
His stomach reminds him that he hasn’t had anything but coffee since breakfast. He takes a seat in a restaurant, catches sight of the stash of alcohol behind the counter, and walks out before the thirst becomes insatiable.
Morning shows up with gold streaks at the horizon. He finds her right outside one of the temples in the narrow streets of Little India, dressed in casual wear with red hair pinned back and tumbling about her shoulders.
Jarvis once showed him a picture of how she would look like at twenty-seven; it isn’t just the accuracy that convinces him it’s her.
She turns towards him. At the sight of an illuminated red dot of a sniper’s rifle trained on her, exhilaration turns to dread. His stomach lurches. With adrenaline rushing through his veins, he tackles her to the ground, cursing the lack of a suit, and hears a whizzing sound over their heads followed by the soft thud of the bullet ploughing into dirt.
Fouled, he jeers.
Grabbing the hand of a stunned Natasha, he pulls her to her feet and begins to weave through the street. That would be the next thing on his to-do list: leave a suit in every country in case of potential assassination. Turning the corner, he shoves her behind a black Mercedes Benz just as a bullet slices through the fabric of his shirtsleeve, brushing his flesh. Swearing, he stumbles in under the cover of the vehicle and drops to the ground beside her.
“God, that hurts.” He sucks in his breath, blinking away spots in his vision.
At least it hadn’t been an actual hit.
“You know,” he says breathlessly, resting his head against the door. “This isn’t how I imagined our reunion would be like, but better a bullet-ridden reunion than none at all. Barton probably has a good soundtrack for this. You remember him from the academy, don’t you? Irritating kid with spiky hair and impeccable aim.” He chuckles, then winces as pain shoots up his arm.
She stares at him as though he’d just flown in from Mars.
He suppresses the urge to explain his tendency to ramble, especially during high-pressure situations. “You okay, Nat?” he asks instead.
“You’re glowing,” she says.
He follows her gaze to his chest, where a soft light seeps through the fabric of his tee.
Ten years couldn't possibly have erased her memories of his arc reactor, could it? Maybe she’d hit her head harder on the ground than he’d thought.
“Me, Tony Stark?” He gestures to himself. “You, Natasha Romanov.”
“Who?” she blurts out, perplexed.
Before he can respond, a splattering of bullets punctures metal, making them flinch. A body comes tumbling over the hood and slides in expertly next to them, landing with a breathless exclamation at the impact.
He lets out a sigh at the familiar head of blond hair. “Please don’t tell me you followed me on my “Around the World in 80 Days” quest.”
Steve Rogers, sans uniform, shrugs. “Super soldiers need vacations too.”
“Why the hell are you here?”
“I had a moral obligation. Bruce told me to keep an eye on you,” he says before catching sight of Natasha. “Oh,” he remarks in a mildly surprised tone. “It’s you.”
“Oh, it’s you?” Tony narrows his eyes. “What do you mean ‘oh, it’s you’?”
“I saw her yesterday. I didn’t know she was the Natasha Romanov, or else I would’ve told you.”
“I’m not Natasha Romanov,” the redhead states in a baffled tone. “I—”
“Hold that thought,” Tony interrupts. Identity issues are prioritized below matters of life and death. “I don’t suppose you came all the way here to tell us we’re all gonna die, Cap?”
“Plane’s ready to go, and we’ll have agents surrounding the area in a few seconds. You know Shield’s got a secret base here, right? Somebody knew you were here.”
He grinds his teeth. No need to worry. He'll do a better job at hiding his tracks next time.
“All right, Ms. Not-Romanov,” he announces. “The good news is we’re getting out of here. The bad news is sandman’s taking roll call, and your name’s on it.”
He sweeps his hand next to her neck in one smooth motion, and she goes limp almost immediately, slumping against him.
He presses his fingers against her neck to check her pulse. “Instant sedation,” he says in answer to Steve’s questioning look. “I used the smaller amount so no risk of it being fatal there. Wasn’t even sure that was enough to knock her out. Got lucky, huh?” When Steve raises an eyebrow, he shrugs a shoulder. “Can’t lug my suit halfway across the world. Doesn’t mean I can’t carry a few of its weapons.”