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They weren’t supposed to be here, and she was sure that Rogers didn’t understand just how much they weren’t supposed to be here. There was something in the way he walked, the way he stood, that suggested that he had complete confidence in their right to be here and to do this.
If they got caught–
Well. Natasha was planning on not getting caught. She was the Black Widow. The spider in the night. She’d betrayed enough of her friends to always have a route out, and there was no way that she wouldn’t make sure that she had at least three routes out.
They were in the shadow of Stark Tower, wandering along the sidewalk like they were tourists who had got lost on their way into town. The only reason Natasha wasn’t already disappearing out of the afternoon sun was that it was Clint who had told them that he had a plan, that he knew how to make sure their intel was passed up the chain, and that they could trust him.
Clint had saved her life enough times that Natasha didn’t always keep an escape route from him. She trusted him. She just wished that Rogers was treating this as seriously as she thought they needed to.
They had betrayed Stark. A man who had access to more tools for tracking people down than any other individual. A man whose personal power was probably on the same level as the power of most national intelligence agencies.
Being this close to his seat of power was, in Natasha’s opinion, ill-advised.
But, as she was begrudgingly accepting, potentially necessary.
“You need to be careful with this guy,” Clint told them, as he turned down a side-street of a side-street. “Fury respected him, and he helped us out a few times, but he was never really one of us.”
“One of us?” Rogers asked. “You mean he wasn’t SHIELD.”
“It wasn’t SHIELD that Fury wanted to recruit him for.”
Natasha tensed. There weren’t many people on the other list, and of the ones she hadn’t met, there was only one that lived in New York.
“Why didn’t he say yes?” asked Rogers. “Didn’t he want to–”
“Barton. Are you sure about this?” Natasha cut the supersoldier off. “Once you’ve brought him into this then you know there’s no way to get him out of it.”
“He’ll sort it.”
“And if he wants to sort us out too?”
Clint grimaced.
“So that is a risk,” Natasha concluded.
“This is worth that risk,” he said. “If we don’t find someone to deal with this, then things are going to get real dangerous, real fast, for a whole load of people.”
There wasn’t a good reply to that, and none of them offered one. It wasn’t often that Natasha regretted running to Wakanda, but right now? She had regrets.
“Are either of you going to explain yourselves?” asked Rogers. “Who are you talking about?”
“Alex Rider.”
Rogers came to a stop, and folded his arms. “Alex Rider. Really?”
Natasha glanced over at Clint, who looked somewhat resigned.
“Do you know who he is?” asked Clint.
“I know who he is.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“He betrayed his country.”
“Because they betrayed him.”
“If you can’t respect your country, then what can you respect?”
Natasha winced. She’d betrayed her country. Arguably, several times. Not that she wanted to bring that up now, but it was disappointing that Rogers had forgotten it.
“Do you want someone to handle this or not?”
“Why can’t we handle it?”
“Do you know someone in the Department of Energy?”
It was an argument they’d had a few times. It was running in circles. Someone was going to try to sell an American nuclear warhead. Already had sold one, in fact. It was going to be stolen soon. An attack on one of the train carriages that carried them around the country. There would be deaths. There would be damage. And, at the end of it, a nuclear warhead would have vanished.
They knew who was behind it. They knew who was buying it. They knew how serious this could be.
The only problem was that they didn’t know who was going to steal it, or which warhead they were going to steal, or exactly where that warhead would be.
Rogers stewed on it for a second, clearly trying to think of someone they could fall back on that wasn’t Rider. That wasn’t a ‘traitor’ to his country. Clint rolled his eyes after no other name was forthcoming.
“Stop wasting time,” he said. “The sooner we dump this in Rider’s lap, the sooner we can all get back out of this country and somewhere that we aren’t likely to have the entire military hunting for us if we get recognised.”
Not that there were many places where that was true any more. One-hundred-and-seventeen countries were signatories to the Accords now. One-hundred-and-seventeen countries that Natasha had to be careful in. And, of the rest, most of them were countries that would kill her just on principle.
Black Widows could bring down countries. Had brought down countries.
The new governments were about as friendly toward her as the ones she’d helped them replace, even all these years later.
The bar that they were heading to was a place that Natasha had never been, never seen, never wanted to go near. It was famous, if you were in the right circles, for having a bartender that saw a little too much but asked no questions. There were colleagues, friends, enemies, that had gone there when they needed to call in a favour.
Alex Rider would let you run up a tab. And then, Natasha knew, he would call it in. Eventually you would get that phone call and he would ask you to do something for him.
Never anything you wouldn’t have done anyway.
Always something you didn’t know you needed to do.
Fury had complained, once or twice, about agents that had done Rider a favour. Back in the good old days, when Fury was around for her to complain about things to. But, he had begrudgingly acknowledged, Rider never asked for more than he was owed. She could see why Rogers might not like him, though she thought it was dumb to not like him for the fact that he had abandoned his country of birth.
The rumours about him were as numerous as they were wild. A teenage spy. An assassin. Trained by SCORPIA. The SAS. He never missed a shot. He was a traitor, a liar, a detractor. A master of unarmed combat. He'd survived being shot in the chest. He'd tried to assassinate the Secretary of State. He'd blown up Air Force One. He'd been to space. And Stark went for drinks at his bar, occasionally, if you believed what people said.
Natasha believed maybe half of the rumours.
That was enough to make her never want to set foot inside the door.
Clint pushed it open anyway.
It was quiet enough to be dead. Aside from a teenage boy sat doing his homework in one corner, there was absolutely no one here. Which was probably why Clint had timed it like this. There would have been a lot more risk if they’d come during a busy time.
That it was a Saturday afternoon and the bar was dead raised a lot of questions for Natasha, but she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Clint sauntered up to the bar as if he owned the place. “Rider,” he said, “we need your help.”
The bartender didn’t look up from where he was absent-mindedly polishing a glass. That was a hygiene violation, Natasha thought, which raised the question of why he was doing that too.
“We’ve got intel about a current threat and we need you to pass it up the chain to someone who can handle it.”
The first time Rider met her eyes, Natasha felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. There was something about him that made her instincts scream. He was unarmed, harmless, behind the bar. She felt like she should leave, immediately, before he looked at her a second time. Rogers clearly felt something too, given how he shifted his weight. He was uncomfortable, uneasy. Natasha had learnt to read those tells of his. It was unusually perceptive of him. Normally Rogers gave everyone more than enough chances to bury him.
“Look, mister, I’d really appreciate it if–”
“You, shut up. Clint, talk more,” said Rider.
“Nuclear missiles being stolen and sold. Terrorist organisation conspiring with some defectors in the American military. Within the next month.”
“Hm,” said Rider. “I see.”
He put the glass down, and stepped out into the room proper.
He was shorter than Natasha had expected, but more graceful. She was used to men like Clint, men like Rogers, men who moved like they would slam into you if they needed to.
Rider moved like every movement was carefully calculated.
Rider moved like he had thought through everything that you might do and everything that he would do in response to that.
Rider moved like he could dance through a storm of bullets to stab you in the face.
This was the man that had saved her life once, in Budapest, and she hoped that he didn’t count that against her. Or, for that matter, remember.
“Peter,” said Rider, “I need you to go home, okay.”
The teenager doing homework had already put away most of his stuff. “I figured there wouldn’t be classes today when I saw these guys,” he said. “Do you need me to ring Mr Stark?”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Rider, as if the teenage boy hadn’t just suggested doing the one thing that no one wanted to happen. “I can handle this.”
“They’re former Avengers.”
“They’re just here to talk.”
“Two of them have tried to kill me.”
“Would you like to give them another chance?” Rider sounded genuinely interested in the answer. “We could arrange a spar, if you like.”
“Now hold on,” Rogers cut in, “I don’t think any of us have ever tried to–”
“You dropped a bridge on me,” said the teenage boy, squaring his shoulders. “And he shot an arrow at me.”
There was no doubt in Natasha’s mind that the boy was telling the truth. Clint’s eyes narrowed as he tried to place him. Natasha was faster.
“You’re Peter Parker,” she said finally. “The one Tony called in as back-up at the airport.”
“Yes,” said the teenage superhero, “I am. You got a problem with that?”
“Stark shouldn’t have asked you to get in the way,” Rogers said. “It wasn’t your fight. Especially not one that you should have been fighting when you’re this old. You should go back to school and focus on becoming a doctor or–”
“It wasn’t supposed to be a fight at all,” the teenager said mildly. “You were going to come in quietly and sort it all out. Weren’t you?”
Rogers flushed.
“And you went to art school,” Peter continued. “I don’t think you’re in a position to talk about what career path I should be taking.”
Rider coughed, drawing everyone’s attention back to him. “Peter, go home. No patrol tonight, okay? You’re still healing.”
The teenager touched his chest with a soft hand, before nodding silently.
There was an awkward silence as four adults watched a teenager quietly and efficiently pack up his schoolwork and vanish into the afternoon sun.
Then Rider locked the door.
“Tell me more,” he said, “and then we’ll see what we can do.”
There wasn’t much more for them to tell him, but they worked through it anyway. What they didn’t have in their heads they had on a spare StarkPad, and Rider skimread it all.
"Hm,” he said again. “This is tricky.”
“Can you help?”
“I’ll need to make a phone call.”
“Stark?”
“Byrne.”
Clint relaxed. “He’s a good man.”
“He’ll want to know where I got the intel.”
“Classified sources?”
“His clearance level isn’t that much lower than mine.”
“Confidential informant?”
Rider snorted, “Nice try.”
“My name only?”
Rider tilted his head thoughtfully. “That could work.”
Rogers looked back and forth between the two of them, “What are you going on about? Just tell them it was from me.”
Natasha resisted the urge to slap her forehead.
Rider, for his part, just looked amused. “You want me to tell the Director of the CIA that one of the most wanted terrorists on the planet wandered into my bar to tell me that someone was planning to steal nuclear weapons?”
“We’re not terrorists.”
“The government might disagree with you there. Several governments, in fact.”
“It’s a misunderstanding. We’re going to get it sorted out as soon as Tony–”
Natasha stepped forward before the conversation could get any more derailed than it already have. “Give him my name too.”
“You willing to talk to him?”
“He has my number.”
Rider blinked. “You kept the same number?”
“We don’t all burn our bridges.”
“No, we just shoot our former teammates in the back.”
“That’s not what happened,” snapped Rogers, “and you know it.”
Rider looked them over one more time, somewhere between thoughtful and judgemental. Assessing them, Natasha supposed.
“Sit down,” Rider said. “I’ll need to make some calls.”
And then he vanished into the room behind the bar.
“We should go,” Rogers said. “Before he–”
“Sit down, Steve,” said Clint wearily. “Do you want a drink of something?”
“I’m not getting drunk in enemy territory.”
“You can’t get drunk. Not on this.”
“It’s the principle of it.”
“Nat?”
“Only if you’re paying.”
Clint smirked at her, and stepped behind the bar to pour their drinks, tossing a handful of bills on the counter.
“Who do you think he’s calling?”
“He’ll have to get through to Byrne.”
“I thought Byrne retired,” Natasha said with a frown. “Didn’t he step down for one of his underlings?”
“People like that don’t really retire,” Clint told her with a shrug. “They keep their fingers in the pie. He’ll be close enough to help out.”
“And he owes Rider a favour or two.”
“Probably.”
Natasha snorted. “Does anyone not owe him a favour or two?”
“Ask him about Alan Blunt sometime.”
“That guy was a creep,” Natasha said. “The world is better off without him in it.”
“Yeah, but do you know how he died?” Clint asked. “Because rumour has it–”
Rider stepped back into the room, his eyes flicking between them, the drinks, and the bills on the bar. “Alan Blunt died in a mugging gone wrong,” he told them, his voice quiet but intense. “That’s what the report said.”
“I don’t think you were after his wallet.”
Rider ignored him completely. “Your nuclear missile is being handled,” he said. “And we’re keeping it from Stark until tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I’d recommend not being in New York by then.”
Clint sipped at his beer. “Can you give me till the weekend?”
Rider raised one eyebrow. “Why?”
“I haven’t seen my kids in a while. Would be nice to go home. Spend time with my wife.”
“They don’t have her under surveillance?”
“I’m Clint Barton.”
Rider snorted. “Anyone else want to illegally remain within the United States of America until the weekend?”
“You can arrange that?” blurted out Rogers, looking outraged.
Rider ignored him.
“I’m fine,” Natasha said. “I can get Rogers out too.”
“But–”
“So just Barton then.”
“Hang on a second–”
“Yeah, that sounds right.”
“Okay,” Rider said with a shrug. “I’ll organise it. You’ll owe me.”
“Okay,” said Barton.
“You can’t just–”
“I need to go make some more calls,” he said. “You will let yourselves out once you’ve finished your drink?”
It didn’t really sound like a question. Clint raised his glass in silent acknowledgement. Rider left.
The three of them sat there in silence for a moment, around the table in the corner of the bar. Clint relaxed, Rogers flustered, Natasha just… thinking.
“He isn’t what I expected,” she said finally.
“Quieter?”
“I’ve heard the stories.”
“He’s different when he’s in the field.”
“You mean he sets the field on fire and then blows it up.”
“I asked Fury if we should maintain surveillance on him after we made contact.”
“He told you not to.”
“How do you know?”
“He would have killed them if he ran. Fury was rarely wasteful.”
Rogers glowered at the both of them, uncomfortable with their conversation.
“Fury thought it wasn’t needed. Said he’d run or he’d stay, and either way the surveillance wouldn’t help.”
“And he chose to stay.”
Clint sipped his drink again. “Apparently.”
“Why do you think he did it?”
“Where would he run?”
“There’s always Wakanda.”
Clint gave her an exasperated look. She smirked back at him. Rogers shifted his weight uneasily. He didn’t like any reminder of the fact that they were all fugitives from the law, forced to hide in a small African country, only allowed to remain through kind permission of their sovereign. Only allowed to operate because he thought it was better - it would be less stress - if they were occasionally not in the country.
Natasha was pretty sure he was giving them intel precisely timed to get them out of the country whenever the UN were visiting. Or Stark was visiting. She’d seen what they were putting Barnes through, and she’d seen the upgrades to her equipment. It wasn’t something that she mentioned. Rogers, she thought, wouldn’t like to know that Stark was keeping them in his back pocket as a just in case, and she couldn’t see any other reason for things to be playing out the way they were.
“He’s dangerous,” she said, finally.
“So are you.”
She didn’t reply. She had been trained to be a weapon, just like Rider. Her childhood had been burnt on the altar of necessity, just like Rider. Her lifetime had been spent in service to someone else, just like Rider.
And yet, at the end of it, it was Rider who had a quiet life in a quiet pub trading quiet favours.
She didn’t know how she felt about that.
She finished the last of her drink in silence.
“You guys ready?” Clint asked, pushing his empty glass across the table. “I’ll help you get out the city.”
“You’re actually going to see your wife,” Natasha said, surprised. “I didn’t think you were serious.”
“Laura is at home this week.”
She didn’t ask how he knew that. She didn’t want to know. She just nodded.
Rogers frowned, “Couldn’t I–”
“You shouldn’t owe him a favour,” Clint said bluntly. “You don’t trade in the kind of currency he deals in.”
“I could–”
Natasha shook her head silently, and led the way out of the door.
It was handled, she thought.
She had joined SHIELD, she had joined the Avengers, to save the world.
Now here she was delegating that to someone else.
She let her eyes settle on Stark Tower as they made their way down the street.
Had she made the wrong choice, in Germany?
Rogers over Stark.
Freedom over accountability.
Rider had found a different balance, she thought, and one that she hadn’t thought would be possible.
There was a lot that Natasha regretted.
Maybe, she thought, not meeting Alex Rider when she worked for SHIELD was one of those regrets she didn’t know she had until it was too late to change it.
Or maybe not.
She didn’t know.
Only one thing was certain: she would not be in America by the time the afternoon sun had set.