the weight of the world
Thor was not her ideal partner, especially considering the sensitivity of the mission, and the fact that she didn't want another Avenger on hand to watch her ruthlessly kill an arm's dealer per strict instructions given by SHIELD, but Natasha nonetheless found herself strapped into a helicopter beside the god of thunder as she wove her way through northern Egypt watching him out of the corner of her eye as her hands maneuvered skillfully across the switchboard.
Clint would have been her ideal partner, and indeed he would have been the one seated beside her as they flew over Alexandria to Cairo, but Natasha had left him with a dislocated shoulder and thinking tactically, an archer with one arm out of commission was no good. But without tactics and technicalities and plans buzzing in her head, she admitted she almost wished he was here, if only to alleviate the silence Thor seemed intent on keeping. Thor had spoken only twice since they left the helicarrier on the beaches of Alexandria, once to ask about the necessity of an undershirt while they were slipping into local clothes, and then again when he asked her how one got about learning how to fly a helicopter. She had answered both questions and then waited for more but they never came. But, she supposed as the metropolis below them emerged from the stretches of desert they had been flying over and they caught their first glances at the ancient city, there wasn't much open for discussion. She was a human assassin and he was a mythical creature with godlike powers. Pleasantries exchanged about the weather would probably fly right over his head.
She landed the chopper on the roof of a SHIELD outpost and after reporting in, Natasha wrapped her head in a light white scarf, covering her telltale red curls, and joined Thor on the street. The outpost was located in the middle of a busy marketplace, outdoor cafés tossed around like afterthoughts and vendors yelling from their posts by their booths as customers littered the sandy paths. The women covered their hair as well, something Thor pointed out eagerly when Natasha came to stand by him as her careful eyes scanned the area for threats.
"Yes, women in this part of the world cover their hair as per the terms of their religion," she told him.
"Religion," he repeated, nodding slowly. "Their deity requires this of them?"
"I don't know details," she said dismissively, and she led the way through the crowded street.
"What does your deity require of you?"
The question caught her off guard. "I don't have one," she said simply.
"Then what do you believe?"
She looked at him, at his sure stance and his open face. He was curious. No doubt, people in his realm fell to their knees at the mention of him. He probably couldn't understand the concept of atheism and if he was ever going to, it wouldn't be in the middle of a market where the shouting and the activity didn't cease even for a moment.
"I believe we're going to miss the target if we dally," she said, and he didn't ask her another question.
In a courtyard surrounded by low buildings that were as old as time, a foreigner with a limp leaned heavily against a cane as he stood by a fountain with the sun shining directly overhead, just where SHIELD intel had told her he would be. Natasha sat on a bench beside Thor and watched the man out of the corner of her eye, her hand clenching the dagger concealed beneath a newspaper on her lap. Thor was surveying the entrance into the courtyard with a bored look about him, and when the call to the midday prayer rang out, the ethereal voice twisting around the Arabic letters, he looked up as though he expected to see someone hanging above them.
"This is very different from New York," he decided. "But the climate is similar to New Mexico."
"They're both deserts," she supplied, her eyes never straying from the man. The man checked his watch and took a seat on the edge of the fountain, trailing one hand on the water, the other holding a suitcase. She did a quick sweep of the area and then let her gaze snap back to the man.
"That is all they have in common," Thor said. He reached down and scooped sand in his large hand, closing his fingers upon the mass before letting it fall grain by grain back onto the ground. "They speak another language here."
"Arabic. Do you understand it?"
"Yes. It is very different from the language you speak. Many different sounds."
"The world is big, Thor. Each part of it is different."
"That is not the case in Asgard." He sat back and closed his eyes, the sunlight catching on the blonde of his hair. "How different can parts of the same realm be? If the world is one, then the culture should be one, and the language should be one, and religion should be one. Do you agree?"
Natasha couldn't keep back a snort. Thor would definitely be a socialist if he even knew what it meant. "What makes the world so unique is that all these people have different ideals. I think it's perfectly okay for these people to worship whatever it is they worship and for me to... do something else. It keeps minds open to change."
"You have a point," he conceded. He abandoned his sweep of the entrance and turned fully in his seat to face her, his eyes lingering on the scarf that covered her hair. "I went to a church with Steven Rogers in New York," he said casually. "It was a marvelous structure."
"The one with the stained glass ceiling?"
"I believe so."
"He took me there too, once."
"People had been ducking their heads in supplication. Praying. Steven was doing the same."
"Steve is old fashioned."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that a long time ago, Steve's parents told him that he should go to church every Sunday, and so that's what he does, even though he probably doesn't know why he does it at all."
"He goes for prayer, does he not?"
Natasha paused her spying on the man to give Thor a look, but his eyes were honest and he really didn't know. She sighed, then turned slightly toward him and said, "What could he pray for? Salvation? Redemption? We're beyond that."
"You see yourself beyond redemption?"
"We're here to murder someone, Thor," she said, almost impatiently. "Someone who might have a family. A son. A child who looks up to him and doesn't know he's a bad man, so it doesn't matter whether his death will be for the greater good, or that it might save a lot of people, because he was someone's father and to at least one person, he mattered."
Her voice rose slightly and she shut her mouth quickly, turning back to the man, and her heart jumped in her chest to see that he had turned his head curiously in her direction. She turned hastily back to Thor, watching the man from the corner of her eye, and she sighed in relief when he turned his attention back to the fountain.
Thor didn't appear to have noticed a thing. His eyes were on her, his brow furrowed, as though he was looking at her through a haze of deep thought.
"You have given this a lot of contemplation," he mused.
"I just say what everyone else is thinking," she replied.
"I was not thinking about that."
"What were you thinking about then?" she asked.
"About coffee."
She glanced at him in surprise and found a toothy grin on his face, and she smiled too.
"You are not beyond redemption," he told her, the grin slowly fading, but it didn't leave his eyes. "We are different from these people we protect, as different as Egypt is from New York, and as different as the women who cover their heads are from those I saw at the church. We must shoulder the guilt that cripples lesser men, so that we may better defend them, even if sometimes it may feel as though we carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. Such is our burden. Our redemption is happening all the time we spend taking care of people who cannot take care of themselves. You are strong. You are good. You redeem yourself every day. You can believe in that, if nothing else."
He placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly, his smile returning. She found, to her horror, that the corners of her eyes were burning and averted her gaze quickly, focusing on the task at hand, but his words lingered in her head and she began to understand why people in his realm worshipped him.
"That's nice of you to say," she muttered.
"I was merely speaking the truth." He shrugged his massive shoulders and stretched his arms up, and his gaze fixed on something ahead. "The target approaches."
Natasha looked and saw a young man approaching the one she had been watching. Her grip on the dagger tightened automatically, and after a nod at Thor, and maybe a little smile that shouldn't really have been there, they got to their feet.
Later, as they hurried through the busy streets and Natasha wiped at a stubborn speck of blood on her skirt, Thor grabbed her arm and stopped her suddenly before a café.
"What?" she asked, but he only pointed to a sign outside that displayed in proud Arabic letters she quickly translated to say, "Coffee to wake the dead."
He gave her an eager look. She pursed her lips.
"Okay, fine, let's go," she said, and he all but dragged her in.