A young man held the door for the shapely woman as she entered the gas station and general store. She reached up and pulled her hair out of its messy ponytail and then shook her long red hair. She stretched her back as she walked, poking her breasts out and listening to her spine creak and crack as she moved. She shook her bottom back and forth as she walked a few more steps. She stopped and turned around to look at him, carding her fingers through the front of her hair, which had fallen into her face and smiled at him, "Thanks, Mister."
The man had taken his time watching her walk through the door in front of him, from her breasts, which were oversized for such a small figure, to her perfect ass, "Y-Yo-You're mighty welcome, ma'am," he stuttered. She winked at him, turned, and continued her journey into the store.
A few old men sat out front underneath the shade of the shelter of the store talking about everything and anything. They'd seen the interaction between the young man and the redhead. Each one of the men shook his head.
"Lavernius Tucker," The newer gentleman of the group called. He'd only been in town a few months. He said he was just wandering through the rest of his years. He was blind in one eye, an accident that had happened in the war, he'd said.
"Yes sir, Mr. Nick." Lavernius walked over toward the group of men.
"Son, you can't be so obvious when you looking over a woman. Some of them might get offended, redheads especially. Knock your nose right off your face."
"Yes, sir, Mr. Nick."
"Now, if you're actually interested in Miss Natasha, why don't you go ask her if you can fill her car up or if there's anything else you can help her with? And try and do it without stuttering so much this time though, okay, son?"
"Yes, sir, Mr. Nick." Lavernius scooted back into the store where the redhead was looking up and down the aisles.
One of the men took a deep breath, "That poor boy don't got the sense God gave 'em. She does though. Some of these women try so hard to look sexy showing off all the goods. Here she shows up in a cute little convertible and she's wearing a simple l'il black tank top and jeans. You can't get much sexier than that."
"Now, Bob, if you was thirty years younger, you'd try and see what you could talk her into."
"If I was thirty years younger, I'd sound worse that poor Lavernius. Only reason I got Enid was 'cause she didn't pay me attention and she said yes. Her mama overheard and practically shoved her out of the house that night."
The men all laughed.
"Well, gentlemen, it's getting kind of late in the day. I'm gonna go check on poor Lavernius and try and help him out a little." Nick stood up, grabbing his cane.
"I'd be more impressed if you got you some, you old codger," laughed Perry.
"You saying I don't have game?" Nick pointed to his chest "I might have to make this a challenge."
"What is it I heard my grandson say the other day…? Pictures or it didn't happen!"
"That's right, Fred. We want pictures, Nick!"
"Go on home, ya Buzzards!" As Nick walked into the general store, another car pulled up. The driver got out of the car. He was suspicious and the others that got out of the car with him didn't strike him as being exactly trustworthy either. As they entered the store, they were all mumbling to each other.
Nick paused to glance in on the redheaded spy. She'd stopped at the book section, which was closer to the registers. Nat was fiddling with her hair, trying to decide if she wanted to put it back into the ponytail. One of the goons walked straight up to her and tried his manner of flirting with her.
"I bet you people tell you you're really pretty all the time."
"Yup." Her eyebrows scrunched up as she looked at the back of several books, trying to figure out which one she wanted to read. She glanced over at Mr. Suave and then very quickly over at Nick. The goon looked confused. Nick had to stifle a laugh. I guess that line must work on some women, he thought to himself.
The pretty woman turned her attention to Mr. Suave, "I'm sorry. I honestly haven't been paying you any attention. Did you need something?"
Nick sighed to himself; of course she would have known the moment they came into the parking lot and, from where she was standing, the spy had a perfect view of the security camera TVs.
Mr. Suave tilted his head slightly to the left, "I said," he began.
"I actually know what you said," the redhead began quietly. "I'm really just not interested. In any or all of you in any quantity, quality or well," she looked up and to the left thoughtfully, "at all. I'm giving you a moment to escape with your dignity intact because you will like yourself SO much better in the morning if you take me up on that suggestion." She picked up a hardback copy of War and Peace and walked around to the next aisle. She grabbed a basket and dropped her book into it. Then she leaned over and picked up a large bottle of lighter fluid refill. She scanned the lighters looking for one that called out to her. Finally her eyes landed on a lighter that had a redhead holding her hand out and an enlarged black widow spider hanging down from her hand. She smirked. She took the lighter out of its packaging and filled up the lighter standing right there in front of the goon. She even tested it to make sure it worked. It had a nice sized flame.
The head goon called over to Mr. Suave, "Well, what'd she say?"
Mr. Suave looked her over one more time as she walked away from him and leaned over shaking her ass as she picked up a bag of off-brand greasy potato chips off the bottom shelf.
Gumba told two of his goons in Spanish to go outside and discourage customers. The redhead yawned noticeably and continued to walk toward Gumba replying in perfect Spanish, "Do you actually think that limp dick of yours is going to satisfy me? Or you for that matter? We both know you actually want Rico over there." She tilted her head in the direction of Mr. Suave. "You, however, you're just too chicken-shit to admit it. That's why you left him in the store, so you could use him. So you could think about and look at Rico instead of me." She watched the anger boil in his eyes, just as she knew it would. She grabbed War and Peace out of the basket.
"Hold her," he yelled to the other man. As soon as he approached her, she threw the book at Gumba, the corner catching him by surprise on the jaw and making him take a few steps away from her. She dropped to the floor and caught Mr. Suave's lighter fluid soaked pants on fire. While she had been filling up the lighter, she also made sure to cover his pants nonchalantly in some lighter fluid when she leaned over to get her bag of chips, making sure his pants legs would go up like a three month old Christmas tree. Mr. Suave started yelling the moment he realized he was on fire and ran out of the store.
"What's the matter, Mr. Cortez? Performance anxiety?" Nat looked at him with her lip pouted out, "Are you ready to give up now? It's okay if you are. It just won't look so good in front of your men out there if you don't have any real bruises."
"My father will get me out of this," he stated.
"Your father told me where you were." She gave him a moment for that to sink in. "Yeah, even he thinks you're a monster. That's really saying something coming from someone like him. You should learn to keep your hands to yourself. Sometimes, you touch the wrong people and well… people don't like others touching their things."
"What about you? You just set Rico on fire!"
She took a deep breath, jumped off the payment counter and onto Cortez's back grabbing both hands and handcuffing him. She slammed him to the floor all in one move. She quickly brought him to standing position.
He tried to fight her as they began walking toward the front of the store. She pushed him up against the counter to look in his eyes, "I think it's time you learned a hard truth. Sometimes, Mr. Cortez, sometimes," she grinned manically at him, "you use a monster to catch a monster and I've been a monster for a helluva lot longer than you have." She pressed against his windpipe, holding him in place. "Let me explain," she said menacingly, "I'm the monster that parents are really afraid of, not the bogeymen that children have who live in their closets, in their nightmares. I'm real and I keep my promises. You better confess to everything and I mean everything and, if you don't, you'd better hope and pray you die before I get to you because, if you get off on even one of these crimes, I will come after you, and I will give you a personal demonstration of what a real monster looks like. Are we clear?"
"Ye-Yes!" She grabbed him and took him to the front door where the police were waiting to take him away.
Nat walked to her car, grabbed her jacket out of it and sneaked away. A few hours later, Nick found her sitting on a bench watching the sunset over the river. He sat down next to her on the bench. They didn't say anything to each other for the longest time.
"Sometimes, the peace and quiet is louder than being in the middle of a firefight," Nick said. "Over the years, I've thrown myself into a bunch of firefights I probably had no business being in. After a while, Phil pointed out what I was doing. He wasn't all that nice about it either. But, that's Phil for you, he'll make enough noise until you have to listen." Nick stopped and smiled, "Bastard said I was just making the quiet louder. Of course, he was right, but then not many people understand that like me and you do."
Nat snorted at him. "He's often right when you want him to be wrong so badly you can taste it."
"He and Barton were right about you."
Nat turned to look at Nick, "The only thing they were right about was I wanted freedom. We see how well that worked out though don't we?"
"Natasha, despite what you show the world, what you see in the mirror, what you've done, all the red, it's in the black. You guys do keep saving the world."
"Yeah, when we're not the cause for destroying it."
"Tasha, you are not a monster. Your ledger has been officially in the black for years and you know that." Nick stroked her hair.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and looked up at him, "You know what no one will ever understand about my ledger?" Nick shook his head. "I can't bring all those innocents back. They're dead because of me. Nothing about that's going to change. It doesn't matter how many people I save; those people are still dead. I'm still a monster. It's always going to be there. I can bury it as deeply as I want, but she'll come out again. Sometimes, when I need her; sometimes, she'll just rear her ugly head. I thought with Bruce we could keep each other in check, but even he's scared of my monster. That's a helluva thing to be able to say right?" Tears were starting to form in Nat's eyes, "My monster scares the Hulk. I'd laugh if it wasn't so sad." Nick slid closer to Nat and wrapped his arms around her. She laid her head on his chest, "Nick, I just can't listen to the pep talks anymore. I think I'm through. I just can't do this anymore. I think I need to disappear for a while… maybe forever.
"If you left, who else am I gonna have these talks with?"
She looked up at him, "Not a monster."
"You aren't a monster." He brushed some hair behind her ear.
"Talk to Tucker. He'd die of glee."
"I'd never get to talk. He'd do all of it." Nat smirked. "And what about all those disapproving glares you give me? Who's gonna give me those," Nick asked smiling.
"You're ridiculous."
"I don't have very many people I trust. You just happen to be on the short list. Besides, you tell me when I'm wrong. I do learn from my mistakes and not trusting you with Insight was one of the worst mistakes I ever made." He squeezed her to him. "Besides Cap just gives me a disapproving glare that doesn't have the sting yours does, Phil waits till we're alone and Maria is somewhere between the two."
"Steve tried to give me the, 'We've all done things we're not proud of. It was war' speech."
Nick snorted, "Bet that went over well."
"He said it on the wrong day once and I looked at him and asked him what his awful atrocities were. It wasn't pretty.
"How'd he react to that?"
"He told me and then he was all, see it's okay. I laughed in his face and told him that I'd accomplished most of his 'craft' by the time I was eight. Then the rest by the time I was twelve. Clint tried to warn him. He didn't talk to me for a week. Said he didn't know what to say. Clint told him that the next time he told him to drop something to quote, 'Fucking drop it.' One thing I can say is I have one helluva bestie."
"I have an idea. How about you and me go hit a nice tropical island? We won't do any work unless we absolutely have to. We'll disappear at least for a month. You can be my young hot wife."
Tasha laughed and laid her head on Nick's shoulder. "You have sunscreen duty."
"Deal." He leaned over and kissed her forehead. "I've missed you."
"I've missed you, too."
"Come on, let's debrief, tell the team we're going to be incognito for the next month, and find you some hot bikinis to wear."
Nat smiled, "If I'm your trophy wife, who are you gonna be?" They stood up and started walking toward Nick's car.
"You pick."