Title: undercover in our overcoats
Author: Dayadhvam
Rating/Pairings: PG-13. Peggy/Natasha.
Summary: Prague, 1968. Neither Agent Carter nor the Black Widow would have called it anything like love.
Notes: Written for lastwingedthing in the 2013 femslashex exchange, Nov. 2013, originally posted on AO3. Title is from Richard Siken's "Anyway." Super-tl;dr history notes can be found at my LJ (68577. html).
The new First Secretary isn't so quick to use an iron glove, but that means he's giving Moscow a reason to use its own, now more than ever. You'd better move soon, wrote the man, whose name was redacted even in SHIELD paperwork. To the director and to agents on a need-to-know basis, he was known as one of the researchers working at Charles University's Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Králové, Czechoslovakia. To the code-breakers, he was known only by the pseudonym Masaryk. To everyone else, he was simply unknown.
He wrote: And remember that this is my research—my work, under my control. I only contacted you because I'm sick of the alternative.
"Well, I hope like hell he doesn't get sick of us," said Howard Stark. "Agent Carter, what do you think?"
oOo
"'Socialism with a human face,'" said Peggy. "Tursun, what do you think?"
Junior SHIELD agent Tursun Isqaqov glanced up from the other side of their cramped safehouse in Prague, where he was busy combing the bed for bugs. "The phrase? Well, Dubček's got a knack for words, but I don't see what the difference is," he responded. "Everything's got a human face. Including us, though I'm not so sure about Dugan's moustache—begging your pardon, sir."
Peggy let out a bark of laughter. In planning the assignment, she had handpicked Tursun for his level-headed approach to the unexpected; his medical knowledge, which served his alias here well; and his aptitude for languages, including Czech and Russian. Or as he said: "All things Russian, thanks to my father"—his father the Uyghur intellectual, who had studied in the Soviet Union before the Second World War and was enamored enough of the country to add a Russified suffix to his surname. The name had stayed; the affection had not. "Good. Because you never know what Russian sweet-talk might be overheard at the hospital," she had replied dryly. The fact that Tursun had a decent sense of humor was a pleasant bonus.
"Dum Dum Dugan's moustache is inhuman, no doubt about it," Peggy said. She strode over and smacked him on the shoulder. "Clever boy. I could've had a worse partner. Lunch?"
Over potato dumplings and cabbage soup in a rundown café, they reveled in the warm April weather and chatted idly in Czech, the very picture of good cheer. She was old enough to pass for Tursun's mother; he, young and similar enough in appearance to pass for her son.
"The bus to Hradec Králové leaves soon," Tursun said. "It's only two hours away, so I'll get there before dinner." He grinned, his face radiant with excitement. Anyone who happened to overhear their conversation would have thought: Ah, this Tibor, so he wants to be a doctor. Coming all the way from the countryside to the city—what an admirable goal!
"Impress them," Peggy commanded. "You're a good son—remember, dear, I love you." Remember, we can't afford to fuck this up.
In retrospect, Peggy was almost sick with relief that Tursun had left so early after their arrival in Prague. They had planned to work separately, she in Prague and he at the medical campus in nearby Hradec Králové, coordinating the transportation of materials from Masaryk's lab—namely, Charles University's research into an enhancement serum prototype. Under official guidance, Masaryk had written, which we all know is by decree of the Kremlin. But if Tursun had departed just a few hours later, if he had been seen leaving for Hradec Králové, and in Peggy's company—if he had been seen by—
At six in the evening later that day, Peggy bought a copy of the weekly Literární listy, in which the Writers' Union had printed a lengthy discussion on rehabilitating formerly banned authors. After marking out weaknesses of the major press buildings, which could be useful for communication hacks, she flipped through the paper as a pretext to linger around Prague Castle. She surveyed the placement of the government offices, then strolled in the direction of the river.
Peggy kept a practical eye on her surroundings. People walking briskly behind her raised no immediate flags.
Complacency had never served her well.
"Pleasure to see you here, Carter."
A chill crawled up her spine and settled heavily at the base of her neck. Peggy slowed down her pace and looked over her shoulder. The other woman wore a long trench coat, sturdy boots, and a wide-brimmed hat tilted down to block the top half of her face—but the voice was terrifyingly familiar.
"Oh?" Peggy said. Yes, what a bloody pleasure. An awful pleasure that upended her plans with chaotic glee. In her mind, she imagined the methodical discharge of bullets from her gun, and breathed out slowly. She said in Czech, "Widow, I assume you're not here to kill anyone, because I would've heard about it by now."
The Black Widow raised her chin up, enough that Peggy could see the amusement writ fully in her smile, if not her eyes. She wore dark red lipstick, the color of oxidized blood. "Yes, you would've. I see you're on a solo vacation."
Peggy's head cleared up like a blast of wind had hit her full in the face; she thought of Tursun and Masaryk, and then, Thank god. "I had some time off," she replied, even though both women were fully aware that Prague was no such vacation for either of them. The delicate web of lies was a mutual courtesy, as warped and wary as they were.
She hadn't seen the Black Widow in a while, and wasn't sure what to say. Hello, how are you? Don't kill me and I won't kill you? The latter question was a moot point: at least they hadn't tried to kill each other the last several times. On the contrary—
She tried to excise those memories from her head. So she added, "How are you? You seem to be enjoying yourself."
The Black Widow shrugged, her shoulders moving sharply under her coat, and then made a sweeping gesture toward the river path. "I was bored, until a moment ago," she said. "Shall we?"
You could snap my neck right now, Peggy said to herself. If you wanted. If I walked away—
She thought of her assignment.
"Where do you want to go?" Agent Carter said, her voice level and cool and disarming, and let the falseness wrap around them both like an old musty shawl.
oOo
The first time they met was in an alley in Berlin. Casualties? The HYDRA plant was too slow to die from a bullet wound and so had his throat slit for his troubles. In addition, Peggy took her leave with cracked ribs and multiple stab wounds in her left thigh; the Black Widow was electrocuted by Howard Stark's prototype gadget, yet managed to escape; Howard Stark's prototype gadget was blown to pieces in a self-destruct sequence ("—I said not ready for use—so how big was the explosion?" "Big enough."); and SHIELD's primary contact in the East German government, Ilsa Koenig, bled out her last words like a slaughtered goat. The rest of Koenig's network went deathly silent in the uprising later that month.
The second time they met was in the temporary offices of one of the refugee agencies in Vienna. Peggy was canvassing for potential intelligence from the thousands of Hungarians crossing the border—"A damn shame," Falsworth had griped to her, "that we didn't send more people into Budapest. I heard one of their more secret secret agents was there, the one called Winter Soldier. Just imagine all the potential intel!"
Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration was hiring basic help to assist the overwhelmed staff, and one of the apparent new hires was naggingly familiar, with hair dyed bright blonde.
Peggy had not lived all these years in ignorance of her instincts. She asked the hire to run a printing errand, because clearly she was only just another secretary; dragged out a lively conversation on the recent movie premiere of Sissi – The Young Empress, because what an interesting coincidence that this new worker should have the same name as actress Magda Schneider, and was her mother a fan?—and then, as not-the-actress Magda Schneider politely bid farewell and trotted away in her sensible black pumps, pulled out her concealed gun and pulled the trigger.
She didn't miss, but the Black Widow's sixth sense led to a bullet in the shoulder instead of one in the head. That hadn't stopped her from breaking Peggy's wrist. Peggy was surprised the Widow hadn't gone further, but maybe she had been a good enough conversationalist.
The subsequent report from Agent Carter read: First record of Soviet agent responding to codename Black Widow is dated September 1949 in Athens, Greece; second, June 1953 in East Berlin. It is notable that the agent is ranked high enough to receive this manner of codename (versus a general numeric or alphabetic designation; see file on Agent Tsaplya, for example), and even more notable that she has avoided further detection since. See attached for details of third confirmed instance, December 1956 in Vienna, Austria. I recommend that agents do not engage.
oOo
Peggy Carter knew this too: that she could be, at times, a hypocrite.
oOo
They crossed over the Charles Bridge and left the Vltava behind them; turned into the city streets of the Old Town shadowed by the first flush of darkness, with their heels click-clacking away against raised cobblestones.
"You look the same," Peggy said. She walked one step to the left behind the Black Widow—she wasn't sure whether to be pleased or irritated that the Black Widow let her do so. It reeked of a staid acceptance that was not entirely comforting to her, and she kept their carefully chosen and spoken Czech wedged firmly between them—the language, native to neither, wielded like a shield. "Except for your hair. I think the red on you looks better than the old black and blonde."
You look the same. It'd been over a decade since their first meeting, and Peggy did not think she could afford to chalk the Widow's appearance up to good genes.
The Black Widow raised her hand to push up her hat, letting her hair gleam darkly under the graying blue palette of the sky at dusk. "You're very kind, Carter. The red's natural."
Peggy didn't believe her one bit. She wondered how far the Russians had progressed with their attempt at a soldier serum—she was sure that the Black Widow had received it in some fashion, and likely the Winter Soldier as well. That invited the question of why the Soviets kept pushing research on the topic—unless they were the lone treatment survivors. Maybe the casualty rate was too intolerably high.
The Black Widow seemed a success, at least. She appeared to suffer injuries like any ordinary human; and yet, time after time, she looked the same. Still quick and nimble and forever young.
As they passed by a small book shop, Peggy paused and glanced at their reflections in the window. Her dark brown hair was threaded through with gray at her temples, recently born crow's feet fanning out at the corners of her eyes. Beside her, the Black Widow waited with her face a mask of perfect serenity. Her lips were parted slightly as if she were about to whisper a secret into Peggy's ears; her eyes glinted bright and sharp like those of a hawk hunting prey.
The Black Widow's reflection said, "But speaking of looks—you look different, Carter."
"I am getting old. All these decades. You, on the other hand—"
"Getting on in years, too."
"Is that also natural?"
"Oh, yes." The Black Widow didn't even try to hide the lie of her words. She slanted her body so her hat blocked her face, the slim reflection in the window settling her shoulders into a casual slouch. "It's all me."
Body and mind and soul—just what you're meant to think, Peggy wanted to say, but she pressed her lips together and started walking again. It wouldn't have been an effective volley anyway; the Black Widow could easily retort in turn about SHIELD. Instead, she said, "I should've known—I suppose I shouldn't think lowly of you, not even your cells."
Not even that. If she jabbed a needle into the Black Widow's body to get a possible serum sample for SHIELD researchers, she wouldn't leave unscathed—if at all.
A huff of laughter greeted her statement. "Sometimes it's annoying that you don't," the Widow replied. "I'm very spoiled by the others, but it's always easier that way." She reached out to grasp the fabric of Peggy's coat sleeve, the motion telegraphed with slow exaggeration, and drew her closer in.
Peggy could feel the warmth of the Widow's grasp pressing into her arm as they turned at the next right. "Is that supposed to be a pity? You don't like that I see more than a pretty face?"
The Widow slowed her pace, though she kept her grip on Peggy's arm as they ambled down the street. The corner of her mouth twitched. "I kill the people who only see my pretty face."
"I'm so relieved," Peggy said dryly.
"Don't be. I never said they're the only ones I kill." The Black Widow stopped in front of a small dingy-looking restaurant wedged into the corner of a building, and removed her hat. Her red curls emerged from underneath, glimmering in the street light like the faint glow of embers. "Dinner?"
Peggy looked not through the window but at the other agent—her sharp profile, her eyes fixed straight ahead, her curled lashes fluttering in a blink—and thought of the old poem she'd learned as a young girl. Will you walk into my parlor?
"After you," she said, very lightly, and followed the Black Widow inside.
oOo
In Italy, August of 1961, their encounter was ruined by HYDRA.
"If I ever hear again that two heads are growing back in place of one, I'll torch the whole lot of them—like Hercules," Peggy said out loud to herself in disgust, and didn't give a damn that the Black Widow could hear her. She dragged the unconscious HYDRA agent out of the hangar and let him drop unceremoniously. Gioia del Colle Air Base was up twenty freshly incapacitated idiots, and down forty or so pulverized personnel, thanks to HYDRA weaponry. Who the hell in that organization thought it was a good idea to attempt stealing and launching Jupiter missiles—
Miracle of miracles, though: the Black Widow hadn't wanted the missiles launched, because this HYDRA splinter group had been aiming at Stalingrad out of some grudge match, and Peggy hadn't wanted the missiles launched, because it would've been a fucking fiasco period. She had never imagined working side by side with the other woman, but apparently stupid subversive groups sometimes forced a union of strange bedfellows. After all, better the devil she knew than a nuclear warhead striking paydirt.
"Do you really mean Hercules?" the Black Widow asked. Peggy stiffened, but the Soviet agent made no move toward her. She crouched with her back to the hangar exterior, her head tilted to the side. "It's not a great comparison—he did kill his own children, after all."
"Doesn't matter. Myths are stories, not reality. I'll pick what I want and forget the rest," Peggy said sharply, and wondered about the chances that she could shoot first.
She glanced to the side, and suppressed the reflex to shy away. The Black Widow was smiling into the distance, the expression razor-sharp with amusement. "I don't know about that," she said. "It's a bit dangerous to forget. Even if it's yourself."
As if I was being serious, Peggy thought. "Of course," she replied, biting the words out. "I'd never forget you."
The Black Widow looked at her then. The hangar structure blocked the air base lights behind them, so that all Peggy could see was the slash of moonlight that splayed across the lower half of the Widow's face. She was still smiling, but the line of her mouth sagged—the quiet mirth that had traced her lips and cheeks now turned in on itself, like a deserted house. Her eyes were shuttered in shadow.
"Oh," said the Black Widow, very softly. "Now that's a problem."
Peggy tensed, her hand sliding toward her gun holster, but even as she straightened up and turned, the Black Widow sprang to her feet—
oOo
In the debriefing, Peggy said, "She ran into the hangar—I shot after her, but by the time I got inside she'd disappeared. Regardless, the missiles are all still intact." The base commander had been profusely thankful.
She sank back into her chair, pressing against the seat cushion. The other woman had left no trace behind, like ash scattered on the winds.
Dum Dum frowned, his moustache bristling. "She didn't try to kill you?"
Peggy stared at the wall behind him; thought of the Black Widow and how she had stayed her hand with that blank look on her face, but no explanation came to mind.
"I'm sitting here, aren't I?" she said, and the words fell flat on her tongue.
oOo
They sat in the back at a corner table, and the Black Widow called for food like an old regular. The delivered fare was uncomplicated—sausages, bread, and eggs. Peggy ate quickly, in small bites. The Black Widow ate at a more leisurely pace.
"Prazdroj?"
"One," said the Black Widow, and the waiter returned with a pint of pale lager, setting it down on the table. As he left, she turned to Peggy and said, "I saw you at the castle today."
Peggy had extracted a cigarette from her purse. She struck a match, and didn't let her hand shake while lighting the cigarette. "Like you said, solo vacation," she offered, though it was no explanation at all. "One must see the usual sights."
"Yes, it's very beautiful," agreed the Black Widow.
"I was curious," Peggy said. She puffed air at the match and watched as its pinprick of fire flickered out of existence. "How the architecture style changes all throughout the complex, you see."
She kept her eyes fixed on the Black Widow's face—it was a beautiful face, all freshly made-up with impeccable presentation, like the shining marble façade of a building. She hoped that the Black Widow would read into her words nothing more than SHIELD keeping an eye on the rumbling unrest in the Czech government. Not Tursun, not Masaryk, not the serum research… Peggy sifted through potential distractions. She was certain that the Black Widow had been left unaware of her superiors' continued attempts to play God nearby, and she wanted it to stay that way. What else was at hand to focus her attention on Prague, and only Prague?
The Black Widow chewed thoughtfully on a piece of sausage, then said, a smirk tilting her mouth, "I can find you later to show you around the city, if you'd like." I can track you wherever you go, see whatever you're up to.
"No need," Peggy said. "I wouldn't want to take up your time when you could be spending it elsewhere."
"You're not boring," the Black Widow replied. She shrugged. "There are more tedious ways to pass the time."
"How does it work out for you now?"
"Oh please. No one adores paperwork, Carter," said the Black Widow, and buried her nose in her pint of beer.
Peggy couldn't decide if that meant the Black Widow was moonlighting as a government secretary; she certainly sounded serious enough. "You'll be dealing with more soon, you know," she told her. "You know what Hungary was like. And Poland last month, and now here."
For the first time, the Black Widow looked surprised, with more disbelief than shock at Peggy's overture. "Do you really think that makes a difference?" She set her beer to the side and leaned across the table, pinning Peggy down with her stare. "That's crude of you. Make a better effort to turn me next time, if you care."
"I wasn't trying to," Peggy said, and exhaled. Cigarette smoke swirled up around her face. "I'm not foolish enough. But I'm telling you the facts—none of these are one-time events. Your satellites are all pots ready to bubble over, every single one."
"You talk about satellites," said the Black Widow lowly, "as if your sweet home had none of your own. You have no upper ground here, Carter."
"No, I don't. But yours are the ones that explode."
"It's unfortunate." The Black Widow cut a hard-boiled egg in half. She speared the egg yolk with her fork, ignoring the egg whites. When she looked up again, her eyes had hardened over with a glaze of dismissal. "But to protect my country and people? Anything. I chose mine and you chose yours."
Peggy shook her head. "I won't argue with you," she said. "Otherwise we'd get into a fight, and then I'd lose." She smiled self-deprecatingly.
"Yes, you would," the Black Widow agreed, and returned the smile. It was not a smug smile; it was a smile of conviction. She looked impossibly young, like a girl fresh from finishing school. "I'm glad you know that."
Peggy recalled that the Black Widow had looked exactly the same that first time in East Berlin, baring her teeth with unrestrained pleasure in her job—a silvery flash, minnow-quick, in the darkness; wondered, despite herself, how she could have retained that curious, terrible loveliness in the way she spoke and moved, which came not from physical youth but from an untarnished loyalty. How had the Soviets instilled that attitude and preserved it so well? It must have required nothing less than to open up the secrets of the mind.
Agent Carter had long ceased to feel that way. But Peggy took in the sight of the Black Widow, sitting across the table from her. To any outsider they would have looked like two friends sharing a simple meal. If the Black Widow had the conscious volition to treat her as a curious acquaintance, rather than an easily killed mark, Peggy wondered what else the Black Widow could choose to do. She wondered if—
"That I'd lose? I'd be stupid not to know that," she said. "Fine, you can go and protect your country, Widow. But you know, things won't stay the same—"
The Black Widow put her chin in her hands, elbows propped on the table. "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Yet I'll humor you," she said. "Tell me your important life lesson." Her voice was dry with insincere patience.
Despite her protestations against foolishness, Peggy felt suddenly very much like she was foolish after all. "I'm no teacher," she said, and tried to put her thought into words. Would the Black Widow realize what she meant? "I don't doubt that you're loyal to the Kremlin now, but—love grows bitter with treason."
The Black Widow raised her eyebrow. "That sounds like something out of a book," she said, and Peggy felt her face go red. "I have no intention of committing treason, so that won't be the case."
"No, I don't think you'd be the one," said Peggy, forcing the heat down in her face. No, more the other way around. "But you love your country—and you'd never love us."
"No," said the Black Widow, "I wouldn't. And you? Don't you love your country too?"
"No," said Peggy. "Only people." Gonna need a rain check on that dance, she said to herself.
The Black Widow looked at her. "Yes," she said, very quietly, and sounded as if she understood. "And people die."
oOo
Why hadn't the Black Widow tried to kill her, then and now and all the many times they'd met in between? Maybe she was bored. Maybe she was amused that Peggy, unlike her usual targets, wouldn't dare underestimate her. Maybe, in some strange ineffable fashion, she was fond of her. In Paris, the last time they'd met, Peggy had seen the Black Widow outside the Quai d'Orsay—who had walked right up to her and kissed her on both cheeks unabashedly, like old acquaintances, before hinting that Peggy was too late to persuade the foreign minister against withdrawing French resources from SHIELD. It had been a miserable taunt.
Or maybe because she knew that she could kill Peggy before Peggy could even start to try.
(Peggy suffered no delusions. She hadn't received the kind of intensive training that the Black Widow had plainly undergone. Also, she had just turned forty-nine: the whole point of her continued field work as a middle-aged woman, dressed in a deliberately drab fashion, was that eyes passed over her like she was wallpaper—but that hadn't made her any more sprightly.)
She couldn't really bring herself to complain about the reprieve she had received. Sorry, Steve—you'll have to wait a bit longer. I'll be as late to death as I like. Peggy couldn't be certain of the reason behind the Black Widow's behavior. But Agent Carter would use what she could get.
oOo
Peggy had nearly smoked through the end of her cigarette by the time the Black Widow finished her meal and stretched—languidly, like a preening cat—before putting a handful of bills on the table and rising to her feet.
"How long will you be in town?" she asked Peggy as they went out into the street, tossing the words down like a gauntlet.
Peggy met her gaze squarely. "Not long," she said. She dropped her cigarette butt and ground it under the heel of her shoe. I concede. SHIELD could send more personnel in to play havoc if it wanted, but Peggy knew other priorities were higher. They'd leave the Czech government to its own political devices, and whatever the Black Widow was up to. No matter what, they wouldn't have Peggy return.
The Black Widow didn't know about Masaryk. Peggy preferred it that way.
In the other woman's eyes, she saw quiet satisfaction paired with lingering suspicion. "Good," the agent said pointedly. Then her voice lightened, more casual, and she reached up to tap her right index finger against Peggy's lips. "What happened to your lipstick, by the way?"
Peggy suppressed the urge to step back, and slid her hands into her pockets. "Ah," she said, "I don't know how well that color works for my age." It certainly stood out, and Peggy wanted if nothing else to be the opposite of memorable in her disguise as a simple mother, an aging woman. Looking at the Black Widow, she was acutely aware of the gray breaching her own hair.
"Don't be ridiculous," said the Black Widow. In the dark, her eyes seemed oddly soft, like charcoal smudges. It was easy to forget that she was probably as old as Peggy. "It suits you well."
Peggy hesitated. Then she drew her hands from her coat. Left hand on the Black Widow's shoulder, right hand pressed into her hair at the nape of her neck—and Peggy leaned in and kissed her, open-mouthed.
The Black Widow's lips were chapped dry from her lipstick, with the flavor of beer and cheap sausage lingering still. She stiffened against Peggy, but the tension slowly leaked from her body and she tilted her head to the side, moving forward.
Peggy curled her fingers tightly in the Black Widow's hair and pulled her closer. For a moment they fitted against each other, hidden in the night and the shadow of the nearby building. She thought, with hazy surprise, that it felt nicer than she'd expected—the Black Widow pressing her mouth to hers, the coiling sensation of heat that sparked behind her eyes and fled down her throat to tighten around her heart—settling deep in her stomach, the twist of abrupt arousal—
Just a bit longer, she thought, and closed her eyes against the sudden tears that threatened, unbidden, to appear.
She broke away and breathed in heavily. The Black Widow stared back, her eyes wide with wariness. But Peggy thought that she could see something wilder and more untempered in her face, the look of an unexpected thrill.
Peggy released her grip. She ran the back of her hand lightly against her mouth—it came away with a faint smudge of red. "Well," she said, "now I've got some lipstick on. Thank you."
The Black Widow flicked her glance down to rest on Peggy's mouth. "It... looks good," she said. Her voice was not quite steady. "But get your own next time."
"Right," Peggy said, and ducked her head. "And you'll remember what I told you?"
"Carter," said the Black Widow, her face wiped blank. "I don't do favors." She stepped away and turned on her heel, more hurried and graceless than was her wont—was already walking away, hat crammed down low on her head, and Peggy Carter looked after her retreating figure, trying to slow the pace of her own beating heart, and wondered if there would be a next time at all.
"Da svidanya," she called out, but the Black Widow did not turn at the sound of her mother tongue.
oOo
Peggy walked one street over and threw away her coat, in case the Black Widow had tampered with it somehow. She checked the status of the tracking device she'd twisted into the Widow's hair. It was still functioning, but Peggy knew it wouldn't remain that way; it would be discovered, sooner or later. No matter—she didn't intend it to last. So long as she could confirm that the Black Widow wasn't actively following her movements for the next few hours, she was satisfied.
She went to the SHIELD safehouse and cleaned it out with essentials in hand, hijacked a motorcycle—with silent apologies to the owner—and headed in the direction of Hradec Králové.
It didn't take too long before she had left Prague behind. Peggy gunned the motor engine, looking straight ahead down the road, and thought of how she and Tursun would have to change the logistics to smuggle Masaryk's research out of the country, and the dangerously uncertain leeway they had with their plans unknown to the Soviets—unknown to the Black Widow. Thought of the other woman—of her unending youth, her loyalty hard as a diamond, and the time that might lapse before it transformed into a grimmer sort of love. Wondered if she would remember—
But no. That was irrelevant. Peggy tucked the tangled mess away into the corner of her mind, and tried to think only of her assignment.
oOo
(Nearly four decades later, Peggy Carter took a phone call from Nick Fury. "The Black Widow's come in from the cold," he told her.
Natasha Romanova had not forgotten.)
-fin-
I like seeing things: a hand, the moon, ice in a highball glass.
The light of the mind illuminating the mind itself.
Put it in a tree. Hide it in plain sight and climb higher.
We are all of us secret agents, undercover in our overcoats,
the snow falling down.
—Richard Siken, "Anyway"