The Pickpocket of St. Petersburg
Written Sept. 11, 2013
The rain was heavy against the windshield of the SUV as a business-suit-wearing man sighed and looked in the rearview mirror. Around him, cars drove by at incredible speed, passing and being passed on the impersonally indifferent highway at a point between Nowhere and Somewhere. The man's eyes sought the sleeping form in the backseat whom a blanket had been draped across before turning his attention back on the road. They wouldn't reach their destination for hours and it had taken the child so long to fall asleep that he wasn't about to disturb the young one's rest.
Finding her hadn't been easy. Hell, he hadn't even been sure there had been someone or something to find. She hadn't been easy to find, and a fair share of the reasons behind the difficulty of the task was her own nature. She had wits, that were for sure, and he knew by first glance that she'd only bring trouble. She'd succeeded in being underestimated, and that was a mistake he'd only make once; no, now he knew her dubious nature.
When she slept now, peacefully, curled up in a fetal position in the middle of the proportionally enormous backseat, she seemed innocent, blonde hair tousled by fierceness and regular sleep movements. She was wayward, this one, but then again, anything but would have concerned the man.
Coulson fought the urge to look once again; half expecting her to be gone if he did not do so. Her parents had been that way (and might even have taught him that brand of paranoia). That thought filled him with an entirely different kind of wistfulness, and he sighed.
Years hadn't been kind to him; gray hairs marched across his scalp and wrinkles had marred themselves upon his stern face. It was no wonder she'd thought him an easy target (and yet he had to admire her assessments). He'd posed as an elderly tourist, more unsettled at how easily the role befit him than anything else, and then he'd waited. Two pickpockets had tried to empty his wallet and pockets but he hadn't allowed it; having known, somehow, that he was dealing with amateurs (at least compared to whom he was searching for). They had run off to report, and she hadn't been able to resist the challenge. Maybe it was her turf; that's what traveling bureaus said, and Coulson hated to admit that those were his most prominent sources when it came to his search.
They called her the pickpocket of St. Petersburg, and even Coulson had to admit her speed and efficiency was impressive. The moment he'd felt the hand was the moment he'd noticed her, she did such good a job blending in. Off she ran, dressed in plain clothes and a hat made from beaver's fur or something like it, most likely stolen from an inattentive tourist and re-appropriated. She weaved through the crowd like a hurried schoolgirl and not the professional thief she was. Even when she was working, she projected another appearance, another personality. She was more like either of her parents than she'd ever know.
It wasn't that there was a striking resemblance to any of them. Not like when they said in movies or novels that a character was the "spitting image of her mother", or "she's her father's twin", no; it was the small things. If Coulson hadn't spent half his career struggling to handle said parents, he wouldn't have been able to tell her apart from other riffraff on the Russian streets and plazas, but of course she'd be the best. It was practically predestined. He'd known her parents well enough to know they wouldn't have wanted her to be.
Be average, keep in line, don't be queer. It was a code to be lived by; and severe devastation came with sticking out. After ten seconds' worth of conversation with the unruly child, Phil had seen enough to realize that no child would ever be as sassy or streetsmart as the child he was currently tracking.
He'd first heard of her when he was in Belarus. It had started with a rumor, unsurprisingly (that was how he obtained some of his best agents). The child queen of pickpocketing in St. Petersburg. It wasn't unusual; most pickpockets were underage because if caught, authorities could do little. In the tourist season, the squares and streets were Gardens of Eden and fat wallets could be picked with little adversity. After someone had cracked a joke about young duchesses, it had sent wheels turning in Coulson's sharp mind and he'd spent weeks digging up files that were nearly a decade old.
He wouldn't lie, going through those reports were painful, and he wasn't too objective when it came to the circumstances surrounding Barton's death. It had been a horrible mess, and in the end, the Council had almost demanded Fury's resignation in order to have Hill as their string puppet. Messy was putting it lightly, and although Phil had been angry at the time for his asset's unreasonable decision, which had an impact on all, he now looked back with wistfulness and respect, along with sympathy for the Widow's decision. He wouldn't have been able to do what she did, and he'd have doubted her ability to do so if he hadn't been there to witness the message himself.
Most days, he mourned for his friends and sympathized with their hardships. In the meanwhile, his job hadn't gotten easier and it seemed he'd tasked himself with tracking down the hardest-kept secret of Europe (at least of S.H.I.E.L.D.) during his more relaxed schedules where it seemed his assets weren't actively trying to get themselves killed.
The world had changed and Phil had been there to witness it. The girl was a child of such world, and she knew the changed world to be hers, never questioning the way it was or comparing it to how it had been. In a moment of fault, Phil had forgotten her immaturity and demanded the same semblance he had of her parents. The result had been disastrous.
She was wild and unruly, forged by life on the streets and the victory of success. She had that youthful arrogance of bygones; the kind that still remained in rookie agents. The kind people like Natasha and Clint had lost eons ago. Then again, she was ten years old, and no amount of street experience could make her mature to their level of maturity (and yet, Barton had had the tendency to crack immature jokes at the most inappropriate of times).
Convincing her had been the hardest part. She was a skeptic, and although it was a brilliant trait, it had made things difficult. She'd understood how to milk his desperation, though. Cunning, it seemed, was a hereditary trait. Due to unfortunate circumstances (not to mention incredible odds), Phil had not taken part of the girl's childhood. It quickly became clear that no adult had, at least not consistently. The friends she kept varied in ages, but none seemed to have taken on the role of a parent, and whether it was due to rejection on her part, or the absence of volunteers was debatable.
The Widow had been reported to have died on Cuba three years ago. Phil had taken a three-day vacation from work (the first of such in years that wasn't prompted by injury and medical leave) to mourn, but hadn't known how. He portrayed an indifferently professional agent who'd know about paying respects, but the Widow and S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn't exactly been on good terms (in fact Phil was pretty sure S.H.I.E.L.D. was to be blamed for her demise) and so he'd done the best he could. He knew he'd had the incredible privilege (and terrible pain in the ass) to have been assigned Strike Team Delta once upon a time so very long ago that it made Phil's teeth ache. The success rate alone made it worth the early streaks of gray he was certain to have obtained during his tenure as their dutiful handler. They were still legends junior agents spoke of – but then again, said junior agents weren't aware part of that team had gone rogue and entered S.H.I.E.L.D.'s list of international public enemies after shooting the other part of the team.
Phil shook his head in an attempt to shake the feeling of discomfort he associated with dwelling too long on Barton's death. He knew there had been way more factors than the official report implied, and he'd even forgiven Natasha for her act in Clint's aided suicide, but fact remained: the Widow had died an enemy, and it had had a terrible impact on the ten-year-old girl's upbringing. Then he heard a movement of limbs and glanced over his shoulder to stare directly into the mischievous face of his companion, sticking out in the space between the driver's seat and the passenger seat next to him.
"Hi," she said, feigning shyness.
"Er, hi," Phil replied, trying to determine when she'd woken and had crawled forward in her seat. Crawl was the wrong word to use, but she seemed to worm her way through everything, and Phil didn't exactly have training to deal with kids, only childish junior agents.
She stared ahead at the dark road in front of them, lit only by the headlights of the SUV. Then she freed herself of the seatbelt and was on the passenger's seat in moments. Phil opened his mouth to protest but it died there. Instead, he inquired.
"Aren't you gonna ask where we are?" It seemed a normal thing to do, didn't it?
"I spotted a sign about a mile back," she stated and informed him of the nearest city in flawlessly pronounced Russian, no doubt obtained by observation, or maybe parental guidance. Her mood was eerie, too accepting. Hell, Barton would have made more fuss about the situation than his daughter currently did. Phil reminded himself that nothing was certain yet; a blood test would have to be made, and only if the girl consented. He hated the idea of forcing a girl to do anything against her will if the test proved positive. No doubt her parents were hell-raisers even in the great beyond. Phil wasn't about to take his chances.
"What should I call you?" he asked in a feeble attempt to clear the awkward air. The girl didn't seem to mind, but he sure as hell needed verbal distractions from the fact that he might be transporting the child of his favorite (and deceased) agents. She'd already lied twice about her name and clammed shut when he'd kept asking. She seemed insistent upon remaining anonymous.
The girl glared at him and offered no answer, casually shrugging as if it was up to him.
"You must go by some name," he reasoned. Even Natasha had had a name when Barton had dragged her bankside. Sure, she'd changed and modified it, but she'd had a name.
"What's it to you?" she replied suspiciously, scowling.
"I need something to call you."
She exhaled dramatically and didn't speak for a long while. She stared out the window into the dark abyss until she murmured.
"Sasha."
Phil frowned. "That's a boy's name."
"So?" she asked skeptically, facing him in confrontation, adopting a defensive posture. Phil knew rather lot about Russian names, but figured lecturing the girl about it would get him nowhere.
"Saskia?" he guessed, thinking the given name a nickname bestowed upon her by the other thieves. He hoped she wouldn't return to that environment, and maybe a new name would be good for her. She gritted her teeth in response but said nothing.
"Sasha it is, then," Phil concluded, wondering how a ten-year-old could be so demanding and intimidating. Then he remembered that both Natasha and Barton had been ten-year-olds once, and immediately gulped.
They continued their journey in relative silence, the darkness allowing no games of observation or appreciation for the landscape.
He'd taken her to the Winter Palace, the Hermitage Museum. She claimed she'd never been, but it hadn't been awe that had painted her face when they entered the ward of the Russian palatial buildings. Once inside, as Coulson had paid for their tickets, she seemed more amazed. She watched the art for interest and pretense's sake, but studied the people more, curiously and greedily. She was an opportunist, that much showed, because he'd caught her pickpocketing twice and demanded she return the wallets and jewelry; preferably without discovery. Soon, it became a game of sorts, correcting wrongs, and although the treasures were far worth the nuisances, they had parted with the museum and its guests penniless and smiling smugly.
Sasha had a talent, a talent that had been nurtured and encouraged as a sport. What had started out innocently (as all things did, with perhaps an exception to be made in Natasha's case) had become a dangerous play of shadows between fellow pickpockets and local police. She was intelligent enough to know what she was doing was wrong—but only, she argued, according to the people from whom she stole, which were people who could afford the absence of fat wallets. She didn't starve and she showered regularly, but she had no home, nor was she homeless. It seemed a contradiction, but Natasha had long ago presented Phil with the advantages of having no homes, which could—and would—be torn apart and rummaged by strangers. Sasha got by similarly; guesting at orphanages when the cold grew too much or the streets too boring, and tricked her keepers once she'd been entertained, once again roaming the streets soon after. It shouldn't have surprised Phil as much as it did.
His phone buzzed and he activated his earpiece. He knew already that it'd either be S.H.I.E.L.D. or Jenna. He accepted the call, eyes still on Sasha.
"Coulson," he said customarily. Sasha pretended not to be eavesdropping but Phil knew better than to think the child of spies wasn't listening when she had nothing else to preoccupy herself with.
"Hill. When can you be in Norway?" the voice of his superior asked, a strain of desperation fading into the no-nonsense question.
"I'm in Luga, so it'll take a while," he reported as he passed another Russian sign that confirmed his location.
"I thought you said you were in Finland," Hill replied. She'd emailed him two days ago and he'd been in Finland then.
"I was."
"Mind telling me what you were doing in western Russia, Agent Coulson?" Maria asked dryly as if it wasn't an order. Technically, she could order him to reply.
"Following up on a lead," Phil said.
"You have no active operations in Russia. And you need to fill out a report before you go off the deep end. So, again: what are you doing in Russia, Phil?" Hill asked politely, but Phil could hear the annoyance behind the pretense.
"I found Romanoff's heir," Phil replied rather bluntly.
"What?" Hill said, confused. "Romanoff's dead, Phil." She sounded uncertain about that last one, as if afraid he'd gone and had a mental breakdown. People tended to be careful around him when mentioning his former operatives—especially Barton and Romanoff, whose stories were far from happy-ended.
"I found their daughter, Maria," Phil said, voice mixed businesslike and soft. He was speaking to her like the friend she'd been when he'd found Barton's body, or dealt with Barton and Romanoff post-New York.
"What are you talking about, they never had a—wait, you're being serious? They had a kid?" she said in disbelief, albeit slightly disdainfully as if they'd been unfit parents. Perhaps they had. Phil gave her a couple of seconds to process it. "Who?"
"The 'Pickpocket of St. Petersburg'," he revealed with the slightest of smirks.
"No. Way." In that moment, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s highest-ranking lieutenant sounded like a high school girl—quite the feat, if Phil had to say so himself. Hill had heard the rumors too, it seemed, but hadn't connected them. "How?"
"There's more questions than answers with this one," Phil reported vaguely, uncomfortable discussing the matter within earshot of the child.
"So, she's just like her mother," Hill stated, somewhat disapproving. Maria had been high on the corporal ladder when Barton had dragged Romanoff into their organization, much to the chagrin of several intelligence agencies.
Phil opened his mouth to defend his tagalong ward, but didn't know which words to use. Sasha was spirited, that was basically all he knew, and maybe she was just like her mother, with the exception of not having been used as cannon fodder during training to became a highly skilled asset. "She's ten years old, Hill. I doubt she'll bring the trouble Romanoff did."
"If she has half the mind her mom had, you'd be wrong," Hill pointed out and sighed sympathetically. "I'll get Raoul instead. I assume you're heading for Estonia?"
Phil confirmed this reluctantly. It was a nuisance to be known so well, especially by his own boss. Then again, he'd worked reconnaissance and search-and-destroy with Hill once upon a very long time ago. Back when they'd both been field agents.
"I'll have a chopper available for you. Please say you didn't just abduct the kid," Hill pleaded exasperatedly.
"Eh…"
"Tell me you didn't," Maria growled threateningly.
"It's not that," he interjected defensively. "It's not stealing if it doesn't belong to anyone!"
"God, Coulson…" Hill said in a warning tone. Phil got the impression there'd be a lot of paperwork on his desk when he got back.
"I didn't take her against her will or anything!" he defended. Sasha looked at him curiously, and as always, eerily ambiguous. It unsettled the seasoned agent more than he cared to admit, how much she seemed to have adopted Natasha's persona. "She was living on the streets."
"Someone somewhere has to care for her," Hill reasoned. "And she's a kid, not stolen property! She has to be registered somewhere."
Phil knew the underlying threat. If he had found her, chances were that others—enemies and allies alike (depending on whose side you took), could have been monitoring her, too. "I'm telling you, Maria, she isn't. No birth certificate, no medical history—nothing."
"It'd explain why she wasn't on our radar sooner," Maria stated. "She's a ghost."
"She's the ghost of ghosts," Phil pointed out. "Remember how long it took us to even pinpoint Romanoff's existence?"
He could hear Hill gritting her teeth. "That's something else," she argued irritably as if it was beside the point. "We didn't know the Russians were capable of that kind of training. It seemed impossible."
"So does the girl."
Maria sighed dreadfully. He could imagine how she tiredly ran her hand through her hair and rolled her eyes at his stubbornness, but secretly smiled that smile of hers, thankful he was that loyal to something. "I'll get a pilot ready for you in Estonia," she said, relenting.
"Thanks, Maria," Phil replied softly, gratefully.
"Have you considered the impact this will have, Phil?" Maria asked, just as concerned and softly. "Romanoff went to great lengths to hide the girl… no name, no birth records…"
"She was living on the streets, Maria," Phil pleaded; he'd considered it, of course, but he couldn't turn his back on the only child of his friends and allow her to continue the life on the streets of St. Petersburg—however cunning she might be.
Another sigh. She was accepting he wasn't going to change his mind—especially not whilst driving eighty miles an hour on a remote road. "How is she?"
The question surprised him. "She's… ten," he said, as if it described everything that made the enigma Natasha and Clint's daughter was. How did someone describe such small a person? It wasn't as if she wouldn't change appearance and opinions repeatedly during adolescence, shaped by the world.
"I'm pretty sure that's a number, not an adjective," Maria deadpanned unimpressed. Sasha had turned her head to look outside, despite there being almost no cars to observe. Phil suspected she'd lost interest in the one-sided conversation, because although she spoke eloquent English, but she was ten and her peers had spoken Russian. It really was a no-brainer.
Phil switched into Spanish to be sure, his voice quaking with surprise at how to describe the being sitting next to him. "She's… smart. Thinks she knows the whole world but knows, somehow, that she doesn't. You know that look Romanoff sent me when we got back from Kuwait?" He knew Maria would; they'd both been perplexed. "She gives me that look. And cracks Barton's jokes," Phil told her, grinning.
Maria exhaled and her voice became fragile. "I'm sorry, Phil."
"It's been ten years," he stated with glazed-over eyes. He knew what she was referring to. Nobody had fought harder for Clint and Natasha (perhaps the rest of the Avengers, but they hadn't lived through six years of chaotic missions before being thrown together) than Phil Coulson, and in the end, he'd been proven wrong. It was a widely known truth within S.H.I.E.L.D., and with the both of them gone, whisked away by deaths that were far from natural, Sasha was truly a miracle. Maria recognized this; she even told him he might be seeing things because he wanted them to.
Ten years or so ago—Phil refused to count days and celebrate anniversaries, choosing the happier ones instead (then again, maybe he just was a sentimentalist)—Clint Barton had accepted a heartfelt proposal that only one single camera in Stark's tower had been able to record (the contents of that videotape had long since been confiscated and subsequently mysteriously disappeared, but that was beside the point). He'd been diagnosed with paraplegia following a Quinjet's crash into the cityscape. It had been a terrible accident, and although Barton's skills as a pilot were admirable, there had been nothing that could have been done. The accident had left him with permanently damaged legs and he'd sunk into depression as the Widow had been assigned elsewhere with the terrible burden of guarding Midgard's only godly prisoner. Events had followed, and due to questionable allegiances, Fury had banned Natasha from entering and thus, visiting, Avengers Tower. Months later, Rogers had called the Widow and informed her of the terrible story that would send achy cries through the lives of the heroes. Two hours later, Natasha had obliged to Clint's final wish: that she be the one to kill him.
There was no reason to why Natasha would have simply killed Clint in cold blood—Phil wouldn't believe it, never could—only to storm off with a god on her hands, linked to him magically. Ever since, S.H.I.E.L.D. had actively hunted the defector who went rogue and killed her partner. Phil had always thought Fury had forced her hand by banning the partners from visible and physical contact, especially in Barton's delicate situation. Reasonably, Fury had seen Natasha as a threat, and Barton as something to be protected, but that kind of logic had never worked with the enigmatic partners, not even when they had opposed each other (because they'd rarely agreed when not collectively opposed). Natasha Romanoff had never been a threat to Barton, only emotionally and spontaneously. They had complemented each other, and Sasha was an example of how the same had happened genetically. She'd inherited none of her parents' sob stories.
"Ten years don't matter if she's like them," Maria pointed out with a solidarity that his wife wouldn't be capable of.
Phil chuckled sadly. "She's a girl without parents, Maria."
"Just like Barton and Natasha were children without parents, Phil," she replied. "Just… take care, okay? I won't be happy hearing you hijacked a courtroom and seven armadas just to escape Russian child protective services."
"But you'd still get me out of there," Phil said with a smile.
"I might just not," Maria teased. "Goodnight, Phil."
"I won't go to sleep for a while, but you should," he advised, knowing she wouldn't, and if she did, it wasn't because of his words but the genuine urge to rest that could no longer be ignored.
When he'd hung up, he found Sasha staring at him, wide-eyed and suspicious. Those eyes held incredible skepticism and he'd have been offended if she hadn't been a stranger.
"Who's Maria?" she asked, tilting her head while her fingers drummed absentmindedly on the car's dashboard.
"She's a friend," Phil explained casually. Technically, that was true, but the girl didn't have the clearance to know about S.H.I.E.L.D. and spies and teams of superheroes who generally made S.H.I.E.L.D. agents' lives a personal hell. "And she's my boss."
He normally had no qualms admitting that. He certainly didn't want Hill's job or the perks and burdens that came with it. No, he preferred dealing with grumpy, childish consultants and homicidally challenged operatives. Somehow, Sasha's look of skepticism made him question his usual feelings regarding the matter. "That's weird."
He looked at her frowning face. "Why's that?"
Sasha looked at home with that mature gaze she got and said, "Because, how can you be friends with someone you're not supposed to care about?"
"I care about her," Phil argued, "and she's my boss. Why can't those two be mutually inclusive?"
"Friends are someone whom you trust; someone who won't ever hurt you, except maybe unintentionally. Employers don't care. They pay you and they leave when the job is done."
It reminded him of something Natasha had once said to him concerning loyalty, concerning S.H.I.E.L.D.'s loyalty towards her as an asset. She'd said they only cared about her skillsets and cooperation. In the end, it had been untrue: they'd cared about her loyalty and especially that extended towards Clint. Sasha had said it with too much cynicism.
"You're ten," he said. "What would you know about employment?"
"You're old," she countered without missing a beat. "What would you know about pickpocketing?" She sent him the same patronizing look he'd sent her, except this one was in amused mockery.
He'd been right. She was a smart ten-year-old and worse, a wisecracking one. He chuckled soundlessly and turned his eyes back on the road. "True. If you're hungry, there are some granola bars in the glove compartment."
Sasha eyed him skeptically. "Why are you being so nice?" she asked as if it was a foreign concept scarcely acquainted with.
"You're ten. People are supposed to be nice to you. It's like a get-out-of-jail-free card," he replied. He wasn't going to lecture her about possible genetics and bloodlines at ten in the evening. She screwed up her face at the word jail, but he'd have done that, too, if he'd been stealing people's wallets for years.
"Not everybody's like you," she noted. "Why are you so interested in me?"
It wasn't the first time he'd heard that. Over the years, Barton had questioned him with the very same words over and over; adamant to achieve some kind of justification why he'd been the one sniper Phil chose to recruit. There certainly had been other snipers with the same ability and far better moral compasses. Romanoff had asked Barton the same question several times, at least as many as Barton had asked of Phil. It seemed the circle was completing, with their daughter asking the same of Phil.
Yet, what answer could you possibly give a ten-year-old that would not only suffice but also properly summarize the duty he felt towards her as an extension of the one he'd felt towards her parents?
Phil had no answer, and Sasha accepted this.
There was once a mother who fell too deep
She left a little daughter for me to keep
She grew up to be a true princess of the street
- Dune, Heiress of Valentina