div style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 20px;" Steve watched numbly as the two Russians charged each other almost faster than his eyes could catch. Vaguely, he wondered how his day had come to this. It had started off easily enough./div
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"He had gone out for a run at six fifteen and returned at seven to take a shower and make breakfast. Unfortunately, before he was able to eat his food, JARVIS had sounded the alarm. Apparently A.I.M. goons were attacking the streets surrounding the UN building. Sprinting up to his room from the community kitchen, he put on his uniform and grabbed his shield before sprinting back down to the quinjet. The only people to reach the modified military craft before him were Clint and Natasha. The former of the two was tightening the string on his bow, while the other was going through a preflight systems check. The two assassins were having a conversation, but trailed off as he came into hearing range. He boarded the plane and waited for the rest of the team to make their way to the air transport./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Fifteen minutes later Stark was running to the plane, panting heavily. "Where have you been?" asked Steve, more than a little annoyed./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Elevator...broke...had to run...up seventy...flights of...stairs." he gasped. "The one time I go...down to...the lower floors...to supervise...SI employees." he panted as one of his suits jetted towards him. The mark forty-two Steve noted. (What? He could pay attention modern day machines! Bucky would have been in heaven, having spent part of their youth as a mechanic at an auto shop until it went out of business.)/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Let's go." he sighed./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"When the quinjet reached the UN building he jumped ten feet down from the plane's ramp to ground below and rolled, coming up to a defensive crouch. Natasha and Clint copied him, although Natasha was much more graceful. Thor just leaped, cracking concrete upon impact and Tony hovered in the air. "Avengers assemble!" he yelled, before running off to rescue a pair of cowering young woman as a person decked out in A.I.M.'s signature yellow hazmat suit threatened them with some kind of laser weapon. "Hey!" he yelled, throwing his shield as the person turned, catching them in the chest with a sickening crack. Wincing, he ran over to the pair and shepherded them out of harms way./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Cap look out!" shouted Natasha from somewhere behind him. He turned just in time to block the laser shot from an A.I.M. agent. He turned to thank Natasha, but gasped when he saw she was surrounded by A.I.M. agents-and wiping the floor with them. Running over to help her, he batted three away and threw his shield. The weapon ricocheted in the close quarters, hitting five agents. "Thanks." she muttered, not sounding grateful at all./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Pardon?"/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""What?"/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Why are you so determined to not let anyone on the team help you?!" he demanded, bashing an A.I.M. agent's helmet in. He wasn't sure where his frustration was coming from, but he regretted snapping at her immediately. (Even if his complaints were true.) "Look, Natasha I'm-Natasha!" he yelled as she was hit by a laser and flew through the window of the UN building./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Luckily, for Natasha, she had her widow bites attuned to an electric field, so it absorbed the shot. Unfortunately, the momentum sent her skidding several yards on a wooden table. Several people screamed or yelled and she was fairly certain she heard someone say "Ohonhonhon Heaven sends an angel to protect us." Ignoring what she assumed was a fairly perverted statement and protests asking her what she was doing here, she got up and made to return to the window, until she felt a familiar aura of impending doom. Stopping, she inclined her head slightly./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Ivan, its been a while."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Natalia Alianova Romanova. Chyornaya Vdova. Natasha Romanoff. Or perhaps Black Widow? What would you have me call you?" she could feel his smile./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Turning towards him, she replied. "Natalia Alianova Romanova died in an alley fighting for a corrupt KGB."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Yet I believe her to be standing before me, unless my eyes deceive me. Da?"/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I'm S.H.I.E.L.D. now. Agent Romanoff."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Defecting to Amerika of all people? I am not impressed little Natashen'ka."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I didn't have a lot of choices." she stated monotonously. "I wanted to die, there was an arrow pointed at my face, and when he asked me if I wanted to live, I said I wasn't sure." She laughs. "Russia's greatest asset was left, bleeding out in that back alley." Ivan-no Russia because she's known since they gave her the serum, a solution that contained some of his blood-looks like he's about to say something, but he's cut off by someone, or rather someones else./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Natasha? What are you talking about?" Steve asks in a worried voice and in that moment she wants nothing more than to scream, because she knows what game Ivan is playing, and she knows that he was stalling her./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I thought I taught you better than that, Natashen'ka. You should not have even allowed yourself to be touched, let alone cut."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Maybe I could have dodged the arrow, but I would just have gone back to being a tool." The irony of the fact that he refers to himself as a Mother is not lost on her. Ivan is anything but motherly./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""And now you are working for America out of your free will, da? His government doesn't keep you on a tight leash, ready to pull it taught and put a bullet in your brain like a rabid dog?" he mocks as he tilts his head towards a blonde haired blue eyed man that could pass as Steve's twin. She narrows her eyes as a hypothesis starts to form in her head./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""C'mon Nat. Don't go down that path." murmurs Clint, ("Where did he come from?" she wonders), assuming that she is angry because of Ivan's comment. She is not, in fact she understands the US government's distrust of her, they would have to be fools to trust her, and she would not work for them if they did. However, everyone hears him./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""And you stoop to the level of following?" Ivan intentionally baits her. "We both know that you were born and made to be something greater than a way for the American", he spits the name out like a curse again, "government to get good press. You could have neutralized all of your team mates long ago, were they marks. You were born and bred to be the best assassin in the world, despite what Yelena Belova may have believed or said."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"That last comment makes her angry. She can ignore him insulting her for getting soft or complacent, but she can't forget about the little girl he broke, brainwashed, and built back up again. Similarly, she can forgive him for the training he put her through, she knows it was only to make her stronger, but she can't forgive him for the twenty-seven girls that scream in her head every night. The ones that were second best, sloppy, slow, not clever enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not emgood/em enough. The ones that she cut down under orders. She knows all their names. The lives they would have had. The blood is roaring in her ears and her heart is pounding. She is descended from the tsars, the last great, if somewhat careless rulers of Russia. She strides angrily towards where he's sitting between a well muscled man with sharp cheekbones, and ice blue eyes (Germany, she assumes) and a man with large eyebrows (England perhaps). Walking right up to where Ivan sits, she glares down at him./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You are under the pretense that your presence is intimidating, da? You are quite mistaken."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""That's ironic, coming from you."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Really? I made the world stand still, weary to approach me for forty-five years. I checkmated the country that has so foolishly adopted you, Natashen'ka." He uses her pet name again. "For you are weak. It makes me wonder how you became so soft despite all the training Red Room had to offer." Her team (for she's noticed that they've all come to see where the rest of the team was) and the other nations appear paralyzed in their positions around the room. She wishes that they weren't here to see this, (the monster she is), but they would have found out eventually. (It's who she is.)/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""That's low, coming from the man who made little girls fight each other to the death."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You were a willing candidate after we broke your parents' fate to you. Your ledger is just as stained as mine." The Avengers winced at the last sentence./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Your right." she smirked. "And I'd like to wipe it out." she charged./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Steve watched numbly as the two Russians charged each other almost faster than his eyes could catch. Vaguely, he wondered how his day had come to this. It had started off easily enough. Natasha kicked high, but the Russian man-Ivan, he recalled-caught her foot in his grasp and heaved her-with inhuman strength and speed-over his shoulder, cracking her shoulder with a loud pop on the wall behind him. Spinning, he threw her down the length of the table. Natasha immediately jumped up, relocating her shoulder back into place with a sickening pop that had many individuals in the room wincing. But Ivan did not stop there. He pulled a lead pipe from out of nowhere and charged, taking a swing that would surely have taken off Natasha's head if she hadn't ducked, punching him in the stomach with more force than possible for her build. The much larger man actually staggered back a step, but swung his pipe again. Natasha dove to the side and shot up, wrapping her legs around his neck in a lock that would no doubt have broken any other man's neck./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Ivan merely socked her in the chin, her jaw making another sickening pop as he threw her off his shoulders. Natasha executed a flawless back handspring and charged again. Dodging the other Russian's swing she brought her arm back to sock him in the face, only to have the pipe come down, cracking her ribs stumbling back, favoring her right side, Natasha gasped and blood began to slowly leak out of the side of her mouth. "Oh my little Natashen'ka, you appear to be hurt." he cooed. However, his voice turned to a snarl. "To think that I thought could trust you to undergo a man's procedure. Clearly Amerika," he snarled the name, "was right for once and picked a proper subject for a super soldier serum." he growled./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Several incredulous "Whats?" were audible within the room./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""That's it." growled a blue eyed, blonde haired man wearing glasses, a bomber jacket, and jeans, in contrast to the other peoples' suits. "Ivan stop playing your games and lying."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""That was no lie, Amerika." he snarled again, turning to face the other nation. "That must be a nickname", Steve decided, "maybe the delegates call each other by the countries that they represent?" The other man's eyes widened./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You did what?!" demanded the man who had been sitting next to the enraged Russian. Steve hadn't noticed him before, but now that he was looking at him, Steve realized that he recognized him, from before the ice. Steve dropped his shield in shock, everyone's' heads swiveling towards him. Scanning through the crowd, he recognized a few more familiar faces./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You were there. In France. At the Invasion of Normandy." he stared, shocked./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""C'mon Cap, don't be ridiculous. That would be implying that he's also a cryogenically frozen super soldier from World War II." Stark snickered, but it came out mechanically, and disjointed from inside his suit./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I know what I'm talking about Stark. I shot him-"/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Vight here." grumbled the delegate? Nazi? Super soldier? Steve wasn't sure anymore, pulling down his collar to show a puckered scar around his collarbone./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""How are you still alive?" demanded Clint. "Any scar that big had to be in close, and that kill shot definitely would have shattered your collarbone, causing bone shrapnel to puncture almost all of your vital organs if you didn't bleed out first."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Not to mention that you would have to be over ninety years old, like Capsicle here. But you look like your in your early twenties, so do tell your secret to immortality." Stark snarked at the German, whose expression was that of annoyance. His attempt to answer was cut off by the sickening thunk and clanging of a metal pipe making connection with its owner's head. Instead of the man's head caving in, like any humans' head would've, a bloody spot the size of Thor's hand appeared on the distracted man's head, staining his platinum blonde hair./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Natasha was murderous. Bringing the pipe down on Ivan's head again, she growled, "Never underestimate your enemy and love is for children. Those were the first things you taught me, Ivan." Bringing the pipe down on his back, she snapped. "After that it was how to shoot a gun, and then kill a man a hundred different ways, and then how to blend in on a mission." Each time that she brought the pipe down, a sickening crack echoed around the room. "Then it was how to survive torture, how to get out of any confinement, and how to seduce a mark." She brought the weapon down on his spine. "And do you remember what you told me?" she hissed barely above a whisper, but the whole room heard her. The man began to laugh. Clint began to stride towards the pair. "Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional." she growled, aiming to kick his neck, only to be grabbed by Clint. "Let me go Barton!" she demanded./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Nat, if you don't stop, you'll kill him!"/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You don't understand! Because of him twenty-seven girls lay in unmarked graves in the middle of nowhere, Siberia. Ten of them were killers and were forced to kill men, women, and children! He made little girls into assassins!" her rant was cut off by dark chuckling. All of the Avengers and most of the nation's watched, in shock, as he stood up, dusting off, his parka./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You are incorrect. I made little girls into ballerinas and then assassins." she snorted in derision. "I admit my ledger is not the cleanest in this room." he continued before she could interrupt. The Avengers winced once again, having heard the familiar metaphor many times from Natasha. "But do not try to blame me for the crimes you committed. You willingly killed people in the name of Mother Russia."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""We both know that's a load of bullshit." she spat at him before relaxing enough for Clint to let go of her./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Even if you were to claim that it is my fault you became a killer, you know it would not matter, da? You know that the serum was administered. You would have to be an idiot not to notice the improved reflexes, threat assessment, and lack of aging, da? And we both know you are no idiot, unlike that capitalist pig." he growled, nodding at America. "My blood runs through your veins. We are one and the same. So even if I made you into assassin, you made yourself into one, to an extent. You will always belong to the homeland." he smirked. Natasha made a face as though she had eaten something very sour./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""That's why I will continue to work for America." She nodded to the man once again to show that she knew his true identity. She recieved only a sad smile in return. "You will not be the only one to claim me as one of their own. Spasibo. Ivan, I appreciated our talk." She stepped forward and to the shock of everyone watching, hugged the larger man, who gladly returned her embrace. "I did too, Natalia." he addressed her by her birth name. "You will come back though, da? For a mission to stop the cartel, yes? General Solohob is no longer just a front for the mafia."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Maybe if you're lucky." she said, pointedly looking at America. "Goodbye Russia. And Yelena did not have to say anything for herself. The fact that she was foolish enough to pledge her allegiance to you proves that I am the better Widow." she added, voice low./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Goodbye my little spider." he smirked./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Natasha walked back to the broken window, passing her team. "I'll run the S.H.I.E.L.D. cleanup team. I'm sure you have questions for the delegates, da?" she smirked, in a cruel imitation of the man she had just tried to kill. The assembled nations (with the exception of a certain Eurasian country) gulped./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"strongAuthors Notes:/strong/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"strong1.)Spasibo is "Thank you" in the American transliteration of Russian./strong/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"strong2.)Natashen'ka is a pet name. (Thanks for your input guest viewer!)/strong/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"strong3.)Tell me in the reviews if you want a sequel where the Avengers meet the countries, Natasha helps Steve look for Bucky, etc./strong/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"He had gone out for a run at six fifteen and returned at seven to take a shower and make breakfast. Unfortunately, before he was able to eat his food, JARVIS had sounded the alarm. Apparently A.I.M. goons were attacking the streets surrounding the UN building. Sprinting up to his room from the community kitchen, he put on his uniform and grabbed his shield before sprinting back down to the quinjet. The only people to reach the modified military craft before him were Clint and Natasha. The former of the two was tightening the string on his bow, while the other was going through a preflight systems check. The two assassins were having a conversation, but trailed off as he came into hearing range. He boarded the plane and waited for the rest of the team to make their way to the air transport./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Fifteen minutes later Stark was running to the plane, panting heavily. "Where have you been?" asked Steve, more than a little annoyed./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Elevator...broke...had to run...up seventy...flights of...stairs." he gasped. "The one time I go...down to...the lower floors...to supervise...SI employees." he panted as one of his suits jetted towards him. The mark forty-two Steve noted. (What? He could pay attention modern day machines! Bucky would have been in heaven, having spent part of their youth as a mechanic at an auto shop until it went out of business.)/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Let's go." he sighed./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"When the quinjet reached the UN building he jumped ten feet down from the plane's ramp to ground below and rolled, coming up to a defensive crouch. Natasha and Clint copied him, although Natasha was much more graceful. Thor just leaped, cracking concrete upon impact and Tony hovered in the air. "Avengers assemble!" he yelled, before running off to rescue a pair of cowering young woman as a person decked out in A.I.M.'s signature yellow hazmat suit threatened them with some kind of laser weapon. "Hey!" he yelled, throwing his shield as the person turned, catching them in the chest with a sickening crack. Wincing, he ran over to the pair and shepherded them out of harms way./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Cap look out!" shouted Natasha from somewhere behind him. He turned just in time to block the laser shot from an A.I.M. agent. He turned to thank Natasha, but gasped when he saw she was surrounded by A.I.M. agents-and wiping the floor with them. Running over to help her, he batted three away and threw his shield. The weapon ricocheted in the close quarters, hitting five agents. "Thanks." she muttered, not sounding grateful at all./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Pardon?"/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""What?"/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Why are you so determined to not let anyone on the team help you?!" he demanded, bashing an A.I.M. agent's helmet in. He wasn't sure where his frustration was coming from, but he regretted snapping at her immediately. (Even if his complaints were true.) "Look, Natasha I'm-Natasha!" he yelled as she was hit by a laser and flew through the window of the UN building./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Luckily, for Natasha, she had her widow bites attuned to an electric field, so it absorbed the shot. Unfortunately, the momentum sent her skidding several yards on a wooden table. Several people screamed or yelled and she was fairly certain she heard someone say "Ohonhonhon Heaven sends an angel to protect us." Ignoring what she assumed was a fairly perverted statement and protests asking her what she was doing here, she got up and made to return to the window, until she felt a familiar aura of impending doom. Stopping, she inclined her head slightly./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Ivan, its been a while."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Natalia Alianova Romanova. Chyornaya Vdova. Natasha Romanoff. Or perhaps Black Widow? What would you have me call you?" she could feel his smile./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Turning towards him, she replied. "Natalia Alianova Romanova died in an alley fighting for a corrupt KGB."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Yet I believe her to be standing before me, unless my eyes deceive me. Da?"/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I'm S.H.I.E.L.D. now. Agent Romanoff."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Defecting to Amerika of all people? I am not impressed little Natashen'ka."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I didn't have a lot of choices." she stated monotonously. "I wanted to die, there was an arrow pointed at my face, and when he asked me if I wanted to live, I said I wasn't sure." She laughs. "Russia's greatest asset was left, bleeding out in that back alley." Ivan-no Russia because she's known since they gave her the serum, a solution that contained some of his blood-looks like he's about to say something, but he's cut off by someone, or rather someones else./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Natasha? What are you talking about?" Steve asks in a worried voice and in that moment she wants nothing more than to scream, because she knows what game Ivan is playing, and she knows that he was stalling her./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I thought I taught you better than that, Natashen'ka. You should not have even allowed yourself to be touched, let alone cut."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Maybe I could have dodged the arrow, but I would just have gone back to being a tool." The irony of the fact that he refers to himself as a Mother is not lost on her. Ivan is anything but motherly./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""And now you are working for America out of your free will, da? His government doesn't keep you on a tight leash, ready to pull it taught and put a bullet in your brain like a rabid dog?" he mocks as he tilts his head towards a blonde haired blue eyed man that could pass as Steve's twin. She narrows her eyes as a hypothesis starts to form in her head./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""C'mon Nat. Don't go down that path." murmurs Clint, ("Where did he come from?" she wonders), assuming that she is angry because of Ivan's comment. She is not, in fact she understands the US government's distrust of her, they would have to be fools to trust her, and she would not work for them if they did. However, everyone hears him./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""And you stoop to the level of following?" Ivan intentionally baits her. "We both know that you were born and made to be something greater than a way for the American", he spits the name out like a curse again, "government to get good press. You could have neutralized all of your team mates long ago, were they marks. You were born and bred to be the best assassin in the world, despite what Yelena Belova may have believed or said."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"That last comment makes her angry. She can ignore him insulting her for getting soft or complacent, but she can't forget about the little girl he broke, brainwashed, and built back up again. Similarly, she can forgive him for the training he put her through, she knows it was only to make her stronger, but she can't forgive him for the twenty-seven girls that scream in her head every night. The ones that were second best, sloppy, slow, not clever enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not emgood/em enough. The ones that she cut down under orders. She knows all their names. The lives they would have had. The blood is roaring in her ears and her heart is pounding. She is descended from the tsars, the last great, if somewhat careless rulers of Russia. She strides angrily towards where he's sitting between a well muscled man with sharp cheekbones, and ice blue eyes (Germany, she assumes) and a man with large eyebrows (England perhaps). Walking right up to where Ivan sits, she glares down at him./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You are under the pretense that your presence is intimidating, da? You are quite mistaken."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""That's ironic, coming from you."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Really? I made the world stand still, weary to approach me for forty-five years. I checkmated the country that has so foolishly adopted you, Natashen'ka." He uses her pet name again. "For you are weak. It makes me wonder how you became so soft despite all the training Red Room had to offer." Her team (for she's noticed that they've all come to see where the rest of the team was) and the other nations appear paralyzed in their positions around the room. She wishes that they weren't here to see this, (the monster she is), but they would have found out eventually. (It's who she is.)/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""That's low, coming from the man who made little girls fight each other to the death."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You were a willing candidate after we broke your parents' fate to you. Your ledger is just as stained as mine." The Avengers winced at the last sentence./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Your right." she smirked. "And I'd like to wipe it out." she charged./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Steve watched numbly as the two Russians charged each other almost faster than his eyes could catch. Vaguely, he wondered how his day had come to this. It had started off easily enough. Natasha kicked high, but the Russian man-Ivan, he recalled-caught her foot in his grasp and heaved her-with inhuman strength and speed-over his shoulder, cracking her shoulder with a loud pop on the wall behind him. Spinning, he threw her down the length of the table. Natasha immediately jumped up, relocating her shoulder back into place with a sickening pop that had many individuals in the room wincing. But Ivan did not stop there. He pulled a lead pipe from out of nowhere and charged, taking a swing that would surely have taken off Natasha's head if she hadn't ducked, punching him in the stomach with more force than possible for her build. The much larger man actually staggered back a step, but swung his pipe again. Natasha dove to the side and shot up, wrapping her legs around his neck in a lock that would no doubt have broken any other man's neck./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Ivan merely socked her in the chin, her jaw making another sickening pop as he threw her off his shoulders. Natasha executed a flawless back handspring and charged again. Dodging the other Russian's swing she brought her arm back to sock him in the face, only to have the pipe come down, cracking her ribs stumbling back, favoring her right side, Natasha gasped and blood began to slowly leak out of the side of her mouth. "Oh my little Natashen'ka, you appear to be hurt." he cooed. However, his voice turned to a snarl. "To think that I thought could trust you to undergo a man's procedure. Clearly Amerika," he snarled the name, "was right for once and picked a proper subject for a super soldier serum." he growled./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Several incredulous "Whats?" were audible within the room./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""That's it." growled a blue eyed, blonde haired man wearing glasses, a bomber jacket, and jeans, in contrast to the other peoples' suits. "Ivan stop playing your games and lying."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""That was no lie, Amerika." he snarled again, turning to face the other nation. "That must be a nickname", Steve decided, "maybe the delegates call each other by the countries that they represent?" The other man's eyes widened./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You did what?!" demanded the man who had been sitting next to the enraged Russian. Steve hadn't noticed him before, but now that he was looking at him, Steve realized that he recognized him, from before the ice. Steve dropped his shield in shock, everyone's' heads swiveling towards him. Scanning through the crowd, he recognized a few more familiar faces./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You were there. In France. At the Invasion of Normandy." he stared, shocked./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""C'mon Cap, don't be ridiculous. That would be implying that he's also a cryogenically frozen super soldier from World War II." Stark snickered, but it came out mechanically, and disjointed from inside his suit./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""I know what I'm talking about Stark. I shot him-"/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Vight here." grumbled the delegate? Nazi? Super soldier? Steve wasn't sure anymore, pulling down his collar to show a puckered scar around his collarbone./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""How are you still alive?" demanded Clint. "Any scar that big had to be in close, and that kill shot definitely would have shattered your collarbone, causing bone shrapnel to puncture almost all of your vital organs if you didn't bleed out first."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Not to mention that you would have to be over ninety years old, like Capsicle here. But you look like your in your early twenties, so do tell your secret to immortality." Stark snarked at the German, whose expression was that of annoyance. His attempt to answer was cut off by the sickening thunk and clanging of a metal pipe making connection with its owner's head. Instead of the man's head caving in, like any humans' head would've, a bloody spot the size of Thor's hand appeared on the distracted man's head, staining his platinum blonde hair./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Natasha was murderous. Bringing the pipe down on Ivan's head again, she growled, "Never underestimate your enemy and love is for children. Those were the first things you taught me, Ivan." Bringing the pipe down on his back, she snapped. "After that it was how to shoot a gun, and then kill a man a hundred different ways, and then how to blend in on a mission." Each time that she brought the pipe down, a sickening crack echoed around the room. "Then it was how to survive torture, how to get out of any confinement, and how to seduce a mark." She brought the weapon down on his spine. "And do you remember what you told me?" she hissed barely above a whisper, but the whole room heard her. The man began to laugh. Clint began to stride towards the pair. "Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional." she growled, aiming to kick his neck, only to be grabbed by Clint. "Let me go Barton!" she demanded./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Nat, if you don't stop, you'll kill him!"/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You don't understand! Because of him twenty-seven girls lay in unmarked graves in the middle of nowhere, Siberia. Ten of them were killers and were forced to kill men, women, and children! He made little girls into assassins!" her rant was cut off by dark chuckling. All of the Avengers and most of the nation's watched, in shock, as he stood up, dusting off, his parka./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""You are incorrect. I made little girls into ballerinas and then assassins." she snorted in derision. "I admit my ledger is not the cleanest in this room." he continued before she could interrupt. The Avengers winced once again, having heard the familiar metaphor many times from Natasha. "But do not try to blame me for the crimes you committed. You willingly killed people in the name of Mother Russia."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""We both know that's a load of bullshit." she spat at him before relaxing enough for Clint to let go of her./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Even if you were to claim that it is my fault you became a killer, you know it would not matter, da? You know that the serum was administered. You would have to be an idiot not to notice the improved reflexes, threat assessment, and lack of aging, da? And we both know you are no idiot, unlike that capitalist pig." he growled, nodding at America. "My blood runs through your veins. We are one and the same. So even if I made you into assassin, you made yourself into one, to an extent. You will always belong to the homeland." he smirked. Natasha made a face as though she had eaten something very sour./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""That's why I will continue to work for America." She nodded to the man once again to show that she knew his true identity. She recieved only a sad smile in return. "You will not be the only one to claim me as one of their own. Spasibo. Ivan, I appreciated our talk." She stepped forward and to the shock of everyone watching, hugged the larger man, who gladly returned her embrace. "I did too, Natalia." he addressed her by her birth name. "You will come back though, da? For a mission to stop the cartel, yes? General Solohob is no longer just a front for the mafia."/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Maybe if you're lucky." she said, pointedly looking at America. "Goodbye Russia. And Yelena did not have to say anything for herself. The fact that she was foolish enough to pledge her allegiance to you proves that I am the better Widow." she added, voice low./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;""Goodbye my little spider." he smirked./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"Natasha walked back to the broken window, passing her team. "I'll run the S.H.I.E.L.D. cleanup team. I'm sure you have questions for the delegates, da?" she smirked, in a cruel imitation of the man she had just tried to kill. The assembled nations (with the exception of a certain Eurasian country) gulped./p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"strongAuthors Notes:/strong/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"strong1.)Spasibo is "Thank you" in the American transliteration of Russian./strong/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"strong2.)Natashen'ka is a pet name. (Thanks for your input guest viewer!)/strong/p
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"strong3.)Tell me in the reviews if you want a sequel where the Avengers meet the countries, Natasha helps Steve look for Bucky, etc./strong/p