Natasha Romanoff grabbed her uniform out of her cupboard and hurriedly struggled into the material as the alert sounded that her presence and skills were required. It was a battle she faced often but whilst barely awake, the task always seemed to be twice as hard and Natasha had to redress herself a couple of times as she put her arms and legs through the wrong holes. Assassin training didn't prepare you for the early morning battle with tight and difficult clothing. With skill and grace, despite being half asleep, she exited her bedroom, slipped into the room next to hers briefly before moving with some speed towards her kitchen.
Despite having been trained for things like this from an age that most people would consider way too young, she still hated the sudden early morning wake up calls with a passion. The incessant beeping that alerted her to the new situation made her want to shoot the source of the annoying noise for disturbing her but she knew there would be hell to pay if she destroyed any more technology and so she had to settle for cursing rapidly under her breath and slamming her hand down on the button to stop it with more force than required. They put her in a bad mood and she pitied anyone who got in her way on days when she had been woken up early and suddenly as they would have to face the full force of her sleep deprived wrath and that wasn't a pretty sight for anyone.
Luckily for her, her team were pretty used to it by now and so were well versed in ducking the occasional knife and ignoring her sniped comments. They knew by now that she rarely ever meant anything aimed at them during these moments and that, although she hated apologising and only used them occasionally when she had been particularly rude or insulting, she was sorry for anything she had said. It was also useful for them as criminal crumbled under her death glare and confessed everything frequently making their job so much easily.
She was a professional and despite having her sleep interrupted and cut way too short for her liking, and on her day off as well, she could continue, mainly on autopilot, with the same professionalism she used when fully awake and conscious. She was a trained assassin after all. She was, however, never fully functional until after at least one cup of coffee.
It was on days like this when she was racing out of the door like a hurricane, leaving a mess of papers, clothes and rubbish in her wake, that she was so thankful that the coffee maker was the quickest machine available and that she kept paper cups stacked up for emergencies such as this. There was, however, no time for her to make herself some toast so she grabbed a slice of bread instead along with her paper cup of coffee. Natasha only paused briefly to fight the locks off of her door and enable all her security features before rushing out the door mid bite contemplating what she had ahead of her today. She had one quick call to make which she managed to do on the way, one call that she couldn't forget.
Her job had left her surprised by next to nothing. Life as an assassin and then an avenger had showed her that no matter how improbable anything was, there was a chance it had been done, made or happened and that half the people behind the incidents were madmen or insane. She had also seen that ordinary people with normal jobs could do the worst things and that an open mind was required for all situations. At least all of this experience meant that very little fazed her.
As she approached the scene one thing was clear, while all this had shaped her, she was a different person now. Natasha Romanoff no longer existed, in her place a redheaded woman by the name of Catarina Todd, a New York police woman with a difference who knew there was more to life than what most people saw and believed in. Catarina stepped out of her unmarked car, straightened her police uniform and headed towards the police tape.
This idea wouldn't stop bugging me and so I finally sat down and wrote it. The next chapters will go into more details about why she left and what the difference is. Natasha will be referred to as Catarina in general from now on unless the story is about before she split from the Avengers.