The lovely Thalia Clio on AO3 came up with this idea and let me borrow it. I don't own anything.
"Happy birthday to me." Natasha Romanov raised her glass of vodka to no one in particular and gulped it all down. It was 8 am of November 22nd, and the morning of her 22nd birthday. Twenty-two on the twenty-two, she thought wryly as she poured herself another drink. Birthdays had never meant much to her, but she celebrated them anyway because of the day they marked. Not the day she was born, but the day she was freed. The day she left her Soviet masters and boarded a plane for America. That was worth far more celebration than her life.
She was alone in her hotel suite save for the man snoring on the bed. She didn't know his name; if had he told her she had forgotten it. He was a nobody, someone she found in a club the night before who was interested in meaningless sex.
That was all that seemed to matter to her these days – sex and liquor. That was all that could drown out – well, everything else. The blood, the murders, the screams and worst of all, the eyes that begged her for mercy she never granted.
She'd thought about quitting, of course she had. She had, in the two short years of her freelance career, killed more men, women and children than she cared to keep track of (doing so would destroy her, but that was another issue entirely). She only took the most exclusive of jobs, from clients who could pay her what she deserved for her skill set. She was the best there was, and damned if she didn't charge what she was worth. Besides, she needed the money. The job was expensive, and she supposed she needed a backup plan, a retirement fund for when she finally left this life if nothing else.
Whenever that was. Despite the horror and revulsion she felt for both her clients and victims, she had no plans to retire soon. Because that would leave her with nothing. Nothing but the sex and liquor and her guilt.
Natasha put down her glass and, with a quick glance to make sure the man behind her was still asleep, opened her tablet to check her inbox. This was how she contacted her clients, by an untraceable and anonymous mail system. When she found a job that – interested was not the right word because barely anything interested her these days – attracted her, she would contact the sender. She would find them, never the other way round. One does not seek out the Black Widow; she seeks you out if and when she wants to.
That was when her work phone buzzed. She jumped at the sudden sound. She grabbed the cell phone before it could wake her one-night lover in the bed. No caller ID.
She went into the bathroom to take the call, making sure the door was locked. "Hello?"
"Black Widow, right?" Male. American. Young-ish, maybe middle aged. It put all her senses on alert. Not only did he have her number, his voice was also too smooth and oily for her to like him.
"Who wants to know?"
"An admirer, you could say."
"You require my services," she corrected. She had never received a call from a prospective client before, much less one who knew her number before she knew of his existence. It unnerved her more than she let show.
"I'm offering you the single biggest job of your career." The man continued. "You know Tony Stark – owner of Stark Industries, weapons manufacturer, one hell of a weirdo?"
Stark. Natasha knew of Stark. Unlike the rest of the world, she didn't give a shit about his narcissism or his pioneering work in military weaponry or his infamous sexual exploits. She only cared because his weapons really were the best out there and cost a fortune on the black market.
"They say it's impossible for anyone to get to him," the man continued. That was true; Stark was notoriously difficult to kidnap or kill, so much that he was considered an invincible and therefore impossible target by the assassin world.
For the first time in a while, Natasha's interest piqued. "Dead or alive?"
He laughed. "I knew you could do it. I always had faith in you, you know that?"
She didn't take part in his banter. Something about small talk always put her on edge. "I require a high price for Stark," she said. "Five times my usual rate."
"That's not going to be a problem." Dammit, should have asked for seven.
"Any details?"
"All I want is for him to die. I'm sure you'll come up with something. Nothing that will connect it back to me, of course."
"And who is this?" She half expected that he wouldn't answer.
But he did. "Hammer. Justin Hammer." She could hear the smug smirk on his face. "I expect to hear back from you soon. In the meantime I have a most interesting file in my hands about a certain training program... Natalia."
Her heart dropped to her stomach.
Notes:
So Thalia Clio on AO3 wrote a beautiful Iron Widow fanfic with this premise. It's called "people aren't supposed to look back", over on AO3, please go and read it.