2. Toasting … Possibilities

Natasha moved through the air duct quickly on all fours. She found the slat above her own rooms and moved it to one side before dropping through into her sitting room, and froze.

Someone was at the window, a dark figure silhouetted against the light.

He turned, and she breathed a sigh of relief. "Clint."

"Hey." His face crinkled, as it always did when he saw her. "Air duct?"

"Of course."

"Exercise? Or someone bothering you?"

"Momentary distraction. And I must ask you the same thing – why did you break into my rooms? As an exercise?"

He ran one hand through his hair, making it stand up on end. She always thought he looked absurdly youthful when he did so. "I – actually, I have something really delicate to tell you, and I'm not quite certain how to start."

She wanted a shower, a change of clothes, and most of all, to narrow the list of ten possibilities for the SNAKE hideout to five before hearing another proposition for her sexual favors. However, this was her friend in front of her, not an asshat demigod with delusions of grandeur.

She sat next to Clint on the couch and crossed her legs. "Just blurt it out. You won't be the first today, believe me."

"It's really – the thing is, it's a bit of a life-changer for you. Hill informed me this morning we have received a communiqué. Apparently a member of your own family is alive, and she knows you are alive. And she wants to meet you."

Something in her stomach flipped over, before she shook her head with her usual calm. "Not possible. I was the only one rescued from the fire in Stalingrad."

"Apparently you had a sister." He stretched out and dug a picture out of his pocket. "A twin, Tasha. You had a twin sister." He handed her a stiff card, an old photograph of two babies dressed in Edwardian lace on a bearskin rug, both staring solemnly into the camera.

Her eyes closed for a moment before she tossed the photo back to him. "What of it? This must be a fake. And even if I did, which I highly doubt, my sister wouldn't have been enhanced, retrofitted, psycho-technologically transformed as I was. She would be dead by now."

"She had a daughter, who also had a daughter. Apparently this girl survives." Clint took out another picture and put it on the cushion next to her on the couch, and Natasha moved away as though it were a serpent, not looking at it. "She has no other family, so she did a great deal of research – and discovered a trail leading to you."

Natasha still didn't pick up the picture; instead, she rose and, as Clint had done, stared out of the window. The sun was going down, and long streaks of red bled across the sky. "She doesn't know the truth…" she murmured.

Clint joined her. "No. She thinks you are, as she is, a descendant of the Romanoffs." He took a long breath. "I can't begin to understand how you feel about all of this, but I did think it was important to tell you."

Natasha nodded, but she couldn't trust herself to speak.

"And," he continued, "if there's anything I can do – if you need anything – maybe not now, but later, when you've started to process this a bit…"

She wanted to break the window. She wanted to hurl both pictures out, the daguerreotype of the twins and the as-yet-unseen photo, watch them drift down, down, down to the street, to be run over by traffic, pissed on by drunks, stepped on by people with simple lives and pure destinations. She wanted to scream, to punch a hole through the wall. No, several holes.

Instead she faced her partner and forced a smile onto her face. "You did the right thing."

He pursed his lips together and breathed out a long sigh of relief. "Whew! I can't tell you how glad I am to hear you say that! I was thinking about this all morning, kind of running through the scene in my head, you know? Wondering how it would play out."

She bumped his elbow with hers. "And? How did it play out?"

His face did that crinkly thing again. "With a lot of contusions. Mine, actually."

"I'm not going to punch you. But I would like – as you put it – to process this on my own for a bit."

With instant understanding, he nodded. "Yeah, sure. Of course. I totally get that." He put the stiff photo of the two twin girls on the table and walked to the door. Before he left, he added, "You need anything – anything at all – and you call me."

She nodded and closed the door after him. When it clicked shut, she fell against it and dug her fingers into her hair. She allowed her knees to go weak, to fall to the floor. There, she buried her head in her arms and tried to 'process'.

A moment passed, or perhaps an hour. Natasha jerked her head up and realized she needed vodka, a lot of vodka.

She jumped to her feet, unconsciously using the same twisting move Loki had exhibited during their little interaction, and padded to the kitchen. One look into the back of her freezer told her she had finished her last bottle.

Natasha cursed and yanked open the doors to the cupboards. She had to have a bottle somewhere.

The shelves were filled with neat rows of crystal and porcelain, but no alcohol. Damn. She would simply have to go and steal some from Tony.

Showered and changed, Natasha prepared to mount what she termed Operation Get Drunk. Shoes in hand, she tiptoed to the door, praying Tony's vodka stash wasn't Cake Batter flavored. There she stepped into her heels and turned the knob to open the door.

A tray sat on the floor of the hall. There was an ice bucket with a bottle of Purus inside, flanked by caviar, toast, and a bowls of chopped egg, red onion, and what looked like crème fraiche.

"Yessssss! Come to mama!" Natasha bent and picked up the tray, mentally thanking Clint. For once, he had guessed exactly what she needed. With her hip she closed the door and plonked the tray on the table in front of the couch.

There were two crystal tumblers next to the bottle, both frosted with ice. I only need one, Clint, she mused. Quickly she broke the seal on the Purus, and poured the icy liquid into the frozen glass.

It tasted like another, and another. By the time she thought of opening the tin of caviar, she was already beginning to smile at the memory of her plan to grab Tony's stash.

"What is so funny?"

The voice was cool, familiar. Natasha looked up in the middle of pouring another glass and gasped. A tall woman with long, black hair stood in front of her with another bottle of Purus in her hand.

"Who are you?" she demanded. It came out as "Whore you?"

The woman laughed with lips painted as dark as her hair. "That's probably appropriate. I thought we would need another bottle, pretty, and I should be the one to open the caviar. You don't want to cut yourself." She moved to the kitchen, and Natasha's mouth opened as she heard the woman put the bottle she held in the freezer. "There. Now. Pour me a glass, lovely, and let's toast …possibilities."