Yeah I know long time since I updated this one. Hope this chapter goes well.
Disclaimer: I do not own any Marvel Movie ever.
One of the parts of getting with the program was that she had to learn all the protocols belonging to SHIELD, their code of conduct, their jurisdiction, their mandate and all the loopholes she could find within the rules assigned to them to do all the jobs they needed to do. They gave her most of these after her first few missions. She understood that. Why waste and give out secrets to a potential enemy. Shield may be more trusting but they weren't fools. Not entirely.
She also had to learn about the different alliances and treaties they had with the different countries and with their sister organization. It was a lot but Natalya was an old hand at learning a lot of information fast. She devoured it all and passed the test with flying colours, albeit she did leave some slightly nauseated examiners behind. Apparently they didn't like some of the loopholes she had found.
Natalya's next hurdle was a psyche evaluation. For a moment she had wondered why they had put her in the field before giving her a psyche eval, until she'd realized that they weren't going to waste time on a psyche eval when there had been a chance she'd leave. But now they were requiring it of her and it meant that they, well, it was a form of acceptance. She was theirs now. Truly theirs.
She passed the evaluation with ease. It amused her actually, just how easy it was to fake and lie her way through the examination. Although it did give her some insight just how far off the scale her own psyche was. And far, far off the scale it was too. Natalya didn't care. So long as she could function competently, her brain could run as it liked. At least that's what she told herself and tried not to look to hard her own lying words.
But that method turned around to bit her in her backside. Hard. Because Natlya's brain and SHIELD protocol didn't mesh. Was hard to mesh. Their objectives she agreed with, most of them anyway. But their way of achieving their objectives didn't mesh with the way she worked. She tried though. She remembered what to do, she did. But she just found it ineffective, too merciful sometimes, to easy.
It was only when she realized what was happening, that she was thinking like a red room operative, like a knife instead of a shield that she jumped back from her thoughts like a scalded cat. Her reaction both amused her and pleased her. It helped then, the realization, helped her to mesh her brain with the protocols because now she wanted to follow the protocols, wanted them to be her default, well, most of them. She still preferred to b a little sharper but she was learning something about mercy, something about doing the right thing, even if it sucked and was troublesome, even if it cost you.
She met Clint one time that month and then he had just sat with her, saying nothing and that was as much as she could bear from the man who saw too much of her. There was a story of redemption, lying somewhere inside his soul, she could see the scars where he'd cut himself open and excised what he didn't want, remade himself to be who he was.
He knew he didn't need to say it with her. That just sitting there and letting her see it was possible was enough. Natalya memorized the story and told it to herself whenever she wanted to see blood over her hands again when there wasn't need to be.
After a few more solo missions Natalya was called up to Director Fury's office along with her handler. It was the first time she'd seen him since he had brought her into SHIELD. He had her file on his desk and he was thumbing through it.
She and her handler stood and waited for him to speak.
"Ms. Romanova, he said finally, "You've been an asset to this organization since you've come here."
Natalya waited and said nothing.
"You've done good, clean work. No problems at all. Minor cleaning up needed after you were done. A good track record so far. But this was all working solo. I need to see that you can work in a team. Because we'll need you in a team operations in the future no doubt. So," he looked up from the file, "You'll be on the team for operation Blackbird. Plane leaves in 1600 hours." He tossed a new file over the desk.
"Dismissed," he barked.
Natalya took the file, nodded to him and headed out the room.
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