A/N: On to chapter three! Hope you guys like it!

South Haven, Michigan, 2006

Crunch. Leaves underfoot.

Natasha suppressed her instinct to groan as she came to, instantly alert to someone approaching her. She waited until the sound from the leaves was almost right next to her ear before she twisted and rolled backwards, coming up behind a larger boulder and eyeing the interloper.

"Pretty spry for a dead chick."

Natasha blinked. Dirty blond hair, a wry smile, compact build. She looked approximately 20 to 25 years old.

"Did you want something?" she asked. There was nothing to give away the fact that she was prepared to kill the woman if necessary.

"Well, I saw a chick passed out in a ravine," the woman responded, shrugging. "So I was gonna, y'know, loot your body. What do I look like, the Joker? I'm a human being; I wanted to see if you were okay. Hey, wait— you were the one in the library, right? The girl that that guy tried to shoot?"

Natasha was all too aware of the cold metal of her glock pressed against her lower back.

"You got balls of steel, that's for sure." The girl didn't approach her. "Going back in there."

"It was a little something called 'the right thing to do'." The words tasted like ash.

"Not leaving kids to burn, I get," agreed the girl, "But sticking around here afterwards? That guy was gunnin' for you, I saw it. So what, ex-husband who really hates you? Seems a bit much to blow up the library over."

The woman's palms were trembling. It occurred to Natasha that she must not have been unconscious for long, if the woman was still experiencing trauma from being in the explosion. And she must have been there— she wouldn't know about Natasha otherwise. Other than that, there were no telltale signs of distress, so Natasha stood. Whoever she was, she looked less and less like a threat.

"You're half right about the ex-husband bit," Natasha replied. It was surreal, interacting with a civilian like this. Blowing up the library did seem a bit like an overreaction, though. She'd been sure that he was unaware she was tailing him, too. If he had known, he would have confronted her sooner.

"Jealous boyfriend? Secretly an alien?"

"You're already going to have nightmares from that," Natasha said flatly. "The last thing you probably need is an over-active imagination."

The woman threw back her head and laughed.

"Giving it to me straight, huh?" There wasn't a whole lot of amusement in her voice. "Like I said, balls of steel. Not that you actually have balls. I mean—" She peered at Natasha. "You don't, do you? Because if you do that's totally cool. I won't judge. You ever gonna treat that concussion?"

Natasha eyed her again, this time almost reaching for her glock. "Well, I did pass out, but then I woke up again. Which means I'll probably live."

The woman snorted. This time she did approach, although slowly. "Consider this an invitation. My place. I can get you fixed up, maybe feed you something even though I can't cook for shit, and then we'll pretend like we don't know each other because you're obviously a little hung up on your ex-husband/jealous boyfriend/alien lover thing."

"So now he's my alien lover?"

"Well yeah. What's it like having sex with an alien?"

"We just met."

"It's small talk."

God, it was like making conversation with a female Clint.

The woman made a point of not touching her as they walked back through the forest to the road. Natasha was almost certain that her showing up was no coincidence, but she still could not detect a threat from her. It was a little disconcerting; she detected threats from everybody. The woman blabbered about something all the way to her little cottage, a few blocks away from the lake. Natasha recognized her technique for coping with the trauma from earlier.

She half-expected another flashback to start. Since Natasha didn't suddenly find herself coming to with a now-dead woman next to her, she hazarded a guess that she didn't get one.

"I'm Lana," the woman said, giving her a half wave that looked more like jazz hands. "My dream in life is to be able to speak like Yoda to the President of the United States."

"I'm Tasha," Natasha deadpanned. "My dream in life is to confirm that you aren't the genderbent clone of a friend of mine."

"Geez. Am I that bad?"

Natasha didn't bother to answer that. She smiled coldly instead.

Lana's eyes went wide, and she took a large step away from Natasha. "Um. You're kind of terrifying."

"Here's Johnny."

"Fuck's sake. Don't say that." Lana shuddered. She had something of a bouncing gait to her stride, every step containing pent-up energy that she occasionally released when she leapt over something like a tree root, or a skateboard.

Her cottage was a humble abode, complete with one bedroom, one bathroom, one sitting room, and one kitchen. Lana proceeded to pull a frozen pizza out of her freezer while Natasha did a cursory check of the place. No bugs. No hidden weapons. It didn't look like the lair of a serial killer. Lana was certainly keyed up enough to be one, but her nervous ticks were all normal signs of someone who had been affected by an unpleasant experience.

Still not a threat.

"I've got Advil. Unless you're like a ninja and can go to the hospital and steal some morphine."

"Advil will do," Natasha replied.

She didn't need it— her headache was receding, and the dizziness hadn't hit her since she woke up.

Lana handed her a glass of water and a tablet. Natasha drank the water. She stuffed the tablet down one of the couch cushions.

"What do you want?" Natasha asked again.

Lana flopped down in an armchair, yawning. Her eyes drifted over to Natasha and held her gaze. "I wanted to be the big damn hero who saved the big damn hero. That satisfy your curiosity?"

"No."

"Didn't think so." Lana hummed. "Okay. I was curious. And, well… you were pretty cool. Back there."

Natasha stared at her. Was the woman who had followed her into a ravine and approached her while she was passed out (and she had to be a threat, even though Natasha didn't read a threat from her) saying that she followed Natasha because… what? She admired her? Now that was a laugh. She couldn't wait to tell Barton about this one.

"Anyway," Lana said, shaking herself. "Hope you're not vegetarian or anything, because my parents left me a meat lover's pizza when they went road-tripping to New York. It's pretty much all I've got, unless you count, like, three cans of Cream of Mushroom in the pantry. My mom likes mushrooms way too much."

"I'm not a vegetarian," Natasha said. She was still trying to wrap her head around Lana.

"Oh. Good." Lana moved back into the kitchen. "You need a ride somewhere after this?"

There was no way Natasha could lead Lana straight back to the safe house; even if the other woman turned out to be harmless, she still already knew too much about Natasha. She briefly considered bringing the girl back to S.H.I.E.L.D. with her (let Fury deal with her smart mouth), but instinct told her that that was a bad idea, as well. Maybe it was because it was Natasha's first time interacting with someone who was not a target— who had nothing to do with her mission parameters. She found the thought that of all the people she could encounter in her line of work, the one to unbalance her the most was the most ordinary one.

She accepted a plate with two slices from Lana, hot grease dripping onto her fingers. This didn't seem to deter Lana, who bit into her slice and chewed without even bothering to try to cool it first.

Lana chewed and swallowed. "Sorry. I'm starving."

Natasha almost snorted again. They were well beyond manners now, weren't they?

The pizza was good. Not as good as the pizza that Clint had ordered for her, when he first found out that she'd never eaten it before ("Shit, Nat, you don't know what you're missing." "Well of course I don't, Barton, what do you expect?" "Yeah, but this is like, ambrosia of the gods.") After she finished eating, her slow chewing a contrast to Lana's enthusiastic munching, she told her that she'd like a ride to the nearest airport, if at all possible.

"Hope you're not going international, because then we'd be going on a roadtrip."

"No. Anywhere that does commercial flights is fine."

While Natasha waited for Lana to clean up, she reminded herself that even though Walker was dead, that didn't mean details were unimportant. She took in the house— the minimal décor, aside from a few pictures, and the lack of personal touches in the sitting room and in the bathroom that she used— and deduced that the parents weren't around that much. They probably owned the house, were retired, and vacationed a lot. Which left their daughter at home, most likely working a part time job somewhere in town, who wasn't quite making enough money to feed herself.

Huh.

Natasha should probably be feeling more sympathy.

Instead she was silent as she followed Lana out to an old Mercedes that sat in the driveway. Based on what she already knew, she half expected Lana to be a wild and reckless driver, but instead she took a surprising amount of care on her turns and mumbled swears at the people who didn't bother with turn signals. The sun was setting out over Lake Michigan as they drove away from it, further inland so that they could reach the airport.

Natasha used the time to devise a plan, in her head: give Fury the address of Lana, all of the information she had gleaned from her, and her recommendation that Lana be kept under surveillance indefinitely. It hit her, then, that S.H.I.E.L.D. might not be too inclined to listen, especially after they saw that she didn't return to the safe house on day three, like she was supposed to. She was being driven to the airport early, instead of the next morning as planned.

"Try not to look like shit," Lana recommended helpfully, when they parked. "The airport security people will have a field day."

Natasha felt a cruel laugh in her gut. Oh, if only she knew.

"Listen," she said instead. A bit of the drawl that she would have used if she were pretending to be an American while working for the KGB slipped into her voice. "Next time you find some guy or some girl passed out in a ravine after they played at being the hero, I'd leave them alone. Your morbid curiosity's going to get you in trouble. You're an attention seeker—"

"Whoa, whoa, hey—"

"— and even though your parents neglect you, that's no excuse."

Lana stared at her, fists balled up at her sides. "You— how did you—" Her fingers flexed. For the third time, Natasha was aware of the glock against her back. "What the fuck? What the actual fuck?"

She turned in a whirl, wrenching open the door to her car, and this time she did speed away recklessly.

Natasha, knowing that she was alone, allowed the ugly smile she'd shown before appear on her face again. Then she turned around and headed for the terminal entrance.

Outskirts of Madrid, 2014

"Twenty hours," Steve said flatly. "You were supposed to check in with us twenty hours ago."

"Sniper. Andrey Benevante is dead. I had to go off the grid until I found a place I was absolutely sure was secure."

She'd gone back to where she'd been interrogating the lowlife from before, and found his corpse.

"Someone's tracking me," she explained. "If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's someone who's either worked with me before or been studying me for a while now. They killed Andrey with one shot. No warning. I honestly didn't think anything would go wrong, Steve, but it did."

"So, I wasn't gonna say 'I told you so'," Clint said, "but I totally told you so."

Natasha flipped him off.

"A sniper?" Steve asked, his expression twisting somewhere between worried and hopeful. "You don't think it's—?"

"It isn't Barnes," Natasha said, feeling the slightest twinge of guilt at the way his face fell. There was a reason why she was able to be at her most genuine around Steve. "I never got a facial visual, but their build wasn't nearly large enough to fit his profile. Unless he knows how to shrink himself, all of a sudden."

"Any ideas who it could be?" Clint asked.

There was a loud clatter, followed by several colorful curses. Both Clint and Steve ignored it like pros, but Bruce let out a long-suffering sigh and moved off-camera to go help Tony. None of them looked like they were getting much sleep— which could only mean that Natasha herself looked like she'd climbed out of hell.

"I can think of 15 or so living snipers who could make the shot," Natasha, touching her finger to her chin. "Barnes, obviously, but it wasn't him. I can cross off a few others with heavier builds, too, which leaves 11. One is sitting next to you, Steve, leaving 10. Some are mercs, some are former KGB agents. A few S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Some of them could be working for Hydra; who knows."

"Any particular reason why?"

"The less you know, Steve." Natasha's smile might have been a bit sad. Of course, that meant that both Clint and Steve looked more alarmed than before, staring at her. Bruce came back into the picture, frowning.

"Look, the others might have underestimated how much of a peacock you can be—" Clint began.

"Says the man who struts," she drawled. "It's not a matter of pride. It's a matter of knowing that I am the only one who can handle this."

"Still calling bullshit."

"I'm seconding that notion," came Tony's voice off camera. Damn it. Natasha hated it when he did that— when he pretended that he was so self-absorbed that he didn't pay attention to anything around him. It was a mistake that everyone made with Tony Stark. Sometimes with fatal results, depending on the situation. "J can't figure out what it is you're after—"

"Compartmentalization, Stark," Natasha said. All of the information she had on it was in a little paper notebook she carried with her. The rest of the details were sealed firmly in her brain. J.A.R.V.I.S. would have to browse the web in order to get even an inkling of what she was after, and even then it would be a far cry from the truth.

Rumors. Gossip. That was what everyone claimed. Logically, it was the most likely outcome— there was a 99 percent chance that it was all a hoax. But even if the chance that it was all true was only 1 percent, Natasha still needed to follow up on it. It was the only price she would accept for herself.

"For curiosity's sake, more than anything else." Tony appeared on camera for the first time, grease stains on his shirt. "But even though I'm totally not worried— I just think you're a nutcase— Steve couldn't take it. You know. Stress, combined with old age—"

"Normally I'd be somewhat okay with putting up with your roundabout, terrible sense of humor," Natasha interrupted. "But right now?"

She fixed him with a look until he slunk off camera, and he didn't speak again.

"I don't think this is a good idea," Steve said at last. "I think it'd be better if you actually reported in. Just for a few days."

'Reported in' was what they all said when they referred to visiting Stark Tower. It had become their impromptu headquarters— where Steve and Sam sometimes waited while searching for a new lead on Bucky, where Clint had been living indefinitely (he called it an extended vacation, but Natasha suspected that he was just as spooked by S.H.I.E.L.D.'s true core as she was and wasn't really eager to get back to work), and where Tony and Bruce had been living for over two years.

Apart from Thor, Natasha suspected that she was the Avenger who spent the least amount of time there.

Bruce had tried (and partially succeeded) to confront her about it. In one of her rare visits, he came to her apartment with a bottle of vodka as a peace offering and went straight for the jugular. Natasha's default response was to thank him for the alcohol and the company, and then tell him that she couldn't, yet. She would. One day. But probably not anytime soon.

"Just… don't count your actions as a death sentence," he'd replied. "You'll be back."

Natasha thought about the sniper from today. She hadn't even seen them coming. She never spoke of it— always smiled and joked, making it sound like evading all of her enemies was a game to her. Clint might have known the truth (nothing was ever a game), and Steve always looked slightly disappointed when she took few of his precautions seriously. Bruce would stare at her levelly, and say nothing on the matter.

"I'm not reporting in," Natasha answered at last. "Party in the abandoned warehouse outside of town. Whoo."

"BYOB," snickered Clint.

Seeing Steve raise an eyebrow at her, she sighed. "The abandoned warehouse that has a few surprises for intruders, Cap. Also, I'll be sleeping in the rafters. 99 percent of attackers wouldn't enter through the roof, and the darkness means that my sniper friend won't be able to see where I am."

She paused, waiting for a response. There wasn't one, so she continued.

"I'll call you guys back in a few days," she said. "I'm planning on staying here, and doing a little more recon. I want to see if I can find that sniper again."

"Seems risky," Steve said.

"It's usually easier to find someone if they're trying to find you." And whoever they were, they definitely wanted Natasha dead. If not, they wouldn't have stuck around after killing Benevante.

"Get some sleep," Bruce told her. "Don't let the, uh, rafter bugs bite."

"Probably termites," Natasha said cheerfully. "Or roaches."

Clint shuddered.

Steve leaned forward, making sure she was making eye contact with him before he spoke. "A few days. I expect another call. You hear me, Natasha?"

She smiled blandly. His eyes narrowed (she knew he would recognize that smile), but when she didn't say anything else he pulled back. He didn't look satisfied with her explanation, but he had worked with her long enough to recognize when Natasha was finished with a conversation.

"I'm gonna go shoot some things," Clint announced. "Bye, Nat."

"Bye."

"Watch out for yourself," Steve cautioned.

Natasha kept the indulgent smile on her face. Steve smiled back at her, ruefully, and then ended the video call, leaving Natasha alone in the darkness of the warehouse.

She switched off her Stark tablet and packed her glock in a string bag. Then she disassembled the tablet carefully, removing the microscopic tracking device that Stark thought she didn't know was there, and placed it in a plastic bag. In her mind, she pictured them all watching the screen with her movements on it, reassuring themselves that she was safe, and that she wasn't doing anything reckless.

Natasha climbed into the rafters and left the plastic bag carefully on top of one, then climbed back down and hoisted her bag over her shoulder. When she left the warehouse she headed straight for the train station, slouching a bit so that she looked like a girl who was heading back home after a long night. Sure enough no one paid her any mind, and this time she knew for sure that she wasn't being followed. It was a pity; she almost wished that she was. It would make her job easier.

It seemed that her sniper friend was smarter than that.

After getting off the train at the airport, she bought a plane ticket to Germany.

There was still one other concern she had, before she boarded said plane. She went into the bathroom and shut herself into a stall, pulling her tablet and a flash drive out of her pocket. She composed a brief, encrypted message and hit 'send', staring as the little green light appeared in confirmation. Then she plugged the flash drive into the port, watched as the screen went fuzzy, then exited the stall and dumped the tablet into the trash.

Natasha boarded the plane without looking back.

Unknown location, unknown time

"How long have we been at war with her?" the blond man asked tiredly.

248 watched the proceedings with unblinking eyes. Even as she did, she counted the bruises along her forearms and on her face. The woman was not kind to her. Madame B. would not tell her what her name was, so 248 just kept referring to her as the woman. But she did not train with anyone else (no one else had killed as of yet), and so 248 could not resent her. Every bruise was a lesson learned. Madame B. told her that much, if nothing else.

The woman was sitting in front of 248. She had her arms crossed. 248 could observe nothing of her beyond physical features and her clothing.

"Too long," the other man admitted reluctantly. "I warned her. I warned—"

Both men cut themselves off abruptly. As one, they glanced first at the woman, and then at 248.

248 did not look at either of them. She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the woman's back.

"Go, 248," the woman said. "Back to your room."

248 stood and slipped through the door easily. Her room was not difficult to find in the complex, as '248' was stamped on it in massive numbers. The man in black outside her door did not look at her as she entered, but she heard the telltale 'chink' as the lock slid into place. There was a light switch next to the door. There was a small cot pushed against the wall. Apart from that, the room had nothing. 248 went to her cot and sat on it, aware that her mind was not ready for sleep yet.

There had been one thing that she observed of the woman, she now realized. A tensing of the shoulders, when the two men were griping. 248 ran through a list of adjectives in her mind, trying to determine exactly what it was the woman felt on the subject: determination? Anticipation? Anxiety? She could not decide. Even when the woman gave her a clue, she could not follow it to the answers she sought.

"One day, it will become clear," Madame B. once told her. "Like a path only you can see."

Madame B. did not speak to her about 220. 248 did not know what to think of it. Her actions must have had approval, because she had been learning much from the woman since she killed the girl. But there was no advice on what she was supposed to feel upon taking a life: regret? Remorse? Madame B. usually discouraged the use of those emotions— she recommended anger if she had to feel anything. The woman had once knocked her down to the ground, and then stood and called her 'somber'. She had dislocated 248's shoulder, and told her to make her way to the infirmary herself, or she would come after her with the knife again.

248's fear started to fill her at the memory; her ability to put things in a box was worn down. That meant it was time for sleep.

The next day, combat training was with 243. 243 was also bigger and stronger, like 220, but she was more cautious and less willing to underestimate 248. Fortunately this meant she hesitated, so 248 did not get knocked down as much and did not have as many bruises when she went to bed. She was able to fight for fifteen minutes straight without collapsing now. She was slowly learning how to put the pain and exhaustion in her muscles in a box, too.

The woman did not return for several days.

When she did reappear, she only trained with 248 briefly before she vanished again.

Madame B. came to 248's room that night, sitting on the bed next to her. She did not touch 248— she never touched 248, not in the rough way that the woman did while they trained— and spoke to her quietly, asking her what she was learning, and what she had to teach Madame B. in return.

"I learned that people are not reliable," 248 said.

"Ah." Madame B. smiled at her. Madame B. smiled at her a lot. It was always warm. "That is not quite true, little one. You can always rely on people to be unreliable."

248 did not sleep after that conversation. She paid for refusing to rest in combat training the next day.

The day after that, she was brought to a white room, where many silver instruments lay on a tray. A man in a white coat poked around in her mouth with one, and wrote some things down before he instructed her to do some basic stretching. She did as asked. He then took one of the instruments and told her to stay still. At first she did not understand what was happening, but then she felt her head becoming lighter and watched clumps of hair fall at her feet.

248 was not allowed to look at herself. She was curious about her new appearance, but she resisted the urge to stare at a reflective surface. The men in black would beat her bloody for it. The further they got into their training, the worse the beatings became for any transgressions.

It was five more days before 248 saw the woman. She and the others were being led back to their rooms, and the woman was walking in the other direction. When she saw 248, she did something that 248 had never seen before: she smiled at her, showing gleaming white teeth.

248 did not sleep that night, either.

Paris, France, 2014

Paris had always held a certain charm.

Still, it made Natasha laugh— the way people idolized the city. Visitors regaled folks back home with stories about its beauty and grace. But every city had an ugly core, and Paris was no different from the rest in that respect. Natasha had first-hand experience on the matter; it was just covered up better here than it was in other cities.

For one thing, she knew two CIA cells here. For another, she knew that there were three Hydra cells stationed in this city. She briefly considered dismantling them, but they wouldn't have the information she needed, and based on the news reports something much worse was headed for them (not that she blamed him). She'd lean back against couch cushions and eat popcorn while watching it all play out on the TV.

After she'd visited some friends first, that is.

The flight had had to stop in Paris after a malfunction was discovered (which was a bit of an odd coincidence, but Natasha used it to her advantage anyway). She still had every intention of eventually going to Germany, but in this case she felt that the smart thing to do would be to dig wherever X marked the spot. Paris was almost definitely one of those places.

(It was also one of the most dangerous places for her to be right now. She had friends here, but she also had 'friends' here.)

She chose a youth hostel that was sandwiched between two high rises, once again hunching her shoulders and using heavily accented French to make it seem like she was a German student on a hitchhiking trip. The clerk bought it easily enough and showed her to a tiny, windowless room— which was exactly the sort of place that she was looking for. No windows for her sniper friend to shoot her through while she slept. A quick sweep for bugs told her that it was clear.

She'd bought a cheap cell phone after leaving the airport, and she used it now to alert her contacts that she was in town. None of them sounded too happy about it. She didn't blame them.

"You are making this difficult for us, Widow," they said.

"Good. If it's difficult for you, then it's difficult for the people who would kill you to get to me."

They didn't protest a whole lot after that.

Natasha added a few notes to her notebook while she sat on her bed in her room, legs crossed. Her door was locked and bolted, though occasionally there were voices— groups of young adults headed out into the city for the night. She'd set up her meetings during the day, knowing that with fewer crowds around there weren't as many obstacles obstructing anyone who might be trying to shoot her through a scope. Playing a crowd to avoid being killed was a skill Natasha had perfected at an early age.

It was raining the next day, but the only sign that showed how much this bothered her was a tiny frown that graced her face when she looked out the door of the hostel. She bought an umbrella at a store a few blocks down before she strode over to the Champs-Elysees, keeping her umbrella low so as to obstruct her face from any onlookers. The most people saw was a pair of ratty sneakers, coupled with skinny jeans and a hoodie. At first glance, her age might have been early twenties instead of thirty.

Her first meeting was scheduled with Edward Constantine, a CIA contact that she once did a favor for before she joined S.H.I.E.L.D. Considering it was doing that favor (and raising his awareness of who she was) that got her onto S.H.I.E.L.D.'s hit list, Natasha figured that he owed her.

He didn't share the sentiment.

"No, Widow," he snapped at her, restlessly playing with his coffee cup. "I haven't heard anything like that. It's ridiculous, to be frank—"

"S.H.I.E.L.D. turned out to be Hydra after seventy years of providing 'world security'," Natasha deadpanned.

He scowled at her. "You're endangering my entire team by being here."

"So you do know something?"

The server who came over to set down Natasha's tea in front of her gave her a charming smile before returning to her work, unaware that one of Natasha's lethal cuffs was active and pressed up against Constantine's knee. Natasha returned the smile before she looked back at him.

"Are you going to call the men you have in the back room off?"

"God, are you a fucking psychic—?"

"I don't need to be," Natasha said. "I know you. I know your type. I know that the CIA is hunting me just as much as my more personal enemies are. Call them off."

He held her gaze for a few moments, then reached up to the earpiece hidden in his ear and murmured an order in French. Natasha didn't look as two heavyset men exited from behind the counter and left the café, though she could feel their gazes on her. She watched Constantine in case he decided to give them any other signals, but he remained still and silent the entire time.

Of course, still and silent could have been code for something as well, but there was nothing Natasha could do about that. Besides, she doubted that Constantine was smart enough to come up with a meaning for not having a signal.

"We're here because we heard rumors," he explained at last.

"Aren't we all?"

He ignored her bland statement. "There is definitely some kind of terrorist cell operating out of Russia. Supposedly there's a target in Paris that they want. We're here for surveillance— to see if we can get some kind of lock on them, figure out who they are and what their endgame is. No moves have been made yet, but we have assets in key strategic locations around the city. No, I am not telling you where they are."

Natasha could have pressed her cuff against his knee a little harder in order to loosen his tongue, but that wouldn't be necessary. "That's fine. I don't want that, anyway. I want you to bring me in the project."

"Absolutely not," he hissed. "You think I'm an idiot?"

"You don't want me to answer that question."

Constantine leaned back in his seat, looking less angry and more bemused. "You think you're the best now, Romanoff? Every person in every corner in the world knows every dirty little secret you've ever had, and no matter how good you think you are, that makes you almost useless. You can saunter around Europe and pretend you're invincible, but if you know what's good for you you'd better take that cocky attitude down a notch."

"I could pretend to be unnerved by your little hissy fit, if you want," Natasha offered. "Problem is, I have the one bit of proof that I need to refute that statement."

"Enlighten me, please," he sneered, echoing one of the congressmen at her hearing.

This time, Natasha did press her cuff into his knee a bit harder. "I'm alive. So you can do me this one favor and we'll call it even from the time I saved your skin— even though we're really not— or I could leave you at this table acting out all of the symptoms of a heart attack. You're about the right age for it."

Constantine turned ashen as she revealed the full extent of her threat. Being dead with the knowledge that there would be retribution for said death after the fact was one thing. Being dead with the knowledge that the culprit would get away with it was something else. Natasha flashed her cold smile; it was quickly becoming her favorite these days.

"Clock's ticking, Constantine," she said.

"Fine," he grunted. "When do you want to start, Widow?"

"Tomorrow. I have some other errands to run, today." She patted his knee as she finally pulled away, her smile widening at his flinch. "We'll rendezvous at the Musee d'Orsay. Bring your top three with you."

She left a generous tip for the waitress, then stood up and headed for the door. The bell tinkled, signaling her exit as she stepped into the rain. She could feel Constantine trying to scorch her with his gaze all the way past the window, until she stepped out of his line of sight.

Her second contact greeted her much more warmly.

"Natalia!" she exclaimed. The tiny old woman pulled her into a hug, even as she lowered the handgun she held in her grip. "So lovely to see you, it's been too long. You have heard about Andrey, yes? Oh, such a shame."

Agnes had a town home and two daughters who took care of her. Both of them nodded cordially at Natasha as she passed them. It did not escape her notice that both of them had guns somewhere on their person. The younger of the two gave Natasha the same evaluating look that she herself was known for, but whether or not she got the answers she was looking for, Natasha didn't know.

Agnes was the widow of a French pirate and terrorist. After Natasha had assassinated him (for S.H.I.E.L.D), she'd helped Agnes go into protective custody. For some reason Agnes was very fond of the woman who had put a bullet through her husband's skull (she never would tell Natasha why), and she was also very good at keeping in contact with her husband's 'friends'. It paid to have information, Agnes claimed, and Natasha was inclined to agree.

"Yes, yes," she said, once she and Natasha had sat down with cups of tea and Natasha had opened with her usual questions. "Of course I've heard. Who hasn't? It's all over Europe, and I suspect in the United States as well. Even Hydra's on edge. Why is your hair blond like that, anyway? Always did like the red."

Well. Agnes didn't know about Natasha burning away all her masks, then. She knew she probably looked strange, with her now-blond curls piled on top of her head.

"No confirmations, though," Natasha said.

"No," sighed Agnes. "They'd have to do something very dramatic in order for that to be the case. If it's all true, then they're being very careful about it. Planting the seed of fear, keeping everyone unstable by refusing to confirm it. Including, it seems, you, my dear."

"I have my reasons."

"Is it personal? Personal is a mistake, Natalia."

Is it personal when you have no choice?

"No, no, of course not," she said, smiling cordially. "I'm doing a favor for a friend."

That could have meant anybody, really, but Agnes nodded, appearing to buy it.

"There are whispers," she said, lowering her voice. "That perhaps something might be happening here."

Now there was a surprise: a chance that Constantine's intel might have been right, for once. Natasha listened while Agnes recounted everything she'd heard on the matter: there was going to be a bombing, someone was going to be shot in front of the Obelisk, the metro system was going to be abruptly shut down. Natasha wondered if it was opening night for these people.

Agnes fell silent.

"Sounds like this is where I need to be, then," Natasha said at last.

"Hmm." Agnes smiled at something behind Natasha, and she turned around to see the younger of Agnes' daughters staring at her. She knew that look all too well; it seemed that, while Agnes had no idea that Natasha was compromised, her daughter had more of a clue.

"I should get going," she lied smoothly. She was in no hurry, but the daughter looked like she wanted nothing more than to shoot her brains out. She probably wouldn't be able to, but Natasha didn't really want to have a shootout in Agnes' home.

She went to a store on the other side of the city in order to buy a burner phone, then placed a quick phone call to May, informing her that the package she'd offered up back in Madrid was no longer useful, though if Coulson had any use for cadavers he was welcome to it.

"He's a little preoccupied at the moment," Melinda replied, "but thanks for the offer."

"Have any of the new recruits offered you coffee, yet?"

(Clint had apparently done that, when he first started training at S.H.I.E.L.D. He claimed he was still traumatized by the experience.)

"Many of them died the other day," May stated flatly. "We could use your help around here."

"I'm busy. Ask Barton."

May went silent after that, so Natasha let out a long sigh. "He still doesn't know, does he?"

"He seems content enough to be doing the occasional Avengers gig. Phil doesn't want to bother him."

"Morse is on the team now, isn't she?"

"I like her."

Natasha pinched the bridge of her nose. Coulson's team was trying to hold the new S.H.I.E.L.D. together, and Natasha appreciated that, but she also knew that it was like trying to swim upriver. There were still a disturbing number of active Hydra cells out there, many of them centered in the US— which was where, of course, Coulson's team also happened to be centered.

"Her ex-husband is on the team as well."

Even better.

"Clint's happy enough Avenging," Natasha conceded. "He occasionally helps out Steve when he's looking for the Winter Soldier, so he's not too bored. Sometimes he disappears from the tower for a few days and comes back and acts like he's really cool because no one noticed, but he's been going to dismantle the weaker Hydra cells." Or visiting his wife.

"Sounds like a vacation."

"Take care, Melinda," Natasha said, and meant it.

She hung up and threw the burner phone in a gutter.

Triskelion, Washington DC, 2009

"I like my padded cell," Natasha said conversationally. "It's cozy."

Clint didn't smile.

The walls were white, the sheets were white, and Natasha's horrible hospital clothes were white. Then there was her hair, like a blood stain on the wall, and the gleaming silver of her handcuffs. There was a faint outline of rouge on the edges, where her skin chafed against them. Clint sat in a chair beside her bed, his dark uniform an even more glaring contrast than her hair.

"Nat."

"Clint," she said. "If I take this seriously, that makes it real."

"It is real," he replied. "It happened. For the first time in over two years, you had a goddamn flashback. I thought maybe you'd be more adult about it and agree to talk to the therapists, like Fury wants you to. You know he isn't going to let you back on active duty until you do."

Natasha laid her head back against the headboard. Breathed.

"Has nobody told you what happened yet?" Now he was pushing her. He knew what it would do. "You don't remember waking up from passing out from blood loss, speaking in Russian. You don't remember screaming some woman's name, over and over, like you were possessed. You don't remember almost knifing down a couple of terrified medics, and then looking me in the eye and saying that death had marked me."

Natasha didn't remember any of it.

"Well I do threaten to kill you on a daily basis."

Clint let out a shaky, frustrated sigh. "You know what, just— fuck it. I'm outta here."

He wasn't really. He came back a few hours later and began what he later called 'the most epic staring contest outside the one Fury and Coulson had when I first brought you back'. Natasha didn't give an inch, and after three hours he sighed.

"Alright," he breathed. "Alright."

Natasha nodded at him once, then opened the book he'd brought her. She didn't like Jane Eyre, but she'd asked for it anyway. It was something close to a reminder.

He was half asleep, face pressed into her thigh, when she spoke.

"I know I'll eventually have to go talk to the psychiatrists. I'll go insane if Fury doesn't give me work."

Clint turned his eyes up to her, but he didn't say anything.

"It's not for the reasons you think," she admitted. "I'm not ashamed of losing myself. I've accepted that it's going to be a possibility for the rest of my life. So what happened, happened. There's nothing I can do to about it now.

"It was the memory, Clint." And for the first time in her life, Natasha couldn't keep the wistfulness out of her voice. She couldn't stop herself from showing an emotion, even if that emotion was desire (did that really count as an emotion? Natasha was hardly an expert on the subject. Sometimes it was remarkable how much of a child she still was). "It was a memory that isn't in any of the files, that wasn't driven into my skull with a proverbial drill. It was mine."

Mine. There was so little in her life that she could apply that description to. And the worst part was that it was gone again— slipping through her fingers like water. Would she ever have anything for herself?

"Okay," was all Clint said. "So tell them that, and then hope to hell they don't make you explain what the memory was."

They probably would. Natasha knew that. It was the reason she had been so reluctant.

"Tell Coulson I'll submit to analysis tomorrow."

"Can do."

It was a day for firsts, it seemed. Natasha went into the depths of her mind, where everything was catalogued and quantified, and stuck a new label over her mental file of Clint Barton:

Friend.