Sam and Wanda were sprinting back towards the north end of the complex when a deep, basso rumble stopped them in their tracks. They exchanged a worried glance with one another.
"What was that?" Wanda asked apprehensively.
"I don't know," Sam answered, and the moment he said it, the ground beneath them shuddered violently for three or four seconds, then went still.
Wanda's eyes were wide with fright. "Earthquake?"
Sam had a different suspicion - but one that worried him even more. "I don't think so."
"Then what -"
"I'm going to check something out," Sam declared, extending the wings on his flight jacket. "Stay here. I'll be right back."
"Let me come with you," Wanda pleaded.
"Don't argue with me, recruit," Sam barked, and he seemed genuinely angry. "You stay put!"
Wanda desperately wanted to go with him, but she understood that she needed to follow orders, so against her wishes, she remained on the ground, hugging herself with worry, as Sam soared into the air.
It only took Sam a few moments to reach a high enough altitude to see the true symptom of the problem. The cooling towers at the southeast corner of the complex were venting enormous amounts of steam - nothing remotely close to normal outputs. Worse, steam was also venting, under high pressure, from foundational cracks at the base of each tower.
"Oh, shit," Sam muttered under his breath, then touched his communicator. "Tasha, we got ourselves a situation!"
"Was that what I think it was, Sam?"
"Looks like the reactor is running critical!"
Down in the Quonset hut, Natasha, Maria, Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis exchanged terrified looks with each other.
"Do any of these monitors show reactor output?" Natasha asked Jane.
"Yes, over here." The entire side wall of the hut was taken up with monitors of different types. Jane pointed out the display. "This one reports on reactor functions. But I'm sorry, I don't know how to read it, or how any of it works."
Maria slid into the chair next to the monitor and tapped in a few short strokes at the keyboard.
"Can you read this thing?" Natasha asked.
Maria didn't reply immediately, she was obviously completely focused on viewing the readouts and assessing them. A moment later she looked up at Natasha, her face very pale.
"The cooling system is not compensating for the increased power output," she reported.
"Can you fix it?"
"Not from here. This is just a workstation for monitoring the system. There's no control access. That will only be available inside the reactor facility itself."
"That's gonna be a problem," Sam's voice crackled over the radio. "We already tried to get in there. All the blast doors are shut."
"Even if we could get in there, it wouldn't make any difference," Maria pointed to the screens. "If we had more time, maybe I could figure something out. But if these displays are correct, the instability actually started several hours ago, probably when the first wormhole was opened, and no one noticed it or corrected for it then. The reactor is going to go critical less than two minutes after the next wormhole opens." She swallowed hard. "Natasha, we do NOT want to be here when that happens."
Natasha turned to Jane. "Are there any technicians inside the plant?"
"I don't know," she answered. "I don't think so. I kind of got the impression that HYDRA found this place abandoned and just took over."
"There's probably no one inside," Maria surmised. "The reactor can self-regulate, up to a point. My guess is, it was running at nominal output and was perfectly stable, until these HYDRA goons showed up and started running all their stupid wormhole experiments."
"Doctor Foster, you're sure there's absolutely no way to terminate the wormhole program?"
"No," Jane groaned in dismay. "The system is already drawing power to generate the event horizon, and the parameters -"
She broke off suddenly, as if a sudden inspiration had occurred to her; then she dashed back to her original workstation and began pounding the keys frantically.
"What are you doing?" Natasha asked, not wanting to interrupt, but needing to.
"I can't prevent the wormhole from being created, but maybe I can adjust its parameters, set it to a shorter distance, or have it open in different location," Foster answered, not taking her eyes off the display. "Make the energy demands smaller. Buy us some time."
"I don't know, maybe we should just leave it," Maria suggested to Natasha.
"Are you serious?" Natasha asked, aghast.
"Sure, why not send a nuclear bomb right to Thanos' doorstep?"
Darcy Lewis spoke up for the first time. "The instability won't last long enough," she said softly. "The wormhole will collapse several seconds before the nuclear material can reach full detonation." She looked very pale and stricken, and her dark eyes were red and swollen from crying.
A glimmer of an idea occurred to Natasha. "What happens if the wormhole stays in local space-time?"
"I'm not sure," Darcy answered. "The wormhole would be more stable, would last a few seconds longer, I guess."
"What are you thinking? Rip this whole reactor complex out of the ground, and chuck it at the moon?" Maria asked Natasha.
"We can't do that," Jane Foster answered for her, still frantically typing away at the keyboard. "If we create a wormhole where the other end opens in the hard vacuum of space, we'll all get sucked through with it."
"What if we point it downward?" Natasha asked Jane. "Into the earth?"
Jane Foster paused for a moment, and looked up at Natasha incredulously. "You want to bury the complex?"
"We don't have time to get clear," Natasha said grimly. "I'd rather take my chances on a reactor meltdown that takes place several miles underground, than one that takes place on the surface right next to us."
"We can't do that."
"Why not?"
"The dish outside, it provides the directional signal," Jane protested. "The swivels and mounts that position the dish aren't designed to point it anywhere near the ground. That's part of the design."
"There's no angular cutout? You can't override?"
"No, no, it's a physical locking mechanism, probably something in the rotors of the drive assembly," Jane answered. "You'd have to disconnect the dish from its base in order to point it at the ground."
Natasha touched her communicator. "Sam, Wanda, that parabolic dish outside, we need it pointing at the ground, and we need that in the next sixty seconds."
"Oh, is that all?" Sam retorted. "I thought you wanted us to do something difficult!" The static on the radio suggested he was already in a steep dive towards the dish.
"If there are any control cables that connect the dish to this hut, leave those intact. And don't damage the dish itself. But tear out anything that keeps it pointed at the sky. And then look for us by the north perimeter fence. I need you to fly Doctor Foster and Miss Lewis out of here, as far and as fast as you can."
"Natasha, if Sam can carry Jane and Darcy, I can carry you and Maria," Wanda's voice broke in.
Natasha didn't dare let herself feel relieved. Not yet. "Thanks, Wanda. Get to the dish. Hurry."
"Copy that," Wanda replied.
"I still have to program the dish for a manual override," Jane Foster said breathlessly. "Make the signal follow to wherever the antenna is pointing."
"How long will that take?"
Foster didn't answer, she was typing away furiously at the keyboard again. "Yes, I know the command is outside the recommended safety parameters!" She yelled at the screen. "Override! You stupid piece of junk!"
Outside, Sam did a quick inspection loop around the parabolic dish before landing beside Wanda. Although the dish and its base had been assembled in great haste, it was still a massive structure, some fifty meters across, and weighing several thousand kilos at least.
"How the hell are we supposed to move something like this?" Sam groaned in dismay.
Wanda was already focusing her mystical energy on the strut mounts that held the drive assembly in place. The mechanism looked like a gear from some gargantuan wristwatch. A ruby-red glow emanating from Wanda's hands surrounded the closest bar. With a loud grunt of exertion, Wanda pried the first strut bar off the assembly, and with a musical ping, it went sailing off into the darkness.
"We should be able to tip it over," she gasped for breath, "Once I remove all these bars."
She pointed at some heavy chains laying in a heap on the ground nearby. Apparently the chains had been discarded from whatever towing vehicle had been used to secure the dish while en route to its current location.
"Wrap that chain around the antenna," Wanda suggested. "You can pull while I push."
Sam looked up at the slender metal rods in the middle of the dish. They didn't look especially sturdy. "You sure?" he said dubiously. "That's not exactly a load bearing structure up there."
"Doesn't need to be," Wanda panted, prying off another bar. "We just need to tip it over. Gravity will do the rest. Hurry, Sam!"
Sam grabbed the first few links of chain and lugged them into his arms. Each link was an incredibly heavy piece of iron and nickel, slightly larger than his hand. "Oh, damn," he muttered to himself. "This is gonna hurt."
He wrapped a few links around his arms as best he could, and let the bulk of the chains drape over his shoulders. He then set his flight suit thrusters at maximum. He lifted slowly off the ground, but both Sam and his suit were visibly straining against the weight.
"Come on, come on, you can do this," Sam grimaced, not sure if he was talking to himself or the jet pack. "This is nothing. We still have to rescue two civilians after this."
After a few moments, he reached the antenna array in the center of the dish. Grunting with effort, he looped the heavy links around the metal bars as best he could.
"Wanda, you ready?" Sam yelled over his communicator.
"Hang on," Wanda yelled back, and Sam could hear the young woman grunting with exertion over the radio as she forcibly disassembled the dish's structural supports. The dish began to wobble.
"Whoa," Sam yelped in alarm, and fell back a short distance, still hanging onto the chain.
"Okay, Sam, go!" Wanda yelled.
Sam wrapped the chain around both arms, gripping the oversized links in his hands as best he could. He once again set the thrusters at maximum and pulled as hard as he could, yelling at the top of his lungs.
From somewhere below him, Sam could see the bottom of the dish beginning to glow with a soft red light, indicating that Wanda was summoning all the mystical energy at her command to push against the underside of the dish. He didn't even need the radio to hear Wanda screaming with pain and fury. The young woman was clearly pushing herself well beyond any limits she knew. Then, with an almost musical groan, the dish abruptly pitched forward. Sam immediately released the chain and jetted up and away, to keep from being trapped underneath the dish. With an explosive crash, the massive structure shuddered and then keeled over, impacting heavily against the ground.
Sam felt himself on the verge of blacking out, but he couldn't stop now. He still had to get his teammates to safety. He swooped down low, near the base of the collapsed dish.
"Wanda? Wanda?!" he called out urgently.
Wanda waved at him from where she stood on the ground. She was wobbling unsteadily on her feet, but managed to give him a shaky "thumbs up" signal; and a moment later, she used her mystical energy to propel herself back up into the sky. Sam sighed with relief. One of his charges, at least, was safe - for the moment.
They streaked together towards the north perimeter fence. They could see their friends standing nearby, hands in the air. They had abandoned the hut and were awaiting pickup.
"Fifteen seconds!" Natasha yelled as they swooped in.
Sam's foot had hardly touched the ground when he forcibly gathered up Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis, one woman in each arm.
"Sorry about this, ladies," he apologized in advance, and soared off into the sky. Wanda likewise grabbed Natasha and Maria, and though she got them into the air, she barely cleared the fence, and it was obvious she would be unable to carry their combined weight for more than a few meters at most.
Seconds later, there was a blinding flash behind them. The event horizon was opening on the reactor site.
"Go, go, go!" Natasha shrieked at the top of her lungs, but the command was hardly necessary.
The resulting atmospheric disturbance might as well have been a bomb; the suddenly increased air pressure rolled out like a blast wave, knocking everyone out of the sky and slamming them violently against the ground. The surrounding trees swayed, and some snapped, under the intense pressure. Branches went sailing through the air, crashing into other branches and tree trunks. Natasha was too dazed to protect herself as leaves, seed pods, fragments of bark and chunks of pulverized wood rained down on top of her. For several moments, all she could hear was the roaring of the wind and the snapping of trees. Then, suddenly, everything fell silent.
Coughing and gasping for air, Natasha pushed herself upright on one elbow, and practically had to dig herself out from under a fairly impressive layer of debris that covered her. For the moment, there was too much dust in the air to see clearly.
"Wanda? Sam? Maria? Everyone sound off!" She choked into her communicator.
"Still with you," Sam gasped, coughing loudly.
"Checking on Foster and Lewis," came Maria's strained voice. "Looks like they're okay. Just stunned."
"Wanda?" Natasha called out frantically. "Wanda, can you hear me?"
After a moment, the young woman's voice crackled over the radio. "Here," she answered weakly, choking and gasping. "I'm here."
Natasha closed her eyes, offering up a silent prayer of thanksgiving. "Are you okay?"
"Think so," Wanda groaned, and she began coughing violently to expel the dust from her lungs.
Natasha crumpled to the ground, weeping with relief.
A few moments later, Natasha and her friends had gathered together in a small clearing. The dust was still thick in the air, and it was pitch black - no lights could be seen anywhere from the reactor complex. Evidently the wormhole had collapsed, but there wasn't yet any indication of the level of destruction left in its wake. By some miracle, no one had been seriously injured. As Natasha looked around at all the downed tree limbs immediately around them, she could only give thanks once again that they had all somehow been spared. But they still needed to see what was happening at the reactor site.
"Sam?"
"On it."
Sam reached into his gear bag and removed something that looked like an oversized baseball. He tossed it up into the air. The sphere began to hover in mid-air, suspended by its own antigrav system, and emitting a soft but penetrating light over the ground.
"Oh, my God," Maria murmured in awe.
The reactor complex, the cooling towers, the parabolic dish, the Quonset huts, even the perimeter fence - everything was gone. In its place was a shallow, circular crater, perhaps two or three kilometers wide and several meters deep. The crater ran up to the very edge of the forest. Natasha was suddenly, acutely aware of how silent the night was.
"Damn," Sam swore softly, words failing him. "That's just ... damn."
Natasha touched her communicator. "Sandy, can you hear me?"
Sandy's soft voice responded immediately. "I am online, Natasha. I have detected an abnormal spatial-temporal event near your location. Is everyone all right?"
"We're fine," Natasha assured her. "By any chance, do you happen to have an onboard Geiger counter?"
"I do."
"Can you please scan this immediate area for any signs of above-normal radiation. And if you have any way to check for subterranean explosions, please do that too."
"Scanning now." There was a pause of several seconds. "There is some residual radiation in your area, probably left over from the normal output of the nuclear reactor. There is nothing in the danger level," Sandy reported. "If there have been any explosions underground, they have taken place past the limits of my sensors."
"Okay. Thanks." Natasha allowed herself to breathe. "Can you please lock in on my signal, and come pick us up?"
"I'm on my way."
Maria Hill shook her head in amazement. "We did it," she said to no one in particular, still not entirely sure she believed it herself.
Darcy Lewis stared out at the huge crater, her whole body visibly trembling. "This is all my fault," she blubbered.
Jane Foster encircled Darcy's face in her slender hands.
"Darcy. Darcy, look at me," she ordered gently. Darcy did as she was told, huge tears spilling down her dirty cheeks.
"This is not your fault," Jane admonished her. "You understand? You are not responsible for this man's evil. And you do not have to answer for it, not to me, not to anyone. All the harm he caused is on him, and only him. You are not to blame yourself for this. Ever. Okay?"
Darcy nodded tearfully. "Okay."
Jane pulled Darcy close and hugged her tightly, hot tears spilling down her own cheeks. "I love you so much," she murmured softly. "And I just thank God I didn't lose you, too."
The two women huddled together, openly weeping. Wanda looked at them in dismay.
"It's all right," Natasha murmured in Wanda's ear. "They just got out of a hostage situation. Let them process. They'll be fine."
Her adrenaline rush now completely spent, Natasha wearily sat down on the ground at the edge of the crater. Wanda collapsed in a heap beside her. They stared out over the churned-up, barren soil in stupefied awe. The scale of the destruction was almost incomprehensible. Another ulcer laid in the skin of the Earth, by the stupidity of man, Natasha thought bitterly.
"All those people..." Wanda murmured sadly. "They were bad people. But nobody should die like that. Nobody."
"Wanda, don't go there," Natasha warned her. "Don't even think about it. Like Foster said. It's on them."
She looked over at Sam. "So, how did our recruit do today?" she asked.
Sam's exhausted face warmed with a subdued smile, and he nodded solemnly at Wanda. "She did good," he answered, and he wasn't lying.
Wanda snuggled close to Natasha, laid her head against her breast and closed her eyes. Natasha put a protective arm around the younger woman and hugged her tightly. She looked back over at Sam and Maria and smiled. They were, like her, covered in grime and dirt, with a fresh batch of scrapes, scratches, cuts and bruises. They were exhausted and battered. But they were alive, and smiling wearily back at her. Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis had been rescued, and HYDRA's plans had been thwarted. And everyone was going to go home safe. The mission was a success. Natasha hugged Wanda again, more fiercely than before.
"I love you very much, Wanda Maximoff, did you know that?" she murmured softly in the girl's ear.
"Not half as much as I love you," Wanda retorted, almost petulantly.
Natasha grinned in the dim light. That's my Scarlet Witch, she thought to herself.
In the distance, they could hear the soft throbbing pulse of Sandy's engines. She was preparing to land in the clearing a few meters away. Wanda struggled upright, and gave Natasha a plaintive look. "Can we please go home now?"
Natasha laughed softly, more from relief than anything else. "Yes," she murmured, leaving an affectionate kiss on Wanda's dirt-smudged forehead. "We can go home now."
Three weeks had passed, and true to his word, Nick Fury opened up his home in New York to all his friends and former colleagues, throwing a party to celebrate the success of Natasha and her new team. Jane, Darcy and Erik Selvig had flown in from Geneva not only to attend the festivities, but to once again profusely thank each of their rescuers. Selvig hugged Natasha and Maria in turn, nearly overcome with emotion.
"There's no way I can ever thank you enough, for what you've done," the old man said quietly.
"It was our pleasure, Erik," Natasha assured him. "And thanks for calling us, when you needed help."
"You brought my family back to me," Selvig declared, with great solemnity and utmost sincerity. "I'm forever in your debt."
"You don't owe us anything," Maria promised, and smiled warmly at him. "You look upon Jane and Darcy as your kids, huh?"
"In any way that matters, they are my daughters," he said simply. "They are my life. Thank you." He placed a hand over his heart in a gesture of inexpressible gratitude, then wandered off to find himself another glass of beer.
With a smile, Natasha nudged Maria, and tilted her head, indicating she should look across the room. On the opposite side of the living room, Darcy Lewis was clinging to Sam Wilson like a limpet, and Sam was clearly embarrassed by the display. Jane Foster was standing to one side, pleading for decorum.
"Darcy, please, I think you've let Sam know how grateful you are," she admonished in a low voice.
"Oh, come on, Jane," Darcy protested. "All the guys I know are so... blobby. All the guys you know are rock hard. With muscles. Lots and lots of muscles," she sighed happily, pressing her cheek against Sam's chest.
"Yes, well, why don't you use some of your muscles, and go over to the bar and get us another round of drinks?" Jane suggested none-too-subtly.
Darcy understood she was getting close to crossing a line, so she relented, albeit reluctantly. "Okay, okay," she grinned. "I can take a hint. Anyway, thanks for everything, Sam."
"Don't mention it," Sam smiled back.
Jane Foster shook her head sadly as she watched her best friend walk away.
"I'm so sorry about that,"Jane apologized to Sam, almost cringing with embarrassment. "I love Darcy with all my heart. But I do wish she came equipped with more of a filter at times."
Sam chuckled softly. "Nahh, she's cool," he assured her. "Y'all have been through a lot."
"No, actually, Darcy's pretty much like that all the time, even when she's not busy being kidnapped."
"Oh."
"Thank you," Jane said softly, staring up into Sam's face, her eyes shining. "For saving our lives. For... well, for everything, really."
Sam felt utterly humbled at Jane's sincere expression of gratitude. "You're very welcome," he managed to reply.
Shyly, Jane pushed herself up on tiptoe, and left a kiss on Sam's cheek. "See you around, Sam. I'll be sure to tell Thor all about your good deeds, the next time I see him."
Sam nodded solemnly. "I hope you find him soon."
Jane Foster smiled sadly. "So do I."
Over on the long couch, Wanda and Nick Fury were sitting side-by-side, excitedly telling each other jokes and stories, and laughing so hard that actual tears were rolling down their cheeks. Natasha and Maria watched them for a moment, utterly bemused by the strange relationship between the two. Maria considered her almost empty wine glass, and turned to Natasha.
"I need a refill," she suggested, and the two of them retreated to the relative quiet of the kitchen, where all the party liquor had been spread out along the sideboard - but, for the moment at least, the space was empty of any guests.
"Can you believe those two?" Maria shook her head incredulously, as she started looking through the wine bottles on the sideboard for an open bottle.
"I know, right?" Natasha grinned. "Every time I see Nick and Wanda together, they're chirping away like a pair of little old ladies. It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen."
"It's a good weird, though."
"Yeah. It's a good weird." Her expression turned wistful. "I'm so glad they're both still here," she confided in a low voice. "I can't imagine carrying on without either of them. I like to pride myself on my Russian stoicism, but this..." her voice faltered. "Losing one person is bad enough. But losing almost everyone I've ever known..." Natasha had to stop herself. If she said anything more, she would start crying again. And she was so sick of crying.
Maria's wandering hand paused over the tops of the wine bottles. "But this was different," she suggested quietly.
"Yeah," Natasha agreed sadly. "This was different." She sighed heavily, blinking back unwanted tears. "God, I wish Steve was still here."
"I miss Steve," Maria said forthrightly. "I miss his goodness, his decency..." she paused for a moment, silently evaluating the extent of her own losses. "He wasn't just our leader. He was our moral compass."
Natasha allowed herself a somber smile. "Well, Steve had a pretty simple calculus. Do what's right. Sometimes I think his real superpower was always knowing the right thing to do. It's not that easy for me. I get confused sometimes."
"It wasn't always that easy for Steve either, Natasha."
"I know. But he sure made it look easy."
Natasha paused for a moment, wanting to broach the topic of a new team with Maria, and suddenly overcome with an uncharacteristic shyness. "Listen... I want to ask you something," she said haltingly. "Before we left for Geneva, Fury suggested that maybe we should consider putting together a new response team. A permanent team."
"What, a new Avengers team?" Maria raised an eyebrow.
"Or its replacement. Yeah. And I was wondering... if you might be interested in joining."
Maria set her wine glass down on the sideboard and gave Natasha her full attention. "Tell me what you're thinking."
"I don't really have a plan yet," Natasha confessed. "But I do know what I don't want. I don't want somebody to follow me around with a clipboard and read intel to me. I need someone who is going to lead the team as much as I do. Someone who pulls just as much weight, and can take charge whenever needed. Someone who has as much responsibility for the team as me. I want a full partner."
"Okay," Maria nodded thoughtfully. "Sounds pretty good so far."
"What you said on the way to Geneva made a lot of sense to me. Maybe we don't have a Thor, or a Hulk, a Captain America or even an Iron Man to stand beside us. But there are still plenty of bad guys out there that need to be stopped. And there should always be someone out there, to protect the innocent, and defend the powerless from the abuses of the powerful." She paused. "Maybe that someone should be us."
Maria cast her eyes downward for a moment, carefully considering her reply. "I killed four men by my own hand on this mission," she said quietly. "Well, four, for certain. Maybe five." She looked up again with a rueful smile. "When I first went to work for S.H.I.E.L.D., I knew there was a good chance I might have to put my life on the line. I also knew there was a good chance that I might have to end someone else's life. Maybe a lot of someones. And the only way I could do that, and still have a clear conscience, was to believe - truly believe - in the rightness of the mission. We did the right thing in Sokovia. God only knows how much damage that HYDRA cell could have caused. It didn't matter if they found a way to reach Thanos or not. They were going to hurt people either way. They had to be stopped." Her somber expression grew even darker. "But I have to count the faces of all my kills when I go to bed at night," she declared sadly. "And I can only sleep well, if I know in my head and my heart that it was the right thing to do."
Natasha nodded sympathetically. "Well, for whatever this is worth, we are not going to be reporting to any government, any corporation, or any other entity," she vowed solemnly. "We're not putting this team together to protect any military, political or financial interests. The only missions we accept are the ones we choose ourselves. And everything that happens after that is entirely on us. Total autonomy. Total responsibility."
Maria mulled that over for a long moment.
"Okay," she answered with a subdued smile. "That works for me. I'm in."
She offered Natasha her hand, and Natasha clasped it warmly.
"Mind you, I still have to sort out all the details," Natasha warned. "I'm kind of semi-unemployed these days myself, so I'm not exactly sure how we're going to pay for all this."
"Maybe I can help with that," said a voice.
Natasha and Maria turned to see Pepper Stark grinning at them.
"Pepper!" Natasha exclaimed joyfully, pulling the woman to her in a close hug. "You made it!"
"Hey, a party at Nick Fury's house? That's a once-in-a-lifetime thing, right? How could I miss it?"
"Is Tony here with you?" Maria asked shyly.
Pepper answered with a sad smile. "He would love this," she admitted. "But - he's not ready yet. Crowds and noise are still a bit much for him. Next time," she promised.
"Absolutely," Maria agreed. "It's good to see you, Pepper."
"I overheard part of your conversation when I came in. Okay. I was kind of spying," Pepper admitted with a rueful smile. "Anyway, Tony was happy to bankroll the original Avengers. And I would be more than happy to continue that tradition for the new team."
"Well, we're not exactly the Avengers any more," Natasha cautioned.
"Wanda has christened us the 'Black Widows'," Maria grinned.
Pepper nodded. "Well, that's kind of a badass name, right? Look. I don't care what you want to call yourselves. And just to be clear, I won't consider you the private army on loan to Stark Enterprises, either. You guys do your own thing. I'll make sure you have whatever you need, and make sure all the bills get paid. And that's up to and including your rent, your groceries and your dry cleaning, if it comes to that."
"Pepper..." Natasha's words faltered as she realized the extent of her friend's generosity. "I don't know how we could possibly thank you."
"You'll be busy saving the world," Pepper said simply. "Making it safe for Tony and me. And Happy. And everyone else. That's more than enough compensation for me." To keep things from getting too somber, she looked down at her hands in mock indignation. "Hey, this is supposed to be a party, right? And there is no glass of wine in my hand. What's wrong with this picture?"
Natasha and Maria both laughed heartily. "That's one problem I think we can fix," Natasha answered.
After finding Pepper a glass of wine, the three women gravitated back towards the living room and the center of the festivities.
"So, how did Sandy work out for you?" Pepper asked Natasha.
Natasha grinned. "She was amazing! I love her! And, ahh, actually, I was kind of hoping we could steal her," she confessed.
Pepper laughed heartily. "She's yours," she declared.
As Pepper began making the rounds greeting everyone, the front doorbell rang.
"Mind getting that?" Nick Fury asked Natasha. "It's for you."
Natasha made a face. "It's your house, boss," she teased him gently.
"That's as maybe," Fury retorted. "Door's still for you."
"Yeah. Whatever." Still grinning, Natasha made her way through the crowded living room to the foyer. When she opened the front door, however, her mouth dropped open in delighted surprise.
"Sharon?" she exclaimed. "Sharon Carter?!"
Sharon Carter stood on the front porch, smiling radiantly at her old friend. "Hello, Natasha. It's been a while."
"Oh, my God, how are you?" Natasha hugged the young blonde woman tightly. "I had no idea Nick invited you to the party!"
"He did, but actually, I'm here to see you," Sharon answered, returning the hug.
"You are?" Natasha was intrigued. "You're a long way from D.C. So what brings you all the way up here to see me?"
Sharon Carter smiled shyly. "Fury says you might be putting together a new response team," she answered.
"Fury says a lot of things," Natasha demurred, but then she gave the young woman an appraising look. "What if I am?"
Sharon was still smiling, but her expression had subtly altered to reflect her steely resolve. "In that case... I want in," she answered simply.
Natasha's face broke out into a wide smile. Fury was notorious for coming up with covert plans and arrangements behind everyone's back. He was a spy, after all. But this was one of his manipulations that Natasha found herself in total agreement with.
"Come inside and meet the Widows," she invited Sharon warmly. "I think we have a lot to talk about."