Ashley stayed true to her word - she actually trained every single day and without argument. Each morning she'd wake up at 7am (in her own bed of course), got showered, refreshed and dressed. She tended to tie back her wavy locks instead of letting them fall loosely, as she found it helped her focus. Once all the prep was done, she would meet whoever was training her that day on that same floor.
Her mentors tended to vary. Most days she'd have Tony and Bruce together; Tony typically helping her find stability with her air jets and coaching her on how to turn her palm fire power into blasters - not totally dissimilar to his Iron Man suits. Bruce, however, was less about the action. He was coaching her on how to control her feelings in more manageable ways. There were now breathing exercises and special trigger words to calm herself down and, after some trial and error, she found that they were incredibly effective. Although Ashley had experienced that nightmare a few times since, she'd managed to shake herself out of it before it got too severe.
Only a few bloody tears and mini fireballs would leave her body now - nowhere near the extent of what they once were - or what they could become. Her father would be proud - if he'd bothered to check in with her, of course.
If for any reason Tony or Bruce weren't available, Ashley would typically train with Clint or Natasha. Clint only agreed to teach her the basics of combat training, still refusing to be the dummy for her powers anymore, whereas Natasha was a lot more willing as long as she was in the suit. She saw a lot of her old self in Ashley, and rather enjoyed being in her presence - and Ashley felt the same.
Things were starting to fall into place reasonably well for the past couple of months - aside from Steve. Steve was the only part of Ashley's life that she wished she had more stability in, and that genuinely annoyed her because she rarely saw him nowadays. He was constantly back and forth between Washington and Manhattan, and it meant that those rare moments that they shared together were all the more special.
For her, anyway.
Fury had been rather generous with the mission assignments, too. Plenty of them had arose, but he didn't assign any to Ashley so she could focus on training - but Ashley found herself growing restless. She just wanted to get out there and do something. Her confidence levels had boosted and now, it was the real bad guys that she wanted to start getting, not just the holographic 4D simulations that Tony had allowed her to destroy. So Fury finally agreed to send her on one mission in particular, but with Natasha - and Ashley was more than happy with it.
So we join her on the evening of the mission, where Ashley had finished dressing herself in her new black spandex suit. She zipped it up and quickly made her way to the tower's landing pad where she knew there was a ride waiting for her. She saluted her pilot and slid into her seat, strapped herself in and silently prayed that the night would go smoothly.
Meanwhile, Natasha stepped into one of S.H.I.E.L.D's bases with Steve after having completed a random mission on a boat the day before. On arrival she noticed none other than Christie sitting in a room with Fury, discussing something intently, both of them leaning towards each other with intense looks on their faces. But as soon as Fury glanced up and saw Natasha staring over at them, the conversation appeared to quickly change, causing Natasha's eyes to narrow suspiciously. She decided to leave Steve behind and speedily make her way over to them instead. "Evening," she nodded to Christie, who gave her the tiniest of nods back. Things were never great between them, being the only two assassins and all. "Huh. I like your new hair." Christie frowned, only just remembering that her hair was no longer white, but jet black.
"Thank you," she responded blandly, giving her the most forced smile before standing up. She turned her back to Natasha to face Fury again. "Just think about what I said," were her only words – then she silently sauntered off. Natasha kept a firm eye on her as she watched her leave before slamming herself down in that same seat.
"What were you guys whispering about?" she asked immediately.
"That doesn't concern you, Romanoff," Fury gave her the bluntest of replies.
"I don't trust her, Fury. She's been off since she came back from Asgard the second time and I think you should be watching her," Natasha retorted, the concern clouding in her eyes.
"I'll try and remember that. Try not to lose sleep over it," was Fury's slightly sarcastic response, before getting up and dismissing himself.
Technically, Natasha was right not to trust Christie - but he couldn't exactly confirm that, could he?
As he left, Ashley was being led into the base by a gang of overeager male agents. Clearly the tight catsuit was doing things for them, because anyone that hadn't seen her curves already were certainly seeing them today. They'd behaved similarly when Natasha had first been introduced to S.H.I.E.L.D - but Ashley looked rather bored of the attention.
Not one of them amounted to the man she had her eye on.
"Thank you, gentlemen," she told them loudly once she had finally approached Natasha. "You may now disperse!" Natasha ducked her head to stifle her giggles.
"Don't forget - anything you need, Agent," one of the men humbly bowed his head in a servant-like manner, "anything at all."
"Yeah, cheers Simon," Ashley rolled her eyes at their blatant persistence before taking a few steps back, giving them all the opportunity to walk away. She turned to Natasha with wide eyes of disbelief once they'd left her alone. "Why are they so thirsty?!"
"There aren't many powerful women on the frontline," Natasha replied with a smirk, watching Ashley take a seat opposite her with a sigh. "I guess it's a turn on or something. I used to experience the same thing."
"You did?" Ashley frowned, leaning on her palm. Natasha nodded in response, a smile playing on her pouted lips. "How did ya manage to get 'em off you?"
"They literally call me the Black Widow, Ashley," Natasha blinked with a playful sigh, flicking her hair back dramatically, "do you know what those spiders do to their men? Google it!" Ashley giggled and shook her head, tutting at her.
"Got it," she smirked back. But before Natasha could reply, Ashley noticed her eyes light up. She was looking at something behind her.
"Hey! Come to join us?" she smirked at whoever it was with dancing eyes. Ashley casually glanced over her shoulder and was totally surprised to see that it was the one person she'd been looking forward to seeing the most.
Steve.
He waltzed in, still dressed in his Captain America gear, which made Ashley's heart race. He looked delicious - but what else was new?
"Ladies," he greeted them politely. "Not staying long. I just witnessed Ashley be escorted by a host of men - I just wanted to make sure she was okay. They can be a little dog-like," Steve explained shortly, shooting Ashley a friendly smile. She returned it confidently - she was clearly getting better at presenting herself in front of him.
"Huh. Jealous, Cap?" Natasha hummed, her perfectly shapen brows risen cheekily. Ashley nearly lost all composure, spluttering at her words.
"Natasha!" she hissed in annoyance as her eyes widened. "I swear if it's not Barton's annoying ass, it's yours!" She turned back to Steve, expecting him to be blushing as he usually did, but was a little taken aback to see his eyes flutter over her body in the quickest and most indiscreet-yet-discreet way possible. Natasha sucked her cheeks in so that she didn't start laughing out loud and embarrass him, but Ashley couldn't help herself.
"Steve, you are so pure," she had to giggle. "You can check me out normally, you know. Ninety-five percent of the comms room just did and disguised it by 'escorting' me from the landing pad 30 seconds away." Steve's cheeks flushed a brilliant embarrassed red and he dragged his eyes from hers.
"I…I didn't m-mean to…uh…" For once, Steve was actually lost for words. Natasha watched him squirm under the pressure and didn't know whether to cringe or coo over it.
So she decided to save him instead.
"Cap's way too polite. He'd never be caught gawking like those other guys…isn't that a good thing, Ashley?" she piped up as she leant on the palm of her hand.
"Oh, absolutely!" Ashley pouted, reaching up to gently rub his bulked up tricep. "Steve, never think you're weird for keeping your charming 1940s ways alive in the year 2014!"
"Oh my god, I was telling him the same thing just last night! Don't you think it's time for him to find a nice lil' lady friend?" Natasha frowned, trying so hard to bite back the smirk. Ashley's eyebrows suddenly shot up and her lips parted slightly as she tried to find the appropriate response.
Natasha noticed her hesitance and decided to push her a little.
"I mean, Steve says he's too busy-"
"Too busy?" Ashley's head snapped over to frown at Steve again. "Steve, why are you 'too busy'?"
"Well…women require a lot of attention," Steve explained a little awkwardly, finally sitting down on the only chair available. "And right now…my attention is everywhere. It wouldn't be fair on…whoever she is…to have divided attention." Natasha shot a knowing look over at Ashley who rolled her eyes in return, only just clocking onto why she'd even bring this up in the first place.
"I see," she gave Steve an understanding nod, ignoring Natasha's little smirks on the side. "I mean, I respect that. Giving your partner undivided attention is important and your work schedule makes it difficult - sounds perfectly logical to me."
"Unless your partner was in the same field of work as you, of course," Natasha piped up again, causing Ashley's mouth to drop open. She was being so blatantly obvious that it had stunned her to silence.
"Natasha," she finally growled again through gritted teeth, shooting her a warning look.
"Nat," Steve muttered at the exact same time with a heavy sigh, "I don't wanna ask a S.H.I.E.L.D agent out, for the last time."
"Who said it had to be just any agent-" Natasha tutted - but luckily, before she could completely expose Ashley, Maria Hill had burst through the doors with a number of case files in her arms.
"Cap?" she frowned once she lay eyes on him. "Are…are you on this mission too? God, have I screwed up somewhere-"
"No Miss Hill," Steve declined with a smile before leaping to his feet. "I was on my way to see Fury when I, uh, got a little…distracted here." Maria let out a little chuckle and gestured to the women still seated.
"By two wonderful women? I'm not surprised," she shrugged playfully. "Alright ladies, if you're ready, we'll go and get you dropped off at the location. I'll run through all the details on the plane."
"Copy that," Natasha nodded, hopping from her seat as well. Ashley smirked to herself for a split second before placing her hands on her thighs and slowly standing up, flicking her head back so that her bouncing auburn curls cascaded loosely down her back. Her chest protruded out as she stood up and gave an extremely long stretch, arms reaching behind her back so that all her curves were on show. Natasha bit down on both her lips and Maria covered her face with the files to prevent the laughter from emitting at the look of pure awe on Steve's face.
If he were a cartoon, he'd be drooling.
"Ready! Bye, Steve!" Ashley beamed suddenly, standing up straight and wiggling her fingers at him, before spinning on her heel and skipping over to join Natasha and Maria who had already started to leave. Steve opened his mouth to respond but found the words too dry to come out. "You are the absolute worst, by the way," Ashley hissed to Natasha irritably as they walked off together.
"Me? As if I totally missed the body rolling trick you just performed on the poor guy," Natasha grinned back quietly, making Ashley give a shy giggle back.
"Is he still watching me leave?" she just had to ask before they left the room completely.
"Oh Ashley," Natasha rolled her eyes without evening looking back, "of course he is."
…
"Okay, this one's a little different - you have two kids to rescue," Maria laid out the mission plan to them whilst they sat on the jet on the way to their location. "I take it you're aware of the World Security Council?"
"Yup," Natasha sighed.
"No…?" Ashley frowned.
"They're basically overseers of S.H.I.E.L.D, Ashley," Maria quickly filled her in whilst projecting an information hologram in her direction. Ashley chewed on the inside of her cheek as her eyes flickered up and down the hologram, soaking in the information as quickly as she could.
"Damn, so they're super high up," she hummed, swiping the hologram away again. "And somebody managed to take two of their kids? Just like that?" Maria nodded in grim confirmation, projecting yet another hologram over her way. In front of her floated the faces of two young kids; one was a little boy aged two or three, with large doe eyes and the most gorgeous toffee coloured curls - and he was grinning into the lens whilst being held by an eight or nine year old girl with longer curls and very rosy cheeks. She was missing her two front teeth but the bright smile on her pink lips was bright as ever.
They were a pair of gorgeous children.
"Oh my god, they're beautiful," Ashley breathed longingly, spinning the hologram so that Natasha could see as well.
"Mhm. They are cute," Natasha murmured, although she barely looked up from the map.
"Why would anyone kidnap two kids? What do they want?" Ashley frowned to Maria in disgust.
"It's a power thing," Natasha jumped in, causing Ashley's head to snap over in her direction. "They wanna prove they're the big guys. At this point they may not even have an endgame. They just wanna frighten us." Maria nodded in support.
"Agent Romanoff is right. We don't even know what subsection or organisation this is, we can't seem to pin them to…well, anyone," she added in, looking a little defeated at the last sentence.
"What, they're independent kidnappers?" Natasha blinked at her. "Why would an independent organisation want anything to do with the W.S.C?"
"No idea," Maria told her honestly. "But we also have intelligence that there are others out there, hoping to use these poor kids as bargaining chips or at least have similar motives - which is why you guys are on the clock to get them before anyone else can. We don't know enough as it is, the last thing we need is to know even less if some other guy catches them." Ashley nodded briskly and Natasha gave a bored sigh, throwing her head back.
"Why do I never get the simple missions?" she tutted to herself.
"Hey. When we wanted to send you to Asgard a year ago, you said no," Maria reminded her with narrowed brows.
…
It was pitch black in the forest. The women were sat on a bulletproof dirt bike loaded with silencer equipment, and it was quiet enough for them to have a conversation. "Personally, I think you and Steve would make a great couple," Natasha suddenly put it out there as they drove. Ashley rolled her eyes and tried not to entertain her words - but she couldn't help it.
"Nat, if he doesn't want a girlfriend then he doesn't want a girlfriend!" she hissed back.
"He didn't say he didn't want a girlfriend," Natasha corrected immediately, "he said he was too busy for one."
"Too busy, doesn't want one - all reasons as to why it wouldn't go anywhere regardless!" Ashley stressed in annoyance.
"Again, if he had someone in a similar circle, this wouldn't be as big of a deal," Natasha argued back quietly. "I've seen the way he looks at you, Ashley. It's like he's in awe. When he talks to you he fumbles! Steve never fumbles!"
"Wait, this is our drop-off point," Ashley hissed, tapping her shoulder after receiving the information in her ear. Natasha immediately slammed her foot on the breaks and stopped the vehicle dead in its tracks. The dirt road ahead was dark and they were still surrounded by the tall shadowing boldly standing trees, rustling in the gentle wind around them. They jumped out of the vehicle and Natasha expanded the little location device built into her watch, sending a thin laser ahead of them to show where to go. Each footstep their boots took on the crispy leafed ground created an unsure crunch. "But the thing is," Ashley suddenly whispered again after around thirty seconds of silence, making Natasha smirk to herself, "Steve has never once implied that he finds me hot-"
"Steve didn't even know the word 'hot' in the 40's! He's so far behind everything, so I can't believe you're using that as an excuse," Natasha pointed out fairly. Ashley frowned to herself reluctantly.
"So…what do you suggest I do? All that flirtatious behaviour is getting me nowhere and I was never telling him how I feel. I've done that before and it was embarrassing," she shuddered at the memory of hers and Scott's last conversation.
"I jus-"
"Ladies?!" came a sudden loud voice from somewhere around them. The darkness was like a thick cloak, neither one of them could see anything, but their senses were on edge. Natasha immediately whipped her pistol out of her belt to aim it in the direction of the sound, slowly turning, breathing focussed; whilst Ashley clicked the fireballs into her hand, bracing herself, and her breathing shaky. Before they knew it, a white light was glaring at them, causing them both to squint. Natasha re-aimed her pistol but Ashley lowered her hands slightly, noticing something odd. The light was coming from a floodlight secured onto the hood of a large Rover, and a man was hanging out of it dressed in army gear, his broad camouflaged arm waved over at them. "Ladies, it's fine. We're from S.H.I.E.L.D!" But Natasha kept the gun pointed straight at his head whilst Ashley's eyes floated over to the car door, squinting at it the best she could.
There it was - the emblem.
"Tash," she quickly muttered under her breath, "they have our logo-"
"My name is Commander T. Wyatt. We know your field commander - Rumlow? Brock Rumlow, we're from the south field division!" the man shouted at them, his hands still risen. Only then did Natasha begin to lower her pistol.
"I take it you know a Rumlow?" Ashley hissed to Natasha.
"Yeah," Natasha murmured back under her breath, "and he has mentioned a 'Wyatt' before."
"What exactly do you want with us?!" Ashley shouted back to Wyatt who was still patiently standing there.
"We're here for back up for the W.S.C kids? Director Fury told us to come and support. Relax, we're friendlies!" Wyatt insisted, his voice not faltering once.
"Would Fury do that?" Ashley hissed to Natasha once more. She wasn't entirely convinced, but Natasha's arms appeared to be lowering by the second.
"He's been so secretive recently, I don't know what he'd do anymore," Natasha murmured in annoyance. "Where are you taking us?"
"Well, straight to where the kids are being held," Wyatt told them loudly as he chucked his thumb behind him. "I mean, If you wanna walk we can meet ya there, but I thought driving would be quicker!"
"It would…" Ashley contemplated under her breath.
"Hey, you can even track where we go and if we lead you off track, you can attack us yourselves!" Wyatt shouted a little jovially before leaving them to decide and disappearing back into the vehicle. Natasha and Ashley glanced at each other a little uncertainly, before giving each other a small nod of agreement and cautiously walking towards the vehicle. There were another four soldiers huddled around the back doors, as well. Two of them hopped in once they saw them arrive, then the other two moved aside so that Ashley and Natasha could hop in too. They sat opposite each other and the leftover soldiers jumped in on either side of them both - so they were sandwiched in.
Being surrounded by these stiff, silent men felt incredibly awkward for them both. Natasha kept a solid eye on her watch to keep track of where they were headed, whilst Ashley's eyes darted between each and every soldier, daring any of them to do anything stupid as the truck drove off. She couldn't stop nibbling on her bottom lip, she felt slightly nauseous and uneasy to say the least. Natasha's eyes fluttered back up to meet hers and they exchanged awkward looks with each other - both of them feeling the exact same thing.
But then, the sudden words bursting through their earpieces explained why they both felt so off.
"NATASHA, ASHLEY! FURY HAS NOT SIGNED OFF EXTRA STAFF THIS MISSION. I REPEAT, FURY HAS NOT SIGNED OFF EXTRA STAFF THIS MISSION! They're lying ladies, GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE!" came Louis' panicked voice down the line, slamming against their eardrums.
Ashley's eyes went wide and connected with Natasha's at the exact same time.
Natasha released a steady breath out, eyes pleading for Ashley to do the same so that she didn't freak and blow their cover too soon. So Ashley copied her movements, remembering their training, and her heart immediately began to steady itself again. Natasha gave her a comforting nod and Ashley returned it after a few seconds.
They were about to wreak havoc - and that was their signal.
...
a/n: small reminder that christie's short story depicting her own undercover mission can be found on my page! x