It took her little over an hour to find somewhere to live that offered half the square footage of her Manhattan apartment at almost double the price. The realtor boasted about the hardwood floors, quiet neighbours and local historic colour. The truth was that Lucie had shortlisted the apartment because of its proximity to Chinatown and the Federal Triangle. Collecting contacts and friends was always important in a new place, almost as important as access to good takeout.
A half empty bottle of vodka sat between them that they had deemed a work in progress, taking swigs straight from the bottle since neither of them had considered buying anything to drink out of before Natasha had landed with her flat warming gift. The vodka was Natasha's idea, a tradition she was reluctant to abandon when everything else in her life was constantly changing and evolving. Outside of SHIELD or the Avengers, Natasha was a completely different person. Black Widow had claimed so much of who she was that when she got the opportunity to enjoy civilian life she glorified the tiny things that most people took advantage of, like sitting on the floor of her best friends new apartment with enough takeout for left overs as they scrolled through online gossips magazines.
"You do realise that you'll have to figure out your own finances."
"I'll just use someone from Stark Industries."
"Are you sure you want your father to see how much we spend?"
"Fair point," Lucie conceded, taking a shot of vodka with barely a grimace.
The last thing that she needed was JARVIS going over her expenses with a fine tooth comb; while paying bribes to sex workers and cops in foreign countries were easily explained away, it wasn't something that she ever wanted to explain to the AI, or her father. The same man who she had yet to discuss New York with. Pepper had reached out, enough so that the pair were almost back to normal. Tony had yet to call.
"I got one. You're the secret love child of Pepper and Tony and they kept your identity a secret to raise you as an ordinary American girl turned war hero," Natasha summarised, turning her phone to reveal a photo of Tony and Pepper together and then one of Lucie dressed in camo.
"Is that from Camp Vance?" Lucie asked, snatching the phone out of Natasha's hand and trying to make out the details of the photo she had only ever seen on the mantle of the Barton Farm.
There were meant to be three people in the photo but two had been cropped out. The trio wore identical uniform to the US Special Forces around the bases, careful not to draw too much attention to themselves. Natasha's sandy camo covered leg to her left and Clint's arm flung round her shoulder just brushing the white band that was wrapped around Lucie's bicep identifying her as a medic. Camp Vance had been one of the few Rosetta missions that didn't go sideways, a mission to capture some of the more ambitious and unpredictable cells that threatened to go rouge of al-Qaeda to see if they could be recruited to SHIELD's ideology instead. Lucie remembered the photo being taken in the day they had been given to acclimatise to the baking summer temperatures of Kabul. Every breath felt as though she was inhaling hot sand, a dry heat that scorched her from the inside out.
"Where did they even get this photo? I thought Clint had the only copy."
"He sent it to Tony."
"What? Why?"
"Clint knows what it's like to worry about you." Natasha answered, putting her kung po aside in favour of the last egg roll. "You should call him."
"Who Clint?" Lucie asked with a smile, knowing that wasn't the he that Natasha was referring to. "Trust me, he doesn't want to talk about it. It was bad enough when he thought I was a medic in the US army. Super-dooper secret agent kinda tops all of that."
Natasha threw a prawn cracker at her friend with perfect aim, striking her directly on the nose before falling straight down the front of Lucie's t-shirt.
"Speaking of medics," Romanoff half proposed, immediately perfecting her posture and looking Lucie dead in the eyes.
"No."
"I haven't even pitched it yet," she replied calmly, as if speaking to a small child that didn't quite understand how they had broken the rules.
Lucie tried to let the silence speak for her, to say that she had no interest in any missions for the time being. Instead, Natasha took it as an opening, reeling off the details of a mission that she was short on that was apparently the perfect way to ease herself back into Kevlar and steel.
"Come on, any idiot recruit could pull this off."
Lucie recoiled as if she had just been slapped across the face.
"What did you do that for? Now I have to go because you've just fucking jinxed it!" she buried her head in her hands, mock sobbing.
"Wheels up 0900," Natasha said with a smirk, getting to her feet and heading straight for the door.
"You're a dick, you know that?" Lucie called after her just in time for the for the door to close.
Lucie took a few seconds in the silence, furious with herself for falling into what was no doubt a trap. She checked her watch to see how much time she had. It could have been a lot worse, 8 hours was considered a luxury sometimes when Coulson had been in charge. Especially since he had a tendency to call in the middle of the night demanding that they report to HQ or the airfield within the hour. 8 hours until Lucie was officially back on the job. A pit formed in her stomach, gradually becoming heavier. It had been years since she had been nervous going into a mission, the novelty of impending chaos had dulled significantly since she was a recruit, especially since she no longer felt the need to prove herself.
She considered her cell phone on the floor for a moment, trying to make a pro/con list in her head for what she was considering.
Pros.
It's mature to offer an olive branch after an argument.
She could let him know that she was alive.
Might do something in the way of building trust.
May help with the nervous pit in her stomach.
Cons.
Tony Stark is not mature.
They have equally passionate tempers.
Likely to turn into another argument.
May end in an ultimatum.
"Fuck it."
She tapped the screen and held it to her ear, waiting for the internal ring to kick in.
"Hi Dad. It's me."
From the second she set foot out of her apartment, she made sure to play the part. The doorman in her apartment building didn't question it when she went to meet the town car parked outside in a full length black trench coat and a worn duffle bag. She had chosen the coat specifically several years before for practicality rather than high fashion, although its function as a coat was questionable. Instead it was an expensive coverup, heavy enough not to cling to and outline her weapons. She was armed to the teeth with both knives and firearms something that felt strange for the first few moments. For the past few weeks, Lucie had wandered around without so much as a tooth pick to defend herself and yet Lucifer demanded a full arsenal weighing roughly 25 pounds so literally forced her to maintain the perfect posture that her training had drilled into her.
She used the trip to tie her hair back, easily falling into the old routine of braiding and pinning before slipping two needle like knives into her hair. Muscle memory took over as she twisted and turned her fingers to form the braids and she took comfort in the tension they created against her scalp.
Determined not to be late, Lucie made sure to be the first at the airfield; finishing the long process of arming herself before the team made their appearance.
"St. James. Long time no see."
Lucie could sense the grin from behind her, already wanting to punch Rumlow's perfect teeth down his throat. He was close enough for her to feel his breath against her hair. She ignored him, checking the ammunition in each clip.
Rumlow reached out, boldly resting his hand on her hip and giving a light squeeze.
Lucie tried not to recoil, Lucifer did not recoil at unwanted attention or contact. Even from regrettable one night stands. As his superior, she had the right to throw the book at him, even take it to her own superior but the truth was that Rumlow was an outstanding agent and while she would like nothing more than to see him begging in the gutter for loose change, she trusted him to get the job done, even if she knew that off duty he was led almost entirely by his depraved sex drive. All it had taken was one drunken mistake for Lucie to plant herself firmly on his radar.
"Take your hand off me or you'll never see it again," she spat, her jaw tight as she tried to keep a rein on her temper.
"Touchy. Just say the word and I'm all yours," he taunted, his voice humming with amusement and promise. "Again."
"Last chance." She shot him a warning, no need to lay hand on any of her weapons.
In mock defeat, Rumlow raised his hands and walked backwards out of reach, making sure to keep a close eye on Lucie's ass as he did so.
She knew it was part of the job, to constantly seem available while on the job. Nothing was off limits. Lucifer had no limits but Lucie did and in that moment, Lucie could feel her skin crawl with the weight of Rumlow's entitled appetite for her.
"Good morning Rumlow."
In half a second, all of her anger melted away, instead basking in the sheer joy of agent's fear inspired by the melodic voice of the Black Widow.
"Agent Romanoff, didn't see you there."
"Clearly. Why don't you go and check on the pilot?" It was more than of an order than a suggestion but he didn't argue, chancing one final look at Lucie before heading to the waiting chopper.
When he was out of earshot, Lucie turned on her heel to face her friend who was already dressed in full gear.
"I can handle him."
"I know. There's something I didn't tell you," Natasha began.
Lucie threw her head back, huffing at the morning sky; wondering why there always seemed to be something that Natasha purposefully kept her in the dark about. "What did you do?"
"Just know that it was Fury who put this team together."
"And?" Lucie asked, failing to grasp her point until red, white and blue appeared in the corner of her eye.
"Ax cyka," she cursed in Russian, the insult coming from deep in her throat.
"Romanoff. Stark."
"Steve."