Natasha sat behind her desk in the office she and Steve shared at the Avenger's compound looking through a file full of Intel on the backup Sam had brought to the airport fight against the Thunderbolts in Berlin. As she shifted through his criminal record, prison record, education, and family life Natasha nibbled on chunks of cheese, pepperoni, salami, and the occasional olive or cracker. Between nibbles she sipped tea from a mug with her logo on one side and the Avengers logo on the other, Tony's idea clearly. Across the room sitting at his own desk Steve watched her as she read, and she was trying hard not to be annoyed by it. He wanted her option, but she wasn't willing to give it until she had a better understanding of the man, he wanted her option on. When she was finally finished, she looked up and sat back in her chair and made eye contact with Steve.
"So what do you think?" Steve asked her when she looked up. "I know he has a record, but…"
"He did an illegal thing for the right reasons." Natasha cut him off. "He's a civilian, he would need a lot of training, a lot of work."
"Nothing we can't handle." Steve replied with a warm hopeful smile.
"There's an issue." Natasha told him, and then felt a little bad because she'd dimmed his smile.
Steve frowned as he stood and walked over to Natasha to look over Natasha's shoulder. "Did I overlook something?"
"No. The issue isn't with Lang himself but who he might be working for." Natasha reassured and then explained. "Dr. Hank Pym. He was the original Ant-Man. He invented the technology Lang uses to manipulate his size. There's bad blood between him and SHIELD because of a feud with Howard Stark. If he's behind Lang being the new Ant-Man, there's no way he's going to let Lang or his tech anywhere near SHIELD."
"We're not approaching Lang as SHIELD." Steve reminds her. "We're approaching him as the Avengers."
Natasha doesn't think the difference will matter to Pym, but she leaves Wanda with her mothers and takes a small quinjet to San Francisco anyway. She checks into the hotel under the name Sasha Irons with her newest set of Canadian identification. After settling into her room Natasha spends the day trailing Scott Lang so she can decide when and where to approach him. She decides to wait until he's alone in his office, which was ridiculously easy to break into for a security firm. She lingers in the shadows as she watches him come in. He's singing to himself, some song she can't quite make out. She waits until he puts the paper fast food sack and large drink cup on a desk before speaking out.
"Hello Mr. Lang." The Black Widow says from the shadows. Lang screams and jumps back into a sloppy defensive stance, his eyes narrow as he tries to make her own. Natasha keeps the smirk off her lips as she takes a few steps forward.
"Black Widow." Scott Lang gasps. "Wow, um, hi, Black Widow, ma'am, err, Ms. Widow?"
Natasha stands there and watches the man babble his way through an awkward and nervous greeting. She speaks up, hoping to calm his nervous and excited energy so they can get down to why she was there. He kind of reminds her a little bit of Peter, and that helps her not feel quite so annoyed by him. When she was sure she finally had his attention she said, "I'm here to make you an offer Mr. Lang. We're looking to build an auxiliary roster, and we'd like to offer you a place on it."
"Me?" Scott squeaks. "I, wow, I'm honored, Ms. Widow, ma'am, but, um, I don't think, I mean, me an Avenger of any sort, I just, I don't think…"
"We know all there is to know about you, Mr. Lang." Natasha cuts him off with a firm but gentle tone. "You broke the law to rectify a much larger injustice. That's valiant. You did your time, and despite the hardships of being considered an ex-con, you built your own business so you can take care of your daughter. That's resilient. You broke into the Avengers compound, slipping past the Falcon, a military trained soldier. That took skill and resourcefulness. You came to Berlin without hesitation when Falcon asked and helped us fight and defeat the Thunderbolts. That was brave."
Scott snorted, "My girlfriend said it was stupid. She's mad at me."
Natasha allowed herself to smile at that. "I have found that bravery and stupidity often go hand in hand."
"You really want me to be an auxiliary Avenger?" Scott said softly, looking into bright blue-green eyes.
Natasha nods. "You'll need training, individually and with a team. We'll bring you to New York a couple times a month for that. And when you're ready, you'll be put on the active reserve list, meaning we'd call on you when we needed backup or a fill in."
Scott's excitement ramped up and he readily accepted but then he suddenly deflated and came crashing back down to reality. "I would love to accept, I really really want to accept, but Hank would never allow me to use the suit for it. He has a major hate on for all things SHIELD and Stark."
"The Avengers are no longer with SHIELD." She told him. "We are an independent entity under the sanction of the United Nations. We are accountable to ourselves and the U.N. through their appointed liaison."
"You still have a Stark." Scott makes a face that says he's struggling with wanting to jump on this opportunity and knowing his mentor wouldn't go for it. "Hank says to never trust a Stark, and after the whole Ultron thing..."
Natasha was professional enough to keep personal feelings from causing her to say something snide about having her cousin and late uncle talked about negatively. She knew and understood they were not perfect men, they were deeply flawed with their own sets of demons. Still, she didn't like it when people spoke ill of them. Narrowing her eyes Natasha asked, "What Ultron thing?"
"I don't know the details but as the whole evil robot thing was happening Hank kept muttering something about the son being just like his father." Scott replied with a shrug. Then he sighed. "If it were up to me I would say yes right here and now, but the suit, the tech, the particles, they're all Hank's."
A memory flashed to mind. The party just before Ultron appeared, Maria mentioning Hank Pym to her mother, something about stolen research? She would need to talk to Tony when she got back. But for right now Natasha focused on the task at hand. "I understand." She tells him as she flicks a plain white business card with the Avengers' logo in the upper left hand corner and her hourglass logo in the upper right, and a phone number printed in the center, onto the desk next to his fast food bag. "Think it over Mr. Lang. Talk to Dr. Pym, or if he isn't able to see past his own bias, perhaps talk to his daughter." Natasha was glad she'd remained in the shadows because she felt the way her face ticked at the stable of hurt mentioning Hope caused. "If you change your mind. Call me."
Scott looks over and reaches out for the business card and when he looks back up the Black Widow is gone. "That. Is. So. Cool!"
After a quick detour through China Town to get dim sum, a local brewery for a couple of bottles of the local craft beer, and some Hot Pants cookies Natasha heads back to the hotel. She doesn't expect to hear from Lang that night so she showers and puts on sweats and May's Midtown S&T parent t-shirt before opening the balcony doors to let in the night air and the sounds of the city. Then she settles on the bed and calls home. Wanda is relieved to hear from her because she's worried she's upset Angie. When Natasha asks what happens the girl explains, "We were watching this classic movie on the old movie channel, and I said something about liking the actress."
When Natasha asked what movie and Wanda told her she couldn't help but laugh. "Oh poppy, that's an Arlene French movie. She was Ma's biggest rival in the early days of her acting career. She always moans and bitches about her, don't worry about it, but if you want to make her smile just remind her that Arlene French doesn't have a Tony, and she does."
After talking to her daughter, Natasha calls May. Moving out onto the balcony she leans against the railing and sips her beer as she tells her girlfriend that they should bring the kids here, that they should spend a month or so in California this summer. It feels nice to plan out what would be a family vacation, and not for the first time Natasha thinks about other family type things, like living together, her and May, and Peter and Wanda, but she doesn't mention that just yet. "If we time it right we could take Peter to comic con and he'll love and adore us forever and a day."
When Natasha dreams that night it's of a house with a yard and trees, and flower boxes in the windows, set behind a waist high garden fence. She's almost a little sad when she wakes up the next morning and the dream ends, but she shakes it off quickly and goes out for a long run. She was surprised when her run was cut short by a call from Scott Lang. She'd thought if he contacted her it would be days from now when she was back in New York. He wanted to meet, so she set something up. She was surprised once again when he arrived at the meeting with someone, an older but still familiar face. "Hope."
While the Black Widow used the shadows to conceal her features the voice was all too familiar, even after all the years between them. "Natasha?"
The summer sky is clear and bright blue as the cool waves chase the girls up the shore, causing them to giggle gleefully whenever the water washes over their bare feet. When Peggy had mentioned that she and Angie were taking Natasha to the beach over the weekend Janet had sighed and said she couldn't remember the last time she'd gone to the beach, so Peggy invited her, Hank, and Hope to join them. Hank was in the middle of an experiment he couldn't get away from, but Janet and Hope gladly joined the Carters at the shore. The mothers were taking turns keeping their girls entertained. Janet had initiated the game of tag with the waves. When it was Angie's turn she and the girls settled in to build a sand castle, leaving Janet to join Peggy under the pop-up cabana.
As the girls built up their castle they told Angie a story about the two best friends who lived there. The castle was so big that the two best friends could live there with their families and their pet dragons, Arnie and Nigel. When Angie asked the girls if the best friends were princesses the girls told her no. One was a prima ballerina and the other was an inventor. After the castle was finished Peggy took the girls swimming and then brought them back to the cabana for lunch. After lunch Natasha and Hope fell asleep between their respective mothers, holding each other's small hands.
"You're the Black Widow?" Hope asks the woman standing several feet away from her. After she'd said Natasha's name the other woman stepped out of the shadows and she'd known it was her instantly. She shakes her head slightly, as if trying to make the thought settle into her mind. "How did I not recognize it was you all over the news?"
Natasha took a slow breath. "Tony developed something to help keep personal identities a secret."
Scott's eyes darted between the two women before he finally spoke up. "You two know each other?"
"We use too." Hope answers him, her voice laced with hurt and a little bitterness.
Hope had been so excited about spending some of their summer break in England with Natasha and her moms. She and her parents traveled but not often, and she always missed Natasha terribly when her best friend was away. The Carter's house in the English countryside looked like one of the houses from a PBS show. It was built of gray stones and had old wood paned windows painted green with flower boxes full of bright summer blooms. The wood floor creaked when you walked across it, and the doors had latches you had to lift to open them. Hope loved it. She really liked the old clay tennis courts where she and Natasha would play, pretending they were at Wimbledon, and the woods where they would explore and talk about anything and everything until Mrs. Carter called them in for tea.
They spent a whole day in London, shopping at Harrods, touring the sights, and having a picnic lunch in the park. They spend another day at Brighton Beach, and another driving around visiting real castles and manor houses owned by real English lords and ladies. When Hope's visit comes to an end she is sad, but has reached the point where she misses her parents. Natasha is sad because she doesn't want her best friend to go, but both girls are also equally excited because they're taking the brand new Eurostar, the train that linked England and France by way of the English Channel. When they arrive in Paris Janet and Hank are there to greet them, and the two families have dinner together. When it's time to part the girls hug a little longer than normal because they know they won't see each other again until late August. They promise, as they always do, to write.
Natasha was having a lot of feelings about seeing Hope again, a lot of old feelings, and new. The old feelings centered around the loss of Hope in her life so completely without an explanation as to why. The new feelings centered around Natasha not understanding why the other woman seemed angry and bitter towards her. Hope was the one who vanished, who moved away and never spoke to her again. The pain of that roared to life inside her chest causing Natasha to snap after another snide remark from Hope. "I wrote to you, just like we promised, I wrote to you every week for over a year, Hope! I called and left messages on your machine! I tried to reach out to you because you'd just lost your mom and I didn't want you to be alone or think you'd lost me too, but I got nothing back! You just moved away and that was that, you were done with me!"
Despite her best attempt to conceal it, Hope's expression gave away her surprise at hearing this, and seeing the emotion behind Natasha's words written so clearly across her face. Let her know Natasha was telling her the truth. It was only a momentary slip and soon what Scott called her snotty bitch mask was back in place. "I never got any letters, Natasha, I never heard or got any messages. I was alone."
"I tried to reach out to you Hope. You could have tried to reach out to me. I would have been there for you. You were my best friend." Natasha's voice cracked at the end despite trying not to sound demanding or too self defensive but it was hard with the way Hope was looking at her. The other woman looked so betrayed and hurt, and it was stabbing at Natasha like a knife because she never betrayed her.
They had each thought the other had walked away from their friendship and were hurt by it. A deep hurt that neither knew what to do with now that old wounds were freshly open. Natasha walks away from the meeting unsure of where Lang stands concerning the Avengers, and with a lot of guilt knowing that Hope had had to grieve a lot of loss alone, but she couldn't stand there any longer and have Hope blame her for pain she didn't cause, at least not intentionally. As she flies home to New York she can't help but think and wonder. Why hadn't Hope gotten her letters or messages?
It's a quite Sunday afternoon and Natasha is snuggled on the sofa with her Ma watching a movie. There's a knock on the front door, Roise barks and her Mum calls out that she's got the door as she's on her way out of the kitchen. Natasha doesn't think much of it and snuggles closer to her Ma. Then her Mum appears in the doorway and Hope is with her. Hope's eyes are red and puffy, her cheeks blotchy, and Natasha is instantly on her feet.
"Hope?" Natasha says her best friend's name in a soft and gentle way, as if speaking it louder might startle or hurt her. "What's wrong?"
"We're moving away." Hope replies. Simply admitting it sends her into another round of tears. "My Dad, he's moving us away."
Now Natasha's on the verge of tears. "What? Why? Where are you moving? When are you leaving?"
The girls have never truly lived very far apart, always within driving distance of one another, because Hope's parents worked for Natasha's Mum. Now Hope was telling Natasha that her father was moving them to the west coast, and Natasha's devastated. Her mothers do their best to reassure them that they'll still see each other, just not everyday at school, or whenever they want outside of school. They tell them they'll set up visits and holidays together, Hope can come to England with them again. In the meantime they'll write to one other and speak to one another on the phone.
When Dr. Pym comes for Hope he's upset, angry even, though Natasha isn't sure his anger is at Hope for taking a cab over to see her. It seems as if his anger is aimed at her Mum, which she doesn't understand. She understood that there was anger in grief so maybe that was it. Maybe Dr. Pym was mad at the world because Ms. Janet had died. When Dr. Pym says it's time for them to go, Hope holds onto Natasha a little tighter, and Natasha hugs her back a little longer.
"We'll write." Natasha says. "Just like in the shows we watch, we'll write every week, and tell each other silly boring things. I promise."
Hope nods and reluctantly pulls back when her dad calls for her again. "I'm going to miss you Nat."
"I'll miss you too." Natasha replies.
It was a quiet afternoon. Natasha had the day off and decided that Wanda would have the day off too. They were cuddled up on the sofa of their compound apartment binge watching house hunters while trolling real estate sites. Natasha had mentioned the idea of getting a house, maybe getting one with May and Peter, and Wanda had lit up like a Christmas tree. So now they were exploring the possibilities.
"Momma," Wanda says as she flicks through pictures of houses in the Queens area that are close to the beach. "If we get a house can we get a dog too?"
Natasha smiles as she makes a mental note about liking a certain kitchen feature in the house on their television screen. "I don't know poppy, you'll have to ask Goose if he's ok with that."
Wanda blinks and looks up just as the orange tabby cat in question lifts his head as well. The two stare at each other and Natasha laughs just as the door buzzer sounds. The redhead pauses the show and moans softly in annoyance as she stands. She told the boys she wanted to be left alone today. It was her first day off in too damn long and she had wanted a lazy day with her kid. Was that too much to ask?
But when Natasha opened the door it wasn't one of her boys. Blue-green eyes blinked in surprise at the person standing on the other side of her open door. "Hope?"
"Captain America let me in the compound." The dark haired woman said softly, nervously. "He asked how Scott was, I might owe Scott an apology for teasing him about him thinking Captain freaking America actually knew who he was." She sighed and then continued, while mentally chastising herself for apparently picking up Scott's babbling habit. "Then an Irish Siri told me how to get to your apartment after Captain America asked her to show me the way."
Natasha blinked again, unsure of what to say to Hope. It had been weeks since they'd seen each other in San Francisco, and Natasha was still uncertain of her feelings over the whole damn thing.
"Irish Siri? I am not an Irish…"
"Friday, be nice." Wanda called out to the Avenger's A.I. as she came up behind her adoptive mother. Natasha had gone stiff, and had yet to say anything other than what she assumed was the well dressed woman's name. "Nat?" She said gently. This woman was a stranger, friend or foe Wanda didn't know, so she wasn't about to call Natasha Momma in front of her. "Everything alright?"
Wanda's presence snaps Natasha out of it and she nods "Everything's fine, sweetheart." She reassures her little witch over her shoulder. "This is Hope van Dyne, she and I knew each other when we were kids. Hope, this is my daughter, Wanda." She introduced them and then added, "Baby can you give us a couple of minutes?"
Wanda's gaze flickers between Natasha and the woman making Natasha act weird. She is uncertain about leaving them alone but the look she's getting from her mother tells her she has no actual choice in the matter. "Sure, Momma." Natasha had introduced her as her daughter, an action that always gave Wanda a warm, safe feeling, so she relaxed into using the woman's gifted title. "I'll go find Viz, see if he needs any help understanding whatever human thing he's trying to figure out today."
Natasha smiles her thanks at the girl.
The two women stand awkwardly near the apartment door for several minutes after Wanda leaves, until Hope finally breaks the silence. "My Dad, he never gave me your letters or your messages. He kept them, I don't know why, he had to know it would upset me if I ever found out, but he kept them. When I finally got up the nerve to ask, he admitted it and gave them to me."
"What?" Natasha's shock is written all over her face. "Why would he do that?"
Hope sighs and shakes her head. "Because you're mother sided with Howard Stark over him."
Natasha wasn't sure how to respond to that so instead she asked, "Wanna drink?"
"God yes." Hope replies.
Natasha walks over to the kitchen and grabs a bottle of scotch and two glasses before leading Hope to the sofa. She turns off the television, closes her laptop, and then gives the other woman her full attention after pouring them each a drink. It's awkward and tense, both of them balancing on an emotional tightrope suspended over a floor full of incubating baby chick eggs. They're on their second round of drinks before Hope finally breaks the tenison.
Hope looks up from her drink and over at Natasha, she bites her lip nervously and then says, "So you have a daughter?"
Natasha smiles because she can't help but smile whenever someone refers to Wanda as her daughter. "I do." She nods, still smiling, her voice light and happy and full of pride and love. "I think Ma was pretty much sure she was never getting grandchildren. Then Wanda appears in my life needing someone to care for her, to love her, and now I have a kid."
"She's adopted?" Hope replies, a bit surprised. She chuckles. "Between the red hair and the protective glare I got at the door, I'd have pegged her for a natural born Carter."
Natasha laughs. "You do remember I'm not a natural born Carter either?"
"Yeah, but you were meant to be a Carter." Hope smiles.
Natasha returns the smile easily. "So was Wanda."
Talking came so much easier after that.
"We weren't in California a month before he sent me to boarding school." Hope tells her old friend in a soft voice. "He was there for Christmas, my birthday, Mom's birthday, but he wasn't actually there, you know? And with each passing year the Dad shaped chip on my shoulder grew, and grew, to the point where I helped take away his company from him."
"I'm sorry Hope." Natasha says as she pours them another drink and hands Hope her glass back. "I should have tried harder to keep in touch."
"You sent me a letter a week for over a year, Nat." Hope said as she reached out for Natasha's hand, a little afraid the other woman would withdraw from her, but Natasha didn't and Hope smiled.
"I would have kept going but I thought maybe you weren't replying because I was a part of your life when you still had your mom, and that maybe having me in your life hurt you." Natasha admitted.
Hope downs her drink and sighs as she sets the glass on the coffee table. "Things were just starting to get better between me and Dad, so I'm trying not to be to furious at him, but I'm really fucking pissed at him."
Natasha chuckles and nods in an understanding way. "I've been there. Some things came up awhile back that had me seeing red with Mum, the row we had was massive, but we worked it out. It's never easy when our heroes turn out to be human after all."
When Wanda returns to the apartment Natasha and her friend are still talking. She greets them politely and then retreats to her room for the night. Natasha comes in to say goodnight, and she can tell something heavy is lifting off her mother's shoulders. Natasha carried a lot, and anything that lightened her load was ok by Wanda. When Wanda got up the next morning the two adult women were still talking, laughing, and they both looked lighter than they had the night before.
Over the next few weeks Wanda sees pictures from Natasha's childhood she hadn't seen before, and hears stories she hadn't heard before as Natasha and her friend rebuild their childhood friendship.
It was a feeling Natasha couldn't really explain. It was like a piece of her heart had been returned to her, and an old painful ache she'd just grown accustomed too was now gone. They weren't the same girls they had been when Hope moved away, so they had to learn about each other all over again, but Natasha didn't mind that. Any hard work involved in rebuilding their friendship would be worth it. She had her friend back and that was the only thing that mattered.