Seven years. That was how long Natalia trained with her aunt, and during that time she had become a second Black Widow. She could take Natasha's place and no one was the wiser because they looked so much alike.

Usually Natalia took the infiltration and stalking assignments her aunt gave her while Natasha killed and seduced others. She did her best to put off Natalia's "first-kill cherry" as it was collectively called.

Tonight was different though. Tonight was the day Natalia would be cornered by a man from a rather well known organization called S.H.I.E.L.D. and given a choice. Either join or be terminated. Natasha's last mission in Sao Paulo had drawn the attention of one important person too many.

Clint Barton, collectively called Hawkeye by S.H.I.E.L.D., burst into the room scant minutes before the thugs did. Inside was a woman who had caused so much grief.

Natasha Romanov, the Black Widow.

Natasha was rather young looking, but her file clearly stated she was pushing sixty. Not that Clint could tell. From the way she looked he would have guessed her to be around twenty four, maybe twenty-five if he were pushing it.

Her red hair was straight and went just to the tips of her shoulder blades. She had her gun aimed at him the second he breached the room.

"Who are you?" she demanded. She had a hint of an accent, though Clint couldn't tell what it was. According to what the file said, she was Russian. Strangely, her accent sounded more English or Scottish than Russian. He wondered if she was about to go into Europe for another mission soon. That might explain it.

"Hawkeye. You're in a lot of trouble Romanov."

Natasha raised an eyebrow, but her attention was drawn more to the mafia thugs that had come into the room to kill her.

Clint noted she took them down with deadly efficiency, though he was somewhat confused why she didn't go for the one-hit kill points.

In fact he was surprised to find that the thugs were still alive. Crippled for life, but still alive. Natasha gave him a cold calculating look.

"What do you want?"

"To give you a choice. You can join S.H.I.E.L.D. and quit running...or I can arrest you and you get to spend the rest of your days in a small padded cell with no chance of escape," said Clint bluntly. Left unspoken was the fact if she tried to fight him he would either kill her or knock her out, depending on how much trouble she gave him.

Natasha raised a sculpted, elegant eyebrow at him.

"And what incentive would I have to join this organization of yours?"

"Aside from the fact that next time we won't be so lenient and you get to keep your freedom?" said Clint.

The woman before him seemed to calculate something, before she grabbed her bag.

"We'll see how this goes first. I might just skip town if I don't like this organization of yours," she said cryptically.

"You can try," said Clint.

Natalia was sweating bullets. She couldn't wait to get into a small bathroom and switch places with her aunt. Natasha could do this better than her, and she just knew that they would be sending the 'Widow' on assassination missions.

Natasha would figure out what happened from the quick note she left her aunt and be waiting to swap. She did not want to be caught by S.H.I.E.L.D. or allow them to learn she wasn't the real Black Widow.

Natalia managed to get a quick trip to the bathroom (escorted of course) and used the bracelet to send her location to Natasha. With a quiet 'pop' she vanished and Natasha took her place. No one noticed it at all.

Natalie was tackled by a tawny haired missile.

"Auntie Talia! You're alright!" said the little boy.

Theodore 'Teddy' Lupin was Natalia's godson and charge. Natasha had been unhappy about the fact Natalia had to retrieve him from Europe, but the sad fact was that if she hadn't, Teddy could have been used to drag her back. Besides, taking care of a child his age was infinitely easier than taking care of an infant.

There was one thing very interesting about Teddy though. Instead of inheriting his father's curse entirely, the only side effect the werewolf curse had on the child was enhanced senses and, if he were really concentrating hard, the ability to shift between were form and human. Natasha had trained him hard so he could do it without fail. Natalia believe that to be a gift of merging Tonks metamorphmagi abilities with a were-curse.

A consequence of this training had locked his animagus form to that of a wolf.

"Of course I am. Just had a bad night is all," she said, running her fingers through his hair. Teddy curled up closer to his aunt.

He loved Natasha and Natalia because they didn't treat him as anything other than a small boy with a gift.

He was so much like that poor German kid they ran into a few years ago. Kurt, if Natalia remembered right. The teen had been terrified they would call authorities to report an obvious mutant and he had been shocked when instead Natalia pulled him into the building away from his pursuers and treated his injuries.

Natalia didn't care if Kurt had blue skin with unusual tattoos, a long tail with a spade or the fact he could teleport. In her eyes, he was just someone unlucky enough to be born in an ignorant time.

Kurt was just glad there were some people who were willing to ignore his unusual features long enough to help him and insure he would live another month. Natalia even gave him a way to contact her by telling him how to spot a post owl.

Those things breed faster than rabbits, and whatever spell was used to make owls of all things deliver mail still went strong even if they weren't in captivity.

Teddy snuggled to his aunt, and she picked him up with perfect ease. Natasha wasn't comfortable caring for a child, so outside of babysitting Natalia made sure Teddy got all the love and affection he needed.

She just hoped her aunt would be alright.

Natasha was in a foul mood. She hadn't counted on getting S.H.I.E.L.D.'s attention after Brazil. Thank magic that Natalia had the sense to call her the second she was relatively alone to switch places. There was no telling how these people would react to her existence, and she would be damned if they got their claws on her precious niece.

Listening to this Fury idiot, she would be glad once the probation period was over and she was allowed to live relatively alone. The longer she kept Natalia's existence a secret, the better off she would be.

And best of all, S.H.I.E.L.D. clearly didn't have access to magic or they would have sensed Natalia's bracelet or would have known to keep her away from anything she kept on her. Natalia was fairly powerful and she had set off more than a few alarms. It was why they didn't take missions anywhere near a house where they suspected magicals lived.

Well that and they didn't want anyone recognizing Talia's scar.

Still, Natasha felt like kicking herself. She hadn't thought about Brazil coming to haunt her, and the fire had spread too quickly for her to do anything.

As she went into her small 'room' she sent up a prayer to each of her guardian spirits by name. This was going to be a long six months.

Natasha picked up a random phone, charmed her mirror to look like it, and then ditched it. As far as Fury knew, it was a drop phone for emergencies. She hid a grin. It would be amusing to see him try and track her number when she didn't own a cell phone for just that reason. And mirror phones could be charmed to pick up cell phone reception without the dangers of computers tracking them down.

About the only downside was that it was more or less a basic phone, not some advanced one that was little more than a computer that could call people.

"Tasha! Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Talia. It looks like we're stuck with S.H.I.E.L.D. for the moment. The Red Room has reactivated and I would rather work with them than those people again," said Natasha grimacing.

Talia froze on the other end, before she hesitantly said "Do you think they're after the ones who raided their abandoned Black Widow facility that only a select few knew about?"

Natasha had, in an effort to keep Talia safe and the ruse of her being the Black Widow going, raided one of the Red Room's secret facilities. She didn't know until after the fact that the reason it was still stocked was because it wasn't entirely abandoned, but still in the process of being constructed. She had only heard bare rumors of the place before she rescued Talia from England.

Talia had most of the same benefits Natasha did, but unlike her aunt she hadn't undergone the same training. They would know she was a fake because of it and Natasha was terrified if the Red Room found her they would brainwash her niece like they had her.

So at this point, being in S.H.I.E.L.D. really was the lesser of two evils.

"Talia, until this settled down I want you to stay off grid with the cub. At the very least change your hair and switch contacts."

"Take care, aunt Tasha. I don't want to lose you too," said Natalia in a quiet voice. It was one of her private fears, losing her aunt like she had everyone else. Natasha knew her niece was clingy and put up with it because she had a good reason to be. Everyone who ever genuinely cared about her was systematically killed off one by one until she was all alone. He friends turned out to be frauds and it was only because of instinct that she had escaped and somehow found her way to Natasha.

Natasha hung up, having sensed someone nearby.

Hawkeye was a good name for him. Unfortunately that spectacular ability to see and hit accurately apparently came with sharp as hell hearing.

"Who was that?" he demanded. For some reason he was always tense around her, but never explained why.

"None of your damn business," Natasha told him.

"It is when you have a body double," he said flatly.

Natasha froze as if he had slapped her. How did he know?

Seeing her shock, Clint continued.

"It surprised me when you showed up and not the girl I collected from Columbia. I have to admit I almost missed it except the accent tipped me off. After that I compared the photos and I realized you two had somehow switched."

"Who else knows?"

"No one. I wanted to be sure I was right before I told anyone and the last thing I wanted was to be called crazy for thinking you had a double."

He almost told Phil what he suspected, but thought the better of it. If he was wrong he would be suspended and he couldn't afford to have it on his file.

"If you tell anyone about her I swear to god I will hunt you down, castrate you and kill you as brutally and slowly as possible," snarled Natasha.

Clint raised an eyebrow.

"Just so we're clear here, I want an explanation or I'm turning the radio back on," he said.

"The girl you picked up is my niece. She takes my place on certain missions since it makes it easier for me to hide her existence. The less people know she exists, the safer she is."

Clint's eyebrows rose to his forehead.

The Black Widow had family? A family who not only knew of her profession but could switch places with her and didn't care? Though it certainly explained the protectiveness.

If he had family he was willing to talk to that knew what he did and was perfectly fine with it, he would have gone to hell and back to keep them safe.

"So does this mystery niece have a name?"

"Natalia. If things settle down you might get to meet her properly, but I better not find out Fury learned about her existence from you," warned Natasha.

Clint kept his radio off. Now that his suspicion was not only confirmed that the Black Widow had switched with someone, he could understand her reasoning. So long as this Natalia didn't do anything to get on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar he would keep his trap shut.

A full year passed. Natasha called sporadically, usually to insure Natalia knew she was alive. During that time her niece and the cub had to flee repeatedly. Not just from the Red Room (which to Natasha's relief only happened once) but from England and surprisingly S.H.I.E.L.D. as well.

The last one had her hunting down Hawkeye, who wisely directed her to the page Fury had for people he believed could be a part of a group he called the 'Avengers'. Among them was Natasha, Clint, Bruce Banner and a few others. The fact they had her niece (thankfully with a very outdated picture) on that list made her furious.

Clint wisely kept his silence. Out of all the people in that damn agency only he understood the reason why she was so desperate to keep Natalia safe.

Then came the mission that nearly ruined everything. Natasha had been badly injured and needed a break, but she knew full well Fury would keep pushing her because she refused to back down.

The next mission was a simple retrieval mission. One she could have performed in her sleep if she wasn't in so much pain.

Reluctantly, Natasha called Natalia. She only prayed the girl would pull this off without Fury or his cronies realizing their trick.