Burying her face in her woolly scarf, Eva stomped up the driveway of the HQ, grateful for the coffee she was holding for once since its heat was stopping her fingers from getting frostbite.
"Morning, Eva," said a voice, and she looked up as Romanov walked towards her, seemingly not feeling the cold in her tight black catsuit. "Sorry for dragging you out here before dawn, but we got an early start."
"'S fine, I get paid extra anyways." Eva was still intimidated by the woman, even though they were on tentative first name terms now. "Um, how are you not freezing to death?"
"I'm Russian," she reminded her, "I laugh at New York winters."
"Fair enough."
"So the Vision tells me you went to the ballet," said Romanov, "was it good?"
She nodded. "It was weird, but cool."
"I have Bourne's Swan Lake on DVD back at Barton's place," Natasha explained, "wanted to know if buying tickets to see Sleeping Beauty was worth it."
"Oh, absolutely. I didn't know you liked ballet. You seemed more of a, uh, cage fighting kinda person."
Natasha raised an amused eyebrow. "You'd be surprised how useful it is when you're trying to break a man's neck with both hands tied behind your back."
"And that is one of the most terrifying things I've ever heard," said Eva, which made the other woman laugh. "I will never see classical dance in the same way again."
"I'm glad I have such an effect on you," grinned Natasha. "Nice work on Thor's crop circle, by the way."
"Thanks, but it's not really a crop circle, those're when someone comes along with a bar and pretends to be an alien by making pretty patterns where they flatten the crops themselves rather than… and you probably don't want to know any of that, do you?"
She shrugged. "You never know when useless information might suddenly become useful. Have a nice day, coffee girl. Try not to become a human ice cube, Rogers has that covered already."
"You too, Agent."
A/N Happy 50th chapter!