Chapter 68

Barton Home, USA

Summer 2015

Really, Nadine couldn't say she was surprised when, as the Quinjet set down not far from the friendly white farmhouse, there was a familiar figure escorting two smaller figures toward the house. Natasha's quick mental calculations on the Quinjet had been spot on. In fact, Nadine suspected that, had the Barton children taken the bus home as they regularly did, Natasha would've had the extra minutes to make her way to the end of the lane to meet them and Nadine and Wanda would've already been lifting off and on their way back to the Compound. Not that Nadine could really complain; she didn't mind the idea of a quick visit with the archer. After everything that had happened since Prague, Nadine had come to feel a rather comforting kinship with Barton. One that she'd admittedly begun to miss since he'd returned home almost as soon as the Helicarrier had dropped them off at the Compound after Sokovia. Hence her reason for disembarking from the Quinjet with Natasha despite her plans to continue back to the New Avengers Facility.

As soon as they caught sight of their Auntie Nat, Cooper and Lila were immediately racing toward the redhead, swarming her with hugs and excited babbling that Natasha took in stride, her eyes shining happily. Nadine couldn't help but grin at the greeting, exchanging a silent nod with Barton instead of words as he approached himself, knowing full well that his children's happy chattering would drown out anything she tried to say.

Quickly enough, though, Barton and Nat were herding the kids back toward the house, Clint obviously eager to be on his way. Not completely certain of the meaning of the silent exchange between her sister and Clint when she caught sight of Natasha's questioning expression, she had a fairly good guess that it was about why Barton had shown up when he knew Nat was going to be there. Sure enough, as soon as Barton set the kids to their after school routine—or tried to, at least—Natasha was leaning in to ask as much.

"Yeah. Just waiting for now, so the Boss wanted me to make sure the rest of the troops were home safe instead of just standing around and getting on her nerves." Nadine understood at once. Barton had wanted to be the one to tell his kids what was going on and to make sure they got home safe to Natasha before heading back to Laura's side. Having met the Barton matriarch, Nadine couldn't exactly say she was surprised that Laura had insisted as much. Natasha nodded, satisfied that her guess had been correct before Lila was appearing at her side to tug her off to see one thing or another. Neither Barton nor Nadine could hold back their chuckles.

"You sound remarkably composed," she offered lightly as Natasha disappeared further into the house. Barton waved off her teasing yet subtly probing comment.

"Yeah, well, we're old hands at this," he joked lightly back. She wasn't entirely fooled, though. Previous experience or not, he was anxious to make it back to his wife's side. Especially now that he knew his kids were in good hands.

But then he turned to her, his eyes shrewd.

"Not that I don't believe Nat, but you were on an actual mission, weren't you. I interrupted, didn't I." Nadine glanced to him before slowly shaking her head.

"No. Nat was being honest. We were on our way back to base."

"But it was more than just a jaunt over to grab your stuff from your Workshop." There was no denying it. Oh, she could have if she'd really wanted to. She was fairly certain he didn't know her quite well enough yet that he'd be able to pick up on her lie should she choose to answer with one. But as she'd realized more and more frequently over the past couple weeks at the Compound, she didn't feel the need to lie, to play everything she did as close to the chest as she used to. Probably because they all knew she had secrets and seemed content to leave them to her just as she knew they all had secrets of their own. Besides, with Clint just as with Natasha, Nina and even to a lesser extent with Rogers and the other Avengers, she was beginning to find that she didn't want to hide away. Not that she was entirely keen to spill everything just yet. It wasn't that easy an urge to overcome. But Barton? There was a kinship there she couldn't deny. And it quieted the urge to hide away behind her masks and her lies.

"We also had a meeting with an old friend. Just to catch up." She said it as though their tracking down Madame B had been nothing more than a long overdue reunion. In a way it sort was, only far less friendly than the average get-together. Sure enough, Barton seemed to pick up on that despite her casual tone, his expression tightening minutely as he picked up on the reserve in her voice.

"Friend, huh?" Oh yeah, he knew what they'd been up to, details proving unnecessary. Mutely she nodded, her face carefully blank. She wasn't keen on burdening him with what they'd done. Not today, not on what was supposed to be a happy occasion. But then she caught him glancing over toward the Quinjet. Following his gaze, Nadine nearly sighed when she caught sight of Wanda wandering aimlessly through the waist high grass of the field their ride was waiting in.

Before she or Natasha had even asked if she wanted to join them in saying hi to the Bartons, the Sokovian girl had said she would stay on the Quinjet, the shadow in her eyes making it clear she wasn't up to friendly human interaction with anyone else just yet. Obviously the field and the peace it offered had called to the still visibly withdrawn and troubled young woman, though. Yet Nadine couldn't quite help the faint sense of relief she felt at how Wanda's slim frame was beginning to relax as she let her hands brush against the pale green stalks, her face turning toward the bright afternoon sun. An absent hum from Barton had her turning back to him.

Clint nodded toward Wanda where she stood on her own, staring out across the fields surrounding the house.

"Well, whatever it was you were really doing, you sure it was a good idea to bringing her?" Nadine glanced at him. He was watching the girl with undisguised concern. He was fond of her, Nadine realized, a faint smile curling her lips. Protective, even.

"Funny, you sound just like Natasha," she said dryly in response. But after a moment she shrugged, swallowing back a heavy sigh before actually answering his question. "Probably not," she admitted, earning an unimpressed look from the archer. But she could also tell he saw past her comment even before she continued. For one thing, he didn't interrupt. "But she needed a mission to focus on, to 'get her out of her own head' as she put it when Natasha asked her along. Leaving her to stew would've been worse, I think." Reluctantly, he nodded in understanding. Turning away from the girl in the field, Nadine smiled at Clint, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't you have somewhere you wanted to be," she teased lightly, changing the subject. Beneath her hand she felt his shoulders tense minutely as the event that had brought the two assassins and the Enhanced Sokovian girl to his home reasserted itself in his thoughts. Nadine chuckled at the mingled panic and exhilaration that flashed across his face at the reminder. Not to mention a faint moue of self-reproach that he'd allowed himself to get so easily distracted. At once he was turning, his thoughts already elsewhere. Only to pause even as he palmed his keys, glancing thoughtfully to Nadine.

"You don't have to run off, you know. You're perfectly welcome to stay. Wanda too. It's doesn't make sense for you to jet off now and come back for Nat, so you might as well stick around and get a good night's sleep. Besides," he glanced in Wanda's direction, "you already know it's a peaceful place. Can't hurt to take advantage, you know? I bet she could use a bit of time alone to get her head back," he finished sincerely. She didn't miss the pointed look he gave her too. Nadine had to admit he was probably right. And honestly? She couldn't say she would mind. As much as she didn't want to admit it, she was still shaken from everything that Madame B had said. She definitely knew Natasha was.

"You have a tell." Back on the Quinjet, when they'd still been just under an hour out from the Barton farm, Natasha had turned at Nadine's comment with a quizzical brow quirked. She had just answered Nadine's question on whether or not she was okay with a dismissive 'sure, I'm fine' that was almost, almost, believable; anyone else would've believed her without question.

"I do? What is it?" Nadine had merely raised a pale eyebrow at Natasha, an impish glint appearing in her eyes even as a wry smile curled her lips.

"Why would I tell?" Nadine had answered with a smirk. "If you knew what it was, you'd fix it. Then where would I be?" Natasha had chuckled at that, easing Nadine's feeling that she was taking what had happened in Paris harder than either of them had expected, but the feeling still hadn't quite gone away. The lingering shadows in her familiar green eyes hadn't eased.

The instant Nadine had snapped Madame B's neck? It had genuinely felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. And judging from the small, soft exhale that had come from her sister as their former training mistress' body had fallen limp to the ground?

Natasha had felt exactly the same thing.

She'd been just as shaken by some of the things Madame B had said as Nadine. Natasha had just been much better at hiding it from the former training mistress. But Nadine had been able to tell. She'd especially been able to tell once the older woman was dead. It had bothered Natasha to realize just why she'd been Madame B's favourite. Without Nadya to lean on, she'd turned almost solely to Madame B, and the training mistress had basked in the control she'd had over Nat's already prodigious talents, taking full advantage. Moulding her. Influencing her. That Madame B had seen her as malleable.

Very few recruits had ever earned any measure of special attention from the training mistress and they were always those Madame B had perceived as having the greatest potential. Naturally Natasha had been one, just as Nadya been for a time. Katerina had been another; she'd practically worshipped their supervisor. While attention usually came in the form of higher standards and more daunting challenges, it also brought about the potential for greater rewards and, perhaps most importantly, it brought out a side of Madame B that could've almost been considered 'fond.' It also brought one-on-one mentoring, so-called 'emotional support,' preferential training assignments that were guaranteed to get the attention of the KGB administration, and more. Long before Nadya had made her escape, Natasha had quickly been becoming Madame B's inarguable favourite, even above Katerina and her kindred streak of brutal ruthlessness. And after Nadya had run?

Madame B had continued to mould Natasha into her perfect recruit and Natasha, driven and clever and eager to please as she'd been, had stepped boldly up to the challenge set before her. She'd become the ruthless, effective, inventive, self-assured, self-reliant agent that they'd wanted her to become and more. She'd become utterly lethal and completely capable of switching her emotions—and her conscience—off with an order.

The training mistress and her team had very nearly succeeded in erasing 'Natasha' to leave only the agent they would ultimately grant the highly coveted 'Black Widow' designation to.

She'd become the perfect agent.

But all that she'd known. Natasha had come to terms with it. And after she'd gotten out, S.H.I.E.L.D., Barton and Barton's family had helped her find out just who Natasha Romanoff really was again, and the Avengers had helped her merge her sense of self with a genuine purpose…and a genuine family.

But Nadine was sure it wasn't the reminder of what the Red Room had made her that had shaken her.

It hadn't even been how genuinely proud Madame B had been. Or how pleased the older woman had asserted she'd been with Natasha's work once she'd Graduated. Or how genuinely disappointed she'd been when S.H.I.E.L.D. had snatched her up from the KGB before Madame B had been able to convince her supervisors to properly induct Natasha into HYDRA…or how they'd denied her the opportunity to make the offer personally once they'd finally agreed; obviously, whomever they had sent had failed.

"Had it been Madame B who approached me? I don't know, Nadya. I might have said yes," Natasha had admitted bluntly with an absent shrug before they'd even left Paris. "If she had asked before Clint had got to me? Maybe even after. I suppose we'll never know." But even that hadn't been what had truly shaken the redhead.

No, it was learning that, even after all these years and Natasha throwing in against HYDRA, Madame B still seemed genuinely fond of the redhead that was getting under her normally thick skin.

As was realizing that part of her still craved the woman's approval.

And given how proud Natasha was about building up the strength of her own character in the years since? About how resistant she had become to such things? How resistant she'd always believed she'd been? It smarted. Badly. It was all painfully clear in how hard her sister worked to deflect any attempt of Nadine's to even allude to the topic.

But she hid it well. And being around Barton's two kids was doing a great deal to help her move past it. By the time dinner had been devoured—a rather tasty mac and cheese dish Natasha made that Lila and Cooper adored—homework done, night-time routines completed and the two Barton kids reluctantly retreating to their beds, Natasha and Nadine were both pleasantly worn from the time spent with the two excited children.

Even Wanda had been coaxed inside for a time, Lila latching onto the older girl and telling her excitedly about their new baby brother who was quite possibly arriving any time almost non-stop through dinner. And the Sokovian had endured with good humour, seeming to genuinely enjoy the little girl's chatter. It was yet another sign Nadine was taking that Wanda was going to be alright. And even though she had once again retreated outside, this time to one of the chairs on the porch just on the other side of the living room window, Nadine could easily tell that Wanda's was already in a much better place emotionally than she had been when they'd arrived at the farm.

Yes. Staying had been a good idea, Nadine decided.

As Nadine turned her attention back to the tablet in her hands, she caught sight of Natasha glancing to her from the chair next to the fireplace just as she'd been looking to Wanda. She shot her little sister a faint grin.

"You don't have to check up on me like that, lisichka," she chided lightly.

Natasha had merely shrugged at Nadine's offhanded comment.

"It's been a long day." She looked to Wanda then herself, absently nodding toward the girl where she sat curled up in a green and brown plaid blanket on the other side of the glass; she looked like she had dozed off out there, listing to one side with her head resting haphazardly on her propped arm, "and not just for her." Nadine made an absent noise of agreement as she resumed her work. Natasha looked back to the blonde assassin before sighing heavily.

"I still can't decide if it was a good idea bringing her into this." Nadine looked up again, meeting her sister's troubled gaze before glancing back to Wanda again. It wasn't the first time Natasha had said as much. Nadine hadn't been exaggerating when she'd told Clint he'd only been repeating Natasha's concern.

"She needed it," Nadine said softly, not for the first time either. "She needed to feel needed, and she needed to feel in control again. She needed to do something. She needed to focus on something other than her own mistakes. And…and she needed to be reminded that she is not a bad person."

"I know," Natasha agreed softly, her suddenly tired voice nevertheless threaded with a trace of reluctance. But then she fixed a searching gaze on Nadine. "One thing I can't understand, though, is why you didn't suggest we bring Nina along too." Nadine could feel her gaze turn cool, fighting it off before she let herself look to her little sister.

"Because she's still healing." Natasha didn't drop her intent scrutiny.

"Emotionally, yeah…just like Wanda. But if this could help Wanda, why wouldn't it have helped Nina too? After all, everything we were after today? It affected her almost as much as it did us. Maybe even more so."

"Bringing her would have set her on a path she couldn't come back from," Nadine said quietly, her voice growing cool as she grew defensive. "I'm trying to keep her safe from this kind of life." It was a lie—wishful thinking at best—and they both knew it.

"The way we just kept Wanda safe from it?"

"Can you deny that Wanda's already part of it?" She could tell Natasha wanted to contradict, but that she reconsidered arguing. Tempers were short enough as it was despite the reprieve they'd taken and they were both acutely aware of it. Still, the redhead couldn't entirely hold back.

Natasha fixed Nadine with a knowing look. "And Nina's not? You've effectively been training Nina as a spy, Nadya. And that's not even counting everything that's happened the last couple weeks." Nadine jolted, gaze snapping to Natasha with an affronted look, eyes wide. The uncertainty in her gut was fanned to life again, taunting her with her private resolve to start genuinely training Nina to survive in their world.

And preparing her to finally hear the whole of Nadine's secrets.

But to hear Natasha say she had already been doing so? The fluttering unease began to knot uncomfortably in her stomach.

"I have not!" Natasha raised a skeptical eyebrow at Nadine's denial.

"Nadine…she was raised in Austria—speaking German—by a Russian spy mother—learning to speak Russian and English—and yet she doesn't have a trace of an accent with any of them? Well, she does when she's scared or angry or—"

"Multilingualism is an invaluable life skill," Nadine interrupted defensively, "It's not just a skill for spies, Nat."

"You taught her how to fight. A healthy variety of martial arts and hand-to-hand combat skills—"

"I taught her how to defend herself. Something she needed, as it turns out. There were people out there after me, Nat! People hunting me, who hunted her, hurt her, because of her connection to me!" But Natasha didn't even falter at Nadine's protests.

"—how to think quickly, strategically, even tactically. I know you know about how she helped Steve out of a tight spot and how she evaded a sentry by leading it straight for him; I know he told you about that. She has a workable knowledge of electronics and their construction; I learned that in Sokovia, and she told me the other day that she'd been considering going into computer engineering after high school. That she actually applied to MIT for it? She has to be good since she genuinely believes she has a chance. What else have you taught her on the sly? How to hack, obviously; goes with the computer sciences territory. Codebreaking would go along with that easily. What about how to see through and withstand interrogation tricks? How to interrogate even? How to manipulate? How to hide, to disappear? To infiltrate? I bet she's been playing our old Red Room childhood memory, logic and observation games since she was a baby.

"And don't tell me; at the very least, you have to have taught her how to shoot." Nadine didn't have a rebuttal. Though not about everything she'd listed, Natasha was, to some extent, right. And she knew it.

"See! You are," Natasha practically crowed. Nadine scowled at her sister. But she couldn't entirely deny it. In some ways—many ways, if she was being honest—she had been. Only she'd been convincing herself that they were skills that would help Nina protect herself or help her make a life for herself one day. On one hand, they were. On the other…

"Well it wasn't exactly intentional, Natasha! It's what I know!" The redhead sobered, then. After a moment, she stood, coming around the coffee table to sink onto the couch next to Nadine and wrapping her arms around her sister's tense shoulders. At the contact, Nadine begrudgingly began to relax, her anxiety-driven temper cooling.

"I think, whether you like it or not, Nadya, Nina is a part of this world. She was born into it." A shuddering breath escaped Nadine. But she couldn't bring herself to contradict the redhead, no matter how much she believed Nina was too good, too innocent for their world.

Not when she knew her sister was at least partially right.

She had just been hoping she could put off admitting it for a little while longer.

A/N: Thanks for reading!

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Guest Reviews:

Jag: Hmm…you know, that sounds a little bit like you might have stumbled on a….plot point? ;) Hahaha! I'm so glad you enjoyed the change of pace. A little fluff every now and then doesn't hurt, after all. :P They're coming! They just need to get a little more comfortable around each other first. Thanks for reviewing!

Jo: I'm so glad you loved it. Thanks for reviewing! See you next time! :D