Pepper POV:
The entrance buzzer goes off, and I'm there almost before the sound actually registers.
Even if I don't know quite what's happening with Natasha, my subconscious apparently has its own ideas.
Her voice, her *normal voice*, comes through the panel clearly. "Can I come up?"
I can't help smiling wryly. "Can I stop you?"
I'm fairly sure my building's security couldn't stop little miss superspy.
"Always," she replies simply, and it's such a difference to... to what I'm used to that I almost can't respond.
She's someone I can say no to, about the little things as well as the big, no drama or production.
"Well," I say after a moment. "Now that I've asked you over here, I can hardly turn you away. It'd send all kinds of mixed messages."
"And you wouldn't want that."
"I do pride myself on being an excellent communicator," I say and buzz her in.
A minute or so later, and I'm near the front door, waiting for her knock. It comes, and I open the entrance to my apartment, with a smile on my face that's only a little tired.
There she is, there she stands, confident and reserved, so quintessentially *Natasha* that I almost miss the slight flinch that crosses her face.
(Except the confidence and the reserve isn't her, not really. It's just... it's just so hard to remember that, remember that my unconscious model of her is hollow at best.)
"What's wrong?" I ask, cautiously, not wanting to approach or move away, worried that whatever I do will be the wrong thing.
I see her eyes flick from side to side, almost too quickly to perceive, a taking in of the surroundings that I sometimes catch her do when she moves into a new environment.
It's something I've seen various of the better security people do, a way of evaluating the threats in an unknown situation.
It's something I saw her do last night, when I confronted her first at her apartment, then at the SHIELD lodgings.
"Nothing," she says.
Is that what we are now?
An unknown situation?
I guess it's a not entirely incorrect metaphor.
But it's one I'm uncomfortable with.
"Come in," I tell her, stepping backwards, allowing her room.
It's the right thing to do.
I think.
Even now, after having gotten to know her for months, giving me the clues she does (and, I'm beginning to believe, the clues she *can*) it's so hard to tell.
She moves forward and shuts the door behind her, regarding me with a tilt to her head and a slight smile on her lips. "Shall we advance as far as the living room?"
"Sure."
After we sit down, on different chairs, there's a moment of silence. Despite everything, it's a little awkward. I'm trying to figure out what I can say, and Natasha... Natasha is being herself.
"So," I say finally. "What's wrong?"
What's wrong at the *moment*.
"Out there?" she asks. There's a momentary pause, and I see a flicker of *something* pass through her eyes. I don't get a good enough look to guess what it might be, but even that is far more than she usually allows me. "You opened the door without checking who it was first. It..." she pauses again, uncharacteristically, then adds, "Makes me nervous."
Her words are too much like every other criticism I've ever received, and I can't help reacting. Especially when it's coming from her. "I'm not going to live my life like some paranoid shut-in, Natasha," I say, then regret my words a little, and try softening them a little with a smile. "Besides, if someone is really out to get me, that's not going to save me."
"I'm not your security expert," Natasha says with a shrug. "You don't have to follow my advice. It... just made me nervous."
Again with the pause. Though at least I no longer feel like I'm failing some kind of test, and I can now think more clearly about what she's actually saying. "Why haven't you said anything about this before? Answering the door like that isn't exactly new for me."
There's another flicker, and I can see her tightening her jaw slightly. On most people, it wouldn't be much. With her, the contrast to her usual smooth exterior is vivid. "I'm not here to protect you. And it hasn't been my place. Not that it is now. But the distinction seems less important. Sorry."
Well, I guess with any best friend you've got to expect a few foibles. And a little unsolicited security advice - as long as it stays just advice - is a lot better than some tics I can think of. Besides, and I can't help feeling warm at the thought, it shows she cares.
I can't help reaching over to grab her hand. "Maybe I *should* hire you as my security consultant, then, Ms Romanoff."
Her facade becomes flawless once again. "I doubt you could afford me, Ms Potts."
"I don't know. Let me see what benefits I can throw in to sweeten the deal." And then reality comes crashing in. "Though they'd be severely limited at the moment. Breaking up with Tony... didn't go as smoothly as I might have wished."
"Oh?" she says levelly, in exactly the same tone of voice she used to threaten Justin Hammer.
"Um, nothing like that." I'm not sure exactly what is running through her head, but I feel fairly safe claiming that. "It's just... I haven't actually managed to break up with him yet. Officially. Sorry," I add, feeling my own need to apologise.
"That's alright," she says. "You have to do what's best for you."
It almost makes it worse, that she isn't angry or at least annoyed, disappointed that I didn't do what I set out to do.
It almost makes it worse that she gives no sign that she ever expected anything different.
Am I really that much of a predictable walkover, when it comes to Tony?
"I'm not saying it's what I *wanted*," I say a little tightly. "It's just... being Tony's girlfriend is a professional, as well as personal thing. There are certain commitments that it's hard to back out from, without making a fuss."
"Stark's never had a problem with creating a fuss in the past," she observes, and shifts once again, her voice becoming a little more clipped and dispassionate, her posture becoming more upright. Of all places, I recognise some of these signs from when she was Natalie, giving an analysis on the inner workings of Stark International.
I can't help wondering who amongst her multitudes this is.
"*Tony* doesn't want to break up at all."
"I see," she says, and I can almost see the cogs whirring behind her eyes.
"I can handle this myself," I interject before her thought processes have a chance to go anywhere. Both because, well, this *is* my problem, and my pride won't let anyone else handle it, but also because I strongly suspect that I'll be greatly tempted to take her up on any solution before this is over. Not having any of them on the table seems the safest for all concerned.
Especially Tony.
"I never thought otherwise," she says, sounding a little... offended?
"Thanks," I say, and give her a smile.
I think it works - she settles back in what seems to be her default posture,
"Apart from that," I say, "My day was consumed with trying to organise as many things in New York as possible, as well as my usual workload." Oh, and I'd forgotten to arrange for Tony's lab to get cleared up, as per JARVIS' request.
Well, forgotten and had other things on my mind.
I made a mental note to have a word with Julia in Facilities tomorrow.
Not that the staff there didn't have *enough* to do, but keeping the AI who ran the building sweet was never a bad idea.
"If you don't mind," I begin cautiously, feeling like I'm tiptoeing my way into a minefield. "What was your day like?"
She'd disappeared before I woke up, so I have no idea what she was like this morning.
And though she seems more or less fine now, I'm not sure how much that actually means.
She meets my gaze for a moment, then seems to crumble, just a little, becoming less the omni-competent agent, less guarded.
"Fine," she says.
But she doesn't look like someone who's had a good or even average day.
"I'm sorry if I did the wrong thing yesterday. I was just worried about you."
She smiles a little, but I can see the cracks. "I think... I think you did the right thing. Or at least the necessary thing. Otherwise I'd already be gone from this country."
There's yet another pause, the same kind she used last night, when she was telling me about her childhood, about the things that hurt her, the things that made her, the things that are important to her.
I suddenly want to hold her so much, comfort her, thank her for letting me in this far that I reach out towards her instinctively.
She freezes, looking at my hand as if it's a viper.
Stupid. *Stupid.*
She's not a touchy feely person, at least not with me.
(And there's a small, jealous part of me that can't help wondering if she's like that with anyone else.)
(Like Clint.)
And it's not like having shared some trauma with me is going to change that any time soon.
"Sorry," I say apologetically, and scrunch my limbs up unthreateningly on my own chair.
"Not a problem," she says, even though it clearly is.
I guess it's a measure of how much trust she has in me that she lets me see her lying.
"It's just..." she says. "I'm on a mission. And I have to pretend to be a bad person, a person I tried to leave behind a long time ago."
And this time it's her who reaches towards me, one hand effortlessly finding mine, resting atop it.
Natasha POV:
I had been trained to be cold, emotionless, perfect.
That's what they had wanted.
That's what they had got.
Natasha.
She completed the missions.
She was the one who suffered the injuries.
(Physical, of course. Natasha didn't have emotions that could be hurt.)
She was the one was given far too little time to recover before moving onto the next objective.
Not that she cared.
To slow down was to die.
And Natasha didn't believe in letting anything stop her, not even death.
Then Glasnost came. A time when anything was for sale.
Weapons.
Resources.
Even people.
And her handler of the time had decided to get in on the action.
Soon Natasha was being handed targets of a different type, ones given to her courtesy of one of the local Bratva.
Objectives that took her all over the world, a mobile dealer of death, performing contracts for the highest bidder.
But Natasha wasn't good enough.
They didn't want an emotionless killer.
It may have been clean.
It may have been efficient.
It may have been practical.
But, as she was sent to liaise with more and more criminals, it was no longer *enough*.
They wanted a certain level of mystique, a certain level of threat, a certain level of sadism that Natasha simply didn't have.
And so the Black Widow was born.
(And even if she'd had that designation before, it never had the same meaning afterwards.)
(Not to her.)
(As a useful side effect, it also served to dissuade the locals from attempting to sample the goods.)
(Black Widow was an asset, a useful one.)
(And they weren't going to let her get damaged.)
(Besides, being tasted in that way would have harmed her image.)
(And that would never do.)
(Not that Natasha would let them, in any case.)
(But they *believed* that the Black Widow wouldn't let them.)
A few years later, things tightened up in Russia, the scheme was discovered and her handler was caught.
She never saw him again.
But the Black Widow persisted.
It was deemed... useful to have access to those contacts, home and abroad.
So she continued to be hired out, now and again.
And when she did so, when she was Black Widow, she always killed with a smile.
(Until Barton.)
(Until SHIELD.)
Pepper POV:
After last night, I wouldn't have believed that there was anything else.
That there couldn't have been anything else.
Wasn't beating the self-worth out of a young girl, turning her from a person into a thing, enough?
Did they really have to go that one step further?
Apparently so.
Oh, Natasha.
Again, the urge to hold her, to try and make it better, somehow, almost overwhelms me.
But this time I don't succumb.
I can't take this from her.
If she wants to hold me, if she wants me to hold her, she can let me.
But I *can't* take one more thing away from her.
Not this.
Not this.
"Is there anything I can do?" I ask, my voice rasping a little with unshed tears.
She looks at me in what appears to be surprise. "No. It's in the past. Why would I need your help?"
Why indeed?
Before I can say anything, though, she continues, in a slightly quieter tone. "Yes. You can help. You are helping." Her grip tightens on my hand. Her choice, not mine. "The Black Widow is... useful for my current mission. I shouldn't mind being her. Natasha would say that it makes no sense."
"But you do?" I prompt.
"I do," she confirms. "She makes me feel unsettled, unclean. But you make me feel better." She takes a breath, releases it. "Thank you."
Her walls visibly go up as she collects herself.
"Sorry," she says, easily, smoothly Natasha again. "You really shouldn't have seen that." She gives me a half smile. "You have enough problems of your own."
I snort. "Nothing like that, Natasha. I mean, god. Nothing like that. You're my friend. What kind of person would I be if I didn't do anything I could to help anyway I can? There *isn't* anything else I can do, is there?"
She shrugs. "I'm really not that important."
"You are to me," I say fiercely. "You mean so much to me." The need to hold her resurfaces. "Can I hug you?"
"Of course."
I scrunch up my face in irritation. "I mean: would you like me to? Forget about what I might want - what would you like?"
There's a moment when her walls fall down, when she looks almost open again.
Just a moment.
But she nods.
And I move over to her chair, place my arms around her, and hug her as hard as I can.
Oh, Natasha.
I feel so helpless. For all my training, all my preparation, I simply have no idea about what I can do for her, this beautiful, flawed woman in front of me.
And all I can think at the moment is - thank you.
Thank you for letting me get this close to you.
Thank you for choosing me, of all people, to try and help.
It's selfish and crazy and completely unworthy of her.
And, oh, Natasha.
But - "Thank you," I murmur into her hair.
At that, she pushes me back a little, and looks deep into my eyes, as if trying to look for some kind of answer. "You really don't have to do that," she says. "Thanking me. If anything, it should be the other way around."
"You deserve someone so much better than me," is all I can think to say in response.
Because, oh, Natasha.
She keeps staring into my eyes, as if lost, then, slowly, draws our mouths together, before washing me away with a kiss.
It's not a romantic kiss.
It's not the kind of kiss you'd give a lover.
It's pure passion, pure connection, pure desperation.
It's the kind of kiss that says 'Here I am, and I'm not letting you go.'
It's the kind of kiss that says 'Please don't let me go.'
And. I. Am. In. *So.* Much. Trouble.
Because I don't think there's any way I'm walking away from this after a kiss like that.
Author's Note: My wife Louisa (author and beta extraordinaire) and I are going to be interviewed on the Femslash4Fans live internet radio show on Sunday 24th February. We're not sure of the exact time yet, but it's probably going to be starting around 8-10pm UK time, or 3-5pm EST. When I have some firm details, I'll make a post on my Livejournal account, which also uses the name Tamoline. I'll also include a link to the podcast of the interview after it has aired.
I know the interviewer enjoys Breaking Points, so I'd guess that there will be questions about this story in there.