Chapter Two

Natasha folded her arms as she watched Steve carefully. He frowned slightly as he read the whole debrief before he finally looked up at them.

"Why are we getting this?" he asked.

"Because Fury thought you might get bored. There aren't always aliens to fight," answered Natasha. "It's Brooklyn, your patch and he wants Captain America to be thought to be doing something again."

"Alright. You two be careful." Natasha felt Juliette stiffen slightly, everyone seemed to be doubting her after her failures to bring Greyhound and Hornet down.

"We weren't trained to fight people like them," Natasha said quietly as they left Steve to tell the other Avengers. "No one thinks any less of you."

"Are you trying to tell me I'm only human?" Natasha still had a bruise from where Juliette had hit back too hard in training. Steve was no longer the only person breaking punching bag chains in the gym. They climbed into the transit and Juliette drove away from Steve's apartment block.

"There's nothing wrong with that." Bruce was the prime example of someone who would swap with Juliette.

"You raised the bar, Tasha. Now we're fighting monsters and what happens to those of us who can't keep up?" Natasha frowned at the windshield.

"You make it. You were unprepared and we're used to dealing with drug barons, assassins, people without any extra help." Natasha felt like she was hitting a brick wall again, except it wasn't Clint who was feeling sorry for himself next to her. "Get over it."

"Did I mention you should start an agony aunt column?" Natasha didn't answer and they drove in silence to the airfield. Once in the jet, Natasha took the controls to get them in the air. They were cleared for their flight to Cuba and Natasha took a second to glance back at her still silent companion. Juliette sat cross legged against the side of the jet, a large case open in front of her. Natasha watched as she pulled out various guns and knives, hiding them away on her person somehow in invisible pockets of her uniform. She frowned, there was not taking chances, then there was what Juliette was doing.

"Juliette-"

"It's not happening again," came the answer and Natasha was faced with a determined glare. "No one's getting inside my head again."

"Hemlock doesn't have mind reading abilities," Natasha protested, flicking on auto pilot so that she could sit next to Juliette.

"We don't know her location, we barely know what she was intended to have as powers, how do we know they didn't just add telepathy whilst they were at it?" Natasha wished she knew how to reach out and calm her down.

"We need to bring her in," she reminded Juliette quietly. That deflated her partner slightly.

"I've very nearly had it with super-humans." Natasha remembered feeling like that on the helicarrier, trying to console Clint after he woke up. Their worlds had always been strange, but suddenly it was about more than just Tony building robots or the odd failed super serum. There were more uniquely empowered people than Natasha would have thought possible. There had been a time when she had thought the only people who weren't normal, physically, were herself and Captain America, of whom one was dead.

"You don't mind some super-humans," Natasha said, looking at the guns Juliette had left in the case instead of her.

"Don't you need to be flying or something?" Juliette stood up quickly. Natasha's lips curled into a tiny grin as she span around to catch her partner off guard. Juliette's hand came out to meet her fist in lightening sharp response.

"Mediocre," Natasha told her, smiling. The smirk she got in return was golden, they both knew very few people could have responded to Black Widow quite that quickly. By very few, the list was her two partners and Steve.

"Cheers." Juliette took the controls. "Please stop fangirling over a gun."

"It's a nice gun," Natasha whined, admiring the weapon.

"Yes, it's also mine. Put it back." She pocketed it instead. "Natasha."

"Make me." Juliette gave her a Phil style roll of the eyes and the plane made a sudden swerve. Natasha fell into her seat, remembering suddenly that Juliette had been sent on a flight course two years before whilst the other three were in Tanzania. "Not funny. Don't you dare roll the plane over."

"Then put my gun back." Slowly Natasha took the gun out of her pocket and turned to put it back in the case. The plane swerved again as she hesitated. "Thank you." Natasha glared at her, sitting back down. She strapped herself in firmly. She wished no one had ever thought of teaching Juliette how to be a stunt pilot. It was mostly Clint's fault for getting her a Red Arrows post card.

"Why do you have an old shotgun?" Natasha asked suddenly as she peered back into the case.

"It's loaded with rock salt to fend off ghosts." She blinked, looking at Juliette blankly. "We still need to have that Supernatural marathon at some point, don't we?"

"That's the thing with the angel and the car Phil wants, right?"

"Don't you watch anything?"

"Anna Karenina." Juliette rolled her eyes again. Natasha found it amusing how Juliette reacted to her not understanding references, even though she had sat down and watched the majority of what her partner went on about. Not that Natasha would admit to that though, part of the fun was pretending not to have a clue. The same went for Juliette pretending not to understand Russian.

"Tasha," Juliette said quietly as Florida passed by below them. "You're alright with the links to the Soviets we're about to find, right?" Natasha shrugged. She didn't like things that reminded her of the past, she wasn't part of the Soviet arsenal anymore. She had never gone back, not after she defected. Poland, Ukraine, Germany she had been too, but she had told Phil explicitly that she would not go back to her homeland. She could read and watch Russian classics, go to the ballet and down Vodka, but anything that mentioned the Soviets or came close to what had happened to her she shied away from.

"I know we weren't the only group. We'll just have to see when we get there." Half an hour later they had landed in Cuba.