Natasha's first task before leaving the Helicarrier was to visit Fury's office. She knew exactly what she needed from him, exactly what she wanted to say, but as soon as she was seated across the Director's desk the words dried up and curdled in her throat. In the end she had to close her eyes and force it out.
Fury's chair creaked as he shifted. "Let me get this straight, Agent Romanov. You want SHIELD, a government agency that is supposed protect people like Captain Rogers and yourself, to cure the super serum," he slowly said.
"Yes, sir."
"No."
She sucked in a breath and pushed herself against the back of her chair. "Sir, you know I wouldn't ask if I didn't think it were possible," she slowly said. "It's 2012. We have technology ten times as advanced as when the original serum was synthesized, and-"
Bang! Fury slammed his fist onto the desk and Natasha inwardly recoiled. Outwardly she merely blinked, but Fury knew her better than that. "Agent Romanov, I understand why this is important to you, but I'm turning you down. Can you imagine what would happen if it was unearthed that SHIELD had synthesized a cure for Captain Rogers' condition? Especially with the shitstorm going down in Congress with the Mutant Registration Act. It just can't happen in the US government." He leaned forward onto his elbows. "Not to mention, we just don't have the money for that kind of project. I'm very sorry, Agent." His eye and voice were heavy and dark with meaning.
Stark.
Darkness had fallen and yet the tower was still awake when Natasha returned. She went straight up to the communal floor, her mission clear and strong in mind as the elevator rocketed skyward. It didn't occur that the scene would be uncomfortable after her earlier episode, but as soon as she stepped in and everyone turned to stare her heart jumped up between her eyes. Her head began to throb. "I need to talk to you," she told Tony without sparing a glance for Bruce, Pepper, or Clint.
Tony cocked a gun made with his fingers. "Shoot it to it, Tash."
Ignoring her husband's puzzled look, she melted forward and sank onto a stool at the bar, as close as she'd dare get to Tony without bringing up memories of Natalie melding and manipulating him into what she wanted. "I need money," she evenly said. It would come out anyway, so trying to speak with Tony in private would just be useless.
Clint shot up from the sofa. "Whoa, Nat, what?" he asked.
"Maybe you should ask your old man if you wanna buy yourself something pretty, Pippi."
"It's funding for a research project," Natasha plowed forward unfazed. Tony's eyebrows shot up as he waited. The entire room felt like it was holding its breath together, the collective air thinning and stretching and Natasha spoke up before it could reach its breaking point. "It would be-"
"Hello? Anyone ho-oh, hey everyone," Steve called, pausing in the door when he felt the tense atmosphere.
Words upon words stacked up and clogged her throat. The idea of suggesting her idea to Tony in front of Steve was suddenly the very last thing she wanted. But it had to be said and dropping the subject would only make things worse. She took a deep breath, biting her lip. "I want to fund research to reverse the super serum."
"What?!"
Natasha averted her eyes to the glass bar top. "You all heard me. I want to find a cure for-"
"Just hold on one hot minute, KGB Barbie," Tony snapped and gestured with his glass of Scotch, "You want me to revert America's Sweetheart back into Chicken Legs McGee?"
"Hey!"
"I've seen the pictures, Cap!"
"I'm not asking you to do this because I want Steve forced back to the way he was," she ground out, bracing herself on her elbows.
Head tipped, lips pursed, and eyebrows furrowed, Tony targeted her with his original bitch face. "Yeah, well, Bruce Wayne didn't build that bullshit nuclear reactor with the intention of Bane turning it into an Atom bomb either, did he? The cost astronomically outweighs the benefits, so, no. Drink?" He offered an empty glass.
"You don't even know why I-"
"I don't need to know," Tony shot back, his voice loud and ringing in the group's heavy silence. He'd at some point down the line picked up that tic from Bruce where he gestured with everything at hand. Currently it was an olive pierced by a toothpick. "One of the fundamental rules of inventing shit like this is that if a tool exists, it can be made into a weapon. Steve-o, how would you sleep at night, knowing there was a possibility for some nutjob to turn you back into your old asthmatic self?"
Steve shifted, still only half a step inside, and wrung his hands. "To be fair, I don't sleep much as it is so-" he began.
"See?! No dice, Ruski. Now let it go and sit down, we're watching a movie."
And Tony let it go as easily as that. Clint, who knew exactly why she would want the serum reversed, patted the stretch of cushion next to him, battered eyes sad. But the others watched her with wary suspicion. It was only natural to be concerned by her sudden interest, but the idea that they really thought she would risk Steve's safety for no good reason or even to betray them sat in the bottom of her stomach and burned.
When she finally bullied herself to move and sat Clint whispered, "I'm sorry, Tasha. Maybe we can get him alone another time," into her ear, his words lost to the others' discussion over what movie to watch.
Natasha gripped his hand unseen between them, looking into his bruised eyes and swollen nose. "I'm sorry I hit you," she murmured back.
"I know you are. You would have stayed and rubbed it in if you weren't."
She ducked her head, unamused even by their usual banter.
The room's charge was broken by Tony loudly clapping his hands. "Okay, whatever, fine, Steve wins a Disney flick yet again, Up it is. Everyone sit down and shut up."
As soon as the animated news reels started Natasha understood Steve's draw to the movie. He must have seen a clip online. He insisted it was only because he was interested in art and "Not because I like little kids' movies, Tony!"
"Aw, look, it's like Bruce as a tiny chub!" Pepper exclaimed when the main character was in the daylight. Clint laughed and squeezed her hand as the little animated boy ran down the street and knocked himself out on a tree stump. Natasha's mind was still occupied with other things, but she tried to push it back and enjoy the show. Movie night was their team tradition to help Steve get caught up on modern popular culture, but mostly they just ended up watching animated features.
When the girl character appeared with her vivid red hair and brash personality, Natasha assumed people would compare her to Pepper. But as soon as she said, "You know, kid, you don't talk much...I like you!" there was an enormous cry of, "Natasha!" and everyone laughed. Finally she relaxed and allowed herself to enjoy the movie with the knowledge that apparently her indiscretion had been momentarily forgotten.
Natasha managed to keep every breath steady and even throughout the movie. Even when Ellie and Carl found out they couldn't have children and Ellie shut down. Even when, time and again, they were forced to put their dreams on hold. Even when Ellie died and Carl was left on his own. Throughout Carl's entire journey through South America with Russell she was able to distance herself emotionally and lose herself in Clint's warmth against her side.
Carl turned page after page of his deceased wife's Adventure Book, every picture of them growing a little older together. And on the last page it said Thanks for the Adventure- now go have a new one! Love, Ellie, and half the room was in quiet tears.
"That's it," Natasha blurted out, her voice faint and distant over the hornets' nest screaming between her ears. "That's why I want the super serum reversed. JARVIS, pause and lights."
Everyone hastily wiped at their eyes when the lights went back up, then turned to look accusingly at her. "The movie's almost over!" whined Tony with his face shoved into the back of the couch so no one could see him crying like a child. "What could possibly be more important than letting us all silently cry this stupid movie out in peace?!"
"The commanders of the Red Room injected me with their own version of the super serum in 1951, when I was twenty-two years old," she said, holding Clint's hand in an iron grip and refusing to look up from her knees. "When Steve was given the serum in '42, he had the choice. He volunteered. I was restrained and given two options: either take the serum or watch the man who raised me die. And they gagged me, so even if I wanted to I couldn't refuse.
"I can't have children because of what the serum did to me. It's not like the Red Room needed their spies laid up. My biological clock runs at a fraction of the rate of a normal human's; I'm nearly a hundred years old but I've physically aged no more than a few years. I can't have what you all have. All because of a choice I never got to make. Steve knew what he was getting into when he took the serum. He knew he would watch everyone he knew grow old and die while he stayed the same, he knew that the world would change around him and he agreed, but I didn't. I didn't get that choice. I got a threat, and brainwashing, and the death of someone I loved very dearly."
She was angry. She was so viciously, unbelievably angry at the injustice of it all that she was blinded by the rage and the tears in her eyes. Clint tried to wrap an arm around her shoulders but she shook him off, feeling dirty and exposed and so, so raw. "JARVIS, just...play the rest of the movie."
Pepper was still crying into her hand and trying very hard to glare at Natasha. Steve looked about ready to jump out the window. The movie ended but none of them were really watching, even if their eyes were aimed at the screen. After the credits rolled and the lights went back up, the air in the room thick and stinking of roses - at least to Natasha - no one moved.
Then Tony cleared his throat heavily and said, "Okay, I will think about it and that's all you can ask of me."
Hands curled in her lap, Natasha nodded without a word. Her heart was beating so quickly she couldn't find it in herself to speak. A part of her was still massively angry, pulse racing and weak like a hummingbird thrum, and Clint dared not touch her. Not after the mess she'd made earlier. She stood up before she trembled apart into molecules and brushed a hand over Clint's shoulder. "I'll be..." she trailed off and drifted to the elevator, lost in thought and sick of being herself. The perfect cure would be a mission, a long undercover job where she could pretend to be someone else and forget the shitstorm of her life.
The air on the tower roof was cold and clear but Natasha felt too warm and stifled. She pulled the sweatshirt off over her head and pushed her hair behind her ears before sinking down to sit. Chill air rose goosebumps on her bare back and stomach. Her hair was getting longer, nearly reaching past her shoulders now, but she didn't allow herself to feel the same revulsion as she had on the Helicarrier nine months ago. If the best way to get over a fear of flight was to take a plane trip around the world, and the best way to get over a fear of water was to dive headfirst into the deep end, then the best way to resolve her feelings for the image of blood on snow was to let her red, red hair fall over her pale shoulders.
City sounds echoed up through the nighttime air and tangled between her fingers, ozone glittering above her like stardust. The open deck where Thor came and went from Asgard was vast and empty and the wind whistled through it. Her whole life was vast and empty, one mission, one identity, one life after another, a long series of failures and mistakes and wanting more than she could ever have. The wind whistled through the spaces in her ribcage.
The stairwell door opened behind her with a creak of rusty hinges. "Agent Romanov."
"Agent Carter," she replied stiffly, picking at a loose thread on the hem of her bra. "Who's watching Jamie?"
Blonde hair entered her line of sight as Sharon sat, their shoulders brushing together. "He's with my grandma. I wanted to come and talk to you before it got too late...in the morning," Sharon reached a little wryly. "Plus I've heard good things about the view up here. It's pretty nice, I guess."
"I've seen better in Stalingrad," Natasha shrugged. She didn't tear her eyes away from the skyline, raking her gaze over every pinprick of light and every dark angular silhouette against the purple pre-sunrise sky.
Straightening the coat over her shoulders, Sharon sniffled in the cold hair and watched their breath rise in crystalline clouds of vapor. "I was talking with Bucky earlier tonight. He told me that you had some unfinished business in the outskirts of Kremnička. Hydra and Red Room business or something. I've spoken with Director Fury and he's cleared it as long as you take the team. The coordinates are already in your phone."
Kremnička. Natasha knew the name of that village better than she knew the back of her own hand. Staring down at her pale fingers, she shivered in the cold of bloody memories.
"Natasha? You understand that you need to do this."
"I understand," she nodded without tearing her eyes from her hands. "I do. We'll go as soon as everyone's able."
Sharon's hair brushed her cheek as an arm snaked over her shoulders. "You're sorry you were a bitch to me earlier," she fondly said.
She laughed, startled. "You know? I am," Natasha agreed, leaning into her friend's side as the sun started to rise.
We're almost at the truth! Thanks very much for your reviews, everyone; they mean very much to me.