So this was what it meant to jump without a parachute. This is how it felt to pull the rip cord and find nothing there. Nothing to slow you down; no one to catch you. Just the patchwork ground racing closer and closer until - Natasha's body jumped. Her shoulders dug painfully against the wrought iron bars. If this was only pulling the parachute, what would happen when she hit the ground?
"Well Clint, you were right before, I'll give you that," she whispered to the air. "That wasn't compromised. This is compromised."
Natasha's chest heaved as it debated whether to breath or cry or choke. In her line of work she had seen hell. She had felt fear, felt the paralyzing grip of terror that tried to swallow her whole. She had taken bullets and shrapnel and plenty of lives. More than once, she'd been certain she was about to die. But this was different. This gut-wrenching panic was unlike any she'd ever felt. She had no mask to hide behind, no way to fight back. There was no loop hole, no way out. This was her. She had no way to run.
As soon as Natasha regained control of her muscles, she rose shakily to her feet. She could't bare to sit still, not here. Not in this apartment, where she'd been stupid enough to believe she might get a chance at a different life.
Natasha tugged a jacket over her shoulders and headed out, wandering wherever her feet felt like taking her. Her mind was still reeling to much to care.
How could she have let this happen? All those years of building up walls and pushing him away, and now. . . It had felt so real, this little life they had built for themselves. Just real enough that it hurt to watch it shatter. She had thought for once that her life was under her control. Now whatever shred of stability she might have slipped out of her hands.
Stupid, Natasha thought, the stupidest of stupid mistakes. She stomped on a stray soda can laying in the street. Mistakes implied rules; rules implied the same old game. "For once, I was trying not to play."
The irony wasn't lost on her, that was for certain. As she wandered though the city streets, she had to stop from throwing her head back and laughing out loud. This was the dream wasn't it? A promising career, a killer body, a boyfriend who did the cooking and a -. Natasha took a sharp breath of air scented with exhaust and river mud. She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence, not even in her mind. Not yet.
Natasha looked up from the sidewalk and found herself looking at the river. How long had she been walking for? She shrugged. A traffic light turned and Natasha crossed the street.
A tarred path wound its way beside the river, following its dips and turns. Cyclists, runners and folks out for an afternoon stroll dotted the landscape, separated from the city by a grassy, tree-lined strip.
Natasha sat down on a vacant bench, letting the splintering wood and worn red paint drain the soreness from her legs. She watches the current meandering along with a calm she wished she could take for herself. To the north, she could just make out the bridge, their bridge. If that night had never happened. . .
I wish . . . Natasha began, but she stopped. She grabbed the edge of the bench and shook her head with a wry smile. She didn't wish. She didn't wish Fury had listened to them, or Maria, and never sent her and Clint to Budapest. She didn't wish they'd kept fighting. She didn't wish Clint had made up with Clara, or let her talking him out of dancing, or never taken her up to the bridge. She wanted all of it. She wanted whatever insanity the two of them had become. She wanted Charlotte Welch's life, whatever pieces she was allowed to keep.
Well, maybe not all the pieces. All those days she'd wished for something real in her life, this wasn't what she'd had in mind. This was a little too real. Natasha glanced down at her abs and felt another surge of panic flood her veins. With a shiver, she directed her gaze back at the river and locked it there as best she could. Natasha crossed her arms, grabbing her biceps and trying guard herself against something she couldn't escape. Way too real.
Of course, it didn't have to be. Not for long. Natasha dug her toe into the dirt. And here I thought three was the magic number, she thought. She drew a steadying breath. Could she really convince herself that this time wasn't any different? That this was just a reality of the job that needed to be handled? Probably not. Clint wasn't a mark; she cared about him. Did that mean she cared about it too?
It's not like she had much of a choice in the matter. If she didn't to it now, she'd just be a liability - distracted and weak. Even if she couldn't bring herself to do it while they were here, once she got back to the Helicarrier . . . Actually, after the Saudi Arabia incident, Fury had at least hinted that she could have said no. Not that it had mattered; she was back of the Active Assets roster that afternoon. And Clint tries to tell me I'm not a monster. If he knew any of this. . .
Natasha leaned back against the park bench, trying to let the gentle swish of the river and occasional the crunch of bike tires over the sandy asphalt calm her down. I wish this wasn't happening, she thought over and over, as if repeating the words could help. As she turned that ugly, loaded sentence around in her mind, Natasha paused. She looked up toward the bridge, trying to picture the city aglow with moonlight, trying to picture Clint. That's not quite right, Natasha realized. I wish so badly that it hadn't happened, but now that is has . . . I don't wish it would end.
Natasha glanced around, suddenly afraid the joggers nearby could read her face. She had to remind herself that it was only Clint would could read her mind through the smallest details in her eyes. Even if she went up and told the spandex-covered trio the insane thought pinging around in her mind, they wouldn't care. They wouldn't understand how such a thought was so taboo.
And yet somehow, she felt more relaxed than she had all morning. The anxiety remained for sure, but that icy panic was gone, replaced by what, exactly? Excitement? Hope? Happiness? Natasha was to afraid to say, but she could feel it nonetheless.
Natasha let her head fall into her palm, trying to push the happy whispers away from her mind. What the hell am I thinking? I'm the Black Widow, an assassin, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, a spy. This only ends one way. And yet, she couldn't force herself to let go of that thought. You wanted something real, something Shield couldn't steal from you. You might have just gotten it.
Just real enough to make you want to hold on.
Natasha bit her lip, but couldn't force down a smile. This is pure insanity. And yet she didn't want to let go. Natasha thought back to her art history lesson on the plane here, letting the images of innocent children and couples in love and . . . and young mothers glistening in gold, flash back into her mind. Maybe I don't have to be Madame X forever.
The thought was ludicrous, she knew. How could I possible be a mother? she wondered. I risk my life for a living.I grew up under handlers and guards. I never learned to be a kid, I was too busy learning to be a killer. I - Natasha's mind brought up the image of a face, the only gentle face that ever flashed through her bloody nightmares. A kind face framed in waves of auburn hair. She was smiling, Natasha was fairly certain. Each time she tried to examine the image further, all she found were smoke and flames. - I can barely remember my own mother's face.
But Clint, he would be incredible. Goodness knows he took care of her all the time. He could be so kind, so gentle. Always knowing what was wrong and how to fix it. Of course he had a fierce protective side as well. Natasha, she was a mess, but Clint would be perfect.
Was she actually considering this? Once this mission ended, was she really going to march into Fury's office with a maternity leave request instead of an abortion waiver? I think I just might, she smiled.
There was only one catch. In order to pull this off, she couldn't tell Clint, not until they left Budapest. Natasha being distracted was a big enough risk on its own, but if they hit a firefight with both their minds elsewhere, none of them would make it out alive.
It wasn't a simple as choking down a secret. That she could do without a second thought. She just happened trying to lie to the only person in the world who could see behind her mask. He could read her every twitch, and Natasha feared she wouldn't be able to hide. "I promise I'll try though. I promise I'll keep you safe."
Of course, in order to do that, Natasha decided she needed a little help. Two hours later she sat on the padded table of a free clinic she'd entered under a fake name. The name Charlotte Welch would certainly send up red flags at Shield, and Natasha couldn't have them finding out yet either. She still had a mission to complete.
The paper covering the table, crinkled as she swung her heels, waiting for the doctor to return.
"Well, Miss Bilnova," said the doctor as she reentered the sparse examination room. Natasha hid a smile. She usually avoided choosing Russian names for herself, but today it seemed appropriate. "Your test results are in, and everything looks normal. We went over the dos and don'ts, now I just need to ask you a few more questions," she said in accented Hungarian.
Natasha patiently answered the woman's queries until one of the questions caught her attention.
"Occupation?"
"I'm in the art business" Natasha replied. She omitted the Galleria Szobor so connection could be drawn to Charlotte Welch.
"Not a restorer I hope."
"Oh, no. I buy pieces for a local gallery. I spend more time on the phone than with the art."
"Try to keep it that way. Art is beautiful, but every medium comes with its own range of chemicals. Oil paints, for instance, were made with all sorts of hazardous substances - arsenic, lead, cobalt, radium. Some hues were even radioactive. But I'm sure you know that. Now. . ." she continued, but Natasha stopped listening. Things were starting to fall into place.
Natasha paced across the living room as she waited for Clint to return. She needed so badly to tell him what she'd uncovered about the case, but she was afraid she might tell him something else too. Could she look him in the eyes and tell him she was fine? Could she handle not being able to talk to him? She had no one else to tell.
The door rattled as Clint turned his key. Time to find out.
"What's wrong?" he asked immediately.
"I need you to do me a favor," Natasha replied. She sat down on the couch to hide as much of her body language as possible.
Clint raised and eyebrow as he dropped his keys and made his way to the kitchen. "A favor like. . ?"
"The next time a shipment of paintings comes into the warehouse, I want to to take a Geiger counter to them."
Clint stopped rummaging through the cabinets and leaned back to look at Natasha. "You think I'll find radiation? Why?"
"Some of the pigments used in oil paints, especially old ones, contain radioactive compounds."
"Interesting, but what does that have to do with Szabo?"
"Because regulatory agencies like Customs would expect a low level of radioactivity in old oil paintings," Natasha explained. "Which makes them the perfect place to hide nuclear material."
Clint paused mid-crunch and placed his bag of tortilla chips on the counter. "With the amount of paintings Szabo's gotten just in the months we've been here . . . dear god. They already have a enough material for a bomb, maybe as large a a few kilotons. But that assumes they can extract the nuclear material from the canvases. You can't fill a bomb with paint, no matter what it's laced with."
"Uh-oh," Natasha said as another puzzle piece clicked into place. "What are the chances that our friends at Mérnöki Industries have tech that can do just that?"
"But András has whatever they stole. The paintings went to the gallery."
"No he doesn't," said Natasha. "I stumbled into the restoration room at the Galleria today, and guess what I found."
Clint snapped his fingers. "That's why András sent us to Rózsambimbó! That's what went down that night! They moved what my team stole to the Galleria. Moving paintings between András's company and his brother's gallery is perfectly legitimate, but they had to move the stolen laboratory components in secret to deny the gallery's involvement in whatever they're planning."
"So what did they steal from Mérnöki? They hit a geologist and a quantum physics lab."
Clint walked over to her, leaning on the back of the couch. "Quantum physics, which deals with radioactivity as part of the study of sub-atomic phenomena, and geology, which use radioactive dating to determine the age of rocks."
"Between the two, they must be able to strip the canvases clean and extract whatever isotope they're smuggling from the paint," said Natasha. "It's brilliant really. If they just stole the nuclear material, they would move the top of every most-wanted list in the world. Not to mention the trouble they would face moving it across borders."
Clint grabbed her hand and drew her up, pulling her in for a slow kiss. "It is brilliant," he smiled. "so you must be too. How'd you crack it?"
Natasha couldn't answer. She couldn't even snap at Clint's campy compliment. Wrapped in his strong arms she wanted to tell him everything. She could feel the words forming in her throat so quickly that she had to clamp down on her lip to keep them from spilling out. She was sure Clint could feel her body go rigid as she fought with herself.
"Tasha, you alright?" he asked, his breath warm against her neck.
"I'm fine," she lied. "But Clint, if the Szabos are stripping the paintings here, instead of leaving the nuclear material hidden in the paint where it can be transported, that means the bomb is meant for the city."