CHAPTER ELEVEN
"Wanda is alive," Tony breathes out in wonder. All of them had their eyes locked on the screen Peter had pulled up for them.
"Yep," Peter confirmed, beaming, swirling his chair to look at Tony, Natasha, Thor and Banner. "It was tough making out anything at first. Image quality was crap. I had to use this software that allowed me to double the …"
- "Yeah, yeah, kid. We don't really need a commentary," Tony interrupted him, straightening up to look at the others. There was a wide smile on his face and a look of relief in his eyes. "She's alive, team!"
"Aye, but why have we not heard from her?" Thor wondered, a frown on his face.
Natasha and Tony shared a look. "Peter, did you get a look at whether or not she was alone?" Tony asked quietly, the glad smile slowly slipping off his face.
"Like I said, image not the best, Tony. But from what I had to work with, she looked like she was alone," Peter replied.
"She's probably hiding out, Tony. She's still on the most wanted list of the UN task force. If she's smart, she'll stay hidden," Banner suggested, hands in pockets.
"The task force thinks she's dead though," Peter reminded them.
Tony nodded his head. "And she'll stay dead for as long as they're still looking for her," he announced and looked at them in turn, "We'll have to keep up the pretense of her death. We can't have a funeral, we don't have a body."
"We can have a memorial," Peter piped in.
"And we'll have to make it the biggest news to hit the stand," Tony said then paused, looking away. "I'll have Pepper handle it," he murmured, almost distractedly.
"Pepper?" Banner asked with a smile.
Tony shrugged but there was a smile on his face. "We've talked things out. Pepper's back on team Ironman now," he announced, carelessly, but everyone in the room knows how deep his feelings go for the CEO of the Stark Industries.
Tony turned to look at Natasha who still had her eyes glued on the computer screen. "Nat?" Tony asked, quietly.
Natasha nodded her head in agreement. Then feeling all eyes on her, she quickly turned around and headed for her room. Once the door was safely closed behind her, she slid down on the floor and finally let go of the streams of emotion she had been holding back ever since Peter had pulled up Wanda's face on the computer screen. After her talk with Tony, she wanted to hope but something inside her wouldn't let her. The thing that was the remnant of the Red Room had told her that to hope was to set herself up for a fall she might not recover from. But to now see Wanda's face, she let all the hope and happiness wash over her and she closed her eyes, a smile on her face.
It has been a month since Sokovia. Natasha had spent most of the time immersed in training the new recruits of Avengers. She had kept herself purposely busy since, not wanting to rehash the decisions she had made.
Steve had tried numerous times to get her to talk to him, to share with him what was going through her mind. And it wasn't as if Natasha was avoiding talking to him because she thought he wouldn't understand. It was the opposite. She knew that Steve, more than anyone, would have understood the need to force the Hulk out of Banner that day. To push the man off the cliff to wake up the Hulk, even when Banner had expressly told her his intention to skip the fight. Steve, the man who had intentionally drove the plane into the ice, would have understood that there are things bigger than himself. That same man, who had stood right next to her on that hill in Sokovia ready to once again sacrifice himself just so more Sokovians could have been saved, would have understood why she had to do what she did to Banner.
But she wasn't ready to be talked out of her guilt. She knew perfectly well what a shitty thing she did back there. The worst of it was that she had done it to a teammate, to a person who trusted her, whom she claimed to have feelings for.
So that day, she was preparing herself for another day of fighting her demons. For the rest of the team, it was a day off, a day where no training has been scheduled and no bad guys to fight. Which was why everyone found themselves in the common room of the facility; Natasha reading a Russian work of literature, Sam and Rhodes discussing the merits of the US airforce and Wanda sitting across from her playing with her phone.
Natasha did not look up when she felt Steve taking the seat next to her. She could feel him sending her furtive glances even as he joined the discussion, sticking up for the land forces. She did not even outwardly react as the friendly discussion move on to a competitive showdown between Sam and Rhodes over whose suit was the best.
"Should we break this up?" Steve leaned in close to her to ask quietly. Natasha shrugged, not having the energy to commit herself to the situation. She could sense his frown as he continued to study her. She knew Steve was starting to feel frustrated with her…
Whatever she was thinking was cut short as there was a loud crash in the room and Natasha looked up to see Sam's laying on his back over a now broken table, Rhodes thighs straddling his mid-section.
"What the fuck, man?!" Sam roared, pushing Rhodes off of him.
"I don't know! I've seen the Black Widow used the move many times. It looked very effective," Rhodes replied, half-apologetically.
Realizing what just happened, Natasha burst out laughing. It was like a dam had broken loose and she let the laughter poured out of her. She laughed harder as Sam stood up, glaring at Rhodes the whole time. So immersed was her in her laughter that she did not immediately realize that Wanda had pull up her camera to take a picture of her.
Later that day Natasha stepped into the kitchen to find Wanda seated on the table, still preoccupied with her phone. She poured herself a glass of orange juice and sat next to the girl.
In all her preoccupation with her own internal struggle, she had failed to realize that the girl too had been similarly closed up. Natasha kicked herself for forgetting that Wanda was going through something much worst, the loss of a brother, a twin brother at that.
"Pietro was the one who was always laughing," Wanda said, without looking up. Natasha leaned in and saw that Wanda had been looking through pictures of her and her brother on her phone. "He was always the one making cracks and pulling pranks. Ever since our parents died, it was like he made it his duty to make me laugh. "
Natasha remained quiet, not wanting to intrude on the girl's reminiscing. "He finds humour in every little thing," she continued, her tone staying unchanged. "And now he is gone. And I feel bad that I never thanked him for trying to cheer me up, that I didn't always laugh. And I know I should start doing it more now, that he would want me to laugh and be happy. But how can I when he is no longer around to see me do that?" Natasha watched helplessly as the girl's shoulders shook with the tears that were now streaming down her face. She reached out and covered the girl's hand with her own.
And Natasha understood the depth of Wanda's grief. That struggle between wanting to move on and yet struggling with the guilt that comes with it. She squeezed the girl's hand. "It is okay to be happy, Wanda. It is okay to laugh and smile and appreciate what life has given you," she said, firmly.
Wanda looked up and gave Natasha a searching look. "Will you?" she asked, softly.
Natasha nodded her head. "Yes, yes, I will."
Natasha folded her arms as she studied the picture at the podium. It was one of Wanda's pictures where she was actually smiling. It hurt her heart that there weren't many such pictures.
She turned around at the sound of footsteps entering the room and smiled at the sight of Pepper and Tony. Their relationship had taken quite a hit ever since Tony had become an Avenger. It was such a shame too considering how Pepper seemed to be the only person who Tony actually ever listened to. Which was why the sight of them now together again made Natasha feel glad for her teammate.
Without a word, Pepper engulfed Natasha in a warm hug. "Oh, Nat, I am so sorry all these happened," she said. "I hope Wanda's somewhere safe."
Nat threw Tony a questioning look but before he could answer, Pepper interrupted him. "Oh, I hope it's okay that Tony told me everything?"
Natasha shook her head and smiled reassuringly at the other woman. "It's good that Tony has someone to tell things to."
Pepper threw her a sympathetic look. "I'm sorry how things went with Steve, Nat. I always thought you guys make so much sense together. Maybe you can work things out after all this is over?" she said, rubbing Natasha's arms comfortingly.
All Natasha could do was stare at Pepper, so confused was she by her words. At her baffled look, Pepper threw Tony a helpless look, a flush spreading up her face. "…and you are not a couple, are you?" she commented with an embarrassed grimace. Natasha shook her head, avoiding looking at Tony who was not in any way hiding his amusement at the scene enfolding before her.
Pepper slapped a hand to her mouth. "Oh my God, Natasha, I assumed you two were, you were…- well, you know what I thought. I mean you're so close and always together. And there's always this tension around you… "-
- "Pretty sure you're making it worst, babe," Tony interrupted her word projectile, even as Natasha fought to keep her own composure under control.
"Steve and I are just partners, Pepper," Natasha stated, simply.
"Okay," Pepper replied though to Natasha's ears, her tone sounded skeptical. She decided however to accept the woman at face value and changed the topic. She asked Pepper about preparations for the memorial instead.
Before too long, the others arrived, all garbed in their Avengers suits. Tony decided that having the Avengers come and show their respects in their respective suit would be a suitable 'fuck-you' gesture to General Ross and the task force. A sign that the Avengers still consider Wanda Maximoff as a member of the team.
Natasha did not pay much attention to the ceremony. At one level, she knew that this was all pretend. But it was just too close to what nearly happened that she could not bring herself to participate, to allow herself even to pretend that Wanda was anything but alive and well.
Suddenly Tony's phone started ringing in the middle of Rhodes sharing a memory involving Wanda. Natasha watched closely as Tony listened urgently to the person on the other line. As soon as the call ended, he turned to the others and announced grimly, "Trouble at the UN headquarters, Avengers. Apparently a small group of enhanced showed up to 'protest' the imprisonment of the X-men." He gestured to the exit door, "I'd say suit up. But we're all ready to go, aren't we?"
"So are we stopping the enhanced or aiding their protest?" Banner asked, drily.
"We might not want to be associated with this group of mutants, Banner. One's apparently called Pyro and has set part of the UN building on fire. Another is a teleporting swordsman and has already wounded a handful of UN employees," Tony explained, even as he quickly ushered Spiderman into the Avengers aircraft.
Thor nodded his head, swinging his hammer in anticipation of a good fight. "Ah, well, then let us do what we do best then, Avengers!"
Natasha stood quietly with arms folded and feet braced, persistently ignoring the call for her to get herself checked up. It has been a tough fight. Psylocke had been the easiest to apprehend, with Natasha and Spiderman working together to bring her down. Thor had his hands full with Pyro but had the fight finally ended with a hit of his hammer to Pyro's forehead. Azazel, on the other hand, required all five of them putting in everything they've got to bring the teleporting mutant down.
Natasha once again brushed away one of the UN employee's appeal to get herself checked, instead staying to watch the three apprehended mutants escorted to the underwater prison. Following the members of the taskforce, she entered the circular room and watched as one by one the mutants were pushed into their cell. She hated the thought that not too long ago, half of her former team had been similarly imprisoned in these cells. Instead she let her eyes roamed around the room and felt the hair on her neck stood.
Over on the other side, in three separate rooms, the three teenagers sat quietly, staring at the wall. There seemed to be no reaction at all from any of them even as the most recent mutants began struggling and cursing the task force.
Natasha walked over to take a closer look. None of the kids looked up even as she stood right in front of their cells. "Hey," she called out softly and the boy who almost took her down with his ice power looked up. Natasha felt the breath stole out of her in a gasp as his vacant eyes met hers. There was no recognition there, no sign of identity.
"I'm getting a little 'Village of the Damned' vibe in this room," Tony murmured, softly as he approached her.
"What the hell are they doing to these kids, Tony?" Natasha hissed, keeping her voice down.
"You want to go and find out?" Tony stated and reached out his hand. With a frown, Natasha held out her own hand and Tony dropped a tiny object in the palm of her hand. "I saw Ross headed over to the main room just across the hall from this cell. You'd have a better chance popping in that hard-drive without their notice."
Natasha nodded her head and quietly made her way out of the cell. There was a single guard barring her way to the room Tony described. Keeping the weariness and fatigue off her face, she slipped on a flirtatious smirk as she sauntered over the man.
"You're not allowed in here," the guard warned her, forcefully.
She shrugged one shoulder carelessly and looked up at the man from the corner of her eye. "Don't you know who I am?" she asked him, coyly. She twirled a strand of red hair around her finger as her eyes made out the position of the camera in the hallway. She bit her lip suggestively and slowly made her way to a spot where she knew the camera would not pick up on the angle. To her relief, the guard in his insistence on keeping anyone out, followed her.
"I don't care who you are. General Ross specifically instructed that no one is to enter here, not even the Avengers," he spat out, forcefully.
In a swift action that completely took the man by surprise, Natasha had him pinned on to the wall with an arm on his neck. The man sputtered trying to breath through the pressure she was exacting on his windpipe. "I am the Black Widow," Natasha murmured, keeping her face close enough to the man to keep him from the camera, "and I go where I want." The man closed his eyes, unconscious, and Natasha carefully placed him in a sitting position on the floor as if he had simply fallen asleep.
She continued on through the hallway and casually walked into the room. Ross looked up at her entrance and all conversation came to a halt. She watched as the man straightened up and put on a pretense of indifference. "Agent Romanoff, has the criminals been put into their cells?" he asked, casually.
Natasha kept her eyes on him, even as she strolled deeper into the room and parked herself right in front of one of the monitor. "All safely locked away, General," Natasha replied, adopting a tone of voice similar to his own. "I stayed behind to make sure. The mutant with the red skin was a particular nasty one, General. I wouldn't want your task force to be collateral damage if he managed to get himself loose," she stated earnestly, her hands brushing the monitor. She quickly inserted the hard-drive and let her hand stayed there so to keep the device from being seen.
Natasha could sense the doubt in the other man but he maintained the façade of polite manners and nodded his head at her words. "You are nothing but diligent, Agent Romanoff."
She shrugged as if carelessly accepting the compliment while stealthily checking on the device. It was still red. "On that note, I should warn you that I find your guard asleep on the job just outside, General."
Before the general could reply, the door barged open forcefully and Natasha turned to see the very face she has spent hours trying to identify. This time, the man was garbed in a black tactical suit and he strode into the room as if he owned the place. "Are the mutants ready for transport?" he barked out without preamble and Natasha sneaked another look at the device. Noting that it was green, she pulled it off and slid it up her leather sleeve.
"Colonel Stryker," Ross exclaimed in a loud voice, quite possibly his way of alerting the visitor of Natasha's presence in the room. "Have you met Agent Romanoff?"
Natasha kept a steady face as the other man's deeply penetrating eyes landed on her. She watched as he tried to school his face into one of civility and stepped forward to offer him her hand. "No, we haven't," Natasha murmured. "It's a pleasure, Colonel."
The man shook her hand but his eyes turned to look at the general as if in reproach. "I wasn't expecting any of the Avengers here, General Ross," he stated in a mild voice, but Natasha could hear the warning beneath it.
Natasha knew immediately that her time was up. Keeping her eyes on the Colonel, she however directed her words to the other man. "I must take your leave now, General. Do give us a call if you have further need of the Avengers," she said, letting the sincerity drip in her words. Without another look at either of them, she calmly made her way out of the room.
Later that night, after a shower and a change of clothes, Natasha set out to look for Tony for update on what he found on the device. She stepped into his laboratory only to find Banner instead of Tony, stationed in front of the monitor.
"Anything yet?" Natasha enquired, taking a seat next to him. They hadn't had a moment to themselves since the plane ride to the prison and Natasha still felt awkward around the man.
He shook his head, his eyes on the screen. "Decrypting," he said, simply by way of explanation.
Natasha looked down on her hands, loathing the uneasy silence between them. "Bruce," she started, softly, "what I did in Sokovia…"
He maintained his silence and did not turn to look at her as he asked, "Are you sorry that you did it, Natasha? Or are you just sorry that you hurt me?"
She hesitated. "Does it matter which one?" she asked, instead.
This got her a snort of disbelief. One that got on Natasha's nerves, enough for her to bite out, "If you're asking me if I'd do it again if the circumstances called for it, then the answer is yes."
- "Even knowing that you are forcing me into the fight? Saving the day by taking the decision off my hands?" Bruce countered, angrily.
"Look, all I ever know is this, Bruce. This life," she exclaimed, gesturing to the screen and their surrounding. "My life has been one endless missions. The difference between what I did then and what I do know is that this time this matters to me. Saving people matter to me, Bruce. If you knew what I had had to do in my past, you would have understood that."
Bruce stared hard at her. "And what about us? Back then? What of that? Was any of that real or was that Agent Romanoff on another special mission?"
Natasha looked away, finding herself unable to continue looking him in the eye. Bruce gave out a dry laugh and muttered, "You are a piece of work, aren't you?"
She kept her silence, her face stinging from his assessment of her character. For a while there was only silence in the room as the computer continued to decrypt the data. Then Bruce gave out a weary sigh and turned to look at her. "You're right about one thing, Natasha. You're just being you. And that person is the complete opposite of who I am and who I want to be. I do not choose this life, and after this is all over, I am going to disappear again and live the life that I want for myself," he said, his voice gradually losing all the earlier edge to it. "That's who we are and I suppose we shouldn't be made to feel bad about it."
Natasha looked up at him, trying to ask him the question she had tortured herself with but not daring to put words to. But he seemed to guess it anyway. He gave out another sigh then let out an unexpected chuckle. "Next time, try not pushing me off a cliff, okay?" he said, his tone indicating his forgiveness at her previous action.
- "Yes, maybe sing him a song next time, to activate the other guy, kay? I'm sure there's a 'Hulk; The Incredible Hits' somewhere that you could refer to," Tony snarked as he strolled into the room, a cup of hot coffee in his hand. His head went back and forth between the two. "Are we all okay?" he continued. At Banner's eye-roll, he gestured to the monitor, "Then maybe we can focus on what's happening here?"
As soon as he said that, as if orchestrated by him, folders after folders started opening before them. Tony and Banner immediately forgot Natasha's existence and fully engrossed themselves in what they were seeing and reading.
"Wow," Tony breathed out, after a few more minutes of this and Natasha scowled at them.
"What is it?" Natasha demanded, watching as Bruce leaned back on his chair.
"This is some top shit mind-control operation they've got going here," Tony murmured in explanation. Natasha frowned, remembering the vacant faces of the X-Men prisoners.
"Who's 'they'?" Natasha asked, sharply.
"That man in the photo, Colonel William Stryker. The man has dedicated his whole life to the studies of mutants," Tony explained.
"This is the device they used," Bruce pointed out, bringing up an image of a transparent, rectangular object. "They placed it at the back of their necks. It also double act as a tracker so that they'll always be able to spot where they are. The brainwashing is triggered when they placed a finger on the device. I assume it reads fingerprints," he turned to Tony and the latter nodded his head.
Then as they went over the next folder, both of them sat stock-still. Natasha knew what they were going to say even before Tony turned to look at her, "They wanted Wanda. It's always been Wanda they wanted," he stated, grimly.
Bruce grimaced. "And when they realized they didn't stand a chance of catching her alive, the order changed to executing her. So as to prevent her from being able to stop them."
"Stop them from doing what?" Natasha asked, quietly.
Tony and Bruce both turned to look at her. "The suppression and control of all mutants," Tony answered.
"And the Avengers?" Natasha asked, her stomach turning as she waited for Tony's reply.
"We were to be the very tool with which they accomplish their goal," he answered.
It all fell into place now. The Sokovia Accords and their insistence that the Avengers stand by this agreement was all part of their plan. An agreement that would have labeled any superpowered refusing to sign as criminals, giving the task force the authority to catch and control them. It was worst than she could have thought.
Her eyes snapped open as she remembered another thing that has been nagging at the back of her mind ever since she saw the X Men kids that night. "Sharon Carter," she murmured, quietly. "She had the same vacant look on her face in that picture we had of her with Stryker. "
Tony grimaced. "Then it's high time we take up T'challa's offer and pay our fellow Avengers a visit."