Chapter 17 - Stevie

January 11, 9:30 a.m.

They had arrived at the library as soon as it opened and asked for a laptop at the reference desk. Stevie looked over her shoulder the whole time, sure someone would recognize her, but it seemed that Natasha's dramatic makeover had done the trick. No one gave her a second look. Natasha herself was nearly unrecognizable – she had dyed her hair black and cut it into something severe and asymmetrical. She looked like an off-duty punk musician. Maggie's disguise was a pair of overalls with a dinosaur on them and a baseball cap she kept trying to take off.

"Just this once, let's say thank heavens for stereotypes," Natasha had said. "In the absence of other clues, people will look at the outfit and think 'boy'".

"If you say so," Stevie had said skeptically.

"We should give her an alias," Natasha had added with a sly sideways glance. "Maybe name her after her father?"

"Her father is dead," Stevie had responded. "Leave him out of this."

Natasha's grin had disappeared.

In the library, the two women found a sunny corner in the children's room where a rack of puppets sat beside a little wooden theater. Natasha perched the laptop on her knees and began to log in as Maggie toddled to the puppets and picked up a large rooster. Stevie wondered how her daughter was faring after yesterday. She flexed her hands, still tender even though the skin had healed. After her first exhausted sleep, Maggie had woken in the night crying. Stevie had to curl around the toddler like a mother bear to calm her. She had intended to stay awake herself, but her daughter's gentle breathing had calmed her so much that she slept in spite of herself.

Maggie was making the chicken hop up and down.

"Bok, bok!" She said.

The morning sun spilled over her face. Their little corner was full of light. Stevie felt it all slipping away from her. This peace. This moment. It would never come again. Suddenly, she felt horribly sad.

"What on earth?" Natasha whispered. She frowned at the screen. "What the hell is this?"

"Don't you know already know?" Stevie asked. "You got it, after all."

"I downloaded it. I didn't read it."

"Weren't you curious?"

"It wasn't my mission to know, so I didn't ask." Natasha smiled wryly. "Maybe I should have. Maybe then Nick would still be alive."

Stevie had stood to look over the other woman's shoulder at the screen.

"It's...A list of names?"

"More than that," Natasha replied. "Names, phone numbers, biometric identifiers, all extremely condensed. And...I think these are threat designations."

She was scrolling through the list almost faster than Stevie could follow.

"Hold on...Bruce is on this list." She typed a little. "And Clint. And Tony."

This was downloaded from Insight…

"This info was being loaded onto the Insight satellites, right?" Stevie asked. "To the carrier's AI. The carriers made to wipe out threats before they start."

Natasha looked up at her, eyes wide in horrified realization.

"This is a kill list," Natasha said. "Bozhe moi. When the carriers go up...There are thousands of names on this."

"We have to get this to Tony," Stevie said. "Before the carriers get into the air. The Iron Legion can stop at least some of the drones. And Rhodey can call in air support."

"Hello?"

A bright voice cut into their conversation. The two women almost jumped. A young librarian smiled at them, her hair dyed a rich mahogany brown. Her smile was jarringly cheerful.

"Just wanted to tell you, storytime's in a few minutes."

Natasha recovered first.

"Thanks," she said. "But we have to head out. Business."

"No prob." The librarian smiled at Maggie, who was pretending to feed legos to the chicken puppet. "What a cutie. Hey, hon!"

The girl ran to Stevie and hid behind her leg. The librarian gave Stevie an understanding look and left. She's never been shy before. Stevie picked Maggie up and the girl clung to her, burying her face in her mother's shoulder. It's all this...this, Stevie reflected. When they got to Stark Tower, things would be better.

I should have retired when I first thought of it, Stevie reflected. But then...who would have stopped this?

She sighed and kissed Maggie's cheek.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"This is new," Natasha said.

"What?" In this case, new was probably bad.

"This file. It wasn't here when I gave the drive to Fury." She frowned. "He must have put it there. It's encrypted, but I think..."

She typed something. On the screen, a little window opened. It was Nick Fury.

"Agent Romanoff," his voice blared. Natasha cursed and turned down the speakers.

Stevie looked around to see if anyone had seen, but the other parents all seemed to have gone to storytime – she could hear someone singing "If You're Happy and You Know It" from behind a room divider.

"If you have this file," Fury continued on the screen. "I'm probably dead."

He didn't look so good. One half of his face was bruised, the bruises he'd had when she'd last seen him in her apartment. Stevie couldn't tell where he was – but it wasn't his office. He filed against a background of peeling ecru paint over cinder blocks.

"Pierce is Hydra. You probably know that now, and I should have known sooner. But that's all in the past." He leaned forward, close to the screen. "I'm giving you the codes for access to the SHIELD mainframe. Use this voiceprint – Root Access, authorization, Fury, Nicholas J. My retinal scan is on this file, too. You know how to use it."

He took a breath, and ran one dark hand over his bald head. He looked...weary. In that moment, Stevie missed him terribly.

"If anyone can get in, Agent Romanoff, it's you. Don't let those Hydra bastards get away with this." He reached toward the screen, paused.

"I trust you," he said. "I've never regretted it. Make me proud."

The window went black. Stevie looked at Natasha, and was surprised to see tears in her eyes.

Maybe not so surprising, she thought. Even secret agents have friends.

Maggie squirmed, and Stevie took the excuse to put the girl down and look away so Natasha could compose herself. In a minute, Natasha cleared her throat.

"We need to get this to Tony Stark," she said, maybe a little hoarsely. "He could break into SHIELD remotely with this. We could ground those carriers. Shut the satellites down."

When she looked at Stevie, her glib mask was back in place.

"Ever stolen a car?"

Two chapters today - thank you, Coronavirus isolation.

Why a library instead of an Apple store? As a librarian I like to sneak my own job into what I write as often as possible. My D&D games all involve libraries, too, lol.