Chapter 30

January 11, 4 p.m. - Natasha

It hadn't been too hard to gather the materials. A watch, an electric arc lighter, a pack of cheap ballpoint pens. New clothes for herself and Maggie. Some basic tools and an SD card. The flash cotton was a little more difficult - but thankfully, Natasha was able to find some at a little magic shop in Columbia Heights, along with a stuffed white rabbit for Maggie. She already had the suxamethonium, of course. She'd lifted some from the hospital yesterday morning. One should always be prepared.

Natasha wandered with Maggie on her hip, the sleepy girl fussing and rubbing her eyes.

"You've had a long day kiska," she murmured, kissing her curly hair. "Let's find a hotel and get some rest."

Her injured shoulder was aching. Enhancements or not, hauling a sturdy toddler and bags of shopping across town were taking a toll. Natasha took her bearings. There should be a hotel near here...yes...Right on 9th Street, left on F...there. A white stone facade adorned with columns and red awnings. The sun was getting low, and the white stone was bathed in golden lights.

When she entered the lobby, Natasha blinked. Everything was...green. Green walls. Green faux-alligator armchairs. Emerald chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, like octopi in a green sea. Natasha felt a laugh bubbling up inside her, a strange feeling at a time like this. With a wink to Maggie, Natasha put on her thickest Muscovite accent with the desk clerk just for fun and splurged on the most expensive room available. She'd cleared out her hidden cash stores as soon as she'd heard about Fury, might as well use it up. After tomorrow, it probably wouldn't matter, either way things turned out.

Their best room turned out to have a king-sized bed below a plaster cast of a roaring lion's head. When Natasha saw it, she couldn't restrain the laugh anymore, and Maggie laughed too without quite knowing why.

They ordered room service, watched Disney movies and splashed in the strange bowl-like bathtub until Maggie wore herself out. Then, as the girl snored softly in the exact middle of the enormous bed, Natasha got to work. She had chosen the watch for size more than beauty. - she needed it to be large enough to hold two darts. Hopefully, she wouldn't need more.

Natasha dreamed about the Red Room. She hadn't dreamed about it in a long time, not for years. It was all fragments - girls dancing, gunshots, and fear. She woke in her chair with a stiff neck to the sound of Maggie crying. As she pulled the girl to her chest and hummed soft and low, she felt the ghosts of the Room lingering around her. Finally, Maggie slept again, but Natasha found herself wide awake. She didn't need much sleep, anyway, not since the process that had made her a Black Widow. Looking at Maggie's sleeping face, she reflected that she was herself part of the legacy of Captain Rogers - another child of her blood, which had been stolen to create the serum that transformed her. That made her and Maggie sisters, of a kind. After Budapest, Natasha had sworn that she would never destroy another child's life to further the games of nations.

She would fulfill her promise. She would protect her sister.

"Please, help me!"

Natasha pounded frantically on the door to the sentry booth that guarded the bridge into the Triskelion. The guard inside slid her window open.

"Ma'am," she said in a steady, no-nonsense tone. "I'm going to have to ask you to step back and calm down."

"Please - I...I'm sorry...I…" Natasha began to cry. "My car broke down, back there." She gestured back down the street. "I got out to check the tire and I locked my keys inside."

The guard sighed.

"Ma'am…"

"My baby's locked inside!" Natasha sobbed. "Please, just...can you break the window for me? Anything...she's crying...I don't have my phone…"

Natasha could see the woman's face soften.

"Alright."

As they approached the car, Natasha could hear Maggie crying inside. Don't worry, kiska.

"Oh, poor thing," the guard said, pulling a long, flat piece of metal from her utility belt. "This'll only take a second -"

Natasha didn't need a second. She pulled the woman's gun from her holster and gave her a vicious blow across the back of the head. The guard dropped onto the road in a heap. Natasha unlocked the door and manhandled the unconscious guard into the backseat, zip tying her hands behind her. She unbuckled Maggie and picked her up, giving her a kiss of the forehead.

"You're ok, see?" She murmured. "You're ok."

The sleepy girl put her head on Natasha's chest and began to suck her thumb. Bouncing the girl on her hip, Natasha strode back to the security booth, unlocking it with the guard's ID card. She pushed the intercom button.

"Hello," she said to the bored-sounding voice on the other end. "This is the Black Widow. I'd like to see your boss. I've brought a guest."

She turned Maggie toward the surveillance camera mounted in the corner.

"Say hello, sweetie."

There was a pause, full of dead-air hissing.

"Stay where you are," the voice said, not so disinterested now. "We'll send someone to escort you."

"Perhaps you could explain your decision to join us," said Pierce. "I also thought you were rather attached to Director Fury."

They were in his office - Fury's office. It hurt to see Pierce there, sitting behind Fury's desk, fidgeting idly with his pen. Natasha shrugged.

"Fury's dead," she said. "I like to be on the winning team. That looks like you."

Pierce nodded. It was always easier to play to type - to be what people expected you to be. She knew what Pierce thought of her. An outsider. A wild card. Untrustworthy. People judged the world by their own sins. He'd fill in the gaps to confirm his own biases. And of course, there was Stevie's gamble. The presence of Maggie would tip the scales in her favor.

"And what do you gain from our prospective partnership," Pierce asked with a slight smile, "besides the satisfaction of victory?"

"I want a new identity. And 3 million dollars," she shifted Maggie on her hip. "And you, and everyone else, forgets who I am."

Pierce nodded. "And the girl?" He pointed at Maggie with the pen. Fury's pen.

"You'll need her, if you want to keep Rogers on a leash. She's been hard to bring to heel - or so I've heard."

Natasha directed the last phrase at Rumlow with an amused half smile. His face was a mass of bruises, mottled purple and green, nose smashed out of joint. He'd been the one to come get her from the parking lot, and he still stood menacingly at her elbow.

"You don't seem to have had much luck, Brock." Natasha turned to him and ran her fingers lightly down his cheek, scratching just a little. "That looks painful."

She triggered the watch and shot the first dart into Rumlow's neck. He seized her hand.

"Sometimes," he snarled. "Order is only achieved through pain."

He locked eyes with hers. Natasha's heart skipped. Had he noticed the dart? She held his gaze for one heartbeat. Two. No...It was just posturing. Her smile widened, all teeth.

"If you don't let go, Brock, I'm breaking it off."

Pierce sighed.

"Let her -"

Before he could finish his sentence, his phone rang. Pierce picked it up...then frowned. "What? From where?"

Natasha was pretty sure what that meant. Pierce turned on the monitor on his wall...and there was Stevie, at her most painfully earnest.

"The STRIKE and Insight crew are Hydra…"

Natasha kept the joy from her face expressionless but she wanted to crow with triumph. Pierce slammed the pen back to the desk.

"Shut it off...What do you mean, you can't?"

Maggie reached toward the screen. "Mama!"

Pierce looked at the girl, then beckoned Natasha over, indicating that she should give him Maggie. The time was definitely now - he'd never be more distracted. Luckily, Maggie, who, now that she had seen her mother wanted nothing else, struggled against being handed off to a stranger. Natasha thanked the girl silently, and used the awkwardness of the handover to cover her injecting the second dart into Pierce's wrist.

He strained to hold the phone and the baby, as she pushed away from him and squalled. She was a fighter, that super-soldier's daughter.

"Patch me through to Rogers' location -" Pierce began to say, then stopped. He swayed, and the phone slipped from his hand.

On the other side of the desk, Rumlow tried to step toward him, but collapsed to his knees.

Pierce tried to say something, but it came out as an inarticulate grunt. Natasha plucked Maggie smoothly from his arms and pushed him lightly on the chest. He crumpled into a heap on the floor.

"Director? Director?" The voice came from the abandoned handset, which dangled over the edge of the desk. Natasha picked it up, bouncing Maggie to soothe her.

"Director Pierce can't come to the phone right now," she said sweetly. "Bye bye."

It was self-indulgent, but very satisfying.

Natasha took the micro SD she'd transferred Fury's voice print and retinal scan to out from under her tongue and inserted it into the computer.

Before she could use it to log in, Rumlow lunged to his feet, roaring like a bear.

Natasha leaped aside, turning to shield Maggie. How? She'd used the same dose for both darts. He should be unconscious. The desk was still between them, and his movements were sluggish. He tried to draw his gun. Natasha pulled a thin knife from inside her belt and threw it into Rumlow's left eye.

For a moment, she thought he'd keep coming. But he stopped. As if confused, he raised his hand to his face, stared at the blood with his remaining eye. Then he sat heavily on the ground, and fell. Natasha tried to calm both a sobbing Maggie and her own racing heart. On the monitor, Stevie was still talking.

"The price of freedom is high," she said. "It always has been."

Natasha kissed the baby's curly hair. "Your mother is right," she murmured. It was time for her to pay up.

I'm back! Sorry to take so long when we are literally two chapters from the end, lol. I had a third baby, got a new job, and moved to North Dakota! And those weren't even the most stressful things that happened to me...

Anyway, notes! I got the idea for Black Widow's dart launching watch from a YouTube video, thanks to which I am probably on some kind of watchlist. I have not watched the Black Widow movie yet, but I plan to. I've been very much enjoying all the MCU TV shows.

Hope you are all well, glad to be back - and I look forward to your comments.