"The murderer may have acted on a sudden mad impulse; he may be penitent and amend; but a spy is always a spy, night and day, in bed, at table, as he walks abroad; his vileness pervades every moment of his life.”
James (or whoever he was before 'James') wasn't Russian-born, which meant he could be a potential rat and therefore a risk. Everyone who wasn't originally from the true Motherland had to be treated with a light skepticism, lest they play you for a fool. At least, that had been a concern on Natasha's mind when they had first been introduced to each other in the chairman's third floor office in the main Lubyanka building, where it had been hot and uncomfortable due to an issue with the hot water pipes that day.
"Now," Beria had said to her before her new partner had arrived, "you will be Natasha. Forget the old name. There will be no discussion of it." Then he fixed Natasha with a serpentine smile that had made bile hit the back of her throat. Everyone in the MGB (as the KGB had been named before Joseph Stalin's death) knew he was a man with brutish tastes, even if he wasn't very intimidating to look at. Stalin had once telephoned and told his own daughter to leave the house upon discovering she was at home alone with Beria while he waited for the Premier of the Soviet Union's company. That wasn't such a commonly known fact, but she was expected to know those sorts of secrets. Beria appeared to be meek, with thinning hair and small round spectacles that he nudged with a man's stubby thumb back up his nose as he sat behind the large mahogany desk. The same office, and consequently, the same desk had been inhabited by every secret police chairman since the Cheka.
She was too on edge to absorb the new name fully, her thin fingers feeling the hem of her skirt. The inch-wide strip of fabric that had been folded back and stitched to neaten the bottom of the second hand skirt had been cut open, which she had stuffed a split coin into. It had been with her for a long time, that small kopek, ever since she took it out of a supplies box before a mission and never returned it. Originally, it had been used to carry microfilm, but then the coin's thin interior was smeared with cyanide paste. As girls being raised above the hubris of human desire, the boarding house she had grown up in was provided with only eunuch guards -- such was the sacrifice expected; if you do not love the state first, then what do you love? -- but the outside world was not so heavily protected, and she had seen what happened to the girls who were 'damaged'. She'd planned from the age of eleven that if anyone ever tried to harm her like that, she'd rub the paste into their gums.
Lavrentiy Beria later confessed to dozens of assaults on teenage girls, and even the murders of some girls who had refused him, but that hadn't been particularly surprising. He was never charged with them: his most capital crime was treason, and that was enough for him to be taken to the basement of the Lubyanka and shot. She had wondered many times if he had cried out 'no' before they gagged him, and wondered if his last thoughts were of the irony of his consent being considered unnecessary.
Thinking back to that building, Natasha remembered how huge it seemed when she had stared up from the square below as a much younger girl, at this immense yellow block with its neo-baroque architecture where windows were stacked upon windows, up and up and up, occasionally cut off from the sky with a line of white snow in the winter months. There was an old worn-out joke that it was the tallest building in Moscow-- Siberia could be seen from its basement.
Behind her was the even more imposing statue of a man; Feliks Dzerzhinsky, founder of Lenin's political police in the new Russia - a legend to the groups of young children trained into espionage by various departments of the KGB. Natasha's group was under an undocumented department referred to only as Oтдел X. Dzerzhinsky had revered cruelty as a necessary evil to bring about their revolution and wipe the dirty smear of capitalism that pervaded Eastern Europe.
From what she'd wriggled from him in closely guarded conversations, James, on the other hand, remembered officer-exclusive discos on the ground floor and dark clubrooms that retained the smell of imported Cuban cigars long after their owners had finished smoking them. Any fear he associated with the place was nothing more than the fear of a man unwilling to lose his job - Natasha's had been the fear of a child who knew that entering the Lubyanka was a death sentence if she put a foot wrong. She never did though. Neither of them did. They had been introduced, given their new identities, and packed off to Washington.
A month later, the Premier died. Natasha had expected they would be summoned back in order to witness the funeral processions of the great leader Stalin, to mourn him publicly like they were supposed to, but no call ever came. They were Americans now. They should have danced in the streets at the news.
That had been eight years ago. Eight years had contained, in a condensed form; a marriage, a new house, a pretty neighbourhood where everyone said 'hi' to each other, much like they had in the Ukrainian village she was born in (though those memories were very distant now). A nice car, and two easy jobs that let them dedicate their brainpower to decoding number station messages and acting - constant acting.
Somewhere along the line -- five years into their deep cover, James had discovered while covering Natasha as she seduced a diplomat (in order to later attend an important political dinner party with him) that he loved her. He loved her sharp wit, her cool indifference towards him; the irony of their marriage personified. She was beautiful, too, and as a team, they were lightning. Her seduction passed off without a hitch.
He waited until she left a few hours later before packing up his rifle and scope and heading home after her, speculating on how best to deliver his declaration over in his head. You mean a lot to me - I'm glad we were teamed together, you know - I'd have married you given the choice. There had been girls in Russia, of course, but none of them were like Natasha.
None of them carried themselves with such a terminal effectiveness. James was the gun, but she pulled the trigger. He confessed it over dinner the next night, trying to pass it off as an errant affectionate statement, nothing more than, "I love your cooking-- almost as much as I love you."
She'd caught the truth in his eyes and had stared at him, before looking down to spear a baby potato with her fork, with an interest as if he'd said he would take the trash out later.
They were excellent comrades, unstoppable soldiers, but they were a man and a woman (man and wife, as James was keen of reminding her). And she was most definitely a woman, but being dragged from childhood to adulthood by teachers and leaders who were eager to hold back any praise that might usually be offered to children of school age, to mask any positive, heartfelt emotion entirely, had limited her experiences with feeling affection of any sort. A strong foundation of trust was required to venture onto the thin ice of a first love, and with time, he won her over. She didn't need any big confession to tell him, though. He seemed to know before she did; seemed to be self-assured that there was a healthiness to their marriage. It had seemed to be a good idea ever since; his life being in danger had been a much larger concern, and instead of making her emotionally vulnerable and overly girlish like she'd feared, she'd found a much more guiltless approach to holding a garrote around the purpling throat of someone who'd aimed their gun at him.
"Y'know, you can just buy this stuff in boxes, nowadays. You add oil or an egg or two and there you go," James told her attentively, following his third glance into the fridge. He seemed to be hoping a can of beer might mystically appear in there on sheer willpower alone, so that ‘helping’ with the Christmas cookies for their neighbours’ party wouldn't seem so mind-numbing. It wasn't that his wife didn't trust him in the kitchen. It was just that she was aiming for delicate little cookies, and James didn't allude to having a delicate bone in his body. In response, Natasha scoffed at him with a jilted cough from the back of her throat, and though her back was to him as she measured out sugar, he knew she'd rolled her eyes. He closed the refrigerator and moved to lean against the light blue counter top, hand sliding into the empty pocket of his starched work pants. "What, are you a purist, now? We gonna claim the television is melting our brains and run around in aluminium foil hats too?"
This time, Natasha spared him a glance over her shoulder, her glare poorly veiling a smirk. "Rogers made us pie. We have to make something for the Christmas party, at least." She looked back to the scales (a perfect three and a half ounces), then lifted the measuring bowl to pour its contents into a larger mixing bowl which already held the block of butter she'd measured before that. Then she looked back to the instructions, scanning over what she’d already read at least nine separate times – ten, now. It stated, in faded, old print, to cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. She could do that, but James was standing behind her itching for something to do. Nat lifted a wooden spoon from their arsenal of utensils and turned to hold it out to him. "Here. Mix it together while I heat up the stove," she said, keeping a straight face as James took the spoon to salute her. He was able to balance the bowl against his stomach and mix, she was sure. A few minutes later, their old stove (bought with the house eight years ago - the place was originally built in the early forties) was complying, and she returned to see how he was doing.
Marriage had been good to them for a long time, providing a refuge to which they might return after emotionally draining missions where they were required to stack facade on top of facade until the layers gummed together. It often took the coercion of a lover to draw them back into their most basic form-- still acting, of course. They could never drop their very first mask. If the Americans caught you, you were interrogated and never seen again. Allegedly, if you were helpful they would set you up with a new identity and make sure you were never found, but both James and Natasha knew their superiors had a whole department dedicated to finding traitors. As for their smoked glass personalities, everything from the way they spoke to the way they counted (Russians counted pinkie finger inwards, while Americans started at the thumb or forefinger) was manipulated.
He knew as soon as she peered over his shoulder that he was doing something wrong, because her brow took the slightest crinkle and he could read her profile like a map. "It's only sugar and butter," James reminded her gently, grinning to himself, to which Natasha shook her head.
"You're meant to go faster now to get air into it."
"That's the first time a lady's ever asked me that."
"I'm... not responding to that. Just cream it-- mix faster until I say stop."
She'd nearly said 'cream faster', which would have had him on the floor struggling get a breath in through his laughter. For such a reputably respectable agent, it'd been a shock to discover that James was little more than a teenage boy in a man's body. (That wasn't fair, of course. He was an excellent strategist and had pulled her out of too many tight spots with a well-aimed shot for her to claim he was truly incompetent, but-- still. He had his moments - they blamed them on his cover story's childhood spent on a farm, with the notion that there was nothing very funny about living on the farm he'd lost his arm on, so he must have resolved to laugh at everything.)
It had been good, until an FBI agent moved into the house next to their own. At first light, Natasha had contacted their link to the Rezidentura, the Soviet Embassy in D.C., and asked what information they had on the man. The response: his name was Rogers, he was in his early thirties, had an extensive medical record, and had successfully detained 9 intelligence agents to date. That was a cause for concern. They tiptoed around him at first and brought casserole to the house as a welcoming gift, only to find that Rogers had a wife-- an English girl who was just as sharp was Natasha was (even if the latter concealed the fact).
It then transpired that contacting Nick (their embassy link) was a waste of time, since Steve mentioned that he worked for the FBI within the first four sentences he'd ever spoken to them. He was proud, that was clear. Did he think he was untouchable? The fact that he had a wife soothed some of their concerns, since their neighbourhood was a family-friendly area and over the weeks, the agent and his clever wife seemed to have nothing more than a friendly interest in them, even if Rogers' history and his wife's personality kept them on their toes.
Once their dough was finished and in the refrigerator, Natasha was ready to curse Steve Rogers for ever getting the idea in his head to make them a pie-- an apple pie; she'd never heard of something more accusatory in her life. We Americans eat apple pie... not that he had a clue about them, even if he was one of the top agents cracking down on intelligence agents.
He'd grown friendly with James. They shared the same sort of humour, oddly, even if she was disturbed that he was crossing into dangerous territory by befriending the FBI agent that lived one hundred yards from their own house. James had dropped a lump of pre-flour batter onto the shag carpet, which had now been trodden underfoot multiple times and was never going to come out without extreme coercion. That wasn't the worst stain they'd left in a kitchen carpet, of course. Blood was likely to be, morally, the worst stain.
Natasha didn't want to think about morals and blood while they were doing something as light hearted as baking. This was a normal, fun activity for normal married couples who lived normal lives. They were normal - she reminded herself that. They had normal, regular jobs number crunching at an insurance firm, both of them; Natasha's position had been shoehorned in on the idea that she was a contract wife (and not because the CEO was a sympathiser).
Steve Rogers, the FBI agent across the street who was too good at his job to be here by coincidence, suspected them of nothing-- he played squash with James every other Saturday, and James obliged all too willingly. Though he wouldn't ever outright admit it to Natasha, she knew he enjoyed the other's company. James had work friends, but those men were all secretly gunning for his job. Steve was just a friend, a guy who lived across the street and understood what having a hard job and a sharp-witted, pretty wife was like. Natasha despised him purely on the basis of what he was and what he did.
"Starting to get real cold out," James attempts as she shuts the refrigerator. He's settling himself into his seat at the table; she knows too easily the statement is more poignant than it seems. His stump shoulder always takes poorly to the cold weather, and too frequently he would have to go a week or two without his prosthesis. While it only gave him a limited amount of mobility to begin with, he hates being without it even more. He hates being helpless. Can she blame him for that? Natasha meets his eyes, then crosses the kitchen floor in two casual steps to the sink so she can start washing out bowls. "I know. But at least you don't have to worry about work for a while-- when do you start back after Christmas?"
"After the seventh."
"Won't be so bad then," she murmurs soothingly, adding soap to their mixing bowl to wash away the dry flour and remnants of dough. In the corner of her eye, she can see him nod in agreement. In the New Year, things seem so much more bearable with the prospects of all failures of the previous year washed away, and the slate wiped clean. He shifts his shoulder with an easy movement that seems absent minded to the casual spectator, but Natasha knows he's testing how secure the straps are and assuring himself, for the umpteenth time today, that the arm won't slip and expose him to be the broken marionette he so deprecatingly refers to himself as.
"No, I suppose not. Hey, how long do we have until that, uh, dough hardens? Is that what it's doing in there?"
"I... think so. About fifteen minutes, but it could be longer-- your mixing was pretty shoddy work," she teases. He can hear the smile easily in her voice, and in return, she can hear his chair shift against the carpet as he gets up.
"You think so, huh? Well, they're our cookies, so if anyone complains it's your fault just as much as mine, honey." His fingers curl gently on the back of her skirt and begin to tug her playfully as if to pull her away from the sink.
"Uh, no, it isn't. It really, really isn't-- you're going to get water everywhere if you pull at me one more time, Barnes." She's using her authoritative voice, the 'I get what I want' voice, and he grins.
"Come on! Is it illegal for a fella to try and steal a kiss or two from his wife? You just smell so good." James leans in, brushing his mouth over her shoulder, lips only pursing to press a kiss to her skin when they reach the delicate curve of her neck. It's easy not to react even if that simple movement usually gives her the shivers, primarily because she doesn't want to give him the pleasure of a reaction when she's got things to do, namely take care of the cookies and then nag him to go and turn their Christmas lights on at the front of the house.
"I smell like vanilla essence. Unless you're planning to bake me with the cookies, it's the 'or two' I'm worried about." Natasha reaches back and unfurls his fingers from her skirt, sidestepping out from in front of him to go and grab a patterned tea towel to dry the dishes with. James knows better than to take her word for it, though, and steps in front of the sink to block her place, his hand taking her waist and pulling her slowly closer.
"What do you gotta be worried about?" If he had a second hand, he'd cup her cheek or touch her hair or do something useful with it, but for now, he has to bank on keeping her close before he can do any of that.
What is she worrying about? That the dishes will disappear? Is this who she's become? God. Natasha dries her hands with the towel then flicks her eyes up to his own, looking at him from under her mascara-darkened lashes. Her eyes always get him -- green at the outer edge, going hazel towards her pupil, with a heterochromatic fleck of brown in the bottom of her left iris. She's being deliberately intoxicating, drawing him into her oh-so-deserving worship, but the kitchen's fallen utterly silent since he's too distracted drinking her in to do anything.
After a moment, Natasha rolls her eyes, presses one hand to his jaw, and leans in to kiss him. It doesn't go further than an uninterested peck, and then she pulls away to go back to work. "There? Happy?"
"Not particularly, kitten. Hang on." His hand moves to her own cheek but curves delicately to fit to her face, and his thumb brushes slowly beneath her bottom lip. Then his lips are on hers again, much more softly, demanding nothing but a kiss in return. Unable to resist herself, Natasha's lips part, freeing her to suck gently on his own bottom lip, tongue then tracing the softer skin where his lip meets the inside of his mouth. His hand shifts further back to slide to her ear and into her hair, his fingers grazing her scalp, drawing her closer to him as he reciprocates. They press together; James pinned to the cupboards (but that's exactly where he'd like to be if she knew him at all).
Someone tilts their head and the kiss deepens again and an urgency begins to take hold. While her hands abandon the tea towel and sink into his own hair, he moves his hand again, sliding it around her hips and pressing his palm flat to her spine to keep her pressed tightly against him. They move at the same time, both nudging one foot forward so that the front of her hip presses against his pants and his thigh is only restricted from her by a layer of stockings and underwear. James' hand presses harder, knowing that in the absence of friction the best thing he can do is crush himself against her hipbone and hope to get off on it.
Natasha feels dizzy when she pulls away, but quickly it becomes clear that's due to a lack of air and they're both struggling to see the room straight. The kitchen spinning isn't any of James' concern, though, and his hand presses higher on her back to pull her back in for another kiss. Natasha's fingers pull on his hair and a low pleased sound drips from his mouth into hers. He shifts his thigh against her deliberately; hungry, she echoes his moan back to him.
When the egg timer goes off, it's like being woken out of a particularly enjoyable dream by the morning alarm. She pulls away first and runs her tongue over her lips, slowly untangling her fingers from his hair. He'll need to comb it again if anyone comes over, but that's probably nothing compared to what he's likely done to hers. James grins at her but lets her go, and doesn’t bother her again until the cookies are baked and ready to decorate. She passes him a piping bag of green icing, and he’s good initially, outlining tree shaped cookies and the odd ‘bauble’ shape.
“You know, you should’ve punched a little hole in these so we could hang them and make them look like real ornaments,” he complains, and she has to agree, picking up one of his freshly iced shapes to examine.
“It’ll not look so bad once they’re decorated. Look, if you just put a little red here—“ she indicates to the stem with her finger, and the biscuit snaps right off in her hand into two little pieces.
James gasps like she’s just shot his cat. “I don’t believe you just did that,” he says, and it’s hard not to laugh when she looks up at him because he appears to mean it, like he’s gone into shock with the trauma.
“It’s only one broken cookie! It was bound to happen,” Natasha replies, unable to hold back her grin as she turns away to put the broken pieces into the trash. When she turns back, she’s met with a dab of green icing on the nose from his finger, and it goes to hell from there. Natasha covers her fingers in red frosting and swipes at his cheek; he laughs, sticks his whole hand flat to the bowl she’d mixed the icing and green food colouring in and manages to smear it over her jaw and neck with a clumsy paw. Natasha gasps but laughs, and picks up her piping bag to squeeze in his general direction.
Most of it is too thick to have the intended effect of flying through the air and hitting his smug face, and lands on his shirt instead, but instead of fussing about the stain he slides his hand around her hip and brings her close for a second time, spreading icing between their clothes as he captures her mouth, still exposed in a laughing smile, in a kiss. Neither of them actually got any frosting anywhere near the other’s mouth, but she effortlessly convinces herself she can taste the sugar anyway. James’ fingers clench on the back of her dress. She drops the piping bag (another stain to scrub out of the carpet) to reach up and stroke her nails through his hair in a slow movement that makes goosebumps rise on his arm. He softens against her, pressing his body closer to hers until the movement of his chest against her own feels like nothing more than an expansion of her own breathing.
He pulls back just enough to breathe through his mouth, lips warm and breath hot on her own. Natasha gives him one breath and then pulls him back again until she has to pull away to breathe. When that happens, James eases up on her and moves a few inches back. His hand strokes along her spine, keeping her joined to him at the hips. She opens her eyes, and he’s looking at her with love she never expected to come to someone like her. It’s a warm look, relaxed to the point of sleepiness with adoration. His mouth is curled into the faintest of smiles and his lips are red from her kisses. Tomorrow, the KGB might decide that their marriage is absolved, and send one of them to the other side of America to work. It wouldn’t matter. The look he’s bestowing on her has seared itself onto every component of her actuality. The brevity of life has dangerously little meaning; the love in his eyes is perdurable.
James licks his lips then kisses the tip of her nose, and when he leans in to rest his forehead against hers, she closes her eyes and cradles his head between her hands. She can feel his pulse beating against her index finger in his right temple. The world is quiet, and then --
“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Barnes.”