Ch 2
Natasha stares up at the ceiling from the top bunk, headphones on but no music actually playing. She’d been working alone for so long after the Red Room that it feels strange to be among a group again. The current setting makes it even weirder; the last time Natasha had slept in a dorm like this, all the girls were handcuffed to the beds.
This room was chosen for the best sight lines and proximity to the exits, even if it was the smallest one with the worst A/C circulation. Oh well. Natasha had slept in far, far worse places. She knew Clint would complain about the cramped bunk beds, but he was the one who hadn’t wanted to leave dinner early.
Natasha instead had ducked out of the cafeteria behind Rumlow and Rollins in order to scope out their living situation. Clint was the only one who noticed—Hawkeye would never miss a thing like that—and signed “paranoid” as they made their exit, which she not only understood but promptly answered with a one-fingered variation on the sign for stupid. What can she say, Natasha thinks, she’s got a gift for language learning.
The lights turn off and on in quick succession, letting her know that the Hawk has finally landed. On the bottom bunk across from her, Rollins puts down a crossword puzzle book.
“Hey, Rawls, Nat,” Clint greets them. Natasha pulls off the headphones and leans over the side of her bed in time to catch the look of disappointment that quickly spreads over his face.
“Aw, top bunk, no,” he says.
“Sucks to suck,” Rollins replies, tossing the crossword book onto the other bottom bunk. Natasha and Clint share a knowing smirk at just how much the commander and his lieutenant appear to share with each other. No one else on STRIKE seems to have caught on yet.
“Where’s the boss?” Clint asks with a practiced casualness, but sending a wink Natasha’s way.
“Who knows; he went off in a huff after reading that,” gesturing to the weekend’s schedule (printed in bold Comic Sans) taped to the back of the door.
“Well that’s a surprise,” Clint says sarcastically. “Anyway, I came to get you,” he continues. “Everyone’s outside—we’re gonna play games instead of boring PT. Might as well try to have a break from work while we’re stuck here.”
“Alright,” Rollins says, putting on his boots.
Natasha rolls back over and reaches for her headphones.
A few moments pass, with the only sound being Rollins’s retreating footsteps.
“Nat? You coming?” Clint asks. She continues to ignore him, but he is undeterred. “C’mon, Nat. We’re gonna play kids’ games that everyone knows, like Red Rover and freeze tag and shit like that.” Like she has any idea what he’s talking about.
“Kids’ games,” she repeats with disdain. “Sounds lame.”
Clint sighs. “Would it really kill you to spend more time with the team? You are part of the team now, whether you like it or not.”
Natasha leaps from the top bunk in one fluid motion, boots already laced and weapons already concealed on her person. “SHIELD didn’t recruit me for my sparkling personality,” she tells Clint. “I’m only here because I’m more valuable working than sitting in maximum security.”
Something flashes in Clint’s eyes, but whatever it is, he shuts it down quickly.
“Fine, be that way. No one’s forcing you.”
“Awesome,” Natasha says with biting sarcasm. “Have fun with your stupid games.” She pushes past Clint and heads for the back exit, refusing to allow herself a backwards glance.
Natasha wanders through the grounds, golden sunlight slipping past the trees. When camp is in session, this place probably looks exactly like the glossy brochure she remembers opening up at the kitchen table in Ohio. Melina and Alexei had asked her if she wanted to go, explaining that it was “an opportunity they could afford.” She knew they weren’t really talking about money.
A fierce longing had swelled within her when Natasha looked at those pictures of smiling bunkmates with linked arms and friendship bracelets. Still, she’d said no, unwilling to leave Yelena with them in that house.
Yes, they doted on the younger girl far more than was required to maintain their cover of normal American white picket fence family. They were trying. She could see that.
But how could she ever trust an adult after the Red Room horrors she’d already witnessed? She’d felt so old then already, at only nine. Now, at twenty-one, she feels like yet another eternity has passed.
The winding path she’s been following opens up to a playground. A few steps further, and she realizes she’s not alone anymore. Rumlow is leaning against the monkey bars, a pile of rocks at his feet. He picks one up and chucks it at a tree in the distance, and it bounces off with a small thud.
“I don’t think trees are very good at playing catch,” she says dryly.
“Throwing rocks at stuff is a time-honored military tradition, Romanoff,” he replies.
She takes a seat on one of the swings as another rock hits its target. “So that’s what you Delta Force boys do all day?”
“‘Course,” he says. “We throw the rocks, and DEVGRU takes all the credit.”
“What does Rollins have to say about that?” she asks, since she knows his lieutenant is a former SEAL.
“Not my fault his dumb ass chose the wrong branch. ‘Least he pulled his head outta his ass eventually, and got to STRIKE where he belongs.”
Natasha raises an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”
“Shut the fuck up,” he complains, a slight blush creeping up his neck. “I know you fuckin’ know.”
“Know what?” she asks slyly.
He throws a rock at her, but she slides out of the way.
“Why are you out here anyway? Thought you’d be hanging with Hawkeye.”
Natasha makes a face.
“You know, you should have seen what he was like when he first joined SHIELD. He gave Coulson so much shit.”
“Seriously?”
“Who did you think wrote ‘for a good time, call Phil’ on the wall in the STRIKE locker room?” Rumlow barks out a laugh. “He had to change his number.”
Natasha grins. She’ll definitely have to find out more about that when she gets back to the Triskelion. But first she has to survive this weekend.
“So how much mandatory fun are we in for at Happy Acres?” she asks Rumlow.
He scowls, picking up another rock.
“Did you read the schedule?” he says, and hurls it at the tree.
Natasha winces. “It’s…a lot.”
“It’s hell. I can’t believe people do this shit willingly.”
“That’s probably what they say about STRIKE though,” Natasha observes.
“Well, what do they know? All those weirdos with their happy childhoods and loving families and shit, well look what it leads to…compliment circles? Line dancing?! Karaoke duets?!” Rumlow exclaims, throwing up his hands as if he’s pleading with the gods to save him from this terrible fate. The drama of it all makes Natasha start laughing. Unable to stop the giggling fit, she has to grasp onto the chains of the swing so she doesn’t fall off.
“Yeah, ha ha ha, I’ll tell Margo to put the two of us down for “Livin’ on a Prayer,” see if you’re laughing then.” But the mental image only makes Natasha laugh even harder.
“Would you like me to choreograph a dance to go with that?” she recovers long enough to ask, before collapsing into giggles again. Rumlow flips her off, though he’s unable to hide a smile.
But her laughter dies down quickly, leaving an awkward silence in its wake. Rumlow throws the last rock, then walks over to join Natasha on the swings. He picks at the plastic covering on the chain. Natasha looks down, tracing a circle in the mulch with one boot.
“So what did Barton do to piss you off?” he asks.
“He thinks he should help me be less bitchy and miserable, but maybe I want to be bitchy and miserable. It’s a free country, or so I’m told.”
“Very patriotic of you, Romanoff.”
“I’m all about enduring freedom,” she says with fake earnestness, and he smirks. She continues, “They’re playing this Red Rover children’s game back there—apparently everyone knows what that even is—and I didn’t feel like looking stupid for their entertainment.”
Rumlow shrugs. “Sure as shit don’t play anything like that where I come from. Damn, even Barton knows? And he ran away to join the circus,” he muses.
“He talks about Iowa sometimes,” says Natasha. “He tried to explain this thing called a corn maze once, and I still don’t understand the purpose of it. Very strange.”
“Rollins says shit like that sometimes. Like, his family used to play board games every Sunday night when he was a kid? Isn’t that fuckin’ wild? People actually do that.” Rumlow shakes his head in disbelief.
“I had to take pictures with Monopoly once, for a cover story,” Natasha says. “Then they threw it in the trash because they didn’t want us to be influenced by capitalist propaganda.”
“Well, joke’s on them. Look at you now, Agent Romanoff of SHIELD.”
“Sure,” she says, pushing off the ground to put the swing into motion. “But I’ll always be a Widow. You can take the girl out of the Red Room…”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” he says, starting to swing himself. “You and me, we’re institutionalized, as the shrinks say. A fancy way of saying fucked up for life.”
“Fucked up for life—I’ll swing to that,” she says, pumping her legs to go higher. It’s actually kind of…enjoyable. Entertaining, perhaps. But definitely not fun. That word simply isn’t part of the Black Widow’s vocabulary.
This is merely enjoyable exercise, Natasha decides, propelling herself closer and closer to the sky.
“I am not having fun,” she tells Rumlow, just to make sure he’s aware of the situation.
“Me neither,” he says.
But they keep swinging until the fireflies come out.