Natasha Alone
Natasha woke up to the sun streaming through the windows and the sound of Sam moving around in the kitchen. A thin layer of sweat clung to her skin and left her feeling vaguely dirty. Steve’s arm was looped around her waist still, her shirt bunched up in his hand. She attempted to extract herself from him but he pulled her closer.
“Don’t go yet,” he mumbled into her shoulder.
She wanted to protest. Half of her wanted to run, the other half wanted to stay. She didn’t know what half to listen to.
“I don’t want Sam to see me,” she said finally. The coward’s way out, but they had shared enough last night. “He’ll jump to conclusions and it will just make everything complicated again.”
He exhaled into her shoulder. “Okay.”
He didn’t believe her, but they both respected each other enough not to call it out.
“I’m going to--,” Nat picked up her tact suit, “--I’m going to get changed.”
When she came back Steve had pulled on a shirt and straightened up the bedroom. They stood in front of each other, her in her suit, him in a ridiculous pair of shorts. Natasha laughed to herself.
“What?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen your knees before,” she said. He raised his eyebrows.
“We’ve had sex multiple times.”
She let out a quiet laugh. “I guess I was focused on other things.”
He smiled and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pulling her into his chest. “I’ll miss you.”
Her body was alight. “You have my number.”
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She ended up in Morocco, tracking down an arms dealer that supplied to the KGB. She tailed him to a prominent bazaar, a buzz of activity and noise, with stalls crammed too tightly and people yelling in every corner. Her senses were heightened, her eyes trained on the graying man three stands down with the long scar across his cheek. She pretended to look at some scarves, conversing with the woman selling them in French, haggling over prices. Going through the motions.
When the man ducked away from the market she saw her opportunity. She followed him down an alley and shot him with a silenced 9mm, clean and meticulous, straight through the chest. He didn’t even have time to protest.
The whole kill was-- it was routine. At this point. She felt almost no remorse over it, he was just another check off her mental to do list. She wondered, if Steve knew what she was really doing, if he would care. If he would think… less of her.
What she really wanted, more than anything, was some normalcy. Whatever that meant. She missed stability in her life: with Steve, with Irina. With Yelena. This was the new normal now. A new chapter.
Natasha: Alone.
She supposed she should get used to it. Until the next time blue aliens invaded and she was called in for her little side quests with Tony and the other freaks. They were still running, in small groups, smaller missions to help Hill and Fury clean up the SHIELD wreckage. She could always go back to them, she supposed. Not that it would feel the same without Steve.
Her phone rested against her hip. She had been waiting for him to call for a few days now.
As she reentered the crowd she caught sight of a flash of blonde, somewhat atypical to see in a small town in an east african country. She peered through the mass of faces to get a better look at the woman, who was busy adjusting her scarf. She was older, Natasha’s age, with a broad frame and a serious face. Her arms were roped with muscle, at least from what was visible, and she had a face that Natasha knew she had seen before.
She followed the woman through the market, trying to place her, keeping her distance while she collected her thoughts. Scandinavian, with a gymnast’s build on a rower’s frame. It wasn’t until they were near the end of the market, the woman standing next to a stand selling glass jars filled with turmeric and paprika, when she figured it out. Almost in slow motion, she watched one of the jars topple over as the man selling them turned his back. The woman lunged for it, her reflexes lithe, those of someone trained for combat and agility. She was a widow.
Oola.
A Swedish girl, daughter of two would-be olympians who needed bail money after a doping scandal threatened their chances. The Red Room swooped in, always there for parents in crisis, and bought Oola off of them. The parents never recovered and basically fell off the face of the earth, probably victims of their addiction. Her file was a little unclear on the specifics after she joined the KGB, but they were clear on a few other things:
Oola’s date, time, and cause of death.
Natasha was looking at a dead woman.
The market was closing down for the night and Oola had made her last few purchases. She slung a cloth bag over her shoulder and said her goodbyes to the man at the kiosk. It all looked too familiar to Natasha, like a scene that had played out a million times. Had the Red Room faked her death? Sent her on a long con to this tiny town? Had she been working with the arms dealer?
Natasha decided to trail her out of the market, figure out what she had been up to. This could be her link to Maya, to the Red Room. To Yelena. Seeing Steve, hearing him talk about James, it reminded her of who she had left behind. Of who she had lost. A family. Alexei, Melina, they were a lost cause, she was almost positive. Yelena… well, she had forgiven her once before. Perhaps she could do it again.
She followed Oola out of the city proper, down into one of the ghettos. The buildings were tighter together, windows were boarded up, stray dogs darted around the porches of the few buildings that still had them. A few people sat outside, drinking and talking. Oola said hello to a woman hanging laundry. They shared a warm smile.
She disappeared into an alley and Natasha snuck around the corner, hiding behind a stack of pallets haphazardly placed against the brick. Oola was making her way to one of the fire escapes. She stretched up and grabbed the ladder, pulling herself up easily. Natasha was surprised at how effortless she made it look. It was like they were still kids learning high bar for the first time.
She climbed about four stories of rusty, creaky ladders before disappearing into an open window. Natasha waited in the alley for a good amount of time, gathering her thoughts. Oola was a widow, so she must have connections back to Yelena. To Maya. To the rest of them. If Natasha could just find out where they were, she could get them out. Get rid of Maya, save Yelena. She had forgiven her once, maybe she could do it again.
Natasha was silent as she made her way into the brick apartment building. It was a large studio with a closet and a closed door that she assumed led to the bathroom. It was clearly meant to be a temporary residence. The wallpaper was stained with water or… something else, the carpet was stained in weird places, and the paint around the wall trim was peeling.
There was no way she had intended to live there for more than a month, and yet there were signs that she had been there for quite some time. Posters, a plant that was in desperate need of repotting, a new couch that had a sweater thrown over the back. The mattress on the floor had more pillows than one person could reasonably use and a collection of photos stacked on the bedside table. Natasha padded over and squinted at photos. Oola and a handsome african man, Oola smiling into the camera while holding the plant that now resided on the kitchen counter, and the last one-- the one that made Natasha take a step back-- Oola and a young blond boy at the beach, the man from the first photo buried up to his neck in the sand.
“Don’t take another step,” came a voice from behind Natasha. Nat put her hands up slowly, hearing the click of a gun being cocked only a few inches behind her head. She hadn’t even heard her sneak up.
“Your accent is just as thick as I remember it,” Nat said back. Neither one moved. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“A dead widow shows up on my fire escape after following me nearly two miles home-- I’m not an idiot, Natalia.”
Nat slowly turned to face her. She looked scared, even though it was Natasha staring down the barrel. Like a cornered animal. “It’s actually Natasha now.”
“They faked your death and they couldn’t get you a different name?”
“They didn’t fake my death,” Natasha said. “I defected.”
Oola rolled her eyes. “Likely story.”
“I thought you were dead. That’s what your file said, anyway.”
“That’s what they say when someone defects.”
Natasha nodded. “Exactly.”
Oola lowered the gun slightly. “Did you remove the chip?”
“Of course.” Natasha pulled her hair out of the way and showed her the crescent shaped scar beneath her ear where Clint had dug out the chip in neck. Oola pulled her sleeve up, revealing a similar scar.
“Do you want a drink?”
-------------
It felt so familiar, like she was living the same day over again. Only this time, instead of Steve, it was a dead woman. The room even had the same odd smell, the smell that came with having carpet in the kitchen. Oola pulled a gallon of distilled water out of the fridge and fixed them with some lemonade from a mix. She picked up the place as she bustled around. It was strange, now that she wasn’t holding her at gunpoint anymore, Oola appeared so… normal. Like she had switched off the widow. She did it so easily.
Nat was almost jealous.
“So you didn’t really die in Budapest, did you?” Oola asked as she joined her at the table.
“No, I was pulled out by an american. Got me involved with SHIELD.”
“The intelligence organization?” Oola was incredulous. “Do they know how many of their agents you killed?”
Nat pursed her lips. “They do.”
“And they let you work for them?”
Natasha cocked her head to the side. “Not to sound arrogant, but do you know anything about me? I’ve been involved in some pretty high-profile stuff in the past few years.”
Oola sighed. “We don’t get a whole lot of news out here. You can imagine why I’d want to live off the grid.”
“How did you get out?” Nat asked. Oola’s open expression faltered slightly and her eyes focused on a spot behind Natasha.
“I had a mission in Berlin with Lottie Doucet. Do you remember her? The american?”
“Vaguely.”
“They sent us in for reconnaissance, or, well, I guess that’s what they meant it to be.” She took a sip of her lemonade and grimaced. “We were ambushed and they got Lottie and I.”
“Did they kill her?”
Oola looked down at the table, tracing her finger over a red scribble that smudged slightly as she rubbed it into the linoleum. “No.”
Nat was silent. Historically men did not like to lose to women, especially pretty girls with enhanced abilities and smart mouths. They had one choice method they usually fell back on if they ever captured a widow. The Red Room trained the girls to deal with it.
“Did they-- did you--,” Natasha couldn’t even finish the sentence.
“They just made me watch.”
The women were silent for a moment. Natasha sipped her lemonade and tried not to recoil at the chemical taste of the mix. Poor Lottie.
“Anyways, I couldn’t go back after that,” Oola finally said. “I couldn’t look at Maya knowing that they had left us high and dry in Berlin. It was so fucked up. After we escaped, Lottie covered for me I think, or maybe she didn’t. I don’t care either way.”
Natasha nodded. “I’m glad you got out. And Lottie…”
“Back with Maya, which I suppose is better than… Well. But I couldn’t do it anymore.”
“So you just… left?”
“I pulled my chip and strapped it to a pigeon’s leg. Figured that would give me a head start. You should have seen how fast that thing took off once I let it go.”
The two women shared a look and before either could stop it they had both let out a giggle. Oola sat back and stretched. She was smiling, like truly smiling. Not the way that Maya had taught them, all prim and proper, but with her whole face. She didn’t look pretty, but she was happy. Natasha was suddenly hit with the urge to cry.
“And now you're just… what? You have a life here?”
Oola smiled wider, if that was possible. “As much of a life as one can have with no access to the outside world, no internet, no news. I pay cash for this tiny apartment and work at one of the schools outside of town. And, I don’t know. We’re happy.”
“We?”
“Me, Deo, and Markus.”
“You have a son?”
Oola laughed and shot Natasha a look. “I made it through training, Natalia. Markus is my brother, technically, I suppose. Courtesy of my druggy parents. Doping was helpful when they were athletes, but it turns out addiction doesn’t stop after your career ends. Markus was probably two at the time, but I couldn’t find a birth certificate. He was soiled and thin as straw.”
“And your parents?”
“As far as anyone else knows, they were unresponsive when I arrived. I left a note.”
Nat nodded, taking it all in. “And Deo?”
“We met a few years ago. Married last year. He’s a good dad.”
“So you’ve, you’ve got it made then? Everything they said we could never have?” She didn’t mean for her voice to crack. But it did. Oola took her hand.
“Are you okay?”
“I just didn’t think it was possible. I haven’t had a family, not a real one, for years.”
Not since Ohio.
“Well what have you been doing the past ten years?”
Natasha thought for a moment. “A lot of the same. Contract killing. Espionage. Right now I’m looking for old HYDRA associates, anyone who might have been associated with the serum or--,”
“That guard you were banging?”
Nat choked. “Excuse me?”
“I saw you two in the med room one time. I never told anyone. Not that it really matters now.” Oola winked. “He was hot. We all thought so.”
The reminder of James was unwelcome. “I always thought that family was… I don’t know. An impossibility.”
She took her hand. “Natalia, you could have this. You could get out too.”
She wanted to say something, to protest. They were not the same people, not of the same caliber. She couldn’t just disappear and start some little life in the middle of nowhere. Nat didn’t want to be a dick, so she bit her tongue.
“Maybe someday.”
She was saved by the sound of the door opening. The man from the photo walked through, Markus at his feet carrying a bag of groceries that was about half the size of him. He dropped them as soon as he was through the door and Natasha heard the distinctive sound of eggs cracking. Deo scooped the bag off the floor and leaned down to kiss Oola on the cheek.
“I didn’t realize we had company?”
“Oh, this is Natalia. She--,”
“I was actually just leaving,” Nat said. “I don’t want to keep you guys any longer. Thank you, Oola.”
“Nat, really, stay for dinner, I’ll make eggs--,”
Deo shook his head subtly. “We don’t-- the eggs--,”
“Really, thank you.” She was already standing up, backing out the front door.
She could tell Oola had something more to say. For a second disappointment crossed her face.
Natasha sighed. She was getting soft. “Here, I’ll write down my number. Call me and we can talk.”
Oola smiled again, that same smile that made her nose look crooked and her eyes look beady. She gave her a note pad and a pen and Natasha scribbled down the same number she had left in Steve’s phone last week. So much for being off the grid.
Before she could leave, a thought popped into her head. “Oola?”
“Hm?”
“Did you ever try and go back? To help the others?”
Oola shook her head. “I never want to see that place again. Most of the girls in our class are gone. Either dead or contracted.”
“And the younger girls?”
Something seemed to dawn on her and she stepped into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind her. “They shouldn’t hear this.”
Natasha nodded.
“Yelena is alive, but she’s in deep. She’s ruthless, Natalia. Practically was Maya’s right hand when I last saw her, and so young too. As skilled as you were, easily.”
“But she’s alive?”
Oola nodded, her jaw set. “She’s alive. But I would be careful, if I were you. She’s not the same girl you left all those years ago.”
Nat tried to smile in thanks, but it was flat.
“Call me if you need anything,” she said. “And thank you for the lemonade.”
As she made her way back down the street, winding down the road that she hoped would take her back to her car, she thought about everything that had happened that night. It had started out so routine. So normal. A mark, a trail, a body. Wasn’t that what she had wanted? Routine? And yet there she was feeling strangely… empty.
The mention of Yelena, Oola’s warning. It felt so similar to what Steve was going through. She couldn’t help but wonder if she was missing someone who didn’t exist anymore. She just wanted her sister back, her family back. She craved the safety that came with that, that life that she would never get.
She wanted what Oola had. She hadn’t allowed herself to want like that in a long time. She hadn’t allowed herself to feel. But seeing them, so normal, it was all too much. Tears slipped down Natasha’s cheeks and she furiously wiped at them.
“Jesus,” she whispered to herself. She wanted to be home, wherever that was. She wanted to curl up into a ball and cry, to cuddle up on the couch in that apartment in DC that she had lived in for so long. She wanted to feel Steve’s arms around her like they had been just one week ago.
Maybe that’s what home was. Maybe it was a person for her, not a place. Maybe it was people.
Her hip buzzed as if on cue and she jumped, focusing back on her surroundings while she fished the burner out of her pocket. She expected Oola, perhaps testing out the number. Steve’s contact popped up instead.
Quickly, she answered it.
“Steve?”
His voice was tinny but flooded with relief. “God it’s good to hear your voice.”