demon is such a strong word (we prefer Creature of Chaos)

Natasha was going to kill him.

Slowly.

Tonight.

“I hate everything, especially puppies and rainbows, also the idea of people makes me want to kill other people.”

When her completely straight-faced declaration barely made an impression, she glared at the man in front of her, who started sweating profusely. Even the smell was unpleasant. And they were more than three feet apart.

The clock on the wall, right behind the pale-faced host of the Event, showed that barely ten minutes had passed and she was supposed to stay here for another. whole. gruelling. hour.

She was going to kill Clint.

And she was going to enjoy it.

A speed date, really.

As if Natasha needed help picking up casual dates if she so desired.

But she was a woman of her word, and Clint was bound to become insufferable if she actually gave up on this, so she resigned herself to spending the entire time grunting and glaring.

The bell dinged again, and Natasha sighed at the young, tanned boy in front of her. He was barely in his thirties, if that, and honestly? He would have fit better at a frat party than here.

Of course, Natasha herself would have fit anywhere but here, so she wasn’t going to bring it up unless he became completely unbearable. Ten seconds in and her patience was already being tested, after the proprietary glance he just shot her.

He opened his mouth and she went back to planning Barton’s death right away. If the kid weren’t as dense as concrete, he’d have probably noticed the murder energy she was emanating.

As it was, every time the Event Host looked at her, he flinched violently.

She pursed her lips, praying that her current date would get a hint before she really had to up her game. He didn’t register anything but the sudden eye contact, preening.

“And so, as I was saying-,” he smiled at her in what she assumed was supposed to be charming.

“Dude, stop embarrassing yourself, please.”

Natasha startled, and so did the dudebro.

Sucking noisily through a plastic straw and looking down on him as if he was some kind of cockroach, was a woman. Clearly in her twenties, with glasses and red-painted lips, she would probably need to stand on a box to even reach his chin.

“Excuse me?” He raised his eyebrows.

The girl didn’t even blink. “I said,” she repeated slowly, “stop. She’s not into you, just stop making it painful.”

He frowned. “This is a speed date.”

“Yep,” the woman said, “and yours failed. Spectacularly.”

“What the fu-” he made to stand, but before he could turn menacingly at her, the woman had sneaked behind him and sat in his place.

Natasha had to give it to the girl, she’d been as quick as a squirrel.

“Thanks, buddy,” she smiled dazzlingly at him, “much appreciated.”

He gaped for a second, then two. For a moment, Natasha thought she’d seen a flash of irritation and anger in his eyes, but the guy just shook his head uncomprehendingly and left.

“There’s a good boy,” the woman muttered, low enough that he wouldn’t hear. The woman turned to her. “Hi! I’m Darcy!”

Natasha smiled slightly. “You do realize this was a speed date event, right? He had about one minute left.”

‘Darcy’ smiled sheepishly back. “I kind of didn’t notice until he told me, and by then, of course, I had to be cool about it.”

She resisted the urge to snort. “Of course you did.”

Darcy huffed. “You were contemplating murder there, lady-” “Natalie.”

“Natalie,” she amended right away, “I had to intervene.” Natasha inched closer, leaning on the table. “Were you trying to save me or him?”

Darcy crossed her legs. “Both?”

Her lips twitched. “Fair.”

“So, Natalie,” Darcy took another noisy gulp of whatever was in the plastic cup. It was dark and dense, probably coffee, but it was difficult to see properly with the colourful label around it. “Why are you here? No offence to anyone else, but you’re like… three hundred leagues from any of them. Like, I don’t think I’ve seen prettier women in a catalogue.”

Natasha’s blush was as fake as the smile behind it, but Darcy didn’t seem to notice. “Thank you.” As far as compliments went, this wasn’t the most abused one, and the woman seemed to mean it. “A friend of mine roped me into it.”

Darcy nodded sagely. “I see. Friends can be a pain.”

“Such a pain.” And she meant it.

The bell dinged again as time went up. Darcy gave no indication of having heard it. The next man in line was already reaching for Natasha’s table when the woman turned to him. “Sorry, buddy, we’re in the middle of something here.”

The man blinked, made a ‘Well, I never’ sound, and wordlessly left.

Natasha frowned. The dudebro had already been suspicious, but two men in two minutes just giving up without a fight?

“Is something wrong?”

Natasha blinked and turned. Darcy looked at her, a puzzled expression on her face. “You didn’t actually want to talk to him, did you?”

She smiled her PR smile. “Not at all. Sorry, I was distracted.”

Darcy’s smile turned sharper, and Natasha had to blink at the complete change. She suddenly looked older. “I can be plenty distracting. I mean,” she winked at her, “if you wanted me to be.”

Ah.

Natasha’s face broke into a slow smile. “You’re not only here to do me a solid, are you?”

Darcy shrugged. “Sure, it can be just that if you want. Like, I’m not complaining if you want to leave this place, but we can also stay here and annoy the rest of the guys. I don’t have anywhere to be.”

“You’re very forward, Miss Darcy.”

“Ah, shit,” she snorted, “should have I gone for suave? I think I can pull it off, given enough time.”

At this, Natasha snorted. “No, it’s fine, I like it. Not many can be as straightforward as you are.”

Not many could afford to talk to her like that at all. That wasn’t counting people who knew her, obviously.

One-night stands were easy to score, of course, if you could count on your looks and your skills to put people at ease just enough, but Natasha could easily say that there hadn’t been many women this young that had so blatantly expressed interest.

She was kind of intrigued.

Bonus, she could leave the bar and tell Clint she’d left with somebody without lying. She could appreciate a buy one get one free kind of offer when she saw one.

Her smile became more sincere, and Darcy picked up on it. “Mine or yours?” she offered.

“Yours.” Natasha didn’t hesitate. There was no way she was getting the girl to her apartment, not even the fake ones.

“Great,” Darcy nodded. “Let’s go, my lady!”

“I bet you say that to all the girls.”

“Only to the Natalies.”

“I swear to God, Natalie, if you don’t move that fucking finger I will-”

Natasha chuckled. “Patience, Darcy.” Honestly, she could do this all night.

Her finger traced lightly her inner thigh, never close enough to where Darcy wanted her to be. Her partner was amazingly responsive tonight and, despite the young age, the previous bravado hadn’t been all bluster.

In fact, Natasha couldn’t remember such a fun episode since, well, since Clint lately.

Darcy’s feet pressed insistently on her hips as her hands clutched the sheets. “Are you serious? Because I have a pretty accurate idea of what you could do with those.”

She blew her hair away. “This is decidedly more fun,” she said, gently brushing her finger over Darcy’s lips.

The woman, however, had enough of the teasing, because with a grunt Natasha didn’t expect she planted her feet on the bed and actually managed to flip her.

That wouldn’t do. Natasha hadn’t even touched the bed with her back before she’d hooked her arm under Darcy’s leg and had her pinned down again.

There was a lull in the movement, where Darcy just stared at her, completely wide-eyed, and for a second Natasha wondered if she’d killed the mood. “Are you okay?” she asked, blinking rapidly.

Darcy took a deep breath. “Dude, that was so hot. Let’s do it again.”

Natasha huffed. “Let’s not. Now, where was I?”

“I dunno, where were you?”

“You talk too much, Darcy.”

Darcy smirked. “Well, that’s your fault, I guess, I mean...”

She didn’t get to finish her sentence, and for a long time, there was very little talking.

She woke up with the sun streaming through the window, the dark curtains doing a piss poor job of keeping the light out.

A glance about told her what her brain had realized twelve seconds ago, this wasn’t her room. For starters, this wasn’t her flat at all. It also wasn’t any of the boltholes or safe houses she used during an OP.

She looked around, stumped. Then, she took in the numerous cups on the floor, the couch, and the wrinkly bed which held a very much asleep Darcy.

Natasha blinked. She couldn’t recall one single occasion in the last few years where she’d fallen asleep in the bed of a hookup. Or recall one at all. She frowned, that wasn’t like her.

Darcy twitched on the bed beside her, and Natasha’s eyes followed her movements unconsciously. The young woman’s nose scrunched up, her left arm moved to her face, she twisted and then nothing. She was, once again, dead to the world.

Natasha relaxed and then blinked again at the strange reaction. That was strange, right? She was the most dangerous human in the apartment, she shouldn’t be feeling unnerved. Last night had been fun, a lot of fun. So much fun she wouldn’t mind a repeat. So why was her body behaving like that?

It… certainly bore more thought.

She slowly sneaked out of the bed, looking for her things. She’d leave her number somewhere, maybe; there was no reason to linger and make it weird.

She absentmindedly grabbed her underwear from the floor, almost mystified at the distance from the bed. She must have been very focused, the bra had barely made it into the bedroom.

As she made her way back to the other end of the bedroom she took care to tiptoe around her sleeping acquaintance. It wouldn’t do to stare too much lest Darcy woke up and misinterpreted the whole situation.

Unfortunately, she was so focused, that she accidentally bumped one of the plastic cups on the floor, sending it rolling around the bed.

She froze and held her breath.

Darcy didn’t seem to notice.

Her eyes fell on the traitorous cup, ignoring for a second the fact that the thing had been there first, and her eyes widened.

In full sunlight, what she’d thought was a stupid coffee cup showed traces of a bright red liquid that certainly wasn’t coffee. Blood. It had to be, with such a colour.

Her host sighed deeply again, turning towards the window.

The spy tracked her snuggling back into the covers wrong, leaving her back completely exposed, just as she was hastily putting her bra on. Right in the middle of the sunbeams pouring from the window.

She’d seen her dose of weird shit. Natasha had probably seen a lot of weird.

Pitch-black tattoos that encompassed the entirety of the back of a person, with what was probably a pentacle and ominous writing, were higher on her list of ‘Strange’ than she would have liked. It probably lined up in the middle of the Strangeness scale, along with ‘Real Witches’ or ‘Minor cabals’.

Fortunately, so far no member of a Cabal or Demonic Cult she’d infiltrated had resumed activities, unless her information was outdated. If that were even it, really; Darcy told her she was a college student, it was the kind of thing you were supposed to go through, right? Natasha had never done college, but she had heard enough stories to make polite conversation. For the average young adult, tattoos weren’t uncommon. This one was unusual, but it needn’t be necessarily ominous.

Still, the writings seemed coherent enough that she could make sense of it, if she wanted to. It wasn’t like she wasn’t capable of getting a good read.

However, her sixth sense, so to speak, was either acting up or very alarmed at the idea of getting anywhere close to the black ink.

She had started counting the seconds she’d need to get to her knife in her jacket without needing to ask questions, just wondering how fast she could get out of the place without giving herself up and then she caught herself mid-movement.

What the fuck was wrong with her?

She was pretty confident she could take her, but her previous exploits in the bed had left her thinking. Darcy hadn’t been able to totally overpower her, but she had been capable of forcefully flipping her over.

Her jacket was probably on the couch in the living room, though, so she’d need to fetch it sooner, rather than later- Wait.

Natasha shook her head vigorously.

At that moment, though, the door of the flat slammed open.

“DARCY ARE YOU HERE?”

In a flash, Darcy snapped up like a seasoned veteran at the sound of an explosion, her eyes taking in Natasha’s deer in the headlights expression before dragging her hands to her face.

Like vapour or mist, Natasha’s fears disappeared, as if she’d imagined it all.

“What- what time is it?” Darcy asked groggily.

Honestly? Natasha had no idea. She guessed probably mid-morning, from the light coming through the window.

The voice didn’t care for that though and after a few seconds, a tiny, stick-thin woman with mousy hair and a huge mug of coffee waltzed into the room.

“Darcy, you won’t belie- Oh Shit.”

It was surreal.

Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, the best in her field, was in the middle of sharing breakfast with her most recent hookup, a woman who, despite being her best lay was also probably into some extreme body marking and her neighbour, who had no concept of privacy whatsoever. It looked like a satiric painting.

‘Jane’ had apologized profusely, of course, but had barely blinked at Natasha and Darcy’s state of undress and had even needed some nudging to give them some privacy.

Of course, then, she had single-handedly managed to monopolize the conversation as if nothing had happened.

Natasha herself had no problem with nudity, but she was well aware this was not how people behaved, despite living the ‘college experience’. Darcy, however, didn’t seem to care about being completely naked in front of her friend. She sat there, nursing a coffee mug and making her best to appear somewhat sober. Of the previous paranoia that had seized her baser instincts a few moments earlier, there was no trace.

She picked at the cereals she’d been offered, determined to leave at the first opportunity. She had probably eyed the door at least five times.

It wasn’t hard, especially since the apartment was meant for one person only, at most. The only bedroom was directly connected to the kitchen, which was also the living room and was connected to the only bathroom. It had an impressive windowed balcony, but that was about it. Darcy had to have brought the bed into the bedroom herself, now that she thought about it, because it was so much bigger than the rest of the furniture. The counters had to be new, as well, gleaming with the polish only new wooden stuff could do, especially if compared to the rest of the shabby place.

All in all, if Natasha could somehow forget about the cups in the bedroom, the rest of the place was immaculate. Besides, she had probably imagined it anyway. Food colouring was more and more popular by the minute.

She glanced again at the floor-to-ceiling library that promised to cave in at the smallest touch, trying to find anything at all that would justify her former suspicion, and came up empty again. Nothing was out of place, nothing was shouting ‘shady’.

It was almost frustrating.

She was Natasha Romanov, she shouldn’t be wrong where people were concerned.

And yet.

“Well, I suppose I should make myself scarce, then?” said Jane suddenly.

Natasha frowned. “That ship sailed before you offered to make breakfast, Janey,” said Darcy, wiping her mouth with a paper napkin. “Like, waaay before. It would have been fine if you had, you know, knocked. Mood killed, don’t worry.”

Jane blushed again. “I’m so sorry.”

Darcy snorted. “You’re not. But if you want to leave, go ahead, I’ll join you as soon as I’ve washed the dishes.”

Jane left, this time, leaving Natasha and Darcy humming awkwardly.

Idly, Natasha realized that, excluding the numerous apologies, Jane hadn’t said a single word to her. Huh.

“So…” Darcy coughed.

“So.”

“Yeeeah,” Darcy winced, idly toying with the spoon and the napkin. “That was my boss, Jane. She’s a treasure really, but she just, yeah.” There was no trace of the flirty behaviour she had regaled Natasha with the night before. She cleared her throat again. “I’m not good with morning talk, sorry, I’m usually gone well before breakfast, but, like, yesterday night? Spectacular. 10/10, would do it again.”

Natasha smiled slightly. Morning notwithstanding, she agreed wholeheartedly.

“So I was thinking,” Darcy continued. “That maybe, maybe, if you wanted to do it again... We could trade numbers?” The last part was rushed out, as if the young woman was running out of air.

Natasha bit her lip slightly. Should she? She should end it here, she usually didn’t do second visits. But then again…

It was a burner phone, no big deal, and she didn’t have to call her again…

“Sure,” she smiled. “Why not?”

The feeling of being stared at followed her the whole day.

It started when she showed up for work that morning, getting her files from Hill and then down the corridors with Coulson, to the training mats with her STRIKE acquaintances, and to the cafeteria she was used to avoiding. It crawled lazily up her spine with familiarity, checking as she moved her plastic tray from an unappetizing food to another, groaning in disappointment when she chose the usual bland, unsalted salad.

“Get your own, Clint,” she grunted, not even looking up from the bowl she was opening.

“You could have picked some fries, Nat,” he complained, “or the baby carrots! Those looked good!”

“Pick them yourself, idiot,” she said, rolling her eyes. She removed her tray from his reach before he started piling up stuff she didn’t want at all, and made for her usual table.

SHIELD didn’t have many spots for eating. There was one cafeteria and that was it, med bay facilities excluded. However, it took almost the whole twelfth floor of the Triskelion.

The food was foul and not worth a trip to the twelfth floor when you could and should just procure your own (something bland or unsavoury enough that could safely come back once inspected), however, because it allowed even the freshest of the recruits to share space with STRIKE Agents or the elusive Execs up close, the room was always packed during mealtimes.

It didn’t take long for her friend to jog towards her, glee written all over his face. Natasha wondered idly if she could get away with hitting him and bolting.

“So?” Clint asked expectantly, dragging his tray filled with chips and a very amorphous-looking pasta right beside hers. “How was it?”

“Terrible,” she said, flattening her mouth into a thin line.

His face fell. “Aw, no. Don’t tell me.”

She shrugged and Clint pouted, “you’re no fun.” He waited a second. “Come on. Tell me! But first,” he lifted an eyebrow in challenge, “did you actually, you know?”

“-Stay until the end?” she scrunched her nose. “No, I left earlier.”

His disappointment was now palpable. “Oh.”

She sighed deeply, her hand combing her hair away from her face. “With somebody, you dummy.”

Clint’s face lit up like a stupid Christmas Tree. “Really now?” he waggled his eyebrows.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” she sniffed. “But yes. We had a good time.”

He waited a few beats, then a couple more, and then prodded her with his foot when it was clear she didn’t want to elaborate. “Aaaand?”

“And then we had breakfast after her boss crashed into her apartment at six in the bloody morning.”

He gasped. “You had breakfast? Wait, her boss did what?”

Natasha clicked her tongue. “Nothing important. We had a good time, we had breakfast and we’re never going to see each other again.”

“But you had breakfast together!” he protested. “You never do, not with hookups!”

“I said it doesn’t matter, Clint. It was just a night out, that’s it.”

And she meant it, at the time.

By the time she was deployed to India, any thought Natasha could have spared to a college student with an impressive tattoo and a passion for colourful drinks had been forgotten; and so the superspy went on with her life, with nary a worry about the girl she had met weeks, and then months earlier. She had moved it all to the back of her head.

That was until Darcy called her.

She stared at the beeping phone for what felt like ages, as it vibrated on the bed covers with insistence for the fourth time that day.

It had been a dreary day. Her mission was supposed to end days ago, as soon as she’d gotten the data from her mark’s office, and it had been just so easy. Of course, that had been when her partner had failed and had let the fucking wife in. It almost blew the entire operation. She had been forced to play the vapid secretary, poor little innocent Maisie, until the woman relented and rounded on her husband.

Her quick getaway had been noticed by half the security staff of the building who would start asking questions.

And then, the agent had the gall of telling her ‘Well, it was fine in the end!’

That had been the proverbial nail in the coffin.

She couldn’t wait to be shot of this city, shot of this mission and shot of Agent Marks Junior.

Extraction wasn’t happening for another two days, thanks to the little incompetent, and so she would have to lock herself into her apartment to avoid any confrontation and suspicion.

Stupid idiot.

“I’m not going to answer,” she told it bluntly.

The phone didn’t care one bit, flashing once again with a missed call.

Natasha sighed deeply.

Outside of her apartment, thunder rolled ominously as the rain poured onto the streets.

“Of fucking course.” She muttered, displeased.

Even the weather couldn’t be bothered to put on a semblance of agreeableness today.

As if on cue, Darcy’s name flashed again on the display.

Natasha groaned. “Rushman!” she snapped into the call, not even bothering to get into her ‘Natalie’ role.

Silence met her on the other side of the call. She regretted the outburst immediately. “I’m sorry, I-”

A long sigh. “You really, really had the worst day, didn’t you?”

She almost snorted. Oh, how true it was. “Yes. Sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped at you. It’s been a terrible day.”

“Heh, don’t worry about it. I’ve shouted at people for less. I guess I should just skip the ‘how are you’ questions, right?”

“Yes, please!” Natasha huffed. “If I hear one other person-” she took a deep breath. “I’m not going to be a good company today, Darcy.”

A beat. “That’s okay, I’m out of town anyway if you wanted to meet.” “Oh?” “Yeah, don’t worry about that, Boss lady said we should be home next week, possibly? And what she says goes, so… But anyway,” she added cheerfully, and Natasha almost dropped her phone at the sudden change of tone. “Do you want to hear me complain about dumbasses or do you want to complain about anything that’s pissing you off? Or both, we can do both.”

It was probably a testament to how bad the day had been that she didn’t even hesitate to answer with a gasped huff.

“Where do I fucking start?!”

It went like this, to Natasha’s embarrassment.

She’d get a horrible, terrible mission that drained her soul, and magically, as if summoned, Darcy would call on the burner she had never actually burned and let her vent for hours on end, and sometimes chime in with something crazy her boss had said or done.

Or her sexist professors, that was also a possibility.

It was the strangest ‘relationship’ she’d ever had, and she struggled to give it a label.

It wasn’t like with Clint, where her trust and friendship were absolute, but it was a different feeling altogether.

It was… kind of nice to be able to scream into a phone and have someone just… listen.

“I’m in town by the way, if you want to come and have some fun?”

And there was also that.

Darcy was unashamed of calling her whenever she was in town for what was clearly a booty call. She wasn’t even subtle or coy, preferring to straight up ask her instead of skirting around the topic. And Natasha didn’t find it in herself to be offended at the question, because that was exactly how she had propositioned Clint back in the day, before Laura, when the days were dangerous and the nights were lonely.

“I’m in the middle of something right now,” she replied instead, one hand fluttering on the papers she was reading. She had to finish these reports or Coulson would have her head by the end of the day. “Maybe later.”

“Sure,” Darcy replied. She always did. “I’ll wait for you. Ask Jane to leave us alone and all that.”

“You do that.” Natasha would always say.

She finished her report and marched out of the cubicle she shared with Clint, not looking at whoever was coming close to her, letting them scatter like leaves in the wind at her passing.

Coulson accepted it without batting an eye, complaining about reports on time and paperwork to fill and she left with ease.

Her day became just a little brighter every time Darcy called, and at some point, Natasha could dare to call it companionship, if not friendship.

She blinked, startled by her train of thoughts. When had all… this... become a regular occurrence?

“You okay, Nat?” Clint asked suddenly, jostling her from her wool-gathering. He was standing in the corridor, blinking owlishly. In his hands, was a single piece of paper that had to be his report.

Coulson was going to cry inside, she could feel it.

“Yes?”

He squinted at her. “You look... different,” he said. “Was that a skip in your step?”

She frowned. “What?”

“I saw you skipping, just now!”

She looked at him blandly, blinking with no trace of insincerity. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He hesitated and then shook his head. “Don’t try that with me. You’ve been… happier, as of late. It’s not a bad thing!” he tacked on hastily. “Just different.”

“Thanks, I suppose,” she said. A part of her was screaming about how careless she had been, if Clint had picked on her companion-related good mood. She put it to rest, Clint was her best friend. He knew her best and she knew him best. It was natural he’d be the first to notice. The important detail was that he had to be the only one who knew about this.

And maybe, possibly, she had to give a label to this new attachment of hers, before it grew into a vulnerability.

Darcy’s apartment building was located on the farthest corner of a street that would have given the shivers to any civilian.

It was probably the best she and her boss could afford. According to Darcy, Jane Foster had received no grant in months and most of her studies were self-funded, along with most of the equipment.

Sometimes Natasha wondered what made the women stick together and persist, but she could kind of appreciate the bullheadedness of the scientist.

She made her way through the alley, into the hall and the three flights of stairs, ignoring the bleary-eyed man who crossed her way.

On the landing, carrying what looked like an impressive amount of papers, Jane waved at her enthusiastically and locked herself in her apartment, right in front of Darcy’s.

She didn’t even manage to knock before the door opened up with a disgruntled Darcy.

Her expression brightened. “You made it!”

“I said I would,” Natasha smiled.

“Come in, come in,” Darcy waved. “Jane left the biggest mess, too, but I’ll fix it up tomorrow. She thinks my living room’s her study or something. Which, I mean, she’s the boss and she’s footing the bills here so technically yes? But also, privacy.”

She was right. The floor, the sofa and the walls were littered with paper, from post-its to official-looking reports and diagrams, to charts and notes on paper napkins. It was impressive, for an equally impressive amount of pure, undiluted chaos.

“You had a… productive day, I see.”

“We did, thank you, we almost solved a problem we created this morning” she mock-bowed, waggling her eyebrows. “So, may I offer you a drink? I have alcohol.”

“I’m good, thanks.” Natasha shook her head. “Won’t Jane miss the books?”

Darcy shrugged. “If she knows what’s good for her, she won’t be even thinking about her research tonight and go straight to sleep. Forget about the books.”

“I see.” She eyed the stack of books on the coffee table. Most of them looked as dry as the desert, but some titles were in languages she didn’t understand, possibly Swedish? and one in Latin.

Jane Foster wasn’t above looking for everything in her field apparently, that one had to be a relic of the past. “Are we taking this to the bedroom?”

Darcy’s smile widened and then sharpened. “Why yes, Miss Rushman.”

Mornings at Darcy’s were quiet and lazy. Unless Jane barged in, which she admittedly didn’t do as often as Darcy lamented, Darcy would sleep like a rock for the better part of the morning, mumbling incoherently on her back, twisting the covers until she was a burrito. Not that Natasha had time to sleep in. She did, once or twice, but by the time Darcy would be up, she would be long gone and back to SHIELD.

When she entered the living room that morning, however, meaning to fix herself a cup of coffee before dashing to her car as she was wont to do, Jane was already sitting on the couch, hunched over the thick black tome that she’d spotted the day before. The Latin one.

At once, the same feeling of unease she’d felt the first time with Darcy almost knocked the breath out of her lungs.

“Good Morning,” she said, more out of courtesy than an actual will to start a conversation with Darcy’s boss.Jane started. “Oh, good morning, Natalie! Sorry, I was reading and didn’t notice you.”

“No worries,” she muttered. She really didn’t care either way, and Jane was friendlier with books than with human beings anyway. Strangely, this time talking was not easing the feeling.

They stared at each other in awkward silence, until Natasha decided that she had overstayed her welcome, she had to leave and breakfast could wait. She cleared her throat. “So… I’ll be going…”

Jane blinked at her, surprised. “Of-of course. Did you want coffee?” She stood up, but that only scattered the papers more, sending a few more sheets flying under the couch and tables. She looked at the papers in dismay, and then at the book she had been holding as if it had betrayed her somehow.

Natasha’s lip twitched. “I’m fine. Did you need help?”

Jane looked at her strangely, and for a second Natasha wondered if she had somehow worded it funny. Finally, the astrophysicist shook her head. “I got it, don’t worry.” She crossed her arms, almost disappearing into the sweater she was wearing. She smiled politely. “Have a good day?”

“Thanks.” Natasha smiled back and made for the door.

As soon as she got close to the couch, however, a full shiver ran through her body, from the nape of her neck to her back.

She startled, stiffening her spine and surreptitiously looked around.

Apart from Jane, the living room was completely empty.

That didn’t stop the oppressive, dangerous feeling to crawl up her throat like bile and acid.

She had to leave. Now.

She tamped down her instincts to run and turned, to try and understand.

Nothing.

It made no sense, and yet.

And yet.

Once was happenstance, but twice made her reconsider.

Something was very wrong with this place.

Or those who lived within. Her mind supplied.

“Yes, it’s time I left already. See you, Jane!” she said, her foot already outside the flat.

“...Bye!” Jane stuttered.

As Natasha turned to send her an apologetic smile, her eyes fell on the woman.

In Jane’s hands, the black tome looked strangely vibrant. It could have been her imagination, but she could have sworn the horrific print of the hag embossed on the cover, with the same pentacle Natasha had seen on Darcy’s back, was laughing at her.

“-And that’s crazy!”

Natasha blinked, raising her head. “What?”

“You weren’t even listening to me?!” Clint complained, throwing a chip at her head.

Natasha caught it in her teeth, chewing slowly with satisfaction. “Sorry, I was thinking.”

They were sitting on Clint’s couch, back at his house, something that didn’t happen often enough, and they were going to enjoy every second of it.

“More like woolgathering,” huffed her friend, and she threw him a chip to placate him. “As I was saying, Coulson told me they have another serial killer in DC, or something.”

She turned to look him in the eye. “What?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, five or so bodies were found, all in a ditch close to the Potomac.”

She raised one eyebrow, “and you’re telling me, why?”

Clint hesitated mid-chip. “No reason, really. You’ve just been out a lot, lately, so-” “Are you accusing me of being a serial killer, Clint?” she clicked her tongue, half amused and half annoyed.

He snorted. “Nah, I know you’re clean, Nat. It’s just crazy. Five bodies at the same disposal site? No older than a month? The police are completely clueless, nothing is linking those victims apart from a sketchy past.”

Natasha shrugged, unconcerned. “That’s their job, finding the killer. Not ours.”

He nodded. “That’s true. I just thought I’d tell you because you’ve been seeing that friend of yours.”

Darcy.

Her stomach gave a brief flop. “It’s nothing serious,” she defended.

Clint huffed. “I’m not putting you on the witnesses’ stand, Nat, relax. I’m just saying that a psycho is going around killing people, and while they’ve stuck to criminals for now, as far as I know, your friend doesn’t live in the safest areas of DC and lives alone. That’s it.”

“Thanks for the warning, I get it,” she said, “but I don’t think this has anything to do with us.”

“Fair enough,” he chewed on another chip, “doubt we’ll hear from the Vampire much longer, the police will do its job and if not DC is rife with vigilantes lately.”

“The Vampire?”

“That’s what they’ve been calling them, because of the blood, you know?”

Natasha frowned. “The blood?” “Yeah,” Clint nodded, “not a drop of blood found in the corpses. Like it’s been all sucked out of the body, just like magic. Real magic, I mean, not parlour tricks. Didn’t I tell you? It’s like they’ve been desiccated.”

“Huh.”

“Huh is right. Been a while since we had one of those, but it’s certainly not the weirdest we’ve had. Chip?”

She shook her head and took a swig from her beer. Somehow, the thought of what she’d heard from Clint about blood and magic swirled in her head for the rest of the night.

Bad thoughts aside, however, it was very easy to get distracted between her work and the lack of relevant news, so before long, Natasha had forgotten all about the serial killer plaguing DC.

Instead, she had started to notice how she’d spend more and more time in the company of Darcy and by extension, her boss Jane. She had never been one to look for normalcy, but there was just something about the girl that drew her in. And like the moth to a flame, she was utterly endeared.

“Do you need help?” She didn’t mean to stare at the situation, but it was unavoidable at this point.

Once again, Hurricane Jane had left in a hurry (looking for a colleague whose name Natasha had surely heard once or twice but could never remember), scattering an insane number of files around her. It shouldn’t be possible for someone so tiny to produce so much devastation, and yet.

“Nooo, I got it!” Darcy said, wrestling most of the paper off the couch and under the coffee table. “Give me five, just sit down and relax. I know they had you run around like a headless chicken at the office, miss Secretary of the Great and Important Masons and Sons Firm!”

She suppressed a wince at the reminder that she was still lying to Darcy about her supposed occupation, and sat down dutifully, perusing the papers that were still visible. Not that she understood most of it.

Her friend? Companion? Regular hookup? Maybe girlfriend? meanwhile, had dove into the rest of Jane’s stuff with vigour.

Soon enough, the little hole that had once been the living room was a place Clint would have gladly slept in, even if that wasn’t saying much. Most of the wall Darcy had left untouched, as if she didn’t even consider undertaking the task of giving it a semblance of normalcy, and the rest, books and tomes, was ‘properly’ stored on the flat surfaces, or under them.

“Done!” Darcy nodded, fist-bumping the air with triumph. Despite having worked frantically for the last few minutes, she hadn’t even broken a sweat.

“Good job?” Natasha offered, her lips twitching at the woman’s antics.

“Yeah yeah, laugh it up!” grouched the girl, brandishing a beanie hat that had been used as a bookmark not two seconds ago, “you handle Jane when she’s in a mood. She’s been awake thirty-six hours, thirty-freaking-six! I don’t know what powers her up!”

“Must be the spite,” shrugged Natasha. It wasn’t exactly a state secret that Jane had started a Holy Crusade against some of the head honchos at her job and the Dean had not-so-subtly invited her to move to Culver, away from the noise but mostly away from the whole campus.

Darcy nodded pensively, “could be. She doesn’t look like it, but she’s strong! I’ve seen her lift Edward, our neighbour, clean off the stairs when he was holding up the passage. Just… picked him up with her two spindly tiny arms and moved him to the right. He was so shocked I swear his eyes almost popped out of his sockets.”

“That I would have paid to watch!” Natasha’s eyes widened, impressed. Edward wasn’t built like a brick house of course, but he was tall enough that small girls like Jane or Darcy could find him moderately imposing. The sneer on his face and the permanent air of self-importance didn’t help, but according to Jane he was born that way and was genuinely a sweetheart.

“Ha!” snickered her friend, flopping on the couch right next to her. “Next time I’ll have to sell tickets. ‘Janey benchpresses people’ would be a cool show. We could make it a Youtube series!”

Immediately, Darcy’s feet pressed against her legs, and she surprised herself by lifting them and letting Darcy get more comfortable. Huh.

“I’d be your very first follower,” she said loyally, still staring at the entwined legs.

“Thank you!” Darcy smiled, “but then I’d be in trouble, because you’d be looking at Janey and I’d have to be jealous or something. Never been good at sharing. And then you’ll realize that I’m not all sunshine and daisies and you’ll have to dump me. It’s mathematics. Or so Jane would say.”

“As if,” huffed Natasha, “I seem to recall somebody very bodily getting between me and a failed speed date before propositioning me. I wouldn’t exactly call it cute.”

Darcy gasped. “You loved it!”

“I did,” she confirmed, “and I stand by that. Besides,” she also pushed her legs on the sofa, and twisted until they were both comfortably pressed shoulder to shoulder. “I’m not good with sharing either.”

Darcy’s eyes widened slightly at her admission and for a second Natasha wondered what was she even doing here. She was, by all means, still lying to this woman, possibly putting her in danger (along with everyone she knew), painting a red mark on her back and yet, the idea of cutting this… thing they had loose was suddenly unthinkable.

“Is dating what we’re doing?” Darcy finally asked, staring at her intently.

She tried to smile without showing any of her inner turmoil and nodded. “I guess we are.”

Darcy stared at her some more as if trying to suss the meaning of Life and the Universe itself before she nodded back, smiling so wide all of Natasha’s fears were swept away in her joy.

“Cool.”

She swallowed and this time the smile was more genuine. “Indeed.”

The foreign feeling of having a ‘girlfriend’ wasn’t getting any more familiar by the time the New Year rolled around. Nor was the domesticity it had brought with it. Not that things had changed, but the label had somehow made it all more poignant. And by the time Natasha had wrapped her head around it, things were changing.

Darcy’s apartment, already shabby and way too small for the ever-multiplying data Jane Foster needed for her work, had by mid-January reached the point of ‘alarmingly drafty’ and dare Natasha say it, mouldy.

More often than not, Jane and Darcy had defended their alcove and denied they needed help, despite the spy offering to help them over and over again.

“We’re going to move come next term,” Jane told her one day, as they were covering the kitchen window with Darcy’s old quilt to keep the wind from once again getting into the apartment. “There’s no need to look in DC since we’ll be across the state line anyway.”

Natasha startled. “Ah. So you accepted the teaching post at Culver’s.”

Jane blushed. “Yes, I did. I’m sorry,” she offered, sounding politely apologetic. “I accepted it this morning. A family friend, Erik, is also expecting me there and I had no other choice by now, what with the Dean throwing wrenches into my plans at every turn…”

Natasha did not know, but she could sort of understand. “I see.”

She tried to mask the sudden feeling of disappointment, but she must have failed because Jane stopped tensing the quilt to look at her and the window rattled in protest. “Shit,” she cursed, a surprising thing by itself. “Sorry, sorry,” she closed the window with a snap, the duvet trapped between the shutters, “it was all very abrupt. Darcy would have told you tonight, I think. We weren’t expecting a visit. But the move was a long time coming. And honestly? I was tired of wishing I could curse Mrs Pearson into oblivion or until her stupid perm caught fire.”

“If you learn the secret please share, there’s a couple of people I’d love to curse,” she joked.

Jane blinked rapidly and then coughed. “...Yes, of course,” she said and then smiled awkwardly.

For a second, Natasha wondered if she’d said something wrong.

Of course, before she could ask Jane if something was wrong, Darcy chose that moment to come back from her errands. “Janey, Jane, I’m home! With food! Loads of it! And a cup for me, because I need sustenance and toda-Natalie!” she squealed, “how nice to see you! I was just about to call you!”

She swiftly put the takeaway cartons on the coffee table and drank the last of her plastic cup with a long, drawn-out slurping sound before dumping the empty cup in the trashcan and joining them in the kitchen. She blinked twice. “Did you just use my quilt to barricade the window?” “...Sorry?” Jane had the decency of looking sheepish and at that moment Natasha realized she should have checked that Darcy had permitted to use the item instead of trusting the astrophysicist. Lesson learned.

Darcy shrugged. “Nah, it’s okay, I got myself a new one anyway. It’s got birds on it!” she smiled, “how about we eat?”

Natasha smoothed her face into something complimentary. “Sure. I heard congratulations are in order?”

When Natasha had told her girlfriend that yes, she was willing to try a long-distance relationship and yes of course she would fly over to see her at Culver if she had the time, she hadn’t expected it to be quite as difficult as it was.

She hadn’t realized how used she had gotten to having Darcy around, with her easy banter and smile and no shame to be found, ever, and now that she wasn’t so present in her life, there was a distinct empty hole in her heart that she had to compensate for.

She supposed she should feel happy for her friend and her boss (and now that she thought about it, when did she and Jane become close? She had no idea, she didn’t know what happened, but she now somehow knew more about her family than she had ever cared for and she didn’t mind?), but as she lay on the bed, she couldn’t ignore the disappointment any longer.

How had she become so complacent that even in her own house, she expected Darcy’s presence beside her?

She didn’t know if that was how Clint felt without Laura but she didn’t like it one bit (Clint was never finding out about this, she wouldn’t survive the embarrassment if he ever did).

Her eyes fell on the phone on her nightstand, again.

It had been dead silent for days, but she could accept that. Rescheduling your visits to Virginia to see your girlfriend every time (it was the third time already) because of sudden assignments would do that.

And it wouldn’t have hurt as much if Darcy had gotten actually angry at her, instead of that disappointed ‘Oh, okay. No, I understand.’

She could deal with angry or cross, even snappish and immature, but Darcy had the tendency of seeing right through her and always, somehow, ‘understand’ that her job was very demanding and that it came first.

It would have made sense had Darcy known the kind of job she did, but officially she was still ‘Natalie the secretary’, so the spy was sure there would only be so much leeway before the day her girlfriend decided to simply call it quits.

There was no sleep to be had that night, her only dream about blood, and when she boarded the plane the next day the Superserum in her veins was the only thing possibly keeping her awake and lucid.

“You okay, Nat?” Clint squinted at her from the cockpit of the jet, legs raised high and hand behind his head in complete relaxation, before she unceremoniously dropped into the second pilot seat.

“It’s nothing.” “Mh-mh,” Clint nodded, “I’m sure. Just as I’m sure that burner phone of yours should not have been carried into the jet, but here we are.”

Natasha paled and instinctively her hand went to her pocket. One second too late she realized Clint wasn’t looking at the phone at all, and was instead snickering.

“I will kill you if you utter another word,” she threatened him speaking as low as she could. He knew comms were monitored, the dumb idiot.

“Relax, Nat!,” he cheerfully avoided the hand that was coming for the back of his neck, “they’re not listening in, yet. The comms will be out for another half an hour still, until we take flight, that is.”

She wasn’t reassured in the least and tried to swipe at him once more.

“Ow, Natasha, ow!” he wined. “Stop hitting me for trying to be a good friend. What’s wrong with your love life that you can’t leave the special phone home?”

“Let me rephrase, idiot,” she raised her eyebrows, “nothing that concerns you.”

“Come on,” he joked, “you can’t possibly mean that I can’t be interested in your love life. We’re friends! You set me up with Laura, can’t I at least try? Besides, you still haven’t introduced me to the girlfriend, don’t think I’ve forgotten.”

“I don’t know if she’ll be a girlfriend for much longer, Clint,” she muttered. “Or at least, my girlfriend.”

He frowned. “Trouble in paradise?”

She fixed him with a stare. “You take this to your tomb, even from Laura?” He mimed zipping his lips. “Cross my heart.”

She sighed. “There is no paradise. The last three dates we set up, like clockwork Fury or Coulson dropped an assignment on us. We’ve been rescheduling for two months now, and I’m honestly wondering for how long we can keep this up.”

“Is she very angry at you? I mean, you can fix it, I’m sure.” “That’s the thing, though!” Natasha huffed. “It’s like nothing about it makes her mad! She gives me this disappointed ‘I understand’ and just drops it.” “...That’s a good thing, right?”

“But then she proceeds not to call me for days. Usually, by the time she calls me back, the assignment is over,” she added meaningfully. After all, their missions usually required a week or two of work.

He winced. “Definitely not a good thing.”

She nodded. “And I don’t know how to fix that. There’s only so much we can keep dodging each other by some weird twist of fate before Darcy decides that well, maybe she’s better off with somebody else. How hard should it even be to get a couple of days off for somebody with a bloody Desk job!”

“But you don’t have a desk job,” he said.

“But I don’t have a desk job,” she nodded, “and I can’t tell her that, because that would be-” “Impossible,” he finished for her.

“Indeed,” she put a hand through her hair, “and I just had to tell her that I won’t be there next week, again, and this time she hasn’t even bothered answering.”

She groaned. “Ugh, I hate you.”

He yelped. “What, why? What did I do now?”

“It’s all your fault,” she continued, “I shouldn’t have entered this relationship to begin with. Everything is a mess and it’s all because you just had to make me go to that speed date.”

“Oh come on, nobody could have foreseen that!” he protested, “besides, you’re saying that like you finally catching some feelings is a tragedy!”

“It’s still your fault,” she accused him. And yes, it was childish and stupid, but this was Clint and she could afford it.

He sighed loudly. “You know you can just say no to an assignment or two, right? It’s not like Coulson is shoving them down your throat.” Then he noticed her pursed lips. “Okay fine, then it’s all my fault, happy now?” “Very,” she drawled slowly, pretending to check her nails. “It’s good that you admit it.”

He shook his head and adjusted his comm. “Get ready to fly, partner, we’re leaving.”

She blinked rapidly. “Aren’t we fifteen minutes early?”

He shrugged. “Sure, but you have a date to make it to, and since it’s my fault anyway, I’m taking responsibility.” He winked. “Come on, let’s get you to your girl.”

One terrible plane trip later, because there was no way she was telling Clint she was crossing the state line to go talk to Darcy (that would require more alcohol and a lot more convincing), Natasha stood by the address her girlfriend had given her. Sure, the apartment building was close enough to campus, but nothing about it screamed ‘safe student space’.

It was just the opposite.

Apparently, old habits died hard even for Darcy and Jane, since the whole building looked as ghastly and unkept as the one before.

She took a deep breath and started to look for their apartment, trying to ignore the smell of smoke and cheap paint that seemed to cling onto the bannister and the wall itself.

The short walk across the corridor suddenly seemed too big a feat for superspy Natasha Romanoff.

She was so nervous she had barely clocked the woman with milky eyes going down the stairs.

It was irrational and she recognized that, and yet she could almost feel a thin layer of sweat gathering at the nape of her neck.

Turning up unannounced on your girlfriend’s doorstep, she knew, could either go very well or very, very badly. And since she was here to fix it, whatever it was that was happening to their relationship, maybe she should have rethought that and left Darcy a message before she boarded a plane.

Perhaps she should just turn on her heels, find a room at a hotel and call before she was spotted.

It was that very second, however, that she realized she was behaving exactly like the characters in romantic shows she was used to mocking, whenever she and Clint had a free evening to watch bad movies.

She shook her head and squared her shoulders. She was Natasha Romanoff, she was not backing down from this.

She knocked, loudly, and waited with bated breath.

The usual wave of fear and worry tried to assault her, but by now she was so used to her instincts blaring at the slightest inconvenience around Darcy and Jane that she shrugged it off.

“GO AWAY. WE DON’T WANT YOUR STUFF, WE’RE NOT JOINING YOUR CULT AND WE’RE MAKING A HUMAN SACRIFICE THIS VERY MOMENT. COME BACK LATER!”

Now, Natasha knew Jane had one impressive pair of lungs, she had seen her shout for minutes at the phone without needing to stop to breathe. Still, the contents of the scream made her stop short and blink a few times.

Once determined that no, she had not imagined it, she knocked again.

“DO YOU WANT TO BE NEXT?” That was Darcy, followed by a crash and a sharp yelp of pain.

“Are you dropping books on the head of your victim?” Natasha called out, surreptitiously trying to get closer to the door to listen in better.

Suddenly, there was silence.

A few seconds later, the clinking of locks could be heard, followed by the door finally opening.

“Natalie!” exclaimed Jane, eyes wide.

Natasha smiled politely, taking in the scene in front of her.

Jane was absolutely, definitely not expecting any sort of company that afternoon. Even a newbie agent would have been able to spot the quickness of her breath, the sweat on her brow and most of all, the blood on her pants.

She frowned. “Are you alright?”

Jane blinked and then followed her stare. “Oh! Oh yes, I’m okay!” She quickly showed Natasha her left arm, where a bandage had been hastily applied. “Darcy fixed it up for me, I got cut while trying to make chicken! It was an accident!” She made sure to shout back into the flat.

“I told you not to try to cook, bosslady!” Darcy’s voice carried exceptionally well through the small apartment, since she was nowhere near the door. “I can do it just fine. How you got hurt so far away from your hands, also, is beyond me! How did the knife even get there!”

“I said I am sorry!” Jane rolled her eyes. She turned to Natasha with a smile. “Do you want to come in? We promise there is no corpse in the living room.” “...Did you hide it in the bedroom?” Jane looked at her very seriously. “Nah, it’s in the flower pot by the TV, so just don’t look in there.” And then winked playfully.

Natasha chuckled. “As long as it’s not in the stew,” she said, stepping in and closing the door behind her.

Well, maybe she had been wrong all along, Natasha thought, as the evening progressed.

Darcy didn’t mention the prolonged absence or the repeated rescheduling of their date nights and the evening was progressing as if no time had passed at all and as if her girlfriend wasn’t in another state, at all.

However, she couldn’t stop the unease slowly pooling in the pit of her stomach, because couples weren’t supposed to behave like that. Was their relationship so solid that Darcy really wasn’t bothered, or was it so flimsy that Darcy hadn’t bothered?

Part of her wanted to open the can of worms, but because she knew that both she and her favourite intern could bite harder than they meant to with words, she kept silent and let everything stew with a smile.

And of course, because she was a professional spy that had fooled hundreds of people to believe her act and wrapped dozens of people around her finger, Darcy noticed as soon as they retired for the night.

“What’s wrong, Nat?”

“Nothing,” she replied automatically.

“Mmh,” Darcy mumbled, wiggling closer. It was something Darcy just did without thinking; she wiggled. A lot. She snuggled like she meant it, and while Natasha hadn’t been used to such levels of skinship outside of her job, she had since become somewhat fond of it.

“Share it with me?” she asked, inching so close Natasha had to sprawl on her back so she could look her in the eye without going blind.

“It’s nothing really,” she repeated, yawning.

Darcy stared at her. “You’re thinking about us.”

And yes, yes she was, but she would rather not talk about it. Period. “...A little,” she admitted when Darcy didn’t stop her sprawling process. “I’m thinking about long-distance relationships and how they rarely work.”

Her girlfriend frowned. “Elaborate.”

She sucked in a breath, her answer ready on her lips before she thought better of it. “No, nothing.”

Darcy pursed her lips. “...Is this you trying to tell me something without actually saying ‘how about we call it quits’?”

Natasha froze. “No!”

Darcy’s eyes became slits and she drew herself up from her relaxed position. “Then what the hell are you talking about, Natalie?”

Natasha clicked her tongue. “Are you seriously saying things are fine as they are now?” She sat on the bed to match Darcy, who had now crossed her arms. “We haven’t seen each other in almost three months. I have missed four dates, and the last time I called you to reschedule you didn’t bother picking up the phone. What am I supposed to think? That we’re a functioning couple?”

Darcy’s posture hadn’t eased, but her expression had morphed into confusion. “What? Seriously?”

The spy inhaled sharply. “Oh, I see. So I was the only one worried about this. You could have fooled me!” she smiled thinly, “It’s nice to know how serious this relationship is. I have been saying apologies on the phone over and over and you didn’t even care!”

She made to reach for her clothes but before she could put one foot out of the bed, Darcy was in her personal space.

“Now wait a minute there!” Darcy snapped and her eyes burned with something fierce. For a brief second, Natasha was reminded that Darcy was strong; much stronger than she looked. But whatever fire had been lit behind her girlfriend’s eyes flashed before disappearing, and the young woman took a deep breath, followed by another. “We are adults,” she said, forcefully sitting down and giving Natasha space. “And we’ll talk it out, like normal people do. Now. This looks like a case of misunderstanding. And we’ll clear it up without resorting to violence, be it physical or verbal,” she stressed, and gestured to the spy’s left.

Natasha blinked and turned to where Darcy had pointed and noticed she had been gripping the bedside table. Huh.

She released her grasp from the inanimated victim, hoping she didn’t leave a dent in it, and huffed. “Apparently, three months are not enough to make you worry about the state of this relationship, but they are for me.”

Darcy furrowed her brows. “I still can’t believe this much time has passed.” “It has, and you were very disappointed the last time we talked, and then didn’t answer your phone for days and haven’t called back. What exactly was I supposed to think? Hm?” when she was met with silence, she continued. “So imagine my confusion when I try my best to actually meet an expectation, come here hoping we could talk our problems out and to have some grovelling to do, possibly, and instead,” she fumed, “Instead I find that you hadn’t even noticed we hadn’t been together in months!”

“To be fair, time management has never been my forte since working with Jane.” “Are you seriously leading with this?” Natasha asked.

Darcy shook her head. “Of course not. Looks like I have some apologizing to do as well. I honestly swear to Janey’s work, hadn’t noticed. But do not for a second think that I didn’t miss you. Because I did. A lot. I just tried not to contact you so often because you’re always busy. You always were even when we lived in DC…” She shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

Natasha’s frown eased slightly and the pain in her chest lessened before squeezing again. “You always sounded heartbroken every time I told you I couldn’t come…” “...Because of course, I’d be disappointed, dummy!” Darcy shook her head. “But I know that our relationship isn’t like that!”

The queasy sensation strengthened. “What do you mean?”

Darcy stared at her intently. “Look me in the eye. Look me in the eye and tell me that if I asked you, you’d drop your work and come to me, immediately and no questions asked.”

Natasha’s mouth opened and closed with a click. Because for as much as she would have liked to tell Darcy that yes, she would, she couldn’t. She wouldn’t drop her mission, abandon her partner, Clint or Coulson and just stop doing her job of saving the world for her girlfriend. The world was at stake and Natasha’s private life had no part in it.

Darcy nodded. “I didn’t think so.” But before Natasha could justify herself, she carried on. “And that’s the same for me. If Jane asked anything out of me, I’d do it. I’d move to Mexico or the other side of the world and punt any stupid Dean that disrespected her to the wall. Because that’s just the kind of people we are. And I respect that. We will always put work before each other. So yes, I’ll be very disappointed, and you’ll be as well, but shit happens and we’ll move on. And then one day, if we’ll be ready to change whatever this weird balance is, I’ll actually add your name to the tattoo on my back… Before I add it and then you dump me, leaving me with a wonderful mark on my back that will never be forgotten by any subsequent significant other I find.”

The idea of her girlfriend with other people made the ice in her veins turn to hot lava, so she cleared her throat before any of that jealousy spilt over and showed on her face. “We are not okay, yet,” she warned.

Darcy nodded. “That’s fair,” she scooted a bit further away. “Do you think we will be?”

Natasha hesitated, but nodded back. “Yes.”

They stood there, sitting on the bed awkwardly for a few moments before Natasha coughed and scrambled for a change of topic. “So… do you want to talk about that back tattoo of yours?”

Darcy squinted and then smiled, showing her teeth a bit. “...Sure, why not.”

She turned around, a hand going to the long mane of hair she liked to keep lose whenever she wasn’t collating data for Jane.

The darkest pigment she had ever seen, almost as black as charcoal paint on a snow-white canvas, contrasted starkly with Darcy’s pale back, encompassing almost every inch from the base of her neck to her tailbone. If the colour and the size were remarkable, the pattern was even more so. The dark pentacle stood in the middle, encircled by writings in Latin. At the very top, in the middle of her shoulder blades, was Jane’s name.

Darcy’s tattoo was, eerie imagery notwithstanding, a thing of beauty.

Natasha had often wondered about the nature of the design, but her girlfriend had never given much information about it, except some vague detail about how she’d gotten it around her meeting with Jane Foster.

Tonight, however, she seemed almost eager to talk about it to accept the olive branch Natasha had extended her.

In the dim light of the bedroom, it looked like a brand.

Natasha lifted one hand hesitantly. “Can I touch it?”

Darcy shrugged. “Go for it.”

She didn’t know what to expect, she had touched Darcy’s back many times, but still, the contact with the smooth skin almost startled her.

“It looks like a brand, seared onto your skin,” she said, surprised.

Darcy snorted. “I assure you, there were no hot pokers or irons involved. It’s just a fancy picture.”

“Uh-uh,” she moved a finger over the first sentence, which read along the lines of ‘always give bevanda to your leader’. She raised one eyebrow. “Bevanda?”

“It’s coffee,” Darcy bent her head a bit to look her in the eye, “there were no words for it in Latin, so we went with drinks, but it means coffee. Coffee is very important, it’s the very first thing we added when we made the list.”

The ‘list’ also included inconsequential things such as ‘Only knit when necessary’ or ‘No screaming at night’, but also a very threatening ‘Noli innocentes necare’, which was almost too conspicuous not to wonder about.

“Don’t kill?” she scoffed. “That’s original.”

“Well!” Darcy stiffened indignantly. “You’ve worked with crusty old men, too. Now tell me it wasn’t warranted, with all the people I’d love to run over with my van!”

“Fair enough,” Natasha conceded. It was the answer she had expected, and yet it sounded strangely unsatisfying, as though her sixth sense was telling her to press for more clues. “...Why is Jane’s name in the middle?” She asked instead. She had often wondered about the depth of their relationship, but Jane and Darcy seemed such open and good friends, so completely genuine in their affections for each other, she had never felt the need to deepen the thought.

“Well, she’s my number one priority, of course,” Darcy said without missing a beat.

“That should hurt,” Natasha replied, despite not meaning it.

“It shouldn’t,” Darcy retorted. Her hand let go of her hair and she shifted to face her, once again. She stretched and then lay on her back on top of the covers. “Jane and I aren’t like that.”

Natasha sighed. “I know, I don’t think I understand your bond with each other, but this I know.”

“I guess it looks weird,” Darcy nodded, “I just…” She knitted her brows. “Okay. So. I love her. Not romantically or anything but she is my best friend, my sister, and my priority. I don’t think anybody can understand that, but I owe her everything. Before knowing Jane, I was… different. And I don’t mean it in an ‘I was nothing’ way, but… Choices were made, mostly bad ones, and then I grew a conscience and Jane was there through it all. It wasn’t pleasant, and it was a very big adjustment, but Jane made it work, for me. And now I guess this… bonded us in a way.” She shrugged. “Call it cheesy, but I would die for Jane. And then come back and haunt whoever made her suffer. Twice.”

And Natasha got it.

While the circumstances had to be different, for Darcy couldn’t be as old as she was nor could she have a ledger as red as hers, Darcy had her own Clint in the form of Jane Foster, astrophysicist, and if there was something the spy could understand was the sheer need of Clint to keep her compass steady whenever she faltered.

“I think I get it,” She said, laying down next to Darcy, “I have a friend like that. I’d kill for him, or take a bullet.”

Darcy smiled. “I knew you’d get it. You’re a good person, Nat.”

Natasha smiled carefully back, hoping Darcy wouldn’t see in her eyes just how wrong she was.

All things considered, Natasha thought as she was sliding silently out of her seat in Coulson’s office, things could have gone much worse.

Now on the same page with her girlfriend, she felt relieved, the weight of the whole world lifted from her shoulders.

On the other side of the room, Clint was pouting at a retreating Coulson.

“I don’t doubt that your dog ate your report, Barton,” Coulson sighed. He did that a lot lately, every time more and more put out. Clint didn’t make it easy for him, it was probably the fourth missing report this month. “What I said,” he continued, handing another stack of papers to Clint, “is to do that again.”

He left them there, without further explanation, with barely any instruction aside from ‘Tomorrow 400 hours on the Jet’, which was less than what they were used to receiving. Any kind of insight would have been appreciated.

“Well, that was unfair!” moaned Clint, waving his new mortal enemy, the bureaucracy, like it had personally offended him. “It’s not like I had Lucky eat them on purpose!”

“This time,” Natasha added helpfully. She started walking towards the lift, determined to get some shuteye before going into a mission at the crack of dawn.

“You’re always comforting, Nat,” he grouched, right behind her.

“I try,” she shrugged. Clint being in trouble with Coulson always added to her good mood, and she was on cloud nine already, so nothing could ruin her day.

“Well, I’m happy you’re enjoying my suffering.” He sighed. “I’ll do it later. So, any reason for the good mood?”

“No,” she shrugged. Clint pinned her with a knowing look though, so she elaborated before he could. “Darcy and I talked. We’re not completely fine, but we’ll be.”

He smiled excitedly. “That’s great, Nat! I’m happy for you!” He made to pat her back, but then thought otherwise when he couldn’t fit the bundle of paper in one hand. “Now that I think about it, I also had to talk to you about your girlfriend!”

She blinked. “What do you mean?”

He grinned. “Well, remember how the Vampire was plaguing DC? Well, your girlfriend can now sleep without a care in the world! He’s changed location, apparently!”

“...What?”

“Yeah. They found corpses in Virginia, near that campus… what’s its name? Culvay? Culver? I think that’s it. So, your Darcy is no longer in danger, DC is safe again. Unless he comes back, but the Police will know if he does, he’s been pretty consistent. Great, right?” He added cheerfully, as the lift dinged its arrival.

He turned towards her when she didn’t board. “Are you coming, Nat? You’re looking a bit peaky.”

But her day wasn’t perfect anymore and her whole body shook with the sudden realization that once again, she was having a hunch and wasn’t liking it one bit.

Try as she might, Natasha couldn’t put the coincidence out of her head. Logically, she knew that the chances of the Vampire being in any way involved with Darcy Lewis and Jane Fosters, a couple of nobodies in the sea of people who regularly moved between the state line, were close to nihil, but the niggling doubts that were somehow flooding her thoughts weren’t going away.

What if, though? What if they were involved, somehow? What if they were being targeted and the killer was following them? What if they were next? What if Darcy was next? After all, Natasha herself had a lot of enemies, and while she’d been very careful with her double life, maybe-

At that, she caught herself mid-thought.

She wasn’t involved with the matter, she hadn’t even known the murders were a thing before Clint had casually mentioned it to her out of concern. None of the victims even remotely resembled her, she was not a part of this.

And neither could be Jane or Darcy. They didn’t know any of the dead nor did they match their profile.

Yes, Darcy had mentioned she had made some ‘bad choices’, but she didn’t fit the bill for ‘abuser’ or ‘child molester’, so that was out as well.

And Jane Foster, of all people? Natasha had to concede the woman was driven and focused on her job to the point of not taking care of herself and the people who worked for her, but ditziness was not a crime and the astrophysicist didn’t strike her as much more dangerous than a big dog. Between the two of them, Darcy, with her surprising super strength and refined taste for not filtering her thoughts before rudely provoking the assholes she met, would always be the bigger target, hands down.

But the killer didn’t even come close to them, Natasha pondered for the third time. It had to be a coincidence. Again, people moved all the time and this man was no different. It was just bad luck that the women had moved to Culver right at the same time.

However, she resolved to tell Darcy the next time they had a scheduled phone call. It would be best if she kept her eyes peeled. Her girlfriend was scrappy but Jane… Jane was not and if Darcy wanted to keep her safe, her 'priority’ she’d said, she’d have to walk her boss from and to her Office, just in case.

Unfortunately, she had no occasion to even hear Darcy’s voice for the next three weeks, as she and Clint were shipped from town to town to chase a lead over a mysterious sharpshooter rumoured to be a ghost. They didn’t find him, in the end, but Clint had gained an impressive burn to the dominant arm up to the elbow and had needed another full week to recover. He was still poking at his bandages, to the absolute horror of the medics, who were now threatening to put him in a cast if he didn’t stop.

Now that her best friend was no longer in danger of dying of sepsis in a ditch in Odessa, Natasha could fully appreciate the week off and the chance to surprise her girlfriend with a video call, for once.

“Nat!” Darcy exclaimed, hastily dropping on the chair in front of the computer. “I wasn’t expecting you! Was I supposed to? Wait- Don’t tell me I did it again!”

Natasha laughed at Darcy’s worried face. “No, you’re good. I just wanted to surprise you, for once.”

Darcy blushed and smiled. “Well, consider me surprised! It’s been so long.”

“It really has,” Natasha nodded, “so. Update me, what has the Dean done this time?” That was enough to get her girlfriend going. “Oh, you have no idea!” And she launched herself into a detailed discussion about the new regulations regarding short skirts and provocative outfits.

Natasha let her vent, appropriately commenting whenever needed, and allowed the soothing familiarity of the scene to wash over her.

She almost failed to remember the warnings she had to give, when a movement in the corner of the room caught her eye.

In the background, almost covered by Darcy’s gesticulating form, but not enough, Jane’s pale hand was trying to inconspicuously remove a glass from a counter. A glass filled to the brim with blood-red liquid that could be nothing but blood.

And that was the moment Natasha realized what her bad feelings had been trying to tell her all this time, the signs she had willfully ignored because she liked Darcy. The presence of blood in every plastic cup she always had in her hands, her strength, the controlled way she talked about her bad choices, the pentacle on her back and the solemn promise ‘not to kill’ despite her flippant denial. Ah, her brain interrupted her. But it wasn’t ‘don’t kill’, was it? It was ‘don’t kill innocents.’

She had to admit, all the clues were situational at best, but all put together, they made more sense.

And they all pointed to one possible solution

Darcy wasn’t the next victim. Darcy was the killer.

“So, hypothetically, if you had a lead about the Vampire, but no proof or anything, just a hunch really, would you tell the police?"

Clint raised his head from the couch and stared at her. “What?”

“Hypothetically,” Natasha sniffed, taking advantage of his distraction to steal the remote.

“Would I hypothetically report a serial killer to the police? Yeah,” Clint shrugged, “I would. Immediately.”

“You would?” Natasha repeated, surprised.

“Yeah, wouldn’t you?” he said. “He’s a serial killer, so he must be stopped.”

“We both are hired killers, Clint,” she pointed out, raising one eyebrow. After all, their kill counts was well into the three to four digits already, and both of them had a shady past they didn’t like to think aobut. They weren’t so different from a serial killer playing vigilante.

“We are Government Sanctioned killers, Natasha,” he frowned as he stressed it. “We’re the good guys. We stop people like the Vampire if ordered. We don’t play Jury, Judge and Executioner on civilians.”

She shook her head. “We could have filled Coulson’s cabinet to the brim with half the shit the victims pulled on other innocent civilians. They’re actually cleaning the streets.”

“Cleaning the- Are you hearing yourself right now, Nat?” he glowered at her. “So the people they killed were trash, and I say, so what? They should be brought to the authorities and receive a trial and then, justice will do its course.”

“You didn’t think so a few years ago,” she fired back, only to regret it a second later. “Sorry, that was uncalled for.”

“It was,” he exhaled. “But it doesn’t change my answer.”

“Even if you had no proof and would risk ruining their life because of it…?” she whispered.

“Well,” Clint conceded, “I’d search for some sort of proof first, yes, but then, then yes, I’d take it to the police immediately. What brought this on, anyway? Why the sudden change of heart? You cannot be having a mid-life crisis about morality.”

She slumped on the couch as gracefully as she could, pressing her legs to Clint’s. “I guess I’m just worried about the red in my ledger.”

“So much that you’re comparing yourself to a sick fuck who’s been killing people and then draining their blood like some sort of funeral rite? Shit, Nat, you’re nothing like them!”

“Am I?” she asked sardonically. Sometimes, she didn’t know.

“Yes.” Clint looked resolutely in her eyes. “Yes you are, and that’s why I know you would report them if you ever had an inkling of who they were. I know you. So yes, I would report it, and so would you.”

She swallowed and lowered her eyes. “Right. You’re right, of course.”

He smiled tensely. “Sometimes that happens, yes. A broken clock and all that.” He took the remote back and flipped the TV back on. "...We're still talking hypothetically, aren't we, Nat?" he stared at the TV, suddenly serious.

She smiled evenly, slipping on her usual poker face, just in case he looked. "Of course. I wouldn't even know there was a serial killer if it weren't for you."

And when he no longer answered, she tried not to dwell on the relief that he hadn’t pushed the issue and her willingness to cover for her girlfriend.

After a couple of weeks with no new from Darcy except from the usual conversational platitudes and the promise to meet up soon, Natasha was ready to admit she’d painted herself into a corner. She wasn’t willing to give Darcy’s secret up, as much as she wasn’t positive she was the serial killer, but she would still rather eat glass than confronting Darcy about it.

Despite Clint’s words, she wasn’t so certain she had a single leg to stand on about morals and right or wrong. In truth, every time he or Darcy called her a ‘good person’ it made her skin crawl. Surely, her eagerness to make excuses for Darcy made her less of a good person, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to tell anybody.

It was none of her business, anyway.

Or so she told herself when she pretended nothing was wrong and smiled at Clint like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth and went on with her life.

When nothing kept happening, Natasha tentatively started to relax.

She was willing to keep the charade up for as long as she could, she stubbornly repeated in her head, she’d done it before. Indeed, nobody at SHIELD had a single clue about Yelena, and she’d kept that secret for much longer.

Fortunately, SHIELD didn’t care at all about some vigilante roaming the streets of Virginia, and if SHIELD didn’t care, so didn’t Coulson and Clint, the only persons she felt a modicum of guilt towards.

Or so she thought.

The first cue that something that morning was wrong wasn’t the storm pouring on the streets, soaking unsuspecting passersby to the bone, nor the power suddenly going out in her apartment; she should have smelled blood in the water when Clint and Coulson weren’t in their office, and then she should have started sweating when she was called up to Fury’s office all of sudden, too.

They were all gathered there, Fury, Coulson, Sitwell, Hill and a number of agents, Clint included.

She would have asked Clint what it was all about if things didn’t look so serious.

“Agents,” Fury spoke and everybody snapped to attention. He looked pissed off, more than usual. “I’m sure you’ve all heard about the nuisance plaguing DC lately, and then Virginia. Now, we didn’t give a fuck about him before, as much as we didn’t like him, because the Police didn’t need help. However!” He looked murderous and Natasha tensed. If she moved one muscle, it would be over. She kept eye contact as the man surveyed the room, not daring to look anywhere else.

He seemed satisfied with what he found, for he nodded and continued. “This morning, one of our agents, Agent Rumlow of STRIKE, was found dead in one of his burial sites. Not a drop of blood in his body.” He slammed this fist on the table. “I don’t give a fuck about the local authorities now. Now it’s personal.”

Natasha’s legs suddenly felt like lead. One of their partners and colleagues was dead. And it was all her fault.

She tried to ignore Clint’s stare, but she could feel it burning on her back.

Brock Rumlow was dead.

Because of Natasha’s inaction, because of her stubborn belief that it didn’t matter who the killer was, because she’d wanted to ignore Darcy’s dangerous tendencies, a member of SHIELD, one of the ‘good guys’, as Clint called them, was dead.

Natasha hadn’t done too many missions with STRIKE members except for STRIKE Team Delta, but all of the missions she’d done with outsiders, Rumlow had been there.

She hadn’t been overly fond of him, but he’d been a good man and a dependable partner. He always had her back, and Clint’s, and had always been there when the mission got tough.

His body count had to be high, certainly, he was a STRIKE team member, but Natasha wondered if that justified such a useless, horrible death.

The one small mercy she could think of was that Darcy didn’t drain the victims before killing them, and the thought didn’t console her as much as she thought it would.

One thing was certain; there was no more time to procrastinate.

Natasha was ending this now.

It seemed barely five minutes ago that Fury had debriefed them on the situation and demanded they started looking into this mess quietly, but here she was, ignoring the stares of the neighbour with the watery empty eyes that somehow always seemed to know she was coming to poke her head out of the door. For a ridiculous moment she missed resting-bitch-face Edward, at least he had the decency of keeping the door shut and his eyes to himself.

She knocked loudly without stopping to hear a response. After two whole minutes, even the nosy neighbour had retreated into her apartment, sniffing danger, and yet she kept pounding at it without rest.

“Darcy, I know you’re in here!” she snapped, loudly, and she heard another door closing shut very fast. Somebody else decided they’d be better off ignoring the whole affair, she scoffed. Cowards.

There was a crash, a curse and then finally, finally, the padding of footsteps.

So frantic she was to speak to her girlfriend, that she barely stopped herself from hitting her to the face with her knocking.

“Natalie!” Darcy exclaimed, shocked. She was in complete disarray, her hair smudged from sleep and the nightgown thrown on haphazardly; she looked the perfect picture of relaxation and sleepiness and somehow that ridiculous get up made Natasha even angrier. Here she was risking her neck for somebody who didn’t even care. Darcy was there sleeping like a log while she was eating her own liver.

“We need to talk,” she bit out.

Darcy studied her face for a second and in a second something shifted. Her eyes glinted with recognition and with a sinking feeling, Natasha realized that until the very last second she had hoped she’d been wrong.

“Come in,” Darcy said evenly, “let’s not make a scene here.”

“A scene?” Natasha choked. “A scene?! Do you have any idea-”

But she didn’t get the chance to finish, because with a roll of her eyes Darcy grabbed one of her arms and without any trouble literally pulled her into the flat.

Natasha’s eyes widened in surprise as she stumbled through the door, her heels clinking on the tiles as Darcy slammed the door closed.

“Blyat’” she cursed, getting some distance from her friend as soon as she was released.

Darcy’s eyebrows flew to her hairline. “Wow, you must be pretty mad,” she huffed. “Do you want to sit down? Can I offer you a drink?”

“Is this the moment to play host, Darcy?” she lashed out, stung.

Darcy clicked her tongue. “Well, I guess somebody has to try. So, are we going to talk like adults, which we both are by the way, or are we going to snarl to each other like dogs? Let me know so we can get on with it,” she eyeballed her meaningfully.

It was something she did a lot, Natasha mused, invoke adultness before serious conversations, but she could give her this. She could be an adult. Her mind, however, went to the knife she had in her pants pocket. She would find the determination to use it, if conversation didn’t work.

She hoped so, at least.

“We can talk,” she ground out, at last.

Darcy seemed to relax a little and nodded. “Very well. What did you want to tell me, Nat?”

“You’re a serial killer,” she said.

Darcy huffed. “Well spotted.”

In spite of all the rage she had nursed coming here, Darcy’s flippant admission threw her off. “What,” she wheezed. She had not expected a confession, not in a million years.

“What do you want me to say, Nat?” Darcy shrugged. “I know when I’m found. And you’ve barely spoken to me in weeks. Of course, I had no idea you were even looking into the Vampire, or whatever bullshit they’re going with now, or I’d have been more careful.”

She didn’t seem bothered at all by Natasha’s discovery. In fact, by the pleased twinkle in her eye, she seemed almost giddy.

Natasha was at loss for words.

“...Why?”

Darcy seemed nonplussed. “I needed them. And besides, they were trash of the universe. The world is better off without them, believe me.”

“You- You don’t know that!” Natasha stressed. “You cannot play Judge, Jury and Executioner, Darcy! Not with people’s lives!”

Darcy laughed. It wasn’t her usual snorting laugh. It was a chilling, crazed burst of laughter that made Natasha’s hair stand on end. “Are we seriously going to talk about the importance of people’s lives, Miss Romanoff?”

Natasha blanched. “How.”

Darcy scoffed. “Really? So you can come into my house, curse in Russian and expect that I’ll keep your cover up for you when we’re having a fight? Please, give me some credit. I’ve kept your charade up for years now.”

“You knew!” Natasha accused. “You’ve always known!” Darcy shook her head. “Nah. I mean, it took me a while, so I’ll give you that, you’re top notch at your job, but not many can keep hidden from me, I’m sorry. To be fair, though, Jane doesn’t suspect a thing and she can sniff out lies like a bloodhound so you are excellent.” She waved her hand. “I’m just cheating the system here.”

“Is this how you got one of my partners? By cheating?” she bit out.

Darcy blinked. “Your partners?”

“Brock Rumlow!” Natasha snarled. How dare she not know that he’d worked with her. “You killed him!”

Darcy whistled. “Riiight. Him. I mean… Is that what this is all about? You had a shady friend I offed and now it’s personal?”

“Yes!” Natasha crossed her arms to stop herself from palming the knife. “He was a good man.”

“No he wasn’t,” Darcy snorted.

“He worked for the good guys, he was a good man and was trying to make the world a better place. And who are you to judge our methods? You’re playing Jack the Ripper with innocent people like a fucking cat with mice.”

Darcy drew herself up. With her chin raised high she barely reached her shoulders, and still she felt as imposing as a giant. “I’ll tell you something, Natasha Romanoff. Brock Rumlow was the scummiest scum on this planet. He was not a good man, his list of Sins could cover a continent. And for the record, so is the list of sins of other of your friends. I know all about it.”

“Is this a threat?!”

Darcy’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Is it?”

“You disgust me.”

Pure undiluted hurt flooded Darcy’s eyes and Natasha almost regretted her words. Nonetheless, before she could even think about apologizing, Darcy’s eyes shuttered closed. When they reopened, they didn’t look like hers at all.

Nothing had changed to the eye, but there was almost nothing human about it. Rage, hate and coldness filled the whole thing, so much so that Darcy’s playfulness was nowhere to be seen.

Natasha started sweating.

“Well!” Darcy licked her lips. She passed one hand through her hair. “There’s nothing else to say, really. Leave, Natasha Romanoff of SHIELD. Leave now and never return.”

Natasha scoffed. “No threat of silence? Don’t tell the police or I’ll kill you?”

Darcy laughed inhumanly again. “Oh no, please do. Do report me to the police. I may have a strict code about scumbags,” her eyes shone dangerously as she opened her arms wide, “but self-defense is a different beast. Do report me to SHIELD, to your friends. Do it, I dare you!”

Natasha floundered for a second, before reaching for her knife.

Darcy eyed it doubtfully. “Do you really want to do this, Natasha? I love you. I don’t want to fight you.”

Neither did she, she realized. Yes, she was mad at Darcy. Yes, she didn’t understand her reasoning at all, but she didn’t want her dead. She closed her eyes and summoned the willpower that had kept her alive all those years. “I must,” she muttered, instead.

Darcy exhaled loudly. “Very well.”

It happened in a flash.

One moment she was holding her knife, ready to hit the woman she was falling in love with, and the next her vision blurred.

Darcy was suddenly in front of her and Natasha reacted, twisting the knife and sticking it into her shoulder.

Darcy screamed, twitching in anger.

She grabbed Natasha’s forearm, painfully, forced the knife out and flipped her over.

Before she knew it, she was crashing out the window of a three stories apartment building.

Natasha’s training was the only thing that allowed her to roll as she fell, possibly saving her from a snapped neck, however, her back hit the concrete so hard she felt her breath leave her in a rush, leaving her coughing and heaving. Before she could consider getting up again, a loud thwack snapped her back to attention. The knife she’d tried to lodge in Darcy’s chest was now clattering lightly on the sidewalk. three inches below her right cheek. Darcy had almost stabbed her face.

She panted heavily for a few minutes, trying to force her body to move or do anything.

It was then that Darcy’s face came back into focus. How had she descended three stories so fast? Had Darcy also jumped?

“Leave, Natasha,” Darcy said seriously. “Do not return. It’s best if we part. Right now. Leave us alone.”

And Natasha couldn’t disagree. For as much as she’d like to say that she was willing to die for her cause… this wasn’t it. She didn’t want to die. And Clint would be so disappointed. She wasn’t a good person after all.

And as she limped away, she told herself that she’d imagined the tears in Darcy’s eyes, and that she absolutely had not felt any wetness on her own cheeks.

The thing she appreciated most about Clint Barton was that he had never turned her down whenever she couldn’t provide him with answers.

He would pout and sigh, but in the end, he’d leave her the couch to sleep in and patch her up without complaint.

“Kids are asleep,” he mumbled as he handed her another gauze, “Laura will be home late tonight, so we’re good. What the hell, Nat, what the fuck did you do?”

She levelled him with a stare that could curdle milk. “Nothing.”

“...That stare stopped working on me years ago, Nat,” he said, pressing an ice pack to her shoulder.

She winced, but noted with perverse pleasure that it wasn’t as painful as it had been a couple of hours ago. Her serum was stitching her back together without fail.

“Did you try to tackle a drug cartel or something?” he pressed.

She shook her head. “None of that. I just… I visited a friend that is not a friend anymore.”

“Ah.”

She understood his reaction, she’d done it too when it had been his turn. It was simply the spy life, there was nobody you could fully trust, and more often than not, allies turned enemies for no other reason than it being their job.

Unfortunately for Natasha, she should have seen this one coming even before she’d started to suspect Darcy of anything; she just wasn’t meant for long relationships, or nice things. Clint was bound to forever be the exception, not the rule.

“Yep,” she smiled ruefully. “It was bound to happen, sooner or later.”

“Shit happens we move on.” He patted her arm and removed the ice pack. “Your healing rate is so fucking stupid. Man, I’d pay for this kind of superpower-” “Would you?” She cut him off rudely.

He flinched. “I didn’t mean that. Sorry.”

She shrugged. She wasn’t in the mood to pander to his apologies, despite knowing it wasn’t him she was infuriated at.

Clint cleared his throat. “Anyway. Do you need cleanup with your friend?” He airquoted the word friend pointedly.

“No,” she declined, “we’ve most definitely parted ways and won’t be looking for each other any time soon. She made it clear that it was best I left, and I had nowhere to go in case she changed her mind and decided it was better to send me to Hell so… here I am.”

He stared at her, frowning heavily. “She almost destroys two of your ribs, busts your shoulder, and is strong enough to make you flee and she didn’t finish the job?” “Made me jump out of a window,” Natasha grimaced, her shoulder still sore. She still had no idea how Darcy could be so strong. Nothing of her would stand out as particularly dangerous, but her physical strength underneath the cute exterior made her look like a feline of some sort.

And like a predator, who played with prey because it could, it made a sick sort of sense that such a powerful person wouldn’t find any fun in hunting down anything less than big, strong men who believed themselves the top dog. She frowned and resisted the urge to shake her head vigorously. What a morbid thought.

Clint whistled. “One of your cabal of superjuiced women?”

Natasha’s head snapped up and he side-eyed her in response. “What? Didn’t think I would find out there are actually more girls that Red Room had gotten working before you blew the place sky-high? Give me some credit, Nat.”

Of course, he would, Natasha huffed. Of course, the lovable idiot. “Idiot,” she mumbled. “Did you tell anybody?”

“No,” he said, “Not even Coulson. Don’t worry, I did my job properly. Didn’t even look for names or locations, just made sure there were still some around. I figured you’d tell me if it was important.”

An unexpected rush of affection warmed her cheeks. “You are still an idiot. Don’t look into that, they’ll find you.” “I just wanted to help!” he shrugged. “Anyway, is this what we’re dealing with?”

“We?” she raised one brow. “No, I don’t know what that is. I knew she was strong, but I didn’t think she’d be this… powerful, really. I’ve seen her and her best friend lift people up but I thought it was mostly a fluke. And instead…” “You miscalculated.” “Spectacularly.” She nodded. It had been spectacular, despite the whole emotional fiasco and diplomatic shitshow. She used to be better at getting people to talk, and yet Darcy always seemed to catch her flat-footed. It was as uncanny as it was frustrating.

“But she let you go. That means you’re safe, for now.”

She nodded. “Well, I am…” She wasn’t worried about herself, but about the rest of Culver. Darcy had gotten her share of violence with her today, but what about tomorrow? How often did she hunt?

She ran through her bangs and fixed some stray hair behind her ear. “I am not worried about me, though.” His frown was back. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you see…”

And that was going to be the second disaster of the day. How did you explain to your best friend that your girlfriend is prancing about undisturbed killing off people, especially your mission partner whom you had shared a lot of blood and sweat with?

At that moment, however, the burner phone she only used with Darcy started ringing.

“Well!” Clint exclaimed, suddenly more cheerful. “Look who it is! Your cute girlfriend from DC is calling, should I give you some time alone?”

She paled even further and sweat started forming in her hands.

Her stomach knotted with fear.

The timing was too perfect, it couldn’t be coincidental that the very moment she decided to start talking, Darcy would make her presence known.

Had she been followed? Had she given up Clint?! Clint, bless his heart, noticed her hesitation and his smile dropped. “Nat?” She shook her head in haste, and just in case she really was surveilled, signed a very sharp ‘LATER’ to him. His eyes widened but he nodded and sat back down.

Somehow, the fact that she wouldn’t be alone for the conversation comforted her.

“...Hello?” she hesitantly answered the call.

“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?!”

Jane’s voice from the other side of the call made Natasha go completely boneless with relief. Jane.

Tiny, innocent Jane… who then Natasha remembered housed a criminal, a criminal who sported on her back Jane Foster’s name along with specific rules she had to follow. A woman who Darcy herself had called her priority, her moral compass and ‘the person who had dragged her out of a very dangerous path.’ A woman who had thoroughly failed at her job and who might not even know about it.

“Dr Foster,” she said diplomatically, watching Clint knit his eyebrows and mouth ‘Foster’ back at her, as if to try and remember it.

“...Dr Foster? Damn, do I have to call you Romanoff, now?”

Natasha knew Darcy was not one to keep anything from Jane, and yet it stung. “If you wish to, yes.” She continued with the same tone, determined to give nothing away.

“Do not try to distract me!”

Privately, Natasha reckoned Jane did a wonderful job of distracting herself without any help, but she bit her tongue before she said any of it.

“What happened while I was away, huh?!” Jane continued undeterred. “Window broken, furniture scraped, a pool of blood on the sidewalk underneath our kitchen and most importantly Darcy is crying her eyes out.”

“Nothing happened, Dr Foster-” Natasha started.

“As if! And stop with the affectations.” Jane snarled.

Natasha sighed. This wasn’t going to work. She squared her shoulders and bit out as calmly as possible- “Certain… situations have come to light that made our relationship impossible to maintain, I hope you realize that. I know everything.”

There was a brief intake of breath from Jane’s side. “...Elaborate.”

“I know about the killings, Jane.”

Clint looked up alarmed at that and she put a hand on her lips as a warning.

“Well, of course,” Jane went on, now sounding confused and that in turn confused the spy. “She needs that, what do you expect?”

Needed that? Natasha quickly reframed the whole experience. Jane hadn’t failed in her mission to rein in Darcy, they were both delusional in their beliefs. She could have talked down a well-meaning innocent, a fanatic, however, was a different matter.

“Is this some sort of TV series to you? A real-life Dexter, or something?” She had to ask. It wasn’t professional, but at this point she was willing to believe anything to solve the reasoning behind the two of them becoming murderers on a whim.

“What?”

“Darcy has killed people, many people. Good people.”

“Look who’s talking.” Jane snorted.

“That is completely different, and you know that.” If Natasha repeated that enough times, it would become true. That was her mantra now.

“I really don’t think so,” Jane’s rage, that had been simmering in her confusion, was slowly resurfacing. “Imagine feeling so secure in your absolute goodness that you don’t see the evil in front of you. So certain of the tree that you no longer see the forest!” the astrophysicist added sarcastically.

Natasha clicked her tongue. “People are dead, Jane.”

“And they deserved it. Darcy wouldn’t have done anything to them otherwise, we have a contract!”

“A contract?” Natasha mocked. “You mean a tattoo? Oh yes, a proper deterrent!”

“She will die if that contract breaks, that is deterrent enough!”

Natasha blinked. “What?”

There was an audible clicking of teeth and a smacking sound, followed by a curse. “Fuck.”

“I confess myself at loss,” the spy said evenly. At last, she finally felt like she was onto something.

“Fuck off,” said Jane. “Darcy doesn’t kill good people.”

“Because of this elusive contract of yours,” she pressed.

“Because she’s changed! And because she hoped you of all people would understand!”

“She didn’t say anything to me until I exposed her.” “And you’ve been so forward with her!” Jane said sarcastically. “I’m sure she felt absolutely safe to come out to you. Especially seeing your reaction.”

That was true. It didn’t change the magnitude of the secret, but she had to concede the point. “Fair point. It doesn’t change the fact that it needs to stop.” “She can’t!” A gasp. “You- you don’t know!”

“Know what?”

Jane hesitated. “Nothing important, I guess. Or everything important. Oh my God, she didn’t tell you.” She cleared her throat. “I’m still mad at how you handled everything, but it makes so much sense now!”

Natasha growled in frustration. “Explain. I have half the urge of coming here and shaking it out of you” She threatened.

Jane snorted. “Do it and I’ll dance on your corpse.” She coughed and then her voice turned serious. “Maybe you should see before you judge. Get your facts straight. Learn who the people you mourn really are. But Darcy’s secrets are hers and until you get your head on straight, you’re welcome to fuck off, very kindly.”

“What are you talking abo-”

The line dropped.

Natasha groaned bitterly. Any further attempt to contact Jane was stonewalled, she had been blocked.

And now here she was, with more questions than she ever had, a useless phone and a very pissed of best friend whose face demanded answers, now.

Coming clean to Clint should have made her feel better, but it didn’t.

Clint was not not talking to her though, so that was a bonus.

He had been disappointed, to say the least, but he had resolved that pouting wouldn’t help, and so wouldn’t sarcastic remarks, so he was stuck with a mask of polite respectfulness.

Natasha was sure that hadn’t she been injured so easily by Darcy, he’d be advocating they march there and end the problem on the spot.

As it was, the fact that Darcy could probably punt the agents they sent her way to the wall was the one thing restraining him.

Fortunately, in the following days, there were no new reported victims nor disappearances, somewhat easing Natasha’s guilt at not having reported her yet.

Meanwhile, Clint and her stewed on Jane’s last words and what they could even mean.

Far from being dissuaded from sharing the contents of the call with her best friends, Natasha had poured word for word the entire conversation with the astrophysicist, hoping for some kind of insight from Clint.

However, after much pondering and squeezing their brains until they felt like melting, they were no closer to guessing what kind of secret the two women were hiding. Not that it mattered much, to Clint. She could see it in his eyes, how he seemed half convinced that a well-aimed arrow could solve the whole thing once and for all, if only Natasha could stomach it.

And she couldn’t.

Because try as she might, the idea of killing Darcy was painful. So, so painful.

Like sucking air straight out of her lungs.

And Clint knew that, and that was why he’d never said it out loud. He was thinking it, but he wasn’t voicing it. Every time Natasha could see the flash of irritation, she appreciated him a little more. Not many people would stick by her through thick and thin like that.

Still, despite her friend’s adamant protests that they should trust SHIELD and stop believing the word of a serial killer and her abettor, Natasha couldn’t stop thinking about the accusations Jane and Darcy had thrown around regarding Rumlow.

She couldn’t believe he’d been such a bad person to warrant death, especially when she, Clint and possibly Fury were in the same room, but now she couldn't help but wonder.

Darcy had, on many occasions, called herself an excellent judge of character, something Natasha was willing to dispute (she had been willing to go out with her, after all), but she had demonstrated such capabilities over and over again.

So maybe she had been onto something…

“I can see you thinking and I don’t like it.” Clint accused her.

She startled and looked around until her eyes landed on the vent above her head.

He waved at her raised eyebrow. “Coulson asked me to traipse around and scare the recruits. What awful, awful plan are you concocting in that head of yours, Nat?”

“Nothing.” She shrugged to make a point.

She started walking out of the corridor, when Clint dropped out of the vent and caught up to her, nonchalantly putting an arm around her shoulder and pulling her closer.

“Huh,” he waggled his eyebrows back, “and here I thought you were gallivanting near STRIKE’s departments for a reason. Say, a dangerous reason that should be avoided at all costs.”

He knew her too well. “...Maybe I am,” she said noncommittally.

He made an aborted sound of frustration in his throat. “Nat, come on. Didn’t we agree that the word of a serial killer is not something we should take to heart? Do you really want to break into STRIKE to check classified data about our friends on hearsay?!”

“You’re my friend, they’re not.”

Clint sucked in a furious breath. “They’ve fought with us for years. You’re throwing to the wind your entire life here if they catch you.” “If they catch me.”

“What if they do?” he insisted. “Natasha, you’re siding with a woman that lied to you for a year, instead of the people who have worked with you for more than a decade. And before you say ‘but I love her’, I get it. But this is a mess you should keep yourself out of. She is not your friend. You will get hurt.”

He steered her further away. She understood his worries, and yet.

“You’re right,” she said, planting her feet firmly to the ground. “I know you are. I still need to check. I have to see.”

He stared at her until she returned his gaze, before groaning in abject chagrin.

“Fine, fine. You know what? Fine. I brought you here for this exact moment, to see you destroy yourself for a pretty face.” He dropped the arm that was embracing her and shoved it furiously in his pocket.

“Clint-” she started.

“I said fine,” he snapped back. “We’re going. And once you see how wrong you were, this will be the end of it.”

He looked at her and it was the most serious she’d ever seen him in ages, outside of a mission. “But this is the last time, Natasha. The last time. After this, this whole… charade? Done. No more talking about it, either.”

“Nobody asked you to come, Clint,” she clicked her tongue. “Stop sticking your neck out for me. I can do it on my own.”

“I know you can,” he said evenly, “but you’re my friend, and I love you. And yes, I think you’re being unbelievably stupid, but that’s what friends do.”

The plan was so simple it shouldn’t have worked as well as it did.

It had taken them a few days to make sure the vents were secure enough to traverse without triggering any kind of alarm, and to make sure Sitwell and Pierce were away for the night, but in the end, they had managed to slip in unannounced.

It was then that they noticed the whole plan wouldn’t be so easy. “Paper records!” Clint spat, disgusted. “This will take ages to check manually, Nat!”

“Did you expect them to have a computer folder labelled ‘Illegal do not look’, perhaps?”

He scoffed. “We have one hour before they check, at most. Be glad Sitwell’s office doesn’t have security cameras except for the one by the door.”

She was emphatically glad this was the case, despite it being suspicious. After all, even Fury had at least four cameras he perused regularly in his office, including one that pointed constantly to a cat bed.

“Start looking,” she said instead. “We need Rumlow’s file.”

“This is so wrong,” he replied, starting to flick through the drawers. “What are you hoping to find out? That he was a puppy kicker?”

She didn’t know. She would be lying if she said she hoped she was right, and she would be lying if she said she hoped he was.

By now, she just wanted answers.

She pulled out a couple of promising-looking files which turned out to be a bust, and then a third folder that was so thin it had one single document inside.

“Did you find anything?” she asked.

“No. And we won’t find anything. Here’s his file,” he gestured to the binder in his hands. “See? No criminal records before enrolling. Hell, he’s got a cleaner record than you and I have ever had! And all his missions are accounted for, too!”

Natasha closed her eyes. Of course. The disappointment didn’t catch her by surprise, but the sad relief did. “So he is clean.”

Clint frowned. “Yes, I told you. See? Even this redacted file matches up. It’s from a mission we had in Sokovia where we-” he snapped his mouth shut abruptly and his frown deepened. “Wait. This doesn’t match up with our assignment. Why is Marks also reported to be on-site? He wasn’t there.”

Natasha peered over his shoulder.

Indeed, the dates didn’t match up as they should.

“I’ll check Marks’s file,” she muttered, rifling through the small drawer Clint had taken Rumlow’s file from.

Agent Marks’s file was small. And most of it was redacted, even more than Rumlow’s. Natasha stared at the few dates she could glean and the locations she recalled having been to with Marks on missions. She came up empty to most of those, despite being missions she’d been on. It was as if Agent Marks had received completely different assignments from hers, which was possible for a couple of missions, yes, but not all of them.

Something wasn’t adding up, and she intended to find out exactly what.

Peculiarly, something started blooming in her chest, but she couldn’t name it.

Somehow, it kind of felt like hope.

They spent the better part of the hour committing dates and names to memory, as much as they could, before leaving the office as quietly as they could.

Clint didn’t look her way once from that moment, and she supposed it was fair. Her insistence had stirred an anthill of doubt and now they had to wrap it up quickly. And possibly warn Coulson.

She wasn’t looking forward to that.

“We try again next week,” he said to her before leaving like a bat out of hell.

Next week turned out to be the next, and then the next and the one after that.

By now, they had spent more than four hours pouring over documents that didn’t make sense, Natasha’s ears straining to hear any little, minuscule sound that would warn them of anybody coming their way.

But the office was always blissfully empty.

“Fuck it,” Clint whispered furiously, “another location not matching with the official report. It’s like we’re watching a separate organization’s movements, this is insane.”

“We have to keep going,” she whispered back. “We’ve barely scratched the surface here.”

“The surface of what?”

“I don’t know,” she said. She rifled through another stack of papers. “What’s in New Jersey?”

Clint shrugged. “Mostly old facilities, like Camp Leigh, nothing important. Why?” She showed him a couple of papers. “A lot of logs talk about training facilities there.”

“Impossible,” he frowned. “Those have been abandoned since Pym left in 1991.” She stared at him. “You’re very well informed.”

“I’m surprised you don’t know this stuff, Nat.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t care enough.” She handed him the document.

He took it and perused it top to bottom. ”Here it says that the facilities are still used and apparently there’s also a doctor there.”

“A doctor? I didn’t read anything about that.”

“It’s in code.” He showed it to her, lighting the page with his torch upside down. “Here, this reads as doctor. And this is the name. Doctor Zola.”

Natasha blanched. “Did you say Zola?”

Clint nodded. “Yeah, Z O L A.” He looked at her and his eyes widened. “Hey, what’s wrong? It’s like you’ve seen a ghost!”

She swallowed. “Because I have. We have to report this to Coulson.”

She hastily started piling all the documents back, taking care of snapping pictures of everything she could before she ushered Clint towards the vent.

“Coulson? What the fuck, Nat?”

“We have to. Clint, Zola was HYDRA’s scientist!” His eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.

“SHIELD is compromised.”

Dragging Coulson to a safe house and unloading the lot of their files about SHIELD, STRIKE and HYDRA took more time than Natasha cared for, but true to Coulson’s character, his eyes had become very hard and after a severe admonishment, he’d taken them away without question.

Unfortunately, this also meant that Clint and Natasha were off active duty for the foreseeable future for their own safety. ‘Officially on assignment’ it read on their file, while they were barricaded in a safe house.

Every day more, Natasha’s itch to call Darcy’s number and demand other explanations grew and grew.

How had Darcy known? About Rumlow? About HYDRA? It seemed impossible. It didn’t make sense. This kind of sensitive information couldn’t have been researched by an undergrad student, unordinary levels of strength and intelligence or not.

Besides, there were only hard copies of the files, how had Darcy gained access to them? She couldn’t have entered the Triskelion, nobody would have let her in or out.

And she’d told Jane, too! How many people knew about this?

She bit her lip absentmindedly.

If Darcy had terminated Rumlow, one of the best members of STRIKE, she could probably shoot down another agent or two, probably enough to get away with murder before HYDRA sent more people after them. They’d be fine. Once again, this became her mantra.

Still, the burner phone that never got burned, even after their breakup, lay safely on top of her duffel bag, just in case.

“Man,” Clint whined. “I cannot fucking believe your girlfriend was right. I liked the members of STRIKE! Rumlow was a friend! And Sitwell? He’s been putting good words to get me to leave every Christmas since I had the kids!”

“I just hope they’re all safe,” she muttered.

“Coulson will be fine,” Clint said with finality.

“Of course,” Natasha nodded. “It’s not him I’m worried about.”

Clint raised one eyebrow. “Who then? Your ex?” He snorted. “I doubt they even know she exists. Relax.” Natasha nodded. “Yeah. They’re smart enough to shut up about it, and maybe stick a knife or two on the snakes when they come looking for them.”

“Is that how she did it?” Clint asked, rolling his eyes sarcastically. “They never even found the puncture wound for the blood draining, how?!”

Natasha blinked. “No wounds?”

He shook his head forcefully. “Nope. Weren’t for the mass grave and the whole ‘no more blood’ shtick you’d think they all had a stroke, or a heart attack. I told you, just like magic. Then again, sloppy work to leave them altogether. The question remains, though. Is it possible to drain a person of their blood without puncturing them in any way?!”

“Apparently it is.” Natasha finished for him.

“In-sa-ne,” he spelt out for her.

More questions. More and more questions. At this point, Natasha was willing to believe in anything.

And then, an unexpected illumination. The strength, the dislike of authority and the flippant attitude, along with unusual powers, all added up to only one very likely possibility.

“She must be a mutant,” she exclaimed. “God knows there are some escaping the government. It checks out!” “...Huh.” Clint blinked. “That makes… a lot of sense, honestly. Doesn’t explain the shit morals, but… I mean, a mutant would know about injustice, for sure.”

Suddenly, a knock was heard at the door.

As one, both Natasha and Clint reached for their weapons, Natasha loading her gun and palming her knife, just in case.

‘WHO?’ Signed Clint.

‘ENEMY?’ Natasha signed back.

Nobody except Coulson knew they were there, and Coulson had given them very specific instructions. Whoever this person at the door was, it was not a friend.

She pointed her gun at the door, while Clint went to check outside the small window.

He shouldn’t have.

A wheeze was heard in the distance, and before Natasha could do anything, the window was blowing up, and Clint was blasted off outside.

“HAWKEYE!” Natasha screamed, launching herself into the hole in the wall. A volley of bullets made her drop to the floor as if she were dead, and she rushed over to see what was happening.

What she saw made her blood run cold.

Two STRIKE Agents had grabbed Clint, who was struggling weakly, and were now dragging him into a van.

Fuck, shit, she thought.

But she had no time to run after him, because the door suddenly blew up as well, and she gazed impotently at the speeding vehicle, carting off her best friend.

“Blyat’” she howled, scrambling for cover behind the walk-in closet Clint had insisted they have.

“Come out, Romanoff!” shouted Agent Marks, firing a couple of warning shots.

None of them reached anywhere close to her, but her adrenaline kicked off, at last, and she immediately started calculating how much she could jump to regroup and go after Clint.

“We’ll find you!” he repeated again. “Smart move, going to a safe house! Not smart enough, though!” He laughed. This time, the shots were much closer.

With a jolt of cold euphoria, she noticed her cover hadn’t completely blown, yet. He was looking for her.

“You shouldn’t have poked around Sitwell’s office,” Marks continued, as if it was no big deal. “Now Barton will die, after he tells us everything he knows, of course. No point in doing it to you, we know you’re a master at this game.”

Another shot, this time on the wall next to the closet. So much closer.

“You’ll just have to die. But don’t worry! We know about your little regeneration problem. We’ll riddle your body with bullets until it sticks!”

Had Natasha Romanoff been any less experienced, she would probably have felt something at the threat. As it was, it was hardly the first time she’d head it, and it wouldn’t be the last.

It wasn’t original and it wasn’t threatening.

She moved her gun in position, ready to shoot him the moment he stepped into the room.

“FIND HER!” Somebody screamed as Marks’s face entered her field of vision, and she took the shot, sending Agent Marks to the Great Beyond.

She darted to the window, ready to jump, when somebody shot her from behind.

She gasped as the bullet pierced her shoulder and made her miss the leap, rolling on the floor with a groan.

“Got you, bitch!” A feminine voice exclaimed triumphantly. “Thought you’d get away, eh?”

Natasha turned around, pressing her back to the wall, gun still in hand.

There were four agents, armed to their teeth.

She didn’t like the odds. She didn’t like them at all. But Clint, she thought furiously. Clint couldn’t wait, she had no time!

However… she couldn’t see a way out of it.

“Here’s the end of the Great Black Widow!” The woman who had got her said, smirking ferally.

Natasha closed her eyes. She had gotten sloppy, after all.

But she didn’t hear a shot.

Instead, every colour in the room suddenly became… duller. Muted, somewhat.

It was as if somebody had turned on a filter on an old TV.

There was the sound of static and soon after, a scream.

It was the curdliest, ugliest and highest-pitched scream she had ever heard. If Vila were true, if Banshee walked the Earth, their scream wouldn’t have sounded like that.

As if Heaven itself was shaking in fear, the horrible sound echoed again throughout the apartment.

Her enemies looked around, confused, and then fearful when they heard it a third time.

“It’s the Thing!” panicked one of the guys. “It’s come to get us like it got Rumlow!”

Natasha’s head snapped up. What?!

“The fuck are you talking about?!” shrieked the woman.

“You weren’t there!” the guy wailed. “It started just like that, and suddenly Rumlow couldn’t move, and he dropped dead! And the fucking monster got him.” “Bullshit!”

“No no no no!” the man started to back off. “I’m not sticking around. Fuck off!” He scuttled to the door, but before he could reach it, he became stiff as a board and dropped to the floor, like a puppet whose strings were cut.

“What the Hell!” started another, before dropping dead on the spot.

One by one, Natasha watched as the STRIKE Agents died, taken by a mysterious force. And suddenly, she felt an oppressive force against her lungs and she couldn’t breathe.

She couldn’t move.

Breathless, a familiar haze of dread and desperation filled her lungs and coiled in her gut. As if to prove her wrong, she felt the bile rise in her throat. The alarm she had felt multiple times in Darcy’s presence had been nothing compared to this. Whatever creature was coming, Natasha Romanoff was sure she was seeing her last.

She saw a leg first. Crane-like, long and thin, with enormous talons sharp enough to cut diamond, followed by enormous grey wings and tail. The body of the creature barely fit into the room, as its head swirled around with no discernible order. It twisted and coiled like a spring, taking in every corner.

The head suddenly turned to her, and she watched impotently as bright, red eyes stared her down. It had an owl-like face, but it didn’t look anything like one.

The long, bronze beak, the red eyes and the horns made her realize that if Hell existed, the King of Hell would look very similar to this.

Like a fever-induced hallucination, the horrifying monster seemed to relish in her panic and enjoy the sight of its victims.

And yet this wasn’t a dream.

The beast stared her down, and after a moment, Natasha could breathe and move again.

She made herself smaller as she watched the creature move around the room, inspecting its prey. After having taken a look at her, it seemed completely uncaring and uninterested in her.

She cautiously approached the hole in the wall again.

She had no time, she had to find Clint. Oh God, what if she was too late? Without thinking, she let herself drop.

With a screech, the bird was onto her. “Shit,” she cursed, aiming with her gun.

But she was too slow, and the creature grabbed her within its talons.

She screamed in pain as its nails scraped over her bullet wound, and then she knew nothing more.

When Natasha came to, it was to the sharp pain of her shoulder stitching back together and the indignant squawking of a bird.

She was lying on her back on something soft and, interestingly, was not tied up.

She tried to reconcile the events that had led to her being in this situation, but was coming up empty.

Her heart was thundering in her chest with panic, as if all of her instincts were telling her to run and not look back. She’d felt this feeling before…

She inconspicuously peered from the corner of her eye, in the hopes of finding out more, but was met with red.

Dangling from the ceiling on those long legs, perched like a bat, the Monster was craning the flexible neck to look her in the eye as if it were on the floor instead of upside down.

The wings ruffled menacingly and the beak snapped open and closed, a black tongue barely peeking out, as if tasting the air.

All at once, Clint’s disappearance and her almost death hit her like a gut punch.

She reached for her knife pocket, only to find it empty. She cursed.

The creature noticed her movement. It reared up and bobbed its ugly head twice. One limb contorted from the ceiling to get the beast on the floor without dropping.

Natasha scrambled off the couch.

The beast clicked its beak again in annoyance.

She didn’t care about its feelings. If the choice was between life and death, she chose life, at least until she made sure Clint was okay. She coiled her legs and made stock of her body. The shoulder was still out of commission along with her left arm, the bullet wound stitching up ever so slowly, but her legs were okay and most of her superficial bruises and scrapes were gone.

If the beast hesitated, she could be out of the corridor and down the stairs in a few-

At that thought, she convulsed like she’d been electrocuted.

Without leaving the monster out of her sight, she quickly took in the place she was in. She knew this dingy apartment. She’d known it for months like the back of her hand.

She was in fucking Virginia, in Jane Foster’s apartment.

“You’re awake!”

As if on cue, Jane Foster entered the room, the Black Tome in Latin spread in her hands.

Natasha’s first instinct was to tense, then to relax, and then to point her gun to something.

“What’s going on?” She bit out.

Jane turned a page of the book, which vibrated slightly before turning blood red. “I should be the one asking that question! Darcy went out hunting, imagine my surprise when she comes back without her human body and with yours!”

The monster released a guttural howl and Natasha’s head snapped to it.

Jane huffed. “I don’t understand a word of what you’re saying. Stop howling and tell me what is going on. There are no records of cases like yours.” The bird opened its beak open wide and made an obscene movement with its neck, which elongated until it was almost two feet long.

“Sede, Darcy!” Jane snapped and the beast recoiled. After a moment, it obeyed.

Natasha stared. If Clint had been there, she was sure she’d have to manually close his mouth. She knew hers would be dangling open too, if she hadn’t been a professional.

That beast was-

“...Darcy?” She tentatively faced the creature fully and was met with another close and personal with its huge red eye, as close as it could get to her with the beak twisted to the side.

“Ah,” Jane was between them in a flash. “Don’t get close to her, she’s not rational in this state.”

No sooner than she’d said it, the bird’s talons tried to grab her.

“Darcy, no!” Jane shouted. “Morare.”

As if a switch had been flipped, the bird huffed and shuffled to a corner.

Jane pressed both hands to her face.

Idly, Natasha noticed that the book was floating beside her without a care. The hag on the cover laughed at her.

“What a mess,” Jane whispered. “What happened?”

Natasha frowned. “That’s what I was wondering, too.”

Jane looked at her like she was willing her to drop dead. “How about I fix this mess first and then I help you through your existential crisis?”

Natasha blew through her nose. She had no time to lose, but she also knew Jane. Once the woman was in a mood, there was no distracting her. There would be no help coming from Jane Foster until whatever was coiled into her brain unravelled. Besides, she had a van and Natasha was now across states.

“What do you want to know?” she asked.

Jane’s eyes lost some of that irritated spark. “Everything. Darcy’s never come back from hunting without her Human form. That’s not how it works. But here she is; she’s even worse off than she was when she left!”

“...How does it usually work?”

Natasha peered at the bird monster who was now sleeping, her ex-girlfriend.

Now that Natasha knew who was inside the beast, she had to admit she didn’t look any cuter, or any less monstrous. The talons were too big for the spindly legs, the wings and the body were disproportionate and ungraceful and the head was, unfortunately, pure Nightmare fuel.

Jane flipped quickly through another chapter of the Tome. She chewed on her hair and looked again. When it was clear it had no answers, she threw it across the room.

The book soared to about a foot from the wall before stopping and slowly going back to Jane.

“Useless thing,” she muttered. The hag’s mocking laughter turned to a frown. “That’s how it works. Darcy needs blood to keep her appearance and her humanity. Once she can’t hold on any longer she becomes… That.” She gestured to the bird. Was it Natasha’s imagination, or was the bird smaller? “She kills a man or two, drinks their blood, becomes human. Simple.”

It sounded simple… except for the whole Must Kill To Live thing. That seemed too big a caveat for a Mutant.

“What is she?”

There was a long-suffering sigh. “You’re not helping me here. Darcy is a Strix. She’s a classified Fiend.”

Natasha blinked. “...As in Hell and all that?” Jane shook her head. “Not quite. I think it’s more of a magical parallel universe connected to ours than an actual Hell.”

The spy nodded cautiously. “How?”

And here for the first time since she’d met her, Jane looked guilty. “I summoned her.”

There was no reason to lose composure this time. After all the blows she’d received today, this seemed like an excellent nonsequitur she could do without. “Elaborate, please?”

Jane groaned. “It was all my fault, okay? I needed an intern, and nobody was helping me out… And I had a really bad breakup with this guy, Donald, and that night I was drunk and I found my Grandma’s old Book of Commands.” The book flapped excitedly, Jane glowered at it. “And it seemed like an excellent idea at the time, right? Sacrifice Donald’s blood, just a bit of it, and get an eternal helper. A mindless drone, summoned right out of nothingness to help me out. Donald would never know…”

“And then what happened?”

Jane laughed mirthlessly. “Then I felt guilty. Because of course, I did. And so-” she waved her hand in the air, “I used my blood and somehow, somehow messed a perfectly good Fiend up in the process. Yay me!”

At that point, Natasha was ready to give up entirely on understanding the matter at hand. The story was unlikely, she was out of her depth so much a fish in a pan would have felt more at ease and most of all she didn’t get how any of this was leading to Darcy’s messed-up ‘devilishness’.

But then she recalled Darcy’s words, about how meeting Jane had changed her, how she’d made terrible choices but suddenly found herself with a conscience she didn’t know what to do with and finally could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

“You gave her a soul,” she breathed.

“Yes!” Jane wailed. “It’s all my fault, of course, I’m the most useless witch on the planet.”

Natasha refused to open that can of worms, too. Witches would have to wait. “I don’t see how any of this is a problem…”

“But it is!” Jane protested. “She didn’t care about killing people before, but now? She’s limited her hunts, and then she only went after criminals, and then she narrowed her choices more and more and now this! What if she’s stuck like a mindless horror forever?! She hates it!”

Did she? Natasha regarded the beast with interest, it didn’t seem particularly affected by its current situation, except maybe being a bit pouty about the time-out.

“Is she stuck?” She asked instead.

“I don’t know,” Jane said. “It’s never happened before. Once she drinks blood she transforms right back.”

“Oh.” Natasha blinked. Had Darcy actually gotten any of the blood out? She couldn’t remember clearly, because she’d jumped out of the window and fainted right after that, but she couldn’t recall any blood-sucking… “I don’t think she had any blood when she kidnapped me.” She admitted.

“What?” Jane sucked in a breath. “You mean to tell me she’s taken you away from a hunt before she’d feasted?”

Natasha just nodded.

Jane’s body deflated like a stale souffle. “Oh thank God.” The book shuddered and she gave it the middle finger. “Ignore the Book,” she told Natasha, “it tries to sell my soul to whatever Unholy entity created it every other day.” She approached the Monster and put a hand between the feathers of its neck.

The beast swirled its head so rapidly that Natasha barely saw it. “I’ll get you some blood, Darcy,” Jane promised very seriously.

The bird stared unblinkingly at its Most Important Person and then nodded.

Jane smiled at it encouragingly, then marched out of the room with a singular focus. Natasha followed.

“Are you scared of being alone with Darcy or do you have more questions that will take more of my time?”

Sometimes, the kindest word Natasha could describe Jane with was insensitive or oblivious.

Jane Foster, astrophysicist, had as much tact as an Elephant in a china shop when it came to interpersonal or social relationships, but in this very moment, Jane’s bluntness came in handy.

“No, I have a favour to ask.” Natasha said, tracking the woman’s movements with her eyes.

Jane sent her a very unimpressed gaze. “A favour.”

Natasha nodded. “I need your van.”

“Pardon?” Jane’s face could not hide her surprise. She probably wasn’t expecting such a request, but Natasha was in a hurry there. She was hours away and she didn’t know how much time it had passed since Clint had been taken. In fact, she was already feeling guilty about having lost so much time humouring Jane’s quest for answers.

“I wasn’t alone when Darcy saved me,” she started, “my partner was captured and I need to find him. But Darcy didn’t exactly drag a car along with her, so I need yours.”

The astrophysicist hesitated for a second before nodding.

Her hand hovered over an open drawer before she closed it with a snap. She opened another and knives and a cutting board fell out of it, as if an invisible force that had held them in place was now missing.

That was the mystery with Jane’s apartment.

Half an office, half the horrible spawn of a chaos tornado, it held a collection of items Natasha could never place, from the Lunar charts to what ought to be a skull but looked kind of trollish.

Now, in retrospect, it made much more sense.

“Damnations!” Jane cursed. She snapped her fingers and most of the knives went obediently back to the drawer. “Car keys. Car keys… Did I put them somewhere?”

Another snap and Natasha heard glass crashing.

“Not there, no.” Jane closed her eyes in defeat. “I’ll find you those keys, let me just fix Darcy up first.”

Natasha opened her mouth in protest but Jane cut her off with a roll of her eyes. “You don’t even know if he’s still there. Wait five minutes, Darcy knows where I left my stuff, she’ll find your shit quicker than looking for it.”

Natasha’s mouth snapped closed. Jane’s reasoning was sound.

Ignoring Natasha’s look, she went back to rummaging into the knife's drawer. After a while, she made a sound of jubilance and extracted a long sharp knife with a very ornate handle. “Still got it!” she exclaimed.

She reached into a cupboard and retrieved a glass, then rolled up her left sleeve.

Natasha’s heart leapt into her throat. She wasn’t seriously considering cutting herself up, was she?!

“Wouldn’t it be easier to use, say, chicken blood?” Jane sniffed “...I mean I could, but what would be the point of having her turn into a chicken? No, she needs human blood.” She expertly swished the knife and smiled. The smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Don’t worry, we’ve done it a thousand times. It’s what we did before… you know.” “Before she started going after people?” Natasha finished for her.

“Yup,” Jane confirmed. “We had to come up with a contract to keep her from killing off innocent bystanders. The brand she has on her back. Thankfully it works, or it’s either let her loose or give her all my blood.”

Natasha scrutinized the knife, Jane’s stick-thin arm and the glass she had in her hand. “Not very sustainable, is it?”

Jane coughed. “It wasn’t, no. I might have ended up… in the hospital… with severe anaemia… multiple times. But it works in a pinch, it has before!”

Natasha’s bullshit-o-meter activated right away. “And how much is your iron level now?!” She asked, only mildly alarmed.

Jane blushed. “...Low-ish?”

Natasha shuddered. “Darcy will kill me if I let you do this.” She moved into the witch’s space in a flash and dislodged the dagger from her hands. She disregarded Jane’s betrayed gasp and lowered the collar of her suit. She was already wounded, she might as well.

“Tell me what I have to do.”

Natasha thought she could not be more horrified by the Monster bird that was actually Darcy.

She was wrong.

Watching Darcy stalk prey or hear her kill her victims was gross, terrifying and repulsive, and yet Natasha would pick that every day, as long as she didn’t have to watch her transform again before her eyes.

The hideous cracks of her bones, the rasping sounds, and the ruffling of skin as the wings and the feathers were expunged and sucked back into her skin, as limbs were knitted back together, were never getting out of her mind.

The bird screamed during the whole process.

In her head, Natasha repeated to herself that she did not care and it didn’t hurt. It did not work.

To her credit, Jane didn’t even blink, holding the Tome of Command in her hands.

“You get used to it,” she said and Natasha fervently hoped she was right.

The whole metamorphosis took no more than a couple of minutes, and at the same time, it felt like years.

“What the fuck did you make me drink, Boss Lady?!”

Darcy coughed, sputtered and spat. Her lips were red and her voice was hoarse, but it was unmistakably her.

Natasha breathed a sigh of relief she didn’t know she was holding.

“Darcy, you’re fine!” Jane seemed to share the sentiment, despite her calmness not two minutes before.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Darcy rasped again. She cleared her throat. “Wow, that was a doozy. We’re never doing this again, boss lady. No more procrastinating on feeding the intern.” She licked her lips. “No, but seriously, what did I just drink?”

Jane fidgeted with her book, which crinkled in displeasure until she let go. “Well, you didn’t drink during your hunt and we needed you back to human so-”

Darcy’s eyebrows started to climb and her eyes widened before narrowing to slits. It was her signature look before a tirade about Foster’s health, and Natasha’s mouth moved before her brain caught up.

“It’s my blood, Darcy, not Jane’s. You won’t have to take her to the hospital this time.”

Darcy swivelled her head to hers and met her eyes suspiciously. “Your blood. This is your blood?”

To make her point clear, Natasha showed her the knife wound.

Jane hissed like a cat at the sight of the scabbing flesh. “That looks days old!”

The spy shrugged. It was slow for her standards, but she had just poured a glass of blood out, so she felt like the sluggishness was somewhat justified. “I heal fast.”

Darcy’s tongue ran over her teeth, inspecting the mouth, or possibly looking for blood. “That’s not fast, Nat- sorry, Natasha. That’s stupid insane. No wonder your blood tastes like steroids.”

“Steroids?” Jane asked, fascinated.

“Kind of? It’s like I was given super blood or something.” Darcy experimentally flexed her hand. “Holy shit.”

Jane ogled Darcy with morbid curiosity.

Before the situation could escalate again, however, Natasha decided enough was enough. She cleared her throat. “The keys, Jane,” she said impatiently.

Jane scowled at her, but nodded. “Right. Darcy, do you know where the van keys are? Natasha here needs it.”

“The keys?!” Darcy said, bewildered. “Okay, what the fuck did I just miss here?”

By the time it took Jane to update Darcy, Natasha was ready to crawl up the walls.

“Okay,” said Darcy, “I vaguely remember seeing you, but it’s all woozy. I can’t remember another man that wasn’t on the ‘can eat’ list, so to speak.”

“He was taken before you got there,” Natasha explained patiently, “but it’s been hours, I don’t know where they took him, but I’ll find him.” Darcy blew through her nose. “It’ll take hours with a van, especially if you don’t know where he is.” “I need to try, I owe him that.” When Darcy was unconvinced, she pressed. “He’s my Jane. Give me those keys.”

Wordlessly, Darcy got up and left the room. She returned one minute later, keys in hand.

“It’s a fool’s errand, Nat-asha. But here.”

Natasha smiled bitterly. “I’m the master of impossible jobs.” Darcy smiled back. “Yeah, you kind of are.”

Jane coughed behind them. “I don’t mean to interrupt but-”

“No, you’re right.” Interrupted Natasha. She’d already taken up too much of their time and she had none to spare either. “I’m leaving. Thank you.”

“That’s not what I meant,” said Jane rudely. “I just wanted to say, that maybe before you leave without knowing where to go, we could attempt a ritual to locate your friend, yes?”

Natasha inhaled sharply. Was such a thing possible? She hadn’t considered the possibility, but would that be a thing? Could Jane locate Clint for her? Darcy was of a completely different mind. “Absolutely not! Jane, I forbid it!”

“Why not?!” Jane squawked, indignant.

“Is it possible?” Natasha asked.

“Yes” “NO!” they said at the same time.

They glared at each other. “Using a ritual from the Book of Commands would be much easier, Darcy. Its job is to serve me and help me.”

“It’s a supremely bad idea, Jane!” Darcy pleaded. “The last time you attempted a ritual you cut yourself up instead of the dead pig you had to decapitate! If Natasha hadn’t knocked at the door and interrupted the sacrifice, you’d be Plant Food! Think of yourself, it’s too dangerous! The Book wants you to fail.”

Jane put her hands on Darcy’s shoulders. “I’ll be very careful, though? I’ve gotten much better with my daggers, you said it yourself!”

“I cannot help you during a ritual!” rebuked Darcy. “It’s just you and the book. What if something happens? I cannot stop it!”

At this point, Natasha was feeling excluded from their little bubble and she wasn’t liking it one bit. She didn’t like the idea of picking and choosing between putting people in danger, but she needed an answer and she needed it now. “Is it possible or am I leaving?” she huffed impatiently.

Jane eyeballed her pensively. “Natasha could do it, though. She did it once, she can interrupt again if something goes wrong!” Her eyes shone with triumph when Darcy didn’t immediately shoot the idea down.

“Do what.” Natasha bit down.

“It’ll be fine!” Jane concluded when Darcy stopped her protests.

“This is such a bad idea,” Darcy crossed her arms.

Jane ignored her. She regarded Natasha very seriously. “Just be ready to tackle me out of the circle if it starts glowing black, I’ll have the location of your friend down to the floor and room Number!”

Until a few hours back, Natasha would have never imagined sitting on a sofa with her ex while her ex’s boss traced pentacles with chalk on the floor would have been something she voluntarily did.

Voluntary was relative, of course, but it didn’t change the fact that Natasha needed to be here and wanted to.

So here she was, as poised as she could while Darcy fidgeted like a squirrel inebriated on caffeine.

Unfortunately for her professionalism, she looked every bit as adorable as she always did, right down to her dimples. They hadn’t parted in the friendliest of ways, and Natasha would lie if she said she was okay with everything that happened that night, but still…

“...Thank you for saving my life,” she whispered, unsure if talking too loud would distract Jane and send them all spiraling through the Multiverse or something.

Darcy side-eyed her. “Don’t mention it. I… To be honest, I don’t remember much of when I’m- hungry. Actually, I don’t remember shit. It’s why I try not to wait too much between meals, you know, get some blood in the freezer, drink it on the go…” She took a deep breath. “Usually when I start a job, I finish it. I don’t know what made me stop.”

“I see,” Natasha said. “Well, I’m grateful you did. Thank you.” She pressed a shoulder to Darcy’s.

The young woman smiled back weakly and pressed her shoulder to hers, too.

They sat in silence as Jane started talking to the circle, in what was possibly the least exciting ritual Natasha had ever depicted in her mind. It kind of looked like a dissertation presentation, or a very boring business meeting.

“She’s so bad at this,” Darcy said.

“Is she?”

“Yes,” Darcy nodded. “ Nothing she does is on purpose, except astrophysics. One of these days, the Book will get her, or she’ll forget to eat for ten days and drop dead. Did she tell you how she accidentally gave me feelings? Like, a fully human soul out of her blood?”

“How did that work out for you?”

Darcy made a ‘nyeh’ sound and a ‘so-so’ gesture. “I love being human? I love everything about my brain? And this body? Humans live the best life, except cats. I could have gone without the assholes, I’ll give you that. And the guilt. Damnations, how do you live with all these feelings? Also,” her stomach rumbled, loudly. Darcy blushed. “I am so hungry when I don’t hunt. After a few days, I’m hungry all the time.”

Natasha winced. “Ah.”

Darcy’s hands flew up. “No no no, I’m not that hungry. Your blood’s fantastic, by the way. On the scale of blood quality, I mean… Most powerful blood I’ve ever had. Ten out of ten, would drink again.”

The attempt at downplaying the ridiculousness of it all made Natasha’s lips twitch, and so did Darcy’s.

Suddenly, the air shifted in the room, and the smell of ozone permeated the surrounding area.

The lecture Jane was very sternly giving the circle was working.

“I can’t believe it!” breathed Darcy.

Neither could Natasha. Rules for magic had to be more flexible than what fiction would have people believe. How could a… pep talk to a circle written in chalk, of all things, have any sort of effect, she did not know, but she would never in her life doubt Jane Foster’s powers.

The circle glowed, its white borders became a deep green and all of sudden the circle was replaced with an image.

Natasha watched avidly as it zoomed closer and closer, from the sprawling city to the grasslands to-

“He’s on a boat?!” Jane exclaimed.

It was, unmistakably, a ship. A huge one. Natasha could make out “Lemurian Star” from the side.

The image shifted again, and here he was. Bound to a chair, but for now alive and breathing, was Clint Barton.

The circle glowed, and then fizzled out. They stared at the wooden floor, forever branded with a black pentacle. “Ah, fuck,” Jane muttered. “Here goes my deposit.”

Natasha felt like vomiting. The relief she’d felt at having found her friend disappeared quickly at the realization that not even Jane’s dingy van could take her in the middle of the sea.

She was stranded and Clint was so far away and she couldn’t save his sorry ass she had dragged into this mess.

“FUCK!” she snapped, scrambling to her feet so fast the coffee table trembled at the movement. “Fuck.”

“...I’m sorry, Natasha,” said Jane.

Sorry wouldn’t help Clint, Natasha thought. But she knew Jane had done her best to help her, so she bit her tongue and didn’t scream.

“I have to call Coulson,” she decided at the end. “I cannot save him, but maybe he’ll be able to do something. Anything!” She knew she sounded desperate but she didn’t care.

“Of course, you can use our phone,” Jane's eyes were full of pity which she did not want.

Calling Coulson’s secure number felt like a bullet to the stomach, and when he told her to ‘stay put’, that he’d take it to Fury she felt ten years old again, when missions meant life or death and the handlers always, always disapproved.

“I’m going, Phil,” she announced. “You cannot stop me.”

Coulson sighed. “I know I can’t, but you cannot swim that far, Natasha.”

At that, she had nothing to say.

She hung up the phone in frustration, hoping Phil would forgive her for it.

“Hey, Nat-...asha,” Darcy shuffled into the room, watching her carefully.

“...Yes?”

Darcy cleared her throat. “I know you’re not… comfortable with my, uh, other side. I’m not either, but hey.” “Darcy,” Natasha sighed, defeated. “Get to the point, please.”

“I can take you there,” Darcy said in one breath.

“...What?” Natasha turned to her, surprised.

Darcy nodded. “If you can give me more blood. I- I can do it, if I’m not hungry. I’m big, I’m strong. I can fly you to the Lemurian Star.”

Natasha stared. “...Why?”

“He’s your Jane,” Darcy said simply. “I’d do it for Jane. I’ll do it for your Clint.” She hesitated. “But I cannot promise that the people on that ship will live. If their sins outweigh their good deeds, they will die. I will eat them.”

Natasha watched as Darcy floundered while trying to gauge her reaction. As if she cared about anything when Clint was in danger.

“Where do we start?”

Flying was incredible.

Once the fear of riding an enormous feathered being subsided, and as soon as she’d made sure that they were going in the right direction, Natasha could finally admit that this, this she could get used to.

By all means, Darcy shouldn’t be able to fly. Excepting ‘magic’ as the excuse, Natasha couldn’t understand how such a long neck, big body and crane-like legs could lift at all, especially with a fully grown woman on its back!

And yet, she watched transfixed as they soared over cities in a flash, aided by the darkness.

She pressed her hands and legs to the bird’s back, like a koala rucksack, and tried to ignore the feathers getting stuck in her mouth or under her nose.

The body of the creature was fluffy, for its intended purpose. Somehow, she had imagined it would be coarse, instead of cloud-soft.

Every five minutes or so, the bird’s enormous head would twist her way, to check she was still there, and its beak would croon something that should have sounded reassuring, but it felt like glass against a blackboard.

Still, Natasha somewhat appreciated the concern.

Darcy wasn’t kidding when she said she was fast and strong, though, because when they reached the Lemurian Star, the sun hadn’t risen yet.

The bird flapped its wings clumsily to find a big enough landing spot that wasn’t completely exposed, and ended up having to take tiny clunky steps to let her down. Once Natasha was safely on board, weapon unholstered, it shook itself with might and clicked its beak in anticipation.

With equal parts of determination and dread, Natasha realised she was telling her it was time; it was hungry and wasn’t willing to wait any longer. “...Right,” she nodded. “You go, I’ll get Clint.”

The beast let out an atrocious cry, and the horrifying sensation of being prey, of needing to hide pervaded her bones. The lights seemed to dim as the eyes of the creature shone blood red. With a hop and another sharp sound, the bird took flight again. Natasha heard it flap its wings once, followed by its screech and the screams of people.

She loaded her gun and started crawling along the wall, searching for an entrance below deck.

She hoped she wasn’t too late. She didn’t see hair nor hide of SHIELD as she was travelling on Darcy’s back, but she trusted Coulson would come. He would always come for them.

There was shouting coming her way and she hid behind a door to watch a few of her old STRIKE colleagues passed by and rushed onto the deck. Pity they wouldn't return, she considered sardonically.

She proceeded along the corridor and then descended a few flights of stairs, until she heard a loud, angry “FUCK YOU!” that was so unmistakably Clint that her legs almost became jelly in relief.

She checked her sixes and the nearby doors before locking them, and soundlessly crept to the door she’d heard Clint in.

There was only a man interrogating him, and fortunately, they hadn’t started seriously interrogating him yet. He was battered and bruised and he’d probably lost a tooth, but they hadn’t touched the fingers or the nails yet.

Hand on her gun, she opened the door.

The poor kid had no time to realize what happened before she shot him straight to the head.

“Nat?!”

Hadn’t she been so high on adrenaline, she would have laughed at his stumped expression.

“Hey,” she breathed. “This doesn’t look anything like Budapest.”

As much as Natasha wanted to administer first-aid immediately, she knew she couldn’t do any of it.

They had annihilated an entire small cell of HYDRA (well, Darcy had, anyway), but SHIELD was coming and they were going to have so many questions, starting from how Natasha had known about the Lemurian Star and how she’d reached a ship in the middle of the Ocean.

That was without touching the dozen of corpses Natasha was sure she was going to find as soon as she climbed on the deck again.

No, Natasha and Darcy had to disappear, and Clint couldn’t come with them, he needed to be rescued to not give Darcy and Jane up like sacrifices to an altar.

They’d saved her life and Clint’s, the least she could do was cover their asses.

“How did you even get here?” Clint was asking, awed.

“...I flew in with Darcy,” she said lamely, once she couldn’t come up with an excuse.

“I’m sorry what?”

“You heard me.”

Clint put two fingers on the bridge of his nose. “I must have misheard. You came with your ex?” “Yes,” she nodded, “she’s upstairs.”

“Natasha, what the fuck?!”

She took a deep breath. “You won’t believe me until you see it for yourself. Just… don’t freak out.”

She repeated the same sentence three times, with enough vehemence that Clint’s face was starting to show worry.

The deck was how she’d imagined it, indeed. Bodies littered the landing strip, pale-faced and wide-eyed, just as she remembered them from their safe house.

“Holy Fuck,” Clint breathed. “Your ex did this?” At Natasha’s nod, he whistled. “How are we going to cover any of this up?”

There was a curious cheep and Natasha warily approached Clint. “Don’t freak, or it’ll freak out, too.”

“What?”

With a sound of recognition, there was the sound of air being displaced, and then a THUD, as the bird that was Darcy landed right in front of them.

Clint screamed.

The bird swivelled to him, its red eyes like molten rubies and its bronze beak covered in blood.

They squared off each other for a few moments, before the creature ruffled its feathers and became completely uninterested in Clint, as if he’d passed some sort of test. Recalling Darcy’s words about sins and good deeds, he probably had just passed with flying colours.

The beast grabbed a corpse in its talons and with a mindless flap, it threw it in the ocean.

“Don’t do that!” Natasha said reproachfully. “We need names and faces for this!”

The bird’s neck elongated towards her, before it gave a slow nod.

“...Natasha?” Clint asked warily. “Is this?”

“Yep,” Natasha popped the p, “Clint, meet Darcy. Not a mutant, but very much a Fiend from another dimension.”

“Huh.” Clint scowled, then blinked and approached the bird cautiously.

The bird turned to him and clacked its mandibles together, rapidly. Clint didn’t stop. He went straight to the bird, extended a hand and just.. Touched its head.

“You’re kind of cute,” he said, shrugging. The bird pecked his hand.

“What the- Ow!”

“He didn’t appreciate the ‘mangling’, he said.”

“I barely even touched him. He should be grateful.”

When they got back, Jane was waiting for them on the couch, snoozing on an empty cup of coffee. Natasha couldn’t blame her, by the time she had made sure Clint wasn’t in critical condition and they had hightailed it, the sun was well on its way to rising up into the sky.

In fact, she herself could do with ten hours of sleep.

Darcy had shifted back into a human as soon as they’d landed on the roof of the apartment building, shaking all of her hair like she was possessed and, when that failed to produce results, she declared she would take a shower to get the saltiness out of it before it crusted.

And now here they were, staring at each other from the other sides of a kitchen table.

“So-” “So…” They spoke at the same time.

Their lips twitched upwards. “You first,” said Darcy.

Natasha nodded. “I think we need to have a conversation, like proper adults.”

Darcy smiled encouragingly.

“I think I need to apologize,” Natasha started. “I didn’t have all the facts, I was very much wrong to accuse you without asking for your side of the story, and I shouldn’t have judged you like that.”

“You shouldn’t have, no.”

“I am not entirely comfortable with your other form. I am being completely honest with you, I don’t think I will ever find it cute or adorable. You are, the creature is not.”

She took a deep breath. “However, I do realize that your job and my job are different only in name, and I was being hypocritical with a simple label. I do believe I am working for a better world and that doing my job is a necessary part of a better society, but while I cannot be happy about people dying, I do now know that your choices are limited.”

“They are,” Darcy confirmed. “They don’t exactly sell blood bags to unpaid interns, no.”

Natasha nodded. That was something they could consider for the future, but not in the short term.

“I know that you don’t need me to tell you what to do, you don’t want me to ‘save you’, and I respect that. I am not asking for forgiveness, either. I was out of line and stuck a knife in your shoulder - sorry about that too, by the way.” Darcy rolled her eyes “I threw you out of a window, Nat, we’re fine on that.”

“But not on the rest of it, we are not okay.”

Darcy sighed. “No, no we are not okay.” She put her hands through her still-damp hair. “I am not proud of what I do. However, I am what I am and I cannot change that. It doesn’t work that way. You cannot feed carrots to a lion and you cannot expect to have me not eat and still keep my human form. And I am not saying it lightly, but you hurt me. You hurt me a lot, and I thought that out of all of the people around me, you would understand me best. Better than the people living in this apartment, better than Jane’s friend Erik, who I like but my God is he judgemental… better than Jane. You know what it feels like, wondering if this one hunt is the one that changes you again. I have changed once already, and having a human soul is hard. Every day is hard and I hoped you of all people would get my struggle.”

“And I walked all over that,” Natasha frowned.

“You did. And I understand why you did that, you have worked hard for your morals, I get it, but it still hurt. I hoped we had something worth fighting for, and I felt horribly mistaken.”

“I’m sorry,” Natasha apologized again.

“I wish I could say it’s okay, but it’s not okay, not yet.”

“...Will we be okay?” she dared to ask.

Darcy flinched. “I don’t know. Maybe? I want to say yes. I love you, Natasha. But the wound is fresh and I need you to be able to be my friend first.”

She still loved her. And with a jolt, Natasha realized she loved her back, too.

For the first time in a very long while, Natasha felt like crying. She could tell Darcy she loved her too, she could say it back and relieve herself of the revelation she just had, but it wouldn’t be fair. It wasn’t fair, and she couldn’t do that to her.

“I’ll try my best,” she promised instead, putting her hands on the table. For Darcy, she would try and be the very best person she could be.

“I’ll try my best, too,” Darcy’s hand came to rest a top of hers. “We will do it together.”

“Just like we started- just, no more lies.”

“No more lies.”

Natasha nodded. “Because I have so many questions for you, you have no idea.”

“Oh, thank God!” Darcy gasped. “I’ve seen this ‘Dancer’ sign above your head since we first met and I am dying to know all the details!”

Natasha let out a chuckle, happy that the serious mood had lifted somewhat. “Is this what you’re curious about? And on that topic, is that how you see people’s sins?”

Darcy made a shaky gesture. “Nah, that’s for the other form to know, I just see what you do with your life, or something. I swear some of the people should have ‘professional asshole’ above their head but here we are. Jane just says ‘witch’ for example,” she scrunched her face in concentration. “I don’t think there’s a word for astrophysicist…”

“And mine says ‘dancer’?”

“And assassin and murderer, of course,” Darcy shrugged, “it’s just that one I cannot explain.”

The spy blinked. “Huh. Is that what made you crash that speed date? My name tag?”

Darcy flushed. “Actually, it was the way you declared loudly that you wanted to kill people that attracted my attention. Then I saw the tag and thought ‘Holy shit, she’s for real’. The rest is history.”

She didn’t know if it was the ridiculousness of the situation or the adrenaline wearing off, but the chuckles became full-blown laughter. “And here I thought it was my charming personality.”

“As if,” Darcy laughed. “I’m the charmer here, we know that.”

“That we do,” acquiesced Natasha with grace.

They spent a few minutes in comfortable silence, enjoying each other’s company, when they heard Jane’s muffled “Darcy?” coming from the living room.

“In the kitchen, boss lady!” Darcy called out to her, smiling at Natasha.

Jane was not a graceful sight in the morning. Her hair was mussed up like a rat’s nest and more often than not she had drool on her cheek, on the side she slept on. However, she also didn’t care about anything but coffee, so pointing it out made no difference at all to her.

“You’re back!” she muttered, her body automatically going for the coffee pot.

“We did.” “Did you get your friend back?” Natasha nodded while Darcy launched herself into a quick retelling of the story. Jane looked as enthralled as a student of literature during a physics lecture.

“Well,” she yawned, “I’m glad you got him back.” She shuffled to a chair and started drinking.

They were the picture of domesticity, with Jane half asleep and Darcy patting her shoulder comfortingly. Mornings were, according to Jane, hard.

“So am I,” Natasha said. “I want my friends safe at all costs. Which is why I am having this next conversation with you, Jane.”

Jane’s eyes shifted a bit with a look of comprehension. “You don’t think we’re safe.”

“I’ll keep her safe,” said Darcy loyally.

“Yes, of course,” Natasha said. “But why risk it? Clint and I will be going after HYDRA and it will be… gruesome, to say the least. I want you out of the scene, far, far away from HYDRA’s eyes.”

Darcy looked indignant at her powers being put into discussion, but Jane just looked thoughtful. “I’m sure you know best, I guess.” “Jane!”

“No, Darcy,” said Jane. “Natasha is not completely wrong. Besides, we were already thinking of moving to New Mexico to help Erik, weren’t we? We’ll just… move the schedule up a bit.”

Darcy just stared open-mouthed at her friend, before groaning. “Fine!” she then pointed to Natasha. “But you and your friend are going to help us pack. If I have to pack another of her thingamajigs because of science I will kill someone.”

Natasha could take her wins gracefully when it came to easy ones. “Deal. Clint will be eager to see you again.”

“I’m sure,” Darcy muttered. “He seemed very… extroverted.”

Natasha sighed loudly. “Yes, he is that. But he grows on you.”

Jane blinked, politely confused. “...Like warts?” Oh, she had no idea.

Jane and Darcy moved to stay with their friend, Erik Selvig, and thus started SHIELD’s campaign against HYDRA.

It took months and finding actual Captain America to see the matter closed, but Natasha was eager to finally leave her latest bolthole and go back to her actual house.

“God, I miss my family so much,” said Clint, as content as she was to finally leave. They were standing in their new adjoined office which Coulson had insisted could not be divided and had to be shared. To Clint’s displeasure, Natasha had won the chair with the outside view.

“You’ll be able to see Laura and the kids,” Natasha smiled. “Tell them I miss them, too.” “I will.” Clint waggled his eyebrows. “Going to see the murder bird?”

“No,” Natasha scoffed. “And don’t call her that.” “Oh come on, Nat, don’t tell me it hasn’t grown on you, with those little horns and the fluffy neck!”

“You are deranged. It’s ugly as sin.” It was true that she’d started to get used to how Darcy’s other form looked, but she still didn’t like it. “Nooo. It’s cute after you get used to the eyes! And soft, too!” Clint rolled his eyes. “But I was thinking, to solve the whole murdering people in dark alleys. We’ve got a job. And that job is also disappearing people. So maybe, and I’m just saying it as a maybe…” Natasha’s eyes widened. “You want her to have a go at the corpses?”

Clint winced. “I wouldn’t put it like that, but think about it… We’re killing them already, no?”

As loathe as Natasha was to admit it, Clint had a very valid point. “...I’ll talk to her about it.”

“You do that,” Clint nodded. “When are you seeing her next?”

“A few months, I think,” Natasha stretched on the seat of the Quinjet. “Jane said they found something in New Mexico and want to check it out.”

“Sounds fun.” It did not sound fun, Darcy was probably in boredom hell right now.

“Indeed,” she said. “So, pizza? It’s on me.”

Clint nodded excitedly and left, waving his hand.

Natasha rolled her chair to look at the sky and smiled.

Things weren’t fine, but they would be. In time.