Part 6 - 2012
Natalia’s group regathered outside the tower, beginning to say their goodbyes. “So what are you doing now?” she whispered to you.
You shrugged, “I have a plane to return to Ireland. Plus a house there.”
“I thought I could detect an accent”
“I lean into it more when I’m there” you offered, removing the Russian completely from your voice.
“Is that so… can I come with you?”
Your eyes widened at the question, you’d been preparing to ask her that, now the roles were reversed. “Yeah- I- of course”
“Great. My apartment here got destroyed so otherwise I’d have to bunk with Clint until Stark rebuilds this as an Avengers tower”
Your heart fell, you were just the temporary accommodation. Then she’d be back and gone from you again. She seemed to notice, biting her lip slightly, but she didn’t say anything. The two of you said goodbye to her team, then you drove off towards where you’d left the jet.
“You didn’t land in JFK?”
“It was shut, something to do with flying aliens restricting airspace”
“Oh yeah” she sighed, and you fell back into silence. It lasted a couple of minutes before she spoke up again, “I spent eighty years looking for you…”
“That’s a long time. I’m sorry” you replied. But even you noticed the bitterness in your tone, you hadn’t meant to but it slipped through regardless.
“You don’t need to apologise, it’s just- I don’t want to lose you again” she confessed with a sigh, and you risked a glance over at her. She was looking down at her lap and you nudged her, smiling when she looked up.
“I’d rather not lose you either”
“You up for a change in scenery” she asked you honestly and you nodded.
“About time, I don’t know how much longer I can look identical to ‘24′ year old me”
She giggled, “how long has it been?”
“A bit over 6 years”
“You’re a good looking 30 year old”
“Why thank you”
“So, anyway, I talked to Tony- and obviously this is only if you’re up for it- but if you do want I was thinking- maybe, you could move into the tower with me?”
You glanced at her again, smirk on your face when you saw her fidgeting with her hands. “How did that sound even more nervous than the first time you asked?” you teased.
She rolled her eyes at your smug face, “is that a yes?”
“It’s a yes” you confirmed, then continued, “is it because I’m older now?”
She relaxed back into her seat, turning her head to watch you drive, “I mean, what were you going to do last time? say no? You were 16 and your options were to stay or freeze to death.”
“I might have”
“You wouldn’t”
“I wouldn’t” you agreed.
Arriving at the airstrip, you handed the car back and boarded the jet, glad to see it had been refuelled when you were gone.
“So you know how to fly a jet” the redhead began once you were both settled in the cockpit.
“It’s been an eventful 200 years”
“You’re telling me” she scoffed, “so what else have you been up to?”
It took a while for you to reply, too focused on working to get the plane into the air to start with. “I’ve been here and there” you finally said, “the vampire who turned me, he spent maybe 15 or so years continuing the experiments on me, testing what would effect vampires”
“Just you, or…”
“There were a whole bunch of us. He wanted us to survive, but he didn’t care, not really, a lot didn’t make it. He wanted to find out more ways to kill us.” You exhaled, glad to finally get that off of your chest. So many people had told you it felt better to talk about your trauma, but who were you supposed to tell? Connor from the butchers? ‘oh hey man, you’re skilled with a knife, just like the guy who chopped at me a couple of hundred years ago to see if I’d die’.
Natalia though, you could tell Natalia. She knew about you, and you used to tell her everything back when you used to live with each other. She rested her head on your shoulder, the small act comforting you more than words.
“Someone else killed him” you continued, “but they only became the new leader, didn’t free us. The experiments stopped at least, she had us working for the Russian government instead, apparently she was some agent before she was turned. Red Room or something. They trained assassins.”
Natalia stiffened next to you, and sat up straight again. You stayed quiet, expecting an elaboration from her. When she didn’t, you spoke, “you know it” you prompted. It wasn’t a question.
“I didn’t- I- well. I didn’t do well with losing you. I made some bad choices.” She shot you a sad smile, apologetic in a way. “When I gave up on you. When I thought you must be dead. I let them capture me. I was back in Russia, I- I went on a rampage, killed a lot of people.” She sighed, gritting her teeth before going on, “a group of women surrounded me, holding guns. I have enough practise to avoid getting shot now-” you let out a quiet laugh and a smile ghosted her features. “-I could have escaped them but I just… didn’t. I’d given up so I let them take me. They were from the Red Room. Trained me to be a Black Widow.”
She didn’t have to say what came next, nor did you have to explain the next years of your life. You’d both given up. Innocent people had died because of that.
“How long for?” you asked softly
“112 years. I only just got out.”
“We overlapped” you calculated.
“When did you get out?”
“1905. That first revolution. Blew down the wall of my cell and I just… ran as far as I could.”
“I wish I held out for you”
“You shouldn’t. You weren’t going to find me. I prefer that you lived some sort of life.”
“I literally only got out 10 years ago” she smirked, but there was no humour behind it.
“Natalia-”
“Barton found me. Shot me before I could see him. We had a nice heart to heart and he broke me out of the Red Room’s brainwashing. Took me to America to work for SHIELD instead.”
There was a beat of silence as you worked out what to say. “I’d hug you right now, but I’m kind of flying a plane”
She laughed, and you smiled over at her, “When we land then. I’ll hold you to it”
“I wouldn’t dream of letting you down”, another pause, “thank you… for looking for me and going through… all of that”
“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had” she shrugged, as if that made up for it.
“It’s weird, how short 10 years seems now”
“That’s because you’re old” she teased with a grin,
“I am only in my early 200s thank you very much. Unlike some people here”
She shook her head laughing, before sobering, “those 10 years felt longer than the next 190 years, more important.”
“That’s because we were changing still while the world stayed still. Now we’re the same yet the world has changed so much.” The jet was quiet after your point, then Nat broke into poorly supressed laughter.
“Did you get that from a fortune cookie? Because it sure sounds like it”
“Hey” you pouted, “I was trying to be honest”
“Speak for yourself. I’d been a vampire for 150 years at that point. I was not ‘changing’“
You sighed but didn’t hide the smile tugging at your lips. You’d missed her. “Fine. Well I was biologically changing. You were emotionally changing”
“Emotionally changing? Now what the hell is that?”
“Changing emotionally” you deadpanned, earning an unamused stare from Natalia.
“I saved people before I met you and I saved them after I met you too”
“But you didn’t bake them cakes for their birthdays, did you Tsarevna?”
She rolled her eyes, “maybe I did, and you didn’t notice”
You gasped, playing along with her game, as if she hadn’t just confessed to spending 80 years looking for you and then becoming slightly- read very- villainous when she couldn’t find you. Not that you blamed her at all, if you had known she was alive and you hadn’t been locked up you definitely would have done the same.
Michael was quick to inspect his plane when you landed. “I suppose I can’t fault you. There’s not one scratch”
“Told you” you answered, “I’m a good pilot”
He shook his head lightly, “what did you even need it so urgently for?”
“Had to meet a friend”, you indicated over your shoulder to where Nat was standing. She waved.
“You flew 13 hours both ways to pick up a friend?”
“She’s a good friend”
“Must be. Did she fly some of it? You can’t have been there long enough to rest between flights”
Oh yeah. You’d forgotten about normal things, like exhaustion. “Uh yeah, we switched it a bit on the way back. I got my rest, don’t worry” you lied.
“My main worry now is that you let a stranger fly my plane!” he exclaimed again with fake annoyance. His plane was fine.
Nat spoke up from behind you, “the American government let me fly for them. I’m a good pilot”. When you turned around she had two thumbs up and a cheesy grin on her face.
“Hmmph, Americans” Michael grumbled, “well at least it’s not the English”
Now it was your turn for mock offense, “you know I’d never give your plane to the English, come on Michael”
“I should hope not. Now off you two go. I need to inspect my plane properly”. You said goodbye and thanked him again. Then you led Nat through the familiar streets back to your house.
“Nice place” she commented
“It’s no castle” you shrugged, “but real estate isn’t what it used to be”. You probably could afford a castle, 200 years of working and investing making you richer than your average mortal. But you wanted to blend in, not draw attention to yourself so it wasn’t clear that you hadn’t aged at all. So you settled for a two bedroom house, a little bit on the small side, but it was no issue. You had many houses in multiple countries, and you switched between then, so everything you owned was equally distributed too.
“Do you still own the castle?” you asked, and she nodded.
“Inherited it from myself about 10 years ago” she said proudly, “very nice place”
“So which ancestor was Natalia Romanov?”
She hesitated, “great, great, grandmother? See, two generations of my family always seem to die at the same time, it’s tough to know” she smirked, running with the joke. In fairness, it was an easier way to deal with the whole inheritance thing, pretend you had a lot of children.
It was a lot easier back in 1800s Russia, when the government didn’t bother checking, at least not in the small town you lived in.
You showed Natalia to your guest room, which was even more sparsely decorated than your other rooms, and left her to be. Telling her to call for you if you needed anything.
You were sat in the living room watching TV when you heard her padding in. “Y/N”
You hummed in response, looking up, only to see her clad in nothing but a towel. It covered the main part of her body, but you still looked away, feeling like you’d intruded. “You’ve seen me worse, don’t get modest now” she teased and you chastised yourself mentally. I mean sure you didn’t realise you had a crush on her back then, but she was right.
“What’s up Nat?”
“Yeah, I just had a shower, right? And it’s just occurred to me that I didn’t bring any clothes.”
“Oh”, your mouth opened and you forced it shut into a tight smile. “You can just borrow mine and then we can go out shopping.” You checked your watch, “there’s still time today”
“Thanks Y/N/N”
“Anytime Tsarevna”. She followed you up to your room, watching intently as you sorted through your drawers and wardrobe, now was exactly the time to wonder why you’d never sorted the clothes. There were still some outfits here that you’d last worn in the 1940s; you doubted they’d be back in style anytime soon.
And so you settled on the basic clothing; “here you go, trousers, t-shirt, hoodie” you announced as you thrust them at her.
She raised an eyebrow, “trousers?”
“Don’t get all American, this is Ireland. Trousers, брюки if you prefer.”
“I do prefer that, yes”
“I know I agreed to move in with you, but I’m not switching to American slang”
“As you wish” she poked, “but I do also need underwear”
You would definitely be blushing now. You dipped your head to avoid Nat’s smirk as you threw some over.