It's not the way I planned it
Morning rolled around and a tired Natasha was confronted with a very hyperactive child at 8:30 am. A child who ran in in a very overly energetic and enthused way and threw herself onto her sleeping mother. A child that placed both hands on her mothers cheeks and offered her the brightest smile that she'd had out of her in days and that made her waking her up so abruptly worth it.
She offered her child a soft laugh.
"Morning to you too, bright eyes." With both hands on her daughter's cheeks to mirror what her daughter had done to her, she placed a kiss against her forehead.
"I'm sorry I was so grumpy, momma," the little girl spoke gently, cuddling into her very glad mother. "I was just mad that we had to leave again. We always had to leave and I wanted to stay."
She could understand it. Natasha herself as a child had never been a particularly social creature, she'd never been allowed to be anywhere close to normal. She knew that her child lived a very different life to her and she was glad for that, she'd rather die than allow Emiliya to share the same fate that she had, she'd do all she could to ensure that her daughter remained a normal, happy child. She'd left almost everyone she knew behind when she left here which was pretty much any social connections she had all but ended except for a select few.
She wasn't a child in the eyes of those that 'raised her' though. Back when she'd been young the closest thing that she'd had to a friend was Yelena and they were more rivals than actual friends. Yelena wanted to be better than Natasha and Natasha was conditioned to prove that would never happen. It wasn't as though they were ever going to be like normal kids. She didn't have stories of childhood friends. She didn't have anything real from back then that much she was aware of, all of it was implants and lies.
All of it was whatever they needed her to be at the time and that was nothing more than a weapon, a beautiful, deadly Spider that they sent out into the world to accomplish their own ends. She wasn't a person, she'd always been Ivan's little pet she'd just been too stupid, too young and too naive to see it. She'd been forced to marry someone she hadn't loved but they'd implanted it into her that she did while they took away the person that she did love because they weren't allowed to care for one another over their forced loyalty.
Her and James had been the one thing that was real.
"We're safer here, I know you wanted to stay and I know you were happy but I promise you, I'm doing this for your own good. I know you don't get it right now but when you're older you will, you will and you'll know that everything I did was because I wanted you to be safe and happy." Ultimately that was all that mattered.
Ultimately that was all that would ever matter to her.
"I trust you, momma," the little girl spoke gently, offering her mother a smile.
Natasha mussed her hair and let out a soft laugh.
"Go get dressed okay? We'll go for breakfast then I need to go see some friends." That? That made her just as nervous as speaking with James, that made her just as nervous as going to see Steve.
Her life was slowly but surely becoming more and more exposed to those around her and she hated it.
She hated that her secrets were no longer going to be her own but there was no way in hell she could ask for help if she was keeping everything to herself and it was help indeed that she needed. She needed her friends to know why she'd run and why she'd come back, she needed them to know why she needed their help and the only way that she was going to be able to do that was finally tell them the truth, it didn't mean that she had to like it though.
Stark Tower hadn't changed one bit since she'd left, it was still as ostentatious as ever but then Tony Stark wasn't a man that would ever change his ways and she knew it, he'd been exactly the same as long as she'd known him and a part of her was glad for that. She held the hand of an 8 year old girl as she walked into the foyer, she'd been half tempted to just go to Tony's penthouse but it was Monday and she knew he'd be here.
He did like to work. He always had, he always had his head in some project or another and she was proved exactly right when she stepped off the elevator and into his lab.
"Tony Stark," Natasha spoke playfully. "Nine years and you still look as handsome as ever."
He turned then to look at her and a shocked expression settled on his features. His brow furrowed as he studied her and took in the woman before him, the very same woman that he hadn't seen for nine years now and the very same woman that he'd been told was dead for years now. Many theorised that she'd followed her love to the grave though not through her own volition. Natasha wasn't that kind of person.
"Natasha?" He spoke as he could hardly believe that he was standing there before her. "Where- How-"
She offered him a gentle smile and inclined her head to the child who was staring up at him curiously.
"I left because of her." That was - in her eyes - explanation enough.
He studied the youngster then, she had bright blue eyes and reddish-brown hair and she looked toward him curiously but every so often her eyes would flick to something around the room that made a noise and that brought a smile to Tony's lips.
"She's yours?" Obvious question. "Right, of course, she is. She seems like a curious little thing."
Could he really expect anything less though? Little Widow was bound to be quite the bright little thing, her mother was after all and not many gave Natasha the credit she was due for her intelligence. Tony Stark was not a man that made that mistake, he'd underestimated her one too many times in the past to know that it was a bad idea.
"She's a smarty pants." Little bit of a smart ass too but she wasn't going to say that, instead she just grinned.
Tony noted her expression and laughed.
"Well I'm assuming you aren't here because you wanted me to meet your kid, unless you did in which case I'm honored but last I heard you were dead."
"Yeah, you and everyone else." Natasha shrugged. "I'm here because I need your help and she needs to meet the people in my life that actually matter."
Which was exactly why the first two people she'd met from Natasha's life had been Clint and Logan. If Natasha was going to stay here then the people in her life would have to be a part of Emiliya's world, too. She wanted them to know from her that she had a child. She wanted to be the one to ask them in her own way to be a part of her life too.
"Emiliya, this is Tony Stark. He's an old friend of mine. Tony, this is Emiliya."
"Did you make all these things yourself?" The child asked, her voice full of wonder.
Tony let out a small chuckle and nodded his head.
"You wanna look around? Go on, I don't mind."
Emiliya turned questioning hopeful eyes toward her mother who after a long pause nodded her head in approval and she ran off.
"She won't break anything, she's more likely to sit there for hours trying to figure out how it all works." Natasha knew her daughter, she wasn't destructive.
Intelligent and curious yes, destructive no. She'd spend hours quite happily in here watching everything and trying to figure out how it all worked just to settle her own curious nature. She had always been inquisitive ever since she was a baby, she'd asked a million questions about absolutely everything and Natasha had always loved it.
"Smart like her mom," Tony commented offhandedly with a shrug. "I presume she's Barnes' kid?"
With a raised brow, he watched Natasha nod then sigh.
"I'm sorry, that's gotta be rough..." Tony softened considerably then.
"He's not dead. Barnes and Rogers lied to everyone and faked the whole thing." She was trying to quell her anger. "He's alive, Tony."
Tony let out a small, humorless laugh as he shook his head and reached out to stroke the top of Natasha's arm gently in what he hoped was a reassuring way, Tony was usually really crappy at these kinds of things but he tried his best to be there for the people he cared about; it was a damn cruel thing to do to anyone, he'd known how much Barnes had meant to Natasha. He'd known all too well that she loved him and Natasha didn't do weakness like that usually not even way back when they'd first met and they'd been a thing.
Huh, it felt like forever ago since then. So much had changed for both of them over the years that it was easy to bury that and carry on with a friendship that while challenged and sometimes seemingly impossible endured and he was glad for that. He cared for Natasha and he knew she did for him too. She'd had his back more than once and he'd had hers.
"What an ass," he rolled his eyes as he spoke. "I hope you beat the hell out of him for it."
She laughed then, truly, actually laughed for the first time since she'd gotten back here and she genuinely, honestly wished that she'd been able to because he did deserve it but at the same time it wasn't the right thing to do and she knew it, she knew that Tony did too so instead she shook her head but smiled anyway.
"No, I mean don't get me wrong I was tempted but it isn't fair on her. She found out about it yesterday just like me. It was a hell of a day." That was putting it mildly.
In truth, she was trying her best to cope with it far better than she actually was.
"So, what do you need?" He might not be a spy and he might not have her training but even he could see she needed to get off that subject for a little while.
"I'm in some trouble and I could use all the help I can get to keep her safe." She launched into an explanation about Alexei then, trying her best to include as much detail as she could without making it too much of an impossible task to process.
"You know I'll do anything I can, you don't even need to ask." He glanced back at the child for a moment. "After everything we've been through you know, I'll always be here for you."
That was one down and many, many to go but at least she knew she could count on him just as she'd hoped she could. She had a whole goddamn list of people that she had to speak to yet, she was already exhausted and dreading it but she had to go and talk to Steve... Yell, she had to go and yell at Steve but she'd try her damn best to keep it as calm as she possibly could because he'd stood right there and lied to her face.
He should've sat her down and told her the truth himself, he owed her that much after lying to her all this time. The moment he'd found out she had a child he should have told her the damn truth. He'd still stood there and held to his pretense and so that on top of the whole Alexei situation made Steve pretty much on the top of her You're an asshole list. She released a sigh at the very thought of it. Tony offered her a questioning look.
"I have to go talk to Steve."
Tony smirked then and shook his head at her. "You mean you have to go kick his ass."
She shrugged her shoulders. "Same thing."
Both of them looked back at the curious child who was playing with one of Tony's robotic arm prototypes. She seemed quite immersed in studying the mechanisms and the synthetic muscles. She reached out a hand and picked up one of Tony's tools, she moved something over just at the joint of the wrist and sliced the skin-type surface covering it and she studied what was beneath it.
"You have it all wrong here, it's too tight. The hand won't move properly because it'll pull too much, it'll send overstimulation to the nervous system and they won't be able to use it properly. It'll seize up." She commented, tilting her head softly to the side.
Tony walked over to see what she was doing.
"If you loosen the muscle it'll work better, less pull. There's too much pressure because it's too close that's why the movement is so stiff. If this is being used as a human limb for people that lost their own it's gonna cause a lot of pressure on the nerves." She reiterated her point by poking the muscle with the scalpel in her hand, it seized up immediately and wouldn't move back despite the visual struggle the arm was having to right itself. The girl sounded far older than she actually was.
"It's just a test." Tony grinned as he walked over. "One of my interns made it. I'll have to tell them they were outsmarted by a kid. How do you know all this stuff?"
"I studied biology with aunt Bobbi." The little girl shrugged her shoulders. "She's smart."
Natasha couldn't help but laugh. Tony though looked astonished and more than a little impressed by the girl. She was smart as hell though he supposed he shouldn't have expected anything else, she was Natasha's child and her mother was one of the smartest people Tony knew, she just hid it well. Natasha was one of those people that most underestimated once, most didn't have the gall to do it twice.
"Told you she wouldn't break anything." She walked over placing her hand on her daughter's shoulder. "We should get ready to go."
Tony flicked his eyes to Natasha.
"Let her stay. She can school me some more." He could tell Natasha was stressed enough. "Pick her up later, she'll be safe here."
Natasha looked apprehensive, her eyes flicked between Tony and her daughter and she was just about to tell him that she was happier taking her with her when her daughter's bright eyes turned toward her with a grin on her features and a pleading Oh can I momma? broke the girl's lips leaving her very little option but to nod. Tony was now officially the third person in the world that had been left alone with her child.
"Okay fine," she conceded with a small sigh. "But you be good okay?"
"She'll be perfectly fine, Natasha," Tony soothed, placing his hand on her shoulder. "I won't let anything happen to her, this is one of the most secure places in the city."
Natasha knew that already but it didn't alleviate her anxieties one bit. She appreciated the help she really did, it wasn't as though she didn't trust Tony either because he knew she did and so did she, they'd been through too much and he had no reason to want to hurt her but it was the anxiety of motherhood and the worry that everything she was going through would end up destroying the innocence she'd so desperately tried to preserve in her daughter.
"Go and do what you need to do, you can pick her up later. I'll feed her and everything." Tony smiled an honest, genuine smile.
"Fine, fine. Just... Call me if anything happens?" She knew he would but she still said it anyway.
She knew if anything happened she'd know about it immediately because there'd be an alert sent to absolutely everyone in their lives, everyone worked together that was the whole point of being a team. The roster of The Avengers may have changed more times than any of them could keep up with but the always had one another's backing no matter what.
Arriving at SHIELD, Natasha kept her phone in her hand simply because she didn't want to miss any potential calls, she was uneasy about leaving her daughter with Tony, it wasn't because she didn't trust him but because she wasn't used to anyone that wasn't Clint or Logan having her on their own, she supposed though now that she was back around everyone else she was going to have to start trusting them especially when things started to get really bad.
When things started to get really bad, she couldn't take her daughter into the field with her so she was going to have to start trusting other people too, Logan and Clint would be right by her side when that eventuality came so they weren't options. Natasha's anxiety didn't seem to want to abate. She made her way into Steve's office and her expression was somewhere between angry, anxious and downright frustrated. Her mind was racing.
Studying him, the redheaded spy remained quiet for a few long moments. She flicked her eyes around the room and noted the collection of pictures on the wall, people SHIELD was targeting she supposed. The window overlooked the garden behind the building which was actually quite beautiful and a relaxing place, she knew in a place like this they needed that every once in a while. She wondered when they'd put that in because it wasn't there when she was here, it had been a barely functioning building that had obviously since been knocked down.
Steve raised a brow at her before he offered her a look of apology that she shrugged off and he sighed. He should have known she would, she was angry and she had every right to be.
"You're an ass," Natasha stated it matter-of-factly.
Steve conceded with a nod.
"I deserve that." He could see she was hurt. "I didn't want to lie to you for what it's worth."
"Honestly? Not a whole lot," Natasha muttered. "You did lie."
Steve Rogers - a man that had prided his life on honor and doing the right thing - was not overly fond of being called a liar, granted he'd done enough to deserve that from her but it was hard for him to hear and he struggled to do so without wincing. Natasha's anger and pain were justified, he just wish he'd known what she was going through sooner.
"I'm not going to patronize you saying if I knew I'd have told you the truth sooner," Steve sighed then. "But I did tell him I thought it was a lousy idea."
He really had, he'd really tried to tell Bucky that he was making the wrong move but his best friend had been so convinced that he was doing the right thing that Steve had realized quickly that there was no talking him out of it. He'd hated the plan since its conception and he made no secret of that but it wouldn't lessen anything for Natasha at all.
"She lived 8 years without a father, Steve. How the hell is that fair on her?" Natasha was barely holding it together. It wasn't just her that had suffered.
"It isn't. None of this is fair and I'm sorry Natasha, truly I am," he sounded earnest.
She knew Steve, he regret what he'd done and he wished that he hadn't done it and he wished that he'd have been able to help her through it all. She knew that he'd have never done anything to intentionally hurt her and he'd have done all he could for her if she'd stayed but it had been her choice to leave. She'd lied just as much as he had but she'd done so to protect a child, he'd thought he was protecting his best friend. They were both at fault but at the same time neither was.
It was a hard situation.
"Where is-" Steve started the question but stopped. It was none of his business.
"With Tony. She was giving him a hard time about how lousy his interns were when I left." She couldn't help but smile at that.
Steve though looked surprised, clearly the fact that she'd left her child alone with Tony Stark; Natasha trusted Tony and he knew that but leaving her child alone with him was something that he hadn't seen her doing. He supposed though that Tony earned far more of her trust at this point than he did or even the child's father.
"She's so smart, she likes to learn about things. He was working with a prosthesis and she told him how he could fix it, that kinda stuff makes her happy. She loves to learn."
"That doesn't surprise me at all." A small smile made its way onto Steve's features. "You and her father are both very intelligent."
It wasn't through their enhancements either. A lot of people didn't think all that much of either one's intellect and Steve knew it was a foolish mistake to make, it wasn't just strategy they were good at but far more. Natasha made a lot of her own equipment long before she trusted Tony to do it and even then she didn't allow him to do much of it. She'd always done everything on her own terms ever since he'd met her.
"She shocks even me sometimes. I swear she learns things so quickly, I guess her enhanced genes are probably a good part of that. Her brain processes information faster than most other peoples does. She's spent her whole life learning. She speaks 6 languages, she can read books way above her age range... She's something else entirely, she never fails to impress me," Natasha sounded proud.
She had every damn right to be, too.
"I really do hope you can forgive me, Natasha. I know I don't have any right to ask you that but I hope you do someday." Steve Rogers wore a sad smile.
Natasha glanced toward him and she shook her head.
"That's just it: I'm not angry at you Steve, I'm hurt that you'd lie to me. You should've told me when I came in and you met her. You shouldn't have sent him along on his own, it could've caused irreparable damage, I don't know what I'd have done if Em hadn't taken it all as well as she did." First and foremost she was a mother, she had to protect her daughter even if she was protecting her from her own father.
"She's smart, she's surpassed everything a normal kid her age does but she's still a kid. She's still 8 years old. She could've freaked out and it could've hurt her so that's what I'm mad about Her. I'm mad at what it could've done to her. She's adaptable but she's just a kid and it's my job to protect her," Natasha shook her head.
The truth was she didn't feel like she was doing a good job at all of doing that lately. Alexei, dragging her all the way to New York, Bucky being back... It was a hell of a lot for her to process but a parent back from the dead could have caused a whole hell of a lot of problems for Emiliya.
"She wished for him to be there, did he tell you that? She wished for him to come back. That little girl, the one that amazes me every damn day wished upon a star for her daddy back because she still believes in magic." There was a sadness in Natasha's voice as she spoke.
"She handled it all so well but I couldn't take it if it'd hurt her. If it'd hurt her I'd have-" She inhaled, shaking her head.
She wasn't sure what she'd have done if she was going, to be honest.
"I don't- I don't know I just- I need to keep her safe, Steve." She needed him to understand that if he didn't understand that he couldn't be a part of this.
"I understand." He spoke softly. "I haven't handled any of this in nearly as decent a way as you deserved. I truly am sorry, Natasha. I'm sorry to both of you and I'll do whatever I can to take care of you and her. I'll do whatever I can to keep you both safe, you've always been a good friend to me and I care about you."
"I have some information for you, by the way," Steve stated after a long moments pause. "I think there's a lot in there you may find useful."
So did she if she was going, to be honest. She needed any advantage she could get over the hell she was facing.
This could be the most horrendous thing she'd ever faced and she knew it but she was doing it for a damn good reason, there was no way in hell Alexei was going to best her and there was even less a chance he was going to get his hands on her daughter.
Ever.