Chapter 6
“Do not tell me you’re seriously considering getting into that thing,” Tony warns Natasha, grabbing her shoulder harshly. He lowers his voice. “These people…aren’t even really people. We have absolutely no data on the effects on a human body. This could kill us.”
“Well, we already died once,” Natasha muses jokingly, raising an eyebrow.
When Tony’s serious expression doesn’t waver, she falters. She’d been expecting Tony to be excited about the possibility of genetically altering themselves for the better, to increase his chances of getting back to his wife and daughter. She’d thought this would be a no-brainer, that she’d follow him and get whatever Sovereign DNA injected into her that she could.
“You aren’t going to die. Humans aren’t that that weak,” Aerlig offers, rolling his eyes.
“Yeah, zip it, Reindeer Games. Kind of in the middle of something,” Tony snaps, pointing between himself and Natasha.
Aerlig whips his head toward Natasha to glare at her. She offers an apologetic shrug and half a smirk. Had he really expected she would never tell Tony his secret?
Al-bedo opens the door to the room where the healing pods are. “You guys might want to keep it down a bit. I can hear you out in the hallway.”
“You know, a good lookout would keep a look out, and not come in the room he’s supposed to be looking out for,” Tony calls, waving. “Shoo. Get out.”
Al-bedo sighs. “Just hurry, if you’re going to do this. We’re lucky Adam has his own healing pod that the High Priestess wants to oversee. They’ll probably be done shortly.” He exits the room again, quietly closing the door.
Gamora crosses her arms. “Tony, if you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to. But Natasha can speak for herself.”
“Uh, no,” Tony argues, pointing at her. “That is my friend, and whatever we do, we do it together. So we’re both not doing this.”
“Tony, hang on,” Natasha pleads.
She has to admit, getting alien DNA into her body is not how she wants to spend her day. The whole idea is unnatural, absurd, unheard of. Even Carol had the Tesseract’s energy to help her when the Kree gave her some of their DNA. She and Tony weren’t so fortunate.
But if this can give them a fighting chance at surviving alien attacks, surviving the trek to Earth, surviving whatever possibilities an alternate reality dishes out to them…
Whatever it takes.
Besides, she wasn’t wrong when she said they’d died already. She launched herself off a cliff for a damn rock. This couldn’t be much worse.
“Okay, look,” Tony sighs, closing his eyes. “There’s been research on crispers.”
“Crispers?” Natasha questions, her expression serious but still joking. “Like, from Chili’s? Clint loves—”
“Not crispers,” Tony huffs. “CRISPR. As in, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. CRISPR/Cas9 is the new tech of editing genomes, modifying organisms. Mainly prokaryotes. They haven’t done any modifications on humans because it’s dangerous. Stupid. Guaranteed to kill you.”
“You wielded the power of all the Infinity Stones, Tony,” Gamora points out. This makes Aerlig study Tony with renewed interest. “I’d argue that this actually won’t hurt you at all compared to that.”
“I did that to undo something else,” Tony says, beginning to pace. “This…this is playing God. I’ve tried to do that before. It didn’t work so well. Yes, humans are weaker than a lot of the alien life out there. That doesn’t mean we should change it.”
He and Natasha share a look.
The human form is inefficient, biologically speaking. We’re outmoded. But he keeps going back to it.
When you two programmed him to protect the human race, you amazingly failed.
They don’t need to be protected, they need to evolve. Ultron’s going to evolve.
Thinking back to the team, her family, Natasha is hit with a wave of longing and nostalgia she hasn’t felt since she was two years old and missing her parents. She sits down on the cover of the birthing pod, resting her elbows on her knees. She’s surprised that she wants to try this, wants to change herself. But she’ll only do it if Tony is on board with it.
She’s secretly pleased to see that he’s considering it, mumbling to himself about antibiotic resistance and different theories and continuums.
“Fine. Fuck it. We can’t let the mighty Captain and Banner be the only ones with scientifically modified genes,” Tony says, letting his arms drop dramatically to his sides. He nods to Aerlig and Gamora, who begin powering up the healing pods, entering data onto the screens in front of them.
“We can also change other aspects about yourselves,” Aerlig offers mischievously, feigning innocence. “Perhaps, Stark, you want to be less arrogant, better-looking…”
“Yeah, I’m good,” Tony snaps, taking a deep breath as he lays down in the healing pod. Natasha mirrors his movements in the pod beside him. “And I swear, I better not be gold when I get out of this thing.”
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid,” Gamora assures them, glaring at Aerlig.
Natasha takes a deep breath. She won’t let them know that she’s actually nervous. Is this how Steve felt, when he volunteered to be experimented on to help win the war? She thought he was brave before, but now she’s even more respectful of the risk he took.
She can’t wait to see him again. She misses going on runs with him and introducing him to new movies.
As the lids of the healing pods begin to close, Tony catches Natasha’s eye and gives her a reassuring smile. “You know, right before we fought Thanos, Cap held Thor’s hammer. Real badass movie. Remember that one party eight years ago, courtesy of yours truly—”
The lids snap shut, and suddenly Natasha is left alone with her own thoughts. Steve was worthy enough to wield the god of thunder’s weapon. She’s about to get Sovereign DNA in her to make her stronger. She’s going to get home.
She can’t help it. She laughs.
~
“Okay, that was my first and last time getting us breakfast,” Steve says, heaving a bag onto the bed and setting a tray with three cups on the bedside table. “Who knew you could become a rewards member for a coffee place?”
“Those of us who were born after Starbucks was founded,” Sam answers, pulling a box of pastries from the bag. He selects a croissant before biting into it. “Mmm. You know, I’m not too fond of this country, but at least they do American fast food right.”
“Everyone does American fast food right if you add enough sugar and fat,” Natasha retorts, rolling her eyes good-naturedly, grabbing one of the coffees and balancing it next to her on the bed where she’s sitting with Sam.
“Uh, I beg to differ. When we were hiding out in Indonesia? My Frappuccino was not agreeing with me when we were working out later.”
“That’s because you ordered a Frappuccino.”
Steve picks a bagel for himself and opens up his laptop. “Have you guys been watching any American news lately? That spider-kid was on last week.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t some copycat trying to imitate him?” Natasha asks.
She’s chastising herself internally for not catching that. She’s been trying to keep tabs on everyone’s whereabouts who was involved at the airport in Germany, but it’s been difficult being on the run with Steve and Sam for a few months. A bed to sleep on is never guaranteed, much less daily Internet or TV connections.
“He was holding a broken ferry together with his web stuff,” Steve says. “Pretty sure it was him.”
Natasha considers this. She hadn’t missed the protectiveness Tony had shown for the kid in Germany. When she’d had the time, she researched Spider-Man more, finding out his real name was Peter Parker and he lived with his aunt in an apartment complex in downtown Queens. She could recognize that he wanted to keep his real identity a secret, so she hadn’t told anyone else. She could relate to that.
Sam finishes off his croissant and smacks his lips together dramatically. “So what’s on the agenda for today? I’m thinking we hit the Jacuzzi, take full advantage of the free Wi-Fi, and then order room service for dinner tonight. The chicken Milanese sounds nice.”
The three of them are silent for a minute. Natasha imagines what it would be like if this were real: just three friends spending a relaxing day at their hotel, enjoying their vacation, and definitely not on the run from the United States government or searching for remaining Hydra bunkers.
“I wouldn’t mind trying the gnocchi,” she muses.
Steve turns his laptop around, showing shaky video footage of one of the Hydra operatives they’ve been trailing for the last couple of days, effectively putting an end to the joking vibe. “Van de Berg was there at this explosion. Four blocks north of here, ten minutes ago.”
Natasha and Sam have their shoes on, weapons ready and strapped on to their suits, ready to go before Steve has finished speaking. Natasha pulls her newly blonde hair into a ponytail. “I’ll take the bike. Sam, you flying?”
Sam nods in affirmation. He taps the wings on his back and climbs through their hotel window onto the small balcony. “Catch y’all there.” He dives off, disappearing from sight for a moment, before flying up and away toward the explosion.
Natasha can already hear frantic screams from people on the streets below. She nods at Steve. “You good?”
Steve gives her a tight smile, nodding. “Yeah. I’ll take the Jeep. Rendezvous at Meeting Point B.” He turns and exits the hotel room, leaving Natasha alone for a second with her thoughts.
She remembers just months ago, having meals with everyone around the table at the compound. She remembers visiting Clint and Laura and the kids every weekend. She remembers learning Sokovian with Wanda. She remembers all of that ending, so quickly, too quickly. Remembers telling Vision and Wanda to look after each other, telling Rhodey she hoped all was going well with physical therapy and to tell Tony she says hello. Going further back, she remembers learning through a damn computer in Jersey that the organization she thought was helping her wipe the red out of her ledger was actually doing the exact opposite.
Your death amounts to the same as your life—a zero sum.
Goddammit. She didn’t even get to try her coffee.
~
“Come on, Natasha, get up.”
She opens her eyes. Gamora is staring down at her intently, feeling for a pulse on her neck.
“That was only a couple of minutes. That’s it?” she asks. “Is Tony okay?”
“Tony Stark is more than okay. I believe Forbes once called him this generation’s Carnegie, but I personally vouch for Rockefeller,” the man in question answers, walking over to her. He helps her sit up and gives her a tired smile.
Natasha flexes her muscles. She feels sore, and tired too, but underneath that…
She feels different. She’s not sure how yet.
Aerlig studies her. “How do you feel?”
“I’ve had worse,” Natasha says.
“So how does this work?” Tony asks. “Or, I’m sorry. Since this has never been before, how do you predict this is going to work?”
Aerlig shrugs his shoulders. “We are not the council. We can’t give you powers you didn’t have before or alter your actual minds. Your bodies are simply…enhanced. You’ll be able to run faster. Hit harder, and likewise take harder hits. Being ejected from a ship in the middle of space won’t immediately kill you. Live longer.”
“How much longer?” Natasha questions. She doesn’t want to spend an eternity getting back to Earth only to find that everyone she’s been wanting to get back to is dead and gone.
“I don’t know,” Aerlig answers dryly.
Suddenly, Al-Bedo enters the room, looking worried.
Gamora pulls Natasha and Tony to their feet. “What is it? Is someone coming?”
“Um…yes. It’s Adam,” Al-Bedo says, and everyone immediately relaxes.
“Okay. That’s fine. We’ll get him to take us back to his quarters,” Gamora decides, pulling on a gold veil to disguise her face. Natasha and Tony follow suit. “We all need to rest after that mission. Especially these two.”
Al-Bedo shifts nervously. “Yeah…except…”
“Oh, spit it out, already,” Aerlig scoffs. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s like, two Adam’s,” Al-Bedo answers, sounding unsure of himself. “And a woman.”
Gamora swears. “He sold us out.” She turns to Tony. “How do you activate the cloaking devices?”
Tony reaches into one of the bags they’d brought on the mission. He pulls three black, long cloaks out, tossing one to Natasha and one to Gamora.
“It just requires a significant kinesthetic change,” Tony explains. “So, wave your arm, pull on the hood, whatever. You just do this—“ He pulls on the hood to demonstrate, and consequently disappears. “–and voila!”
Gamora and Natasha follow suit, disappearing under their cloaks. Natasha looks down at herself. It’s one of the most surreal things she’s experienced, and that’s counting time travelling. She can barely make out the outline of her own body.
The door opens, and Adam walks in, looking refreshed and unsettlingly calm. He’s wearing a black tactical suit and a regal-looking red and gold cape. Behind him is a Sovereign that looks nearly identical to him and is wearing a similar tactical suit sans the cape. His hair, however, instead of being gold, is a shocking shade of white. A woman trails in last, dressed in white armor and a cape similar to Adam’s.
“Hey, bud! Glad to see you’re alright,” Al-Bedo says nervously, glancing at Aerlig, who has slowly reached behind his back to clutch a knfe. This makes Natasha uneasy. If he doesn’t even trust these Sovereign…
“Hello, Al-Bedo. I had an enlightenment while in the healing pod,” Adam says, gesturing to his companions. “I’ve been striving to be a logical hero, someone who does good for all. But that’s hard to do when emotions cloud my judgement, like when I agreed to help the Zehoberei and the humans in exchange for their help. That was breaking the rules.”
“A sin,” the woman chimes in, eyes twinkling.
“Yes,” Adam agrees amicably.
Natasha knows Gamora is immediately to her left; she can hear her breathing if she concentrates hard enough. She doesn’t know where Tony is in the room, though, and these newcomers don’t look like good news for them.
“What did you do?” Aerlig asks cautiously, taking a few steps to his left. If Natasha isn’t mistaken, he goes there to effectively block her and Gamora. “I’m guessing whatever it is, the High Priestess would not approve.”
“She wouldn’t,” the man behind Adam cackles. “She’s dumb enough to trust Adam on his own.”
Adam raises his chin proudly. “I effectively eliminated good and evil from myself,” he reveals. “I am now solely a being of logic. I can now go forward with my goal of helping people without being anchored down by my emotions.”
Everything in Natasha is screaming at her to run. There’s only one door, and Adam and his entourage are blocking it. She considers using her blaster to create another exit, but she doesn’t want to attract any more unwanted attention.
She slowly reaches out her left hand to Gamora’s. She gives a simple tug, conveying a simple message: Let’s find a way out.
The two women hold hands, slowly backing away from Adam and his two companions. Natasha reaches her right hand out, hoping to bump into Tony, but grasps nothing but air. She looks around, trying to locate any part of the air that seems abnormal, but she can’t. These cloaking devices are good.
“So these are your good and evil, manifested,” Aerlig muses.
“Precisely,” the woman answers, donning a sickly sweet smile. “I am the Goddess, the manifestation of good. I wish to create peace and eradicate sin.”
“Isn’t that your goal?” Al-Bedo asks Adam. Natasha notices he’s gripping his knife behind his back. She lets go of Gamora’s hand and grabs the blaster from her belt, expecting a fight.
“My goal is to create a better world. Sometimes that means you can’t always be good,” Adam replies simply. “I wish to be a hero. I cannot do that if I am driven by my good emotions to help everyone, or driven by my evil emotions to defy direct orders. Magus—” He rests a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “—is my evil incarnate.” He cocks his head. “Speaking of evil, where are the stowaways?”
Before anyone can get a chance to answer, he’s hit with a huge beam, exploding at his feet and blowing his two new partners to the ground. The air shimmers for a minute as Tony rips off the hood of his cloak and glances frantically at Aerlig.
“Where’s Nat and Gamora?” he yells.
Natasha and Gamora whip off their hoods, running to him. Natasha takes a split second to glance down at Adam, the Goddess, and Magus, who are quickly getting to their feet. She pushes Gamora and Tony out the door as fast as she can, slamming it behind them.
The three take off sprinting down the hall with no unanimous destination.
“What was that?” Natasha shouts to Tony.
“Upgraded the blasters!” Tony yells back.
Gamora, at the front, makes a sharp right turn. “We need to get to the ship!”
They turn down another hall and run into four Sovereign civilians who look at them peculiarly. Natasha steps forward. She knows she can convince them that she’s simply a visitor, that they don’t need to call for security.
She isn’t too sure about Tony or Gamora, though.
“Hello,” she says casually, as if they’re in no rush. “Ayesha tried to send us toward the ships, but the layout is just so different from where we’re from, we got a little lost. Do you know where they are?” She makes herself taller, her stance more confident. She might hate the Red Room, but they taught her useful lessons, such as not only how to imitate another person, but how to become another person.
The civilians instantly relax. One of the women points down the hall.
“Down there and to the left,” she offers. “There’s a guard outside, but he’ll just have to confirm with the council that the High Priestess sent you, and you’ll be allowed in.”
“Thank you so much!” Natasha tells her cheerily. She begins walking down the hall at a leisurely pace. She can sense Gamora’s impatience and Tony’s anxiety behind her, but they have to commit to this so as not to arouse suspicion.
The second they turn the corner and the civilians are out of sight, Natasha breaks into a run again, Tony and Gamora following suit. Sure enough, there is a guard outside a large glass door with ships on the other side. These ones are larger than the one they’d taken on the mission to Kallu, with visible gun ports decked with heavy artillery.
Natasha rushes the guard who’s only just noticed them. She punches him in the face and then prepares to kick him in the stomach and flip him over, but after the punch, he’s knocked back into the wall, creating a human-shaped dent in it. He doesn’t get back up.
Natasha stares at her fist in shock. It’s not red in the slightest, and she feels no throbbing. She’s never punched someone hard enough to dent a wall before, let alone a Sovereign alien.
Tony and Gamora stare at her also.
“I guess it worked,” Tony says after a pause.
“That one’s closest to the exit. Let’s go!” Gamora says, snapping them out of their trance.
They’re running up the ramp when suddenly, Aerlig materializes out of thin air and blocks the doorway, a mischievous grin on his face.
“Going so soon?” he asks.
Tony swings at Aerlig, who clearly doesn’t expect to be hit and easily sidesteps the movement. But faster than Natasha’s ever seen him move, Tony pivots and uses his left leg to kick Aerlig down and his right arm to grab Aerlig’s throat.
“Move it or lose it, Prospero,” Tony snaps.
Aerlig doesn’t reply, too stunned to move. Natasha takes advantage of his hesitation and pushes past him, boarding the ship. Gamora follows right behind her, and Tony drags Aerlig with them, closing the door behind them.
Gamora hops into the pilot seat, powering up the ship and activating the guns at the front. Tony joins her in the co-pilot seat. Natasha opens the lockers lining the interior the ship, checking for weapons and food. There’s plenty to last them a few weeks.
The only problem is she has no idea where they’re going.
Gamora easily flies the ship through the opening for the exit and out into space. Natasha breathes a sigh of relief. It was suspicious that Adam hadn’t chased after them or came with Aerlig to stop them, but they were lucky for now. Speaking of which…
“Change back,” Natasha demands, kicking Loki’s shoe.
He glares up at her from his seated position on the ground. “I beg your pardon?”
“To your true self. I didn’t think it was possible, but I like this version of you even less than the original.”
Loki gives her an evil grin. “Well, if you insist on my original form, Agent, I am compelled to oblige.”
He closes his eyes for a moment. Natasha watches as his skin morphs from solid gold to a pale shade of blue-purple and his eyes glow red. She’s startled by it, and a little unnerved, but her body language portrays nothing about her thoughts. She’s the one calling the shots here, not Loki.
“What the hell?” she says, crossing her arms, waiting for an explanation.
Tony glances backwards at her voice. When his eyes rest on Loki, he whistles. “You know, I have to admit, it’s not worse than the greasy black mess you had back in New York. I mean, does Asgard even get conditioner or—”
“You’re a Frost Giant,” Gamora says, her tone accusatory. She beckons for Tony to take over in the pilot’s seat as she stands up and walks over to Natasha and Loki. “From Jotunheim. I heard Laufey was killed several years ago.”
“He might have been, in your world,” Loki sneers, shifting back to his human form, the one Natasha is familiar with. She fights the urge to punch him in the face. “As I told your dear spider earlier, this isn’t the exact dimension that you know.”
“What?” Gamora stonily breathes, turning to Natasha. “You knew and you kept this from us?”
Natasha raises her chin. She likes Gamora. Their goals are compatible with each other and she’s a worthy opponent. If they both hadn’t fallen to their deaths on Vormir, Natasha thinks they might have even been friends at one point.
But Natasha’s friends know her. They know she always does things for a reason. It’s something a few of them have had to learn the hard way…but they learn. Eventually.
Boy you’re good. You are mind-blowingly duplicitous. How do you do it? You just tear things—you’re a triple imposter. I’ve never seen anything like it. Is there anything real about you?
You know, it’s kind of hard to trust someone when you don’t know who that someone is.
Loki’s manipulating you. / And you’ve been doing what, exactly?
“There wasn’t exactly a good time,” Natasha answers steadily, raising an eyebrow.
Gamora scoffs and stomps back over to the front of the ship. She silently stands beside Tony until he gets the hint and gives up the pilot seat to her and takes the opportunity to walk down the few steps that lead into an open area with a wide view from the side of the ship.
Natasha internally sighs. Gamora has every right to be upset, but Natasha knows withholding the information about Loki was the right thing to do. Gamora is a warrior, not a spy; sometimes the best way to win a fight is to not fight at all.
Natasha collapses down in the closest seat, rubbing her temples. She smirks at Loki. “Well, I hope the chaos from today will help you sleep tonight.”
“There were many rocks in the road,” Loki agrees. “Yet it’s still leading to us going home.”
“And where is home, exactly?” Natasha interrogates, leaning forward. “Gamora is trying to find one man in the galaxy who could be anywhere. Tony and I are trying to get back to Earth. And you apparently have multiple origins. Where is home for you?”
“Wherever I make it,” Loki snarls, an evil grin on his face.
Natasha sees past the façade. She knows Loki only stayed on Sovereign because they, unlike Asgard, had valued his wit and his passion for reading and research. He didn’t feel like a burden. Natasha had too much going on in her own life in 2012 to delve into the 1500 years of emotional issues between Loki and Thor, but now…
“Wherever you’re allowed to make it,” Natasha translates. “I mean, you’re not Thor. You’re no king.”
“Oh, but I was,” Loki counters, rising to his feet, towering over her sitting form. She doesn’t flinch. “You truly believe New York was going to be the worst destruction to ever befall your precious city?”
“I don’t,” Natasha answers truthfully, making Loki falter. He recovers quickly and replaces his surprise with a scowl, but Natasha has been reading people like a book before she could actually read books. “I’ve seen worse. I’ve fought worse.” She pauses. “I’ve died for worse.”
“It might’ve been worth it for this,” Tony calls, and Natasha makes a mental note to chastise him for eavesdropping later. “Nat, come here.”
Natasha walks over to the side of the ship where Tony is, secluded from the other two passengers. The entire wall is a glass window to the space outside. Natasha draws in a breath. It’s incredible. The stars up close are fiery and bright and all different colors, and she can see faraway constellations, highlighted on skies of pink and orange. Space matter floats around, bright shades of blue and purple and white, dangerously beautiful.
Tony grins at her, the stars reflecting in his eyes. His expression is so contagious Natasha can’t help but grin back, and Tony wraps an arm around her shoulder, pulling her in close to him.
“Even if this is a different dimension,” he sighs, “somewhere, someway, we saved this. You and me. They couldn’t have done it without us. We’re heroes.”
Natasha chuckles. “You are.”
“No, I’m serious,” Tony says, pulling back his arm and turning to look straight at her. If Natasha were anyone else she would shrink back at the intensity of his gaze. “Nat, I…I’m sorry.” He shakes his head and stares out the window, resting an arm up against it. “You considered me family. I considered you a part of mine, too. So did Pep. And after you…after Barton came back alone, I had to ask if you had any family. Biological, that is. And it didn’t hit me until then that you gave everything for us. And I just want you to know that I’d give everything for you, too. Thirteen years ago when you and Fury hijacked my hangover donut breakfast I wouldn’t have. But I would now.”
And if Natasha were anyone else, she would cry at his emotional words. But she’s not. She’s the Black Widow.
I need your impression.
You have a quiet reserve. I don’t know. You have an old soul.
The Black Widow does not show emotion. The Black Widow does not show weakness. Neither does Natalia Romanova.
But Natasha Romanoff does. Only sometimes, for certain people.
She smiles genuinely and links her arms with Tony’s. She knows he isn’t expecting a long response, knows he doesn’t like to be handed things like that. She rests her head on his shoulder. “Back at you, Stark.”
Under different circumstances…this would be totally awesome.
As the ship meanders through the vast dimension of space, Natasha thinks, It still is.