Chapter Text
-Self-destruction is the name of the game, I say I've had enough, but still want it all again-
A dusty old warehouse? Check. A chair inches away from an edge a couple of floors above ground? Check. Ropes and standard tools that could be used for torture on the table? Check. Two thugs with barely functional brains guarding their old boss? Double check. Overall, boring, regular, perfectly average experience on these missions.
Annoyance, that's what this man was. Just another thug that got powerful enough to feel like he's untouchable. Just another man thinking he caught her, boasting to himself that he outsmarted the infamous Black Widow.
Typical.
Well, it certainly made her job much easier.
It wouldn't take long for Luchkov to start talking, feeling like he was in control, like he didn't walk right into her web. “I thought General Solohob is in charge of the export business,” Natasha faked being clueless, not being up to date on the information, feeding his ego in the process.
“Solohob? A bagman, a front. Your outdated information betrays you. The famous Black Widow turns out to be just another pretty face,” Luchkov taunted her, underestimated her, believed having her tied to a chair would be enough to be safe. He turned away from her with hands in his pockets, full of himself.
“You really think I’m pretty?” and she let him believe all of that. Even when one of the two thugs Luchkov brought along grabbed her jaw and forced her mouth open. Nothing they were doing would have scared her even when she was just starting out, let alone now. She’d just have to wash her face later.
“Tell Lermentov we don’t need him to move the tanks,” Luchkov took his sweet time getting to the table. Or rather that was as fast as he could move without running out of breath. “Tell him he is out. Well,” he took pliers and turned to look at her. “You may have to write it down,” he couldn’t even threaten properly, for all his effort he was as threatening to her as a fly caught in a spider web.
A phone suddenly ringing did catch her by surprise, especially when it turned out it was for her, and Natasha was fairly sure Coulson was the one who called and was now threatening Luchkov into handing Natasha the phone. She didn’t show it in any way, but she wasn’t happy with this interruption, she was on a job, and all this was doing was making the job take more time than necessary. Worst case scenario it could ruin the entire interrogation and she’d have to get her hands on the information needed some other way.
Still, she’d hear Coulson out. But it better be important. Luchkov handed her the phone, and she held it on her shoulder. Apparently, they weren’t stupid enough to untie her hands.
“We need you to come in,” she slightly frowned at that, the tone of Coulson’s voice worried her a bit, but perhaps that was just her paranoia.
“Are you kidding? I’m working,” surely it wasn’t that urgent. This would have taken her another ten, maybe fifteen minutes.
“This takes precedence,” Coulson remained persistent, and for a moment Natasha was reminded of last year, where it felt like the whole world was turned on its head in one week. Aliens, monsters, technologies and weapons she had no hopes of matching even with the super soldier serum the Red Room gave her.
She pushed those thoughts out of her head. This wasn’t the time to dwell on the past. Instead, she pushed back against Coulson. “I’m in the middle of an interrogation, and this moron is giving me everything,” it didn’t even matter that he was right in front of her, hearing every word she spoke. By this point Natasha knew the job was finished, the flow of the interrogation was stopped, Luchkov was no longer in control, she wouldn’t get what she needed.
“I don’t give everything,” Luchkov stammered to the thug on his left and Natasha just looked at him almost unable to believe how stupid the man was.
“Look, you can’t pull me out of this right now,” maybe Luchkov was that stupid to fall right back into her trap if she played her cards right.
“Natasha, Barton’s been compromised,” in a single moment everything changed, and this job no longer mattered.
The decision was instantaneous. “Let me put you on hold,” she said and the moment Luchkov took the phone she kicked him in the leg and headbutted him. He went down, dazed and taken by surprise as she got up and, while still tied to the chair, made quick work of his two thugs, dodging their attempts to hit her and using the chair against them. She fought on autopilot, breaking the chair on one of the thugs. There was only one thing on her mind, Clint being compromised, and her not knowing anything, not where he was, not even if he was alive or for how long he would remain alive.
The lack of attention to the fight allowed one of the thugs to grab her, but it didn’t matter, she twisted his arm and knocked him out, focusing just for a moment on ending this whole thing and immediately heading back so she could rescue Clint.
As she tied a chain around Luchkov’s leg and pushed him over the edge she resolved to do anything to get Clint back. No matter what, she wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
Natasha didn’t even spare the man a second look, she just turned around, took her high heels and phone and headed for the exit without even taking the few seconds to put her heels on.
“Where’s Barton now?” she asked, anxious to be caught up to speed as quickly as possible. From what she knew Clint was guarding the Tesseract, so something must have gone very wrong if he was compromised.
“We don’t know,” that was close to the worst answer she could get and that familiar dread set in once again. What would happen by the time they managed to locate Clint? The images of ruins briefly flashed in front of her eyes. That wasn’t an option in this situation, Clint didn’t have that kind of power.
She didn’t have the luxury to dwell on the possibilities or the past mistake that haunted her. “But he’s alive?”
“We think so,” yet another uncertainty. “We’ll brief you on everything when you get back. But first, we need you to talk to the big guy,” Coulson told her in his usual calm tone, and Natasha figured this was it, the Avengers Initiative was being restarted. And that also meant being reminded of you once again when S.H.I.E.L.D. fails to get you to come back.
Still, she wasn’t the best person to talk Stark into joining, and as far as she was aware Fury would handle Rogers. “Coulson, you know that Stark trusts me about as far as he can throw me.”
“Oh, I’ve got Stark! You get the big guy,” the moment Coulson said that she stopped, understanding exactly who the big guy was and what remained of the calmness in her mind vanished, though she managed to hide it well.
“My God,” she whispered in Russian, doing her best to suppress the last year’s incident from her mind.
Coulson didn’t hang up though, and Natasha didn’t like that one bit. “We also need you to get L/N,” she froze, nearly dropping her high heels.
She felt like something squeezed in her chest, but she pushed it to the back of her head. “She won’t come,” it was naïve of Fury to even consider you for the Avengers initiative. You wouldn’t even hear them out, and you especially wouldn’t hear her out. It’s been three years since she last saw you face to face, three years since that cursed mission that ruined everything between the two of you, and you abandoned S.H.I.E.L.D.
“She will if we send you,” Coulson was always too optimistic, too willing to hope for the best. Frankly, it should have been him going after you, after all he was the one who recruited you so many years ago.
Natasha was more realistic, aware that she was actually the worst person to go and meet up with you. Countless times she rewatched what little recordings there were of the mission, desperately wishing she could yell at her younger self to turn around, to go back and reach you, save you, everything else be damned, but there was no changing the past.
“Where is she?” she asked, willing to at least give it a try. You wouldn’t turn hostile, that much she could still be sure of.
Even if she genuinely believed you had every right to attack her and anyone from S.H.I.E.L.D.
“You know where,” she heard sympathy in Coulson’s voice, maybe even pity. It was true though, she knew where you were, she’s always known where you were, not that you were trying to hide. She just tried to suppress that information from her mind.
~X~
You frowned in your sleep, memories plaguing your mind once more. Always the same, always the same cold eyes, the same red helmet, the same purple cape, the same destruction and rage, unstoppable, focused solely on erasing everything in his path.
A monster driven by rage and grief, too powerful to be stopped by mere humans. Metal constructions twisted and broke apart, falling to ruin in his rage. The small town was on fire, burning down and disappearing in front of your eyes. He didn’t directly set things on fire, but he might as well have done it. He tore everything that had metal in it apart, breaking things and making them explode. As the flames came closer to you, you went and raised your hand toward the man, etching his face, his eyes into your mind.
"Stop!" you screamed, abruptly jumping to your feet, shaking as your hands lit up in blue flames. Your eyes widened, the flashes of the nightmare still fresh in your mind, as you extinguished the flames you unwillingly lit, and released a shaky sigh. There was no way you could go back to sleep now, your mind was too caught up in the nightmare, too restless, too affected by it all for you to just lie back down and sleep.
You glanced at the clock; it was barely past midnight. You sighed, ready for a sleepless night, the cabin you spent the past two and a half years in felt suffocating tonight even with most of the windows left open, so you went outside and sat down at the table on your porch. The dense forest looked ominously dark, with no lights anywhere around you, other than the moonlight, but you’ve gotten used to it. You appreciated the peace and quiet it brought, but tonight you just couldn’t find peace. You were restless, and it annoyed you.
The sound of the night was suddenly disturbed by a familiar sound of a quinjet and you looked up just in time to see it flying toward your house and landing with perfect precision that ruled out damn near every agent.
You stood up, watching as the doors opened and Natasha Romanoff stepped onto the grass. You watched her, stuck between confusion and annoyance, but somehow it all vanished when she approached and you got to see her up close. It wasn’t the fact that she wasn’t in her uniform, or that there were clear signs of exhaustion on her face, it was her eyes that told you everything.
You didn’t greet her though, you just turned around, opening the doors and going inside, but the doors kept open were enough for her to get the message.
“I need you to come in,” Natasha said as she walked inside, immediately and instinctively taking every detail of your cabin in. The ways out, the distance to the nearest weapon, the small signs of life left everywhere, a nicked glass of water you didn’t finish before going to sleep, the newspaper neatly folded on the side of the table, the glaive hanging on the wall, always close enough for you to grab.
“You do?” you asked, the tone of your voice harsh, but not as harsh as you intended. You were leaning back against the table with your arms crossed, putting up all the walls between the two of you. You studied her, feeling the tension already rising between you. She was uncomfortable and you were… happy because of that. This wasn’t how you imagined your reunion after three years, not that you imagined anything. You would have been perfectly content with your life if you never saw her again.
“I do,” she didn’t explain it any further. Some things never change, especially when it came to Natasha.
“I’m not in the mood to be depowered again, Romanoff,” you went through it once, it nearly cost you your life. Maybe it would have been better that way. The way it was right now, it cost you a lot more than your life. You were alive, but you lost the life you built, betrayed by the people you trusted and the woman you loved.
“That isn’t Fury’s intention,” you tried resisting her, you wanted so desperately to resist her, yet that look in her eyes, that desperation and fear, the storm inside her mind, they all made it difficult not to give in to whatever she demanded. This wasn’t Natasha you knew. She was frightened. And despite every fiber of your body telling you otherwise your heart still ached at the thought.
You should have kept questioning her, should have argued against coming with her, but you knew the decision was made the moment you saw that look in Natasha’s eyes. “Bathroom is to your left, I need five minutes,” just to grab essentials, change into something more appropriate for potential combat and then freshen up yourself to properly wake up.
Natasha looked like she needed a moment to herself a lot more than you did, and perhaps a bit of cold water would clear her mind enough.
There was no need to know exactly what was going on. Natasha was desperate enough to come to you, even if it was likely an order. Still, she came to you, after everything that happened, and you couldn’t ignore that.
You didn’t put on your old uniform, you no longer had it, instead you just went with civilian clothing, simple, though a bit worn-out, jacket, shirt and pants, and the moment Natasha stepped out of your bathroom you went in.
You finished freshening up a bit and grabbed a towel, and it immediately hit you. The familiar comforting scent of Natasha’s perfume, subtle, yet so definitively her own. “Fuck,” you cursed, giving up on drying your face with it and throwing the towel in the basket. You watched the towel with disdain, as if it was the towel’s fault that you suddenly felt at ease. You huffed, pushing the old feelings aside and just wiped your face dry with a clean towel.
When you stepped out you saw Natasha was already outside, not wanting to intrude on the peace you tried to build in this cabin with her presence, and you did your best to ignore how, despite the surface-level tension, right it felt when she was in the cabin with you. You took your bag and glaive and joined her in front of the cabin. “Let’s get this over with,” you muttered, letting Natasha take the lead. And she did it, without a single unnecessary word spoken.
~X~
To your surprise you didn’t go straight to where the helicarrier was at the moment. Instead you went to India. Still, it gave you enough time to get caught up to speed with things that happened. The Avengers Initiative, including Natasha, Clint, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner and Thor, as well as you. You paused when you reached the data on Banner, remembering last year. While you and Natasha didn’t meet up, Clint did pull you back into this whole mess and you went, keeping your distance but you were there in case Natasha needed backup.
You glanced toward her, wondering what was going through her mind, what got her to seek you out instead of sending Clint, or hell, Coulson. Whatever it was, it had to be bad for Natasha to be like this.
“I doubt you’d be this concerned over the Cube,” sure, she cared, but this was more than that. This was desperation, this was something you weren’t used to seeing from her.
Natasha sighed. “Clint’s been compromised,” and it all made sense now. You stood up on instinct, approaching her and reaching for her shoulder, but you stopped, turning away at the last second.
“You’ll get him back,” you left it at that, returning to the files and not speaking another word, even though the silence was deafening at times. Neither you nor Natasha said a single word for the rest of the flight, or as she met up with other agents in Calcutta and set up a plan to convince Banner to come with her.
You just stood by, taking note of the tension everywhere around you. This wasn’t just because of the dangers that came with trying to convince the Hulk to come aboard, this was more than that, this was the reality of being utterly outmatched hitting every single agent all at once. You sat near the comms and yet again your eyes found Natasha. She changed into a beautiful black dress and you forced yourself to look away, fearing the old emotions would reemerge, pushing aside the anger you felt because of her betrayal.
She went inside the old house, waiting for Banner to show up and you chose just to listen, to not get involved even if a fight broke out. You wouldn’t fight. You wouldn’t do anything unless the whole world was in danger.
About five minutes later Banner entered the shack and you listened to Natasha talking to him. Calm, steady, but with just the tiniest hint of fear buried deep under the mask she put on. None of the other agents here could have possibly caught it, Clint and Fury could, and you, apparently, still could, but no one else.
Unless she let someone else in over the past three years.
“Just you and me,” you heard Natasha saying, lying to Banner who correctly guessed the shack was surrounded.
“And your actress buddy? She a spy too? They start that young?” there was no animosity in his voice, not yet, but there was something a tiny bit eerie about his tone. It was too calm, like a calm before the storm, or a quiet rage waiting to be unleashed. Yeah, maybe that was more appropriate for his case. The night wasn’t cold, but you still felt a shiver run down your spine as the air became thick with anticipation and anxiety.
“I did,” Natasha replied, and you got caught up in memories for a moment, remembering her opening up to you about the Red Room. And then, not even a month later, it all fell apart. The conversation between them continued, a back and forth that for once had Natasha putting in all of her effort to keep the situation under control. Armor piercing bullets wouldn’t even scratch the Hulk. “I’m here on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D.”
“S.H.I.E.L.D.? How’d they find me?” you heard a hint of that rage slipping through and sat up, now more alert of their conversation. The entrance to the shack was directly in front of you.
Yet Natasha regained control over the situation, at least for now. “We never lost you, Doctor. We’ve kept our distance, even helped keep some other interested parties off your scent,” her voice didn’t waver, almost as if she was trying to soothe him. Even if it probably affected you more than it affected Banner.
“Why?” or maybe it worked on him too, as that rage turned more into confusion.
Clearly Banner still hasn’t met Fury, that man was in a league of his own when it came to his own methods and reasons. “Nick Fury seems to trust you. But now we need you to come in.”
Bullshit. Nick Fury didn’t trust anyone, but he did see their use to his cause.
“What if I say no?” Banner asked, once again proving he didn’t know Fury, otherwise he wouldn’t be asking such questions.
“I’ll persuade you,” she just… you knew that tone, the same seductive tone she used on her targets, and you glared at the comms, annoyed a lot more than you had any right to be.
“And what if the Other Guy says no?” you once again got alert against your will, waiting anxiously for even the smallest hint of danger.
You weren’t going to fight.
You weren’t going to fight.
“You’ve been more than a year without an incident. I don’t think you want to break that streak,” Natasha remained as in control as she could be, given the situation.
“Well, I don’t every time get what I want,” there was a clear threat in those words, a warning, and an acceptance of the circumstances he was in.
“Doctor, we’re facing a potential global catastrophe,” Natasha chose to plead to his sense of humanity. His empathy, or what was left of it. Considering what he went through you’d be surprised if he had any desire to help or protect people. And yet he was a doctor in a poor part of town. Necessity? Certainly. But you weren’t quite sure what kind of necessity drove him to do it.
Banner chuckled, though it wasn’t out of amusement. “Oh, those I actively try to avoid.”
“This is the Tesseract. It has the potential energy to wipe out the planet,” and then there was that. The stolen Cube, Tesseract. Fury was desperate. From what you read this team, if it even got formed, would be volatile, clashing ideals, big personalities, tensions. Nothing short of a miracle would get all of these people on board.
A miracle or…
You glanced toward the shack for the first time, approximately to where Natasha could be. Maybe that was Fury’s miracle.
“What does Fury want me to do? Swallow it?” despite the tension you felt you still smirked a bit at that.
“He wants you to find it. It’s been taken. It emits a Gamma signature that’s too weak for us to trace. No one knows Gamma radiation like you do. If there was, that’s where I’d be,” Natasha explained in an indifferent tone, cold and calculated. Basically stating that this was a meeting caused by desperation, and that it had nothing to do with Banner being the Hulk.
That didn’t sound like Fury. Sure, Banner could be the best person for the job, but the Hulk wasn’t something Fury wouldn’t take into account.
“So, Fury isn’t after the monster?” Banner questioned, almost unwilling to believe that.
“Not that he’s told me,” even if all the signs pointed toward the opposite.
“And he tells you everything?” no, Fury barely says anything to anyone. No one but Fury can know everything.
“Talk to Fury, he needs you on this,” Natasha didn’t answer, she didn’t need to, the answer was more than clear.
“He needs me in a cage?” Banner immediately countered.
“No one’s going to put you in a-“ Natasha tried to reassure him.
“Stop lying to me!” Banner yelled, slamming his hands on the table.
You moved without thinking, crossing the distance and reaching the entrance in less than a second. A cloud of dust was left behind you as you looked Banner in the eyes. “Don’t move,” you pointed your glaive at Banner, ready to fight. You didn’t take your eyes off him, you didn’t notice the tears in Natasha’s eyes, but you could hear the subtlest shift in her breathing, and it was enough for you. “Unless you want me to fry your brain,” you kept your weapon raised as you closed the distance and pushed the table to the side, putting yourself right between Natasha and Banner. He seemed more amused.
“That’s not a good idea,” he told you, but he didn’t move. And it wasn’t for his sake, it was for your own and Natasha’s, because the Other Guy, as he called the Hulk, wouldn’t let you kill him.
“The best I can come up with,” you weren’t stupid. You knew you had nothing that could stop the Hulk, that you had no chance of beating him in a fight. You could still probably stall enough to get Natasha out of here. Even if Banner had all the advantage at this distance. You had no idea how quickly he could transform, but chances were that you and Natasha were both a split second from being blood splatters on the walls, even if you were both alert and ready to react.
“Stand down, L/N,” Natasha warned you, and you wanted to, you really did. You made a promise to yourself that you wouldn’t get involved yet here you were.
Before you could answer Banner raised his hands. “I’m sorry, that was mean,” he actually smiled and looked over your shoulder at Natasha. “I just wanted to see what you’d do,” he took a few steps back, giving Natasha and you a slightly bigger window to react. “Why don’t we do this the easy way, where you don’t use that,” he pointed at your weapons of choice and then at himself. “And the Other Guy doesn’t make a mess? Okay? Natasha?”
You dared to look back at Natasha, finally noticing the tears in her eyes. “Stand down. We’re good here,” she spoke to the rest of the agents.
“Just you and me?” Banner seemed almost amused by the situation.
“Does it make a difference?” you asked and he shrugged, as if agreeing that, no, it really didn’t make a difference. He stepped outside, giving most agents slight panic attacks as they tried to stay calm and headed toward the agents, silently accepting to come along.
“That was reckless,” Natasha scolded you and you looked to the side, not quite willing to look her in the eyes. “L/N,” she raised her voice just a tiny bit, just enough to show you that she was actually angry at you for putting yourself in danger. “What if something happened to you?”
You slowly looked back at her, not quite sure you heard her correctly. “You did not just say that,” you laughed, even if your laughter was hollow, almost mocking her. “You know what, I don’t care,” you shook your head and magnetized your glaive to your back before heading back to the quinjet.