From Russia, with Love

"Regimes fall every day. I tend not to weep over that, I'm Russian, or I was." Natasha Romanoff, Black Widow, Nat Spy, Avenger, Assassin. Molded by the Red Room, saved by the S.H.I.E.L.D., now on the run from the government. I was built to kill, I was forced to become someone who I was not. So tell me, who do you want me to be?

[raleighansens-deactivated201710]

I’m one of 28 young ballerinas with the Bolshoi. The training is hard but the glory of Soviet culture and the warmth of my parents…my…parents…makes up for…. No… No, that’s not right. I’m one of 28 Black Widow agents with the Red Room. The training is hard but the glory of Soviet supremacy and the warmth of my parents…all my…parents…makes up for… I can’t tell what’s true anymore.

[nameoftsar-blog]

darcylewisbadass:

“Rushed? Nothing rushed here, nope. I’m all about calm and zen and… Cool things. Yep.” Mostly because if she tried to rush into anything she would either trip and fall on her face or it would brake and hit her in face. It was a matter of vanity really. 

Th doors closing behind the redhead really didn’t help, or at least they shouldn’t have helped. Darcy felt a weird sense of doom but… Collected doom. Like if she was to go down in a interrogation session with the Wid-Nat, Nat, then at least the entire building didn’t have to hear it. She should probably start taking crazy pills now, this was bound to get worse. 

“Yeah, I… Well, I was going to say I know what you mean but that’s just bull. But I get that, really do. But boss man in incognito, I honestly don’t know where he’s hiding.” She placed her tabled down and tried to keep her hands in plain sight over the table and not fidget. Better not to make the super spy any more vigilant… “I can get a message to him though, would that help?” She tried for another smile, now less scared. If she could help, she would. Tony would never admit it but he missed the team. 

Oh. She was that type of a women. The one that blabbers a lot to hide how afraid she was. Well, that worked for Nat pretty good, because when people spoke a lot, they gave up a lot of information, and most likely, they do not even notice it. That was good for both sides – Natasha got what she needed, and her subjects did not ever feel guilty. Well till the moment they got court notice. But that was a whole different story. Widow quickly moved to the doors, put two small boxes on them, and moved away. Just in case someone would decide to bother them a smoke show with some fires was guaranteed. Small part of the reasoning why Russians did not call their blood hounds back even on American soil, was because she maybe had borrowed some nice toys from KGB. Girl needed to survive. And with style.  

“Good, then your boyfriend or whoever waits you home will not be disappointed,” Natasha chuckled, and took out a flash drive. She checked whether it is the one she thought that was, and threw it to Darcy. “Copy me everything you have access to, including, and especially, Tony’s phone calls and the messages people have left him. That would be very all about calm and zen,” Widow smiled, but that smile defiantly was not meant to comfort. Honestly, how could a presence of assassin ever comfort someone? Not Darcy, but thanks Gods, she was smart enough not to do anything stupid. Not yet. Romanoff would feel bad hitting this one.

But fact that Stark was not here... she needed to realize that already before. He had this incredible talent never to be where he needed to be. Romanoff could imagine what Stark was going through. Accords had failed miserably, and she was a good example of how heroes could not be trusted, but honestly, Natasha thought about sending a memo to the government reminding that she was no hero, but a spy. But eh, it was not like Ross realized the difference between two.

“Why is he hiding? Problems with Ross?” Natasha asked and decided to ignore girl’s smile. Message. Hah. If messages ever would solve anything, Cold War would have ended in 50ties. And Steve vs Tony was much, much worse than Cold War.

“I can send a message on my own, but maybe you know where exactly he is and how long before he comes back?” Tasha needed him home, sitting next to Steve Rogers, so they both could work it out before making next step, because there was no way they will deal with government, if they tried to deal with each other. At this point, Romanoff was ready to agree with Steve or with Tony, if that would bring them together. Because alone, they were vulnerable, and it will not be long before someone else, not only government, will find a way how to hit the hardest.

[captainsgrxgers-blog]

Familiar Face || Steve & Nat

Laying low in a safe house wasn’t Steve’s favourite pastime. While it wasn’t safe for him to be seen walking around in public considering his current fugitive status, the longer he stayed put in the safe house, the more he wanted to ‘break out’ and get away from the place. And since the house was in New York, the city that supposedly never slept, there was never a good or quiet time for Steve to slip out of the house and go for a run or go to the local corner store to pick up supplies. This situation made Steve miss Natasha more than he already was. Natasha had perfected the art of blending in with crowds and hiding in plain sight. He had seen her do it and while he had learned a thing or two from her, he was nowhere close to being good enough to pull it off without her.

Instead he waited until it was 4am, the closest he was going to get to a quiet time in this crazy, bustling city. Wearing a baseball cap on his head and his jacket’s collar turned up, Steve left the safe house and started to jog along the sidewalk. The air had a slight chill to it and in the distance, car horns and police sirens could still be heard. A couple of other night-owls were walking or staggering along, not noticing that the guy running past them was Steve Rogers, the former Captain America. Steve let his feet take him a few blocks away from the safe house to a 24/7 take-away pizzeria. He went in, bought enough pizza for him, Wanda, and Clint, and carried the boxes back to base. He took a different route on the way back, zig zagging through the streets to confuse anyone who might be tailing him.

He got back to the safe house with no trouble. He let himself in and as soon as he crossed the threshold, he knew something was wrong. How could he tell? Because the laptop he had been using to gather intell was open and on. He had left it closed when he went out for his run. Quietly he went to the kitchen to rid himself of the pizza boxes and to get himself a knife. Once he had the knife in hand, he went from room to room, sweeping them for any trace of an intruder. Both Wanda and Clint were asleep when he left and there was no sound coming from the upper floors to indicate that had changed. 

He came back to the lounge (or it would be if this was a traditional house) and found a silhouetted figure stood by one of the windows. Steve opened his mouth to demand the stranger show themselves and put their hands up but the words got stuck in his throat. There was something familiar about the silhouette, as if it belonged to one of the people he had been missing so much. “Natasha?”

[nameoftsar-blog]

You can disappear, but you cannot become invisible. His voice was certain, and his smile made her sick, he thought, he had Black Widow in a corner, but boy, how wrong he was. She enjoyed disappearing, and with a small trick, she could become invisible. Not like fancy magically invisible, but invisible enough for the fugitive to lose her. One precise hit. And another one. A bit of overkill might be smart this time. You cannot become invisible, he had said. Now he laid dead, and it was enough of an evidence to prove him wrong.

That was years ago. She was a different person now, at least, she hoped she was. But she still could disappear. Natasha was just couple of meters from Steve when he stepped out from the safety house, but he did not see her. He was not supposed to.

To get into the building Nat used her old keys, locking doors behind her. Home. For couple of weeks in her life this was home. She and Clint used to spend endless, sleepless nights in the living room, holding onto their guns and eating pizza from that old Italian place that had went bankrupt. Woman smiled and moved into the building, her steps left no sound, as the plan was not to wake anyone. She knew Clint was just couple of meters away and the longing to see her best friend was killing her, but Widow was not sure whether she was back just yet. He would understand. He always understood.

Laptop got her attention. Cracking whatever security Steve used for it was easy, and was it curiosity or trust issues that made Nat do it, she herself was not sure, but already in seconds she was cloning computer and the whole collection of data Steve had there. For spies, there is no such thing as too much intel. And maybe, just maybe, Natasha hoped to find something about Bruce that her sources could not dig out.

Sound just outside the apartment turned her back to reality. Pizza had taken minute and twenty-three seconds less than Widow had expected. There was still an option to leave through a window and leave Steve clueless about who just walked into the house, continue the journey as a lone wolf. But lonely people carry out vengeance, Natasha wanted to stay on the justice, and for that she needed them. And they needed her.

Natasha was used to laying low, pretending to be someone else, and she loved it. Going for a kill was one thing, straight forward and boring. Pretending to be someone else was addicting. Each cell of her body needed to believe she was someone else, something else for the show to go on. Accent, expressions, movement, style, favourite colours and foods, every detail was important. But she chose to drop them all to come back. Because she needed them. Madam would say Natasha became weak, but this was not a Red Room, this was her life, whatever that meant.

Steve and Clint… Nat saw them both as a family. And felt terrible for being away so long, knowing what they both were going through. Clint, ripped from his family, and Steve… if Nat knew anything about Steve, that was one thing – he suffered in silence, he did not talk with people about it, because he was their leader, they looked up to him, and, as a good soldier, he endured. He never allowed himself to be weak. He always took care of everyone, but there was nobody who could take care of him. Nat did not pretend she could, but she needed to try.

And easy as that, Black Widow made a decision that was not based on logics, plan or realty. She decided to stay.

“Steve,” Nat said silently and turned around. And what now? She was not the most open, the most trusting, the most emotional part of the team, but Steve already knew that.

“Sorry for the computer, needed to check my email,” she chuckled, keeping her voice low not to wake the whole house. “You did not count me for dinner, did you?” Sadness is always easily masked behind jokes, and pain hides behind laughter all the time. She wanted to apologize, but she had no idea how.

“I thought you might use some help,” she finally said, stepping closer to Steve, and that was her way of saying I am with you no matter what goes down.

[nameoftsar-blog]

darcylewisbadass:

Jarvis had alerted Darcy that something was wrong a few minutes before bright red hair and black leather filled the door and Darcy was left pale and blinking at green eyes that did not seem at all amused, holding her Stark pad a little too loosely. - No, I’m not. Was her first response, very dulled and robotic due to panic. She would have to have a very long conversation with Jarvis about what consisted of an emergency and proper response and she should not be thinking about this while being measured by Natasha Romanoff! - And you’re Nat-The Black Widow. While she had seen the woman in the tower before, dealing with her teammates or scaring the other lackeys (at least that’s what it looked like at the time and she didn’t have the balls to question the woman about it then), they didn’t actually knew each other. This wasn’t exactly the best situation for it, either. ‘Hi, I’m the assistant currently hiding the man you want to talk to because he doesn’t want to talk to anyone.’ - What can I help you with? That isn’t the obvious because that’s not gonna work. She gave the other woman a bright big smile to hide her nerves and thanked God she wasn’t standing so no one would see Darcy shaking a little in her heels. She just said no to the Black Widow, another first for her curriculum…

Natasha knew she scared the last breath out of Darcy, even though girl had met Thor, and he did not seem to think that she was from the easily scared part of the population, but who knew… Natasha was built to scare man’s soul out of him. She built her name, mission by mission, catastrophe by catastrophe, for it to become legend. No matter how much she tried to wipe it out, it was still there, engraved in her movements, her voice, her smile, her eyes. Maybe today it will be useful.

In different times Natasha would invite Darcy for a drink and tell couple of fun stories from times when Natasha pretended to be Ms.Rushman, hot assistant who knows how to box and has modelled in Tokyo. Times when everything was easier, when Avengers were born. If she would have known how incredible will this blow up, would she do it again, pull them all together, out of their lives, just to see them torn apart? They saved the world, but who will save themselves. Who will save Bruce after she pushed him in the darkness? It was her responsibility, so Darcy will need to talk without a drink. Natasha wanted to исправить (fix;russian) what she saw as her fault, and Бог защитить (God protect) those who would stand her way.

“Just do not do anything rushed, ok? So we both can have a good day,” God was her witness, Natasha have had way too many bad days in those last months. “And call me Nat, because I am not here to work, I am here to talk,” that was supposed to have a calming meaning, but Natasha sort of realized how pointless it was, as she was armed from head to toe and Darcy had… heels and compromised security system. Nat clicked couple of buttons on her photo screen and doors behind her closed, leaving them isolated from rest of the tower.

“I will not hurt you or anyone here. I just really really need to talk with Tony,”  maybe she was the monster under a bed, ruthless criminal, someone who would be dead if not for Clint Barton… but today she was not aiming to make her name. Today she came for help.

[nameoftsar-blog]

Without notice ll Wanda&Nat

[nameoftsar-blog]

scarletmximoff:

Sleepless nights were not uncommon for Wanda. They haven’t been for a while. Much longer than she would like. Longer than she would care to admit to most people. Tonight happened to be one of those nights, experiences from The Raft being one of the main things on her mind.

Suddenly, the room she was in felt too small and she needed to get out. She didn’t know exactly where, but just not that closed up room. She couldn’t actually leave their safe house. Well, she could. Steve wasn’t keeping her under any kind of house arrest like Stark had. More she wouldn’t actually leave their safe house. She didn’t want to put any more stress onto the Captain than he already had. Wanda wasn’t worth that. Just being out of the room would have to be enough for her. She could have sat outside, but no matter how much open space was around her, she didn’t want to just sit still somewhere. She wanted to be able to move around as she pleased. Of course, all of her restraints outside would be mental, she didn’t like having them at all. Not while she was as impacted and messed up by the situation as she was.

The twins growing up practically alone in a place like Sokovia was not an ideal situation. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if they still had their parents, but they were just two children. However, it did give some skills. Wanda could move quietly when she needed. How many times had she gotten into someone’s head before they even knew she was there? Except this time it wasn’t used for that. Wanda moved through the house quietly, not wanting to wake anyone else up. Although she had her suspicions that Steve would not be asleep, but she didn’t know for sure. There was no point in taking the chance of waking him to check. If he came out, Wanda wouldn’t shy away from spending the night in his company, but she wouldn’t wake him. Again, she didn’t think she was worth it. This was just a minor thing that she could get through on her own.

There was no real point to her wandering. At least she would be familiar with the environment for however long they stayed. Wanda found herself in the kitchen after a while, finally taking a seat. She wouldn’t stay long. Eventually the kitchen would also feel too small to stay in for an extended amount of time. Slowly getting up, she moved to get herself a glass of water.

If it weren’t for the still and silent night, Wanda wouldn’t have heard anything. Yet she was so close she could hear the quiet movements coming from the window near the kitchen. At least, the noise of it closing. Opening would have made more sense. Maybe Steve was awake and wanted some fresh air? That would make sense. Except the window had been closed. Forgetting about the glass of water, Wanda moved to try to get a better view. There was a figure. She couldn’t see much, but it wasn’t any of the men staying with Wanda. Keeping her hand close to her side, she used her abilities to slowly move a knife off the counter. Making sure it hadn’t been under anything else as she didn’t want to make any noise. As soon as it was free, she quickly moved it towards the intruder, stopping just short of them. More as a warning than an actual attack. She had done it to Clint, both accidentally and on purpose, so she knew what she was doing. “You’re not supposed to be here,” she said, swallowing any fear she had.

Steps. Natasha stopped her breath to focus and mentally prepared for a fight. She had been thought to silence her inner noise to focus, to be able tell every detail about the place she was even in the darkest night. Sound made her worried. Because those were not Clint’s steps. Someone was here, nearby, someone who, probably, heard her, and that was not a good sign. She could sneak up to Loki, and no matter how much Widow detested the guy, she was proud of her skills. Someone who have heard her was good. And good was dangerous.

Kitchen was the best and the worst entry point Natasha could have picked. Best – because this was area hard to put any outside based surveillance and snipers on and was most likely empty by the night. Worst – because it was hard to see anything but the kitchen from the point Nat had been standing. She took a risk, and there was not enough time to consider whether this risk had paid off, because there was a knife in front of her. Hanging in the air. A moment too quickly for Nat to use Widow’s Bite. She could still put up a fight, but first, it was important to consider whether she even needed to do that.

Assassin only had met one person who could make knives fly like that, and if she still was the only person, then everything was still going worse than expected but already a bit better than it could be. She had trained this girl, but she did not pretend to know her. She was a puzzle Nat tried to put together. Wanda. Enemy turned Avenger who, probably, lost most in Sokovia.

“Well, to be fair, this is my house, so if you are not Clint, and I am certain about that, you have less rights to be here than I” A simple hello would have been a better choice. But a knife flying just in front of hear, ready to kill, also was not exactly a “welcome home” poster, so Nat gave the best she could under those circumstances. On a second thought, if it really was Wanda, Natasha’s words could hit some heavy points. Regret was imminent.

“Wanda, it is me, Nat. Can you please get that thing away from me?” her voice was calm. Like she knew that Wanda will just make the knife go away. But she did not. She had no idea what was going on in this girl’s head. Their interaction in the airport was not really… nice by any standards. Widow just hoped that Wanda was still that Wanda who helped saving people and that she was not too upset with Nat, that she still stood with Cap, that she had not deflected to any other power, like… Russians. Shit. Nowadays knowing allegiances was hard even when you keep tabs on everyone. And that was coming from Romanoff.  

[darcylewisbadass-blog]

Life was good to Darcy so far.

Having no aspirations but to change the world and make it an awesomer place, she had enrolled in a Poli-Sci major and found herself stranded between left and right wing narrow minded and slightly annoying people. That is until a perfect, miraculous, 6 credit internship appeared for grabs.

Jane was a peach. Crazy when in a science haze, sure, but always polite and a lot fun once she grew used to you. Darcy had learned a lot about being a woman in the field and about being professional with the tiny woman, with the advantage of gaining a good friend along the way.

Then aliens happened. And New York. And a worldwide revolution (ok, maybe not a revolution yet) with the coming out of aliens, Avengers, super spy agencies, and mutants. In Darcy’s honest opinion it wasn’t so surprising everyone was freaking out, there’s only so much weirdness you can take before you ingest three bottles of tequila and just let go of good sense. So now her favorite boss-lady was mia, being her awesome self in deep underground research that would award her some more shiny prizes if the government ever let her see daylight again, and Darcy was loaned. To Tony Stark. Whoever thought that was a good idea sure had a sense of humor.

Tony was… Well, fun. If you were exposed to him in small doses. Full time he was more of a handful than Jane, either absolutely possessed by science and his craft or uninterested and sarcastic to the point of making Darcy frustrated. And she was the freaking master of sarcasm, damn it. But maybe all of that was because they weren’t close?

During Janes’s brief stay at the tower, Darcy noticed Captain America’s comings and goings from the tower and Stark’s labs were common place, something she and the other lackeys enjoyed like a friday night show, the two men trading jabs and clearly building a friendship made of snarkiness and… Maleness. It was also hot, did she mention that? It was hot.

When Sokovia happened… Boy did she not miss those days, or the hangovers. Darcy never drank on duty but watching how the team dealt with that one, then how Tony took his wayward creation… Yeah, she wasn’t his assistant then but it still shook her and she had partaken in a few drinks after work, even shared a few with a silent Tony, doubting he even knew she was there.  She was loaned to Tony briefly after that, and sometimes is still dizzy from suddenly taking on the abrupt change from cute-sweet-lady-boss to ohmygodi'msogoodkeepupwithmealready-boss. And life still had more in store for all them. 

James Buchanan Barnes happened. And now Tony was… Working. A lot. Constantly. And Darcy was receiving so many calls and emails wanting interviews and answers from an annoyingly persistent General-What’s-His-Name that she was ready to have Tony use the phone for target practice. She fully embraced the fury of an overly harassed woman and defended his space to mend as much as she could, even daring to give some questionable answers to Shield to keep his tail clean, but there’s was only so much she could do while working and living with the Avengers. Honestly, she was just praying they didn’t send one of the scary spy twins. Hawkeye stared and the Black Widow might make her cry, it wouldn’t be pretty. 

Overall, life was good to her. Now she just has to manage staying alive/sane to enjoy it.

[nameoftsar-blog]

Natasha felt like a tourist who had money only for five days in the hotel, so his program is so crammed that he barely has time to take a selfie with Mona Lisa. Even if she was not having problems with hotel rent, uncertainty of how long the Russians will be lost in the dark and the need to visit the big guy made time  an issue.

And she really needed to visit Tony before she could make her next turn.  They did not exactly have had the best goodbyes, but he did warn her,  so that gave Natasha a hope that he will not blast her through Stark tower windows. But then again, she was one of the most wanted people in America, though Natasha had many reasons to disagree with her status.

Stark tower – it used to feel like home. Nothing felt like home now, so it was not such a major surprise when this place was another metal coffin where she had buried her past. She had stolen an id from a very excited security guard yesterday in a bar. Well, it will cost him his job, but Natasha had needs. That helped her get through first levels of security. She lost the uniform in the elevator and exchanged it for a lab coat she got from a very nice, young lady that will wake up with hell of headache in couple of hours, as Tasha was forced to send her to sleep and hide her in one of the toilers. She did not need to wake the security.

Tasha went through the building level by level, mostly following plan she had made during voyage to States. You see, calling was not really her taste, as in, there was always someone form NSA, SHIELD or whatever listening in, and Black Widow preferred to keep her conversations private. Especially talking when talking with a friend. Even if Tony had essential information, there were other ways how to get it, she came here because of the need to know that he was better. Not good, because they will never be good, but… better. Was she friends with Tony? Before Bucky she would say yes. But things had changed. Everything had changed. But was everything lost? In couple of levels she should be able to get answer to at least that question.

When Tasha finally arrived in Tony’s floor, she took the main hallway. Because nobody would see her anymore, she dropped the lab coat that masked her uniform – black and red. Romanoff had hacked the cameras, changing the image that security will see, and she was not in that show. They will probably notice that tomorrow, and Tasha was not planning to stay that long. And she was quite sure Tony will not invite her to stay.

Even if Natasha hoped this meeting will be a bit more pleasant than most that Black Widow was present, she was armed, but she did not hold a gun in her hand.

Because she still believed they can find a way to make things work. Together.

Door and another door, and finally she walked in where Tony Stark was supposed to be. But it was not Tony. Or it was a brilliant use of photostatic veil, but knowing Tony, he would not take an appearance of a woman.

-          You are not Tony Stark, - well, this might have been unneeded. Because she should know she was not… If she did not, she did not deserve the job.

-          You are Darcy, right? – she said after an uneasy second. Name of Tony’s whatever assistant popped up in Romanoff’s memory. Brilliant, now she needs to deal with kids. And this was not Barton’s, so Tasha already hated the idea.

[nameoftsar-blog]

Without notice ll Wanda&Nat

She had left through Baltics to London, to Madrid, and there she had met with an old friend from intelligence community who smuggled her on a ship that was going to Mexico, from where she crossed the border and ended up in Texas, in the middle of a cartel fight, and she suddenly felt alive again. She was the hunter again, always underestimated, always deadly. A pleasant change after what had happened in post-soviet bloc. She got emotional, and emotions and spies – they just do not fit together. She got sloppy. They almost got her. But she was still coming back where it felt like home. People who she trusted. At least, that was closest to trust that a double agent could feel.

Even though she had been off the radar since Tony told her that “they know”, Natasha was very aware of what was happening in the world. The world just was not aware about her. Her friends were not aware of her. But she knew what they had been up to. Even emotional, she was still a spy. She kept tabs on everyone and everything. Parts of her accounts were burnt just to keep up this lifeline, knowing, that they were alive and… almost fine, that was important. That was the light that kept Natasha sane, reminded her, how much red she had wiped, did not allow her to fall in the darkness again. But that life-line was one way. And only on her way from Texas Nat realized, she had left them. Just like that.

But after Ross’s statement was dropped, there was no option to avoid home any longer. She had avoided the rift. Her name escaped the disgusting articles, blogs and tweets. Even the press could not establish which side Romanoff had taken.

Sometimes even she could not do that.

Safety house was safe from a lot of things, but Black Widow was not one of them. Natasha waited till the evening, when the city went darker, and her old friends – shadows - came out from corners to hide her. Natasha was sure that Russians had lost track of her somewhere in London, but then again, redhead knew that you can never be sure.

Scaling the wall was not an issue. Natasha’s way of relaxing was cliff-climbing in Arizona, before shit went down and another regime changed, so this felt almost calming. You see, Black Widow was not very sure whether she would like to use the main doors when entering a safe-house. Her intel might be off, and the place might not be the same place Steve thought it to be, though it almost never happens, and might be a trap, and Romanoff did not want to end up in a super-prison or even worse – in the death row. She wanted surprise and darkness on her side. Eastern Europe had done her biding.

Opening the window from outside took one tenth of a second more than Natasha would have preferred, but she got it open. Silent, like a cat, she climbed into the dark kitchen, holding her breath and trying to separate friend from foe. No turning back now.

[marvellegends]