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Agent Natasha Romanoff, codename Black Widow, is doing... okay. Nick’s hesitant to say ‘doing well’. That seems like a high bar to clear for someone who’s only months out of the goddamn Red Room. But she’s doing much better than Nick expected she’d be at this point.
If nothing else, she seems dedicated to passing the custom program they whipped together to turn her into a SHIELD agent. Said program is roughly 30% learning the ropes of SHIELD policies, 30% keeping her skills intact, and 40% removing the leftover brainwashing and learning how to live after killing the people who brainwashed you your whole life. Nick privately calls it the Black Widow Plan. Clint Barton openly calls it Project Pinocchio because he’s an asshole.
Romanoff has worked hard to prove herself. She’s mostly succeeded. But there’s plenty of problems along the way. And Nick’s not looking forward to this next one.
“A dentist,” Fury says very seriously.
“Fuck,” Clint breathes, hanging his head.
Natasha stares at them and their melodrama.
“It’s for your teeth,” Fury explains.
Natasha rolls her eyes. “I know what a dentist is. Why are you acting like you’re sending me to the gallows?”
Fury gives her a bored look. “Do I need to remind you about the first time you saw a doctor?”
Natasha crosses her arms, feeling something similar to embarrassment. “It was the first time.”
“True. The second time you lasted a whole three minutes before putting the medical professional in a headlock.”
“Which is why,” Clint interjects, raising his hand, “I’m voting to put the dentist off for another year. At least.”
Fury does not seem impressed by the suggestion. “All field agents get regular medical check ups whether they want to or not, and that includes dental.”
Clint turns to Natasha. “Are you ready to have a stranger poke around your mouth with pointy objects?” he asks. “Because I’m pretty sure the answer is no, and this is going to end with a dental tool sticking out of my foot.”
Having it put like that isn’t fun, but Natasha can’t allow herself a break. This is just something else she needs to work at. “Schedule it,” she decides.
Clint adds darkly, “Order a cast for my foot while you’re at it.”
After Natasha’s firearms target practice (other agents cleared out really quickly when she showed up to the shooting range), she finds Clint getting out of a meeting. She doesn’t bother saying hello and jumps straight to the conversation. “You said earlier you were voting against the dentist.”
Clint blinks at her. “Clearly I got outvoted.”
Natasha follows Clint walking toward his quarters. “Why do you have a vote at all? Officially you’re not supposed to be talking to me.”
“Officially blah blah blah.”
Fury’s still tight-lipped about how exactly he managed to keep them both alive after Clint brought her in. Natasha assumes it involved bribes. But from what little he has said, it’s clear that the intelligence community and World Security Council all consider Clint compromised and don’t want him around Natasha. Fury and the rest of SHIELD have not bothered enforcing their official separation, but Natasha wonders if maybe they should for Clint’s sake. She sees the way other agents look at him now.
“You might get invited to more office parties if you stopped talking to me,” Natasha offers.
Clint shrugs. “I don’t go to office parties.”
“What was your meeting about?” Natasha asks, breaking a security clearance protocol.
“My next assignment got cancelled,” Clint answers, breaking a couple more. “The situation changed and they’re not sending me in anymore. Spent hours learning Danish for nothing. At least I get a couple days of leave now. I’m heading to the airport in an hour.”
Natasha nods, making sure to mask her disappointment he’s not sticking around. Clint’s on leave a lot. Frankly she’s shocked that a man who committed treason against his country has gotten so much time off. “Denmark is going to miss you.”
“Denmark can fuck itself,” Clint says with a grin. “I’m going to go to some shitty diner and clog my arteries. Hey, when you get clearance to leave the building, I’m taking you to a shitty diner.”
Natasha smiles despite herself. “Why Agent Barton, I’ve never felt so special.”
Monday afternoon is her weekly progress meeting with Nick. Natasha steps into his office and he’s not there. There is, however, an orange cat sitting on his desk.
Natasha tilts her head. The cat tilts its own.
Bizarrely, Natasha’s first instinct is that Nick Fury got turned into a cat. Then she realizes that’s ridiculous. Then she remembers this is SHIELD and it might not be ridiculous at all.
“Hello,” Natasha greets the cat. It does not respond, but it does keep staring at her. “I’m going to sit down now.”
Sitting in front of Nick’s desk means Natasha is close enough to read the tag on the cat’s collar. Goose, it reads. The fact that it has a tag makes it unlikely that it’s a human turned into a cat. And it’s on a little pet bed. It honestly looks like Nick Fury brought his cat into work. But Nick has never once had cat hair on his clothes.
“I see you met Goose,” Nick says as he walks into the office.
“You’re late,” Natasha says.
“Conference call ran late.”
Natasha isn’t sure if he even had a conference call in the first place. For all she knows this is just a setup to meet the cat as part of a test. “Goose is an odd name,” she remarks.
Nick gives her a look as he sits down at his desk. “I think it’s a cute name,” he says, entirely deadpan. Then he strokes Goose under the chin.
Natasha can’t help it. She really does like Nick.
“So.” Nick leans back in his chair and eyes her. “How many people did you threaten to kill this week?”
Natasha glances at Goose. Is that cat really going to sit in on this meeting? Is it hiding a recording device? Is it a recording device? “How many has Goose threatened to kill?”
Nick chuckles a little. “Goose doesn’t threaten before she kills. Listen, try your best to ignore her. Had to bring her in today to run some tests.”
Natasha frowns. “...Why?”
“That’s classified,” Nick says. “I’ll tell you once you’re higher than level 0. And you'll get higher than level 0 once you stop glaring at strangers in the halls.”
“You glare at people in the halls,” Natasha points out.
“I’ve been here since before you were born, kid. I’ve earned the right.”
Natasha turns the glare on him. “I’m not a kid.”
Nick smiles. “I’ve also earned the right to call nineteen-year-old assassins kids. Get to my age and you’ll understand.” He leans forward. “And if you’re going to make it to my age, you have to have comradery with your fellow agents. That comradery starts when you stop glaring at them.”
Natasha looks at Goose. Goose looks back at her.
“Yeah I know,” Nick says. “It’s a hell of a lot easier to have comradery with animals. They don’t talk back. They don’t understand all the terrible things you’ve done. But Goose ain’t going to be in your ear when shit goes down on mission. It’s going to be a person, maybe even someone you hate, and you’ll have to deal with that.”
Natasha slowly, slowly, reaches out her hand. She puts two fingers under Goose’s chin and scratches, and Goose tolerates it.
“Would you look at that.” Nick leans back in his chair again. “You made a friend. Try it with a human next time.”
“So, what happened with the dentist?” asks Doctor Lenson.
Natasha shrugs and continues playing with the Rubix Cube. She likes having something in her hands for these sessions. And she can throw hard enough for it to be a weapon. “Well, I thought I was fifteen and being tortured,” she says. “But because of that I didn’t stab anyone with the dental tools. Does that count as a success?”
Lenson sighs. “I suppose from a certain point of view.”
“What about your point of view?” Natasha asks her. “Do you count it as a success?”
Lenson considers her for a moment before saying, “You thought you were being tortured. I tend not to view that as positive. Do you?”
Natasha doesn’t know what Lenson’s deal is. Supposedly she’s her therapist, but supposedly therapists are bound by confidentiality rules, and Lenson must at least be reporting to Nick. Natasha isn’t sure who else. Lenson’s probably better classified as her work supervisor.
“I wasn’t actually being tortured,” Natasha says. “That’s positive.”
Lenson inclines her head a little. “True. What about it made you think you were being tortured?”
The Rubix Cube has a couple scratches on it. It’s been like that ever since it showed up in Lenson’s office during their second session. Natasha wonders who caused the scratches, if it was a former patient. Maybe Lenson just had the Rubix Cube lying around her home and this is the normal wear and tear from a normal person’s life.
“Natasha?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you make a guess?”
Natasha twists the cube’s bottom row. “Sight, smell, sensation.”
“You think it was a number of things?”
Natasha stops moving. “What would you do if I threw this at your head.”
Lenson takes her time responding. “I would duck,” she says finally.
“And then what.”
“That would depend on what happened next.”
Natasha rolls the cube in her hands. “You’re a moron,” she says flatly. “You know how many people I’ve killed. You know how quickly I can do it. Your only chance in that situation is to use that sidearm you don’t like having. You don’t have time to assess. You have to act.”
Lenson takes a deep breath. “Your hypothetical assumes that you’re trying to kill me.”
Natasha scoffs.
“I don’t believe you would try to kill me, Natasha.”
“Why?” she demands. “Because I got tortured a couple times? Because you look at me like I’m a brainwashed teenager? Poor little girl couldn’t actually have blood on her hands, right? I’ve killed children in cold blood. What makes you think I wouldn’t kill you?”
Lenson’s entire body is tense, just like it is every time Natasha asks her this question.
“You haven’t tried to kill me so far.”
That’s a new reason. Usually Lenson just says she trusts Fury to keep her safe.
Natasha smiles. Or at least she thinks it’s a smile. She shows teeth, at least. “That’s a big accomplishment for me.”
Lenson meets her eyes. “Do you want to kill me?”
She’s asked that question before. Natasha never answers.
“Natasha. You can tell me you don’t want to talk about the dentist.”
There’s that word again: ‘want’.
Natasha lays her cards on the table. “Thirty-one.”
“Oh come on,” Clint groans. “That’s four in a row.”
“I win,” Natasha adds unnecessarily.
Clint throws his cards at her. Natasha smirks as they hit her face, and then starts gathering up the whole stack. They’re playing in a random empty conference room because Natasha still isn’t comfortable in the official break rooms. Or maybe it’s that everyone else isn’t comfortable with her.
Clint declares, “I’m done with this. Can we beat the shit out of each other? Are you cleared for sparring yet?”
“Not yet,” Natasha says, shuffling the cards. “I don’t understand why I can throw dodgeballs and not spar. Dodgeball was still pretty violent.”
Clint grimaces, probably thinking about the bruises they both had after. “I’m guessing they don’t want you making direct contact. Maybe they’d let us punch each other with boxing gloves? Wait, I know, we’ll put on hockey gear and beat each other up. We could say we’re reenacting the Miracle on Ice to teach you about American history.”
Natasha quirks her mouth. “Are you ever going to run out of Soviet Union references?”
“We could just have silent reading time. You got a copy of 1984? Animal Farm?” Natasha gives him a look, and Clint just grins. “The Manchurian Candidate?” Natasha throws the entire stack of cards in his face. Clint bursts out laughing as they fall all over.
She doesn’t know why he spends time with her. She doesn’t know why he didn’t kill her when he had the chance. Sometimes she has dreams about him with a bag on his head, her hand is on the trigger, her superiors are telling her to fire. Sometimes she wants to teach him ballet. Sometimes she wants to stow away in a suitcase and follow him when he goes on leave.
She knows better than to tell him any of that. “You’re insane,” Natasha says instead. “Next time we play dodgeball, I’m aiming for your crotch.”
“You’ll miss,” Clint replies, and spreads his arms out proudly. “I’m insane but I’m damn good.”
Maria Hill eats breakfast with her some days. Months ago, during the first week Natasha was allowed to eat in the cafeteria, Hill came up to the otherwise empty table. “Can I sit here?” she asked. Natasha stared at her for a few seconds before nodding. So Hill sat down and ate her food.
They don’t talk. Hill doesn’t even verbally ask anymore, hasn’t since that first morning. She just comes up to the table, and Natasha will nod, and Hill will sit. She’ll drink coffee, or eat, or fill out paperwork. Sometimes she shows up with a paperback Natasha thinks is for fun. She can’t see why Hill would be reading Star Wars novels for SHIELD business, but Natasha doesn’t know everything.
The truth is, having Hill around reminds Natasha of what she still calls home in her head. She ate breakfast with the other girls of the Red Room. Some days they talked but some days they just ate in silence. It was a familiar routine. They were together.
Those breakfasts stopped happening long before Natasha met Clint.
Some days Hill is already eating breakfast when Natasha gets to the cafeteria. Natasha will consider joining her, and then sit at an empty table. She doesn’t know how to ask yet.
Natasha is technically allowed to go outside, but she isn’t allowed to leave the premises. She doesn’t see the point in standing right outside the building doors. So she goes up to the roof. No one bothers her up there.
Or they haven’t until today. Agent Coulson is up on the roof, sitting by himself, eating a sandwich.
She knows this is a test, but Natasha’s not sure what he’s testing for.
“You found my secret lair,” she says.
Coulson looks up at her, frowns, and looks around. “I’m used to secret lairs being more… snazzy.”
“I’m boring.”
Coulson smiles. “That, I doubt. How are you today, Agent Romanoff?”
“Technically I’m not an agent.” Maybe that’s too combative. “But I passed the latest procedures exam.”
“So you’re on your way,” Coulson says.
Natasha quirks her mouth a little. She’s not sure where to go from here. Watching him eat would make him uncomfortable. She can’t pretend he’s not there. She can’t sit near the edge like she sometimes does, because he might think she’s trying to kill herself again. Is she supposed to continue the conversation here?
She decides to stay a few feet from the door and look out into the distance. They stay in silence as Coulson finishes his lunch. Nothing happens, and Natasha waits.
After he’s gathered up his garbage into a bag, Coulson follows her gaze. “Can’t say I’m a fan of the view,” he says.
“No?”
Coulson shrugs. “I’m from Wisconsin. Washington D.C. is always just a bit too much for me.” He looks at her. “How about you? You miss Russia?”
Ah, so that’s the play. What does he want to hear? “I miss some things,” Natasha says truthfully. “The weather. The food. Americans put too much sugar in everything.” Coulson chuckles a little bit. “I suppose I miss the language.”
“Not a lot of native Russian speakers on base,” Coulson acknowledges.
Natasha hums. “Tell me. Is the weather and food and language much different in Wisconsin?”
“Very much so,” Coulson deadpans. “No one here knows what a bubbler is.”
Natasha doesn’t know what a bubbler is but she’s not going to admit it. “Not a lot of native Wisconsinians on base,” she says.
“We prefer the term ‘Wisconsinites,’” Coulson says.
She’s pretty sure it’s a joke? She’ll play along. “My apologies.”
Coulson has this weird, neutral smile on his face all the time. She knows he’s evaluating her every second behind that smile. She can only read some of it and it’s unnerving. How did she get so bad at this? Maybe she’s just out of practice. She needs to get back to work.
“Fury recruited me out of high school,” Coulson says. So he’s yet another person who’s been here longer than she’s been alive. “I was the new kid with no idea what was going on. It took a while for me to adjust.”
Natasha can’t imagine his experience was anything like hers is. “Did you ever think about going back to Wisconsin?”
“Every day. Then every other day. And then less and less, until I stopped thinking of it as home.” He pauses. “Still don’t like the view here, though.”
“Never adjusted to that?”
“Adjusting and liking are two different things.” Coulson checks his watch and stands up. “I need to head back down. It was nice talking to you, Agent Romanoff.”
Natasha inclines her head as he walks by her and opens the door. Then he says, “Drinking fountain.”
“Excuse me?”
“Bubblers are what we call drinking fountains.”
“...I’ll remember that for the next exam.”
Coulson has that neutral smile on his face as he closes the door behind him.
Natasha doesn’t know if she passed or failed this test.
Natasha walks into Lenson’s office and flops down in her usual chair. “Does SHIELD pay you a lot to talk to me?” she asks.
“I’m well compensated for my work,” Lenson says evenly.
Natasha doubts it. She knows she’s a pain in the ass patient. She says messed up things just to see Lenson’s therapist mask fall. It doesn’t always work. Lenson was visibly affected when Natasha described the children’s ward without emotion, but when Natasha asked what would happen if she jumped out the window, Lenson simply said, “You die and I would get fired.” It’s a bit of a game to see what will affect Lenson and what won’t. Natasha knows it’s not nice of her.
“You should ask for a raise,” she says.
Lenson kind of smiles a little. “I’ll take it up with the Director. How are you doing, Natasha?”
Natasha has been thinking about the forest, but she can’t say that. “Same as usual,” she says instead and picks up the Rubix Cube. “I study, I train, I get my head checked for unconscious triggers.”
“Have they found any more?”
“Not since the watch thing.” Meaning the time Natasha saw a translator’s new wristwatch and she thought it meant she had to dismantle a bomb in Paris. Frankly it’s impossible to know if she once had a mission involving bombs in Paris, or if it was something her brain made up on its own. Her memory isn’t reliable and the Red Room wasn’t known for keeping extensive files.
Lenson hums. “Well, it seems like you have a lot going on.” Natasha really doesn’t but she doesn’t protest. She doesn’t feel like having the argument over breaks and laziness again. “What kinds of things do you do for fun?”
“I beat my record time at the obstacle course again,” Natasha says.
“I meant things other than training.”
Natasha narrows her eyes. “You know that I can’t exactly go to the park.”
“But you go up to the roof,” Lenson says. “And watch TV with Agent Barton. I’m asking about those things. What else do you like doing?”
Natasha stops herself from saying she likes training. She’s trying to answer Lenson’s questions in the spirit intended. It’s hard. “I like eating breakfast with Agent Hill.”
Lenson looks surprised. “You’ve been eating breakfast with someone else?” She really shouldn’t get her hopes up like that.
“We don’t talk at all. We just share a table sometimes.”
But Lenson looks pleased. “Still. You have the option to eat by yourself, at a separate table or in your quarters. Instead you are making the choice to eat with another person.”
Natasha didn’t put nearly enough thought into it to qualify as a choice. And she didn’t put nearly enough effort into it for Lenson to be so happy about it. Lenson gets happy about weird things.
Sometimes Lenson looks at her like she wants to say Natasha should quit SHIELD. That a traumatized nineteen-year-old shouldn’t take a job that will retraumatize her. That Natasha should start over and be a civilian in an environment where she can heal. Luckily she hasn’t actually said it, probably because she knows Natasha might actually throw the Rubix Cube at her if she did.
Lenson says, “Try not to discount the little signs of progress. Even little things can be celebrated.” She smiles gently. “And it can be good to share space with others, even in silence. Everyone needs human connection.”
Natasha looks at the wall, and thinks of the forest again.