Chapter Text
S.H.I.E.L.D recruited you right out of high school and you slipped into the academy like a second skin. They brought you in because your hacking skills - while rarely encouraged or legal - were more honed at 15 than most of their seniors agents', and while your hacking improved you also proved yourself more than competent at espionage and sharp shooting.
Natasha was always in your peripherals at the academy - she was hard not to notice. She mentored some of your more advanced classes and knowing what you knew about her– what the world knew about her after the records dump - it was impossible not to be curious.
But honestly, you probably gave her less thought than most. You rarely, if ever, needed to be corrected in your courses so your interaction with her at the academy was minimal. And unlike a lot of your peers, you had a very chaotic personal life and a much stronger penchant to party or – - hack into NASA for fun– - than obsess over your higher-ups.
Between school, your big, loud close knit family, and your boyfriend Ryan, who you met your first week at the academy, you were busy –- and happy.
It wasn’t until you were pulled out of a Military Strategy class and instructed to report to none other than Phil Coulson himself your third year at the academy that Natasha became more to you than a passing curiosity. It felt like a long walk to the principal’s office on your way to the Tri-Skeleton. The whole way you just kept trying to think what the hell you possibly could have done wrong.
And many, many things came to mind.
It was even more perturbing when his door-keeper let you into his personal office and the only other person there was Natasha Romanoff.
Oh God. They know about NASA.
Despite how well you’d been doing in your espionage courses, you faltered hard seeing her sitting there relaxed in one of the leather armchairs facing Director Coulson’s desk. “Um.. hey, hi!” you squeaked out like a 12 year-old with a crush. It was the first time you can remember honestly being flustered since Adam Tam asked you out in 9th grade, and you’d handled it better then.
She just raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow at you, smirked, and tilted her head towards the other chair. Your cheeks were redder than her hair as you took a seat. Where the fuck was Phil.
The silence was stiflingly awkward for you, but you could have sworn she was enjoying your turmoil.
After several long minutes though, she took pity. “I know you,” she stated so casually like your heart wasn’t pounding out of your body. “I did a couple days of training in your sharp-shooting class last semester. You’re good.”
Ok- a compliment from the Black Widow- that you can deal with.
You cleared your throat which had somehow gone so dry, “Yeah, you were also a mentor in one of my undercover strategy classes my first year,” you added, nervously tucking some hair behind my ear. “Huh,” she replied. “I don’t remember that.”
You laughed a little louder and more hysterically than you meant to, “Well, I guess I was that good.”
Her smile looked a little more genuine and she was about to reply when the back door to the office opened and Coulson walked in.
Natasha immediately straightened, all signs of leisure erased from her posture.
“Agent Romanoff, Recruit (y/l/n), thank you for coming.” His smile is less than reassuring.
It was rare - almost unheard of - for a student to be sent on an active duty mission, but this was classified as low risk and the most important component was someone who could hack - fast.
And it is a simple mission - drop into northwest Russia 13:00. Hike to old HYDRA base- reach location by 17:00. Copy files off Saved by the Bell looking computer to an (actual) floppy disk - which with all of your years of computer hacking it’s the first time you’ve ever held one. You giggle a little about how much more data could fit on something smaller than one of your eyelashes.
But you do your job - in an out - no complications.
There’s a safe house about 10 miles to your east- just a tiny cabin in the Russian tundra but it has secure wifi where you can upload your stolen files to SHIELD. It also has a fireplace which you more than welcome after the long, freezing trek.
You’ve been trying to act cool the whole time. You are (y/n y/l/n) agent of SHIELD, bad ass spy, defender of — you know that’s always been less than clear. Democracy, maybe? But you’re a good guy - for sure. You’re on a mission with a literal superhero. You can handle the cold.
You cannot handle the cold. Last New Years Eve, Ryan had to carry you home in tears because you swore you were gonna lose your toes from frost bite. You could feel them dying inside your shoes. It was 42 degrees and your shoes were too small but you were chilly and drunk and you get dramatic when you’re cold.
But needless to say, a 10 mile hike through the Russian Tundra did not suit you. When you finally (FINALLY) got the to small one room cabin, Natasha got a fire going while you shivered pathetically, balled up in your parka on a battered, old sofa.
The warmth from the small log fireplace feels like the best luxury you’ve ever known and the lumpy couch - pattern straight out of an teenager’s basement in an 80s movie - might be the most comfortable thing you’ve ever sat on. Slowly, you unfurl yourself in and take off your gear. First your tactical boots, then your tool belt, and eventually even your SHIELD issued catsuit when the place gets warm enough.
By the time you’ve zonked out on the couch with your head back and mouth hanging open, you’ve almost forgotten Natasha even exists until she nudges you back into consciousness with a smirk and a hot mug of tea and says, “Stand up for a minute, it’s a pull out.”
You sip your tea lazily and watch her make up the futon before gracelessly collapsing right back into it and muttering a slurred, “g’night”. Your brain feels like mush and your limbs feel so heavy and you don’t remember anything else until the next morning except maybe…
Later you’ll think you dreamed it, but you have this persistent memory of Natasha wrapping around you and murmuring, “have to keep you warm,” into the crook of your neck.
But that doesn’t make any sense. It was plenty warm with the fire. You were just exhausted.
The next mission you get sent on with Natasha is also very simple and routine.
But it goes anything but.
The base was supposed to be abandoned. It was a simple recon mission - Technically Natasha didn’t even need to go except you were still a student and needed to be supervised - and also as good as you’d gotten they hadn’t taught you how to fly a Quinjet yet.
You can hear the chaos raging outside. The air smells like gunpowder and blood and you are so, so close to cracking the firewall. You’re scared. Terrified, but these files are essential. They could save people’s lives. You keep going and right as you through the door to the lab you’re in flies open.
It’s the end. It’s HYDRA, you’re sure of it.
And it is, but it’s Natasha too and she has one huge man in a headlock between her legs as she fires three shots into the other big guy trying to come in.
You register- briefly - that it’s the first time you’ve ever seen someone die.
But you can’t unpack that right then - the files are on the thumb drive and Natasha is fighting off 3 men twice her size. So you pull out your SHIELD issued pistol that you were so good at in training, but have never actually had to point at a living target. You prepare yourself to shoot, but before you can another shot rings out and you hear a desperate scream of your name.
Before you can even register what’s happened, 7… maybe 8 more gun shots fire and the men you were prepared to kill are suddenly very dead on the ground in front of you - their bodies still and bullet riddled in grotesque ways that make you want to vomit.
And Natasha is sitting amongst them looking very annoyed as blood pools from a wound in her thigh.
‘Backup is on the way,” she grunts through gritted teeth. “There’s a chopper coming, but you gotta get us to the roof. I don’t think I can walk alone.” The walk to the roof is a surreal blur with Natasha’s weight leaning heavily into your side. You should be the one comforting her, but she’s the one who has to tell you to keep going, that you’ve done so well, that it’s almost over, that you’ll be fine.
You make it to the roof right as the SHIELD chopper is landing. Medics immediately swarm out to tend to Natasha and the last thing you hear from her as she’s being wheeled away is an indignant insistence that she’s fine and they need to be looking after you. She’s under the rest of the way back to the safehouse in Berlin, and you don’t see her again until you’re already back in New York and debriefed.
You’re furious. Of all the things you know you should be feeling, anger is not one of them (though it does tend to be your default). As far as appropriate feelings are concerned, gratitude is probably up there, relief, undying devotion, maybe - but you just feel angry.
You storm into med bay three days later - straight from your debrief.
She smiled when you burst in; earnest and authentic - not expressions most people ever get to see from the Black Widow.
“What in the actual hell, Agent Romanoff??” you demand.
She’s frowning now.
She positions herself a little more upright in the hospital bed - where her leg is still hanging elevated in a sling from where she took a bullet.
Where she took a bullet for you.
“Why would you do that? Why would you jump in front of a fucking bullet for me?”
She’s not saying anything. Just watching you pace with an intense look that you cannot place but it makes you feel foolish and young and like she knows all your secrets and maybe you should apologize and what were you mad about again?
She’s still looking at you like that when she speaks slowly and low, like she’s telling you something vital, something she really needs you to understand. “(y/n), it was a kill shot. They were aiming to kill you. If I hadn’t gotten between you and them, you could have died.”
You blink dumbly a few times. Well, that didn’t seem like a big secret. It was HYDRA. Of course they were shooting to kill.
You give her the most incredulous look you can muster, “Yes, of course but you..”
Almost faster than you can register, her intense look is gone and the smug little smirk you’re much more accustom to is back when she cuts you off, “analyzed the threat and intercepted the bullet in a non-essential body part. They were aiming for your kidney, they got a little piece of my thigh. Everyone is alive and we got what we went for.”
You really don’t have anything to say to that.
When you do speak again, it comes out more as a helpless question. “Still, you took a bullet.. for.. me?”
She just shrugs, still smirking, “No regrets.”
“I…” You have no idea what to say to that either.
“I um, thank you?” Probably shouldn’t have been that.
But her smirk changes to a genuine smile when she says, “Of course.”
You leave after that, but you send her flowers. Really nice ones.
That’s the last time you see Natasha before it happens.
Honestly, the worst thing about the New World Order might be the hindsight. You want to kick yourself everyday thinking back for not seeing it coming.
The most powerful nation on earth assembles elite groups of super humans (and aliens!) to protect the planet – and then that same nation had a really bad crisis of conscience and elects a sycophant wannabe dictator as its president, who is then given power as commander and chief over these elite superheroes and black ops divisions.
The thing is, no one should have been able to use these… people? People, mostly, for any sort of political reason.
But this time, it’s really bad.
They’re given bad intel from the Pentagon - intentionally. Sent on what they think are humanitarian crisis missions only to end up being the humanitarian crisis. And they’re heroes. They’re the good guys. As soon as it became blindingly obvious to them that they were pawns of a tyrannical government - They rebelled. Of course they did. It’s admirable really.
But the betrayal hit hard and the atrocities they had conducted by order of the new regime hit harder.
It wasn’t a stretch for them to assume they could do it better on their own. And it wasn’t surprising how that turned out.
Superman was the first to break. Wonder woman followed soon after and in less than 6 months the entire Justice League was a “rogue enemy combatant” of the United States.
They were wiping out governing bodies at every level - from the United State’s Congress to rural Montana neighborhood boards - and implementing their own governance - one of fairness and righteousness. Where theirs was the absolute authority, and people would learn quickly not to question it.
Ryan -sweet, strong, duty bound Ryan, was a SHIELD legacy. His great-grandfather had been there at the beginning with Agent Carter and everyone in his family had signed up since. Ryan was one of the first to join the Resistance. Ryan joined the resistance before the Avengers even sided with the NWO.
He asked if you would come with him and he warned you it would be horrible. But how could you have said no? You loved him so much and he wasn’t wrong - what was happening under the New World Order was terrible. Governments falling all over the world, mass executions without trials of anyone who seemed associated with a dissenting government. Forced, strictly controlled “Utopias” that felt like that felt like something straight out of an Orwell novel being diligently monitored by NWO members. Horrific punishments for so much as disagreeing with what the local NWO head deemed “ Unifying”.
Joining the Resistance was the right thing to do.
The first six months as rogues were awful. Nights so cold you sometimes reminisced about being back in that cabin in Russia with Natasha. At first because you remembered that was the numbest your toes had ever been before–- that you weren’t lying about– — but the more you thought about it...
Sometimes, when you were wrapped around Ryan, shivering and clutching socks full of long-cold coal that you'd used to heat up your shitty canned dinner- you’d wonder if you imagined how warm you felt falling asleep that night in Russia-- if you imagined Natasha holding you -- if you imagined the cottony feeling of opiates when you finished your tea.
You weren’t surprised really, that she chose to join the Order.
You imagine she’s been the pawn of one tyrannical government too many and everyone has their “fuck it, I’ll do myself” point.
So no, you weren’t surprised when you heard what side Black Widow had taken.
But you were surprised the next time you saw her.
Ryan and you and your little rag tag team of rebels were in some tiny town in Bulgaria about 100 kilometers south out of Sofia. It was just supposed to be a safe place to hole up and plan for a few days, somewhere you could sleep.
And you were asleep. Comfortably and peacefully in a bed that maybe in your old life you would have thought was lumpy, but at the time felt like heaven - felt like that old busted futon in Russia.
You never even got to say goodbye.
There is one quick “whoosh” of wind and then Ryan was still laying next to you, his neck was bent at a horrible angle.
You could barely even feel the hands wrapping around your neck too as you looked at him in such shock and loss.
And then a familiar, raspy voice wrung out strong and loud.
“STOP!”
The hands left your neck.
“She’s mine. I’ll take her. She’s mine.”
The last thing you remember is staring at Ryan’s unmoving face and whispering, “please, no.” before you felt the icy prick of a needle in your neck and everything went dark under a curtain of red hair .