Old Scars Resurface - Natasha Romanoff

Questions, questions

"How do you know where everything is?" Natasha asked, storming into the weapons room. It was like she was finding an excuse to not trust Erin as if it would stop her from feeling so weirdly interested in her.

"I know I'm not a Russian agent, but I'm still an agent," she told her, not taking her eyes off of the layout of weapons, "I've spent considerable amounts of time in safe houses before, I get the idea."

Natasha watched every move she made. She saw every knife Erin hid in her boots and her waist belt, the exact place she stored her gun, and even the way she let her fingers run over all of the weapons that she didnt take. If she was asked about it, she would've said that it was for surveillance or safety reasons, but the glisten she got in her eyes just from watching her suggested something entirely different.

"How did you know to come here?" Natasha asked her.

"My god," Erin groaned, dropping her head back before leaving the room, brushing past Natasha as she left, "why don't I ask you two that question? What, you don't want to know everything about each other? Because unless you two have been secretly meeting for tea every month for the past 21 years, you two should be just as shocked to see each other as you are to see me."

"She's right," Natasha thought to herself, leaving a silence in the room.

Yelena squinted, "do you have something you'd like to say?"

That was what seemed to break the seal of the outburst of anger Natasha had in the moment. She stepped closer, her tone getting firmer, "you just had to come to Budapest, didn't you?"

"I came here because I thought you wouldn't. But since you are here, what kind of bullet does that?"

When Yelena pointed to the wall, both Natasha and Erin looked at it. Erin instantly recognised it to be a SHIELD issue arrow - one that Clint Barton would've used, but she kept it to herself while Natasha provided the answer.

"Not bullets. Arrows," Natasha told her, knowing exactly what it meant.

Yelena simply nodded, "ah, right."

"If you didn't think I'd come here, why'd you send me this?" Natasha asked, slamming something down on the table beside her, gentle enough not to break it.

When Yelena saw it, her face dropped, "you brought it back here?"

While Yelena disappeared into the room beside them, Erin wandered over to the table and examined the small vials of liquid. She mumbled, "what are these?"

From the other room, Yelena called out, "It's a synthetic gas. The counteragent to chemical subjugation. The gas immunises the brain's neuro-pathways from external manipulation."

Even though Erin understood her, Natasha mumbled in confusion, "maybe in English next time?"

So, as Yelena would, she sarcastically called out in a Russian accent, "its an antidote to mind control."

Natasha rolled her eyes, "real mature."

"Why don't you take it to one of your super-scientist friends? They can explain it to you. Tony Stark, maybe?" She suggested.

Erin just gave her a look, waiting to see her excuse for this one. Natasha tried to ignore the gaze that was on her, but it was difficult to when all she wanted to do was look back and lock eyes with her again.

She shrugged, "oh, yeah. We're not really talking right now, so..."

"Great," she scoffed, "perfect timing. Where's an Avenger when you need one?

An argument started. "I don't wanna be here. I'm on the run. You could've gotten me killed."

"Well, what was I supposed to do? You're the only superhero person that I know," she told her, coming back out into the kitchen with a bag, "that was the whole reason I sent it to you." While carefully placing the vials into the bag, she continued, "I kept checking the news, expecting to see Captain America bringing down the Red Room."

Natasha's eyes furrowed, and Erin's ears perched as she listened, "what? Taking down the Red Room? What are you talking about? It's been gone for years. Dreykov's dead. I killed him.

"You don't actually believe that, do you?" She waited for a minute, her laugh fading as she realised, "you really do believe that."

"Dreykov's dead. It took almost destroying the entire city just to get to him."

"If you're so sure, then tell me what happened," she ordered, "tell me exactly."

"We rigged bombs."

"Who's "we"?"

"Clint Barton," Erin chimed in after standing back and listening for a while. The girls both turned to look at her, "killing Dreykov was the final step in Natasha's defection to S.H.I.E.L.D. I saw the records, I know he's dead."

"Simple as that?" Yelena questioned her.

"Yeah, sure, "simple." That's what I'd call imploding a five-story building and then shooting it out with the Hungarian Special Forces," Natasha furrowed her brows when she realised how much Erin seemed to know about her and her missions. "Didn't it take you guys 10 days in hiding before you could even get out of Budapest?"

"Yeah... how do you know that?" Natasha asked.

She shrugged, "I read a lot of SHIELD reports, thats all."

Yelena turned back to Natasha, "and you checked the body? Confirmed the kill?"

Natasha shrugged, turning her back to the girls, "there was no body left to check."

"You're forgetting Dreykov's daughter," Yelena added.

That sentence alone was enough to make Natasha freeze completely. Erin didnt quite know what it meant, but just from Natasha's reaction alone, she could tell that it was harrowing enough to make a trained assassin speechless.

However, no questions could be asked and no comments could be made before a sound interrupted them all. The faint sound of footsteps from above them caused them all to freeze, even if it was just the resident upstairs.

"You wouldn't happen to know if the upstairs neighbour likes walking around in big clunky boots for fun, would you?" Erin asked to break the silence.

"No one lives upstairs."

Suddenly, a crash through the ceiling above them sent the girls splitting apart. The rubble hit Erin back, slamming into the wall behind her. Yelena managed to duck behind a wall and not take much damage from the blast, but Natasha was thrown across the floor as she was the closest to the initial blast.