The Ultimate Fix-It Fic

5| Secretary "Then-you-retire"

Natasha sighed as she read the next page of the Accords. She had managed to get a copy a few months ago, and she decided to reread it again.

It was May, a month after what happened in Lagos, and Wanda was still beating herself up about it.

Nat decided to pay the younger woman a visit. She knocked on her doorframe quietly. "Hey."

Wanda looked away from her small TV and up at Nat. "Natasha," she greeted.

Nat found the remote and turned it off.

"It's my fault," Wanda said anyway.

"That's not entirely true," Natasha replied. "Steve is also to blame."

Wanda huffed a small laugh. "Sure."

"It's true. He could've just tackled the guy but no, he just had to freeze up when he heard his best friend's name. Which is my fault." Natasha admitted.

"Ha." Wanda played with a little ball of red light that gathered between her fingertips. "Turn it back on, they're being very specific." She dismissed the little ball of light and sat up straighter. "You told me to train and I did. But I could've done better. I could've trained harder. So I wouldn't've killed those people."

"You didn't kill them," Nat said. "You just failed to save them. There's a difference."

"But is it a difference people can see?" Wanda asked flatly. "No. All that matters is that there are people dead and it's because of me." She slumped and curled in on herself. She looked up at Nat's face.

Natasha smoothed back a bit of hair on Wanda's head gently, feeling a rush of sisterly affection for the girl they had allied themselves with last year. "Well," she said in a measured tone, "All we can do is wait, now."

Vision floated in through the wall, and Wanda sprang up with a start. "Vis!" she scolded the AI. "We talked about this!"

Vision gestured at the doorway. "The door was open, so I assumed that..." he changed the subject. "We have a visitor."

"Who?" Natasha sighed resignedly.

"The Secretary of State."

-

The remaining Avengers assembled around the conference table.

"Five years ago, I had a heart attack. I dropped right in the middle of my back-swing." Secretary Ross said. "Turned out it was the best round of my life, because after 13 hours of surgery and a triple bypass . . . I found something 40 years in the Army had never taught me: Perspective. The world owes the Avengers an un-payable debt. You have fought for us, protected us, risked your lives . . . but while a great many people see you as heroes, there are some . . . who would prefer the word 'vigilantes'."

Natasha leaned forwards and fixed her smile. "And what word would you use, Mr. Secretary?"

"How about 'dangerous'?" Ross replied. "What would you call a group of US-based, enhanced individuals who routinely ignore sovereign borders and inflict their will wherever they choose and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind?"

He turned on a PowerPoint presentation of the footage from some of their fights. "New York." There was the Hulk, making a bit of rubble.

Rhodey glanced at Natasha but she gazed determinedly forwards.

"Washington, D. C.." Project Insight. Nat still felt the occasional stab of pain where she got shot that time.

"Sokovia." Footage of Novi Grad rising to the sky.

"Lagos," Ross said.

Natasha noted Wanda's face.

Steve did too, apparently. "Alright," he said. "That's enough."

Ross nodded to an aide, who turned it off. "For the past four years, you've operated with unlimited power and no supervision. That's an arrangement the governments of the world can no longer tolerate. But I think we have a solution." He slid a copy of the Accords onto the table, identical to the one Natasha had in her desk.

Everyone passed it around half-heartedly, all already knowing the contents.

"The Sokovia Accords." Ross nodded to the document. "Approved by 117 countries . . . it states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organization. Instead, they'll operate under the supervision of a United Nations panel, only when and if that panel deems it necessary."

Steve looked up. "The Avengers were formed to make the world a safer place. I feel we've done that."

"Tell me, Captain," Ross said, "do you know where Thor is right now?"

Natasha stiffened. So they were pretending Bruce was dead, still.

"If I misplaced a couple of 30-megaton nukes . . . you can bet there'd be consequences. Compromise. Reassurance. That's how the world works. Believe me, this is the middle ground." Ross stated.

"So, there are contingencies," Rhodey said.

Ross made a slight inclination of his head at that. "Three days from now, the U. N. meets in Vienna to ratify the Accords," he told them. "Talk it over."

"And if we come to a decision you don't like?" Natasha asked him.

Ross gave her a thin smile. "Then you retire."

Nat stifled a smile as the Secretary left. He was the only reason she wasn't already happily retired, living on a permanent vacation on an island in Mexico.

Tony looked to Natasha, and she nodded. She excused the rest of the team and walked to talk to Tony in the kitchen. "Tony?"

The man buried his head in his arms and used a hand to clumsily project a photo of a young man. "Charles Spencer. Killed him in Sokovia," he mumbled.

Natasha studied the photo. "Was he in college?"

"Just graduated." Tony looked up at her, eyes tired. "We dropped a building on him, Nat."

Natasha looked away from the hologram and placed a reassuring hand on her friend. "Tony–"

"Pepper broke up with me," he confessed in a rush. "It's been almost a year since they took Bruce. We haven't seen Barton since we met his baby." Tony gazed at her, pain tugging the corners down of his mouth. He looked older. "Everybody's gone."

"I'm right here." It wasn't a lie, but they both knew it wasn't quite the truth. No matter what, they knew that for Natasha, she would always be a little preoccupied, if not with trying to get Bruce back then with training the younger ones. "Well–"

Her phone lit up with a text from a nursing home she's been putting an agent in ever since she got some authority: 'She's gone.'

Nat sighed. "Tony." She tapped his shoulder gently. "I'm sorry."

"What for?"

She showed him the text, and he read it and slumped back into his arms. "Absolutely fucking fabulous," she heard him mumble. "I killed an old lady with my statement."

Natasha got another text. "She died in her sleep an hour ago, Tony," she retorted. "As if you could kill Peggy Carter anyways." She texted the agent back with a task.

Tony chuckled quietly.

Natasha felt something tap her shoulder and a note encased in red light dropped into her hand.

'Steve wants you to call a general meeting.'

Nat sighed and turned back to Tony. "Ready to face the crowd, Mr. Stark?" she asked drily.

"Are you my personal assistant again?" he peeked out from his slump. "Fine."