How to Dream

The Doctor's Appointment

Public transportation differs in Ireland, though it will never feel like home. Natasha stepped off the bus a mile back and started walking.

She's been strolling the path filled with stone bridges and green with a coffee cup. Everything is green. Her long green plaid scarf twirls subtly in the wind as she steps along the foggy street toward an open pub.

Dr. Helen Cho is supposed to meet with her to discuss lab results from Rebecca Yelena Banner's private school in the States. These results were then transferred to the camp in Ireland, which Dr. Cho runs.

An elaborate plan, but god forbid someone should get their hands on the file; Natasha would slit the throats of everyone involved- and she knows their names.

She enters the establishment with her coffee in hand and raises a gloved hand in greeting toward the barkeeper.

"Natalie," the large man addresses her, using the name she's chosen for the week with a scoff.

"Hello, Liam," she takes up a sticky stool.

He shakes his head. There's a filthy apron across his waist and a towel in his hand. He smiles with a friendliness he's shown all week and for every Thanksgiving before;

"Back again? Ya' can't resist my drinks."

"The best I've tasted."

He frowns, shaking his head and tapping his nose like he's caught onto her using the bar as a meeting place.

"Keep your business clean, Lass," he lectures in a thick accent.

Natasha hums and lifts her nose toward the menu over his head. "I'll take my usual. If it's not too early to order," she says.

He shrugs, making a muffled grunting sound. "Throw that away," he says, pointing to her cup.

"Don't worry," Natasha downs it and then demonstrates the contents have depleted with a wiggle, "It's empty. Happy? It keeps me alive. I need my caffeine."

"Ack! You're as bad as my daughter."

She smirks and folds her arms, tugging the gloves off her hands.

"Go ndéana sé maith duit," he says, sliding a very much spiked Irish coffee in her direction.

"Slainté," she lifts the cup.

He brushes her off with a huff she knows is all farce. Almost on cue, Cho enters and rapidly shoves an envelope in Natasha's direction.

Shivering, Helen bites her lower lip, "It's freezing. For once, I wish you'd take Thanksgiving break in Bermuda."

Natasha taps the envelope and quickly tears it open, "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet-." Cho blinks and eyes the bartender, sentence drifting as if she's anticipated Natasha's disappointment before it's happened.

Natasha's eyes stay fixed on the document, immediately letting it hit the table with an exhale.

Silence ensues.

Organs; enhanced

Blood; enhanced

Heart-

Natasha chugs from the glass provided by Liam. She downs the liquid, nearly choking on it, before taking another sip.

Helen clears her throat as though she knows exactly what Natashs will ask;

"Her heart remains a concern."

"She's turning thirteen,' Natasha forces a smile despite her growing rage and chews in an ice cube, 'I was hoping to have all of my ducks in a row before High School."

Cho pushes herself to face Natasha and crosses a knee, "Rebecca is an anomaly. The fact that she's survived this long is unheard of."

"I gave up everything when I gave her my blood."

It's not a lie. Helen knows this.

Natasha wouldn't speak so freely if Liam were anything more than a father and barkeep, she's done her research.

Natasha's life would have been very different had she never given her daughter a tainted fraction of her super serum blood years ago.

She wouldn't be sneaking between Scotland's Roslin Institute, Helen Cho in America, and Ireland for medical answers.

"You would've given up so much more if you hadn't," Helen mutters fearlessly, "She's alive because of you."

Natasha huffs at the thought of the one final, singular blood transfusion that sealed Rebecca's fate, causing her charts to read 'enhanced' until Cho erases it for anything school-related.

The spy will take the revised version of Rebecca's health records to a 'prison for the enhanced' in New York to show her husband, the creator of B-Ex 10:04, that everything is fine while he sits in jail for creating her essence, for gifting Natasha with the child she adores as much as him... 'fine.'

Nothing is fine. The lies have piled up. Bruce Banner is in jail because of her, because he chose to risk creating a normal child and purify their blood in the cloning process. The law may be mad about Rebecca's suffering, the suffering Natasha tried to alleviate by giving her raw blood. But no one could know the full truth, not even Bruce; that Rebecca Yelena Banner now carried the pure and raw DNA of the Black Widow. And based on suspicious various incidents which may or may not consist of learning how to ride a bicycle, that of a 'raging Hulk'. Not after what they'd been through. Not after the small battles they fought and won.

Despite once being a professional spy, lying to her husband has hurt her the most. She holds her stomach as if she's ready to vomit.

"Prognosis?" Natasha asks.

Cho shakes her head, "Don't worry about it. Be a mom. Your instincts have done you well so far. Keep trusting that."

Natasha nods despite wanting to strangle the woman at her left. It's not Helen's fault, but knowing would alleviate the tension. She'd always prefer an answer, even if it's grim.

"It's in my DNA," Natasha says as she throws a card Liam's way, "I'm closing my tab."

"On the house, Romanoff," Liam gestures from the kitchen down the hall, busy scrubbing in his sink, though his calling her by her last name proves he knows more than he's let on.

After three years of meeting in his bar, Natasha would be disappointed if he hadn't.

"Thank you," she answers, for keeping her secrets and for permitting meeting after meeting with various scientists right under his nose for tolerating an occupied barstool for three Thanksgivings in a row.

She wasn't fooling anyone with her dyed brown hair. She'd gotten too close to the man the last few years to think she could keep up her disguises and meetings in one place.

It would be the last she'd see of Liam, mentally noting the comfort of the pub before exiting the establishment. She loves the messy walls, the positive energy before the mobs enter during truly open hours. Liam's kind, wrinkled smile...

...But it was time to move on lest she put another father/husband in danger. Lest her daughter is being hunted in the middle of Ireland for being an enhanced clone.

It's not as though they need to run, but her life merits caution. If what they'd endured a few years ago during Bruce Banner's trial were any indication, it would be a long while before she'd be able to truly know peace.

"Keep your head down. And hey, give Bermuda a chance. You've seen almost all there is to see in Ireland at this point," Cho mumbles under her breath and lifts the hood on her fitted jacket.

Natasha smiles, reading between the lines of Cho's words, "Get home safe."

"Don't stay out too late," she says in reply.

"Nil sé'n la," Natasha answers in echo of what someone once said to her.

It's barely the afternoon and the night is unpredictable.