Tili Tili Bom (An Avengers fanfic)

Chapter twelve

As we zip down the road, Romanoff-

No.

Not Romanoff.

Natasha. I'm calling her Natasha.

-Natasha turns on the radio. Electric blue guitar begins to scream out of the speakers, vibrating the rest of the car. "Can I roll down the window?" I scream over the music. She nods, her demeanor beginning to crack as she relaxes into her seat. I roll down the window and stick my hand out, the wind and sunlight rushing over my fingers. As we drive, something occurs to me. I put the window back up. "What happened to the pill you guys took?" Natasha looks at me oddly. "The cyanide pill?" I shake my head. "It ant cyanide, it just made me look dead." "It was cyanide. We checked." I start to argue back that no, it couldn't have been cyanide, because I'd used it before, and I'd been fine, but we pull into a parking lot and Roma- Natasha turns off the music. "Just a sec," she says, reaching into a dashboard compartment. She pulls out a thin layer of something that looks like rubber and begins to carefully place it onto her face. After a few minutes, her face is covered. She carefully places a small, bead-like object behind her earlobe, and to my astonishment, an entirely new set of features ripples across her face. Her hair stays the same, but it hardly lets me see beneath her mask: her eyes are now soft and blue, her lips full and dark, and her nose has become long and angular. She opens the car door and gets out smoothly, leaving me to unbuckle and clamber out clumsily. So much for catlike agility. As I get out, I look at the sign in front of the store: Trailer Park.

It's a small store, and it looks fairly vintage. As we walk inside, my suspicions are confirmed. Most of the things in the store are made of wood, but everything is absolutely beautiful. My eye soon falls on a lamp with a blue, blown glass base and a white lampshade with straight gray trim. There's a few pieces of coppery metal in a grassy shape connecting the two pieces. The price tag says it's about a hundred fifty dollars. Ouch. Natasha follows my gaze from where she's standing by a small side table to the lamp. I look down immediately and tense. I'm not supposed to want things. "Hey," she says softly. "Do you want it?" I nod slowly. She's going to start yelling any moment now, oh God, she's going to wipe me, oh God, der'mo... "Okay. I'll make sure nobody takes it. Go look around and see if there's a little side table we can put it on." My head snaps up. I'm not in trouble. "Thank you! Thank you so, so much!" As I scurry off, I hear her say behind me, "You're... Welcome?"

On the other side of the store, I find a light brown side table with a drawer and a small door below that. Perfect. This time, I'm a little less careful with the price tag, though I do note it reads one hundred eighty. Stark's going to kill me for this. "Natasha! I found a side table!" She walks over again to take a look. "I think that'll work. If you have to, you should be able to put at least two or three guns in there." I give her an odd look as we begin to head to the cash register. "Why would I need to do that?" "Why  wouldn't you need to do that?" She responds, a quick smile flashing over her new features.

We stop by a few more stores to pick up some wall decorations, and I find a stately golden feather silhouette. It triggers a small memory- "Look at the birds! Like..." I pass it off as a headache to Natasha, but I'm not sure she believes me. As we leave the last store, the back of the car packed with merchandise, my stomach gives a low growl. "Right. Food. There's a great little dessert café a while away, Abraço Espresso. Does that sound good?" I nod, and she turns off the music. "So, how does this whole... Synes-whatsit work, exactly? Not to pry or anything. I'm just wondering." I try to recall what little HYDRA taught me about my condition. "First off, it's not a disability. My senses just got a little jumbled up at birth. Some people have all their senses crossed, others only have a few senses crossed, and some people have mirror-touch, which is totally different. Some people taste words, or hear scent. I see sounds. And," I say quickly as she opens her mouth to interrupt, "we still don't know why, so don't ask me."

We drive in silence for a while after that.

Finally, we get to Abraço Espresso. I order a coffee mocha and something called a pain perda. Natasha gets a sparkling water and a piece of olive oil cake. We sit in a booth by the door, the leather bathed in sunlight.

I think that was about the point the HYDRA agent walked in.