it's been a long, long time

a small price (a)

All things considered, Natasha should be happy.

It's been two months since she's gone undercover, and things are finally getting somewhere. She'd manipulated convinced Matt into dropping her name into conversation with Charlie, one of his Ammo-crew friends, and after a couple days of consistent and subtle hints, Charlie had called his fellow mob bosses with news that he had connections to a Vanko who was looking for business.

He'd come back with news that they were all dying to meet her.

So the mission is finally moving along, and Natasha should be happy.

As she walks slowly down the stairs of a disgusting dive bar on the east side of town, however, she can't help but feel an overwhelming sense of finality that is slowly evolving into an inescapable feeling of dread. She can hear Matt breathing behind her, can smell the stench of dirty bathrooms coming from below, and even as she straightens her spine and tosses her now-blonde hair back she can't help but feel like she's walking into something she may not come out of.

At the end of the staircase, Charlie looks back and smiles. "Relax. You'll be great."

She nods as he heads to a side door and unlocks it, and as he opens the door and beckons her in Natasha takes a deep breath and allows her undercover persona to seep into her veins. No more pretending to be Anna Vanko, she tells herself. From now on, you ARE Anna Vanko.

Natasha steps into a room the size of Steve's entire apartment. There's a large dining table in the middle, surrounded by men laughing, smoking, and eating bar food. She looks back at Charlie, who clears his throat, and the noise immediately dies, leaving a silence that is both tense and expectant at the same time.

"Ah, Charlie," a man says, standing. Natasha feels a rush of inexplicable dislike. "Nice of you to show up." He's grinning in a way that makes Natasha hate him immediately.

"Hi, Aaron." Charlie beckons Nat forward. "This is Anna. And you've met her neighbor, Matt."

Aaron steps forward and, completely ignoring Matt, looks Nat up and down. "You're the Vanko?"

"That's right." Her voice is cool and steady, and if she wasn't completely focused on the job at hand Nat would be proud at how easily she's slipped back into dangerous, high-stakes undercover conversation. She offers her hand and he takes it.

He continues to study her, eyes narrowed. "Rough hands. Not what you would expect from a lady."

Nat can feel her blood start to boil, and when she speaks her voice is hard as flint. "You don't become an international criminal by being afraid to get your hands dirty."

He meets her eyes for a moment before grunting. "What's your job?"

She tilts her chin up. "Arms dealing, mostly. Anything standard-practice you need, I can get. Plus military-grade, some high-tech stuff."

She has the room's attention now, and she knows Aaron can feel the guys behind him shift with interest.

"You could be useful," he grunts. "But you're gonna need to show us what you can do first."

"Naturally."

"Wednesday, eight o'clock. In front of the abandoned warehouse by those docks. Your neighbor knows where it is."

She gives him a grim smile. "See you there."

Steve Rogers has started to clean Natasha's apartment.

In his defense, the first time was a bit of an accident. She'd always had her apartment lights set up so that they turned on automatically every night for a few hours in case she was out late working a case (or got sent on a long-term undercover mission, but anyway), just to give the illusion that she was home. Standard travel behavior to prevent a burglary, where the valuables in question were files full of classified information rather than televisions or computers.