The Villain

the net tightens

Fidgeting the copy of Tessa's apartment keys, Natasha focused on the monitors in front of her, the picture unchanged since hours now.

Putting the cameras up in Tessa's apartment had bored Natasha. She only enjoyed dealing with the cat that welcomed her, cocking its head at her in curiosity. Right before attacking her left leg with all the fury a cat her size could muster.

"She's not home yet?" Fury looked over her shoulder, seeming not too surprised about that.

"No. You should have seen her run off at the party... She may took a couple wrong turns and will be home later than we thought," Natasha shrugged, looking at the file in front of her for a moment. "She runs a lot to blow off steam, or at least that's what her former commander Adam said."

"You did your homework."

"Well, of course," Natasha crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair. "You have to know your target better than yourself."

"Do you consider her a target?" Fury asked and forced his stare away from one of Tessa's drawers, looking at Natasha.

"Something is... off about her."

'Maybe I should have talked to the spider instead of you.'

Fury bit his tongue, trying to focus on something else than the painful markings on his wrists, burning through his skin like handcuffs on fire, turning the guilty doubts rising in his mind to ash. Pulling his sleeve down to hide the scars from Natasha's curious look, Fury took a couple of steps back, looking at the bigger screen showing him the exact same footage.

Natasha turned to look at him, her eyes focused on his wrists, wondering where these scars came from. She wouldn't have missed a detail like that.

"Don't even ask, Romanoff. It's confidential," he said, pulling his sleeve down again. "Show me the drawer in her bedroom."

"Why?" she asked, but zoomed in on Tessa's drawer, looking whether she'd see something on top of it but didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

She should've searched through her things when she was there. Then again, Natasha only wanted to know if Tessa acted weird, if the magic had any repercussions or side effects they had to prevent.

Nobody could expect from her to risk everything just for the privacy of one single person on the planet. And S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't plan to hurt her, not that Natasha was aware of, anyway.

They couldn't risk losing against Loki or his magic, no matter the ways to guarantee that.

Protection at the cost of freedom?, she could almost hear Steve complain about that justification, looking at her disappointed.

"I think I saw something that doesn't belong there," Fury ripped her out of her thoughts, and Natasha looked at it again, nothing on top of the drawer.

'Asgardian weaponry... I thought you said she was his hostage and not someone he'd gift something as special as this? You know you can't hide anything from me, right?'

"Do you see something? Maybe I should go back and check again," Natasha zoomed out again, Tessa's apartment still empty.

"It's alright, don't worry about it," Nick explained, "But something else, what... How exactly was their relationship again?"

"Who's?" Natasha turned to look at him again, noticing his absent look and tense posture.

Maybe she was only being paranoid, but he blinked a couple of times, as if he just woke up, looking confused for a moment, before pulling up his usual calm face expression.