[right][color=#b30000][i]"Will you walk into my parlour?" said the spider to the fly.[/i][/color][/right]


After the clusterfuck that had become her life after Sokovia, Natasha had never been more grateful to get back in the field. S.H.I.E.L.D. had fallen and risen again and the Avengers helped fill the power imbalance left in the intelligence community. Talent was recruited, uniformed, and put to work. Between liaising with Stark’s people, with Hill’s people, with her [i]own[/i] people and training up the new team, she’d barely had a chance to breathe. So when the name [i]Yuri Klementiev[/i] popped up on Natasha’s radar again, she went to work.

Natasha was a spider, and she knew better than anyone how to tug on threads. She’d delved into systems and files meant for other’s eyes and started pulling. Yuri Klementiev and new arms deals, new shadowed clients, whispers of [i]Stark[/i]. The more she pulled, the worse it got. On her count, there were seven rings left—Klementiev had found yet another. Worse, he’d found new tech and was poised to make billions. That tech, it seemed, was meant to find its way to Stark in his cushy retirement and take him out.

Stark could undoubtedly handle himself, but Pepper would be furious if Natasha let it get that far. There were so few people who looked at her like she really was something more than venom and sharp teeth. Failing Pepper was not an option. So Natasha armed herself with secrets and bullets and went to take care of it.

In retrospect, she shouldn’t have told Clint. Nathaniel was so small and he, more than anyone, deserved to go home to his pretty wife and kick up his feet. Clint was the best of them—human and good and solid earth beneath her feet, no matter how many feet of empty, empty air separated them. He’d lowered his bow when all she knew was red and terror and [i]red[/i] and dragged her from the smoke, pulling her to her feet. She shouldn’t have brought him a manila folder and asked for his eyes. She could have found someone to watch her six; there was no shortage of snipers in their talent pool. And yet she’d stolen away to his quiet farm and sat on his porch, elbows on her knees and gaze on the horizon as he read through her files.

He’d joined her. Good, stupid, foolish man that he was, he’d grabbed his bow and joined her in the shadows once more. 


Lisbon was sunbaked streets and bustling tourists. Her contacts were scarce—dumping S.H.I.E.L.D.s [i]everything[/i] onto the net had been a bomb in her web—but not completely gone. And Natasha’s bones were built from secrets and her hands were claws that could rip them from any throat. She knew Klementiev was here, and that he’d been making deals in Madripoor with Stark’s would be assassins. A photostatic veil fudging their features, and she and Clint had vanished into the crowds to ferret out information. It was a long, sunny week of chasing whispers and greasing hands. 

She shouldn’t have enjoyed it so much. This empty world of lies and manipulations was every entry in her soaked ledger, every sin that was slowly coming to light. If they could have held her, a dozen nations would have fought for the chance to put her in their deepest, darkest hole. They might even try—Natasha knew that if she were half the hero anyone thought she was, she would let them.

They’d tracked Klementiev to a remote mansion some fifteen kilometres outside the city. He was back to old habits, wining and dining traffickers and other dealers, with a pair of models on his arm and another waiting in his bed. It wouldn’t be hard to transform into another one, but it wasn’t worth the risk of pulling the same trick twice. They had managed, at least, to bug his home. Clint in her ear felt right, bad jokes and wry commentary flowing between them.

The motel they’d found wasn’t ideal; it was hardly defensible, and there weren’t enough guests to truly [i]hide[/i]. It was a dingy place, small, and cold. She’d been spoiled, living in Stark Tower, in the new facility, where everything was sleek metal and luxury. Still, it was in range of their devices, and that was all that truly mattered. 

 She’d have given anything for a proper S.H.I.E.L.D. safehouse, but this was off the books. Stark would undoubtedly figure out what they were up to and interfere. Pepper would disapprove. And it wasn’t as though Natasha had any of her own safehouses nearby to use. She’d been reduced to only three after the dump. Only three havens remaining. Her skin itched at the thought—she needed more places to hide in case things went to hell. Nothing was forever—one day, they’d splinter, and she would need a place to bunker down when they turned on her. She knew better than to trust them; even Steve. Hell, even [i]Clint[/i] didn’t know. If all went well, he never would.


The radio crackled in her ears. Natasha curled into her chair, Sam’s old air force sweater slipping off a shoulder. He’d laughed when he’d seen that she’d stolen it ([i]I’m a real Avenger now, aren’t I?[/i]), and it was warm. Her chin rested on a legging clad knee, toes curled in the drafty room, as she read through the files once more.

There was a scream, Clint—gun in hand, headset removed, adrenaline surging, senses tracking, listening for footsteps and breaths that weren’t his, lingering outside his door. There was nothing—just him calling Laura, voice thick with sleep and emotion. Natasha had slipped back to her own room, relief flooding her veins, and let him be.

He entered her room just over an hour later, smelling of cheap soap. Natasha looked over her shoulder as he padded into the kitchen. He looked reasonably human. His face was drawn, features just off enough that she knew he’d been locked in his head again. She’d told him once, after the Battle of New York, how it never really went away. There was always a piece of someone else in your head, that you’d always wonder if you were really at the helm. Loki would always hide in his head, slivers that stung in dreams. He hadn’t looked comforted, but Natasha had never liked lying to Clint, so she had given him the truth that no one else would. 

[color=#cc0000] “No,”[/color] she said evenly, removing the headset. The house was quiet, and she could afford to step back for the moment. She raised the folder and gently waved it, before setting it aside. Her lips curved into a wry smirk as she shrugged. [color=#cc0000] “I was already up. Thought I’d do a little light reading.”[/color]

Sleep had been a fitful thing, never quite settling in for much longer than flashes of green and steel as she ran ran [i]ran[/i], as lies and spiderwebs fell from her lips in quiet moments, as a city plummeted to the unforgiving ground. Four hours was more than sufficient, and the static and rustles of their bugs brought her to an even keel.

Turning her chair, Natasha pulled both legs crossed beneath her, hands resting in her lap. Green eyes tracked him through the room, amid weapons and tech that they had smuggled with them. [color=#cc0000] “How’s Laura?”[/color] she murmured, head cocking slightly to one side.