* WOMAN / WIDOW

Markup for the SCREEN ACT and KOSA is going to the Senate on WEDNESDAY AUGUST 5TH 2026. That's in TWO DAYS.

You need to contact your representatives and senators. We need to stop this nonsense unless we want to wind up like the UK.

Call them. Send emails. Write letters. Use these resources to figure out who to contact and what to say. Let them know we will VOTE THEM OUT if they vote in favor of any of these bills.

lists, bullet points, schematics, briefings, structure. it was easier to plan out a route from point a to point b that way, and easier to spot any potholes or variables that could rear their heads and use its impeccable timing to fuck shit up.

this had no plan. they had no plan.

and there was a part of him that hated knowing that. but another part of him that could stand back and acknowledge that they had been part of a bigger plan before and look what had happened? went to hell in a handbasket, didn't it?

blowing out a breath, alexei canted his head to the side when her fingers cupped his cheek, leaning into her touch. her lips pressed to his and there was the lingering sweetness of honey on her lips from the tea.

i choose us this time.

his words made something in her heart swell and it manifests in a soft hum of acknowledgement. a moment later and she presses another lingering kiss to his lips. they could stay like this, she thinks, could live within these four walls and pretend like the outside word does not exist. another moment passes. another lingering kiss.

hey, yeah, guess what? i know, and have known for quiet a while.

yeah ... hindsight was the foresight of fools. and that was never more evident that it was right now, with the stinging heat of her palmprint bright and angry on his cheek. alexei's gaze took in the worn floorboards of the safehouse, lips pursed tight and he gave a small dip of his head - a silent acknowledgement that perhaps that slap has been deserved.

wincing as her voice climbed half a scale, alexei tore his guilty gaze away from the floor when natasha moved; a fury of anger and hurt wound up into a maelstrom as she grabbed for papers. ' you're not doing this on your own. ' he countered, an edge of annoyance slipping into his voice, reaching out to grab some of the papers before she could gather them up into her brewing storm.

' i didn't know until after we were told ... until after the doctors. ' a hand came up to brush his reddened cheek, brows knitting tightly as he tried to grasp at some way to word this right this time - he hadn't just stood by and watched her go through that.

               all they'd done was take and take from her. all she'd done was give to the cause, give to the government, give her all for her country.

               a mirthless laugh escapes her, blue eyes cutting to him. "do you really think it is the best time to tell me how i should go about this?" her jaw tightens---- she wants to tell him she wasn't broken, she never was, but too much time has passed, too many lives had been lived for it to matter. even if he had brought it up all those years ago, those in charge would have known, and they would have punished him in some way for it, she thinks. letting her know such a truth of the serum she had in her veins was giving her too much agency, something they never would have agreed to.

steve fixes his gaze directly on her, crystalline blues turning exceptionally steady as he hovers over her, refusing to let her out of his presence for even a single second.

"i'm looking you in the eyes, natasha," steve insists, "now start talking. what exactly are you expecting batroc to say down there?"

he keeps his body positioned firmly in her path, physique rigid as the floor indicator numbers tick downward in a blur of glowing red light against the steel ceiling. he has spent too many years leading men through trench fire to be fooled by a quick change of subject, and he isn't about to tip his hand and reveal the data drive he has hidden away just because she called him out on a bad lie. instead, he keeps the pressure dialed high, using his intense suspicion to ensure she understands that the conversation is far from over.

"you were running point on the ground during that raid, and now you're rushing down to the icu to get to a guy who can barely breathe on his own," he continues, tones even and clear as he tracks her expression for any dead giveaway emotion, for honesty. "that doesn't sound like standard cleanup to me. so why don't you save us both the trip to medical? what is it you're trying to contain?"

there is enough control in her extremities to keep decades of ingrained instincts at bay. letting him back her up against the metal wall, the widow takes note of his sudden invasion of personal space and files it away for later. ( had anyone else made such a move on her, they would be lucky to get away with a sprained shoulder. )

"accusing a spy of lying, how original." the smile that curls across her lips is akin to a wolf bearing its teeth.

in the time between the team landing back at hq and now, the tactical part of natasha's brain had already gone through every step of the raid three times. each and every time, the conclusion is the same: everything was air tight on her end, the only variable no one considered was batroc. which leads her to the same conclusion she'd come to while they'd been in the briefing room: the mercenary was why steve was acting the way he was. "need i remind you who broke his ribs and threw him into a concrete wall? because it wasn't me. you are the reason he's down there in the first place." ( it doesn't take a genius to realize that steve's strong moral compass and an espionage agency are like oil and water. ---- she'd said as much in her report when asked what her impressions of captain rogers were after the battle of new york. ---- so natasha decides to use that knowledge in her favor. ) the lift slows further and a moment later glides to a stop. the door slides open and the sound of the medical wing floods in. the widow does not like being cornered, so she spins her web in a different direction.

You can use the Senate switchboard once more. 202-224-3121

the charcoal drifted across the page in slow, even strokes, bringing another corner of the chrysler building into focus while miles davis carried smoothly through the lounge. just right below them both, manhattan wasn't slowing down, headlights dancing through the avenues as office windows winked on and off across the skyline. steve took another drink from his beer, his thoughts circling back to what she'd said about a debrief. ...and there was no point in pressing her for details, really; if fury wanted something buried, it typically stayed buried, and natasha had always been better at carrying secrets than anyone he'd ever known. however, it did make him wonder just how much of her life existed in places he'd never be allowed to see.

he set the bottle down beside his leg before finally looking over at her again, a crooked grin finding its way onto his face. "and for the record," he said, "i wasn't asking just because i'm nosy." one shoulder rose in an easy shrug. "i was trying to figure out whether i should feel guilty." he let that sit between them for a second before adding, "just wanted to make sure i wasn't stealing you away from better company."

a breeze whips blood red strands around pale features. the city that never sleeps continues down below and the widow settles high up into her corner. her web is unraveling.

"are you trying to ask if i'm seeing someone?" leaning against the railing, natasha turns to fully face steve. a look of amusement crossing her features. if she was honest, she would say she hadn't expected anyone other than tony to be here. but she knows that honesty often breeds more prying questions, which would lead to answers even she doesn't know how truthful they are. so she weaves more lies together for the sake of her slow fracturing mind. ( with every passing day since the events in d.c it has become more and more apparent that her past isn't her past. but it is accord to her mind. and yet the handful of files she's managed to find have told her otherwise. her web unravels. ) "i have no clue who i'm seeing. you should ask the daily bugle or tmz."

he has never been the best liar (honestly, he isn't even a halfway decent one) and it's just his damned luck that he has to square off against natasha's obvious skepticism while standing in the middle of a shield briefing room. romanoff's a woman who could catch a whiff of a lie off the most highly trained enemy, and having those observant blue eyes on him makes him feel entirely exposed, broad shoulders tensing up as he tries to maintain a blank expression that he knows is failing miserably. it is an incredibly difficult, isolating place to be in because he wants nothing more than to see the trustworthiness and the honest side of her, to believe that his teammate is someone he can rely on in a crisis, but a recent tactical raid gone wrong has left him completely in the dark about who's actually on his side anymore. amidst a penthouse standoff with batroc, a mercenary he cornered during an illegal tech bust, the man had laughed straight in his face before coughing up a blood-stained piece of physical evidence-- a private data drive containing encrypted video footage of shield field agents executing an unauthorized civilian extraction. batroc had taunted him with the truth, revealing that a high-ranking shield committee was running an illegal black-site prison network to permanently lock away whistleblowers and political dissidents without anyone ever knowing. because natasha still answers directly to fury and the global oversight committees who oversee these covert operations, he can't risk her reporting his unsanctioned search to the very people funding the cover-up, forcing him to keep the stolen drive safely hidden away until he can uncover the truth on his own. standard operating procedure dictates that he should compartmentalize, but looking at her, the guilt of the deception sits like a stone in his throat because he hates treating her like an adversary when they're supposed to be a team.

contrary to what most of shield thinks, natasha is not fury's lapdog. chain of command tends to go out the window the higher the clearance becomes. but, hill needing connections that only natasha had did nothing but aid the rumor mill. ( natasha further fed the mill by taking point with on the ground logistics and points of contact via her connections. ) steve had been given point over the ground team and natasha had joined them to make sure that her people didn't get hurt. ---- they were questionable people at best, that she knew, but it was one thing to get them killed in a raid because they were helping her and another thing entirely to get them killed because they'd crossed her.

in the end, her people came out of the raid relatively unscathed, they'd recovered a good portion of the stolen tech ---- most of it a few years out of date ---- and, as a bonus, had caught the batroc trying to flee the scene. it was a success, in hill's book and in her own. however, despite the chaos and adrenaline filled agents buzzing around the widow didn't miss how steve, of all people, was seemingly unable to even look in her direction.

now, with the silence dragging on between them, she watches him with a scrutinizing gaze. ice cold blue eyes narrow and she would be more than happy to keep dragging out the silence if his words were not so insulting. "if you're going to lie to my face, at least have the decency to look me in the eyes while you do it." her lip curls over her teeth as she speaks, features a cold and impassive mask. a beat passes and then another. her posture changes on a dime as pieces begin to fall into place in her mind.

' you named your cat after the slavic, one-eyed personification of misfortune? '

... than what i had with clint or james.

oh, now that had his gaze back on her face in an instant. coffee-mug set down on the counter, he pulled a deadpan face immediately, the amusement he'd felt tickling him over the cat's name gone out the proverbial window.

the smile that readily curls across her lips at his comment ---- because of course he would know the meaning of the name ---- slowly falters. but the amusement remains tucked into the corners of her mouth and the way they can't quite return to it's natural stoic curve. her heart sways and as the mug is set down, she takes a moment to study him before she's closing the space between them. a hand goes up to cup his cheek and in the next moment she's pressing onto the balls of her feet and kissing him softly.

she can taste the coffee on his lips.