a black widow

He nodded and bits his lip, looking at her closely. “So just say hypothetically I let someone from the other group in on that secret…” He started nervously fiddling with his bag as he spoke, “would you be mad at me?” He gave her the same puppy dog eyes and innocent, but nervous grin he gave Tony, Aunt May or any other adult that may get upset with him. He knew it was too late to take back telling Damian about his abilities, but it wasn’t his fault.. the dude gave him the same vibes as Nat and Buck and he had thought it was one of them. He didn’t know the other universe had assassins as well!

When she mentioned the “mini Avengers base” he got excited, “Of course, I’d be willing to help!” He smiles brightly at her, “It sounds like a brilliant idea. I salvaged a new form for Karen so maybe we can use her like Friday and get some AI help on the situation.” He pulled out the old Alexa from his bag that was put on sleep so Karen couldn’t talk out loud. He didn’t turn her on but gave her a small pat and smiled, “Also if we have a base, it may give me more space to work on new tech to maybe help us out. I’m not as good as the older guys, but I will try. Plus I luckily had Tony’s upgrades and my old suits in my bag when I came through” By “upgrade”, he meant the new Spider-Man suits. He left Karen out and continued to hug his bag to his chest.

Originally posted by andthwip

Of course, no sooner had she warned of it did he admit to letting spill some of their secrets. She couldn’t blame him for not being as paranoid as her, but she did wish he’d been more careful. Her lips pressed together minutely and tipped her head to the side with a soft breath and considered his expression. “Hypothetically, no. Hypothetically, this person from the other group... what made you want to tell them?” He wasn’t, after all, public with his identity back home; she didn’t see why he would be so free with his identity here barring some compelling reason.

Seeing his face shift to eager excitement was more than worth the small amount of planning she’d put into including him in this, and an echo of a small smile curved her lips. 

Her smile widened at the device he pulled from his bag and she let out a quiet chuckle, intuiting what he meant with amusement. “Oh, Tony would love to see that.” She suspected he’d be equal parts whiny about his programming in some other company’s tech and proud of Peter’s ingenuity. “AI could definitely be helpful... surveillance, scanning news reports for keywords and phrases...” Even she couldn’t be on top of all information. She nodded, thoughtful, and adjusted her list of potential properties to reflect room for Peter’s tinkering. “We’ll be sure to choose a place to accommodate that. And that is good- good that you’re well equipped. We may need it. If you need anything else that could reasonably be acquired here, let me know and I’ll find it.”

“I feel constantly paranoid there is some presence I can’t detect,” Emma says, crossing one leg over another demurely. “Not something more powerful,” She was quick to correct. “just something different, something I have never run into before. If we truly are in some sort of weird reality, the possibilities of what could be here are endless, so to speak.” She gestures vaguely before her head snaps to look at Natasha. “The little spider? Isn’t he like… 12?” She knew he wasn’t actually 12, but he was underage. Taken from his family to this reality? It seemed cruel. “Well, call me when Steve rolls in,” She smirks a little, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I don’t get out of bed for a man who can’t bench press over 150.” She teases… kind of.

“A presence.” Her quiet repetition came mostly to herself, a call for clarification before Emma continued. “A whole new universe begets a whole new set of potential problems... If you sense anything concrete, let me know. I’ve been keeping an eye out, of course.” But she was only one person, and one with less contacts than she was used to.

“Just turned eighteen.” She said with a curl of distaste. It wasn’t his fault, but she didn’t like the thought of someone so young caught up in all this. “Still in high school, still living with his aunt.” Who was probably worried out of her damn mind about now. It was one thing to take this so easily herself, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t aware of how difficult this all was.

“Reasonable standards.” Nat actually chuckled softly, then shrugged one shoulder. “But I can’t honestly blame you.” 

Peter took a deep breath that shook at the end and rubbed his hands over his face. He let her words sink in again and removed his hands from his face, “What happens when they find out about my…” He threaded off and picked up a fork without grabbing it by tapping his finger on it, showing her he meant his abilities. He sat the fork back down immediately and hidden his hands from public eye, staring at her. He knew he could outrun anyone with more human abilities, but the idea of living on the run from a unknown form of government similar to his own scared him. 

He bit his lip and thought of back home. He wondered if Aunt May was okay, if she was gonna be okay without him for however long he’ll be stuck here. He looked Natasha in the eye and saw a bit of the same familiar warm he has seen in his Aunt’s eyes in Natasha’s. Side of his lip twitched up slightly and he looked back down at his bag in his lap. It gave him peace of mind knowing he had Natasha and Clint with him during this.

“For now, we’re keeping things... quiet.” Even though she knew Peter was being surreptitious, Nat couldn’t help but glance around casually to assure herself that no one had spotted the action. “Others are being less discreet, and it’s already fairly known, or at least suspected about our world and its heroes. But we don’t need them any more wary of us because they realize certain members of us have... advantages they don’t.” She couldn’t control everyone that had slipped over into this strange universe, but she could do her best to protect those close to her.

“I’m planning on establishing some sort of home base for those of us here, a mini Avengers base, if you will- would you like to help?” Giving him something to do might take his mind off of things, and she really had been considering that, but it had been caught up among Clint returning and her plot to perhaps-maybe try breaking into the Pentagon to see what she could learn. And spending more time with him in process of making a base would let her keep an eye on him. “We need a place to convene outside of the assigned housing and such.”

Sadly, Clint could already see this turning into a mission in his head. He had been hoping to just lie low, treat this as a weird vacation while the science guys did all the work. But that was never his life. Apparently, breaking into the Pentagon was. “You know you just have to say the word and I’m there,” he promised. “No getting into trouble without me.”

“I don’t know, Nat, I’ve known you to do stranger,” he said with a laugh. He tracked the bow with his eyes, trusting her with it, but still paranoid. He had knives in his boots, but he never felt steady unless an arrow was in hand. “You looking to see some trick shots?” he asked knowingly.

“A whole new universe to get into trouble in.” She said with a quirk of her eyebrows, and a hint of a smile playing about her lips. “I had a plan for ours, so first step is finding the differences. May as well reformulate, but it’s a solid skeleton...”  It helped to have a list of things to do, to focus her mind on something achievable.

Clint wielded his bows like an extension of himself, and though she treated it casually, she was still aware of the gravity between them. Like he’d let her reach out and take a part of his soul without complaint. She twirled it once between her fingers then offered it back, dipping her head to glance up at him through her eyelashes.

“Think you can impress me?”

He took a moment to let everything set in. “How many people are there? How are we gonna help the others get home?” He worded things differently because he didn’t want someone to overhear them. He looked down at his hands on the table. “if only Reed and Tony could be in a room for five minutes without having a ‘Who’s smarter?’ competition…”

He let out a deep sigh in defeat. “Lets hope Ms Sue and Ms Potts can keep them in shape for long enough.” Yesterday was supposed to be the announcement of Spiderman becoming an Avenger or well under Avenger’s watch. Spidey was little late to that, he thought to himself. “It feels weird, knowing that everyone back home is probably freaking out and that we’re sitting in a cafe probably five miles from where the old Stark Tower is suppose to be.” He looked up at her as he finished what he was saying.

“Of personal friends of ours? Besides you and me, only a small handful so far.” He may not actually know or consider them friends (she could hardly call Emma a friend herself), but those were the people she knew for certain were here and considered relevant, and she was sure he’d get the gist. “Of others? Enough to be noticeable, and causing some complications for the government here. So far... right now, the focus is to gather information and keep calm.” While she had many skills, they weren’t in the same realm as those she thought could actually solve something like this. With a quiet and abrupt snort of laughter, she nodded, and flipped some of her dark hair back from her face. “I wish them luck. Those two aren’t easy to wrangle.”

She watched him carefully, trying to assess just how much he was internally freaking out and if he would be able to handle himself. He probably could, but some protective instinct on account of him being so young wanted her to be positive. “Freaking out, yes, but at least aware of a problem. We’ve dealt with strange things before. This may be an entirely new universe of strange, but we’re adaptable.”

“Could you imagine how puzzling it must be for them? People disappearing. No note, no nothing. Imagine walking into my room and seeing everything just as it is but I am nowhere to be seen. I can only imagine the panic something like that might cause. Not just me, of course, but everyone who has come through,” Wanda sighs a little bit. If any group of people were in a position to work out what the hell was going on, it was the ones they had left behind.

She wondered if they even realized Natasha was missing yet. She often went off the grid and was expected to just pop up, she usually always did.  They would realize eventually.

“Yeah, seems like that probability says that It’s true. I just worry they don’t all and then there are just… people missing loved ones.” She shrugs. “Do you feel a little guilty? I do.”

In intelligence circles there had been word of odd disappearances, but it wasn’t a developed pattern, or something fully on her radar until she was gone herself. “They know you wouldn’t leave without notice, especially not to Pietro. They’ll know it was an extenuating circumstance, or not of your choice... Our friends are smart and paranoid enough to suspect something is off immediately, but the general populace...”

She paused, puzzlement and anger all held tenuously beneath the surface, then continued.

“By this point, based on the number of people here from our world, I’d be surprised if they hadn’t caught on that something has been happening, in a general sense.” More than just their friends, this had affected everyone. Nat looked over at her evenly, shaking her head. “Neither you nor I chose this, Wanda.”

“Nadia, huh?” he repeated, committing her cover story to memory. “Am I gonna get to see a couple of these safe houses, or are they just for you?” he asked. He wouldn’t be the one to slip up and blow it for her. He felt a hint of fear as she spoke, but he kept it tamped down. She could handle herself much better than anyone, even if the thought of what would happen if they caught her crossed his mind. “Just let me know if we’re about to become fugitives again, okay?” he joked.

He raised an eyebrow as she pulled up his shirt, looking down at her with an amused expression. “Trying to get me naked already, Nat?” he teased. He was pretty sure she was just checking for weapons or injuries, but there was a little bit of hope he prayed she didn’t notice there. 

“I’ll show you.” She promised in an even tone. Not all of them, but he had to expect that from her at this point. There would always be things she needed to keep to herself, even from him. “Then again, Pentagon may have more useful information.” While also being trickier to infiltrate. Not that the CIA would be easy either. A smile flickered over her lips at his request, and she dipped her head in a nod. “I have it under control. And I’ve got you back on my six."

Her eyes darted up to meet his as a quiet laugh slipped from her, and she swiped his bow before tipping her head, not bothering to sit back, though she did release his shirt. “Don’t think I’d pick a better place than an abandoned office building if I had that in mind?”

“What’s the difference? Tomato, tom-ah-toe. At least one of those is correct,” She teases, offering Natasha a smirk. Emma wouldn’t pretend to know the ins and outs of Natasha’s job. It was, in reality, too nuanced for Emma. She liked just… knowing things. Having the ability to gain knowledge when and where she wanted it had always boded well with her, nosy as she tended to be.

Pietro and Wanda had no love for Emma. Her relationship with their father had never sat well with them. Emma didn’t much care for their opinion either way.

“Yes, well. As if we didn’t have enough to worry about,” Emma scoffs a little, adjusting in her seat. “What about any of your other… people? The soldier? The archer?” She knew their names, she was being vague purposely — there was a weird sense that even conversations of powered people was a taboo thing here.

“At least one, possibly both.” A corner of her mouth pulled up in amusement. To be fair, she sometimes chose to speak like a cheesy old noir spy film, if only as a personal joke or way to purposefully throw people off. 

“I can juggle it.” It wasn’t like she had any official missions, only her personal quest to solve this conundrum. Nat arched her eyebrows at the purposeful vagueness, but then again, she was the one under an assumed name in a whole universe where she’d never existed in the first place. “Archer and the little Spider are here. Rest are as of yet unaccounted for, but I’m keeping an eye out...”

“Yeah, well, I couldn’t just let those idiots think you were dead,” he said with a shrug, trying to brush it off. Many people had pointed out how unhealthily attached he was to Nat, including Bobbi a few times.

“Reed would probably figure it out the quickest, but he’s got the strangest idea of what is considered ‘his problem.’“ Was it wrong for him to hope one of the Fantastic Four ended up here? Just so that it would get Reed off his ass and actually help them out.

“What have you been up to here?” he asked, wanting to hear more about this new world. He was sure Nat could handle anything, but more information never hurt.

Natasha looked at Clint a long moment, letting it settle in more than she knew he’d have liked based on that shrug of his. She drummed her fingers in sequence against the cheap metal of the desk once, and the noise reverberated through the second of quiet in the abandoned room.

“Maybe Sue’ll get sucked in and it’ll become his number one priority.” Nat scoffed with a huff and flick of her hair. Then again, if he was as absorbed in whatever his current project as she knew he could get, he might not even notice for a few days.

“Nadia Rhoades. Grew up in Philly, UPenn undergrad, Columbia Law. Watching all the official channels, and the unofficial ones. Setting up safe houses. Making contacts. Been wondering if it’s worth it to see if I can get access to Langley. Maybe dig up the credentials of some sort of deep cover agent that’s been presumed dead and take her place...” As she spoke, in her matter-of-fact missions briefing sort of way, she tugged at the front of his shirt, lifting it up slightly and leaning forward (in a way that would be very precarious for anyone else) from her perch to go for the collapsible bow she knew he had to have holstered somewhere on him. Maybe she could get this scratching worry from her mind if she saw him shoot.

“Thanks.” He was a little surprised with how honest he was being with the woman, an actual stranger. He hadn’t even told Dick that he had been thinking about grad school. Maybe it was just easier sharing it with someone who didn’t know all the other responsibilities he had, that wouldn’t tell him he was biting off more than he could chew.

“And how is that going?” he asked. A professional opinion on what he felt was chaos could never hurt. “Honestly, I’m surprised the government is willing to do anything at all.” He wondered how this world’s political game was similar to his own, because he could not imagine this kind of response there. Only six months in, and there were systems set up? He was pretty sure their world would still be denying a problem existed.

Natasha nodded. “You seem to know what you’re doing. Ambition is nothing to be afraid of and while grad school is difficult, people manage it every day.” And, in her fictional backstory, even she had. Which wasn’t to say she hadn’t done stints undercover at schools, but,she knew that wasn’t quite the same.

“Badly. There’s no exact precedent for this. People aren’t all arriving through some checkpoint where they can be registered. Some are undoubtedly slipping through the cracks.” Like her. “And even without finding, cataloging and housing all of them, they’re already starting to fall short of resources to accommodate everyone.” The assigned housing was hardly luxury and putting all the displaced people up obviously wasn’t sustainable in the long run. She tipped her head to the side. “I think they’re willing to do something because they want to keep an eye on things.”

Peter looked back at Natasha, nervous and slightly freaking out to see someone he knew. He let her led him into a cafe and sat down, clutching the bag he’s had since he came into this world. “Miss Ro- uh, Natasha, what is going on? I tried calling Mr Stark, Aunt May and even my best friend from school and strangers picked up instead.. What is going on and why is it only us?” He kept his hood on despite moving it back so she could see his face better. 

He looked around the cafe, nervously because he didn’t like the feeling of not knowing New York anymore, the state he was born and raised in and also didn’t enjoy how lonely it has been without people from his universe. He had nothing against those who he has met so far that are in the same situation from another world, but the nagging feeling in his stomach lessen when Nat said his name and touched his shoulder. 

“People from our universe, and another, have been... spontaneously disappearing and reappearing here. They don’t have heroes here, or any of us. The history of this earth is largely the same, only without us. No heroes, no powers, no mutants.” She kept her voice low and calm, trusting he could hear her as she made steady eye contact. “It’s been happening for months, and showing no sign of stopping.” After a moment of pressing her lips together, she continued. “Now, I’d be surprised if Tony, Bruce and Reed Richards aren’t already working on it.”

It was true, and Natasha didn’t do false comforts for nothing. It was less of a comfort and more a surety, something she knew must certainly be happening, whether or not it lead to anything soon. Her disappearance was one thing, she did that all the time, even if not necessarily in the middle of the mission, but Wanda, Clint, and, especially Peter? They had to have known something malicious was happening. 

Wanda chuckles a little bit, it was nice to just joke about something silly. But Tasha’s face turned serious and so did Wanda’s. “Yes well… they wouldn’t be hiding I don’t think. Do you?”

It didn’t make sense, really. Pietro would not be hiding. He would be looking for her. The only person she could see hiding would be Steve, but not really hiding — sort of hiding in plain sight.

“I miss them,” She admits with a shrug. “The world feels off-kilter without them.” She knew that Tasha had spent much more time alone than she had. She was sure the woman preferred it in a lot of ways, but to Wanda, the Avengers were her family. Being without them made her feel almost itchy in a way. A way that she couldn’t scratch. Made her restless.

“What happens if they don’t come through? It’s up to us to figure things out?” She quirks an eyebrow. It seemed… unlikely. They were… well, they were good on the ground. They were fighters. Tasha was good with intel, she was smart. But she wasn’t Tony or Bruce smart, neither of them were.

“If they don’t realize you and I specifically are here, they may be. Tony or Pietro wouldn’t, no, but the rest? Bruce, Steve and most of all the others have the sense to keep their heads down... Not all gone to ground, necessarily, but staying quiet. Either way, I should still be able to find them.” Whatever their other skills, they couldn’t outmaneuver her. She’d been watching additions to the government housing, new credit card enrollments, rentals outside of the assigned housing... among a myriad of other avenues.

Natasha paused, inclined her head in acknowledgement. There had been longer periods of solitude for her, and she still did solo missions over the course of being on the Avengers, but she could say she’d become somewhat accustomed to the notion of a team over the years. The lack didn’t throw her off her game, but she could only imagine what Wanda felt. “It’s... strange. I didn’t realize how much I’d gotten used to all the chatter.” She smirked, but didn’t let that stop the genuine look in her eyes as she met Wanda’s.

At Wanda’s question, she thought for a long moment. She alone didn’t possess the skills to get them back, and while Wanda had deep reserves of power, that didn’t necessarily mean she could channel them in a way that could fix this. “There isn’t anything to point to the rate of people coming through slowing any. Eventually one of them will come through. They must be working on it from over there, as well.”

He let himself dwell in the soft moment for a moment, enjoying it while it lasted. God, it was so good to finally see her again.

“Hill assigned me to find you,” he told her. “I was ready to yell my way onto the mission, but she took one look at me and told me to suit up.” Clint hadn’t been an active SHEILD member at the time, but some things were worth going back for, and Nat would always be one of them. “Not that I did a whole lot of good, given that you were a whole dimension away,” he pointed out dryly. 

“But hey, I’m sure Tony or someone will figure this shit out.”

The paranoia still scratched at the back of her mind, that there were more tests she should do to be positive it was him, her Clint, and not some impostor or multiverse duplicate, but she could be patient, take that slow and tease out the confirmation she needed. It wouldn’t be anything new for her to live in a constant low level of suspicion. And it was- he- she wanted to believe it was him, however much she didn’t want to give into any sentimentality in such a dangerous time. Nat backed up to perch on the desk again as she listened, watching him carefully.

“I think she’s aware you’d have gone looking for me anyways.” Nat said with a roll of her eyes, though a fond smile played beneath it. She inclined her head slightly. “You couldn’t have known.” Wanda had told her more people had disappeared after Nat, but that no one had gotten quite far in any good theories.

“Bets on him, Bruce, or Reed being the one to do it?”