#it's patsy

She quietly stepped through the hallway, staying close to the wall and grabbing a vase off the table as she crept towards the living room. She couldn't help but feel silly skulking around her own apartment in the dark. She was tired, her mind was playing tricks on her. That’s all it was. And yet, in a world where aliens invaded New York, Nazis infiltrated government security agencies, and her best friend was mind controlled by a rapist sociopath for months, maybe it didn’t hurt to be overly cautious.

Trish carefully peeked around the corner into the living room and held back a gasp. There was still enough light to make out a figure seated on the couch. Thin. Leather-clad. Long-haired. Her heart stopped in her chest. Could it be?

Before she could decide her next move, a feminine voice that definitely did not belong to Jessica called out, “I know you’re there, Ms. Walker. Don’t be—”

Before the intruder could finish her sentence, Trish was chucking the vase at her head. Her aim was true, but the woman dodged, and the porcelain smashed against the wall. Trish leapt to the kitchen island, grabbing for a knife and yelling, “Who are you?! What do you wan—”

The light suddenly turned on, and Trish stopped mid-sentence as she came face to face with her mysterious visitor. It was… the Black Widow? Natasha Romanoff. The SHIELD agent that fought in the Battle of New York, the whistleblower that revealed HYDRA infiltration to the public, the Avenger. That was... holy shit, that was awesome, but also what the hell?

With her heart in her throat and brain short-circuiting in confusion, she could only feel a surge of relief that she picked up the ugly vase. Then she gave a quick prayer her mascara wasn't running from the rain. Priorities. She was rarely at a loss for words, but her usually expansive grasp of the English language failed her now, and all she managed was a dumbfounded, “Ummmm… huh?” So much for Trish Talk.

The Black Widow raised a calming hand and seemed utterly unperturbed at having a knife pointed at her. Of course, she’d obviously been in far more dicey situations, and Trish figured a blonde lady moonlighting as a drowned cat probably didn’t cut the most intimidating of figures. Still, she was mildly offended. She could be fearsome and formidable, dammit.

“I apologize for the scare, Ms. Walker. This probably seems very strange to you,” Agent Romanoff said, hand still raised and clearly in soothe-the-terrified-civilian mode.

It was a little condescending, and Trish didn’t think it was particularly fair, seeing as how Romanoff was the one that decided to take a page out of the serial killer handbook and introduce herself by breaking in and lying in wait. But Trish returned the knife to the counter and with as much prim politeness as she could muster (which was a lot, she was used to putting on a show and smiling graciously through discomfort and alarm) responded, “You could say that, yes.”

“Let me help you clean up.” The agent gestured to the broken shards on the floor.

“No, that’s okay. I’ll get it later,” Trish said, waving her off. The superspy standing in her living room was a far more pressing issue. Was it... could it have anything to do with Jessica? She didn't know how Agent Romanoff would have any connection to Jessica, but she couldn't stop the fear from gripping at her chest. Why else would a superhero want to talk to her? 

She took a breathe and tried to sound as causal as possible. “I’d rather know what brings the Black Widow to a radio talk show host’s apartment. I doubt you want to set up an interview, not that I would object. But if that is why you’re here, I have to admit, this is a bit of an extreme way to get my attention...” she trailed off, leaving room for an explanation, but the other woman just stared at her, unblinking. It was kind of unnerving.

Romanoff tilted her head to the side slightly, considering, expression inscrutable. After a long moment, she finally said, “Your personal security system leaves a lot to be desired.”

Huh.. okay. That wasn’t really an answer. She was relieved this didn't appear to have anything to do with Jessica, but that just made the whole thing weirder. Trish stared back silently, taking a closer look at the woman in front of her. She looked and talked like the Black Widow she’d seen in the news. The hair was different, but still that brilliant red. Almost the same as the damn Patsy wig, actually. But it looked right on Natasha Romanoff in a way it never looked on Trish. So did the dark leather jacket and fitted jeans and tall boots. She looked good, but her eyes were weary and worn, clear even through her air of cool professionalism. Knowing what she did about the things Agent Romanoff had gone through in the past few years, it made sense. It felt real.

Granted, the technology was available for someone to disguise themselves as another person, but Trish couldn’t imagine anyone with access to that tech would use it to play mind games with a former child star and make themselves look like the Black Widow to do it, no less. On the other hand, was that really more far-fetched a possibility than the actual Black Widow breaking into her apartment to give her security tips? She crossed her arms over her chest, unsure what to think. “So… you broke in to test my security?”

Agent Romanoff apparently decided to continue not answering questions and instead said, “I have a few recommendations. Surveillance, reinforced door, safe room, bulletproof windows, and the like. Check your personal email.”

Trish raised an eyebrow. “You have my personal email?”

She wasn’t naive enough to be surprised someone could access her private email, especially not a spy. Not when regular people did the same sort of thing all the time. Privacy and celebrity didn’t exactly go hand in hand, and Trish understood the enthusiasm of fans. Most of them were harmless, if occasionally overwhelming, but a few crossed the line into creepy invasiveness. Sometimes they’d managed to access personal information: addresses, phone numbers. It’s how she’d ended up with a couple of stalkers.

Hell, her own mother might as well have been a stalker. Ever since she and Jess had left, Dorothy Walker always seemed to know the details of her daughter’s life. Where she was living, her phone number, her work schedule, her favorite coffee shop, her jogging route, every goddamn thing. Of course, Trish blocked her number to cut down on unwanted contact, but Dorothy would just hide her caller ID or use another phone or even change her own number to circumvent it. Trish had gotten wise and rarely answered unknown calls but she was still left with drunken, rambling messages, sometimes remorseful, sometimes berating, but always manipulative and designed to make her feel like shit. A few times, Dorothy had even called the station to pry details about her life out of her co-workers. She was equally a menace when it came to email.

But all of that wasn’t half as bad as when she would orchestrate “accidental” run ins in public, which forced Trish to remain polite lest she draw attention. The last time she’d done it was just a few weeks ago, at one of Trish's favorite delis, and somehow Dorothy just knew. She knew that Jessica wasn’t living at the apartment anymore, and she knew it hurt Trish, so she wouldn't shut up about it. Her mom loved to pick at her scabs, but she loved fresh blood even more. It was almost enough to make Trish change her routine and pick new places to go, but it was her life now, and she’d be damned if she was going to let her mother drive her away from the things she liked. She was often tempted to get an actual restraining order, instead of a Jessica enforced one, but it didn’t seem worth the headlines and publicity. Being in the spotlight, even in a negative way, gave her mother power and satisfaction.

But this was the Black Widow. She wasn’t a fan or a stalker or a controlling mother. Why would she bother with all of this? Before Trish could ask as much, Agent Romanoff continued, “I also included contact information for some reliable personal trainers to start you out.”

"Start me out on what exactly?” Trish asked, a little irritation creeping into her voice. This conversation was becoming increasingly opaque, and she was running out of patience. She just wanted to know what the hell was going on.

Romanoff stared at her as if the answer was obvious. “Self-defense lessons.”

Oh, of course. She should have known. “Okay...?” she intoned, clearly expecting more of an explanation but already figuring she wasn't going to get one. 

"You want to be able to protect yourself, right?" Agent Romanoff asked.

And yeah, there was no escaping the cryptic non-answers. But this time what she'd said roiled something deep-seated in Trish. She'd phrased it as a question, but it felt like a statement: you want to protect yourself. It was truer than anything else in Trish's life. Was she just that easy to read? Did she have her victimhood tattooed across her forehead? She considered Agent Romanoff again, in confusion and weariness and, for all her current frustration with the woman, a kind of giddy awe. 

Everyone seemed to have an opinion about the Black Widow. She was in the news more often than not. In defiance of the usual 24-hour news cycle, talking heads and pundits were still dissecting her actions in DC months later. In general, governments of the world viewed her with suspicion, and the United States in particular was incensed at the national security risks and damage to international relations her transparency had wrought. At worst, a few countries considered her a criminal and wanted her extradited and put on trial for past actions. Public opinion was polarized, and there didn’t seem to be much middle ground. Many considered her a hero, but as many, if not more, considered her a dangerous loose cannon with unknown loyalties, someone that could not be trusted and should be wearing an orange jumpsuit instead of black leather.

Trish had made her view of the woman clear on her show, after the Battle of New York and once again after the HYDRA Uprising. Natasha Romanoff was a hero as far as she was concerned. The infodump revealed her past for the world to see, at least in part, and it was... awful. The things she had done, yes, but also the things that had been done to her. The incredible violence and abuse, the brainwashing and mental manipulation. It was the kind of thing pulled from the pages of a dystopian horror novel. And still, despite everything in her past, Natalia Alianovna Romanova made a choice to become Natasha Romanoff. She made a choice to be good and do good, to protect people, even when it came at great cost to herself. Trish admired and respected her for that.

The Black Widow was a cipher in so many ways, more so now that she was inexplicably standing in her living room, but Trish had always felt like she could understand her on some distant level. She knew how hard it was to take control after having none and how good and terrifying it felt to finally be able to make your own choices. She understood the need for reinvention, the power that came with making a new name, and the liberation of forging a new identity separate from the things other people forced on you. It took strength and courage to become a new person, to be someone that fought for good, especially if you grew up with no real guidance of what exactly constituted right and wrong.

Of course, Trish knew she could just be projecting her own issues. Scratch that, she definitely was. She didn’t know the woman. Knew nothing about her but for some publicly available records. It was easy for people to think they knew who you were just because they saw you on TV or read your Wikipedia article. She didn’t want to do to Agent Romanoff what people had done to Trish Walker her entire life.

But what Trish knew with certainty was that Natasha Romanoff did the things Trish wished she could do. Despite being a regular human, she held her own with super-powered heroes. She protected people. She saved the world. Whatever darkness was in her past, she was a goddamn superhero in her own right.

Trish Walker wasn’t a superhero. She couldn’t save the world. She couldn’t protect anyone. Not herself. Not even the person she loved the most.

Trish could only stand on the sidelines as her best friend vanished from her life, knowing something was wrong, so completely wrong, but unable to do anything about it. She could only call again and again and leave message after message of panicky where are yous and are you okays. She could only sit with the phone at her ear, baffled and angry and heartbroken, as Jessica told her she had a boyfriend she loved, and she was finally happy, truly happy, so fuck off and mind your own business for once in your life, christ, you’re just like your mom.

When Jessica turned up at her door again, shaking and empty and shattered to pieces, all Trish could offer was shelter and expensive therapists and it’s not your fault. And when she came home one evening to find a note saying I have to work this out on my own and don’t try to find me, she could only hyperventilate on the floor of her kitchen, tears rolling down her cheeks and fingers itching for pills or whiskey or anything that would let her lose herself in a way she hadn’t been lost in years, in a way she wasn’t supposed to still want because she was better. She could only go on with her life, pretending everything was fine and hoping Jessica would walk back through the door one day.

Trish Walker couldn’t help anyone because she was just a useless talk radio host, not a hero. Not like Jessica.

But a different hero was standing in her living room where Jessica once stood, telling her how she could be a little bit of a hero too, if for no one else but herself. Maybe she couldn't protect everyone, couldn't protect Jessica, but she could at least learn to protect herself. It was something.

"Yes,” Trish said, fervently, feeling a shiver in her spine. She could have told herself it was because she was still soaked to the bone, but she knew it was hunger, the kind of desperate craving she'd only ever felt as an addict. “I want to be able to protect myself.” She didn't just want it, she needed it. She needed it so much her body and blood ached for it.

But she still didn't understand, and a question settled in her throat again. Why? “I just… this is all a little hard to comprehend. You don’t know me, but you break into my apartment to give me recommendations on security systems and self-defense lessons? Why are you doing this? It’s… it’s pretty strange, and you must have more important things to do."

A shadow crossed Romanoff's eyes. Gone was the steady, polished indifference. She looked… lost and young and tired and so much like Jessica the night she’d turned up at the door and collapsed into her arms. So much like… like what she once saw in her own eyes when she looked in the mirror, what she still sometimes saw when she let her guard down and stopped pretending it was all okay. It quickly passed, however, a moment so fleeting Trish almost thought she’d imagined it. But even though she wasn't a spy, when it came to acting, she was as much a professional as Romanoff.

Placid expression restored, Agent Romanoff said, "I used to watch your show."

Trish’s eyes widened in surprise. That… what? That was not what she was expecting. And she didn't see what it had to do with anything. Couldn’t the agent just give her a straightforward answer for once? Why did she have to be so enigmatic? Secretive superspy or not, Romanoff broke into her apartment and decided to offer up unsolicited advice, and she owed Trish a proper explanation for it.

What she did offer up didn’t even make sense. When and how and why had the Black Widow watched It’s Patsy? They were about the same age, but from what was publicly available about her background, the Black Widow started young, trained in spywork by an underground government organization in Russia. There was no way the grown Romanoff spent her free time sat on her ass watching old American tween programming, as hilarious a visual as it was.

Though… maybe it wasn’t completely outlandish to imagine foreign spies being exposed to American culture for their training. They had to learn about it somehow. But using It’s Patsy? Of all things? That was just… it couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. It was ridiculous. Insane.

It was insane, but now that her brain had latched on to the idea, it wouldn't let go. It did make a twisted kind of sense. If you were using little girls to do your dirty work, you’d want them to seem like regular little girls, right? To blend in so they could lie and kill with more ease? So why wouldn’t they watch the same thing little American girls watched? Why wouldn’t they learn to act like the perfect All-American girl next door Patsy Walker, squeaky clean and sunshine bright with her green eyes and red hair and utterly mundane problems?

Of course, Patsy Walker wasn’t real. There was no actual little girl like her, American or Russian or otherwise. Trying to be Patsy, it had nearly ruined her life, but she’d never imagined it doing the same to other girls, certainly not in this manner. It made her sick to think of it being used to literally brainwash children, to mold them into better killers. But it made her even sicker to realize that she… that she almost felt less alone thinking that damn show might've made another girl suffer as much as she did. God, what was wrong with her? Was she really so selfish and warped?

Agent Romanoff half smiled, a little corner of her lip tilting up. There was no joy in it, just sadness, and that felt like the closest thing to a confirmation of her wild impossible theory she would ever get. Romanoff added in a slightly strained voice, “I hated it."

Trish almost laughed. "Yeah?” She smiled back, and it was probably an ugly thing, twisted and bitter. Her mother would've jabbed her in the ribs for a smile like that. But her mother wasn't here, and maybe, just maybe it was all right to be ugly and sick and wrong sometimes. To be imperfect in the ways Patsy was never allowed to be. “Me too."

They stood for a minute in companionable silence, both lost in their own thoughts. Two women who had nothing and everything in common stopping long enough for a shared ghost to catch up with them. But neither were the type to linger for long, and it was time to bury Patsy Walker again.

Trish cleared her throat. “So, these self-defense lessons you recommend? How long will it take before I’m flipping people around with my thighs?”

Romanoff chuckled, throaty and full. “For you?” She looked her up and down appraisingly, raising an eyebrow. Then her lips twisted into a smirk, and she winked. “Not long.”

Oh. The Black Widow was flirting with her. This night was a rollercoaster of emotions. Before she could really process that, Romanoff began making motions to leave. Trish didn't want to keep her, but she knew she couldn't let a secret agent walk away without doing one last thing. 

"Hey, before you go, I'd like to ask you a favor," she said. "I have a friend. She went through something... horrible, and I was helping her, but then she left, just went off the radar. Could you... I'd like to find out where she is. I just want to know if she's okay.”

It would've been easier to be angry at Jessica. It would've distracted from the worry, the loneliness, the ache in her heart. She wasn't used to being alone anymore, not when it had been them against the world for so long, and she felt like she'd been abandoned, and it wasn't fair, for either of them. But she couldn't be mad at Jess, never truly and not over something like this. She only wished she could do for Jessica what Jessica had done for her, the way she'd looked at a broken, abused, drug addled mess of a girl and saw something worth loving anyway. Jessica had saved her. She wanted to return the favor. Return the love.

But it wasn't for Trish to decide what Jessica needed now. If distance is what it took for her to heal, then Trish would give it to her. Even so, she just couldn't go on knowing nothing. God, maybe it did make her like her mother to be that way, but it came from a place of caring, and that did make a difference. Jess was strong, and she could take care of herself, but she wasn't invincible. All Trish needed to know was if she was alive and as okay as she could be. She could find a way to breathe with that.

Agent Romanoff nodded in understanding. “I’d be happy to assist, Ms. Walker. Send me her details.”

Trish smiled. There'd been enough self-pitying introspection tonight. Jessica wasn't another ghost, and it was time to stop treating her like one. “Thank you, Agent Romanoff. And please, call me Trish.” She stuck out a hand. Romanoff took it, and Trish could feel calluses and scars across the otherwise soft skin. It was a small hand, but strong. 

“I'll call you Trish if you call me Natasha. You know, I’m actually not an agent anymore. Anyway, you should change out of those clothes, and I really need to...” she trailed off, knocking her head to the side.

Trish nodded, letting go of her hand. “Sure, of course. Innocents to protect and vast government conspiracies to uncover, right?”

Natasha smiled, a real one this time. It was lovely. “Something like that.”

As Trish made a move toward the door, Natasha instead walked towards the balcony. Trish quickly noticed, rolling her eyes. “Should’ve known superheroes don’t use doors,” she muttered under her breath, changing course after Natasha. It had stopped raining, but the brick was still slick, and Trish eyed it wearily. It would be just her luck for the Black Widow to die in a freak accident on her terrace.

Strolling out into the open air, Natasha glanced back with a chuckle and mischief in her eyes. “You know, Trish, I hope this is the start of a beautiful friendship. Because I—”

“No.” Trish shook her head, eyes widening in horrified realization. “Don’t do it. Don’t—”

“—really wanna be your friend,” Natasha finished.

“Goddammit,” Trish grumbled. “Not you too.”

Natasha was practically grinning at this point, utterly satisfied with herself. It was annoying and endearing at the same time. She’d been so professional and distant at first, and then so sad, it was a joy to see her lighter, happier... telling unacceptably obnoxious jokes. It was also a comfort. If someone that went through the things Natasha went through could still be like this, it gave her hope that Jessica would make it to that place one day too.

Trish sighed in exasperation, but grinned back. “Usually making that joke is a one way ticket to my shit list, though I suppose I could make an exception for my biggest fan. But if I hear one joke about me not being a natural redhead...” she trailed off, waving a fist threateningly.