Monsters // Black Widow

One

Blood.

"You will be training with our Winter Soldier." I turn around to see a man walking into the rink as my partner leaves. His metal arm sticks out like a sore thumb.

Sweat.

I'm thrown down into the mat over, and over
and over,
and over.

Tears.

"You're improving." He smirks after I pin him down. "..Improvement...You pulling back those punches. Same thing I suppose."

My all.

————

I put down my gun from aiming at the range. I hear footsteps come close. Fury. "Come to gloat to the other agents?" He asks as I take off my ear muffs. "Or to blow off some steam." I say raising my eyebrows, being smart. He reaches to the switch to pull the target close. I glance at the perfect aim. "I can always count on old habits to drown new problems." I shrug. Fury just looks at me for a moment. "Something tells me you didn't come see me for small talk."
"Walk with me."
We walk out and leave the facility with no words between us. We finally enter a black van and Fury drives us out. I make myself comfortable. "You'd think a woman so trained would know to keep her legs off my dash." He says swatting at my feet, making me put them down. "You still haven't let me in on where we're going." I say. "Rogers-."
"Mr. America? Something tells me this mission is important." I interrupt.
"The Avengers Initiative is a go. The Tesseract was taken by a being called Loki. Barton was compromised." He lets out making me sit up a bit straighter. "Does Nat know?" I ask him.
"She's just been informed. She's been pulled from her mission to talk to the big guy."
We stopped in front of a small gym in Brooklyn. We walk in and see Rogers punch a bag across the room with ease. My stomach twisted on the inside remembering the pain the serum brought Nat and I.
"Trouble sleeping?" Fury asks as we walk up to him as he hung another bag. "I slept for seventy years, sir. I think I've had my fill." He notices me walking with Fury. He extended a hand. "Ma'am."
I shook his hand, "Romanoff. Clarisse Romanoff." I nodded as he stepped back to his bag, punching. "If you're so rested then you should be out, celebrating, seeing the world." Fury kept the conversation from before. Steve stops punching and walks over to the bench, unraveling the tape off his hands. "I went under, the world was at war, I wake up, they say we won. They didn't say what we lost."
"We've made some mistakes along the way. Some very recently." He says giving me a glance.
"You here with a mission, sir?" He asks.
"I am."
"Trying to get me back in the world?"
"Trying to save it." Fury hands Rogers a file on the Tesseract, along with other files on HYDRA'S projects.
"Hydra's secret weapon." Rogers says making me look up at him. He looked a bit upset.
"Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you." I add, knowing only that much. "He thought what we think," Fury explains, "the Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. That's something the world sorely needs."
"Who took it from us?" I ask. "He's called Loki. He's not from around here. There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on if you're in. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know."
"At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me."
"Ten bucks says you're wrong. There's a debriefing package waiting for you back at your apartment."
Rogers turns and picks up a punching bag. Fury starts walking out of the gym.
"Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?" I ask
before walking with him.
Without missing a beat, he turns to us, "You should have left it in the ocean."

+++

I look through the package of information on everyone and everything. Security footage of Loki plays in the apartment. He wasn't too bad looking but I've never had good taste. I get a call and see Nat's face on the screen.
"Hey. You okay?" I ask her. "Yea, just on my way back with the precious cargo." I spin around in my chair to look at a photo of us together at the Facility for the first time all together after the mission, Clint took the photo. "What about Barton?" I ask her which was followed by silence.
"He's alive. That's all we need." She finally answers. We had became so close to him in Budapest and I know we were both equally worried about him.

I lay on my back staring at the vents top just above me. "How long are we hiding out in here again?" I ask them both who were playing cards. "Clarisse, you know the answer, why do you ask every hour?" Nat asks me making me turn back on my stomach. "Because it bugs you and that gives me something to do." I say smartly. "You two are really close, huh?" Agent Barton points out with a smirk. "Being trained side by side for the majority of our lives does that to a person." I shrug only for Nat to give me a look.
I could only think of the day I was given my serum and thrown into my room to let it settle. Nat would come by a couple times that day to make sure I was doing okay. Only for us both to be put against each other in the ring. There was never a true winner, and that's the way Draykov wanted it. Two immaculate Widows to his dispense.
"So if you're Winchester, so you say, why be Romanoff with Natasha?" Barton asks me. I look away from Nat and to Barton. "She's the closest thing to family I have. Mine didn't want me and here I am." I look back to her as she gives me a small smile before putting her cards down. "(You think you can open up like that to him?)" Nat asks me in Russian. "(He's good. I can tell.)" I smirk.
"English?" Barton asks as he puts the cards away. "Goodnight." I answer before turning over and closing my eyes.

——

I flew with Coulson and Rogers to the Helicarrier. Rogers sag with a tablet, watching the footage of the Hulk's attack on the Army at Culver University. "We're about forty minutes out from base, ma'am." The pilot tells me as I stood beside him looking out the windshield. "Thank you, forty." I say with a small salute before turning to see Rogers somewhat taken aback by the footage. "So, this Doctor Banner was trying to replicate the serum that was used on me?" He asks while I walked towards him, glancing at the screen.
"A lot of people were. You were the world's first superhero." I smirk at him.
"Banner thought gamma radiation might hold the key to unlocking Erskine's original formula." Coulson adds before The Hulk roars with fury as he slams a jeep apart on the footage.
"Didn't really go his way, did it?" Rogers looks up at us.
"Not so much. When he's not that thing though, guy's like a Stephen Hawking." Steve looks confused at at Coulson's comparison.
"He's like a really smart person." I say quietly to him.
"I gotta say, it's an honor to meet you, officially." Coulson say to him starstruck. Steve smiles at Coulson but I just take a seat to watch.
"I sort of met you, I mean, I watched you while you were sleeping." Steve looks down. He stands up, closes his laptop and walks to the side with Coulson following. I couldn't help but chuckle, "I mean, I was... I was present while you were unconscious from the ice. You know, it's really, it's just a... just a huge honor to have you on board."
"Nice save Phil." I smile.
"Well, I hope I'm the man for the job." Steve says almost sounding doubtful.
"Oh, you are. Absolutely. Uh... we've made some modifications to the uniform. I had a little design input." Steve looks to Coulson confused, "The uniform? Aren't the stars and stripes a little... old fashioned?"
"With everything that's happening," I add making them both look to me, "..the things that are about to happen, people might just need a little old fashioned."