A Casual Affair

Untitled Part 1

Her world had gotten very strange over the years. Not that it was ever normal, she supposed. She wasn't raised like other little girls, never had a regular job (except as a cover). But surviving in the realm of spies was very different from battling aliens or rogue AI. She used to be assigned missions that, while a creative use of her skills, were relatively easy to handle for a government agent. Maybe two government agents. But certainly nothing that involved magical superbeings, gods, or mystical powers (and artifacts).

So, while taking SHIELD (and HYDRA) down was one of the most influential things she'd done, it was more personal than the other world-saving activities she'd gotten up to over the years. It had been a relief to return to her day job after the events of New York. And working with Steve Rogers regularly was easy to get used to – he didn't act like he was superhuman. He certainly didn't act like regular humans, having a more precise moral compass than anyone she had met, but he did not like to bring attention to his physical prowess. If his part of the mission required more strength or stamina, he didn't like anyone pointing that out. He did his job and she did hers and they worked well together.

And when he found out HYDRA had been controlling SHIELD (at least to some extent; who knew where that line was drawn?), Steve had insisted all of it be destroyed. Though he might not have felt quite so strongly about it if HYDRA hadn't been experimenting on and torturing his best friend for seventy years. Nick hadn't appreciated that, hadn't liked the idea of everything he'd spent his entire life working for would be gone. But it was a lie, what he'd been doing. He just hadn't known it yet. She was familiar with that, with seeing that all you've done was wrong and spending the rest of your life trying to make up for it. That's what she had been doing for most of her adult life, after all. And would now have to start over, it seemed.

Nick had looked to her, looking for her support or for confirmation of Steve's analysis. And she found it was easy to side with Steve instead of Nick. Steve was her friend, and had asked nothing more of her than that she be his friend in return. Nick had not trusted her enough to let her know the Winter Soldier had failed to kill him (something he knew would devastate her). And it wasn't like she had any reason to doubt – if anyone could successfully assassinate Nick Fury, it was the Winter Soldier. She didn't put all of SHIELD's files on the internet lightly – she knew what it meant for her and those like her. But it was a relief.

After that, she'd gone off the grid for a while. Helped Tony and everyone when they needed it, but was glad to go home. To live like she supposed most women her age did. She worked at a little shop down the street from her apartment, and came home before dark every day. She made her own meals, which was somewhat novel, and enjoyed how quiet her evenings could be. Clint knew where she was, but she didn't invite him to visit. It's great to be alone.

Still, she should have known it was too much to ask for her life to be normal. Too much to think she could just stay in this retiring lifestyle forever, without any of the ghosts of her past reappearing. She knew there were people who wanted to kill her, to capture her; a lot of people. But she also knew that the chances of them finding her here were rather slim. Only Clint knew of her location, and she'd used every trick in the book to get here without leaving any kind of trail. But when she came home to find a man with a metal arm sitting at her kitchen table, she was only slightly surprised.

It had started as a regular day. She'd made herself breakfast, packed a lunch, and gone to work. It is late afternoon when she comes home, and she is deep in thought about what to make for dinner (thoroughly enjoying that this was the heaviest decision she'd had to make all day). As soon as she opens her front door, though, she is immediately on edge – someone is here. Something imperceptible is different, and she can't quantify it, but she knows that dinner is going to have to wait.