The Widow's Daughter ✔︎

Chapter Thirty-Six

A/N: Warning to all you other shippers out there, there's some Romanogers in this chapter.

During the meeting, we learnt that if it was true that Holly was working for Agnelsson and Ivan, then she would've taken Fury to Agnelsson's base, which was located in Galway, Ireland, in some undercover facility beneath a mall. When I pointed out that breaking into a secret HQ underneath a mall was literally every Stranger Things nut's dream, Nat had given me the eyebrows and that 'mum' look that made me shut up. We'd come up with a plan that me, Nat, Peter and Steve would go and find Agnelsson and Holly and Fury directly and break in with the others following as backup. The plan went that once we had found our targets, we'd confront them: and twenty S.H.I.E.L.D agents would storm in to arrest Holly and Agnelsson. I'd felt skeptical about saying this plan in front of the Salvatores, but Tony had assured me that they wouldn't be getting out of their cage until Holly was secured.

We'd make our move tomorrow, even though I'd insisted I'd been okay if we went now. But Nat, being the mum she was, ordered me to get some rest or she would rip off all my limbs and beat me to death with them, which I thought was a bit drastic, but still. Turns out a good sleep was exactly what I needed, because I woke up a couple of hours later feeling regenerated and ready to face anything Agnelsson threw at me.

Unfortunately, now that I was awake, that meant training, and a lot of it. I made my way down into the sparring room, where I was met by Nat, Steve, and Thor. I gulped: those three together were not a good combination.

"Don't suppose we could sit this round of training out?" I asked, shutting the door behind me.

Thor chuckled. "No can do, small mortal," he boomed, patting my head affectionately. "We offer apologies beforehand, though."

I gulped. Nothing about that sentence sounded good.

Nat moved over to my side and winked at me. "You'll be fine, kid," she said. "It's you against Steve and everybody knows what a wuss he is."

"Hey, Romanoff! Not nice!" Steve punched my mother in the arm and she giggled.

Yes, that's right.

My mother, Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, giggled.

"Come on Rogers, everybody knows that's true," Nat defended, laughing. Thor looked at me with an arched eyebrow - I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Thor crouched down to me and said, "Small mortal, forgive me if I'm wrong, but are those two... flirting?"

I gaped as I watched the two laugh - they really did look like a proper couple, Nat's head going up to Steve's chin. "Uh... wow, yeah." Apparently watching my mother flirting with a hot superhero made me incapable of forming proper speech, so I just sort-of stood there, watching as Nat and Steve teased one another about their levels of wussiness. Once they'd noticed that me and Thor were staring, they looked at the two of us with their eyebrows raised and their faces red. "OK..." I couldn't help snorting as I said, "What was that?"

"What was what?" Nat's cheeks were flushed as she moved away from Steve.

"That entire thing," I laughed. "You two were obviously flirting."

"Even I managed to pick up on that, and I am a god," agreed Thor.

Steve looked awkward and uncomfortable as he gently fanned himself with his hand, lifting his small, tight grey T-shirt to get some air onto his skin. "Is it getting a little hot in here?" he asked.

Nat nudged me in the ribs. "Kira, honey, I love you, but you're clearly delusional," she said. "Steve and I are work colleagues, nothing more." When she saw me open my mouth to argue, she cut over with, "So please drop the topic or I'll have you grounded for a month."

"You can do that?"

"Of course I can do that, I'm your mother." 

I rolled my eyes. "Okay, okay. But seriously: I'm shipping it. Romanogers all the way." I ducked out of the way before Nat could, I dunno, judo flip me or something.

I heard Steve let out a choking sound. I wasn't quite sure what he was choking on, but Nat moved over to his side and thumped him on the back five times before he stopped coughing. Steve doubled over, wheezing, tears in his eyes as he repeated, "Romanogers?"

I nodded. "Yuh-huh. Either that or Stevetasha, but I prefer Romanogers more." Seeing their looks of obvious confusion, I explained, "It's your ship name. Your couple name."

Nat gave me a steely glare that made me feel like running into Thor's arms and wailing, but I stayed strong and smug, vouching for my mother's romance with Captain America 100 percent. Steve chuckled, earning another glare from Nat. "Whatever you say, kid. I know what you're trying to do and it's not working: you're trying to get out of training by distracting us, but we're not fooled. Perhaps Thor is, but you've got him wrapped around your pinkie finger. You're quite a devious little madam, Miss Romanoff."

Ignoring the fact that he'd just called me a 'devious little madam,' I smirked and said, "Like mother, like daughter."

WHUMP!

An airborne pair of boxing gloves collided with the side of my face. I peeled them off my skin and scowled at my mother, who was smirking where she'd thrown them. "Rogers is right, маленькая птица. You're just trying to distract us. Now come on: you have to train."

I sighed and threw my hands in the air, earning a chuckle from Thor. "Okay, okay," I said, moving into position to begin sparring. "But seriously. You two should get together."

Nat shut me up with a jab to my left side. I blocked it and laughed as she replied snarkily, "Kira, Моя дочь, you'd better improve your fighting style, or your ship name will become Roman-I-got-hit-in-the-face-by-a-bad-guy."

I giggled, blocking her punches. "That could apply for you too."

"True," Nat spun and executed a killer front kick to my thigh, "but so could the first one. The silly one. Romanogers. Honey, I know Steve is very dreamy but he's way too old for you. Stick to that Peter boy, it'll make both of our lives much easier."

I snorted, ignoring the first comment. "You just called him dreamy," I laughed. "You see now? It's perfect."

I regretted that statement, because five seconds later I was lying flat on my face with a bruise the size of a soccer ball blooming on the side of my face.

Romanogers all the way, I thought, before blacking out.