A Game of You, 4/6.
Title: A Game Of You
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: R
Pairing: Gen (pairings mentioned and present, but not really a focus in the story)
Disclaimer: Not mine! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Takes place after "Captain America: The Winter Soldier." The story was plotted and I started writing it before the second season of "Agents of SHIELD" began. I am jossed so hard by the MCU, but hey! Fic! :)
This is the fault of phoenixrising06/
romanovasledger and
futurerustfuture-dust during all of our characterization discussions, their watching Orphan Black and our headcanons for the Red Room. Also loosely inspired by this gifset, though I don't follow that plot at all. There is going to be violence, implied violence, and all sorts of fucked up stuff that is mentioned as part of the Red Room shenanigans.
Summary: A young woman is brutally murdered by the Vory in Saskatchewan. This is tragic enough, but she also wears Natasha Romanoff's face. And she's not the only one.
Prior chapters:
One - Twinning
Two - Collecting
Three - Sliding
Four - Meetings
Javier smiled warmly as he reached across the table and shook Clint Barton's hand. It was a work lunch in a public place, just outside of Madrid; he still planned to help Nina take apart a Hydra safe house, just in case they were the ones threatening her and her sisters. "Fyed says many a good thing about you, Mr. Barton."
Clint leaned back in his chair. "You are aware that he can be a filthy liar."
"We are all spies, Mr. Barton. Believe me, I am aware." They shared a laugh and each man ordered a light lunch. "Fyed and I have known each other a long time. He has good judgment, and always has good intel."
"Now that I don't work for SHIELD, I can work for him."
"I have helped him on a number of occasions to liberate former agents from Hydra. I suppose you're here to help in such an endeavor."
"I have some anger to work off, yeah."
"Very good. I'm doing it to help pass the time." He sighed when there was a light beeping noise from his pocket. "Another pressing issue, I'm afraid. Can I be terribly rude and check the message here?"
Clint gestured in his direction. "Go ahead. You never know when messages can be life or death."
"Yes, they can be." Javier unlocked his phone and looked at the message. "My new friend is running a little late. An emergency with some distant sisters of hers."
"Oh?"
"You will probably be able help me with that endeavor, if you like. It's more general protection detail, since we aren't sure if there are credible threats to her family."
"Does Fyed allow you to hire on new people for jobs?"
"This is a personal job, not one for Fyed."
"I was aware that he let you still do personal stuff, but..."
"A favor for a friend," Javier interrupted smoothly. "She's an IT specialist in America."
"There's got to be a story in that. That's a long way from Madrid," Clint said with a grin.
Javier shot him a rueful glance, then shook his head. "She caught me breaking into her network," he began with a smile and shrug, as if to say Oh, well, these things do happen. "Somehow we got to talking, and a friendship was struck. She taught me something about firewalls, I taught her something about the spy networks."
"So you're doing her a favor now?"
"Something like that."
"Well, good luck with the job, whatever it is."
"Don't you want in?"
"I already have a job."
Javier nodded, and fell silent as their server returned with lunch. "This is likely to be short," he said quietly. "I've spoken with Nina at length, and there seem to be good protections in place already. It's a matter of picking up the scattered sisters and putting in the defenses. Rather like how they did sieges in the Middle Ages."
"Who are they up against?"
"Possibly only Vory."
"Only?" Clint scoffed.
"A number had been stolen by human traffickers to sell to the highest bidder. Such men are not just in the Vory. We only know of the Vory killing one sister so far."
Clint let out a breath. "Shit like that makes you lose your faith in humanity."
"Oh, I lost mine a long time ago."
They fell into companionable silence as they finished their lunches. Javier wanted to stay for coffee and dessert to wait for his friend Nina. Not in a particular hurry, Clint remained for coffee and dessert as well. They talked about Hydra bases and safe houses, the SHIELD codes, fail safes and redundancies that they were exploiting in order to poach agents. A few minutes of this, and Javier brightened. "Ah, there she is."
Nina had a warm smile for Javier and slid into the seat between the two men. "Lena is parking the car now. She sent me on ahead so you wouldn't think we stood you up," she explained, not noticing Clint's wide eyes and slack jaw yet.
"So thoughtful. But I did get your message, so I wasn't worried." He gestured toward Clint as he smiled at Nina. "This is my new friend, Clint. He also works for Fyed-" He broke off abruptly when he turned and saw Clint's expression. "Clint?"
"You look just like Natasha," Clint breathed, blinking. "And Samantha."
Instead of saying something like I don't know what you're talking about or Who are you anyway?, Nina merely gave him an assessing look. "How do you know them?"
"Natasha's my best friend," Clint said, unable to take his eyes off of Nina. "And I confirmed Samantha's body as Natasha even though I knew it wasn't true. What the hell is going on?"
"That, Agent Barton," another woman said as she slid into the empty seat at the table, "is a very long story. Highly classified."
"And you are?"
She smiled, her blue eyes dancing with amusement. Leaning back, she brushed her blonde hair away from her shoulders. "Yelena Belova. Contemporary of Natasha's and a fellow Red Room survivor. Unlike her, however, I still remember quite a bit about where I come from."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean, they never got a chance to erase my memories and unmake me as they did with her. It might have happened at some point, and I was very upset at the time that it hadn't. But among other things, not only did they erase much of what made Natalia Alianovna Romanova, they also created copies. Backups to the system. Training a Black Widow is a very expensive endeavor, and they didn't want to be without a fully operational copy if something happened to the original Black Widow while on a mission."
Clint understood right away. "They cloned her."
"They did," Yelena confirmed. "There are twenty-eight girls in the Red Room. Twenty-eight copies of the girls earning the highest marks. And as of right now? Only eleven copies are left," she said, voice hard. "Dinah's been killed."
"The emergency you mentioned," Javier said, looking at Nina.
She was pale and visibly upset. "Nancy couldn't get a hold of her. So she made some inquiries, some dumbass excuse to talk to the city social worker, whatever. Dinah wasn't there, hadn't called in to work in three days. It's not like her, Dinah's anal retentive about schedules and doing everything the way it's supposed to be done. It was enough to get others suspicious, and police went to her house to do a well check. She's been dead for a week."
"Any idea who?" Javier asked, concerned.
Nina shook her head. "At least, not by the police report Nancy could find."
"They're apparently taking the abusive ex-boyfriend line of inquiry," Yelena added.
"Should they not have?" Clint asked, confused.
"Oh, she's got a string of exes," Yelena replied with a dismissive wave. "Dinah loved being in a relationship, but she got frustrated easily and wasn't really interested in trying to make it work in the long term. None of them were abusive, so that's a dead end. It was violent and brutal, and apparently written on the wall in her blood were the words 'You will pay,' which is why they're going that route. Still wrong, though."
"That's pretty disturbing."
"It's probably deliberate, to throw them off the trail," Nina told Clint. "Nancy swears she has North America locked down, and she will keep working at them. Stubborn, just like the original one was," she told Clint with a wry smile.
"Wait. Original?" he asked. "You know Natasha, too?"
"Not too many of us know what we are," Nina told him in a straightforward manner. "I only know of her. I do know that we are all clones of Natasha Alianovna Romanoff, inadvertently defrosted when she burned down the Red Room ten years ago." She gave him a wide grin. "Didn't see that one coming, now did you?"
"No, can't say that I did," he agreed.
Yelena smirked and leaned forward into the table. "So. Most of the ladies here in Europe refuse to leave their homes and lives. I don't want to uproot them if I don't have to, so we'll need your help to make sure we have more security measures in place."
"And kick a little Hydra ass," Javier added.
"But of course," Yelena replied, still smirking. "Might as well have a little fun along the way."
***
A fresh pot of tea and three cups sat in front of Marcia, Olga and Natasha. "There are layers to the story," Marcia began slowly. "The things we told the girls, the things we left out. I'm one of the few that know the whole story."
"Why?"
"Because they couldn't avoid telling it to me when I was found," Marcia told Olga. She took her cup and sipped at her tea slowly. "If they could have, they would have skipped some of the very big details."
"Like why we all look alike," Natasha said.
Marcia nodded as Natasha took a sip of her tea. Feeling a little left out, Olga gulped her hot tea, then winced as it burned its way down her throat. "Tell me everything. I deserve to know."
"Deserve, yes. But the few of us that know the full story tend to protect the ones that don't."
"Protect them from who?" Natasha asked sharply. "The Vory still killed Samantha."
"And we don't know who killed Dinah," Marcia agreed with a sigh. "But after Samantha died, we've been warning the others. Most just refuse to go into hiding."
Olga nodded. "I wouldn't leave without good reason."
"And if it's not the Vory, who are you looking out for?" Natasha asked.
"Department X or its successors," Marcia replied.
Natasha went very still. "They're gone."
"Come now. Don't tell me you actually believe that."
Olga looked between the two women in front of her. "Yeah. You're telling me the entire story. Right. Now."
Marcia sighed, then nodded at Natasha. "This is Natasha Romanoff. Born Natalia Alianovna Romanova, one of the greatest prodigies of the Red Room." Natasha had gone very still. "With all of the dangerous missions she was sent on, the Red Room handlers didn't want to lose their investment. It's a massive undertaking in personnel and finances to properly train a Black Widow, after all."
Olga looked from Marcia to Natasha. "That's how you introduced yourself to me. The Black Widow, as if I should know the term."
"I suppose, having my face and the Vory keeping an eye on you, I thought you were part of the Red Room."
"Sort of, we all are," Marcia said, cutting off Olga's reply. "They cloned you. Different batches, not all of us surviving the process. And we were kept in stasis until needed."
Natasha looked stunned. "But... But then..."
"Not all of us were actually taken out of cryo. They remained blank slates, too easy to victimize when the protocols ran down."
"Ten years ago," Natasha guessed. For Olga's sake she added, "When I burned down the Red Room and killed all of the handlers."
"Exactly. We had help, two survivors who caught on and got us away. Skill sets, money, backgrounds. Nothing fancy, just enough to give us all a start."
Olga stared at her tea, then gulped it all down. "So we were never meant to be real."
"No. But we still are," Marcia told her.
"My life was terrible," Olga murmured. She looked from Natasha to Marcia. "The Vory had such a hold a hold on me, even if I never worked for them. Pyotr was an utter bastard to me for years."
"I did offer to kill him," Marcia reminded her.
"I should have taken you up on that offer."
"But as uncomfortable as it was, it was what you knew," Natasha murmured, picking up her cup. There was no tremor in her hands at all. "The unknown is frightening. But if you stick with what you know, you can react to it. You can prepare. You know what to expect."
"Our lives turned out completely differently," Marcia told them. "We're individuals, even if the source DNA was the same."
"Sisters," Natasha murmured. She appeared calm, but Olga could see now how very pale and still she was. She was controlling her shock the only way she knew how.
Knowing an internationally known assassin was rattled actually made Olga feel better. She wasn't the only one affected by this.
"I can call Nina, see if she and her girlfriend has a fallback plan. They were looking into some other central locations when I last spoke with her. And Nina was working with a friend of Nancy's, who has connections with spies or something. Nina was appropriately vague about it all, didn't go into detail."
"It's not the Vory that knows about them all," Natasha said quietly. "They killed Samantha thinking she was me. Because they thought I was without protection now that SHIELD has been torn apart and dismantled."
"But you weren't."
"I know how to disappear. She didn't know what hit her."
Olga could hear the quiet blame in her voice, and impulsively reached out to grasp her hand tightly. "But you didn't know we existed before."
"Now I do. And now I have to make sure you all survive."
"We're scattered all over. Shop girls and photographers and bakers and the like. Ordinary women now, not spies and assassins," Marcia told her.
"The friend of yours with connections," Natasha began slowly, thinking aloud. "We should all meet, see what resources are available. Because perhaps we can put contingency plans in place for all the ones that are left. Even if the Vory doesn't find some of them because they're not in those countries, Hydra is still in the shadows snapping up former SHIELD agents and whoever they think might be valuable. Anyone with my face might be snatched up, her mind wiped out and reprogrammed."
Marcia nodded. "They still have that kind of technology, even if they report that it was all seized on the news."
Natasha snorted her disbelief, and Olga merely looked at the two of them in concern. "Simple self defense won't be enough. And if these agencies aren't enough to help..."
"There are different things to do, depending on how far they're willing to go. The main thing would be to defeat facial recognition software and targeting algorhythms," Natasha said. "You would be surprised how well an oversized jacket and ball cap work, if you know what to keep an eye out for."
"It would be so much easier if there was only one agency to worry about," Olga sighed.
"The real world isn't nearly so obliging," Natasha replied. "So we'll have to make sure you stay alive and off the radar. The difficult part would be getting all of you to wrap your minds around hiding in plain sight. It's so much easier if you don't belong anywhere."
"Most of us belong somewhere," Marcia said. Though none of the three had ever met in person before, Olga thought she could hear disapproval in her tone.
Natasha definitely heard it. "Most of you aren't spies. But in order to survive without hiding in a safe house indefinitely, you're going to have to learn to move like one."
"It's more than just keeping your head down," Olga guessed.
"It's that, and knowing how people search and hunt, knowing how organizations think, knowing how they use the information that's out there. They have networks. Informants. Programs that sort through and shuffle data." Natasha looked at the two women with a stern expression. "Do you think you could do that? Could the others?"
"None of us live particularly exceptional lives," Marcia replied in droll tones.
"Some far more unexceptional than others," Olga added, a sour note to her voice.
"There will be rules about the rest of it, but that won't cover everything. It can't, when these agencies are changing all the time."
"Nancy has search programs for our names. And yours."
"It might not give enough reaction time," Natasha replied.
"Why is this even happening?" Olga said abruptly, frustration in her tone. "Why do we have to go through all this?"
"Because of me," Natasha said softly, as if it was a simple statement of fact. "Because of the things I've done, the horrors and atrocities and nightmares that I've been. Death and killing is only part of it. What you experienced while being trafficked is only a small part of the darker side of life out there. I've lived it, I've been it. You're all paying for my mistakes."
"So you need to help keep us safe," Olga said. "Teach us what we need to know. You make it sound like you're going to put up cameras or something, tell us to watch it and see if someone is creeping down the street. Something like that, by the time we see it, it's too late."
"I know," Natasha murmured. "But that's why I need to know what resources you already have, so I can factor them in. I have a few safe houses across the world that no one knows about, and I keep them active. That's one way out if any of you can get there. I have backup identities in each one, untraceable."
Olga covered her face and took a deep breath. "I put up with Pyotr because I knew I could not take out the Vory. And I am strong, I work in a factory. I'm smart, I'm a trained engineer. But I also know my limitations, and I could never escape any of those men if they chose to run me down and gut me like a fish as they did with that girl in Canada. How is some shop girl in a random city going to make it to one of your safe houses?"
Natasha's gaze was hollow and frightening; Olga actually shrank back from her. "Because I know people. And those people are not to be fucked with. Ever."
Marcia swallowed and nodded. "I'll call Nina."
***
Everyone decided to meet in Berlin; Marcia still had a number of classes to teach and didn't have a replacement instructor yet. The traveling time allowed Clint to get in touch with Fyed and get a lead on a few Hydra cells he thought existed en route. There were a few Hydra agents in Madrid that Javier and Clint killed before leaving the city, and apparently Nina and Yelena had made a pit stop in Marseilles and Geneva. Clint had wanted to go on ahead, since Marcia stated that Natasha was in Berlin with her, and he wanted to break the news about the other clones gently, if Marcia hadn't done it already.
How did you tell someone that the shady organization that trained them to be an amoral killer had also cloned them in case they were killed in action? How did you tell them that it wasn't their fault, no matter how much they might believe it was?
Clint had no idea. He was probably going to wing it, as he usually did in life.
He did place a call to Izzy and Steve in New York, just to be on the safe side. If Hydra or the Vory took them out, at least some of the other clones might be protected.
"Hey, before we head to the dojo," Javier began in an amiable tone, sorting through his weapons on the bed of their hotel room. "I have gotten some warning that AIM is in the area. There are some weapons and tech caches from SHIELD safe houses that might be floating about. Yelena and Nina are taking the long way around to be certain they weren't followed. Want a little more distraction?" he offered, sliding a wicked-looking blade into a sheath at the small of his back. He had two USP Compacts in shoulder holsters and three extra magazines attached to each holster; the entire rig would be covered by his heavy leather jacket.
Clint had to admit, the toys looked really good, even if they weren't his weapon of choice. He shook his head. "I should talk to Natasha."
"You think it'll make a difference if you see her now or later?"
"It'll make a difference to me."
Javier shrugged. "Oh, well. I will change up my tactics, then." He started digging through his duffel bag on the floor and found gauntlets that would fit under the sleeves of his coat. One contained a wrist blade and the other contained a garrote.
"Are you a fucking video game character or something?" Clint asked, eyes wide with surprise.
Laughing, Javier shook his head and put on his coat. "No, but some of them have very good ideas that are fun to use."
"Damn. I need to contact your supplier," Clint said, shaking his head.
"Fyed knows the armorer and weaponsmith. Independent contractor, very much hidden to stay out of the mess that the intelligence community is right now."
"He knows all the good contacts."
Nodding, Javier flexed his wrist with a snap, extending the hidden blade. "This one was very, very fun to use. I did feel like an assassin."
Clint snickered and let him leave to hunt AIM agents. He had a best friend to find.
At the dojo, he was struck by how similar Marcia moved to Natasha. He knew she would look the same, and the black hair didn't throw him at all. Natasha often changed hair colors to better blend in; everyone knew the Black Widow had intensely bright red hair, so changing it to blonde or black or brown meant that she could hide in plain sight. He hung back to see how Marcia taught an adult class, the fluid movements almost like dancing, the same way Natasha moved when fighting others. Other SHIELD agents had been straightforward in their attacks, had simply gone in and attacked. Natasha always moved with the utmost grace, highly efficient and almost ethereally beautiful, deadly and sharp to look at.
Marcia noticed him after dismissing her class and she casually moved to drink some bottled water. Students were chattering in the changing area, highlighting that this was essentially a very public place, even if it was Marcia's place of business. "I'm Clint Barton."
"When was the last time you saw her?" Marcia asked, no inflection in her tone.
"In Canada. She was a dead woman then," Clint said with a shrug. "Technically still is, since I never reported her presence to anyone." Well, no one but Izzy, but that was in confidence and not official in the slightest.
Unhooking a key from the ring on the desk, Marcia tossed at him. "Upstairs, left hand door."
"Javier's on his way."
"I got a text."
"Nina and Yelena..." he began.
"Called. They're in Geneva right now. It's a pit stop to get rid of some vermin." She gave Clint a mirthless smile. "They might make one more stop, depending on how the infestation is."
"Meaning if anyone talks."
"Yes. Agents too high up won't."
"Not unless it's under duress."
"But then you can't really trust what you get, can you?" Marcia asked pointedly. "I have another class in fifteen minutes for an hour or so. I won't be able to join you. Please don't break anything, huh? I'm not rolling in cash."
"Why would I break anything?"
"It's a standard warning I give visitors. I have a lot of very fragile things up there."
Which turned out to be electronics, and quite a bit of it. Monitoring stations, some desktop towers running search algorhythms, one that contained hacked CCTV footage. He immediately understood why she would be so concerned about her apartment.
Natasha was with another of her clones, talking in hushed tones about proper self defense techniques that she could use. Though she didn't stop what she was doing, her eyes took in Clint's presence and her demeanor warmed up. The other woman caught the shift and looked up to see Clint standing there. "One of yours?" she asked.
God, she sounded just like Natasha, with a thick Russian accent.
"Clint, this is Olga. Olga, Clint. My best friend, formerly of SHIELD, now of Dynamic Solutions. You've clued in Fyed, of course?" she asked, head tilted to the side.
"Nope. This is off book so far. I gave a few friends a heads up, but not too many details."
"Thinking of going the safe house route?"
"I'm guessing that's what you're doing," Clint temporized, nodding in Olga's direction. The woman was looking at their interplay with wide eyes.
"It's an option. I already have a few safe houses. They might as well use them, since they're set up and I won't use them all once."
"The Vory thinking you're dead will only work for so long, you know. Hydra is impossible to track down, and there's always the other opposing factions out there that are glad SHIELD is demolished and in hiding." He walked over to the two women and sat down at the table near them. "There's no adding in years of training. All the old brainwashing tech that the Red Room had was destroyed, and we're not going to be able to get our hands on Hydra's."
"Are you sure?" Natasha asked.
"I don't like this idea to brainwash me." Olga abruptly stepped away from Natasha, eyeing her as if she was some strange thing she couldn't understand. Clint understood the feeling.
"It would be adding in skill sets. Like self defense, computer hacking, that kind of thing," Natasha said quietly. "Enough to help you stay off the grid."
"No. I don't want that."
"I wouldn't force you to do it," Natasha said, shaking her head. Olga didn't relax. "It's getting late. We've done enough for today."
Olga nodded and quickly slipped out of the apartment, heading to the other half of the floor without saying a word. Clint watched her go, then stood. Natasha looked after Olga almost uncertainly, as if weighing her options to approach her clone again. "Hey," he murmured, stepping closer to her. Opening his arms, he was gratified to have Natasha fall into them for a tight hug.
Natasha clutched him close, her face buried in his chest. "How am I going to do this? Keeping myself safe is easy. But all of them? Eleven of them?"
"You have friends," Clint murmured. "You don't have to do it alone."
"I can't make you do this for me..."
"You're not making me do anything. And I know the others would stand up and volunteer to help however they can." Clint stroked her back in a supportive manner. "None of us would think it's a hardship to help you. You're one of us, Nat."
She let out a sigh. "After SHIELD fell, I suppose I wasn't sure who I could trust anymore."
"The same handful you did before, you could now."
"I'd have to think about it," Natasha admitted. "It doesn't come naturally to me. I'm used to keeping myself buried under layers, protecting myself at all costs. I don't-sometimes I don't know who to trust. This whole thing with Hydra infiltrating SHIELD..."
Clint tightened his hug. "I understand. And we'll get through it. You have the tools. You just have to believe that you can do it."
Natasha pulled back far enough to grasp his face in her hands tenderly. "Thank you, Clint. For more than I can say in words."
He grinned and kissed the top of her head. "Let's see if you still say that when we're in the thick of things. But you're very welcome."
***
***
To Chapter Five - Confronting
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: R
Pairing: Gen (pairings mentioned and present, but not really a focus in the story)
Disclaimer: Not mine! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Takes place after "Captain America: The Winter Soldier." The story was plotted and I started writing it before the second season of "Agents of SHIELD" began. I am jossed so hard by the MCU, but hey! Fic! :)
This is the fault of phoenixrising06/
romanovasledger and
futurerustfuture-dust during all of our characterization discussions, their watching Orphan Black and our headcanons for the Red Room. Also loosely inspired by this gifset, though I don't follow that plot at all. There is going to be violence, implied violence, and all sorts of fucked up stuff that is mentioned as part of the Red Room shenanigans.
Summary: A young woman is brutally murdered by the Vory in Saskatchewan. This is tragic enough, but she also wears Natasha Romanoff's face. And she's not the only one.
Prior chapters:
One - Twinning
Two - Collecting
Three - Sliding
Four - Meetings
Javier smiled warmly as he reached across the table and shook Clint Barton's hand. It was a work lunch in a public place, just outside of Madrid; he still planned to help Nina take apart a Hydra safe house, just in case they were the ones threatening her and her sisters. "Fyed says many a good thing about you, Mr. Barton."
Clint leaned back in his chair. "You are aware that he can be a filthy liar."
"We are all spies, Mr. Barton. Believe me, I am aware." They shared a laugh and each man ordered a light lunch. "Fyed and I have known each other a long time. He has good judgment, and always has good intel."
"Now that I don't work for SHIELD, I can work for him."
"I have helped him on a number of occasions to liberate former agents from Hydra. I suppose you're here to help in such an endeavor."
"I have some anger to work off, yeah."
"Very good. I'm doing it to help pass the time." He sighed when there was a light beeping noise from his pocket. "Another pressing issue, I'm afraid. Can I be terribly rude and check the message here?"
Clint gestured in his direction. "Go ahead. You never know when messages can be life or death."
"Yes, they can be." Javier unlocked his phone and looked at the message. "My new friend is running a little late. An emergency with some distant sisters of hers."
"Oh?"
"You will probably be able help me with that endeavor, if you like. It's more general protection detail, since we aren't sure if there are credible threats to her family."
"Does Fyed allow you to hire on new people for jobs?"
"This is a personal job, not one for Fyed."
"I was aware that he let you still do personal stuff, but..."
"A favor for a friend," Javier interrupted smoothly. "She's an IT specialist in America."
"There's got to be a story in that. That's a long way from Madrid," Clint said with a grin.
Javier shot him a rueful glance, then shook his head. "She caught me breaking into her network," he began with a smile and shrug, as if to say Oh, well, these things do happen. "Somehow we got to talking, and a friendship was struck. She taught me something about firewalls, I taught her something about the spy networks."
"So you're doing her a favor now?"
"Something like that."
"Well, good luck with the job, whatever it is."
"Don't you want in?"
"I already have a job."
Javier nodded, and fell silent as their server returned with lunch. "This is likely to be short," he said quietly. "I've spoken with Nina at length, and there seem to be good protections in place already. It's a matter of picking up the scattered sisters and putting in the defenses. Rather like how they did sieges in the Middle Ages."
"Who are they up against?"
"Possibly only Vory."
"Only?" Clint scoffed.
"A number had been stolen by human traffickers to sell to the highest bidder. Such men are not just in the Vory. We only know of the Vory killing one sister so far."
Clint let out a breath. "Shit like that makes you lose your faith in humanity."
"Oh, I lost mine a long time ago."
They fell into companionable silence as they finished their lunches. Javier wanted to stay for coffee and dessert to wait for his friend Nina. Not in a particular hurry, Clint remained for coffee and dessert as well. They talked about Hydra bases and safe houses, the SHIELD codes, fail safes and redundancies that they were exploiting in order to poach agents. A few minutes of this, and Javier brightened. "Ah, there she is."
Nina had a warm smile for Javier and slid into the seat between the two men. "Lena is parking the car now. She sent me on ahead so you wouldn't think we stood you up," she explained, not noticing Clint's wide eyes and slack jaw yet.
"So thoughtful. But I did get your message, so I wasn't worried." He gestured toward Clint as he smiled at Nina. "This is my new friend, Clint. He also works for Fyed-" He broke off abruptly when he turned and saw Clint's expression. "Clint?"
"You look just like Natasha," Clint breathed, blinking. "And Samantha."
Instead of saying something like I don't know what you're talking about or Who are you anyway?, Nina merely gave him an assessing look. "How do you know them?"
"Natasha's my best friend," Clint said, unable to take his eyes off of Nina. "And I confirmed Samantha's body as Natasha even though I knew it wasn't true. What the hell is going on?"
"That, Agent Barton," another woman said as she slid into the empty seat at the table, "is a very long story. Highly classified."
"And you are?"
She smiled, her blue eyes dancing with amusement. Leaning back, she brushed her blonde hair away from her shoulders. "Yelena Belova. Contemporary of Natasha's and a fellow Red Room survivor. Unlike her, however, I still remember quite a bit about where I come from."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean, they never got a chance to erase my memories and unmake me as they did with her. It might have happened at some point, and I was very upset at the time that it hadn't. But among other things, not only did they erase much of what made Natalia Alianovna Romanova, they also created copies. Backups to the system. Training a Black Widow is a very expensive endeavor, and they didn't want to be without a fully operational copy if something happened to the original Black Widow while on a mission."
Clint understood right away. "They cloned her."
"They did," Yelena confirmed. "There are twenty-eight girls in the Red Room. Twenty-eight copies of the girls earning the highest marks. And as of right now? Only eleven copies are left," she said, voice hard. "Dinah's been killed."
"The emergency you mentioned," Javier said, looking at Nina.
She was pale and visibly upset. "Nancy couldn't get a hold of her. So she made some inquiries, some dumbass excuse to talk to the city social worker, whatever. Dinah wasn't there, hadn't called in to work in three days. It's not like her, Dinah's anal retentive about schedules and doing everything the way it's supposed to be done. It was enough to get others suspicious, and police went to her house to do a well check. She's been dead for a week."
"Any idea who?" Javier asked, concerned.
Nina shook her head. "At least, not by the police report Nancy could find."
"They're apparently taking the abusive ex-boyfriend line of inquiry," Yelena added.
"Should they not have?" Clint asked, confused.
"Oh, she's got a string of exes," Yelena replied with a dismissive wave. "Dinah loved being in a relationship, but she got frustrated easily and wasn't really interested in trying to make it work in the long term. None of them were abusive, so that's a dead end. It was violent and brutal, and apparently written on the wall in her blood were the words 'You will pay,' which is why they're going that route. Still wrong, though."
"That's pretty disturbing."
"It's probably deliberate, to throw them off the trail," Nina told Clint. "Nancy swears she has North America locked down, and she will keep working at them. Stubborn, just like the original one was," she told Clint with a wry smile.
"Wait. Original?" he asked. "You know Natasha, too?"
"Not too many of us know what we are," Nina told him in a straightforward manner. "I only know of her. I do know that we are all clones of Natasha Alianovna Romanoff, inadvertently defrosted when she burned down the Red Room ten years ago." She gave him a wide grin. "Didn't see that one coming, now did you?"
"No, can't say that I did," he agreed.
Yelena smirked and leaned forward into the table. "So. Most of the ladies here in Europe refuse to leave their homes and lives. I don't want to uproot them if I don't have to, so we'll need your help to make sure we have more security measures in place."
"And kick a little Hydra ass," Javier added.
"But of course," Yelena replied, still smirking. "Might as well have a little fun along the way."
***
A fresh pot of tea and three cups sat in front of Marcia, Olga and Natasha. "There are layers to the story," Marcia began slowly. "The things we told the girls, the things we left out. I'm one of the few that know the whole story."
"Why?"
"Because they couldn't avoid telling it to me when I was found," Marcia told Olga. She took her cup and sipped at her tea slowly. "If they could have, they would have skipped some of the very big details."
"Like why we all look alike," Natasha said.
Marcia nodded as Natasha took a sip of her tea. Feeling a little left out, Olga gulped her hot tea, then winced as it burned its way down her throat. "Tell me everything. I deserve to know."
"Deserve, yes. But the few of us that know the full story tend to protect the ones that don't."
"Protect them from who?" Natasha asked sharply. "The Vory still killed Samantha."
"And we don't know who killed Dinah," Marcia agreed with a sigh. "But after Samantha died, we've been warning the others. Most just refuse to go into hiding."
Olga nodded. "I wouldn't leave without good reason."
"And if it's not the Vory, who are you looking out for?" Natasha asked.
"Department X or its successors," Marcia replied.
Natasha went very still. "They're gone."
"Come now. Don't tell me you actually believe that."
Olga looked between the two women in front of her. "Yeah. You're telling me the entire story. Right. Now."
Marcia sighed, then nodded at Natasha. "This is Natasha Romanoff. Born Natalia Alianovna Romanova, one of the greatest prodigies of the Red Room." Natasha had gone very still. "With all of the dangerous missions she was sent on, the Red Room handlers didn't want to lose their investment. It's a massive undertaking in personnel and finances to properly train a Black Widow, after all."
Olga looked from Marcia to Natasha. "That's how you introduced yourself to me. The Black Widow, as if I should know the term."
"I suppose, having my face and the Vory keeping an eye on you, I thought you were part of the Red Room."
"Sort of, we all are," Marcia said, cutting off Olga's reply. "They cloned you. Different batches, not all of us surviving the process. And we were kept in stasis until needed."
Natasha looked stunned. "But... But then..."
"Not all of us were actually taken out of cryo. They remained blank slates, too easy to victimize when the protocols ran down."
"Ten years ago," Natasha guessed. For Olga's sake she added, "When I burned down the Red Room and killed all of the handlers."
"Exactly. We had help, two survivors who caught on and got us away. Skill sets, money, backgrounds. Nothing fancy, just enough to give us all a start."
Olga stared at her tea, then gulped it all down. "So we were never meant to be real."
"No. But we still are," Marcia told her.
"My life was terrible," Olga murmured. She looked from Natasha to Marcia. "The Vory had such a hold a hold on me, even if I never worked for them. Pyotr was an utter bastard to me for years."
"I did offer to kill him," Marcia reminded her.
"I should have taken you up on that offer."
"But as uncomfortable as it was, it was what you knew," Natasha murmured, picking up her cup. There was no tremor in her hands at all. "The unknown is frightening. But if you stick with what you know, you can react to it. You can prepare. You know what to expect."
"Our lives turned out completely differently," Marcia told them. "We're individuals, even if the source DNA was the same."
"Sisters," Natasha murmured. She appeared calm, but Olga could see now how very pale and still she was. She was controlling her shock the only way she knew how.
Knowing an internationally known assassin was rattled actually made Olga feel better. She wasn't the only one affected by this.
"I can call Nina, see if she and her girlfriend has a fallback plan. They were looking into some other central locations when I last spoke with her. And Nina was working with a friend of Nancy's, who has connections with spies or something. Nina was appropriately vague about it all, didn't go into detail."
"It's not the Vory that knows about them all," Natasha said quietly. "They killed Samantha thinking she was me. Because they thought I was without protection now that SHIELD has been torn apart and dismantled."
"But you weren't."
"I know how to disappear. She didn't know what hit her."
Olga could hear the quiet blame in her voice, and impulsively reached out to grasp her hand tightly. "But you didn't know we existed before."
"Now I do. And now I have to make sure you all survive."
"We're scattered all over. Shop girls and photographers and bakers and the like. Ordinary women now, not spies and assassins," Marcia told her.
"The friend of yours with connections," Natasha began slowly, thinking aloud. "We should all meet, see what resources are available. Because perhaps we can put contingency plans in place for all the ones that are left. Even if the Vory doesn't find some of them because they're not in those countries, Hydra is still in the shadows snapping up former SHIELD agents and whoever they think might be valuable. Anyone with my face might be snatched up, her mind wiped out and reprogrammed."
Marcia nodded. "They still have that kind of technology, even if they report that it was all seized on the news."
Natasha snorted her disbelief, and Olga merely looked at the two of them in concern. "Simple self defense won't be enough. And if these agencies aren't enough to help..."
"There are different things to do, depending on how far they're willing to go. The main thing would be to defeat facial recognition software and targeting algorhythms," Natasha said. "You would be surprised how well an oversized jacket and ball cap work, if you know what to keep an eye out for."
"It would be so much easier if there was only one agency to worry about," Olga sighed.
"The real world isn't nearly so obliging," Natasha replied. "So we'll have to make sure you stay alive and off the radar. The difficult part would be getting all of you to wrap your minds around hiding in plain sight. It's so much easier if you don't belong anywhere."
"Most of us belong somewhere," Marcia said. Though none of the three had ever met in person before, Olga thought she could hear disapproval in her tone.
Natasha definitely heard it. "Most of you aren't spies. But in order to survive without hiding in a safe house indefinitely, you're going to have to learn to move like one."
"It's more than just keeping your head down," Olga guessed.
"It's that, and knowing how people search and hunt, knowing how organizations think, knowing how they use the information that's out there. They have networks. Informants. Programs that sort through and shuffle data." Natasha looked at the two women with a stern expression. "Do you think you could do that? Could the others?"
"None of us live particularly exceptional lives," Marcia replied in droll tones.
"Some far more unexceptional than others," Olga added, a sour note to her voice.
"There will be rules about the rest of it, but that won't cover everything. It can't, when these agencies are changing all the time."
"Nancy has search programs for our names. And yours."
"It might not give enough reaction time," Natasha replied.
"Why is this even happening?" Olga said abruptly, frustration in her tone. "Why do we have to go through all this?"
"Because of me," Natasha said softly, as if it was a simple statement of fact. "Because of the things I've done, the horrors and atrocities and nightmares that I've been. Death and killing is only part of it. What you experienced while being trafficked is only a small part of the darker side of life out there. I've lived it, I've been it. You're all paying for my mistakes."
"So you need to help keep us safe," Olga said. "Teach us what we need to know. You make it sound like you're going to put up cameras or something, tell us to watch it and see if someone is creeping down the street. Something like that, by the time we see it, it's too late."
"I know," Natasha murmured. "But that's why I need to know what resources you already have, so I can factor them in. I have a few safe houses across the world that no one knows about, and I keep them active. That's one way out if any of you can get there. I have backup identities in each one, untraceable."
Olga covered her face and took a deep breath. "I put up with Pyotr because I knew I could not take out the Vory. And I am strong, I work in a factory. I'm smart, I'm a trained engineer. But I also know my limitations, and I could never escape any of those men if they chose to run me down and gut me like a fish as they did with that girl in Canada. How is some shop girl in a random city going to make it to one of your safe houses?"
Natasha's gaze was hollow and frightening; Olga actually shrank back from her. "Because I know people. And those people are not to be fucked with. Ever."
Marcia swallowed and nodded. "I'll call Nina."
***
Everyone decided to meet in Berlin; Marcia still had a number of classes to teach and didn't have a replacement instructor yet. The traveling time allowed Clint to get in touch with Fyed and get a lead on a few Hydra cells he thought existed en route. There were a few Hydra agents in Madrid that Javier and Clint killed before leaving the city, and apparently Nina and Yelena had made a pit stop in Marseilles and Geneva. Clint had wanted to go on ahead, since Marcia stated that Natasha was in Berlin with her, and he wanted to break the news about the other clones gently, if Marcia hadn't done it already.
How did you tell someone that the shady organization that trained them to be an amoral killer had also cloned them in case they were killed in action? How did you tell them that it wasn't their fault, no matter how much they might believe it was?
Clint had no idea. He was probably going to wing it, as he usually did in life.
He did place a call to Izzy and Steve in New York, just to be on the safe side. If Hydra or the Vory took them out, at least some of the other clones might be protected.
"Hey, before we head to the dojo," Javier began in an amiable tone, sorting through his weapons on the bed of their hotel room. "I have gotten some warning that AIM is in the area. There are some weapons and tech caches from SHIELD safe houses that might be floating about. Yelena and Nina are taking the long way around to be certain they weren't followed. Want a little more distraction?" he offered, sliding a wicked-looking blade into a sheath at the small of his back. He had two USP Compacts in shoulder holsters and three extra magazines attached to each holster; the entire rig would be covered by his heavy leather jacket.
Clint had to admit, the toys looked really good, even if they weren't his weapon of choice. He shook his head. "I should talk to Natasha."
"You think it'll make a difference if you see her now or later?"
"It'll make a difference to me."
Javier shrugged. "Oh, well. I will change up my tactics, then." He started digging through his duffel bag on the floor and found gauntlets that would fit under the sleeves of his coat. One contained a wrist blade and the other contained a garrote.
"Are you a fucking video game character or something?" Clint asked, eyes wide with surprise.
Laughing, Javier shook his head and put on his coat. "No, but some of them have very good ideas that are fun to use."
"Damn. I need to contact your supplier," Clint said, shaking his head.
"Fyed knows the armorer and weaponsmith. Independent contractor, very much hidden to stay out of the mess that the intelligence community is right now."
"He knows all the good contacts."
Nodding, Javier flexed his wrist with a snap, extending the hidden blade. "This one was very, very fun to use. I did feel like an assassin."
Clint snickered and let him leave to hunt AIM agents. He had a best friend to find.
At the dojo, he was struck by how similar Marcia moved to Natasha. He knew she would look the same, and the black hair didn't throw him at all. Natasha often changed hair colors to better blend in; everyone knew the Black Widow had intensely bright red hair, so changing it to blonde or black or brown meant that she could hide in plain sight. He hung back to see how Marcia taught an adult class, the fluid movements almost like dancing, the same way Natasha moved when fighting others. Other SHIELD agents had been straightforward in their attacks, had simply gone in and attacked. Natasha always moved with the utmost grace, highly efficient and almost ethereally beautiful, deadly and sharp to look at.
Marcia noticed him after dismissing her class and she casually moved to drink some bottled water. Students were chattering in the changing area, highlighting that this was essentially a very public place, even if it was Marcia's place of business. "I'm Clint Barton."
"When was the last time you saw her?" Marcia asked, no inflection in her tone.
"In Canada. She was a dead woman then," Clint said with a shrug. "Technically still is, since I never reported her presence to anyone." Well, no one but Izzy, but that was in confidence and not official in the slightest.
Unhooking a key from the ring on the desk, Marcia tossed at him. "Upstairs, left hand door."
"Javier's on his way."
"I got a text."
"Nina and Yelena..." he began.
"Called. They're in Geneva right now. It's a pit stop to get rid of some vermin." She gave Clint a mirthless smile. "They might make one more stop, depending on how the infestation is."
"Meaning if anyone talks."
"Yes. Agents too high up won't."
"Not unless it's under duress."
"But then you can't really trust what you get, can you?" Marcia asked pointedly. "I have another class in fifteen minutes for an hour or so. I won't be able to join you. Please don't break anything, huh? I'm not rolling in cash."
"Why would I break anything?"
"It's a standard warning I give visitors. I have a lot of very fragile things up there."
Which turned out to be electronics, and quite a bit of it. Monitoring stations, some desktop towers running search algorhythms, one that contained hacked CCTV footage. He immediately understood why she would be so concerned about her apartment.
Natasha was with another of her clones, talking in hushed tones about proper self defense techniques that she could use. Though she didn't stop what she was doing, her eyes took in Clint's presence and her demeanor warmed up. The other woman caught the shift and looked up to see Clint standing there. "One of yours?" she asked.
God, she sounded just like Natasha, with a thick Russian accent.
"Clint, this is Olga. Olga, Clint. My best friend, formerly of SHIELD, now of Dynamic Solutions. You've clued in Fyed, of course?" she asked, head tilted to the side.
"Nope. This is off book so far. I gave a few friends a heads up, but not too many details."
"Thinking of going the safe house route?"
"I'm guessing that's what you're doing," Clint temporized, nodding in Olga's direction. The woman was looking at their interplay with wide eyes.
"It's an option. I already have a few safe houses. They might as well use them, since they're set up and I won't use them all once."
"The Vory thinking you're dead will only work for so long, you know. Hydra is impossible to track down, and there's always the other opposing factions out there that are glad SHIELD is demolished and in hiding." He walked over to the two women and sat down at the table near them. "There's no adding in years of training. All the old brainwashing tech that the Red Room had was destroyed, and we're not going to be able to get our hands on Hydra's."
"Are you sure?" Natasha asked.
"I don't like this idea to brainwash me." Olga abruptly stepped away from Natasha, eyeing her as if she was some strange thing she couldn't understand. Clint understood the feeling.
"It would be adding in skill sets. Like self defense, computer hacking, that kind of thing," Natasha said quietly. "Enough to help you stay off the grid."
"No. I don't want that."
"I wouldn't force you to do it," Natasha said, shaking her head. Olga didn't relax. "It's getting late. We've done enough for today."
Olga nodded and quickly slipped out of the apartment, heading to the other half of the floor without saying a word. Clint watched her go, then stood. Natasha looked after Olga almost uncertainly, as if weighing her options to approach her clone again. "Hey," he murmured, stepping closer to her. Opening his arms, he was gratified to have Natasha fall into them for a tight hug.
Natasha clutched him close, her face buried in his chest. "How am I going to do this? Keeping myself safe is easy. But all of them? Eleven of them?"
"You have friends," Clint murmured. "You don't have to do it alone."
"I can't make you do this for me..."
"You're not making me do anything. And I know the others would stand up and volunteer to help however they can." Clint stroked her back in a supportive manner. "None of us would think it's a hardship to help you. You're one of us, Nat."
She let out a sigh. "After SHIELD fell, I suppose I wasn't sure who I could trust anymore."
"The same handful you did before, you could now."
"I'd have to think about it," Natasha admitted. "It doesn't come naturally to me. I'm used to keeping myself buried under layers, protecting myself at all costs. I don't-sometimes I don't know who to trust. This whole thing with Hydra infiltrating SHIELD..."
Clint tightened his hug. "I understand. And we'll get through it. You have the tools. You just have to believe that you can do it."
Natasha pulled back far enough to grasp his face in her hands tenderly. "Thank you, Clint. For more than I can say in words."
He grinned and kissed the top of her head. "Let's see if you still say that when we're in the thick of things. But you're very welcome."
***
***
To Chapter Five - Confronting