Widow's Peek Chapter 1

WARNING: The following story contains age play, diapers, and an excessive amount of pseudo-exploratory dialogue concerning age play and diapers.  The idea of Black Widow ABing came from a picture by the loverly Pink Diapers, please see the links in the Description section.  In fact, do that before—or in lieu of—reading this.  The idea of all the talky nonsensey, trying to think through issues way too big for me stuff is all my fault, and in no way should be blamed on Pink Diapers.  If this doesn’t sound like a three hour tour you’d like to take, please disembark at this time—and check to make sure you aren’t leaving any personal items behind.  To everyone else, hug your sick bags close and please don’t feed the dolphins.  

Chapter 1

From the private journal of Natasha Romanova, aka: Black Widow:

‘June 6, 2014 – I have been many things in my long life.  Soldier.  Spy.  Saboteur.  Assassin.  I have excelled at them all. But days like today make me wonder if I’ve reached the end of my usefulness.  If the world has passed me by and maybe the time has finally come, after so many decades, to walk away.  To add one more title to my list of ‘have beens’.  

Today the Kree launched a full out assault on New York City.  I stood on an open field of battle with the rest of my Avengers teammates, repelling wave after wave of alien invaders, but I have seldom felt more useless.  Usually I work from the shadows.  I infiltrate.  I eliminate.  I evacuate.  But there are few shadows in which to hide on the battlefield.  Even from yourself.  And as I stood there today, watching Thor and Captain Marvel take down battalions quicker and easier than I could take out a single squad, I had to ask myself: Do I really have a place here anymore?’


Natasha sat back in her chair, pressed a hand to her temple, and read back over her journal—written in code in Early Cyrillic with an encryption so complex she could have sold it to any government for enough money to make Tony Stark envious.  She feared she was being maudlin, that she was giving too much credence to silly emotions fueled by old insecurities.  Or maybe she was just getting old—after all she was eerily close to being a centenarian.  Or maybe anyone would have trouble feeling useful sandwiched between a Norse god and an alien-fueled superbeing.  Or maybe there were just too many maybes.  

Tired of chewing over her own words—and sick of marinating in her secret fears—Natasha closed the journal and stowed it away in the secret compartment in her desk.  She took a deep breath to shut her mind up, and her eyes glided, as if controlled by some external source, to her closet, where her private indiscretion called to her, told her in rustling tones that it could make her feel better.  Take the edge off.  Let her unwind.

Natasha fought the urge as best she could, but in a day she already deemed full of losses, she just couldn’t see the harm in one more.  “If anyone catches me,” she thought, “I won’t have to worry about whether it’s time to leave.  They’ll boot me out on principle.”

Unsure whether that would be a bad thing or a relief, Natasha opened the closet, and pressed the hidden button that revealed the hidden keypad that opened the hidden panel and revealed the secret safe.  Some might call all these safeguards paranoia.  Natasha called it good sense.  

Inside the safe was a large bag, an ordinary looking bag, what most people would have called an oddly festive—for the Black Widow—travel bag.  But Natasha knew that a childishly colored travel bag stuffed with diapers, pacis, and plush toys could only be called one thing: A diaper bag.  

Her hand mere inches away from the bag’s handle, Natasha hesitated, fingers bundling in a fist as she considered just closing the safe.  Or even taking the bag somewhere, coating it in thermite, and scorching it into nonexistence.  Surely there were better things she could do with her time.  More productive things.  Less disturbing things.  

Try as she might, Natasha could never figure out what compelled her toward this habit, nor—and this was endlessly more important to her—could she figure out how to kick it.  Wearing the loin cloths of babies, pretending to be a tot or infant, was weird.  Even freakish.  And Natasha had resolved a hundred, hundred times over the past several years to put the habit behind her.  She was, after all, an adult.  An adult who occasionally fought off alien invaders and put clandestine bullets into the brain pans of certain undesirable people.  Although occasionally, when she was of a mood to laugh at her oddities, she reminded herself that at her age, and without her Red Room issued upgrades, she’d probably be living 24-7 in Depends and no one would think twice about it.  

Natasha closed her eyes.  She’d already lost this fight, and she knew it.  Nothing left to do but surrender.  She snatched at the bag, and with eyes still shut, carried it into her room’s private bathroom and shut the door.  Living at Avengers Mansion had a lot of upside—no rent, good security system, and always a thunder god or giant green rage monster to throw at unwanted problems.  The downside was living with a cast of crazies who, despite spending large portions of their life in masks and costumes, had no sense of privacy or personal space, which meant that even when she wasn’t guilting herself into abstinence, finding available ‘play time’ was nearly impossible.  

Then again Natasha had to admit there was a naughty thrill to the idea of getting caught.  Late at night or sometimes in the bath, Natasha fantasized about someone walking in on her while she was wearing nothing but a diaper, playing with her toys.  Sometimes she’d have Carol spank her.  Sometimes it’d be Jessica teasing and mocking her.  Sometimes it’d be Jan, hitting her with Pym Particles, reducing her to actual baby size.  Today, however, Natasha wasn’t in the mood to fantasize.  Too many thoughts.  Too much doubt.  Too much guilt.  Today, she decided, she just wanted to play.  She would set aside all the responsibilities and concerns that dogged her, and simply enjoy the innocent fun of being a child.  She could worry about how much of a nut job this made her later.

She spread out the terry cloth towel she used for a changing mat and shimmied out of her black, skin-tight pants, leaving on her top because…well, she found the contrast between sleek, black spy top and cushiony, white baby bottom to fun to pass up.  Next she spread out a diaper.  For the longest time, she just stared at it, pinching her bottom lip between her teeth.  She could still put a stop to this.  Fold up the diaper, put her pants back on, bury everything in the closet, and pick a reason to go punch Clint in the face.  

She lowered herself onto the diaper and took a long, deep breath.  If she was going to do this, it was time to leave her Big Girl Worries behind.  She shifted her hips side to side, the motion both massaging the diaper’s inviting liner against her bottom and causing the plastic cover to rustle against the tile floor.  A smile spread across Natasha’s face, and she lay back.  She would have loved to douse on some baby powder or even multilayer her diapers, but that was too much of a risk.  And risks were, by habit of her trade, something she tried to minimalize.  She bought her plush toys with cash, wearing a disguise—a blond wig, facial prosthetics and make up to give her a much older appearance, and horribly garish clothes.  The adult sized play things—diapers, bottles, pacifiers, bonnets, and the like—were more difficult, but nothing Natasha couldn’t solve with a few false identities and the usage of a secret safe house to have the merchandise sent to, a safe house she’d made just for receiving such shipments.  Afterward, she burned all the receipts and erased the identities, leaving no trace, no paper trail, nothing to lead back to her door step.  These were the steps, cold and methodical, that allowed her to ease more calmly into her play.

Natasha pulled the front of the diaper between her legs, scooching her hiney to find the right lie, and when she got everything situated, she taped herself in.  It was a testament to how long she’d been doing this that she didn’t have to retape or stand up and readjust.

Guilt be damned, the feel of thick padding embracing her skin was amazing.  It was always these first few moments, after all the internal struggling and guilt-tripping, lying on her terry towel, hand making the plastic front of her diaper sing a crinkly tune, that Natasha felt like she could live in her diaper forever.  

For a few minutes, she remained on the floor, popping her thumb in her mouth and sucking away at it, glad to be thinking of nothing at all.  But just lying there wasn’t much fun, so Natasha sat up and scooted over to her goodie bag.  Pushing her voice up to the top of her throat—and mindful to keep it quiet lest anyone hear—Natasha said, in her best baby voice, “I play!”  

She fished out a pair of plush toys—one Captain America doll and one Iron Man—climbed unsteadily to her feet, and waddled out to her bed.  It would have been safer to stay in the bathroom, an extra door—and the privacy of potential pooping—between her and any intrusive teammates, but Baby ‘Tasha had to be at least a little naughty.  After all, what was the point of even being a baby if you were going to be a good girl all the time?  

She’d barely flopped down on the bed when footsteps began pounding down the hall.  Thinking quick, Natasha, spun and twisted, flipping her body around and under the blankets like some kind of supine gymnast, her cover story already falling into place—she’d been taking an early afternoon nap, woken up by whomever, she would be grouchy, and in case of mission, she’d be down as soon as she got dressed.  But the footsteps trundled past Natasha’s door, to the end of the hallway, and around the corner.  

With the threat gone, Natasha crawled out from beneath the sheets and flopped down on her tummy.  In an impressive display of vocal range, Natasha used her Little voice to impersonate a somewhat masculine voice, which she attributed to the Captain America plushy, shaking it as she said, “Golly gee, Natasha that was close!”  

“Nuh-uh,” replied Natasha.  

The slightly less masculine than Cap voice of the Iron Man plushy added, “Uh-huh.  You almost got caught.”  

“Did not!” said Natasha.  “I was under covers!”

“But what if Mommy came in here and found you up past your bedtime?” asked Iron Man.  

Natasha pouted out her bottom lip.  “I don’t know?  Would I get in trouble?”  

“Of course not,” said Captain America, “because I would protect you, Natasha!”  

“Really?”  This made Natasha happy.  “You would?”  

“Hey!” said Iron Man.  “I’d protect her too!”    

Natasha hugged her two friends to her and giggled.  “You both so sweet!”  

There was another sound—a creaking floorboard, a settling wall, Hulk snoring—and Natasha froze, ears perked up to judge direction, distance, and best way to hid.  After several seconds passed with no noise, Natasha—carefully—got back to the matter at hand.  

“Hey, Natasha?” said Iron Man, sounding nervous.  

“It’s okay, Tony,” Natasha assured him.  “I won’t let Mommy catch us.  I protect you!”  

“I know…”  

“What’s wrong, Tony?  You sound sad.  I don’t want you be sad!”  

“It’s not that…” said Iron Man.  

“Shucks, Tony, whatever it is, you can tell us.  We’re your buddies, and buddies help buddies, right Natasha?”  

“Uh-huh,” Natasha said with a decisive nod.  

“Would it be okay if I whispered it to you, Natasha?” asked Iron Man.  

“I dunno,” said Natasha.  “Secrets can be bad…and Steve might feel left out.”  

“Well, gosh, ‘Tash,” said Captain America, “if Tony feels safer telling just you, it’s probably the best thing.”  

“Well, okay.”  

Natasha brought Iron Man up to her ear, and after he ‘psssh-psssh-psssh’ed his secret to her, Natasha’s jaw and eyes opened wide.  “Really!”  

Iron Man blushed—well, not really he didn’t, seeing as how he was a plush toy, but in Natasha’s mind the yellow of his face plate was boiling up to red, causing steam to whistle out of his…well, wherever steam might (in a child-friendly manner) whistle out of.  

The excitement of Iron Man’s secret was too much.  Natasha couldn’t help but bounce up and down on her elbows in glee.  “I think you should tell him!  I think you should tell him!”

“Him who?” asked Captain America.  “Him me?”  

“I don’t know…” Iron Man said shyly.

“It’s okay, Tony,” Captain America, putting a hand on his buddy’s shoulder.  “If there’s something you need to tell me, I’ll be ever so glad to listen.”  

“Please, please, please!” begged Natasha.  “You hafta tell him!  You hafta!”  

“But it’s so embarrassing,” Iron Man whined.  “I can’t.”    

Natasha lifted her chin with a ‘hmmph’ and said, “If you don’t tell him, I will.”

“Now Natasha,” said Captain America, “it’s not nice to go telling other people’s secrets.”  

“Awww,” Natasha whined, kicking a foot against her bed, “but Steeeeve!”  

“No buts, young lady.  If Tony doesn’t want to tell, you should respect his wishes.”  

“It’s okay,” said Iron Man.  “She can…she can tell if she wants.”  

“Really?”

“Yeah.”  

“Steve, Steve, Steve!”  Natasha kicked her feet against her pillow in excitement.  “Tony thinks you’re cute!”  

“Really?  He does?” asked Captain America.  Then he turned to Iron Man.  “You do?”  

Iron Man ducked his head and scuffed at the blanket with his foot.  “Yeah.”  

“Well, gosh, Tony,” said Captain America, blushing.  “I…I think you’re really cute too.”  

“You do?”  

“Uh-huh.”  

The two stuffed heroes fell silent, glancing awkwardly at the floor, and the desk, and the walls, anywhere but at each other, too embarrassed to know what to do about their mutual liking.  But Natasha knew exactly what they should do.  

“You two should kiss!” she chirped.  

“I don’t know,” said Iron Man.  

“Tony’s right, little lady,” Captain America said.  “Kissing isn’t something you just do all willy-nilly.”  

“But you like him, don’tcha?”  

“Well, yeah,” said Captain America, putting a hand to the back of his head.  “I like Tony a lot.”  

“I like you too, Steve,” said Iron Man.

“See!” Natasha said.  “And when two people like each other a whole, whole lot, they should make kisses, right?”  

“I think she’s right, Steve.”  

“Gee whiz, I guess, when you say it like that, it does make sense.”  

Even though the two agreed, they weren’t sure how to go about it.  They waddled closer to each other.  Both so very nervous.  Afraid they’d do something wrong.  Luckily for them, Natasha was there to cheer them on.  “Don’t be shy!  Just show each other how you like each other!”  

The two heroes leaned in, lightly at first, their lips just touching, and as if by magic—or Natasha’s hands—they floated up from the bed, hovering in mid air, kissing first left, then right, then left again, each meeting of their lips accompanied with a ‘mwah,’ ‘mwah,’ wmah’.    

Eventually the pair made all their kisses and came back to earth…or at least to the now wrinkled blankets covering Natasha’s bed.

Captain America was the first to speak, his mind still buzzing with the soft touch of Iron Man’s lips.  “Boy howdy, Tony, that sure was swell!”  

“It sure was, Steve!”  

“See, I—”

More footsteps sounded in the hallway, less plodding than the ones before.  Quicker.  More purposeful.  And heading straight for Natasha’s room.  The superspy recognized the footfalls as belonging to Carol Danvers.  

Natasha lunged from the bed, bare feet hitting the floor with catlike silence.  Two strides and she dove, rolling over her shoulder and into the bathroom, where she sprang to her feet and spun, all in one silken movement, using her rotating elbow to ease the door almost closed behind her.  Dropping her plushies, Natasha turned the knob, retracting the latch until the door was flush.

The latch had just clicked—too quiet to be heard—into place when Carol knocked on the bedroom door.   “Natasha, you in there?”  

Natasha fumbled with the knob, making a sufficient amount of noise, and cracked the bathroom door enough to poke her head—and only her head—out.  “Yeah.  What’s wrong?”  

“Nothing,” Carol said through the door.  “Jan’s cooking tonight, so Jess and I are going out to grab dinner.  Somewhere safe.  We were hoping you’d join us.”

“I was just about to get a shower,” called Natasha.  She peeked down at her diapered waist and tried not to smirk when she said, “I smell terrible.”

“That’s the Kree for you,” said Carol.  “Super-techonological, intergalactic empire, but never heard of deodorant.”  

“We don’t mind waiting if you want to come with,” said a second voice.  

It was Jessica Drew, possibly the one person in the mansion who stood a chance of sneaking up on Natasha.  And she had.  Because Natasha had been too caught up in her play time? What was worse, Jessica could have been out there the whole time.  She could have even texted Carol to come up so they could bust Natasha’s party together.  The whole ‘dinner’ thing could just be a ploy to lure Natasha out and embarrass her in front of the whole Avengers squad.  But if they knew, there was nothing—aside from jumping out a window—Natasha could do.  Best to play along, find out what and if they knew, and devise a way to put down two women far stronger than her—probably with blackmail.  “It’ll take me about forty.”  

“Not a problem,” said Jessica.  

“Meet you in the lobby,” said Carol.  

Their footsteps retreated down the hall.  Natasha closed the door, plopped her back against it, and slid down to the floor.  She gathered up her friends and squeezed them to her chest.  “I sorry, Steve.  Tony.  I no mean to throw you down.”  

“It’s okay, Natasha.  My armor can handle a little fall.”  

“And so can my mighty shield.”  

“I guess I hafta go play with my big girl friends now,” pouted Natasha.  

“Don’t you want to play with them?” asked Iron Man.  

“Yeah, Carol and Jessica are swell gals, really they are.”  

“I know,” said Natasha, “but I wanna play with you.”  

“We’ll be here when you get back, Natasha.”  

“That’s right,” agreed Captain America.  “You can play with them now, and us later.”  

“You guys are the best,” Natasha declared, hugging them again and twisting back and forth.  Suddenly she stopped mid twist, her mouth falling open in horror.  “Oh, no.  Oh, no!”

She’d been planning on holding this off for a while, but seeing as how her playtime just got cut short, Natasha forced out what she’d been storing in her bladder since she’d gotten back from the mission.  It trickled out of her in a steady stream, right into the thirsty padding, which drank it right up.  The diaper bulged out, pressing her legs apart, growing steadily warm and mushy, and Natasha pushed her hips out to get a better view of her rapidly smearing wetness indicator.  

Iron Man, not quite picking up on the situation yet, asked, “What’s wrong, Natasha?”  

Natasha’s chin wibbled, and as she pouted at her friends, she began to sob—quietly, just in case that snoopy-butt Jess was snoop butting around.

“Natasha, what’s the matter?”  

“I we-heh-heh-het my dia-hai-hai-puh!”  Natasha squirmed about, gently swishing her legs back and forth, the best tantrum she could manage under the circumstances.  “How I go play with Jess-Jess and Care-Care now?  They think I just little baby!”  

“It’s okay, Natasha,” said Iron Man.  

“No-ho-ho!  Not okay!  My diapuh ‘tinky!”  

Captain America patted her head.  “There, there, sweetie.  We’ll get you changed.”  

“Y-you will?”  

“Of course,” said Iron Man.  “We’ll get you cleaned up and ready to go in no time.  We’ll even help you turn back into a big girl, won’t we, Steve?”  

“Sure we will.  Then you can go out and have a good time with your friends.”

Her plushy heroes lay her back onto the terry towel.  Each hero took a tape, peeling it back and pulling the squishy front of Natasha’s diaper away from her—being very careful not to get any on themselves.  Then they helped Natasha up off the floor and walked her toward the shower.  Natasha stopped just outside the shower and placed her pals on the shelf over the towel rack.  

“Thanks, guys,” she said.  “You really are the best.”  

“We know!”  



From the private journal of Natasha Romanova:

‘June 20, 2014 – The ancient Egyptians believed that upon death, a person faced a trial known as the Weighing of the Heart.  The person’s heart was placed on a scale by the god Anubis and weighed against a single feather of the goddess Ma’at.  If the heart was lighter than Ma’at’s feather, the person entered into paradise.  I’m not sure exactly what it took to make the heart lighter than the feather.  Whether it was a life free of evil.  Or maybe a life where the person’s good deeds exceeded their bad ones.  Either way, even if I don’t believe in it, I like the idea of balance.  The thought that I can somehow offset all the red in my ledger by doing something good.  

I just don’t know that there’s enough ‘good’ I can do, or enough years left to do it in, to cancel out all my sins.  And today I added more weight to my negatives.  The details aren’t important.  I had a job to do and had to make some ugly decisions to do it.  In some ways it was unavoidable.  In some other ways, they weren’t exactly deserving of their fate.  It’s gray.  So many times in my life, that’s all it could be.  The Black Widow making gray decisions and everything ending up red.

Maybe I’ll be lucky.  Maybe there is no afterlife.  Just the eternal silence of the grave.  But I doubt it.  There has to be something out there, some punishment for the wicked.  Otherwise, what’s the point?’



Secreting her journal away, Natasha sat back in her chair, face impassive as granite, and stared down the ceiling.  She cursed the idea of ‘mercenaries’.  Of five nameless men.  Five desperate men.  With mouths to feed and backs to clothe.  Maybe in an alternate reality those men took a different job.  But in Natasha’s world they’d been hired to destroy a key by some zealot or another.  They hadn’t known the key was a 14-year-old boy until they caught up with him.  Nor did they know killing him would open up a portal to a hellish dimension.  Even so, it was entirely possible they wouldn’t have finished the contract, that they would’ve done the right thing.  Natasha didn’t give them the chance.  She couldn’t afford to.  So it was one life saved.  Against five slain.  Adding a negative 4 to her account.  

After defeating the ceiling in their stare down, Natasha locked gazes with a much more dangerous opponent: The closet.  The battle raged for over fifteen minutes before Natasha pushed herself up from her seat and, one foot slowly falling in front of the other, crept to give the door a closer inspection.  

Face still carefully blank, Natasha placed an open palm on the door and held it there, willing herself to feel the warmth of her hand bleeding out into the chilly, varnished wood.  Again she was losing.  And again she wasn’t sure what she could do to stop it.  She reached for the knob, but stopped short, not quite ready to surrender just yet.  Today she didn’t want to want her diapers, no matter how much she wanted them.  She had enough inner turmoil already without piling on silly complications.  Without the added stigma of feeling like a freak.  A deviant.  A subhuman beast.      

And on a day like today, she had to wonder if this was really okay?  Was it really all right to lay her burdens down, even for a minute?  To pretend she was innocent?  Free of all the responsibility dripping off her hands?  

She told herself that maybe she wouldn’t open that door today.  After all, she hadn’t opened it in nearly two weeks.  What was another day?  Another week?  Another month?  Or maybe she would open it.  Maybe she’d find the strength to gather up all that garbage and throw it away.  Forget this unwanted part of her life forever.  Get some perspective.  Get a prescription.  And move on with her damned—literally damned—life.  

The resolve bled away before she’d even turned the knob.  By the time she’d opened the door and activated the first button, her breath was beginning to clog her chest in excitement.  That clinched it.  She—Natasha Romanova, Black Widow, spy and assassin extraordinaire—was too weak to overcome the call of plastic coated, absorptive undergarments.  

Nothing to do now but be a baby about it.  

She snatched up the diaper bag and trudged into the bathroom, but this time she didn’t bother with the terry towel.  Instead she stripped, grabbed one of her extra poofy diapers, and bending her knees outward, pulled it up between her legs until the diaper’s crotch was snug against her own.  The padding delicately cuddled her skin.  She couldn’t help herself.  She closed her eyes, and pulled the diaper back and forth between her legs, pretending Mommy was having a bit of fun with her baby before closing off the diaper.  The tickling sensation of the padding and the rhythmic rustle of the plastic produced a smile so genuine Natasha couldn’t bring herself to feel guilty about it.  Which, for the moment, was what she wanted.  

She almost had the first tape secured when an urgent knock erupted against her bedroom door, accompanied with an unusually youthful voice, “Ms. Romanova?  

The voice, too small and high to belong to an Avenger, sounded familiar, and it took only minimal searching before she placed it as belonging to Cassie Lang—the actually likeable daughter of that other Ant Man, whom if she found sneaking around her room again, she would squash.  Natasha had forgotten that some of the Avengers had invited their young protégés to visit the mansion and see how the Avengers ran things off the clock.  Which was just what she needed, some damn teeny bopper poking around and catching the woman, the myth, the legend that was Black Widow prancing around in a big, used diaper.  She bit off a few Russian expletives under her breath and still holding her diaper in place, pressed her forehead against the bathroom wall.  

Why? she asked herself.  Why couldn’t the world give her a day…an afternoon…a half hour to recharge?  Why did everything keep falling on her head all at once?  Then again, why couldn’t she find solace—peace—in something more acceptable?  Something she didn’t have to skulk around and hide.  Why couldn’t she just give this diaper dandy nonsense up?  Quit.  And walk away.  And be normal.  And face her real problems—her mountain of daily growing sins—head on.  Instead of hiding away in oversized Pampers.  It’d be one less burden to lug.  One less millstone to drag her under.  

“Ms. Romanova, are you in there?  Can you hear me?”

Not waiting for an answer, Cassie opened the door and peeked in.  “Um?  Black Widow?”  

Maybe that was Natasha’s answer.  Maybe she was, and always would be, nothing but the Widow.  The Bringer of Venom.  The Bite of the Reaper.

One thing was for sure, she wasn’t about to let this teenager’s uninvited invasion of her bedroom go unchecked—no matter how ok she thought Cassie was.  Natasha reached behind her and gave the toilet a flush, using the gurgling cascade of water to mask the sound of quickly stuffing her diaper and bag under the cabinet.  Then she arranged herself—eyebrows lowered, chin set, shoulders squared—and strode out of the bathroom with a purpose.  Completely in the nude.  

Cassie nearly wet herself in embarrassment at the sight of the disrobed Avenger, and with one look at Natasha’s severe Russian features, she nearly wet herself again, this time from fear, for it’s a fact well known that very few people do Pissed Off as well as the Russians.  

“Ms…I…Romanova…”  Steam was practically belching out of Cassie’s red, red ears.  

“Yes?”  

“I’msososorry, Ididn’tmean…thatistosay, Ididn’tthinkyouheardmeand…”  

“I was in the middle of changing.”  Natasha wasn’t the word bender that Jessica or that god-awful Parker kid was, but she had to bury a grin at her little pun.  “What’s going on?”  

At this point Cassie had to turn her back on Natasha, otherwise her face was going to explode from elevated blood pressure.  “Dinosaurs.  Manhattan.  Avengers assembling.”  

“Let me grab my gear?”
 
“Uh-huh!” Cassie choked, hurrying for the door.  

“And Cassie?” Natasha called after her.  

“Uh-huh?”

“Next time wait for me to answer.”  

“Yssm’m!” the teen squeaked, disappearing with superhuman speed.  

Natasha shrugged into her gear, spraying herself down with a scent suppressor, just in case Logan was on call.  That was one person she had zero desire in explaining her eccentricities to.  Then again, if he really wanted to press the issue, there were a few pointed questions Natasha could ask about his tendency to take on teenage girls for sidekicks.  



From the private journal of Natasha Romanova:

‘July 14, 2014 – The past never goes away.  Never leaves you alone.  It just schemes.  Waits until your back is turned.  Until your guard is focused elsewhere.  Then it sneaks up behind you and perforates your spine below the first thoracic vertebrae.  

Yuri Petrovich, the son of the man I thought raised me, somehow clawed his way out of exile and back into his Crimson Dynamo armor.  It wasn’t much of a fight.  Upgraded or not, very few human-made machines can hold up against a Norse god.

I tried to talk Yuri down, to save him for his father’s sake, but Yuri wouldn’t listen.  He was too busy telling me how Ivan never cared about me.  How he was a recruiter for the Red Room, and I was nothing but raw material.  A perfect ghost with no one to miss her when she was taken away and forged into a weapon.  I wish I hadn’t listened.  I wish I had more faith in people.  In Ivan.  But I’ve known too many who only played nice to get what they wanted.  And as much as I want to believe Ivan took me to the Red Room for all the right reasons, I just can’t be sure.’  

Natasha slammed the journal closed and stuffed it into its hidey-hole.  She leaned her head, heavy with thoughts, and doubts, and the fading embers of hopes, onto her hand.  “Breathe,” she told herself.  “Steady.  So what if you can’t trust him.  It doesn’t matter.  You can trust you.  You’re the only person you need to tr…”  

The sentiment died in the air, swallowed up by the silent jeers of her closet door.  “Trust yourself,” it said.  “You can’t even get your desires in order.  The great, stony Natasha Romanova.  The ice cold killer.  The patron saint for self-control.  You can’t even conquer a pair of diapers.”

The hand pressing against her head balled into a fist.  Nails dug into her flesh.  Knuckles crackled and blazed with white-hot rage.  Against Yuri.  Against Ivan.  But mostly against herself.  Against her interminable weakness.  The fragility of her resolve.  If she couldn’t conquer so fluffy a foe, how could she ever hope to counter the real darknesses inside her.  

Eyes pressed shut, Natasha rose.  She wouldn’t fight it today.  She didn’t have the energy.  She would surrender to the infant inside.  Let it lead the way for now.  Then, maybe tomorrow, maybe next month, she’d find a way.  She would excise it.  Then she could get on with the important things.  

Laughter exploded from outside, shaking the panes of Natasha’s windows.  The thunder of bellowed words chased on the tail of that electric laugh.  It didn’t take a superspy to know it was Thor, likely on his fifth tankard of mead, sharing merrily the tale of his latest victory with…well, from the boom of his voice, with every sentient being this side of the Kree homeworld.  Out in the hallway, a herd of footsteps clamored by.  As Natasha held still, quietening both breath and thought, she could hear voices.  In the hall.  In the room below her.  Out on the grounds.  

Too much activity.  Too many variables.  Too much risk.  Even in surrender she couldn’t win.  

She looked over her shoulder at her desk, at the untraceable phone in the hidden compartment in the second drawer.  There was an answer.  She’d been thinking about it, weighing pros and cons, for some time.  One person she could call.  One person who could help her sort this out, once and forever.  One person she never really wanted to be in the same room as.  But, as they say, desperate times…