Gone by Ghosts (Natasha Romanoff x OC)

~8~ Honesty

"Twenty-four."

"Wait. You're saying you're younger than Maria but Fury said you have more field experience than anyone. How's that even possible?", she tilted her head forward in confusion.

The mood immediately changed and Kate started to regret having asked the question when the other agent sat up and cleared her throat.

"I started a lot younger than her.", Natasha answered hiding most of her story.

Kate wanted to ask what that meant exactly but she knew that that might be a  wound she didn't want to poke around in. Instead, she tried to find a positive to what the woman was implying. "You must know a whole lot of stuff. Like ehm... How many languages do you speak?"

"I don't know.", Natasha visibly relaxed and a smile returned.

"What do you mean "you don't know"?", Kate had expected anything from two to ten, but not "I don't know".

"I never counted them.", Natasha just shrugged.

"Then list them or something.", she suggested.

"Okay...There's Russian, French, German, Italian, Arabic, Hungarian, Dutch, Romanian,  Latin, Mandarin...", she wasn't done listing them when Kate interrupted her.

"Got it. A lot of them."

"What about you?", she tried to bring the focus away from her and back to the other woman.

"Mh, French, and German. I understand some Russian and Italian, too.", Kate almost felt less valuable when she compared her language skills to Agent Romanoff's.

"Not too bad. Why those?"

Kate hesitated for a second but then answered truthfully. "I grew up in Germany, we learned French and English in school. The other two I just picked up through friends."

"Why'd you come to America?"

"My mother died and I had no one left there so I just... left", Kate looked down as the picture of her mother's lifeless body flashed across her mind.

"What about your father?"

"Never met him.", she still had her eyes locked on her lap and kept her answers short in unease.

"I'm sorry if I was too direct there. I didn't mean to invade your privacy or anything. I just need to know in the case of... our mission failing.", Natasha hesitated to finish the sentence.

"Don't worry about it.", Kate waved her off. She didn't want to make a big deal of it even though it made her uncomfortable."What about your family?"

"Never had one." It was a fact that she had accepted for a long time. She hated to admit it but there was no one who cared about her.

"So you like, grew up in an orphanage or something?", Kate slowly raised her eyes to look at the spy in front of her. 

"Not exactly.", she dodged the question as elegantly as possible.

"That's not exactly an answer. I thought we were trying to be honest.", she scanned the woman's body as it tensed up.

"I grew up as part of a KGB program that manipulated children and trained them to be physically capable to infiltrate and take down any target they chose. I was lucky and got out.", her voice cracked twice throughout the sentence, while her view blurred.

When the silence set in Kate shifted in her chair and emptied the bottle in front of her. "You know, maybe we should've just started with our first names.", Kate stretched her arm over the table offering her a hand. "Kathrine, but please call me Kate."

Romanoff took the hand and a smile appeared on her face. It was small but genuine. "Natasha.", she replied. She was relieved that Kate didn't try to force her to open up further.

"See? Now, this is much better. Unfortunately, my "beer" is empty now. So I'm gonna get myself a new one. Do you want something new, too?", Kate pushed herself off her seat and turned to Natasha.

"Sure."

"And what do you want?"

"Suprise me.", she said with a flirtatious smile.

"Is that an order, Natasha?", Kate flirted back.

"If you want it to be.", again she tilted her head down while her eyes sparkled up to Kate's.

Kate licked her lips as she walked away. That woman was unbelievable.

_______________________________________

Sooo, I hope I made you feel some chemistry between them.

Stay tuned to see where this night is going.

Let me know if you enjoyed it.

Thank you for reading this story:)

~1774~