Head Is Not My Home

This Space is Not My Home

She'd been on the wrong side. Maybe she always had been, maybe it had just been her last-minute actions that put her there, but everyone felt she was on the wrong side. And she agreed. The Avengers were divided and Natasha Romanoff didn't belong with any of them. Years ago, she had helped dismantle SHIELD, convinced it was the right thing to do. And she'd put all her eggs in one basket, showing that she'd gone soft.

Agents of the Red Room were expected to depend exclusively on that agency – malleable and adaptable they may need to be in the field, but they should always follow orders and return at the end of a mission. There was no place in the world for people like her, they'd said, except with them. Maybe she believed it at the time, but she could always think for herself and they couldn't take that away from her.

How might her life have been different if she had never stopped working for them? Department X had disappeared years ago. What would she have done after that? Her peers were long dead and she could only guess what those who were recruited after her might be doing; if they were allowed to work for the current Russian government, if they'd fled to other countries, if they'd been considered expendable.

It was a strange inclination, then, that led her to Moscow after Tony called her a double agent. She hadn't even tried to find Clint or Steve, just gotten herself a cover and headed across the world to a place that had once been her home. It almost seemed like a dream, now. The gravestones of her parents were much like they had been when she'd first found them, after destroying SHIELD. There were no other connections in this city to whom she had been – even the buildings she'd known were gone.

She found herself a nice hotel and settled on the bed, thinking. Turning on the television would only bring her anguish, as she was certainly still part of the news cycle. Or, at least, the whole situation would be, even if they didn't focus on her. She had several books along with her, one of which she had been reading before. But it seemed impossible to get back into it after everything that had happened.

Room service brought her favorite foods but they were bland and tasteless. She could hardly keep anything down as she considered the yawning abyss that was her future. Though she'd made significant changes in her life before, she had always made some kind of a plan first. She'd joined the Red Room with perhaps a little less circumspection than her other actions, but there had been good enough reason to do so.

She had been considering defection for a long time before Clint came along and offered her a place to go. SHIELD had been her safety net for years, even as she joined the Avengers. So, when it became obvious that SHIELD wasn't what they'd thought, she'd known she could stay with the Avengers and still work. But now they were gone and she had cut ties with so much of her past. She was too well-known to start over, and had no idea what to do.

While she took a shower, she tried to rationally consider her options. There were plenty of safehouses only she knew about all around the world. She had money stashed away, enough to last a long time. Particularly if she could settle somewhere and not move much. A number of her covers had not been compromised – fewer than she would prefer, but probably enough to keep her for several years.

Somewhat settled by both this analysis and the warmth of the water, she managed to drift to sleep once she got into bed for the first time in days.

She awoke with a start, leaping from the bed like a frightened animal. Pressing herself against the wall, she stared at the piece of furniture like it had attacked her. Like it was the reason she could feel fingers around her throat, her legs wrapped ineffectually around his neck. Perhaps a better tactic would have been to bring him down instead of attacking his head. That's what she usually did with that move. But the memory of trying that before and being thrown off was too strong. It had felt almost like a victory when he hadn't immediately flung her from his shoulders, giving her the opportunity to try for a little cognitive calibration.

It hadn't worked. Clearly he had been himself (or a different version of himself) later on, so somehow Steve must have gotten through to him. That shouldn't have hurt her the way it did. Nor should his unrecognizing stare have caused her to ask such a foolish question. Of course he hadn't recognized her. Of course this controlled Winter Soldier was not the man she had known. Of course the only memories he might have of her would have been in D.C., when she was a target. A target who had shot at him.

That fight had been easier, somehow. Hearing that the Winter Soldier was back had been terrifying, particularly when Steve revealed that the attack had been a successful one on Fury himself. No one could get to Fury. That was the first hint that something was wrong at a larger scale. As she and Steve went deeper into the rabbit hole, it became apparent that her worldview was founded on a lie.

Dealing with that fact apparently distracted her from any feelings other than fear toward the Soldier. He killed Sitwell. How he had gotten there or even known where they were was a mystery, but she was used to his abilities. Quick thinking on her part saved the three of them from being shot in the head, but he was always able to regain the advantage. Then there was only survival. She did her best to distract him from Steve, from Sam – though Sam seemed of little concern to him.

The whole fight was just a stall. She was no match for him. Not when there were innocent civilians around and few weapons at her disposal. The relentless, single-minded pursuit he exhibited had never been centered on her before, though she had seen it be very effective in the past. It was almost a surprise that he gave chase when she taunted him instead of finishing off Steve first. Not exactly a pleasant surprise, but it was nice to know she could have some effect on him.

He and Steve were much more evenly matched. And it was anyone's guess who would win that fight. Ignoring her bullet wound, she'd followed them as best she could, searching for a weapon. Finally, Steve got the upper hand for a moment and presented her with a chance to end this. Being arrested by SHIELD agents afterwards wasn't exactly a new experience, but things were hazy from blood loss and she struggled to care.

The revelation that Steve's old best friend had returned from the dead to torment them was a shock, but she was able to ignore how it changed things for a long time. Maybe even until she had seen him again, looking resigned and a little scared as they locked him up in Berlin. He had looked so... so... so much like he could be a regular person. Like he had been for years and the brief (to him) period where he'd been a weapon was just an aberration. Not his defining trait.

She hadn't spoken to him. Not until that moment when, feeling her air supply rapidly dwindle, she had asked if he knew her. The other version of him, the one that had lived in Romania for over a year, who held down a civilian job and had a little apartment – she would never ask him such a question. There was no connection between that man and the one she had once known.

There wasn't a way to make him obedient, not when she'd known him. So she had no idea what Zemo had done to him. If she had known such a thing it was possible, she would have taken precautions. What those were and how she could have convinced anyone to listen, she didn't know. But it ate her up to consider that all this might have been prevented by keeping a better watch on him.

In any case, Zemo had made him into someone she recognized, even if he was actively trying to kill her. He hadn't killed Tony or Sharon, though he hadn't been trying not to kill them, either. But it had made her think that maybe he knew her somehow, to treat her differently. Maybe it was wishful thinking – if such a word could apply to a deadly situation.

At Leipzig, he wassomeone else again. He didn't even lookat her. The man she knew was gone andthere was no point dwelling on any of this. Her life was in enough upheaval without replaying something asrelatively inconsequential as her interactions with the Winter Soldier.