Barton Home, USA
Spring 2015
There had been times when Nadine hadn't felt at home in her own home.
But for some odd, baffling reason, she felt perfectly comfortable in the Barton home. Clint's wife Laura was a remarkable woman that Nadine had liked immediately and their two children were a lively, cheerful balm to all of them.
It was perfect...almost.
The only thing she was missing was Nina.
And a sense that they hadn't just failed miserably...
But other than those two facts, it was a perfect sanctuary. There were tasks aplenty to give the Avengers purpose while still allowing them respite from the events in Johannesburg. Physically taxing chores perfect for working through their frustrations and draining their emotional wounds, allowing them an outlet to help them reset and get their heads back.
And so far it seemed to have worked. Already Steve, Stark and Natasha were effectively back to their normal selves. Banner was taking a little longer, but that was wholly understandable, really.
And Barton looked more at ease here with his secret family than Nadine had ever seen him.
She now felt rather silly at not seeing it sooner, though. Really, the cues had been there from the first time she'd met the man. Hell, that he'd been the only one out of the three who'd caught her in Prague to put together that she had a family she was protecting should have been clue enough. He'd recognized as much without even knowing her because he had a family of his own that he'd been protecting the same way. He'd been the one to point out that people like them could actually have a life beyond what they did professionally. And he'd been the one above all the others, save perhaps Natasha, most determined to help her find Nina.
Because he could imagine what she was going through. He could understand her focus and her desperate fear on a level the others couldn't. Because he'd be feeling and doing exactly what she was had it been one of his children taken.
She was kicking herself now for not seeing it sooner.
Maybe that was why she felt so comfortable here...it was an odd sort of mirror to her own life.
Of course, some of that comfortable feeling had faded when a dead man walked in the back door.
Nick Fury was a legend in the Intelligence Community and Underworld circles alike. He'd been wicked smart, ruthless when he needed to be and surprisingly unpredictable for someone operating within the confines of laws and government oversight. His 'death' had caused ripples around the world that were still being felt.
There had been whispers, of course, that his assassination had been a smokescreen, that the attempt on his life had failed and a conspiracy had been whipped up to help him disappear to operate under the radar, but they had remained whispers only. The reputation of the Winter Soldier was just as legendary, after all.
Well, those whispers had certainly been onto something.
And one look at his single, sharp eye had told Nadine that Fury was exactly as his reputation claimed he'd been. He was not a man to underestimate. Certainly not one to cross.
And she certainly should have expected he'd know who she was.
Though, he barely seemed to acknowledge her presence like she'd expected. At least until after dinner.
"So," the former director finally said, turning to Nadine, "I have to admit, I was surprised when I heard rumours that The Ghost was running with the Avengers. I'll be the first to say I thought little of it at first, but when Hill confirmed as much..." He fixed her with an unreadable, assessing stare. Nadine just stared right back from where she sat across from Natasha, schooling her features and her body to appear far more relaxed than she felt as she subtly shifted her chair to face the former director. After a moment he seemed to come to whatever conclusion he'd been searching for, leaning back in his chair.
"I've always been curious about you," he declared with a trace of a smile, "thought about trying to recruit you a few years back, but you're awfully hard to track down."
"That was rather the idea," she responded casually, keeping her voice neutral, even going so far as to rest her arm on the table, fingers toying absently with her rumpled napkin. Fury nodded, a trace of amusement glinting in his eye before it turned sharp.
"Someone managed to, it seems." She bristled as he stood, making his way back into the kitchen proper. But he had already moved past the topic of her blackmail, to no small surprise of Nadine's. She narrowed her eyes at him instinctively, knowing he wasn't likely to let it go that easily. But for the time being, he seemed completely uninterested in that. "You're good, Ryker. Very good. Hiding out in plain sight as a ballet mistress with a teenaged daughter? Even knowing what I do about the practices in that KGB facility you and Romanoff came from, I wouldn't have guessed you'd go with that cover." He paused, glancing to her shrewdly. "Never would've pegged you for a team player, either."
"Desperate times called for desperate measures," she countered, not looking away from him. Fury nodded stoically as he leaned back against the counter.
"That they do. They lead to strange allies. I never expected to be sitting at the same dinner table as The Ghost, that's for sure." Nadine nearly smirked in response to his wry smile, the corner of her lips twitching. "I always thought if I was ever going to encounter you, Ms. Ryker, that I'd be looking down the barrel of your gun." She smiled tightly, knowing the expression wouldn't reach her eyes. She wasn't terribly concerned. A small, huffing chuckle escaped the former director.
"Yes, well, the idea of killing for someone else's political expediency doesn't quite sit well with me, and yes," she added, noticing he was winding up to interject, "I know I've still done it anyway. I am aware of the hypocrisy. But I've made it my business to only go after those who are like me, who kill for hire. I don't do run-of-the-mill assassinations anymore. It's a perk of my reputation."
"And yet rumour had it that it was you who was going to be coming after me back before I died." Nadine couldn't help the amused smirk that curled her lips this time.
"That's only partially true. I won't deny that feelers were put out; I was approached. But I said no. I don't do political assassination."
"You took out that Argentinian diplomat a couple of years ago," he pointed out before taking a calm sip from the glass he held, a trace of a smirk hiding behind the rim. Nadine's grin turned into a scowl as her eyes narrowed on the former director.
"I didn't exactly have much of a choice on that one, but I suspect you know that already. Normally I wouldn't have accepted, but I wasn't put in a position where I could refuse it either. And on the subject of your assassination? If Pierce hadn't been power-tripping or even quite so impatient in sending in the Winter Soldier, it might very well have been me HYDRA contracted to go after you. Turns out it was ultimately them pulling my strings with the blackmail, after all—plus, I'm a lot more expensive." Fury nodded in concession, his dark, knowing eye lifting back to study her. Satisfaction hummed in her chest as a flicker of surprise flashed in his sharp gaze; he hadn't expected her to be so candid about being blackmailed.
"I'll admit, I never knew for sure. Obviously HYDRA played their cards close to the vest, and that included their use of you. I'd been wondering about it for quite a while, though. Some of your hits never did quite add up to your regular MO. Made me think you had someone else behind the wheel." She couldn't help but bristle again, the return to the subject of her blackmailing alone making her tetchy even if she was the one who brought it up. She knew he hadn't been finished with it yet.
"Only four of them," she clarified coolly, "including the Argentinian." He wasn't at all surprised by the admission.
Oh yeah. He'd been known as 'The Spymaster' for good reason.
Even Natasha looked faintly startled by how much Fury knew about Nadine.
"Fascinating as this all is," Stark broke in then, breaking the loaded exchange between Nadine and Fury, "don't we have a bigger issue to tackle right now?" Reluctantly, the rest of the team nodded. For once, Nadine was quite glad for Stark's interruption. She wasn't terribly interested in getting any more into her past with the former director than she already had.
Fury raised his glass again almost in toast to the billionaire even as he pushed off the counter to reach for the jug waiting not far away, refilling his glass as he spoke.
"Ultron took you folks out of play to buy himself time. My contacts all say he's building something. The amount of Vibranium he made off with, I don't think it's just one thing." Nadine watched as Lila darted into the kitchen to gift Nat with a lovingly painted picture of a butterfly before running off at her father's call. She couldn't help a small smile at the adoring gesture, or the affectionate exchange between the little girl and the redhead.
"What about Ultron himself?" As she glanced over her shoulder to see the Barton children retreating upstairs for bed, Nadine didn't miss how the Captain glanced briefly to her after asking his question. She smiled faintly in thanks, knowing at least part of the reason he'd asked. Sadly, Fury's answer was...less than helpful, or hopeful.
"Ah." Fury pacing forward to the loaf of bread still sitting out on the small, mobile countertop across from the sinks, setting his glass down as he helped himself. "He's easy to track, he's everywhere. Guy's multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit. Still doesn't help us get an angle on any of his plans though."
"He still going after launch codes?" Stark asked, glancing over from his game of darts just outside the kitchen as Barton rejoined them. Where the idea of Ultron going after nuclear codes hadn't particularly gotten to her the night of the Party, now that he actually was going after them? The very thought that he was interested sent a chill up Nadine's spine.
"Yes, he is, but he's not making any headway." Well that was a small comfort... Tony, though, was suddenly very interested, turning to fix Fury with a searching look at the news, leaving his half-hearted game of darts momentarily forgotten.
"I cracked the Pentagon's firewall in high school on a dare," he protested, seeming genuinely bewildered that Ultron was having so much trouble; Nadine supposed that was fair. Considering everything else the A.I. was capable of? Especially where computers, technology and the Internet were concerned? That Ultron was having so much trouble did seem odd.
"Yeah, well, I contacted our friends at the NEXUS about that," Fury responded, still intent on making his snack. Steve frowned at the reference.
"NEXUS?"
"It's the world internet hub in Oslo," Banner jumped in to explain, "every byte of data flows through there, fastest access on earth." Steve nodded his understanding, his frown only deepening at the implications.
"So what'd they say?" Barton asked, bringing the conversation back around to Ultron and his nuclear dreams.
"He's fixated on the missiles, but the codes are constantly being changed." Tony paused in retrieving his darts as he looked over to Fury again, the game again momentarily forgotten. The former director had finished preparing his bread and had returned to leaning next to the sinks.
'By whom?" The billionaire flinched as a trio of darts whizzed past his ear straight to the board's bull's-eye. Nadine bit back a grin...though, rather less successfully than she usually did judging by the similarly amused glance Natasha shot her. Barton merely shrugged unapologetically in response to Tony's aggravated glare. Completely unphased, Fury ignored them both, continuing as though nothing had interrupted the conversation.
"Parties unknown." Nadine and Natasha exchanged a worried glance, the redhead's brow furrowing thoughtfully as she turned to Fury.
"Do we have an ally?" Fury levelled her with an unreadable, though nearly admonishing look.
"Ultron's got an enemy, that's not the same thing." Natasha's grudging expression said she ceded to his point. "Still, I'd pay folding money to know who it is."
"I might need to visit Oslo, find our 'unknown,'" Tony commented thoughtfully as he abandoned the darts, coming to lean against the doorframe to the kitchen.
"Well, this is good times, boss, but I was kind of hoping when I saw you, you'd have more than that," Natasha said then, shooting her former director a mildly challenging look. Fury shrugged, carefully chewing his bite of bread.
"I do. I have you," the former Director said as though it were obvious. Nadine held back a scoff, though her dry retort made it out.
"And there I thought you might actually have some sort of plan," she muttered. Natasha shot her an exasperated look, though next to Fury, Barton was trying and failing to hold back an amused smirk. Nadine could only shoot her sister the expression-equivalent of a shrug. She couldn't help herself, it seemed.
Again, Fury ignored the extraneous exchange, glancing around the room from Avenger to Avenger, even to Nadine, before continuing.
"Back in the day, I had eyes everywhere, ears everywhere else. Now here we all are, back on earth, with nothing but our wit, and our will to save the world." The former director paced forward, still looking around to each of them as he spoke. "Ultron says the Avengers are the only thing between him and his mission. And whether or not he admits it, his mission is global destruction; all this," he gestured absently around the kitchen to back up his point, "laid in a grave." His grim outlook sent another, stronger chill down Nadine's spine. But she couldn't deny he was right on point. She couldn't shake the feeling that Ultron wanted more than just the Avengers dealt with. Fury's gaze was intent as he resumed after letting his heavy words sink in for a moment.
"So stand. Use what you've got. Use her," he looked directly at Nadine, who straightened, eyeing the former Director warily. But that didn't stop the way her chest swelled inadvertently at being included. They considered her an asset. It felt weird. Good, but weird. "She's arguably the best out there at tracking down those who don't want to be found. I have little doubt that, had she wanted to find me, she would have. And Romanoff? You're no slouch in that department yourself. Team up. Run him to ground." He gestured absently to Stark.
"Tony's going to do what he can at the NEXUS, hopefully getting Ultron's enemy on board as our ally. You're all smart," his eye flicked around the room again before he sank back into his seat at the head of the table, "and he's got it out for you. Use that. Figure out how he's thinking if you can't figure out his plan. Get ahead of him, or at the very least, catch up.
"Outwit the platinum bastard." Across the table from Nadine, Natasha just barely held back a smirk, glancing with affected concern to the Captain.
"Steve doesn't like that kind of talk."
"You know what, Romanoff?" Steve warned lightly, a grin breaking through his serious expression. Natasha smiled mischievously back, bringing a chuckle to Nadine's lips. Only for the blonde assassin to sober as an idea sprung to mind.
"I don't know what his endgame is," Nadine spoke up softly, "but we know he did recruit the Maximoff's. And I was already close to pinning them. There could be something down that road." Fury nodded thoughtfully.
"There may be," he agreed before turning the focus back to the killer robot they were after. "So what does he want?" he prompted, steering them back on track. The whole team grew thoughtful before Steve spoke up.
"To become better. Better than us. He keeps building bodies," the Captain offered thoughtfully, his tone indicating at least a mild epiphany behind the observation, like he hadn't given it much thought until right then.
"Person bodies," Stark interjected with a faintly puzzled yet contemplative tone. "The human form is inefficient, biologically speaking; we're outmoded. But he keeps coming back to it." He did have a point, Nadine had to admit, though she wasn't quite sure yet how it was relevant. Natasha sighed.
"When you two programmed him to protect the human race, you amazingly failed." Bruce meanwhile, had paced forward to stand next to Natasha as she spoke, a thoughtful expression falling over his face as he glanced down at the drawing Lila had given to Natasha. Nadine eyed him curiously; he was staring at it awfully intently. He'd had an idea, she realized.
"They don't need to be protected, they need to evolve" the doctor mused aloud, his voice rising from a murmur as his thoughts fell into place, drawing everyone's complete attention. "Ultron's going to evolve." Fury was the first to vocalize the inevitable next question.
"How?" Bruce looked up, a grave expression on his face.
"Has anyone been in contact with Helen Cho?" Nadine frowned in confusion just as almost everyone else did...save Tony, whose face lit up with understanding followed closely by alarm.
"Dr. Cho? The doctor who patched up Barton? What's she got to do with anything?" Nadine questioned. Natasha shook her head absently from across the table.
"I don't follow," the redhead added.
"What does Dr. Cho have to do with Ultron," Barton asked almost at the same time. But Banner and Stark were already virtually deaf to the world, glancing to each other as both their prodigious brains kicked into high gear.
"The Cradle?" Banner nodded at Stark's question.
"It makes sense," Banner said with a hesitant shrug, "especially when you consider all that Vibranium he took and his penchant for building ever improving bodies." Stark frowned. Nadine was lost. So he wanted to build a Vibranium body...yeah, that was bad, but what did it have to do with this doctor?
"Could he really do it, though? The Cradle isn't intended to actually build anything," Stark questioned. Banner shrugged again.
"Provided she was able to find a way past the binding problems and figure out a way to maintain cellular cohesion, it's possible."
"And you think using Vibranium would do the trick."
"Well, it is remarkably versatile. It's atomic structure—"
"English, guys?" Natasha broke in, snapping the two geniuses from their brainstorming. Slowly Bruce nodded in apology before launching into a more straightforward explanation.
"He's going to try and use Dr. Cho's Cradle technology to build himself an android body using the Vibranium. It might be a long shot—it might not even be possible to do, even with the Cradle—but we can't discount the possibility."
"Then we need to get to Seoul," Steve said gravely.
"But what about after the body, if that's even his next step?" Nadine asked softly. "That can't be his endgame."
"We need to find his base of operations," Natasha continued, glancing around to the rest of the team. Steve absently nodded, glancing between the two of them.
"You think you two can find it?" The two assassins exchanged a loaded glance. Nadine had her doubts, but with Natasha backing her up? Her little sister was of the same opinion. Finally Natasha nodded as she looked back to Steve.
"Between the two of us? I think we've got a shot."
"Good," Fury said with finality. "Then get to work." The effect was immediate, breaking the spell that had fallen over the room. Almost as one, the team was moving to suit up, everyone understanding the time for planning and brainstorming was over.
But as Nadine stood from the table, Fury's deceptively casual voice had her pausing. She couldn't even say she was surprised that he wasn't quite finished with her yet.
"Have you ever considered joining S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Nadine huffed out a chuckle. There was no point in making a smart comment about the Intelligence Agency no longer existing—really, that it had reformed was one of the worst kept secrets on the planet right at the moment.
"Once upon a time, I might have considered it," she answered with a dismissive tone. But then she glanced up to the former director, suddenly feeling uncharacteristically candid. "But now? Once I have my daughter back, Fury, I'm done. I'm retiring. Closing up shop. The Ghost is going back into hiding and never coming out again." Natasha glanced over sharply from the door to the hall as she heard the declaration, astonishment written clearly on her face.
Even Nadine was surprised herself at how easily it had slipped out. Truthfully, she'd been considering it for a long time, even before Nina had been taken. But she had only begun seriously thinking about it here, in the peace of the Barton Homestead; the idea of a normal life was intoxicating.
She hadn't even realized she'd made her decision until the words had come tumbling out of her mouth.
She was so tired of this life. Of hiding. Of killing.
But Fury fixed her with an unreadable smile, his dark eye glinting knowingly.
"Never say never, Ryker."
A/N: Thanks for reading!
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