8

Chapter 8Summary:

Who's this? Ah, it's our favourite spider.

Chapter Text

"I want a suit." Laura blurted out.

"What?" Clint blinked at his wife.

"I want a suit." Laura repeated. "I sat at home and watched you come back, beaten and bloody each time you went out. Not again. I might have joined SHIELD last time but I was not a field agent. This time… This is my family, too, Clint. I have the right to protect them, just as much as you do. We already know that archery and hand-to-hand is pointless for me, but an Iron Man suit? Especially one with an AI for fine-targeting? I can do that. I want to do that."

"Oh, boy…" Tony winced.

The girl woke, looking around her in shock.

"бог мой…" She whispered.

"Good morning, Natalia." A middle-aged woman approached her bunk. "Are you ready for your first assignment?" The girl grit her teeth and stood, she said nothing but clearly nodded. "Good. Get dressed in the clothes provided, then join me, we shall brief you as we travel."

The girl noticed that food wasn't mentioned and mentally shrugged. It didn't really matter as she wasn't going to stay in… wherever it was they were. She just kinda hoped that her ястреб's nest was still in the same place, she had no idea of how much time had passed since she'd let go of his hand.

Dressing took seconds and while the briefing took a little longer, the journey from 'wherever it was', to Bucharest took much longer, two hours longer. Two hours, that significantly re-arranged the girl's plans. She had no idea how but somehow… this was the 1990's!

She left the helicopter with the man that was to be her visual support/spotter for the assignment and calmly followed him to the waiting Audi. The pair drove for another hour and a half, stopping twice, once for food and once for the border crossing, into Bulgaria. Another ten minutes and the girl indicated that she wished to use a restroom. The man blinked and nodded and pulled off the motorway and onto an access road, before stopping at a gas station. The pair exited the car and made their way towards the restrooms at the rear of the building. The girl studied the building and the surrounding area quickly and carefully, grateful that security cameras had yet to reach this part of Bulgaria. Still, she would have to act fast, she only had one shot at this.

The moment they were out of sight of the front of the building, the girl exploded into action, not using techniques taught in the Red Room, but rather movements that a large blonde man with a shield, was fond of. Her driver went down like he'd been hit with a vibranium shield, instead of a steel garbage bin lid. The girl bent down over the man and with a quick movement, snapped his neck.

"No more raping little girls, for you, Budimir." She whispered, with a pleased twist to her lips. She went through his pockets and removed every scrap of their contents, who knew what might come in handy, next she grabbed hold of his arm and with a great deal of effort, heaved him over to the commercial dumpsters. It took more effort and a few bruises from his heavy boots meeting various parts of her body, before she managed to tip him into the dumpster.

A short trip to the restroom and she'd changed her appearance as much as she could. Back to the car and a few minutes to empty it of anything useful, particularly money and weapons. She knew that their Red Room Handlers would be expect them to meet a helicopter in Tirana, Albania, in five days' time but she was going to disappoint them. She had other plans for her future and they weren't invited.

With a three guns and a handful of knifes secreted about her body, the girl felt more comfortable to travel. The simple black backpack that she'd flung over her shoulder, was full. Money, guns, knives, clothes and false documents. It was a good start but she planned on raiding the safehouse where she remembered Budimir raping her... or he would have, if she hadn't snapped his neck.

Two hours later, a rebelliously dressed teenager was on a bus from Ruse to Istanbul, supposedly to meet with her estranged father. Another nine hours and a young English backpacker entered the departure terminal of Istanbul's international airport and boarded a plane to Paris. Another four hours and the backpacker took a bus from the Charles De Gaulle Airport to the city centre and vanished. A tired young woman in drab clothes, caught a train to London and walked into the Natural History Museum a little before midday. A few minutes before closing, a trio of giggling teenage girls were gently chivvied out of the building, a few blocks later the three exchanged farewells and went their separate ways.

One girl walked a block before her posture changed, the happy carefree nature disappearing like dust in the wind. A cab took her to a run-down house in Islington, where she emptied her bags and raided all the money, weapons and document caches in the building. She laid out all her supplies on the living room floor and sorted out what to take and what to stash elsewhere. A small portion of money, two guns, two knives and four Id's went into the bag that a rebellious teenager had carried, from Ruse to Istanbul, she planned to hide them in another location. One known only to her and a certain little bird.

The rest she sorted through even more carefully. She couldn't take guns or metal knives on a commercial plane but that didn't mean she couldn't take something. A pair of ceramic knives were laid on the table, along with what seemed like a whole bank vault of money. She knew that she only had a limited amount of time and would have to plan her assault on the money exchanges carefully. Three changes of clothes were laid out, not fancy or up-market but simple, fade into the background clothes, she couldn't afford to draw attention once she reached Heathrow. Her apparent age could cause issues, if she didn't take it into consideration during her planning, so all her documentation declared that she was eighteen. Some, by just a few days others by weeks or months.

All-up, it took her most of the night to pack and visit nearly two dozen money exchanges, each time getting money changed into travel debit-cards. It took another three hours to transfer the money from one card to another enough times, to confuse even Tony Stark. Finally, however, all the money was where she wanted it and she prepared herself for the last leg of her journey, the trip to America.

The simply dressed young woman that entered Heathrow airport, just before dawn, drew little attention and that was the way she wanted it. She greeted the check-in staff and accepted her boarding pass, before heading for the concourse. Once she found a café and ordered a meal, she began making notes in a small notebook. Sleep would wait until she was safe.

Her plane landed in New York and she left her seat, hesitant over her next course of action, it felt a little… manipulative… but she couldn't see any other way to reach her ястреб than through his wife. And that meant having to befriend someone who didn't remember her.

~~~

"Sir?" JARVIS interrupted Tony's explanation on the progress of the EXO-Wings.

"J?" Tony turned to look at the globe that was one of JARVIS' remote servers.

"Sir, you asked me to keep an eye out for certain names." JARVIS replied. "A name has just drawn my attention. It is not on my watch list but it a variant of a number of them."

"What is it?" Tony asked.

"A Miss Natashalie Yelena Rushmanov boarded a flight from Heathrow, that is due to land at JFK International, in little less than two hours." JARVIS said. "If I hadn't scanned the flights arriving into New York, this evening, looking for an arrival time for Miss Carter, I would have missed it, entirely. I wasn't looking for variations to both names."

"Natashalie?" Barnes asked.

"She went undercover in SI as Natalie Rushman." Pepper answered. "Tony later called her Natashalie as an insult."

"Hold on." Tony held up a hand. "Natashalie Rushmanov? Hawk-ass? Was that ever one of her covers?"

"No, not that I know of. Why?" Clint replied.

"It's a little too suss that she's using Natashalie Rushmanov as her name." Tony said. "I'm thinking that we need to send someone to meet our little spider's plane."

"Bags, I'm it!" Clint threw up a hand.

"Not without me, you're not." Laura smacked Clint's arm.

"Not me?" Tony pouted.

"No, you and I have a meeting with the DoD, this afternoon." Pepper reminded the inventor. "You did say, that you wanted to get the ball rolling on the next level of testing of the EXO-wings. Which means borrowing a couple of airmen to be your pilots."

"Humph…" Tony grunted. "Alright, you go fetch the spider and I'll deal with the brass." He sighed as he nodded to Clint and Laura.

~~~

November 16th 1997

Clearing customs took only a few minutes for Natashalie Rushmanov, her documents stated that she'd done this trip a few times in the past year, working for Stark Industries as a courier. She stepped out of the restricted area and onto the public concourse, planning to get a cab to a hotel in the Columbia University area, only to come to a blinking halt. She recognised the shoulders leaning against a concourse wall.

"дерьмо." She muttered under her breath and after tightening her shoulders, kept walking.

"привет, маленький паук." Clint said quietly as she walked passed him.

She stopped and looked at him."Affedersin?" She asked in Turkish.

Clint snorted and replied in the same language. "Merhaba küçük, örümcek dedim." 

"Oh, good, you found her." Linked her arm through Clint's and smiled at Natashalie.

"I…"

"Oh come on, Nat…" Clint moaned. "Please tell me you remember Vormir." He kept speaking in Turkish, not wanting a spectator to eavesdrop on a very peculiar conversation.

"Did it work…?" Natashalie countered.

"We won, but we lost some good people along the way." Clint said.

"It's the 1990's." She said.

"Yeah, not sure how that happened, we're tentatively blaming Strange for that one." Clint said.

"Not Stark?"

"Nope, he died, he used the stones, he snapped Thanos and his army away and it killed him." Clint whispered. "Pepper had him cremated and we had a memorial for all those we lost… Then we got on with the business of living. Laura and I aren't the only ones that remember and all of us come from different points in time after Thanos' defeat."

"But wasn't Bruce going to…?"

"He did, he brought back everyone that died as a result of Thanos' actions, but that included Thanos and his army. We had to fight him all over again. Strange and his sorcerers brought everyone from all over the place, to the compound and we fought there."

"Please don't tell me you went up against Thanos with a bow?" Natashalie grimaced.

"Of course not." Clint said in English. "I had my мечи, too."

"Of course, you did." She sighed. "Who else is there and-"

"Let's head out to the car and we'll brief you in the way to the factory." Laura interrupted. "Tony should be back from his DoD meeting by six." She didn't wait for either Clint or Natashalie to agree or object, she just began walking.

The other two exchanged looks and Clint shrugged. "You know I'm going to follow her, you might be my friend but Laura is my life."

"I know." The girl nodded and hurried after the brunette woman, leaving Clint to huff and follow them both. They left the terminal and headed out the bus pickup, for the trip to their car in the short term car-park on 23rd Ave. Once in the car with Laura driving, Clint turned in his seat and studied the girl in the back seat.

"How old are you?" He asked.

"What's the date?" She replied.

"November 16th."

"And the year?"

"1997."

She winced. "Ouch."

"Ouch?" Clint asked.

"I was told my birthday is the 4th of February." She screwed up her face. "And that I born in 1984."

The car bucked as Laura jerked. "You're thirteen?"

"Thirteen?!" Clint asked, his eyes widening comically.

"Almost fourteen...?" Came the hesitant answer.

"Ooh, that's…" Clint screwed up his face.

"Tell me about it." The girl sighed.

"So, question?" Laura asked. "What are you going to call yourself?" She watched as the now-outed-as-a-teenager, blinked. "Natasha? Natalie? Natalia? Natashalie?"

"Not Natalia." The girl shook her head. "The Red Room handlers will be looking for Natalia or Natalie and possibly for Natasha. I remembered that Tony called me Natashalie a few times after New York and his driver had called me Miss Rushmanov. I figured that no-one would be looking for those type of bastardisations."

"True." Laura nodded.

"How hard do you think it would be for Tony to hack into the relevant systems and make Natashalie Rushmanov real?" Natashalie asked.

"I think it will take JARVIS minutes, Natashalie." Clint said with a smile.

"JARVIS?" The teen asked.

"Short version for now." Clint said. "Tony was first, he said JARVIS woke him on 2nd of January 1991. Next was Barnes."

"Barnes?" Natashalie blinked in surprise.

"Yeah." Clint nodded. "He woke in a HYDRA bunker the morning he was supposed to kill Howard Stark."

"Ouch."

"Only… that didn't happen. Tony set up a scene to give Iron Man the best chance of capturing the Winter Soldier, but Barnes just told him to get rid of the tracker and kill-switch in his arm. Tony brought him home and the two of them told Howard and Maria Stark and they all started planning."

"Iron Man? He made another suit? Already?"

"No, he didn't have to, his Bleeding Edge suit came with him, just like JARVIS did." Clint said. "Like I said, we come from different points in time. Tony from the second battle against Thanos and brought the suit with him but it was pristine, no damage at all. That was late October 2023. JARVIS came from June 2015 and was housed in the suit's server-relay system, don't ask me how, I don't understand half of what Tony says, when he gets going. Barnes remembers going to sleep in the middle of summer 2025. I don't think he ever told us the exact date but it was well over a year after the compound battle, as it took nearly a year for his trial to finish and get his pardon sorted out. Pepper was Christmas night 2024, she and Morgan were staying with Laura and I, and the kids. We'd had a few drinks and gone to bed and she woke up in May '95. Laura and I both came from New Year's Eve 2024. We woke on my birthday in '94. Rhodes woke in October last year, he said something about it having been three years since he'd seen Tony last. And now you. JARVIS interrupted a meeting earlier this morning, to tell us you were coming and Laura and I called dibs for meeting you."

"Oh, shit…" Natashalie sighed. "This is going to be a circus, isn't it?"

"Pretty much." Laura beamed. 

~~~

"You want me to what?!" Tony squawked.

"We want Natashalie Rushmanov to be real." Clint said. "Completely real."

"I've earnt Natashalie." The Russian teen said. "Natashalie is a direct result of my actions, of the life I have lived, of the life I remember. And… that's who I am, now. Not Natalia Romanova, not Natasha Romanov, not Natalie Rushman."

"Huh…" Tony grunted, letting his head rock back and come forward again. "I'll need more details than just your name, Natashalie. Date and location of birth, parents, schooling for you and them, prior addresses, banking and finances, a reason for Clint and Laura to be your guardians. Etcetera, etcetera…" 

~~~

"So, you're saying that if people remember, then the fact that Tony runs Iron Technologies instead of Stark Industries and has all of us, publicly working for him, is going set off alarm bells. Is it going to be enough that they're likely to attempt to contact either him or one of us?" Nat asked.

"I don't know, but I hope so." Pepper said.

"We'd appreciate you helping Barnes and Laura with planning for various contingencies." Tony said as he walked into the room. "Here." He dropped a pile of manila folders on the table. "We're keeping it in the family. If we ever come clean about Barnes, it'll be 'discovered' that he's your great-grandfather."

"Why?" Nat asked, not critically, just curiously.

"Making you Barnes' great-grandkid lets us keep you under wraps." Tony replied. "JARVIS has created documents that imply that dad's known from the beginning and as he's still alive, he can back that up. He hid, first your grandmother, then your mother and had kept tabs on them all this time. That when your mother died, he kept you out of Family Services control and of course, as Clint and Laura married well before Pep and I did, we were all okay with them fostering you. Like I said, if we come clean with Barnes, then we can say he was the one to choose the Bartons."

"Between your 'mother's' death and now, you've been living with family friends, interstate." Howard gestured from Maria to himself. "You'll have to go to school, though. Sorry, that can't be avoided. But at least we can choose a decent one, where your past won't be questioned, some schools value their students' privacy."

"I see…" Nat nodded slowly. "Should I call you grandpa?" She threw a teasing look at Barnes.

"Do and I'll tan your hide, girlie." Barnes mocked glared back.