Chapter 2: Red in the Ledger
Natasha Romanoff woke up falling.
Not physically—her body was motionless on the narrow cot in her Red Room dormitory, surrounded by the familiar sounds of two dozen other Black Widows breathing in synchronized sleep. But in her mind, she was plummeting through alien atmosphere toward jagged rocks below, watching Clint Barton's horrified face grow smaller above her.
"It's okay," she'd said, and then let go.
The memory felt more real than the concrete walls around her. More real than the ache in her muscles from yesterday's training, more real than the scars crisscrossing her body from years of conditioning. She could still feel the wind whipping through her hair, still hear the crack of her body hitting stone, still taste the metallic tang of blood as everything went dark.
But she'd never been to space. Never met anyone named Clint Barton. Never had a soul to trade for anything, let alone a glowing orange stone that could bring back half the universe.
"Natalia."
The harsh whisper cut through her confusion. Beside her, Yelena Belova was sitting up on her own cot, green eyes wide with concern.
"You were talking in your sleep," Yelena whispered in Russian. "Something about someone named Clint."
Natasha sat up, her heart pounding. The dream had felt so vivid, so emotionally devastating, that waking up in the Red Room felt like emerging from paradise into hell. Which was backwards, considering the Red Room had been her reality for... how long now? The timeline felt muddled, uncertain.
"Bad dream," Natasha whispered back. "Go back to sleep."
But Yelena didn't lie down. At nineteen, she was one of the youngest widows in their class, but her instincts were sharp enough to cut glass. "Nat, you've been having nightmares for weeks. Always the same one. Always about falling."
Weeks? Natasha frowned. She remembered the first dream clearly—waking up screaming about sacrifice and soul stones and a man with a bow who'd become family. But had there been others? Her memory felt strangely layered, as if two different lives were trying to exist in the same mind.
"I'm fine," Natasha said, but even as the words left her mouth, her hands were moving with unconscious precision. She'd pulled a hairpin from her pillowcase and was working it into the lock mechanism of her restraint cuffs—techniques she'd never been taught, muscle memory for escape methods the Red Room hadn't covered yet.
The cuffs clicked open.
Yelena stared at the freed restraints, then at Natasha's face. "How did you—?"
"I don't know." And that was the terrifying truth. Natasha looked down at her hands as if they belonged to someone else. "I don't know."
Over the next three weeks, Natasha began to understand that whatever was happening to her was far more complex than nightmares or psychological breakdown.
The memories came in waves now, triggered by seemingly random events. During weapons training, she'd find herself countering attacks with techniques that shouldn't exist, moving through combat scenarios with the fluid precision of someone who'd fought gods and monsters. In surveillance classes, she'd sketch faces of people she'd never met—a man with a shield, a woman who could move things with her mind, a god of thunder with kind eyes and a ridiculous cape.
But it was during a mission briefing that everything changed.
"Your target," Madame B announced, projecting a photograph onto the wall, "is Anthony Edward Stark. CEO of Stark Industries, weapons manufacturer, American capitalist."
Natasha's breath caught. The man in the photo was younger than she expected, all sharp cheekbones and arrogant smirk, but something about him felt achingly familiar. Not romantic—never romantic—but important in a way that made her chest tight with unexplained emotion.
"Intelligence suggests," Madame B continued, "that Stark has been making concerning changes to his company's direction. Our benefactors are worried about disruption to the weapons market. You will infiltrate his organization, assess the threat level, and eliminate him if necessary."
The other widows nodded with mechanical precision, but Natasha found herself thinking about the target's eyes. Dark brown, intelligent, carrying a weight that seemed too heavy for someone who supposedly lived a life of pure privilege.
"Natalia?" Madame B's voice cut through her distraction. "Do you have questions about the assignment?"
"No, ma'am." But Natasha did have questions. Like why the sight of Tony Stark's face made her want to protect him instead of eliminate him. Like why she had the sudden, inexplicable certainty that this man was important—not just to the mission, but to something larger. Something that felt like family.
That night, Natasha lay on her cot staring at the ceiling, her mind racing. The Stark file was thorough: MIT graduate at seventeen, took over the company after his parents' deaths at twenty-one, known for his brilliant engineering and complete lack of personal responsibility. A man who'd never created anything more meaningful than faster ways to kill people and more efficient ways to destroy things.
But the recent changes were dramatic. According to their intelligence, Stark had stopped attending parties almost entirely over the past month. His weapons development had slowed while he pushed strange consumer electronics initiatives. He'd been spotted working eighteen-hour days in his private workshop, emerging with technology that made their best analysts nervous.
Most intriguingly, he'd begun questioning the ethics of weapons manufacturing in board meetings—a complete reversal from his previous position.
People didn't change that dramatically without reason. Natasha knew because she was a professional at reading people, at understanding motivations and pressure points. Anthony Stark was either having a complete psychological breakdown, or something had fundamentally altered his worldview.
Something like waking up with memories of being someone better.
Beside her, Yelena stirred. "Nat? You're thinking too loud."
Natasha turned to study the younger woman's profile in the dim emergency lighting. Yelena had been her partner for years, the closest thing to family the Red Room permitted. But looking at her now, Natasha saw someone else entirely—a blonde woman in a white suit, fierce and determined.
"Yelena," Natasha whispered. "Do you ever dream about being someone else?"
"Everyone dreams about being someone else. It's why we're here—to become whatever the Red Room needs us to be."
But that wasn't what Natasha meant, and from the way Yelena's breathing changed, she knew the younger woman understood.
"Nat," Yelena said carefully, "are you planning something?"
Natasha thought about the man in the photograph, about the inexplicable certainty that he was carrying the same impossible burden she was. She thought about the memories of freedom, of choosing her own missions, of being part of something larger than assassination and fear.
She thought about dying for people she loved instead of killing for people who owned her.
"Yeah," she whispered. "I think I am."
Planning to fake your own death in the Red Room required a special kind of insanity.
The facility was designed to prevent exactly that—every exit monitored, every movement tracked, every widow accounted for at all times. But as Natasha spent the next month planning, she found herself drawing on knowledge she shouldn't possess. Security weaknesses she'd never been taught to recognize. Guard rotation patterns she'd somehow memorized. Technical systems that could be exploited if you knew exactly where to apply pressure.
Most importantly, she knew something the Red Room didn't: their psychological conditioning wasn't as complete as they believed.
"The Budapest safehouse," she whispered to Yelena during a rare moment alone in the armory. "Do you remember the Budapest safehouse?"
Yelena frowned. "We've never been to Budapest together."
"Haven't we?" Natasha pulled up building schematics on a tablet, her fingers moving across the screen with automatic precision. "Third floor, corner apartment, view of the Danube. Two exit routes, three weapons caches, emergency protocols that could keep us alive for weeks."
"Natasha, what are you talking about? That's not—" Yelena stopped, her face going pale as she stared at the schematics. "How do you know about that building? Those protocols aren't in any file I've seen."
"Because I remember being there with someone I trusted. Someone who became family." Natasha's voice dropped to barely a whisper. "Yelena, what if I told you that everything we've been taught about having no past, no family, no choice—what if it was all a lie?"
"I'd say that's treason." But Yelena's voice wavered.
"What if I told you I remember another life? One where we chose our own missions, protected people instead of eliminating them, where we were more than just weapons?"
Yelena was quiet for a long moment, studying the building plans. "I'd say that sounds like a nice dream."
"Then let's make it real."
The plan took shape over two weeks of careful preparation. Natasha would stage a mission failure—an explosion in the target building that would eliminate both her and Yelena, leaving enough biological evidence to satisfy the Red Room's confirmation protocols but not enough to prove their deaths. The beauty was in the simplicity: use the Red Room's own paranoia against them.
But it required perfect timing, flawless execution, and a leap of faith that felt eerily familiar.
"Are you sure about this?" Yelena asked the night before they were scheduled to move. They were lying in their cots, speaking in a code they'd developed years ago—finger taps against the wall that looked like restless movement to any observer.
"More sure than I've been about anything," Natasha tapped back. "We deserve better than this."
"What if it goes wrong?"
Natasha thought about falling from a cliff, about choosing death to save someone she loved. About the peace that had come with that decision, the certainty that some things were worth any price.
"Then we'll die free instead of living as slaves."
The explosion lit up the Moscow skyline like a second sun.
Natasha watched from three blocks away as emergency vehicles raced toward the building she and Yelena had supposedly died in, their bodies consumed by flames hot enough to destroy most forensic evidence. The Red Room would find traces—blood she'd planted, DNA samples from their medical files, enough to confirm their deaths without raising suspicion about the convenient timing.
"Is it done?" Yelena asked, her voice small and uncertain. She was wearing civilian clothes for the first time in years, her blonde hair dyed brown and cut short. Without the Red Room's uniform, she looked impossibly young.
"The easy part is done." Natasha adjusted the collar of her own disguise—a business suit that made her look like any other corporate drone in the financial district. "Now comes the hard part."
"Which is?"
"Learning how to live."
They'd spent three days in a safe house Natasha had prepared using knowledge she still couldn't explain—techniques for creating false identities, for moving money through untraceable channels, for disappearing so completely that even the Red Room's resources couldn't track them. Every skill felt like remembering rather than learning.
But it was the emotional weight that surprised her most. She should have felt relief at escaping, triumph at fooling the system that had controlled her entire life. Instead, she felt... incomplete. As if she was supposed to be somewhere else, doing something more important than simply surviving.
"Nat," Yelena said, studying a newspaper spread across their cheap motel table. "Look at this."
The headline read: "STARK INDUSTRIES CEO CONTINUES MYSTERIOUS TRANSFORMATION." Below it, a series of articles chronicling Anthony Stark's dramatic behavioral changes over the past six weeks. The playboy lifestyle abandoned overnight. Board meetings focused on revolutionary technology instead of weapons contracts. Charity donations to organizations supporting enhanced individuals—a term that made Natasha's borrowed memories stir with recognition.
But it was the photograph that stopped her cold. Tony Stark leaving a Stark Industries board meeting, his expression showing exhaustion and determination in equal measure. But there was something else in his face—a weight, a knowledge, a grief that looked exactly like what Natasha saw in her own mirror every morning.
"He looks like someone carrying secrets," Yelena observed.
"Yeah," Natasha whispered, remembering dreams of a man in red and gold armor, of watching him make the ultimate sacrifice. "He does."
"Think it's coincidence? The timing of his changes and your... awakening?"
Natasha studied the photo for a long moment, her spy instincts cataloguing every detail of Stark's expression. The slight tension around his eyes. The way he held himself—not with his usual arrogant confidence, but with the careful posture of someone expecting attack. The unconscious way his hand rested near his chest, as if protecting something vital.
Something like an arc reactor, though such technology didn't exist yet.
"No," Natasha said quietly. "I don't think it's coincidence at all."
For the next month and a half, Natasha Romanoff became a professional shadow in Tony Stark's life.
She rented apartments with sight lines to Stark Industries, using Red Room techniques to create identities that would pass casual inspection but disappear under serious scrutiny. She infiltrated his favorite restaurants, his regular haunts, even his gym—though she quickly realized he'd stopped visiting any of those places. Instead, he seemed to live between his workshop and his office, working with an intensity that spoke of desperate purpose.
The surveillance revealed a man transformed in ways that defied explanation. Gone was the playboy who'd made headlines for his excess. In his place was someone who worked eighteen-hour days, who turned down social invitations with genuine regret instead of casual dismissal, who stared at photographs of his assistant with longing that seemed too deep for a simple workplace attraction.
But it was his technology that convinced Natasha they shared the same impossible burden.
Through high-powered scopes and carefully placed listening devices, she watched Tony Stark build devices that shouldn't exist for another decade. Touch screen interfaces that made current computers look like stone tools. Battery technology that could power vehicles for days. Miniaturized processors that seemed to bend the laws of physics.
Most importantly, he was building something that looked suspiciously like a clean energy reactor—technology that could revolutionize the world or power something extraordinary.
Something like armor.
"Why are we following this guy again?" Yelena asked during their third week of surveillance. They were parked outside a Stark Industries facility, watching Tony work through floor-to-ceiling windows. "I thought we were supposed to be destroying the Red Room, not stalking random billionaires."
Natasha lowered her binoculars. Since their escape, Yelena had been asking increasingly pointed questions about their priorities. Fair enough—Natasha had promised they would take down the organization that had stolen their childhoods, but instead she'd become obsessed with a man she'd never met.
"Because," Natasha said carefully, "I think he might be the key to destroying the Red Room permanently."
It wasn't entirely a lie. Her borrowed memories suggested that Tony Stark would become something extraordinary—a hero who could stand against threats that dwarfed any earthly organization. But the deeper truth was more complex: she recognized something in him that she saw in herself. The weight of impossible knowledge, the isolation of carrying secrets no one would believe.
The desperate hope that she wasn't alone.
"He's building something," Yelena observed, studying Tony through her own scope. "Something that's making him work all night and look like he hasn't slept properly in weeks."
"I know." Natasha watched Tony's hands move across his workbench with unconscious precision, assembling components with the expertise of someone who'd built the same device dozens of times before. "The question is whether he knows what he's building."
That night, Natasha broke into Stark Industries for the first time.
It should have been impossible. The security system was military-grade, designed to keep out corporate spies and potential terrorists. But as she moved through the building, Natasha found herself using techniques that belonged to someone with years more experience than she should possess. Pressure points in the security grid she'd never been taught to recognize. Guard patterns she shouldn't have memorized. Administrative access codes that felt like muscle memory.
Tony's workshop was on the fourth floor, behind additional layers of security that would have challenged even Red Room training. Natasha bypassed them in minutes, her fingers moving across electronic locks with automatic precision.
Inside, she found a laboratory that looked like it belonged in the next century.
Holographic displays showed schematics for devices she couldn't identify but somehow understood. Advanced AI frameworks decades beyond current programming capabilities. And on the central workbench, humming with quiet power, was a device that made her borrowed memories scream recognition: a miniaturized arc reactor, clean and efficient and impossible.
Natasha photographed everything, her spy training warring with deeper instincts that insisted this man was an ally, not a target. As she worked, she found herself studying personal details that had nothing to do with intelligence gathering. Photographs of a red-haired woman who worked as his assistant—clearly someone important to him, though their relationship appeared strictly professional. Sketches that looked suspiciously like armor designs. Notes scrawled in margins that mentioned "enhanced individuals" and "registration acts" with the kind of strategic concern that suggested personal investment.
Most telling of all were the newspaper clippings. Articles about mutant attacks, about government registration hearings, about enhanced individuals facing persecution. Someone was researching threats that hadn't fully manifested yet, preparing for conflicts that might never come.
Unless that someone had reason to believe those conflicts were inevitable.
Natasha was photographing the armor sketches when she heard footsteps in the hallway. Her borrowed memories provided instant assessment: one person, male, walking with the careful gait of someone exhausted but determined. Tony Stark, returning to his workshop for another all-night session.
She could have left unseen. Should have left unseen. But something made her step out of the shadows instead.
"Impressive work."
Tony spun around, and Natasha saw recognition flicker in his eyes—not of her specifically, but of the situation. Someone who'd been expecting this moment, hoping for it.
"How did you get in here?" he asked, though his tone carried more curiosity than alarm.
"I'm very good at what I do." Natasha moved closer to the workbench, studying the arc reactor with professional interest. "Though apparently, so are you. This technology shouldn't exist for a while."
"I'm sorry, who are you exactly?" But there was hope in his voice, carefully controlled but unmistakable.
Natasha picked up one of his sketches—armor schematics he'd drawn with the precision of someone who'd worn such technology. "Someone who's been watching you make some very interesting changes lately. Anthony Edward Stark. Thirty-four years old. CEO of Stark Industries since your parents' deaths. Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist." She set the sketch down and looked at him directly. "Except lately, you're only three of those things."
"Which three?"
"Genius, billionaire, philanthropist." Her smile was sharp as a blade. "The playboy died about four months ago. Right around the time you started pushing your board to abandon weapons manufacturing and invest in consumer technology that won't be profitable for years."
Tony's mouth went dry. "And that interests you because...?"
"Because four months ago, I woke up screaming." Natasha moved to examine his AI framework designs, her fingers tracing the holographic displays with surprising gentleness. "Screaming about falling from a cliff, about choosing to die so someone I loved could live. About a room that was red in every way that mattered, and all the blood on my hands."
The workshop fell silent except for the hum of machinery. Tony stared at her, understanding flooding his expression like sunrise.
"I've been having dreams too," Natasha continued, her voice barely above a whisper. "Dreams about a man in red and gold armor who called himself Iron Man. A man who saved many, the Earth's greatest asset according to some." She looked up from the designs, meeting his desperate gaze. "Dreams about watching him make the ultimate sacrifice, and knowing it was the only way."
Tony's legs gave out, and he sank onto a workshop stool. "You remember."
"I remember dying on an alien planet to save my best friend's life. I remember a little girl who never existed and a man who loved me enough to let me go." Natasha's voice cracked slightly. "I remember being better than I am now. Being worthy of the sacrifice."
"Natasha." Her name came from his lips without conscious thought.
She nodded, tears threatening at the corners of her eyes. "Hello, Tony."
For a long moment, they simply looked at each other—two people who'd died saving the universe, somehow given another chance in a world that desperately needed saving again.
"So," Natasha said finally, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "Did we win?"
Tony thought for a moment, his expression growing heavy with remembered weight. "We won that war. But I think this world has different battles to fight."
"Good thing we remember how to fight them."
Natasha looked around the workshop—at the impossible technology, at the armor sketches, at the evidence of a man preparing for threats only he could see. Outside, dawn was breaking over Malibu, and somewhere in space, four scientists were probably just beginning to realize that their routine mission had changed everything.
"So," Tony said, standing and extending his hand. "Partners?"
Natasha looked at his hand for a moment, thinking about Yelena waiting in their safe house, about the Red Room that still needed to be destroyed, about the impossible second chance they'd both been given.
She clasped his hand firmly. "Partners. But next time you want to revolutionize an entire industry, maybe give me more than four months' notice?"
Tony laughed, and the sound carried more genuine joy than anything she'd heard since waking up in this strange new life. "Deal. Though I should warn you—I have some ideas about that registration act that are probably going to piss off a lot of powerful people."
"Good," Natasha said, and her smile was sharp and dangerous and absolutely perfect. "I was getting bored anyway."
As they stood in Tony's workshop, surrounded by technology that shouldn't exist and carrying memories of a war they'd already won, Natasha understood that their second chance was just the beginning.
The world was about to need Iron Man and Black Widow.
It just didn't know it yet.