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The storm outside rattled the glass like it wanted in.
Thunder rolled low and slow across the sky, dragging its claws down the atmosphere. Somewhere out over the Potomac, lightning flash-lit the clouds like war drums. Natasha stood in front of Fury's desk, rain still clinging to her shoulders, the heat of the mission clashing against the cold of his air-conditioned office.
He hadn't offered her a seat. Classic Fury move. Make you deliver your report on your feet like a soldier, even when you were technically off-duty and practically limping from the blast wave of a sonic-powered dead man.
She didn't mind. Pain reminded her she was still in control of her body—well, most of it.
Fury finally looked up from his tablet. "Montana."
No 'how are you.' No 'you okay.' Just the mission.
Natasha crossed her arms, mindful to keep her right palm facing down.
"The facility was Cold War-era, buried in forest. We found signs of recent activity—cut chains, torch marks, tactical footprints. At least six operatives."
"Hydra?" Fury asked, tapping at the screen.
"No insignia. Gear was clean. Movement was tight—military trained. Could be ex-special forces, could be someone new." She paused. "Someone funded."
Fury's eye narrowed slightly. "And what were they guarding?"
Natasha shifted her weight. "Not guarding. Extracting."
Fury's brow rose.
She continued. "Inside the main bunker, I found a stasis tank. Suspended, old-school but heavily retrofitted with modern tech. Subject inside was male, about six-foot-four, built like a tank, late 30s physically, American insignia tattoo on his shoulder. WWII-era."
Fury leaned forward, fingers steepled. "You're telling me someone cryo-froze a soldier from World War Two and left him there for seventy-plus years?"
"He wasn't just frozen. He was enhanced. Some kind of sonic projection ability."
Fury didn't move. Not a muscle.
"He woke up," Natasha added. "Didn't know what year it was. Thought the Germans were bombing. Panicked. Screamed. Brought down most of the structure."
She watched Fury absorb that. One corner of his mouth twitched downward, his version of a full-body shudder.
"He died minutes later," Natasha said. "I think the tank was what was keeping him alive. Once disconnected, he began hemorrhaging. Brain bleed, cardiac failure. Classic super-serum burnout. But dirtier. Cruder. Like they didn't expect him to survive."
Fury exhaled slowly, then asked, "Anything else?"
She hesitated. Just for a second. Then said, "I saw... something. Right after the collapse."
Fury's one eye locked on hers.
"In the sky," Natasha clarified. "A woman. Pale skin, white hair, cape. She was floating—arms raised like she was conducting the storm."
Fury didn't interrupt.
"She disappeared after a blink," Natasha said. "Could've been my imagination. Could've been connected to the soldier. I don't know."
Silence filled the space between them. The rain drummed on the window like fingers tapping an anxious beat.
Fury leaned back, elbows on his armrests. "Tell me about Belarus."
Natasha blinked. "Belarus?"
"That's what I said."
"You've got an entire folder of my Belarus report," she replied. "You want me to read it out loud, Director?"
Fury didn't smile. "I think you left something out."
Her jaw flexed. She let the silence stretch, let the storm speak for her while she decided how much to give him.
He wasn't going to drop it. He never did.
So she let out a breath, opened her palm slowly, and held it up over the desk.
It started subtle—just a shimmer of warmth in the air. Then a soft orange glow lit beneath the skin of her palm, tracing the veins like lines of molten gold. The air above her hand shimmered like desert heat. The rain outside could've boiled off the window if she leaned a little closer.
Fury watched without speaking.
She curled her fingers slowly, snuffed the glow out. Her hand returned to normal in a blink.
"I call it my 'toaster hand,'" she said dryly. "Very useful if you're out of matches."
Fury arched an eyebrow. "When did that start?"
"After Belarus. A few days post-serum exposure. Took me a week to realize it wasn't just stress-induced nerve flares."
"And you're just now telling me?" His voice wasn't raised. It didn't need to be.
She shrugged. "It didn't affect my performance. If anything, it helped in Montana. Electricity wasn't working in the bunker—my hand kept my comms battery warm enough to reboot. And I used the heat to neutralize the enhanced target's power surge."
Fury nodded slowly. "Any injuries from use?"
"None. I can control the intensity. So far, it's confined to the right palm and fingers. No spread."
"Any... other changes?" His tone was casual. Too casual.
Natasha gave a dry smirk. "Other than glowing like a night lamp? No."
Half-truth. But only half. She wasn't ready to talk about the rest. Not here. Not under those lights.
Fury studied her. Not the way a predator sizes up prey—more like a man reading a bomb manual after it's already started ticking.
"You'll report to SHIELD medical tomorrow morning," he said finally. "Full diagnostics. If something's rewiring your body, I want it logged."
"I've already self-diagnosed—"
"This isn't optional, Agent."
He leaned forward again. "We don't leave anomalies unexplored. Especially not ones wearing our uniform."
She nodded, expression unreadable.
"I'm assigning Sharon Carter to supervise the eval," Fury added.
That made Natasha pause. "Carter? She's field ops. Not medical."
"I want someone there who understands power," he said simply.
Another cryptic Fury-ism. Translation: Sharon's not what she seems. Pay attention.
Natasha resisted the urge to press. Not the time. Not the place.
"Anything else you're hiding?" Fury asked, tone suddenly light, which was always worse.
She smiled. "Just the usual damage, sir."
Thunder cracked hard outside, lighting up the room like a shutter flash. It caught Fury's eye, the reflection sharp.
"You're good at keeping secrets, Romanoff," he said, voice lowering. "But don't let them bury you."
She saluted with her left hand. "Wouldn't dream of it."
He gestured toward the door. "Dismissed. Go cool off."
She raised an eyebrow. "Is that an actual order, or a pun?"
Fury didn't answer.
As she stepped out into the hallway, the storm greeted her like an old friend. She flexed her right hand, letting a small bloom of warmth rise again in her palm. This time it didn't flicker.
This time, it pulsed steady.
Control. Clarity.
She didn't know what was waiting in that medical exam. Or what Sharon Carter had to do with any of it. But whatever this heat was doing to her—it was only the beginning.
And she was already burning.
The Next Day
The café on SHIELD's rooftop deck feels like neutral territory—high enough to discourage casual eavesdroppers, open enough to prevent serious plotting. Natasha watches the sunset paint D.C. in shades of blood orange and shadow, the Washington Monument jutting up like an accusing finger. The metal chair bites cold through her jeans despite the warm evening.
Clint slides a paper cup across the scarred table. "Black, two sugars. Just how you pretend not to like it."
"I take it black." She wraps her fingers around the warmth anyway, inhaling the bitter steam. The barista had been pretty—soft brown curls, laugh lines around green eyes—but Natasha had kept her gaze professional. Mostly.
"You take it black in public." Clint sprawls in his chair with the boneless grace of a man who's slept in trees. "I've seen your apartment, Nat. That sugar jar doesn't empty itself."
"Stalker."
"Sniper. Observation's kind of my thing." He sips his own drink—some frothy monstrosity with whipped cream. "So. Montana."
She takes a long drink, buying time. The café's nearly empty; just two junior agents at the far table, pointedly not looking their way. Smart kids. "You were there."
"Outside, playing whack-a-mole with vanishing bad guys while you had all the fun." His eyes sharpen despite the casual tone. "Sonic screamer from World War Two? That's new."
"Everything's new lately." She sets down her cup, watches the last light bleed from the sky. "Morrison. Corporal James Morrison, frozen since '43. Someone kept him on ice for seventy years."
"Helluva nap."
"Helluva wake-up call." She remembers the man's terror, the way his screams had literally shattered concrete. "He died thinking Roosevelt was still president."
Clint's humor fades. "How'd they even keep someone alive that long?"
"Cryo-preservation, some kind of enhancement serum, who knows? The tech was ancient but functional."
"Then you told me that a woman was flying near us, and she disappeared before I could see her,"
"There was a woman. Floating above the facility." She keeps her voice low, clinical. "White hair, dark skin, controlling the storm. Then gone."
Clint's eyebrows climb toward his hairline. "So we've got ghosts now? Great. My arrows are useless against ghosts."
"Not a ghost. She was real." Real enough to make Natasha's neck prickle with remembered danger. "Fury wants it classified."
"Of course he does." Clint spins his cup between his palms, thinking. "Old Hydra project?"
"Maybe. Or something else. That bunker had layers—Cold War construction over something older. Maybe even WWII era."
"Secret mutant programs? Early test subjects?"
She shrugs. The weight between her legs shifts as she adjusts her position, compression shorts digging in. My own little secret mutation. "Your guess is as good as mine."
The flatscreen mounted on the brick wall flickers to life—someone's turned on the evening news. Tony Stark's face fills the screen, all perfect teeth and charm. He's standing in front of a Stark Industries jet, reporters clustered like eager puppies.
"—heading to Afghanistan tomorrow to personally demonstrate the new Jericho missile system," his recorded voice booms. "Our boys in uniform deserve to see exactly what their tax dollars are buying."
Natasha snorts. "He could've tested that in Nevada. We have entire deserts dedicated to blowing things up."
"Yeah, but where's the drama in that?" Clint grins as he takes another sip from his caffee. "Can't feed that ego with a controlled demonstration. Gotta do it where the bullets are real."
"So it's an ego test, not a field test."
"Everything's an ego test with Stark." Clint tilts his head, studying the screen. "Though I'll give him this—man knows how to sell. That suit probably costs more than my apartment."
"Your apartment's a studio above a pizza place."
"Exactly. Low bar to clear."
They both laugh. On screen, Stark's posing with military brass, the Afghan mountains dark shadows in the background. Something cold walks up Natasha's spine.
"You feel that?" Clint asks quietly.
"Feel what?"
"Like we're standing on a cliff edge. Like the world's about to tilt." He drains his ridiculous coffee, sets the cup down with finality. "Morrison was the first domino, wasn't he? Your floating woman, Stark's little war zone field trip... something's coming."
She wants to deny it, but the words stick in her throat. The serum burning through her veins, the heat in her palm, the impossible weight between her legs.
"Change is the only constant," she says instead.
"Fortune cookie wisdom? Really?"
"Would you prefer Hallmark?"
"I'd prefer boring." He stands, stretches like a cat. "Remember boring? When the worst thing we dealt with was regular human terrorists with regular human weapons?"
"Boring's overrated."
"Says the woman who can't order coffee without casing the exits." He pauses at the door. "Medical tomorrow, right? Fury mentioned."
Her shoulders tense. "Just a checkup."
"Sure. Because Fury orders 'just checkups' all the time." His expression softens. "Whatever's going on, Nat... you know I've got your six."
"I know." And she does. Clint's the closest thing to family she's ever allowed herself. Which is exactly why she can't tell him about the nine inches of complicated currently compressed against her thigh.
He leaves. She stays, watching Stark preen on the screen, watching the night swallow the city, watching her reflection in the dark window—a woman with too many secrets and not enough truth.
Tomorrow, Sharon Carter would oversee her medical exam. Peggy's niece, Fury had said. Someone who understands power.
What kind of power, Nick? And what aren't you telling me?
The news drones on. Stark boards his jet, waving like a conquering hero heading to war. Natasha finishes her coffee—black, no sugar, just like she pretends to like it—and wonders if Clint's right about the cliff edge.
The Next Day
Natasha didn't like being cold. Not in her bones, not in her chest, not under the white, humming lights of a SHIELD medical bay where the temperature was set just a few degrees below comfort—as if someone had designed it to make subjects slightly more compliant.
The room smelled like antiseptic and glass. She sat on the edge of the padded table, bare from the waist up except for her compression bra, the one reinforced to hold weight and hide secrets. Her pants stayed on. That had been a condition, non-negotiable.
And miraculously, they'd agreed.
Her right palm rested on her thigh, fingers splayed slightly. No glow, no smoke, no heat. Not yet.
Across the room, Sharon Carter leaned against the wall with practiced indifference, arms crossed over her chest, expression unreadable. She wasn't watching Natasha—at least not directly. But Natasha could feel the attention like a taut wire pulled between them. Chaperone, Fury had said. Oversight.
Babysitter.
"You sure it's just the hand?" Dr. Lieberman asked, squinting at the thermal reader in his palm.
Natasha glanced at him. He was small and sharp, like a man who kept all his thoughts organized in bullet points. Balding. Smelled faintly of stale protein bars and plastic packaging.
"So far," she said. "Palm, fingers. Sometimes the forearm. One time it traced to my chest."
"Which side?"
She smiled sweetly. "Do you want me to pop my bra off to find out?"
The poor man flushed red from his neck to his scalp.
"That won't be necessary," he mumbled, suddenly very interested in his tablet.
Sharon didn't laugh, but Natasha caught the faint twitch of her lips. Huh.
Dr. Lieberman gestured to his assistant—a thin woman in a white coat who looked like she hadn't blinked in the last ten minutes.
"We'll begin the thermal regulation scan," he said. "Please activate the heat, slowly. As close to baseline control as possible."
Natasha nodded, extended her right palm. She'd practiced this. Measured. Controlled. The warmth flickered under her skin like coals catching wind. Her fingers glowed faintly amber, veins lighting like lines of circuitry.
The assistant's eyes widened just slightly. Good. Let them be a little afraid.
"Surface temperature's increasing—past 200 degrees Fahrenheit (past 93 degree Celsius)," she said, tapping on her screen. "Still stable. No cellular breakdown."
"Push higher, please," Lieberman requested, not looking at her—at her palm, at her body, at anything not safely encased in data.
She did. Slowly. Heat shimmered in the air above her skin like the desert above blacktop.
"Three-fifty... four-fifty... five-oh-seven," the assistant murmured. "No sign of internal strain."
"Maintain for twenty seconds," Lieberman instructed.
Natasha held it. Kept her breathing slow. Her skin prickled, but not from the temperature. From the sensation of being seen without being looked at.
The moment passed. She dropped the heat. Her hand cooled.
Dr. Lieberman nodded. "You're stable. No signs of mutation in cardiovascular tissue. No neural disruption. No systemic side effects. Physiology is functioning within enhanced parameters."
"So I'm fine," Natasha said. "Just a walking flamethrower."
"Essentially," he replied.
"Fantastic," she said dryly. "Can I get that in writing for my next Tinder bio?"
Neither of them laughed. Of course they didn't.
Lieberman nodded at his assistant. "We'll compile the data. Final results in seventy-two hours." He turned to Sharon. "Agent Carter, that concludes the scheduled assessment."
Sharon uncrossed her arms. "Copy that. I'll see them out."
The doctors packed up quickly. Too quickly. Like they'd overstayed in a tiger's cage and knew it.
The door shut. Natasha exhaled. Only then did she let her shoulders drop slightly.
Sharon stayed by the wall, hands loose at her sides now.
"You really don't like doctors, huh?" she asked, her voice low.
Natasha snorted. "I like being dissected even less."
Sharon nodded slowly, studying her with a gaze that wasn't clinical, but definitely appraising.
She had an efficient kind of beauty. Pale hair pulled back into a no-nonsense ponytail. Eyes that didn't miss things. Natasha's brain noted all of it automatically. Her body noted the cut of Sharon's waist in the black suit jacket. The subtle stretch of her blouse against her chest. Unavoidable. Subtle. A slip in focus. Natasha wondered for a moment what she would feel like around her cock, but she quickly berrated herself for thinking that, she had Maria now, she didn't need a second woman to warm her cock.
Natasha tugged her top into place and swung her legs off the side of the medical table, boots hitting tile. Her compression gear clung snug under her pants, hiding everything that might raise more questions than this room had time to answer.
She arched a brow. "So," she said lightly, "what's the real reason you're here, Agent Carter?"
A pause.
Sharon looked at her.
Then she stepped forward.
No sound from her boots. That was the first red flag.
Sharon glanced at the wall, then reached into her jacket pocket.
From her palm, something shimmered to life.
No tech. No gadget.
A blade. But not steel.
Ice.
A dagger, crystalline and curved, bloomed from her skin as if conjured from bone-deep instinct. It caught the overhead light and refracted it into sharp angles, fractals, a weapon born of elegance and control.
Natasha's stomach went still.
"You're enhanced too," she said flatly.
Sharon didn't reply at first. Just held the ice dagger between them. The air grew colder.
Natasha's breath didn't fog, but she felt the change. The way her warmed skin registered it, slow and creeping. Her right palm twitched instinctively—heat flaring, just a flicker.
"I was eighteen," Sharon said finally. "Some guy tried to help me after I messed up bad."
Natasha didn't ask what happened.
"I didn't mean to hurt him. Didn't even try. I panicked. His hand froze solid on contact. Skin shattered like glass."
"SHIELD found me within forty-eight hours," Sharon continued. "Offered me a story. A purpose. A clean slate. I was halfway through burning everything I owned when they knocked on my door."
"Recruitment by arson," Natasha muttered. "Classy."
Sharon allowed a brief smile. "They buried my file. Officially, I'm here because of my aunt. Legacy. Patriot bloodline. All very Stars and Stripes."
Natasha studied her. The knife was gone now, reabsorbed or evaporated or whatever neat little trick she used to vanish it. No trace. Not a drop of water on her palm. Not a twitch of effort. The control was... impressive.
Dangerous.
"And now Fury's got you running supervision on me?" Natasha asked. "What, he thinks this is mutant summer camp?"
Sharon's gaze didn't waver. "He thinks something's coming."
Natasha snorted. "Something always is."
"This time's different." Sharon stepped closer. "You think that WWII soldier was a one-off? He wasn't. And he won't be the last enhanced person you face who doesn't know who they are or what they're capable of."
Natasha didn't respond.
"You're the only confirmed Chimera survivor," Sharon said, quieter now. "Which makes you..."
"A walking experiment," Natasha finished.
"A variable," Sharon corrected. "And Fury hates variables."
Natasha crossed her arms, matching the stance Sharon had held earlier. "So he's testing me."
"He's watching you," Sharon said. "Same thing, most days."
Natasha let the words hang, then asked, "Am I being evaluated as a threat?"
A slow breath passed between them. Sharon's voice didn't change. "No."
Pause.
"Not yet."
Natasha's jaw flexed. That told her more than any full report. She wasn't a mission. Not entirely. But she wasn't safe either.
Sharon's tone softened. "Look, I don't know what they did to you in Belarus. And I won't pretend I understand what it's like to wake up in a body that doesn't feel like the one you remember. But I know what it's like to be studied. Monitored. Turned into a file someone else keeps locked away."
Natasha's mouth twitched, humorless. "And here I thought we bonded over stabbing people."
That got a real smile from Sharon.
"I'm not here to rat you out," she said. "Fury doesn't know everything. I don't tell him everything. And if you don't want him to know more, I won't be the one to say it."
That pried something loose inside Natasha she hadn't been expecting—unease mixed with... relief?
"I don't need a friend," Natasha said, not quite lying.
"Good," Sharon replied. "I'm not offering one."
That, weirdly, made Natasha trust her more.
Sharon moved to the doorway, hand already on the panel, then paused. Turned halfway back.
"If you ever do need someone who gets it," she said, "I'm not just a clipboard."
She met Sharon's gaze. "We'll see."
The door opened. Sharon stepped through it and was gone.
Natasha stayed behind, just a little longer, the temperature still dropping in her thoughts. Her right palm warmed slightly, unconsciously responding, the heat curling through her skin like a lit match waiting for purpose.
God help them all if they ever ended up on the same side of a battlefield.
Or the same bed.
Stupid Natasha...
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