Chapter Text
I can feel the thunder that's breaking in your heart
I can see through the scars inside you
Cirice – Ghost
Natasha had come close to death before. She’d been stabbed, shot, and poisoned and none of it had worked. In her line of work, there was an unspoken rule about imagining your own death. It was a superstition that followed her from her days as an assassin to spy to alleged superhero. She hadn’t realized it until several years after her defection when she and Clint were trapped in a motel in Arkansas with twelve hours of downtime.
“You want to watch the game?” he’d asked, pointing over his shoulder at the television.
“It looks old,” she had replied. It had been warped and faded in the way old recordings were, like fabric that had been washed too many times.
“Yeah, it’s from 1973.”
“Why would you watch an old game?” she had asked, moving to stand closer but refusing to sit beside him. “You know the outcome.”
“It’s Nolan Ryan’s first no-hitter,” Clint had explained, paraphrasing with letters when she didn’t recognize the sign for no hitter. “It’s a baseball thing. You aren’t allowed to call it a no-hitter until it’s done. Otherwise, you jinx it.”
Natasha had watched it. It was useful, she told herself at the time, to learn as much as possible about American culture. It would help her blend in better. Her accent had already been rubbed down into an easy, affectless Midwestern standard. Clint had tried to suggest she pick up more regional words, calling her too newscaster. She had looked up baseball slang and worked it into every conversation for a month. He’d laughed every time.
It had occurred to her that night that being a spy and thinking about dying was a lot like being a pitcher and saying no-hitter midgame: a self-fulfilling curse. She had never imagined how she would die, but she’d always been sure it would happen in the field. At first, the thought had been comforting; after Sokovia, it had been soul-crushing; after Thanos—well, it had been something to hold on to. One last ride.
She thought it was only right that she remembered that night with Clint, at the end. Defecting had felt like dying too. It felt like the day the Winter Soldier shot her in the stomach—she couldn’t think about James Barnes pulling the trigger. It was an ending and a beginning.
In a way, Natasha had died many times before, lived many lives, more than she deserved. She was content with what came next. So it was shocking to discover that death felt a lot like being alive.
She sat up, expecting to feel pain. Her body was whole and unchanged as far as she could tell. She was cold and nauseous, but otherwise uninjured. There were no marks on her clothes or skin. She was somewhere dark, so dark that she struggled to see while her eyes adjusted. She was dizzy when she moved.
Light flared above her and she thought finally, it’s over.
Two figures appeared in the dark. Neither looked like any god or demon in any religion Natasha had ever known. They were small, about her size or shorter. They came into focus all at once, as if a screen had lifted before her eyes. The taller of the two by a few centimeters was glowing green with burnt umber skin and ruby red hair. Otherwise, she looked to be a teenage girl, dressed in 90s rave wear and floating a meter off the ground. The other was in a defensive stance that Natasha recognized—meant for bow staff—cloaked and masked, revealing only a sharp pale face and short dark hair.
The glowing one descending and stepped towards her. Natasha shifted her feet underneath herself, ready to jump. She eyed the one in the cloak. Were these other souls damned to whatever circle of hell she landed in? Could she still be hurt, if she was dead?
“Radio the Watchtower,” the cloaked one said in a teenage boy’s voice. He stood up a little straighter. “We identified the source of the energy burst. We have a…”
He trailed off and the glowing green one glared at him.
“A patient for transport,” he finished.
“Are you alright?” the glowing one asked. She had a beautiful lilting voice in an accent Natasha couldn’t recognize. “We will help you. You may call me Starfire.”
Natasha stood slowly. She felt her own pulse beating against her ribs. Could it be possible that she was alive? No one fully understood the function of the stones. They might have transported her to a distant planet in her attempt to retrieve them. She couldn’t remember exactly what she had been doing before she died. It was fading quickly, like a dream upon waking.
“You have a name?” the one in the cloak asked. He was eyeing her outfit. It screamed combat. She didn’t blame him. Clearly these beings were enforcement or surveillance or something—she couldn’t guess what until she knew where she was.
“Where am I and what day is it?” she asked instead of replying.
The one in the mask and cloak held up his hand when Starfire tried to answer, fixing her with a hard glare.
“My name is Talia,” she said.
He nodded. “You’re in Jump City, by the docks. It’s April 12. What’s the last day you remember?”
Natasha looked at him more closely. His clothes were more garish than she initially realized, not dissimilar from the metallic bodysuit his companion wore. There was no place called Jump City on the Earth she knew. Alien planets wouldn’t use the Gregorian calendar.
“April 11,” she lied. She couldn’t remember the date she died, only colours, sensations, faces—Steve needing a haircut. She didn’t understand why she was thinking about that. It pulled on her in a way she didn’t like, the way memories of Steve always did. It felt too much like affection. It hurt like death should have hurt.
“Where are you from?” Starfire asked. “This is Robin, by the way.”
Robin didn’t seem impressed that she knew his name. Natasha couldn’t find anything familiar about either of them or the world around her to build a lie upon, so she decided to be honest and say: “Earth.”
Starfire’s expression stuttered and Robin’s mouth twisted. They really did look like children. She wondered if they might be mutants—some of Xavier’s—but they didn’t wear his insignia.
“Oh, yes, I assumed. You are human,” Starfire said. “Which part of Earth? You are American?”
“You could say that,” Natasha replied.
Robin looked skeptically at her belt again, which had three visible weapon holsters. Her guns were gone and she didn’t remember why. The knives in her suit were still accessible. As soon as that thought crossed her mind and before Robin could say anything else, two men dropped from the sky.
Natasha moved without thinking, possessed by the ghost of her past, and shifted into an offensive position with the two teenagers behind her. She drew a knife and threw it with deadly accuracy at the first man, who caught it easily in front of his face.
“This is the patient?” he asked. He was wearing a similarly ridiculous outfit, a long black cape and a mask with pointed ears that disguised most of his face. He looked well-trained, from the set of his feet to the way he handled the knife, but he wore nothing to indicate what organization he represented and his get-up was too flashy for a spy.
“I don’t like surprises,” Natasha said. The man in black froze. She doubted an average person would be able to tell, but to her the tension was obvious. For some reason, she wished she could see his eyes through the mask.
The man behind him was either a mutant or an alien, because he was massively tall and broad with incandescently green skin and unnatural, reflective eyes. He wore very little besides his cloak. He waved his hand.
“Enough,” he said. The man in black didn’t look at him, although he was obviously annoyed. The green man continued: “The disturbance is gone. I think our visitor has travelled a long way… perhaps she may not even know how or why.”
Natasha’s eyes flickered to the green man, although her body remained faced towards the man in black. He was the aggressor, like Robin. She was hyperaware of the teenagers behind her. She had decided they were the lesser of two evils, but that wasn’t necessarily true.
“She says her name is Talia,” Starfire offered. “She is from Earth. An American.”
"Technically,” Robin added, as if that was important. Natasha felt he was just trying to get the last word. “She said she remembers April 11.”
The green man looked at her with an impenetrable gaze and she knew that he could tell that wasn’t true. Natasha thought maybe they were all a hallucination. Maybe she wasn’t dead after all, but in a coma, or suffering from a serious head injury that was causing her to have a strange dream.
Strange triggered a memory of Doctor Strange opening portals between worlds. Worlds beyond the solar system, beyond even the realms that Thor knew on Asgard, realms beyond their understanding. Natasha looked at the green man again and she had the sinking feeling she wasn’t on a new planet but in a new reality.
If Strange could do it, so could the stones. The stone must not have killed her but sent her through the fabric of time and space into another universe, one with a different Earth and different heroes. It was likely that everything and everyone she knew was gone.
Natasha swallowed the lump in her throat. Death was an end and a beginning.
“We’ll go to the Watchtower,” the man in black said.
The green man glanced at his companion, obviously shocked. He was not skilled in disguising his reactions. Definitely not a spy. Her instinct to trust him grew stronger. They had some kind of silent conversation before the green man said to her: “You may call me J’onn. Do you consent to travel by teleportation?”
As soon as she nodded, she felt a sharp tug behind her bellybutton that jerked her back and forth and when she blinked she was in a new place. She felt winded. It was indoors and dimly lit, industrial, and reminded her of SHIELD’s hovercrafts.
A woman stood behind the control panel across the room. She was tall and muscular, not as big as J’onn, but at least as tall as the man in black. She was wearing a leotard in red, white, and blue with silver stars, her long black hair hanging loose down her back. She did not wear a mask and her face was stunning with an aquiline nose and clear blue eyes.
“That was unnecessary,” J’onn said. He did not sound like he was scolding, although his words were clearly meant that way. “Everything was under control. You could simply have explained what would happen.”
The man in black tossed the knife at the tall woman instead of answering. She caught it with practiced hands, turning it over to inspect the handle. Her eyes flickered to Natasha.
“We’ll use room five,” the man in black said.
“Hi,” the tall woman said to Natasha rather than acknowledging him. “I’m Diana.”
“Talia.”
Diana raised her eyebrows and glanced at the man in black, who ignored her to type something into the panel she’d be standing beside. She touched the lasso hanging on her golden belt. Natasha could tell it had a supernatural quality, like the glow that Asgardian objects had, but suspected touching it was a nervous habit rather than a functional one.
“Why don’t I come with you?” she suggested. “J’onn and I have much to discuss.”
“Weapons first,” the man in black said.
They turned to Natasha expectantly and she pulled out the knife that matched the one she had thrown earlier. No one moved, so she additionally undid the utility belt and dropped it on the floor.
The man in black crossed his arms. “All of them.”
She rolled her eyes and unzipped the suit. There were two other sets of throwing knives, the blades in the boots, the extendable baton, and the garrote.
“Want to pat me down and check?” she asked. None of them would have known about the bracelet or what it could do. It was for her comfort. She doubted she would be able to handle all of them in hand to hand, anyway, and had no viable escape options if she could. “I’d like those back after we talk.”
The man in black said nothing, but Diana and J’onn exchanged a meaningful look. They proceeded down a series of equally dimly lit hallways, all metal, with numbered doors. Some had access code panels and others did not. The room they intended to use did and the man in black used it. The other two remained behind Natasha in something like a prisoner escort formation.
Room five looked like a small conference room with a round table and several chairs. There were no bolts, nothing to hook cuffs to, and no two-way glass. There was a window in the opposite wall and through it Natasha could see an array of stars and a shocking view of planet Earth, just as she knew it.
“We are in orbit,” J’onn said, either anticipating her question or sensing it as he had before. “The Watchtower is the base of the Justice League, who protect the planet from all manner of threats. A union of heroes from different cultures and worlds, working together for a common goal.”
The man in black pulled out a chair and Natasha sat in it. She fell easily into the slinking civilian body she’d used before, crossing her legs at the ankles and folding her hands. His movements around her were still stiff, guarded, as if he expected her attack at any moment.
“And who are you?” she asked.
Diana smiled smugly and the man in black seemed surprised. He sat down across the table, between his two companions, looking even more out of place in a board room than he had on the docks. Natasha’s mind reeled with probabilities, trying to tailor a story for herself. If she was in a different universe, she had little chance of returning home. Her insides twisted again. She had accepted many missions before from which she knew she may not return.
“They call him the Batman,” Diana explained. “Some of us choose to wear a mask. For others, it is not possible.”
“I understand,” Natasha replied. “But what am I doing here?”
“We were hoping you could tell us that,” Batman said. “We recorded a large energy burst in Jump City about an hour ago. And its coordinators correlate exactly with where we found you.”
“Your interest in this,” Natasha said, “Is the protection of Earth?”
“Of course.”
She looked hard at J’onn again. He was likely some kind of telepath or empath or otherwise using magic (she hated that word) to sense her truthfulness. The best lies were mostly truth.
“You’re right,” she said to the green man. “I came from another place. Another time. Another world, I think. Parts of this world are familiar to me but most of it is not. I do not know how or why I was transported here.”
“You’re a soldier, on that world?”
“No.”
J’onn looked meaningfully at Diana, as if they were having some kind of silent conversation again. She wondered if he could do it with anyone or if they simply knew each other well enough to understand what the other was thinking. Batman remained unmoved.
“You threw a knife at my head,” he deadpanned.
“You surprised me.”
“That’s how you greet everyone, where you’re from?”
Natasha almost smiled. “It’s been known to happen.”
“You tell the truth,” J’onn said. “But not the whole truth.”
Natasha reflexively bit her tongue. It was not as if these people could use the information. They seemed to have similar abilities and technology as her own world, where such a thing should not have been possible. “I can only speculate that I was sent here by the magical object I was pursuing,” she said eventually. “I do not remember if I found it, but I don’t have it with me now.”
Before Batman could say something else, Diana asked: “You said your world was like ours, but different. How so?”
“Technology, clothing, language seem the same,” she answered. “The United States exists in both worlds. We have an… alliance of people interested in protecting the planet. There are several, actually. The most similar to yours is called the Avengers. They are individuals with supernatural powers, some by birth and others by science, who seek to keep the peace.”
“And you are familiar with these Avengers?”
“They asked me to find this object to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.”
“We should ask Zatanna,” Diana suggested. “She may understand. She could help.”
“Who said we’re going to help?” Batman asked.
Natasha did not understand his hostility, especially since the other two seemed amenable. In fact, she did not understand why he’d brought her to the Watchtower at all. It was secure enough; there was little chance she’d be able to escape without assistance. But it also seemed to be a central base for their organization, not a prison. J’onn’s surprise ran through her mind again. She decided to cut to the chase.
“Why did you bring me here, then?” she asked.
“You said my words,” Batman replied, as if she should know what he meant.
Diana blinked slowly and J’onn stilled. They both clearly knew the significant of the words. Natasha tried to remember everything she had said in front of him. While she retained most of her long term memories, the time immediately before her death was so blurred that she barely understood it. It was possible she’d been instructed to use a password or indicator and couldn’t remember it. She did remember the first thing she’d said to him.
“I don’t like surprises,” she repeated.
Diana let out a short, shocked laugh. “Oh, this would happen to you,” she said. “I don’t know if I should congratulate her or give her my condolences.”
“Perhaps this is more of a personal matter, not the League’s,” J’onn added.
Natasha tried to understand what they expected her to know. Did they believe she knew Batman somehow? It didn’t make sense, if they believed her story about being from another world. Diana and J’onn definitely seemed to believe it. Nothing they’d said implied interdimensional travel was possible for them.
“Words can be faked,” Batman said. “The energy would be the perfect way to get our attention.”
Diana looked mortified. “Surely you don’t mean that. The only people that know are… you don’t intend to have her show you here? Like this?”
“It is the most effective solution,” J’onn said. “But I agree with Diana. It should be private.”
Natasha tried to breathe out slowly and deliberately. Show him what?
Diana must have sensed the tension, because she quickly offered an alternative. She was a decisive, forward person; assertive, affectionate with her friends. Natasha instinctively liked her. She reminded her of Steve.
“Maybe she would be more comfortable with me,” she said. “You know you can trust me. Each of you can speak with me privately and then we’ll know how we should proceed.”
Natasha was more comfortable with that. Diana already believed most of her story, so it was likely she would believe a cover. The only problem was that Natasha didn’t understand what they were talking about, so it was going to be very difficult to lie.
The three of them left her alone in the room for several minutes, presumably to argue where she couldn’t hear. The nausea that had gripped her earlier had faded. She felt surprisingly good. The painful realization that everyone she knew was gone was replaced with hope that she might have succeeded in her task and they were safe. It wasn’t the worst place she’d been trapped.
Diana returned, a frown marring her beautiful face. She moved effortlessly, powerful limbs gliding through the air like a dancer, and her shiny hair swung behind her like she was a supermodel on a red carpet. She sat in the chair beside Natasha. It had been a long time since someone was so comfortable sharing her space.
“I’m sorry about this,” she said. She was almost whispering, although there was no one else in the room. “I know he had his reasons, but it shouldn’t have happened like this. Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” Natasha said quietly.
“Then let’s get it over with,” Diana said, nodding toward her left arm.
Natasha slowly undid the sleeve of her suit. She was unsure what the other woman expected to see. As she peeled the fabric back, she was shocked to discover a sentence on her forearm, just below the bone of her elbow. The thin, sharp handwriting was cramped but she could read it: This is the patient? The world titled on its axis.
Diana inhaled sharply. Natasha felt like she might hyperventilate. How long had she been unconscious? Had someone tattooed her before she died or after? She especially did not understand what, if anything, it had to do with Batman.
“It’s a match,” Diana said with a genuine smile. “I think now I have to give you my condolences.”
“A match,” Natasha repeated. She tried to calm down and think through the new problem. The words on her arm were the first thing Batman had said to her, after she’d thrown the knife. There was no way anyone could have known that. It wasn’t possible to predict it with such precision, even for the clairvoyants she knew.
“I always knew his soulmate would be unusual,” Diana said. “I hope that we can be friends.”
“Soulmate,” she repeated again. She touched the words lightly and it felt like static electricity buzzing on her skin. It wasn’t any kind of magic she had heard of before. It felt real. She couldn’t articulate why, but it felt real. Natasha felt like she was losing her grip on reality.
“Did you not have it before you came here?” Diana asked.
She jerked in her seat. The other woman’s blue eyes were sharp, moving between the words and Natasha’s face with a calculating stare. It was pointless to pretend, so Natasha nodded.
“No one has them,” she said.
“I see. I think he needs to talk to you,” Diana said. She stood up and straightened her shoulders.
Natasha thought that was a waste of time. She already knew everything she needed to know about the Batman. She had met enough men just like him, who had been trained so well they’d forgotten how to be human beings. She knew enough about Diana it was just as useless to argue with her. Instead, she watched her stride out of the room like it was a battlefield.
After forty-six silent seconds, Natasha heard Diana’s voice through the door. It was elevated and tense. She couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, but she knew it must have been Batman.
“She didn’t know,” Diana said. There was a long pause and then she continued: “You trust me. It’s very real. I would know your writing anywhere and it’s in exactly the right place. You need to give it a chance.”
Natasha crossed her arms on the table and leaned her head against them.
“I could,” J’onn’s voice carried through the door as well, “But only if she consents.”
There was another long pause. In the silence, the old habits of the Red Room pulled at her. Natasha resisted slipping back into the cold, detached asset she had once been. It was better to hurt than to feel nothing. That was the choice she had made.
“You’re being unreasonable,” Diana said. “One day you’re going to regret punishing yourself for the things you can’t change.”
The door opened suddenly and Natasha looked up in time to see Batman walk away. Diana looked furious, cheeks flushed pink and hands clenched at her sides. J’onn looked resigned. They both entered the room and Natasha sat back in her chair again. Whatever they had been instructed to do, Diana clearly did not agree. She sat heavily in the chair she had occupied before, crossing her arms across her chest.
“You must have guessed I have telepathic abilities,” J’onn said.
Natasha nodded.
“It has been requested,” he continued, his tone implying just who had made the request, “That I do a test to determine the veracity of your story. It would involve me seeing your thoughts and memories. I have done it many times and it will not harm you. I can guarantee that I only seek to verify that you traveled here by the magical object you described and that you have no affiliation with our enemies. You may end it at any time.”
She let out a long breath. She hated the idea, but the time around her death was nearly gone. J’onn, she knew, might be the only way to recover the memories. It would serve her purpose as much as his. She glanced at Diana, who had a defiant tilt to her chin.
“I consent,” she said.
J’onn nodded and then it began. It did not feel the way she expected. It felt wrong, as if she was herself and not herself. She remembered being a little girl in dance class and touching her feet to her head, feeling both that it was someone else’s head and someone else’s foot. She knew what J’onn knew. She saw Thanos arrive in Wakanda, the people around her vanishing, the stones, Steve and Tony and Thor and Clint and falling—
She blinked and it was over. J’onn stood exactly where he had been before. Relief flooded her body, releasing the tension from her limbs, draining the adrenaline of the fight and the interrogation. She had succeeded in her task. Earth as she knew it was safe. There was nothing more she could have done. Tears gathered in the corner of her eyes.
“I am sorry,” he said. “What a short and difficult life.”
“Well, it’s not over yet,” she replied.
J’onn smiled, genuinely, for the first time. “No, it isn’t. I will leave you, now, although I hope we meet again. As friends.”
Diana stood as he left the room, tension rolling through her body. There was something preternatural about her that Natasha couldn’t put her finger on. It was like the way Thor knew and didn’t know his own strength.
“Come on,” she said. “We’ll do the security screening now. We can create some ID for you while we’re at it.”
The spy in Natasha recoiled at the idea of this extrajudicial organization having her data, but she swallowed it and agreed. They proceeded down the hall to a more familiar room with screens and identification devices.
Under Diana’s direction, Natasha stepped into a full body scanner. As she pressed her hand on the pad for finger prints, the door opened and another man appeared. Diana recognized him, greeting him with an easy smile. He was nearly as tall as Diana and he had close cropped dark hair. He wore a black and green suit with a symbol she didn’t recognize.
“Forgive me, but I had to see this,” he said. “You must be Talia.”
“They call him the Green Lantern,” Diana explained. “He’s a member of the Justice League.”
“Nice to meet you,” she replied.
“Is it true you threw a knife at his face?” Green Lantern asked. “It’s exactly what he deserves. I knew all the shit he talked would catch up to him one day. You know, the people who bet on an Amazon will be disappointed.”
Natasha knew that he meant the Batman. The words on her left arm itched like a healing wound. Once she’d seen them, she was hyperaware of what was under her sleeve. The computer beeped.
“No record of you,” Diana said. “You can get out of the scanner.”
Natasha stepped down, boots echoing on the metal floor. She wished she could have her weapons back but it didn’t seem the time to ask for them.
“Where is he, Diana?” Green Lantern asked.
“He had business to take care of, offsite.”
Green Lantern looked surprised, his mouth opening and closing quickly. Obviously, it was not typical for people with matching words to separate. The word soulmate echoed in her mind. Natasha didn’t like how much it affected her.
“I’ll have a new identification made for you,” Diana continued. “What is your full name?”
“Natalia,” she replied. “Natalia Rogers.”
It slipped out before she could stop it. It wasn’t a name she had used before on a mission—too obvious. But no one knew Steve Rogers. He’d never been born, never turned into Captain America, never woken up in a new century. It would be easy to remember. It was almost a nice memory, as Steve had been one of her few friends. Hadn’t they both wanted to stop running someday? She thought he’d be happy for her if she found a new life. She hoped wherever he was, he could do the same.
Diana didn’t react, typing the name into the computer.
“Birth year?”
“1986.”
“Nationality?”
“American. Brooklyn, New York,” she said. She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. It hurt thinking about how no one else would understand the joke. “Father, American. Mother, Russian. Defected.”
“Defected?” Green Lantern asked. “Interesting choice of words.”
Natasha smiled the cold smile she had perfected on the job. “It was the Cold War.”
“Natural hair colour?” Diana continued. “Eyes, green.”
“Red,” Natasha answered, touching the long blonde ends of her hair. She thought it was time to cut it and let it grow on its own. She wouldn’t have to worry about someone recognizing her. It was hard to accept. “158 centimeters, 61 kilograms.”
Diana raised an eyebrow.
“Not my first rodeo,” Natasha admitted. “I did throw a knife at his head.”
The Green Lantern let out a long laugh, his right hand resting over his stomach and his left clutching the top of one of the computers to support his weight.
“I really like you,” he wheezed out eventually. It made her remember the time she’d told Thor that people on Midgard could not swim after he’d thrown Clint in a lake. It had been one of their first missions together as a group. His disconcertion had become a booming laugh when he realized the joke and Clint had surfaced with an indignant shout.
“You are more the jester than anyone gives you credit for,” Thor had said, clapping her on the back with a huge powerful hand. “You should play more jokes on us!”
“Do not encourage her!” Clint had screamed back.
His voice sounded so clear and real, as if she was standing on the sand under the noon sun, as if Clint was only fifteen feet away. Natasha physically shook her head to get rid of the memory.
“Are you alright?” Diana asked.
“I was somewhere else,” Natasha said. “I’m fine.”
Diana leaned forward, sharp eyes roving across her face. “That can happen after what J’onn did. It should pass with time. You must tell me if anything hurts.”
Natasha wanted to scream that it all hurt, but she nodded instead.
“I’ll show you somewhere you can rest,” Diana said. She turned to the Green Lantern and said: “Why don’t you get She—Hawkgril? I think she might have clothes we can borrow.”
He blushed and made his excuses, blustering out of the room.
“You’ll stay in the Watchtower for now,” Diana said. It was meant to be reassuring but Natasha felt like she was being imprisoned. Panic was coming to a slow boil inside of her. That had always been her first instinct—to run away.
If Natasha had any questions about why they might call someone Hawkgirl, they were swiftly answered by the woman’s enormous pair of golden-brown wings. She had vibrantly red hair and no other remarkable features. While by no means petite, she was much closer in size to Natasha than Diana was.
“The clothes should do for now,” the woman said. “You’re… well, you’re much smaller than anyone else around here.”
“Thanks,” she managed.
The winged woman nodded. She seemed preoccupied, not as interested in examining their guest, and hardly said goodbye.
“Don’t mind her,” Diana explained. “She’s been through a lot.”
They crossed the facility to a residential area, making a brief stop to retrieve the weapons she’d left in the transportation bay. Diana showed her to a small room with a view of the Earth. There was a military style, minimalistic bed and chair. Both were bolted to the floor. Natasha forced herself to relax. There was nothing she could do but wait.
“Of course, this is temporary. Where would you like to go?” Diana asked. “Until we resolve this… situation, the League would prefer that you stay in one of our facilities. We have outposts on most of the continents. I know my homeland, Themyscira, would welcome you to our sisterhood.”
Natasha considered what she wanted. She wanted to remain close to the League, until she understood the situation as well, but she did not want to be trapped somewhere remote. She wanted access to the rest of the world. She wanted a chance to get her bearings and slip away if needed. She wondered why the stone had delivered her to Jump City in the first place. It was a good a start as any.
“That sounds nice, but I think I should be in Jump City. I feel I was sent there for a reason.”
“Very well,” Diana agreed. “The Tower has room for guests and the Titans are already involved. I can take you there myself.”
“You are being very accommodating,” Natasha said.
“I am, aren’t I?” Diana said with a rueful smile. “I’ve known him a long time. I think besides Superman I’m the closest thing he has to a friend. I suppose I’m a romantic and I hope you’ll be mad enough to forgive him for this. And… it was the right thing to do.”
Natasha blinked, thinking about Steve again. It was gone as soon as it came to her.
“Rest as well as you can,” Diana said, as if she knew Natasha would never be able to fall asleep, floating thousands of miles above a different world. “We’ll leave tomorrow morning.”
Natasha sat down on the bed. She listened to the hydraulic hinge on the door and then the complete silence of space. The blue not-Earth turned below the window. She could be patient, she told herself. For some reason, the universe had given her a new chance at life. She had to use it wisely.