Natasha Romanoff stood looking at herself in the bathroom mirror. Though when she looked at it she didn't see Natasha Romanoff, SHIELD Agent, former assassin. No she saw Natalie Roma, an estate agent and current girlfriend of shields number 1 person of interest, Mark Grayson. She'd just arrived at base and still had her hair and makeup on from her disguise, she leaned down and turned the tap on before she started to wash it off.
She rubbed hard, a lot harder than she needed to, by the time she had gotten it all off her skin was red and her hands were trembling slightly. She took a deep breath before she undid the ponytail her hair had been in and let the wavy red hair run past her shoulders. She looked back into the mirror, this was Natasha Romanoff, this was who she was. "Pull yourself together..." she whispered to herself before she pushed off the sink and left the bathroom. She still had to get changed out of her outfit but that didn't take too long and in less than a minute she was headed towards the briefing room.
Natasha didn't bother slowing down as she made her way toward the briefing room. The skin on her face still felt raw from scrubbing off the makeup, her scalp was tight from pulling out the ponytail, and the remnants of Natalie Roma still clung to her like a second skin she hadn't finished peeling off. She could've taken a minute to breathe, but she didn't. She just kept walking. As long as she kept moving forward he wouldn't have to keep thinking about things.
Agents nodded to her as she passed—respectful, professional, the way they always were—but it felt thin this morning, or maybe it was just her; she didn't feel like herself lately. She walked into the room without hesitation and saw the usual crowd already there; Maria Hill, seated on Fury's right; Coulson on the left, arms folded as he scanned the files in front of him; Clint, sitting two chairs down; a scattering of analysts, intel officers, and field leads, all here for one reason.
Mark Grayson.
Natasha took a seat near the middle, keeping her back straight as she folded her hands on the table, and did her best to ignore the knot forming in her stomach. She already knew what this meeting was going to be. Another update. Another round of speculation. Mark was likely being put up a threat level which was why they are bringing in all these other people.
Once everyone was in Director Fury didn't waste time. He stood at the front of the room, tapped the tablet in his hand, and brought the screen to life with a series of photos, surveillance footage, timestamps, and data sets. "Subject is Grayson, Mark," Fury said in his usual stern voice. "Physical capabilities remain largely unquantified, but we're working off benchmarks from the Harlem incident. Strength: comparable to Banner when fully triggered. Durability: not on Banners level, but still too high for conventional force to matter. He takes hits from Hulk and the Abomination and is relatively uninjured. Small arms don't do a thing. Heavy ordinance has yet to be confirmed. Flight is confirmed—unassisted, no tech detected. Speed is off the charts. Reaction time's something else. Needless to say he's a dangerous person."
He swiped the screen again. A new slide appeared. "We got lucky. During Romanoff's field work, we obtained biological samples. Lab results confirm Grayson is not human. DNA shows no match to any known Earth-based genome, including mutant variants. This puts us in uncharted territory. Whatever he is, he isn't from here."
The room was silent for a moment.
"If more of his species come down," Fury continued, "and if they share his abilities, we've got a global problem. We have no idea if there are more of them or if he was sent here as a Scout, or if he plans to rule over us."
He let that hang for a beat before shifting tone.
"Until he accepts our offer, Grayson remains our top person of interest. He's not hostile as of the moment, but his freedom of movement and power set put every strategic model in the red. The longer he stays independent, the more nervous the people get."
Clint leaned over, lowering his voice just enough for her to hear. "You alright?"
Natasha didn't turn her head. "I'm fine," she said quietly. "Just a little sick."
"Yeah," Clint muttered, "you don't look fine."
Before she could respond, Fury glanced toward her.
"Agent Romanoff."
She stood and walked to the front of the room without breaking pace. As she reached the front she turned to face the room, this room full of people dissecting the life of someone they didn't know.
"Agent Romanoff has been embedded with Grayson for the last couple months," Fury said, giving the room a nod. "She'll brief you on her findings."
Natasha drew a breath and started.
"Mark Grayson presents as a civilian. No past criminal activity, no suspicious affiliations. His cover is airtight, but it's false.. He passes as a regular man because he doesn't want to appear different from his friends. Beneath it, he's... advanced. Beyond anything I've encountered. He learns fast. Extremely fast. Not just skills or habits, but systems. He teaches himself complex engineering and adapts to new information with barely any delay. I believe his cognitive capacity—particularly in technical and mechanical domains—far exceeds human standard. Possibly beyond enhanced or mutant thresholds."
She removed a hard drive from her pocket, slotted it into the console, and brought up a photo of Mark's workspace. The image showed a cluttered table with wires, fans, a repurposed motherboard, a jury-rigged cooling system that looked crude but efficient.
"This was one of his builds. A gaming PC, supposedly, for a client. I analyzed it while he was out. Using scavenged parts, standard tools, and modified firmware, he produced something that outperforms most secure military-grade systems. I valued this unit conservatively at fifty thousand dollars. He charged five hundred dollars."
She paused, then smiled slightly without meaning to.
*Life is tough. People should find happiness wherever they can find it. I don't want to charge too much for that.*
Her throat caught slightly. She looked down, blinked, then raised her eyes again after composing herself.
"Since the Harlem incident, he's kept a narrow pattern. Cleanup work. Community assistance. He's involved with Luke Cage, an owner of a bar in the area; real name Carl Earl Lucas, current escapee from upstate, though it seemed his conviction was more than a little framed. Apart from that his remaining time is split between electronics work, his friends, and mostly me."
Maria raised her voice from across the table. "Have you identified any weaknesses?"
Natasha shook her head. "No. I've tested what I can without breaching cover. He maintains excellent physical conditioning, fast recovery, high resistance to injury. No apparent genetic instability. His psychological profile is stable, though lately he has been distracted."
Coulson leaned forward. "Likelihood of him turning on humanity?"
"Low," she answered. "Very low. From what I can tell, he doesn't see himself as alien. He identifies as human—or at least believes that's what he is. He may suspect he's different, but if he does, he hasn't expressed any belief that he belongs to a different race, species, or culture. If anything, I think he believes he's a mutant who developed powers late, or some kind of anomaly."
Fury nodded slightly and turned back to the room.
"Appreciate your work, Agent. Stay on him. Keep his trust. We'll do the rest."
He stepped back toward the center and let his eye scan across the table.
"Everyone in his orbit is now on our list. Friends, coworkers, neighbors, casual acquaintances. We'll build full profiles, watch for patterns, and flag potential triggers. If he ever turns, it won't be random—it'll be because something happened to someone close to him. That's the risk we're managing for now."
He folded his arms.
"In the meantime, we'll be developing failsafe measures, nonlethal deterrents, containment solutions, and, if necessary, targeted countermeasures. No one's talking about assassination. Yet. But if things go sideways, I'm not waiting until we're behind the eight-ball."
He gave one final look around the table.
"That's all. Dismissed."
As the rest of the room began gathering their files and whispering amongst themselves, Natasha turned and left without a word. She didn't speak to Clint. She didn't look at Maria. She walked as fast as she could, not because she wanted to be gone, but because if she didn't leave now, she'd start thinking about the look on Mark's face if he ever found out that she'd betrayed him. She moved quickly through the hall, not quite storming but not inviting conversation either, aiming to get to her room before anyone else tried to pull her back into another conversation about Mark or about anything else. She was nearly at the corner when she heard her name.
"Nat!"
She didn't stop, but she did slow down. Just a little.
"Hey," Clint said, catching up to her with an easy stride. "You gonna tell me what's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong," she replied, keeping her tone flat as she kept walking.
Clint let out a short breath. "Yeah, pull the other one. Come on, Nat—I know you better than that. You're not acting like yourself. You haven't been for a while."
She stopped, finally, and turned to face him. He wasn't wrong. That's what made it worse. "I'm fine," she said, forcing eye contact. "I just haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately."
He gave her a worried expression for a moment, before it disappeared and he gave her a small smile. "Well," he said, "if you change your mind, I'm here. You can talk to me. Any time."
She gave him a small smile. "I appreciate it."
"You want to get lunch?" he offered. "I was gonna hit the mess. Thought maybe you could use something."
That got a real smile out of her, if only for a second. "I've got to get back. Already made plans with Mark."
"Alright, be careful," he said. "See you soon."
"Yeah," she said, watching him turn and head down the hallway. "See you."
She stood there for a moment, then kept walking until she reached her room. Once inside, she shut the door behind her and locked it. The walls felt closer than usual, like the room was trying to suffocate her. She crossed to her desk, sat down, and powered up the terminal. There was still work to do. She hadn't uploaded the latest footage from the micro-bug she'd stitched into Mark's hoodie a few days back. The data was sitting in her drive, timestamped and catalogued. All she had to do was decrypt and push it to the secure server. A simple task.
She plugged in the drive. The video loaded automatically.
The footage opened with Mark's voice. He was talking to Luke Cage, at least that's the voice it sounded like.
*I want to show the world that things like kindness and hope aren't luxuries, I want to show them that this world can be a better place...*
She sat back, arms crossed tight over her chest as the footage kept playing. He didn't sound rehearsed. He didn't sound like someone trying to look good. He sounded like someone who believed it. And that made her stomach twist. She let it run for another few seconds, then reached for the keyboard.
She hovered over the upload prompt.
Her fingers didn't move.
The footage wasn't incriminating. There was nothing tactical in it. Nothing about power levels or secret weaknesses. But it was intimate in a way. This was his dream, his hope, she couldn't devalue it like this, she tried to force herself but she couldn't.
She backed away from the keyboard and deleted the file.
She stared at the confirmation message for a long time, then whispered under her breath, "What am I doing?"
Her chair scraped softly against the floor as she stood. She walked into the bathroom, flicked on the light, and looked at herself in the mirror again. This time she held her own gaze for more than a second.
She saw her face but the longer she stared, the more it looked unfamiliar. The more she felt like she was looking at one of her various characters or disguises.
She opened the drawer beneath the sink, pulled out the compact, and started applying the makeup Natalie Roma would wear. Lighter on the eyes, smoother foundation, lip color just shy of too red. She tied her hair up in the familiar half-knot and then let it fall just the way Natalie liked. One more pass in the mirror and it was done. Natalie Roma, cheerful girlfriend, pleasant, curious, a little scattered but always happy. She looked back at her with a soft smile.
It had all become so natural lately. Too natural.
Natasha Romanoff was starting to feel like the mask now.
(AN: Poor Nat, she's starting to feel things, a little cliche but tbh I don't care, good guys get pussy as far as I'm concerned. Not nice guys though... never nice guys. Apologises to any nice guys who read this. Try not to scare away the 1% of my female viewership.)
Support and read the Superman/the Boys thing I did. Pretty cool.
Patreon.com/captainalfie78works