Title: It Was Only a Change of Plan
Author: sholio
Fandom: Captain America
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1600
Content notes: Civil War spoilers
Author notes: The title is from a Neil Young song which otherwise doesn't have a whole lot to do with this fic. Also, mods, I think I earned a name tag with this one? \o/?
Summary: Natasha has a meeting, and reflects on her choices. Missing scene near the end of CA:CW.



The thought occurs to Natasha, as she ties back her brown-dyed ponytail in a Nairobi hotel room, that she's going to need some new disguises. Ever since she's been in the spy game, her go-to guise in parts of the world where white faces tend to stand out is that of an itinerant university-student backpacker. For good or ill (but usefully for her purposes), Western students go everywhere and no one pays much attention to them.

She inspects herself in the mirror: the disguise still passes muster. For now.

But there's only so long that a woman in her thirties can pretend to be twenty-two.

It's not that she can't think of other options, she muses as she sips a cup of coffee at a cafe down the street, her pack with minimal travel supplies resting against her leg. It's mainly that she never expected to live this long. She has a contingency plan for everything except, as it turns out, surviving past her twenties.

And it keeps surprising her, the way that aging catches her off guard in small ways. It's not the big things -- those she expects, can prepare for. But she never anticipated how differently she'd think about things at thirty than at twenty; she never understood how a lifetime builds up, in ways that can't be undone. Everything she's done, every person she's loved or lost leaves a trace like scar tissue. It drags at her like half-welcome, half-unwanted luggage that she has to carry around with her everywhere, making it harder than it used to be to slip in and out of her many chameleon skins. Habits and likes and dislikes, old friends and old enemies weigh her down.

She thought she could shed it all after D.C. She'd lost SHIELD, lost her anonymity -- lost everything, it seemed. If there ever was a time to throw it all away and be reborn as a new woman, that would have been the time.

And yet, here she is, doing the same sort of things with most of the same people. The only thing that's changed is that she's acquired a little more scar tissue, bad and good, along the way.

There's soft rustling behind her, and she is intrigued that she didn't see him come in. A voice says quietly, in softly accented English, "What do you recommend here?"

"The Turkish coffee isn't bad, if you want to wake up."

"A little strong for me. I think I'll have a latte."

Natasha snorts. "Hipster."

She watches T'Challa order at the counter. She's not sure if he's going to carry on with the cloak and dagger, but he brings his drink to her table and sits down. He's wearing sunglasses, with a ball cap shading his eyes. It reminds her of Tony's attempts to go out in public without being noticed, which usually result in making himself ten times as conspicuous as usual. The fact that he's this terrible at disguises, and yet managed to enter the cafe without her seeing him, intrigues her to no end; it's very Tony-like too, that blend of supreme competence in some areas and a total lack of it in others.

With Tony still on her mind, before she's entirely aware that she's doing it, she reaches across the table to take the sunglasses off his face. T'Challa brings his hand up with a speed that rivals Steve's, catching her wrist while setting down the cup with his other hand, not spilling a drop. For a moment they stare at each other.

"It is worth pointing out," she says, retrieving her hand with a small effort, "that most people don't wear sunglasses indoors. Doing what no one else is doing makes people notice you."

"Oh." He takes them off and folds them, glancing around as he does so. "I'm somewhat well known, you know."

"Just a little," she agrees, smiling. "But people see what they want to see. They won't expect to see the king of Wakanda in a small Nairobi coffee bar." She reaches for his cup. This time he lets her take it, watching her with curiosity. She takes a small sip. "Not Seattle quality, but not bad. I see they drew you a rose in the foam. That's what you get for flirting with the barista." She gives the cup back; his fingers brush hers as he takes it. "Does Wakanda have Starbucks?"

"We don't allow chain franchises in the country. And most people prefer tea." He half-smiles. "We do, however, have excellent coffee for those who appreciate it, locally produced from sustainable farms."

"Did I say hipster? I meant hippie." He only shrugs, not denying it. Natasha sips from the strong, thick coffee in her cup. "For a country that prides itself on its isolationism," she remarks, "you certainly don't mind making yourselves the targets of a diplomatic hornet's nest."

"I have no idea what you mean," T'Challa says serenely over his hipster latte with its decorative rose. "Wakanda supports the Sokovia Accords."

"While simultaneously harboring fugitives made criminals by those very same Accords."

"Interesting, that a woman tasked with hunting down those same fugitives should know where they are and yet do nothing."

"Touché," she murmurs, and lifts her pack into her lap. She takes out a lip gloss and a USB drive, passing the latter across the table in a loosely closed hand. T'Challa catches on fast, placing his hand over hers and sliding it away with the USB drive secreted within. "Security schematics for the Raft, with a few extras thrown in -- supply delivery timetables, that sort of thing. Light reading. I'm sure you'll enjoy it."

"Thank you." He smiles at her, quick and sweet. "Are you quite sure you wouldn't like to join us? You seem like a woman who appreciates a good jailbreak."

"Don't be ridiculous. I'll be much too busy in Geneva with Secretary Ross, testifying on the latest version of the amended Accords."

"Not at all a way of maintaining plausible deniability while keeping potentially troublesome interruptions away from the Raft."

"Of course not," she remarks, tucking away her lip gloss. "I have been subpoena'd, so naturally I'll be there; I, unlike Tony, have chosen not to blow off the hearings. I believe you're scheduled to speak at the end of the week, aren't you? Perhaps we can have lunch while you're in town. I'm sure we'll have a lot to talk about by then."

"I think I would like that." He hesitates. "Do you have any ... personal message? That you would like me to pass along. To any of them."

Tempting. But ... anything she might say, they already know. And although she is an expert at using words to manipulate and sway, she still finds that sincere words stick in her throat and tangle up and don't say what she means them to say.

Instead, she says, "I've been thinking about taking a few days off sometime soon. I've never seen Wakanda. You're opening some parts of the country up to tourists, I hear?"

"Only restricted areas and small groups. However ..." He winks. "Guests of the royal household are of course exempt from the restrictions."

"Of course," she agrees. "We can talk about it more in Geneva."

She leaves him at the table, nursing his latte; it wouldn't do to stay too long and draw the wrong kind of attention.

As she walks down the street, weaving expertly in and out of the crowd and staying alert for tails, she thinks about all those years when she relied on first her Russian handlers and then SHIELD to give her purpose and direction, to tell her what was right and wrong. She always wanted to do the right thing; it was only that she didn't trust herself to know what the right thing was. And she still doesn't ... but she's starting to learn, slowly, that the moral surety she always envied in other people is usually a front. Not always; there are the exceptions like Steve, whose moral core goes down to their bones. But most people are muddling through: taking their cues from their bosses and their churches and their leaders, from each other, from logical assessment of the situation, from their own beating hearts. Although she still questions herself, she is beginning to think it's not that she missed a critical development period for learning how to tell right from wrong. It's only that no one ever told her most people don't know, either.

Going against people she respects on the Accords -- and more than that, people whose moral compass she relies on, people like Steve and Clint -- is one of the hardest things she's ever done. Maybe Steve is right about the Accords. But she still believes the anarchy Steve advocates is the more dangerous option; she still believes the Accords can be beaten into something useful (and that's the bigger part of why she'll be in Geneva as soon as she catches her flight out of Kenyatta International; there's no point in having just one reason for doing anything).

Her conviction surprises her. Maybe this is what moral certainty feels like. Or maybe it's the opposite; maybe it's only that she's too cynical to believe in Steve's assurances.

Maybe Tony's right and she's played double agent so long she doesn't know how to stop.

That thought stings; she pushes it aside. She has to believe in her own choices because she has no one else to look to. And the thought occurs to her that maybe by the time she's old enough to need to find a new set of disguises for middle-aged women, she might not have to; maybe she won't need the masks anymore.

Maybe.

She looks over her shoulder one last time for watchers -- from Stark Industries, from Wakanda, maybe even Steve or Barnes keeping tabs on her -- but sees no one, and hails a cab for the airport.