Fake!MM: Clint-as-Alexei!verse, thatbarways

The bar is an incredibly useful - Natasha can make her lunch-break stretch out for hours.

Which explains why the young KGB agent is sitting in a booth reading a book on how to teach herself Mandarin (in English, unfortunately, but she suspects the Bar is irritated with her) while occasionally stabbing the potato salad in front of her.

(Of course, if anyone thinks that just because she's nose-deep in a book that she's not keeping an awareness of her surroundings, then they don't know Lieutenant Nataliya Shostakova.)