redintheledger | OOM: 2011, Moscow, Russian Federation

Natasha Romanoff spent five months working in Stark Industries' Legal Department. Despite what Stark has been lead to believe since that was revealed, she hadn't spent that time running errands with the sole aim of getting into his inner-circle.

There was a trade in Stark weapons on the black market, and Obadiah Stane's deal with the Ten Rings isn't the only source. Or so she – and her team, and her superiors – suspect.

Which is why, several months later, Romanoff is in Moscow, applying for a job as a cocktail waitress in a nightclub. Not any old nightclub, either; Pravda is one of the hottest clubs in Moscow, which means one of the hottest nightclubs in Europe. It costs three thousand Euros to land a table once the bouncers judge your appearance acceptable, and barely anyone actually listens to the music. It is, in short, the kind of place that offends everything still socialist in Natasha's soul. Normally, she'd never even look at the people trying to get in.

'Normally' here meaning 'when off-duty'. For a job, she will go wherever she needs to. And if getting close to her target (Mikhail Aleksandrovich Fjodorov; arms-dealer and the worst kind of nouveau riche), and gathering intel about his associates means long shifts in heels and push-up bras while smiling nicely at rich assholes, then that's what she'll do.

The next person to suggest that being a spy is in any way glamorous is going to get laughed at.

– –

Tatiana Vasilyevna Sokolova is twenty-six. Originally from Tambov, she flattens her accent to avoid the jokes about Tambov wolves, and presents her experience in American nightclubs instead. Tanya is shorter than the management would like for their waitresses, but she's busty and polished, and passes the 'face control' with flying colours.

“Start tomorrow night,” says Vladimir. “If you fuck up, you're out.”

“I won't,” says Tanya.

– –

Natasha has been a waitress, on and off, since the sixties.

She doesn't fuck up.

– –

Being Natalie Rushman had been work. Legal assistant, personal assistant, paperwork and boss-wrangling with a smile as she pulled late hours to snoop around Stark Industries' databases.

Being Tatiana Vasilyevna is also work. Cocktail waitress in a nightclub – no matter that the music isn't that loud, she's surrounded by people who want things. Drinks, attention, a flirty smile, 'hey baby whatcha doin' later', more drinks. Dodge the crowds on platform heels carrying three martinis without spilling a drop, don't flinch when someone pinches her backside.

Being a spy while also being, essentially, an introvert is not a fate she wishes on many.

(Not no one. She never makes claims that she's nice, merely attempting reform.)

– –

After every shift, on her way back to her hotel room via the metro, she slips into a bathroom and takes off her black wig (with a small camera), choker (with a small microphone), and ear pieces. She still has her cell phone with which to contact S.H.I.E.L.D., but only as needed.

Functionally, she's on her own.

On her own, but still not wearing her own name. She pulls on a different top, slips on different shoes, and then Alyona R. Nazarova leaves the stall.

Not that Alyona heads straight to the building she's currently living in. She passes through this station and that, switches trains and goes in different directions. The chances of anyone following her are slim; she's moving through a system that carries millions of people, and she's an old hand at this.

But it always pays to be cautious, just in case.