I really hope this doesn't happen

Summary: This was the worst I could imagine just after I saw Ultron and I was thinking about Civil War.

Set: During Civil War

Spoilers: Age of Ultron, very vague spoilers for others.

Rating: I'm listing it as a T because there's no sexual content and there's not actually an awful lot of violence, but what there is very is bloody.

Natasha Romanoff glanced around the unlit alley to makes sure she was alone, then started to climb, one handed. She wasn't going far, only the second floor, and the age of this building meant lots of toeholds in the brickwork. Those and the drainpipe were enough for her. Fifteen feet of the ground, she let go of the drainpipe and pushed her self outwards towards a small balcony. She hissed as her hand caught the metal rail, all her weight behind it. She tested her grip, then jumped her legs over. One made it on to the ledge, then all she had to do was climb over the railings and knock. On the other side of the window, Wanda Maximoff jumped and looked round. She frowned as she looked at Natasha. Natasha knocked again.

"Wouldn't that be fraternising with the enemy?" Maximoff said through the glass. Natasha held up her non-climbing hand. In it, she held a bottle of Tovaritch vodka. She'd done her research. She knew what Maximoff liked to drink. Maximoff raised her eyebrows and opened the window. Natasha handed the bottle over, then climbed through herself. "What do you want?" Maximoff asked cautiously. Natasha sighed.

"Can't I just want to sit with you?" She answered in Russian. " I don't want to forget what it feels like to be your friend before this tears it all apart."

"Is it going to?" Maximoff asked, in English. "Are Stark's cronies planning something we should be worried about?"

"Not specifically, it's just… Sooner or later someone is going to catch sight of Barnes again. When that happens, the feds will try to arrest him, Rogers will try to protect him from the feds - he won't be able to help himself - we'll have to send cavalry in to deal with Rogers, he'll call you all in to help him…" She tailed off. "Nobody wants this." She continued, back in Russian, the better to remind Maximoff how alike they were. "Nobody wants it to come down to a fight like that, but nobody's backing down." Maximoff turned the bottle in her hands.

"Already open." She remarked, in Russian. Natasha shrugged and smiled.

"Had to be sure it was the genuine article, didn't I?"

"So that's what you came for? To drink with me before we try to kill each other?"

"Come on, we both know how it would end if the two of us got in to a real fight. You have power I can't overcome. Vision's the only one on our side who's really a threat to you."

"You unarmed?"

"Wanda, come on. I came in here to have a drink with you. If I wanted to kill you, I'd have done it with a sniper rifle."

"Why a sniper rifle?"

"I'm assuming your power has a maximum range, and also that way I wouldn't have to look you in the eye. I don't want to kill you." Which was true.

"But when we battle…"

"Our side wants to hold off lethal force if we possibly can." Maximoff looked down.

"So do we. Barton is determined that we subdue you in particular rather than killing." That sounded like Clint. He'd refused to kill her when she'd been KGB, he wouldn't do it now. Maximoff turned her back and went to fetch a pair of shot glasses. She might actually manage to do this. She'd thought it was a suicide mission. She was trying very hard not to think about it, to keep herself in the present, but the words of her briefing still rang in the back of her head.

"Maximoff is our biggest problem. Without her, The Captain's band of troublemakers is hopelessly outmatched, and they'll know it. The Captain has given surrender once in the past, he won't choose to fight to the death, not when he's got four others following him. He'll choose to preserve their lives and his own if he knows he can't win. Maximoff gives him false hope, so he'll fight, so he and all of his band will probably have to be killed off individually. And during the fight, the life of every fighter we field is also at risk. I'm sure you understand the principle of this; by eliminating one, we prevent many from dying in battle. We need you to eliminate Maximoff." She hadn't wanted to do it. She'd refused at first, but forcing Maximoff to surrender in battle, even with Vision, would be difficult and dangerous. A lot of people could die trying. There was no way for her to survive this, by killing her before the fighting really started, they could prevent a lot of deaths, probably including some civilians, in the crossfire.

Maximoff thumped a shot glass down on the table in front of Natasha.

"How much can you hold?" She asked, still in Russian.

"Much more than you, little one." Natasha replied, pouring for the both of them. Maximoff picked up her glass and waited for Natasha. They tapped their glasses together and downed the liquor. Sweet for vodka, then the vapour of nuts remained.

"No burn." Maximoff remarked, smiling. "I like this stuff." Natasha smiled back at her.

"It's a useful one for a spy. Doesn't have the burn, so it hits harder than anybody who isn't Russian could realise. If you want to get an American drunk, this is the way to do it."

"I bet I can think of one American who could hold it."

Natasha laughed. "Nobody can get him drunk. It isn't possible." Maximoff poured the second round, Natasha the third almost immediately afterwards.

"Why did you side with Stark?" Maximoff asked, as she put her glass down again.

"What?" Natasha asked.

"Why Stark?"

Natasha sighed. "Power corrupts. That's just the way humans are. That's what democracy is supposed to limit. We are powerful, some of us more than others. If we don't submit ourselves to authority, we will become the very thing we seek to destroy."

"I guess I was just surprised. You spent so much of your life living on a chain, then… I was HYDRA's pet freak for years. I've had six months feeling the wind, smelling the air, I'm not going back to living in a box. I like being free."

"Nobody's free. Not really. Everyone is a servant to someone or something, just not everybody knows it. But if I've learned one thing, it matters who your master is. If you choose well, it's better than being 'free'." And for a moment, Natasha wondered if she might get Maximoff to back down, if her mission might not be necessary, then Maximoff shook her head, pouring another round.

"There's too much KGB in you. You don't even want to be your own woman. Anyway, I could never trust Stark. I've seen in his head, remember?"

"You go in to anybody's head, you'll find things that are ugly."

"Can we not talk about this stuff tonight?" Maximoff asked, pushing a full shot glass to Natasha. They downed the shots.

"OK, what movies has Barton given you to watch?" Natasha said.

"How did you know he'd-"

"He say you need catching up with American culture?" Maximoff looked at her in amazement. "You're not the first ex-Soviet he's taken under his wing. He had a list of things he said I needed to watch. Where did he start you off?" Maximoff smiled.

"All seven Star Wars, starting with four."

They drank steadily, working their way through the bottle. Natasha let her posture slide, smiled too easily, laughed too long and too loudly. Maximoff was doing the same. The only difference was that Natasha was faking it. The five tablespoons of oil and bowl of porridge sitting in Natasha's stomach, delaying the inevitable, but Maximoff hadn't eaten yet tonight. A bag of potatoes sat by the sink with a peeler, one potato out, one strip of skin peeled off it; she'd just started preparing dinner. She was wide open to the alcohol, and to the drug it was laced with. They'd told Natasha it would blunt Maximoff's power. Nobody knew how effectively, or if Maximoff would notice, but Natasha was still thought to be their best hope of neutralising her quietly.

When Maximoff started to look drunk, Natasha reached out her hand as though to pour another shot and knocked the half-empty bottle on to the floor. It shattered. Natasha cursed.

"I'm sorry, what a waste." Maximoff just giggled.

"It's OK, I'm drunk enough already, so are you." Natasha joined in the giggling. "I'll get the brush." Maximoff said. Natasha crouched to pick up some of the bigger bits of glass, forbidding herself to think, trying them in her hands. Maximoff came back with the dustpan. As she dropped to a crouch, Natasha stood up. Two movements. Left hand catches the chin, just gently, a guide, not a restraint. Right hand takes the blade, the shard of glass, through the major vessels, nice and high, avoid the voicebox.

Hot blood sprayed over both her hands. Maximoff gasped and pulled away. Natasha dropped the piece of glass. Maximoff's hands came up, as though to try to staunch the bleeding. She was already ashen. Natasha backed away, blood dripping from her hands. It was done. There had to be two pints of blood on the floor already, it had been seconds. Natasha turned away from the woman with blood pouring out of her neck and ran. She heard Maximoff try to cry out, then fall to the floor as she reached the window. Her hands were slippery, it wasn't far to the ground.

Down a back alley, Natasha stopped and fell to her knees. She had to be sick, she'd taken a lot of alcohol on board very quickly. Before she'd even raised a hand towards her mouth, she felt herself gag. She went on until her stomach was empty. She was shaking. Her mouth was full of acid, it had gone up her nose too. She spluttered and spat, then gasped and heaved again. There was nothing left. She leaned against a bin. Nobody would think anything of her, just another drunk; she was safe enough here. They'd know. Somebody walking right up to the Scarlet Witch and cutting her throat in her own home with a shard of a vodka bottle, Clint would only have to look at the scene to know it was her. Maximoff had trusted her. What she'd found in Natasha's head had looked familiar to her. That and a common language, a way of talking in front of the other Avengers that nobody else understood, had encouraged the younger woman to trust. Natasha would have trusted her; if Maximoff had turned up unannounced one evening with a bottle, Natasha would have sat and drank with her. She'd had no choice. Seeing this, surely Rogers had to realise he couldn't win, that if he, Wilson, Barnes, Lang and Clint wanted to survive, they had to surrender. Rogers might be tempted to stand with Barnes and fight to the death, but he'd send the others away if he knew it was suicide. He wouldn't let Clint die beside him if it wouldn't do any good. By taking Maximoff's life, she might have saved theirs. Maximoff was just a kid, she didn't know what she'd been getting herself in to. But sometimes an innocent's life was a price that had to be paid.

If there is interest, there could be two or three more chapters of this.