One day, Natasha Romanoff simply...disappeared. Off the grid, her trail colder than a Russian winter, the woman was gone. Cellphone trashed, laptop tossed by the side of the road, car abandoned, apartment empty. It was a complete and thorough job, one she'd obviously put a lot of thought and planning into. No sign of her on CCTV in or out of the city, no reports of a redheaded woman renting a car or even stealing one.
The last sighting of the Black Widow had been standing at Nick Fury's grave. Appropriate, since the life she'd known with SHIELD had died with him. What was there for her to stick around for?
She finds herself in a backwater town in Vermont by the time winter rolls around. She rents a motel room with cash and dumps her stuff. There's no sign of pursuit, even though she knows Stark has been mobilizing the old team. The call had gone out for her many times recently, but she isn't there to pick up. Isn't interested. As far as she's concerned, the Black Widow is dead.
Which really should've happened a long time ago.
She sighs, her breath crystallizing in a white cloud in front of her face as she makes her way back to her room, a paper bag full of groceries under one arm and her hoodie pulled tight over her head. She pulls up in front of the door and fishes her key out of her pocket, then stops. She can hear something from inside.
Breathing.
Slowly, she places the bag of groceries on the ground and draws a pistol from under her jacket. Natasha presses herself against the wall next to the door and turns the knob, letting it creak open. If anyone's going to come out guns blazing at her, now is the time.
She supposes it was going to happen sooner or later. Her past has had a habit of catching up with her, no matter how far or how fast she runs.
It'll never stop her from trying, and taking down anything - or anyone- that gets in her way.
After SHIELD went down, the only thing on Steve's mind had been finding Bucky. He knew it wasn't healthy to throw aside everything to chase a part of his past that barely remembered him, but that was his choice and there wasn't anyone to stop him any more.
Sam had come with him, which had been a good thing considering what they had found out about the Winter Soldier and HYDRA. Having someone else there had made it easier not to lose himself in guilt and horror and frustration when they finally hit a wall. Then, with timing too good to be coincidental, Tony Stark had called to tell him they were reactivating the Avengers Initiative.
They gathered at Stark Tower, where Steve had been surprised to hear that Natasha dropped completely off the grid after the hearings, not even leaving Clint a way to contact her. Because she didn't want to be found, Clint had insisted, but Steve wanted to hear it straight from her. And if he also wanted to make sure she was alright, all the better if she was well enough to mock him for it.
Thor turned out to be helpful, locating her with the help of another Asgardian called Heimdall. It leads to Steve breaking and entering a motel room, going through the meager belongings of someone he damn well hopes is Natasha, or he's in for some awkward questions.The sound of keys in the hallway makes him tense up, but there's a noticeable pause before the door is unlocked and swings open. Steve decides to take a chance.
Bozhemoi. Out of all of them, it had to be him. Or at least, someone who sounds - and breathes - very much like one Steve Rogers. They would send him after her, knowing he's the only other person she's close to except for Clint. The major difference between Steve and Clint being that Clint wouldn't be stupid enough to come after her.
Unless this is some kind of trick and it's not Steve at all.
Natasha rounds the door, pistol still extended, tension written in every line of her posture. When bullets don't immediately tear into her body, she relaxes a little, but she keeps the gun leveled on Steve.
The first thing he'd probably notice, next to the Glock pointed at his center of mass, is most likely the hair. She's dyed it a mousy brown in an effort to pass as plain; it hasn't worked. The second is the dark circles under her eyes. She hasn't slept much since the hearings. In a way, it's worse than the aftermath of New York, and thousands of people had died then.
This time, though, she was the one who'd lost her life. Metaphorically speaking.
"You shouldn't have come here." Her voice is cold, flat, lacking inflection or tone, and her red-rimmed eyes are empty. "You need to leave."
Steve raises his hands in the air when he sees the gun, but he watches her face. He's seen her in a lot of situations during both work and downtime, and this expression - this overall demeanour - is new to him.
(It's also uncomfortably familiar, just not on her, and he can't think about that right now.)
"There's no-one following me."
Even if they did, they probably wouldn't recognize him. Between hair so short it's a nearly a buzzcut, and the dirty blond scruff covering his jaw, he doesn't look very much like Steve Rogers. It had been useful, not being immediately recognizable during his hunt for HYDRA, and he's not going back to Captain America's clean-cut look any time soon. There's a new uniform waiting for him back at the Tower, but he isn't sure he deserves to wear it any more.
He doesn't have his shield with him, or any weapons at all, and hopes he won't need one.
"Natasha is dead." She's going by Nadine or Laura now - whichever strikes her fancy - and she has papers for both. She's had to build both identities herself, though, with the aid of a laptop, a cheap printer and a laminating machine. The driver's licenses are passable but there's no way she can forge a passport all by herself, and all her contacts have burned her. She's stuck here, otherwise Steve would've had to board a plane to get to her.
She moves around the contours of the room, keeping the gun trained rock-steady on Steve. He's been going through her stuff. It'll tell him nothing. The expression on her face might, though. There's a hint of emotion creeping in there, now: frustration.
"Why couldn't you just let me go?" she wonders aloud. "Respect a woman's space. Didn't men do that in the forties?" She's kicking herself internally for not covering her tracks better, wondering which clues she left and when, what might've led Steve to her now. Was she careless? Clumsy? Or had a part of her wanted to be found?
The last hypothesis is unlikely. Since the hearings she's had nothing but harassment, endless questions, requests for interviews for God's sake. Like she's some kind of celebrity. But they paint her as the Black Widow because they know what she's done and she's tried very, very hard ever since Clint had dragged her sorry traitorous ass into SHIELD to avoid thinking about all those things they want to ask about. So she'd tried to leave it behind, along with Bucky's dossier, in Steve's hands. She'd hoped that would keep him occupied for a while, give her a chance to disappear. She hadn't counted on him following her.
Steve remains still as she moves around the room. He really should have listened to Clint, but the flicker of irritation in her voice gives him hope. If she can get frustrated with him, then she's not beyond caring.
He had been talking to Tony and Maria Hill. With SHIELD down, there were threats looming that would require the Avengers stepping up to the plate again. Their plan to privately fund the Initiative was ruffling a lot of feathers on top of the current mess, but it would go some way towards fixing the damage.
"A team looks out for each other," he replies simply.
"Tell that to SHIELD," she shoots back, without any particular bite in her tone, but the words are enough. She lowers the gun abruptly, as if the weight of it is suddenly too much, and her shoulders seem to sag.
"The Avengers were Fury's idea. I can't be part of that any more, not now that he's gone." Not now that everyone knows who she is. In a way, Fury's lucky - he got to start a whole new life without the weight of the old one dragging him down, keeping him back. She wanted to start over as Natasha Romanoff, but in the end, it had proven too difficult with the red ledger looming in the public eye. Never mind the good she did as the Black Widow, the rest was still out there.
She'd thought she was ready. She isn't. Not by a long shot.
"What do you want, Rogers?" Her voice cracks, exhaustion seeping through. She's so tired of this. Tired of running.
Some of the tension coiled in Steve unwinds when she lowers the gun. This is a Natasha he knows, the one he had a brief glimpse of while they were laying low at Sam's house. The one who had taken Fury's 'death' a lot harder than he expected.
"I want you to be okay." A small smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. "Well, as okay as people like us ever get. Safe, then," he amends, moving backwards till his legs hit the bed and sitting down. It puts her higher than him.
"Hill is around," he continues. "Fury probably keeps in contact with her. She and Stark are the ones running this thing now." Steve had cringed at the sheer amount of politics involved, not to mention the press, but they handled it so that none of the other Avengers had to. Not yet, anyway. "They've managed to keep a lot of people off our backs."
It's obvious what he's getting at as he looks up at her. The exhaustion and the odd hair colour makes her seem older, and she's far too pale underneath the dark circles, but she's still Natasha. He's not going to abandon her if there's the slightest chance he can help.
"I don't care," she lies. Her lies are usually seamless, impossible to detect, but the crack in her voice and the way she looks anywhere but at Steve makes this one obvious. "I don't want to hear about it. I'm done, Steve."
She sits down on an old, motheaten chair across from the bed, resting her forearms on her knees and letting the gun dangle by its trigger guard from one finger. The set of her shoulders is defeated, tired. She's silent for a long minute, hair hanging over her face, before she looks across at him.
"Every sin I've committed," she says. "Every person I've killed. Every betrayal, every moment of my life - even the ones I don't care to think about any longer. It's all out there now. It was worth it at the time, but...how do you come back from something like that? Better to start over. And that means no Avengers. No Black Widow." Her mouth twists, tasting unpleasantness with the words. Reluctance. "I can't do that without being constantly reminded of what I did before. I thought I could when it was secret, but..." And she trails off with a sigh, palming her forehead and shutting her eyes for a moment.
So tired of running. She wishes she didn't feel as if she has to.
Nearly everything about Steve Rogers is on display at the Smithsonian, and the few things that aren't are probably out there now. There were things the SSR and the Commandos did during the war that he isn't proud of, but they were necessary. Maybe the image built up around Captain America would change with that knowledge, or maybe it wouldn't, but he was prepared to face the reality of it.
For someone like the Black Widow, whose file was so heavily redacted that a level 8 clearence had barely gotten him a quarter of it, it could mean a death sentence. For Natasha, who worked so hard to atone for the red in her ledger, in spite of the enemies it made her.
"So you'll keep running?" he asks, the words coming out a little harsher than he intends them to. "For how long?"
"For as long as it takes," she says, dropping her hand to look at him. Her voice rings hollow, even to her own ears. "Maybe the world will forget about me eventually."
Steve doesn't have that luxury, she knows. But he's lived his life in the limelight ever since he took that serum - for her, it's the exact opposite. To say it's been difficult to adjust is an understatement of epic proportions.
"Nobody wants a superhero on their team with a history like mine, anyway," she adds. "I'll just make them look bad now it's all out in the open. After all, who's to say I won't go ahead and betray the lot of you?" The question is a challenge, posed with raised eyebrows. Do they still trust her, after everything? Does he?
He stares at her in disbelief. "I know for a fact that you've read every single one of our files, even wrote assessments for a few. You know better than anyone the kind of histories on this team."
Bruce had been right to call them a time bomb back then. They aren't any more stable now, or the most trusting, but there is a certain level of understanding between them that Steve finds to be a relief.
And betrayal? To who, he wants to ask, because she wouldn't be out here alone if she had anyone left to betray them to, but that seems needlessly cruel. He remembers the tiny silver arrow necklace she wore and the look on her face when she asked if he would trust her to save his life.
"As for who's to say, me, for one. I think I can speak for Clint, too."
"I've already spoken to Clint," she says coldly, reaching up to touch the necklace almost on reflex, then jerking her hand away at the last minute. She's lifting the gun again, sitting up to gesture with it at the door. "You have no idea what you're talking about. You should go."
But then, as his words come together in her mind like pieces of a puzzle, realization dawns, and Natasha frowns. "You haven't read my file yet, have you? The leaked one?" She shakes her head, laughs bitterly. "You really do have no idea. God, Rogers. The things I've done. You wouldn't sleep for a week if you knew."
She feels like shooting him, like crying and throwing herself into his arms, like tearing her hair out and running all at once. It's not a nice feeling. She wishes he'd never come here. She wishes he'd come earlier. Either way...she doesn't know what to do, now.
"Haven't been sleepin' much anyway," he mutters. It isn't fair to compare her to Bucky, to wonder if what she's talking about is worse than the file she gave him about the Winter Soldier and what Steve has learned about him since then. She's right in that he hasn't read the full extent of what is out there about her, but if she thinks that will make him change his mind about her completely, then she doesn't know him as well as she thinks.
There's no point in telling her, though. Natasha appeared to have convinced herself that she was beyond redemption, and nothing he said was going to change that.
Steve eyes her wearily for a moment before giving a short nod in acquiescence. "If you really want me to go, I will. Just know there's a place for you, if you want it." He gets to to his feet, the squeak of mattress springs loud in the stillness of the room, and hesitates. The idea of walking out and leaving her here still doesn't sit right with him
"Wait," she calls tiredly, almost at the same moment as his hesitation. She sighs, standing up abruptly and tucking the gun into the back of her waistband. "Let's...go get some coffee or something. For old time's sake."
She shouldn't leave herself open like this, she knows. But Steve's always had an annoying habit of being able to disarm her - both figuratively and literally now, it seems. And she's missed that. She's missed working with him, joking with him, dodging bullets with him. Well, maybe not as much the last part, but on some level, she's glad he's here and she doesn't want him to leave yet.
Maybe, subconsciously, she really just wants him to convince her to come back.
One of the more fun parts of his introduction to the twenty first century had been trying the bewildering array of coffee they had nowadays with Natasha. It doesn't really do anything for Steve any more, but he still likes the taste, and she had introduced all sorts of interesting flavours. Between all the missions together and her talking to him like he was a regular person instead of Captain America, they had become friends.
"All right." He tries not to look to hopeful, stepping aside to let her lead the way.
It's even colder outside than it had been when Steve arrived. After three years out of the ice, he should be over it, but it bothers him. He pulls out a pair of gloves from the pocket of his jacket and tugs them on, shooting a glance at Natasha to see how she's doing in her hoodie.
She nods, stalking out of the apartment. Her shoulders are rounded, a defeated slump to her posture. She's tired, and it shows. There's only so much running even she can do.
She barely seems to notice the cold as her boots crunch over the icy asphalt. She grew up in Russia, and the winters there could freeze birds mid-flight. This is nothing. She supposes Steve might have a harder time of it, having been on ice for so long, but she makes no comment to draw attention to it. She usually would. But she's not sure where she stands with him now. Especially after the less-than-pleasant reception.
Natasha's starting to feel a little bad about that.
"There's a diner just down the road," she says. "The coffee is terrible, but it's strong. And hot."
The coffee turns out to be not unlike the stuff he had spent most of his life drinking. He sips it, enjoying the familiar taste and grateful for the way it warms him almost immediately. "It's good," he murmurs.
There aren't many people in the diner at this time of day; a sleepy looking waitress wiping down tables, an old man absorbed in a newspaper, a few people sitting at the counter watching television. It's on a news channel, some report about a factory closing down that Steve listens to for a few seconds before deciding it's not important.
It takes Natasha ten seconds to take in the diner and the people inside and decide it's safe, for now. It's an odd habit to have - tactically evaluating every single room you walk into, but it's been ingrained into her for so many years now that she doesn't even notice she does it.
"This is starting to sound like a date," she says, a faint, familiar smile on her lips. It's strange how easy it is to fall back into their old pattern of banter. Reminds her a little of how things used to be with Clint, before things got too emotionally charged between them.
But things haven't changed between her and Steve. Not really. Things have changed between her and SHIELD, her and the Avengers, her and America. But it's comforting to know she can still fall back into old routines with him, at least.
Steve waves down the waitress and orders what seems like half the menu. He has a metabolism to keep up with and Natasha looks like she could use a few hot meals, though he knows better than to say that out loud.
"Is it?" He smiles back wryly, taking another sip of coffee. "Never did see Sharon again, so I guess you'll have to stand in."
None of the Avengers expect him to come back with her. A fool's errand for a restless soldier, another ghost for him to chase. But she's the one who told him wait, so maybe it's not completely a lost cause.
"I heard she got reassigned. Should've gone for the girl in Statistics." The coffee tastes like dirt but by the time Steve orders food she's on her second cup. She's been living off the stuff lately, more than anything else. Coffee and regrets. Surprisingly potent fuel for self-imposed exile.
Natasha lulls into silence then, because she's not sure they have much common ground besides SHIELD and Steve's love life and she doesn't feel like delving any deeper into either. The banter is the same but they desperately need new content.
Well. There is one question she wants to know the answer to.
"Did you find him?" The non-sequitur might be jarring, but she's fairly certain Steve will pick up on what - or rather, who - she's talking about pretty quickly.
His gaze had been drifting around the diner but returns to her sharply at the question.
Before he had come out here to find Natasha, Sam had cornered him and asked if this was about their - he called it their, but it was Steve's, really - failure to bring Bucky home. He hadn't been able to give a straight answer.
"Yeah," he replies, voice hollow. "He didn't want to be found."
Not unlike her. The similarities are jarring if he thinks about them, and he really doesn't want to. He doesn't want to talk about this at all.
"I told you." But there's no smugness in her response - just a resigned, vague sort of sadness. She knew well what her old people could, would have done to Bucky. But telling Steve wouldn't have worked - he likely wouldn't have believed her - he had to see it for himself.
Still. She feels badly for him.
"So it's back to basics for you then." The waitress delivers several plates worth of food; Natasha picks disinterestedly at a bowl of fries. "Back to saving the world."
Steve bristles a little at that, but it's not like she's rubbing it in. Just saying what was true.
"Sure," he replies with a humorless smile. "'Cut off one head' and all that." It will be a long time before they discover the full extent of Hydra's reach, and it's more personal than ever now. Steve may never get Bucky back, but he will hunt them until his dying breath for what they've done.
The TV drones on in the background as he starts on the food, eating slowly and methodically. About halfway through, his phone buzzes in his pocket. Steve wipes his hand on a napkin and swipes it open, feeling a little apprehensive, relaxing when he sees who it's from.
"Sam sends his regards." He also mentions Steve being needed back at the Tower, but it can't be urgent or Hill would have arranged for an extraction
Natasha loses interest in the food pretty quickly - instead she props her chin on her hand, elbow on the table as she regards Steve with her disconcertingly full attention. Raising an eyebrow as he brings out his phone, she says nothing for a full thirty seconds.
"It's not just HYDRA you're fighting now, is it?" She sits back, drumming her fingers absently on the edge of the table.
"How bad is it, Steve? Be honest with me." God knows she's never been fully honest with him, but he's a bad liar. It's painful when he tries; she'd prefer to avoid the headache.
"Bad," he says simply, because there's no point in being dishonest. "A lot of things have started crawling out of the woodwork." Not to mention the amount of red tape involved if the Avengers want to run themselves, especially considering their previous affiliation with SHIELD.
"We can't do as much as we'd like. What we can might not be enough."
Natasha's skill set would be more than a little useful, they both know that. Steve considers asking her one more time, but it might ruin whatever had prompted her to stop him leaving. He returns to his food instead and waits to see what she has to say to such vague information.
"And you're not going to tell me anything more about it unless I come back." Not a question. She reaches for her coffee; it's cold, but she takes a long drag from the mug anyway.
"You've picked up tips from Fury." Her eyes don't leave Steve's face. "Is he involved yet?"
And this may be the question that brings her back. Natasha knows she wouldn't have hesitated if the former Director himself came after her, but she also knows he wouldn't have been able to even if he wanted to. Steve's close in her circle of trust, but Fury is the epicenter of it.
"Hill won't confirm or deny that she's in contact with him, but we do have an unusually good overview of what's going in Europe."
Steve will never develop a taste for subterfuge, but he does understand the need for it from time to time. He's learned a lot from Nick Fury; respects the man for what he does, even though they don't agree on methods.
He meets Natasha's gaze steadily. "Would you come back if he was?"
Tellingly, she looks away after a few seconds. She'd thought Fury retired. How ill-informed she turned out to be. She wonders if she would've left had she known what Steve knows, and feels a bit bitter that she didn't know until now. But she'd sworn off this kind of life when she'd left...A mistake, considering this kind of life is all she has ever known.
"Yes," she says, sounding faintly surprised at her own answer. "But I think I'm going to come back regardless. I think we both knew that when I walked in the door." She sighs, resignedly, and finally meets Steve's gaze with a small smile on her lips. Probably the first genuine one she's managed in months.
Steve smiles back. "This wasn't some well thought out plan to bring you back, but I'm glad you think so."
They would be happy to have her back, of course. Stark had put a lot of thought into the tower redesign, and there had been quarters set aside for her from the beginning. Probably a new suit and upgraded weaponry as well, if what Clint had been greeted with was any indication. He looks forward to seeing her realize that she's not just needed on the team, but wanted too.
He polishes off the rest of the food and goes to the counter to pay. One of the people watching TV glances at him, a little too deliberate to be just an offhand look. Haircut and scruff or no, Steve's face had been splashed all over the news after SHIELD. He's not that hard to recognize if someone knows what to look for. They don't seem hostile, but he's not going to take that chance.
"Time to go," he says to Natasha as he returns to their table.
"I was wondering when you'd notice that guy," she says in a low voice as Steve returns. "He's been watching us this whole time."
For the moment, more immediate worries have eclipsed her anxiety about returning. Worries that have her gripping her Glock underneath her coat. She rises to her feet, letting go of it briefly to make her way with Steve to the door. The guy getting up to nonchalantly follow them doesn't escape her notice.
"How do you want to play this?" she asks Steve quietly out of the corner of her mouth. "I've had to put down a few interested parties these last couple of months, but if I know you, you'll be preferring something bloodless." She can still break a man's kneecaps without bullets, though.
"If possible," Steve agrees, setting a brisk pace down the road.
There are people around, too many witnesses for their tail to try anything, though if taking them out had been the objective, they wouldn't have been able to leave the diner so easily. Now it's just a question of who they are and what they want from either Natasha or himself.
The list of people wanting to track them is long, ranging from HYDRA to the government, or worse, the media. Their interest in the Avengers had never really died down after New York and had only spiked after the hearings.
"I'm thinking we can go get your stuff, and then have a chat with him on the way out of town."
"Fine." It's ambiguous enough - 'chat' can mean anything from 'talk' to 'breaking kneecaps'. She's done some of that since she left civilization. HYDRA had tailed her out of the city and she'd played a cat-and-mouse game with them for weeks before massacring them all. She knows she should probably feel guilty about that, but she doesn't. And she's not likely to speak to Steve about it, either.
There's a deep frown on her brow as she walks, tension in her shoulders, her hand always lurking close to her waistband under her coat. But she's silent until they get back to her motel room, and then it's a flurry of motion - throwing things into bags - mostly weapons, a couple of changes of clothes, a necklace she grabs from the bedside table.
"There's an alley next to the motel," she says to Steve as she shoulders her backpack. "Shortcut?" Her smile is shadowed, not a pleasant expression at all.
Not for the first time, Steve is grateful that Natasha isn't an enemy.
He nods, missing the feeling of the shield on his arm. He had left it in the car he'd arrived in, parked a few blocks away from the motel. It was too conspicuous to carry around even in the portfolio bag Steve used to hide it when he was off-duty.
She does, in silence, her shoulders tense and her movements suddenly precise, deliberate, like a coiled wire rests just under her skin. She won't ever admit it but she lives for moments like this. There have been a few since she left, but not enough. She needs the life, whether she can admit that to herself or not.
They reach the motel room, and it only takes Natasha five minutes to throw everything she owns in a backpack. Then she turns to Steve and gives him a nod. She's ready.
Their tail had been doing a terrible job of looking nonchalant, lingering across the road as Steve exits the motel and goes into the alley where Natasha will be waiting.
The man follows, of course, and finds himself pinned against a wall within seconds.
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boxedmuses2014-09-12 05:50 pm
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The last sighting of the Black Widow had been standing at Nick Fury's grave. Appropriate, since the life she'd known with SHIELD had died with him. What was there for her to stick around for?
She finds herself in a backwater town in Vermont by the time winter rolls around. She rents a motel room with cash and dumps her stuff. There's no sign of pursuit, even though she knows Stark has been mobilizing the old team. The call had gone out for her many times recently, but she isn't there to pick up. Isn't interested. As far as she's concerned, the Black Widow is dead.
Which really should've happened a long time ago.
She sighs, her breath crystallizing in a white cloud in front of her face as she makes her way back to her room, a paper bag full of groceries under one arm and her hoodie pulled tight over her head. She pulls up in front of the door and fishes her key out of her pocket, then stops. She can hear something from inside.
Breathing.
Slowly, she places the bag of groceries on the ground and draws a pistol from under her jacket. Natasha presses herself against the wall next to the door and turns the knob, letting it creak open. If anyone's going to come out guns blazing at her, now is the time.
She supposes it was going to happen sooner or later. Her past has had a habit of catching up with her, no matter how far or how fast she runs.
It'll never stop her from trying, and taking down anything - or anyone- that gets in her way.
no subject
Sam had come with him, which had been a good thing considering what they had found out about the Winter Soldier and HYDRA. Having someone else there had made it easier not to lose himself in guilt and horror and frustration when they finally hit a wall. Then, with timing too good to be coincidental, Tony Stark had called to tell him they were reactivating the Avengers Initiative.
They gathered at Stark Tower, where Steve had been surprised to hear that Natasha dropped completely off the grid after the hearings, not even leaving Clint a way to contact her. Because she didn't want to be found, Clint had insisted, but Steve wanted to hear it straight from her. And if he also wanted to make sure she was alright, all the better if she was well enough to mock him for it.
Thor turned out to be helpful, locating her with the help of another Asgardian called Heimdall. It leads to Steve breaking and entering a motel room, going through the meager belongings of someone he damn well hopes is Natasha, or he's in for some awkward questions.The sound of keys in the hallway makes him tense up, but there's a noticeable pause before the door is unlocked and swings open. Steve decides to take a chance.
"Nat?"
no subject
Unless this is some kind of trick and it's not Steve at all.
Natasha rounds the door, pistol still extended, tension written in every line of her posture. When bullets don't immediately tear into her body, she relaxes a little, but she keeps the gun leveled on Steve.
The first thing he'd probably notice, next to the Glock pointed at his center of mass, is most likely the hair. She's dyed it a mousy brown in an effort to pass as plain; it hasn't worked. The second is the dark circles under her eyes. She hasn't slept much since the hearings. In a way, it's worse than the aftermath of New York, and thousands of people had died then.
This time, though, she was the one who'd lost her life. Metaphorically speaking.
"You shouldn't have come here." Her voice is cold, flat, lacking inflection or tone, and her red-rimmed eyes are empty. "You need to leave."
no subject
(It's also uncomfortably familiar, just not on her, and he can't think about that right now.)
"There's no-one following me."
Even if they did, they probably wouldn't recognize him. Between hair so short it's a nearly a buzzcut, and the dirty blond scruff covering his jaw, he doesn't look very much like Steve Rogers. It had been useful, not being immediately recognizable during his hunt for HYDRA, and he's not going back to Captain America's clean-cut look any time soon. There's a new uniform waiting for him back at the Tower, but he isn't sure he deserves to wear it any more.
He doesn't have his shield with him, or any weapons at all, and hopes he won't need one.
"Natasha. I just want to talk."
no subject
She moves around the contours of the room, keeping the gun trained rock-steady on Steve. He's been going through her stuff. It'll tell him nothing. The expression on her face might, though. There's a hint of emotion creeping in there, now: frustration.
"Why couldn't you just let me go?" she wonders aloud. "Respect a woman's space. Didn't men do that in the forties?" She's kicking herself internally for not covering her tracks better, wondering which clues she left and when, what might've led Steve to her now. Was she careless? Clumsy? Or had a part of her wanted to be found?
The last hypothesis is unlikely. Since the hearings she's had nothing but harassment, endless questions, requests for interviews for God's sake. Like she's some kind of celebrity. But they paint her as the Black Widow because they know what she's done and she's tried very, very hard ever since Clint had dragged her sorry traitorous ass into SHIELD to avoid thinking about all those things they want to ask about. So she'd tried to leave it behind, along with Bucky's dossier, in Steve's hands. She'd hoped that would keep him occupied for a while, give her a chance to disappear. She hadn't counted on him following her.
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Steve remains still as she moves around the room. He really should have listened to Clint, but the flicker of irritation in her voice gives him hope. If she can get frustrated with him, then she's not beyond caring.
He had been talking to Tony and Maria Hill. With SHIELD down, there were threats looming that would require the Avengers stepping up to the plate again. Their plan to privately fund the Initiative was ruffling a lot of feathers on top of the current mess, but it would go some way towards fixing the damage.
"A team looks out for each other," he replies simply.
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"The Avengers were Fury's idea. I can't be part of that any more, not now that he's gone." Not now that everyone knows who she is. In a way, Fury's lucky - he got to start a whole new life without the weight of the old one dragging him down, keeping him back. She wanted to start over as Natasha Romanoff, but in the end, it had proven too difficult with the red ledger looming in the public eye. Never mind the good she did as the Black Widow, the rest was still out there.
She'd thought she was ready. She isn't. Not by a long shot.
"What do you want, Rogers?" Her voice cracks, exhaustion seeping through. She's so tired of this. Tired of running.
But she doesn't know how to do anything else.
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"I want you to be okay." A small smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. "Well, as okay as people like us ever get. Safe, then," he amends, moving backwards till his legs hit the bed and sitting down. It puts her higher than him.
"Hill is around," he continues. "Fury probably keeps in contact with her. She and Stark are the ones running this thing now." Steve had cringed at the sheer amount of politics involved, not to mention the press, but they handled it so that none of the other Avengers had to. Not yet, anyway. "They've managed to keep a lot of people off our backs."
It's obvious what he's getting at as he looks up at her. The exhaustion and the odd hair colour makes her seem older, and she's far too pale underneath the dark circles, but she's still Natasha. He's not going to abandon her if there's the slightest chance he can help.
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She sits down on an old, motheaten chair across from the bed, resting her forearms on her knees and letting the gun dangle by its trigger guard from one finger. The set of her shoulders is defeated, tired. She's silent for a long minute, hair hanging over her face, before she looks across at him.
"Every sin I've committed," she says. "Every person I've killed. Every betrayal, every moment of my life - even the ones I don't care to think about any longer. It's all out there now. It was worth it at the time, but...how do you come back from something like that? Better to start over. And that means no Avengers. No Black Widow." Her mouth twists, tasting unpleasantness with the words. Reluctance. "I can't do that without being constantly reminded of what I did before. I thought I could when it was secret, but..." And she trails off with a sigh, palming her forehead and shutting her eyes for a moment.
So tired of running. She wishes she didn't feel as if she has to.
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For someone like the Black Widow, whose file was so heavily redacted that a level 8 clearence had barely gotten him a quarter of it, it could mean a death sentence. For Natasha, who worked so hard to atone for the red in her ledger, in spite of the enemies it made her.
"So you'll keep running?" he asks, the words coming out a little harsher than he intends them to. "For how long?"
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Steve doesn't have that luxury, she knows. But he's lived his life in the limelight ever since he took that serum - for her, it's the exact opposite. To say it's been difficult to adjust is an understatement of epic proportions.
"Nobody wants a superhero on their team with a history like mine, anyway," she adds. "I'll just make them look bad now it's all out in the open. After all, who's to say I won't go ahead and betray the lot of you?" The question is a challenge, posed with raised eyebrows. Do they still trust her, after everything? Does he?
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Bruce had been right to call them a time bomb back then. They aren't any more stable now, or the most trusting, but there is a certain level of understanding between them that Steve finds to be a relief.
And betrayal? To who, he wants to ask, because she wouldn't be out here alone if she had anyone left to betray them to, but that seems needlessly cruel. He remembers the tiny silver arrow necklace she wore and the look on her face when she asked if he would trust her to save his life.
"As for who's to say, me, for one. I think I can speak for Clint, too."
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But then, as his words come together in her mind like pieces of a puzzle, realization dawns, and Natasha frowns. "You haven't read my file yet, have you? The leaked one?" She shakes her head, laughs bitterly. "You really do have no idea. God, Rogers. The things I've done. You wouldn't sleep for a week if you knew."
She feels like shooting him, like crying and throwing herself into his arms, like tearing her hair out and running all at once. It's not a nice feeling. She wishes he'd never come here. She wishes he'd come earlier. Either way...she doesn't know what to do, now.
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There's no point in telling her, though. Natasha appeared to have convinced herself that she was beyond redemption, and nothing he said was going to change that.
Steve eyes her wearily for a moment before giving a short nod in acquiescence. "If you really want me to go, I will. Just know there's a place for you, if you want it." He gets to to his feet, the squeak of mattress springs loud in the stillness of the room, and hesitates. The idea of walking out and leaving her here still doesn't sit right with him
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She shouldn't leave herself open like this, she knows. But Steve's always had an annoying habit of being able to disarm her - both figuratively and literally now, it seems. And she's missed that. She's missed working with him, joking with him, dodging bullets with him. Well, maybe not as much the last part, but on some level, she's glad he's here and she doesn't want him to leave yet.
Maybe, subconsciously, she really just wants him to convince her to come back.
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One of the more fun parts of his introduction to the twenty first century had been trying the bewildering array of coffee they had nowadays with Natasha. It doesn't really do anything for Steve any more, but he still likes the taste, and she had introduced all sorts of interesting flavours. Between all the missions together and her talking to him like he was a regular person instead of Captain America, they had become friends.
"All right." He tries not to look to hopeful, stepping aside to let her lead the way.
It's even colder outside than it had been when Steve arrived. After three years out of the ice, he should be over it, but it bothers him. He pulls out a pair of gloves from the pocket of his jacket and tugs them on, shooting a glance at Natasha to see how she's doing in her hoodie.
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She barely seems to notice the cold as her boots crunch over the icy asphalt. She grew up in Russia, and the winters there could freeze birds mid-flight. This is nothing. She supposes Steve might have a harder time of it, having been on ice for so long, but she makes no comment to draw attention to it. She usually would. But she's not sure where she stands with him now. Especially after the less-than-pleasant reception.
Natasha's starting to feel a little bad about that.
"There's a diner just down the road," she says. "The coffee is terrible, but it's strong. And hot."
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There aren't many people in the diner at this time of day; a sleepy looking waitress wiping down tables, an old man absorbed in a newspaper, a few people sitting at the counter watching television. It's on a news channel, some report about a factory closing down that Steve listens to for a few seconds before deciding it's not important.
"You wanna get something to eat too?"
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"This is starting to sound like a date," she says, a faint, familiar smile on her lips. It's strange how easy it is to fall back into their old pattern of banter. Reminds her a little of how things used to be with Clint, before things got too emotionally charged between them.
But things haven't changed between her and Steve. Not really. Things have changed between her and SHIELD, her and the Avengers, her and America. But it's comforting to know she can still fall back into old routines with him, at least.
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"Is it?" He smiles back wryly, taking another sip of coffee. "Never did see Sharon again, so I guess you'll have to stand in."
None of the Avengers expect him to come back with her. A fool's errand for a restless soldier, another ghost for him to chase. But she's the one who told him wait, so maybe it's not completely a lost cause.
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Natasha lulls into silence then, because she's not sure they have much common ground besides SHIELD and Steve's love life and she doesn't feel like delving any deeper into either. The banter is the same but they desperately need new content.
Well. There is one question she wants to know the answer to.
"Did you find him?" The non-sequitur might be jarring, but she's fairly certain Steve will pick up on what - or rather, who - she's talking about pretty quickly.
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Before he had come out here to find Natasha, Sam had cornered him and asked if this was about their - he called it their, but it was Steve's, really - failure to bring Bucky home. He hadn't been able to give a straight answer.
"Yeah," he replies, voice hollow. "He didn't want to be found."
Not unlike her. The similarities are jarring if he thinks about them, and he really doesn't want to. He doesn't want to talk about this at all.
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Still. She feels badly for him.
"So it's back to basics for you then." The waitress delivers several plates worth of food; Natasha picks disinterestedly at a bowl of fries. "Back to saving the world."
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"Sure," he replies with a humorless smile. "'Cut off one head' and all that." It will be a long time before they discover the full extent of Hydra's reach, and it's more personal than ever now. Steve may never get Bucky back, but he will hunt them until his dying breath for what they've done.
The TV drones on in the background as he starts on the food, eating slowly and methodically. About halfway through, his phone buzzes in his pocket. Steve wipes his hand on a napkin and swipes it open, feeling a little apprehensive, relaxing when he sees who it's from.
"Sam sends his regards." He also mentions Steve being needed back at the Tower, but it can't be urgent or Hill would have arranged for an extraction
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"It's not just HYDRA you're fighting now, is it?" She sits back, drumming her fingers absently on the edge of the table.
"How bad is it, Steve? Be honest with me." God knows she's never been fully honest with him, but he's a bad liar. It's painful when he tries; she'd prefer to avoid the headache.
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"We can't do as much as we'd like. What we can might not be enough."
Natasha's skill set would be more than a little useful, they both know that. Steve considers asking her one more time, but it might ruin whatever had prompted her to stop him leaving. He returns to his food instead and waits to see what she has to say to such vague information.
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"You've picked up tips from Fury." Her eyes don't leave Steve's face. "Is he involved yet?"
And this may be the question that brings her back. Natasha knows she wouldn't have hesitated if the former Director himself came after her, but she also knows he wouldn't have been able to even if he wanted to. Steve's close in her circle of trust, but Fury is the epicenter of it.
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Steve will never develop a taste for subterfuge, but he does understand the need for it from time to time. He's learned a lot from Nick Fury; respects the man for what he does, even though they don't agree on methods.
He meets Natasha's gaze steadily. "Would you come back if he was?"
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"Yes," she says, sounding faintly surprised at her own answer. "But I think I'm going to come back regardless. I think we both knew that when I walked in the door." She sighs, resignedly, and finally meets Steve's gaze with a small smile on her lips. Probably the first genuine one she's managed in months.
"They were smart, sending you to retrieve me."
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They would be happy to have her back, of course. Stark had put a lot of thought into the tower redesign, and there had been quarters set aside for her from the beginning. Probably a new suit and upgraded weaponry as well, if what Clint had been greeted with was any indication. He looks forward to seeing her realize that she's not just needed on the team, but wanted too.
He polishes off the rest of the food and goes to the counter to pay. One of the people watching TV glances at him, a little too deliberate to be just an offhand look. Haircut and scruff or no, Steve's face had been splashed all over the news after SHIELD. He's not that hard to recognize if someone knows what to look for. They don't seem hostile, but he's not going to take that chance.
"Time to go," he says to Natasha as he returns to their table.
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For the moment, more immediate worries have eclipsed her anxiety about returning. Worries that have her gripping her Glock underneath her coat. She rises to her feet, letting go of it briefly to make her way with Steve to the door. The guy getting up to nonchalantly follow them doesn't escape her notice.
"How do you want to play this?" she asks Steve quietly out of the corner of her mouth. "I've had to put down a few interested parties these last couple of months, but if I know you, you'll be preferring something bloodless." She can still break a man's kneecaps without bullets, though.
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There are people around, too many witnesses for their tail to try anything, though if taking them out had been the objective, they wouldn't have been able to leave the diner so easily. Now it's just a question of who they are and what they want from either Natasha or himself.
The list of people wanting to track them is long, ranging from HYDRA to the government, or worse, the media. Their interest in the Avengers had never really died down after New York and had only spiked after the hearings.
"I'm thinking we can go get your stuff, and then have a chat with him on the way out of town."
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There's a deep frown on her brow as she walks, tension in her shoulders, her hand always lurking close to her waistband under her coat. But she's silent until they get back to her motel room, and then it's a flurry of motion - throwing things into bags - mostly weapons, a couple of changes of clothes, a necklace she grabs from the bedside table.
"There's an alley next to the motel," she says to Steve as she shoulders her backpack. "Shortcut?" Her smile is shadowed, not a pleasant expression at all.
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He nods, missing the feeling of the shield on his arm. He had left it in the car he'd arrived in, parked a few blocks away from the motel. It was too conspicuous to carry around even in the portfolio bag Steve used to hide it when he was off-duty.
"Lead the way."
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They reach the motel room, and it only takes Natasha five minutes to throw everything she owns in a backpack. Then she turns to Steve and gives him a nod. She's ready.
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The man follows, of course, and finds himself pinned against a wall within seconds.
"Can we help you?" Steve asks lightly.