Work Text:
Hello
I’ve waited here for you
It’s dizzying, confusing—utterly heartbreaking, at times—to be forced to contrast yourself against the goddamn national treasure you’re fighting beside on a daily basis.
For essentially her entire life Natasha has been exclusively in the company of walking blurred lines making their way through the shades of gray. Red room, KGB, Shield—Clint, Nick, Coulson, Tony… they’ve all been at least some version of fucked up, enough so to keep her from ruminating too long over the red dripping from her ledger. Sure, she’s been trying to atone for it every day for the last god knows how many years. But it’s never once felt so ever-present to her as when she stands beside Steve I-died-for-my-country-and-came-back-to-save-it-again Rogers.
Never one for shades of gray; no, the man with a plan was star-spangled red, white, and blue.
It’s not as if he intended to make her feel any version of less-than. In fact, he was nothing was downright starstruck by her wit, her skill, her determination. The glowing approval in his eyes should have made her feel all that much cleaner in his presence.
But his trust was misplaced. His awe was tainted by all the hows and whys behind every move he admired. Just because she was ripping Chitauri to pieces today doesn’t mean she hasn’t slit a sleeping father’s throat without blinking an eye.
The serum that made Steve into Captain America just took what was already so good about him and made him great. The Red Room took everything wrong with the world, everything wrong with Natalia Romanova and carved it into a pretty little weapon.
After the wormhole was closed, after Loki was muzzled and Shwarma was eaten and all the TV channels and radio stations and random bloggers had exhausted themselves of everything that’s wrong with The Avengers, after Natasha finally had three goddamn minutes of peace and quiet in which to brood over the bittersweet nature of saving the world still not being enough to wash her hands clean, that’s when it all kind of… broke.
“You’re looking awfully disappointed considering a day or so ago we stopped both an alien invasion and a state-sponsored nuke.”
Steve was dressed casually, but somehow he made everyday dude wear look like a uniform. Perfectly white shirt. Excersise pants that may or may not have been ironed. Coiffed hair that waved like the flag he represented, not a single hair on his head breaking ranks with the rest, come hell or high radiation.
She groaned internally, using nearly all of her remaining energy to not roll her eyes: “Do you ever take a break from looking on the bright side, boy scout?”
“I got kicked out of boy scouts. I think one of the other boys earned a badge for his quick thinking during my asthma attack, though.”
It was all-too-easy to forget that the mountain of a man beside her was nothing but a sickly, scrawny kid with a distaste for bullies and absolutely no brawn to back it up. She’d seen the pictures. The whole world had. But it seemed like movie magic or a fever dream that Steve could have ever been… weak.
“I should go thank him. We’d definitely be pink mist right now without you.”
Steve’s responding scoff was so loud, she thought he might be choking on his perfect teeth or something. He shook his head and chewed on his lip and Natasha worried that she might need to call for Banner or Stark because maybe the supersoldier was glitching.
“Not sure I bring much to the table, Avengers-wise. The rest of you… you’re the ones with actual skills. I’m just stubborn. And tall.”
“You can’t possibly think that.” From anyone else it would seem like a fishing expedition, a self-deprecation meant to encourage compliments. But he seemed entirely genuine. And… ashamed.
“Natasha, I know we’re not… friends. We don’t know much about each other beyond what Fury showed us in files that I’m assuming, at least for me, were heavily redacted. But you and Clint, you’ve been working together for years. You know exactly what needs to be done and you do it. Tony invents things that even his father never could have conceived. Thor is a goddamn god. And Banner… I might be strong, but I’ve got nothing on him. I’m just a solider. A solider who’s slept his life away. I’ll never be what you are, but hey,” he paused, taking a small step toward her, his head bowed and his hands tucking themselves into his pocket. “I’m willing to be the weak link if it means I get to be a part of something good.”
Perhaps the only thing more dizzying, confusing (and heartbreaking) than thinking you’re nothing but tits and trauma and torture next to a national treasure—is realizing he’s jealous of you.
Not a single living being could ever live up to the façade of Captain America, the folk tale passed down the generations, the propaganda and the inspiration porn and the hollow tale that everyone (including Natasha) has believed to be the truth of the man in front of her.
What a joke.
“Steve, you’re the best of us. That’s the hill I’ll die on.”
He blushed like the dork he actually might be (behind the serum and the vibranium and his desperate desire to make a difference), turning on his heel to walk away.
Just before he rounded the corner out of Shield’s lobby, he cocked his head back, confidence-mask back in place: “Nobody’s dying today, ma’am.”
Tonight
I throw myself into
And out of the red
Out of her head, she sang
It’s weird standing next to someone at their own grave. Then again, he’d watched his best friend die, what, 70 years before? Only to have him show up with a fucking rocket launcher or whatever that was, dead-eyed and trying to kill him.
The world was weirder than he’d ever imagined. And honestly, he’d imagined a lot.
Fury had walked away, off to slice more heads of Hydra. Sam was sticking with him in his quest to find Steve’s lost best friend, perhaps as penance for having lost his own, possibly in service of the overall greater good.
But Natasha—he couldn’t figure her out. She was leaving… but why? And to where?
Her secrets were out, just like everyone else’s. But the avenging still needed doing, didn’t it? She still had Clint and Tony and Bruce. She still had a home in New York, still had problems to solve stateside.
More to the actual point and the reason his gut was stinging like it hadn’t since long before the serum—she had him, right?
He’d never been closer to another person—arguably in his entire long life—than he was to Nat. She was his friend, of course. His partner, both in upholding the law and breaking it. His (ultimately unsuccessful) matchmaker. His trauma-bonded companion in life and near-death.
Simultaneously the best and most awkward kiss he’d ever received.
Yeah, he hadn’t been lying; it wasn’t his first kiss since 1945. But what she didn’t know was the (very few) kisses he’d had before that one had been more in service of trying not to sexually harass a colleague than they were about wanting to kiss the women he’d actually taken out.
Since meeting her on the helicarrier, he’d been intrigued by her, captivated even. After fighting next to her, she’s the only one he’s even thought about wanting. But it was wrong, ungentlemanly, and, unfortunately, deeply one-sided.
Regardless, her cheek-kiss left an imprint, burning his skin for days and weeks after the fall of Shield, the destruction of D.C., and the deflation of what little ego he had left.
She wasn’t his to need. He was just a little duckling imprinting on the first warm body that made him feel seen, feel safe.
Maybe he’d have the privilege of kicking ass beside her once again, but the fact was: that’s all it would ever be. Friends who fight the power—and occasionally bare their scars to one another when no one else was looking.
But that was all.
Slow how
You wanted it to be
I’m over my head
Out of her head, she sang
Of course he was someone else’s. It only made sense. No one that beautiful, that good, that complex and righteous and downright respectable would ever want to sully themselves by shacking up with her.
He once a-fucking-gain sacrificed himself for the world—and for his world. She’d never seen someone express love that clearly before, allowing themselves to be shot and drowned just to keep their love alive.
James. Bucky. Of course he’d loved him. She’d been to the fucking museum. He crossed enemy lines with theater props on the off-chance that Bucky might still be alive. He went from his self-proclaimed dancing monkey status to war hero, all for the love of his best friend.
And what a happily-ever-after they’d be working toward if Steve ever found him and brought him home.
Steve and Sam were chasing leads on the former Winter Soldier every free minute they had, even if they weren’t always honest with her about it.
It didn’t sting. They could do what they wanted. She was just a teammate, not their mom. Not their girlfriend. Not their real partner.
Just a weapon dressed in tight leather. Just a bringer of death. Dirty, unlike Steve.
That’s probably what drew her to Hulk in the first place. Fucked up, just like her. Experimented on, even if by his own hand. Turned into something he couldn’t take back. Feared. Deadly. A match if she’d ever seen one.
But he’d left her, too.
Too much a monster for giant green roaring creature… that might have been a new low.
But being thrust back into not only seeing Steve every day at the Avengers Campus but leading together with him—she was close enough to see what could but ultimately never would be.
There wasn’t enough vodka in Russia for this shit.
But she’d press on.
Wanda needed a force like Natasha in her life. And Sam would be hopeless without her. Rhodey could deal, but he could use some de-programming from the bullshit Tony had probably put in his head over the years. And Vision—who knows what the synthezoid was capable of, but she was looking forward to witnessing it.
And maybe Steve might need her a little bit. Once in a while. Maybe he’d lean on her until he got his Bucky back.
And maybe that little bit of the light would be enough for her.
And I wonder
When I sing along with you
If everything could ever feel this real forever
The damage report was high, higher than he’d ever seen.
He’d crashed his own plane into the Arctic. He’d watched buildings fall and bombs explode and helicarriers blow to pieces only to sink into the Potomac, but none of it compared to the colossal disaster that was the splintering of the Avengers.
It shouldn’t have happened. He should have caved, should have listened to Natasha.
Staying together is more important than how we stay together.
Wasn’t that all he ever wanted, to belong? To do good? He’d given up everything because he was too damn stubborn to give an inch when it came to what he loved. He wouldn’t compromise on freedom and he sure as hell wouldn’t compromise in a way that allowed people he loved to become collateral damage. Wanda. Bucky.
Rhodey.
It all went to hell. Tony probably could have listened a little better, too, but what else did he expect from the son of Howard? A great scientist, sure, but that ego was never going to make him father of the year. Was it really Tony’s fault that he resented Steve?
Steve resented Steve. The little guy still living in his brain and his heart would always be jealous of the muscled hero exterior, the version of them who finally got seen.
His ideals and motives had never changed. He’d always hated bullies. But it didn’t get him anywhere until he could punch a hole through solid concrete.
What a sad commentary on the world—then and now.
His friends were mostly in the Raft. Thankfully still alive, but for how long? Especially Wanda. They feared her most, and fear, as we all know, is the path to the Dark Side.
(Natasha made him watch Star Wars. Every movie. Every series. He even read the books. It, like him, was essentially World War II fanfiction. But he liked the lasers and the world-saving. And the hope. The hope most of all.)
His plot to free them from the world’s most secure prison was already in motion, so by all accounts, he should have been determined. Relieved. Motivated.
But there was a hugely significant piece of the puzzle missing.
And thanks to him, she was also wanted by a hundred or so countries.
What words could he ever say to her to make her understand how deeply sorry he was? Maybe if he learned Russian there would be a better translation. Or German. They had all the untranslatable terms for the intangible. Was there a word that meant “I regret this so much I’d like to go freeze myself for another 70 years as penance”?
Nah, probably too niche. He’d have to make up a word for it.
That is, if he ever saw her again.
Maybe she found Banner. Maybe they were off living the happily-ever-after she most certainly deserved. Maybe she was sunbathing on a remote island, no one in miles to criticize her scar or report her fire-red hair and deadly curves to local authorities (no one looked like Natasha, in or out of her Black Widow apparel).
He’d resolved years ago to leave her out of his pathetic fantasies. Just because they’d spent more time together before it all went to hell, just because she stayed in his room more nights than she didn’t, just because their easy friendship and camaraderie had bled into them becoming each other’s secret keeper and shoulder to cry on—none of it mattered.
It wasn’t like that. She didn’t want him; after all, she’d had plenty enough opportunities after the escalator to… practice.
In a different life, long before Rumlow’s bomb and the Accords, Tony had been fascinated by all the fuck-ups 40s Steve had made. One particular story Howard had told him really tickled his fancy: the time that he misunderstood fondue as a euphemism for sex. Tony, always good-naturedly ribbing Steve for something, went so far as to throw a whole fondue party just to keep the joke running.
“Hey, Steve! I’ve heard Natasha wants your fondue. You really should be more accommodating to our poor, starving—,” Tony had shouted from one side of the tower to the other, Natasha unceremoniously punching him in the privates before he could finish his sentence.
It was one thing to mock his young naivete, but to bring Nat into it—that really stung.
Did everyone know he was in love with her? Were they all making fun of him behind his back? Did she make fun of him? God, how embarrassing.
At least at the time it had been. The air had been cleared the following morning when Natasha reassured him that the taunt was borne only of her being the closest woman to him at the time he decided to say it. Which, she’d said, was so closed-minded of him.
“It would make more sense for him to have targeted Thor, I’d say,” Natasha had added, lightly shoving her shoulder into his, as if they were sharing a secret.
He’d never gotten to find out what inside joke he’d clearly been missing. They’d been all business the rest of that week, and then there was Lagos, there was the funeral, Vienna, the goddamn Russian tundra.
And now she was gone.
He probably should have told her at some point. Just to get it out of his system. Just so he’d know for sure. Hadn’t he told Bruce that as the foremost expert on waiting… don’t?
All he could do now was focus on who he could save.
And that had to be enough.
She caught chatter on the few channels she could still covertly access that something had gone down at the Raft. She was back to being alone again already, having left her first family behind (again) after tearing apart the Red Room (again).
Please not mass execution. Anything but that.
The next several days were a blur of very little sleep, no eating, and constant monitoring of any and all channels she could find. Hushed, coded clips individually didn’t reveal much, but together she’d pieced together the basics: there was an escape. Two prisoners took plea deals for house arrest and didn’t leave in the escape. The rest were at large.
Logic would say the fathers were the ones who pled out, so that left Sam and Wanda out there on their own, probably with whomever assisted in their breakout.
Steve. It couldn’t be anyone but him.
She’d let him escape with the man he’d essentially burned down his world for, so she’d hoped they gone off to live their happy ending, but that’s also not how Steve operated. Of course they’d go back for his best friends and surrogate daughter.
Yeah, they were probably off living like a happy little undercover family now. He was—they were—probably fine.
But she had to see for herself.
It was a Saturday when she finally located their safe house, a little hut in Mexico not too terribly far from a property owned by Banner. From the surveillance it looked like it was just Sam, Wanda, and Steve. All of that work and he let Bucky go?
“You could just knock on the door, you know,” called a smooth, smug voice from behind her.
It had been years since anyone had gotten the drop on her. And now she had to admit to herself that the first person to sneak up on her was Sam Wilson? That was a blow to the ego.
“You fucker. You could have approached from the front.”
“And miss an opportunity to surprise the Black Widow? Doubt it.” Sam smirked, but walked closer to her, arms outstretched to hug her. She met him halfway, squeezing him tighter than probably she’d ever squeezed anyone who wasn’t Yelena, back before the second round of the Red Room.
“Would you believe me if I said I missed you, bird brain?” she asked into his shoulder, still hugging him tightly.
“Shockingly yes,” he responded, patting her back and running his hand over her now-blonde hair. “But I think we all know the trophy for missing someone goes to Rogers.”
“Yeah, but he has Bucky back now, right? So everything is fine.” Her training allowed her to keep her voice even, feigning a lack of emotion.
(She was happy for them, of course, but unrequited love stung no matter the circumstance.)
“Bucky’s back on ice. T’Challa. He’s a good dude when he’s not trying to kill you. Him and his kid sister are going to keep him safe until they can deprogram the Hydra out of him. The Soldier. You know, tying up loose ends there.”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s really hard for Steve. Even if it’s for the best.”
“Yeah, but it’s nothing compared to his ridiculous pining for you. I was thinking we might have give up our cover just to get him to you to see you were OK. Honestly, it’s only mildly annoying for me. Poor Wanda, though. I don’t know if it’s the serum or it’s just Steve being… you know, heartfirst. But her telepathy picks up his brooding every day. I have a bet with myself as to if he’s going to crack and go find you first or if she’ll bail and try to find Vision. A little because she likes him, but mostly to just escape Steve.”
The words Sam was speaking technically made sense. In a certain way. It does sound like Steve to be so caught up in his feelings and his worry that he’d buttdial the witch with his brain.
But over her? That didn’t track.
Or, well, if it did, then she’d be forced to admit that the world’s best spy got surprised by Sam Wilson twice in one day.
That just wouldn’t do.
“Well, I guess we should go put him out of his misery, right?”
“Let me go in first. I need to see his face!” Sam started sprinting toward the hut like a child running for a piñata. It would be adorable if it weren’t another reminder of exactly how dense she’s been the last many years.
Sam quietly snuck into the hut, closing the door behind him quickly, setting the scene for her dramatic entrance.
She kinda wanted to just… run. She knew they were alive. He was fine, at least physically. And maybe Sam was wrong? Maybe he was exaggerating the feelings Steve was projecting to Wanda?
Maybe she needed to buck up and just ask the questions she probably should have asked long, long ago.
She mustered even more bravery than it took to ride Steve’s shield up to the Chitauri’s flying motorcycle… thing. More gumption than it took to speak in front of asshole politicians on Capitol Hill. Even more sass than it took to break her own nose to best Dreykov.
It was (pathetically) the scariest thing she’d ever done—but she approached and finally, she knocked.
A shuffle inside and a muffled why don’t you get the door, Stevie from Sam, a few creaks and rustles and then—just as fast as the door opened, she was swept into the hut, two trunk-sized arms around her middle, breath on her neck accompanied by a muffled thank god, and loudest of all, Wanda shouting from the corner, her Sokovian accent thick as her annoyance/relief: “Fucking finally!”
Natasha chuckled a bit as Steve finally put her back on her own feet, Sam having already shut the door behind them, his own eyes sparkling with some version of I told you so.
“Hey, Wanda, we need to go get supplies for dinner right?”
“Absolutely. I’m very glad to see you, Natasha. We’ll talk soon. Over dinner,” Wanda assured her, sending her some kind of telekinetic hug without actually touching her on her way out the door with Sam.
Natasha and Steve stood alone in the entryway of the hut for probably thirty seconds before either of them spoke. She was just gathering her thoughts and trying to figure out where the fuck to start (sorry? Thank you? I’m still pissed at you? I love you?)
But Steve broke first: “Is this real right now?”
After his bear hug, he’d retreated a bit, placing several feet of space between them as they sized each other up. But he again approached her, slow and careful, reaching one of his hands for hers.
Brain spinning with relief and revelation, it wasn’t the time for calm or calculated or half-truths.
Now or never, right?
“You’re the realest thing I’ve ever had.”
Steve twisted his hand in her, lacing their fingers together and taking another step closer, close enough now that the warmth of his ridiculously large body was radiating against hers.
“You were right. Staying together should have been more important than how.”
His eyes were pleading, full of pain. She took her other hand and brought it to cup his cheek.
“You were right. They were always going to use us. Going to make us do things we didn’t agree with.”
He nuzzled his face into her palm, almost cracking a smile. “I know I’m Captain America and all, so I’ve gotta be honest: I’m selfish enough that I might go along with doing some shitty stuff so long as it meant I got to be with you.”
If Sam hadn’t dropped a minor bomb of information on her just minutes before, she’d assume Steve was just being hyperbolic. Making a joke. Exaggerating for humor about their partnership that always was meant to stay at arm’s length.
But she could see it, actually feel it this time. It was in his eyes, in his smile, in the way he held her hand and, not surprisingly, her entire heart—the one that for so long she was convinced didn’t exist.
She closed the remaining space between them, pressing herself fully against him while grasping his hand and the back of his neck.
“And I know Black Widow always says that love is for children. But do you think maybe it’s for superheroes on the run, too?”
Steve blushed and rolled his eyes adorably before ducking down enough to press his lips to hers.
She smiled against him, too full of joy and relief to fully comprehend the massive shift in their relationship this one small moment marked.
They’d have to talk more later. She’d have to admit that she misunderstood his connection with Bucky, that she let her own self-doubt taint her perception of what was happening. He’d probably have things to confess, too. Hopefully one of them would explain how he managed to keep his feelings from one of the world’s best spies. Maybe he had something to teach her after all.
Eventually they’d talk about it.
For now, they kissed like the war was finally over, making up for lost time.