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Natasha watches the coffee percolate with her hand on her chin and a sigh on her breath. She hadn’t slept. She hates fighting with Steve. He’s just so fucking stubborn . Kids are dead, real kids, and all he wants to talk about are his fucking principles!
The coffee maker chimes, breaking Natasha out of her thoughts. They’re the same ones that have raced around her mind all night, chasing each other like a dog with its own tail. Pointless and never ending.
She drinks the coffee while it’s still too hot, enjoying the burn against the roof of her mouth, the scald down her throat.
“I keep telling you, you’re gonna burn yourself, drinking it like that.”
When Natasha swallows, the burn travels down to her lungs. “You’re awake,” she says. It must be late enough that it’s early, if Steve is up for his run.
“It’s six,” Steve says.
Natasha hears him step into the kitchen, hears him walk up behind her, then hesitate, not wrapping his arms around her like he usually does.
Natasha laughs harshly. “Still mad at me, huh? Don’t even want to hug your girlfriend?”
“Natasha,” Steve says, voice sharp. “Don’t say things like that.” He does wrap his arms around her waist then, hunching to put his forehead on the back of her shoulder.
Natasha sighs again and leans back into him. It feels good to let Steve take her weight, it always has. She doesn’t want to lose this.
“I still love you, you know, even when we’re fighting,” Steve says.
And that’s the thing about Steve, he’s so sweet that he means it. Natasha just can’t help wondering where the limit lies. Six fights? Ten? One hundred? And what happens when they get there? She knows what she’s like, the way she eventually runs people away.
“What about you?” Steve asks softly, his voice brushing against the back of Natasha’s neck. “Mad at me?”
Natasha shakes her head. “You’re very stubborn,” she says. “It’s frustrating.”
Steve laughs, a soft puff of breath. “So I’ve heard,” he says.
“I just want you to try to see it another way. You’re not always right.”
“I’ll try,” Steve says.
Natasha tilts her head back so Steve can see her raised eyebrow.
“I will,” Steve promises, his voice earnest. “We can talk after I run.”
Natasha is about to agree, when she remembers the screaming match last night that had made them both start towards each other before catching themselves. Maybe something physical will actually be a good thing. “I’ll run with you,” she says instead.
“Really?” Steve asks, pulling back. While they spar often enough (and it only sometimes leads into sex on the training mats) Natasha doesn’t usually run with Steve. She knows she’s in good shape and can hold her own against plenty of people, even amongst the superheroes she spends her time with, but no one can match Steve in endurance or speed.
“Yeah,” Natasha says. “We can talk as we run. If you don’t mind going slow.”
“I don’t mind,” Steve says, his voice dipping low. His fingers dip low too, playing with the hem of Natasha’s ratty lab shirt.
Natasha laughs. “You thinking of somethin’ else there, hot stuff?”
Steve hums. “Maybe,” he says. “I do like the thought of you all hot and sweaty.”
Natasha laughs and starts squirming against his hold.
Steve kisses her behind her ear and strokes her stomach with promise.
“Lemme go change,” Natasha says, stroking her fingers over the back of Steve’s. “Unless you want me to run pantless and barefoot.”
“You do have nice legs,” Steve says.
“Flatterer,” Natasha says, patting his cheek with one hand, the other still holding her mug. She downs the rest of her coffee in one long burning sip, just to hear Steve sigh against her. She grins at him over her shoulder as she wiggles out of his arms, Steve turning it into some light grappling. Fuck, but Natasha doesn’t want to lose this.
As she ducks into their room to change, she frowns at her face in the mirror of her vanity. It’s a familiar feeling, looking at herself in the mirror with disdain. She wonders what Steve sees when he looks at her, how he manages to see someone worth all his love and attention.
She can’t see it. All she can see is someone who deep down, is selfish. Everything she’s done, from Iron Woman to the Stark Industries pivot, to the charities, to the clean energy initiatives…it’s all just a front. Deep down, she hasn’t changed at all. Still willing to sacrifice others for her own happiness with Steve.
She shakes her head, watching her ponytail flick back and forth. She’s being dramatic again, her thoughts running the same old paths to nowhere once more. Steve has assured her countless times. Iron Woman is a hero, she has the handmade card and misspelled letters from kids saying so. It’s just her own mind spinning against her.
Natasha turns her back on herself, determined to continue ignoring that little voice in the back of her head. She switches her oversized shirt for a sports bra, then hesitates, running her fingers over the smooth skin of her breasts, before putting the shirt back on.
The Extremis may have healed the wounds on her chest, but after so many years of the chest plate and the artificial hearts and the mastectomy scars, she still doesn’t like anyone looking at it. Not even Steve, really, even though he hadn’t acted like he cared at all about the scars when they were still there.
Too good for her truly.
Steve grins at her when she comes back out, everything about his face glad to see her. “Let’s go,” he says.
Natasha follows him out of the mansion and through the grounds. Her security team would have kittens if they knew she was going out in public without any security to shadow her, but what they’ll find out later on the gossip sites won’t hurt them. Besides, Natasha can take care of herself. Even without the armor, she’s been trained extensively in hand to hand combat, by the literal best in the world. Besides, she’s out with Captain fucking America himself. And it’s not like Steve would let anything hurt her.
They don’t really start jogging until they’re off the streets and onto the jogging trails of Central Park, the general apathy of New Yorkers turning them into just another yuppie couple who runs in the mornings. Steve lets them find the rhythm of their sneakers against the pavement, before he starts in on the registration argument again.
“You know the government having a database of all of us would be bad,” he says. “You can talk all you want about safeguards on the data, and how it wouldn’t be accessed unless it’s needed, but you’re not stupid, Natasha. You know the government officials will just misuse it! How long do you think it would even take before someone’s sticky fingers got all involved?”
Natasha knows, even agrees. But she can’t stop seeing the footage of that school, the building smoking, the ground around it scorched and dead. It reminds her too much of the craters her own weapons had left in the desert. “Keeping our identities secret keeps us safe. But what about the rest of the world? What about those kids in Stamford?”
Steve swallows hard. Natasha knows that seeing the ruins of a school had hurt him too.
“The New Warriors should have never been put in that position,” Steve says.
“Well, they were. Because some stupid television show was trying to exploit their powers.”
“So it’s better if it’s the government that’s exploiting kids?”
“It’s about accountability,” Natasha says. “It’s…it’s like the gun registry. If you’re going to have something that can hurt someone else, there ought to be something in place to hold you accountable when others get hurt.”
“A gun is something people can choose to have,” Steve argues. “These kids aren’t choosing to be born with these powers.”
“That’s what the training is for.”
“They shouldn’t have to be soldiers,” Steve says.
“Anyone going into combat is a soldier,” Natasha counters. “You told me that once.”
“Because it’s a serious responsibility. If they just want to live their lives, they shouldn’t be made to train their powers.”
“Until someone has a temper tantrum and levels Connecticut.”
“They need support, not training. I-” Steve stops talking, but he keeps running, picking up the pace just a bit.
Natasha frowns, and tries to catch up with him. “Steve?”
“Saw someone in the trees,” Steve says under his breath. “The glint off a scope.”
“Probably just a camera,” Natasha soothes. “Just an idiot trying to come up with something salacious about us.”
Steve doesn’t look convinced. He tilts his head subtly to the right, and Natasha sees the flash of sun’s glint too.
“Shit,” she says, but Steve is already moving, tackling her to the ground before the shot even finishes ringing out.
Screams erupt around them, the morning quiet disrupted by the gunshots.
There’s a beat, and then the patter of submachine gun fire. Steve wraps his arms around Natasha’s torso and rolls them into the bushes, taking cover in the foliage.
Natasha grunts, a stick digging in through her thin shirt into the skin of her back.
She looks up at Steve, hovering above her, blood trailing down the side of his face from his temple.
Before she or Steve can do or say anything, there’s another patter of fire and Natasha is crushed beneath Steve’s body weight again.
“Stop doing that, you’re not bulletproof,” Natasha grumbles as Steve drags them further into the foliage.
“I’m more bulletproof than you.”
“No, you’re not,” Natasha says, letting the armor spill out over her skin. “And you were already hit!”
She rolls out from under Steve and Iron Woman stands in the bushes. The HUD easily shows the heat signatures of the people around them, most of them running as far and as fast as they can, but one figure is headed right towards where Natasha is standing in the bushes. A thought is all it takes to send a knockout missile straight at the guy.
He goes down with an oomph easy as anything.
Natasha lets the armor sink back into her bones as Steve picks himself up from the ground.
“Since when do assassins work in broad daylight in Central fucking Park?” Natasha asks, crouching over the guy. He’s dressed in non-descript blacks, no logos or tags, and Natasha doesn’t recognize his face.
“Serial number’s filed off,” Steve says, poking at the gun. “Professional gear, but not very good at shooting.”
“Says the guy with a graze wound on his forehead,” Natasha points out.
Steve huffs and swipes a hand through the wound, smearing the blood all over his temple and into his hair. “It’s nothing,” he says.
Natasha rolls her eyes. “I hate it when they use guns,” she says. “At least with the costumes we know who they are.”
Steve glares at her. “Don’t try to use this to make your point,” he says. He frowns, digging into the dude’s pockets. He comes back up, face pale, holding a paper in his hands.
“What is it?” Natasha asks, stepping closer.
Steve’s face is tight as he hands it to her. It’s a glossy magazine cover, a big picture of the school in Stamford, smoking overlayed with the class pictures of the kids.
Natasha’s stomach drops. She feels bad about the joke a few seconds ago.
Steve runs a hand through his hair, smearing more blood into it, bright against his blond. “We were just talking about it,” he murmurs.
“Do you think he wanted to get you, or me?” Natasha asks.
Steve looks again at the man, eyes going distant. “They’re willing to kill over it,” he says softly.
“Hey, hey,” Natasha says. “He was just some dumbass.”
“He could have killed you,” Steve says softly.
“Hey, I’m fine, Steve,” Natasha says, stepping closer to him. She’s seen plenty of people react to violence, the shock, the way they can go distant, but never Steve. Steve’s always been cool-headed, calm and assured. Natasha frowns, worried by his reaction. Even the civilians are trickling back into the area, cellphones out, rubbernecking. She can even hear sirens approaching from the distance.
“Babe, you alright?” Natasha asks.
Steve reaches out, pulls her close to him, kisses the side of her head. “Natasha, I thought you were hurt.”
“I wasn’t,” Natasha says, a bit bewildered. It’s not that Steve isn’t protective, doesn’t show concern, but usually not out in public like this, and not over some minor weirdo with a gun. “I have Extremis now, remember? Enhanced healing and everything. All suped up.”
“I know,” Steve says. “I just…for a second there, I saw the worst happen.”
Natasha squeezes his wrist where it’s wrapped around her waist. “I’m okay,” she says again. “Steve-”
“Marry me,” Steve blurts.
Natasha shuts her mouth, her sentence about being Iron Woman coming with risks, and Steve letting her live her own life dying in her throat.
“I mean it,” Steve continues, his face intent once more. “I love you. I don’t want to lose you. Not to assassins and not to some stupid argument.”
“Okay,” Natasha agrees. “Marriage then?”
Steve nods, a shy look taking over his face. “I, uh. I had plans. I was going to cook for you. Have a romantic night. I even have a ring.”
“Oh,” Natasha says. Her brain is whirring, trying to adjust to the new subject.
Steve grins at her, half of his mouth lifting up into his bashful boy scout smile. The one that’s pure Steve Rogers, sweet and shy. Her Steve, not the man behind Captain America.
Natasha’s always liked that smile. “I like this proposal too,” she says.
“Yeah?” Steve asks, his grin growing.
“Yes,” Natasha says. “Yes, I like it, and yes, I will marry you, Steve.”
Steve moves to kiss her so fast her last few words end up spoken into his mouth.
Natasha laughs into the kiss before kissing back.
Distantly, Natasha can hear cheers and cameras. At least the reporters of New York are getting an easy splash for their gossip pages.
When they pull apart Steve is laughing too. “I really did have a whole plan,” he says softly.
“You can still make me dinner,” Natasha says. “And I want my ring.”
Steve grins and kisses her again.
Natasha can feel the blood from Steve’s injury smearing between their faces. She can feel the aches and pains from their roll on the ground in her shoulders, her neck. There’s definitely scratches up and down her back from the twigs, not to mention a would-be assassin at their feet. There’s shit to deal with. But Natasha can taste Steve’s laughter in her mouth, and feel the way that he’s rubbing his finger around the base of her ring finger. It makes her want to believe that maybe things can work out for them.