When Clint made the decision to lower his bow and spare her for the hopes of a second chance, Natasha had promised herself that she would take advantage of the mercy he hadn't been obligated to provide, helping him at every turn and devoting the rest of her life to wiping that crimson ledger clean.
She'd made a promise, and had stayed true to it for all these years, and yet it still wasn't enough, would never be enough-this she knew. The Black Widow was all too aware of the implicit futility of her efforts to atone, to wash away her mistakes like they'd never been there at all, but now it was a set reality to her, a certain, intangible fact that was glaring at her from miles and miles away, a traitor seeping into her bloodstream.
I've been compromised.
They'd all been compromised, lied to, betrayed-and Natasha realized that all the good she'd been doing, all the sins she'd made up for in the name of S.H.I.E.L.D. and its goals, was but smoke and dust, a veil to shroud what lurked beneath.
She'd been inadvertently aiding HYDRA all this time, for the sake of herself and her ledger and those she'd hurt, and because of such immense deception, she was left with nothing to show for all the years she'd all but wasted attempting to right her wrongs.
It was almost too much.
She'd never be able to make up for it now, would never be able to fix the past, would never be able to cleanse her hands of the blood dripping from them in thick streams.
If Natasha was the emotional sort, she might have just broken down in that graveyard, watching the disappearing outline of Fury's back for what felt like the last time.
She might have just curled in on herself to rest against his fake tombstone and cry herself into a dreamy, oblivious stupor, might have just refused to acknowledge the world and all she'd done to make it a worse place.
She might have, but she wasn't the type of person to give into the lure of her problems.
And with Steve at her side, Natasha thought that she might just be able to withstand the weight of her failures just a little longer, if only because she knew that he'd always be there if ever she needed him, if ever she called upon him when the world was too dark or too suffocating or too eager to remind her of what she'd done.
…
It was a shock, before anything else, to realize not only that Bucky was alive, but that his mind had been tampered with. It was a quick, sad, mournful realization, and one Steve had since then tried his hardest to remedy.
He'd wanted so desperately to get through to the winter soldier, had wanted more than anything to have his old friend back, had needed some kind of closure, some kind of aged, faded life that only Bucky could provide-forever the ghost from a past now long-gone.
He'd almost believed that he could do it in so short an amount of time, that he could undo what seventy years of manipulation and chilled sleep had done, that he could pull from the assassin the remnants of James and make him whole again, piece him together until it was 1945 again and he had that chance to grab Bucky's hand in time.
But it would never again be like it was, and Steve was only just starting to figure that out. He was only just starting to understand that Sam was now a partner on yet another mission, a friend destined to either perish or dutifully remain, a soldier in another unwinnable war.
He was only just starting to realize that the Avengers had been the beginning of a whole new life, and that Peggy was a shell with dimmed eyes that livened every now and then, a ghost with a time-worn voice and phantoms floating in her head.
It was all laid out before him, a new era and a new fate, and he hoped with all that he had that Bucky would be there at his side, as it should be.
He'd just have to find him first.
And with Natasha in his life, an ever-present shadow of the new road he was traveling on, Steve would make it. He'd be able to cope with the trials of his past and the challenges of his future, as long as he knew that she would be there whenever he needed her to be.
...
It was a simple concept, really.
Based off a prompt given over on Tumblr.
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