uncertainty
The helicarrier is no substitute for a real home. Indeed, Steve finds that he's almost homesick for his apartment in Manhattan, which never even seemed like a home to him in the first place. Anything would have been better than this flying mass of metal and secrets, he knows. So does Tony Stark, because he has done much to make his time on the carrier as cozy as he can. And amongst the many gadgets and gizmos Tony has brought with him from his Malibu house, which people tell Steve is a city of its own, there is an espresso machine.
Ordinarily, Steve would steer very clear of the machine, a tangled mess of stainless steel and technology that is well beyond anything he ever hopes to understand. He walked in on Clint swearing at it and stabbing it with an arrow once, and if the Hawk couldn't get it to work then he didn't have a prayer. Regardless, tonight he is standing before it, scratching his head, craving something other than the sludgy gunk the SHIELD people call coffee.
Tony showed him once how to operate it, but the entire tutorial has completely flown out of his head. He presses buttons and taps a screen that remains resolutely blank, but nothing is pouring into the mug he has placed under the spout in the alcove where he assumes the coffee will come out of and fifteen minutes later and still espresso-less, he is ready to grab the machine and pound it against the counter until it breaks. Just as the thought is finding a foothold in his mind, however, he is stopped by a cool voice behind him saying, "Did you check to see if it's plugged in?"
It's Natasha, sitting calmly at the table before a bowl of berries. Steve hadn't even heard her approach. How long has she been sitting there watching him fumble around with the machine?
"You should check if it's plugged in," she says. "Tony has this thing about a sudden power surge short circuiting the machine, so he unplugs it when it's not in use. He says the helicarrier works with different voltage."
Steve blinks. "What does that mean?" he asks meekly.
In response, she raises herself from her seat in one fluid motion and is beside him in another, reaching behind the machine and emerging with the accursed plug before sticking it into the nearest socket.
"What're you having?" she asks.
"I didn't get that far," he mutters.
Her mouth twitches into a smile and after a few taps of the touch screen on the face of the machine, hot, frothy liquid is pouring out of it and into his mug. He wants to jump for joy but settles for a content smile.
"Much obliged, ma'am," he tells her as he takes the mug.
She sits back down at the table and he joins her. Now that he takes a better look at her, he sees that she looks decidedly different. After a moment of internally debating with himself about why, he notices that her hair is pulled back into a loose ponytail, wisps of it falling onto her forehead and cheeks to frame her face. It is a jarring change from her usual hairstyle, and it softens her features. Without the vibrant red curls curtaining her face, she looks like less of the deft assassin he knows she is and more like an ordinary girl.
"I think we know each other enough to be on a first name basis, Steve," she says, rolling her eyes. "Don't call me ma'am."
"Sorry," he says, blowing on his coffee.
They sit in silence for a moment. She's picking at the berries, but not eating any. The bowl is full. Her eyes are vacant and far away. He thinks about starting a conversation with her but after a quick look around for inspiration, he realizes he doesn't know what to say.
He takes a sip of his espresso and tastes a thousand flavors and he's almost overwhelmed at first as his mouth tries to separate the different tastes bombarding his senses. It's a warm taste, like vanilla, then spicy, like cinnamon, and he thinks he tastes something orangey as well. He looks up in surprise and finds her watching closely.
"Like it?" she asks.
He nods, practically inhaling the entire mug and handing it out to her for another.
"I didn't think you'd like the spice combo," she says casually as her fingers tap out another mixture on the machine's screen. "Not a lot of people do."
"It's great," he says, eagerly accepting his second mug.
She smiles at him from across the table. "I'll bet this is all pretty weird for you."
"What is?"
"The espresso machine, touch screen phones, Wi-Fi," she says, counting them out on her fingers. "Western civilization as a whole."
He looks at her over the rim of his mug. "What year were you born, Natasha?"
She's taken aback by her question. "1984."
"I should have been about sixty-five when you were born."
"Wow." She sits back, staring at a point past his shoulder. "And I was asking about Wi-Fi."
He laughs, then is sobered immediately when he realizes what he's laughing about. "Yeah. It's complicated."
Complicated doesn't begin to describe it, but he doesn't want to get into it, or think about it, so he distracts himself by taking a large gulp of coffee and scorching his throat thoroughly. It's distraction enough, because Natasha is snickering and he thinks he may have temporarily lost the use of his vocal cords.
"You had TV back then, didn't you?" she asks.
He nods. "Of course."
"But no TiVo or cable or anything like that."
"Nope."
She stares into her bowl of berries and then pushes it toward him. He takes a raspberry to be polite and pops it into his mouth, the burst of flavor overwhelming all else for just a moment, until the moment passes and he is aware of a shrill ringing coming out of his pocket. It's his phone. He fumbles with it, aware that Natasha is watching his every move, and taps the screen where it's lit green just as the ringing stops and the caller disconnects. Frustrated, he places the phone on the table before him and frowns at it.
"I never get the line open in time," he mutters.
"It's not a phone I would recommend for you," she says as she swivels the phone so that it is facing her and taps the screen expertly, bringing up menus and a list with names, the glow giving her face a ghostly look. "One of Tony's toys?"
"Yeah. It's harder than the old thing he gave me at first, that one had buttons. But he thinks I should try and assimilate as fast as I can."
"Tony is a genius," she muses, pressing one button at the top of the phone and the entire screen darkened at once. "And that's why he isn't well suited to help you adjust to the twenty first century."
He slumps. What a waste of time his lessons with Tony in his workshop have been, then. She seems to see this on his face and gets up, pulling out the chair right beside him and taking a seat. He is assaulted by a calming scent, like lavender and fresh air, until he turns his face slightly away and focuses on her hands, which are bringing his phone closer to him.
"Turn it on for me," she says.
He presses the button at the top of the phone and it lights up in welcome, asking him to slide the icon to unlock it.
"Alright, this is an iPhone crash course," she tells him. She slides a slender finger across the screen and the picture of the earth fades to show a bunch of icons on a black background. He only recognizes the talk button at the bottom of the screen.
"It's the only one I use," he explains when she gives him an exasperated look at the sound of that.
"This is a gadget that will make your life infinitely easier. Pay attention."
When Tony explained how to use the thing, he had also been fixing a fuse in the arm of his suit and carrying a lively conversation with a pretty intern. Suffice it to say that Steve had not understood a damn word. But Natasha was different. For all her skills as a murderer and extractor, she is as patient as anyone Steve has ever known and doesn't look irritated when he asks what he is sure to her are stupid questions. By the end of the crash course, he has a working knowledge about how to make calls, how to text, although his fingers are way too big for the screen but she tells him he will improve with practice, and how to use something called an iPod, which Tony had already filled with his loud rock music. He feels a little triumphant when he next looks at the phone and its sleekness, its high tech glory. It did not defeat him, as he had thought. He has conquered it.
She looks triumphant too, sitting back in her seat, smiling as he lowers and raises the volume of a song by a band that wears black and white makeup and has extremely long tongues.
"Thank you," he tells her sincerely. "I never would have understood how to use this thing without your help."
"You're welcome," she replies. "I'm happy to help."
He scrolls through a few more songs before locking the screen and placing the phone on the table. The images of the album art of a hundred rock bands are seared into his vision, people in torn clothing and men wearing eyeliner. He thinks that being in the wrong era would not be so bad if it were only the technology that had advanced, because he can learn how to use technology. But the people, the air, the street, the language, it is so different that he may as well be on another planet. Where is the old American way? God and love and country, that was how he was raised, that was how he had always thought it would be, but here in this time, in this world, it is so different. He thinks now that he has neither God nor love nor country.
"We don't belong here," Natasha says, and he realizes he has been speaking aloud the entire time. His face heats up and he ducks his head, but her eyes are kind and understanding. "Nobody belongs here, Steve. We are all outcasts. We are all strangers."
"The Avengers?"
"Everybody." She waves a hand that encompasses the kitchen, the helicarrier, everything. "We're all a little lost. Maybe things were simpler back then, but the principle of the thing, that has never changed, and a hundred years from now, it'll still be the same."
She places a hand over his, hers tiny in comparison, but strong and firm and unyielding, like her. He sees her past in her eyes, cloudy and shadowy and full of secrets. He wonders what she was like as a child. What she was like when she learned the trade that gave her her morbid name. She will never tell him, this he knows. He will never understand how she can speak with such certainty about things he can't bring himself to think about. They don't belong here, not in this helicarrier, not in SHIELD, not in the world that is so cruel and cold and alien to them both, but this world is all they have and they are sworn to protect it, even if Steve sometimes hates it with a passion that could light it on fire.
"You'll be fine," she tells him, and he believes her, believes the understanding in her eyes and the warmth in her hand and the sweetness of a smile he doesn't see grace her face as much as he would like.
"We'll be fine," he says.
She smiles again and takes her hand back, and some of his uncertainty with it.
"Now," she says, "do you want to learn how to use the espresso machine?"