After Bruce leaves and Steve brings James home, Natasha becomes a woman who lives only in the now. She does not remember that once James's hands were rough on her skin, his mouth hot on hers, the metal arm used to hold her still while he took his pleasure and taught her about her own. She does not remember that he held her while she cried when the Red Room took the last piece of her that she thought of as hers. She does not remember that it was she, once, who held his leash and stroked his hair and agreed with the handlers that, yes, the Winter Soldier was a good dog. She does not remember that when Clint saved her in Budapest, he was saving her from Bucky, saving her from the last time she tried, and failed, to wake James from his death that was not death.
She does not remember but she cannot, she refuses, to forget.
Being surrounded and needed makes it easier, if not perhaps better. Jane and Darcy do Science! in the facility now and Tasha (she likes the nickname, it makes her feel softer, more present, even if in its echo she hears James murmuring 'Natalia' as she rose and fell above him, her long red hair a curtain shrouding them from prying eyes) makes herself go and sit and see and listen, even allowing herself to smile and laugh when Vision or Wanda wander in and cause something to go haywire because Science! and magic don't mix.
She lets herself be their friend, lets Darcy introduce her to a Science! friend, a girl who Natasha immediately likes despite herself. When the girl tells her she's developed a polymer for under armor that doesn't chafe and asks if Natasha will test it, she agrees and is pleasantly surprised by the results. She calls Pepper, Pepper invites the girl to work for Stark, and then Clint comes up for a day and they have a girl's night. Natasha now has friends, real ones who listen and care and don't chatter like magpies because they can.
She is careful not to let them crowd her with feelings. She has no room for them in her now.
The next time they go out, Wanda comes with them because Barton has gone back home to his farmhouse and his wife and his children. So does Pepper, who is surprisingly good at karaoke. They eat sushi and drink sake and talk about everything and nothing. Pepper and the new girl agree to a shopping date. Natasha passes with a laugh that is not forced.
When she gets back to the facility (it will never be home, there is no home for her, just the work and the training and the promise she made to herself and to Clint to be more), Steve is sitting in the small communal living space, his head in his hands. She knows, before he ever lifts his eyes to hers, that she will have to tell him no. No, she will not talk to James. No, she will not be his friend or his confidante or his therapist; she cannot fix someone who is broken as she is. Except Steve doesn't ask her for help, he tells her without telling her that he's lonely and jealous, a little, that she has Darcy and Jane. She thinks of the new girl but she says nothing; she's tried that before. Instead, she mentions she hasn't seen him or Sam or … she hesitates a second in which Steve just looks at her and she manages, barely, to say 'Bucky' running together. Perhaps they could try that, in the morning in Central Park? This suggestion, she can tell, pleases Steve. She does not let him ask her to come with them. She will, one day, she knows, but tomorrow or next week will not be that day.
She sleeps, dreamless, for an hour or two after Steve goes to wherever it is he goes. When she wakes, she lies in the darkness and dreams of chapped lips and too-long hair and eyes demon dark and a man who is damaged in body but not in soul.
She trains. She eats. She sleeps. Sometimes, when it's necessary, she goes out and does the work and then she comes home with less red in her ledger but more on her hands. She and the rest manage to work together fairly well, Vision and Wanda and Rhodey struggling to learn the rhythms, Sam testing his wings. When he's busted by Ant Man (who names a superhero Ant Man, are they all children) they agree to work harder.
Something changes, shifts, and Natasha knows the storm is coming. She knows because James is sitting on her sofa and he's looking at her, his eyes are not clouded or angry, and he knows her. He doesn't touch her, she won't let him, but he does say, softly, "Natalia," and she sinks to the floor and her heart breaks open, splits right in two, and she says, quietly, firmly,
"I won't remember."
His metal fingers are colder on her skin than she expects, colder but no less gentle, and their sins are there in his eyes, naked and unashamed. "I will."
When James tells her, later, her cheek pillowed on his bare stomach, his hand in her hair, that Steve has been ogling the girl in the park with the mahogany hair, Natasha leans over, rummages for her phone, shows him a picture. His bark of laughter is rusty but real.
They are both broken, damaged, different and wrong and unforgivable. She won't remember. He can't forget.
Natasha is a woman who lives only in the now. As James drops the phone on the floor and rolls so she's atop him, she realizes she's already made room for him.