Natasha found him in the basement
She wanted to say that it was by pure coincidence, but everyone knew that was a lie. He had been absent from team gatherings and such for a while now, and the others had started to worry; especially when they couldn't find him anywhere.
He didn't answer any of their calls, didn't even read their texts. Hell, even Friday couldn't find him!
Natasha, Clint, Wanda and Rhodes stayed inside the tower to look for him while the others went out. Tony had even activated some of his suits to cover more ground. But at the end of the day, there still was no sign of Steve Rogers.
Wanda was visibly freaking out, not wanting to lose another brother figure so soon after Pietro. Natasha tried her best to comfort the younger woman…but they all knew she wasn't really the best at those kind of things, so she stepped back and let Vision handle the rest.
To be fair, everyone was a bit freaked out.
Clint had went out and started shooting tracking arrows on places Steve was known to be, so if he passed by, he'd know.
Tony had tried to keep the usual mood up with his jokes and stupid comments, although the clenching of his jaw proved that even he didn't like this. The fact that he made Friday pull up a map of the entire continent didn't really hide that.
Vision- despite not being familiar with human emotions -had admitted to feeling 'unusually on edge', it was safe to say he was worried.
Sam- like Clint -had gone outside and hadn't returned yet; most likely still looking for his friend.
Thor had been contacted and informed of Steve's disappearance as well, and while he mentioned something about 'watching from Asgard,' no one seemed to be able to contact Bruce.
Natasha was most likely one of the people who were worried the most about all this, but while everyone showed their concern in their own, unique way; she didn't show a thing. The assassin kept her face neutral as she helped the others look for him, not even showing the slightest bit of emotion.
And when the end of the day came and they still hadn't found him, they decided that they could continue searching tomorrow. (Actually, Pepper suggested it and everyone was too tired to argue.)
But Natasha couldn't sleep that night. Maybe it was because her head was filled with multiple scenarios and possibilities that could be the cause of Steve's sudden disappearance, or maybe it was the sound of a heavy object crashing against a wall-
Hold on a second…
The red headed Avenger jumped out of bed and made her way downstairs, quietly telling Friday not to wake anyone or inform Tony when she asked where she was going.
She ended up in the basement, frowning when she spotted the mountain of punching bags lying across the room and a slight crack in the concrete wall behind them.
Steve had set up another bag and was punching it with so much force that it was clear he wasn't entirely focused, his mind in a completely different place from his body.
Natasha stayed silent, hiding in the shadows and just watching him with narrowed eyes. It wasn't until the chain broke and another punching back flew across the room and created a dent in the wall that she made her presence known.
"Cap," she spoke, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her as he grabbed another punching bag and hung it up by the chain.
He glanced back at her, an obviously fake smile on his face as he greeted her. "You're the first one to find me."
"You sound surprised, soldier."
"Not really."
She rolled her eyes and stepped in front of him. "Where have you been? The whole team's been looking for you!"
His jaw clenched, eyes losing focus once again. "I needed to be alone."
"You could've told us, we'd give you your space."
"You? Yes. The others? Not so much," he responded, stating it simply, like it was a very common fact.
She narrowed her eyes. "Steve, what's going on?"
His blue eyes cleared up again and he sighed. "Bucky," was all he said.
Her jaw clenched and she nodded. She still didn't entirely approve of his search for his best friend, but she wasn't going to stand in his way. She knew damn well that if she had been in his situation and she would be looking for Clint; she would've punched anyone who tried to stop her.
So she simply sighed and stood behind the punching bag, holding it still and raising an eyebrow at him. "Well?"
"Nat, I'm not going to-"
"Stop worrying, Rogers," she rolled her eyes. "I can take a hit."
He was obviously still hesitant, but after standing there for a few minutes with her glaring at him, he decided to give in and continued taking out his frustration on the poor, defenseless bag.
"Spill," was all she said, and he did.
He told her everything, from his childhood, to meeting Bucky, joining the war, the Super Soldier serum, getting frozen, waking up, everything.
When he was done, Natasha was still holding the punching bag in place; a thoughtful look on her face.
"You know," she started. "The Red Room wasn't all that great either."
He froze for a second, before throwing another punch. "Natasha, what are you-"
"Distracting you, shut up." She stated, and he couldn't help but smile at her bluntness.
"My mother died in a fire supposedly started by Nazi's," she continued and he tensed. "I was there with her when it happened, so she tossed me out the window to a Russian soldier to save me while she burned."
The soldier brought me to the Red Room, where they injected us with something called the Kudrin treatment so we age awfully slow. It supposedly should keep us young for many decades, and so far so good, right?"
"Natasha-"
"I always thought they made us do ballet even when our feet bled, to make sure we were well-balanced and agile. Later I found out that we never did ballet and that they just planted false memories in our minds.
They raised us as assassins, it was best if we didn't make friends with the other girls in the Red Room because we were forced to beat each other up for training every day, sometimes we needed to kill them if they were too weak. I actually trained with Bucky once, although I can't remember much."
"You did?"
"Mhmm, nearly broke every bone in my body. The Winter Soldier program was loosely connected with the Red Room, so sometimes they send a soldier to see if we could handle it. I didn't really impress the head of the Red Room after that particular fight; the punishment I got later proved it."
Steve stared at her with wide eyes, wondering just how she could stay so calm while talking about all this. Sure, he knew that she had been through pretty fucked up things, but this…this was a whole new level of fucked up. "Nat, I'm so sorry," he spoke, not knowing what else he could say.
"Don't be. Keep going," she spoke, motioning to the bag she was still holding. He wasn't even aware that he had stopped.
"In the end, from the twenty-eight girls in the Red Room, only me and one other girl made it; but she left. Leaving me as the only candidate to complete the Black Widow program, despite the lack of fate they had in me in the beginning."
"Looks like you proved them wrong," he looked up at her, smiling softly as he threw another punch. He could already feel his own worries disappear. Now he was just stuck with wondering how anyone could be so cruel to someone like Natasha.
"I sure did, I got lucky too."
He raised an eyebrow in question
"You know that I met Clint on a mission, right?"
He nodded.
"Well, after meeting him, I never returned to the Red Room; which turned out to be a good thing. A while after I left, I found out they were planning to…castrate* me after I returned from that particular mission. Just so I wouldn't get compromised in the future if I ever wound up getting knocked up."
"That's…that's just inhumane."
She smiled sadly. "True, but all of us have had our dark times. Instead of hiding, you should talk to us. You'd be surprised by how similar we are…although the Red Room wasn't as cold," she joked and he chuckled.
They spend the rest of the night cleaning up, before heading back to their rooms. Natasha would be lying if she said she wasn't surprised when Steve insisted on walking her to her room.
Just as she was about to enter, he called her name.
"Natasha?"
She turned around, crossing her arms and waiting for him to speak.
Steve hesitated, a thoughtful look in his blue eyes, before he leaned closer and placed a kiss on her cheek. "Thanks."
Natasha rolled her eyes and pulled him down, capturing his lips with hers. "Don't be such a gentleman," she muttered, before turning and walking into her room.
Steve blinked, sure, he was aware that this wasn't their first kiss, but seeing as the other one was used as a cover; he counted this one as their first.
And hopefully not their last.
The amount of times I wrote Jarvis instead of Friday is unsettling -_-
*Screw the shit that happened in AoU, JAMES ROGERS IS STILL A POSSIBILITY, PEOPLE