Hello, everybody! New Romanogers story time!

Whether you read my last story, A Storm or Red, or are a newcomer, welcome!

Basically, I believe that each of the Avengers suffers from nightmares, but I wanted to focus on Steve and Natasha for this story because I ship them like crazy :)

All the lyrics in this chapter are from the song Ghosts That We Knew, by Mumford and Sons. The title is also based off that song.

I don't own Captain America or any song lyrics.

Enjoy!

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Ch.1: Ghosts That We Knew

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You saw my pain washed out in the rain

Broken glass, saw the blood run from my veins

But you saw no fault, no cracks in my heart

And you knelt beside my hope torn apart

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Steve knew Natasha had nightmares. He had nightmares. Hell, he figured probably most of their Avengers team did. But when he saw Natasha in the midst of a nightmare—which had been a total accident—he found the reality was far worse than anything he could have imagined himself.

For the past four months he'd been with Sam, searching for Bucky. But the trail for his metal-armed friend had gone cold, and Steve needed a break from looking. So, he—and Sam—took Tony up on his offer and moved into the Stark Tower. He and Sam had a whole floor to themselves, and it was nice because, both being military men, they had no issues about how the other lived, as they both liked their floor clean and tidy. They'd only been there for two weeks, but they were already all moved in. Sam had gotten stuff from his house back in D.C. brought to the Tower, and Steve had done the same, but neither of them had much to begin with,

One night, with Bruce spending his time in the lab and Tony and Pepper off on a date, Steve and Sam headed down to the communal floor that they all shared. It had the full bar, a huge flat screen TV, several couches and chairs, and various other items that occupied the huge floor area. They had been there all of five minutes when Natasha and Maria Hill showed up.

"Hey, soldier," Natasha greeted as she plopped down on the couch next to Steve, wearing a smirk, acting like it hadn't been four months since he last saw her.

"Hi," he replied, looking back and forth between Natasha and Maria. Neither of the women said anything, just made themselves comfy.

Steve knew that Maria had been living at the Tower, since she was now working for Stark. What Steve didn't know is that Natasha was back, too. He'd managed to get a hold of her a few times during their four month separation, to see what she was up to. She had been looking for Clint—who she had found just in time, because when she got there, he had been surrounded by Hydra agents. Since then, she'd been with Barton, out in the field, pulling SHIELD agents out of ops infected with Hydra.

"I didn't know you were back," Steve said quietly.

Sam had started chatting with Maria, and Steve was glad there would be no extra ears listening in on their conversation. Truthfully, Steve had missed Natasha. He probably missed her more than he cared to admit. He and Natasha had formed a stronger bond than he ever thought possible, and it had taken her being away from his side for four months for him to realize that.

Natasha looked up at him, her green eyes unreadable as she scanned over him. She had cut her hair a couple inches shorter since he last saw her, and he decided that he liked it better that way. There was a stray piece that had fallen against her cheek, and he had the sudden urge to tuck it back into place. He didn't think Natasha would appreciate that very much. Then again, it was hard to tell with her. She was so unpredictable, so spontaneous and crafty. She was fire—dangerous and beautiful. Glowing, soft coals one second, a blazing inferno the next. And like fire, she was incredibly deadly. A destroyer. But fire also brought life. It burned everything dead or dying, and from the ashes sprouted all things new and green.

Steve supposed that Natasha herself was the phoenix. She had been forged in fire and blood, created into a weapon, a machine. Made only to follow orders, not question them. Much like himself, in that sense. He knew little of what had occurred to her in the Red Room, but what he did know was enough. They had changed a little girl into a predator. Sharp and deadly, like a knife. A seductress, capable of spinning men and women alike into her web until she went in for the killing blow, just like the spider she was named for.

Steve saw all of this, of course. It was written in the scars she had, in the hardened muscles that lay underneath her soft skin. At first glance—even at second glance, or third, or fourth—most people wouldn't look at her and think assassin. Most people looked at her and saw a pretty face. Then again, Steve wasn't most people. He had seen how vulnerable she could be, but that vulnerability, that humanity she had exposed to him, that was a secret he would take with him to the grave.

"I've been back for just a couple days," Natasha said, pulling Steve back from his thoughts. "Maria had room, so I'm living with her."

"Where's Clint?" he asked, seeing as the archer hadn't come in with Natasha.

"Still out in the field," she replied. "He's still trying to find SHIELD agents. He said he'd come back to the Tower in a couple weeks."

"Why aren't you with him? If you don't mind me asking,"

Natasha raised an eyebrow, one corner of her mouth turning up, like she was trying not laugh. "What? Tired of me already, Rogers?"

"No, I—it's not that, I just, um—" Steve stammered.

"Oh, calm down, I'm just kidding," Natasha laughed, shoving his shoulder playfully. "Hydra has it more out for me than Clint. I was getting him into a lot of bad situations, so we both decided that he would do the last sweep by himself."

Steve nodded. "Yeah, we ran into a lot of Hydra agents while searching for Bucky. We actually found more Hydra agents than clues about Bucky."

"You'll find him. When he's ready, he'll let you find him," Natasha said quietly.

"Yeah, I know," Steve sighed.

Natasha was quiet for a moment, before she poked him in the arm. "Your grumpiness is bringing me down. Why don't we all watch a movie or something? Take our mind off things?" she suggested, loud enough for Sam and Maria to hear.

They all agreed, and Natasha and Maria picked out the movie, talking amongst themselves, occasionally shouting titles at Steve to see if he'd seen them. Steve had been sent to the small kitchen next to the bar to make popcorn and get drinks. As Steve opened the popcorn and stuck it in the microwave, he watched Natasha. He couldn't hear what she and Maria were saying, but whatever it was they were talking about, Natasha seemed happy. Her eyes were bright and she was smiling as she toyed with the ends of her hair, listening to something Maria said as the brunette flipped through the movies on Tony's Netflix.

Steve couldn't help but think of the graveyard they'd said goodbye in, where Fury's fake tomb lay. She'd told him to call Sharon—which he never did—but while she'd said that, he still felt that kiss on his cheek. He'd felt the one on his lips, even if it had been undercover. Either way, her lips haunted him, burning on his skin. Steve wasn't entirely sure what he felt for Natasha. He trusted her, considered her a good friend. But he also missed her like crazy and spent many nights wishing she was with him, helping him out. There was a hole, an emptiness when she wasn't there. Now that she was here with him again, where he could touch her and smell the vanilla and lilac of her shampoo, he was whole again. Steve didn't know much about relationships or love, but he was pretty sure you didn't think of friends that way.

Steve turned when he heard Sam chuckle. "Oh, you are so screwed,"

Steve was about to ask what he meant, but Sam nodded his head towards Natasha, and Steve realized he'd been staring at her. Steve looked at Sam, mouth open, but he had no excuse.

"Yeah?" Steve smirked, recovering his composure. "And what about you and Hill? You guys seemed to have hit it off pretty quickly."

"Me and Maria?" Sam asked.

"Oh, so it's Maria now, is it?"

Sam frowned, then shoved Steve's shoulder. "Man, shut up."

Steve just laughed, and grabbed the popcorn when the microwave dinged. Sam grabbed beers and they headed back over to Natasha and Maria. Once settled in, they dimmed the lights and played the movie. It was something Steve hadn't seen before, but he hardly paid attention. Natasha had curled right up to him, her legs against his, head resting on his shoulder like they did it all the time. And when her beer was empty, she commandeered his, which he was okay with. Sure, beer tasted just fine, but he didn't feel anything from it due to his high metabolism, so it wasn't nearly as enjoyable.

At first, Steve couldn't relax with Natasha so close to him, but after a while, he forced himself not to think about it and just feel instead. She fit nicely against his side, like a puzzle piece. When one of them moved, the other adjusted properly. There were no elbows or knees banging together. They moved as one unit, like the team they had spent almost two years being. He wondered if she noticed his presence as much as he noticed hers. Probably. But she didn't say anything, and he knew she never would. And he didn't mind.

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The ghosts that we knew will flicker from view

And we'll live a long life

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Steve woke, not remembering having fallen asleep. He rubbed his eyes, blinking them a few times, his sight adjusting to the low light that blanketed the communal floor. As he sat up, stretching out his stiff limbs, Steve realized he was on the floor. Last he remembered, he'd been on the couch. But when he looked up at the couch, he got his answer: Natasha was occupying the whole couch, probably having pushed him off while he slept. And knowing her, she may have pushed him off purposely. He was just surprised he hadn't woken up when he landed. Though, thinking back on how little sleep he'd gotten while searching for Bucky, it wasn't really surprising. He did, every once in a while, sleep quite deeply. Most of the time, though, he was a light sleeper and his rest was often plagued with horrible dreams.

Looking around the area, he saw the TV had been turned off. Sam and Maria were nowhere to be seen, and Steve wondered briefly if they had gone back to their separate floors or gone up together. Either way, he didn't want to bother them, so Steve decided that sleeping on one of the other couches for the night wouldn't be too bad. As he stood, several joints cracked, and he was sure that Natasha, had she been awake, would have made some joke about him 'getting creaky in his old age'. He looked over at her now. She had shifted onto her side, one arm clutching the pillow she had rather tight. She looked almost tense, but when he looked, her chest rose and fell gently, her breathing soft, like she couldn't have been more peaceful.

Steve shook his head and headed over to the couch closest to the one Natasha was on. He was just about to close his eyes when Natasha screamed. It was an animalistic sound, tearing from her throat, making his blood turn to ice. Steve was up in a second, grabbing her arms. She thrashed in his grip, her eyes not yet open. A thin sheen of sweat of covered her face and neck, making her red hair stick to her skin. She continued to cry out, her screams mixed with half-uttered words as her brow creased from an invisible pain that he could not feel.

"Natasha," Steve said firmly, trying to stay calm, despite the condition she was in. "Natasha!"

She gasped suddenly, her eyes snapping open, her back arching as her muscles shook one last time and settled. Steve loosened his grip on her arms just the slightest. She looked at him then, and he could tell that she wasn't quite seeing him. She cried out and brought a knee up to his abdomen, making him groan, right before she flipped him over and he landed, hard, on the floor once again. Natasha put a forearm to his throat, a knee to his chest, pinning him down.

"Natasha," Steve grunted through his teeth. He didn't want to hurt her, but if he didn't get her off him, she could seriously hurt him. Steve relaxed for a brief second before using a considerable amount of strength to flip Natasha over, nearly running them both into the coffee table. He pinned both her arms down, and used his legs to hold hers down.

"Natasha, it's me," he said, slightly out of breath. "It's Steve."

She was breathing hard, but at his words, her chest stopped heaving quite so much. She blinked a couple times, awareness returning to her green eyes. "Steve?" she gasped.

He nodded, and got off her, pulling her up beside him. He settled back against the couch, facing her. She wasn't looking at him. He slowly reached out and brushed a couple strands away from her damp forehead, his fingers brushing against her skin. And once his hand fell away, he still wanted to touch her, so he grabbed her hand. It was trembling and he noticed than that her whole body was softly shaking.

Steve didn't think he'd ever seen Natasha Romanoff so vulnerable. She was trembling, the cracks in her shell—her impenetrable walls—becoming visible. The fissures spread, mapping their way across her skin, like her scars. He was sure that one wrong word, one misstep and she would crumble. She was shaking and sweating, curled in on herself like a child who thought they'd just seen a monster under their bed. But Steve knew the monsters weren't under the bed—they were in her head. Screaming at her, cursing her, damning her to hell. The Black Widow, so strong and fierce and defiant, stuck down by the voices of her past. Steve could relate. It wasn't bullets or knives, but the ghosts of his past that brought him to his knees.

"Natasha," he whispered her name. Names had become important to them. It was a way they could communicate when they didn't really know what to say. Saying each other's names reflected how angry or worried or scared they were feeling at the time, right now, Steve poured every ounce of concern he had for her into those three syllables. She still didn't say anything, but allowed him to tug her closer till she was against his side like earlier, when they had been watching movies.

"Natasha," he repeated softly. "You're okay now. You're safe."

"I'll never be safe," she whispered hollowly. She sounded like something inside her had broken. But he supposed, something had broken. An important piece in you had to be missing to get nightmares like that. He would know. It happened to him too. The part of him that was missing he'd left back in 1945.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

Natasha let out a quiet, bitter laugh. "Steve, the whole world knows who I am. I had enemies before, and now they all know how to find me. Sooner or later, some of them are going to catch up to me, maybe even kill me. I'm not safe."

"Well, one: I'm pretty sure you can take on anyone, even me," he gave her a tiny smile. "And two: you are safe here with me. We're a team and I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

Natasha looked at him. He was pretty sure that what he'd said may have been a little cliché, even cheesy, but it was true. And he meant it. Natasha was too important to him for him to let her go that easily. Any enemies she had, not only would they have to go through him and her, but the whole rest of their team as well. Even if they were a team (one that wouldn't be complete without her) they were friends, too. Steve had lost too many people to lose any more friends.

"Even if they can't get to me physically, Steve," Natasha started, her eyes moist with unshed tears. "They'll just get in my head, instead."

Steve knew she was talking about the nightmare. Or nightmares, plural. He wondered how often they haunted her, torturing her from the inside out. He wondered what was so awful in her past that could have made the Black Widow scream like a wounded animal.

"I get nightmares, too, you know," he said. "We all have our ghosts."

"Yeah, except your ghost isn't actually a ghost," Natasha tilted her head. "Your ghost just happens to be a man walking around with a metal arm."

"What?" he asked. "You think Bucky is the only skeleton in my closet? The only nightmare I have?"

Natasha blinked at him, and then cast her gaze down, twiddling her thumbs. He'd never seen Natasha fidget. Then again, it seemed like she was opening up more to him, letting little pieces of herself shine through underneath the mask of disguises she wore.

"Well, your skeletons aren't like mine," she mumbled, a little bitterly.

Steve paused, the silence thick. "What did you dream about?"

Natasha still didn't look at him. She was silent. He watched her breath, waiting to see if she would answer. She exhaled slowly, pushing hair back behind her ears.

"Blood," she said, barely above a whisper. "Always blood."

She leaned her head back against the couch and Steve took the hand closest to him and intertwined his fingers with hers. He squeezed gently, and she squeezed back.

"I'm covered in blood. It's everywhere," she chokes on the word. "It's on my hands and in my hair and on my face...and I can't wipe it off. And they're all around me, all of them…"

Steve wants to ask who they are, but he knows: all the people she's killed. Every single person who had their life ended by the beautiful Black Widow. He wonders how many of them didn't know how deadly she was until she'd ended them. He wonders how many of them did know just how dangerous she could be and still decided to dance, play with her, see if they could outsmart her, outfight her.

"They scream at me," she continued, her voice flat like she was trying to distance herself from what she was saying. "They scream like they're dying and I'm asking—begging—for them to kill me and they won't…they just scream at me and I see their faces and their families and it goes on until I drown in their blood."

Steve didn't know what to say. He looked down at their conjoined hands, wondering if blood was what she saw when she looked at her own hands. He ran his thumb along her skin, trying to sooth her. He couldn't make her nightmares go away, but he could be there when she woke up.

"Come 'ere," he murmured, standing and pulling her up too. He laid down on the couch she had occupied earlier. She seemed to get the message without him even having to say anything. She curled up against him, their bodies spooning together.

"I'll be here if you have any more nightmares," he whispered against her neck, wrapping an arm around her waist. She found his hand again and squeezed his fingers.

"Thank you," she replied softly. With her back to his chest, she felt her breathing even out and her grip on his hand loosened as she began to fall back to sleep.

"Steve?" she mumbled.

"Hmm?"

He waited for her to reply, but when he looked, she had already fallen asleep.

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So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light

'Cause oh that gave me such a fright

But I will hold as long as you like

Just promise me we'll be all right

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There's chapter 1! I hope you all liked it :)

There will be 3 chapters total. Another short story (I'll probably end up doing more, shorter stories for these two, than just a couple long ones). I already have the second chapter written and am working on the third one now. I will post the second one in a day or two.

Please review! It really means a lot to me and I love to hear your thoughts, so just take a minute or two to leave a comment :)

Thank you for reading!

-DaughterOfPoseidon333