I've been playing around with this idea of what would have happened if Natasha had been sent to recruit Steve for the Avengers instead of Banner. Also, this fic completely omits the idea of Banner/Nat ever being a thing because let's be honest, that was weird. Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or these characters.

"Barton's been compromised." The words rang out through Natasha's mind as she sat on the Quinjet. The Tesseract had been stolen, Barton had been compromised, and now she had to help execute Fury's vision of bringing together a group of remarkable people to help protect the Earth. She'd known about this idea for a while now, it was why she had been sent to study Tony, to see if he would be fit for the "Avengers Initiative." However, she didn't think that it would happen so soon. They hardly even had a team in mind and that "team" was dependent on all of the members actually joining. Natasha sighed and dropped her head back against the wall.

"Agent Romanoff, we will be landing on the helicarrier in 2 minutes," the pilot shouted from the cockpit.

Natasha stood up and walked over to where the ramp would open for her to exit. She would be meeting with Coulson, Fury, and Agent Hill when she arrived to be briefed on the situation. She knew that they would want her to help assemble the team, but she wasn't sure which member she would be assigned.

When the plane finally landed, Natasha stepped off the ramp and walked directly to the meeting room.

"Agent Romanoff, please, sit down," Agent Hill said whenever Natasha walked into the room.

Natasha took a seat slightly in from the door. It was a habit for her to pick somewhere where she could keep one eye on an exit in case she needed it.

"As Agent Coulson told you on the phone, Barton's been compromised. At 2400 hours, an unknown person seemed to use the Tesseract as a portal to get to Earth," Agent Hill began.

"We weren't aware that it was possible at the time," Agent Coulson added.

"Well obviously it was," Natasha replied, her annoyance painting her voice.

"We asked the unknown person to stand down, however, they refused, announcing himself as 'Loki of Asgard.' Professor Selvig identified him as the brother of Thor. Loki then engaged with the agents in the room. Agent Barton engaged with Loki when a scepter was used to somehow mind control Agent Barton into helping him. Loki had also done the same to Professor Selvig. At this point, both Director Fury and myself engaged, attempting to prevent the person from leaving, however, he got away," Hill finished.

"We need to implement the Avengers Initiative," Fury declared, turning to face the table for the first time since Natasha had walked into the room, "and I need you to help me get the recruits."

Natasha nodded, attempting to compartmentalize the fact that her partner and friend had been taken by a complete psychopath. God, Laura must be a wreck, she thought to herself.

"We'll need you to talk to the big guy," Coulson said.

"Coulson, you know that Stark trusts me about as far as he can throw me," Natasha smirked.

"Oh no, I've got Stark, you've got the big guy," Coulson replied.

Natasha furrowed her brows, "then who's got the other one?"

"I do," Fury said, beginning to walk towards the door.

"With all due respect, sir, I don't think that's a good idea."

Fury stopped, turning to face Natasha, "and why not?"

"He doesn't trust you," Natasha stated.

"Oh, he doesn't?" Fury challenged.

"No sir," she responded, sure of her answer.

"Are you going to elaborate, Agent Romanoff?"

"The simulation. You tried to trick him once, he's going to think that you're trying to do it again. You've read his file just like the rest of us. He values honesty. Truth and justice and all that crap. He needs someone that he can trust," Natasha said.

"And you really think that you're the one for that job, Romanoff?" Fury replied. Natasha couldn't blame him, she was a spy after all. She'd done so many bad things in her life. She had so much red in her ledger that she has been trying desperately for years to wipe out.

"I do. I think that I have this sir," Natasha stared him down. "I think that you should take Stark and Coulson should take the big guy. Coulson's friendlier than I am anyway, you know that Banner will appreciate that."

Fury looked over at Hill and Coulson who were both looking back at him intently, waiting to hear his decision. "Very well Romanoff, you want him, you've got him," he said after a moment.

Natasha stood up from the table, "great. Then if we're done here, there's something that I need to grab before I leave."

"What's that?" Hill asked as Natasha walked towards the door.

"My file," Natasha replied as she disappeared through the doorway.

Natasha walked up to the gym, it was definitely older than most of the gyms around the area, but she could see the appeal of it. It was 0300 hours and there wasn't another person in sight. Natasha opened up the front door, hiking the gym bag that she was toting higher up on her shoulder, and began to walk in to the building. She stood at the entrance to the sparing room for a moment watching him, he was intently focused on the punching bag that he was hitting. His punches were sharp and swift. She could see the way that his muscles moved through his shirt, rippling whenever he made contact with the bag. He drew his arm back and gave a particularly forceful punch, sending the bag careening off of the hook and busting open. He sighed, standing there for a moment.

"You sure showed that bag," Natasha quipped, stepping into view. Steve Rogers' head snapped towards where she was standing. Typically, he would have heard someone come into the gym, especially at this time of night, but the memories running through his head had pulled him so far out of his own body that he had hardly noticed.

"Yeah well, I heard it had been talking shit," Steve joked back, walking over to the busted punching bag and throwing it over his shoulder. Natasha set down her bag on a bench near the door. She watched as Steve took the broken bag over to a pile of other broken bags. Natasha couldn't help the slight upturn of her lips at the sight. She walked over to the wall where more punching bags were lined up and grabbed one, the bag nearly swallowing her petite frame. She lugged it over to the hook that Steve had been using and strung it up.

"You know, most people would be sleeping at this time of night. Not harassing punching bags," she teased.

"You spend seventy years sleeping in ice and tell me if you feel like sleeping after finally waking up," Steve replied bitterly. Natasha quirked an eyebrow at him.

"So, is that your tactic to scare people off?" She asked, "you make them think you're crazy by telling them that you were asleep for seventy years?" She stepped back from the punching bag.

"Not usually, no, but I figured that since you were from S.H.I.E.L.D., you wouldn't mind me being straightforward with you." Coulson was right, he is good, Natasha thought to herself. She allowed herself to smile at him. She stepped around to the back of the punching bag, placing her hands on either side of it before peering back around at him.

"Are you going to continue using this or not? Because if not, I'd like to get some reps in if you don't mind," Natasha said. Steve furrowed his eyebrows at her, clearly trying to understand why she was there, but he put his arm out in a sweeping motion and stepped a little further away from the bag.

"Be my guest," he replied, walking over to his water bottle and grabbing a drink. Natasha began punching on the bag, not hitting it as hard as she could, but still hitting it with enough force that she sent the message that she knew what she was doing. "So why are you here? Did Fury send you to make sure that I wasn't going crazy?" Steve asked after a minute. He was watching her intently.

"Not at all," Natasha replied, still working over the bag.

"Then what is it? Not to be rude, ma'am, but something tells me that you didn't just decide to come to Brooklyn at 3:30 in the morning to go to a gym that just so happens to have been here since I was a kid," Steve sat down on the edge of the bench, putting his water bottle to his side.

"Well, you're right about that. It's not a leisurely visit, though under different circumstances, I might not mind making one here," she replied. She paused for a moment to look over at him and smirk. Natasha could see him get slightly red (well, redder), at her flirting. Easy blusher, she thought to herself. She'd have to file that away under useful things to know about him. "Also, don't call me ma'am. I'm Agent Romanoff, but you can call me Natasha if you'd like." She walked away from the punching bag and over to her gym bag that was lying on the bench next to Steve. She unzipped it and grabbed a file sitting on the top, she opened it briefly, making sure that it was the right thing before handing it over to him. She pushed her bag over some and sat down next to him.

"The Tesseract," he practically whispered after opening up the file.

"Mhm, it was fished out of the ocean long before we found you. They wanted to try to harness its power to be used for unlimited sustainable energy."

Steve scoffed and shook his head, "so someone stole it from you. Who?"

"His name is Loki," Natasha said. "We can talk about him more later though. He's only part of the reason why I'm here."

Steve looked over at her, "so what's the other part?"

"We're putting together a team, we think Loki means to destroy the world, we need to save it. We need you to help us do it," Natasha answered.

"You need me?" Steve asked, putting the file down and standing up.

"Every team needs a leader," Natasha explained, "who better than Captain America?"

Steve sighed, walking over to the punching bag. He began his reps on it again. Neither one of them said anything for a few minutes. Natasha kept watching his form, assessing his patterns, filing her observations away in case she ever needed them. Steve punched particularly hard once more, sending another punching bag flying off the hook and busting against the wall. He briefly looked at Natasha before walking over to pick it up. Without saying a word, Natasha walked over to the wall and grabbed another new punching bag, stringing it up once more before he got back.

"You were there, weren't you?" Steve asked, his voice sounding much smaller than it had a few minutes ago.

"When they pulled you out of the ice? Yes."

"No, the simulation room," Steve said. Natasha resisted the urge to swallow hard.

"Yes."

Steve nodded. "You let me go."

"I did," Natasha affirmed.

"Why?" He asked.

Natasha inhaled deeply. She could easily lie to him, but that wasn't going to get her anywhere with him. He would know, she knew he would know. Something about him screamed "human lie detector," and she was good, she knew she was good, but she didn't want to run the risk of him being better.

"When you were pulled out of the ice," Natasha began, "they weren't even sure that you were going to make it. We spent days trying to thaw you out, when they finally did, Director Fury insisted that we put you in a simulation room. It was for multiple reasons, some of which seemed reasonable, others just seemed…cruel." Natasha walked over to the new punching bag and began hitting on it. "For starters, everyone was concerned with how you would react to waking up in a new century. A valid concern, I might add. So, an idea was pitched to put you in a room where everything resembled the time period that you came from. Ultimately, the majority of the people decided that it was the best idea. Then, Fury came up with the idea to see just how good your skills were. What would happen if you woke up and things weren't exactly right? So, the idea was pitched to put inconsistencies in the room. Things that would hint to you that something wasn't right. Depending on how quickly you noticed them, it would tell Fury just how good you were. If you didn't notice them, then the idea was placed that we should keep you in simulation for as long as possible before you figured out that something was wrong. It could have been as little as a few days to as long as, well, the rest of your life really. I disagreed, but they didn't listen to me. They did, however, ask me to be there if you were to freak out, be someone to subdue you." She moved her eyes over to him for a moment, seeing that he was watching her closely, taking in every word that she said. She put her focus back on the punching bag before continuing once more, "when you woke up and you quickly noticed that something was wrong, I was dispatched to stop you from leaving the building."

"But you didn't," Steve interjected.

"But I didn't," Natasha echoed. "I was about to, but when I saw you, something in me just wouldn't let me do it. I'm used to following orders, but for some reason, I just…couldn't. I knew that if I stopped you and they contained you, there was still a chance that they would lie to you about the extent of the situation. I figured that if I let you get out the door, see everything around you, the less that they could potentially lie to you about. So, I made a different call."

Steve nodded, taking in all of the information that she had just given him. "Why should I trust you, Natasha?" He asked after a moment. Natasha quit hitting on the punching bag and brought her shirt up to wipe the sweat from her forehead. She noticed that whenever she did, Steve quickly averted his eyes. What a gentleman. She walked over to her bag once more and pulled out another file. This one thicker than the last. She didn't say anything when she pulled it out, she simply walked over to him and handed it to him. "What's this?" He asked.

"My file."

He looked up from it, his eyebrows knitted together, "why are you giving me this?"

"Because I'm a spy," Natasha said. "My words mean nothing, but my file will tell you anything and everything that you want to or need to know about me. I've read yours, so I feel it's only fair that you read mine if you want to, but I'm warning you that you might not like me very much after you read what's inside."

Steve looked down at the file in his hands once more, "what did my file say?"

Natasha smiled, "well, quite a bit actually, but one of the most important things was that you value honesty. Which is a lot of the reason why I'm giving you that," she gestured towards the file. "It would be easy for me to lie to you and standing here telling you the truth is…difficult to say the least, but you need to hear it because I need you to trust me. It also said that you have a strong sense of duty, if you feel like people need you, which for the record, we very much do, you'll be there. However, you also have a strong sense of what's right. Which is why if Fury had come here, I believe that you would have said no to joining because you would have been afraid that it wasn't right."

Steve chuckled a little bit, "well, I've never really been a big fan of bullies."

"I read that in your file too," Natasha replied, smirking. Steve gave her a smile back.

"So, who all is apart of this team?" He asked.

"Currently, Bruce Banner, he's a scientist. I have his file for you to look over if you would like. Tony Stark,-"

"Wait, Stark? Like Howard Stark?" Steve's mouth practically fell open. "Howard had a son?"

Natasha laughed, "he did. Don't worry, they're quite similar." Steve ran his hand through his hair, taking in the idea that the self-proclaimed bachelor actually ended up settling down.

"Wow."

"Mhm," Natasha hummed in response, walking over to the punching bag once more. She began hitting it with her full strength, making more complex combinations of punches, adding kicks, and making the bag swing back and forth with the force. "Clint Barton, another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent" she said, punching the bag particularly hard at the thought of what had happened to him. She grunted as she jumped up into the air and kicked the bag clean off of the hook. She breathed heavily for a moment before turning around to face him, "and me." Steve smiled at her. "So, if nothing else, you have at least one person on this team that you can trust."

Steve hit the file against his hand while he walked over to the bench where the other file was. He set it down before turning back to Natasha, "well, it sounds like we need to get started."

Natasha smiled at him before walking over, "glad to have you aboard, Cap." She gathered her things together while he did the same. She was just about to zip up her bag when he handed her file back to her. She looked at him, confusion painting her face.

"Keep it," he said, "I trust that you'll tell me what I need to know when I need to know it." Natasha felt her heart flutter slightly, quickly shaking off the feeling.

"Absolutely," she replied.

They began to walk out of the gym together, "plus, something tells me that's not all of it." He raised an eyebrow at her challengingly.

"You're a fast learner, Captain," she smirked. He threw his head back and laughed.

[4 YEARS LATER]

Steve walked into the Avengers lounge area to see Natasha sitting on the couch flipping through the channels. He smiled at the sight of her, sitting back and taking in her features.

"Are you just going to stand there and look at me, or are you going to join me?" Natasha teased, turning and smirking at him.

Steve laughed, walking over to sit down next to her. "Sorry, I was entranced with your beauty," he replied as he leaned down to kiss her.

She hummed at the sensation, "you're lucky you're so irresistible, Rogers."

"I know," he said against her lips, a slight smile turning up the corners of his. He sat down beside her and threw his arm around her, allowing her to cuddle up beside him. He kissed the top of her head, taking in the scent of her shampoo. He chuckled a little bit, thinking of the first time that they'd officially met.

"What?" Natasha asked, her emerald green eyes looking up at him.

"I was just thinking about when you came to recruit me for the Avengers," he replied, running his fingers through her hair. A small smile danced on her lips.

"Seems like a lifetime ago, huh?"

He took in a deep breath, "it does." They were quiet for a moment before a thought dawned on Steve. "Hey, Nat?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you remember all that stuff that you said to me about when they brought me out of the ice, about wanting me to be able to trust you, were you serious about all of that?" He asked.

Natasha pulled away from him slightly, "I'm surprised that you even have to ask," she said. He was about to apologize to her before she continued on, "though you've never really been all that good at telling when someone's flirting with you." He laughed and pulled her in for another kiss.

"Normal people don't flirt like that," he murmured against her lips, earning him a playful shove before she returned the kiss with equal fervor.