Title: Trust
Rating: PG
Pairing: Natasha Romanoff/Steve Rogers
Summary: After receiving a text with coordinates and a smiley face from unknown source, Steve arrives at his destination ready for answers.
Notes: This is just a small fic inspired by what we've seen in the trailer of Captain America: Civil War so far. I have no idea if any of this sits right in the time line of the movie or not. Please be gentle as this is my first Romanogers fic.
Pulling in to the poorly lit car park overlooking the state forest, Steve Rogers felt his stomach tighten in anticipation as he spotted the only other occupant in the lot leaning casually against a picnic bench checking her cell phone. Parking his motorcycle beside hers, he dismounted and made his way towards her, stuffing his sweaty palms into the pockets of his pressed chinos.
"I didn't think you were going to show," she remarked dryly, still looking down at her phone.
Annoyed by her lack of acknowledgement, Steve frowned and withdrew his hands from his pockets to cross his arms over his chest. "At one point, neither did I," he admitted coolly.
The quirk of a perfectly manicured eyebrow and a hint of a smile pulling at her lips, reminded him painfully of a time when things had better more playful between them. That time had been over for a while now thanks to Bucky's reappearance. "So why did you?" she asked, bringing him out of his reverie.
"Because you asked me to," he responded bluntly, feeling agitated by the lack of straight communication from her. If he had known when he'd received a mysterious text from an unknown number with co-ordinates and a smiley face he'd be greeted with a sarcastic Black Widow he'd have deleted the message and never bothered driving all this way to see her. Now that he was here though, and she still hadn't bothered to look up at him, he regretted his decision and lost all pleasantries. "Originally I figured it must be important if you weren't willing to call me and tell me what's wrong over the phone."
Finally she looked up, and he was surprised by the uneasy look on her face. He began to rethink his decision to come out here without telling someone where he was going. In a flash the uncertainty on her face was replaced with a nonchalantly look and she answered in her typical silky tone. "Nothings wrong, I just wanted to talk face to face."
"You sure about that?" He questioned, taking a step closer to her as she stood up from the table. Some of the earlier anger he'd been feeling on the drive up to meet her returned, and he couldn't hold back as she continued to stand in front of him as if his whole world hadn't just been turned upside down. "Because nothing you've been doing lately seems very right."
"Me?!" She baulked, flickering her hair over her shoulder and addressing him with a gaze that might have made the average man feel like he was two inches tall. Instead the expression only further served to fuel the resentment and frustration her sudden disappearance had caused him for the last two months.
"Well I don't see anyone else in this car park, do you?" He snarled, his aggression motivated by weeks of worrying about her absence, the reappearance of his long lost best friend, rescuing said friend and then having to deal with a corrupt government, the very government he'd spent his life fight for and her sudden reappearance – only to tell him to stay out of it all. It was enough to make him want to scream. "Are you honestly going to stand there and try to defend Stark right now?"
Taken aback by the hostility coming off the captain in waves, she matched his stance in defense. "You're the one whose been shooting up the place and drawing unnecessary attention to yourself when I told you the best thing to do was keep out of it!" She countered, her shaking fingers clenching into tight fists.
"Shooting up the place?" He repeated, incensed by her words. "I wasn't the one who blew up half the damn airport! Do you know how many people could have been hurt-"
"Oh, now you're worried about casualties?" Natasha snorted, her expression full of sarcasm as she berated him. "Because it sure as hell didn't seem like it when you were jumping out of buildings and mowing down half the FBI in order to set the Winter Solider free."
The mention of Bucky's ugly past set his jaw to harden and he suddenly felt like being anywhere else in the world than with her, which only served to confuse and irritate him since most of the time he spent actually wanting to be around her. "Why am I here, Romanoff?" He demanded, longing to be done with the conversation now that he was satisfied she wasn't possessed or being blackmailed into helping Stark. No, instead she was against all of them – against him. He'd had enough. He couldn't deal with the reality of her betrayal. He shouldn't have come. He should have gone on that date with Sharon and not cancelled on the one female he could actually have a decent relationship with.
"I'm sorry, do you have better places to be right now, Rogers? Am I taking up too much of your precious time?" she mocked, her hands on her hips.
Steve sucked in a deep breath, refusing to be baited by her sarcasm. Finally, after a few deep breaths he managed to answer her darkly. "Surely you have better things to do, Romanoff, better people to do probably, than stand here in the dark berating me for trying to rescue my best friend."
The silence that fell between them was deafening. Steven instantly knew he'd live long enough to regret the words said out of hurt and anger and turned to explain himself when he realized she'd disappeared. Turning around he found her about to climb onto her bike, her jaw set in the same hardened edge as his. He knew he'd gone too far, not enough to hurt her maybe, but enough to piss her off and enough to know that it was a low blow for him to suggest she might be doing something illicit with her time. Despite all this, he felt a slight justification at making her feel just as annoyed as he did, knowing that she deserved it for all confusion she'd been putting him through lately.
"You know what, Rogers, I'm starting to wonder why I even bothered myself."
Flabbergasted, Steven threw his hands up in the air. "So you brought me out here for nothing then?"
"Seems that way, Captain." She answered, checking her phone for God only knew what, before pocketing the infuriating machine. "This was all one epic waste of time, apparently."
"Great," Steve shot back, feeling like the worlds biggest idiot and wanting nothing more than to turn back the clock and forget the whole confusing and infuriating meeting. "I'll be on my way then. Have a nice life." Moving around her, he climbed back onto his bike and was about to turn the key when he noticed it was missing. Enraged, he shot her an accusing look and found her holding onto the key.
"Steve..."
"What?" he snapped, petulantly snatching back his key and inserting it back in to the ignition. He glared at her petite hand as it hovered over his bulky clenched fist.
"I didn't ask you to meet me so that we could fight," she assured him in a softer, gentler tone. He knew that voice. It was the one she used to calm the Hulk back into becoming Dr. Banner. He'd heard her used it a dozen times and marveled at how someone who could kill a man with her thighs could possess a voice that could soothe all the anger and hurt raging inside his body. She huffed a laugh and he glared at her for laughing at his irritation. "You know, you are really making hard not to punch you in the face right now."
"That feeling seems to be going around of late," he muttered, slumping down on the seat of his bike. "Fine." He sighed heavily. "Let's talk."
They moved from the bikes to the wooden picnic table in an awkward silence, sitting across from one another. He waited, rubbing his palms back and forth against his pant legs impatiently.
Catching the movement, she slammed her hand down on the table to cease his distracting movements. "Dammit, Steve. I'm trying to figure out how to explain."
"Explain what?"
"Explain why I'm working with Stark."
"That'd be great, because as far as Clint and I are concerned you used to despise the man."
"I did," she sighed, sounding exasperated. "I still do… but – wait, what do you mean as far as you and Clint are concerned? What's that bone head been saying behind my back?" Her eyes narrowed, as she studied him and suddenly Steve no longer felt like he had the upper hand on the conversation.
Steve shrugged nonchalantly, though he was sure he didn't pull the look off by the way she tilted her head to the side and raised a disapproving eyebrow. "He told me to see if you'd been possessed by any alien overlords lately, because that was the only way he could understand why you chose an egotistical maniac over your closest friends." He confessed, studying the knot in the pinewood of the table. His fingernail picked at the edge of the splintered boards, avoiding the probing eyes he could feel on his head.
"You forgot billionaire."
"What?" he asked, looking up at her.
"Never mind." She waved him off. "Look, regarding Clint – tell him I will personally deal with him later, he's known me long enough that he should know that I have my reasons."
"And me?" Steve asked, looking at her with intense scrutiny. "Am I just supposed to trust that you have your reasons?" He searched her face, trying to find any source of deception or hint of sarcasm. Could it really be that simple? Was she really not betraying him the way he had feared the last couple of weeks? Was there another mission at play? Was Nick in on it?
"Yes, you're supposed to trust me. We're partners," she assured him, reaching out to touch his hand. He stared at it for a moment before snorting.
"You could have said that over the phone instead of dragging me out here in the middle of the night," he pointed out, not feeling completely satisfied by her explanation – or lack there of an explanation. He frowned, considering her words, running them over in his head and trying to make sense of the doubt that had been keeping him awake at night. He shook his head, trying to make sense of what she was saying. "Why didn't you just call me and tell me this?"
"Would you have listened?" She questioned, her fingers squeezing his. He pulled his hands away from her quickly in order to think straight, and not concentrate on how the simple warm weight on her fingertips squeezing his made him want more than just an assuring touch. It made him think back to the stolen kiss on the escalator and he thanked God it was dark because he knew his cheeks were turning pink.
However as all this was going on his head and he began to believe that this whole situation may have been one giant miscommunication, her demeanor changed into a defensive stance. (It wasn't until much later, as he lay awake replaying their conversation in his head that night that he realized she might have misunderstood the reason for why he pulled his hands away from her in that moment.) "Or are you just mad that I ruined your big date with Sharon tonight?"
"My what?" He spluttered, shocked by the sudden acid lacing her tone. It felt like a slap across the face. He stared at her incredulously. "I never said-"
"You didn't have to." She snapped and jabbed a thumb at her chest. " I'm a spy remember? It's my job to know what people get up to when they think no one's looking."
Feeling like the tables had suddenly turned and that it was now him that was being accused of some kind of betrayal, he immediately fell back instinctively into a defensive stance. "Some of us aren't afforded that same luxury. Some of us just have to rely on plain old trust."
She sucked in her cheeks in a manner that told him that she was biting back the words she wanted to say, and waited with dread. "You once said you would trust me to save your life," she stated after a small painful beat.
"I did," he answered truthfully, unsure of why her tone sounded so accusatory.
"Did you mean it?"
"I did at the time," he admitted, and while that would have normally been the end to the conversation, he knew by the way her left eyebrow curled upwards, and the way her expression unreadable that he was in for a battle. She had her game face on and Steve could do nothing more than squirm in his seat.
"But you don't trust me anymore? Is that it, Captain? All because I didn't blindly follow you in to battle like some empty headed solider? Because I stood up for something that I believed in, even if it wasn't in line with what you wanted?"
Steve baulked, fire catching alight in his eyes again as he faced the woman that simultaneously drove him nuts and made him want to be a better man within a blink of her eye. "I've never asked you to blindly follow me, Romanoff."
"And yet you stand here acting like I betrayed you." She accused, pushing up from the table. She started to walk towards the bikes, but stopped short, turning back to him, pulling her leather jacket tighter around her body. "I warned you about what pulling on that thread would mean, Steve. I warned you that you might not like what you find, but you pulled anyway because all you could see was your childhood best friend and anyone who stood in your way was simply collateral damage."
"So, what? It's my fault you chose Tony's side?" Steve burst out, jumping to his feet.
"I didn't choose his side!" She shouted. "What is with you two and sides? I'm simply looking at the bigger picture – which neither of you seem to seeing by the way."
"What bigger picture?" Steve scoffed, rolling his eyes at how ridiculous it were that they were two seemingly reasonable adults fighting in the middle of a deserted car park in the middle of the night. It was absurd. They were absurd. The whole thing was absurd.
"You may be 100 years old, Rogers, but you might as well be an infant for all you know about the world and how it works right now. You can't just go blasting your way in anymore like it's some game of cops and robbers. It's not how the life works anymore."
"And I suppose you're the expert on playing games aren't you?" He challenged, feeling the heat rise to his checks as she stripped and boiled down his life to nothing more than a childhood game. "Seems to me like all you ever do is play games."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"You're the expert, you figure it out."
"You know what, fine!" Taking a deep breath, she raised her hands in surrender. "Go back and play war games with your bff. I don't know why I bothered trying to explain my side of things to you. I don't know why I let myself believe for one second that you of all people would be different and you might hear me out. Obviously my opinion means nothing to you. It never did." With a twist of her heel, she stormed away from him, and threw her jean-clad leg over her bike.
"Oh come on!" He shouted after her. "That's no fair, Natasha… Natasha, wait!" He called out, suddenly feeling like the world was moving too fast again and that he might just drown in the aftermath.
"Just leave." She ordered him, all warmth and passion sapped from her voice. She sounded tired and she sounded disappointed – which hurt him more. The fact that he had done something to disappoint her hurt him more than he'd like to admit. "It was a mistake dragging you out here." She continued, refusing to look at him. Her voice grew softer even as he charged towards her. "I wont waste your time again."
"Wait, what does that mean?" he asked, feeling panicked. Something big had happened, something he didn't know existed until now, but it was about to slip through his fingers and he didn't know what to do to stop it.
"It means exactly what you think it does, Rogers. I'm done." She answered, her eyes on the bike, the ground, her hands – anywhere but his face. If she'd have looked up she might have seen the horror on his face, the fear, the loss.
"You're done?" he all but managed to choke out.
"Goodbye, Steve."
"Natasha, wait!" But it was too late. He physically saw the walls go up and her persona completely changed into someone he didn't recognize. She didn't even look back as she kick started the bike in one fell swoop. He felt a pain in his chest that he hadn't felt since the day he crashed into the ice, a feeling that screamed a hundred goodbyes that could never be forgotten. "Nat, please!" He called out after her as she passed him. He reached out to grab the back of the bike, but she increased the throttle as if anticipating his move, and sped away into the night.
Steve began to panic. Confused, desperate and at a loss at what to do he did the only thing that had ever made sense since he'd be transformed into Captain America. He ran. Kicking up dirt and leaping over fallen logs, Steve powered through the forest, increasing his speed as soon as he detected the sound of her bike on the highway. At one point he stumbled for a split second as he charged his way through a towering redwood and had to shake the branches free from his face in order to see where he was going.
The edge of the woods was only a few feet away, the trees thinning as they gave way to miles of grey cement. Judging her location on the road to his current position, he sprung from woods to intercept her, only to narrowly miss the side of a semi trailer. A horn blasted, tires skidded and Steve looked up in time to see Natasha slide her bike sideways as she came to a neck-breaking stop in front of him.
"What the hell, Steve!" She screamed, staring at him aghast. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?!" She glanced over his shoulder to see that the truck managed to pull it self together and breathed a sigh of relief.
"Don't be done." He spluttered, taking hold of the side of her bike before she could leave again. "Don't disappear."
"Are you kidding me right now, Rogers? You could have killed that guy in the semi - he's probably having a heart attack right now!" She was still furious, her eyes flashing dangerously as she pointed and exclaimed at the truck rumbling back down the highway after having collected itself. "If you think it's my job just to run around cleaning up after you-"
"I trust you."
"What?" Her hand dropped, and she stared at him incredulously. "You-"
"Don't be done, ok? Not cause of this."
Suddenly lost for words, she blinked, her mouth opening and closing. "I-I…"
Steve felt the pain in his chest return, but this time it wasn't because he feared he'd never see her again, it was in fear of her reply. He clutched the bike a little tighter, even as she slumped in the seat and showed no sign of driving away. "Nat." He prompted, his eyes desperately searching her face for any indication that he'd made it past the walls, that she was truly hearing him, seeing him.
She shook her head, wisps of red hair swirling around her tightened features. He held his breath. His eyes begged her to understand, to see that despite his harsh words he hadn't meant them. He was hurt, he was defensive, he was worried, he was-
"I wont," she finally answered, sending a wave of relief to his tensed body, his breathe tumbling out of shaky lips. She reached forward and he frowned, confused to her intentions until she retrieved a twig with it's leaves still attached from behind his ear. She smiled gently, twirling the twig in her hand. "You just can't help yourself can you? Always crashing headfirst into something without thinking - you should really see someone about that." Her tone was teasing, but there was still a hesitant edge to it, like she wasn't quite sure if it was safe to come out from behind the wall yet.
He smiled, trying to offer her some assurance, but felt his own fears holding him back. "Do you mind giving me a lift back to my ride?" Steve asked, finally removing his hands from her handlebars. She quirked an eyebrow at him, but nodded, sliding forward enough in her seat to allow him to climb on the back.
The bike groaned slightly under his added weight, but made no complaint once she kicked started the bike again and sent them tearing back down the highway. He resisted the urge to drop his hands on her hips and lean into her as they slid smoothly around the bend back towards the car park. Instead he opted for holding on to his seat rigidly to give her some space. His bike was where he left it, and Natasha stopped just shy of the back of it. He quickly climbed off the bike and turned to thank her when he saw the frown on her face.
Self-consciously he ruffled his hair, thinking another branch was clinging to his head but came up empty. She was still frowning, but one look at perfect white teeth gnawing on the edge of her soft pink lips told him that she was lost in her thoughts. While he waited for her to return, he climbed aboard his own bike and was about to start the engine when she called out his name.
"Things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get better aren't they?" He nodded, unsure how to respond to her depressing statement. "Steve?"
"Yeah?"
She swallowed, her eyes dropping to look at her feet before slowly returning to his eyes. "Do you at least trust me when I say I'm doing what I think is right and that I'll keep doing it until I think otherwise?"
He sighed; disappointed by the fact that she wasn't planning to stand by his side anytime soon, but at least now he understood she wasn't standing against him. "I trust you, yes."
"But not enough to walk away?"
"You know I can't."
"Yeah. I know."
"You still trust me?" She nodded, but he grew concerned when she refused to meet his eyes. A wall of red hair shielded her expression from him, and he craned his head to catch sight of her eyes. It burned away at him to think she might no longer trust him, or in fact, had never trusted him and he desperately wanted to change that before they parted. "Natasha?"
She looked up, green eyes glossy with unshed tears. Her smile was tight, but her voice was shaky as she snorted. "Like I ever had a choice." Perplexed, Steve opened his mouth to question her further when something shifted in her expression and she nodded. "It's late, I've gotta go."
"Ok." He agreed, disappointed, and started his engine. He followed her out of the car park feeling exhausted and in desperate need of sleep or a session in the gym to sooth the raging thoughts crashing through his head. As they turned the bend and reached the highway he chuckled to himself at the irony as he pulled to the left and she pulled to the right. Seeming to have sensed the same thing, she turned to look at him and shared a smile. It was the first genuine smile he'd seen in a long time and he felt some of the unease that had been tormenting him for months dissolve.
"Try not to kill anyone on the way home, old man." She tossed at him, before reeving her engine and speeding off. Rolling his eyes, he chuckled to himself before driving off in the opposite direction.