A/N: This was written for the MCU AU Fest on AO3.
Romanogers, as I'm sure most of my regular readers know, isn't really my thing, but this particular prompt jumped out at me and I had to write it. Hope you enjoy!
On the desolate street corner where Steve Rogers stood, there were only two sources of light. One was the blinking 'open' sign of a twenty-four-hour adult bookstore across the street. The other was the moon. It sat high in the sky, nearly full and casting soft blue rays onto the decrepit buildings and dead street lamps. There were no other stores open, no signs of life beyond a dying flash of pink neon and Steve himself.
This was a dark place. Even in daylight, with no clouds in the sky, you could feel it. Darkness clung to the windows, to the pavement. He'd spent the whole day yesterday scouting the area. A handful of grouchy women in babushkas and yellow-eyed washouts occupied the rundown boarding house next to the porn shop. Some of them glanced at his car, parked in the same spot for hours. None of them asked what he was doing. Maybe they already knew.
He wouldn't be surprised. The darkness was in their skin.
Steve didn't have his car anymore. It was five blocks down in a parking garage, his phone, gun, and wallet in the glove compartment, as per her instructions. The note left in his mailbox two days ago was crumpled in his hand. That and the clothes on his back were all he had. He'd made sure to dress nicely.
Her message was two lines long, simple words asking him to meet her at this location at this time. He read it one more time; her handwriting was impeccable. He pictured her writing it in a hotel bar with a glass of wine in her free hand. She'd have red lipstick on, her favorite shade. A perfect imprint would be left on the glass when she took a sip. It would look like a kiss. She'd slip the bartender a twenty and leave with all eyes on her.
At midnight on the dot, she wasn't there. Steve rolled his shoulders, relieving a fraction of tension. The neon sign had blinked out, but his eyes adjusted well enough without it. His ears perked up. Car engines roared in the distance and a plane flew overhead. A single click of heels on concrete made him spin to catch an arm before it snaked around his neck. She threw up a leg, nailing him in the stomach. With his body for leverage, she did a backflip and would've taken him to the ground had he not let go. She needed half a second to regain her balance, and then he swept her legs out from under her.
He caught her in mid air. Even he was impressed by his own reflexes. Throwing her against the wall, he held back enough not to disorient her. He pressed his full weight into her, and now she was trapped.
"You're not getting away this time," he growled in her ear.
She dropped her head onto his shoulder, a laugh bubbling at the surface. "That makes the score six to five you. I told you it's more fun without kidgloves."
Steve would take it to his grave, but Natasha's logic was undeniable, even in the most illogical of times. The first time she ambushed him, he'd gone easy on her. Chivalry aside, he was a large, exceptionally strong man who'd put more than one sparring partner in the hospital by accident. Natasha was five feet tall with stick arms and delicate features.
Ten seconds later, he was eating the rubber gym mat as Natasha held him in a chokehold, her knee digging into his back to keep him down. "Is that the best you can do?" she'd whispered in his ear. His only answer at the time was an elbow to the face, but if he could go back and do it over, he would've had much more to say.
"Why are we here?" he demanded. Clouds blocked out the moon, but her vivid green eyes seemed to glow like a cat's,
"Hi Natasha. It's good to see you again," she said. "Thank you, Steve. It's great to see you, too."
"Your note said it was urgent." He could feel her breath on his ear. "Was there a problem putting the deal through?"
"Nope. The deal is set," she said. He felt her move against him and instinctively held on tighter. Her smile widened.
"Then what is it?" It was too late for games. Too late and too dark. His shoulder ached from her acrobatic stunt before and he'd be feeling that all day tomorrow.
As best as she could, she shrugged. "Sometimes I'd just like to see you."
Steve gave her the dryest look he could muster, earning an eye roll.
"You have no sense of humor." She made a move, and the next thing Steve knew, he was on the ground at her feet. "They did change the date, though. We're meeting the provider on Saturday instead of Monday. I hope you didn't have any important weekend plans."
"Other than re-watching Black Mirror on Netflix? No, I'm free." He got up and dusted himself off. He patted his pockets, his heart momentarily seizing before he remembered his phone was still in his car. He'd have to walk half a mile through Manhattan at one in the morning when this was over. What the hell had his life become?
"Don't worry, I'll buy you a new TV for your trouble."
"I'd rather you didn't."
"That's no fun," she smirked. Coming closer, she plucked a feather out of his hair and let it go with the wind. Her nails were freshly manicured, her long fingers curling inward. He watched them intently. "Pick you up at ten?"
"I thought it was my job to pick you up."
"Not this time." She backed away, taking her breath and her scent with her. Steve told himself he didn't feel empty without them. "Same as tonight, no phones, no wallets, no devices of any kind. They're very particular about this. You remember the codename I gave you?"
He did remember. He'd be stupid not to. It was the most basic and boring moniker in history that she'd bestowed upon him. "Captain."
"Oh Captain, my Captain," she said. "I'll be in touch before the drop off date. Wait to hear from me and lay low until then. No more grocery store robberies okay? You're better than that now."
He wanted so badly to laugh. If only she knew. "Yes, ma'am."
"And no more drunken hookups until then."
He'd never touched a bottle in his life. "No problem."
"And eat your vegetables and go to bed on time. I think that's about it." She backed up a little more.
"Not going to remind me to brush my teeth?" he asked, grinning.
"I think you've got it covered," she said. "I'll be in touch."
"It would be easier if you'd let me give you my number," Steve called after her, but the shadows had already swallowed her. Even her footsteps were gone. If she could literally disappear into thin air, he wouldn't be surprised. Deeply impressed and a little jealous, but not surprised. After knowing Natasha and worming his way into her inner circle, that was one emotion he was confident he'd never experience again.
Just about the only way she could surprise him anymore was by being someone he wouldn't have to arrest in the end.
The following day was a Tuesday, partly cloudy with a chance of rain in the afternoon hours. High in the sixties and perfect for driving with the top down. Special Agent Steven Grant Rogers of the FBI entered his supervisor's office after stopping once for coffee and once more to check his PO box for unmarked envelopes. "Morning, Sir."
"Morning, Sir."
Director Fury had the file for a drug cartel leader open on his desk, and he scanned each line with the intensity of a man about to commit murder. He said nothing as Steve set a plain black coffee in front of him. He chugged half of it and continued reading, leaving Steve to twiddle his thumbs until Fury was ready for him.
Seven years with the Bureau and five working directly under Nick Fury taught him not to take this sort of thing personally. The man was a complete enigma. He was a legend in the organized crime division, but if you asked his friends what he did in his spare time, they'd stare blankly at you and wonder whatever made you think Nick Fury had friends.
After another few minutes, Fury tossed the file aside in disgust. He finished his coffee and squeezed the cup flat in his fist. "Tell me you have good news."
That sounded more like an order than a request. Like if Steve had bad news, he'd better lie his ass off or else work a desk job for all eternity. "There's been a change in plans. Romanov is meeting with the supplier on Saturday now."
Fury's one eye scrutinized him, making Steve sit up straighter. "Any idea why?"
"She didn't say, but it's happening in Queens. I haven't extracted an exact time and location yet."
"She wouldn't go outside city limits for a business deal," said Fury.
"I'd say so," Steve agreed.
Fury's eye darkened to black. It often looked like nothing but pupil but right now especially. "Do you know what she's buying, Rogers? Or who, I should say?"
He rolled his chair back, into a wall made of glass that overlooked a massive bulletin board covered in missing person posters. Steve passed it every day on his way to his desk and he could cry for how little time it took to memorize all the names and faces. For every one person found alive or dead, twenty more hovered over their heads, no legacy left save the broken hearts of their loved ones and another unsolved mystery. The ratio of young to old victims only twisted the knife harder. Some of those kids weren't even out of diapers yet.
"I don't know for sure what she's bartering for. She's gathered three million dollars in bonds and assets. Her financial team is working on the liquidation, but that's not where I work."
"What does she have you doing?"
"Driving her mostly," Steve said sheepishly. "And getting her coffee. She likes that I always remember the whipped cream and chocolate shavings… the point is, she trusts me. She wants me to be present at the exchange, so I doubt she suspects me."
"Unless she's bringing you only so she can kill you somewhere private," said Fury.
Ah, Nick. That dear friend who always knew exactly the right thing to say.
"Do you think she's capable of that?" Steve asked, leaning forward. "You've known her longer than I have."
Fury frowned, his eye closing and opening again as he sighed. "I helped train her. I taught her everything I know. She was gonna be the golden child of the bureau, an agent who knew all the tricks. I didn't realize until it was too late that I was the one being fooled. I'm not about that power of guilt shit, but every time we find her mark on a crime scene, I can see mine, too."
He fixed a powerful stare on the posterboard over Steve's head. He didn't turn to look. He knew exactly what Fury was looking at. On the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, terrorists, cartel leaders, and deranged serial killers took a backseat to one woman who topped them all. Natasha Romanov, better known as the Black Widow. Thirty plus counts of murder, millions of dollars in extortion, not to mention a number of outstanding parking tickets. She was the most wanted career criminal in the country, and she had the sweetest smile in her picture.
"If I'd known what she was going to become, I would've thrown her ass in jail the day I met her," Fury said. "We're going to finish the job this time, so you'd better be up to the task, Rogers."
"I am, Sir," Steve said, but even as the words left his mouth they tasted sour.
Steve nearly died at the gym that afternoon, murdered by his own best friend. Their daily sparring matches were never gentle- just ask the muscleheads who cowered in fear at the sight of them trading blows- but Bucky had clearly overslept or skipped breakfast this morning. Steve dodged another low blow and twisted around, only for Bucky to block his arm and sink his fist into Steve's stomach. Winded, he fell to his knees, Bucky bouncing around him, his fists up.
"Come on, Punk, you can do better than that," he shouted.
Steve had definitely heard that before, only from someone shorter and thinner and more female. Funny how much less appealing it was this time around.
"I can when you're not trying to knock my head off." Steve climbed to his feet as the air slowly returned to his lungs. "If this is how you fight me, I'd hate to see what you do to bad guys."
"Damn right you would," Bucky snapped, stomping out of the training room and glaring off a pair of enormous men who'd been blocking the locker room entrance. While they ran with their tails between their legs, Steve followed after Bucky. He found him ripping his gym clothes off, a towel over his shoulder as he headed for the showers.
"What's going on, Buck?" he asked. "You're not yourself today."
"Oh, and what am I?" Bucky pushed past him, but Steve wasn't deterred.
"You're acting like someone just died on your watch," he said, making Bucky stop in his tracks. The towel slipped down his arm to the floor, covering his feet. He took a deep breath and turned his head. The rage wasn't all gone, but the fires had dulled.
"This should've been my case," he said.
"You mean Romanov?"
"We trained together," Bucky punched the wall, leaving a crack behind. "She was my partner. Fury knew that and he still wouldn't put me on the case."
"That's exactly why he didn't," said Steve. "You're emotionally involved. Plus, you have a wife now. How do you think Jane would feel if you went out there guns blazing and got yourself killed?"
Bucky laughed. "Killed? No, Nat couldn't lay a finger on me if she tried. Not the way I'm feeling."
He went back to his locker, forgetting the shower and pulling on his work clothes. If it were anyone else, Steve might've been worried, but he'd known Bucky since they were children. They'd played in the sandbox together, lost their first baby teeth and went on their first dates together. Bucky would get back in his car and drive home. He'd kick the mailbox and maybe the front door, and once those last dregs of anger had been expended, he'd go find Jane in her basement lab, and he'd put his arms around her and kiss the shell of her ear. He'd carry her upstairs and cuddle with her on the couch, the TV on to their favorite movie and steaming mugs of hot chocolate on the coffee table. There they'd sit, rarely talking, sharing something that went far beyond what words could express.
It must be wonderful, Steve thought.
He got back to his apartment and found a note on his door.
'Central Park at 2 pm tomorrow. Bring nothing and no one. xoxo
-N'
The sun was out and people were everywhere. Normal people (or as normal as one could get in Manhattan), who brought their kids to play and had picnics and visited the zoo and were just there. Steve thanked the Lord above they weren't meeting in a backwater ghost town again.
He chose a park bench next to the playground. There were at least twenty kids crawling around the jungle gym, hanging from the monkey bars, going down the slide, jumping off the swings. One little boy landed a few feet from Steve. He was up and running back to his friends in one fluid motion. Steve used to be young and excited like that, if never quite so active. Childhood illness kept him inside most weekends, watching the healthy kids from his second story window. Now he was healthy; he took runs every morning and worked out regularly. He hadn't slept in since college. But he would never jump that high off a swing.
Natasha was nowhere in sight. Not that he expected to find her out in the open buying a hot dog. He'd seen more than one redhead in the crowd, but they were always too tall to be her, or too old, or too plain. He wished he'd brought her note. Maybe he'd misread it. A helpful old woman gave him the time and it was almost three. He pushed his sunglasses up and watched a group of girls kick a ball around. The smallest lagged behind as her friends ran off without her. In her haste to catch up, she tripped over a root and hit the ground.
Steve winced as she rolled over. Her knee and her face were red as tears spilled down her cheeks. Her cries couldn't penetrate the swell of voices, but surely her parents were around and would be there soon to take care of her.
A woman knelt beside her, patting her back as she examined the injury. Steve blinked several times and replayed the last few seconds in his mind. Where had she come from? That girl was alone and then someone walked into his line of sight and then the woman was there. She wore sunglasses and a hoodie over a plain black baseball cap. The rim covered her face from the mouth up. She had a pleasant smile, infectious enough that the girl stopped crying and grinned with her front teeth missing.
As she patched the girl up, Steve left the bench and ambled over, past the playground and families eating in the grass. He waited under the shade of a tree, his arms crossed and his eyes on Natasha.
"No more tears," she told the little girl. "You're okay."
There was a bright red bandage on her knee which had been cleaned of all blood. Apparently, Natasha kept colorful band-aids handy just in case.
The little girl sniffled as Natasha helped her stand. She pulled her shirt down over her shorts and patted it flat. She had a head full of golden ringlets and chubby red cheeks. Were her eyes blue instead of brown she'd be perfectly angelic.
"Thank you," she said, teetering on her heels like she was trying to decide something. "Mommy says I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."
Natasha chuckled. "Then you should always listen to your mommy. Go on now. Your friends are waiting."
The girl did as she was told and soon rejoined her group. As they disappeared from sight, Natasha walked over to meet Steve, like she'd always known he was there despite never looking up.
"You ever thought of having kids, Steve?" she asked.
He'd call it a non-sequitur, but they hadn't been talking. If nothing else, it was the last question he ever expected from her.
"I don't know," he answered honestly. "Maybe someday."
Her hoodie shadowed her face, and his sunglasses didn't help matters. Taking them off, she was no easier to read. Her skin was flawless to his eyes, but only now had she ever appeared doll-like.
"Do you want kids?" he asked awkwardly.
"I like them," she answered, her features even. "I… relate to them, I suppose. At least I'd like to. I didn't have the best childhood myself."
One of the few detailed portions of Natasha Romanov's file was a massive dossier of old forms and audio transcripts collected from a defunct KGB sector. Steve had nearly lost his lunch reading about the horrors those girls endured in the red room. In the end, only one emerged alive with her sanity intact. She now played with a thread hanging from her sleeve, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. Utterly strange in her normality.
"Why did you want to meet?" Steve asked. 'And how did you know where I live?'
Neither question was worth voicing, which was why he only bothered with one. This proved one too many as Natasha grew fascinated with a massive cloud formation over the jungle gym. She started in that direction, Steve on her tail with his hands stuffed in his pockets. He removed them upon considering how shady to people dressed like them looked hanging around a bunch of kids.
"You know, I've been meaning to ask you," she said when he caught up with her. "Why did you want to work for me?"
She'd asked him that very question the first time he was dragged into her underground base with a burlap sack over his head and rope burns on his wrists. There had been a gun pointed at his head. Possibly more than one, but he couldn't see behind him. Out of all the sketchy criminal types in the room, only she had been unarmed, sitting at her desk with her fingers laced in a pressed pantsuit like a manager giving a job interview. Back then, he hadn't known what to make of her. Now he knew he had a better chance against five armed men than one unarmed Natasha.
An inner voice which sounded far too much like Fury reread his pre-written cover story. "I got sick of the minor leagues. Robbing gas stations wasn't fun anymore. Breaking into houses for jewelry was risky. I thought I could do better for myself."
"Are you?"
This part wasn't in the pre-write. Steve hemmed and hawed for a minute. "I like the work environment so far. Benefits are great, too."
"Like that dental plan you don't use?"
"You said yourself I don't need it," he grinned.
"You sure don't," she muttered. Steve almost missed a step and his heart definitely missed a beat. Natasha overtook him, stopping at the edge of the park by the gates. She pulled the cap down over her face, an unnecessary action. He was the only cop around to recognize her. "Do you know why I hired you, Steve?"
He had a prepared answer for that question, too. Something about being the best and having the drive to succeed and wanting to better his life at the expense of everything else. Typical selfish criminal jargon. The kind of stuff that felt less impressive the more time he spent with her.
"I'd like to," he said, pleased by how little his voice shook.
She stepped closer to him, close enough to put her hands on his chest and shove him into the wall whenever she wanted. If she pulled out a knife and stabbed him, she'd pierce his heart and he would have no time to think about defending himself. She stared up at him. He stared down at her. Everything and everyone moved around them as if in another world. There was something beautiful it.
"The provider is going to meet us at the corner of South and 27th in Queens on Saturday at midnight," she said. "With them will be eight child slaves from Syria, Bangladesh, and Somalia. They'll be expecting payment of five hundred thousand dollars each, for a grand total of four million dollars. Four million dollars for eight girls I can train to carry on my work when I'm gone."
Steve's jaw clenched. A much stronger reaction burned his insides, but he nodded along and forced everything save that single uncontrollable tic. "Do you think you can handle that many?"
"It's the most I was able to get out of him," she said. "He doesn't like selling in the US. It's a miracle I convinced him to make the exchange here at all. He wanted Canada, believe it or not."
"He's not local?"
"He's American based," she confirmed, "he just tends to go overseas for most of his business. Who knows? Maybe we'll assuage some of his fear."
They left the park and got hotdogs from the nearest kiosk. Natasha soaked hers in mustard and relish. Steve stuck with a plain, unable to eat more than two bites before throwing the rest away. His appetite for the rest of the week was gone.
"You don't have any doubts about this?" He sipped his soda, the sugar burning his tongue. "Kids are a lot bigger than cars or jewelry."
"We've never stolen those," she said, wiping a drop of mustard off her lip. "I know exactly what I'm doing. Just like you know what you're doing, right?"
"I'm doing my job," he said automatically. He wished he could say it with conviction. "Whatever it takes, I will get it done."
"And that's exactly why I hired you."
Steve skipped lunch the next day and barricaded himself in the basement archives. They'd changed considerably since the days of cabinet labyrinths and endless cardboard boxes stuffed with fifty-year-old files. Close to half of his department's past cases had been logged into the main computer, with the rest on the way by the end of the year (or so they said).
Some files were more detailed than others. Wilson Fisk's page was a mile long but they had so little information on The Mandarin that it barely filled a single box. Steve typed Black Widow into the search engine and received a list of three thousand sources. Not bad for only two years of activity.
"Natasha Romanov," he read aloud. "Age unknown. Birthdate unknown. Birthplace: Russia. List of charges…"
He scrolled all the way to the bottom. Most of the list focused on the murders. Her targets were usually high profile: a senator, a county judge, the CEO of a toothpick manufacturer. Terrible as it was, he cracked a smile at that last one. Did one of his company's products give her a splinter once?
Not a single past activity related to any sort of trafficking. Not drugs, not weapons, and definitely not humans. As far as Steve could tell, she'd never so much as snuck a pair of shoes across the border. Yet here she was preparing to buy children.
"She's branching out," said the voice of Fury in his head. "She's spreading her influence. Those child soldiers will be the future heads of her entire organization."
It made perfect sense as an agent, but none at all as Natasha's confidante. This was a woman who had suffered more as a child than any adult had a right to. A woman who dropped everything to help a crying little girl with no benefit to her, no gratification beyond doing a good deed. And yet she was going to aid and abet in child slavery. It just. Didn't. Fit.
He backtracked, pulling records from her days at Quantico. After she'd been freed from the KGB, she'd spent a few years in foster care before reaching legal age and going to college. From there, it was the Academy, where she made friends both within and outside the Bureau. One name stuck out; a CIA agent she and Bucky worked with on an international arms dealer case right before she went rogue. Steve wrote his information down and logged off, reaching for his phone.
Clint Barton had retired six months ago and settled down with his family in the countryside upstate. His heavily pregnant wife greeted Steve at the door, along with two young children curious to see their visitor. He imagined they didn't get many this far out.
Agent Barton was outside feeding the chickens. His wife called him in and he wiped mud off his hands on a pair of jeans which were already covered in grass stains. He was an older man, a few years from fifty. There was a spark of youth about him Steve couldn't place. The way he smiled when Steve introduced himself and shook his hand, almost like he knew he'd be coming.
"Sorry to barge in like this," Steve said. They were in the dining room with freshly brewed coffee courtesy of Mrs. Barton. She'd offered Steve something to eat as well, but the coffee was more than enough. "I had a few questions relating to a case I'm working on."
"I'm happy to help," said Barton. "Been a while since anything exciting happened around here."
"Oh really" Mrs. Barton called out from the kitchen, one eyebrow raised.
"A while as in since I found out you were pregnant," Agent Barton amended. "There's nothing more exciting than being a father."
'Good save,' Steve thought. "I'm working an undercover assignment. For the last few months, I've been infiltrating Natasha Romanov's crime ring. I understand she was an agent briefly and worked with you on a case three years ago."
As soon as Steve said Natasha's name, Barton's entire demeanor changed, albeit subtly. A quick of his lips, a closing of his fist. He ran one finger around the rim of his mug and gave Steve a once over. "How's that working out for you?"
"It's… working. She trusts me so far."
Barton chuckled. "I know. She's intense. You know that guy she was partnered with?"
"Agent Barnes," Steve said with a dull ache in his chest. Bucky hadn't shown up at the gym yesterday. He never said why, but Steve knew. "He's a friend of mine. I've already heard his perspective on Natasha."
"He feels betrayed and pissed off," Barton said as if he'd heard it straight from Bucky's mouth.
"Pretty much," Steve said. "Yesterday, I took a closer look at her old case files. A lot of her high-profile victims had sordid pasts."
Barton nodded. "I remember. Like that governor with the mob connections."
The late Governor Pierce's case was common knowledge. After his assassination during his re-election campaign, evidence was unearthed proving he'd used several hitmen to take out the family members of his political rivals. Wives, husbands, children in some cases. Nothing and no one was off limits for a sleazy politician with too much ambition.
"It wasn't just him," Steve said. He opened his briefcase, allowing dozens of pages to spill out. "I dug deeper. Every single victim was either proven or suspected of criminal activity. She killed a county judge on Long Island. He'd been previously accused of assault and attempted rape by seven interns and one legal secretary. Then there was the founder of a toothpick company. He had an affinity for child pornography."
"Fuck me," Barton said, coughing when his wife peeked in and gave him a warning look. "I mean, that's something else. Not surprising, though."
"You think so?" asked Steve.
"Don't you?" Barton countered. "You've known her for a while. She's let you into her circle. You've seen a side of her no forensic psychologist or interrogator could ever hope to find. Does it really shock you that she's never once harmed an innocent?"
Steve flipped back to the top page. Natasha's wanted poster stared back at him, smiley and happy as ever. He might think that smile was just for him. Maybe he wanted it to be. Maybe he wished she'd been frowning when they took this picture, so only he would know how beautiful she could be.
"Thanks, Agent Barton," Steve said. "That's all I needed to hear."
He stayed for dinner only because Mrs. Barton insisted. Insisted meaning 'physically dragged him to the table with strength fueled by pregnancy hormones'. It was the best meal Steve had in weeks and he left with a notebook full of Mrs. Barton's favorite recipes.
"No more living on fast food and TV dinners, understand?" She sounded like his own mother times ten and even wagged her finger at him. Now he understood how she stayed married to a CIA agent.
On the drive by to the city, he called Fury. "It's me. I have a location for the exchange."
Queens was silent this time of night. It was strange to call any part of New York City quiet, but there it was. They waited behind an Asian deli and a barber shop with a sun-bleached 'closed due to flu' sign in the window. A few kids walked by on the other side of the street. Through the darkness, Steve could just make out the shape of them. Features were another story. The sound of their voices was more than enough to tell him they shouldn't be out this late. Pinpricks of light faded in and out from their cigarettes. One threw a butt into the street where it fizzled out and died. They rounded the corner, out of sight and out of mind. Steve never would've noticed them on a normal day, but tonight, his senses were heightened. The crunching of gravel under his shoes and the way Natasha tapped her fingers. Each and every sound magnified a hundredfold to his ears. The only thing he couldn't hear was a truck.
"It's gotta be past midnight by now," he said.
She had her arms crossed and her back to him. If she had a watch, he couldn't see it. "They'll be here. He knows better than to stand me up."
That was another thing. Steve had no idea how Natasha was paying him. Electronic was his best guess, sent from one Swiss bank account to another. She had nothing on her as far as he could see. No phone or tablet, just an oddly shaped bulge in her jacket pocket. It looked like a gun, which would've made him uneasy if his service weapon wasn't currently strapped to his leg. He prayed he wouldn't need it.
When a pair of headlights shined down the street, Steve held his breath. It sounded too loud to be a taxi, and the shadow was too wide for a car. Another ten minutes had passed by then. Several theories had been forming in his mind before they appeared. They weren't coming, or they'd been intercepted, or they were never coming and this was her luring him to a deserted area to 'take care of him'. The truck pulled into the parking lot. Steve shielded his eyes from the blinding white light until the engine cut out and darkness returned.
Two men stepped out. Both tall and muscular. Steve could probably take them in a fight unless Natasha helped them.
"Who's this?" one of the men snapped, pointing at him.
Natasha patted Steve's elbow. "He's one of mine. Just thought I'd need some help with the cargo."
The man on the left waited for the man on the right to speak. Clearly, he was the one in charge, which meant he was the trafficker. He was more thuggish than Steve expected, his accent indeterminable, but American. He had a few gold teeth and a scar on his chin. His hair was brushed, but his skin was prematurely wrinkled. He ordered his partner to the back of the truck, gesturing with thick, red fingers. The partner complied, undoing a series of locks and throwing the door open.
One tiny body after another stepped down. Chains rattled, connecting the girls by the wrists and ankles. Steve counted eight, exactly as promised. None of them could be older than ten, but as small and thin as they were, one could be forgiven for assuming younger. Clean faces were downcast, hands joined over their stomachs. The chains gave them just enough space to move with risking any pesky escape attempts.
None of them spoke. They'd been trained not to. They waited for Natasha to inspect them, and she did so with an analytical eye like one would a new piece of furniture. All the way down the line, she took her time with each girl. They wore old brown dresses and no shoes. Their hair was cut short, their expressions listless.
"What do you think?" the trafficker asked and it took all the training Steve had ever received not to whip out his gun and riddle the man with holes.
"They're exactly what I'm looking for," said Natasha, stepping back. "Right down to the letter."
"Another satisfied customer," the partner said to his boss.
"Should we finish the transaction?" Natasha asked.
The trafficker pulled a tablet out of his pocket. It was open to a bank's main page, a fingerprint scanner and a number pad ready. Natasha started to take it, only for the trafficker to pull away.
"I never got your down payment," he said cooly.
Natasha pursed her lips. "That's strange. I could've sworn my assistant transferred the funds. Do you mind if I give him a call?"
The trafficker was right in front of her, dwarfing her with his height and girth. Compared to him, she was no bigger than one of those girls. The trafficker nodded at his partner, who corralled the girls back into the truck and slammed it shut. He had one of the locks in his hand and the key in the other.
"We'll take them back and leave if you try to scam me," he growled. "Give me the full payment now or else you get nothing from me."
"You drive a hard bargain." Natasha's eyes moved to Steve briefly, unreadable as ever. She dug through her pocket. "Okay, I'll have to call just to confirm. Then we can-"
She whipped out a gun and shot the partner between the eyes. Everything froze except the body; it fell face first like the only animated part of a still image. His foot twitched and a few drops of blood dripped from the hole. The trafficker stared down at the body of his subordinate. One second prior, he'd carried the smug arrogance of a man in total control of the situation, but you'd never know it looking at him now.
Natasha was calculating. She used his moment of weakness against him. Before Steve could blink, she was on him, all fists and kicks. Her gun was at Steve's feet. Either she'd dropped it or she'd thrown it. Either way, she wasn't about to retrieve it. The trafficker somehow regained himself through the assault and went on the offensive. He proved to be an above average fighter, something even Natasha hadn't expected. She went for a high kick and he dodged, grabbing her leg and spinning her. He slammed her into the ground and raised a foot to stomp on her stomach. She rolled away just in time, but he was prepared for that, too. He changed tactics. A fair fight wouldn't end well for him, so he used his greater body weight to tackle her. He pressed an elbow into her windpipe, cutting off her groan of pain.
"Lying bitch," he seethed, saliva dripping from his teeth. "Thought you'd cheat me out of my money? You're gonna pay in blood now."
Steve moved. He should've intervened sooner. He'd hated himself later for waiting. For now, he pulled the man by his hair, making him look up. Every negative emotion these last few months had inspired in him came out in three words.
"Don't you dare."
He got him off Natasha with a hit to the jaw, and from there, his mind shut down and his body had control. He understood why Natasha hadn't bothered to shoot him; a man like this needed to suffer. A long, lonely life in a cell on an island in the middle of the ocean was the only suitable punishment. That single blip of rationale was all which kept Steve from killing him. He gave into a base need to defend his territory long enough to cover the man's face in blood. Then he pulled him up by the collar.
"You're under arrest," he whispered. "You have the right to remain silent."
The trafficker had no intention of exercising that right. "Police brutality is a serious issue, Jack," he wheezed, spitting out a tooth.
Steve narrowed his eyes. "You victimize children, and the people at the station are my friends. Who do you think they'll believe?"
A shadow hovered over them. Steve had time to note Natasha's absence from his line of sight before two bullets pierced the trafficker's chest. They whizzed by Steve's ear, close but not close enough. Blood gushed from the man's mouth. He'd lost so much, it was a wonder his eyes were open, let alone focused on the woman who'd cut his life short.
"That's cold, Romanov… real cold. Kicking a man when he's down."
"I don't kill men," Natasha said, lowering the gun. There was nothing more for her to do but talk. "I kill bugs."
As the trafficker took his last breath, Steve backed away. His prints were all over the scene, but being near a corpse always made his stomach churn. It was the one part of the job he'd never get used to.
"Sorry," Natasha said. All the hate melted from her eyes and he could see how exhausted she was. "I couldn't let him live. I just couldn't."
Sirens wailed on the far end of the street, first a few and then more than Steve could count. If he didn't know better, he'd think the smell of death had attracted them, like bees to honey.
"That's our cue to leave," Natasha said, but she didn't move. "Unless you need to stay?"
Of all the countless scenarios he'd dreamed up for this moment, none were ever so devastating as this. None of them had ever haunted his dreams like this would. It wasn't that she'd just killed two men and he'd let it happen, and it wasn't that if he could go back in time, he'd still leave her enough room to reach the trafficker's heart.
"You planned this," he said.
"Sorry I didn't tell you sooner." She glanced at the truck, tears clinging to her lashes. "The girls will be okay now."
"Yes they will," Steve affirmed. "I'll make sure of it."
"I know."
"The cops will be here soon to arrest you."
"I know."
"...I'm with the FBI, Natasha."
"I know." She backed into the shadows. They meshed with her form like she'd been born of them. "You're good, Steve. You're a good person. Don't ever lose that."
'You're a good person, too,' he thought.
Before she could fade away from his life like a leaf carried by a summer breeze, Steve decided for once to be bold. He grabbed her around the waist, bringing her back under the moonlight. Her lips tasted like candy, sweet and sinful. He wanted to enjoy them forever, and through the crescendo of crying sirens, he poked his tongue into her mouth, took fistfuls of soft red hair, savored her warm skin under his rough fingers. For one beautiful moment, every inch of her was his, until red and blue lights reflected off the truck bed.
She twisted around, but Steve had already dropped his arms. The moment had passed and she was a fugitive again. She disappeared without looking back. Steve couldn't see which way she went. The exchange which was supposed to take place at 12:30 had taken an unexpected turn when the seller's man tried to ambush them. In the struggle, Black Widow killed them both and fled the scene. Steve told his story a hundred times that night. The details never changed and his voice never cracked from the pressure of keeping up a pretense. Somehow, through all the interrogations and lie detector tests he'd be put through in the days to come, no one would remember it was his job to lie and trick people. But he wasn't about to complain.
Fury spent the first half of Steve's final debriefing before he received his next assignment staring pensively out the window. After half an hour of that, he returned to his desk and drank some whiskey. Fifteen minutes later, his eye flicked to Steve.
"We received the medical reports for the girls. It's as bad as you'd expect, but the doctors are optimistic."
"Glad to hear it," Steve said. He still remembered those dull eyes and hollow faces in his nightmares.
"Some of them were kidnapped from their families, the rest are orphans sold to pay off debts. We're working to keep them in the country as long as possible. As for our vigilante hero of the week, current records show no trace of financial activity within our borders. It's like she's gone and disappeared to the moon."
"She's smart," Steve said. "She knows better than to make a grand reappearance so soon."
Fury hummed and poured another glass of whiskey. "You'd better hope she's not too smart, otherwise we have a better chance of finding God than ever seeing her again."
"I'm sure the agents assigned to the search are more than capable of getting the job done." He almost couldn't finish that sentence. The urge to laugh was a powerful one.
"Like I said, you'd better." Fury stood up again, going to the door and holding it open. That was new. Usually, he just pointed, sometimes not with his index finger. "The details of your new assignment are on your desk. Not that you'll need it. No one's more capable of catching Black Widow than someone who knows her inside and out."
"Thank you, sir," Steve said, biting back how untrue that statement was, "but can I ask why I'm still assigned to her? I thought with how bad the sting operation went, I'd be running security in Alaska by now."
"Funny you should mention it," Fury said, "I was just getting your paperwork ready when I got a call from the CIA. Looks like you've got friends in high places, Rogers. If you're happy to keep your job, go thank your buddy Agent Barton sometime."
"I will, sir. Thank you." Steve left without saying goodbye and walked back to his desk. As promised, a mountain of new files were waiting for him. His chair was currently occupied.
"You have your own workspace, Buck." Steve pointed at the abandoned desk next to his. "Shouldn't you be on your lunch break right now?"
Bucky had a file open in his lap, flipping through crime scene photos of the trafficker and his partner. "So Natasha was Robin Hooding all along."
Steve's lips tugged upward. "I think it's more like Batman. Robin Hood would be if she robbed him before killing him."
"Who said she didn't?" Bucky turned to a list of evidence found on the victims' bodies. "I don't see anything here about a wallet. Maybe that's why they can't find her."
Unlikely. The trafficker's assets were frozen and his entire ring was being dismantled as they spoke. New reports of arrests came in by the hour. Only one person remained outside a prison cell.
"So," Steve said, "are we partners again?"
Bucky scoffed. "I wish. Fury still thinks I'm too involved. What a bastard. Someday, I swear, I'm going to punch his other eye out of his skull."
"Let me know when so I can hold him down."
Bucky closed the folder and dropped it on the pile as he vacated Steve's seat. "I guess he's not wrong. With all this new info you dug up, I don't know what to think anymore. I promised myself I'd never forgive her, but now…" Bucky shook his head, his face a myriad of conflicting emotions.
"She's a criminal," Steve said, pushing aside the files for later, "but she's not evil. She never was."
"No," Bucky agreed, with a smile more sincere than Steve had seen in ages. "I'm still kicking her ass next time I see her."
"She'd be insulted if you didn't."
Four months after the investigation turned cold, Steve awoke to a piece of notebook paper taped to his second floor window.
'Five o'clock at Coney Island. The bumper cars. Only if you want to.
-N'
Steve left his phone but took his wallet. He had enough cash for the trip and a little extra to buy her cotton candy.