A/N: If you wish to read this as Natasha/Steve, I won't judge. I kind of accept that ship, at least exploratorily. But this was written as friendship.
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Disclaimer: Content not mine, but the weaving of my words is mine.
She's always found him fascinating. A good man. A better human, surely, in his ninety-five years than she's been in her thirty. Then she'd been in twenty-five. Or twenty. Or fifteen.
He's a good man.
She's never liked good men.
For some time, she pretends she doesn't quite like him. It's not that she doesn't like him, of course, it's just that she's too—busy, or aloof, or knowledgeable to have time for him.
That's what she tells herself, until he saves the world by her side, and she can't pretend that she doesn't like him anymore.
It's then that she starts to wonder if he likes her.
Because he's a good man, and she's anything but good.
She's never trusted good men.
Good men were the first to hurt her, to set her on the path to being who she is. At least, they had seemed good to her then. They had said they were good.
She's left that all behind, and she and Steve save each other's lives more often than not.
She wonders if he trusts her.
She asks him, at last, and thinks that if he says either yes or no, it will be still be the wrong answer. Yes would be too simplistic. No would be too devastating.
He surprises her by saying neither. He says he trusts her now.
She trusts him, too, even though he's a good man. Not just a man fighting for the right. Not just a hero.
A good man.
It's then that she realizes—she's never known a truly good man.
She does, now.