In her line of work anything resembling a relationship was dangerous. She couldn't remember her family, didn't know if she had ever had one. They had told her she was an orphan, then again they had told her a lot of things. The Red Room could hardly be considered the optimum place to form lasting relationships, you make a friend and the next day you have to kill her. Much smarter to remain detached.
She had thought herself in love once, before she graduated. Forbidden love, quite possibly the most romantic kind. It had ended how she had been taught all relationships would end, in pain. She was happy to know he was still alive. Although they tried he wouldn't be taken over completely. She had only seen him briefly but there was enough of the man she had known still there for her to feel smug. They had taken and taken until there was nothing left to take and still they both lived on. She wouldn't love him like she had in the Red Room. She didn't feel capable of that anymore. It wasn't his fault, it wasn't hers either. The thought of getting close to him again choked her with fear and left her mind filled with ghosts of the past. No, she thought, that wasn't something she could do again.
Clint had been unexpected. To this day she still doesn't know how he wormed his way in. It had started with his decision to take her in instead of killing her. He could have done it too. Natasha knew she was good, she had graduated top of her class after all. Nevertheless Clint could have killed her and he didn't. She may be ruthless but she appreciated a debt to be paid. It wasn't as simple as that however. She liked Clint, he was everything she wasn't. Carefree where she was serious, full of emotion where she was a blank slate, willing to love in a way that she just wasn't. People made the mistake of underestimating him by thinking him too whimsical, too light-hearted for his work. Natasha knew better.
When people asked about their relationship her answer was always the same. 'I owe him a debt'. People didn't pry, it wasn't wise to pry into the Black Widow's business but she thought most people that had clearance to approach her had clearance to know their background. While she did owe him a debt of her life, she owed him so much more than that. For longer than she could remember there was nothing but mechanical indifference. Clint didn't much care about the Black Widow. Clint cared about Natasha, he coaxed out a personality long hidden from behind the mask of the spider and it was as terrifying as it was exhilarating.
They were never romantic, it wasn't like that. She was well aware of the rumours surrounding their relationship but as simple as it was, he was hers and she was his. It was something she wasn't used to and she worried constantly about the possible repercussions, a feeling reminiscent to her old life. The beauty of Clint was he could take care of himself. Coulson was capable of ensuring Clint's safety too and so although she faced their relationship with a breath half held, she was breathing easier than she could ever remember. When Clint started his family Natasha was right by his side. Seeing the happiness he found with Laura and their children was bittersweet for her. On one side she had never seen Clint as content as he was now. His family was perfect and Natasha knew that she would murder, maim and destroy to keep them safe. She was never resentful of him or his happiness. She didn't believe in fate but if she did, she knew Clint was fated for exactly what he had and she knew that was never in the cards for her.
Nick Fury and Coulson were more of the unexpected. It wasn't the same as her and Clint, nothing would be the same as that, but she felt a certain debt to them for accepting her. It wasn't easy to trust in an organisation like S.H.I.E.L.D and the fact that they weren't letting her past affect her future awarded them some measure of appreciation from her. She knew Nick was especially fond of her though he'd tear out his other eye rather than admit it. He trusted her with Tony Stark, with Bruce Banner and of course with the illustrious Steve Rogers. Watching him get hurt was difficult for her. Natasha wasn't used to feeling useless and watching him on the operating table was almost too much for her. Thinking about that time was almost bitter for her. Emotions, while she may have them, were not something anyone should see her exhibiting. Finding out who had put him on the operating table was even worse for her.
Friendship didn't come easy for her. Respect and physical relationships she could do because she wasn't responsible for the people she respected and she sure as hell wasn't responsible for people she found release in. Having people care about her that wasn't just Clint was something she didn't really know how to handle. Tony was an ass but when she thought he wasn't going to make it out of that wormhole she was upset. Banner was almost as distrustful as she was and although it pained her to say it she was fond of him too. Fond, something she never thought she'd feel for someone, the need to protect their little band of misfits was strong and it put her at odds with her past self.
Then there was Steve. Not Captain America. The mantle she could cope with, like she was the Black Widow she could meet him as Captain America. Steve was the problem. He was her friend. Her friend in a way that Clint wasn't because they hadn't began owing each other. They had gone headfirst into being a team and trust and appreciation had grown from there. He hadn't always trusted her, hadn't always been convinced she was on his side and yet he had always protected her. She didn't know how to deal with it. She was the protector, she wasn't sure how to share the title. Then this paradigm of all that is good and righteous comes in and they're symbiotic. She can recall each time she's intervened in a fight for him, retrieved his shield when he needed it, took out whoever he needed her to. They were on a different wavelength with each other, he knew what she needed before she even knew and it was the same for her. She could recall all the times he had curled his body around hers to protect her. Each time he had tucked her behind his shield to keep her from harm.
He plagued her thoughts. Worry wasn't something she commonly felt for anybody but herself and Clint but here they were, this band of broken heroes, consuming her so entirely. Steve had said he would trust her with his life and she found, impossibly, that she trusted him with hers too. He was a beautiful man, Natasha was more than aware, but that hardly mattered to her. She had been with many beautiful men, many beautiful women, it was all the same to her. She was a beautiful woman, which she knew, and Steve didn't care about that one bit.
She knew what she felt for him and it was terrifying. Natasha had accepted that romance wasn't something she would have in her life. Like Steve had said it was hard to find someone with shared life experience. It was foolish of her to imagine starting something with someone only for them to be taken, for them to age and die or for them to be used against her. Yet here was Steve, able to look after himself arguably better than she ever could and it opened opportunities that she had never thought possible for herself.
Accepting that she loved him was something that snuck up on her but was surprisingly easy to process. She was a smart woman and she was well aware fighting her feelings was a fruitless endeavour. Instead she remained by his side, never letting on that she was anything more than his partner in crime. She watched him cope with heartache for both of the Carter's and she stood by him during it. She stood by him when everything went to shit and associating with him meant a death sentence. Even when they were on opposite sides she stood by him because as little as she knew about how to love someone, she knew how to love Steve Rogers.
She wasn't alone in her affections. The Spider and the Captain. Not a combination Steve had ever envisioned and yet here he was. Side by side where he knew they would remain for as long as she wished. When he looked at her he didn't see the deadly spy, the master assassin, the Black Widow. He looked at her and he saw Natasha. When Natasha looked at him he knew she didn't see the Captain, the man out of time, the dancing monkey. Natasha looked at him and she saw Steve.